Articles: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul; Reading Little House as an Adult

I don't feel like doing an extensive Current Events Write-Up today, so I will just link to two articles that I found interesting.

The Atlantic: How Democrats Killed Their Populist Soul:In the 1970s, a new wave of post-Watergate liberals stopped fighting monopoly power. The result is an increasingly dangerous political system. Written by Matt Stoller. 

 

This is a lengthy article, so I read it over the course of a month.  According to the article, a prominent plank among 1930's New Deal Democrats was a commitment to anti-trust policies: smaller business is better than big business.  In the 1960's, however, economist and Kennedy advisor John Kenneth Galbraith expressed hope that monopolies could promote social justice.  During the 1970's, when Democrats were elected to Congress in the aftermath of Watergate, many of these Democrats rejected the populist anti-trust beliefs of the 1930's Democrats.  Bill Clinton would amplify this 1970's non-populist stance as President.  

Book Riot: Reading "Little House on the Prairie" as an Adult, by Kelly Jensen.

 

I've been watching the Little House TV series lately.  I was wondering if I would enjoy the books.  From this post, the impression that I get is that the books are not like the TV series!  I'd still like to read them for myself, sometime. 

Current Events Write-Up: Gorsuch, Disability Rights, Health Care, the Senate, Little House, the Big Bang Theory, Etc.

Time for a Current Events Write-Up.

Neil Gorsuch
 
Washington Post: Neil Gorsuch belongs to a notably liberal church — and would be the first Protestant on the Court in years, by Julie Zauzmer.

I learned of this article from Steve Hays, who linked to it on Triablogue.

I especially liked this part of the article: "Staff at St. John’s declined to speak about Gorsuch on Wednesday. One member, who has ushered at services with Gorsuch, said she didn’t even know he was a judge."

Huffington Post:Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Showed Support For His Clerk’s Gay Marriage: But people close to the judge can’t quite predict how he’ll rule on big social issues.

The title says it all.  He personally may have progressive ideas, but that does not necessarily preclude him from making conservative decisions, on the basis of a conservative judicial philosophy.

ACLU: Supreme Court Nominee Neil Gorsuch Has a Troubling History When Ruling on Disability Rights Cases, by Claudia Center.

This troubles me, as someone on the autism spectrum.

Disability and Gun Control
 
Reason: The House Passes a Gun Measure Supported by the ACLU and Mental Health Advocates. Media Hysteria Ensues:Bad reporting, and bad attitudes, make a sensible move to prevent the government from discriminating against certain Social Security recipients seem like sheer madness, by Brian Doherty.

We've read the story about how the House Republicans voted to allow the mentally ill to get guns.  Here is another perspective on the story.  And it links to the ACLU's letter about this issue.  To quote the ACLU letter: "...regulation of firearms and individual gun ownership or use must be consistent with civil liberties principles, such as due process, equal protection, freedom from unlawful searches, and privacy. All individuals have the right to be judged on the basis of their individual capabilities, not the characteristics and capabilities that are sometimes attributed (often mistakenly) to any group or class to which they belong. A disability should not constitute grounds for the automatic per se denial of any right or privilege, including gun ownership."

Health Care
 
Townhall: States Should Protect Direct-Pay Health Care Models, by Michael Hamilton.

Sounds good.  It aims to bypass the insurance companies and the overhead that dealing with them entails.  See here for wikipedia's article, which links to sources, pro and con. 

Townhall: Free Dr. Tom Price!, by Andrew Mangione. 

Tom Price is President Trump's selection for the Department of Health and Human Services.  Andrew Mangione praises the legislation that Price supported or introduced in Congress.  Mangione states that Democrats should "look at Dr. Price with clarity and identify what his colleagues already recognize - a passionate advocate for patients, seniors, women, physicians, families and veterans."

Trump and the Muslim World
 
Townhall: The Coming Clash With Iran, by Pat Buchanan.

Pat offers another perspective.  Allow me to quote: "Iran-backed Houthi rebels, said Flynn, attacked a Saudi warship and Tehran tested a missile, undermining 'security, prosperity, and stability throughout the Middle East,' placing 'American lives at risk.'  But how so?   The Saudis have been bombing the Houthi rebels and ravaging their country, Yemen, for two years. Are the Saudis entitled to immunity from retaliation in wars that they start?   Where is the evidence Iran had a role in the Red Sea attack on the Saudi ship? And why would President Trump make this war his war?”

CNN Politics: 100 evangelical leaders sign ad denouncing Trump's refugee ban, by Daniel Burke.

"Signees include Pastor Timothy Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, Christian author Ann Voskamp, Bill and Lynne Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church, preacher and author Max Lucado, Pastor Eugene Cho of Quest Church and Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals."

Also, Dr. Gordon Hugenberger is on the list.  I used to hear him speak when I visited Park Street Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Senate
 
New York Times: Kirsten Gillibrand and the Anti-Trump Left: 2020 Foresight?, by Ginia Bellafante. 

"When David A. Paterson, then governor of New York, appointed Kirsten E. Gillibrand to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in 2009, there was little feeling that she would become a key voice in a movement of resistance from the left. As a Blue Dog congressional Democrat representing an upstate district, Ms. Gillibrand had an A rating from the National Rifle Association. She had an uptown bearing but talked about the guns she kept tucked under her bed. Working as a young lawyer, she defended the tobacco industry."
I love stories like this: people acting as you don't expect!  I like the movie Separate But Equal, which was about a companion case to the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision banning racial segregation in schools.  President Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court, and opponents of segregation wondered how Warren would decide.  When they learned that Warren was the Governor who participated in the internment of Japanese-Americans into internment camps, they were not very optimistic!  But Warren surprised them.  Not only did he vote against segregation, but he encouraged all of the other justices on the court to take a principled stand against it.  I hope that President Trump acts against negative expectations and accomplishes groundbreaking reforms.

Yahoo News: Bernie Sanders Reads Coretta Scott King’s Letter on the Senate Floor, Calls GOP Silencing Elizabeth Warren ‘Incomprehensible’, by Tierney McAfee.

Elizabeth Warren was silenced from reading Coretta Scott King's letter on Jeff Sessions before the U.S. Senate, but then Bernie went on to read it!  I think there is another side to Sessions' record than the one that the Left presents.  Still, I believe that Senators should be allowed to read Coretta Scott King's concerns about Sessions: Sessions was not only a Senator, but a nominee for Attorney General.  (Now, of course, he actually is Attorney General.)

Historical Interest
New York Times: Finding America, Both Red and Blue, in the ‘Little House’ Books, by Maria Russo.

I love the Little House on the Prairie TV show!  The politics of Little House has long fascinated me!  I have known that Laura Ingalls Wilder's daughter Rose was instrumental in the libertarian movement, and that Laura Ingalls Wilder herself was a critic of the New Deal.  As the article notes, however, LIW herself benefited from the government.  I would be interested in reading something about the politics of the TV series, which this article does not explore.  Michael Landon was supposedly a Republican, yet my impression is that Little House and Highway to Heaven were very progressive, politically-speaking. 

Entertainment
 
Glamour:The Big Bang Theory Season 10 Episode 14 Recap: This Is Why We Should Be Kind to Others, by Jessica Radloff.  

I loved this reflection on the show: "Season 10—even seasons eight and nine—has been more than just guaranteed laughs each week; it's become a weekly therapy of sorts. From anxiety to hoarding to intimacy, the show has somehow found a way to effectively weave in topical issues 24 episodes a season. For a series that started off about a couple of nerds having problems interacting with the hot girl…well, this is no longer that series.  'The writers are realistic about these characters maturing and evolving, and they have [done that] in wonderful ways,' Johnny Galecki (Leonard) acknowledges. 'You couldn't watch 10 seasons of these guys not being able to get a date.' True, but never did we expect the show to evolve into something of a social discussion each week either."

Book Write-Up: Radicals for Capitalism, by Brian Doherty

Brian Doherty.  Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement.  New York: PublicAffairs, 2007.

I saw this book several years ago in a public library.  At least I think it was this book—-I know that I saw some history of libertarianism.  I wanted to read it because the topic interested me, but I was not sure if I wanted to make a commitment to reading over 700 pages.  Well, I finally read it.  And I am glad that I read it.

The book primarily focuses on the history of American libertarianism from the New Deal period to the time that the book was written.  The author sometimes discusses events before the New Deal, as when he goes into the backgrounds of the libertarian figures he profiles, or has a chapter detailing the history of support for limited government from Confucian and biblical times through the founding days of America.  Because the book was published in 2007, there are significant aspects of libertarianism’s history that are not there.  The Tea Party movement was not yet prominent, and Rand Paul had not yet become a Senator. 

The book was excellent in detailing the diverse approaches and personalities within the libertarian movement.  Libertarianism has been far from monolithic.  It ranges from those who believe in complete anarchy, to those who want to confine the government’s role to defense and/or protection, and even to a few who support some social safety net (I think here of Hayek).  Some are purists and lament that libertarianism’s growing popularity and access to power have diluted the libertarian message, whereas others are more realistic politically.  Many libertarians liked Barry Goldwater in 1964 because Goldwater was popularizing the libertarian message of less government, but there were libertarians who felt that Goldwater did not go far enough and that some of the things that he supported actually coincided with more government power rather than less.  One prominent libertarian criticized Goldwater’s support for right-to-work laws, for who is the government to step in and forbid businesses from setting up a closed shop if that is what the employers and employees want?  This libertarian also criticized Goldwater’s hawkish Cold War stance and support for the military-industrial complex.  While some libertarians (i.e., Ayn Rand) were supportive of the Cold War and military buildup, many were not.  They questioned whether the Soviet Union indeed had an expansionist agenda, feared growing state power in America more than the Soviet Union, believed that war negatively augmented the power of the U.S. Government, and alienated the hawkish American right while building bridges with the anti-war Left.

You may have heard of Austrian economics and Milton Friedman’s Chicago school.  They are different.  Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist, focused on the decisions of consumers rather than macro-economics and math; he believed that state planning was unhelpful to the economy because it did not efficiently distribute resources to where they needed to be, whereas the free market would demonstrate what people wanted and were willing to buy.  Hayek looked more at social trends.  And Friedman’s focus was more on macro-economics and monetary supply.  I should also mention that Friedman was instrumental in convincing President Richard Nixon to end the draft, and that there were libertarians who believed that Friedman was not libertarian enough (i.e., Friedman supported educational vouchers, whereas many libertarians did not believe that the government should give students money to attend the school of their choice).

The book also detailed the personalities within libertarianism.  These include Mises, Hayek, Friedman, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, Rose Wilder Lane (the daughter of Little House author Laura Ingalls Wilder), the infamous Koch brothers, John Stossell, Neal Boortz, and the list goes on.  I was not always clear as to why some of these people became libertarians, but Doherty was effective in describing how people saw them and what happened in their life story.

In terms of policy issues, the book did a good job in its discussion of libertarian stances on environmental issues.  There are libertarians who question doomsday scenarios because they encourage a greater role for the government, but there are also libertarians who maintain that government promotes pollution and that the free market can reduce it.  The government allows pollution in common areas (i.e., water) because it believes some of it is necessary for economic growth, but suppose we did not have that and people could sue polluting companies.  (Of course, these libertarians support a court system, whereas some believe the court system should be private, and that people should pay to use it!)  Would that encourage those companies to come up with cleaner technology?  The book talked some about the issue of poverty and how libertarians tried to come up with a private social safety net, but I wish that the book addressed that more.  The book also could have used a discussion of libertarian proposals regarding health care.  I cringe when I read libertarians describe those who receive government assistance as takers or as moochers, but I am happy when they try to come up with ways to help society’s vulnerable.

The book also gave me background about other books I was wondering about.  When I was in high school, I was doing a project with some students, and we went to someone’s uncle’s house.  On his uncle’s bookshelf was John Bircher material, but also a book entitled The Roosevelt Myth, a book that was critical of President Franklin Roosevelt.  Well, I learned from Radicals for Capitalism that The Roosevelt Myth was written by John Flynn.  I found the book! 

Doherty’s book talked some about the question of whether big industrialists finance the libertarian movement because libertarian policies would further their economic interests, albeit not as much as I liked.  My impression is that Doherty was arguing that certain industrialists simply had an interest in libertarianism (as one might be interested in stamp collecting), even if their own interests (i.e., protective tariffs, crony capitalism) did not always coincide with libertarian ideology.  There may be something to that, but could it be the case that they support libertarianism while expecting the parts of it that are conducive to their economic interests to become policy, while the more eccentric parts (or parts contrary to their interests) do not?

I myself am not a libertarian, for I am not absolutist in my beliefs regarding the government’s role.  I support the social safety net, and I am open to national health insurance.  I do not believe that government always does things poorly, or that the private sector always does things well.  I do believe, however, that libertarianism raises important considerations: the importance of competition, the need to make sure the government does not infringe on personal liberty, areas in which government policies make matters worse rather than better, how crony capitalism is evil, etc.

Good book.  I should also mention that the author had an ironic sense of humor, which is another factor that made the book worth reading.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Richard Bull

I would like to comment on two recent deaths:

1.  The first, of course, is the shocking death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.  I loved his acting.  Some of his characters I liked better than others.  I thought that his characters were rather snobbish in Patch Adams and The Talented Mr. Ripley.  But I loved his role in Magnolia as the kindly nurse who went the extra mile to track down the estranged son of the dying rich man for whom he worked.  But I also liked Philip Seymour Hoffman in some of his swarmy roles: as the campaign manager in The Ides of March, his role in Charlie Wilson’s War, and others.  When we are picking out movies to watch, and we learn that Philip Seymour Hoffman is in one of them, that tells us that there is a more-than-average chance that it will be a good movie.
Over the past few days, I have had an opportunity to read more about Philip Seymour Hoffman: his faith, his longtime sobriety, his love for his children, and the way that he treated actors the same, whether they were well-known or not.

R.I.P., Philip Seymour Hoffman.

2.  Richard Bull passed on at the age of 89.  He played Nels Oleson on Little House on the Prairie, which has long been and continues to be one of my favorite shows.  (Actually, I’ll just say it: It is my favorite show.)  Nels owned the local merchantile.  Nels was a kindly and a fair person, even though he could get quite frustrated with his family!

R.I.P., Richard Bull.

Nixonland 2

On pages 208-209 of Nixonland, Rick Perlstein quotes the 1953 memoir of screenwriter Ben Hecht, who was describing Hollywood standards:

“Two generations of Americans have been informed nightly that a woman who betrayed her husband (or a husband his wife) could never find happiness; that sex was no fun without a mother-in-law and a rubber plant around; that women who fornicated just for pleasure ended up as harlots or washerwomen; that any man who was sexually active in his youth later lost the one girl he truly loved; that a man who indulged in sharp practices to get ahead in the world ended in poverty and with even his own children turning on him; that any man who broke the law, man’s or God’s, must always die, or go to jail, or become a monk, or restore the money he stole before wandering off into the desert; that anyone who didn’t believe in God (and said so out loud) was set right by seeing either an angel or witnessing some feat of levitation by one of the characters; that an honest heart must always recover from a train wreck or a score of bullets and win the girl it loved; that the most potent and brilliant of villains are powerless before little children, parish priests or young virgins with big boobies; that injustice could cause a heap of trouble but it must always slink out of town in Reel Nine; that there are no problems of labor, politics, domestic life or sexual abnormality but can be solved happily by a simple Christian phrase or a fine American motto.“

Perlstein goes on to contrast these standards with the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde, which glorified outlaws while portraying the establishment as corrupt and morally bankrupt.

As I read Hecht’s description of the older standards, however, I thought, “Man, I actually believe some of those things.”  Maybe it’s because of all the Little House on the Prairie and Touched by an Angel that I watch.  That makes me wonder if what I believe is actually true in real life, or is rather somebody’s value system that he or she is trying to propagate.

There is a significant part of me that likes to be inspired and uplifted, and so I tend to prefer the sorts of movies that Hecht talks about over movies like Bonnie and Clyde.  I don’t like movies that are too corny and cheesy, mind you, but movies that have values while still being believable, on some level.  Of course, what is believable to me may be corny and cheesy to someone else.

On Listening to Christian Radio

In our church bulletin this morning, there was a flyer for a Christian radio station.  I used to listen to Christian radio a lot.  In the days when I did not have a television, it was what I would do at night or on days when I was home from school, while I was doing my homework.  To be honest, I don't have pleasant memories of listening to Christian radio.  I wouldn't say that my memories are unpleasant, but they're not pleasant, either! 

One reason that I listened to Christian radio was to learn more about the Bible.  But I don't feel that I learned a great deal about the Bible when I was listening to Christian radio.  Rather, I was listening to predictable evangelical spiels that I had heard repeatedly, some of them pretty kooky.

Another reason that I listened to Christian radio was to get inspiration.  The problem here is that Christian radio can be a mix.  Granted, one can listen to an affirming "God loves you" sort of message, or a message that offers practical insights on how to live life.  But one can also hear fear-mongering, legalistic messages.  In many cases, the same preacher can deliver both kinds of messages.  It's like he's using a carrot and a stick, or playing both good cop and bad cop.

The thing is, as I think back to the television shows that I would watch once I got television and watched it while doing my homework, I have largely positive memories.  I would watch The West Wing, Star Trek Voyager, Touched by an Angel, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and the list goes on.  I see those times as good times.

But, come to think of it, I have some good memories about Christian radio.  It's not so much on account of the preaching on it, though I do have a few good memories of that (i.e., the mornings when I would listen to Nancy DeMoss, before heading off to work).  Rather, I remember how I enjoyed listening to Christian pop music when I was driving to work.  I also remember with fondness Focus on the Family's Adventures in Odyssey, which featured stories.  Maybe I like music and stories rather than pompous, know-it-all evangelical preachers talking at me through my radio! 

In any case, I kept the flyer, but I probably won't go back to listening to Christian radio.  I learn about the Bible from blogs, articles, books, and, well, the Bible itself.  And I get inspiration from books and television shows.  I don't want to go back to eating styrofoam or (worse) raw sewage, which is what listening to Christian radio could be like for me.

Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life 14

I finished Jonathan Aitken's Nixon: A Life.  In this post, I'd like to share one of my favorite stories.  I don't have any profound thoughts to add about it, but I just liked it.

On page 566, Aitken is talking about the dedication of Richard Nixon's Presidential Library and Birthplace.  Back when Nixon was President, Nixon's close adviser, H.R. Haldeman, did not get along with Nixon's long-time secretary, Rose Mary Woods.  Haldeman tended to restrict access to the President, and he could be quite intimidating, which was why Nixon entrusted him with the tasks that he himself was uncomfortable doing.  And Woods herself was one tough lady!  Incidentally, Woods reportedly did not get along with Henry Kissinger, either, and Aitken tells a story about how she really dressed Kissinger down when Kissinger proudly did not want Alexander Haig to be Chief of Staff because Haig had served under him in the past; to his credit, Kissinger agreed to play ball!

But back to the dedication of Richard Nixon's Presidential Library and Birthplace!  Aitken narrates: "Resplendent in a green silk dress, [Woods] was meeting and greeting like a Hollywood hostess, even giving her old adversary Bob Haldeman a warm embrace after he whispered: 'I'm so sorry Rose, and for so many things.'"

I have to respect Haldeman for apologizing.  I've wondered about his human side, underneath his gruff exterior.  Some day, I may read his book and his diary, but I most likely won't do so for My Year (or More) of Nixon, since I'm in the process of winding that down, and I'm getting eager to move on to other things.  Haldeman did have a human side, beyond being Nixon's stern functionary.  He had children.  He (like John Ehrlichman) was a devout Christian Scientist.  And I have to give him credit for being loyal to Nixon throughout Nixon's life, when there were others who bitterly deserted him, for Haldeman attended Pat Nixon's funeral.  Haldeman's book about his time in the Nixon Administration was not particularly flattering to Nixon, as I understand it, but he would come to be reconciled with Nixon.  Moreover, it's also interesting to me that Haldeman was generous with his time when it came to people who were writing about Nixon, for he gave interviews.  I've wondered if I would be too intimidated to interview a no-nonsense man like Bob Haldeman, but, from what I read of his responses in interviews, he seemed to be quite open and helpful.

I'm glad that I read Aitken's book.  It's probably my favorite biography of Nixon that I have read so far, especially because of its anecdotes about Nixon's kindness, as well as its interviews.  Plus, Aitken is a really good writer: I like his easygoing prose!  I suppose that his book speaks to the side of me that loves The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, which seeks good in people, notwithstanding their flaws.  I think that it's important to balance out Aitken with books that are more anti-Nixon, if one is interested in studying Nixon.  But I'm definitely glad that I read Aitken's work, and I someday may read some of the other books that he has written.

The Genesis Code: Overall Review

I recently watched the Genesis Code, which is a 2010 movie.  The movie explores the question of whether science and Genesis 1 are compatible.

I'm glad that I finally got to see it, for I was curious about it when I first watched its trailer online.  I learned about it as a result of doing an online search about Catherine Hicks, whom I love in Star Trek IV and 7th Heaven.  I wanted to see if she was in anything lately, and I saw that she was in the Genesis Code.  I also noticed that Fred Thompson, a 2008 Republican candidate for President, was in the movie, and, being someone who doesn't watch much Law and Order, I wanted to see how good of an actor he was.   Later, I learned that actor Ernest Borgnine was in it as well, and I loved Borgnine in the 1955 movie Marty and the two-parter Little House on the Prairie episode, "The Lord Is My Shepherd" (see my post about Borgnine here).  Another noteworthy actor in the Genesis Code was Louise Fletcher, who won an Academy Award for playing the chilling Nurse Ratched in the 1973 movie, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  

To be honest, when I first saw the trailer for the Genesis Code, I thought that it might be a Christian movie, but I was not entirely sure.  It looked to me like it might be an impartial exploration of the question of origins, with strong religious and skeptical characters.  After seeing it, and after learning about the immense support that elements of the right-wing gave to it (see here and here), I now know that it's a Christian movie.  Moreover, the guy who plays the pastor in the movie, Jerry Zandstra, is the President of the company that produced The Genesis Code, American Epic Entertainment.  Zandstra, as you can see from the wikipedia article about him, is a minister and has a history in Republican politics.  See here for his thoughts on the film.

The thing is, this movie cannot be characterized as young-earth creationist propaganda.  Actually, it's point is that science and Genesis 1 are compatible because time is relative, and so a day to God may be a much longer time for human beings.  The movie is essentially acknowledging an old earth.  And it also makes the point that the sequence of creation in Genesis 1 is similar to what science says about the order in which things came to be.  Moreover, the movie does not say that dinosaurs co-existed with human beings, but it places the existence and extinction of dinosaurs within the sixth "day" of creation, the sixth day being from 250 million years ago to the time of Adam.

Tomorrow, I'll have a post addressing the question of whether the film fudges on science or Genesis 1 to make the two agree.  I think that it does, in a sense, and yet I am pleased that conservative Christians have become excited about a film that has such a progressive approach to the issue of science and Genesis 1 (though the movie has had its share of conservative Christian critics----see here and here).  I wish that the film had gone a step further and affirmed the theory of evolution, but, unfortunately, it had a couple of swipes against macro-evolution, some of them pretty misinformed (i.e., humans descended from apes), and some of them exemplifying standard creationist or Intelligent Design arguments against macro-evolution.  But the scene in which the pastor, scientists, and students are talking about the age of the earth and the sequence of events in the universe's history makes the movie worth watching (although I could have done without the Christian protagonist smugly saying at the end of the discussion that science has caught up with the Bible).  I wish I could find the entire scene online, but here is a YouTube video that contains pieces of it. 

As far as the rest of the movie was concerned, I thought that it was way too long, but there were a couple of gems.  First, there was the scene in which a skeptical youth is talking with the pastor about faith.  The youth is saying that he was convinced by the presentation about the harmony between science and Genesis 1, but he expected for faith to be a heart-issue rather than something that proceeded from hard intellectual work.  The pastor responds that people come to faith in different ways, some of them pretty mundane.  I appreciated this scene because it highlights that one does not have to believe in God as a result of a flashy experience, as some evangelicals seem to imply.

Second, while I didn't care for most of the inane banter in the movie, I did like one scene near the end, as one of the characters refers to the TNT movie Purgatory, in which an angel said that the creator is tough, but not blind.  I love Purgatory, and I'm glad there are other fans out there!

I'll be writing another post about this movie tomorrow, and maybe more posts after that.  We'll see!

Scattered Ramblings on Riches (Spiritual and Material)

At church this morning, we sang the hymn "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing".  To read the lyrics and listen to the song, click here.  Above the title of the hymn in our hymn-book was a quotation of the first half of Proverbs 10:22, which states (in the King James Version): "The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich". 

The hymn focuses on what could be called spiritual riches: God's mercy and love, joy within us that leads us to sing, going home (which presumably means going to heaven after we die), and our wandering hearts being bound to God.  And in the sermon, the pastor said that many seek money and power, but Jesus wants for us to have spiritual riches, such as joy.

One can identify other spiritual riches----such as love and giving to others.  One can be spiritually rich and materially poor.  I think of that episode of Little House on the Prairie, "The Richest Man in Walnut Grove".  Click here to watch it.  While the Ingalls family did not have much money, they pulled together in tough financial times, chipping in, saving, and giving whatever they could.  Mr. Olsen, the well-to-do local businessman, thought that Charles Ingalls was the richest man in Walnut Grove on account of that, whereas Mr. Olsen looked at his own family and noticed that it did not pull together that much because its financial situation was usually quite good.

There is a lot in the Bible about riches.  I just mentioned Proverbs 10:22!  The Bible presents people getting rich as a good thing.  But the question that many have is, "What kind of riches?"  There are some who look at those passages about getting rich and interpret that as spiritual riches.  But then there are advocates of the prosperity Gospel who maintain that the Bible promises the faithful material riches, as well, if they do the right thing.

I'd say that the Bible talks about spiritual and material prosperity.  A significant part of God's covenant with Israel was that God would prosper Israel with crops and international renown if she obeyed his commandments (see, for example, Deuteronomy 8:11-18).  In the Book of Proverbs, being rich often means material prosperity (see here).  God blessed Job with flocks and herds.  In the New Testament, however, there is a notion that one can have lots of material wealth yet be poor before God (Luke 12:21).

At Bible study earlier this week, we were discussing this issue.  In Mark 10:29-30, we read: "And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."  Advocates of the prosperity Gospel can point to this passage and say that God will bless Christians with material possessions in the here-and-now, not just in the afterlife.  But critics of the prosperity Gospel don't take the passage that literally.  In a sense, when we join the church, we become part of a family.  And perhaps, because Christians share their possessions with one another (think Acts 2), believers do gain land and houses, not so much in terms of personal ownership, but rather because believers can benefit from the possessions of other believers.  But things don't necessarily work that way in today's church, which has less of a family-like atmosphere than what we see in Acts 2.

Does God bless people materially today?  II Corinthians 9:11 seems to say that God will bless believers with enough that they can be generous to others.  But there may come times when believers lack.  In Philippians 4:11-13, Paul says that he is content in whatever state he is in (even times of hunger and need), for Paul can do all things through Christ, who strengthens him.

Critics of the prosperity Gospel can say that there are plenty of people who are poor, so should we assume that God is cursing their lives or is withholding blessing?  But I think that one can make a similar argument about spiritual riches: there are Christians with chronic depression and feelings of hopelessness.  Should we assume that God is withholding God's blessing from them?  That doesn't make God out to be all that nice, does it?  One would think that faith could give everybody some base of hope, but there are Christians who still struggle with despair.

In terms of what I would like, I would like to have enough for myself and to help others, a la II Corinthians 9:11.  And times when I lack can make me sensitive to the need to help others.  But I wouldn't consider poverty to be a blessing.

Tim Pawlenty's Courage to Stand 10: GAMC

I finished Tim Pawlenty's Courage to Stand.

There were a variety of interesting items in my latest reading of this book.  First, I appreciated Pawlenty's distinction between radical Muslims and other Muslims, in light of the tendency of a large portion of the right-wing to lump all Muslims together as evil.  Second, Pawlenty criticizes President Barack Obama for alienating the United States' allies----Poland, the Czech Republic, and Israel----and for supporting an arms treaty with Russia "that favors Russia and all but affirms Russia's decision to help Iran fire up a nuclear energy reactor" (page 292).  I don't know a whole lot about this issue, so I really can't critique Pawlenty on this right now, but I've decided to make a note of it.  Third, Pawlenty asks why we need NPR and PBS when there are already so many radio and cable TV programs.  I have an answer to that: because NPR and PBS actually offer quality programming.

I'd like to turn my focus to health care, since that is an issue that is of interest to me.  On pages 283-285, Pawlenty talks about General Assistance Medical Care (GAMC) in Minnesota, a government program.  According to Pawlenty, "GAMC provided unlimited health care for low-income single adults without kids."  But its costs were rising because (according to Pawlenty) "It was an old-style 'fee for service' setup that paid providers for how many procedures they performed without much accountability for cost control or quality outcomes."

Pawlenty narrates that he was emotionally impacted by a man in a wheelchair in Mankato (which I know from Little House on the Prairie), who plead with Pawlenty not to cut his health care.  But Pawlenty says that his goal as Governor was to move the beneficiaries of GAMC to MinnesotaCare, another health care program for disadvantaged people.  Pawlenty states that MinnesotaCare "had benefits that were more limited than GAMC, and the switch would be more affordable to the state."  Pawlenty reached a compromise with the state legislature: Instead of giving GAMC a "blank check", the government would give hospitals a lump sum to treat "a fixed number of GAMC patients."  Pawlenty states that, under this policy, "Providers now had incentive to focus on the wellness of GAMC patients and health-care outcomes rather than how many procedures they performed."

This sounds a lot like rationing, which many on the right love to condemn when it comes to government health insurance.  But there is a degree of wisdom in Pawlenty's policy, in my opinion: Rather than giving providers an incentive to order more and more tests for patients in order to get more money for themselves, why not give the providers a lump sum, and that could encourage them to try to get healthy results for their patients for a low cost, with the lump sum that the government gives them?  I hope, however, that this would not lead to the providers denying patients the care that they need.  I fear that it might.

UPDATE: I talk here about Ezra Klein's contention that moving Medicare away from a fee-for-service model was one of the conservative ideas that Obamacare adopted.

Ernest Borgnine

I just learned that actor Ernest Borgnine has passed on.  My two favorite Borgnine performances:

1.  The 1955 movie, Marty, in which Borgnine plays a lonely butcher from the Bronx who finds love when he meets a lonely chemistry teacher.  Borgnine won an Academy Award for this role.  People in the movie say that the chemistry teacher is ugly, but I never thought so.  The actress who played her was married to Gene Kelly for sixteen years!

I like this movie because it's about a guy who's not popular with the ladies, yet he meets someone who's right for him.

2.  The Little House on the Prairie two-parter episode, "The Lord Is My Shepherd," in which Laura runs away from home after her baby brother dies.  She goes to a mountain to be closer to God so that God would take her and return her brother.  There, she meets Jonathan, the angel of the mountain, who befriends her, helps her father and Mr. Edwards find her, and encourages her to go back home to her family.  Jonathan was played by Borgnine.

Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family 1

I started Rick Santorum's It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.

So why am I reading and blogging about this book, when Rick Santorum is out of the race for the Republican nomination for President?  First of all, I think that Santorum has valuable insights, whether or not I agree with all that he has to say.  Second, I've been wanting to read this book ever since I first saw Santorum talk about it on C-Span, and that was long before he ran for President.  In fact, he was still a Senator at the time!  Santorum in that interview was criticizing individualistic conservatism and promoting a communitarian sort of conservatism, and (even though I was not yet disenchanted with conservatism) I admired that kind of outside-of-the-box thinking. 

And, third, while I respect Santorum's belief that the nuclear family and moral values are good for society, I wonder how exactly he thinks that government policy can uphold those things.  When he was running for President, Santorum said that Republicans should not only focus on tax cuts, but should also support strong families.  But how exactly does he think that Republicans in power can support strong families?  Can they seriously turn back the clock to the 1950's?  I wanted to read this book to see where Santorum believes that the government can help families, and where he believes that the government is harming the family.  I also wanted to see if his family policy encompasses more than opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.

In my post here, I will feature and comment on three passages that stood out to me.

1.  On pages ix-x, Santorum states: "I came to the uncomfortable realization that conservatives were not only reluctant to spend government dollars on the poor: they hadn't even thought much about what might work better.  I often described my conservative colleagues during that time as simply 'cheap liberals.'  My own economically modest personal background and my faith had taught me to care for those less fortunate..."

I think that the sub-text here is that strong families can help the poor.  At the same time, things that Santorum says elsewhere in my reading of this book thus far add nuance to Santorum's argument.  Santorum appears to think that strong families are good for society, period, whether or not they make people financially well-off, and the reason is that healthy families teach moral values and provide children with emotional security.  Santorum acknowledges that there are rich families that are not good families, for the father is so busy that he fails to spend time with his children.  And Santorum also compares immigrant Latino teens with Latino teens born in the U.S., stating that, although the immigrant Latino families are poorer, their families and moral values are stronger, and so they are less likely to engage in violence.  Santorum believes that a strong economy can help families, but he does not think that money is where everything is at.  (UPDATE: On page 422, Santorum states: "Poor families, after all, will most likely be healthier if they are wealthier.")

2.  On page x, Santorum states: "My district and [the welfare-reform] bill started me down the road to building up a conservative philosophy within which we could use government policies and dollars as a catalyst to renew and re-form the poor families and communities in our country."

This passage reminded me of how some people have characterized neo-conservatism: as a belief system that holds that the government should encourage and incentivize doing the right thing, such as getting married. To some, that sort of sentiment can sound pretty patronizing and condescending!

In my reading of the book so far, I have not encountered Santorum's policy proposals for strong families, but my impression is definitely that he wants for people to live in a certain way.  He believes that couples should get married rather than live together apart from marriage, for many couples who live together end up getting a divorce.  (Santorum even says that the shotgun marriages of the old days were sometimes a good thing, and that made me think of Little House on the Prairie, in which Nellie and Percival marry each other, without having known each other that long.  And that turned out all right!)  Santorum laments that, in inner cities, social service agencies do not encourage young couples to get married, but they simply require the father of the baby to sign a paternity establishment paper so that the authorities can come after him for child support; for Santorum, that demonstrates the agencies' low expectations of people in the inner city.  Santorum also dislikes No-Fault divorce, and he believes that two-parent families are preferable to single-parent families----although he acknowledges that there are single-parent families that are healthy, and two-parent families that are unhealthy.

Santorum appears to want for the government to encourage marriage.  At the same time, when he acknowledges that there are two-parent families that are not healthy, that makes me think that there are limits to what the government can do.  The government can encourage people to get married, but can it make the couples good parents?

3.  On page 16, Santorum states the following: "Liberal social policy has never put an emphasis on the family because the village elders, frankly, don't believe in the importance of strong, traditional families...They think of society as fundamentally made up of individuals guided by elite and 'expert' organizations like government, not the antiquated, perhaps uneducated, independent family.  The village elders want society to be individualistic, because a society composed only of individuals responds better to 'expert' command and control.  Your father or your grandmother (or your priest or rabbi) may give you advice that contradicts the latest 'expert' wisdom.  The village elders just don't want such competition."

By "village elders", Santorum essentially means the liberal elite, which includes government, the media, academia, and other institutions.  He distinguishes this elite from your liberal neighbor down the street, who may be a really good parent, and he states that there are many village elders who don't have families of their own.  Santorum also observes that even some liberals agree that the decline of the family is a serious problem, for he refers to a conversation that he had with staff at a college newspaper in which liberal students identified the breakup of the family as the greatest problem in society today.  But Santorum still believes that a liberal elite is part of the problem in American society.  I agree and disagree with this view.  Where I agree is that I think that the entertainment industry perpetuates a cheap attitude towards sex, and I believe that this is deleterious to society.  Where I disagree is that I do not accept Santorum's characterization of the liberal elite as amoral, for I think that the liberal elite is guided by a morality, which includes helping the poor and the disadvantaged.

Where do I stand on Santorum's statement that the village elders do not want competition from the family?  I think that there is a place for expert wisdom and also for family wisdom, and yet both experts and families are flawed.  Experts are not always right, as we can see from the changes in expert opinion over the years.  Yet, there is something valuable in looking to studies for guidance, something that Santorum himself does in this book.  And families can be repositories of prejudice, yet they can also be places to draw from the common sense and experience of one's elders.

Faith Healer

I watched the Little House on the Prairie episode "Faith Healer" last night. What's ironic is that Nick Norelli had a post this morning about how he used to judge people as not having enough faith if they were not healed of their sickness.

The pieces of the episode's plot that I want to highlight went like this: A charismatic faith healer named Reverend Danforth has come to Walnut Grove, and he has been conducting tent-meetings in which he heals people. A woman gets out of her wheelchair at his first service, for example. A resident of Walnut Grove, Matthew Dobbs, has a son named Timothy, who has problems with his appendix. Doc Baker tells Matthew to take his son to Mankato to see a surgeon as soon as possible, but Matthew instead opts to take his son to Reverend Danforth. Reverend Danforth does a ritual in which he pulls the pain out of Timothy's body, and Timothy then feels better.

Later on, however, Timothy dies of a ruptured appendix, and so Matthew and Doc Baker interrupt Reverend Danforth's meeting. Doc Baker accuses Reverend Danforth of taking away Timothy's pain, which could have saved Timothy's life by warning Timothy to get medical help. Reverend Danforth responds that he cannot circumvent the will of God----that God wanted Timothy to be with God in heaven, and Timothy is happy right now in the presence of his maker.

Charles takes a trip to Sleepy Eye, and he notices that Reverend Danforth is conducting a prayer meeting there. Charles goes into the tent and notices that Reverend Danforth is "healing" the same woman in the wheelchair whom he healed in Walnut Grove! Charles then realizes that Reverend Danforth is a fraud and that the suspicions he has had about him are correct. Charles does not want to interrupt that particular service, however, but he wants to show Mrs. Oleson----who has supported Reverend Danforth in Walnut Grove----that the guy is a fake, allowing her to see that with her own eyes. Charles learns where Reverend Danforth's next appearance will be.

Charles talks with Reverend Alden, the pastor in Walnut Grove, whom Reverend Danforth is about to replace. Charles asks Reverend Alden why a faith healer would conduct fake healings. Reverend Alden responds that the faith healer was probably trying to boost people's confidence by showing them fake healings, and then they would have enough faith to be truly healed themselves. Reverend Alden says that belief is powerful, whether God is behind the healing or not. Reverend Alden also states that he has observed healings at the hands of faith healers (which, by the way, contradicts what he said in a later episode, "He Was Only Twelve, Part 2", where Reverend Alden tells Charles that he never saw a miracle in all his years of ministry).

Charles takes the Olesons and Matthew to Reverend Danforth's tent meeting, and, sure enough, Reverend Danforth is "healing" the same woman of paralysis! Charles confronts Reverend Danforth, as he shows that the man with crutches does not really need them and that the "blind" woman is not actually blind. As the people walk out of the meeting, Reverend Danforth pleads with them to return, telling them that he only used fake healings to build up their faith so that they could be truly healed.

I sympathized somewhat with Reverend Danforth. I used to think that he was a fraud who was conducting fake healings to get money, but some questions lingered in my mind: if he was a fraud, why did he believe that he could heal people who were actually sick, such as Timothy? Why would he invite anyone to come forward at his meetings and be healed? Wouldn't he be afraid that someone would randomly come forward, and he would not be able to heal that person, since he was a fraud? I doubt it. I think that he believed that he could heal, and that his fake healings could build people's faith and set the stage for them to come forward for true healing.

Belief can be powerful. The power of suggestion can make a person's pain go away. That's why placebos are so effective. But there is a difference between "mind-over-matter" and actual healing. Timothy's pain may have gone away, but his appendix was still rupturing, and so, technically-speaking, he was not healed. He should have seen a doctor.

I found Reverend Danforth's explanation for Timothy's death to be intriguing, though I fully understand why many would consider it to be a cop-out: Reverend Danforth claims that God heals through him, and, when God doesn't do so, he chalks that up to God's will. That is a cop-out, but could there be something to it? In my opinion, if I am sick, I should have faith in God's love and goodness, and I should hold on to hope that God will heal me. But if God doesn't, God doesn't. What more can one do?

The Rabbis and the Cancellation of Debt

I finished Louis Newman's The Sanctity of the Seventh Year: A Study of Mishnah Tractate Shebiit.

A topic in my reading today was the cancellation of debts every seven years (Deuteronomy 15:1-3). The rabbinic policy was that this applied to money that was loaned out to people who needed it, but not to commercial credit, since the rabbis didn't want to run business-owners out of business. As Harriet Oleson repeatedly said on Little House on the Prairie, her mercantile cannot afford to be a charity, since it has bills to pay, too! (Some rabbinic views applied the cancellation of debts to commercial credit, however.) Loans that were backed by collateral also were not cancelled, for they were technically not outstanding loans (the types that were cancelled), as they were being temporarily repaid by the collateral until the borrower actually paid back what he owed. And fines from court cases are not cancelled.

The Mishnah tractate also talks about Hillel's innovation of the prozbul. This was an agreement between debtor and creditor to make a court responsible for the collection of the debt, thereby circumventing Deuteronomy 15:2, which required the creditor to cancel a debt. The Bible says that a creditor must cancel the debt; it doesn't say that a court must do so. In the prozbul, there was the requirement that the debtor have at least a sliver of land. This might have been to help secure the loan; at the same time, a sliver of land does not make good security, so perhaps what we see here is a "legal fiction" (page 209).

True Love

In Stephen King’s IT, Ben Hanscom has a crush on Beverly Marsh, but, while she likes Ben as a friend, she loves Bill Denbrough. After the Losers’ Club gives IT a temporary setback in an old house, Ben observes that Bill is starting to feel the same way about Beverly that she feels about him. Here are some of Ben’s thoughts on pages 875-876:

“Good luck, Big Bill…If that’s the way it is. But you’ll never love her the way I do. Never…I love you, Beverly…just let me have that. You can have Bill, or the world, or whatever you need. Just let me have that, let me go on loving you, and I guess it’ll be enough.”

The Losers are kids in that part of the book, but, when they become adults and reunite in Derry, Ben starts to feel the same jealousy when he notices that Beverly and Bill are gravitating towards each other. On page 902, Bill thinks the following:

“If he had been able to send Ben a thought, Bill would have sent this one: It doesn’t matter, Ben. The love is what matters, the caring…it’s always the desire, never the time. Maybe that’s all we get to take with us when we go out of the blue and into the black. Cold comfort, maybe, but better than no comfort at all.”

What Bill may mean is something like “It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”, only, here, Ben did not love and lose because he and Beverly were never a romantic couple. But Bill’s point is probably that Ben should find some degree of comfort (even if it is cold comfort) in loving Beverly, even if he never has the opportunity to have a romantic relationship with her. There are times when our love is what defines our character, even if we may not have an opportunity to act on that love.

What I admire about Ben is that he loves Beverly, even though he knows that she loves somebody else. I do not totally know on what basis he loves her. Part of the attraction is physical because he writes her that poem about her red hair, but he may also like her because she is a nice person, and she has courage and spirit. His love for her is more than lust because he is protective of her, which indicates true love. At some point in the book, Beverly thinks to herself that Ben would be willing to die for her, and she is probably right about that.

For some reason, I can identify with Ben, and I am not sure why. I have had a number of crushes over the course of my life, but I can’t say that I felt about any of them the way that Ben feels about Beverly Marsh—loving them, whether or not they loved me back in a romantic fashion. I cannot say that I am utterly self-absorbed, for I have rooted for the success of other people. But I also cannot say that my attitude towards women I like is similar to Patrick’s on the Little House on the Prairie episode, “Meet Me At the Fair”—Patrick crossed his fingers, hoping that Mary would win the quilting contest, even though she was not with him but with his dashing, charming boss. Maybe it’s good that I don’t get so attached. But Bill and Ben would say that the reward is actually in loving somebody else—in caring.

Bonanza A Dream to Dream

I just watched the Little House on the Prairie episode from Season 5, "Someone Please Love Me," and I read that it is similar to a Bonanza episode that Michael Landon wrote, "A Dream to Dream."  I am watching it right now, and, so far, they are VERY similar!

Psalm 30

For my weekly quiet time today, I will blog about Psalm 30 and its interpreters. I have three points:

1. The Psalm is about God delivering the Psalmist from death. There are different ideas about the setting of this Psalm. Christian preacher Jon Courson interpreted the Psalm in light of the events in II Samuel 6: David is celebrating God, but he is proud when he marches the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem on a cart, in violation of God's command that certain Levites carry it using the Ark's poles. David is then humbled and saddened after Uzzah touches the Ark and dies. But there is joy in the morning, and David dances before the LORD, to the consternation of his wife, Michal. The Psalm talks about the Psalmist boldly declaring that he shall never be moved, which many interpret as pride, as well as the Psalmist putting off his sackcloth and dancing before the LORD.

Others have maintained that the Psalm has been used for Hanukkah, and that it was utilized as far back as the re-dedication of the Temple in 164 B.C.E. Nowadays, it is used on Hanukkah, which is not surprising, considering that the superscription has the word, which means "dedication." The Babylonian Talmud relates the Psalm to Hanukkah, and the medieval Midrash on the Psalms applies the Psalm to events in 164 B.C.E. But Jews also use the Psalm in daily services, Sabbath services, and services on festival mornings. Psalm 30 contains ideas that can apply to any day of the year: God's deliverance of people from death and sadness, and God's holy ones singing to God and remembering his holiness. It is understandable, therefore, that Jewish interpreters have posited other reference-points for Psalm 30. Rashi, for example, states that the rabbis believe that Psalm 30 refers to Esther and Mordecai.

Others have proposed alternative historical reference-points. As he does with other Psalms, the fourth century Antiochian Christian exegete Theodore of Mopsuestia prefers the deliverance of Jerusalem under Sennacherib as the reference-point for Psalm 30. According to Theodore, David the Psalmist is foreseeing that Hezekiah will become proud after God delivers Jerusalem (II Chronicles 32:23), and so God will humble Hezekiah with sickness. But God will deliver Hezekiah from his disease and from death.

The superscription affirms that Psalm 30 is a song of dedication of the house of David. Does this mean the dedication of the Temple? Many would say "no" because David did not build the Temple, but others would point out that, according to I Chronicles, David dedicated the Temple in all but name! E.W. Bullinger argues that Psalm 30 concerns David's dedication of his own house, not the Temple, for Deuteronomy 20:5 refers to the dedication of houses, which shows that other places besides the Temple could be dedicated. In this scenario, perhaps David was celebrating God's goodness in bringing him to the point where he could live in a house, or palace.

Peter Craigie locates the Psalm in the cult, as he speculates that Psalm 30:11 concerns a ceremony of taking off sackcloth. But Craigie acknowledges that there isn't much about the cult in this particular Psalm: there is nothing about sacrifices or the payment of vows (cp. Psalm 66:13-14), or a banquet (Psalm 22:27). At the same time, the Psalm does appear to acknowledge the presence of fellow worshipers (Psalm 30:4). Is Psalm 30 an exilic or post-exilic Psalm, which was used by small assemblies of Jewish worshipers?

2. The Orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary had some good items. You have probably heard people say that hell is a state of mind on earth---that we create our own hell. Traditional Judaism certainly acknowledges that Gehinnom is a place where many people go after their death, but there is also a notion that one can experience hell in this life. The Babylonian Talmud, in Nedarim 22a, affirms that those who are angry are subjected to all kinds of Gehinnom. The Artscroll concludes from this: "The flames of frustration, anguish, and melancholy are the equivalent of the fires of Gehinnom. Throughout the Book of Psalms, most references to 'falling into the lower world' refer to this type of emotional inferno."

This reminds me of how C.S. Lewis portrays hell: as a place where stinkin' thinkin' basically takes a person over! Personally, I don't worship a God who kicks people when they are down, just because they have a problem with resentment, or unforgiveness, or a generally bad attitude. I worship a God whose love is bigger than any resentment we may have, and who offers us hope. Speaking for myself, I do not know if I will ever be free of resentment, or depression, or worry---and I take refuge in the notion that God loves me, even when I have those things. But I will be thankful to God for the times when I do have a sound mind---when those things do not dominate me. And I would like to think that God's compassion extends even to people in hell---assuming that C.S. Lewis' portrayal is the correct one---and that there is hope that even they can be delivered from their own personal torments.

Another item in the Artscroll that interested me was its comment on Psalm 30:9, where the Psalmist tries to convince God to save his life by saying that he cannot praise God and declare God's truth when he is dead. Many historical-critics argues that verses like these show that the Psalmist did not have a rigorous conception of the afterlife, for, if the Psalmist did have such a conception, he would recognize that death was no barrier to his praise of God. The Artscroll acknowledges that the soul continues to exist in an afterlife, but it maintains that the Psalmist's concern is still valid, for, even if the Psalmist's soul survives his death, he cannot spread the knowledge of God among human beings when he is deceased! That reminds me somewhat of Paul's statement in Philippians 1:21 that to live is Christ but to die is gain: Paul's point is that he desires to be with Christ after his death, but that he can still do a lot of good on earth while he is still alive.

3. In Psalm 30:6-7, the Psalmist declares that, in his prosperity, he thought that he would never be moved. The Psalmist believes that God was the source of his prosperity, for God, by God's favor, made the Psalmist into a strong mountain. But the Psalmist was devastated when God hid his face, and suffering resulted. Many interpreters contend that the Psalmist was proud, and God humbled him. Maybe that's what Psalm 30 is about. But perhaps the Psalmist was not proud in his prosperity. I've been watching Little House on the Prairie, and I'm in Season 4 right now. On a couple of episodes, there is a particular plot-line: a farmer is thanking God for his harvest, and, soon thereafter, a disaster causes the farmer to lose his crop. You'd think that thanking God would influence God to keep disaster from hitting God's blessings, but, in these particular episodes, it does not.

Different people on Little House have their explanations for the disasters. Caroline Ingalls says that perhaps God is testing her husband to see if he deserves God's love. (I find this notion appalling, for why should I assume that God's love is something that should be deserved? It just is.) The pastor tells his congregation that God may not insulate them from problems, but God promises to be with them through the problems and to give them strength. Whether these explanations are adequate or not probably depends on if they give comfort to the person who is suffering.

I'm also reminded of Brian Peckham's view on Joel in History and Prophecy. Peckham states that Joel did not believe that the Babylonian conquest of Judah was God's punishment for Judah's sin. Rather, Joel blamed the Babylonians for the catastrophe, not God. But Joel still encouraged the Judahites to ask God for deliverance from their problems. Many are tempted to think that the existence of problems shows that God is inactive in the world, if God even exists at all, and so there is no point to asking God to intervene in a situation. But, in my opinion, it doesn't hurt to try.

Never Alone

At church this morning, the sermon was good. It was about loneliness, and how Jesus Christ lives inside of us. As the hymn by the Gaithers goes: "Because he lives, I can face tomorrow. Because he lives, all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future. And life is worth the living just because he lives." But the pastor told us the back story about the Gaithers' writing of this hymn. He said that they were living during the "God is dead" trend as well as the upheavals of the 1960's, and they wondered if they should have a child in that kind of environment. But they were comforted by their belief in Jesus' resurrection and God's presence with them, and so they had the faith to face the future.

The pastor told other stories as well. One story he told was about special education students who were using computers at their school, which helped them to improve their academic skills. The principal did not have faith in them, and so he excluded them from an experimental program that involved the computers. But their teacher did have faith in them, which is why she had them use the computers. One special education student named Raymond, who was from a dysfunctional family and who showed hardly any academic promise, demonstrated a remarkable amount of academic progress as he used the computer. When he was asked why, he replied, "Everybody calls me a retard, but the computer calls me Raymond."

This story was meaningful to me because it reminded me of the importance of using people's names. As social skills coach Deb Fine has said, people love the sounds of their own names! I think that the purpose of this story within the sermon was that, as an analogy, the story can illustrate that God loves us, values us, and knows us by name, even though we may be a blip on the radar of the rest of the world---or even if others scorn us. The pastor talked about these sorts of themes in his sermon.

At the beginning of his sermon, the pastor told us a story about actor Martin Sheen. During the making of the movie Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen was in the hospital, and he was worried that he might not be able to fulfill his obligations for the movie. When his wife told him that it was just a movie, however, he became more relaxed, and he quickly recovered.

The pastor asked us if we ever wished that life would be just a movie. When we are young, we want to fast-forward to a life of independence. There are times when we may want to pause life so we can keep the good times. When we are old, we may desire to slow down life so that we can live it a little longer. And then there are things that we may want to redo---and so we wish life had a "rewind" button. I think that the lesson here was that, wherever we may be in life, we can take comfort that Jesus Christ lives inside of us.

The pastor also talked about soldiers in war who found comfort in their faith. I have heard that there are no atheists in foxholes---but I doubt that's this is completely accurate, for I have read of atheists in foxholes, and their lack of belief in an afterlife motivated them to stay alive during battle. But faith does give strength and comfort to people in the heat of battle.

But I wonder something: What kind of faith? Is it faith in a God who sends most of the world to hell for not being Christian, or is it a more generic kind of faith---a faith in a loving, benevolent, and wise higher power---the sort of faith that I see on such shows as Little House on the Prairie? Speaking for myself, I'd have a hard time deriving comfort from the critical, wrathful God who is in certain passages of the Bible and also in some conservative Christian circles. But I can gain some comfort from a more generic sort of God---one who does not send people to hell for holding the wrong beliefs, or refuse to hear some people's prayers because they are not living a particular sort of way. I think of Ronald Reagan's conception of God. His daughter, Patti, said that her father told her that she can always talk to God, however she may be living her life. I seriously doubt that Reagan was telling his daughter that how she lived did not matter to him or to God. Rather, he was saying that God is always there---as a loving and compassionate friend.

I believe that God loves each of us, even if we're not living the right way. But God wants us to live the right way because that's what is best for us. But he won't shun us until we get our acts together. It would be impossible for me to have faith in any other kind of God, for, if God will have nothing to do with me until I get my act together, or "repent", then God will never have anything to do with me, for my act will never be totally together!

I'll be taking my Hebrew Bible comprehensive exam this week, and I appreciated my pastor's prayer for me. He asked that I might read the questions and know how to answer them. I like how he phrased that. The first time that I took this exam, I read the questions, and then my reaction was "duh." I didn't know what exactly to say, and so I wrote all over the place. This time around, I hope that I can write cogent, organized, and well-informed essays. I've been asking God to help me to pass my exams, for I don't want to pay another $1,200 for the candidacy fee this coming semester. But I wonder: Why I should trust that God will answer my prayer---when there are tornadoes in America taking away people's lives and property? Still, in my opinion, when it comes to prayer---for myself or for others---it doesn't hurt to try.

Father Murphy: In God's Arms

I've been watching Father Murphy, a show in the 1980's that was created by Michael Landon. The following episode is entitled "In God's Arms", and it is my favorite episode thus far. It's about a priest named Joe, who loses his faith because of the harshness and evils of life, and he finds his faith again, as he works in a saloon and reaches out to the people around him who need help. Even while he is an unbeliever, God uses him to help others, and God teaches him that the way of Christ is the way to go. Before Joe lost his faith, he believed because that was how he was brought up. But he lost that faith to gain a deeper faith, one that was not naive about the evils of life. Although the world remained the same harsh place that drove him to despair at the beginning of the episode, at the end, he resolves to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

There's one thing that bothers me: at the end of the episode, he returns to the priesthood. The priesthood was where he had a hard time reaching out to others, for, as he said, people came to him confessing the same sins over and over, and he didn't feel he was reaching them or making a difference in their lives. He was apart from the people. It was when he was in a saloon---among people---that he could make a difference. I hope that, even though he returns to the priesthood, he will not be cloistered and away from others.

I don't want to use this episode to beat people over the head on the need to reach out to others, for people have beaten me over the head with that, and that's really tough for me, an introvert. But I like how Joe's reaching out to others in the saloon was pretty simple: a man was lonely, and so Joe listened to his story and played chess with him. A woman was getting beaten on, and so Joe stood up for her and affirmed her dignity as a person of worth. He also was there for her when she was sad. Joe wasn't the life of the party, but he reached out to others in his own humble way.

I also like the soundtrack of this episode. It reminds me of the soundtrack of the Little House episode, "The Preacher Takes a Wife." I've noticed that Michael Landon sometimes used the same soundtracks for shows. On the episode after this one, "The Dream Day" (which has Tina Yothers of Family Ties fame), I heard what became the theme song for Highway to Heaven.

This is a beautiful episode, and it reminds me that I'm in God's arms, wherever I might be.

Patricia Neal

Actress Patricia Neal passed away. Her first movie was with Ronald Reagan. She was also in Face in the Crowd, alongside Andy Griffith and Walter Matthau. (One line I vaguely remember from that, from a conservative politician whom Andy Griffith was teaching to be “woodsy”: “Daniel Boone didn’t need no Social Security. All he needed was his ax!”) She was also in the movie of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, looking at Howard Roark’s bulging, individualist muscles.

But I most appreciate her from an episode of Little House on the Prairie, in which she played the dying mother of three children, whom Mr. Edwards and his wife, Grace, adopted. Sawyer watched that particular episode on an episode of Lost this last season, in the flash sideways.

R.I.P., Patricia Neal.