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Issue 44 <previous< Issue
045 Volume 9 No. 3 Summer 2003 >next>
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Table of Contents - Summer 2003
To Lie Or Not To Lie . . . ?
That is the question. The big question faced by politicians and presidents—by corporate executives and newspaper columnists—and even by ministers and missionaries. In our society, deception has become a way of life. Samuel Waksal, former chief executive of ImClone, recently received a seven-year sentence for stock market fraud. In regard to the related case of Martha Stewart, prosecutor James Comey handed off her case of insider-trading charges to the SEC, noting “This case is about lying.” Defending Stewart,
columnist William Safire (NY Times) responded, “Lying is a harsh word; I
used it myself about Clinton’s congenital falsification. But perjury is a much
harsher word . . . . Martha Stewart has not been accused of perjury.” President Carter’s Nobel Lecture By Jimmy Carter, 10 December 2002 Your Majesties, Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is with a deep sense of gratitude that I accept this prize. I am grateful to my wife, Rosalynn, to my colleagues at The Carter Center, and to many others who continue to seek an end to violence and suffering throughout the world. The scope and character of our Center’s activities are perhaps unique, but in many other ways they are typical of the work being done by many hundreds of nongovernmental organizations that strive for human rights and peace. Most Nobel laureates
have carried out our work in safety, but there are others who have acted with
great personal courage. None has provided more vivid reminders of the dangers
of peacemaking than two of my friends, Anwar Sadat and Yitzhak Rabin, who gave
their lives for the cause of peace in the Middle
East. Faith-Based Funding, Booze, and Greed
ContinueReflections
on T. B. Maston After reading the Baptist Standard story and the letter, I have thought about augmenting that letter with some things I know personally from having pastored T. B. Maston for five years. Dr. Maston was in the
hospital hovering between life and death, having suffered a heart problem. I
flew back from the BGCT to see him at Harris Hospital. By his bedside were papers, one of which had
sentence after sentence of closely written, cramped script. I asked him what he
was writing. He told me that he was re-reading the gospels again and writing
down something he learned about Jesus from each verse! There they were—hundreds
of sentences, one for each verse. This is the man who is not biblical. The ‘Morality’ of This President
During the last years of Bill Clinton's presidency, much was said and written about the Monica Lewinsky affair and the gross immorality of this president. President Clinton reaped a whirlwind of criticism from all sectors of American society and the most vehement responses came from leaders of the Religious Right. Clinton's infidelity and impropriety were admittedly abominable and egregious in nature. His moral failure put his entire two-term presidency, with all of his political and economic accomplishments, under the specter of scandal. In
contrast, George Bush's two years in the Oval Office have been free of personal
moral scandals. He has been forthcoming concerning his membership in the United Methodist Church and
his experience of conversion following a meeting with Billy Graham. Whereas Clinton was
the recipient of a constant barrage of criticisms by the Religious Right, both
before and after the Monica Lewinsky debacle, George Bush has enjoyed the
unwavering support and affirmation from this powerful religious and politically
influential body. There is little about this president that leaders such as
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, D. James Kennedy, Franklin Graham and
others do not admire. They threw their outspoken support for him during Bush's
run for the presidency and they have not ceased in that support. Many of these
leaders refer to George Bush as "God's Man" for the job. U. S. Media Caved In
Why, readers in the U.S. keep asking me, are so many Americans unconcerned their government appears to have misled them and Congress over Iraq, and then waged a war with no basis in law or fact. Why is there growing outrage in Britain over Tony Blair's equally exaggerated or patently false warnings over Iraq, while middle America couldn't seem to care less about George Bush's “Weaponsgate”? One answer is found in an old joke. Greenberg is sitting in a bar. He goes up to Woo, a Chinese gentleman, and punches him. “Why'd you do that?” cries Woo. “Because of Pearl Harbor,” snarls Greenberg. “But I had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor, I'm Chinese!” says Woo. “Chinese, Japanese, it's all the same to me,” answers Greenberg. A month later, Greenberg sees Woo in the bar and apologizes to him. The Chinese gentleman smiles, then punches Greenberg. “Why did you do that?” cries Greenberg? “Because
of the Titanic.” Response to
Brent Walker’s Review
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Response to
C. Truett Baker Truett Baker has used the occasion of my review of Philip Hamburger’s book, Separation of Church and State, to critique the separationist point of view in general and my views of church-state relations in particular. My main problem with Hamburger’s book is that he sets up a caricatured view of the separation between church and state and then attacks it as being hostile to religion. Baker, in his response to my piece, does much the same thing. The separation of
church and state is not hostile to religion. The two clauses in the First
Amendment—no establishment and free exercise—both require the separation of
church and state as an avenue to ensure religious freedom for all. The goal of
religious liberty often requires the government to treat religion differently
under these two clauses. The Parable of the Lost Saddle I was traveling North on Highway 70, about ten miles south of Sweetwater, Texas. It was April 29, 2003, and I had never been down this route before. This is ranch country. Few trees, rolling hills, and mesas leading into canyons. I could imagine buffalo and deer roaming this land years ago. It was home to the Indians. My thoughts were on the committee meeting at noon. Buck’s Bar-B-Que in Sweetwater sounded like the down-home place it turned out to be. I was meeting four of
my classmates from the 1953 graduating class from LoraineHigh School.
We were the largest class in the history of the school . . . there were
twenty-three of us. Loraine is a farming community twenty miles west of
Sweetwater. We lived on a 400-acre farm eight miles north of town. We were
closer to Hermleigh than we were to Loraine. Not A Band-Aid-Debunking Myths About
Foreign Aid Fanny Makina, a farmer in Malawi, is tilling her plot of land with a hoe and spade. Next she will plant crops of corn, peanuts, squash, beans and cassava, and mark each row carefully with a stick. In most years, Makina harvests enough food for her family and has food left over to sell. Even in years of limited rainfall, she has income to buy fertilizer and other supplies. “My children don’t lack for clothes or shoes. I am able to pay their tuition for school,” she says proudly. By Malawian standards, Makina is tremendously successful. Makina’s success is due in part to U.S. foreign aid. She is a member of the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi (NASFAM), an organization supported in part by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). NASFAM farmers join together to learn about new agricultural methods and to negotiate better prices with truckers and with the merchants who buy their crops. Compared with other farmers, NASFAM members have higher incomes and are less likely to go without food in the annual “hungry time” before harvest.
Never Know What to Expect at a Wedding
My three children have ten cousins on one side of the family and many of them traveled to Ohio to celebrate with the first of the thirteen to marry. The bride was beautiful, the crowd was large, the rain held off, and a good time was had by all. Mostly the marriage was traditional: held in a church, led by a minister, filled with music, and included the customary vows, rings and candles. The reception that followed featured a tent, a cake, and a memorable toast by the brother of the groom. We took lots of pictures. Fortunately, this family occasion did not have to adjust to any of the marital innovations that others have had to deal with over the years: such as mail order brides, living-together engagements, or mass marriages (remember the Moonies?). Neither was it just another matrimonial stop on the bus known as serial monogamy, that vehicle of modern transportation that, thanks to relaxed divorce laws, takes people from one spouse to another. No, this was a rather conventional ceremony by two young adults with strong Christian convictions; and thus was a day of thanksgiving and inspiration for all of us. But
there were some things in the wedding I had never seen. Post-Abortion Depression and the Ethics Of Truth-Telling
What is the moral significance of the fact that some women experience deep depression following an abortion? Does that prove that no woman should have an abortion since such a powerful and negative experience is sure to follow? Is the negative emotional response both evidence of the immorality of the practice and of the threat to the health of the woman? Or is the truth to be found in some other interpretation of the facts? The question has generated a great deal of medical research and media attention in recent years. Those opposed to abortion and seeking a legal ban to the practice are convinced that stories of women’s depression is evidence of its threat to women’s health and/or of its immorality. The question is important and should not be summarily dismissed. After all, the issue is a concern for women’s health. Presumably all Americans support those social policies that serve best to assure optimal health and access to healthcare for women facing threats to their personal well-being. If it could be shown that women are nearly certain to be emotionally traumatized to the point of severe depression following an abortion, the case for making abortion illegal could be made on grounds of medical indicators. The issue was addressed in vastly different ways in two different publications that recently crossed my desk. One was a weekly newspaper from a religious press; the other a news journal from the world of science and medicine. I read them both with regularity (almost religiously). Interestingly, each carried an article dealing with depression as an aftermath of abortion... Ethics and Medical
Indicators Book Reviews By Jeph Holloway
Book Review When
Ladies at the Lattice Lose Their Luster Our mortal lot, according to the Psalmist (90:10), is to hope for a life span of some “three score years and ten.” Then “by reason of strength” some may even attain “four score” years...You can tell you are 80:
A few things come to mind, however, as being possible contributors to the attainment of this mark. Please consider a few of them.
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