A Deeply Beautiful Book: Karl Stern’s The Pillar of Fire

From the foreword to The Pillar of Fire:

A few years ago, at a psychiatric convention, I ran into a girl with whom I studied medicine and with whom I interned in the Neurological Department of one of the municipal hospitals in Berlin.  We met in a big hotel in Chicago.  It was a most fortunate meeting and we were both overjoyed.  We had not met for fourteen years, and had heard little of each other.  She had the same halting, absent-minded way of speaking, as if she were always thinking of two things at a time.  She looked older and there were lines in her face that had not been there before.  There was so much we had to tell each other.  While she spoke of her didactic psychoanalysis in Zurich, her marriage, her child, her practice, about mutual friends who had perished in Europe, I was asking myself: “Shall I tell, or shall I not tell?”

If I were to say to her, “Since we last met, I have become a Catholic,” it would be a statement entirely different from any other I could make.  We both had many startling and unexpected things to tell; it could not be otherwise with two Jews who had parted in Germany in 1932 and met again in America in 1946.  But the fact is that with that simple sentence, “I have become a Catholic,” there arises a cloud of estrangement.  No matter how much one attempts to break this estrangement down to the elements of social or political separation, of prejudices from childhood, and so on, there is something additional which cannot be explained so easily.  What is it?

While the conversation was as far removed as possible from speculations of this kind, I told her of this decisive event in my life.  She paused for a moment and then said simply and shortly: “Oh!”  Her polite exclamation contained a cosmic abyss.  It is about this “Oh!” that this book is being written.

When I meet a friend with whom I used to work in the Zionist Youth Movement or in a group of radical students, I realize the extraordinary fact that, when we come to the bottom of things, I have not really departed from their ideals.  There is a core to their beliefs which I still share with them.  It is contained in my belief.  What must appear to them as a betrayal, is to me a fulfillment.  I still understand everything they are talking about, but they cannot possibly understand me.  This is what makes these scenes, as human encounters and as meetings of friends, so agonizing.  We talk about the Histatrut (the Labor Unions in Palestine), about the Poale Zion (left wing Zionism), the Kibbuz (the movement of cultivation of the land in Palestine, without private property), about my brother who lives as a teacher in one of those co-operative settlements, or of old friends who were killed as Trotskyites, as Social Democrats, or simply as Jews — and then it comes.

“What has happened to you?”

“I have become a Christian.”

Some of my friends even pale and their pupils dilate.  A common world falls asunder.

Ordering Glasses Online: The Conclusion

Okay, I finally got my glasses from Zenni Optical.  Ultra-long wait.  Crappy glasses.  The photochromic lens on one pair barely changes in the sun.  Barely enough to notice.  The other pair was ordered with anti-reflective coating.  They don’t have anti-reflective coating.  Low price gets you big hassle and low, low quality.

On the other hand, I ordered a pair from 39dollarglasses.com and they are spectacular.  Great pair of glasses.  High quality frames.  Great worksmanship.  Highly recommended.

Reflection on Abortion, Wilberforce, and Amazing Grace

I came across this piece in my personal archives and thought it might be worth running here.  I was thinking along these lines because my pastor asked me to preach about the sanctity of life this week in church.

I never learned about William Wilberforce in my twelve years in the public school system. Neither did I run into him in any of my history courses at a large state university. It wasn’t until my summer associate work at Prison Fellowship during law school that I learned anything about the man who ended the slave trade in what was then the most powerful nation on earth.

I recently saw Amazing Grace, which is the story of the British politician’s drive to end the slave trade in the world’s greatest superpower within his lifetime. The film was impressive, both artistically and in its emotional impact. Wilberforce’s story brings you within the power of a quest for justice. You can literally feel the passion to save the Africans from the brutality of the slave trade and the tremendous frustration of Wilberforce and his group as they are blocked at every turn. Stress, anguish, and overwork led Wilberforce to ruin his health battling against the hold of slavery on his culture and its conception of economic interest.

This film is needed today. One of our great debates as we talk about sacred and secular America is whether the Christian faith has anything to say about public policy. Does Christianity have anything to do with the social order or is it purely a “heart religion” that the individual should work out only on his own or behind church walls?

Wilberforce answered those questions decisively in favor of a publicly relevant faith working hard against injustice. He thought a compartmentalized Christianity was a sign of spiritual bankruptcy. Wilberforce’s dedication to Christ and his fellowship with a group of like-minded believers unconcerned about damaging their standing in a slavery-minded society led him and his Clapham sect to mount a tireless decades long assault on the barbarism of the slave trade and then chattel slavery.

Those who wish to understand how Christians can make a difference in their society would do well to study the model of William Wilberforce. He and his friends lived close together in Christian community, but they were not exclusive. They welcomed everyone and engaged in a great deal of hospitality, particularly toward members of Parliament. They took prayer and Bible study seriously. And they endeavored to seriously work out the implications of the Christian faith for politics, economics, social welfare, etc.

To make what may be an obvious connection, Amazing Grace caused me to think about abortion. When I became a Christian in college, I began to be exposed to the case for ending the practice of abortion. Over time, I grew strong in the conviction that abortion ended a human life, that it was violent and barbaric, and that all possible steps should be taken to prohibit the procedure.

Law school took my feelings to a new level. A barely tolerable, white-hot fire rose up in my heart. I read Roe v. Wade carefully and concluded (with most of the intellectually honest legal world) that it was a travesty of cut and paste scholarship. Looking into that case damages one’s faith in the court. Blackmun went home to Minnesota, spent some time in the library studying the question, and then popped out an opinion that got everything wrong, particularly the history of abortion and law in the West. (In retrospect, I’m not sure you can blame him. The forces wanting to legalize abortion had done the recent historical work on the question. It’s only been after Roe that critics have picked apart his many questionable assertions.)

During that time, I decided that if I spent the rest of my life ramming my head against the law of legalized abortion it would be acceptable. I read about people who gave their lives to abortion protest. I regretted the fact that I was married because that meant it would be unfair to my wife for me to get arrested on a regular basis. I wrote a law review article on the topic where I took my best swings at Roe. I became a state-level policy director and lobbyist working, among other things, to require a period of reflection before any abortion could be performed. I testified before legislative committees. I argued the question of the law and the state of the current jurisprudence. I wept with a combination of sadness and rage when I listened to a young black woman report the nightmares she’d had since her abortion. “My son comes to me in my dreams and asks me why I did it.” My feelings about the injustice of abortion and what I felt were the misrepresentations of the pro-choice advocates sometimes led to incredibly dark moods.

When you feel there is an injustice that happens every day, multiple times a day, dripping like a faucet, and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it, the anger and frustration can be tremendous. I eventually dealt with it by distancing myself from the problem. I intellectualized and played the game so many conservatives play by backing off from the world and coolly observing its troubles.

I vote pro-life. I write pro-life. But it’s been a long time since I participated in any rallies, followed the issue very closely, or thought about what I could do to drive the cause forward. I backed off because I got hurt.

All this reflection takes me back to Wilberforce and why he was a great man. Wilberforce drove forward for a couple of decades. He struggled and fought and never allowed himself to stop caring and working. He knew exactly, through hard experience, what Paul meant when he exhorted us to keep the faith.  And in the end, he achieved his object. The slave trade ended in the British empire and so did slavery, in part because Wilberforce endured familiarity with injustice.

I never learned about William Wilberforce in my twelve years in the public school system. Neither did I run into him in any of my history courses at a large state university. It wasn’t until my summer associate work at Prison Fellowship during law school that I learned anything about the man who ended the slave trade in what was then the most powerful nation on earth.

I recently saw Amazing Grace, which is the story of the British politician’s drive to end the slave trade in the world’s greatest superpower within his lifetime. The film was impressive, both artistically and in its emotional impact. Wilberforce’s story brings you within the power of a quest for justice. You can literally feel the passion to save the Africans from the brutality of the slave trade and the tremendous frustration of Wilberforce and his group as they are blocked at every turn. Stress, anguish, and overwork led Wilberforce to ruin his health battling against the hold of slavery on his culture and its conception of economic interest.

This film is needed today. One of our great debates as we talk about sacred and secular America is whether the Christian faith has anything to say about public policy. Does Christianity have anything to do with the social order or is it purely a “heart religion” that the individual should work out only on his own or behind church walls?

Wilberforce answered those questions decisively in favor of a publicly relevant faith working hard against injustice. He thought a compartmentalized Christianity was a sign of spiritual bankruptcy. Wilberforce’s dedication to Christ and his fellowship with a group of like-minded believers unconcerned about damaging their standing in a slavery-minded society led him and his Clapham sect to mount a tireless decades long assault on the barbarism of the slave trade and then chattel slavery.

Those who wish to understand how Christians can make a difference in their society would do well to study the model of William Wilberforce. He and his friends lived close together in Christian community, but they were not exclusive. They welcomed everyone and engaged in a great deal of hospitality, particularly toward members of Parliament. They took prayer and Bible study seriously. And they endeavored to seriously work out the implications of the Christian faith for politics, economics, social welfare, etc.

To make what may be an obvious connection, Amazing Grace caused me to think about abortion. When I became a Christian in college, I began to be exposed to the case for ending the practice of abortion. Over time, I grew strong in the conviction that abortion ended a human life, that it was violent and barbaric, and that all possible steps should be taken to prohibit the procedure.

Law school took my feelings to a new level. A barely tolerable, white-hot fire rose up in my heart. I read Roe v. Wade carefully and concluded (with most of the intellectually honest legal world) that it was a travesty of cut and paste scholarship. Looking into that case damages one’s faith in the court. Blackmun went home to Minnesota, spent some time in the library studying the question, and then popped out an opinion that got everything wrong, particularly the history of abortion and law in the West. (In retrospect, I’m not sure you can blame him. The forces wanting to legalize abortion had done the recent historical work on the question. It’s only been after Roe that critics have picked apart his many questionable assertions.)

During that time, I decided that if I spent the rest of my life ramming my head against the law of legalized abortion it would be acceptable. I read about people who gave their lives to abortion protest. I regretted the fact that I was married because that meant it would be unfair to my wife for me to get arrested on a regular basis. I wrote a law review article on the topic where I took my best swings at Roe. I became a state-level policy director and lobbyist working, among other things, to require a period of reflection before any abortion could be performed. I testified before legislative committees. I argued the question of the law and the state of the current jurisprudence. I wept with a combination of sadness and rage when I listened to a young black woman report the nightmares she’d had since her abortion. “My son comes to me in my dreams and asks me why I did it.” My feelings about the injustice of abortion and what I felt were the misrepresentations of the pro-choice advocates sometimes led to incredibly dark moods.

When you feel there is an injustice that happens every day, multiple times a day, dripping like a faucet, and that there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to prevent it, the anger and frustration can be tremendous. I eventually dealt with it by distancing myself from the problem. I intellectualized and played the game so many conservatives play by backing off from the world and coolly observing its troubles.

I vote pro-life. I write pro-life. But it’s been a long time since I participated in any rallies, followed the issue very closely, or thought about what I could do to drive the cause forward. I backed off because I got hurt.

All this reflection takes me back to Wilberforce and why he was a great man. Wilberforce drove forward for a couple of decades. He struggled and fought and never allowed himself to stop caring and working. He knew exactly, through hard experience, what Paul meant when he exhorted us to keep the faith.  And in the end, he achieved his object. The slave trade ended in the British empire and so did slavery, in part because Wilberforce endured familiarity with injustice.

The Big Review of Russell Kirk’s Ancestral Shadows

Read it here at Touchstone Magazine’s Mere Comments blog.

Just in case you’re crazy enough not to click through. . . click through anyway!!!

Christian Worldview Bootcamp for Houston High School Students

At Houston Baptist University, we’ve started up a really nice partnership with John Mark Reynolds and Wheatstone Academy to offer Christian worldview programming for high school students during the summer. If you live in or around Houston and have a student who could use (or would enjoy!) an intellectual boot camp for the faith, this is it. The program goes from July 26 to August 1. The cost is $850 and is all inclusive of food, lodging, events, etc.

This is exactly what your student needs before going to college, especially if you will be sending them off to a state school.

Read more here.

Habermas on Christianity, Europe, and Human Rights

From Philip Jenkins at Foreign Policy:

Ironically, after centuries of rebelling against religious authority, the coming of Islam is also reviving political issues most thought extinct in Europe, including debates about the limits of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to proselytize. And in all these areas, controversies that originate in a Muslim context inexorably expand or limit the rights of Christians, too. If Muslim preachers who denounce gays must be silenced, then so must charismatic Christians. At the same time, any laws that limit blasphemous assaults on the image of Mohammed must take account of the sensibilities of those who venerate Jesus.

The result has been a rediscovery of the continent’s Christian roots, even among those who have long disregarded it, and a renewed sense of European cultural Christianity. Jürgen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, “Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter.” Europe may be confronting the dilemmas of a truly multifaith society, but with Christianity poised for a comeback, it is hardly on the verge of becoming an Islamic colony.

Zenni Optical and Buying Glasses Online

The Saga Continues . . .

I ordered from Zenni Optical over a month in advance of a vacation so I would be sure to have new glasses and sunglasses.  Calling to cancel after a wait of nearly a month now, I got the most unsympathetic customer service person I have EVER encountered.  She informed me, in no uncertain terms, that I COULD NOT have a refund and COULD NOT cancel the order.  The glasses had been made, she said, so there was no turning back.  

I protested at my long wait and asked whether anything might be done to get me my glasses.  She said, NO, and added the glasses would be shipped six days from now and then would take an additional 8-9 days!  I then asked if they could do anything for me to make up for the inconvenience.  Again, the answer was NO.  I pointed out that nothing on the web site suggests an order should take more than three weeks.  She said that was just a suggested time to wait.  

I hung up with the Zenni customer service woman giving no ground whatsoever and suggesting nothing to help.  I decided to call again about an hour later.  The new customer service rep was wary of me because he could see I’d called earlier.  I was not belligerent at all.  Those of you who know me, know that.  He was more pleasant, but equally unable to propose any solution.  He said, as various agents of the company have at certain points, that one pair included a photochromic lens and that was holding things up.  (After dealing with Zenni, I am near concluding that putting a photochromic layer on a pair of glasses may be harder than developing a nuclear bomb.  In fact, I am certain Iran has not been able to break the photochromic glasses barrier!)  Trying to improve my own situation and be my own customer service rep, I suggested that they send me the glasses without the photochromic lens and THEN send the photochromic pair when they are completed.  In other words, break up the order and send as available.  Amazon has done that for me from time to time without even being asked.  He put me on hold and managed to win assent to the proposition.  He said it would be done, but didn’t sound confident and said I should call back if I haven’t heard anything in a couple of days.  

As a professor, I have to give Zenni a grade of FAIL.  We’ll see if they can get their paper in late and manage a re-appraisal to a grade of barely adequate minus.

Ordering Glasses Online: Apparent Failure with Zenni

Okay, I posted a while back that I had ordered two great pairs of prescription eye glasses from Zenni Optical for a low price and that I fully expected a great success.  

So far, it isn’t working.  We are now three and a half weeks out from the order and I still have no glasses.  I am significantly bummed.  Though I called at various points and was told it took longer because one of the pairs had a photochromic lens, I finally got an honest person last night who told me there was no status update from the lens shop and that he couldn’t say when I’d get the glasses.   Then, I got an email this morning making excuses about quality problems and promising that I would eventually get a confirmation of shipping.

I wrote back with an ultimatum.  Promise me that I get the glasses by this Friday or the order is canceled.

At this point, I can’t recommend Zenni Optical.  I may try another online vendor before I go back for another price whupping from Lenscrafters.

Amazon Finally Has It Right: Book Description for The End of Secularism

Here’s what you’ll see at the Amazon.com page for The End of Secularism:

This ambitious work offers one of the most comprehensive attacks on secularism yet attempted. Hunter Baker argues that advocates of secularism misunderstand the borders between science, religion, and politics and cannot solve the problem of religious difference.

University scholars have spent decades subjecting religion to critical scrutiny. But what would happen if they turned their focus on secularism? Hunter Baker seeks the answer to that question by putting secularism under the microscope and carefully examining its origins, its context, its claims, and the viability of those claims.

The result of Baker’s analysis is The End of Secularism. He reveals that secularism fails as an instrument designed to create superior social harmony and political rationality to that which is available with theistic alternatives. Baker also demonstrates that secularism is far from the best or only way to enjoy modernity’s fruits of religious liberty, free speech, and democracy. The End of Secularism declares the demise of secularism as a useful social construct and upholds the value of a public square that welcomes all comers, religious and otherwise, into the discussion. The message of The End of Secularism is that the marketplace of ideas depends on open and honest discussion rather than on religious content or the lack thereof.

And by the way, if you haven’t yet, please join the Facebook page for The End of Secularism so I can notify everybody upon publication in August.

Neuhaus and Rockford: One More Round

A few weeks back, I posted a version of the famed Richard John Neuhaus/Rockford Institute break-up incident. The story there was that the break-up happened because Neuhaus overspent the Institute’s budget on conferences after having been ordered to cancel them. That version of the story came from John Howard, who used to run the Rockford Institute a number of years ago. Howard’s version was new to me. I’d mainly heard the rumblings about ideological discontent and jumped at the chance to shed a little light on a longtime mystery.

Joseph Bottum, who now runs First Things, offers more discussion about the incident on page 69 of the June/July issue of the magazine. He reiterates the story of ideological animus, but does provide some reinforcement to the budget/conference planning story I mentioned before. However, according to Bottum there was a conference Neuhaus was ordered to cancel, but he refused because the planning was too far along and he had raised adequate earmarked funds. So, Howard’s story is that Neuhaus went beyond his mandate and the Neuhaus story is that Rockford crawfished on a deal!

I was thrilled to see the discussion continued at FT, but I have one small objection. Dr. Howard is presented in the short piece as bringing Neuhaus in for some “knocks” on the occasion of his death. That part isn’t really fair. In the conversation I had with Howard (who is probably an octogenarian), he was very complimentary of Father Neuhaus and clearly respected his body of work. I asked him to tell me the story and he did. Tone doesn’t come across in the typed word many times. That applies here. Dr. Howard was clearly proud of having been associated with Father Neuhaus and of having hired him.

Russell Kirk and Christian Ghost Stories?

I’ve been reading the stories in Russell Kirk’s Ancestral Shadows collection.  They are chillingly full of awful justice.  Highly recommended for the Christian supernaturalist.

I Love Me Some Larry Kudlow

He is the perfect commencement speaker.  Inspiring.  Uplifting.  Not alienating half the audience . . .

Not like my old law school, which once invited Sarah Jane Weddington (the winning lawyer in Roe v. Wade) to make all the pro-lifers super happy on their graduation day!!!!

Endorsements Are Back for The End of Secularism

“Hunter Baker’s volume is a much-welcomed addition to the debate on the role of religion and faith in the public square. To the confusion regarding matters of religion and politics, Baker brings illuminating clarity. To the ambiguity regarding the meaning and place of pluralism, he provides thoughtful analysis. To the directionless arguments for secularization, he offers an insightful and discerning response. This much-needed volume provides a readable, historically-informed, and carefully-reasoned case for the place of faith in our public deliberations. It is with great enthusiasm that I recommend it.”

—David S. Dockery, President, Union University

 

“Hunter Baker is a gifted writer who knows how to communicate the issue of secularism to an audience that desperately needs to hear a critical though winsome voice on this matter. In many ways, the book is a twenty-first-century sequel to the late Richard John Neuhaus’s classic, The Naked Public Square. Baker understands the issues that percolate beneath the culture wars. They are not merely political but theological and philosophical, and they are rarely unpacked in an articulate way so that the ordinary citizen can gain clarity. Baker offers his readers that clarity.”

—Francis J. Beckwith, Professor of Philosophy and Church-State Studies, Baylor University; author, Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice

 

“Hunter Baker is one of the sharpest thinkers in contemporary American Christianity. This work will provoke the same kind of conversation ignited by Richard John Neuhaus’s The Naked Public Square. Read this book slowly with a highlighter and a pen in hand as you think about questions ranging from whether the Ten Commandments ought to hang in your local courthouse to whether there’s a future for public Christianity.”

—Russell D. Moore, Dean, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

 

“The task of discerning the alternative to practical atheism lived by many nominal Christians and the pretense of a neutral secularism has been made easier by this rich study. Once authentic Christians grasp the ramifications of the incarnation of Christ, then and only then will it be apparent that, as Baker argues, “secularism only makes sense in relation to religion.”

—Robert A. Sirico, President, Acton Institute

 

“The End of Secularism debunks the widespread myth that secularism is the inevitable wave of the future, coming at us like an unstoppable force of nature. Baker shows instead that the secularization of society was the result of deliberate planning and concerted effort by a relatively few determined ideologues. Baker makes it clear that what they did can be undone. We shall be hearing more from this promising young man.”

—Jennifer Roback Morse, Founder and President, The Ruth Institute

 

“Hunter Baker has produced a powerful and carefully constructed argument against the secularists in our midst who are attempting to subvert the traditions that gave birth to our unique national enterprise.”

—Herbert London, President, Hudson Institute; author, America’s Secular Challenge

 

Yes, I’ve Ordered Glasses Online . . .

UPDATE:  I called Zenni today to see how much longer I’ll have to wait for the glasses.  They said the photochromic lenses I ordered with one of the pairs require a little more time.   I will be looking at nearly three weeks waiting for the glasses.  Still, very much worth the savings if the glasses work out.  I’ll post again when I get them.

Even though I don’t have a complicated prescription, I usually go to Lenscrafters and get hit with about $500 or so for a pair of glasses and a pair of sunglasses.  

This time around, I started getting headaches and sensed I needed an eye exam.  

I vowed not to do the Lenscrafters thing again.

The optometrist gave me my prescription and measured my pupillary distance so I could order glasses online.

I went with zennioptical.com.  With their easy to use website, I ordered a pair of bendable memory titanium frames with anti-scratch and anti-glare coatings.  I also picked up a pair of black plastic frames with anti-glare, anti-scratch, and photochromic lenses (they darken in the sun).  

Total price with shipping?  Under $100.

Is it too good to be true?  I await the package in the mail.

Joshua Trevino: Dark Lord of Twitter

Star Trek was so good, it was like when she insisted that “and to obey” stay in the vows.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like the day you arm-wrestled Hitler for the Sudetenland, and won, and he returned to his art.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like that time you were at a lonely midnight bar with Elvis, Dean, Bogart, and Monroe.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like that time Superman arrived, saw you, and said, “Clearly I’m not needed here.”
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like arguing with a stranger on the Internet, and he says, “You have a valid point, and I am persuaded of it!”
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like being that kid in Transformers, only this time you get to tag along with Decepticons!
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like coming home, and Genghis Khan is there, and he says, “There’s something I have to tell you — son.”
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like having ninjas eliminate your enemies, and then you go make new enemies, so you can see the ninjas work.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like having a leopard, a rhino, a cobra and a deadly lionfish all on a leash, and taking them for a walk.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like the time you won the Pinewood Derby with a rocket-powered car, and your dad beat up the other dads.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like that time you were trapped in the Arctic with those cheerleaders, and only body heat kept you alive.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like a thousand machine guns fired by fifty mile-high robots controlled ALL BY YOU.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like Safeway selling nothing but bacon-flavored EVERYTHING.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like your mom putting you on a diet of chili dogs and Pringles — for BREAKFAST.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like a ticker tape parade for having picked up the dry cleaning.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like setting off a thousand illegal fireworks in an empty lot, and the cops arrive, and they give you a medal.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

Star Trek was so good, it was like V-J Day, and you’re in Times Square, and there’s a compliant nurse you’ve never met.
about 8 hours ago from TweetDeck

The Late, Great Jack Kemp

The year was 1988.  Jack Kemp came to my hometown, Pensacola, Florida, where Navy pilots trained and the kids hung out at the beaches with the sugar white sand.  

A friend and I were hooked on the old Crossfire with Pat Buchanan and Tom Braden/Michael Kinsley.  We identified Kemp as the best hope to continue Reagan’s reign.  

Kemp stopped at the airport just long enough to shake the hands (including mine which I considered not washing) and give a speech.  I was one of a hundred or so who came out to see him that day.  His prospects already looked shaky.  He asked us, “Do you want me to give up?”  We all shouted, “NO!”  

There could probably be a great alternate history written with the premise of Kemp being elected that year.

He lost, of course, but went on to serve in Housing and Urban Development in the Bush administration.  His many young fans held out hope his time would come.  When Dole put him on the ticket as a running mate in 1996, it seemed like destiny for those of us who thought Kemp would rejuvenate the party.  He would bring back Reaganomics.  He would break the back of monolithic African-American support for Democrats and big government.

Instead, he lost the Vice-Presidential debate to Al Gore (truly performing with less verve than Dan Quayle in 1992, who BEAT Gore!) and the GOP ticket made way for Clinton’s second term.  

After that, Kemp ceased to be the man many of us felt we were waiting for and the party has lacked a true iconic figure since that time.  There was Reagan and then there was the one who would take up Reagan’s mantle.  Kemp was supposed to be that man.

While Kemp failed to become the party’s leader (and, of course, the nation’s), his career was one of the most consequential in American politics in the second half of the twentieth century.  Kemp was a winsome evangelist for the Reagan project in Congress when the need was great.  He was part of a group that performed the near impossible in politics.  They promised.  They delivered.

Obama’s First Hundred Days . . . at HBU!

Here in Houston, the time has come to issue judgment on the first hundred days of the Obama administration.  Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, and Mike Gallagher are coming to the Dunham Theater of the Morris Cultural Arts Center at Houston Baptist University tomorrow night (Wednesday) to offer their critique of the president’s program so far.

The event is sponsored by the local conservative talker, KNTH 1070 AM and has provoked a lot of interest around the city.  We expect over 1000 Houstonians to attend, but there just might be a ticket or two left.  Here’s the link for the event.

And before the political balance police get up in arms, I would like to add the footnote that HBU is merely providing the forum to the radio station.  We did the same for the Holocaust Museum by hosting Madeline Albright several months ago.

What I’ve Had to Say Lately at Touchstone’s Mere Comments

Remembering Francis Schaeffer

Mary Ann Glendon’s Magnificent Valor

Thomas Howard’s Christ the Tiger

The Obama-Chavez Soulbrother Shake

Little Things in Everyday Life

When I first became a father, I was traumatized by the experience. There was part of me that rebelled in being tied down with such an awesome responsibility. I am thankful to God that he changed my heart and helped me accept the gift of fatherhood.

What I have discovered is that my greatest joys in life, bar none, relate to my children. Getting the right job, having an article published, making a book deal; none of those things compare to the exhilarating happiness I experience as a result of things my children do or say.

For example, I like to give my kids nicknames. My son Andrew can’t stand it. He is very strong on the rules. That means I can only call him Andrew. Not Bigstuff. Not Anderson. Not Handsome. Just Andrew. But little Grace, at age four, takes things a little more easily. We used to call her Baby Grace, then Baby G. Lately, I’ve taken to calling her Gracie-tot or Tabitha the Tot or little Tiger.

Yesterday, I picked her up in my arms and said, “I like to call you nicknames. Is that okay?”

She replied in the happiest little voice you ever heard, “Okay, Daddy. You can call me Pipsqueak. How about that?!!”

My heart melted in a pool of happiness at her goodwill, desire to please, and awesome overall cuteness.

Andrew, by the way, went to a new pediatrician with his mother yesterday. When the doctor asked Ruth whether Andrew was on a multi-vitamin, he precociously beat his mother to the punch by announcing, ” I have vitamins, but I never get to take them because Mom says I’m too late for school and I have to hurry.” He’s big on honesty.

For those of you who CHOOSE to be childless, think twice about it.  It’s true you won’t enjoy restaurants as much and your time won’t be your own.  But the emotional return on watching this little person, who really is part of you, grow up is impossible to duplicate with ski weekends or trips to Mexico.

Refining My Efforts

To the small community of dedicated readers of my personal blog,

I’m going to start using this blog for just the personal stuff.  Family stories, career developments, things like that.

The thought pieces are going to go to either Touchstone’s Mere Comments (reflections on faith), the Acton Institute blog (reflections on faith and economics/culture), or American Spectator (politics).

Thanks, all.  If you haven’t checked out the Touchstone blog and the accompanying magazine, please do.  it’s quite good.

HB

Richard John Neuhaus the Friend

I was late in receiving my Richard John Neuhaus tribute issue from First Things, so forgive my mentioning it after many have long read it.

Going through, one thing that stands out is that Richard John Neuhaus was so influential not only because of his tremendous proficiency and prolificity with words, but also because of his gift of friendship.  When great groups of friends stay together for a long time, it is often because there is one person standing at the center doing the work and exerting an almost magnetic attraction.  Neuhaus stood at the center of an incredible network of brilliant people.  That becomes clear as you read the tributes.

I had a friend like that in high school.  He made the friendships work.  We didn’t have a lot without him.  We got together recently in Chicago after twenty years apart.  The same dynamic was in place.

Stephen Barr’s tribute underlines the point:

[Neuhaus] also created a particular part of the public square that hadn’t existed before.  He created a place where a great throng of religious intellectuals, hitherto isolated from one another and often unaware of one another’s existence, could meet to share their thoughts and pool their intellectual resources.

Quite right.  And one man was brilliant at linking those people together in a culturally important way.  Who will be next?  Robert George?  Father Sirico?  I wonder . . .

Atlas Shrugged: The Film?

I’m no objectivist and Ayn Rand’s anti-Christian sentiments actually offend me quite a bit, but if the deal goes through for the Randall Wallace-helmed and written Atlas Shrugged film treatment, then I’ll be there on opening day.

Thoughts on Higher Education, Christian and Otherwise

I’ve posted a reflection on the future of higher education, with a particular emphasis on the Christian universities, over at the Touchstone Magazine Mere Comments blog. Catch it here.

Here’s a clip:

The economic downturn has had a substantial impact on colleges and universities.

The first shoe dropped when endowments everywhere took big hits from a rapidly falling market. When endowments go underwater, they produce no income and generally can’t be touched.

The other shoe will drop when we see how private colleges and universities do in terms of their student numbers for the fall. My casual conversations with peers indicates that the private schools are running behind in terms of student deposits. The buyers are not feeling flush.

The public universities, on the other hand, have their own problems. The ones that have endowments are down. They also rely on tax subsidies in a time when tax revenues are diminished. The trend of the last several years has been for states to offer less and less financial support. In-state tuition has risen substantially. Where they do not suffer is in terms of student numbers. They will be overwhelmed by bargain seekers in tough economic times. The question is whether they will have state funds to backfill the subsidized education they offer and how many they can admit. As it stands now, their facilities are often severely strained, teaching assistants do an awful lot of the instruction, and there are a large number of cattle call style courses.

Trump and Celebrities: A Beautiful Moment for the Natural Law

Last night I watched the latest episode of The Apprentice:  Celebrity Edition.  I have been pulled into the series this year largely because of the compelling finishes where The Donald lectures celebrities about their work habits and managerial ineptness.  Dennis Rodman has been a draw because of his incredibly bad behavior.

This was Dennis’ week.  His teammates chose him to be the project manager because they hoped he would rise to the challenge if he was running things.  It worked, for a short while, then he drank enough to go past caring.  First, he got angry.  Then, he absented himself from the project he was supposed to direct.

The men’s team lost, which gave rise to the beautiful moment.  Motorcycle entrepeneur and reality star Jesse James confronted Dennis Rodman with his drinking problem.  The others readily agreed with the diagnosis.  Rodman got angry and defensive, mostly offering support of his own worthiness by adverting to his NBA career which has been over for some time now.  Finally, getting nowhere, Rodman said in frustration, “I . . . I could kick all y’all’s asses.  Everyone one here.”

Now, I’m not sure that is actually true.  Jesse James, for example, was a professional bodyguard at one point.  But James didn’t respond to Rodman’s provocation with a physical challenge.  His actual reply was devastating:

“Then why don’t you kick our asses at being a good person?”

Rodman sat silent.

I called this a beautiful moment for the natural law because Jesse James put the idea out there for millions of people whether he or they realized it.  We know what a good person is.  We expect people to aspire to that AND to achieve it.

At a minimum, we expect people to be honest, to keep their promises, to be reliable, and to moderate their own behavior out of respect for others.  These are things Thomas Aquinas would say we can reason to from the premise of the social nature of man.  Rodman did none of that.  And he was kicked out.

The Philadelphia Society and New Orleans, Part II

This year’s national meeting of the Philadelphia Society was my first.  William Campbell of LSU invited me (a young-ish faculty member of Houston Baptist University) after reading a piece I wrote on libertarians and conservatives for the Acton Institute.  I am very thankful for the opportunity and enjoyed the event very much.  The list of attendees was really quite impressive and people were generally interested in and open to others.

At each meal I sat with a different group of people and found the conversation rewarding.  There was a strong sense of fellowship and collegiality.  I felt that individuals who offered divergences of opinion were treated respectfully and well.  It was, in the best sense of the word, scholarly.

However, I write to offer a suggestion.  To me, the panels shaded too much to the hall of famer/veteran side and not enough (or even at all) to rising, young talent needing an opportunity to demonstrate what they can do or what new things they have to say.  A meeting of this kind would represent a great way for the distinguished members to identify talent and then to figure out how to promote the careers of young people who can seek to build on the previous generation’s successes.

For every paper delivered by a long-standing member who is confident in what he has said and is ready to say it again, there are young people who will work their brains out for a chance to present something impressive to people they respect.  The leadership needs to figure out how to move national meetings in that direction to a greater degree.

Philadelphia Society and New Orleans, Part I

The Philadelphia Society’s New Orleans meeting has concluded.  This was my first time to be invited.  I have some impressions to report about both the society and the town.  For this post, I’ll focus on New Orleans.

If I can judge from the French Quarter and the rush hour traffic, New Orleans is back.  The downtown area was absolutely hopping and it wasn’t Mardi Gras time.  I’ve never seen an American city other than NYC with so much night life.

However, I have to admit I was taken aback by Bourbon Street.  On Saturday morning, I visited Cafe du Monde with a fellow academic who’d been a Bush appointee.  After eating our beignets, we walked along the sidewalks and were nearly flooded out by a street washing machine that literally poured soapy water all over the streets and walkways.  I wondered how often the city conducted that operation.  My guess now is every night.  By the end of Saturday, I’d seen the Quarter in operation.  You run into an awful lot of questionable liquids on the street and sidewalks.  Come morning, the wages of overindulgence (and a lot of horse droppings) need to be washed away.

I was stunned by “out there” nature of the sexually-oriented businesses in evidence.  That takes a little doing since I live in Houston which is filled with elaborate strip clubs, but there you spin rapidly by them on elevated freeways.  In New Orleans, you walk by women in lingerie standing on sidewalks and in doorways to beckon customers inside.  I imagine Times Square was like that P.G. (pre-Giuliani).

Having been to 21st century Times Square and seedy Bourbon Street.  I’ll take Times Square.  One changed for the better.  The other stayed the same.  Of course, I take into account the admonition of Thomas Aquinas that you can’t use the law to abolish all vice, lest you create a backlash of total rebellion.  Still, Rudy G. seems to have done a better job of locating the golden mean than his counterpart Ray N.

Notre Dame: Decline, Fall, and the Options

I visited Notre Dame last year at this time to meet with a few professors for the purpose of academic networking. My university was hiring and I hoped to hear about Christian doctoral students ready for their first job. As I walked across the snow-covered campus, I was a little in awe of how wonderfully the sacred space had been planned and laid out.

But when I met with one older professor who had been with the university for quite some time, he expressed a great deal of regret for how his student (the current president) was making decisions. Looking around his office, I noticed photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr. holding hands with priests protesting the injustice of segregation. I thought to myself, if this man feels something good has been lost at Notre Dame, it must truly be so.

When I heard about Notre Dame’s decision to invite President Obama to speak and receive an honorary doctorate, I could not believe it. I knew the university had liberalized. I knew many faithful Catholics felt ND had lost its way, but I also knew many fine, Christian scholars populated its offices and classrooms. How could it be that the university many of us point to when we aspire to building a great Christian academic institution would invite a president to speak and receive and honorary doctorate when he could not liberalize abortion laws quickly enough upon taking office?

Has the protection of unborn and newly born life not been a distinctive of the Christian church from the beginning? Did not the Catholic church act convincingly to remind evangelicals and others of their duties to protect life?

All I can think about as I watch this great university rushing to honor a president who considers the question of when life begins to be above his pay grade and yet who acts to liberalize the capacity to extinguish it is that Notre Dame is trading its heritage for the applause of the culture. Friend, Father Jenkins, I pray that you would consider the quality of the culture whose applause you seek.

As Walker Percy, a self-proclaimed bad Catholic who was actually a great one said, there is decline and fall and then there are the options. Choose life instead, sir. I say that to both of these presidents. One, the president of a university, and the other, a president of a nation.

Killing by Studying: The Occasional Logic of Academic Inquiry

You study what you want to undermine and critique.  That’s why we have departments of religion at universities.  That’s why Berkeley is starting a center to study “right wing movements.”

I study secularism.

The Successor to Niebuhr That Wasn’t

At the Making Men Moral conference a few weeks ago, Robert George shared the story of how Richard John Neuhaus gave up his opportunity to be the media star of mainline Protestantism in order to remain an advocate for the unborn.  Professor George has now memorialized that speech by publishing it as a column at the First Things website.

Enjoy.

And make Neuhaus your role model.

Book Confessions Meme

I rarely participate in any of this internet “tagging” but Kevin Holtsberry hit me with one I couldn’t refuse.  It’s about books and how you treat them.

1. To mark your page you: use a bookmark, bend the page corner, leave the book open face down?

I occasionally leave a book open face down, but I almost always dog-ear the corner of the page I’m on and shut the book.  When I try to do this with my six year old son’s books, he reprimands me for not using a book mark as he has been taught to do at his fascist public school. 

2. Do you lend your books?

I loan books because I want to influence people’s thoughts about the world.  I usually don’t get them back.  It’s not something I judge the human race about because it is very easy to forget you have borrowed a CD or a book.  I’m sure I have done it myself.

3. You find an interesting passage: you write in your book or NO WRITING IN BOOKS!

Not only do I write extensively in books by bracketing text, underlining text, and adding marginalia, but I also write in library books.  I know this is a vile habit which horrifies anyone I tell, but I can’t help but note places that meant something to me.  I promise I do it in a very modest and not very noticeable manner.

4. Dust jackets – leave it on or take it off.

OFF.  They are an impediment and were not made to be long for this world.  I used to remove them while reading and replace them.  Then, I started putting them in a drawer.  My wife threw them away one day.  I freaked out for several minutes and then realized, so what?

5. Hard cover, paperback, skip it and get the audio book?

Hardbacks are unnecessary for me.  I probably like the trade paperback format the most for ease of handling and reading.  Of course, I keep getting more and more interested in using the Kindle to read.

6. Do you shelve your books by subject, author, or size and color of the book spines?

I shelve them so as to get them off of other furniture and keep my wife from injuring me.  Not much rhyme or reason except that I usually isolate the mass paperbacks and keep my very favorite books downstairs in the best bookcase.
7. Buy it or borrow it from the library later?

I don’t use the library much these days.  Amazon turned me into a serious book buyer.  Especially Amazon marketplace.

8. Do you put your name on your books – scribble your name in the cover, fancy bookplate, or stamp?

I used a beautiful book embossing device that says Baker Family Library — Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.  It is a treasured gift from a friend.

9. Most of the books you own are rare and out-of-print books or recent publications?

Highly eclectic mix of books.  I am becoming averse to really old books because the dust and mildew affects as I age.

10. Page edges – deckled or straight?

Straight.  I think the rough cut book pages are just a little precious.  You have the technology to do it straight, so just do it that way.

11. How many books do you read at one time?

I frequently have multiple books going at one time.  If I am reading only one book, that is a sure sign that it is a marvelous read.

12. Be honest, ever tear a page from a book?

Are you a barbarian?  Leave me and go sack Washington, D.C.