There has been a rush to judgment. But I’m not referring to a federal jury’s decision yesterday to convict former Enron chairman Kenneth L. Lay and his protégé Jeffrey K. Skilling (see Washington Post coverage). What I am talking about is a rush to condemn President Bush along with Lay and Skilling. I was going to write an essay yesterday warning readers that partisan Democrats and their accomplices in the media would try to make the Enron convictions a political issue. But Howard Fineman of Newsweek beat me to the punch in his online column: “Kenny Boy, Meet Brownie: The conviction of Enron’s founder marks another dark moment in the…
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The South Rises Again on American Idol
I’ve already theorized in an earlier post why southerners dominate the American Idol competition. Now that Alabama-native Taylor Hicks has won, the winning streak continues. Here’s the money quote from the Washington Post: Taylor Hicks, the 29-year-old Captain K ringer from Birmingham, kept up the South’s winning streak on the most popular television show in the country (source). “Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton, Old times there are not forgotten . . .” Okay, I’ll stop gloating.
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First Human-to-Human Transmission of Bird-Flu
From the Washington Post: The outbreak in the North Sumatran village of Kubu Sembilang, was not only the largest bird flu cluster in the world but also the first in which investigators believe the virus was passed from one person to another and then to a third (source). From the New York Times: International health officials emphasized that laboratory tests from the family did not suggest that the A(H5N1) bird flu virus had mutated in any way that would allow it to spread among humans more readily, which scientists have said could set off a devastating worldwide pandemic (source). We will be watching this story very closely.
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Dixie Chicks Abandoning Dixie
My wife and I are fans of the Dixie Chicks–at least when they are not saying things that are so over-the-top offensive that we feel like joining the boycott. As many of you know, the Dixie Chicks have been on the outs with their fan-base ever since Natalie Maines zinged President Bush during a concert in London in 2003. But when I talk about offensive rhetoric, I am not talking about their politics. What I am talking about is reflected in some recent comments by Martie Maguire:
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Brian McLaren: DaVinci Code Not As Dangerous as Left Behind
When the doctor tells you that the blood gushing from your severed artery isn’t nearly as dangerous as your athlete’s foot, you know you’ve got an incompetent physician, and it’s time to get a new one. We don’t put ourselves under the care of those who can’t distinguish life-threatening conditions from benign ones. On the contrary, we fire them. Likewise, no one should subject themselves to the leadership of pastors who cannot distinguish damning doctrinal errors from non-damning ones. The more I hear from Pastor Brian McLaren, the more I fear he is not competent to be a leader of God’s people. Recently, he commented on the error-ridden The DaVinci…
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Gene Veith on Patrick Henry College Shake-up
Gene Veith, incoming Academic Dean at Patrick Henry College and culture editor at WORLD magazine, has written a fitting epilogue to the media maelstrom surrounding the faculty shake-up at Patrick Henry College: “Patrick Henry College makes the news.”I wrote about this shake-up earlier this week and wondered what was really going on at PHC. Dr. Veith clarifies some things that were anything but clear in the intitial reports that I read. You should read Veith’s piece. (HT: John Divito)
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Peggy Noonan for Hire? Bush Needs Her Again.
Readers of my blog know that I love Peggy Noonan’s column in the Wall Street Journal. She took a break from writing her column in 2004 in order to help President Bush get re-elected. I really think that he could use her advice again now.Noonan hits another homerun in her commentary today on President Bush’s immigration speech, and I hope that the President and his administration are listening. Her main critique is that the President didn’t really address the issue with the seriousness that his base is calling for. She writes: What was needed was a definitive statement: “As of this moment we will control our borders, I’m sending in…
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Veni Vidi Vici DaVinci
A recent British survey has found that The DaVinci Code undermines faith. According to the survey, people who have read The DaVinci Code “are twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect” (source).The tragic thing about this survey is not the troubling reality that people clearly don’t know how to distinguish fictional genres from historical ones. The tragic thing is that an error in this particular case is damning. The single biggest question that any person will every have to come to grips with is “Who is Jesus?” Dan Brown’s manifestly fictional…
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Calvinism a Problem at Patrick Henry College
Well, if you read my last post, I ended by saying that I look forward to hearing more of the story of what’s going on with the faculty departures at Patrick Henry College. According to Christianity Today, at least one of the reasons for tension between the faculty and the President was Calvinism. [President] Farris, a Baptist minister, has publicly expressed views that have shocked some professors and students. “He said St. Augustine was in hell,” said [Professor] Root. “I heard it with my own ears.” Other professors and students said Farris has repeatedly disparaged Calvinist theology. “There is a sense that you face antagonism as someone who is theologically…
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Faculty Shake-up at Patrick Henry College
Strange things are afoot at the Circle K . . . oops, I meant Patrick Henry College. According to the LA Times, one professor was fired and three others resigned in protest. One of the exiting professors was Todd Bates, former professor at Criswell College where I teach.The LA Times writes: Patrick Henry College, the small evangelical Christian school founded six years ago to train students for careers in public life, gained national prominence for placing many students in White House internships and other government positions. Now five of the school’s 16 faculty members have left, saying the school’s approach is too doctrinaire to prepare students for the realities of…