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Media bias

Don’t read the news, read a book!

No, you’re not paranoid, the media really is out to get Christians. In his book How the News Makes Us Dumb, C. John Sommerville argues that news by its very nature is incapable of portraying Christians (or any conservatives) positively.

He also insists that reading the daily news is bad for our brains, and that news media is beyond repair. Instead of reading the news, Sommerville wants people to stay informed by reading books.

Fluff, fluff and more fluff

But how could following the news make us dumb? The news is filled with important events from around the world. Shouldn’t we know stuff like that?

There are a few reasons to think, no, it isn't important at all. As Sommerville notes, “Important people don’t like to be in the news.” The people out there actually getting things done don’t have time to deal with the press. Celebrities on the other hand, love to be covered, and so they are. Instead of leaders of industry we hear all about TV and movie stars. We might watch the news to keep abreast of important issues, but all too often we hear celebrity gossip instead. Our brains grow fat and flabby hearing about President Trump's latest tweet or Beyonce's latest publicity stunt.

Our daily dose of news is also time consuming. Many of us feel compelled to read or watch the news daily but we don’t feel the same compulsion for daily study in other fields like science, history, or sometimes even the Bible! How many people spend as much time on their Bible study as their news intake?

The daily nature of news also undermines its importance. News doesn’t occur regularly; it occurs in erratic spurts. However, reporters have to provide news on a daily or even hourly basis, even if nothing is happening. Busy news day or not, a newspaper will still have to be delivered the next day, and the evening news will still have to last a full hour. So a story that was too insignificant to broadcast one day can suddenly become the lead story on a slow day. It wasn't important 24-hours ago, but now it's trumpeted as something we absolutely need to know.

You’ll also never hear life’s big questions, the really important ones, answered on the news. Why are we all here? What does it all mean? The important questions in life are simply beyond 20-second sound bites, and 400-word articles.

Novelty-focus is inherently anti-Christian

Of course, if the media ever did answer the big questions they would put themselves out of work. Why would anyone tune in the next day? And so instead of focussing on important matters, the media focuses on change.

It’s this focus on change that makes the media unavoidably anti-Christian. Churches that have held steadfastly to the word of God, and haven’t changed, don’t appear anywhere in our news. The churches making radical changes – ordaining homosexual priests, or denying the existence of God, or endorsing transsexuality – these churches can even make the headlines.

Of course, this bias isn’t aimed specifically at the churches. It is actually a broader anti-conservative bias. Conservatives, by their very nature want to conserve, and preserve things the way they are. Conservatives don’t like change. By focusing on change the media has turned itself into an anti-conservative organization. This is one of the reasons why Sommerville thinks the media is beyond repair.

Entertainment, not information

Many news broadcasts end with a feel-good story about some lost puppy finding their way home, or maybe a story about a panda birth at the zoo. We all recognize the entertainment nature of this type of new s, but do we recognize that even hard news has the same entertainment focus?

Just think about how the media reports scandals. Day after day we hear just a little bit more, but we never hear it all. Sommerville calls it news as a “striptease.” He notes that, “the last thing news people want to do is end a good story….The longer it takes the more news gets sold.” And when there is nothing new to report, the investigation itself often becomes the story. Sommerville blames us for this type of feeding frenzy mentality. He says if we really just wanted the truth we would wait for the investigation to conclude and then read a book about it.

Why a book? Because a book has the space to provide the depth that the news media misses. The daily nature of media means they can’t offer real analysis because they don’t have the time. Sommerville offers a number of contrasting headlines throughout his book to make this point (these are old examples, but familiar newspapers):

"Prosperity Eludes Grenada 5 Years After Invasion” – Washington Post, Oct. 25, 1988
“5 Years Later, Grenada Is Tranquil and Thriving” – New York Times, same day

“In Autos, U.S., Makes Strides” – New York Times, March 24, 1989
“U.S. Vehicle Sales Are Sluggish” – same paper, same day

“Scores on College Entrance Tests Fall” – Wall Street Journal, Sept. 12, 1989
“SAT Scores End ‘80s Up” – USA Today same day
“Minority Students Gain on College Entrance Tests” – New York Times, same day
“SAT Scores Take Dip for Women, Minorities” – Westchester-Rockland Daily News, same day

Which of these media outlets got it right? If you’re relying on them to keep you informed – if you’re relying on their analysis – then you’re obviously in trouble.

Instant analysis is going to be hit and miss

The emphasis on immediacy and up-to-the-minute reports guarantees that news will be over-hyped. Remember the Ebola outbreak in 2014? It was constant coverage for months as the media explored what might happen if Ebola broke out in North America. In total, two people on this continent died. But the constant and terrifying coverage kept people tuned into their news feeds.

The need for speed also leads to the use of shorter words in headlines. Sommerville uses the example of the word “cut” (as in “Budget Cut”) in his book. It’s a short word, and it gets the reader’s attention but it doesn’t always mean what the reader thinks. Some cuts are merely lower than average increases!

When we consider how many people now get their news just from reading headlines, the ambiguity these short words add to headlines really “cuts” into the actual information we receive.

The harm done

All these problems undermine the informative nature of news, but can watching or reading the news actually harm us?

Well, we’ve already seen how the media’s focus on change promotes anti-Christian ideals. The same holds true when the media pretends to be unbiased. All these panel discussions with one person "for" and another person there to represent the "against." There can be a benefit to having two people on opposites sides debate an issue (Prov. 18:17). Just imagine what would result if we had a pro-choice and pro-life representative really debate the issue of abortion. Lies could be exposed, the truth could be presented – wouldn't that be wonderful! But the segments we see on the nightly news don't allow the time for any sort of fruitful discussion. What we see is simply quarreling – fighting for fighting's sake (or, rather, for entertainment's sake) – which God warns us against (2 Tim 2:23-24, Prov. 20:3). This is a reason why reading books is a better idea. In a book we have the space to really explore an issue, and have the truth come out.

If the media was truly unbiased it would seek the truth; instead it seeks disagreement. And in doing so, in pitting two sides against one, giving them equal time, they leave the impression that the two viewpoints are both valid, and that there is no absolute truth. This again is in direct opposition to our Christian worldview.

The news media also hurt our governments. While the media likes to promote itself as a watchdog carefully monitoring the government for us, the truth is quite different. An effective government that goes about its business and doesn’t change too much, and doesn’t hand out much money will never make the news…until they mess up something. Then they’ll make the news but for all the wrong reasons. Voters will hear about the scandal, but they won’t know anything about all the quiet good the government has done in the past.

To counter this negative publicity the government will become more inclined to change things and start handing out money. And if they hand out enough money, and pass enough laws, maybe the public will forget about the scandal.

And so the media, by their very nature, encourage big interfering governments.

Conclusion

When I started reading Sommerville’s How the News Makes Us Dumb, I was also reading four newspapers a day. That didn’t leave me with much time to read anything else so it took me almost three weeks to read the first half of the book. At the halfway mark I cut down to only one paper a day and managed to finish the book in another couple of days.

I’m still a news addict, so I still check out the news online every day, but by cutting down my news intake I have found more time to read better material. Sommerville also forced me to evaluate the news I do read in a much more critical light. I would recommend his book as a must read for anyone addicted to their daily dose of news.

A version of this article was first published in 2000, under the headline, "Don't read a newspaper, read a book." And yes, the author does realize the irony of writing an article that encourages readers to read less articles. This is a follow-up to Michael Medved's article Don't watch the news, read it!

Full Article

Transgenderism

You think feelings can redefine reality? What if I told you I feel like they don’t?

Transgenderism

A is A…except when it wants to be S?

The transsexual debate and the death of logic “Hi A. It is A, isn’t it? I hardly recognized you there. It’s B. Remember me? How are you doing?�...

Pornography

FIGHT! A message from the most porn-riddled country in the world

Christian education, Indigenous peoples

No other gods

The Truth & Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action #64 is a challenge to Christian churches and schools… and the First Commandment **** ...

Indigenous peoples, Politics

Looking at two more of the TRC’s Calls to Action

The goal of Canada's Indian Residential Schools – which were run by churches along with the government – was to educate, but also convert and civilize Native children, replacing their culture with a Western one. Starting in 1884, school became compulsory for Native children under 16, and when a local school wasn’t available Native children would often be forcibly taken from their families and sent to these boarding schools. In other instances families were threatened with fines or prison if they didn’t send their children. This practice left the children on their own, away from any family or trusted adults they could turn to for help. That left them especially vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse. For six years, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" (TRC) traveled across Canada to hear from former students of the schools. More than 6,500 were heard, and their testimony collected. The Commission also issued 94 calls to action, all of which the Liberal government agreed to. But not all of these recommendations were of the same quality. In his article "No other gods," Mark Penninga highlights how #64 would require Christian schools to promote native spirituality. That isn't the only one that's got problems. But lest readers think they are all problematic, I wanted to list one more bad one, but also highlight one that could be great. The bad: #6 Of the Commission’s 94 recommendations some are simply wrong. For example, #6: "We call upon the Government of Canada to repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada." This is the section that specifically grants parents a defense when they use “reasonable force to discipline a child” – this is a legal recognition of parents’ right to spank their children. The reason the Commission is calling for an end to spanking is likely because of the physical abuse some Native children suffered in the schools. But in making this recommendation they are overlooking the vast gulf that exists between beating up a child and spanking one. The good: #81 One of the best recommendations might be #81, to make a monument to remember the evil done to these children and their families. "We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with Survivors and their organizations, and other parties to the Settlement Agreement, to commission and install a publicly accessible, highly visible, Residential Schools National Monument in the city of Ottawa to honour Survivors and all the children who were lost to their families and communities." We want our country and especially our legislators to be continually confronted with the horror that the government committed in stealing children from their parents to teach them values their parents opposed. In Ontario right now the government is pushing forward on their proposed and hotly opposed Sex-Ed curriculum. Those in power are still eager to force their worldview on other people’s children. So let’s build a monument, make it huge, and place it somewhere in Ottawa that legislators will walk past every day. Stealing and indoctrinating children remains a temptation for lawmakers, so they need to be reminded of past wrongs in the hope that this memory will restrain them from committing future evils....

Pro-life - Abortion

An Emergency Room is not the Church

Why “We Need a Law” doesn’t talk about the Gospel but you should ***** One of the questions ARPA Canada has received most often pertains to the promise of the Gospel and how it fits in with the mission of its We Need A Law (WNAL) campaign. The question comes in different variations but usually goes something like this: “Why is there no reference on the WNAL website to God?” or, “If we do manage to get an abortion law but people’s hearts aren’t changed, is it really worth it?” Perhaps you’ve thought about these issues yourself. Not our goal This is a good question. Should we include a Gospel presentation in our communication? The decision not to include references to Christianity and the Bible in the majority of WNAL communications has been intentional. Canada is no longer a Judeo-Christian country. We are a pluralistic nation made up of many different worldviews. While this slide away from Scripture is lamentable, and many (most?) hearts of Canadians are turned away from God, there remain opportunities to save the lives of pre-born children right now. The mission of WNAL is to build a groundswell of support among all Canadians for legislation that protects pre-born children to the greatest extent possible. So the reason we aren’t quoting Scripture is because we may be working with people who hate God, but who are still (strangely perhaps) willing to join with us in supporting laws that save the children of the needy and rescue them from oppression and violence (Ps. 72). Though they hate God, they are willing to help us who are striving to rescue those precious in His sight. Consider a Christian nurse in a hospital emergency room. When a patient arrives in need of immediate medical intervention she carries out the necessary tasks to help the patient. She doesn’t share the Gospel at this point, because there are other tasks to do. If an opportunity arises later whereby she can share the Gospel – it might be with the patient in recovery or the concerned family members after the operation – she should embrace it. Her primary task may be to save lives and not souls but she may not intentionally avoid confessing the name of Christ. You can insert any example you would like – a construction worker, accountant, lawyer, farmer, etc. As followers of Jesus and members of the Church we all have an awesome responsibility to share His truths in everything we do. But while we all have that individual responsibility to evangelize, that is not, and need not, be the goal of every organization we are part of. Spreading the Gospel is an organizational goal of the Church. But making good bread is the goal – or, at least, the main goal – of a Christian-owned bakery. And saving lives is the main goal of a hospital emergency room. Finally, saving unborn babies lives is the primary goal of We Need A Law. All are worthy, God-honouring goals. And all are goals we can work together with non-Christians to accomplish. A natural segue to the Gospel This is not to say that the message of salvation in Jesus cannot be incorporated into the WNAL campaign. As we carry out our mission many opportunities to share the Gospel do arise. I would submit that by virtue of standing up for justice and truth about our pre-born neighbors WNAL is already sharing nuggets of the truth. But there are always opportunities to share more. The reality is that, quite naturally, conversations evolve into discussions about the motivations for our efforts, the intrinsic value of all human beings, the Imago Dei (all humans having been made in the image of God), and other moral truths. However, those opportunities will arise most often at the personal level by the thousands of people tied into our campaign as they interact with others. Allow me a few examples as to how that can be done. The flag displays which started in Ottawa and are now being put up at dozens of locations throughout Canada are a great way to offer hope in Christ, especially when put up on church lawns. What better place to speak of both the truth about abortion and the truth of repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation in Jesus! This could be done by way of signs, tracts and most importantly, through personal conversations with those who come out to witness at the display. This year we are going to facilitate a lawn sign campaign. There is a federal election scheduled for the fall and we want the topic of pre-born human rights to become part of the narrative of this election. A sign on your front lawn is sure to get the community talking. When your neighbour asks you what the sign is all about, then you have just received an open invitation to share the Gospel. You could say something like, “Well Bob, as you know I am a Christian and that compels me to stand against injustices in the world. Did you know that abortion is legal throughout an entire pregnancy in Canada?” Another response could be, “Good question Sarah. Because I am a Christian I need to speak up for those who have no voice. Were you aware that only North Korea, China and Canada allow abortion up to the moment of birth?” Consider this a challenge – go get yourself a lawn sign. Here is one more example of how the Gospel can easily be integrated with the campaign message of WNAL. We regularly ask people to send an email to their MP or MLA. We make it really easy through our online SimpleMail technology. Though the letters are prepared for you in advance, these letters can be customized. There is no reason why you can’t edit these letters to beautifully reflect God’s care and providence in creating new life and how he demands we protect it (see Ps. 139 and Ex. 20). Conclusion In summary, it is not the mission of the WNAL campaign to evangelize Canadians. That mission is the responsibility of each of us as individuals and collectively as Church. May God be pleased to use our weak efforts as a part of WNAL to build support for laws that move us closer to ending the horrific barbarism and cruel injustice of abortion. May He also use us as Church members to present the Gospel of forgiveness and hope to those who are damaged and hurting because of this injustice. To find out more, like how you can get your own WNAL lawn sign, visit www.weneedalaw.ca. ...

Homosexuality

One in ten? Alfred Kinsey’s most famous lie

Even if you haven’t heard of Alfred Kinsey you probably have heard about one of his key “findings” – that 10% of all people are homosexual. Dr. Judith Reisman (in her book Kinsey: Crimes & Consequences, 1998) asks, “who, indeed, today has not heard the mantra that homosexuals make up 10 percent of the US population?” She points out that the 10% figure is based “on Kinsey’s authority alone.” In fact, “Kinsey claimed to prove that homosexuals represented between 10% and 37% of all males.” How did Kinsey arrive at such a figure? It was simple. He deliberately set out to interview a large number of homosexuals to include in his database of human sexual behavior. During the 1940s, when he was conducting his research, this was no easy feat. Back in those days homosexuality was considered shameful, and many states in the USA had laws forbidding such conduct. Therefore Kinsey and his associates had to make a special effort to contact the homosexual enclaves that existed in large American cities in order to be able to solicit interviews with homosexuals. They were very successful, and hundreds of homosexual case histories were included in Kinsey’s data. In fact, the large number of homosexuals in Kinsey’s data meant that they were clearly over represented in relation to the normal population. Thus it was inescapable that the frequency of homosexuality would be exaggerated in Kinsey’s findings. And this is exactly what Kinsey intended. Reisman puts it succinctly: “Much of Kinsey’s work is designed to advance several revolutionary notions about homosexuality: that secret homosexuality was relatively commonplace; that most normal Americans hypocritically and secretly engaged in illicit sex of various kinds including homosexuality; that people were commonly bisexual meaning they were both homosexual and heterosexual; thus prejudice against homosexuality was hypocritical and based on ignorance of normal sexual behavior; and children and adults should experience and experiment with both their homosexual and heterosexual sides. Kinsey’s “research” was definitely agenda-driven and meant to normalize sexual perversion and overturn traditional morality. Among other things, he wanted to advance the cause of homosexuality. This purpose could be served by convincing people that homosexuality was relatively common. Thus he produced the figure that 10% of the population was homosexual, and it has been the generally accepted figure since then. But it is certainly not true. This was first published in the March 2015 issue....

Christian education - Sports, Theology

God and the 2014-15 Seattle Seahawks

All about God’s sovereignty, Man’s free will, and American football ***** When the editor suggested I write a piece about American Football, I was a little taken aback. Firstly, this did seem like an odd subject for a magazine like Reformed Perspective. “But still,” I thought, “I suppose we can hardly claim on the one hand that Christ is Lord over all of life, then on the other hand rule American Football as being off-limits.” The second reason was even more fundamental. I’m a Brit. And not a Brit that has any love, let alone knowledge of American Football. In fact, I’ll put my cards on the table right now: the game has about as much fascination for me as the game of cricket probably has to the average US Football fan – that is to say none whatsoever. So I was relieved as I read through the editor’s request to find that the American Football bit was somewhat incidental, and I was not being asked to spend hours watching old Giants vs. 49ers games on YouTube. Rather, the request was to try and make some sort of sense of comments made by Russell Wilson, the Seattle Seahawks quarterback, after his side’s victory over the Green Bay Packers in January (2015), which sent Seattle to the Superbowl. The most improbable of comebacks For those not familiar with what happened, with less than four minutes left in the game and trailing 19-7, the Seahawks staged a dramatic recovery, tying the game to take it into overtime, before going on to win 28-22. What was especially amazing was that the Seahawks’ quarterback, Russell Wilson, went from playing one of the worst games of his life, throwing four interceptions, to scoring three touchdowns in the game’s final 6 minutes. Wilson then caused a stir with his post-match comments when he was asked to explain how his team has gone from being down and out without any hope to being victorious a few minutes later: "That's God setting it up, to make it so dramatic, so rewarding, so special." Of course, this set the whole Twittersphere afluttering with many ridiculing his claim. It also set off a series of articles on the web with titles like, “Does God play a role in picking the winning team?” What are our options? So what should we make of Wilson’s comments? I think we have to break our answer into two parts, one of which deals with the general question of God’s relationship with His creation, and the other which deals with the more specific question of whether He intervened in this particular instance. The first and more general question is basically a question about the nature of God’s sovereignty, and I think the best way to look at this is to examine all the other possible answers that could have been given as to whether God really did intervene to make the match so dramatic. These positions are: God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because there is no God. God has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He does not deal directly with the created order. Although God is sovereign, He has nothing to do with Seattle Seahawks games because He could care less about US Football. God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, and so when Wilson threw his interceptions, that was because of God’s direct “interception.” God has everything to do with Seattle Seahawks games, foreordaining their results, yet he does so in such a way that does not involve the kind of direct intervention Wilson suggests We can further categorize these positions as follows: God is in control of nothing because he is not there (Atheistic). God created the universe, winding it up like a watch, and then left it to its own devices (Deistic) God has created the universe, but He is only interested in “spiritual things” (Pietistic) God is sovereign and controls everything that happens, to the extent that no-one has free will (Ultra Sovereignty) God is sovereign and is involved in everything, yet in such a way that man has liberty to act and to make choices (Sovereignty) Narrowing it down I trust that readers of Reformed Perspective can see that both the first two positions are highly illogical, not to mention unbiblical. It is highly illogical to believe that something came from nothing – and by that I really mean nothing: no time, no space, no matter – not to mention also believing that the something was then capable of organizing and sustaining itself into an amazingly complex order. It is also highly irrational to believe that a creator would go to the trouble of creating an amazingly complex order, only to walk away with total disinterest, leaving it to itself. What of position three? It actually turns out to be quite odd, since it refutes the very claim it makes. Those who hold to this position tend to be loud about the “sovereignty of God,” yet they then extend this sovereignty to include about 0.000000001% of the universe that God created. Well, if God is sovereign, He is sovereign over all creation and so the idea that He cares nothing for certain parts of His creation – especially “physical things” – is a denial of His sovereignty. What of positions four and five? They actually share many things in common. Both agree that God is sovereign over all things, including Seattle Seahawks games. Both agree that God foreordains the results of Seahawks games. Both agree that God upholds all the players involved and without this the game could not have been played, let alone played out so dramatically. Yet the difference is that whilst the fourth point understands this to mean that God controls everything, down to the last interception, and so basically micromanages His creation, which seems to me to be closer to Greek fatalism than biblical Christianity, the fifth view understands this in a way that retains God’s sovereignty, but also insists on man’s “free will.” Personally I take the fifth view to be the correct one. Free will?!? I realize that this might spook some readers. “We don’t have free will,” some might say, “as we lost it in the Fall.” My response is as follows. What we lost when Adam sinned was communion with God, righteousness, holiness and spiritual life, so that we need to be saved, and have no free will to choose salvation. We are by nature dead in trespasses and sins – as dead spiritually as Lazarus in the grave was physically – and as you know, dead people can’t bring themselves to life. However, this is not the same as saying that we lost our ability to make choices in all other areas of life, though of course those choices will be dictated by our sinful hearts. So as I sit here typing, did God foreordain it? Yes. Am I doing it out of free will? Yes. This seems impossible and counter-intuitive, but then He is an "impossible and counter-intuitive" God. Here is how chapter three of the Westminster Confession puts it: "God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." This is a grand and frankly amazing statement. The God it presents is infinitely bigger than our imaginations can grasp. Look at it like this. Can you imagine a God who sets up the world and then gives perfect free will to his creatures so that He doesn’t know what is going to happen next and can’t control it? Yes, I can easily imagine Him. What about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, and does so by micro-managing every single detail to the nth degree? Yep, I can get my head around Him too. But what about a God who unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, yet does so without infringing on the liberty of His creatures to make choices of their own “free will”? I must confess that I am unable to comprehend such a God, or to understand how this is possible, but then again I have no understanding of how a universe can be spoken into existence either, or how the eternal Son of God can become a baby. Such things are too high for me, and I accept them by faith. What I am suggesting is that God is neither a deist God who is uninvolved in His creation, nor a pietistic God who is sovereign over a tiny portion of His creation, nor is He a micromanager who manages every aspect of it in the kind of minute details we understand by micromanaging. Rather, He is in sovereign control, upholds everything by the Word of His mouth, foreordains all things, yet does so in such a way that He is not in the business of micromanaging Russell Wilson’s passes. Conclusion But moving on to the second question, couldn’t He do that if He wanted? Doesn’t God intervene in His creation? Of course He does, and the Bible is full of instances of His interventions in human affairs. But the question is not whether He can intervene, but rather did He intervene in this specific instance? The question here hinges to a large extent on just how much priority God puts on the results of American Football games. Now as someone who upholds the sovereignty of God in everything, and the Lordship of Christ over everything, I understand that God cares about all of His creation and this includes American Football. But is this the same as saying that He cares about it to the extent that He is prepared to intervene to “change the result” and give the watching audience a good time? Emphatically no. Pietists (number three in the positions mentioned above) often want to reduce the things God cares about to “spiritual things” such as salvation, worship, prayer and Bible-reading, with everything else reduced to nought. Then over in the other ditch, there are others who want to flatten everything to make out that God cares for all things equally. This is not so. Just as we hierarchies of importance in our lives, it is fairly clear from the Bible that God has hierarchies of interest and importance. Yes, He is interested in American Football, in that He created the players, gave them the ability to play what is essentially a perfectly okay game (well cricket is better of course), and in that He calls on man to do things with all their might and for the glory of God. However, this is not the same as saying that He is interested enough in it to intervene in a game to make the game more exciting and give everyone a good time (except of course for Green Bay fans). In conclusion, though God cares about His entire creation, and though He ordained the surprising events and the result in the match between the Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, I think Russell Wilson would have a hard time making a Scriptural case that God intervenes directly in such matters. This was originally published in the March 2015 issue under the title "God and the Seahawks."...

Theology

How are we to read the Bible?

From January 16 to 18, in 2014, the Canadian Reformed Theological Seminary hosted a conference on the topic of hermeneutics. It's a big word, but the...

Being the Church

Laughter in the pews

My mother has a wise saying, one of many I might add, that if you go to church faithfully, you'll experience lots of interesting things. And she wasn'...

Christian education - Sports

Is the good foul good? Playing basketball a different way

Education

Home education - a way of life

"I get to help bake bread!" "Jason, can I read to you while you paint?" "Let's invite somebody over today. We can make cream puffs." Another day has b...

Economics

If strikes are bad can unions be good?

I grew up hearing horror stories about unions but little else. Unions were bad because union members threw bottles and sticks at their opposition. Later on I found that unions often supported political parties that favored abortion. There was more harsh criticism when a teacher's union went on strike, demanding more money and holding the students for ransom. Unions were bad because their actions were bad. But is it possible to have a good union, even a Christian union? What if such a Christian union took a stand against picket line violence, didn't support political parties, and didn't strike? Would there be a place for this type of union? Maybe. Is there such a union now? No. The Christian Labour Association of Canada (CLAC) almost fits the bill. It's certainly against picket line violence, and doesn't support any political parties. That already elevates it above almost every other union but the CLAC is better than other unions in still other ways. Secular unions' are condemned in most Reformed circles for several reasons, including: Many require an oath of allegiance promising unconditional obedience to the principles of that union's constitution. Christians can't promise this type of obedience to anyone or anything besides God. Secular unions promote a class struggle between employers and employees, as if the two were natural enemies. Whereas the Bible instructs us to love our neighbor as ourselves, these unions encourage animosity between owners and their employees. The idea of a class struggle between the rich class and the poor class is accepted as inevitable by these unions (Karl Marx also thought it was inevitable). Unions strike. In contrast the CLAC recognizes God's supremacy and encourages a cooperative environment between employer and employee. Instead of advocating a class struggle they repeatedly emphasize respect and cooperation. But while the CLAC differs from most unions in these respects, it still shares the other unions' willingness to go on strike. They go on strike a lot less often, but they still go on strike. So the question is, can Christians go on strike? What Are Strikes? Employees have always had the ability to leave their jobs when they're unhappy with either the working conditions or their salaries. All they have to do is quit. When employees strike, however, they leave their jobs and prevent anyone else from taking them. They retain a claim to their job even as they vacate it. There is also a coercive element to strikes. They are designed to force employers to capitulate to employee demands. And what's wrong with that? The first problem is the harm caused by just such a strike. Whenever a business is shut down by a strike the people who have come to depend on that business suffer. The most obvious example is a teacher's strike, where the students suffer, but the same thing happens no matter what type of business is involved. A strike at a tire manufacturer will hurt (and maybe even shutdown) the automaker that's dependent on that tire supplier. The striking workers hurt innocent third parties. I once heard a union representative argue that there was no such thing as innocent third parties. He reasoned that if company B bought supplies from company A because of A's good price, and A had a good price because he unjustly underpaid his workers, then B was at least partially responsible for this injustice. B was encouraging injustice by supporting an unjust employer and so B would only get what he deserved if he was hurt by a strike at company A. This whole argument hinges on the union representative's idea of justice. He thought it was unjust to underpay workers. It might very well be, but who exactly is supposed to decide what a just wage is? Is $5 just? How about $10? Obviously it depends on the type of work. A McDonald's employee can't expect to get paid as much as computer engineer. But still the question remains, exactly how do you determine a just wage for these two positions? Wages, just or not, were at one time determined by free enterprise ideas of supply and demand. The lower the supply of qualified workers, and the higher the demand for those workers, the higher the wage would be. And vice versa. So an entry-level unskilled position at McDonald's, a position anyone could fill, receives a low wage, and a highly skilled, sought after computer engineer makes hundreds of thousands. On a basic level this seems fair, and even just to most people. We can clearly understand why some people are paid more and others are paid less. Skilled people get paid more and people in unpopular jobs get paid more because they are skilled, and because they are willing to do jobs no one else will. But when unions are thrown into the mix things get a bit peculiar. Have you ever wondered why mailmen get paid so much? Well back in the good old days of my father's youth (long, looooong ago) they weren't paid much more than an entry-level wage. After all, it didn't take a lot of brains to deliver mail, (really, how different is it from what your paperboy does?), so the post office didn't have to offer a high wage to attract employees. But then unions got involved and someone decided that mail delivery wasn't an entry-level position, it was a career. Minimum wage obviously wasn't good enough for a career position (perhaps it was even called unjust) so with the help of a number of strikes the union managed to substantially increase their workers wages. And they managed to substantially increase the cost of mail too. But why did their wages increase? Only because the union decided their jobs were career positions, not entry level. The union decided, and it had nothing to do with justice or fairness. And when steel workers, or grocery store clerks go on strike for another 25 cents an hour, it again is simply a union decision, and it has absolutely nothing to do with justice. Any attempt to link pay increases to justice is simply rhetoric meant to disguise the harm being done to the truly innocent third parties. And that's what's wrong with strikes. Strikes hurt third parties, not to further the cause of justice, but to further the striking workers' own welfare. The striking workers are thinking only of themselves. Non-striking Unions? Selfishness is only one problem with strikes. The coercive nature of strikes, where the employees try to bring their employer to his knees, isn't exactly in keeping with a Biblical theme. But if strikes are bad can unions be good? Yes, because unions don't have to go on strike. As mentioned before, employees have always had the option of quitting their jobs if they were unsatisfied with either the working conditions or the wages. If employees didn't have this ability they would be little more than slaves. Now, if a certain employer decides to pay unreasonably low wages, this non-striking union could advise its members to quit and seek employment in more profitable fields. But that isn't all such a union could do. As it stands now the CLAC already has a retraining center for employees who have lost their jobs. The center is paid for with union dues, and is used to retrain workers for new jobs usually with their same company. This center could be used to train employees to find new jobs in new fields of employment with other companies. Then when an employer decided to be unreasonable, his workers wouldn't be limited to just the jobs he was offering, at the unreasonable wage he was offering. If he wanted to retain them, he would have to start paying them a reasonable amount. A naïve dream? Perhaps a bit...but all the good dreams are....

Science - General

Star gazing and star guessing

The night sky has always fascinated mankind. Ancient people were able to identify many constellations and follow their annual paths across the sky. In the oldest, perhaps, book in the Bible, God asks Job if the latter has any influence in the sky. "Can you bind the chains of Pleiades or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season and guide the Bear with her satellites?" (Job 38:31). Already in an earlier chapter we were informed that it is God who made all these objects. Even today the Pleiades and the Hyades (open star clusters in the constellation Taurus or the Bull) are interesting to astronomers. The Hyades are considered to constitute the nearest moderately rich star cluster. As a result, these stars have been assigned a central role in calibrating a measuring stick in space. The procedure has been to compare objects of unknown distance with an object of known distance. By means of mathematical equations the unknown distance can generally be calculated. For example, if star A is a known distance away, then it is easy to calculate how far it is to an equally energetic star that appears to be dimmer. The distance to the latter star is proportional to the reduced light that we perceive from that star. The problem is how ever that astronomers do not actually know how energetic (bright) a star is, if they do not know its distance. Bad Guesses It is evident that we must know the distance to a source of light before that we can estimate how energetically that body is emitting light or in other words how bright it actually is. For example, a flashlight, an airplane and a star may all look equally bright to an observer. If they were all located an equal distance away from the observer however, dramatic differences would be apparent. Indeed, as astronomer Michael Perryman remarks, "Almost everything in astronomy depends in some way on knowing star distances. This is particularly true of the cosmic distance scale extending out to the farthest galaxies and quasars. And the cosmic distance scale determines how well we know the true sizes, brightness, and energy outputs of nearly everything in the universe" (Sky and Telescope, June 1999 p. 42). In view of the importance of the initial measuring stick, one would hope that astronomers have based their calculations on very reliable numbers for the distance to the Hyades, their base point. This however has not been the case. As Dr. Perryman confides, "Many creative methods have been brought to bear on the Hyades distance problem over the last 100 years - with tantalizingly discordant results. This has been quite frustrating for a cluster so close" (p. 45). Yet William J. Kaufmann II wrote in the 1994 edition of his text: "Because the distance to the Hyades cluster is the most accurately determined of all stellar distances, it provides the basis upon which all other astronomical distances are determined" (Universe, Fourth Edition, p. 341). Dr. Kaufmann felt complacent enough, at the time, to assure us concerning the state of astronomy, that "In recent years, a remarkably complete picture has emerged, offering insight into our relationship with the universe as a whole and our place in the cosmic scope of space and time" (p. 337). Some observers might have suggested that Dr. Kaufmann couch his remarks in more cautious terms. Better Results The complacency of astronomers has however been somewhat shaken by data released in 1997. In 1989 the European Space Agency (ESA) had launched a satellite called Hipparcos (an acronym for High Precision Parallax Collecting Satellite). This device was designed to use trigonometry to directly measure distances to the closest stars. The data have proved very interesting and there have been plenty of surprises. The good news is that accurate distances (to within ten percent of the true value) have been achieved for more than 22,000 stars. Previously, such results were possible only for several hundred stars. These stars all lie within three hundred light years of Earth. Another 30,000 stars have been measured to within twenty percent of their true value. Such numbers represent a cornucopia of information. The measurements made by the Hipparcos satellite are based on trigonometry. Just as it is possible to measure distances on earth by means of imaginary triangles, astronomers achieve similar results in space. Their triangle needs a very long base so that the angles at the corners will be large enough to measure. The base of the triangle is taken to be the diameter of Earth's orbit at its maximum extent. Since the orbit is an ellipse, the diameter changes throughout the year. We use the maximum distance. The astronomer photographs a star on two occasions, six months apart. In this way, observations are made from opposite sides of Earth's orbit. The angles of the triangle are then calculated by comparing the star's shift in position compared to a backdrop of more distant stars. The length of one side of the triangle is the distance from Earth to the star. Prior to Hipparcos, astronomers were able to obtain good results only up to 65 light-years away. The closest one is Alpha Centauri, a mere 4.3 light-years from us. Now however with the European satellite, accurate measurements of much smaller angles are possible. This has astronomically expanded the number of accurately measured objects in the sky. The time had now come to compare previous estimates with the new numbers. Something Doesn't Fit Hipparcos was the first space mission specifically designed to measure star positions. Data were collected for four years. This was followed by a further three years in which the results were analyzed. Among unexpected findings, two hundred relatively close but dim stars were discovered. In addition, many well known stars turned out to be much farther away (and thus more energetic) than previously believed. As a result, fewer nearby stars could be identified as "main-sequence stars" and there was only half as many giants as previously estimated. "Main-sequence stars" are identified according to the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram that plots stars' rate of light production against their temperature. Temperature is estimated from color but estimates of light or energy production are highly dependent on distance. The significance of the Hertzsprung-Russell sequence is that it has traditionally been interpreted as reflecting the evolution of stars. In the light of Hipparcos data, however, astronomers have come to suspect that their previous conclusions were "too simplistic. Something else sees to be going on" (Perryman p. 47). Particularly surprising are the values obtained for the Pleiades cluster. At 375 light-years, this group of stars seems to be located 15% closer than previous estimates. The result, says Dr. Perryman, is that the stars in the Pleiades cluster can "no longer easily be accommodated into existing pictures of star formation or evolution" (p. 47). In other words these stars no longer qualify as main sequence stars. The Hyades, on the other hand, were located considerably further away than expected. People who enjoy the beauty of the night sky but who do not wish to be encumbered with jargon and trigonometry, may wonder why we should care about the Hipparcos data. The point is that these numbers are reliable because the calculations include only values that are established by direct observation. Beyond 200 or 300 light-years however, nearly all other measuring techniques are indirect. Consequently the calculated results are only as dependable as the assumptions upon which they are based. The general public seems not to be aware of that fact. Particularly in astronomy where small numbers are extrapolated into huge conclusions, you and I, as consumers of information, should be very wary. The whole issue reminds me of a little ditty from a Victorian era operetta. In Act II of Pirates of Penzance, Little Buttercup warns us not to be fooled by casual observation. Pay attention to the details. As she puts it: Things are seldom what they seem Skim milk masquerades as cream; Storks turn out to be but logs; Bulls are but inflated frogs. So they be. Frequentlee. This does not mean that we should ignore astronomy. It merely means that we should be aware of the uncertainties....

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