Podcast: Mathematicians on the Coffee Table

Stan Guthrie and John Wilson discuss a book of photographs and mini-autobiographies.

On the Radio: More Than Profit

John Blok and I discuss Tim Stafford's Christianity Today article about an indigenous microenterprise agency in the Philippines that is transforming hearts as well as budgets. (Scroll down.)

More Than Profit

A business plan with a divine edge has an angle on fighting poverty.

By Tim Stafford in Manila

On the Radio: Same Words, Different Meaning

John Blok of "New Day Florida" interviews me about my column, "What 'Abortion Reduction' Means." (Scroll down.)

Podcast: Catcher as Folk Hero

Stan Guthrie and John Wilson talk about the new book from baseball historian Peter Morris.

Community Organizing

Despite the light network coverage given to the event, the huge Saturday protest against big government still is reverberating in D.C. While Barack Obama no doubt will soon throw the scummy ACORN under the bus along with other of his unsavory associates, it appears that increasing numbers of citizens are as mad as hornets and are not going to take it any more. That's what I call real community organizing.

HT: Michelle Malkin

In Defense of Blowouts

Last week ESPN Radio host John Kincade ripped the Florida Gators and other big-time college football programs for scheduling weak teams from smaller schools at the start of the season. Meanwhile, he praised Oklahoma for scheduling a tough opponent, Brigham Young, the first week, even though the Sooners' star quarterback was injured and the team from Norman lost the game.

This week he panned Oklahoma for destroying a lesser team 64-0 yesterday. The Gators, at the same time, stomped another cupcake by 50 points, and their national championship hopes remain alive. Apparently Kincade only likes it if a team risks its season every week.

As a Florida alum and someone who usually roots for the underdog, it can be embarrassing to watch these blowouts. But there is a certain logic to them.

First, the NCAA, unlike the NFL, doesn't have a preseason, and so early season tilts aren't necessarily the best barometer of what a team will be later in the year. It is probably also the time of maximum risk. These matchups serve as needed exhibition games.

Second, small-school teams aren't forced to play these mismatches. They are compensated well and have a chance to showcase their product before a wider audience. And as Kincade knows, upsets do happen.

Third, the Gators aren't aiming to please critics such as Kincade. They are aiming to win a championship. That's what it's all about. And, so far, they've done a pretty decent job of it, winning two of the last three titles. They will play the big boys soon enough-they always do. I for one want them to be ready.

Let's Not Do What Jesus Did

I saw an e-mail today entitled, "Healthcare Reform: What Would Jesus Do?" I winced and moved on, without opening it. Probably the writer was saying Jesus healed everyone, and so should we, which is why we should support Obamacare. Of course, Jesus did not heal everyone, and he considered matters of physical healing to be secondary to spiritual healing. Does this mean he is in favor of the current health care system?

I have to admit that I'm always a little suspicious when someone asks "What would Jesus do?" about a political issue. A related pet peeve is the question, "What would Jesus drive?" or "How would Jesus vote?" The implications are two: That we actually know what he would do, and that we should do likewise.

Yet Jesus said his kingdom is not of this world, so we don't even know whether the Lord of heaven and earth would participate in our politics. I suspect not. I think we can assume, however, that he wouldn't be anyone's political pawn.

Further, it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: We are not Jesus. While we should try our best to emulate his sinless character and kingdom deeds, our life call is not to do exactly what he did. Christ's main calling was not to serve as a model for how we should live, but to serve as a sacrifice because we cannot live righteously, however hard we try.

And besides, if we are to do everything Jesus did, then we must give up our jobs, preach itinerantly, forgo marriage and family, and die on a Judean hill. That's also what Jesus did.

So let's make our arguments as best we can using scriptural principles and the brains God gave us. But let's stop dragging in Jesus to make our political points.

Update: To be fair and accurate, later I did open the e-mail and found my analysis to be substantially correct.

What Obama Won't Say

"Kids, you need to stay in school, like I did. Our public education system is the best in the world, and if you work hard, you can be anything you want to be. You might even grow up to be president.

"Of course, if you go to school in Chicago, where I'm from, it might be a good idea to wear a flak jacket; occasionally our students get shot or stabbed, but that's a small price to pay to ensure our teachers unions get what they want, which is total control of the educational options of the poor.

"Yes, the academics in the schools Arne Duncan worked so hard to reform remain abysmal in all but a few schools, and, frankly, if I were a student in Chicago, I might drop out, too. I mean, it's dangerous, and you don't actually learn much.

"Luckily, I was able to receive other schooling options. But you shouldn't count on getting help from me on that score. After all, I'm here to inspire you, but let's remember that you're much too young to actually vote for me. I've got to take care of my constituents and donors, and they run the education system in this country. You'll learn about all this in college, if you get that far.

"Yes, I'm 'pro-choice,' but I don't believe in educational choice; I think everyone should support our free public education system-everyone, that is, except for people like me. You don't really expect me to put Sasha and Malia in D.C. schools, do you?"

Persecuted in Iran

Two Christian women have refused to deny Christ and are suffering the consequences.


Dear Friends,

Maryam and Marzieh’s deteriorating health

Maryam and Marzieh have now been in prison in Tehran because of their Christian faith for over six months and their health is deteriorating. This is the most urgent matter for prayer – that the Lord heals them directly and miraculously for the glory of His name and their encouragement.

Both women are suffering from sore throats, irregular painful stomach aches and often intense head aches. Both have lost much weight during their ordeal, because of their sicknesses and lack of nutrition. Marzieh’s tooth infection is only being treated by painkillers and if the infection spreads could become critical.

Due to the overcrowding in the prison and the limited medical facilities, they have not received adequate treatment. There are also many other sick inmates and so there is a constant risk of picking up other viruses.

Regarding their case, the judge has said that they are ‘not cooperating’ meaning Maryam and Marzieh would not deny Christ but were faithful witnesses. The implication of his remark is that they continue to stay in prison. This is the normal punishment for female apostates: they are kept imprisoned until they recant. Please pray for this judge that he is either removed from the case or that he orders their release.

R. Johnson (johnsonron53@gmail.com)

Kindling Interest in Missions

My book, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, is now available in a Kindle edition for $9.99. The print edition is still available for $11.55 on Amazon.com.

Righteous Risk

This morning on ESPN Radio I heard host John Kincade moralizing, and I broke one of my own life rules and listened to him do it. What he said was revealing of the culture in which we find ourselves. He said a number of things concerning last night's college football games.

Kincade praised the University of Oklahoma (last year's national runner-up) for scheduling a tough team, Brigham Young, even though it lost the game, 14-13. In the process, the Sooners may have lost something even more valuable, the services of star quarterback Sam Bradford, who won last year's Heismman Trophy as the best player in the nation. Bradford had to leave the game right before halftime due to a shoulder injury. His replacement played hard but was unable to rally Oklahoma to victory.

So Kincade gave Oklahoma kudos for taking a risk and not merely scheduling a patsy for its first game. Conversely, he ripped last year's champion, the University of Florida (my alma mater), for scheduling what he called a "high school team," Charleston Southern University, which the Gators whipped, 62-3. I watched much of the game, and Kincade has a point: the team from South Carolina made a few decent plays and tried hard but didn't belong on the same field with Florida. It was like watching a schoolyard bully take the lunch money from a scrawny freshman in the cafeteria.

Now it gets interesting. Kincade mocked Bradford, not because he got injured and his team lost, but because he was wearing an Oklahoma uniform instead of one from a professional team. Bradford, you see, had had the unmitigated naivete to return to the Norman campus when professional stardom and millions in guaranteed money were beckoning. Bradford liked his team and wanted to take one more crack at a national championship. Now, depending on the doctor's report, all that could go down the drain.

What a stupid decision, Kincade said. Bradford may have cost himself millions. He should have taken the money and run. A bird in the hand, and all that.

Kincade has a point, I suppose ... if money is the only thing that really matters in this world. Maybe it is that way for John Kincade, but I have a sneaking suspicion Sam Bradford has other values. And he's not the only one. Gator quarterback Tim Tebow has also returned for his senior year, hoping to parley his fame into more opportunities to serve Christ.

Remember a couple of years ago when the Gator basketball team won the national championship and then did the unheard of thing, told the NBA to wait, and returned to Gainesville and won another one? That team had commitment, not only to a goal, but to one another. I'm sure the decision cost several of the players (particularly Joakim Noah) a lot of money, but that wasn't the point. It was a risk for all of them, a risk they believed was worth taking. And even though Bradford's risk may not work out, isn't it possible he understands he is a better man for having taken it?

Not all payoffs in life can be reduced to dollars and cents. And what would you pay for a memory, for a friendship, for joy? These things are rare and precious, and it is not our place to barge in on someone's sacred space by saying they don't make economic sense. If you had an inoperable cancer, what would you rather have, $10 million, or another year of life?

Further, Kincade and all the bean-counters like him are panning Bradford for doing the same thing for which they are today praising the University of Oklahoma: taking a risk. If it is right to praise the university for doing the manly thing, doesn't Bradford's manly risk merit the same respect? I know this: I respect Sam Bradford for his choice, and I would sooner serve with him in some great task than with the likes of certain talk show hosts.

As Teddy Roosevelt once said:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Obama's Lesson

Some friends are positively outraged that my school district has decided to prescreen the president's talk to the nation's schoolchildren (and allow parents to opt their kids out) because it might be political rather than educational in nature. They say this action shows "disrespect for the office of the presidency."

They are so upset that they are threatening to take their children out of school that day in protest. Other, more conservative parents are threatening to remove their kids if they do show the speech.

Perhaps if the administration had handled this better (not calling on kids to write essays on how they could "help" him, for instance), there would be no suspicion that this is an attempt to indoctrinate impressionable minds. As it is, Mr. Obama has lost a lot of trust with a lot of people over his first months in office, so he has only himself to blame if nervous administrators treat his address as if it were pornography.

I don't recall any complaints when that same school district allowed Al Gore's alarmist (and blatantly political) global warming flick to be aired in the schools, with no warning at all to parents. (I was fine with my kids seeing An Inconvenient Truth and just discussed it with them later. My daughter thought it was a hoot.)

Nor did I hear any words about the deplorable "disrespect for the office of the presidency" that occurred when George W. Bush occupied the Oval Office. Does anyone on the Democrat side of the aisle recall how he was constantly vilified, in very personal terms? Critics were held up as patriots. To complain about this mild treatment seems a bit thin-skinned, in comparison.

It's kind of ironic now that parents on the right and the left are in an uproar over Obama's speech. My biggest problem with it is simply the waste of educational time and resources it will entail. I'd rather see the kids spend that time on the Three Rs.

What 'Abortion Reduction' Really Means

By Stan Guthrie

Barack Obama’s health care initiative is under fire. And the President is firing back, preparing a prime-time speech before Congress, and attacking opponents—apparently believing that the best defense is a good offense.

Take, for example, the issue of abortion.

On the Radio: Football Heroes with Feet of Clay

Scroll down to hear me join Moody Radio's John Blok for a look at a web only article from Christianity Today and Ted Kluck entitled, "An Open Letter to Tim Tebow's Fans."

NIV, world’s most popular Bible, to be revised

Some gender terms could get makeover in first update in quarter century

By the Associated Press

Note: I used to use the New International Version as my main translation and now use the English Standard Version. I do hope the coming revised NIV will be free of the poor decisions from Zondervan that hurt the NIV's credibility with millions of Bible readers. It will be interesting to see if the NIV can ever regain the position of trust and dominance it once enjoyed. I believe that many of us former NIV readers are happy with our new translations and don't feel a strong need to come back.

An Open Letter to Tim Tebow's Fans

Why Being a Gospel Football Hero Isn't Everything.

By Ted Kluck

Podcast: The End of Suffering

Stan Guthrie and John Wilson talk about Scott Cairns' new book.