Is Answers in Genesis a Christian Ministry?

It's been along time since I wrote about why I won't be going to the Creation Museum, but I recently ran across a public post by a young woman on social media that explains why one of their employees quit and won't be going back. I reproduce it here in full:

My experience of employment at Answers in Genesis

In December 2016, I began work in the housekeeping department at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum. I worked for three years as a seasonal employee (working up to 10 months each year, usually 40 hours per week, no benefits) and then the last month, December 2019, as a technically full time employee.
I generally enjoy cleaning, did some fun projects, and liked talking with guests from around the world. But it was often physically demanding and the hours that I worked were always difficult. For the first two years I worked shifts that varied daily from as early as 07:00-15:30 to as late as 13:00 to 21:30, and for the third year I worked 3rd and 2nd shifts.
As a child I grew up visiting the Creation Museum, reading Answers in Genesis books and magazine, watching their videos and even attending the conferences in my teens. As a 20 year old I was very excited to work at what I believed to be a Christian ministry.
During my employment, I did have many positive experiences and made good friends with some very kind people. Workmates helped fix my car, went to the doctor with me, or gave hugs and spent some time with me.
However, there are serious problems with the way that Answers in Genesis operates and especially in the way that it treats employees. I personally experienced and/or had workmates who experienced dishonesty, bullying, overwork, illegal discrimination, harassment, and blackmailing. Here are a few of many examples that I personally experienced:
June 2017. The Creation Museum is open on Sundays, and most employees who work on Sundays are unable to attend church, which forces hypocrisy because they are required upon hire to sign a statement promising to faithfully and regularly attend church.
There are several reasons that I and many workmates thought the Museum and its employees would benefit by being closed on Sunday. One day as we discussed this and considered bringing up our thoughts to management, one of my workmates said a joke about going on strike on a Sunday. We made it clear that we were NOT for a strike, but because we simply said the word “strike”, we were falsely accused of attempting to incite a strike. People who knew me well enough to know that it was something I would not do spoke up for me, and I only received a warning.
January 2018. There was a time during my employment that I struggled with serious physical and mental health problems, to the point that I was suicidal (unfortunately I felt too afraid to tell anyone). As I mopped the bookstore early one morning before the museum opened, a lady who was stocking shelves asked how I was doing and stopped to pray for me for 2-4 minutes, then we both continued with our work. It was going to be a slow day, and no one was in a rush to get things done.
She received a warning from management for “being idle and chatting” for praying for me.
May 2018. Once when my car was broken down, a workmate who happened to get off work at the same time as me gave me a ride home. I’ve known this man for years and have always felt completely safe and comfortable with him. He got into trouble with management for it for zero reason other than that he was alone with a woman, and was forbidden from giving women rides in the future, even when off work.
It would’ve been okay if it had been his own choice, but it was nonsense for AiG to force the Graham rule on him. It resulted in inconvenience for me, and totally unnecessary shame for him.
December 2019. I injured my back one evening while lifting bags of trash. I had to lift them out of a deep container that goes up to my waist, which made it impossible for me to lift while bending my knees rather than my back. I had to lift them out of the container and onto a cart. Most bags had an average weight that I was used to but one was much heavier than usual (it probably weighed more than half my own weight).
I filed an injury report and asked for a rule to be made limiting how much the bags could be filled (I was told that cafe workers filled that bag as much as possible to save themselves time), or that they would have to notify us of unusually heavy bags so that a stronger person could be the one to lift them.
Several days later when I was unexpectedly asked to be on trash duty again, nothing had been done and... so what that I had recently been injured doing that task.
Being short-staffed was always a problem that worsened. For quite some time I was the only person on housekeeping night shift when there should have been 3-4 people, and got very overworked and lonely (it was worth it to me at the time for consistent schedule). By the time I left I was the longest remaining employee in the department besides the manager.
At the end of December 2019, I broke down with a mental health crisis and the physical pain from the back injury, suddenly making me literally unable to work.
I’m glad to finally be out of that situation and wish I had gotten out sooner. I’m not sure how and why I stayed for so long. Part of it was the seasonal opportunity which enabled me to take a couple of months off each year for overseas missions trips. Also, I was used to similar environments and treatment from the past so it felt normal to me. I have a usually quiet and submissive personality, am highly motivated and gave my best effort for work.
I often looked for other jobs in the area, especially so that I could afford my own place to live (AiG is known for its low pay). Except for a couple of times that I stayed with friends who were safe and kind, my living situation was incredibly stressful and is a long story itself.
I also tried a few times to transfer into other positions within AiG and always got either turned down for unknown reasons or talked out of it.
Answers in Genesis has been confronted by many people for mistreating employees, and given professional counsel on how to change. They haven’t cared to listen, and continue to be a corrupt organisation that subsists on manipulation and unconditional submission to authority.
My main purpose for writing this, rather than to confront AiG, is to promote awareness and freedom of thought among the employees. I want them to be able to protect themselves and realise that their personal well-being is massively more important than AiG and its true ambition. A person is a worthy image-bearer created by God, an organisation is not.
Those who know me know that I’m personally very much for making sacrifices for the Gospel, but at AiG the sacrifice is for upper management’s dream to build something “bigger and better than Disney” and awe the public.
“It’s God’s work.”
The talk is contradicted by the walk and even by itself.
I haven’t approached AiG as described in Matthew 18. AiG couldn’t have made it more clear both to myself and to others that it is closed to any criticism or dialogue. While there are some Christians who work at AiG, I do not consider it to be a Christian organisation.
Christians are individual PEOPLE, not families, organisations, or governments.
I haven’t heard this discussed before and think it should be discussed: AiG claims that questions about evolution cause young people to leave Christianity/church. First, leaving church is not necessarily the same thing as leaving Christianity. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian. Not going to church doesn’t make you not a Christian. It is entirely possible to worship God, listen to Bible teaching, and get regular fellowship/discipleship without attending church services. I’m glad for Christians who attend church services, but I have a problem when they accuse those who don’t of disobeying God.
Second, AiG is the only place that I’ve heard that claim. Since my early teens I’ve talked about Christianity with many people who grew up Christian and later left it, but never has one told me that evolution had anything to do with it.
I think that creation ministries, while they can be somewhat useful, are way over-prioritised and are a huge distraction from helping young people in ways that we actually do need help. The problem of evolution has been turned into a distraction from the real problems in Christianity... whether intentionally or not, I don’t know.
Close friends out west are helping me with a place to rest, heal and get professional help. I’m so grateful for them and for my friends who patiently talk and empathise with me. Trying to process the pain and confusion is quite unpleasant, and at this point thriving is mostly unimaginable to me. I’m honestly struggling in my faith, but I’m sure that with time my relationship with God will be strengthened and I’ll be back to working and sharing the Gospel with people.
I apologise to anyone who feels surprised by this. I didn’t want to openly talk about this because I don’t want to be negative and because of the personal things in it.
I won’t think less of anyone for choosing to use AiG resources, visit the attractions, or work there, however if you actually try to excuse or minimise the abuse then I won’t trust you. AiG preaches good messages and makes a positive impact on some people, and I wish for that to continue. But it does not justify their bad actions against some other people. Only cults teach that good can outweigh bad, and only those who have things to hide have fear when silence is ended.
I love and miss my friends and former workmates at the Creation Museum and am so thankful for you and everything you’ve done to show me kindness. I think of you every day.
Please do think and speak for yourself. It is very hard to recognise the damaging effects of any religious and authoritarian group while being in it.
Be brave. You are meant to live free!
A caution to anyone currently working at AiG: this post will be monitored by AiG. If you publicly comment on or react to this post, you could be targeted by management as others have been in the past.

The sad tale of a potential paeodophile child psychologist who practiced at Wheaton College

In this modern world's news cycle, we are continually deluged with stories about people who got caught doing something bad. We don't always take the time to think of what this may be telling us.

Today I found a website dedicated to reporting on some of the hundreds of teachers who have been arrested for sex crimes: specifically, college professors who used their computers to download and/or sell child pornography. It's quite an extensive list, with lots of pediatricians, child psychologists,  and early childhood educators, but of the dozens of names the one the jumped out to me was Donald Ratcliffe, child psychology professor at Wheaton College. Run a search on his name and college, and you will find this video, on "children are important."

He actually thought that viewing hard-core child pornography--vicariously enjoying the pleasure of torturing children--would keep him from becoming a full-blown paedophile. Meanwhile, he was teaching the importance of meeting the spiritual needs of children through his books and lectures.

What are the signs of a mind so twisted? Very few of these professors were found out because they were actually caught molesting a child, but many of them had been doing so for years--one man even adopted a baby specifically for the purpose of being able to molest him with regularity. What they all had in common was that they started out by watching porn--due to the capabilities of today's internet technicians, that's as far as some of them got before getting caught. Others were actually in the business of producing hardcore child porn before it finally found them out.

The government officials who investigate these crimes face two major threats: one, that they may end up losing their jobs when they catch someone so high up the chain of command that no one will dare to prosecute him.  We're talking someone above the level of a college president, because there's one of them on the list. Someone so highly placed that anyone who tries to bring him down will at the very least lose his job; more likely his life.

Secondly, they face the risk of becoming drawn into the very pit from which they are endeavoring to pull others. No doubt several of these professors were first exposed to abusive pornography through their studies--Alfred Kenzie certainly felt the need to dabble in it to develop his celebrated human sexuality curriculum at Indiana University. He was under investigation for trafficking in paedophilia at the time of his death in 1956.

Well, child pornography, at least as practiced by those lower on the ladder, enjoys no legal protection in Donald E. Ratcliff's county, state, and country. Wheaton College summarily dismissed him; Brenda, his wife and co-author of his final book on the spirituality of children, divorced him and married a Californian; their three children, whom the book's introduction credits with "overlook[ing] our failures" in parenting, disowned him; and even though he escaped having to go to prison, he will be haunted for the rest of his life by the label of sexual predator, with its onerous attendant restrictions. What he claimed at the time to be harmless-even therapeutic--has ruined his life. But how many more like him are still out there, waiting for an investigator to take the time to find them out?

Another look at Loving v. Virginia

Today, in honor of Loving Day (which would have been celebrated yesterday, but for the modern habit of moving the observance of all holidays to Monday), The White Man will revisit the case which brought it about: Richard Perry Loving, Mildred Jeter Loving v. Virginia.
Right off the bat, there's a problem: look at the photo of the famous couple, described everywhere as being of separate races:




Note that whilst they are described as "white" and "black" respectively, it is evident that they have the same skin tone just by comparing where their bodies touch. Mildred Jeter, at the time Richard Loving impregnated her, was basically as white as he was. What she had, and he hadn't, was verified African and Native American Ancestry, in addition to the majority European ancestry that they both shared; and under the law then current in Virginia, their entire lives must needs conform to that almost invisible distinction.

This is very important: had it not been that all Virginians were already divided, first by convention and then by law, into discrete categories of Pure European and Not Pure European, there never would have been a case. Mildred's European ancestry, despite contributing the majority of her genome, counted for nothing, admixed as it was with the blood of supressed races. Thus the whole foundation of the Racial Integrity Act, which Loving v. Virginia overturned, was a distinct theology of racial purity which deliberately sought to ignore the reality of the racial mixing plainly evident just by looking at the co-defendants.  It is the height of hypocrisy that none of Mildred's European ancestors were ever prosecuted for raping their African slaves, yet her lawful husband was prosecuted for sleeping with her, with her full consent. It was a law that had no chance of surviving in a righteous nation.

Loving v. Virginia was long thought to be the culmination of Supreme Court decisions that invalidated laws meant to prevent fornication and adultery; but these were to resume under a new court after a 20-year hiatus. So rare was homosexuality in the mid-1960's, it's unlikely that anyone at the time would have been able to predict that in her own lifetime (and she only lived another four decades), Mildred Loving would be able to point out, to widespread acclaim, that by filing suit against the state that denied the validity of the one-flesh relationship she shared with her husband, she was laying the grounds for the invalidation of all laws that denied equal treatment in the eyes of the law to people of the same sex who cohabited in the same way she and Richard had.

Ironically, the eight years since Mildred Loving's death have still failed to eliminate the classification into which she is always placed, now usually referred to as "African-American," but recent months have seen the proliferation of people who are still pigeonholed by race, but left free to change their gender at will. Thus Virginia's Act could yet stand, with modern Lovings fully evading its force merely by claiming to be of the same sex. The bizarre twisting of reality gets ever worse: race is as immutable as ever, but it is sex that is now malleable to the will of the person claiming it.

Backing up to the Racial Integrity Act, we see that it was specifically written to criminalize relationships such as that of the Lovings, which under common law had never been illegal:

"This bill aims at correcting a condition which only the more thoughtful people of Virginia know the existence of.
 It is estimated that there are in the State from 10,000 to 20,000, possibly more, near white people, who are known to possess an intermixture of colored blood, in some cases to a slight extent it is true, but still enough to prevent them from being white.
 In the past it has been possible for these people to declare themselves as white, or even to have the Court so declare them. Then they have demanded the admittance of their children in the white schools, and in not a few cases have intermarried with white people.
 In many counties they exist as distinct colonies holding themselves aloof from Negroes, but not being admitted by the white people as of their race.
 In any large gathering or school of colored people, especially in the cities, many will be observed who are scarcely distinguishable as colored.
 These persons, however, are not white in reality, nor by the new definition of this law, that a white person is one with no trace of the blood of another race, except that a person with one-sixteenth of the American Indian, if there is no other race mixture, may be classed as white. "

It is obvious on its face that this law was designed to reserve special rights and privileges to those with no discernible trace of non-European heritage (a loophole having been inserted to allow white people to claim descent from the famous princess Pocahontas).  This approach had already been roundly condemned by Justice White in his McLaughlin v. Florida decision earlier in the decade:

"That a general evil will be partially corrected may at times, and without more, serve to justify the limited application of a criminal law; but legislative discretion to employ the piecemeal approach stops short of permitting a State to narrow statutory coverage to focus on a racial group."

It is quite ironic that the Racial Integrity Act, a product of the American Eugenics Movement, is now so roundly condemned by everyone from Supreme Court Justices on down, whilst the other major achievement of that movement--the suppression of the black race by sterilization and abortion--is still celebrated as a major victory for women, its crowning victory, Roe v. Wade, having been handed down by the same court that overruled the decision of Pace v. Alabama.

Under the Racial Integrity Act, the sanctity of Mildred Loving's bedroom could be invaded by officers hoping to catch her in the act of sleeping with her husband. Under Obergefell v. Hodges, which cited Loving v. Virginia as precedent, the sanctity of her daughter's bathroom stall can now be invaded by any sexual predator claiming to share her gender.

This, we are told, is progress.

One more thing: Obergefell v. Hodges effectively replaced 'race' with 'gender' in evaluating whether any law since Loving v. Virginia can be held to provide equal treatment under the law. Just imagine all the implications of doing this to Associate Justice Potter Stewart's concurring opinion, in which he stated that "it is simply not possible for a state law to be valid under our Constitution which makes the criminality of an act depend upon the race of the actor."

The first result of this ruling being applied in such manner is that no state will be able to continue regulating the depiction nor the exhibition of any part of the human mammary gland (nor will Facebook, or eventually any other interactive website). Better get used to it; it's coming.

And it will be hailed as progress.

My encounter with Donn Ketcham

I say, what a week. About a thousand people have accessed this blog in the past two days following the publication of a Christianity Today article on Donn Ketcham. For only the second time, albinism is the second most popular topic here. So it's only appropriate that I write a little further on the topic, including an account of my own encounter with the good doctor.

But first, an examination of the recently released  ABWE and Donn Ketcham Investigations Final Report. My comments will be interspersed, in italics.

Analysis indicates that there existed, and in some cases exist today, typically unspoken beliefs and attitudes within ABWE that were revealed through the investigation by way of documents and interviews – beliefs and attitudes that contributed to missionary family and ABWE administrative lack of awareness, lack of responsiveness, and poor decision-making regarding policy violations and abuse behaviors and events. The root causes of significant impact include:

1. There existed a prevailing attitude toward authority in evangelical circles, primarily that there was a "spirituality" standard that required unquestioning compliance with authority. This attitude prevented the development of a healthy system of checks and balances and openness to corrective actions. Critical thinking skills were suspended.
This is a prevalent problem in evangelical circles that have been influenced by Bill Gothard or the Patriarchy movement. But, on the mission field, it goes back way further than that--it probably originated in a military mindset.

2. There existed a focus on ministry as being the top priority. Individual needs and voices tended to be dismissed in the service of the "greater good", i.e. ministry and the spread of the Gospel.

There is also a warped sense of priorities: the work must go on, even if the worker is tainted by sin. Yet, nationals are held to a higher standard, and can be summarily dismissed if under suspicion of moral failure.

3. There existed a prevailing attitude about the status of women in the work place. Especially in the historical time period under investigation women were considered "support" personnel. As such, their opinions and observations carried less weight and were easier to dismiss and ignore. Because women were considered of lesser value, it was easier to "send them home" and/or remove them from the mission, i.e. Donn Ketcham’s lovers over the decades.

　This is a good point; it is almost always MEN who are kept on in spite of moral failure; single women are much more expendable.

4. There existed a prevailing attitude toward children relative to the ministry and to adults. Ministry activities were more important than child needs. Children were not to interfere with or block the "ministry". In fact, children were "sacrificed" so that the ministry would not be "discredited." This, in part, led to blaming a child for what was, in truth, the responsibility of an adult. This also led to children not speaking up about what was happening to them. The children saw much that the adults missed.

5. There existed a prevailing belief that missionaries are "more spiritual" than the average Christian, and because of their "sacrifices" are "entitled." This creates a vulnerability to and blindness about wrongful (and even criminal) behaviors, i.e. a tolerance of Donn Ketcham using inappropriate sexual joking and bragging about his sexual exploits with National women.

Missionaries are thought of as more spiritual, due to their biblical training and being in "Full-time Christian Service." There is also the Baptist focus on right theology over right living.

6. There existed a class system of value and importance on the field. A doctor was considered more important than others, which led to a sense of subservience and obedience on the part of the victims and observers who might have otherwise spoken out regarding Donn Ketcham’s abusive behaviors. This class system impacted the Donn Ketcham family as well.

7. There existed an idealization of Donn Ketcham, a doctor, whose charisma garnered many dollars for ABWE and blinded many people to his true character, i.e."How could such a wonderful man who did so much for the Ministry be that bad? was an oft reported sentiment." For example:

a. He became a demigod in the mission. Donn Ketcham contributed to his persona by presenting himself as a strong spiritual leader, preaching, speaking, and leading Bible studies. He often instructed and condemned others on the very sins he was and had been committing for decades.

b. A result of the idealization is that other decision-makers set aside their own opinions and capacities and deferred to Donn Ketcham, including ABWE administrators who were in positions of authority over Donn Ketcham.

8. There existed a customization of ABWE Principles and Practices and consequences for violation of those Principles and Practices for Donn Ketcham while the organization strictly enforced the Principles and Practices and violation consequences for other mission personnel. For example:

a. Donn Ketcham’s paramours were removed from the field in spite of their pleas to return, while Donn Ketcham was allowed to return.

b. One missionary family was sent home and required to attend 2 years of counseling followed by a period of observation for issues related to parenting a high-needs child. Donn Ketcham, on the other hand, was sent to Chittagong (a discipline that was not strictly enforced) and required to complete a recommended possible 30 sessions of counseling, of which he only completed 17, for outright violation of ABWE’s code of behavior. Of note, the missionary family’s requirements for counseling were at Donn Ketcham’s insistence.

c. Counselors selected in the Donn Ketcham matter failed due to inadequate training and experience, a lack of professional certification and licensure, conflict of interest, accepting assignments outside of scope of expertise, and ethics violations as to working with the perpetrator and his victim/survivor.

9. There existed a conflict between administering ABWE as a faith-based entity (grace, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, etc.) versus a corporate/business entity (with protective policies and procedures in place, governance checks and balances, etc.). For example:

a. This confusion allowed compassion and forgiveness to block appropriate legal and administrative actions. Equally, it allowed organizational concerns (i.e. financial, the need for doctors) to repeatedly block appropriate responses to victim/survivors.

b. This confusion resulted in ABWE not reporting to authorities Donn Ketcham’s pedophilia as it became known to the organization over decades.

c. This confusion and lack of following corporate principles and practices in place, resulted in multiple affairs and the sexual and emotional abuse of both adult women and children.

d. This confusion allowed "forgiveness" (a faith-based concept) to be used in the service of corporate avoidance of tough issues, i.e. Donn Ketcham’s preferential treatment, a child being blamed for the sexual abuse perpetrated by Donn Ketcham in order to protect Donn Ketcham’s wife, Donn Ketcham continuing in a leadership role even while home for discipline, and a misleading confession avoiding the truth of child sexual abuse being presented with no supervision by ABWE.

e. This confusion contributed to ABWE’s failure to seek out or use appropriate professional and legal counsel for Donn Ketcham when the organization was aware of and had worked with such professionals in matters affecting other ABWE missionaries.

10. There existed a difficulty with logistics in that time period which resulted in a lack of timely communication between Bangladesh and the U.S. headquarters and vice versa.

a. This isolation tends to make people cling tighter to what is familiar, hence the development of "we’re all family" (aunts and uncles). Such a family sense makes it more difficult for people to have perspective, to ask for information, to critique inappropriate actions, and to see reality, i.e. many still refer to the 13-14 year old missionary kid (MK) victim/survivor as a "consenting (implied) adult".

b. Such an isolated community also creates a "tribal knowledge" where facts are assumed, truth is unintentionally distorted (i.e. time frames, ages) – all of which lead to difficulty "connecting the dots" when abuse happens.

11. There existed a culture of naiveté, due in large part to the underlying mistaken belief that "abuse doesn’t happen in Christian circles."

a. This created an environment in which behavior that would activate a censorship response in most circles was dismissed or ignored.

b. Children’s fears (and in some cases terror) of physical exams with Donn Ketcham was ignored.

c. This attitude also prevented acquisition and dissemination of information about abuse, abuse behaviors, grooming behaviors, and symptoms displayed by abused victims. With no one educated about abuse, or aware that it is a possibility in ANY environment, the mission compound became a fertile field for a manipulator and abuser.

d. Naiveté also made it easy for Donn Ketcham to find, prey on, and intimidate victims and potential witnesses.

A final comment: I wonder if one reason why ABWE leadership was so willing to overlook Donn's sin was that they were blinded by their own guilt in the same areas. An example of this which has come to light is that of  R. C. Sproul Jr.

Okay, now for my encounter with Dr. Ketcham.

It is interesting now to think back to October 1987 and realize that at the time Donn Ketcham spoke in a missions conference I attended, he was already under counseling from ABWE for the very sort of behaviour for which he was not long  afterward expelled. Yet, there he was preaching as an official representative of ABWE. And I must say, he was a very good preacher--I still remember that his subject was Gideon. There was nothing in his persona as a preacher to indicate the darkness that was even then consuming his soul. Nor, I expect, was any big announcement made from that same pulpit 2 years later announcing the fall of that famous preacher. No, such smug announcements were always reserved for the guy from the other theological camp.

UPDATE MAY 2017: As of this February, Donn Ketcham has finally been indicted for sexual molestation. According to the charges, he did continue his deviant behaviour after returning to his Michigan practice, and a former pediatric patient has come forward with criminal allegations of abuse in 1999--just shy of the statute of limitations.

UPDATE JAN 2018: A felony trial almost never takes place within a year of charges being filed, and this case is no exception. Donn is contesting his competency to stand trial.

Ken Miller Update

Ken Miller has, like the dangerous criminal the US Government believes him to be, been ordered to a Medium Security federal prison (but in his home state rather than in the state he was tried). He begins his 2 year minimum terms on March 22nd, 2016. You can send him letters of encouragement at:
Pastor Ken Miller

FCI Petersburg Medium 

1060 River Rd. 

Hopewell, VA 23860

UPDATE:
The good news is that at the last minute he was reassigned to minimum security. And, of course, no prisoner can receive mail by name, just by number. Here is the corrected contact information:

FCC Petersburg Low
Kenneth L Miller 08464-082
P.O. Box 1000
Petersburg, VA 23804

To answer my own question, Yes: Josh Duggar is a Child Molester, it turns out.

Amazingly, it's getting on three months again since my last post. I'm working on getting started on the next one, but first I should update my readers on what I wrote about in this post.

When the news first broke in a big way about Josh Duggar's criminal past (it had been known to Duggar followers for years, just not in the detail that has now emerged), I took Josh's word for it that he was rehabilitated. But no--thanks to the Ashley Madison hackers--we now know that the pornography addiction that Josh picked up through his political activity as a teenager has kept a grip on him ever since, and he has gone so far as to act out his fantasies with a number of prostitutes. He may have gotten his start with his own sisters, but he has gone on to less accessible prey,  never having gained control over his sexual appetites.

Several questions arise. One, can a sexual predator EVER be cured? Josh Duggar stands as evidence that a professed cure can be anything but. He's been in private rehab since August, but will it take this time? One thing is for sure, no Christian advocacy agency has any business hiring him as an executive.

Another question: does severely limiting one's children's access to the Internet prepare then for the onslaught of temptation that they will face the minute they leave the house?

And, finally: can any family survive the glow of celebrity with their values intact? Many hoped that the Duggars would turn out to be an exception, but alas, we still wait. Perhaps the Bates were wiser to quit before fame took too strong a hold.

This story will not be going away, as the Duggars are either going to have to fork over a substantial settlement payment, or submit to discovery motions that will force them to bare their souls on the record.

Is Josh Duggar a child molester? Are his parents guilty of a cover-up?

This is not a gossip blog. Yet from time to time a child molestation scandal breaks into the news, and I am compelled to address it. This is one of those times.

On May 22, 2015, The Learning Channel pulled '19 Kids & Counting' from its Tuesday evening lineup on cable television. The reason for this arose directly from the outrage expressed over the revelation the previous day that Josh, the oldest of the Duggar children, had been investigated in 2006 for 'forcible fondling' of his younger sisters when he was 13-14 years old. Exactly what the girls accused him of was putting his hand under their clothing and feeling their 'chest and privates' while they were sleeping. Since the 2-year statute of limitations under Arkansas law had already passed, no charges were ever filed, but the day the news broke, Josh resigned his position as Executive Director of the Family Research Council, and published a second apology for his wrongdoing:

"Twelve years ago, as a young teenager I acted inexcusably for which I am extremely sorry and deeply regret. I hurt others, including my family and close friends. I confessed this to my parents who took several steps to help me address the situation. We spoke with the authorities where I confessed my wrongdoing and my parents arranged for me and those affected by my actions to receive counseling. I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life. I sought forgiveness from those I had wronged and asked Christ to forgive me and come into my life. I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions. In my life today, I am so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption."

 His wife Anna stated:

"I can imagine the shock many of you are going through reading this. I remember feeling that same shock. It was not at the point of engagement, or after we were married - it was two years before Josh asked me to marry him. When my family and I first visited the Duggar Home, Josh shared his past teenage mistakes. I was surprised at his openness and humility and at the same time didn't know why he was sharing it. For Josh he wanted not just me but my parents to know who he really was -- even every difficult past mistakes[sic]. At that point and over the next two years, Josh shared how the counseling he received changed his life as he continued to do what he was taught. And when you, our sweet fans, first met me when Josh asked me to marry him...[ellipses in original] I was able to say, "Yes" knowing who Josh really is - someone who had gone down a wrong path and had humbled himself before God and those whom he had offended. Someone who had received the help needed to change the direction of his life and do what is right. I want to say thank you to those who took time over a decade ago to help Josh in a time of crisis. Your investment changed his life from going down the wrong path to doing what is right. If it weren't for your help I would not be here as his wife — celebrating 6 1/2 years of marriage to a man who knows how to be a gentleman and treat a girl right. Thank you to all of you who tirelessly work with children in crisis, you are changing lives and I am forever grateful for all of you."

 and his parents chimed in as well:

"Back 12 years ago our family went through one of the most difficult times of our lives. When Josh was a young teenager, he made some very bad mistakes and we were shocked. We had tried to teach him right from wrong. That dark and difficult time caused us to seek God like never before. Even though we would never choose to go through something so terrible, each one of our family members drew closer to God. We pray that as people watch our lives they see that we are not a perfect family. We have challenges and struggles everyday. It is one of the reasons we treasure our faith so much because God’s kindness and goodness and forgiveness are extended to us — even though we are so undeserving. We hope somehow the story of our journey — the good times and the difficult times — cause you to see the kindness of God and learn that He can bring you through anything."

 Now, the real story of what happened is found in the words I have highlighted. A boy fell into sexual bondage, resulting in the molestation of five innocent girls. His alarmed parents took control of the situation and led him to freedom. Once caught, he actively sought release from the bondage and made no attempt to hide his past when he met the woman he decided to marry. By 2006, everybody involved in the abuse was over it, beyond it, not suffering any lingering pain from it--until now.

When we ask if it was wrong for the Duggars to 'cover up' this story (i.e., not to make it a part of their official biographies), we should also be asking if it was okay for In Touch Weekly to dig it back up. After all, Oprah Winfrey's production company, which reported the abuse in the first place, has sat on it for nine years--why couldn't everybody else?  All the trauma which both the victims and the perpetrator are going through right now comes directly as a result of this public shaming undertaken by ITW. The victims are being victimized all over again, and I must say that this comes as a delight to those who hate abuser and abused alike for their stand against fornication.

Are the Duggars hypocrites? Absolutely not, if hypocrisy is denouncing something in public while practicing it in private. There have been plenty enough of those exposed lately, but their punishment for being found out-- often in flagrante delicto--is typically no worse than what is now being foisted upon the Duggar family, abused and abuser alike: the loss of their celebrity careers.  And it disgusts me that ITW and their sycophants are largely getting away with it. It's Bash The Duggars Day, every day, and everyone gets a turn with the stick. Well, not everyone. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee had this to say:

Janet and I want to affirm our support for the Duggar family. Josh’s actions when he was an underage teen are as he described them himself, 'inexcusable,' but that doesn’t mean 'unforgivable.' He and his family dealt with it and were honest and open about it with the victims and the authorities. No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story. Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things. The reason that the law protects disclosure of many actions on the part of a minor is that the society has traditionally understood something that today’s blood-thirsty media does not understand—that being a minor means that one's judgement is not mature. No one needs to defend Josh’s actions as a teenager, but the fact that he confessed his sins to those he harmed, sought help, and has gone forward to live a responsible and circumspect life as an adult is testament to his family’s authenticity and humility. Those who have enjoyed revealing this long ago sins in order to discredit the Duggar family have actually revealed their own insensitive bloodthirst, for there was no consideration of the fact that the victims wanted this to be left in the past and ultimately a judge had the information on file destroyed—not to protect Josh, but the innocent victims. Janet and I love Jim Bob and Michelle and their entire family. They are no more perfect a family than any family, but their Christian witness is not marred in our eyes because following Christ is not a declaration of our perfection, but of HIS perfection. It is precisely because we are all sinners that we need His grace and His forgiveness. We have been blessed to receive God’s love and we would do no less than to extend our love and support for our friends. In fact, it is such times as this, when real friends show up and stand up. Today, Janet and I want to show up and stand up for our friends. Let others run from them. We will run to them with our support.

So, the answer to the questions posed in the title of this post is "NO." But now that the cat is out of the bag, what next? Well, for one thing, an Arkansas judge has employed the classic "close the barn door" move of expunging the records that have already been released. Now THAT would have been a cover-up, had it been done in the previous decade. And it still would have been justified, for all the same reasons.

In the next post, I'll address another whole set of questions:
"Is what Josh did really all that uncommon?"
"Was the approach the Duggars took effective?
"What can be done to keep boys from molesting their little sisters?"
"What good could still come out of this disaster?"

Racism in Hollywood

Many months after starting this post--subsequent to viewing basically the entire ROOTS Miniseries for the first time--I've decided to cut my comments down to just the racism question. This is what I had noted right after viewing:

They glorified Muslims, truncated the Islamic prayer (made it sound very Christian) and gave a very syncretized view of African religion, yet made a big deal of pork.

Also, musings on the link between animism and illiteracy.


They only hired 'black' people to play the slave roles and 'white' people to play the 'white' roles, thus perpetrating the very racism the series was supposedly criticizing.

---------------------------------------

Okay, here's what I observed: the 'black' actors in the production ranged from almost completely white to almost completely black, but their skin tone had no bearing whatsoever on the characters they played, other than at the very beginning and very end of the series. In other words, Kunta Kinte's depictors looked believably African, and James Earl Jones bore a passing resemblance to Alex Haley, but in between you had a supposedly half-white slave, George, being quite a few shades darker than his supposedly half-African slave mother, Kezzie. As little as the actors' skin tone reflected reality, they may as well have hired 'white' actors to play some of the 'black' roles. Not bloody likely.

Except that is exactly what happened when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory hit the big screen. Before I even saw how they were depicted in the movie, I just knew that there was no way the Oompa Loompas (depicted in Roald Dahl's book as little black pygmy tribesmen) were going to be played by black-skinned actors.

And, sure enough--they weren't. Despite the total lack of little white pygmy tribes anywhere in the real world, one had to be invented for the movie. All 165 identical Oompa Loompas were played by the Indo-European actor Mohinder Purba.

And that was okay, somehow.  Go figure.

Tom White and the Unanswered Questions

I've been aware of the Voice of the Martyrs since before it even went by that name. I read Richard Wurmbrand's autobiography back in the 1970's. It wasn't until the late 90's, though, that I got on their mailing list, and found out that Wurmbrand--founder of Jesus to the Communist World-- had retired, and VOM was being headed by Tom White. During the first decade of this century (following the deaths of both Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand), VOM experienced astounding fourfold growth--doubling just in the first year. That kind of success can go to someone's head--and a few years ago I noticed with dismay that Tom White was pulling in an income well into the six figures. That couldn't be right, I thought. But I said nothing.

I remember the day, less than a year ago, when I received an email stating that Tom White had died.
Odd, I thought. It doesn't say when he died, or where, or what of. Those details, when they did begin to come, were very painful.

Walter Thomas White, the executive director of The Voice of The Martyrs, killed himself in a VOM warehouse, overdosing on alcohol and sleeping pills in order to avoid prosecution for molesting a 10-year-old girl.

Now, it took more than four months for even this much information to be released by the Oklahoma Medical Examiner. And by then, the case had long since been closed by the Bartlesville Police Department, who had overseen the investigation.

Who is the Bartlesville Chief of Police? Tom Holland--the Board Secretary for the Voice of the Martyrs. That alone should raise some major questions--such as:

-Who warned Tom White that he was the subject of a police investigation? According to all published reports, he took his life upon hearing that he was being investigated--before so much as a warrant had been requested. This is a huge question that no one is even asking, much less answering.

-What was Tom Holland's role in the investigation? From what I've read, there's very little that goes on in his department that he's not involved in. He was voted one of the Worst Bosses in America for the year prior to this investigation.

-What sort of inside connections did Tom White have with other local government agencies?

-Were Tom White's office and personal computers searched for child pornography? It's inconceivable that a 64 year old man with a fondness for 10 year old girls wouldn't also have a pornography addiction.

Some other questions also need to be asked: Why did VOM loan $35,000 to Vice President for Domestic Operations Stephen John Lindquist, convicted embezzler? Besides "to restructure a burden that could impact his duties and service to VOM?"

Embezzlement By Clerk Or Servant 10.01 Y Int. Probation 04/14/2004 04/14/2014 48172-E TXJR

Why it's not generally considered a good idea for a corporation to loan money to one of its officers:

The Church Universal and Triumphant, founded by Mark Prophet and carried forward after his death by his wife, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, has also suffered from such tactics. Gregory Mull, a San Francisco building designer, became a member of the Church in 1974 at the age of 57. He moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to work for the Church, which loaned him $37,000 during his relocation. He signed promissory notes for the loans. He resigned after only eight months on Church staff. In an attempt to get the money repaid, the Church filed suit against Mull in 1981. Mull countersued for fraud, duress, undue influence, involuntary servitude, assault, extortion and intentional infliction of emotional distress — asking damages of $253 million. The case came to trial in 1986. During the trial, Mull was allowed to present numerous emotionally charged assertions to the court. While the Church was allotted one day in the four-week trial to present evidence of the promissory notes, the remainder of the testimony was devoted to putting the practices and beliefs of the Church on trial.

Inflamed by Mull’s statements, the jury found against the Church and Elizabeth Clare Prophet and, unbelievably, awarded $1.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages to Mull. The injured party — the Church — was not only put on trial, but found guilty, and denied the recourse for which it had turned to the justice system.

Something is definitely rotten in Bartlesville, OK. And it's going to keep getting stinkier until someone gets to the bottom of it.

UPDATE MARCH 2013

Two things have happened recently to bring hope to this mess: I've received word from someone who is working to get to the bottom of the garbage in Bartlesville, and I've come across the website of someone who never knew, until it was also too late, that her own son was under the same deadly bondage that killed Tom White. She's working tirelessly to educate the public against this menace, before it takes even one more life:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130713032126/http://icouldhaveneverguessed.info/

UPDATE JULY 2014
Although this information was available on the web at the time I posted, I've only now discovered the identity of the victim. I'm not 100% sure, since the child in question didn't actually turn 10 until Tom White's obituary was posted, so I'll not reveal her name here--only comment that identifying her answered at least one question, and gave some clues as to a few others.

UPDATE AUGUST 2014
VOM took about a 20% hit in donations in 2012. I expect the same to follow in 2013, once reports are out.

UPDATE MAY 2015
Not so; reported income went up almost $2 million in 2013--enough to cover their advertising budget.

UPDATE NOVEMBER 2017
A lot of comments came in recently, on of which was a retraction of the previous one--so I didn't approve either one. But this would be a good time to give the name of an organisation I highly recommend in lieu of Voice of the Martyrs: Asia Harvest. They have no multi-million dollar headquarters--the founder runs it out of his home office. They have no highly paid felons on staff--their staff are all volunteers. And yet they have distributed over ten million Bibles to China's underground church--and supported thousands of native missionaries. 100% of each gift goes directly to the work.

Indications of sudden death--or something else?

In this article in the Biblical Archaeology Review, the remains of an ancient Palestinian are described as "a badly crushed human skeleton . . . sprawled on its back with limbs splayed, indicative of sudden death."

I ran a search on "indicative of sudden death" and found that all other references were to forensic investigations in the present. This was the only one in an archaeological setting. And there were no hits whatsoever for the two terms in juxtaposition, "limbs splayed", and "sudden burial."

Actually, it is sudden burial, not sudden death, which is most likely indicated by a crushed and splayed skeleton. Most people who die suddenly are subsequently laid to rest in a position of calm repose, with nothing to indicate how fast it took them to die.

I raise this issue because most vertebrate fossils are found sprawled and crushed, and often fragmentary; very indicative of sudden burial--and just as sudden contemporaneous death. Yet the classic view of fossilisation requires a long and gradual process of burial.

If archaeologists can clearly recognise the signs of sudden burial--whether or not they know what to properly call it--why can't paleontologists?

Sarah Palin's Views on Abstinence Lead to Second Grandchild?

I just have to comment on this. Saying that abstinence education leads to pregnancy is like saying nutrition education leads to obesity; they're leaving out the actual cause, which is premarital sex and overeating, respectively.

In September 2008, Sarah's 17-year-old daughter Bristol announced that she was five months pregnant while her mother continued to support beliefs that obviously do not work within her own family. That year she also voted to cut funding to a program that helped support teen mothers, according to the Washington Post.
In the ultimate hypocrisy, Bristol went on to earn more than $260,000 in 2009 as an advocate against teen pregnancy while at the same time admitting that abstinence was not realistic.

More when I get to it . . .

Why NATO attacked Libya

Obama says that the US needs to fight Ghadaffi because he's killing civilians. How about Bashir, then?

Over the past four weeks, Government of Sudan (GoS) troops and allied militia have carried out a vicious and murderous attack on the people of the Nuba Mountains in the Sudanese state of South Kordafan. This is the very same government that perpetrated genocide in Darfur and continues to carry out devastating attacks on the region. Tellingly, Sudan’s president, Omer Al-Bashir, is already wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for the atrocities perpetrated in Darfur.

The real reason why NATO attacked Libya is that Ghadaffi was trying to take not only his country, but as many as would come with it, back to the gold standard. This was clearly unacceptable to the powers that be: hence, the billion-dollar-a-day military operation to remove him from power.

Example #2, 1 Samuel 13:1 (Part III, Case Studies in Interpolation; in the series "Is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 an interpolation?")

"The-son of-a-year was Saul in his reigning, and years two he-reigned over Israel."

That's a hyperliteral translation of 1 Samuel 13:2. To bring it into conformity with standard English usage, we would have to change it to read:

"Saul was a year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel."

Though the numbers of course vary, that is how this particular Hebrew regnal formula is always translated in the Historical Books. But you won't find it so translated here. Why not?

Well, everybody knows that Saul wasn't one when he became king, and that he reigned way more than two years over Israel. There are only three possible ways to account for the presence of this verse in First Samuel:

1) It was inspired as written, but needs to be interpreted allegorically. This was the position of the Masoretes who faithfully copied it down through the centuries. A corollary view is that it is inspired as it was divinely translated into English--thus blaming God twice--once for inspiring nonsense, and then again for inspiring a totally off-the wall translation of it.

2) It was originally written with two numbers that are now missing, which if still present would fit into the blanks to read as follows:
"Saul was __ years old when he became king, and he reigned __ty-two years over Israel." This is the approach taken by several modern versions. A pity they can't seem to agree on either of the numbers they provide. Well, they do generally appear to agree on forty-two for the second number, but claim to be basing this on the number in Acts 13:21, which isn't in fact forty-two, but just plain forty.

3. This is clearly an interpolation--probably originally penned into the margin, with blank spaces for the numbers, by a scribe who thought it a pity that Israel's first king had no regnal formula provided at the inception of his reign, and who expected to eventually find information elsewhere in order to fill in the blanks in his marginal notation. Later, a subsequent scribe went ahead and moved it into the text, with the unknown numbers still missing.

I think it should be obvious to the reader why the White Man rejects the first option. But I'll give a little more detail on why I reject the second as well.

Numbers are an easy thing to mess up when copying text, especially if they are not written out, as is often the case in ancient Scripture texts. Furthermore, since numbers were signified by alphabetical letters, it was possible to confuse a numeral with the letters of a word. To avoid seeming to write out the name of God, for example, scribes wrote the numeral 15 as if it were six-and-nine rather than five-and-ten.

But despite the propensity for writing the wrong numeral, a scribe seldom wrote no numeral at all. It's almost inconceivable that any scribal slip could result in the present reading of 1 Samuel 13:1, were that verse originally in the text.

And here we come to the crux of the matter: if it's an interpolation, it was never in the text to begin with. And the scenario I described is the most likely explanation for its present form in the text. I should add, though, that as far back as the so-called Lucianic Recension, manuscripts of 1 Samuel contained the interpolation, with numbers supplied. A pity the various recensions couldn't seem to agree on the numbers either.

But going even further back, we can locate a text of 1 Samuel that went directly from 12:25 to 13:2. There is external support for identifying this as an interpolation--external support, that is, only in translations of 1 Samuel--not in manuscripts of the Hebrew text itself. And, I propose, these are not needed; the internal evidence is sufficient to indicate an interpolation.

Let's run through the checklist:

1. - abrupt changes in the subject matter or interruptions in an otherwise continuous train of thought;
2. - seeming inconsistencies or contradictions that conflict with other material in the document;
3. - the presence of certain formulae in supposedly inappropriate or uncustomary contexts;
4. - repetition of redundant elements or perceived changes in tone or style;
5. - the supposed assumption by the writer of different circumstances on the part of the intended audience;
6 - the perceived character of the manuscripts that don't contain the alleged interpolation;
7 - the variety of readings in the manuscripts that do contain the alleged interpolation.

1) Yes. The regnal forumula usually occurs at the point a new king is brought into the narrative. Saul was introduced in chapter nine, anointed in chapter ten, acclaimed in chapter eleven, and installed in chapter twelve. Chapter thirteen starts a new section on his military exploits against the Philistines. 13:1 just doesn't fit.
2) Yes, the interpolation as preserved is inconsistent with what we know of Saul's age and length of rule.
3) Yes. Usually this formula includes the name of the King's mother. And it belongs at least a couple chapters back in the text anyway.
4) Yes, at least in the common English translation: "Saul reigned one year, and when he had reigned two years . . ." Total redundancy.
5) Yes. The intended audience expects the regnal formula, even for Israel's first king.
6) Yes. Most LXX mss don't contain it; only the five Lucianic mss do, and then with added numbers.
7) Yes. The Lucianic mss have age 30, the Syriac have age 21, the NEB conjectures 50, and the NASB 40. The number for the length of reign doesn't match the parallel passage.

So, there you have it--the highest-scoring alleged interpolation in the entire Bible. Yet not a single English Version--even those that think nothing of deleting one or two dozen verses from the New Testament based on the allegation that they had their basis in a Lucianic Recension--is willing to delete this Old Testament verse on the same basis. They consider it scripture, but they must twist both its text and its meaning to avoid sheer nonsense.

I think it's very safe to say that if 1 Samuel 13:1 isn't an interpolation, then 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 isn't one, either. But is that really saying anything?

Stay tuned for our next example.

"Terrorist:" Latest Casualty in the murder of the English language

KABUL, Afghanistan- Terrorists launched a brazen pre-dawn assault Wednesday against the giant U.S.-run Bagram Air Field, the second Taliban strike at NATO forces in and around the capital in as many days.

At least 10 terrorists were killed and seven U.S. service members wounded in the attack on Bagram, which started at about 3 a.m. with rockets, small arms and grenades fired into the base, said Maj. Virginia McCabe, a spokeswoman for U.S. forces at Bagram.

Had this occurred in Israel, the assailants would have been 'militants'. Later in the clip, they are actually referred to as 'insurgents'. But what they for sure aren't are terrorists. This was a strictly military-on-military combat assault; not terror.

Whatever happened to the woman preacher in Isaiah 40:9?

In an earlier post, I noted that for the TNIV, the CBT had changed all references in the OT from "Daughter of Zion/Jerusalem" to "Daughter Zion/Jerusalem," deleting the 'of'. It has come to my notice that one other verse, Isaiah 40:9, has also been changed in reference to Zion and Jerusalem. But the difference is all in the footnote.

NIV/TNIV:
You who bring good news to Zion,
go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem, [a]
lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
say to the towns of Judah,
"Here is your God!"

NIV note:
a. Isaiah 40:9 or O Zion, bringer of good tidings, / go up on a high mountain. / O Jerusalem, bringer of good tidings

TNIV note:
a. Isaiah 40:9 or Zion, bringer of good news, / go up on a high mountain. / Jerusalem, bringer of good news

While they were at updating the supposedly archaic language of Isaiah 40:9, the CBT missed out on a wonderful opportunity to bring out an explicit reference to a woman preacher. Really, there's no excuse for them not having done so, given their translation philosophy.

Now, I'm not a Hebrew scholar, but as nearly as I can figure, this is how the verse originally read:

1. word-for-word:

on mountain high go-thou(f)-up for-you(f) bearer(f)-of-glad-tidings of-Zion raise-thou(f)-up
in-the-strength of-thy(f)-voice bearer(f)-of-tidings of-Jerusalem raise-thou(f)-up
do-not fear(f) say-thou(f) to-the-cities of-Judah Lo! your(p)-God

2. Literal:

Get thee(f) up onto a high mountain, evangelist(f) (of) Zion.
Raise thee(f) up in the strength of thy(f) voice, evangelist(f) (of) Jerusalem.
Raise thee(f) up; fear thou(f) not; say thou(f) to the cities of Judah, "Lo! Your God!"

3. KJV:

O Zion, that bringest good tidings, get thee up into the high mountain;
O Jerusalem, that bringest good tidings, lift up thy voice with strength;
lift it up, be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!

As you can hopefully see, there are two possibilities here: one, that Isaiah is addressing a feminine personification of Zion/Jerusalem (without the 'of'); and the other, that he is addressing a female bearer of glad tidings who is from Jerusalem. So, this is how the possibility that would be alternate to that in the text of the KJV should read:

4. WMV:

To the woman from Zion who brings good news:
Go up on a high mountain.
To the woman from Jerusalem who brings good news:
Lift up your voice with a shout,
Lift it up, do not be afraid;
Say to the towns of Judah,
"Here is your God!"

This is very nearly the alternative that the CBT chose for the text of Isaiah 40:9, but they totally missed noting the feminine nature of the evangelist when they 'carefully revised' that text--even down to updating the alternate reading in the footnote.

Why?

Well, perhaps because it wasn't the sort of thing that would show up on a global search-and-replace.

(There was no change to the NNIV)

Words on Weather

Words on Weather & Climate—February 11, 2010

Posted using ShareThis

Don't blame Huck!

Four police officers and a real estate mini-magnate are dead in Seattle, Washington, and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is being blamed for it.

Or perhaps I should say that an alleged felon who allegedly used to be an inmate in an alleged prison in the alleged state of Arkansas while Mike Huckabee was allegedly the governor has allegedly shot some alleged police officers. Now, have we gotten enough allegations out of the way so that we can speak plainly from here on out? No, I guess I need to say that another alleged police officer went on to allegedly murder the alleged murderer, so that case is now closed. Except that no one is alleging that murder was involved this time, as the suspect allegedly didn't freeze when the alleged officer allegedly told him not to move, which invokes the self defense clause (why is it that police officers, the only people allowed to carry loaded guns inside city limits, are such poor shots that they're allowed to shoot first and then check to see if the corpse was even armed? If I ever turn out to be a firearm fatality, it will probably be because I was reaching for my driver's license and the arresting officer had such a low confidence in his ability to defend himself that he shot me full in the chest, just in case I had a firearm tucked inside my billfold). There, that should take care of all the allegations, and then some.

The point is that Marice Clemmons would not have been able to kill anyone were he still in an Arkansas prison. And that is where he should be today, because Governor Huckabee only brought forward his release date from 2098 to 2047. That's right, if prison sentences mean anything, Maurice Clemmons should have been kept locked up for crimes committed as a teenager until he was 75 years old.

But that's not how it happened. Reducing his 'prison term' from 108 years to 47 meant that Clemmons walked free, on parole. Let's see how well he's stayed out of trouble so far in the first 9 years of his parole:
-He committed robbery and theft in 2001, for which he was given another 10 years of warp time, but his attorney was able to convince the judge that it somehow didn't qualify as breaking parole. By the time the dust had settled he was back on parole, two paroles this time being served concurrently. This is kind of like having to write "I will not throw spitwads in class" 1000 times on the blackboard, all concurrently.
-He committed sexual assault in Washington State, at which time he was recommended to be returned to serve out a few more days of his original Arkansas sentence. The official in Arkansas, no longer involved in a Huckabee administration, said that Arkansas didn't want him back. Washington already had plenty of evidence to lock him up for a long time.
-He was subjected to a psychological exam at Western State Hospital, which concluded that he was a grave danger to society. But they sent him back home to prepare for his trial, once he was able to raise the paltry $15,000 it took to bail him out (despite his long record of failing to appear in court).

If Mike Huckabee bears any blame for Maurice Clemmons' actions on November 29, 2009, he has a lot of people to share it with--foremost of all, those who cooked the books on prison sentences to render them essentially meaningless. Ironically, even had Mr. Clemmons lived to stand trial for the four police murders, and probably even if he was convicted, he would still be eligible for parole before 2047, the date Governor Huckabee (and I'm going to mean it this time when I say this) allegedly set for him to be released from prison for burglary and other acts of teenage hoodlumry.

The Berean Believers: Men, Women, or Jews?

Inasmuch as this blog's posts on the TNIV continue to be of interest to Zondervan and even the CBT itself, I feel compelled to complete as many posts on it as I can in time for consideration before the Newer and Improveder NIV comes out in 2011.

I've been reading the NIV again after having set it aside for a couple of decades, and of course one thing that frequently comes to mind as I go through it is, "I wonder how the TNIV changes this?" Such was the case this morning while reading Acts 17. And what do you know--when I went online to check the TNIV, I found a change from the NIV that actually appears to be for the better. Don't get too excited about it, though, until you've heard me out.

Acts 17:10-12 NIV
As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of the Jews believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

Now, the common English text just had "these" as the subject of 'were' in v. 11, but in replacing it with a proper noun for the NIV, the CBT looked all the way to the sentence before the previous one to find an antecedent for the Greek pronoun outoi. But in looking the passage over again to update the gender reference, it appears that someone on the CBT noticed that the actual referent was probably the Jews who met at the synagogue; it's actually the noun just previous to the pronoun in the Greek text. Thus the following change in the TNIV, which, I will agree, corrects the overgeneralisation of the NIV:

Acts 17:10-12 TNIV
As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

Okay, so of course 'brothers' had to become 'believers', a change from the specific to the general, consisting at least implicitly of an elevation of women to an influential position of leadership in the Thessalonian church which is in no wise implied in the Greek text itself. "The Berean Jews" as a change from the general to the specific is warranted, however, but only because the previous change from the specific to the general wasn't. I will grant, though, that the TNIV makes the identity of those noble Bereans more explicit than did the KJV and most of its revisions.

It was no innovation, however, for Zondervan had pinned the same label on the noble Bereans in its Amplified New Testament back before it had even taken over sponsorship of the NIV. In other words, the NIV was a step backward in translation excellence, and all the TNIV did was bring it forward to a previous standard of several decades earlier--a time span during which the English language had supposedly changed so much that a new rendition was warranted.

Looking further in the NIV, we find the missing 'Jews' in v. 12, where they are in contrast to the Greeks who believed along with them. The TNIV was able to dispense with the label here, having put it back where it belonged--although even there it is only implicit, not explicit, in the Greek text. But that's fine, as it fits the CBT translation philosophy.

What isn't fine, though, is that the decades-old gender-insensitive reading at the end of v. 12 was left uncorrected. Of course the CBT in the TNIV never tampered with explicit references to women, only with masculine references that they felt should explicitly include women. So "a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men" was just fine as-is. Or was it?

What the Greek literally reads is:

many therefore of them believed and of the hellenic women the honorable ones and of the men not a few

If I had no knowledge of Greek beyond what a lexicon would supply, I would probably assume that there were three classes of new believers mentioned here:

1. Many of the Berean Jews who had searched the Scriptures
2. The honorable ones among the Berean Greek women
3. Not a few Berean men

But really, I doubt this is how any translator actually understood it. The genitive phrases link three groups to the verb 'believed': 'them', 'the Greek women', and 'the men'. Thus the verse should be punctuated to read:

Many therefore of them believed, also of the Hellenic women (the honorable ones), as well as of the men--not a few.

This is the most likely reading of the KJV rendition:
Therefore many of them believed; also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.

But translators have generally understood this to refer to the following three classes of new believers:

1. Many of the Berean Jews who had searched the Scriptures (implicitly just the men)
2. Many of the prominent Berean Greek women (mentioned in a place of emphasis)
3. Many of the prominent Berean Greek men

You can read a lot into this understanding of the passage; for instance, among the nobility the women were the first to respond to the gospel, and then went on to lead their husbands to Christ. But this isn't how the CBT saw the situation. Despite the above three classes being explicit in the Amplified Bible, Zondervan went on to sponsor a rendition which has yet to be revised, and yields the following classes of new believers:

1. Many Berean Jews (gender left unspecified as per TNIV philosophy)
2. A number of prominent Greek women
3. Many Greek men (these last two classes, by implication at least, also being Bereans)

The problem again is one of referent. The Greek plural adjectives (which in the genitive case are gender-neutral) ellhnidwn (Greek) and euschmonwn (honorable) are only found once in the passage, but the TNIV does not apply both of them to men and women equally. This, even though they take just two mentions of 'numerous' and apply them to all three classes.

In other words, the CBT translations--like a straightforward reading of the KJV, implicitly depriving the Berean men of their prominence--nonetheless grant them an explicit Greek identity. This they do differently than the KJV, which allows the possibility of the Berean men being honorable, but not being Greeks. While I wouldn't want to encourage one approach or the other, either is allowed in the complex world of Greek-to-English translation, and most revisions of the KJV up to the present decade have retained its ambiguity. One of the most recent of these, however, the NRSV, while attempting to make more explicit the honor due the men, practically went the other way with the women. In trying not to mention the women in their usual grammatical place (after the men), the NRSV comes to within a single comma of implying to the English reader that they weren't prominent, even though that is explicit in the Greek:

Many of them therefore believed, including not a few Greek women and men of high standing.

This revision also perpetuates the NIV's overgeneralisation of including Greeks in the class of Scripture-searching Bereans--even though it calls them 'Jews' in the previous verse!

If I might add one more dig here, consider the refusal of the CBT to include a woman named Damaris in a class called 'men' in light of The Message's take on this passage, which, like the NRSV, includes Greeks in a class called 'Jews' (something not entirely impossible in biblical English, but certainly not understandable as such to Today's Young Person):

The Jews received Paul's message . . . . A lot of them became believers, including many Greeks who were prominent in the community, women and men of influence.

In Acts 6, Eugene Peterson referred to the two classes of Jewish believers as "Greek-speaking believers--'Hellenists'" and "Hebrew-speaking believers." I don't believe he actually intended to equate the two here; had he consulted the NIV instead of the RSV in preparing this paraphrase, he probably would have caught the inconsistency.

Now in conclusion, I have to say that the CBT may very well have made a conscious decision not to include 'men' in the class of honorable Bereans--at least not in verse 12, that is. And it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility to translate the text thus--the NLT did it as well, though not as explicitly. But there are actually two levels of inconsistency here, at least one of which is inexcusable.

First of all, the TNIV identifies the men as Greek, but not as honorable--although their honorable status is fully as implicit in the text as their Greek identity. This perpetuates a grammatical inconsistency in the RSV, which was apparently a favorite version of quite a few of the original members of the CBT. But at least the RSV, unlike the revision that replaced it, was able to keep the Jews straight from the Greeks.

Secondly, the TNIV, again like the now-defunct RSV, restricts the application of the adjective 'honorable' to just the Greek women of Berea. While this may be an acceptable translation, it shows a glaring inconsistency in the CBT's translation philosophy as it comes through in the TNIV. In the TNIV, the CBT has bent over backward to include the women in every possible explicit reference to men, but has made no such effort not to overlook the men whenever women are explicitly mentioned.

In the process of fixing a grammatical inconsistency of racial identification in the supposedly gender-insensitive NIV, the CBT has perpetuated the very philosophical inconsistency that made it insensitive to gender identification--but couldn't seem to see it through their pink-colored glasses. Is this not always what happens when, in an attempt to forcibly eliminate entrenched discrimination, those who tamper with societal norms must needs send the one class down in order to bring the other up?

America's first Muslim President

Someone has put together a ten-minute video (you can skip the last 3 minutes) of actual footage of Barack Hussein Obama talking about Islam, speaking to Muslims, quoting from the "Holy Qur'an," paying homage to the Protector of the Two Holy Sites, and visiting a cathedral that had been confiscated and turned into a mosque (that's most of the last 3 minutes).

It suffers from the typical out-of-context truncation of sound bites, but it's very clear that President Obama considers Islam to have at least an equal claim on America as Christianity does. Actually more of a claim, because he just appointed a federal judge who ruled that praying in the name of Allah is okay, but not in the name of Jesus.

President Obama also says that Islam has been a part of America since its founding. Unfortunately, this is true, because the very first war of aggression that the fledgling nation of America was forced to defend itself against was waged by Islamic pirates who took over American ships on the high seas and held them for ransom in Islamic-controlled ports. Alas, little has changed in 200 years. Even then, debate raged in the halls of government whether the US should give in to the pirates' demands, or fight back. Even then, there were those who asserted that since the US was "not a Christian Nation," the pirates shouldn't feel such a need for animosity against us. But then as now, when carefully applied force met greedy cowardice, the pirates were easily thwarted.

As if 'being a Christian nation' has anything to do with it. Did the emir of Kuwait rush to assure Saddam Hussein that "they weren't a Christian nation" before his forces crossed their mutual border? When Muslim nations stop attacking each other, only then will it be time to suspect that their imperialistic tendencies might be checked by claiming not to be a Christian nation. Muslims don't have a special animosity towards Christian nations; they hate all infidels more or less equally, with a special hatred for infidel Jews and those who try to protect them from Islamic genocide. It's the poor nations they leave alone, other than to plunder their populations for the slave trade.

This was the response of the Islamic ambassador to the American envoys sent by Congress in 1785 in an attempt to pay off the pirates:

"It was written in [ou]r Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every Muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise."

After Congress had spent all its money in dane-geld (a whopping 20 per cent of the federal budget for 15 years) and still not gotten rid of the dane, after envoy after envoy had returned with empty assurances, Congress finally dropped the diplomatic approach and sent in the Marines. Their landing on "the shores of Tripoli" should have decided the matter, but those hell-bent on appeasement had the last word: Sixty Thousand Dollars were handed over to the losers to induce them to give up their prisoners.

And guess what. Less than ten years later, having spent their loot and greedy for more, the pirates went back to their old habits. This time Europe stepped in and saved America from having to play the victim again.

President Obama, by his continued reassurances of good will toward America's enemies, is only serving to prolong the war on America that has been waged by Islam on and off since America's very beginning as a nation-state. In seeking to appease the enemy, he has only guaranteed their continued animosity. Unless some other nation steps in to rescue us from ourselves, America is doomed to perpetual victimhood as long as men like John Jay, John Adams, and Barack Obama are calling the shots--or calling them off, as the case may be.

The TNIV and The Leading Men of the City

I really do intend to get back to Laura at the end of this post--but for now, I need to say one more thing about the TNIV.

One of the main arguments the TNIV supporters give for translating 'men' as 'people' (where the YNIV had not already dropped the word entirely) is based on the use of andres in Acts 17:34, in which a named woman is included in a class that is labeled 'men':

Acts 17:34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

The CBT translates andres in such cases as 'people'--never as 'men and women'. But the implication is clearly that women are meant to be included. In literature supporting the TNIV, scholars have defended the idea that Damaris was one of the leading citizens of Athens who heard Paul's address on Mars Hill. But 'people' is, in my opinion, a very poor translation. Other scholars have shown that andres can carry the idea of a 'citizen' of either sex, and I think this is clearly its meaning here. The idea is that this class of andres, of which Damaris is a member, are leading citizens of Athens. Andres in Acts 17:22&34 could be translated 'citizens'. [UPDATE 7/7/2010: Upon further reflection--this being a census year and all--I believe an even better translation of andres into modern American usage would be 'heads of households.']

But what happens when Luke makes mention of some leading citizens of a city, and doesn't use the word andres? Then it would be okay to call them 'people', wouldn't it? Oops, the TNIV calls them "men":

Acts 13:50 But the Jewish leaders incited the God-fearing women of high standing and the leading men of the city.

There is no word for 'people' in this verse, much less 'men'! A much more sensible--and sensitive--translation would be:

But the Jews incited the religious women of high standing and the leaders of the city.

By translating 'leaders' as 'leading men', the CBT has categorically denied to the women of Pisidian Antioch the very role they assert for the women of Athens four chapters later.

Would Laura Ingalls Wilder have approved?