Well, tomorrow is a milestone of sorts for me, and one which I would hope would never come. I am at the age where I can no longer deny the medical establishment the profound opportunity to violate my anal cavity under the auspices of a health probe. Yeah, I know it's common, but that doesn't make it right. Sure, some people have mentioned to me that based on the fact that my Dad (65 1/2) has had previous issues with his prostate and subsequently required surgery a few years ago, that it would be in my best interests to bend over, and think about the Smurfs while my new doctor (a male, for crying out loud - talk about adding insult to injury) - inserts a digit, hoping to find whatever he is looking for. I will be observing him at all times and should the faintest sign of a smile come on his face, I will not hesitate to, pardon the strong language, kick his ass (no pun intended).
My appointment is tomorrow late afternoon after work. Somehow, if my company's ethics agreement did not forbid the consumption of alcohol in the office, nor did the provincial laws prohibit (rightly so) driving under the influence, I would probably be able to better prepare myself in anticipation of this extremely embarrassing procedure. Needless to say, I have a bottle of Cabernet all ready at home, so that I can quickly and efficiently soothe what will no doubt be a traumatic experience for me.
My wife says that I am a big chicken for fearing tomorrow's impending butt-check. She does have a point, to a degree. Both our kids were born by caesarean section, and with our first, my wife was poked, prodded, and had all sorts of instruments jammed inside her that made even me, a seasoned viewer of Stallone and Rambo movies, squeamish. I remember when they broke her water after doing a number of other very invasive procedures - they stuck this thing like a steel paper towel roll into her and then followed by pushing in these crochet-type of needles. Sheesh, even the thought of this now makes me shiver. But I agree, she was a trooper, and it's hard to argue with someone like her who, while historically has been afraid of surgeries and such, has had to go through two c-sections, and two miscarriages, one of which required invasive surgery. She said for me to get a finger up the butt is nothing, and I have no right to protest.
Still, as a guy, this is not something which I feel is perfectly natural. With the advances in medical technology, you would think that there would be easy ways of running an ultrasound to determine whether I had any issues down there (or is it up there?). I really should not be subjected to an activity which is probably commonplace in the Yonge/Wellesley area of Toronto. Maybe it's my Asian upbringing and the subsequent degree of modesty that I profess to have (even though I admitedly walk around the house with nothing by boxers on). Maybe it's my very heterosexual persona, which will not allow for such privacy-inhibiting activities to be performed upon my very body.
Or maybe my wife is right - I am simply a big chicken.
I have been thinking long and hard (my mental faculties, as limited as they are, have been working overtime) in trying to formulate a way to get out of the appointment. Unfortunately, any attempts to change my fate tomorrow afternoon has failed to materialize. I was thinking of having my wife don some latex gloves and perform a "dry run", so to speak, this evening, but she is biking with a friend. So I am left to wallow in my fears and apprehension and hopes that the Lord takes me before the late afternoon hours tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
A Late-Term Abortion Doctor Is Shot Dead. So What?
I find it very strange that some of the anti-abortion groups who have historically been linked to violence are now condemning the recent slaying of Dr. George Tiller, one of about 10 or so doctors in the U.S. who will perform late-term (third trimester+) abortions. They claim that violence is never justified to counter violence and that the execution-style slaying should be roundly condemned.
Maybe.
I generally am not in favour of people taking the law into their own hands - that is, unless the law has utterly failed them and their lives or their loved ones lives are in grave danger as a result. Yes, I know this may be a bit of a controversial stance, but let's face it, justice is not always meted out fairly. Where possible, I am in full favour of letting the judicial system decide things. Lord knows how many wackos are out there who could be set off at a drop of a pin, and we don't need them walking the streets, dispensing vigilante justice without due process being allowed to run its course first.
However, I believe as with all things, there is always another side to consider. In this case, the facts are clear. I remember reading that, according to the U.S. Center of Disease Control (CDC), there were over 820,000 abortions performed in the year 2005 alone. To claim that all of these are medically necessary is spurious. Unfortunately, society has de-valued human life to the point of medically terminating it for a helpless unborn child. These pro-choicers claim that it should be up to the woman, yet no one is speaking on behalf of the poor child who gets murdered. They claim that if abortions were illegal, countless women would die as a result of self-induced abortions. My response is: let them die. Most women who get abortions do so as a means of birth control, not due to rape or the life of the mother being at stake (these two instances are always cited in ethics conversations, but people conveniently gloss over that the majority of abortions are not medically necessary, but simply a means for a female to not accept responsibility for their sexual practices. Since when did we start to value selfish decisions over the rights of an innocent little one?
Fact of the matter is, I would be lying if I told you that I am saddened at the death of Dr. Tiller. While some may argue the validity of life in a fetus, it's very hard to argue that a baby in the third trimester is not a baby, a real human being. Women have delivered prematurely in the third trimester and when it comes out, it is a baby! For Tiller to be willing to terminate such life, I think, brings about it natural consequences. The fact that someone chose to end this murderer's life by way of a bullet, is no doubt a direct consequence of his actions. You reap what you sow. What can I say?
I don't see this any different than someone deciding to kill Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen, or Charles Manson in jail. A murderer is a murderer is a murderer. True, the guy who shot Tiller in cold blood at Tiller's church (what kind of church would accept an abortion doctor as a congregant???) is just as much of a murderer as Tiller is and will be judged accordingly. But could this be classified as a situation where one has to be killed in order to save the many? I'm not sure, but I do know that he won't be around to murder any more unborn children in the future.
Maybe.
I generally am not in favour of people taking the law into their own hands - that is, unless the law has utterly failed them and their lives or their loved ones lives are in grave danger as a result. Yes, I know this may be a bit of a controversial stance, but let's face it, justice is not always meted out fairly. Where possible, I am in full favour of letting the judicial system decide things. Lord knows how many wackos are out there who could be set off at a drop of a pin, and we don't need them walking the streets, dispensing vigilante justice without due process being allowed to run its course first.
However, I believe as with all things, there is always another side to consider. In this case, the facts are clear. I remember reading that, according to the U.S. Center of Disease Control (CDC), there were over 820,000 abortions performed in the year 2005 alone. To claim that all of these are medically necessary is spurious. Unfortunately, society has de-valued human life to the point of medically terminating it for a helpless unborn child. These pro-choicers claim that it should be up to the woman, yet no one is speaking on behalf of the poor child who gets murdered. They claim that if abortions were illegal, countless women would die as a result of self-induced abortions. My response is: let them die. Most women who get abortions do so as a means of birth control, not due to rape or the life of the mother being at stake (these two instances are always cited in ethics conversations, but people conveniently gloss over that the majority of abortions are not medically necessary, but simply a means for a female to not accept responsibility for their sexual practices. Since when did we start to value selfish decisions over the rights of an innocent little one?
Fact of the matter is, I would be lying if I told you that I am saddened at the death of Dr. Tiller. While some may argue the validity of life in a fetus, it's very hard to argue that a baby in the third trimester is not a baby, a real human being. Women have delivered prematurely in the third trimester and when it comes out, it is a baby! For Tiller to be willing to terminate such life, I think, brings about it natural consequences. The fact that someone chose to end this murderer's life by way of a bullet, is no doubt a direct consequence of his actions. You reap what you sow. What can I say?
I don't see this any different than someone deciding to kill Paul Bernardo, Clifford Olsen, or Charles Manson in jail. A murderer is a murderer is a murderer. True, the guy who shot Tiller in cold blood at Tiller's church (what kind of church would accept an abortion doctor as a congregant???) is just as much of a murderer as Tiller is and will be judged accordingly. But could this be classified as a situation where one has to be killed in order to save the many? I'm not sure, but I do know that he won't be around to murder any more unborn children in the future.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Gatorade "What's G?" Commercials
I'll keep this very short. I generally can tolerate the most stupidest of commercials, but once in a while, a commercial would grind on me so much, I can't keep my mouth shut. Gatorade's current "What's G?" commercials would fall into this category. I'm not sure if you've seen them. I won't bother to describe them - you can probably find them on YouTube or something, but there is just something that is socially regressive about them. In fact, I think that ultimately, these commercials are a sad reflection of the dumbing down of our English language. Using fad-ridden ebonics, and "urban" language and body language, these commercials attempt to show that Gatorade is behind the success of various sporting athletes. But I think it also perpetuates a long-held stereotype about Blacks and "Black culture", which is probably counter-productive to the socially progressive set (personally, I don't really care about this aspect of it).
That being said, my six-year-old son loves these commercials and to my chagrin, he mimics some of the performers. I haven't said anything to him about my own opinions of the commercials, and is entitled to his own commercial preferences. But if he ends up talking like 50 Cent, then we will have a problem...
That being said, my six-year-old son loves these commercials and to my chagrin, he mimics some of the performers. I haven't said anything to him about my own opinions of the commercials, and is entitled to his own commercial preferences. But if he ends up talking like 50 Cent, then we will have a problem...
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
The Nomination of Sonia Sotomayor - Placating Feminist and Hispanic Voters
Well, the worst-kept secret was revealed by U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday: his pick for the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy of retiring justice David Souter is New York Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. It's not terribly surprising to hear the news, particularly since it has been reported that Obama was under intense pressure to pick a woman and also a minority (whether it be Hispanic, Black, Asian, etc.). Obama obviously buckled under the pressure of special interest groups, the two U.S. New York Senators, and left-wing advocacy groups everywhere in making his pick. But that is not unusual, given that Obama likes to play to the media and whatever position is popular (which is usually media-driven). That is not to say that Sotomayor may not be qualified, but it takes a lot of guts to make a decision which may not be popular - it happened with President Bush all the time and he was chastised for it from the media to the everyday Joe, who seems to more often than not form their opinions based on the media (you can rag all you want about Bush, I think that while he did make some mistakes, he is a man who acted on his convictions, most of which were not popular with the secular mainstream - yet he continued to stay the course). You may recall Bush nominated Chief Justice John Roberts, despite the fact that his wife Laura wanted him to nominate a woman. Now, that takes guts, going against your wife!!!
I find the response to the Sotomayor nomination from Hispanics to be laughable. Oh, so much pride! It is an exciting day! And on and on it goes. Sort of like when Obama was inaugurated. I remember being in a conference room at work here where they decided to televise the inauguration for curious and politically minded employees here. The room was packed when Obama took the oath of office and of the 80 or so people who were crammed in the room, I was the only one who did not applaud (got some dirty looks, but I don't care). What I found interesting were these two Black ladies who were crying and cheering and "thanking the Lord - someone's there for us now!" I think from the perspective of going from slavery to having a half-Black man become President, is definitely overwhelming for those older Black folks who had to endure racism and prejudice. But underlying some of the racial relief is a sense that somehow a Black President will make things easier for Black people. Isn't that preferential treatment? Reverse discrimination?
I have gathered the same sentiments in how Hispanics have responded to the Sotomayor nomination. To say that it's nice to see someone who, from humble beginnings, was able to apply herself (hopefully that was the case and not through affirmative action - nowadays, who really knows) and get into prestigious law schools and become a lawyer and then a judge, is definitely something to be celebrated, regardless of the race of the person. But the sentiments and responses I have been reading seem more along the lines of "Now, finally, someone to represent us!" and "Now we will be treated fairly." There seems to be a sense that by having someone of your race, ethnicity or culture in an influential position, that they may be able to offer you opportunities, preferential treatment, and cut you slack, based on race. That is, and always has been, wrong.
Now, if Obama picked her because she was the best qualified, then I don't think people would have much of an issue here. But Obama encompasses the same thing that most corporate companies try to push: "diversity". For "diversity's" sake. In other words, make sure you have women, minorities, or gays and lesbians represented in your workforce (or in Obama's case, in his cabinet). I have railed against our company's policy on "diversity" and have been reprimanded more than once for speaking against it, but I have always been the firm belief that if the person is qualified, hire them, regardless of their race or culture. I have practiced this and have hired my fair share of women, not because they were women, but because they were qualified. BUT the prevailing mentality in most companies nowadays is a reverse of this: start with filling out a racial quota, and then once you find enough candidates of a certain demographic, choose from one of them. No wonder white males are peeved as they are not being considered for anything nowadays. That is wrong, regardless of the injustices that have been inflicted in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Although I am not an American, I am leery of seeing a person like Sotomayor on the U.S. bench. After all, us Canadians seem to be the recipient of trickle-down effects of U.S. laws., and our legal system, while originally derived from the British, is influenced today heavily by what goes on the U.S. So what goes on in the U.S. does have an effect in Canada. Besides, I've always been interested in U.S. politics, even back to when I was a little kid.
If I recall in what I have read about her in the past few weeks, she seems to have had a number of decisions that are racially-based. She is firmly an advocate of affirmative action, which makes me wonder whether she has some biased towards racially preferential treatment towards a certain group. She has been quoted as saying that judges make the law, which is a bit worrisome.
Even though she is a Roman Catholic, she holds a pro-choice position, which gives hard-core Catholics indigestion, but obviously to those of us who are virulently pro-life, it is not a great sign. Further, I have read that in university papers and essays, she has written about the second amendment and that she believes that gun ownership is unconstitutional (I believe her paper was called Deadly Obsession or something like that). I really have no idea how George H.W. Bush originally nominated her, with such clear left-leaning views, even though she was classified as a moderate liberal. It is no surprise that the uber-liberal Bill Clinton elevated her to a higher court.
Let's hope that Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and to a lesser degree, Anthony Kennedy live long lives and don't have any plans to retire any time soon.
I find the response to the Sotomayor nomination from Hispanics to be laughable. Oh, so much pride! It is an exciting day! And on and on it goes. Sort of like when Obama was inaugurated. I remember being in a conference room at work here where they decided to televise the inauguration for curious and politically minded employees here. The room was packed when Obama took the oath of office and of the 80 or so people who were crammed in the room, I was the only one who did not applaud (got some dirty looks, but I don't care). What I found interesting were these two Black ladies who were crying and cheering and "thanking the Lord - someone's there for us now!" I think from the perspective of going from slavery to having a half-Black man become President, is definitely overwhelming for those older Black folks who had to endure racism and prejudice. But underlying some of the racial relief is a sense that somehow a Black President will make things easier for Black people. Isn't that preferential treatment? Reverse discrimination?
I have gathered the same sentiments in how Hispanics have responded to the Sotomayor nomination. To say that it's nice to see someone who, from humble beginnings, was able to apply herself (hopefully that was the case and not through affirmative action - nowadays, who really knows) and get into prestigious law schools and become a lawyer and then a judge, is definitely something to be celebrated, regardless of the race of the person. But the sentiments and responses I have been reading seem more along the lines of "Now, finally, someone to represent us!" and "Now we will be treated fairly." There seems to be a sense that by having someone of your race, ethnicity or culture in an influential position, that they may be able to offer you opportunities, preferential treatment, and cut you slack, based on race. That is, and always has been, wrong.
Now, if Obama picked her because she was the best qualified, then I don't think people would have much of an issue here. But Obama encompasses the same thing that most corporate companies try to push: "diversity". For "diversity's" sake. In other words, make sure you have women, minorities, or gays and lesbians represented in your workforce (or in Obama's case, in his cabinet). I have railed against our company's policy on "diversity" and have been reprimanded more than once for speaking against it, but I have always been the firm belief that if the person is qualified, hire them, regardless of their race or culture. I have practiced this and have hired my fair share of women, not because they were women, but because they were qualified. BUT the prevailing mentality in most companies nowadays is a reverse of this: start with filling out a racial quota, and then once you find enough candidates of a certain demographic, choose from one of them. No wonder white males are peeved as they are not being considered for anything nowadays. That is wrong, regardless of the injustices that have been inflicted in the past. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Although I am not an American, I am leery of seeing a person like Sotomayor on the U.S. bench. After all, us Canadians seem to be the recipient of trickle-down effects of U.S. laws., and our legal system, while originally derived from the British, is influenced today heavily by what goes on the U.S. So what goes on in the U.S. does have an effect in Canada. Besides, I've always been interested in U.S. politics, even back to when I was a little kid.
If I recall in what I have read about her in the past few weeks, she seems to have had a number of decisions that are racially-based. She is firmly an advocate of affirmative action, which makes me wonder whether she has some biased towards racially preferential treatment towards a certain group. She has been quoted as saying that judges make the law, which is a bit worrisome.
Even though she is a Roman Catholic, she holds a pro-choice position, which gives hard-core Catholics indigestion, but obviously to those of us who are virulently pro-life, it is not a great sign. Further, I have read that in university papers and essays, she has written about the second amendment and that she believes that gun ownership is unconstitutional (I believe her paper was called Deadly Obsession or something like that). I really have no idea how George H.W. Bush originally nominated her, with such clear left-leaning views, even though she was classified as a moderate liberal. It is no surprise that the uber-liberal Bill Clinton elevated her to a higher court.
Let's hope that Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, John Roberts, and to a lesser degree, Anthony Kennedy live long lives and don't have any plans to retire any time soon.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Comic Books and Literacy
It would appear as if this is the 200th entry in this here blog. I was wondering what I would write about, and in doing so remembered that I have always wanted to dispel a misconception that has been told to me by many people since I was a child. Since I assume people come on here to read, I thought I'd talk a little bit about litaracy, and in particular, extol the positive aspects of literacy by comic book reading.
Now, I have heard this all my life - comic books are for kids, comic books are a waste of time, comic books have juvenile language, comic books are for the immature reader, and so forth. Though I do not read comic books anymore, what I can say is that these perceptions are far from the truth. In fact, in my own experience, comic books have enhanced my literacy to the degree that I was able to subsequently win spelling contests, become enough of a decent writer to be accepted into all the journalism schools to which I applied, which allowed me to get a gig as an editor of my college magazine and which enabled me to become a writer/reviewer for a prominent Christian magazine more than 15 years ago. I will be happy to debate with anyone anytime who does not believe comic books have any value when it comes to literacy.
I was a late bloomer when it came to reading. Unlike my son, who at six-years-old, can read at an elementary level, I don't believe that I was able to read with any degree of fluency until I was about eight or nine. Even then, reading was really a forced activity and to me, it was more for academic exercises, rather than personal enjoyment. I do not come from a family of readers; in fact, I don't think my parents ever read a book in their lives from cover-to-cover, aside from the one book I know my Dad read, Lee Iacocca's self-titled autobiography. I believe my Dad once told me that is the only book that he read on his own accord in his entire life (and even then, "on his own accord" is debatable, since the book was either required for business purposes or he was strongly encouraged to read it for the same). My Mom has told me that has never read any books. My brother and sister are not really strong readers either, though they have read the occasional book (we're talking maybe one book every few years). So really, I am an anomaly of sorts, in not only the fact that I have an extensive personal library of books at home (around 1200+ at least count), but I've read hundreds upon hundreds of novels, expository works, non-fiction, biographies, and so forth). I've told my son this, that if it was between watching a movie, and reading a book, I would highly favour the latter.
My late start with reading came in a non-conventional means. Some kids start reading novels early and subsequently gravitate towards more big-kid novels, teen novels, and adult novels. For me, I was never into novels. I remember being in grade six (12-years-old or so) and part of our reading units required that I pick out a different book from the homeroom teacher's library (which, if I recall, was quite thin) and read it for the purposes of providing a book report on it. All I remember is how much of a challenge this was for me, given that I had no interest in any of the books that were in the teacher's collection. I remember picking up the Hobbit and thinking, "that is a thick book, I will never get through that". It was a chore, and I don't recall successfully getting through any of those books, but I must have, since I didn't fail grade six.
It was around that time that I started to excel at creative writing. It was kind of weird, for me as an emerging writer, to thoroughly enjoy writing, yet be wary of reading. You would think that reading and writing were mutually inclusive, but they were not for me. That marriage took place soon after, when I discovered the world of comic books, particularly Marvel and D.C. superhero comic books.
In retrospect, I think that part of the reason why I was able to write well at that point, was because I enjoyed using my imagination, and writing gross and seemingly crude stories about burping, farting, boogers, and what not. I remember being able to aptly describe something that was a normal body function in such great detail, that it had the class in stitches. Of course, this had its downside as well, oftentimes with me sitting in the front of the class facing the wall with a dunce cap place upon my head (yes, they did that kind of stuff back then). But the classmate response far outweighed any disciplinary action, so it was one of those cases of "it was worth it".
Comic books helped to really bring the marriage of imagination, writing, and vocabulary expansion to its full extent for me. My parents, my teachers and other parents were highly critical of comic books, claiming that there is no long-term beneift in reading these, as the vocabulary is infantile and does not enhance learning. Maybe that is true if you are reading the good ol' Whitman type of comics, but the Marvel and D.C. types were highly proficient in their use of language, so much so that I often had to check a dictionary in order to find out the meaning of a word. I had the impetus to do so, since without knowing the respective word's meaning, I could not progress further in the plot. Meanwhile, my Dad, who was a harsh critic of comics, read the Toronto Sun newspaper, which subsequent studies have shown to have about a grade 4-6 reading vocabulary, whereas the comic books that I was reading were about grade 9-11.
Some feel the illustrations in comic books are too much of an aid in telling the story, but there are different perspectives on this. Mine is that I viewed the illustrations as having artistic value rather than simply visual translation. It's no different than graphics on video games - I enjoy seeing advanced graphics, not because I am expecting some sort of realistic fantasy escape, but I simply admire the artist's ability to render at such a high degree of proficiency. Similarly, my admiration of comic art was more for artistic value and attention to detail than anything else. It was the story that was the draw, and bear in mind that the comics that I read were more than simply a bubble with a sentence or two in it. Most conversations or thoughts had complex sentences with varying sentence structure to give it that variety of reading flow. If you read anything that is just a collection of single sentences with a period at the end, it will get boring really fast. But comic books were not like that for me.
Further, comics oftentimes had complex plots, with multi-faceted characters, and delved in a variety of issues, sometimes touching on ethnical or moral dilemmas. It's not what people think of - the old Popeye beating the crap out of Brutus and saving Olive Oyl - type of plots). After a while, you really do get a sense of the psychology of characters and their personas. This has really helped me to transition to novels, something that I was not able to read and fully appreciate until I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Part of my difficulty was bridging my own imaginary thought processes with someone else's. To this day, one of the hardest things for me to get through in a novel is reading someone else's descriptions of a setting or an environment. We all come by with our own perception of how things should look, based on the framework of our experiences and environment, all of which are influenced by cultural and social factors. But comic books were able to help me to better appreciate how someone else may have painted that scene and challenged my own perceptions of how something should look. This is a big reason why I would rather read books than watch movies, since the books will allow me to open my mind up to an endless possibilty of how as scene is set, how a character looks and behaves, and so forth.
Based on our family's socio-economic status, comic books were an affordable way to learn how to read. My parents could not afford to buy even a steady stream of Scholastic titles and I suspect that even if they had, I would not have read it. Since comic books were varied in subject, title, and genre, there was a lot of selection to choose from, and every month, either the variety store or comic book shop's stock was replenished. This added much excitement to my monthly foray into these places, making me wonder what story I will pick up next. Comics back then were 50 cents to a dollar, so based on my measly allowance, I could pick up several titles. With gaining interest in a series, I was then introduced to the whole world of back-issues. Remember, reading a novel generally encompasses elements that are self-contained; that is, the plot, characters and so forth are not re-occuring and do not cross-over to other books (there are, of course, exceptions to this, with children's series and what not, but even then, their release and publication is limited by the ability of the author to churn out material). Multiple titles of comic books were released on a monthly basis (back in the day, I seem to recall that Marvel had something like 30-40 titles going on per month. That's a lot of selection from which to choose). That's a lot of reading opportunities that became available.
These days, unfortuantely, literacy is not as highly regarded as it once was. You see this the ghetto-ization of the English language, with inner city urban-speak now enjoying everyday usage. I cringe when I see words deliberately mis-spelled and are commonly passed off as younger generation communicative expression. Instant messaging has turned the English language into a series of abbreviated, mis-spelled "words". And basic words are constantly fouled up, even by those who you think would know better (like older executives, who you assume have been through a better educational system from yesteryear). How many people spell the plural for compact discs as "CD's" when it fact it should be spelled "CDs". People have no clue that the apostrophe is for either contraction or possession only. The words "their" and "there" are inter-mingled frequently. "Dependent" is often spelled "dependant", and so forth.
I also find it disconcerting to see that society and the educational system has now become a haven for English-as-a-second-langage toleration. You have to remember that I am speaking this as an Asian guy whose original language was Chinese (Cantonese). My parents spoke very broken English when we first came to Canada, and so anything I know in my writing or speaking of English was credited to both the schools to which I attended, and also, to my willingness to suck it up and learn English. Nowadays, there is so much accomodation for the speaking of other languages, that English is relegated to the backdrop of "as-needed" status. I completely reject this type of approach and in fact, when I am stopped on the street (which happens often) by a Chinese person who assumes I speak Chinese, I will not respond to them in Chinese, because I do not want to perpetuate that language crutch. I will speak to them in English and if they do not understand, well, that's too bad - they better learn English. The only exception to this are elderly people, for whom it may be too late to start learning a new language.
My son is starting to develop an interest in reading. While I can give him some kid novels to read, I am not certain that that is the right approach. Kids can and do get discouraged in reading a tome, where many words are beyond their comprehension. It would be, in my estimation, far better to simply transition them in the wonderful world of reading with the use of vocabulary-level-appropriate comic books. This will allow them to use their imagination, help them to visualize words and settings and prepare them for a future world of reading where they can enjoy the vast breadth of the English language.
Now, I have heard this all my life - comic books are for kids, comic books are a waste of time, comic books have juvenile language, comic books are for the immature reader, and so forth. Though I do not read comic books anymore, what I can say is that these perceptions are far from the truth. In fact, in my own experience, comic books have enhanced my literacy to the degree that I was able to subsequently win spelling contests, become enough of a decent writer to be accepted into all the journalism schools to which I applied, which allowed me to get a gig as an editor of my college magazine and which enabled me to become a writer/reviewer for a prominent Christian magazine more than 15 years ago. I will be happy to debate with anyone anytime who does not believe comic books have any value when it comes to literacy.
I was a late bloomer when it came to reading. Unlike my son, who at six-years-old, can read at an elementary level, I don't believe that I was able to read with any degree of fluency until I was about eight or nine. Even then, reading was really a forced activity and to me, it was more for academic exercises, rather than personal enjoyment. I do not come from a family of readers; in fact, I don't think my parents ever read a book in their lives from cover-to-cover, aside from the one book I know my Dad read, Lee Iacocca's self-titled autobiography. I believe my Dad once told me that is the only book that he read on his own accord in his entire life (and even then, "on his own accord" is debatable, since the book was either required for business purposes or he was strongly encouraged to read it for the same). My Mom has told me that has never read any books. My brother and sister are not really strong readers either, though they have read the occasional book (we're talking maybe one book every few years). So really, I am an anomaly of sorts, in not only the fact that I have an extensive personal library of books at home (around 1200+ at least count), but I've read hundreds upon hundreds of novels, expository works, non-fiction, biographies, and so forth). I've told my son this, that if it was between watching a movie, and reading a book, I would highly favour the latter.
My late start with reading came in a non-conventional means. Some kids start reading novels early and subsequently gravitate towards more big-kid novels, teen novels, and adult novels. For me, I was never into novels. I remember being in grade six (12-years-old or so) and part of our reading units required that I pick out a different book from the homeroom teacher's library (which, if I recall, was quite thin) and read it for the purposes of providing a book report on it. All I remember is how much of a challenge this was for me, given that I had no interest in any of the books that were in the teacher's collection. I remember picking up the Hobbit and thinking, "that is a thick book, I will never get through that". It was a chore, and I don't recall successfully getting through any of those books, but I must have, since I didn't fail grade six.
It was around that time that I started to excel at creative writing. It was kind of weird, for me as an emerging writer, to thoroughly enjoy writing, yet be wary of reading. You would think that reading and writing were mutually inclusive, but they were not for me. That marriage took place soon after, when I discovered the world of comic books, particularly Marvel and D.C. superhero comic books.
In retrospect, I think that part of the reason why I was able to write well at that point, was because I enjoyed using my imagination, and writing gross and seemingly crude stories about burping, farting, boogers, and what not. I remember being able to aptly describe something that was a normal body function in such great detail, that it had the class in stitches. Of course, this had its downside as well, oftentimes with me sitting in the front of the class facing the wall with a dunce cap place upon my head (yes, they did that kind of stuff back then). But the classmate response far outweighed any disciplinary action, so it was one of those cases of "it was worth it".
Comic books helped to really bring the marriage of imagination, writing, and vocabulary expansion to its full extent for me. My parents, my teachers and other parents were highly critical of comic books, claiming that there is no long-term beneift in reading these, as the vocabulary is infantile and does not enhance learning. Maybe that is true if you are reading the good ol' Whitman type of comics, but the Marvel and D.C. types were highly proficient in their use of language, so much so that I often had to check a dictionary in order to find out the meaning of a word. I had the impetus to do so, since without knowing the respective word's meaning, I could not progress further in the plot. Meanwhile, my Dad, who was a harsh critic of comics, read the Toronto Sun newspaper, which subsequent studies have shown to have about a grade 4-6 reading vocabulary, whereas the comic books that I was reading were about grade 9-11.
Some feel the illustrations in comic books are too much of an aid in telling the story, but there are different perspectives on this. Mine is that I viewed the illustrations as having artistic value rather than simply visual translation. It's no different than graphics on video games - I enjoy seeing advanced graphics, not because I am expecting some sort of realistic fantasy escape, but I simply admire the artist's ability to render at such a high degree of proficiency. Similarly, my admiration of comic art was more for artistic value and attention to detail than anything else. It was the story that was the draw, and bear in mind that the comics that I read were more than simply a bubble with a sentence or two in it. Most conversations or thoughts had complex sentences with varying sentence structure to give it that variety of reading flow. If you read anything that is just a collection of single sentences with a period at the end, it will get boring really fast. But comic books were not like that for me.
Further, comics oftentimes had complex plots, with multi-faceted characters, and delved in a variety of issues, sometimes touching on ethnical or moral dilemmas. It's not what people think of - the old Popeye beating the crap out of Brutus and saving Olive Oyl - type of plots). After a while, you really do get a sense of the psychology of characters and their personas. This has really helped me to transition to novels, something that I was not able to read and fully appreciate until I was in my mid-to-late 20s. Part of my difficulty was bridging my own imaginary thought processes with someone else's. To this day, one of the hardest things for me to get through in a novel is reading someone else's descriptions of a setting or an environment. We all come by with our own perception of how things should look, based on the framework of our experiences and environment, all of which are influenced by cultural and social factors. But comic books were able to help me to better appreciate how someone else may have painted that scene and challenged my own perceptions of how something should look. This is a big reason why I would rather read books than watch movies, since the books will allow me to open my mind up to an endless possibilty of how as scene is set, how a character looks and behaves, and so forth.
Based on our family's socio-economic status, comic books were an affordable way to learn how to read. My parents could not afford to buy even a steady stream of Scholastic titles and I suspect that even if they had, I would not have read it. Since comic books were varied in subject, title, and genre, there was a lot of selection to choose from, and every month, either the variety store or comic book shop's stock was replenished. This added much excitement to my monthly foray into these places, making me wonder what story I will pick up next. Comics back then were 50 cents to a dollar, so based on my measly allowance, I could pick up several titles. With gaining interest in a series, I was then introduced to the whole world of back-issues. Remember, reading a novel generally encompasses elements that are self-contained; that is, the plot, characters and so forth are not re-occuring and do not cross-over to other books (there are, of course, exceptions to this, with children's series and what not, but even then, their release and publication is limited by the ability of the author to churn out material). Multiple titles of comic books were released on a monthly basis (back in the day, I seem to recall that Marvel had something like 30-40 titles going on per month. That's a lot of selection from which to choose). That's a lot of reading opportunities that became available.
These days, unfortuantely, literacy is not as highly regarded as it once was. You see this the ghetto-ization of the English language, with inner city urban-speak now enjoying everyday usage. I cringe when I see words deliberately mis-spelled and are commonly passed off as younger generation communicative expression. Instant messaging has turned the English language into a series of abbreviated, mis-spelled "words". And basic words are constantly fouled up, even by those who you think would know better (like older executives, who you assume have been through a better educational system from yesteryear). How many people spell the plural for compact discs as "CD's" when it fact it should be spelled "CDs". People have no clue that the apostrophe is for either contraction or possession only. The words "their" and "there" are inter-mingled frequently. "Dependent" is often spelled "dependant", and so forth.
I also find it disconcerting to see that society and the educational system has now become a haven for English-as-a-second-langage toleration. You have to remember that I am speaking this as an Asian guy whose original language was Chinese (Cantonese). My parents spoke very broken English when we first came to Canada, and so anything I know in my writing or speaking of English was credited to both the schools to which I attended, and also, to my willingness to suck it up and learn English. Nowadays, there is so much accomodation for the speaking of other languages, that English is relegated to the backdrop of "as-needed" status. I completely reject this type of approach and in fact, when I am stopped on the street (which happens often) by a Chinese person who assumes I speak Chinese, I will not respond to them in Chinese, because I do not want to perpetuate that language crutch. I will speak to them in English and if they do not understand, well, that's too bad - they better learn English. The only exception to this are elderly people, for whom it may be too late to start learning a new language.
My son is starting to develop an interest in reading. While I can give him some kid novels to read, I am not certain that that is the right approach. Kids can and do get discouraged in reading a tome, where many words are beyond their comprehension. It would be, in my estimation, far better to simply transition them in the wonderful world of reading with the use of vocabulary-level-appropriate comic books. This will allow them to use their imagination, help them to visualize words and settings and prepare them for a future world of reading where they can enjoy the vast breadth of the English language.
Monday, May 25, 2009
The Dumbing Down of Today's Christians
Just yesterday, at church, our pastor announced that in the Fall, our church will begin an in-depth and comprehensive series, on Christian doctrine and foundational beliefs. I was so pleased to hear this, and it is yet another affirmation that God brought us to the right place, when we changed churches earlier this year (we were at our previous church for 13 years).
This got me thinking last night when I went to bed. I wonder how a typical church nowadays would think of a regular course on doctrine. Though I am not a betting man, I would bet that many churches would not be on board with such a course. You see, when you talk doctrine, you are starting to talk in absolute terms, and I think that the overall church community (at least in North America) has covertly fought against this for years. Even at our new church, as I have become more integrated into it, I found out that it wasn't even five years ago that our church had a major church split, losing 400+ members (who incidentally went and formed their own church). The sticking point? There was a segment of people who did not like the fact that the denomination specifically brought in a sound-doctrine Bible teacher who teaches only from the Word of God (the Bible) and will not compromise on this - this was in response to concerns that the church's former pastor was watering down the teaching of God's Word). Needless to say, this rather large splinter group ended up forming their own church (which like many "contemporary" churches nowadays, don't even use the word "Church" in their name anymore). Now, even before I knew anything about this splinter "church", I suspected that this church had as part of its philosophy one or more (if not all) of the following items:
a) come as you are - no dress code or no expectations of dress
b) this is a non-threatening environment
c) the music here is cool
d) we strive to redefine church - you may be surprised by what you see
e) we have or are open to women in ministry
f) we don't use "stuffy" versions of the Bible, it's Eugene Peterson's "The Message" that is for us, baby!
g) it doesn't matter where you are or what you have done, God loves you
Now, the last point is sticky - it is technically true, but most of these churches don't teach this Biblically; that is, they don't discuss this from a sin and salvation and a forgiveness overall standpoint, but from a "we all have hangups, it's not a big deal and God cares more about you coming to Him than what you are doing"). More on this later.
Now, I took an opportunity to actually visit the splinter church's website and lo and behold, everything on it confirmed my suspicions. I happen to have had some spare time that day, so I thought I'd give them a call and chat with one of the pastors there just to ask some curiosity questions. I asked them some hypothetical questions that if I was looking for a new church, why would I feel welcome there. His answers confirmed all the above criteria of the standard "seeker-friendly" type of church. So there ya go.
Now, what is my problem with all this? Well, I see that such churches are in large part, contributing to a "dumbing down" of Christianity and by extension, of Christians, in today's world (at least in North America, where this phenomenon of the "seeker friendly" church is rampant. This is a big deal for me, since if, as Christians, we are supposed to bear witness to the world of the gospel of Christ, using God's Word as our sole evidentiary mechanism, it is imperative that we get to know the Word intimately, and by this I mean understanding it properly and in context. Is it no wonder that most Christians would poop their pants at seeing a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness at their door, since their recognize that their lack of familiarity with their Bible would not make them ideal candidates to have a frank discussion about theological differences with these groups.
Years ago, I attended a memorial/funeral for a colleague of mine. It was quite a long drive, but I wanted to show my support for him at this difficult time. It so happened that one of my other colleagues, a Christian gal, tagged along for the ride. Now, she is of a completely different denomination than me, but I don't consider our denominational differences to be major - I know she is saved and she loves the Lord and she is a really strong believer. Anyway, on the car ride, we talked about what was then all the rage in modern Christiandom, Rick Warren's "The Purpose Drive Life." She didn't read it yet, but had some reservations about the book based on the title itself (I don't remember exactly what her objections were, since it was many years ago). She asked me if I had read it and I simply said yes. She asked me to elaborate, and so I did. Now, that book, while most of it may be technically correct, is not theologically sound. Just like my above comment on criteria G, while God loves you, there is still action on our part we must take. If we are in sinful behaviour, we must go to God and repent (a word you never hear anymore in churches) and ask Him for forvigness. In fact, in order to be saved, one has to repent and turn away from their sins and accept Jesus Christ as Saviour. It's our sins that put Christ on the cross in the first place! Yet many churches seem to conveniently sweep that one under the carpet, opting to focus on one side of the equation, which is God's grace and love and forgiveness, while ignoring the other, which is our sin and depravity and our response to God. See what I'm saying here? If you teach half the doctrine, you're going to get some misled and confused people. Check out the latest rage in Christian circles (well at least last year), that book called "The Shack" that is making the rounds. If new Christians are being exposed to this, there is no way on God's green earth that they will ever be exposed to the full gospel message, in this politically-correct, spiritually unoffending, feel-good treastise. This sells in volumes on the Christian and non-Christian market because of its lack of discussion about sin and hell and the righteousness of God. It is again, a one-sided "God is love" approach to things, which, if you examine the Bible in its entirety, is not telling the whole story.
Churches like the splinter church described above don't believe in "rules". That's good, because I don't either, at least when it comes to faith in Christ. However, I think that churches like the one I described above miss the mark when it comes to this - they are pushing away from a works-based understanding of the Christian life, which is good in a sense, since that's what Jesus railed against when he criticized the Pharisees; however, as many of the epistles will show us (Corinthians, Timothy, Ephesians, Philippians, etc.), and especially James, the Christian, in his or her new life, should, by virtue of his/her obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, show fruit from his/her faith. I think this is what James is saying - while what you do will not save you, your actions as a result of living a new life in Christ, should show some evidence of your new life. Now, I am the first to admit that it is easy to ignore the promptings of the Spirit. Sometimes it's just easier to just do what you want to do, according to the flesh. Heck, I've been guilty of that for years. But over the last little while, I've really given my life back to God for Him to repair, and He has really changed my heart to quite a large degree and I am happy for that; I am still far from perfect (just ask my wife!) but doing better now, thanks!
You know, it's amazing, one of the things which will always elicit a reaction as asking Christians about John MacArthur, who is considered one of the top Bible teachers in the world today and is Pastor and Bible teacher for Grace Community Church in California. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But I think that for one to argue against him, it is necessary to exercise the same amount (or more) of Biblical literacy that he has. Which means that Christians need to go into their Bibles more if you want to counter a point of contention - it's not good enough to just say, "well, I just don't feel...". For the past two months, I've been listening to a Bible Questions and Answers series, which features Pastor MacArthur answering Bible and Chrsitianity-related questions posed from MacArthur's congregation of about 10,000. The Bible Q&A sessions are unscripted and are based over 37 years (there's 55 CDs and counting of pure Bible questions and answers). I love listening to these, not because I like hearing MacArthur's voice, but because he always answers his questions with Biblical support and I learn something new. It also points me back to Scripture and gets me into the Word more than I've been for years. None of his questions are responded with "I think..." unless there is no clear Biblical reference to it. MacArthur has 40+ years of sermons available for download and study and has written 70+ books. To me, this is the kind of love and interest in God's Word that I'd like to have in my own life. Yet, you know, there are a lot of people who don't like MacArthur, which is fine, since I don't expect everyone to agree on everything, but it's always for one of the following reasons: a) he's boring. b) it's too indepth and c) not much contemporary application.
You see what I'm saying here? Today's Christians will find expository preaching boring, you know why? As the Bible says, they are infant Christians in their understanding, and infants drink, what? Infant milk! If these Christians go to a church in which in-depth expository and contextual Bible study is hardly contemplated, much less practiced, they are going to turn out to be not very well grounded on their doctrinal foundations, if at all.
Based on the complaints noted above regarding MacArthur, I have found the reverse to be true when it comes to in-depth Bible study recently in my life. If the study is done properly in understanding the historical context and cultural context and religious context, it really can and does bring the passage to life in that we better understand why it was said the way it was said and why it was said. People nowadays can take any verse out of context from the Bible. Of course, when this is done, no one has any clue as to why this archaic Bible verse is quoted, but their motivation to find out is stymied by their culturally-taught desire not to question anything - so they blindly recite verses without any passion and understanding behind it. A quick example - 1 Corinthians 3:16 is often used on me to tell me that I should have never gotten my tattoos. It says that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and if one destroys the body, God will destroy him. There are two problems with this: a) this verse is not saying this (even though for years I thought it did). If you look at the context of this passage (ie. the chapter before and after as well as the historical context of the Corintian church at the time), you'll see that Paul was writing to the Corinthian church (the body of believers as referenced) about divisions in the church and how some in that church at that time was thinking that Paul was the head of the church or Apollos was, etc.) The church is what is referenced to by the word "body" (and this is confirmed by examining the Greek word's origins and meaning). Based on what the topic was before and after that passage, it makes absolutely not sense why Paul would all of the sudden stop what he is saying and talk about the physical body, when in the context of that passage, body mean "the church". b) I did my tattoos before I was a Christian, so it's not like I knew any better. But regardless, my personal opinion of tattoos is neither here nor there since I don't see it as a paramount theological issue, but I would question Christians who get tattoos of things that are obviously not pleasing to God (such as evil symbols, witchcraft things, sexual things, etc.).
While it is getting a bit off topic, my point about is to demonstrate that most Christians don't even bother (or know how) to look at a passage contextually. And churches nowadays are not teaching this, unfortunately. And I've visted more than a few churches to be able to make this comment with some confidence.
That being said, one of the best sermons I heard at my previous church was preached by the, at the time 30-year-old or so pastoral intern who taught on the passage about the Good Samaritan. I've heard and read that passage many times, but this time, he spent time looking at the context of that passage. At face value, we often read contemporary things into Scirptural text. For me, I always envisioned a straight country road where the guy was attacked. And I just saw that the guys who passed him (except for the Samaritan) were simply arrogant, snobby guys who didn't want to help him. It was until it was told the type of winding angled road and that it was dangerous because of the hiding spots in the areas the road that I started realizing that this was no stroll in the park. And also the relationships that the Jews and Samaritans had was not simply that they didn't associate with one another, but when you discovered why and the societial stigmas that will result, etc., it helps you to appreciate the account better, as well as understand the setting from which our Biblical stories come.
But most churches don't teach this, and if they do they will teach it once in a blue moon. Instead, we get, as I witnessed in 2006 in a church in Alberta, a quick sermon (and these churches always have quick sermons since they seem to think that people have more important things to do rather than study God's Word - if nothing else, they are making their real intentions known) about some lovey-dovey topic that will not cause any offense and uncomfortableness with the congregants. The topic was something like "What If Jesus Had a Blackberry?" What an utterly stupid topic it was, and I remember telling my cousin, who asked me about what I thought of the sermon, that "to be honest, it wasn't very good." Honestly, if you have to start reading your 21st century viewpoint back into the Biblical text, you are in a world of hurt.
The pursuit of a holy life is not taught in most churches today. This is true. I am seeing more and more instances of non married Christian couples vacationing together by themselves. That seems to be OK with other Christians, few of whom speak up. When was the last time you heard of a church talking about waiting until marriage to have sex? Just yesterday, our new church's pastor preached a challenging sermon about integrity and watching what one watches, and watching what they say (ie. slander, lying, gossip). Are those warnings taught in any churches nowadays, especially in light of the fact that the church has historically been a place where such sins are openly practiced? I have found many Christians nowadays to be much more accepting of other Christians who use foul language and swearing - even I have been known to historically use it without anyone really chastizing me. That is not good. As with anything else in the Christian life, it's better to surround yourself in an environment where you don't get exposed to things that are not good for your spiritual health. If you aren't in a good church that encourages you to pursue a life of Godly living, find one that does.
Many churches nowadays are not teaching doctrine (they say it's divisive, which is true, but that's by design - no one will be convicted of anything if there's no objective standard by which to measure their behaviour). Their challenge is whether they will be obedient and submit to God's authority in the Bible, even if it makes them uncomfortable. Case in point - one of the reasons we left our previous church was their hiring of a female pastor. My wife and I felt that God's Word is clear on this issue and while there were many things which we could tolerate (and even that I reflect, is probably not good as we probably should have gone with our convictions earlier), I think this issue was really what did it for us, though it was one of a few other doctrinal and Biblical issues. To me, I think many people on this issue (and not just at our previous church, but in churches around the country) want to appeal to a worldly sense of equality and not offend the feminists out there. They will always tell you that the passages in Timothy and Titus that deal with pastors are outdated or antiquated, or it doesn't fit their secular, feminist interpretation. For us, even when we ultimately did not agree, I think it was more important for us to maintain peaceful relations with our old church and not rail on them but simply say that we disagree and move on and wish them the best. Personally, it has been almost 3 months now and I am glad we made the switch, for our spiritual health's sake.
Going forward, I don't expect churches across Canada and especially across the USA, to change to a Biblically focussed, expository preaching-based system, where God's Word is studied vigorously and properly. But if there is some encouragement to glean, it can be seen in how the once seeker-friendly Willow Creek church, in the past few years, recognized in a published paper, that they were trying to "run church" all the wrong ways, opting to lure people in by marketing gimmacks and a watered-down gospel, rather than preach the Gospel with all of its challenges to the status quo and its call for changing how one thinks and behaves. People nowadays often cite the situation where a woman who was caught in adultery was brought before Jesus and how Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." What these same people conveniently leave out is Jesus' charge to the woman near the end of the discourse, to "Go and sin no more". Jesus challenges our works-based mentality but also indicates that action is required on our part and the first step is to humbly come before God and admit our shortcomings and our sinful actions and attitudes.
This got me thinking last night when I went to bed. I wonder how a typical church nowadays would think of a regular course on doctrine. Though I am not a betting man, I would bet that many churches would not be on board with such a course. You see, when you talk doctrine, you are starting to talk in absolute terms, and I think that the overall church community (at least in North America) has covertly fought against this for years. Even at our new church, as I have become more integrated into it, I found out that it wasn't even five years ago that our church had a major church split, losing 400+ members (who incidentally went and formed their own church). The sticking point? There was a segment of people who did not like the fact that the denomination specifically brought in a sound-doctrine Bible teacher who teaches only from the Word of God (the Bible) and will not compromise on this - this was in response to concerns that the church's former pastor was watering down the teaching of God's Word). Needless to say, this rather large splinter group ended up forming their own church (which like many "contemporary" churches nowadays, don't even use the word "Church" in their name anymore). Now, even before I knew anything about this splinter "church", I suspected that this church had as part of its philosophy one or more (if not all) of the following items:
a) come as you are - no dress code or no expectations of dress
b) this is a non-threatening environment
c) the music here is cool
d) we strive to redefine church - you may be surprised by what you see
e) we have or are open to women in ministry
f) we don't use "stuffy" versions of the Bible, it's Eugene Peterson's "The Message" that is for us, baby!
g) it doesn't matter where you are or what you have done, God loves you
Now, the last point is sticky - it is technically true, but most of these churches don't teach this Biblically; that is, they don't discuss this from a sin and salvation and a forgiveness overall standpoint, but from a "we all have hangups, it's not a big deal and God cares more about you coming to Him than what you are doing"). More on this later.
Now, I took an opportunity to actually visit the splinter church's website and lo and behold, everything on it confirmed my suspicions. I happen to have had some spare time that day, so I thought I'd give them a call and chat with one of the pastors there just to ask some curiosity questions. I asked them some hypothetical questions that if I was looking for a new church, why would I feel welcome there. His answers confirmed all the above criteria of the standard "seeker-friendly" type of church. So there ya go.
Now, what is my problem with all this? Well, I see that such churches are in large part, contributing to a "dumbing down" of Christianity and by extension, of Christians, in today's world (at least in North America, where this phenomenon of the "seeker friendly" church is rampant. This is a big deal for me, since if, as Christians, we are supposed to bear witness to the world of the gospel of Christ, using God's Word as our sole evidentiary mechanism, it is imperative that we get to know the Word intimately, and by this I mean understanding it properly and in context. Is it no wonder that most Christians would poop their pants at seeing a Mormon or a Jehovah's Witness at their door, since their recognize that their lack of familiarity with their Bible would not make them ideal candidates to have a frank discussion about theological differences with these groups.
Years ago, I attended a memorial/funeral for a colleague of mine. It was quite a long drive, but I wanted to show my support for him at this difficult time. It so happened that one of my other colleagues, a Christian gal, tagged along for the ride. Now, she is of a completely different denomination than me, but I don't consider our denominational differences to be major - I know she is saved and she loves the Lord and she is a really strong believer. Anyway, on the car ride, we talked about what was then all the rage in modern Christiandom, Rick Warren's "The Purpose Drive Life." She didn't read it yet, but had some reservations about the book based on the title itself (I don't remember exactly what her objections were, since it was many years ago). She asked me if I had read it and I simply said yes. She asked me to elaborate, and so I did. Now, that book, while most of it may be technically correct, is not theologically sound. Just like my above comment on criteria G, while God loves you, there is still action on our part we must take. If we are in sinful behaviour, we must go to God and repent (a word you never hear anymore in churches) and ask Him for forvigness. In fact, in order to be saved, one has to repent and turn away from their sins and accept Jesus Christ as Saviour. It's our sins that put Christ on the cross in the first place! Yet many churches seem to conveniently sweep that one under the carpet, opting to focus on one side of the equation, which is God's grace and love and forgiveness, while ignoring the other, which is our sin and depravity and our response to God. See what I'm saying here? If you teach half the doctrine, you're going to get some misled and confused people. Check out the latest rage in Christian circles (well at least last year), that book called "The Shack" that is making the rounds. If new Christians are being exposed to this, there is no way on God's green earth that they will ever be exposed to the full gospel message, in this politically-correct, spiritually unoffending, feel-good treastise. This sells in volumes on the Christian and non-Christian market because of its lack of discussion about sin and hell and the righteousness of God. It is again, a one-sided "God is love" approach to things, which, if you examine the Bible in its entirety, is not telling the whole story.
Churches like the splinter church described above don't believe in "rules". That's good, because I don't either, at least when it comes to faith in Christ. However, I think that churches like the one I described above miss the mark when it comes to this - they are pushing away from a works-based understanding of the Christian life, which is good in a sense, since that's what Jesus railed against when he criticized the Pharisees; however, as many of the epistles will show us (Corinthians, Timothy, Ephesians, Philippians, etc.), and especially James, the Christian, in his or her new life, should, by virtue of his/her obedience to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, show fruit from his/her faith. I think this is what James is saying - while what you do will not save you, your actions as a result of living a new life in Christ, should show some evidence of your new life. Now, I am the first to admit that it is easy to ignore the promptings of the Spirit. Sometimes it's just easier to just do what you want to do, according to the flesh. Heck, I've been guilty of that for years. But over the last little while, I've really given my life back to God for Him to repair, and He has really changed my heart to quite a large degree and I am happy for that; I am still far from perfect (just ask my wife!) but doing better now, thanks!
You know, it's amazing, one of the things which will always elicit a reaction as asking Christians about John MacArthur, who is considered one of the top Bible teachers in the world today and is Pastor and Bible teacher for Grace Community Church in California. Do I agree with everything he says? No. But I think that for one to argue against him, it is necessary to exercise the same amount (or more) of Biblical literacy that he has. Which means that Christians need to go into their Bibles more if you want to counter a point of contention - it's not good enough to just say, "well, I just don't feel...". For the past two months, I've been listening to a Bible Questions and Answers series, which features Pastor MacArthur answering Bible and Chrsitianity-related questions posed from MacArthur's congregation of about 10,000. The Bible Q&A sessions are unscripted and are based over 37 years (there's 55 CDs and counting of pure Bible questions and answers). I love listening to these, not because I like hearing MacArthur's voice, but because he always answers his questions with Biblical support and I learn something new. It also points me back to Scripture and gets me into the Word more than I've been for years. None of his questions are responded with "I think..." unless there is no clear Biblical reference to it. MacArthur has 40+ years of sermons available for download and study and has written 70+ books. To me, this is the kind of love and interest in God's Word that I'd like to have in my own life. Yet, you know, there are a lot of people who don't like MacArthur, which is fine, since I don't expect everyone to agree on everything, but it's always for one of the following reasons: a) he's boring. b) it's too indepth and c) not much contemporary application.
You see what I'm saying here? Today's Christians will find expository preaching boring, you know why? As the Bible says, they are infant Christians in their understanding, and infants drink, what? Infant milk! If these Christians go to a church in which in-depth expository and contextual Bible study is hardly contemplated, much less practiced, they are going to turn out to be not very well grounded on their doctrinal foundations, if at all.
Based on the complaints noted above regarding MacArthur, I have found the reverse to be true when it comes to in-depth Bible study recently in my life. If the study is done properly in understanding the historical context and cultural context and religious context, it really can and does bring the passage to life in that we better understand why it was said the way it was said and why it was said. People nowadays can take any verse out of context from the Bible. Of course, when this is done, no one has any clue as to why this archaic Bible verse is quoted, but their motivation to find out is stymied by their culturally-taught desire not to question anything - so they blindly recite verses without any passion and understanding behind it. A quick example - 1 Corinthians 3:16 is often used on me to tell me that I should have never gotten my tattoos. It says that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and if one destroys the body, God will destroy him. There are two problems with this: a) this verse is not saying this (even though for years I thought it did). If you look at the context of this passage (ie. the chapter before and after as well as the historical context of the Corintian church at the time), you'll see that Paul was writing to the Corinthian church (the body of believers as referenced) about divisions in the church and how some in that church at that time was thinking that Paul was the head of the church or Apollos was, etc.) The church is what is referenced to by the word "body" (and this is confirmed by examining the Greek word's origins and meaning). Based on what the topic was before and after that passage, it makes absolutely not sense why Paul would all of the sudden stop what he is saying and talk about the physical body, when in the context of that passage, body mean "the church". b) I did my tattoos before I was a Christian, so it's not like I knew any better. But regardless, my personal opinion of tattoos is neither here nor there since I don't see it as a paramount theological issue, but I would question Christians who get tattoos of things that are obviously not pleasing to God (such as evil symbols, witchcraft things, sexual things, etc.).
While it is getting a bit off topic, my point about is to demonstrate that most Christians don't even bother (or know how) to look at a passage contextually. And churches nowadays are not teaching this, unfortunately. And I've visted more than a few churches to be able to make this comment with some confidence.
That being said, one of the best sermons I heard at my previous church was preached by the, at the time 30-year-old or so pastoral intern who taught on the passage about the Good Samaritan. I've heard and read that passage many times, but this time, he spent time looking at the context of that passage. At face value, we often read contemporary things into Scirptural text. For me, I always envisioned a straight country road where the guy was attacked. And I just saw that the guys who passed him (except for the Samaritan) were simply arrogant, snobby guys who didn't want to help him. It was until it was told the type of winding angled road and that it was dangerous because of the hiding spots in the areas the road that I started realizing that this was no stroll in the park. And also the relationships that the Jews and Samaritans had was not simply that they didn't associate with one another, but when you discovered why and the societial stigmas that will result, etc., it helps you to appreciate the account better, as well as understand the setting from which our Biblical stories come.
But most churches don't teach this, and if they do they will teach it once in a blue moon. Instead, we get, as I witnessed in 2006 in a church in Alberta, a quick sermon (and these churches always have quick sermons since they seem to think that people have more important things to do rather than study God's Word - if nothing else, they are making their real intentions known) about some lovey-dovey topic that will not cause any offense and uncomfortableness with the congregants. The topic was something like "What If Jesus Had a Blackberry?" What an utterly stupid topic it was, and I remember telling my cousin, who asked me about what I thought of the sermon, that "to be honest, it wasn't very good." Honestly, if you have to start reading your 21st century viewpoint back into the Biblical text, you are in a world of hurt.
The pursuit of a holy life is not taught in most churches today. This is true. I am seeing more and more instances of non married Christian couples vacationing together by themselves. That seems to be OK with other Christians, few of whom speak up. When was the last time you heard of a church talking about waiting until marriage to have sex? Just yesterday, our new church's pastor preached a challenging sermon about integrity and watching what one watches, and watching what they say (ie. slander, lying, gossip). Are those warnings taught in any churches nowadays, especially in light of the fact that the church has historically been a place where such sins are openly practiced? I have found many Christians nowadays to be much more accepting of other Christians who use foul language and swearing - even I have been known to historically use it without anyone really chastizing me. That is not good. As with anything else in the Christian life, it's better to surround yourself in an environment where you don't get exposed to things that are not good for your spiritual health. If you aren't in a good church that encourages you to pursue a life of Godly living, find one that does.
Many churches nowadays are not teaching doctrine (they say it's divisive, which is true, but that's by design - no one will be convicted of anything if there's no objective standard by which to measure their behaviour). Their challenge is whether they will be obedient and submit to God's authority in the Bible, even if it makes them uncomfortable. Case in point - one of the reasons we left our previous church was their hiring of a female pastor. My wife and I felt that God's Word is clear on this issue and while there were many things which we could tolerate (and even that I reflect, is probably not good as we probably should have gone with our convictions earlier), I think this issue was really what did it for us, though it was one of a few other doctrinal and Biblical issues. To me, I think many people on this issue (and not just at our previous church, but in churches around the country) want to appeal to a worldly sense of equality and not offend the feminists out there. They will always tell you that the passages in Timothy and Titus that deal with pastors are outdated or antiquated, or it doesn't fit their secular, feminist interpretation. For us, even when we ultimately did not agree, I think it was more important for us to maintain peaceful relations with our old church and not rail on them but simply say that we disagree and move on and wish them the best. Personally, it has been almost 3 months now and I am glad we made the switch, for our spiritual health's sake.
Going forward, I don't expect churches across Canada and especially across the USA, to change to a Biblically focussed, expository preaching-based system, where God's Word is studied vigorously and properly. But if there is some encouragement to glean, it can be seen in how the once seeker-friendly Willow Creek church, in the past few years, recognized in a published paper, that they were trying to "run church" all the wrong ways, opting to lure people in by marketing gimmacks and a watered-down gospel, rather than preach the Gospel with all of its challenges to the status quo and its call for changing how one thinks and behaves. People nowadays often cite the situation where a woman who was caught in adultery was brought before Jesus and how Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." What these same people conveniently leave out is Jesus' charge to the woman near the end of the discourse, to "Go and sin no more". Jesus challenges our works-based mentality but also indicates that action is required on our part and the first step is to humbly come before God and admit our shortcomings and our sinful actions and attitudes.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Best Defence, by Robert Waters: A Book Review
If you are either a proponent of firearms for self-defence, you would have probably heard of the following three books, which are commonly referenced in discussions or articles: Chris Bird's "Thank God I Had a Gun", Dave Workman and Alan Gottlieb's "American Fights Back" and Robert Waters' "The Best Defense". I have all three and have read all three, and I can honestly say without hesitation that if you only have enough money to buy one of these books, THE book to get is Waters' "The Best Defense". I just finished reading it and it is a tremendously easily read, yet captivating and highly informative.
While the scope of this review is not a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the two other books I mentioned above, I do want to indicate, at least in my view, why I think Robert Waters' book is the book to get. First, it is very well written and edited, which you may think should be the case with all published books, but I've read many (even New York Times bestsellers) that have basic spelling mistakes (now, that being said, I don't use spell-check at all, so I'm sure my blog entries are full of errors too, but my stuff is not really in the professionally published and edited realm anyway - ie. I don't get paid to do any of this). The Workman/Gottlieb book is full of spelling, grammatical, and sentence structure errors, so much so that after a while, it started detracting from the positives in the book. The Bird book is well written, but the Waters' book is better. There was only one case where I noticed a clear sentence structure boo-boo (and it was probably a case of cutting and pasting issues).
Second, there is no visible racial bias. Look, I understand that Blacks do commit a disproportionate amount of crime and have stated that in my other articles, but the Bird book seems to really bend over backwards to highlight and reiterate that fact, almost as if it was written specifically to Whites to instill fear (sure, there was one chapter about a Black gun owner who defended himself, but the tone of the book does not appear to be racially neutral). Waters' book does not mention race per se in most cases, though you can figure some of this out by just reading the story. I think that by Waters' simply stating the facts without a racial agenda, he is lending credibility to his writing and reporting, instead of getting caught up in incessant obsessions with talking about Blacks and Black crime).
Third, there is no clear political bias. The stories are reported based on numerous accounts from different sources and Waters never injects his own two cents as far as either being pro-gun or pro-gun control. The Gottlieb/Workman book is notorious for this, in that the authors make wise-cracks and sarcastic jokes within the accounts or inject their own personal opinions into the story. While this may OK for some, I found it distracting and unprofessional. Waters, on the other hand, does not do any of this, and really seems to report the stories with a sincerity and humility that is very refreshing to see. In the end, it's hard to tell where he is on the gun issue; while he does support personal ownership of firearms for self-defence, he also states that he sees the other side of the argument, in terms of gun safety and accessibility to children, etc. I really also think that he goes out of his way to not embellish the accounts with machismo. It helps for the reader to take the issue more seriously and form conclusions on objective facts (and this is coming from me, as a gun owner and an NRA member).
I also enjoyed the fact that these stories were all "fresh" stories. I mean, how many gun books have you read which refer to the same old accounts - it makes you wonder whether the Gary Kleck estimate of 2.5 million defensive gun use scenarios a year is plausible (I personally think that number is way too high, unless someone can actually substantiate it, which I haven't seen yet). The Waters book retells stories that I have not read anywhere else.
Finally, I really liked the fact that the Robert Waters' stories were full-length and had sufficient detail. I never really "got into" any of the stories in the Workman/Gottlieb book, because they were so short, and also because they injected unnecessary details such as the name of a baby which is not really related to the story. Waters' re-telling of the stories and his descriptive prowess really helps the reader to immerse himself/herself into the shoes of the victim (and maybe to a lesser extent, the shoes of the perpetrator). The background information and level of detail is relevant and adds to moving the plot along. I think that in large measure, that's what made the book so easy to read - it was written so that the progressions of the plot and its transitions between scenes were logical and were at a decent pace.
Enough with the comparisons. Let's examine a couple of the highlights of the Waters' book.
I enjoyed Waters' discussion on how drugs, and in particular, crack-cocaine causes the perpetrator to act differently. We have all heard the arguments about what ammo to use for self-defence and home defence weapons, and one consideration I hear over and over again is, for instance, one should use buckshot with a shotgun, as it has X-amount of penetrating and stopping power for those who are on some sort of drug. I often wondered whether that was really true, but Waters' in a few of the stories, has really shown that low powered rounds, like .22s, may eventually cause the bad guy's death, but it may not stop him immediately (as a result, the perpetrator can still inflict damage while his vitals are slowly shutting down). This side-point did not need to be discussed explicitly, but in reading the chapters, any reasonable person can form that conclusion.
There were chapters such as "Death of a Serial Killer", that seemed so surreal, so unbelievable, that I had to double-check and verify the facts myself, since I found it so hard to believe that something like this could have happened. The strength with which Kristen and Doug Wells was able to defy certain death and their desire to keep living was inspiring - and thanks to them, they put a serial killer scumbag to pasture. This chapter itself is worth the price of the book.
The chapter on Robert Stella and Judy Davis, entitled, "The Stalker" was literally chilling to read - I had to curl up under a blanket to keep warm even though it is 27 celsius on my thermostat. That chapter was written so well that one could easily envision oneself in the victim's shoes, feeling all the rage and frustration that today's lenient criminal justice system would let her down, despite numerous threats and carrying on of violence against her. The fact that Stella, the stalker, was released so often, despite his crimes, and put on probation rather than behind bars, makes a strong argument for the keeping of firearms for personal defence.
Stories are only good if you can remember them, and one thing that I found as a real positive about Waters' book, is that the stories are really relevant and stay in your mind. I think partly, it's because Waters' looks at stories of everyday, normal people, from store owners, to families, to single people, and from young folks to old folks. He examines the stories from different geographies and time frames. Even reading a story from the 1970s does not seem any less relevant than a story from the 1990s. He also clearly describes the weapon of choice for the perpetrator and what the would-be victim ended up using to defend him/herself. He provides ample detail about the history of the bad guy (whether it be mental history, criminal history, etc.) and I think that it helps to understand, at least in part, the psychology of the assailant.
I am a discriminating book reader (I read a lot of books), and in general, I don't recommend a book, unless I wholeheartedly think that it has multi-faceted benefits. So it is for all these reasons already stated that I highly recommend Robert Waters' book, "The Best Defense" as a must-have in your self-defense and firearms library, but don't just put it on your shelf - read it, and heed its lessons that were gleaned from those brave men and women who considered life much more precious than to simply just give it away to those who demand it without good reason.
-Jeremy
5/26/2009 Update: I have had the pleasure to have been in correspondence with the author, Robert Waters, regarding his book, passing along my comments and compliments to him for such a fine book. He has since informed me that several of the would-be victims (heroes, I would call them) have since passed on. While I am saddened by this, I am deeply grateful that they were able to share their stories before their passing and inspire countless others to learn from them.
While the scope of this review is not a thorough and comprehensive analysis of the two other books I mentioned above, I do want to indicate, at least in my view, why I think Robert Waters' book is the book to get. First, it is very well written and edited, which you may think should be the case with all published books, but I've read many (even New York Times bestsellers) that have basic spelling mistakes (now, that being said, I don't use spell-check at all, so I'm sure my blog entries are full of errors too, but my stuff is not really in the professionally published and edited realm anyway - ie. I don't get paid to do any of this). The Workman/Gottlieb book is full of spelling, grammatical, and sentence structure errors, so much so that after a while, it started detracting from the positives in the book. The Bird book is well written, but the Waters' book is better. There was only one case where I noticed a clear sentence structure boo-boo (and it was probably a case of cutting and pasting issues).
Second, there is no visible racial bias. Look, I understand that Blacks do commit a disproportionate amount of crime and have stated that in my other articles, but the Bird book seems to really bend over backwards to highlight and reiterate that fact, almost as if it was written specifically to Whites to instill fear (sure, there was one chapter about a Black gun owner who defended himself, but the tone of the book does not appear to be racially neutral). Waters' book does not mention race per se in most cases, though you can figure some of this out by just reading the story. I think that by Waters' simply stating the facts without a racial agenda, he is lending credibility to his writing and reporting, instead of getting caught up in incessant obsessions with talking about Blacks and Black crime).
Third, there is no clear political bias. The stories are reported based on numerous accounts from different sources and Waters never injects his own two cents as far as either being pro-gun or pro-gun control. The Gottlieb/Workman book is notorious for this, in that the authors make wise-cracks and sarcastic jokes within the accounts or inject their own personal opinions into the story. While this may OK for some, I found it distracting and unprofessional. Waters, on the other hand, does not do any of this, and really seems to report the stories with a sincerity and humility that is very refreshing to see. In the end, it's hard to tell where he is on the gun issue; while he does support personal ownership of firearms for self-defence, he also states that he sees the other side of the argument, in terms of gun safety and accessibility to children, etc. I really also think that he goes out of his way to not embellish the accounts with machismo. It helps for the reader to take the issue more seriously and form conclusions on objective facts (and this is coming from me, as a gun owner and an NRA member).
I also enjoyed the fact that these stories were all "fresh" stories. I mean, how many gun books have you read which refer to the same old accounts - it makes you wonder whether the Gary Kleck estimate of 2.5 million defensive gun use scenarios a year is plausible (I personally think that number is way too high, unless someone can actually substantiate it, which I haven't seen yet). The Waters book retells stories that I have not read anywhere else.
Finally, I really liked the fact that the Robert Waters' stories were full-length and had sufficient detail. I never really "got into" any of the stories in the Workman/Gottlieb book, because they were so short, and also because they injected unnecessary details such as the name of a baby which is not really related to the story. Waters' re-telling of the stories and his descriptive prowess really helps the reader to immerse himself/herself into the shoes of the victim (and maybe to a lesser extent, the shoes of the perpetrator). The background information and level of detail is relevant and adds to moving the plot along. I think that in large measure, that's what made the book so easy to read - it was written so that the progressions of the plot and its transitions between scenes were logical and were at a decent pace.
Enough with the comparisons. Let's examine a couple of the highlights of the Waters' book.
I enjoyed Waters' discussion on how drugs, and in particular, crack-cocaine causes the perpetrator to act differently. We have all heard the arguments about what ammo to use for self-defence and home defence weapons, and one consideration I hear over and over again is, for instance, one should use buckshot with a shotgun, as it has X-amount of penetrating and stopping power for those who are on some sort of drug. I often wondered whether that was really true, but Waters' in a few of the stories, has really shown that low powered rounds, like .22s, may eventually cause the bad guy's death, but it may not stop him immediately (as a result, the perpetrator can still inflict damage while his vitals are slowly shutting down). This side-point did not need to be discussed explicitly, but in reading the chapters, any reasonable person can form that conclusion.
There were chapters such as "Death of a Serial Killer", that seemed so surreal, so unbelievable, that I had to double-check and verify the facts myself, since I found it so hard to believe that something like this could have happened. The strength with which Kristen and Doug Wells was able to defy certain death and their desire to keep living was inspiring - and thanks to them, they put a serial killer scumbag to pasture. This chapter itself is worth the price of the book.
The chapter on Robert Stella and Judy Davis, entitled, "The Stalker" was literally chilling to read - I had to curl up under a blanket to keep warm even though it is 27 celsius on my thermostat. That chapter was written so well that one could easily envision oneself in the victim's shoes, feeling all the rage and frustration that today's lenient criminal justice system would let her down, despite numerous threats and carrying on of violence against her. The fact that Stella, the stalker, was released so often, despite his crimes, and put on probation rather than behind bars, makes a strong argument for the keeping of firearms for personal defence.
Stories are only good if you can remember them, and one thing that I found as a real positive about Waters' book, is that the stories are really relevant and stay in your mind. I think partly, it's because Waters' looks at stories of everyday, normal people, from store owners, to families, to single people, and from young folks to old folks. He examines the stories from different geographies and time frames. Even reading a story from the 1970s does not seem any less relevant than a story from the 1990s. He also clearly describes the weapon of choice for the perpetrator and what the would-be victim ended up using to defend him/herself. He provides ample detail about the history of the bad guy (whether it be mental history, criminal history, etc.) and I think that it helps to understand, at least in part, the psychology of the assailant.
I am a discriminating book reader (I read a lot of books), and in general, I don't recommend a book, unless I wholeheartedly think that it has multi-faceted benefits. So it is for all these reasons already stated that I highly recommend Robert Waters' book, "The Best Defense" as a must-have in your self-defense and firearms library, but don't just put it on your shelf - read it, and heed its lessons that were gleaned from those brave men and women who considered life much more precious than to simply just give it away to those who demand it without good reason.
-Jeremy
5/26/2009 Update: I have had the pleasure to have been in correspondence with the author, Robert Waters, regarding his book, passing along my comments and compliments to him for such a fine book. He has since informed me that several of the would-be victims (heroes, I would call them) have since passed on. While I am saddened by this, I am deeply grateful that they were able to share their stories before their passing and inspire countless others to learn from them.
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