Society
Items on national and international social issues and reforms
Virginia Tech Considered
Fri 11 May 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman considers the factors surrounding the massacre and makes a suggestion for workable gun control.
More than two weeks have passed since the bloodbath on the campus of Virginia Tech University (officially Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) in Blacksburg on April 16 2007. The President of the U.S., George W. Bush, expressed horror at what happened and the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, returned early from a trip to Japan, declaring in Virginia a state of emergency. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is, of course, Korean, sent his condolences, as did Pope Benedict XVI. An entire army of counselors descended on the campus from various corners of the U.S., and some of them are still there.
Much of the world press drew predictable conclusions: the Virginia Tech massacre, European newspapers said, would not have happened had it not been so hideously easy to obtain guns in the U.S.; or, the culture that has romanticized gun-ownership and gun-usage played into the hands of a deranged, alienated psychopath. Britain’s Economist tried to straddle the fence with the subhead: “The horror might have happened anyway. But gun control might have made it less easy.”
The Parable of the Liberal Education
Thu 10 May 2007 by Walter Hansen
An Invitation to Question
Professor Walter Hansen looks at Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of St. Thomas as a visual parable of a Christian approach to a liberal education—and learning in general—as Jesus encourages us to ask questions, guides us to himself, and sends us out in witness.
Death Penalty Reconsidered
Fri 04 May 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
Thoughts on Amnesty International’s death penalty statistics.
Amnesty International is an international human rights organization that draws attention on a regular basis to the plight of political prisoners in various countries of the world. But for many years it has had a standing campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Proponents of the death penalty have traditionally argued that it is needed by society to provide retributive justice and to grant some sort of emotional “closure” for the families of murder victims. Opponents argue that it is inherently barbaric, that it is an irreversible punishment if the executed person turns out to be innocent, and that it doesn’t deter murder at all. Proponents tend to regard Amnesty International as an international meddling group determined to impose do-good liberalism on everyone else. Opponents regard it as a champion of global humanity, civilization, and progress.
Not in Our Time
Thu 12 Apr 2007 • Responses: 6 • by Al Sikes
A culture of short-term thinking has been a useful ally to partisan gridlock.
“Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?” With those words King Hezekiah comforted himself while setting aside Isaiah’s warnings that his descendants and his kingdom’s wealth would be taken by the Babylonians. Millennia later, a “not in my time” attitude is one of our most formidable cultural and political challenges. Too many seem to say, “tomorrow—leave that to the forecasters” (and chance).
Fighting Wars During Peace-Time
Mon 02 Apr 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Britain’s magazine The Economist once made an interesting point about democracies and fighting wars. “Democracies,” the magazine said—and I offer a paraphrase rather than quote precisely—“find it difficult to fight wars during peace-time.” The point is a subtle one. Essentially, it is that democratic societies are seldom prepared to engage in sustained war-fighting if they do not believe that their county is really at war.
Newton, Wilberforce, and the Spirituality of Abolition
Fri 23 Mar 2007 by Jonathan Aitken
Wilberforce’s friendship with John Newton was the major momentum behind abolition (Part 2 of 2)
Wilberforce has come down in history as something of a lone-ranger humanitarian, but Jonathan Aitken, executive director of the Trinity Forum in Europe and author of a new biography of John Newton, sets the record straight by looking at newly published diaries and letters of Newton that throw additional light on what was at one point Wilberforce’s great secret—his evangelical faith. Second of two parts.
What’s Left of Secularization?
Thu 15 Mar 2007 by William Edgar
Social scientists are telling a different story today about the role of faith in public life
Senior Fellow William Edgar looks at the traditional story Western social scientists have been telling about the inevitable decline of religion in public life—and the way this view has been challenged over the past few years.
The Problem with the News
Wed 21 Feb 2007 • Responses: 5 • by David Aikman
“A picture of humanity that is relentlessly colored by its most gruesome crimes is as unrealistic as one that ignores such crimes altogether.”
As a journalist for many years (full-time for more than two decades), I’ve acquired a compulsive addiction to TV and radio news bulletins. If I’m driving a car and the time approaches the “top of the hour,” I’m quite unable to resist tuning the radio to the local full-time news network. If I’m watching TV (a fairly rare event), no matter what the program is that I might have intended to view, within a few minutes I find myself switching to CNN, or FOX, or MSNBC.
It was thus with utter dismay that I watched, on one of the news channels (for propriety’s sake I won’t say which), on a single middle-of-the-evening news bulletin quite recently, the following items: (1) a woman who thought she was a vampire had tied a man up, slashed him with a knife, and drunk his blood (presumably, he thought she had other things in mind when he submitted to being tied up); (2) a mother in a private home was barely prevented from drowning all of her children; (3) an 84-year-old woman was jailed for three years for having sex with an 11-year-old in her foster care.
What to Make of China?
Fri 02 Feb 2007 • Responses: 1 • by Richard W. Ohman
Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power by David Aikman (Second edition, Regnery Publishing, December 2006), 336 pages. ISBN 1596980257
China—what to make of it? Response to this question will undoubtedly consume an ever-increasing amount of time, energy, and analysis as our new century unfolds. The context for discussing this question is becoming clear and involves at least three major themes: economic potential, political rigidity, and the nation’s soul. David Aikman’s book, Jesus in Beijing, just released in a new edition, addresses the least-discussed of these today—the nation’s soul—which may well be the most important in answering the questions about China and its future.
The Folly of New Year Resolutions
Thu 04 Jan 2007 • Responses: 11 • by David Aikman
“Why do we repeat this folly, when empirical evidence shows that statements of a desire to change, in and of themselves, almost never cause people to change their behavior in actuality?”
The turkey has been digested, the gifts put away (or put on, if they are clothes), and the wrapping paper thrown out. After the Christmas gustatory extravaganza, it’s time for a few days of slow movement, of writing thank-you letters, and self-congratulatory exhalation. Christmas has been survived once more and life can continue its uneventful way forward.
But no. Within a week of Christmas many people find themselves practicing yet another ancient cultural ritual, the challenge of New Year Resolutions. The end of one year and the beginning of another always offers two opportunities: to look back at the previous twelve months and ponder the ups and downs of that period; and to look ahead to the next and wonder what can be done differently then. By the office water cooler, over coffee in a friend’s office, on the phone late at night with a close friend, conversations year after year turn to the subject of New Year Resolutions.
