TTF Staff
The Christian Post has an interview with Senior Fellow E. David Cook.
The interview, posted on May 9, 2005, covers Dr. Cook’s work in ethics and bioethics, his forthcoming book, his role at Wheaton, and includes his advice to U.S. and British leaders, including this response to a question on his advice for Tony Blair:
I think I would encourage him first of all to help the society, particularly the schools, to develop a stronger and more robust moral education. I think we are not doing a really good job preparing our young people to face the many moral challenges that there are in our society today.
Secondly, I want to encourage him to inform the public better about the different moral choices, and let the public know why the government makes the decisions they do.
Thirdly, I want to encourage him to be more explicit, whatever the moral basis for deciding on policy, one or another. Is it just pragmatism? Is just happiness? Or is it actually some moral view?
Sightings, Character and Ethics, Public Square, Thu 02 Jun 2005
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.
“Lazarus Long,” in Robert A. Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love (1973)
China’s Olympics: The Earthquake Dividend
The Renaissance and Religious Toleration
Zimbabwe, the Scandal of Africa
Russert and the Crystal Ball Media
Dear Kid: Die Now. Thanks, The Planet
The Rise of Global Civil Society: Building Communities and Nations from the Bottom Up by Don Eberly.
A sweeping and hopeful overview of the extraordinary new forces that are prying open closed societies and cultivating democratic norms across the globe.
The Long Road to Forgiveness: “On June 8, 1972, I ran out from Cao Dai temple in my village, Trang Bang, South Vietnam; I saw an airplane getting lower and then four bombs falling down. I saw fire everywhere around me. Then I saw the fire over my body, especially on my left arm. My clothes had been burned off by fire. I was 9 years old but I still remember my thoughts at that moment: I would be ugly and people would treat me in a different way.” (Kim Phuc, NPR , 2008 07 01)
The Little Robot That Could: “Stanton: No, it always works backward. It’s more like, Wow, look what this sort of feels like. So you run with those things, because they’re very primal. In my mind they’re very much in the core of our storytelling. So much of the Old Testament is sort of built into our DNA. I’ve read other stories where you’ve talked about your Christian faith a bit. Can you tell me how your faith informs your creativity and your work? Stanton: They tell you that as a storyteller, it’s vital to just stick with and be honest with your values system. The last thing I want to do is go to a movie and feel like I’m being preached to or being told how to be, and I think it’s more honest—and you’re going to have more effect—to be truthful with the values of your characters, working off of your own values. That was the case with WALL•E. The greatest commandment is to love one another, and to me, that’s the ultimate purpose of living. So that was the perfect goal for the loneliest robot on earth, to learn the greatest commandment, to learn to love.” (Mark Moring interviewing Andrew Stanton, director of Pixar’s WALL-E, for Christianity Today , 2008 07 01)
Never Mind Machiavelli: ‘Of course, there was plenty of ambition. But with Washington, it was always tempered by a sense of honor. Where many of his more sophisticated contemporaries sought Machiavellian political guidance from “The Prince,” Washington looked to the Roman philosopher Seneca—not to find shortcuts to success but “to know how he should behave, and how other men had behaved in positions of power and times of stress.” (Aram Bakshian, Jr. on George Washington on Leadership by Richard Brookhiser in The Wall Street Journal , 2008 06 30)
A Stirring Defense of the Conversation: “The humanities are supposed to “give young people the opportunity and encouragement to put themselves—their values and commitments—into a critical perspective,” yet if the notion that class, race, and gender are absolutely determinative becomes an article of faith, then the very possibility of transcending one’s prejudices is ruled out.” (James Seaton, reviewing Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T. Kronman, in The University Bookman , 2008 06 30)
• Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers (2008 06 30)
• Between Obedience and Obedience (2008 06 26)
• Why Me? The case against the sovereign self (2008 06 25)
• Cities for Living (2008 06 25)
• Theophobia (2008 06 20)
Key Bible Concepts by John Lennox.
Sin, faith, holiness, justification, reconciliation--what do these words mean, anyway? As in any other field, it is in getting to grips with the technical terms in the Bible the leads not only to a deeper understanding of them, but to an increased ability to communicate their meaning to others.
