Viva La English!

                                                      Viva La English!

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal,3/25/18

            Long before the expression “American exceptionalism” came into use, Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville explored the concept and ended up touting the advantages America had over the Old World.

            In his 1835 masterpiece, “Democracy in America,” Tocqueville not only described our  48-year-old nation.  He celebrated it.  Struck by its political structure, freedom, and individualism, Tocqueville wrote, “The American is the Englishman left to himself.”

            The French nobleman was implying that although England was advancing as a democratic nation, she was not as “boundless free” as the rugged Americans.  She was, however, the possessor of a spirit of freedom that would soon mark every corner of the globe that was English-speaking.

            At the time, England was changing socially.  Two years before Tocqueville’s masterpiece was published, Britain abolished slavery throughout the Empire.  As far back as 1807 Britain had abolished the slave trade.  Observing and making copious notes during his nine-month tour across fledgling America, Tocqueville dubbed the new land “British America.”  He admired what he saw.

            Look at a map of the world.  Notice that the English-speaking nations are the ones that are devoted to freedom, law, and individual rights. What’s going on?  No doubt the same thing that was going on in the mind of Churchill when in 1956 he completed his four-volume work titled “History of the English Speaking People.”  To Churchill, speakers of English had a manifest destiny.

            Please, dear reader, spare us of any instant conclusion that Churchill, or Tocqueville, or this writer is bigoted or “nationalistic.”  What’s wrong with having a nation (borders, language, and culture) anyway?  Again, look at a map of the world, or a history or linguistics book.  From the beloved Alfred the Great (849-899), whose language was “Angle-ish,” to Chaucer (1340-1400), who popularized the peasant language, to Shakespeare (1564-1616), who made it most quotable and quoted, to the silver tongue of Churchill, the trail of  English has led to the trumpeting of freedom.

            The world’s most cosmopolitan language, English now belongs virtually to everyone.   Sprung from an island nation about the size of Alabama, English was spread chiefly by British navies of the 17^th through ^19th centuries and American soldiers of the 20^th.

            We seldom think of how significant is the language each of us speaks.  It is French that makes a Frenchman a Frenchman and English that makes an Englishman an Englishman.  We speakers of “American English” have abandoned many of the customs from the motherland of our language, but we haven’t abandoned the chief characteristics of the Anglo-sphere, those noted by Tocqueville in America: churches, private organizations, charitable giving, localism, a strong belief in equality before the law, and an exceptional legal system which, incidentally, exists in most English-speaking nations of the world today. 

            Precisely what has contributed to this phenomenon, this fact that the English-speaking world is freer and typically more advanced?  Is it isolation that has enabled such nations to live as they wish, absent the influence of close bordering nations?  Australia is a continental island nation.   New Zealand is an island.  America is bordered and in large measure protected by two great oceans.  Canada is stretched far to the north, seemingly unbothered by the flow of geo-politics.

            Is it the Christian faith that fostered love of neighbor, good will, and honest labor?  Consider the impact of English translations of the Bible found in these nations.  Would free enterprise have anything to do with it?

            Whatever we may attribute the phenomenon to, it’s clear that in regard to the amount of freedom and to standard of living, the English-speaking nations of the world have led the way.

            When President Obama was asked if he believed in American exceptionalism, he replied, “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”  In other words, “No.”  If everybody is exceptional, nobody is exceptional.

            Fifty-six years ago at a small high school in little Forest, Mississippi, stellar teachers and excellent coaches and administrators taught, required, and modeled excellence.  Friday assemblies showcased the exceptional speechmaking, singing, instrumentalism, memorizing, and acting of hardworking students.  With joy, Martha Hays, Margaret Richardson, Durwood Smith, L.O. Atkins and others made their expectations clear.  No flip-flops, sit up straight, raise your hand, speak clearly, don’t dare come to class without a book and pencil, and say thank-you to the lunch room workers.

            Nationally, this productive, soul-satisfying ethic has waned.   I fear that the Anglo-sphere is becoming more like the government-reliant Old World it escaped from.  If I am right, exceptionalism may be reaching its twilight.  How I hope and pray I am wrong.

Roger Hines

3/21/18

Casey at the Bat vs. Progressives in the Boardroom

            Casey at the Bat vs. Progressives in the Boardroom

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/18/18

            The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day / The score stood four to two with but one inning more to play / And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same / A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

            A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest / Clung to the hope which springs eternal in the human breast / They thought, “If only Casey could but get a whack at that / We’d put up even money with Casey at the bat.

            Surprisingly, this classic poem ends with  mighty Casey striking out.  It appears, however, that a non-fiction Casey, Lt. Governor Casey Cagle, has not only not struck out, but has hit a homer.  His opposing team?  Delta Airlines.  Casey won.

            Before rehearsing the familiar details about the real-life Casey’s turn at bat, let’s raise a few questions that lie at the heart of the Lt. Governor’s concerns.  Since progressives generally loathe corporations, why do corporations defend them, thereby supporting practically everything social conservatives morally oppose?  Things like same-sex marriage, abortion “rights,” common bathrooms, and Planned Parenthood funding.  Why are corporations dismissive of their many employees and customers who proudly qualify as Hillary Clinton’s deplorables? 

Consider whose side the corporations typically land on.  They land with the LGBTQ community and transgender activists.  Disney, no longer the standard bearer of all things wholesome, has been a leader on homosexual rights.  The positions of two other companies, Wal-Mart and Koch Brothers, are also mystifying.  Neither company is loved by progressives, yet Wal-Mart has barred Confederate merchandise from its shelves, and the Koch brothers are pro-choice, pro-homosexual, and pro-amnesty.

Another question.  Why must corporations announce their position on social/cultural issues in the first place?  Why can’t they just hush and sell their product?

Preening like a peacock and trying to look diverse, inclusive, and all of that, Delta Airlines got its comeuppance from a real Casey.  Seems that Delta wanted to “reach out” (their own tweeted words) to the NRA to let them know “we will be ending their contract for discounted rates through our group travel plan.  We will be requesting that the NRA remove our information from their website.”

It further seems that the real Casey, a candidate for governor, brought attention to the fact that Delta receives from the state of Georgia a big chunk of corporate welfare: a jet fuel sales-tax exemption worth $50 million. Tweeted Cagle, who is also president of the state senate, “I will kill any tax legislation that benefits @Delta unless the company changes its position and fully reinstates its relationship with @NRA.  Corporations cannot attack conservatives and expect us not to fight back.”

According to the anti-Trump magazine, The Weekly Standard, “Cagle’s bluster was off-putting.  Using the power of the law to threaten a private company is the sort of behavior one expects from a raging dictatorship.”  But if Cagle was blustery, Delta was sanctimonious, trying to make sure it stood with Hollywood elites, not those rural types or crazy gun owners.  Where was public relations expert Dick Yarbrough when Delta needed him? 

Other corporations have been just as sanctimonious.  To corporations, inclusion doesn’t include social conservatives. Corporations view social conservatives as does columnist Kevin Foley who, in opposing Cagle’s action, put it this way: “… the reality is, outside the Perimeter, this state is as provincial and parochial as they come.”

Now that’s elitism.  Shows what my new friend Foley thinks about the good people from such places as Kennesaw, Sylvester, Hahira, and Mr. Yarbrough’s beloved Pooler.  

Corporate Man is craven.  For protection, which he thinks always lies in numbers, he will cater to those who don’t even like him.  He’s not a rugged capitalist after all, but a robber baron / J.P. Morgan model of “corporate management.”

True, corporations were granted “personhood” as far back as 1809.  By law they are citizens or “artificial persons” with the same free speech rights as individuals.  Consequently, corporations exercise their rightful power, but they do not always exercise it rightly.  If self-protection (gun ownership) isn’t a life and death issue, what is?  But corporate types condescendingly view guns (religious liberty, too) as concerns of working stiffs, not of thinking people.

To Corporate Man, social issues don’t matter, except when they get in Corporate Man’s way.  

Casey Cagle’s action was the right one.  When corporations take money from the public trough, they are beholden at some point.  Besides, there are no empirical studies showing that incentives given to specific corporations foster significant economic growth.

Roger Hines

3/15/18

           

The Path Not Taken

                                The Path Not Taken

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/11/18

There are three paths down which the current gun debate is taking us.  Not one is good.

            One path is that of utilizing youths to drive public policy.  Those who oppose guns are shamelessly pushing teenagers in front of television cameras.  Teens in Parkland, Florida and around the country are being manipulated by adults.

            Oh, the wisdom of youth.  Except that the youthful “wisdom” we’re seeing on television isn’t wisdom at all.  It’s the well sharpened words of media-savvy teens.  But media-savvy doesn’t equal maturity. 

Are most high schoolers capable of addressing the implications of a tragedy just hours or days after the tragedy has occurred?  CNN’s fake Town Hall meeting encouraged teenagers to try.  The result was youthful disrespect for a U.S. Senator and the blaming of over 5 million law-abiding gun owners for the tragedy at Parkland.  Watching CNN’s staged anti-gun rally, I kept thinking “Shall the pot command the potter?” as youth after youth stood to scold Senator Rubio and point their young fingers at the NRA.

            This path is also the path of emotional striptease.  Inordinate grief has become a characteristic of Americans.  There was a time when we were taught to grieve manfully, to be strong when bad things happen, to interpret the events of life with hope.  Television cameras and widespread grief counseling have ended that.

            Counselors are one of the best things about public schools.  Young people need them.   But when we dispatch grief brigades to every scene of tragedy, we’re teaching teenagers to wallow in grief, to weep, to mourn.  I’ve seen my share of this approach, and it doesn’t help or teach youths to bear up.  It does the opposite.

 The trauma industry, bent on helping us “get in touch with our feelings,” has eroded self-reliance.  With the best of intentions it has fostered emotional self-absorption, the sharing of feelings, the baring of our hearts.  The result has been emotional fragility.

            The second unfortunate path the gun debate is taking is the neglect of rural America.  America has become so urbanized (80.7% according to the 2010 census) that urbanites look askance at rural citizens.  In rural America, a 19 or 20 year old is not a child.  Rural America would be severely hindered if we raised the age for purchasing a firearm to 21.  Rural citizens need guns for hunting food, for self-defense whenever the nearest law enforcement officer is miles away, and for intrusive wild animals. Unlike dogs, coyotes and rattlesnakes are not man’s best friends.

 No offense, city dwellers, but in the country you grow up faster and learn responsibility sooner.  Lawmakers need to remember this when they hear the argument that all 18 to 20 year olds are children who can’t handle guns.

            Finally, the gun debate path is heading straight to the school house where, positioned in the middle of it all, teachers are viewed as absolute wimps.  To the contrary, if I were still in the high school scene, I would this very day volunteer “to carry.”  If this sounds like bravado, it’s because few people understand the sense of responsibility teachers have for the students they teach.  What an insult to think teachers don’t have the stomach to protect their charges.  “In loco parentis” is buried deep in the hearts of teachers.

            Not every teacher should be or needs to be armed, though I doubt I have ever taught with a man who would not volunteer to.  Also, I’m thinking at this moment of 15 or 20 women with whom I’ve taught who would not hesitate to carry.  Femininity and courage are not mutually exclusive.  Neither are femininity and gun skills.

            Courtrooms, legislative halls, and the White House are safe because we have made them safe – with guns  Not only have we not made schools safe; we’ve stupidly erected nearby signs that read “Gun-free Zone,” an open invitation to a sickened mind or a depraved heart.

            The path we are not taking is the path to the larger picture: that of violent, numbing entertainment, absent fathers, weakened homes, and the waning influence of and dismissive attitude toward religious faith and training.

            For what it’s worth, I drove a school bus at age 17.  Gerald Smith kept a rifle in his pickup gun rack and parked on the street right beside the school.  But soon the family imploded, children started having children, parents traded parenting for “identifying,” and troubled youths lost meaning and purpose.

If we think the real issue is guns, we’ve been flummoxed by emotionalism and softened by urbanization.  The larger picture, the path not taken, beckons.

Roger Hines 

March 7, 2018   

Billy Graham’s Long Obedience

 Billy Graham’s Long Obedience

 Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 3/4/18

 In 1954 on the last day of Billy Graham’s first London Crusade, a Church of England clergyman remarked that Graham’s simple preaching would set Christianity back 100 years.  Upon hearing of this, the famous evangelist replied, “I’m disappointed.  I had hoped to set it back 2000 years.”

Not one scandal ever touched the world’s most famous and recently departed Christian.  The chief criticism thrown at him was his almost constant absence from his family and his simplicity.  Famed theologian Reinhold Niebuhr dismissed Mr. Graham’s ministry as “ballyhoo.” 

 Though wrought with eloquence and illustrative power, Billy Graham’s sermons were indeed simple.  According to Graham, Scripture instructs every believer to view truth and all communication of it in clear, unambiguous terms.  Graham’s “yea” was yea, and his “nay” was nay.

Like so many other trailblazers, Billy Graham was the target of slings and arrows from all directions.  Theological liberals faulted him for over-emphasizing doctrine (sin, salvation, the deity of Christ, the love of God, etc.) and de-emphasizing social justice.  Protestant fundamentalists charged him with heresy whenever he shared a stage with the pope. 

Though raised by Presbyterian parents, Graham was not a Calvinist.  Breaking from his strong Calvinist parents, he became a Southern Baptist.  Eschewing John Calvin’s teachings on “election” (the belief that God chooses some to be saved from sin – “the elect” – and some not), Graham preached “the whosoever” of Scripture.  Unlike Calvin, Luther, and England’s premier preacher Charles Spurgeon, Graham claimed that each individual chooses to repent and believe or not.  Thus his unfailing appeal to all people to “come to Christ.”

Anyone today who is unclear about what the word “evangelical” means need look no further than at the life and work of Billy Graham.  An evangel, from which come the words “evangelist” and “evangelical,” is a messenger. Graham’s message was the Christian Gospel.  Though not usually dubbed a fundamentalist, Billy Graham fully embraced the four fundamentals of the Christian faith: the virgin birth, the sinless life, the substitutionary death, and the literal resurrection.

For many decades, evangelicals in America have comprised a sought after voting bloc, though not always a monolithic one.  Still, Graham avoided partisan politics, was a confidant of every president since Harry Truman, and preached that only God, not government or its largesse, can change the human heart.  He urged Christians to “pray for the magistrates” and to be “the salt of the earth.”  Around the world he has been considered the voice of evangelicalism.

Graham was by no means the first mass evangelism preacher.  In the mid-1700’s, Englishman George Whitefield, drew huge crowds on both sides of the Atlantic.  He was largely instrumental in the Great Awakening, the spiritual revival that swept England and America. 

Although Graham’s theology was more in line with John Wesley, the founder of Methodism (Whitefield was a Calvinist; Wesley wasn’t), he imitated Whitefield’s use of media.  For Whitefield the new media was newspapers.  According to Thomas Kidd, Whitefield’s biographer, Whitefield’s publications alone doubled the output of the American press between 1739 and 1742.  As is well known, Graham utilized newspapers, radio, television and movies to convey the Gospel message.  With his father-in-law, China missionary Nelson Bell, he founded “Christianity Today” magazine which is still a respectable organ of evangelicalism.

Strangely enough, a phrase that originated from the “God is dead” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche describes Billy Graham well.  Nietzsche, Hitler’s favorite philosopher, declared that fulfillment is the result of “a long obedience in the same direction.”  Anyone who has followed Billy Graham’s preaching or read his books knows that constancy and humility marked his character.  He preached until he couldn’t.

A visit to the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, N.C. clearly confirms that the man was sold on Christ, not on himself.  The multi-media presentations, the literature, the history of the man are all downplayed.  The Christian Gospel is heralded.  Wouldn’t you know that at the end of the trek through the library there is a non-threatening invitation for visitors to step into the counseling room if they would like to know more about the Christ who changed Billy Graham’s life and consequently the lives of millions.

Every pastor I have ever had has been much like Billy Graham.  Their message has been identical, their eloquence notable, their knowledge commendable, but their “long obedience (to their call) in the same direction” is what I have admired most.

Billy Graham influenced fellow preachers as well as sinners like me.  How we finish is the ultimate test.  Billy Graham finished well.

Roger Hines