Generous Givers and Christmas Blessings

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal, 12/18/20

            When Baptists realize they have sinned and are grappling with the right response to that sin, we call it “being under conviction.”  A news article in the Marietta Daily Journal this past Tuesday reminded me of two times when I was convicted of not being a giver.  I felt “condemned at the bar of my own conscience,” as one theologian puts it.

            The MDJ article reported on a speech by Acworth Mayor Tommy Allegood.  At a Cobb County Chamber of Commerce gathering, Allegood encouraged business leaders to make giving a priority during the Christmas season.  Acknowledging that Cobb County is already a giving community, the mayor challenged Chamber members to dig a bit deeper this year to help the needy.

            The article pitched my mind back to the early years of married life when I almost abandoned tithing because I thought I could no longer do it.  Tithing was just too difficult, or so I thought.   In the third month of my non-tithing, I sat down to pay the monthly bills. Within moments I decided I could no longer contend with the gentle tweeting of my deceased tenant farmer father who had perched on my shoulder for the last two months.

            Beyond tithing to his church, my father would often reach into his overall pockets and retrieve a dollar for tramps at the train depot where he parked in town on Saturdays.  He would do the same for poor Choctaw families walking past our house toward town.  Before writing bills on that third month, a thought bombarded my mind: if Daddy can tithe, anybody can tithe.  The church I was attending at the time would not have missed my tithe check, but the small country church of my youth probably would have missed my father’s, despite its small amount.  However, the size of our checks was not the primary issue. The issue was the bar of our own conscience.

            Mayor Allegood’s plea also turned my mind back to 30 plus years ago when our oldest child was a freshman at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.  A private Christian college and not a cheap one, Samford was Christy’s deep desire.  She being a high achiever and a precious child, my wife and I knew we had to make her desire a reality.  We knew we would have to double up on two of our three financial principles: spend wisely and save methodically.  As for the third principle, give generously, we would just have to see.

            Toward the end of Christy’s freshman year, we received an envelope in the mail with no inside address.  It contained an anonymous note with kind words and a check for $1,000. A month later, a check for $500.  The third check was for $1,000 again.  Toward the end of Christy’s second college year and after several more checks, the total came to $10,000. I began to pray my benefactor into the choicest spot in Heaven whenever his or her time came. 

              At Christy’s college graduation, instead of giving full attention to the tremendous words of the great Coach Bobby Bowdon, I stood at the bar of my conscience.  Some voice other than my father’s was whispering: “Rich folks should give but poor folks should too.  You’ve got to give more.”

            In December of 2000, Governor Roy Barnes spoke with conviction and power to the incoming freshmen class of the General Assembly.  “I believe,” he said, “that one reason Georgia has fared better economically than our sister states is that we tried harder to do the right thing about race.”  From his words I took spiritual import.  You do the right thing; you get blessed.  Not always instantly, but eventually.  My supposedly well-off benefactor and my definitely poor father were blessed, I believe, because they blessed.  Whether with race relations or with giving, doing the right thing is rewarded, though not always materially.

            There are numerous organizations that need our support.  There are also individuals we meet daily who have needs.  Why not this Christmas an outrageous $50 bill or more for a restaurant server? Why not anonymously pick up the tab for a young family in a restaurant whose overheard conversation revealed they could use the help this Christmas?  Since Marietta has been dubbed the most generous city in America with populations above 50,000, maybe we in the county or in other Cobb County cities should emulate Mariettans.

            Those who know the Mayor and the Governor know they are givers of their time and resources.  I want to be like them and my dear old dad. 

Let’s all end this difficult year with giving.  If we do, Christmas for sure will be Merry.

 

Roger Hines

12/14/20

           

             

 

              Education: the Next Frontier for Conservatives

               Published in Marietta (GA) Daily Journal. 12/4/20

            Conservatives have cracked the media, but haven’t touched education. America’s political left still dominates almost every major institution in the nation including the judiciary, entertainment (especially comedy), the arts, fiction literature, professional sports, and most thoroughly, the university.

            How sports? By the fact that so many team owners who, instead of reminding their athletes who is the boss, have cowardly acceded to their social/political protests such as refusing to honor the American flag. Talk about the animals running the farm, professional athletes appear to have their owners eating out of their hands. In the not too distant past, one value of sports was that they took our minds off our cares and differences, but no more. Sports have been politicized and it’s a shame.

            As for the media, it wasn’t cable television or even talk radio that got the first conservative foot in the door. In the late 1950s Texas oilman H.L Hunt funded the excellent radio program called “Life Line.” The program was totally conservative, monologue commentary. It warned the nation of the spread of communism and rightly so. At the time, the Soviet Union had enveloped Eastern Europe and swallowed the eastern half of Germany.  Soviet Russia was also planting missiles in Cuba only 90 miles from America’s shore. Thus anti-communism was the main tenet of the conservative gospel.

            It came to pass that the Federal Communications Commission used its Fairness Doctrine to quiet conservative voices. The FCC compelled political commentators to give equal air time to opposing points of view. In 1987 the FCC terminated the Fairness Doctrine whereupon Rush Limbaugh in 1988 became the radio voice of conservative Americans. Mr. Limbaugh’s success is well known.

            Less well known is the success of Newsmax and One America News, two cable networks that are clearly trumpeting the conservative perspective and are growing rapidly. The conservative New York Post has also increased its presence and influence in recent years. Suffice it to say that liberal voices like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post no longer rule the roost. They are being challenged.

            Not so the American university. Its grip is sure. Its fads go unchallenged. Its undergirding ideology is always the craze of the moment: diversity, tolerance (as the university defines it, of course), transgender “studies,” feminist “studies,” race, “rights,” sexuality (sexuality “transformed,” that is), social justice, and economic transformation (weasel words for socialism). Somewhere underneath all such indoctrination, we suppose, lie math, science, history, and language.

            What is it about the field of education, particularly higher ed, that draws people from the political left? It could be that liberals love labs and incubators, for labs and incubators are what classrooms are. In a classroom (lab) students can test their knowledge and intellectual strength and discover their deepest interests if not a line of work. In a classroom (incubator) students can receive help for their intellectual development. Academic labs and incubators are the left’s chief tools.

            But classrooms are also transmission stations. Conservatives argue that schools and universities should transmit the knowledge and values that produce good, productive citizens. Liberal educators typically push the notion of students becoming “agents of change” or challengers of the status quo.

            Says the conservative, “Give my kid the facts; teach him to read, write, think, and analyze, but don’t go indoctrinating him. And no putting down his country as you are in the habit of doing.”

            In other words liberals want our children so they can set their paths straight. Conservatives are not so willing to turn their children over to the village. According to political scientist Jon Shields only 10% of university professors identify as conservatives. California State University illustrates Shields’ research. It currently requires a course in social justice as do many other public and private universities.

            Public schools are not untouched by progressive dogma, as their lingo indicates. Consider the following inane principles: “the teacher should be a guide on the side, not a sage on the stage;”  “the best teaching is facilitating, not direct instruction”; and “facts are not as important as thinking skills” (as though facts are not essential for logical thinking).

            A Biden administration does not bode well for solid, subject matter-centered schooling. Get ready for regs from the federal Department of Education that require schools to emphasize racism, gay rights, and social justice in order to receive federal funds.

            Conservatives are no longer content being strangers in a strange land. Having taken on the media and given the fact that a down ballot blue wave didn’t happen on November 3rd, they will resist the next four years of progressivism with their frontier spirit and love of individual liberty all in tow. Their children and grandchildren are at stake   

 

Roger Hines

12/2/20