Again, government as part of the problem, not the solution

Because of my job, I read a lot of news items about colleges. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sarah Lawrence College now costs a staggering $58,716 (including tuition, fees and room and board) for 2011-12, which makes it America's most expensive college. The Journal goes on to indict Washington as adding to the problem.


Of course, what the government has done is to rush more financial aid to help with high tuition costs. But many see this as part of the problem, not a solution. "Right now the incentives for our colleges and universities are all wrong," says Ohio University economist Richard Vedder, who runs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. "It's wrong for colleges, who have no incentive to keep down costs. It's wrong for students, whose needs are ill-served by loans and grants that go directly to the school. And it's wrong for taxpayers, whose dollars are making education more expensive without expanding opportunity for those who most need it."

The Journal had some stats that really opened my eyes. I thought the aid programs were helping the poor, but it’s not working well at all in reaching this goal. People the universities deem rich pay the full sticker price. This might be thought to help subsidize the poor, says Mr. Vedder, but the college population today in fact has a lower percentage of people from the bottom income quintile than it did in 1970 (notwithstanding a massive increase in federal aid). Something’s wrong here with that result.

Meanwhile, those in the middle scrounge for subsidies—like Pell Grants and federal loans—that are not keeping up with the tuition inflation they are causing. The costs soar while the grant and loan money trails behind.

In all other aspects of our society today, great choice prevails. Not so when it comes to paying for college. In higher ed we're stuck with the same one-size-fits all model that worked back in the decades when only the very privileged went to college. President Obama wants to continue things as they have been. According to the Journal, the "reform" he signed last spring—restructuring federal grants and loans—will likely fuel rising costs as schools absorb that money, spend it on their own priorities, and continue to raise tuition at rates that outstrip the Consumer Price Index. That’s not the way to go.

The Journal suggested some other ways to think about making college more affordable. For example Pell Grants need changing. Right now, a college student who graduates in four years with a perfect 4.0 grade point average gets less money than a student who takes six years and squeaks by with a 1.9. A more competitive—and imaginative—Pell Grant might tie it to performance, and maybe even give a cash bonus to a student who graduates in three years.

Another proposed solution is really imaginative. The author of the article asks what would happen if we allowed a private firm like Google to pay for a student's bachelor's degree in exchange for, say, 10% of that student's earnings for a set period after he or she graduated? I wonder if the student would have to wear a Google T-shirt to class.

I really liked another possible reform. Michael Poliakoff of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni suggests having federally approved accrediting agencies stop measuring inputs, such as faculty-student ratio, and start conducting performance audits of outputs such as what a university spends on instruction versus administration, what its graduation rate is, how its graduates fare in employment, and so on. I bet that would be extremely revealing and embarrassing for a lot of colleges and universities.

As a college teacher, I see so many students who need and deserve help to finish their education. Let’s hope a better approach gets implemented in the near future.

Can we test religions?

We hear so many people today who are relativists when it comes to religion. Now, they aren’t relativists when it comes to the rest of their lives--there is actual truth in their minds. After all, they have jobs, family, friends, and other things that they know are really there and are of a particular construct. They get paid a certain amount, they drive a particular car, they know how much is left to pay on their house mortgage.

But get them talking about religion, and all specific truths go out the window. You hear things like, “Who knows?” Or “All roads lead to God.” Or “All religions are the same.” Is this true? Is there no way to tell differences between religions for the purpose of examining which might be true? Are all religious faiths a matter of leaps in the dark, wishful thinking, and nonevidential? I don’t think so. There are ways we can test religious claims, just as we can test truth claims in science, history, or advertisements.

Here’s the first way: What’s the evidence for the particular religion in the real world? This entails examining archeology, history, science, and manuscripts. Do the claims reflect our current understanding in these areas? Let’s take Mormonism. Wow, it really fails this test in a big way. No evidence exists for the story of huge civilizations here in the Americas as their Book of Mormon proclaims. The Qur’an gets its science wrong and has manuscripts that are far removed from the time of Mohammed. How does Christianity do here? Very well, thanks. This blog won’t take the time to explore the issue, but there is plenty of evidence from each of the four areas listed above.

Here’s the second way to judge religious claims: What’s the problem of the human race and how do we solve it? All but one say we are the problem and we are the solution. We have to try harder, we have to wake up, we have to follow a list of commands, we have to pray a certain way, we have to . . . You get the idea. It’s all on us. But we’ve all tried this. We know our own weaknesses, we see our failures, we have bad self-images. Only Christianity says the solution lies outside us. God gave us a gift, thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus. It’s our choice—let Him save us, or continue with the thousand attempts to reach God through our own strength.

The third way to judge religions is simple: Does it correspond to the way the world really is? For example, Hinduism says the world is an illusion (maya). But do we really believe that? If everything was an illusion, how would we know since we are part of that illusion? That doesn't make any sense to me. Then there's reincarnation, a key belief of Eastern religions and new-age thought. Where's the evidence for that? If it was true, the world should be getting better and better, and we know that's not the case. Christian Science says disease and suffering is an illusion; does that seem believable? Christianity reflects reality in so many ways – it says there is something noble about the human race, there's also something very wrong with the human race, there is such a thing as evil and suffering, etc. Science, in an echo of the Bible, reveals a world of order and design (creation as a result of God).

A fourth way to examine religious claims has to do with the leader of that movement: How is its religious leader viewed by the world? There is only one who stands out among all religious leaders thoughout history – Jesus. Why is that? I have written on the uniqueness of Jesus before, so this will be a short summary of what makes him unique – the evidence for his life and sayings, prophecies involving his life, the events of his life, what he said, what friends and enemies said about him, the positive impact he's had on the world, and the vital relationship between him and his religion. Even nonbelievers admit that Jesus was the most unique person who ever lived.

Finally, one other way to judge a religion is simple: What is the history of that religion? Let's take Jehovah's Witnesses as an example. This organization has repeatedly set specific times for the return of Jesus, only to be embarrassed when it didn't take place. In addition, it has a history of changing major beliefs over the years. The same is true of Mormonism – polygamy was okay at one time, but not now; blacks were considered inferior, but not now. Then there's Islam, which has a history of bloodshed and violence. It Islam spread through the sword. Christianity, on the other hand, said all people were equal, spread through the Roman world through peaceful means, elevated women to a much higher degree than previous religions, treated the poor and weak with respect and kindness.

So, there are ways we can look for truth among religions. Only one passes all the tests and should, therefore, be seen as more credible--Christianity.

The sky is falling . . . oh wait, no it's not

Well, it happened again. Someone has pointed out a new problem with all the hysteria surrounding climate change. I delight in these revelations because we need to base our actions on reality, not hypothetical, alarmist scenarios dreamed up by Al Gore and his ilk. Here’s the latest case in which climate change folks are shown to be extremists and, dare I say, liars. By the way, I took this from The Wall Street Journal, a publication I highly recommend due to its reputation and careful analysis of many topics ranging from politics to science.

In 2005, the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published a color-coded map under the headline "Fifty million climate refugees by 2010." The primary source for the prediction was a 2005 paper by environmental scientist Norman Myers.

Let’s see . . . how has this prediction turned out? Six years later, this flood of refugees is nowhere to be found, global average temperatures are about where they were when the prediction was made. Here’s the most interesting thing of all--the U.N. has attempted to distance itself from this embarrassment by wiping the inconvenient map from its servers.

The map, which can still be found elsewhere on the Web (I’ve seen it), disappeared from the program's site sometime after April 11, when Gavin Atkins asked on AsianCorrespondent.com: "What happened to the climate refugees?" It's now 2011 and, as Mr. Atkins points out, many of the locales that the map identified as likely sources of climate refugees are "not only not losing people, they are actually among the fastest growing regions in the world." Oops!

Of course, the people responsible for the map have an answer, but I’ll leave it up to you whether you find it convincing. The program's spokesman says the map vanished because "it's not a UNEP prediction. . . . that graphic did not represent UNEP views and was an oversimplification of UNEP views." He added that the program would like to publish a clarification except that the staffers able to do so are "all on holiday for Easter." So, do you buy this?

The climate-refugee prediction isn't the first global warming-related claim that has turned out to be laughable. The Journal says it is more concerned that people responsible for earlier predictions then have the nerve to claim these mistakes weren’t really their fault.

I agree. Once again, to me the main issue is not climate change itself. Instead, it’s the way so-called authorities can scream hysterically, be taken seriously by a mainstream press that never investigates the issues, and then pretend they never made the statements which have later been proved to be false. Let’s keep a sharp eye out for those who want to move us emotionally with weak arguments, especially when their goal is to weaken our economy in some utopian dream.

Women and Christianity--a final look

So here’s the last of several blogs in reaction to Jimmy Carter’s pronouncement that Islam and Christianity are the same in their treatment of women. That’s simply not true. I’ve gone through the New Testament’s comments on women to show how much females were raised in relation to the culture around them. For this last blog, I’d like to acknowledge some problems within the church but end on the positive things that have come about due to the high status of women the gospels and letters of the New Testament proclaim.

Yes, Jimmy Carter was on to something—there have been church leaders in the past who have denigrated women. Some people mistakenly believe these contemptuous beliefs of the church fathers are rooted in an anti-female Bible, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. People held these wrong beliefs in spite of, not because of, the biblical teachings. Those individuals allowed themselves to be shaped by the beliefs of the surrounding pagan, anti-female culture. It’s unfortunate that some of them didn’t allow the woman-honoring principles found in Scripture to change their unbiblical beliefs. But that’s the failing of imperfect followers of Jesus, not a failure of God or the New Testament.

Let’s consider the years since then. Over and over we see the positive results of a faith that emphasizes the value of women. As Christianity spread throughout the world, its redemptive effects elevated women and set them free in many ways. The Christian ethic declared equal worth and value for both men and women. Husbands were commanded to love their wives and not exasperate their children. These principles were in direct conflict with the Roman culture, which gave a husband absolute power of life and death over his family, including the wife.

The biblical view of husbands and wives as equal partners caused a huge change in marriage as well. Christian women started marrying later, and they married men of their own choosing. This eroded the ancient practice of men marrying child brides against their will, often as young as eleven or twelve years old. The greater marital freedom that Christianity gave women eventually gained wide appeal. Today, a Western woman is not compelled to marry someone she does not want, nor can she legally be married as a child bride. But the practice continues in parts of the world where Christianity has little or no presence. Consider Islam—Mohammed married a six-year old and had sex with her within three years. How’s that for a contrast with Christian values?

Another effect of the salt and light of Christianity was its impact on the common practice of polygamy, which demeans women. Many men, including biblical heroes, had multiple wives, but Jesus made clear this was never God’s intention. Whenever he spoke about marriage, it was always in the context of monogamy. He said, “The two [not three or four] will become one flesh.” As Christianity spread, God’s intention of monogamous marriages became the norm.

Two more cruel practices were abolished as Christianity gained influence. In some cultures, such as India, widows were burned alive on their husbands’ funeral pyres. It ended when the British intervened, thanks to their Christian faith. In China, the crippling practice of foot binding was intended to make women totter on their pointed, slender feet in a seductive manner. It was finally outlawed only about a hundred years ago.

As a result of Jesus Christ and His teachings, women in much of the world today, especially in the West, enjoy more privileges and rights than at any other time in history. It takes only a cursory trip to an Arab nation or to a Third World country to see how little freedom women have in countries where Christianity has had little or no presence. It’s the best thing that ever happened to women, despite the pronouncements of Jimmy Carter.

Paul's controversial statements on women

I’d like to do a further blog on Christianity and the role of women, thanks to alarming comments by Jimmy Carter, who suggested Islam and Christianity have a similar outlook on women—seeing them as second class. That’s far from the truth. Let’s take a look at Paul’s comments in the New Testament, which, unfortunately, many have seen as insulting to women.

One passage by Paul which has stirred controversy is found in 1 Timothy 2:11-14 where the author seems to tell Timothy that women should be in submission to men and should keep quiet in church. But is that what he really said? His remarks may have been for that culture, not ours because in other places Paul talks about greeting each other with a holy kiss and the necessity for head coverings, practices which are now nonexistent. So that’s one possibility. Then you have to see another passage (Titus 2) where Paul encourages older women to teach younger women—so apparently it was OK for women to talk and teach others. In addition, the verb in the original is different from what we usually see --“I do not permit” actually is “I am not permitting at this time.” That’s a big difference. There may have been a particular issue of confusion and noise that Paul was dealing with in one particular church.

Then there’s 1 Timothy 3:1-4 where Paul gives requirements for overseers in the church. It seems like he’s excluding women here because he uses the male pronoun. But again, if you look at the original Greek, it says “If a man or woman desire” to indicate either sex could qualify.

Take a look at 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, in which Paul seems to tell women to keep quiet in church. However, go back a couple of chapters in the same letter and see 11:5 where Paul tells women how to go about praying or prophesying. So it looks like it was OK for women to talk in church. Paul probably is speaking here about disorderly talking rather than any talking.

Keep in mind several things here. These passages were all from pastoral letters rather than general theological letters. Paul was addressing particular needs in particular churches in a particular culture. Secondly, our translations may not reflect clearly the original Greek. Finally, we have to balance these statements with others that definitely support equality—see Galatians 3:27-28 and Ephesians 5:21.

So Paul may be getting hit unfairly with charges of hostility to women. It strikes me as ironic how some very conservative church leaders can use these verses in an attempt to shut out women yet rely on these same women to teach Sunday school, lead music, and head up many programs at church. You can’t have it both ways—either keep the women from any role in the church or allow them to speak and teach.

Did Jimmy Carter get it right? Does Christianity share Islam’s disregard for women? I don’t think so.

Women as seen by two famous followers of Jesus

In my last blog, I reacted to Jimmy Carter, who was quoted recently as saying all religions have treated women badly. I wanted to set the record straight—Christianity has done much to elevate the significance of women. I covered the way Jesus dealt with women. This time I’d like to turn to Peter and Paul to see how they viewed women.

Peter encouraged women to consider themselves as valuable because God saw them as valuable. His call to aspire to the inner beauty of a trusting and tranquil spirit is staggeringly counter-cultural, especially in today’s world where women are seen as objects. He writes, “Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as braided hair and the wearing of gold jewelry and fine clothes. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful.”

Equally staggering is Peter’s call to men to elevate their wives with respect and understanding: “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” Consideration, respect, fellow heirs—these were concepts totally alien to men of Peter’s generation.

The biggest criticism of Christianity and its view of women is due to statements by Paul. He is often accused of being a misogynist, one who hates and fears women. But Paul’s teachings on women reflect the creation order and high value God places on women as creatures made in his image. Take a look at what he had to say in Ephesians 5--he challenges men to love their wives in the self-sacrificing way Christ loves the church. In a culture where a wife was nothing but property, Paul elevates women to a position of honor previously unknown in the world.

Paul also provided highly countercultural direction for the New Testament church. Consider the Jewish synagogue--women had no place and no voice in worship. In the pagan temples, the place of women was to serve as prostitutes. The church, on the other hand, was a place for women to pray and prophecy out loud (1 Cor. 11:5). Spiritual gifts used to build up the church are given to women as well as men. Older women are commanded to teach younger ones. The invitation to women to participate in worship of Jesus was unique in that day.

Maybe next time I can look closely at a couple of passages that critics especially love to point out as representative of Paul’s distrust of women.

Women and Christianity

Jimmy Carter has done it again. In today's Drudge Report he says much of the discrimination and abuse suffered by women around the world is attributable to a belief "that women are inferior in the eyes of God." Carter said such teachings by "leaders in Christianity, Islam and other religions" allow men to beat their wives and deny women their fundamental rights as human beings. Once more he sees a moral equivalency between Christianity and Islam where it doesn't exist. He needed to explain that Christianity has elevated the status of women. So, for the next couple of blogs, I'd like to explore that idea further in hopes of clarifying what our "beloved" former President has said.


What would be the status of women in the Western world today if Jesus had never been born? Let's compare their status in the West with that of women under the control of Islam. In most present-day Islamic countries, women are still denied many rights that are available to men, and when they appear in public, they must be veiled. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, women are even barred from driving an automobile. In many Arab countries where the Islamic religion is adhered to strongly, a man has the right to beat and sexually desert his wife, all with the full support of the Koran.


This command is the polar opposite of what the New Testament says regarding a man’s relationship with his wife. Paul told the Christians in Ephesus, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her." And he added, "He who loves his wife loves himself." Jesus loved women and treated them with great respect and dignity.


The New Testament’s teaching on women also wasn't found in the Greco-Roman culture of Jesus' time. In ancient Greece, for example, a respectable woman was not allowed to leave the house unless she was accompanied by a trustworthy male escort. A wife was not permitted to eat or interact with male guests in her husband’s home; she had to retire to her woman’s quarters. Men kept their wives under lock and key, and women had the social status of a slave. Girls were not allowed to go to school, and when they grew up, they were not allowed to speak in public. Women were considered inferior to men.


The status of Roman women was also very low. Roman law placed a wife under the absolute control of her husband, who had ownership of her and all her possessions. He could divorce her if she went out in public without a veil. A husband had the power of life and death over his wife, just as he did his children. As with the Greeks, women were not allowed to speak in public.


Even the Jewish faith, from which Christianity grew, failed to give women a high status. Jewish women were barred from public speaking. The oral law prohibited women from reading the Torah out loud. Synagogue worship was segregated, with women never allowed to be heard.

Now, consider how Jesus interacted with women--what a difference. Let's look at the story of his encounter with a Samaritan woman at a well in John 4. How he dealt with her was extremely unusual, even radical. He ignored the Jewish anti-Samaritan prejudices along with prevailing view that saw women as inferior beings. He started a conversation with her—a Samaritan, a woman—in public. The rabbinic oral law was explicit: “He who talks with a woman [in public] brings evil upon himself.” Another rabbinic teaching prominent in Jesus’ day taught, “One is not so much as to greet a woman.” So we can understand why his disciples were amazed to find him talking to a woman in public. Today we read this story unaware of what a powerful statement Jesus is making here regarding the rights and dignity of women.


There are many other ways Jesus demonstrated his regard for women. Mary, Martha and Lazarus entertained Jesus at their home. He allowed Mary to do what only men had been allowed to do, namely, learn from Jesus’ teachings. Mary was the cultural deviant, but so was Jesus, because he violated the rabbinic law of his day [about speaking to women]. By teaching Mary spiritual truths, he violated another rabbinic law, which said, “Let the words of the Law [Torah] be burned rather than taught to women. In addition, women followed Jesus, a highly unusual phenomenon in first-century Palestine. This behavior may not seem unusual to us today, but in Jesus’ day it was highly unusual. Scholars note that in the prevailing culture only prostitutes and women of very low repute would follow a man without a male escort. Another example is that of Jesus' resurrection scene. The first people Jesus chose to appear to were women; not only that, but he instructed them to tell his disciples that he was alive. In a culture where a woman’s testimony was worthless because she was worthless, Jesus elevated the value of women beyond anything the world had seen.


Does anyone see anything like this concern for the status of women in other religious movements, especially Islam? Nope. Let me continue this in a future blog. In the meantime, enjoy the colorful comments of Jimmy Carter as the fiction which they are.

Is California Waking Up to the Problem?

Recently The Wall Street Journal ran a piece on the huge uproar over taming the public unions, which are bankrupting so many local and state governments. Of course, we know about Wisconsin, but I was amazed to read that even here in California, an increasingly liberal and out-of-control blue state, things are changing for the better when it comes to the feeding frenzy of the public unions.

According to the Journal, some people in California, which now has a huge deficit of 26 billion dollars, are starting to wake up to the problem. For example, Costa Mesa, in Orange County, just fired half of its work force. Days later, Los Angeles reached a tentative deal in which workers would pay more into pension and health plans.

Then there's San Francisco, about the last place in California you would expect to find an official determined to fight the financial weight of its public unions. But the man taking on the unions in San Francisco is its Public Defender, Jeff Adachi, who runs an agency of lawyers that provide legal services to poor people. He is a card-carrying San Francisco Democrat. Why is he worried about public union costs? As he sees it, payments for public pensions and health care are defunding social programs and the entire network of support services.

Last year he got up an initiative, Proposition B, which would have required current workers to pay more toward pension and health-care costs. He got some surprising help. For example, he got financial support from a prominent local Democrat, Mike Moritz of Sequoia Capital. California's most famous living Democrat, former Assembly Speaker and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, supported him. He collected 76,000 signatures. Even though Prop. B lost by 13 points beneath a mudslide of public union money, Adachi is retooling his proposition for another vote this November.

This is not the only good news from San Francisco. A few weeks ago, a small group of current and former municipal officials and taxpayer advocates in the San Francisco Bay Area convened to form California United for Fiscal Reform.

Its co-chairs are Adachi and Stephanie Gomes, the outspoken city council member from Vallejo, famously the largest California city to declare Chapter 9 bankruptcy. Their first meeting this month attracted representatives from Menlo Park, Pleasanton, Contra Costa County, and Sonoma County. The Journal quotes Gomes as saying, "These costs are a tsunami. If we can't rely on the state to fix it, we have to do it locally, and we have to join together, because the unions are joined."

The message is reaching other areas of the state too. In Orange County, the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility and the Pacific Research Institute recently held a "Pension Boot Camp," where some 175 elected officials and others heard talks such as, "What hasn't Calpers [the state’s public-employeee retirement system] told you?"

The catch is that much of these retirement systems are protected from cutbacks due to constitutional mandates. That means the lead on major reform would have to come from the mercurial Gov. Brown. He talked about it in his campaign, but not much since.

But the Journal reports that high-level help for the embattled locals may come from another California official, U.S. Congressman Devin Nunes. Rep. Nunes is building support for his Public Employee Pension Transparency Act, which would require states and municipalities to produce a coherent picture of their pension obligations. Imagine that. The bill says that they can stay opaque if they wish, but failure to disclose would cut them off from the federal tax exemption for muni bonds.

Serious Californians know how much trouble they're in. Last June, the Civil Grand Jury in San Francisco (again, notice this is from san Francisco) issued a report on pensions, "The Billion Dollar Bubble." Its conclusion: "This report is a warning of a deepening crisis in the City's financial condition. . . . We cannot wait."

A report last month from the state's respected Little Hoover Commission said that California has no choice but to take on the court decisions mandating pension costs.

So maybe the state is waking up. Let’s do our part by supporting those officials who see the problem and are willing to do something about it.