Reading List for Older Kids

Things That Make a Difference, Part II

We published a reading list recently for children in the first three years of schooling.  It was cribbed from Calvary Classical School, courtesy of Justin Taylor.

Now, a second instalment–this time for Years Four & Five.

There are hundreds of thousands of books written for children. The challenge is discerning what is best for them to read, given so many options.

Last week I published a reading list for grades 1-3 provided by Calvary Classical School—a classical Christian school in Hampton, VA.

Below is the list for grades 4-5.

For outside reading, the books are divided into three levels. Books with a “+” denote that any title in that series would be acceptable. At times I’ve linked to a box set of paperbacks if available—at other times I’ve just linked to the lead-off book in a series.

I’ve done my best to link to the paperback or cheapest version at Amazon. One interesting thing I’ve discovered in trying to provide these links is how hard it is to find well-done critical editions, rather than self-published efforts that take advantage of the text being in the public domain in order to turn a quick buck. A good rule of thumb is to look for the “Puffins Classic” versions, which seem to be well done.
I hope this proves helpful for a lot of parents and teachers!

As time permits, I’ll pull together the final list for the middle school years of grades 6-8.

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Year Four Literature List
Read in class or assigned for outside reading:

Blackwood, Gary. The Shakespeare Stealer
Burnett, Frances Hodgson. The Secret Garden
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Dahl, Roald. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
D’Aulaire, Ingri & Edgar. Leif the Lucky
Daugherty, James. The Magna Charta
de Angeli, Marguerite. The Door in the Wall
Du Bois, William Pene. Twenty-one Balloons
Estes, Eleanor. Ginger Pye
Henry, Marguerite. King of the Wind
Green, Roger Lancelyn. King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table
Konigsburg, E. L. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basel E. Frankweiler
Lewis, C. S. Prince Caspian
Norton, Mary. The Borrowers
Prum, Deborah M. Rats, Bulls, and Flying Machines
Rebsamen, Frederick. Beowulf
Sis, Peter. Starry Messenger: Galileo
Stanley, Diane and Peter Vennema. Bard of Avon
Stanley, Diane. Joan of Arc
Vernon, Louise A. Thunderstorm in the Church
White, E. B. The Trumpet of the Swan

Level 1
Alexander, Lloyd. The Book of Three +
Armstrong, William. Sounder
Babbitt, Natalie. Tuck Everlasting
Burnett, Frances H. A Little Princess
Carlson, Natalie. The Family Under the Bridge
Estes, Eleanor. The Hundred Dresses
Knight, Eric. Lassie Come-Home
L’Engle, Madeliene. A Wrinkle in Time +
Lenski, Lois. Prairie School +
Lenski, Lois. Strawberry Girl
Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars
McSwigan, Marie. Snow Treasure
Seredy, Kate. The Good Master
Speare, Elizabeth. The Sign of the Beaver
Taylor, Sydney. All-of-A-Kind Family
Thurber, James. Many Moons
Verne, Jules. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Wilson, N. D. 100 Cupboards +

Level 2
Farley, Walter. The Black Stallion +
Funke, Cornellia. Inkheart +
George, Jean C. My Side of the Mountain
Grahame, Kenneth. The Reluctant Dragon
Hanes, Mari. Two Mighty Rivers
Jacques, Brian. Redwall +
Lofting, Hugh. The Voyages of Dr. Dolittle +
Morey, Walt. Gentle Ben
Peretti, Frank. The Cooper Kids Adventure +
Riordan, Rick. The Lightning Thief +
Smith, Dodie. The 101 Dalmations
Street, James. Good-bye My Lady
Travers, P. I. Mary Poppins +
Wilson, N. D. Leepike Ridge

Level 3
Adamson, Joy. Born Free
Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women +
Burnford, Sheila. The Incredible Journey
Field, Rachel. Calico Bush
Lawson, Robert. Ben and Me
Robertson, Keith. Henry Reed, Inc. +
Robinson, Barbara. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
Sewell, Anna. Black Beauty
Sidney, Margaret. Five Little Peppers +

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Year Five  Literature List
Read in class or assigned for outside reading:

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe
Forbes, Esther. Johnny Tremain
Lathan, Jean. Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
Lewis, C. S. The Silver Chair
Lewis, C. S. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Speare, Elizabeth. The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels (excerpts)

Level 1
Beatty, Patricia. Turn Homeward, Hannalee
Brink, Carol. Caddie Woodlawn
Byars, Betsy. The Summer of the Swans
Cleary, Beverly. Dear Mr. Henshaw
De Jong, Meindert. The Wheel on the School
Enright, Elizabeth. Thimble Summer
Gates, Doris. Blue Willow
Gipson, Fred. Old Yeller
Hanes Mari. Two Mighty Rivers
O’Brien, Robert. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Rawls, Wilson. Where the Red Fern Grows
Selden, George. The Cricket in Times Square

Level 2
Cameron, Eleanor. Mushroom Planet +
De Jong, Meindert. The House of Sixty Fathers
George, Jean Craighead. Julie of the Wolves
Montgomery, Lucy. Anne of Green Gables
O’Dell, Scott. Island of the Blue Dolphin
Pearce, Philippa. Tom’s Midnight Garden
Porter, Eleanor. Pollyanna +
Rawks, Wilson. Summer of the Monkeys
Spyri, Johanna. Heidi
Wyss, Johann. Swiss Family Robinson

Level 3
Alcott, Louisa. Little Men
Burnett, Frances. Little Lord Fauntleroy
De Jong, Meindert. Journey from Peppermint Street
Dodge, Mary. Hans Brinker
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows
MacDonald, George. The Princess and Curdie
MacDonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin
North, Sterling. Rascal
Seredy, Kate. The White Stag
Stevenson, Robert Louis. Treasure Island
Terhune, Albert. Lad: A Dog
Tolkien, J. R. R. The Hobbit
Verne, Jules. Around the World in Eighty Days
Verne, Jules. Journey to the Center of the Earth

Homosexual "Marriage" and the Gospel

Mohler on Homosexual “Marriage”

An excellent discussion, following up our recent posts on homosexual “marriage” (here).

Hat Tip: Justin Taylor

Chomsky on President Obama

There’s Nothing There

It gets really bad in politics when even your ideological friends admit your opponents were right–about you.

Noam Chomsky has long been a radical to the Left of the ideological spectrum.  One would have thought that he would be consistently supportive of President Obama–the Chicago community organizer who was elected as the first black president of the United States.  After all, Obama’s left wing radicalism and activism on the streets of Chicago were well documented.  (Not so well documented, of course, were his ties to the systemic corruption of Chicago Democratic politics.)

Chomsky has now admitted that Sarah Palin has been right all along about Obama.
  This from TheBlaze:

Probably the last person you’d expect to cite Sarah Palin favorably is Noam Chomsky. Yet in an interview with the Leftist news organization Democracy Now, Chomsky did precisely that, saying Palin was right to mock Obama for his lack of substance.

“I don’t usually admire Sarah Palin,” Chomsky said, “but when she was making fun of this ‘hopey changey stuff,’ she was right, there was nothing there.”

Watch Chomsky’s surprisingly honest admission below:

http://widget.newsinc.com/single.html?WID=2&VID=23623466&freewheel=69016&sitesection=breitbartprivate
When Obama is seen by a leading intellectual storm trooper of the Left as nothing more than an “empty suit” it is significant. It implies that disillusion over the President will be running deep within the belly of the Democratic Party.

Chomsky’s cynical remarks also help explain why Obama and his handlers have focused so much on money, money, money as the key to electoral success. They really do believe that people can be manipulated into voting for their candidate. It’s certainly true that manipulation and artifice can work for a time. But Lincoln’s dictum still holds true: you can fool some people all of the time, and you can fool all people some of the time, but you can’t fool all people all the time.

Another dictum also holds true: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Chomsky is clearly not going to fall for it again. We suspect that he expresses a disquiet widely shared amongst by many people ordinarily Democrat supporters.

Letter From Oslo About Censorship

Censoring Naomi Riley 

She was fired for having the courage to state the obvious.
By John Fund
May 12, 2012
National Review Online

Oslo— The Oslo Freedom Forum is an annual event sponsored by the New York–based Human Rights Foundation, which brings together dissidents and journalists from all over the world to show that people of good will can promote basic freedoms without an overlay of ideology.

Censorship, both official and self-imposed, is an important theme here. We have heard stories from brave journalists such as Ecuador’s Nicolas Perez and Kosovo’s Jeta Xharra of efforts to silence them for expressing views unpopular with officials or special interests. So it was strange to be here and read that one of my friends and former journalistic colleagues back home in the U.S. has been fired merely for speaking her mind.

Earlier this week, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the trade paper for faculty members and administrators in universities, fired Naomi Schaefer Riley, a paid blogger for its website. Her crime? She had the courage to respond to a Chronicle story called “Black Studies: ‘Swaggering Into the Future,’” which stated that “young black-studies scholars . . . are less consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline.” The article used five Ph.D. candidates as examples of those “rewriting the history of race.” Riley looked at the subject areas of the five proposed dissertations and concluded that they were “obscure at best . . . a collection of left-wing victimization claptrap at worst.” One dissertation dealt with the failure of the natural-childbirth literature to include the experiences of non-white women, another blamed the housing crisis on institutional racism, and still another attacked Thomas Sowell and Clarence Thomas for leading an “assault on the civil-rights legacy that benefited them.”

Many academics I know agree that black-studies programs are often slipshod, academically non-rigorous, and repositories for “grievance” politics. But they won’t say so publicly, for fear of being branded as “racists.” Naomi Riley had the courage to state the obvious. The author of two substantive books on higher education, she has worked with me as an editor on such topics at the Wall Street Journal. She knows her stuff. Certainly in a 500-word blog post she oversimplified, but that’s the nature of the blog that the Chronicle hired her to write for — it consists of quick opinion takes on issues of the day. It is even called “Brainstorm” to make clear it doesn’t publish the definitive word on any issue.

Her lone blog post brought a torrent of criticism, attacks by MSNBC, and finally a petition demanding that the Chronicle “dismiss” her. It was signed by 6,500 professors and graduate students.  At first, the Chronicle defended Riley’s right to speak out and invited people to debate her on the subject. But within days, its editor caved to the mob, fired her, and wrote the following craven apology:

We’ve heard you. And we have taken to heart what you said. We now agree that Ms. Riley’s blog posting did not meet The Chronicle’s basic editorial standards for reporting and fairness in opinion articles.

The publication has not commented on the appropriateness of the other bloggers on its site who ridiculed Riley, engaged in name-calling, or otherwise smeared her. The authors of the petition celebrated their victory with the ironic statement “Viva Civility!”

Though it was far away, this hubbub attracted attention from some of the speakers at the Oslo conference. A couple noted how surprising it is that political correctness in academia is now shutting off debate in the U.S., the country where academics supposedly prize vigorous discussion and vigilantly guard against any sign of McCarthyism.

Nick Cohen is an atheist and former leftist who writes for the Observer and Guardian newspapers in Britain. His most recent book, entitled “You Can’t Read This Book,” examines the new forms of censorship that are emerging in the 21st century. He warned those at the Oslo Freedom Forum that many in the West now “surround taboo subjects with a bodyguard of politically correct humbug. This form of self-censorship has had a profound effect on liberalism.” He noted that “censorship is at its most effective when no one admits that it exists. ‘No one else is complaining, so move along now,’ becomes the mantra.”

While Cohen’s warning was directed at those who stifle debate on Muslim radicalism in Europe and refuse to recognize the failure of officially imposed multiculturalism, he lost no time in telling me how appalled he was at the news of Riley’s firing. “These people calling for her head are the same ones who would scream McCarthyism if someone demanded that academics who defend Iran, excuse terrorism, or accept support from dubious Middle East regimes be called to account,” he told me. “At the same time, they would of course be appalled if someone accepted funding from the Pentagon for a research study.”

James Kirchick, a contributing editor to The New Republic and a former writer-at-large for Radio Free Europe, told me of the Riley case, “This is precisely why I am no longer on the left. It is disturbing to see such bullying.”

For decades, academics have demanded tenure, ostensibly not to secure the effectively lifetime employment it creates but to give them the freedom to voice unpopular opinions and conduct research that challenges conventional thinking. Well, Naomi Riley isn’t an academic and didn’t have tenure at the Chronicle. But she had a right to express her view, have her employer back her up, and not see her reputation attacked. Few, if any, of her critics actually tried to refute her criticisms of black-studies dissertations.

Instead, they sought to shut her up, and in so doing, they sent yet another message that some liberals today have become at least as intolerant of debate as any of the fundamentalists and traditionalists they abhor. The same people who nodded approvingly when Barack Obama criticized people who “cling to guns or religion” during the 2008 campaign are clinging to the destructive view that there should be different academic standards for those in minority-studies programs — and that anyone who speaks out against them should be labeled a racist, a possibly career-ending stain for some people.

The Internet’s reach being what it is, a remarkable number of the 400 people attending the Oslo Freedom Forum this week were fully informed of the Riley firing. It obviously paled in comparison to the brutal actions of dictators and vicious torture of dissidents that were featured during the Forum’s panels. But nonetheless it was embarrassing for me, as an American, to admit to foreigners that our country has slipped into a soft censorship on certain taboo subjects. After Riley’s firing, I have no doubt there will be fewer people brave enough to challenge that censorship.

— John Fund is the national-affairs columnist for NRO.

The Ground of Battle

Recapturing Marriage for the Kingdom

The civil state in the West gave up on marriage long ago.  When it accepted officially people “living together”, invented rights for de facto’s, and introduced “no fault” divorce the West was putting its paganism on display for all to see.  Homosexual “marriage” is just one more chapter in the tawdry saga. 

How ought Christians to react and respond?  As with most issues, our response needs to be multivalent.  One response is to believe that this is a battle the Kingdom of God will eventually win.
  Marriage does not belong to the state, although a godly state will recognize the institution and support it and fence it about.  Marriage belongs to the Lord and it has been instituted for mankind.  It particularly belongs to Christ’s disciples–the Church, the new human race.

In the West, marriage is becoming the detritus of a failing civilization.  As Western marriages and families break down, endlessly “re-blended” into a toxic soup, every social institution is weakened, except the state which grows ever more powerful in a vain attempt to compensate for the dissolution of civil society.  In the end it will be primarily Christians within the Church which respect and live in holy matrimony.

As the world darkens, so the Church and her Lord will shine more brightly in the world.  As society increasingly despises marriage the Church will increasingly be seen as respecting it and thus honouring her Lord.  By this means, says the Scripture, “you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.”  (Philippians 2:15)

But it will not end there, of course.  The secular pagan state will not take our fidelity to marriage lying down.  It will turn upon the Church seeking to devour her.  It will eventually accuse the Church of discrimination, hate speech, and crimes against humanity for refusing to recognise such abominations as no-fault divorce and homosexual “marriage”.  The state will eventually interdict churches’ civil authority to marry anyone–unless, of course, the particular church bows first to Caesar.  Some false, fellow travellers will.  God’s people never will.  The Church will no doubt respond by conducting true, holy marriage covenants in secret.  It will no doubt set up its own civil governments as it is increasingly forced underground (I Corinthians 6: 1-6).  The divine blessings of holy matrimony will flow down upon God’s people, adorning the beauty of Christ’s redemption and salvation for all to see.  The state will likely respond by stripping the church of property.  It will no doubt throw its officers, preachers, teachers and leaders into prison. It will attempt to remove our children from “abusive” Christian homes, putting them into the loving embrace of secular “care”.  We will  go underground.  We will flee.  We will become fugitives and refugees in our own country.  Thus our fathers did before us. 

This is the way it has always been, ever since the resurrection and ascension of our Lord.  Societies and nations are always either moving towards the light or away from it.  In the case of the latter, persecution and oppression inevitably fall upon God’s holy people.  We will not be surprised by this.  Let “no man be disturbed by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this.  For indeed when we were with you, we kept telling you in advance that we were going to suffer affliction; and so it came to pass, as you know.”  (I Thessalonians 3: 3,4)

But Christ will always come to our aid, to strengthen, encourage, and embolden His people.  Always the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the Church.  In the end, His people will triumph, leading captive a host of captives.  The institution of holy matrimony in the West will be one of them.

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

The Emperor’s Whitey Tighties 

Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, 10 May 2012

Yesterday our president hurled himself into a frothing maelstrom of flattery and praise by taking the astonishingly courageous step of endorsing gay marriage. Whoa. There have been other thoughtful interactions with this decision, as, for example, here, here, and here, but I have not asked for a moment of your time in order to thoughtfully interact with this little slab of damnation. I have asked for this moment in order to fisk it.

It would be paltering with the truth to pretend that this move is any kind of honest. It was about as honest as a Cook County election between two cousins with tight connections to the mob.
The president spoke quite carefully, like a man trying to read a script and swallow a tennis ball at the same time. Give the man a minute. He’s evolving!

Of course he knew that his utterance would be the signal for a cavalcade of supportive nonsense in the media to start up, which of course it did. He is the big noise over at Slate and Huffpo, and Chris Matthews has to deal with chills running up his other leg. Across our fair Republic, a vast army 60-watt intellectuals have now banded together to flicker dimly in the gathering twilight, having mistaken themselves for the dawn. They want to applaud this presidential go-ahead for all those who want to go spelunking down deep in their own chthonic lusts. So to speak.

I also have a brief word of encouragement for those among the faithful who feel as though fighting this battle is like pelting a bonfire with cotton balls. Do you feel like you have found a layer of Babylonian gravel in your chocolate cream pie? Is this like dealing with ticks and blisters at the end of a hot August hike through the cheat grass meadows of craft and guile? Does watching the evening news remind you of somebody washing the garbage? Do you believe that Obama can’t be qualified to be president because he is clearly a Jebusite, whatever his birth certificate says?

Here is the encouragement. Sin doesn’t work. The history of the whole world is the history of people trying to figure out a way to make it work, but it never does. Sin doesn’t work. Neither does stupidity.

King Canute once tried to show his fawning courtiers how foolish they were by commanding the tide not to come in, and come in anyway it did. Imagine the shock over at the DNC.

“We have gathered ourselves together, the mighty of the earth, and we have settled that we can have our trillion and eat it, we can have have boys marry boys, for we have spoken from deep empathy, you haters, and we have determined that European math facts have nothing whatever to do with American math facts, being more like apples and oranges, and we have the resolve to fine you heavily if you don’t stop talking about the emperor’s whitey tighties.”

Suit yourselves. I’m just sayin’ . . .

Reading Lists for Kids

Things That Make a Difference

Arguably the most potent contribution parents can make to the education of their younger children is to read to them.  For the first eight years of schooling, reading to children every day is far, far more important than homework.  But what to read?

There are myriads of children’s books and literature.  Some classic.  Some excellent.  Some inconsequential.  Reading lists to sort the wheat from the chaff can be very useful.  (Such lists are, of course, never final or definitive.)

Here is one such list, produced by a classical Christian School–courtesy of Justin Taylor:

A Christian Classical School Reading List: Years 1-3

There are hundreds of thousands of books written for children. The challenge is discerning what is best for them to read, given so many options. I’m a sucker for good reading lists, so I’m grateful for the folks at Calvary Classical School—a classical Christian school in Hampton, VA—who has given me permission to reproduce this list below.

So far I’ve been able to provide links for the grades 1-3 lists. Lord willing, and time permitting, I will provide the other lists (up to 8th grade) in future posts.

For outside reading, the books divided into three levels. Books with a “+” denote that any title in that series would be acceptable.

I’ve done my best to link to the paperback or cheapest version at Amazon. I hope this proves helpful for a lot of parents and teachers!

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Year One Reading List
Read aloud by teacher in class:
Leaf, Munro. How to Behave and Why
Leaf, Munro. How to Speak Politely and Why
Lloyd-Jones, Sally. The Jesus Storybook Bible
Taylor, Helen. Little Pilgrim’s Progress
Leithart, Peter. Wise Words: Family Stories that Bring the Proverbs to Life
Brown, Jeff. Flat Stanley
Dalgliesh, Alice. The Courage of Sarah Noble
Silverstein, Shel. A Light in the Attic
Outside Reading
Level 1
Bulla, Clyde. Daniel’s Duck
Changler, Edna. Cowboy Sam +
Frasconi, Antonio. The House that Jack Built
Graham, Margaret. Benjy’s Dog House +
Hoff, Syd. Sammy the Seal
Hoff, Syd. Danny and the Dinosaur+
Krauss, Ruth. The Carrot Seed
Lionni, Leo. Inch by Inch
Littledale, Freya. The Magic Fish
Lobel, Arnold. Frog and Toad Are Friends +
Offen, Hilda. A Treasury of Mother Goose
Seuss, Dr. Beginner Books +
Seuss, Dr. Bright and Early Books +
Tabak, Simms. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly
Wood, Audrey. Quick as a Cricket
Level 2
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar +
Davoll, Barbara. The Potluck Supper +
Daugherty, James. Andy and the Lion
Duvoisin, Roger. Petunia
Flack, Marjorie. Angus and the Ducks
Freeman, Don. Corduroy +
Galdone, Paul. The Little Red Hen
Galdone, Paul. The Three Billy Goats Gruff
Hoban, Russell. Bedtime for Frances +
Hunt, Angela. A Gift for Grandpa
Keats, Ezra. Peter’s Chair
Marshall, James. George and Martha +
McGovern, Ann. Stone Soup
Minarik, Else. Little Bear +
Numeroff, Laura. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie+
Parish, Peggy. Amelia Bedelia +
Rey, Margaret & H.A. Curious George +
Richardson, Arleta. A Day at the Fair
Sharmat, Marjorie. Nate the Great +
Zion, Gene. Harry the Dirty Dog +
Level 3
Buckley, Helen. Grandmother and I
Burton, Virginia. Maybelle the Cable Car
Coerr, Eleanor. The Josefina Story Quilt
De Regniers, Beatrice. May I Bring a Friend?
Ets, Marie. Just Me
Gramatky, Hardie. Little Toot +
Hader, Berta. The Big Snow
Keats, Ezra. Whistle for Willie
Lewis, Kim. Floss +
Lowry, Jannette. The Poky Little Puppy
McCloskey, Robert. Make Way for Ducklings
Piper, Watty. The Little Engine that Could
Potter, Beatrix. The Tale of Peter Rabbit +
Sendak, Maurice. Where the Wild Things Are
Turkle, Brinton. Thy Friend, Obadiah +
Ward, Lynd. The Biggest Bear
Wilder, Laura. My First Little House Books +
Williams, Vera. A Chair for My Mother

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Year Two Reading List
Read in class or assigned for outside reading:
Andersen, Hans C. The Emperor’s New Clothes
Brown, Marcia. Dick Whittington and His Cat
Burton, Virginia. The Little House
Burton, Virginia. Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel
Cauley, Lorinda. The Ugly Duckling
Cleary, Beverly. The Mouse and the Motorcycle
Cleary, Beverly. Ribsy
Dalgliesh, Alice. The Bears on Hemlock Mountain
Lewis, C. S. The Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe
McCloskey, Robert. Time of Wonder
Steig, William. Doctor De Soto
Warner, Gertrude. The Box-Car Children (vol. 1)
Williams, Marjorie. The Velveteen Rabbit
Outside Reading
Level 1
Cannon, Janell. Stellaluna
Galdone, Paul. The Gingerbread Boy
Galdone, Paul. The Three Bears
Galdone, Paul. The Three Little Pigs
Kessel, Joyce. Squanto and the First Thanksgiving
Roop, Peter and Connie. Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
Slobodkina, Esphyr. Caps for Sale
Yolen, Jane. Owl Moon
Level 2
Anderson, C. W. Billy and Blaze +
Bemelmans, Ludwig. Madeline +
Bontemps, Arna & Conroy Jack. The Fast Sooner Hound
Calhoun, Mary. Cross-Country Cat
DeBrunhoff, Jean. Babar +
Flack, Marjorie. The Story about Ping
Gag, Wanda. Millions of Cats
Gauch, Patricia. Thunder at Gettysburg
Haywood, Carolyn. Betsy & Billy +
Hope, Laura Lee. The Bobbsey Twins +
Leaf, Munro. The Story of Ferdinand
Loveless, Maude. Betsy-Tacy +
Milne, A. A. When We Were Young
Milne, A. A. Now We are Six
Politi, Leo. Song of the Swallows
Steig, William. Doctor De Soto Goes to Africa
Taha, Karen. A Gift for Tia Rosa
Warner, Gertrude. The Boxcar Children +
Ziefert, Harriet. A New Coat for Anna
Level 3
Aardemas, Verna. Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears
Harness, Cheryl. Three Young Pilgrims
Le Gallienne, Eva. Seven Tales by H. C. Andersen
McCloskey, Robert. Blueberries for Sal
McCloskey, Robert. One Morning in Maine
McCloskey, Robert. Lentil
Mowat, Farley. Owls in the Family
Nesbit, E. The Railway Children +
Sobol, Donald. Secret Agents Four
Sproul, R. C. The King Without a Shadow
West, Jerry. The Happy Hollisters +
Williams, Jay. Danny Dunn +

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Year Three Literature List
Read in class or assigned for outside reading:
Atwater, Richard. Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Barrie, James. Peter Pan
Farley, Walter. The Black Stallion
Fleischman, Sid. The Whipping Boy
Gannett, Ruth. My Father’s Dragon
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows (Scholastic Jr. Classic)
Kipling, Rudyard. The Jungle Book (Scholastic Jr. Classic)
Lewis, C. S. The Horse and His Boy
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Stories (Scholastic Jr. Classic)
White, E. B. Charlotte’s Web
White, E. B. Stuart Little
Winterfeld, Henry. Detectives in Togas
Outside Reading
Level 1
Bulla, Clyde. A Lion to Guard Us
Bulla, Clyde. Shoeshine Girl
Cleary, Beverly. Henry Huggins +
Dalgliesh, Alice. The Courage of Sarah Noble
Gardiner, John. Stone Fox
Hall, Donald. Ox-Cart Man
Kellogg, Steven. Paul Bunyan
MacGregor, Ellen. Miss Pickerell +
MacLachlan, Patricia. Sarah, Plain and Tall +
McSwigan, Marie. Snow Treasure
Scieszka, Jon. The Time Warp Trio: Sam Samurai
Sobol, Donald. Encyclopedia Brown Series +
Stanley, Diane. The True Adventure of Daniel Hall
Warner, Gertrude. The Box-Car Children (excluding vol. 1) +
Level 2
Collodi C. Pinocchio
Edmonds, Walter. The Matchlock Gun
Henry, Marguerite. Misty of Chincoteague
Herriot, James. James Herriot’s Treasury
Hope, Laura Lee. The Bobbsey Twins +
Hurwitz, Johanna. Aldo Applesauce
Lindgren, Astrid. Pippi Longstocking +
Milne, A. A. Winnie the Pooh
Nesbit, E. The Railway Children +
Richardson, Arleta. In Grandma’s Attic +
Roddy, Lee. Family Adventures +
Rupp, Rebecca. Dragon of Lonely Island
Wilder, Laura. Little House on the Prairie +
Level 3
Bailey, Carolyn. Miss Hickory
Bond, Michael. Paddington +
Butterworth, Oliver. The Enormous Egg
Cleary, Beverly. Ramona +
D’Aulaire, I. E. Benjamin Franklin +
Estes, Eleanor. The Moffats
Fritz, Jean. The Cabin Faced West
Holling, H. C. Paddle-to-the-Sea +
Jackson, Dave & Neta. Trailblazer Series +
Kipling, Rudyard. Just So Stories
Lawson, Robert. Rabbit Hill
McCloskey, Robert. Homer Price
Nesbit, E. The Story of the Treasure Seekers
Peretti, Frank. The Door in the Dragon’s Throat
Reece, Colleen. American Adventure Series +
Streatfeild, Noel. Ballet Shoes

Bad Faith Arguments

Defiled Beds

Homosexual “marriage”.  It’s got the Commentariat chattering like a Spanish castanet.  It is a classic illustration of how Unbelief operates in its own vortex.  This latest cause celebre is being touted as a human and/or civil right.  Want to buy?  Apparently millions do. 

Two homosexuals want to live together in the bonds of holy matrimony.  Because they want to, and because they are human by definition it has to be regarded as a human right.  Not to accede to their desires is, therefore, an act of discrimination against them; it is to deny them civil rights (since marriage is a civil right).  Ah, but the question is begged: is homosexuality a moral or immoral state?  The entire issue turns upon that one troubling, little, begged question.
 

Those who argue against homosexual “marriage” do so on the grounds that homosexuality is an immorality.  To commit homosexual acts is evil–along with theft, adultery, murder and so forth.  That is the only substantial ground for opposing homosexual “marriage”.  Civil and human rights do not extend to encompassing immorality and evil.  Those who contend for homosexual “marriage” assume that it is ethical, thereby begging the question entirely. 

So the issue we need to have Unbelievers and the Chattering Classes front up to is, By what standard have they determined that homosexuality is a moral act?  The fact that two or more people want to engage in such acts is irrelevant, for it is abundantly obvious that all people at times want to do evil and that some people at all times want to do what is immoral.  What makes homosexuality moral, and by what standard has the Commentariat made the determination?    That is the fundamental issue upon which the entire debate turns.  Simply eliding over this issue is deceptive and misleading. 

So, without reference to the desires of homosexuals, let the Commentariat tell us not only how homosexual sexual acts and desires are moral, but by what standard they are so determined.  We are aware that the Theologian-in-Chief, President Obama has grounded his determination on a person called Jesus, who apparently said “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  Well, that’s at least a start  in the right direction.  So Mr Theologian-in-Chief, did this same Jesus also declare that homosexual marriage is approbated by His heavenly Father from the beginning?  Come on.  Make the argument honestly, and in good faith.  How we long for integrity in this matter. 

No doubt there will be those who would argue that the desires of homosexuals are sufficient warrant for the morality of their actions.  If people desire something it must, by this definition, be ethical and moral.  This is an absolute nonsense, of course–yet the argument is made with a straight face.  Spare us. 

There are legions of people in this world who are paedophiles.  Their desire is intense and genuine.  Nambla does exist, after all.  There are also millions upon millions of people in this world who are willing to deliver their children up to the tender embrace of paedophiles–for a fee.  They earnestly desire that their children would be so situated.  How utterly wrong, then, that such paedophiles and parents are denied their desires and denied the right to enter paedophiliac marriage.  It is discrimination at its worst.  It is a travesty of human rights, non? 

Only if paedophilia is holy, just, and good.  If not, then never can it be argued that not to permit paedophiliac marriage violates the human and civil rights of paedophiles.  That’s the point.  That’s the issue.  It’s precisely the same with homosexuality in general, not just the paedophiliac variant.  The Commentariat needs to man up and deal with it, not ignore it, hoping that in the ignoring of it everyone else will join them in just assuming that homosexuality is a moral state. 

So the question remains: By what standard does the Commentariat and its attendant Chattering Classes establish or prove that homosexuality is a moral act?  Moreover, on what skyhook is that standard going to be hung.  It is entirely specious, dishonest, and deceitful to ignore these issues.  True servants of the Lord Jesus Christ never will.  True servants of the Lord will never allow the Chatterers deceitfully to shuffle the issue under the bed either. 

Diverting Political Debates

Tragedies We Inflict Upon Ourselves

Political ideology is a diverting area of study–particularly when politics are operating in a secularist cocoon.  Of course, politics and government in the West are overwhelmingly secular in our generation.  (The United States is the final bastion of anti-secularism but its decline and fall are now well down the track.)

Political ideologies of both Left and Right all agree on one critical maxim: there ain’t no God.  Whether in Cameron’s Whitehall, Hollande’s Elysee Palace, or Obama’s White House the conviction is shared.  It is certain because shared.  Everyone agrees.  When it comes to politics and government, we are all atheists now.
  OK, some people–even those in government–may believe in something–and that’s acceptable.  People can lean on whatever crutches they fashion.  If it helps, dude, go to it.  But all we secularists know that these things are figments of human imagination.  The most polite thing one can say about the gods is that no-one really knows.  They may be true, they may exist; but no-one knows, including those who say they are believers.

Where does that leave political ideology?  Man is his own saviour.  If there ain’t no God or gods, then Man is the only one left at the plate swinging the bat or pitching the ball off the mound.  Political arguments between Left and Right are reduced down to intramural debates over team configurations, rules, umpires, and tactics.  But both Left and Right agree that the game is baseball.  Both alike are secularists.

To extend the analogy, the Left believes that the players should all be subservient to the collective, the team.  No decision should be taken, tactic played, or position assigned unless and until the Team has sanctioned it, arranged it, and tested it.  The Right believes that individual players are more important than the team: if the individual players are left to play as they see fit, within broad parameters of generalised game rules, the released creative energy, competition for team spots, and increased personal motivation will lift the entire team to victory.  In the end the debate is facile–a mere tactical discussion.  Much ado about very little.

But let’s beg some slack here.  Let’s just contemplate for a moment that the secularist premises are wrong–from the get-go.  After all, secularism is a recent invention in the history of ideas, a novel proposition unknown or unrecognised by human beings in previous millennia.  Let’s just grant, for the moment, that the Living God is not a figment of the imagination, that He is above all politics and human government.  Let’s just grant, for the moment, that He is a jealous God, Who hates all sin and evil and will by no means leave it unpunished.  What then?

Well, then.  Ideological secularism of both Left and Right variants would be a crock of excrement.  Not only would it, and the societies it spawns, be doomed to failure, they would be doomed to judgment which, of course, is far far worse. 

Now, it is sadly true that many Christians–that is, people who believe in the existence of the Living God–have become conformed in so many ways to the spirit of our secularist world.  And that world, our world, overwhelmingly believes in Man.  Therefore all talk of divine vengeance, judgment, or wrath is intolerable and deeply offensive–even blasphemous, dare we say.  The only kind of Christianity secularism tolerates is a relentlessly positive version which constantly affirms Man.  “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.  Are you hurting?  God will help you. Are you lonely?  God will be your friend.  Are you sad?  God will cheer you up.”  And so forth.  Such a religion, though (to the secularist) untrue, is tolerable because it performs a useful function for the weakminded. 

But such weakness and unfaithfulness amongst Christians, such conformity to the spirit of the Age, would in no way alter the truth about God–that He is holy, just, righteous, and vengeful, not willing to leave the guilty unpunished.  The Living God would be Who He is, not Whom weak Christians or secularists would like Him to be.

In the end, if the Living God were to be true, secularism and its client societies, whether of the Left or Right variants, would be doomed.  In the end they would destroy themselves, integrating into the void of their rebellion against God.

Historically–throughout those former millennia we spoke of–God deniers bolstered their unbelief by an argument from historical experience.  “See, the divine judgment you (Jewish and Christian) believers speak of has not happened.  Therefore it cannot be true.”  The argument falls–both historically and theologically.  Historically, because the flood of divine wrath always did eventually fall.  Theologically, because God’s wrath is held back by His patience and lovingkindness.  When God pronounced to Noah and his family that the entire human race, apart from Noah and his kin, would perish because every thought and intent of ante-diluvian society was unrelentingly evil, He nevertheless would wait another 120 years–in case the secularists of the day would come to their senses and repent. 

When secularists parley the loving patience of the Living God into an argument for His non-existence our collective doom becomes sure and certain.  The future of secularism–from the standpoint of the Christian–does not look too bright.  Man as demi-god is a tragic joke.  It is also evil.

Letter From Australia (About Afghanistan)

It’s OK, We’re Winning

Candidate Obama infamously declared that “Afghanistan is the war we have to fight”.  Ever since it has been dubbed ‘Obama’s war’.  All the carefully orchestrated and choreographed reports from the war theatre tell us how well the war is going.  Eerie shades of Orwell’s 1984.

The reality?  Much different.  Here is one reality check–published in Australia, via the Sydney Morning Herald.

KABUL: For several years the United States has been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups. It is a bold effort to quell violence but one that US officials acknowledge poses substantial risks.

The disclosure comes as the House and Senate intelligence committee leaders declared that the Taliban had grown stronger since President Barack Obama’s deployment of 33,000 more troops to Afghanistan in 2010.

As the US has unsuccessfully pursued a peace deal with the Taliban, the ”strategic release” program has quietly served as a live diplomatic channel, allowing officials to use prisoners as bargaining chips in restive provinces where military power has reached its limits.  The releases are an inherent gamble: the freed detainees are often notorious fighters who would not be released under the traditional legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence, and American officials warn them that if they are caught attacking US troops, they will be detained again. There are no guarantees, however, and officials would not say if those who have been released under the program have returned to attack US and Afghan forces.

”Everyone agrees they are guilty of what they have done and should remain in detention. Everyone agrees that these are bad guys. But the benefits outweigh the risks,” said one US official who, like others, discussed the issue on the condition of anonymity.

The releases have come amid broader efforts to end the decade-long war through negotiation, which is a central feature of the Obama administration’s strategy for leaving Afghanistan. Those efforts, however, have yielded little to no progress in recent years. In part, they have been stymied by the unwillingness of the US to release five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, a gesture that insurgent leaders have said they see as a precondition for peace talks.

Unlike at Guantanamo, releasing prisoners from the Parwan detention centre, the only US military prison in Afghanistan, does not require congressional approval and can be done clandestinely. And although official negotiations with top insurgent leaders are seen by many as an endgame for the war, the strategic release program has a less ambitious goal: to quell violence in concentrated areas where NATO is unable to ensure security, particularly as troops continue to withdraw.

The program has existed for several years, but officials would not confirm exactly when it was established. Meanwhile, a pessimistic report on Afghanistan by the Democrat senator Dianne Feinstein, and the Republican congressman Mike Rogers, challenges Mr Obama’s assessment last week in a visit to Kabul that the ”tide had turned” and ”we broke the Taliban’s momentum”.

The politicians, who recently returned from Afghanistan, where they met President Hamid Karzai, told CNN they were not so sure. ”President Karzai believes that the Taliban will not come back. I’m not so sure,” Senator Feinstein said. ”The Taliban has a shadow system of governors in many provinces.”
The Washington Post, Associated Press

They say, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”  What then can be said about willing self-deceit on display here?  It has gone beyond shame to moral degeneracy.  And so the US is reduced to clutching at straws, within a propaganda cocoon of its own credulous making. 

How the mighty have fallen.  How the Taliban must spend most of their spare time uproariously  laughing.  Lo the inanity and ridicule that eventually attend nations which view war as diplomacy by other means. 

Full of High Sentence

Obama the Magnificent

In the good old days, monarchs were given names and titles to characterise their reign.  So, Charles the Hammer, so named because of the way he thrashed the Moors at the Battle of Tours in 732.  Or, Charles the Bald–the sobriquet needs no further explanation.  Or, Suleiman the Magnificent–no doubt a reference to his prodigious turban, which made him big-headed.  And so on.

So what of the Wonderful Magical Masterful Mr Obama.  What sobriquet would be an apt characterisation?  Should we use some lines from Prufrock:

. . . no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous–
Almost, at times, the Fool

Mr Obama treats the American voter with contempt.  He works constantly to play them like the fools he believes them to be.  Maybe they are–who knows.  But it would appear his cynicism knows no bounds when it comes to his cynical manipulation of the dumb rubes whose vote he courts.

Patterico provides us with one telling vignette which makes Obama appear Prufrockesque–full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse . . . ridiculous, almost.  It has to do with Obama’s recent “conversion” to supporting homosexual marriage.

Firstly, here is Prufrock Obama gravely telling us that he has come to support homosexual marriage because of his Christian convictions!  We kid you not.

Obama also placed his personal opinion in the context of his values as a “practicing Christian,” in line with efforts by gay marriage proponents to sway conservative voters. Obama said that, contrary to those who believe same-sex marriage is at odds with Christian teachings, it “is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf — but it’s also the golden rule, you know? Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.”

Full of high sentence.

But consider Obama’s history on the matter–which transforms his high sentence into the ridiculous:

If we’re going to talk about Obama’s “evolution” on this issue, let’s talk about Obama’s evolution on this issue.

In 1996, when Obama was running for the state senate in Illinois, he signed a questionnaire in which he supported the right of gays to marry:

Then, when he was running for federal office, his position changed. He has allowed a spokeshole to claim that the above questionnaire was filled out by someone else — a claim later retracted by another spokeshole when nobody bought it.

And he cited religion as the reason for opposing same sex marriage.

Now, having flip-flopped, he has flop-flipped back. And he is trying to make it sound principled.

“Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse . . . ”  Just another self-serving politician whose “principles” are  for sale to the highest bidder.  A cynical manipulator of others.  An easy tool. 

Top Ten Most Read Books in the World

The graphic below summarises the most-read books in the world over the past fifty years.

The graphic is even more startling if one considers that Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings are both exemplars of Christian literature.

Hat Tip: Justin Taylor; First Things

Progressive Enlightenment

Faux Pragmatism

This snippet from Karl, writing at Patterico‘s blog:

As Jonah Goldberg points out in The Tyranny of Cliches, one of the fundamental cliches of the progressive left is pragmatism, i.e., that they are simply doing “what works.”  It is also one of the progressive left’s fundamental falsehoods.

The past century has been one in which progressives have put forth the idea that Soviet communism is what works,
that Eurofascism is what works, that Maoism is what works, and that Eurosocialism is what works.  The actual history of the past century is one in which Eurofascism was defeated in WWII, Soviet communism was defeated in the Cold War, Maoism has degenerated into a fascism and crony capitalism that only Tom Friedman finds attractive, and Eurosocialism is taking its own road to the dustbin of history. 

To be sure, voters in the UK and France are resisting, the Germans less so.  But fiscal realities will continue to intrude, regardless of which governments they elect.  They will eventually figure out what the OECD and IMF already have about the solution to their problems: spending less is the answer.

On Holy Ground

Sacred World; Sacred History

Materialists like to portray Christians as living in an unreal, make believe world.  It’s a small step from there to paint Christians as ignorant simpletons.  Uneducated rubes. 

Another (related) slur is that Christians are anti-science because they do not value the world of matter.  They are so “heavenly minded” they are of no worldly good. 

Of course these slurs are just that.  They betray a profound ignorance of that which materialists presume to criticise.
  True Christianity maintains a profound respect for the created world–in both its material and immaterial aspects.  The reason is that we believe it to be God‘s creation.  What God has created let no creature despise.  God is so transcendent, He is immanent in all things He has made.  Matter does not have an eternal existence, but a beginning point–and that at the command of God. 

David Bentley Hart explains:

For the more educated and philosophically inclined, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, by God’s free action, raised the principle of divine transcendence to an altogether vertiginous height.  It produced a vision of this world as the gratuitous gift of divine love, good in itself: not merely the defective reflection of a higher, truer world, not a necessary emanation of the divine nature or a sacrificial economy upon which the divine in some sense feeds, but an internally coherent reality that by its very autonomy gives eloquent witness to the beauty and power of the God who made it.

And history now acquired not only meaning but an absolute significance, as it was within time that the entire drama of fall, incarnation, and salvation had been and was being worked out.  The absolute partition between temporal and eternal truth had been not only breached but annihilated.  [David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p.199f.]

It’s not only the material world which Christians revere, it’s also human history and the course of mankind on the earth down through the centuries.  For these are swept up in the divine drama of redemption by Christ Himself, the eternal God Who has taken on a perfect and complete human nature.  All men and all nations now belong to Him.  In the end, even the crass materialists will acknowledge it.  

Mass Liquidation Project

Facing the Facts

We posted recently on Malthusian Cassandras who are predicting the end of civilization and humanity as we know them. The only solution (we are told) is twofold: reduce population growth and globally redistribute property.

Now The Onion has got in on the act, “reporting” on a recent scientific convention in the US.  Here are some excerpts.  (Warning: contains advocacy of extreme justifiable violence.)

WASHINGTON—Saying there’s no way around it at this point, a coalition of scientists announced Thursday that one-third of the world population must die to prevent wide-scale depletion of the planet’s resources—and that humankind needs to figure out immediately how it wants to go about killing off more than 2 billion members of its species.

Representing multiple fields of study, including ecology, agriculture, biology, and economics, the researchers told reporters that facts are facts: Humanity has far exceeded its sustainable population size, so either one in three humans can choose how they want to die themselves, or there can be some sort of government-mandated liquidation program—but either way, people have to start dying.

And soon, the scientists confirmed.

“I’m just going to level with you—the earth’s carrying capacity will no longer be able to keep up with population growth, and civilization will end unless large swaths of human beings are killed, so the question is: How do we want to do this?” Cambridge University ecologist Dr. Edwin Peters said. “Do we want to give everyone a number and implement a death lottery system? Incinerate the nation’s children? Kill off an entire race of people? Give everyone a shotgun and let them sort it out themselves?”

“Completely up to you,” he added, explaining he and his colleagues were “open to whatever.” . . .

“The longer we wait, the higher the number of people who will have to die, so we might as well just get it over with,” said Dr. Chelsea Klepper, head of agricultural studies at Purdue Univer­sity, and the leading proponent of a worldwide death day in which 2.3 billion people would kill themselves en masse at the exact same time. . . .

Sources confirmed that if a death solution is not in place by Mar. 31, the U.N., in the interest of preserving the human race, will mobilize its peacekeeping forces and gun down as many people as necessary.
“I don’t care how it happens, but a ton of Africans have to go, because by 2025, there’s no way that continent will be able to feed itself,” said Dr. Henry Craig of the Population Research Institute. . . .

Dumb and Dumber

Promiscuity in New Zealand

A brouhaha has broken out amongst the Commentariat over promiscuity amongst the young in New Zealand.  The Prime Minister has gravely informed us there is no evidence that New Zealand women are more promiscuous than women in the rest of the world.  Other politicians have jumped all over Colin Craig (leader of the Conservative Party) when he claimed that Kiwi women were the most promiscuous in the world and should not benefit from state funded contraception.  This from the NZ Herald:

“We are the country with the most promiscuous young women in the world,” he said. “This does nothing to help us at all. We are faced with a reality that the constant changing of partners is a decision young women are making. It’s a destructive decision on a lot of levels. Health is one of those, and it is a big cost to us.”

Tariana Turia made a somewhat valid point: data about relative promiscuity rates was notoriously hard to come by–for good reason.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said it was outrageous to talk about the promiscuity of New Zealand women when they probably knew nothing about other countries.  “We do try to operate on evidence and we don’t lie in the bedrooms of other people.”

We are thankful for the small mercy that Tariana does not make a habit of lying in the bedrooms of other people.  Hekia Parata, Minister of Education delivered the most irrelevant and inane response.

Education Minister Hekia Parata said she was an aunt, a mother and a cousin and hadn’t found women to be more promiscuous in NZ.

Hone Harawira provided his stock-in-trade Mongrel Mob thuggish standover:

Mana leader Hone Harawira suggested New Zealand women should pay Mr Craig a visit “and set him straight”. 

So the pollies are certain that there is no evidence that New Zealand women are more promiscuous than in other parts of the world.  Not so fast.  Take a look at the graph below.

Live birth rate to women aged 15–19, 1999 figures (Ref. 3) [Source: Eurostat & Centre for Sexual Health Research, Southampton]

The graphic is provided by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine in the UK.  It does not measure promiscuity per se.  Nor does it take account of abortion rates.  But it does tell us that New Zealand is right up there in teenage pregnancy rates when compared to the rest of the developed world.  Given our abortion-on-demand regime, if teenage abortion rates were added in, we would no doubt see NZ’s teen pregnancy rates as relatively very high.

So the people with lots of egg of their face this morning are the pollies whose visceral reaction to Colin Craig’s observations was more than telling.  

Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

The Problem With Their Syncretisms 

Culture and Politics – Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, 02 May 2012

Suppose a measure is before your state legislature to build a bridge over a river in your town. There are ardent Christians in your town who think this is a good idea, and ardent Christians who want to leave well enough alone. Surrounding these pro and con Christians are the unbelievers who also, not surprisingly, divide up into for and against camps.

Some of the “in favor” secularists want to build the bridge because they want to make money, money, money, while the hipster antis do not want to disturb the river god any further than we already have. The Christians who are for and against divide up into another two groups (we have now cut that pie into four quarters). Some of the pro Christians fall into the money, money, money school of thought, and some of the anti Christians wish that Jesus were a little more green friendly, like the river god is.

But there are other Christians, both for and against the project, who came to their conclusions in a conscientious biblical manner.
They are not contaminated by other people around them doing it wrong. To do anything right in this world is to run the risk of being misidentified with people who are doing the same thing for the wrong reasons.

Now, forget the bridge, and we can check back into our national political scene. I want to argue that any conservative Christian who wants to avoid a legitimate charge of a syncretistic approach with secular conservatism needs to confess openly that Jesus is Lord over all things in Heaven and on earth, and that His revealed will must provide the foundation of any righteous civil order. If anyone opposes the re-formation of Christendom, on these principles, then the charge of syncretism, in some measure, sticks — at least to the extent of being a plausible charge.

Unless we acknowledge the lordship of Christ over all these debates, we have no way to resolve them. We don’t want to find ourselves accusing the other camp of syncretistic compromise as we lob grenades from behind the barriers of our own piled-up syncretisms. We don’t want to say that they ought not to be reading Charles Krauthammer, for example, while it is perfectly okay for “us’ns over here” to be reading Naomi Wolf and Noam Chomsky. It is their syncretisms that are bad! Ain’t it the way?

So keep it simple. Those who acknowledge that secularism is a failed project (e.g. Hunter Baker’s The End of Secularism) are really on to something. In the meantime, it is possible for us to be co-belligerents in limited common cause with those conservatives who don’t acknowledge the Lord. But without a principled (and to them very offensive) commitment to the public lordship of Jesus Christ, we have no real way to prevent ourselves from going native.

There is much more to say on this subject, particularly on the difficulties (approaching impossibilities) that committed Christians would have in trying to apply this approach on the Left. We can leave that for another day. In the meantime, the principles remains constant. Jesus is Lord, and His demands call us to radical discipleship — and this is not an anemic choice between CNN and Fox News, the anti-bridge network and the pro-bridge network, with Bible verses conveniently attached after the fact.

Austerity is Dead, Long Live Austerity

The Toys Are Flying Out of the Cot

The latest chapter in the European melodrama represents a somnambulistic pageturner.  We are watching the animated gyrations of the living dead.  Let’s see if we can make some sense of the slow moving tragedy.

The first evident lesson is that voters are like capitalists–indeed like all human beings.  They are acutely self-interested.  Voters in both Greece and France have caught the rest of the world napping.  Who would have thought that they would vote to reject government-inflicted hardship.  Qu’elle surprise.   Ah, yes but the problem lies here: self-interest may lead one to submit to an operation, acutely painful in the immediate, but lifesaving in the longer term.  Or not.
  It all depends upon what one perceives as one’s interests. It all depends on whether instant gratification is the driver of  perceived self-interest.

One thing is clear.  Socialist electorates believe their interests are best satisfied now.  Immediate gratification is the hallmark of all socialist voters (and we grant the truth of the maxim that we in the West are all socialists now; our only argument is over the degree of socialism we find congenial).  Why do we know this? Because socialism offers immediate gratification through redistributive extortion.  Suddenly, overnight, by stroke of legislative pen, or by signature on the national loan, and/or by  taxation’s loving embrace, money shows up in our bank accounts.  Unworked for.  Unsaved.  Not inherited.  It’s just there.  We can all eat, drink, and be merry today.  In the end we all die. Who cares. 

Socialism spawns an Epicurean view of self-interest.  Immediate gratification.  Consequently, when austerity bites because the money has run out, a socialist electorate quickly calculates that its interests are not being served any longer.  The austerity-inflicting government of the day is punished at the polls. 

When this entirely predictable chapter comes to an end, what then?  A few chapters along in this most racy novella the country becomes ungovernable.  Why?  The new government–of whatever stripe or ilk–ends up repeating the exact same austerity programmes.  The voter believes himself betrayed.  The country descends into ungovernable anarchy.

The Guardian carried a column telling us what the French socialist electorate can expect from Mr Normal.

François Hollande expects to inherit a worse public finances predicament than that declared by the Sarkozy administration and will promptly spell out several unpleasant truths to the French electorate, according to senior German officials.

Despite fears that he will pursue a “dangerous” economic policy featuring a return to Keynesian tax-and-spend practices, Hollande and his campaign team have told the Germans that this has been ruled out. “We can’t do Keynesianism twice in 10 years,” Michel Sapin, the former finance minister who wrote Hollande’s economic programme, told senior German diplomats, according to a confidential note obtained by the Guardian.

So, the rumours of austerity’s demise might be greatly exaggerated.  That’s the way it has played out in Europe so far.  This from Patterico:

So what is the effect of the Greek and French elections? Maybe not much.  As Rick Ackerman reminds us, “even the socialists in Greece’s parliament were forced to support austerity measures a few months ago, because without such measures the country would have been unable to borrow enough cash to meet payroll.”  As for France, even Jukebox Mafioso Matt Yglesias acknowledges:

[O]ne very plausible story of what happens next is simply that the European Central Bank will decide it needs to bring the continent’s newest leader to heel. If the ECB signals that it will only support the French banking system and the French economy if Hollande sticks with the status quo program, then Hollande may well have no choice. Elections in Europe aren’t necessarily what they used to be.

When the self-gratifying socialist electorates work out that they have been deceived and misled and that austerity has not ended at all, Greece and France (and probably Spain and Italy) are likely to become ungovernable.  In the meantime, Hollande’s kabuki theatre of  over the next few months will be diverting.  Watch him explain to his hopeful supporters how the new Normal is the same as the old. 

The Scriptures tell us that hope disappointed makes the heart sick.  National grief, a sense of betrayal, and an outpouring of spontaneous rage are likely.  We think we can see where the plot is going.  

Meanwhile, the Left in the UK, New Zealand, and the US is braying that elections in Greece and France represent the “end of austerity”.  More government spending and higher taxation is the ticket.  More taxes, more spending, more borrowing.  It got the West into the economic morass in which it currently wallows.  The answer of the Left–more, much more of the same.  When you are in a hole, dig deeper and harder.

Paul Krugman, apostle of neo-Keynsianism gives us his infallible take on the events in Europe:

. . . it’s an argument for much more expansionary policies elsewhere, and in particular for the European Central Bank to drop its obsession with inflation and focus on growth. 

Right.  More fiat money, more government spending, more subsidies, more borrowing.  Let  socialist self-gratification roll down like a river.  It’s what the people want. 

Charity Begins At Home

China’s War Against Families

China’s One Child policy has been hailed by an effete liberal West as an intelligent and progressive response to population control.  In reality it represents a brutal destruction of individual and family life.  It also is beginning to tear the fabric of Chinese society apart.  Genuine Chinese patriots understand that an ancient demon that has been loosed upon the Middle Kingdom. 

One such patriot, Jing Zhang comments upon the case of blind Chen Guangcheng, who has been actively protesting the One Child regime, and upon the tyrannical policy in general.

China’s War on Baby Girls

Jing Zhang
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE 
May 2, 2012 4:00

The blind Chinese human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, who escaped from house arrest on April 22 and may be under the protection of the U.S. Embassy, was initially detained for exposing the massive abuse of Chinese women under China’s one-child policy. His documentation of forced sterilizations and abortions landed him in jail for four years, followed by a year and a half of house arrest.

His daring escape has now triggered renewed attacks on organizations engaged in helping Chinese women keep and feed their infants. Since April 28, the Family Planning Commission of Susong County in China’s Anhui province has been harassing families of pregnant women and infants who have received aid from a charity that helps rural families raise infant girls. Often the girl is a second child, in violation of China’s one-child policy.

PRC government agents have issued heavy fines to families for over-quota births and have threatened forced abortion for mothers with “illegal” pregnancies. Li Bin, the former chairman of the National Population and Family Planning Commission, is the current governor of Anhui province.

The offending charity is the Rural Chinese Infant Assistance Program, which has grown in response to the severe gender imbalance among newborns. Allowed only one child, many parents abort their female children or stop trying to conceive after the birth of a boy. The Infant Assistance Program aims to elevate the cultural value of infant girls through direct aid, without any conditions, to their families. Several hundred families have benefited in Susong County alone. Rural families have welcomed the program enthusiastically.

Since Chen Guangcheng’s escape, the high-profile persecution initiated by the Susong Family Planning Commission has created panic among benefiting families and their communities. Many lives are directly threatened. Government agents have announced that any family with an “illegal” birth will face a fine of 50,000 yuan ($7,700, about ten times China’s annual per capita income). Any woman found to be pregnant “illegally” — without a birth permit — will face a forced abortion.

Family Planning agents have also threatened to take action against volunteers and employees of the Infant Assistance Program if they do not cooperate with the authorities by turning over all material related to the program.

In the 30 years of the brutal one-child policy, hundreds of millions of infants have been killed. This has led to serious social problems that are now obvious — not only the gender imbalance but also the aging of the general population. Regardless, the PRC government forges ahead with its notoriously inhumane policy.
The Susong Family Planning Commission’s persecution of the Infant Assistance Program should outrage observers in China and abroad.

The organization I head, Women’s Rights in China, demands that the Susong Family Planning Commission immediately stop all harassment of the Infant Assistance Program; cease threats and fines against volunteers and families who are beneficiaries; and treat “Harmonious Society and People First” as a principle and not just a Party slogan. We call on Family Planning agents to listen to their own consciences and to heed the outcry from the Chinese and international public.

As long as the Susong Family Planning Commission continues to persecute the Infant Assistance Program’s volunteers, pregnant women, and the families of baby girls, Women’s Rights in China will raise its voice to condemn it in the media and to take legal action against all responsible officials.

— Jing Zhang is president of Women’s Rights in China. She suffered five years in prison for her belief in freedom and democracy. After leaving China, she spent 20 years building a career as a newspaper editor in Hong Kong and the United States. She founded Women’s Rights in China in 2007. 

A Revolution By Other Means

Violent, sudden and calamitous revolutions are the ones that accomplish the least.  While they may succeed at radically reordering societies, the usually cannot transform cultures.  They may excel at destroying the past, but they are generally impotent to create a future.  The revolutions that genuinely alter human reality at the deepest levels–the only real revolutions, that is to say–are those that first convert minds and wills, that reshape the imagination and reorient desire, that overthrow the tyrannies within the soul.

Christianity, in its first three centuries, was a revolution of the latter sort: gradual, subtle, exceedingly small and somewhat inchoate at first, slowly introducing its vision of divine, cosmic, and human reality into the culture around it, often by deeds rather than words, and simply enduring from one century to the next. 
[David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), p.183.]