Jean was elegant and polished as Mildred, the wife of Guy
Montag, in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. The story made me cry
because it was such an accurate prophecy of America today.
The review from My Edmonds News
included these items:
"As an explanation of how “the system” came to
replace self-determination with low-intellect entertainment, protagonist
“Beatty,” the fire chief of the book burners (played by Apostolos
Gliarmis), observes in a cat-and-mouse exchange with Montag (Ryan St.
John) and Montag’s wife (Jean E. Sleight) – while peering through smoke
rings created by his pipe smoke:"
“Picture it [Montag], 19th-century man with his horses, dogs, carts,
slow motion. Then, in the 20th century, speed up your camera. Books cut
shorter; condensations, digests, tabloids. Everything boils down to the
gag, the snap ending."
“Classics cut to fit 15-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a
two-minute book column, winding up at last as a 10- or 12-line
dictionary resume. I exaggerate, of course. The dictionaries were for
reference. But many were those whose sole knowledge of Hamlet (you know
the title certainly, Montag; it is probably only a faint rumor of a
title to you, Mrs. Montag) whose sole knowledge, as I say, of Hamlet was
a one-page digest in a book that claimed: now at least you can read all
the classics; keep up with your neighbors. Do you see? Out of the
nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there’s your
intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more.”
And further on . . .
"Jaquith (the Director) manages a string of
pathos scenes that reflect just how normalized insanity can become. The
gleam in Mrs. Montag’s eyes as she hears her own name intoned over the
all-pervading television show meant to divert the intellect of
housewives; the jock-like “we win” behavior of the medics who save Mrs.
Montag from her accidental suicide attempt – and so many other scenes
“normalized” in a craven dystopia.
The cast in The Players production of Fahrenheit 451 deserves, on whole
and without exception, a standing ovation. This reviewer likes to watch
the supporting actors’ ability to stay in character as main characters
deliver monologues. It’s noteworthy to see the level of respect and
interest shown to all on the Wade James stage."
Nathanael
to Move in November
Nathanael graciously helped with the $5,000
plus half-yearly property taxes with a $4,000 donation in lieu of rent.
He will move to the Grammercy Apartments in
Renton in early November and begin to prepare for his new married life.
Wedding plans continue on schedule, even if my weight loss is behind
schedule. If I don't fit into the coat, perhaps I can still fit
into the vest. Invitations have been sent, and I'll be taking
December 14-16 off to travel to Oregon with Nathanael before the wedding
on the 17th.
Construction
Begins at NE 10th St. and 100th Avenue NE
At the end of September, the long-standing 24
unit Sumiyoshi Apartments were demolished.
Continental
Properties plans to redevelop the property into a new 5-story
all-residential building with approximately 135 units and 199
below-grade parking spaces. The new building will include a rooftop deck
with barbecues and views of the downtown Bellevue skyline.
How it impacts the
view from 1228 99th Ave. NE will be an interesting discovery, and what
it does to traffic.
Bits and Pieces
♦
I am anxious about my autumn BUS 1700 students. Of 67, a full 41
have signed up to take the exam on October 31 and November 2. Most
will not pass and will need to retake the exam by November 30. I
fear for my 87% success rate in getting my students over the hurdle of
the Microsoft Office Specialist Excel exam.
[ On the 31st, 21 students took the
exam, but only 7 passed. ]
♦BCS Cross Country
has ended for me, except for the end-of-season banquet on the 9th.
I have chosen not to travel to Pasco for the State meet. BCS will
send a single runner, Junior Jared
Donnel, son of the coach and individual winner of the
District III championships on October 29th.
I also took photos of
Annie's school, Seattle Christian, at the district championships.
♦
Our one visitor
on Halloween was Ed Sloan. I missed him, as I was giving exams.
He brought a box of Honey Crisp apples, knowing how I loved them, and a
thank you card for continuing my photography at BCS. His nephew,
10th grader Se Yun Han, ran XC this fall.
My Quote from October
“Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies,
emotionalism and fear-mongering
to dupe average people into accepting--or even demanding--their own
enslavement.”
The
choice between candidates for U.S. President in 2016 is one between a
wicked person and a foolish person. I have been studying
Ecclesiastes this month and the Preacher there contrasts the wicked with
the righteous, and the foolish with the wise. Choosing not to vote
is in itself an empty gesture, because living as we do in a very "blue"
state, it is clear that Washington will be captured by Hillary Clinton.
I cannot support such an evil person. On the other hand, Donald
Trump has proven himself a fool and thus a real danger to the country.
Even though he might lean more to the conservative side, a man is known
by his words and deeds. Andy Crouch of Christianity Today
speaks my mind in his article below. But so does Eric Metaxas in
his opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal below that.
[ Bottom line: I would hate to vote for Trump, but I could
never vote for Hillary. ]
Speak Truth to Trump
Evangelicals, of all people, should
not be silent about Donald Trump's blatant immorality.
Andy Crouch / Christianity Today
/ October 10, 2016
As a non-profit journalistic organization,
Christianity Today is doubly committed to staying neutral regarding
political campaigns—the law requires it, and we serve our readers best
when we give them the information and analysis they need to make their
own judgments.We can never collude when idolatry becomes
manifest, especially when it demands our public allegiance.
Just because we are neutral, however, does not
mean we are indifferent. We are especially not indifferent when the
gospel is at stake. The gospel is of infinitely greater importance than
any campaign, and one good summary of the gospel is, “Jesus is Lord.”
The true Lord of the world reigns even now, far
above any earthly ruler. His kingdom is not of this world, but glimpses
of its power and grace can be found all over the world. One day his
kingdom, and his only, will be the standard by which all earthly
kingdoms are judged, and following that judgment day, every knee will
bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, as his reign is fully
realized in the renewal of all things.
The lordship of Christ places constraints on
the way his followers involve themselves, or entangle themselves, with
earthly rulers.
On the one hand, we pray for all rulers—and
judging from the example of Old Testament exiles like Daniel and New
Testament prisoners like Paul, we can even wholeheartedly pray for
rulers who directly oppose our welfare. On the other hand, we recognize
that all earthly governments partake, to a greater or lesser extent, in
what the Bible calls idolatry: substituting the creation for the Creator
and the earthly ruler for the true God.
No human being, including even the best rulers,
is free of this temptation. But some rulers and regimes are especially
outrageous in their God-substitution. After Augustus Caesar, the
emperors of Rome became more and more elaborate in their claims of
divinity with each generation—and more and more ineffective in their
governance. Communism aimed not just to replace faith in anything that
transcended the state, but to crush it. Such systems do not just
dishonor God, they dishonor his image in persons, and in doing so they
set themselves up for dramatic destruction. We can never collude when
such idolatry becomes manifest, especially when it demands our public
allegiance. Christians in every place and time must pray for the courage
to stay standing when the alleged “voice of a god, not a man” commands
us to kneel.
This year’s presidential election in the United
States presents Christian voters with an especially difficult choice.
The Democratic nominee has pursued
unaccountable power through secrecy—most evidently in the form of an
email server designed to shield her communications while in public
service, but also in lavishly compensated speeches, whose transcripts
she refuses to release, to some of the most powerful representatives of
the world system. She exemplifies the path to power preferred by the
global technocratic elite—rooted in a rigorous control of one’s image
and calculated disregard for norms that restrain less powerful actors.
Such concentration of power, which is meant to shield the powerful from
the vulnerability of accountability, actually creates far greater
vulnerabilities, putting both the leader and the community in greater
danger.
But because several of the Democratic
candidate’s policy positions are so manifestly incompatible with
Christian reverence for the lives of the most vulnerable, and because
her party is so demonstrably hostile to expressions of traditional
Christian faith, there is plenty of critique and criticism of the
Democratic candidate from Christians, including evangelical Christians.
But not all
evangelical Christians—in fact, alas, most
evangelical Christians, judging by the polls—have shown the same
critical judgment when it comes to the Republican nominee. True, when
given a choice, primary voters who claimed evangelical faith largely
chose other candidates. But since his nomination, Donald Trump has been
able to count on “the evangelicals” (in his words) for a great deal of
support.
The revelations of
the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual
conquest—indeed, sexual assault—might have been shocking, but they
should have surprised no one.
This past week, the latest (though surely not
last) revelations from Trump’s past have caused many
evangelical leaders to reconsider. This is
heartening, but it comes awfully late. What Trump is, everyone has known
and has been able to see for decades, let alone the last few months. The
revelations of the past week of his vile and crude boasting about sexual
conquest—indeed, sexual assault—might have been shocking, but they
should have surprised no one.
Indeed, there is hardly any public person in
America today who has more exemplified the “earthly nature” (“flesh” in
the King James and the literal Greek) that Paul urges the Colossians to
shed: “sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which
is idolatry” (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to
date. Idolatry, greed, and sexual immorality are intertwined in
individual lives and whole societies. Sexuality is designed to be
properly ordered within marriage, a relationship marked by covenant
faithfulness and profound self-giving and sacrifice. To indulge in
sexual immorality is to make oneself and one’s desires an idol. That
Trump has been, his whole adult life, an idolater of this sort, and a
singularly unrepentant one, should have been clear to everyone.
And therefore it is
completely consistent that Trump is an idolater in many other ways. He
has given no evidence of humility or dependence on others, let alone on
God his Maker and Judge. He wantonly celebrates strongmen and takes
every opportunity to humiliate and demean the vulnerable. He shows no
curiosity or capacity to learn. He
is, in short, the very embodiment of what the Bible calls a fool.
Some have compared Trump to King David, who
himself committed adultery and murder. But David’s story began with a
profound reliance on God who called him from the sheepfold to the
kingship, and by the grace of God it did not end with his exploitation
of Bathsheba and Uriah. There is no parallel in Trump’s much more
protracted career of exploitation. The Lord sent his word by the prophet
Nathan to denounce David’s actions—alas, many Christian leaders who
could have spoken such prophetic confrontation to him personally have
failed to do so. David quickly and deeply repented, leaving behind the
astonishing and universally applicable lament of his own sin in Psalm
51—we have no sign that Trump ever in his life has expressed such
humility. And the biblical narrative leaves no doubt that David’s sin
had vast and terrible consequences for his own family dynasty and for
his nation. The equivalent legacy of a Trump presidency is grievous to
imagine.
Most Christians who support Trump have
done so with reluctant strategic calculation, largely based on the
president’s power to appoint members of the Supreme Court. Important
issues are indeed at stake, including the right of Christians and
adherents of other religions to uphold their vision of sexual integrity
and marriage even if they are in the cultural minority.
But there is a point at which strategy
becomes its own form of idolatry—an attempt to manipulate the levers of
history in favor of the causes we support. Strategy becomes idolatry,
for ancient Israel and for us today, when we make alliances with those
who seem to offer strength—the chariots of Egypt, the vassal kings of
Rome—at the expense of our dependence on God who judges all nations, and
in defiance of God’s manifest concern for the stranger, the widow, the
orphan, and the oppressed. Strategy becomes idolatry when we betray our
deepest values in pursuit of earthly influence. And because such
strategy requires capitulating to idols and princes and denying the true
God, it ultimately always fails.
Enthusiasm for a candidate like Trump
gives our neighbors ample reason to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord.
They see that some of us are so self-interested, and so self-protective,
that we will ally ourselves with someone who violates all that is sacred
to us—in hope, almost certainly a vain hope given his mendacity and
record of betrayal, that his rule will save us.
The US political system has never been free of idolatry, and
politics always requires compromise. Our country is flawed, but it
is also resilient. And God is not only just, but also merciful, as
he judges the nations. In these closing weeks before the election,
all American Christians should repent, fast, and pray—no
matter how we vote. And we should hold on to hope—not in a
candidate, but in our Lord Jesus. We do not serve idols. We serve
the living God. Even now he is ready to have mercy, on us and on all
who are afraid. May his name be hallowed, his kingdom come, and his
will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Andy Crouch is executive editor of
Christianity Today.
Trump’s
behavior is odious, but Clinton has a deplorable basketful
of deal breakers.
By Eric Metaxas,
This question should hardly
require an essay, but let’s face it: We’re living in
strange times. America is in trouble.
Over this past year many of Donald
Trump’s comments
have made me almost literally hopping mad. The hot-mic
comments from 2005 are especially horrifying. Can there
be any question we should denounce them with flailing
arms and screeching volume? I must not hang out in the
right locker rooms, because if anyone I know said such
things I might assault him physically (and repent
later). So yes, many see these comments as a deal
breaker.
But we have a very knotty and
larger problem. What if the other candidate also has
deal breakers? Even a whole deplorable basketful?
Suddenly things become horribly awkward. Would God want
me simply not to vote? Is that a serious option?
What if not pulling the lever
for Mr. Trump effectively means electing someone who has
actively enabled sexual predation in her husband
before—and while—he was president? Won’t God hold me
responsible for that? What if she defended a man who
raped a 12-year-old and in recalling the case laughed
about getting away with it? Will I be excused from
letting this person become president? What if she used
her position as secretary of state to funnel hundreds of
millions into her own foundation, much of it from
nations that treat women and gay people worse than dogs?
Since these things are true, can I escape responsibility
for them by simply not voting?
Many say they won’t vote
because choosing the lesser of two evils is still
choosing evil. But this is sophistry. Neither candidate
is pure evil. They are human beings. We cannot escape
the uncomfortable obligation to soberly choose between
them. Not voting—or voting for a third candidate who
cannot win—is a rationalization designed more than
anything to assuage our consciences. Yet people in
America and abroad depend on voters to make this very
difficult choice.
Children in the Middle East are
forced to watch their fathers drowned in cages by ISIS.
Kids in inner-city America are condemned to lives of
poverty, hopelessness and increasing violence. Shall we
sit on our hands and simply trust “the least of these”
to God, as though that were our only option? Don’t we
have an obligation to them?
Two heroes about whom I’ve
written faced similar difficulties. William Wilberforce,
who ended the slave trade in the British Empire, often
worked with other parliamentarians he knew to be vile
and immoral in their personal lives.
Why did he? First, because as a
sincere Christian he knew he must extend grace and
forgiveness to others, since he desperately needed them
himself. Second, because he knew the main issue was not
his moral purity, nor the moral impurity of his
colleagues, but rather the injustices and horrors
suffered by the African slaves whose cause he
championed. He knew that before God his first obligation
was to them, and he must do what he could to help them.
The anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich
Bonhoeffer also did things most Christians of his day
were disgusted by. He most infamously joined a plot to
kill the head of his government. He was horrified by it,
but he did it nonetheless because he knew that to stay
“morally pure” would allow the murder of millions to
continue. Doing nothing or merely “praying” was not an
option. He understood that God was merciful, and that
even if his actions were wrong, God saw his heart and
could forgive him. But he knew he must act.
Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer knew
it was an audience of One to whom they would ultimately
answer. And He asks, “What did you do to the least of
these?”
It’s a fact that if
Hillary Clinton
is elected, the country’s chance to have a Supreme Court
that values the Constitution—and the genuine liberty and
self-government for which millions have died—is gone.
Not for four years, or eight, but forever. Many say Mr.
Trump can’t be trusted to deliver on this score, but
Mrs. Clinton certainly can be trusted in the opposite
direction. For our kids and grandkids, are we not
obliged to take our best shot at this? Shall we sit on
our hands and refuse to choose?
If imperiously flouting the
rules by having a private server endangered American
lives and secrets and may lead to more deaths, if she
cynically deleted thousands of emails, and if her
foreign-policy judgment led to the rise of Islamic
State, won’t refusing to vote make me responsible for
those suffering as a result of these things? How do I
squirm out of this horrific conundrum? It’s unavoidable:
We who can vote must answer to God for these people,
whom He loves. We are indeed our brothers’ and sisters’
keepers.
We would be responsible for
passively electing someone who champions the abomination
of partial-birth abortion, someone who is celebrated by
an organization that sells baby parts. We already live
in a country where judges force bakers, florists and
photographers to violate their consciences and faith—and
Mrs. Clinton has zealously ratified this. If we believe
this ends with bakers and photographers, we are horribly
mistaken. No matter your faith or lack of faith, this
statist view of America will dramatically affect you and
your children.
For many of us, this is very
painful, pulling the lever for someone many think
odious. But please consider this: A vote for Donald
Trump is not necessarily a vote for Donald Trump
himself. It is a vote for those who will be affected by
the results of this election. Not to vote is to vote.
God will not hold us guiltless.
Mr. Metaxas, host of the
nationally syndicated “Eric Metaxas Show,” is the author
of
“If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American
Liberty” (Viking, 2016).