February 2004
Carl F.H. Henry, R.I.P.
The greatest intellectual leader of the evangelical movement of the 20th century quietly passed away in his sleep at a retirement home in Watertown, Wisconsin, on December 7, at the age of 90. A scholar with the heart of an evangelist, Dr. Henry represented all of the strengths of the new evangelicalism, while exhibiting few of its flaws.
Often called “the thinking man’s Billy Graham,” Dr. Henry, along with Harold Ockenga and Graham (his friend from Wheaton College), was one of the architects of the neo-evangelical movement of the 1940’s. The three concluded that fundamentalism had become too sectarian and anti-intellectual to be able to speak the truth of the Gospel to the neopagan culture that had emerged in the United States following World War II.
Charity Begins at Church
December can be a difficult month for American Christians, forced to look on passively as their sacred holy days are turned into a generic “holiday season.” The First Sunday in Advent has been replaced by “Black Friday,” the day on which retailers begin to turn a profit on holiday sales; and the end of the season (formerly St. Stephen’s Day, the Second Day of Christmas) is now “Returns Day,” when consumers swap presents given in love for what they really want.
Everywhere we turn, during Happy Holidays, we are battered by aggressive pitchmen dressed up like Santa and ringing bells for charities other than our churches or showing pictures of starving African children who are being rescued by OXFAM or Save the Children or the even less credible charities whose main effect has been to make matters worse in Third World countries while providing handsome incomes for the global bell-ringers who run them. (Some of the scams were well documented in Graham Hancock’s Lords of Poverty.)
Enthusiastic Democracy
Less than a month after President Bush unbosomed his latest reflections on political philosophy before the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington, one of the latest victims of his administration’s crusade to foster the “global democratic revolution” in Iraq was grousing that what the administration planned for his country simply wasn’t democratic enough. The Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, leader of the 15 million Shiite Muslims of Iraq, some 60 percent of the population, announced his opposition to the neat little blueprint for “democracy” that the president’s neocon policy wonks had decided would be suitable for the Iraqi rabble. The grand ayatollah’s dyspeptic reaction is entirely understandable. In a country where the people he represents constitute the majority, democracy or something more or less resembling it would be welcome to him—at least until he and his colleagues win the elections.
Masters of the Universe—February 2004
PERSPECTIVE
Charity Begins at Church
by Thomas Fleming
Christian welfare.
VIEWS
George Soros, Postmodern Villain
by Srdja Trifkovic
NGO’s, behold your god.
The Church and NGO’s
by Hugh Barbour, O.Praem.
“Shall I crucify your king?”
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