Rare Jewel Insight: January 17, 2006
Table of Contents:
1. RARE JEWEL MAGAZINE PARTNERS WITH AMERICAN VISION
2. COMMENTARY
- “A Cartoon Culture,” by RJM Managing Editor Rick Marschall
3. WEBSTER’S 1828 DICTIONARY SAYS…!
- How the Founders defined “Providence”
1. RARE JEWEL MAGAZINE PARTNERS WITH AMERICAN VISION
An announcement to friends and supporters of Rare Jewel Magazine and Christian Patriot allies from Tim Ewing, Founder and Publisher
I am excited to announce our partnership with American Vision and Biblical Worldview magazine.
Two years ago we launched Rare Jewel Magazine to equip and encourage Christians who desire to see America’s Christian foundation restored. Among the wealth of positive reactions and results of Rare Jewel’s print, internet, radio, and speaking activities is a special friendship with Gary DeMar and the entire American Vision team. We discovered many similarities between our respective missions and recently have decided to combine our efforts.
In March 2006, RJM subscribers will automatically begin receiving the monthly Biblical Worldview magazine and have regular exposure to the many books, DVDs, and other essential tools that American Vision has been producing for more than 25 years.
Meanwhile, we will continue to write and speak under our newly formed non-profit organization, Rare Jewel Ministries. Among the “amped up” aspects of the new Rare Jewel, we are excited to announce:
* A monthly column, “Rare Jewel Retort,” in Biblical Worldview magazine.
* Rare Jewel Insight, our free email newsletter, will now be published weekly -- all of our content will continue to be accessible for free at www.RareJewelMag.com.
* Our regular radio programs will continue, examining current cultural and political news.
* We’ve expanded our speaking schedule and launched our “Christianity and Culture” seminar series: six newly developed topics that equip attendees to be Biblically informed in order to have an impact on culture and politics… delivered as single Sunday-morning messages, or combined as a one-day seminar or multiple-night series of talks at your place of fellowship, Christian school, home school group, or other Christian-based association.
[Note: Includes a special message that serves as a perfect primer for Election 2006: we’ll bring back the centuries-long American tradition of the “Election Sermon,” as we examine one such sermon delivered in Boston on May 25, 1774 by Reverend Gad Hitchcock—my great-great-great-great-grandfather!]
We’ll be sure to keep you informed of our ongoing action plans. We encourage you to e-mail us with questions and suggestions. This exciting new direction has been prayerfully considered, and we invite you along for the ride God has in store. Thank you for the honor of continuing to serve alongside you for Christ.
Onward Christian soldiers!
Tim Ewing
Founder/Publisher
Rare Jewel Ministries/Rare Jewel Magazine
Tim@RareJewelMinistries.org
p.s. Don’t miss the next Rare Jewel speaking event, which occurs May 17 - 20 at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference in Estes Park, CO. RJM Managing Editor Rick Marschall and I will co-teach a 6.5 hour Continuing Session entitled, “Write to Transform Our Culture.” I will also be giving the Keynote message, “Proclaiming the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” which is open free to the public. For more details, go to: http://www.writehisanswer.com/Colorado.
p.p.s. E-mail mailto:speakers@RareJewelMinistries.org for more information about hosting a Rare Jewel Ministries speaking engagement at your church, school, or other Christian organization.
2. COMMENTARY
- “A Cartoon Culture,” by RJM Managing Editor Rick Marschall
Four months ago a rather modest Danish publication, Jyllands-Posten, ran a group of cartoons on the subject of violence committed by Islamic radicals in the name of Allah and/or their prophet Mohammed. Several of the cartoons depicted a generic Moslem cleric -- much as American cartoonists would draw Uncle Sam -- or even an iconic Mohammed. I might say that the representations were similar to some drawings, posters, and movie versions of Jesus Christ in Western countries, except that the Danish cartoons were not as unkind to the prophet Mohammed as modern popular culture is to the Lord Jesus. Nevertheless, Mohammedans across the world have been crying “sacrilege.” By rioting and setting fire to embassies (even Norwegian and Austrian buildings -- I guess all Europeans look alike), they seek to make their point that members of the Islamic faith would not do things like riot or set fire to embassies in the name of Mohammed.
The whole cycle is like a cartoon... maybe a comic strip or animated cartoon, because it’s going on and on.
Now, in a diplomatic game of “tag -- you’re it,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced an international cartoon contest, inviting artists to submit cartoons about what he calls the false claims of the Holocaust. The numbers of deaths are vastly exaggerated, he says, and the Holocaust industry was begun to press the claims of Israel in world politics. More than establishing a philanthropy of historical inquiry, Ahmadinejad awaits the reaction of those who have defended cartoons about Islamic radicalism in the name of free speech and free press.
Who’s got the double standard? It’s like a game of keep-away on the schoolyard. In a way these games of tit-for-tat unfortunately revolve around cartoons: they give cartoonists -- traditionally the ones who plant the stink bombs in lecture halls of public discourse -- bad names. Yet another cartoon made headlines outside the editorial pages. Tom Toles, in the Washington Post, drew a quadruple-amputee soldier in hospital bed, attended by Dr Rumsfeld who coldly diagnoses a case of “battle hardening.” A letter to the editor of the Post, signed by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the vice chairman, and the service chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force, criticized the callous depiction of brave and maimed service members.
It was an unprecedented letter. The service chiefs were free to write it, the Post granted; the cartoonist was free to draw, the generals avowed. The cartoonist tipped his hat to injured military personnel; the public debate centered on the possible hurt feelings of military families -- resulting in one big “Alphonse and Gaston” routine. (By the way, Alphonse and Gaston was itself a comic strip, more than a century ago, about nitwits whose excessive courtesies reduced every situation to a farce.) In truth the generals might better have written a letter protesting what a crummy cartoonist Toles is, and maybe this incident wouldn’t have occurred.
However, America has become a cartoon society. Again, I’m not criticizing the profession; indeed I draw political cartoons and have written extensively on the art form, including a master’s thesis and a cover story for Columbia Journalism Review. So I should be happy when political cartoons occasionally are liberated from their editorial-page ghettos. Yet the derogatory stereotypes about cartoons -- superficiality, lack of balanced presentation, and so forth -- have been adopted by other parts of the media. The New York Times, in a front-page story (Jan. 30, 2006) on the life-threatening injuries of ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff in Iraq, carried a sub-headline calling the journalist’s presence in a war zone a “ratings strategy.” If consistency were the hobgoblin of little minds at the Times, then their own reporters’ assignments and postings surely are “circulation stunts.” And they probably are.
In truth, cartoons are the last bastion of superficiality (meaning condensing arguments to a single image), and lack of balance (they are supposed to present a point of view). In our upside-down culture, too often the media giants graft opinions to their news columns; and too often society demands that cartoons and AM talk radio be “fair.”
“To what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions… ” This is how Jesus beheld the debates and discussions of His day. He was not excusing children nor dismissing the ignorant: he criticized learned people supposedly engaged in serious discourse. How have we changed? What have we learned?
Conservatives and Christians are guiltiest of all because we should know better and have a greater Truth to share with the world. Shameful tendencies were once again on display during the hearings for Judge Samuel Alito. I have no idea what his views on abortion are; I wish I did. I wish that because I’m nosey about people whose decisions will affect my life in this democratic republic. Mostly I wish I did because I’m sick of Christians and conservatives who evidently think abortion is murder but are gleeful to hide their convictions behind facades, charades, and tortured ploys. Of course “litmus tests” are legitimate in a democracy. Teddy Kennedy is happy to point to baby-killing as proof of his respect for women; so was Judge Ruth Ginsburg. Why cannot Alito (if he so believed) or other Christian conservatives (if indeed they so believe) simply say, “Abortion is murder; Roe needs to be overturned; next question, please”? What an offense to God Almighty and the Christian heritage of America, how few public officials are consistent with the views they profess in fund-raising letters and during campaign appearances before their conservative Christian voters. And what an offense, how few Christian Patriots hold these politicians to account.
This has become a cartoon culture (in that overused, derogatory definition referred to above). Although protests are orchestrated by cutthroat mullahs, not offended worshippers spilling out of mosques, we are asked to believe that pen-doodles incite righteous riots and grisly murder across the globe. The “New Journalism” is represented by New York Times editors poisoning the waters of their readers’ information pools by subversive inclusion of loaded terms and phrases. And too many Christian Patriots believe they know what pleases God and what offends God -- say, in matters like state-sponsored, state-sanctioned abortion -- yet compromise about protest, direct action, or the sacrifices required to rescue the culture. God forbid we reach the day when Christian Patriots have to choose between the flag and Constitution on one side, and the Bible on the other.
Christian Patriots are never going to please our critics anyway. Jesus depicted the futility of finding consistency in the hearts of vipers: “John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ ”
In this cartoon culture, let Christian Patriots roll up our sleeves and prepare to fight for the Right. Leave the debating-hall and run to the battlefield. Now there’s a cartoon image!
(Biblical citations in this essay are from Matthew 11:16 and
11:19, NKJV)
3. WEBSTER’S 1828 DICTIONARY SAYS…!
- How the Founders defined “Providence”
From Christopher Columbus, to the Pilgrims; from the first Constitution written in America (1639 Fundamental Orders of Connecticut) to the Declaration of Independence; from George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson, to official Congressional prayers and Supreme Court Opinions; the term “Providence” was constantly and consistently invoked for centuries during America’s past.
However, this term is rarely used today-- in political circles and ecclesiastical. Hence, our understanding of this term is hazy.
Do America’s founding documents and her greatest statesman pay homage to “Providence” as an allegiance to a generic higher-power, or, was the intention specifically Christian -- adding to the ample evidence of America’s Biblical foundation?
Following is just one example of the myriad instances where the Founders acknowledged “Providence” in their official acts of State:
“In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third…and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences…”
So began the Treaty of Paris, ratified by US Congress on January 14, 1784, which officially ended America’s War for Independence with the British. From this one example we see the specifically Christian acknowledgement of God, “Trinity,” linked with “Divine Providence.” To further our understanding of what the Founders meant by “Providence,” we turn to Webster’s 1828 dictionary:
1828 definition of PROVIDENCE:
“…the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures. He that acknowledges a creation and denies a providence, involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence. Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence, not considering that a general providence consists of particulars. A belief in divine providence, is a source of great consolation to good men. By divine providence is often understood God himself.”
[1] In 1828, Noah Webster published America’s first English dictionary, titled, An American Dictionary of the English Language - with pronouncing vocabularies of Scripture, classical and geographical names. This 26-year project, begun during Thomas Jefferson’s first term as President, contained 70,000 entries and 12,000 new definitions. For the first time in the history of the English language a standardized spelling for vocabulary words was provided.”
