Jon Swerens

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The Great Communicator

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NBC’s retrospective on the late President Reagan spent a lot of time focused on his way with words. As they played a number of his speeches, I didn’t think Reagan sounded like “The Great Communicator.” Instead, he just sounded like an interesting fellow to have a conversation with.

Then the news came on, with an interview of a local politician. And as the politician droned on saying a great many words, none of which I can remember, I realized again just how rare a gift it is to have a politician who not only speaks what he believes, but also who can say it in a winsome fashion.

No wonder so many people hated Reagan! With that combination of gifts, he was their worst nightmare.

Baseball season

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This afternoon, we’ll all be heading for Hamilton Park for Wildcat League baseball signups. This will be the first time for the boys and Hannah to play an organized sport.

From what I’ve read, the Wildcat League was started right here in Fort Wayne as a counterpoint to the overly competitive Little League. Wildcatters let everyone play, and let them play any position they want.

Well, you may say that doesn’t sound like what happens in the big leagues. And you’re right. But it does sounds like what happens when a bunch of friends get together and want to play. And since almost everyone will not play professional ball, this seems like a better way to learn the game and learn to love the game.

I’ve always liked baseball, and when I was young, I was on a Little League team for maybe three seasons. The first day on the team, I proved I was not a good player. So the coach sent me to the bench — which made sure I would not get better.

Here’s hoping the Wildcat League will at least give my kids the opportunity to play the game, so they can learn to love the game.

Hooray for Entertainment Weekly

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Next time you’re in the library and have an extra five minutes, check out the April 16 edition (with Quentin Tarantino on the cover) of Entertainment Weekly. (The article isn’t available online unless you’re a magazine subscriber or AOL user.)

I read the “Hooray for Holywood” article while waiting at the doctor’s office yesterday. The magazine interviewed five “faith-based” entertainment folks, including Jerry Jenkins of “Left Behind” fame (or infamy), Phil Vischer of VeggieTales and Martha Williamson of “Touched by an Angel.”

The interviewer asked thoughtful questions that weren’t softballs or patronizing, and the Christians sound intelligent and humorous. Read a great review of the article here, by the bloggers at GetReligion.

Somebody hold his hand

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The following letter appeared in The News-Sentinel here in Fort Wayne a few weeks ago:

Please, as victimized Democrats, help us fight the battle of unfairness in radio broadcasting.

Contact your county Democrat chairperson in your state or district to follow our lead. We recruit good honest Democrats and good honest labor union workers to set up boycotting the radio stations, their advertisers, owners, management and CEOs.

The radio stations who broadcast the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Savage, Drudge and locals who are actually Republican campaigners will be picketed on site until they are discontinued.

We are gathering names and addresses of CEOs and owners of both advertisers and radio stations and will go to their homes to picket and expose their unfairness there.

This unfairness in broadcasting has been going on since the Reagan-Bush union-busting era and is overlooked by The National Democrat Party. It’s time to put a stop to this travesty.

John Moyer, New Haven

And here’s my reply (to be published soon!):

To the gentleman and his friends who think the amount of conservative radio programming is unfair: It has nothing to do with fairness. It has everything to do with what people want to hear. If conservative programming were not favored, sponsors would dry up and the programs would go away. Democrats did try to get in on the air time (remember Air America?), but were found to be, um, boring.

Logic dictates that if more people agreed with the Democrats’ message, they’d have supported the programming. Picketing will not change a thing except to make Democrats look like whining crybabies. You can’t make people agree with your message by distracting them from it. If it is worth hearing, it will draw listeners on its own.

LaHaye’s the problem, not the answer

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A long-distance friend sent me an email asking me if I had read Tim LaHaye’s “Mind Siege.” My friend said:

What a tour de force on the destruction of Christian culture. Perhaps a little reactionary, but I’m enjoying the sections that walk through history explaining how things began eroding at a rapid rate back in the 19th century … .

I told my friend, in the kindest terms I could fashion, I absolutely would not read that book.

Mr. LaHaye’s worldview is part of the problem, not the solution. Here is my rather long-winded reaction to my friend:

Let me mention one major problem that LaHaye would naturally leave out of his book. Before the mid to late 19th century, Christians almost universally believed that the church would be triumphant and would gradually grow in influence over the years. They would cite passages such as Luke 13:18-21:

“He said therefore, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.’
And again he said, ‘To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.'”

But during the 19th century, a novel idea occurred, that the church would NOT triumph, but that instead its influence would wane and grow less until the end, when the church is vacuumed off the earth in a “rapture,” followed by seven years of tribulation during which there would be no faithful witness for the gospel on earth.

As this pessimistic worldview grew in dominance, the church increasingly drew inward, concentrating more on “spiritual” things and less on the passing cares of this world, since, let’s face, the world’s going to Hell in a handbasket.

So I’d say that it is the pessimistic, God-ain’t-THAT-sovereign, “Left Behind” theology of LaHaye that let the secular humanists fill the vacuum of influence and power that the church once employed.

Yep, the secular humanists get a bad rap. They wouldn’t have been able to do anything if the church hadn’t abandoned her post.