Around the Horn – 1.07.10

The Most Newsworthy Events of 2009
Al Mohler takes a look back.

Top 40 Books of The Decade
The subheads refer to my year of reading, not the year of publication. Most books were published a year or two before I read them — I waited for the library to acquire them, or for the paperback edition to come out.  Some books were published whole generations before I discovered them. For each year, the first two books are novels; the second two are nonfiction. My mother made me read one nonfiction book for every novel I read, and I haven’t entirely lost the habit.

Leaving the New Episcopal Church
Katharine Jefferts Schori explaining the membership decline of TEC: “About 2.2 million. It used to be larger percentagewise, but Episcopalians tend to be better-educated and tend to reproduce at lower rates than some other denominations. Roman Catholics and Mormons both have theological reasons for producing lots of children.”  Stopped laughing?  Read the rest.

Date the World Will End
Harold Camping lets out a hearty chuckle when he considers the people who believe the world will end in 2012.  ”That date has not one stitch of biblical authority,” Camping says from the Oakland office where he runs Family Radio, an evangelical station that reaches listeners around the world. “It’s like a fairy tale.”  The real date for the end of times, he says, is in 2011.

Epiphany (T.S. Eliot on the Magi)

Unholy Trinity
TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network’s main celebrities tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth, and other material blessings in return for their money. On program after program people are urged to “plant a seed” by sending “the largest bill you have or the biggest check you can write” with the promise that God will miraculously make them rich in return.  The only people who actually get rich by this scheme, of course, are the televangelists. Their people who send money get little in return but phony promises—and as a result, many of them turn away from the truth completely. If the scheme seems reminiscent of Tetzel, that’s because it is precisely the same doctrine. (Tetzel was a medieval monk whose high-pressure selling of indulgences—phony promises of forgiveness—outraged Martin Luther and touched off the Protestant Reformation.)  Like Tetzel, TBN preys on the poor and plies them with false promises. Yet what is happening daily on TBN is many times worse than the abuses that Luther decried because it is more widespread and more flagrant.

Count the Lies: Watch Obama Promise 8 Times to Televise Health Care Negotiations

Discipline – What Works Best?
Young children spanked by their parents may perform better at school later on and grow up to be happier, according to a controversial new study that is drawing scorn from critics. The U.S.-based research states that spanking children up to six years old made them more successful in school, more optimistic about life, more likely to take voluntary work, and more keen to attend university than their never-spanked counterparts.

Top Democrats Head for The Exits
The grim outlook for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections just got a little worse.  Four top Democrats — including veteran Sens. Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan — all prepared to pull the plug on their campaigns in a 24-hour period that began Tuesday, and in the process, offered an unnerving glimpse at the perilous election year ahead.  With Dorgan’s stunning retirement announcement Tuesday evening, Democrats are now facing their bleakest election outlook in years.

Guardian Interview with Nicky Gumbel
I think God is back, I think there is a huge amount of spiritual interest in the country. And I think the bishops are supportive of it because they see people’s lives being changed. They see the difference. That’s why I love doing it, because I see people who’ve been in prison, whose lives have been messed up, who’ve been alcoholics, who’ve been drug addicts, set free and contributing to society.