400-408 – [READ] ••• Yuval Levin (National Affairs, 3/30/2011) Beyond the Welfare State. Yuval Levin is the editor of National Affairs, and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. In this excellent essay, he explains why, as he says, "The economic crisis of 2008 might well have been the beginning of the end of the social-democratic welfare state."
• Peter Wehner (Commentary, 3/30/2011) Public Policy and Political Philosophy.
413-423 – [READ] ••• Yuval Levin (National Affairs, 3/30/2011) Beyond the Welfare State.
428-437 – • Elayne Clift (Chronicle of Higher Education, March 27, 2011) From Students, a Misplaced Sense of Entitlement.
443-452 – Calls – Teachers, do you see this same sense of entitlement in your students? How can you write a 5-page paper with only the skills to write Facebook status updates? Manny calls in to say that at the high school he teaches at, students are required to only write one paper in the four years, and it's an in-class one page project. Appalling.
458-508 – Calls – Teachers, do you see this same sense of entitlement in your students?
512-523 – Calls – Teachers, how bad is the lack of respect in your classroom?
528-539 – Calls – Teachers, do you see this same sense of entitlement in your students?
544-554 – Ron Prentice, Executive Director of the California Family Council (californiafamily.org), and a marriage and family counselor, explains how the issue of "bullying" is being used to bring more pro-homosexual content into our schools – especially through the current attempt by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) to pass SB 48 as an anti-bullying bill, when in reality, it would highlight alternative sexual orientations in California's social science curriculum, by mandating the mention of societal contributions by homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered personalities.
• Ron Prentice (California Family Council, 3/30/2011) "Bullying" run amok.
• Ron Prentice (California Family Council, 3/30/2011) Letter to California State Senate Judiciary Committee on SB 48.
558-608 – Mike Fabarez, pastor of Compass Bible Church in Aliso Viejo (compasschurch.org) and host of Focal Point (focalpointministries.org) heard weekdays right before my show from 330-400pm and Sunday mornings at 9:30am, will again be hosting Easter services at the Bren Center at UCI, this year with two services, the first at 830am, the second at 1100am. They're expecting over 5,000 people. And, Focal Point's Marriage Retreat Weekend is coming up May 21st and 22nd on the Queen Mary. Today, Mike talks about his commercials getting pulled from Regal Theaters by their advertising agency MCM because they were too "offensive."
• Compass Bible Church Easter Video, youtube.com/watch?v=QTQTvLmOHtY.
Jessica calls in to tell Mike how he helped her understand forgiveness.
• Christian Post (3/26/2011) Growing Intolerance for Christianity in U.S.
612-623 – Mike Fabarez,
• Christian Post (3/28/2011) Driscoll: Without Jesus, You Go to Hell.
(:38, :24, :48) Mark Driscoll, pastor of Mars Hill, Seattle, this past Sunday, 3/27/2011.
628-639 – Mike Fabarez,
644-656 – Mike Fabarez,
• Views on Hell –
Universalism – the "everybody's in because all religions worship the same God" view.
Christian universalism – the "everybody's in because Jesus died for the whole world even if they don't know it" view.
Evangelical universalism – the "everybody in hell will get a do-over and then hell will be empty" view. Only Christ-followers are initially "in", and those who are "out" are those who have rejected Christ or have never heard of Him, BUT, hell is only temporary – once you've paid off your sin debt, Jesus somehow will extend another invitation to "get in," of course, everyone will say yes, and so eventually, hell is empty.
Annihilationism – the "God would rather annihilate you than punish you forever" view. Only Christ-followers are "in", and those who are "out" are those who have rejected Christ or have never heard of Him, BUT, hell is only temporary – once you've paid off your sin debt, Jesus just annihilates you. Consequently, there's no everlasting punishment of your finite sins, there's just the eternal consequences of your sin, i.e., God just pops you out of existence.
Inclusivism – the "God grades on a curve" view. Only Christ-followers are "in", and those who are "out" are those who have rejected Christ, BUT God will also allow "in" those who have positively responded to whatever message they got.
Traditionalism – only Christ-followers are "in", and those who are "out" are those who have rejected Christ or who would have rejected Christ had they been given the opportunity to hear via God's Middle Knowledge.
• God's Four Alternatives For Dealing With Evil: Reform, Second Chance, Annihilate, or Quarantine.
1. God could reform people. However, if man is truly free, then God could not cause a person to reform against his will since this would violate human freedom. Given human freedom, even God cannot guarantee that everyone is reformable. Skinnerian behavior modification is inhumane in that it is dehumanizing to force a person to change against his will.
C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock (New York: Inspirational Press, 1996), p. 499. "To be 'cured' against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we 'ought to have known better', is to be treated as a human person made in God's image."
2. God could offer people a second chance after death. But this assumes that God was lax in extending His first chance. If it were merely a matter of people having "more time," the goodness and long-suffering of God assure that they will have it. The danger is that the longer a person is in sin, the less she is able to choose the Good. (contra Heb 9:27)
3. God could annihilate people. John Stott and Clark Pinnock hold that the most just punishment for evil is to pop them out of existence rather than punish them forever. One of the many problems with annihilationism is pointed out by J.P. Moreland, in that it assumes God prefers the quality of human life over the sanctity of human life. According to the quality of life view, people are seen as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves, with the highest end being the elimination of all low qualities of life. However, to treat people as means to an end is unbiblical, even in those cases in which the end is an actual greater good. For example, executing an innocent few for the sake of the innocent many is morally wrong. If God were to annihilate people, this would be to treat them as means to an end, the end being the removal of the lowest quality of life, which is Hell. The sanctity of human life is rooted in us being God's image-bearers, and as such, we have intrinsic moral worth. This moral worth trumps any quality of life argument.
4. Thus, God's only option is to quarantine people. The four popular purposes of punishment are: retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, and the protection of society. All but the first are forward-looking and actually dehumanize the criminal by attempting to force a change of their free will. Only retribution presupposes free will and seeks to retain full human dignity and "respect" for the criminal by allowing them to receive what they have freely chosen. The other views of punishment have a less robust view of moral responsibility. Thus, in order to preserve the dignity of man, and to honor man as a free being, the greatest good is served in dealing with evil by allowing man the deliverances of his volition and to quarantine him forever away from the presence of God.
• Smoking Gun (3/29/2011) Cinderella, Snow White Implicated In Jail Drug Smuggling Ring.
• Victor Davis Hanson (NRO, 3/30/2011) The Obama Doctrine: Whether it's Libya, fossil-fuel production, or the national debt, the rhetoric floats high above the messy reality.
• Jonah Goldberg (NRO, 3/30/2011) Taking Feminism Overseas: Economic development, democracy, and basic decency require empowering women abroad.
