CC--Christianese 19: Original Sin/Fallenness

--For many days now, we’ve been talking about sin, but it’s natural for someone to wonder what Christians mean when they talk about “original sin.” Is that something different from the sin Andrew’s been explaining all this time?
Yes, and no.
--If you understand that sin isn’t just breaking some rule, but rather the entire disordered condition of being human as captured in metaphors like a burden, a stain, a disease, a debt, a defacement, and a blindness or lostness, then you are prepared to realize that sin is literally the entire condition of humanity these days, what Christians call being in a “fallen state.”
--And so sin is a condition we all share by nature. And just as I have a brain and arms and a consciousness and the ability to reason because these are things I have inherited from my parents, so too do I have a sin-filled (usually called sinful) nature inherited from them. Every human being born from two sinful parents will have this basic sin nature.
--And the reason we have it is because our entire race was ruined by the disobedience of our ancestral parents, Adam and Eve.
--When they chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden, they lost the condition of innocence and perfection they had been enjoying up until that point and became sinners.
--As a result, they lost the approval and immediate companionship of God and were cast out of the Garden with lots of other consequences.
--Since every human being was born after this event, all of the rest of us are born with this same basic defect. Some will say the defect is a total ruination, others will say it is something less than this. But the basic idea is that all humans are born defective, contaminated by sin, and therefore in need of being restored or redeemed or saved or whatever term you prefer to use.
--Christians also believe that although salvation delivers us from some of the consequences of this sinful condition, it does not necessarily deliver us from the condition itself or other of its consequences. That is why Christians still do wrong or lead lives of moral imperfection.

4PM Beware what you do online

I know as a general warning, this is pretty obvious, but it appears that certain modern convenience features of social media have an unconsidered cost. If you “check in” on facebook (which is a way of letting friends know where you are so they can meet you), well not everyone who has access to this information is necessarily a real friend. Depending on the privacy and access settings on your profile, strangers might actually be able to find you there. This is called stalking. But more importantly, strangers now know where to NOT find you: at home. And any time a thief knows you’re not at home, he’s that much more likely to view your possessions as a low risk target. In the old days, and perhaps even today, people put light timers on when they go on vacation for precisely this reason. But it’s the same basic problem with social media apps that declare to potentially unsavory people that you aren’t at home. And, just remember, not everyone you “friend” on facebook his enough moral restraint to not misuse such information, even people you actually know. So, what’s the solution? Think before you check in.

3PM Weekend to Remember

Next weekend, June 17-19, Family Life Today is hosting their “Weekend to Remember” marriage conferences. All week long, we’re giving away complimentary passes for a married couple to go. Listen to Family Life today at 330 AM and 800 AM to hear the “word to remember.” Then, when I announce it during the afternoon or during my show, be the first caller at (602) 274-1360 who knows the word and you win. Also, go to kpxq1360.com to register to win not only passes but also free hotel stay at the Westin Kierlin resort for the conference which we’ll announce next Wednesday.

2PM Bullies need sleep.

A recent study from the University of Michigan made an astounding discovery: there is a very high correlation between school bullies and disruptive students and sleep deprivation. Approximately 1/3 of the students studied were identified as having behavioral issues, and they were twice as likely as the other students to also have sleep-disordered breathing or inadequate sleep. The authors are cautious against leaping to the conclusion that you can solve such problem with more or better sleep, but it’s certainly worth looking at, right? I mean, I know for an absolute fact that my own personality is more sketchy and abrupt if I don’t get enough sleep, especially for a period of time. And if impaired sleep affects brain development somehow…not only is this a matter of temporary behavior issues but even perhaps more permanent disorder because a developing brain didn’t get the sleep it needs, almost like sleep is an essential nutrient.

Theological Tuesday: Are Christianity and Evolution compatible?

Obviously, some people with strong pro-Christian views believe that Evolution is nothing less than an “anti-God religion of death,” to quote Ken Ham. Similarly, many modern atheists believe that Evolution is nothing less than the proof that Christianity is false and atheism true. So, on this point, the loudest voices adamantly agree. But there are also others who claim it’s possible to reconcile the Bible with Evolution. Some do so because they haven’t thought much about the difficulties. Others do so because they really have sought a way to reconcile them. So tonight I thought we’d discuss what the areas of conflict or tension between these two views are and whether there’s an intellectually honest way to hold both of them simultaneously.

CC--Christianese 18k: Sin (part 11 of 11)

--So, after all this discussion, is there a simple definition of sin? Yes, but you can’t take it on its own or you’ll forget everything that’s gone before.
--Sin is a defect of the heart, a failure to love God fully. God is the ultimate good, and so He should be loved completely, if we were functioning properly. Thus, sin at its root is a catch-all term for anything other than such complete captivation with and devotion to the only true object of worth in the universe. Obviously, if we don’t love God fully, we won’t obey Him fully, so the behavioral implications flow quite naturally from this definition.
--Also, you see how even one failure to love God right (as Adam and Eve’s disobedience) can lead to a snowballing effect of contamination and ruin.
--If we humans are the centerpiece of creation, then our power to destroy the entire work by defacing the centerpiece or pulverizing the cornerstone starts to look much more plausible.
--If the Gospel is God’s total solution for every aspect of sin, then pondering the Gospel and everything it entails should draw us into a kind of aesthetic captivation with God and His glorious character that would inspire us with the ability to emulate Him. And so one way to talk about the process of working out the Gospel is as a sort of art appreciation project.
--And there are many ways to learn to love God more: studying the Bible, studying nature, imitating God’s pattern of behavior through self-sacrificial service to others, cultivating a relationship with Him through prayer.
--All of these are ways of making the Gospel and God more lovely to us, which will shift us through love to a more healthy human condition. And if we begin to see how beautiful God and His Gospel are, we become almost intoxicated with their beauty and majesty, noticing, obeying, and proclaiming it everywhere.

3+4PM American views on immorality

In a fascinating survey conducted at the beginning of May and published last week, Americans were asked whether various behaviors were morally acceptable or morally wrong. So what were the things they most agreed upon as morally unacceptable? Adultery was number 1 at 92% wrong (6% said it was acceptable, and I don’t know whether that’s worse or that it means 2% weren’t sure…), Polygamy was number 2 at 90% disapproval (7% in favor!), Cloning humans was number 3 at 88% (9% favor), and Cloning animals was number 5 at 63% (31% favor). But it’s number four that I find the most fascinating. Although it’s encouraging, I suppose, to see that 77% of Americans believe suicide to be morally wrong (15% support it), making it number 4 most agreed-upon immorality in the offered list, the thing that I find freaky is that if the issue is changed to “doctor assisted suicide,” the disapproval rating drops to 46%. This means that 31% of the respondents thought that suicide was only wrong if you did it on your own without a doctor. That’s a mindbogglingly large deference to medical authority, and fascinating coming in the same week that Dr. Kevorkian died.

But what hasn’t made as much news is the items on the list that showed how much America’s view of divorce has shifted. The number one most approved-of item on this list of behaviors with a 69% acceptable rating was divorce, which only 23% said was morally wrong. Divorce is actually less objectionable than gambling (61% support), wearing fur (60% support), and medical testing on animals (59% support) So by this measure, you can be less socially offensive by getting a divorce than by wearing fur, gambling, or supporting the use of animal testing to save lives! I’m not sure whether this says we’re off about everything else or whether we’re just that ridiculous when it comes to understanding the sanctity of marriage. Again, I’m not all that surprised by the findings, I just think it’s amazing that breaking your vows through sex can be seen as wrong by 92% of people, but breaking your vows of staying together forever by divorce is only seen as wrong by 23% of people.

2PM Jack Kevorkian dies.

Last Friday, the man most infamously connected with assisted suicide, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, died in Michigan at the age of 84. He had served 8 years in jail (out of a 10-25 sentence) for second degree murder, but is responsible for the deaths of 130 people. What was interesting to me about the story is that his lawyer said his death “was peaceful, he didn’t feel a thing." Whether this is true, I think a lot of Christians have trouble believing that “Dr. Death” could have died peacefully because he was doing so much evil. Well, one of the most insidious effects of sin is precisely its capacity to blind us to its presence in our lives, and so the reality is that many people who engage in sin lose the ability to see that it is in fact sinful. This loss of guilt may seem like a blessing, but as we talked about on the show last night, it’s actually the loss of the last vestige of God’s grace, the internal sense that something is wrong and in need of restoration with your life which might draw us back to God in repentance.

Which is worse, moral hypocrisy or immoral integrity?

Seeing recent scandals like those involving Rep. Weiner, Gov. Schwarzenegger, and Sen. Edwards, a question worth asking is whether it’s worse to be the sort of person who advocates high moral standards and then fails them (perhaps spectacularly) or the sort of person who advocates low standards and hits them. Who has a more harmful effect on society and the culture struggles: the advocate of immorality who lives down to his creed or the so-called moral hypocrite whose private behavior violates his public endorsements? Which of these two people is in a better (or worse) position to come closer to Christ?

CC--Christianese 18j: Sin (part 10 of 11)

--Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been explaining what sin is by using both metaphors and definitions. The point of this was twofold. I wanted you to see how diverse and complex sin is, and I also wanted you to see just how massive it is.
--The entire human condition is plagued by it.
--See, people tend to think of sin as a relatively small problem, like a little bit of rust on the car or a bit of mold on the siding. And so all you have to do to solve it is to sand and paint or scrub and rinse and it’ll be gone. Oh sure, it may come back again, but you just need to repeat the cleansing, and all will be well. This is natural, after all.
--But because most people think of sin this way, they also think the solution to sin is equally small, perhaps something as simple as changing your behavior: you know, giving away more money or keeping your mouth shut when you want to berate someone or refusing to give in to some temptation of the flesh.
--But sin’s greatest deception is precisely its ability to blind us to it’s own scope. This was part of the blindness John Newton wrote about. Being blind to your own condition is part of the ruination.
--A better way to think of sin is as a house that’s infested with termites, toxic mold, leaky roof, rotting pipes, and any other ailment houses suffer from. But the owners think that a fresh coat of paint will solve everything. How absurd! This is what Jesus meant when he called the Pharisees “whited sepulchers.” He wasn’t criticizing their uniquely depraved condition. Everyone’s house is rotten. He was saying how foolish they were for thinking a coat of external paint could solve such a deep and deadly diseased condition.
--Sin is thus in part the fact that we all have lives like living in such a house. But it’s also in part the extreme self-delusion that everything can be fixed we can solve all these problems with a merely external refurbishing.
--Whatever the solution to sin is going to be, it needs to solve everything sin is. Eliminating the termites doesn’t fix the mold, for instance.

4PM Food plate replaces food pyramid

In what I can only call a brilliant recognition of the need for something more practical, the USDA has introduced a new icon for food portioning to replace the unwieldy food pyramid. It’s the food plate, which shows the recommended intake by food group as portions on an actual plate (you know, like how people really eat) with half the plate space taken up by fruits and vegetables and half taken up by grains and meats, with dairy in the glass or cup to the side.

3PM Plummeting US birthrate

It used to be normal for people to have 5 or 6 children (before the advent and decriminalization of modern contraception in the sixties). The modern result is that fewer and fewer households have children under the age of 18 in them and household size is smaller as well. 95% of US counties, according to the Census, saw the share of the population of under 18s drop since 2000. And despite a 9.7% increase in US population, the total number with kids remained steady (38 million), which reduced the percentage with children from 36% to 33.5%. More households have dogs (43 million) than children! And if it weren’t for Hispanics, who not only have more children but are also relocating much more widely in the country these days, the numbers would be even worse. It is simply not possible for prosperity to persist in a country that won’t make and raise children.

2PM CA bill protects workplace cross-dressing

At some point in any sane person’s life, perhaps at many points given our culture, you just put your hand to your head and say, “Ugh!” In this case, it’s the bill approved by the California House which protects the “right” of people to dress as any gender in the workplace. This would include schools, daycare centers, and retail establishments where children and client perceptions are involved. This imposition on business owners and managers is a ridiculous way of taking away their power to craft a successful retail environment through something as simple as a gendered dress code. One of the most basic identifying categories we place all strangers into is that of male or female, and attire is a major cue for this sorting process. Precisely because cross-dressing confounds and violates this natural process, it makes most people feel very uncomfortable. Freedom of expression is a wonderful thing when the person paying the consequences is the person doing the expressing, but in this case, it’s forcing an adverse economic effect on the employer. What next, you can’t fire people for swearing at customers or leering at them?

CC--Christianese 18i: Sin (part 9 of ?)

--So far in talking about sin, I’ve emphasized the use of various metaphors as a way of grasping both the nature of what sin is and its effects and also as a method for seeing that sin is much, much bigger and more diverse than most people initially think.
--See, most people, even Christians, think that sin is simply doing something bad or perhaps that “a sin” is what we mean by some action that violates one of God’s rules.
--And it’s not that this is wrong, it’s just that it’s so very limited. Sort of like saying that if you want to know what a building is, well houses are buildings and there you go. Or if you want to understand animals, well, a dog is a common animal.
--And again, the reason this matters is because in failing to grasp the scope of sin and everything that Christian term covers, we also fail to grasp the scope of God’s Grace and His plan for solving sin with the Gospel.
--This means that part of seeing how big sin is entails beginning to see how big the Gospel is. If you think that sin is stealing, then the Gospel only needs to be big enough to make you not steal. And many things can do that, quite frankly. Guilt, fear, social coercion, or just education. And so what happens when you have a small view of sin is that many solutions seem adequate for solving the problem.
--Thus, even if you grasp that the Gospel is the sin-solution, you might admit almost anything as the Gospel simply because many things solve the tiny view of sin you have.
--But when you start to the magnitude of the problem of sin, all the pretenders and faux-solutions look pathetically small, especially things like willpower and education. And so an adequate grasp of how massive sin is not only helps raise your awareness of how massive the Gospel is, but it also helps eliminate false gospels and it refines and purifies your sense of what the Gospel really is and what it really does.

2+3+4PM Lessons from Harold Camping

Although we’ve certainly had our fun with the ridiculous, unbiblical, and now disproved prediction that the Rapture was coming on May 21 by Harold Camping, there are still some very interesting lessons to learn and observations to make about the passing of the non-event. First of all, how someone handles such a colossal failure tells a lot about their character. And in this case, when one might expect remorse or contrition or even a fairly robust apology, Camping basically claimed he was still right. He says the judgment did come, only it was a “spiritual” judgment rather than the end of the world, which he still claims is coming on October 21. Moreover, for all the people who liquidated their assets or made foolish choices because of his prediction, he simply denied any accountability or responsibility by saying he never told them to do that. See, to me, this tells you everything you need to know about Harold Camping. Regardless of his foolish eschatology (end times study), it is his unchristian character which testifies the loudest about this not being a man transformed by the Gospel. A true Christian would have been virtually weeping with apology for the embarrassment he brought on Christianity and for the suffering caused to his followers. He would have offered to make things right by those who had followed him. And he surely would have been humble enough to make some changes going forward, particularly by removing himself from his ministerial or broadcasting duties. Someone truly renewed by the Gospel would be secure enough in Christ to be self-chastening that way. And so the lack of such a development is far more telling than the failure of the prediction itself.

But even so, there have been other indicators that Camping himself isn’t really convinced of his own predictions. The most interesting effort to force the issue was an offer by “A Bible Answer” ministries to buy all of Camping’s radio stations (66 stations in the US for Family Radio) for the sum of $1 million with a delay on the transfer to May 22. Not only would the radio stations mean nothing to Camping after his predicted Rapture, but they would obviously be of far less value to the buyer since a large chunk of the audience will have disappeared. This offer was made in February and repeated frequently. It has now been offered again for October 22. Camping has declined.

And finally, in a very odd sort of doublespeak, although Camping is claiming rather adamantly that he made no mistake of calculations and that a spiritual judgment did in fact occur (although there are no external confirmations for this of any sort), he is actively revamping his website to remove any references to the May 21 prediction. If the prediction was right, then there should be no need to change all the links and icons, merely to explain them. This cover-up and denial by censoring is pretty clear evidence of some sort of deception. But of course the irony is that even removing the web elements doesn’t immediately undo the cars and billboards that still exist.

Various Current Events

UN says global war on drugs has failed (MSNBC)
UN report: global war on drugs failed (USA Today)
Prison minister bet $10,000 rapture wouldn’t happen (CP)
Chenowith to star in controversial “Good Christian Belles” (CP)
Steady decline in major crime baffles experts (NYT)
Tucson SWAT killing raises questions (AZR)
Ministry offered Camping $1 million for all his stations (CP)
Device mutes profanity on TV (CP)
USSC tells CA to ease jail crowding (NYT)
Family upset about woman’s estate going to Camping (CP)
Christians, Jews, and Muslims to share pulpits (CP)
Obama repeats June as LGBT pride month (Yahoo)
Obama takes on Indiana over Planned Parenthood (Fox News)
Man spends all on Camping, still believes (CP)
Camping triples down on predictions (CP)
Camping website removes May 21 references (CP)
$100 million spent on May 21 advertising (CP)

CC--Christianese 18h: Sin (part 8 of ?)

--So far in talking about sin, I’ve exclusively been using some pretty grand metaphors to convey the magnitude of the nature of the problem.
--In so doing, I’ve probably frustrated some of you who like more particular or even simple definitions for sin.
--As you should expect, there is a reason I have employed this approach, and I’ll explain it all tomorrow.
--But for the moment, let’s look at some of the more common definitions for sin, the ones I’ve mostly ignored so far.
1. Sin is violating the command of God. God is fond of issuing instructions, and any time we break one, this is a sin. Thus, sin entered the world when Adam and Eve first broke the only command there was by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
2. Another common definition of sin is missing the mark of God’s intended perfection for our behavior. Again, we see that God wants an ideal, and we always fail to give Him what He rightly expects and deserves from us.
3. Yet another definition is that sin is a disposition to evil or an inability to do right. Sin is the thing that makes it so that even the things we do right aren’t right, because we always mess up, whether in our overt behavior or in our motives. We literally can’t do anything right, as was intended, because we are sinful.
--There’s nothing wrong per se in these definitions. They’re Biblical, even. The problem is they seem to suggest that sin is fundamentally a matter of bad behavior, which invites the error of thinking we can avoid sin by willpower or education towards behaving properly. And to call this the greatest error in the history of religious thinking is actually an understatement.
--But there is a definition of sin that helps coalesce much of the rest and explains these behavioral definitions at the same time.
--And I’ll talk about that tomorrow.

4PM Multi-National Corporations hiring overseas, cutting here

In this fascinating story in the Wall Street Journal based on data from the Commerce Departmen, tover the 1990s, US Multi-National Corporations (MNCs) hired workers both in the US (4.4 million) and overseas (2.7 million). But over the 2000s, they actually cut jobs in the US (-2.9 million) and continued hiring overseas (2.4 million). US MNC’s employ about one fifth of all workers here (21.1 million ), about double what they employ overseas (10.3 million). As tragic as this job flight is, the real question is why. The large companies who responded claimed it wasn’t for cheap labor but for expansion into markets developing elsewhere. But the problems of dealing with the US tax code and our declining infrastructure and education system are not going to magically get better. As much as we should be worried, we should also be asking why they’re doing this rather than just lamenting the fact and scolding them for it.

3PM The Philadelphia Orchestra's woes

They played for Fantasia and debuted works by Stravinsky, Mahler, and Rachmaninoff, but about a month ago, the Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy protection. What’s sad about this is that many city orchestras have been struggling in recent years, a tragedy in an age where tens of millions of dollars (or more) go to the ridiculous and outrageous in music and the few remaining bastions of actual culture rather than mere popular culture are fading rapidly. According to Bloomberg, Detroit’s symphony was on strike for 6 months, Baltimore closed in 2009 and New York City (!) Opera is expecting a fourth annual deficit this year. They’re not going away, just reorganizing, but this is a fairly common development in a sad anti-cultural trend we’re seeing today. And it’s not just music. Ballet companies have been struggling for quite some time, laying off younger talent if not just shutting down altogether. So the real question is whether enough people remain to support true art.

2PM Rep. Wiener's Twitter flap

So, once again we have a situation where a Congressman is somehow or other embroiled in a sexual semi-scandal. In this case, we don’t know whether he is or isn’t responsible for sending these pictures to some woman, but I’ll tell you my gut instinct on the guy is that he’s not. I’ve seen him a few times on TV, and he strikes me as remarkably candid, even offensively so when appropriate, but honorable. But what concerns me about this case (the little I’ve chosen to learn about it) is that it runs against a very simple principle I believe strongly in. In the law there is the presumption of innocence, and you can’t be deprived of life, liberty, or property without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. But in the media, where people’s reputations and all the consequences thereof are jeopardized regularly, there is the presumption of guilt. No, even that’s not quite the right terminology. There’s the eagerness for guilt. News outlets are so eager to find guilt because they make their living from it at the expense of others. It has always been this way, and perhaps always will be this way, but evil doesn’t become good just because it’s being done by everyone. So I prefer to presume innocence and wait to see.

Wacky Wednesday--Credit Cards Should Be Illegal

Note: Before reading the following arguments, please understand that they are not what I believe. On Wednesdays, I deliberately argue for wrong ideas, challenging my listeners to call and defend the obvious right answer, which is usually far harder than one would expect. This is a summary of what Wacky Andrew will be arguing, not a representation of what real Andrew believes.

--Not all economic choices are permitted: banking, stocks, and gambling are heavily regulated, and slavery prostitution, and selling body parts prohibited.
--As a credit counselor friend of mine once quipped, “Credit cards are like crack cocaine, and banks are very smart drug dealers.”
--They are primarily (almost entirely) used by individuals for personal consumption of luxury items beyond their means to pay.
--Financial experts universally hate them and advise people to get rid of them.
--Most ordinary people can’t handle them responsibly
--Most people don’t understand, let alone that they can’t perform the math associated with them
--Offering someone a 20 year loan on a dinner out?
--How is it good for our community to have so many people saving so little and indebted so heavily?
--Spouses don’t fight over money. They fight over debt. How many marriages are ruined by debt addiction?
--Everyone you talk to who has debt wants to be debt free. That alone should tell you it isn’t a desirable condition. It’s a lot like people who smoke talking about how bad smoking is.
--Debt at its core is buying things you don’t yet deserve because you haven’t yet earned them.
--Debt is such a burden that it reduces productivity and depresses people in a debilitating way.
--Decreases savings
--Leads to bankruptcies.
--We have a collective problem with debt and budgets.
--Ruins the value of currency earned because credit devalues my cash by making me compete for goods with people who haven’t earned the privilege.
--If you can’t live without one, then you really have no business having one.
--Fraud
--Even for people who use them well, their liberty is funded by other people’s irresponsibility and pain.
--Prov 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave
--The Bible warns us very sternly against materialism, misuse of money, abuse of the poor, and greed. God clearly cares greatly how we handle our money.
--Borrowing is never mentioned favorably in the Bible.
--Jesus taught that it was more blessed to give than to receive, not that it was more blessed to loan than to give.

Christianese 18g: Sin (part 7 of ?)

Metaphor 7: Blindness, Lostness

--In one of the most famous lines of music history, John Newton described the transformation from sin to salvation this way:

“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind but now I see.“

--In this one potent line of theology, Newton gives us no less than four powerful metaphors for sin, heavily bound up with our senses.
--The first is implied (unstated), a kind of ugly or unmelodic sound, thus awful noise to our ears, in contrast with the sweet sound of God.
--The second is wretchedness, a word rich with negative meaning, much of which has to do with a disturbed or afflicted body, thus our physical sense or touch.
--The third is lostness, a feeling of disorientation and dislocation from wherever you should be. And as anyone who has ever been lost knows, it can be terrifying, especially when you feel powerless in the midst of it. When children are lost, like in a large store, they typically break down and cry because the fear is so crippling. The center of their universe has gone missing, and what could possibly be worse than that? This loss of bearings, position, and even person is a marvelously apt metaphor for how sin disrelates us to God and our place in this world.
--Philosophers sometimes call this sensation “alienation,” or a feeling of everything being all wrong about life.
--Then the fourth metaphor for sin is of course blindness, is a huge practical difficulty. But blindness also means an inability to experience the joys of sight and color. A blind man isn’t even aware of rainbows and twinkling eyes and toddler smiles and clouds and Monet.
--And so Newton is describing sin as an utter ruination of every physical aspect of our selves. About the only thing he doesn’t mention is taste and smell, but we can infer those are ruined as well.
--So, our senses are all destroyed and even our sense of belonging is scattered. That’s sin.

3+4PM The Joplin Tornado

When I was in St. Louis for the past week and a half, the story that occupied everyone’s mind and took up tons of radio conversation was the category 5 tornado that demolished the Missouri town of Joplin, a city of about 50,000 people. It had 200mph winds, and all the accounts agree that the structures in the city were razed to the ground in a devastation that isn’t even normally true of war zones, where you can at least still recognize what used to be there. Unlike many tornadoes that level some areas and leave others untouched, this one seems to have gotten everything that could be eradicated, leaving only massive structures like the hospital damaged but standing. The death toll today was confirmed at 134, making it the 8^th most deadly tornado in US history. But even in the midst of such a terrible storm, people all around the Midwest had responded immediately sending tons of financial assistance, supplies, and help (along with prayer) to Joplin. So, we’ll see how things go in the next few months, but this seems to be on track to be much more like the Nashville flood that no one ever heard of because they just handled it than some other places that didn’t recover so well. And the other thing that is amazing to me is that we live in a nation that is so wealthy and prosperous that almost any possession these people lost other than personal memorabilia can be replaced.