New Page for Pro-Existence

By Rick Pearcey

It's here.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Pearcey Report in Yahoo! News

By Rick Pearcey

Somebody at Yahoo! seems to like some of our headlines.

The latest example of this is found at the bottom of a story titled, "Iran Call for U.S. to End Support of Israel."

See the section "Most Blogged - World" and click on "blogs about this story (5)."

Here's the headline that caught Yahoo!'s attention: "Iran Leader Demands Change: Says U.S. Must Apologize for Crimes."

That Ahmadinejad can manipulate "change" his way demonstrates how meaningless a linguistic symbol it is without a fixed and definite content rooted in reality.

That kind of rootless "change" can turn hopes and votes into plain old despair.

For more on the challenge of "change," see philosopher Angus Mengue on "Regarding Change: Liberals Drink Deeply From Fascist Well."

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Gov. Palin Unveils "SarahPAC"

By Rick Pearcey

She can see 2012 from Alaska.

"Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has started a new political action committee," reports WorldNetdaily, "in a move that many are seeing as a precursor to a possible run for president in 2012."

Here's the official welcome at SarahPAC.com.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Christian Radio Network Revamps for "Talk" Lineup

By Rick Pearcey

Good move at American Family Radio.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Tour Rome, Florence, Paris With the Pearceys

By Rick Pearcey

We're finalizing the brochure for a European Christian worldview tour titled "From Plato to Picasso to You," to be held this summer, June 10-18.

We expect this to be a tremendous time of fellowship, on-site examination of significant venues in Western cultural history, and discussion of the relationship of humane and Biblical living across the whole of thought and life.

There will be much more to share about this "worldview conference on wheels" in the brochure. Meanwhile, here's a preliminary announcement:

You are invited to join worldview scholar and author, Nancy Pearcey, and writer-editor Rick Pearcey for a nine-day excursion through Rome, Florence, and Paris.

You will learn to “decipher” the meaning of the art and cultural artifacts that have shaped the Western mind -- and that continue to influence our lives today.

You will visit the Sistine Chapel and the Colosseum, the David and the Uffizi, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower, and cruise the Seine in the City of Lights.

All of these will be illuminated by lectures and discussions led by the Pearceys. Cost of this 9-day tour is $3,899.

For more information, please call 215-702-4333. Or email Claire Johnson at cjohnson@pbu.edu.

Here is the announcement page for 2009 summer tours available via Philadelphia Biblical University, where Nancy is a professor of worldview studies.

Please stay tuned to Pro-Existence or The Pearcey Report for future updates.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Top News Examiner: Regarding \'change\' -- Liberals drink deeply from Fascist well, says review of \'Liberal Fascism\'

Top News Examiner: Regarding 'change' -- Liberals drink deeply from Fascist well, says review of 'Liberal Fascism'

Posted using ShareThis

Rick at CNSNews.com

By Rick Pearcey

This week (and next's), I've been helping out editorially over at CNSNews.com -- editing articles, posting stories and photos, and learning the ins-and-outs of their publishing system.

The CNSNews fun plus continued posting at The Pearcey Report and my page at Examiner.com make for a couple of rapid-fire weeks.

In a few minutes, I'm off to the "gym" (downstairs at the treadmill!) to make up for lost soccer time.

Consider yourself officially invited to check out CNSNews. Lots of great people there doing terrific -- and, I dare say, important -- reportorial work.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Top 10 Ways Sarah Palin Has Shaken Up the Race

By Rick Pearcey

Big political news of the day comes via USAToday -- namely, that the GOP "Convention Lifts McCain Over Obama."

This headline may be an understatement, for McCain now leads Obama by 54%-44% among "those most likely to vote," according to the results of a post-convention USAToday/Gallup poll.

Speaking of bounces, MSNBC has bounced "Incendiary Hosts" Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews "From Anchor Seat," reports the New York Times.

Perhaps not unrelated, the political and journalistic landscape has undergone these adjustments since the announcement of Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate Friday, August 29.

In "The Top 10 Ways Sarah Palin Has Shaken Up the Race," Jennifer Rubin takes notice of the Palin impact. Members of the national press may find Shake-Up No. 8 of interest:

She has dealt a blow, a big blow, to the credibility of the MSM. We witnessed a MSM feeding frenzy (ranging from spurious allegations about her support for Pat Buchanan to suggestions she was neglecting her family) the likes of which we haven’t seen in a presidential race. Surviving that, she and McCain will not only run against the media (to the delight of the conservative base) but will try to largely ignore them. And to the extent that their credibility has been wounded by a failed and vicious attack on her, the public will be less inclined to pay attention to their pearls of wisdom or to think it odd that Palin doesn’t appear as a guest on Hardball.

For the rest of Sarah's Top 10, go here.

Crossposted at Examiner.com.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Rick on Breaking News at Examiner.com

By Rick Pearcey

I've begun posting as a Breaking News Examiner at Examiner.com, which appears in more than 50 metropolitan areas across the United States.

Today's post, the first, is "The Speech Heard Round the World."

Gov. Sarah Palin's RNC address blew the rafters off the roof in St. Paul, but what's the response outside the U.S.A.? This inaugural post takes a look.

Visitors and comments are welcome.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Borrow, Read, Buy: New Amazon Review of Total Truth

By Rick Pearcey

An Amazon reviewer borrows, reads, and plans to buy Total Truth.

He writes:

In a postmodern age of conflicting World-views and relegated religious values, Pearcy's [sic] book hits hard with pinpoint accuracy. A diagnosis of modern thought, the history which led to it, and the schism of ideas that we now accept in the public sphere, Total Truth is not just a deconstruction of modern naturalism, it draws a picture of a completed Christian Worldview. I borrowed this book from a friend, but will soon add it to my library. I highly recommend "Total Truth."

75 reviews on Amazon here.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Unethical Loyalty

By Rick Pearcey

This story about John Edwards and a former campaign aide raises the issue of misplaced loyalty.

Would you lie, nuance, cheat, steal or otherwise enable your compromised boss, candidate, cause, or trusted ministry leader?

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Tim Carney Honors Bob Novak

By Rick Pearcey

With Bob Novak's decision to retire, having been diagnosed with a brain tumor, Tim Carney is now editor of the "Evans-Novak Political Report" (see this publisher's note regarding ENPR at Human Events).

Both Novak and Carney are journalistic colleagues of mine from my tenure as managing editor of Human Events. ENPR, a sister company with HE in Eagle Publishing, Inc., needed an associate editor, and that became me. Carney came to Human Events as a bright, young reporter, and then later in a separate career move, he began working at ENPR.

In today's Examiner, Carney offers a moving tribute to Novak, "the hardest-working man I have ever known. . . . Privileged to call him my boss for half my (admittedly brief) career, I suffer an incalculable loss as Bob Novak sets down his pen, but millions of his readers are also saddened."

But while Carney suffers loss, some choose a different path, for example, the "Internet’s puerile purveyors of uninformed vitriol celebrate his retirement."

Others enjoy a gain, of sorts: "There is another class of people in this town who -- even if they admire the man -- benefit from the end of Novak’s column: The politicians, lobbyists, bureaucrats and operatives who want to work in peace and quiet, out of the public view."

Yes, says Carney, "this city" has lost something, but "what we’ve lost is not primarily a conservative voice -- Novak was one of many who clearly and consistently articulated the call for limited government and, later in his life, also the protection of the unborn."

What "we've lost primarily" is this:

A reporter who cast a cynical eye on the best-laid plans of bureaucrats, who took the same level of skepticism to his coverage of both political parties, and who was motivated, above all, by the desire to unearth information that powerful people would prefer remained buried.

To the detriment of the republic, there is now one fewer skeptic calling around Capitol Hill until he gets the real dirt; there is one fewer sleuth -- freed by his spot on the opinion pages from what Novak calls the “deaf-dumb-blind” sort of impartiality that often makes news reporting worthless -- exposing the true machinations in the government. This can be a cause for relief for many powerful people.

As a cancer survivor myself, I understand we inhabit a less than perfect world: My hopes and prayers remain with Bob Novak and family for the best possible outcome.

A word to Tim: One of the best ways to honor your boss is to give the rich, powerful, and infamous of Washington, D.C. -- religious, secular, or undecided -- a reportorial basis to greet the morning news, and each hour of the day, with fear and trembling. No peace, no quiet, for the corrupt and their enablers.

Read Tim Carney's entire column here.

Related
For a discussion on objective reporting and Christian worldview, see "Warren, Murdoch, Porn, and WND."

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Has Anyone Read Total Truth?

By Rick Pearcey

A potential reader of Total Truth wonders:

In a couple of weeks, our adult Sunday School class will begin reading her book Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2005).

Has anyone read this book?

Can you discuss its pros and cons?

Send help here.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Bible Not a "Religious" Book

By Rick Pearcey

Archaeological finds like this help remind people that what is given in the Bible is not "religious" in the contemporary sense of the word, in which "faith" and spirituality are privatized self-medicative theories to help individuals, groups, communities, and movements of various stripes advance agendas, gain power, and otherwise cope in a heartless world and indifferent cosmos.

Instead what we have is information from the Creator regarding the objective world of fact, reason, history, and evidence.

Holistic, Biblical "faith" is primarily a matter of trust, not epistemology. True enough, trusting information that is given by our true Maker helps unlock further knowledge (see the scientific revolution), but it begins with information rooted in the real world.

Thus, what we have in Old and New Testament history are not mere "stories" (as "believers" of atheistic, academic, or pastoral stripe sometimes like to phrase it) but rather accounts of events that occurred in this world.

This kind of concrete truth -- not private experiences created by drugs, "religious" encounters, a rich imagination, or deeply held personal desires -- is what sets people free to navigate as whole but imperfect beings in a broken world.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Presidential Elections vs. the Kingdom of God

By Rick Pearcey

A renowned pastor apparently cares little about the 2008 presidential election because such things have "nothing to do with the kingdom of God."

And yet Jesus said, "Love thy neighbor" (Matt. 22: 39).

Now, if you "love thy neighbor," do you not also care somewhat about the neighborhood of thy neighbor? It may therefore be a matter of godly and humane concern who is elected President, not just of the "neighborhood," as it were, but also of the country.

For if the King of the kingdom of God says "love thy neighbor" is important, and this love includes compassion about the real-world impact of concepts, practices, and leaders on the lives of our neighbors, is it not part of the kingdom of God to care somewhat about who is elected President?

Yes it is. This is part of the Total Truth of what it means to be a compassionate human being alive to fellowship with the Creator and newness of life, across the whole of life, in relation to our neighbors.

This is one of many reasons presidential elections matter not just now, but also in eternity.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Congratulations, Rush -- Now Shut Up

By Rick Pearcey

In today's Examiner:

As Rush Limbaugh and his estimated 20 million daily listeners celebrate the talk radio titan’s 20th anniversary on the air, Democratic leaders in Congress are moving to turn his mike off.

Their weapon is restoration of the so-called Fairness Doctrine. Even folks who would rather have a root canal than listen to Rush’s daily pronouncements should hope they don’t succeed. If they do bring back this bureaucratic relic from the days of Harry Truman, it won’t be just Rush’s voice that will be muted, it will be free and open political debate in general that will suffer.

Question: Where's the "off switch" for Congress? In the old days of freedom, we had the Constitution.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Bruni-Sarkozy and the Unbearable Lightness of Nudity

By Rick Pearcey

France's First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy seems to have second thoughts about having "posed for too many nude photos."

Good for her, and yet: How is this possible?

Is she no longer "proud of my body"? What? She wants something special, private, reserved, unknown to others, with her husband?

As if human love between husband and wife is more than the publicly accessible physics and chemistry of firing neurons.

Here's what may be bubbling to the surface: Despite the pronouncements of Darwinian and atheistic theory, human beings in fact are more than flesh, skin surfaces, and matter.

For all the MTV and artsy hype, the reduction of ethics and meaning to the raw power of individual choice diminishes the human being as a person.

Beauty may be skin deep, but privacy isn't. It goes to the heart of the living soul as a personal being who acts out into the external world.

Like an alienated man on a bridge in the dark of night, humanity screams out against the unbearable lightness of materialism and its inhumane orthodoxies, no matter how pleasing they may be to the skin trade or cash register.

Privacy is good. If it survives, we survive as free, humane beings. To be naked in love one must sometimes cover up.

See also
Rolled Model: Tennis Pro Harkleroad "Proud of My Body"

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Rick Warren Mesmermized

By Rick Pearcey

The not mesmerized David Bass over at the John Locke Foundation maintains a critical distance vis-a-vis Barack Obama.

Obama's attempted coup of the evangelical right is hardly a universal success. He continues to tick off conservative mainstays like James Dobson, who can see past the senator's rock star persona and occasional biblical references to his liberal core. But others are not so wise. Rick Warren, for example.

Not allowing one's mind and church to be taken over by alien thoughtforms is a good thing. "Sales resistance" in all things, including religion and politics, is helpful in this regard -- and it's profoundly humane and biblical.

While thinking through Bass's point above, free-thinkers and disciples of Jesus (who as human beings ought to be free-thinkers) may also want to consider the following 4 points:

First, be an old grizzled shepherd, not a smiley-faced “believer.” The shepherds of Luke 2 do not put God in a closet and say you can know him but only if you go in there and submit to some kind of privatized epistemological baptism that happens to “people of faith.” Yes, the Bible knows about “believers,” but that’s to emphasize the commitment of the whole person to truth-claims that are accepted on the basis of reasoning and information that make rational and evidential sense in the real world. Shepherds, grizzled or otherwise, do get to smile, but first they see the baby.

Second, develop sales resistance. Christmas is about individuals willing to evaluate things for themselves. There is no need to check your brains at the pasture gate just because of bright lights in the sky, fancy advertising, or manipulated symbols on CNN or in form letters from ghostwriters employed by respected bigshots, religious and otherwise. Question authority, think freely, foil the manipulators, eyeball the materialists, refuse the hypocrites, and take responsibility for your life as a choosing, thinking being made in the image of God.

Third, affirm the whole person. Reject the despair of a splintered secular existence where hope sinks like a lead balloon but we’ll pretend it floats because pleasing feelings attend a current holiday. Christmas is about fact and meaning together because the Savior of the world is a real baby in a real manger who lives a Gospel that touches the same ground we walk on every day. Celebrate the humane unity of life as a complete person liberated from brokenness and bad philosophy. Act coherently and authentically at work, in government, on campus, in church, before the easel, in the lab, and with your family. Embrace humanity in community with our true Creator and then watch love and truth burst out of the secular straight-jacket.

Finally, celebrate the individual. An individual named Jesus came to Bethlehem to live and die for people, not for useful cogs in a cosmic machine that burped a mass of humanity into being by accident. He chose a path leading from Bethlehem manger to Roman cross because, despite our choices to walk away from truth and love, flawed human beings remain magnificent creatures of great worth and significance, having been made in the image of God. The Nativity is about regular people, what Francis Schaeffer called “little people” in “little places,” who join with the Creator to rage against the machine, death, sin, and decay. The love of a parent for a child, of a living God for human creatures with particular names and life stories that matter, is not a cruel joke foisted off on us by our genes. Nor is this love of God and man to be disrespected or steamrolled to the ground by the demands of big government, big business, or big ministry. With God we revolt against any who would deify themselves or their groups to transfigure creatures of such great worth into enablers, minions, pawns, and alter egos for the rich, powerful, and hard-chargers of this world.

More . . .

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

Setting the Schaeffer Record Straight

By Rick Pearcey

A reviewer writes:

As an admirer of Francis Schaeffer, one of the saddest things I have witnessed during the last few years is the attempts by both his own son and by other detractors to impugn his integrity or, at least, to redefine him as something he was not. Reading son Frank Schaeffer’s memoir, both father and mother are portrayed negatively, Francis as a reclusive, depressed, sometimes suicidal man and Edith as a perfectionist nut. Well, perhaps the title says it all -- Crazy for God. This book by biographer Colin Duriez, Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life, should set the record straight.

More . . .

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).

More on Benny Hinn's "Offshore Miracle"

By Rick Pearcey

A thinking pastor questions Benny Hinn.

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Rick Pearcey is editor and publisher of The Pearcey Report (articles).