Atonement - Part 1

Introduction

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “You may be able to compel people to maintain certain minimum standards by stressing duty. But the highest moral and spiritual achievements depend not upon a push but a pull. People must be charmed into righteousness.”

“Charmed into righteousness” … that is an intriguing phrase. I’ve often thought that the typical evangelical Christian understanding of the purpose of Jesus’ death is less than charming. It runs like this: Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins – a penalty demanded by God’s justice. To many evangelical believers, this appears to be the plain and obvious teaching of Scripture.

Of course, the important issue is not whether this viewpoint is charming; the important question is whether it is biblical. And, at one level, the standard understanding is biblical. We can all think of passages that support it.

But is it the whole story? Is there more? Many evangelical Christians would be surprised to learn that the view of the atonement described above did not begin to be formally developed until 1100 A.D. by St. Anselm and that the doctrine was brought to its present formulation by the reformers in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This startling historical fact should at least arouse some curiosity. How can a concept that was not formally developed for over fifteen hundred years after the death of Christ be seen as fundamental to a proper understanding of the gospel? What did Christians believe about the death of Christ prior to the Reformation?

More importantly, does the standard understanding of the purpose of Jesus’ death really conform to what the Bible says? Does it fully cover all that is revealed in Scripture?

In this multi-part blog, these are some of the questions I want to address. I’ll begin by saying a bit more about the commonly accepted view. Then, we’ll look at human tendencies to see what we expect to see and miss things that we do not expect. Next, we’ll examine how that tendency may be keeping us from seeing another view of the atonement that is presented in Scripture … a view that held sway in the church for over a thousand years. Finally, we’ll consider the implications of the different views to see if it makes any difference in how we live our daily lives.

I know. I know. You might be thinking, “Can a heavy-duty, theological topic possibly be relevant to my life? I’ve got bills to pay. I’ve got to get my kids to soccer. The economy is teetering on catastrophe. It may be the end of civilization as we know it. My gosh – football season recently ended and won’t be back for six months! I’ve got bigger fish to fry and can’t afford to waste time on some bit of esoteric theological nonsense.”

I understand that reaction. Theology as commonly practiced can be terminally boring and massively impracticable. But then I always remember what C. S. Lewis said at the beginning of the 4th section of Mere Christianity (for those of you keeping track, it took me 481 words before I mentioned Lewis). He said that he had been warned not to try to explain theology to people – he was told that people just wanted “practical religion”. Apparently, that advice was mistaken since Mere Christianity has sold gazillions of copies and it has tons of theology in it.

I’m not claiming that I’ll be as entertaining or insightful as Lewis but I can tell you that new perspectives on the atonement have made a profound difference in my own day-to-day relationship with God. Perhaps it will do the same for you.


Common View of the Atonement

Christ died to pay the penalty for our sins. This is the way most evangelical Christians would respond if asked to explain the purpose for Christ’s death. If asked to elaborate, the story would go something like this: God loves us – his people whom he created. God is also holy and perfectly just. This creates a dilemma for God because all people have violated his laws and fallen short of his standards. Everyone is a “sinner”. The penalty for these violations of God’s law is death. In his justice, God cannot let these sins go unpunished. But God, out of his grace and mercy, has provided a way out. God himself became a man and died for us. He suffered the penalty for us. With the penalty paid and his justice satisfied, God is now free to pursue a relationship of love with us.

Scriptural support for this view seems abundant and obvious. In its simplest formulation, we know from the Bible that all people have sinned (Romans 3:23), that death is the penalty for sin (Romans 6:23) and that Christ died for our sins (I Corinthians 15:3). Each of these ideas has abundant scriptural support:

1. All people have sinned. In fact, we are all sinners who have indulged in evil (Ephesians 2:3). Paul declares that "There is no one righteous, … All have turned away …” (Romans 3:10-11).


2. Death is the penalty for sin. We are “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:3) who deserve God’s righteous judgment. We are “dead in sin” (Ephesians 2:1). We are dead men walking.


3. Christ died for our sins. The Old Testament sacrificial system was designed to teach us that there is no forgiveness without death (Hebrews 9:22). The mission of the Messiah is clearly stated in Isaiah 53:5: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Paul agrees: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (II Corinthians 5:21).

There is no question that all of this is scriptural. But is it the whole story? Does it exhaust the biblical revelation on this topic? Is something missing?

Paradigms

Before we consider what may be missing, it will be helpful to think for a moment about how and why human beings sometimes fail to see things that are right in front of them.

In his influential book entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn explored the role that expectations play in our understanding of reality. The conceptual framework that a person brings to a subject heavily influences what that person sees and how he interprets his observations. Kuhn popularized the word “paradigm” to describe the constellation of ideas that a person uses to make sense of a particular topic.

Kuhn describes an experiment conducted by psychologists to illustrate the role that paradigms play in what we see and experience. The experiment involved playing cards – cards you would use to play bridge or poker.

Everyone familiar with a deck of cards has a paradigm about them. There are four different suits and two colors. Hearts and diamonds are red while spades and clubs are black.

In the psychology experiment, subjects were shown pictures of playing cards projected on a screen at a fast speed and they were asked to identify the cards. Mixed in with the normal cards were some “anomalous” cards. For example, the deck might include a five of hearts that was black instead of red. Subjects would initially identify that card as either a five of hearts or as a five of spades or as a five of clubs – fitting it in with existing categories dictated by their playing card paradigm.

As the projector was slowed down and subjects were allowed to see the cards for a longer period of time, they began to realize that something was wrong and they would get confused. They would see things that were not there. For example a subject might remark about the black five of hearts, “Well, that is a five of hearts but it has a black border around it.”

Eventually, with sufficiently lengthy exposure, most subjects would correctly identify the card as a five of hearts that had been "mistakenly" printed in black. With an adjusted paradigm, subjects were able to identify anomalous cards quickly and easily even when the projector was returned to its original speed. They were now prepared to see what was really there instead of just seeing what they expected.

Kuhn applied this insight to the history of science. He argued that outdated scientific theories often did a good job of explaining a constellation of observed facts. However, every theory is eventually challenged by some anomalous phenomena that do not fit the theory. Changes from one scientific theory to another theory occur when a scientist, usually someone young or otherwise new to the field, devises a different theory that accounts for all of the previously observed facts and that also explains the newer, anomalous facts. Kuhn gives numerous examples from the history of science to support his thesis and he describes the messy, controversial and acrimonious process that leads to changes in scientific theories.

Do these insights from Kuhn have any application in our study of the Bible? Do our theologies shape what we see and cause us to miss other things that are actually there? Does scripture reveal more about the atonement than we have commonly supposed?

I believe that the answer to all of these questions is “Yes.”

The early church had a view of the atonement that has come to be known as the Christus Victor view. In their minds, Christ died and rose again to defeat Satan and to free us from his kingdom of darkness and death. At the writer of Hebrews explains, God became a man so that “… through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, …” (Hebrews 2:14).

Did you know this? Did you know that Satan holds the power of death? Satan loves death while, in contrast, God takes no delight in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23, 33:11).The Christus Victor view begins with these insights and I’ll need Part 2 of this blog to fully explain it.

Michael Crichton Died Recently!

I'm probably the only one on the planet who missed the news that Michael Crichton died on November 8th of this year. He died of throat cancer at age 66. I hadn't heard about his death until about a week ago.

Crichton graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College, received his MD from Harvard Medical School, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, researching public policy with Jacob Bronowski. He taught courses in anthropology at Cambridge University and writing at MIT.

However, Crichton is best known as a writer and filmmaker. He wrote The Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park and created the TV series ER. His 2004 novel entitled State of Fear challenged the alleged scientific consensus about global warming both in its plot line and in a non-fictional afterword and two appendicies. Crichton was concerned that science in general was losing its objectivity and was being co-opted by political interests.

I was very impressed by a speech he gave in 2003 entitled Environmentalism as Religion. I recently re-read that speech to get some quotes for a project I was working on. In the course of doing so, I learned that Crichton had died recently.

I started reading some of his other speeches and found them as insightful as the original essay that brought him to my attention. He wrote a lot about science -- both about it potential and about its misuse.

He was a gifted writer. To wet your appetite, consider this gem about a headline from a so called "scientific" study. The headline read: “How Many Species Exist? The question takes on increasing significance as plants and animals vanish before scientists can even identify them.”

Commenting on this, Crichton says, "Now, wait a minute…How could you know something vanished before you identified it? If you didn’t know it existed, you wouldn’t have any way to know it was gone. Would you? In fact, the statement is nonsense. If you were never married you’d never know if your wife left you."

If you are interested, here is a Crichton sampler:

Environmentalism as Religion -- environmentalism appeals to urban atheists but it is almost a perfect parrallel to the Judeo-Christian religion (doubly interesting becasue I think Crichton was an urban atheist)

The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming -- a good discussion of various problems with global warming orthodoxy. Includes a helpful summary of the infamous "hockey stick" graph that is featured so prominently by global warming adovcates but which has been shown by other scientists to be inaccurate.

Testimony before the United State Senate -- regarding the proper role of science in public policy making.

Aliens Cause Global Warming -- a romp through beliefs in extraterrestials, nuclear winter and other discredited psuedo-scientific pursuits and how similar they are to the global warming issue of today.

Why Speculate? -- the opening two paragraphs of this speech are priceless.

Some of these speeches are quite long but all are, in my opinion, very insightful.

Enjoy!

Consistently Pro-Life ... A Good Friend's Thoughts

My good friend Marty Martin wrote me an in-depth response to my posting about Ron Sider where I reacted to Sider's thoughts about the issue of whether evangelical Christians are consistently pro-life. Marty's musings were long enough that it seemed beyond what he could reasonably post as a comment so he sent it to me via email. I told him I would put it on my blog as a new posting -- that he could be my first "guest" blogger!

Marty has a strong military background being a graduate of the Air Force Academy (1970). But his military roots are much deeper since many of his family members and in-laws and other relatives going back for three or four generations are graduates of West Point or Annapolis and have long/career military backgrounds. Marty was raised Catholic but is currently a pastor at an Evangelical Presbyterian church. He got his theological training at Covenant Theological Seminary (1982). He also recently spent two years in Congo with Food for the Hungry and continues to be involved with that organization.

I thought it was important for you to have some background information because Marty spends quite a bit of time talking about U. S. involvement in various wars as well as about hunger and about the way Catholics have approached various "life" issues. He does so, not only as someone with a wealth of experience in all these areas, but as someone with formal theological training and with a strong commitment to Evangelicalism. He is a smart man and his friendship is a great blessing.

Having said all of these wonderful (and true) things about him and his credentials, I'll also note that I largely disagree with what he has written on this topic! I'll also not that this will not come as any surprise to Marty.

Marty and I frequently disagree about things political (and occasionally disagree about things theological). I'm working on a response to many of the issues raised in his essay but Christmas and family and other good things have intervened recently. In the meantime, I thought it would be good to give you his observations now (without comment) so that others could agree/disagree as the spirit leads. Here are Marty's comments -- enjoy:

From Marty Martin:
The Roman Catholic Church has long advocated a consistent pro-life ethic that has been described by the "seamless garment" metaphor (a "knitting together" of all sanctity of life issues into one “fabric,” into one consistent ethic). This, to me, is the best theological work that has been done on this very difficult class of issues. The Roman Catholic Church, despite sordid chapters in its history (Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, et al, have similar sordid chapters in their history), has the advantage of being worldwide and not attached to any particular nation or government (some of its worst chapters were written when it did so align itself). This does provide an element of objectivity that a partisan of one particular country or government or economic system can rarely achieve. It is too simple to say that, because war presents too difficult a set of circumstances for us to achieve consensus on, we can leave it out of our pro-life discussions and get back to the one issue (abortion) that conservative Christians agree upon.

Your argument about not applying Christian values to the body politic (e.g., pacifism, non-violence, killing of innocents in war) is exactly the argument that proponents of our current abortion policy apply to that issue. You say that there is no choosing between the lesser of two evils in the case of abortion. Declaring it to be so doesn’t necessarily make it so. The whole point of the argument from the side of the proponents of our current policy is that the “evil” of restricting a woman from determining what is going on inside her body is greater than any evil that might be attached to the aborting. I think you know that I disagree with that line of thinking and have written and spoken against our “abortion on demand” policies for more than 25 years.

Official Roman Catholic teaching and substantial Protestant thinking (e.g., Paul Ramsey and many others) has long recognized the legitimacy of the “just war.” However, this is a two-edged sword (so to speak). Augustine was one of the early framers of this doctrine that subsequently has been carefully, prayerfully developed over the centuries. It limits the circumstances under which wars may be undertaken and it limits the ways and means by which war may be conducted. It speaks to a people (the Church) who have a higher responsibility than their responsibility to their individual countries. It calls upon the church and individual Christians to do the hard work of grappling with whether their country/government is undertaking or has undertaken a “just war” and requires, from a sanctity of life standpoint, that they not participate and should oppose such wars if they do not meet the hard-to-meet restrictions the just war doctrine places on war-making. The whole point of this is that the “collateral damage” (the loss of innocent lives) in an unjust war is every bit as heinous as the aborting of innocents. When we Christians will not even acknowledge that there is a serious issue here, even though our history and some of the best Christian theology says otherwise, then what we have to say about abortion doesn’t ring true to an audience that readily recognizes our own inconsistency. Ignorance of the history and content of the just war doctrine in the Christian Church today is, to me, frightful.

One’s point of departure has a lot to do with one’s conclusions in this tough discussion. An interesting case in point is the dropping of the atom bombs in World War II. Apart from the question of whether WWII was a just war (there is largely universal consensus that it was and I certainly believe it was), not everything undertaken during that war was necessarily just. If one looks at this from the perspective of worldwide Christian missions it looks different from the picture seen by one who espouses an ethic of “the end justifies the means.” Nagasaki was the center of Christianity in Japan. The vast majority of Japan’s Christian population died in that bombing. Hundreds of years of Christian missionary efforts went up in smoke, as did thousands and thousands of totally innocent people. Just war doctrine calls for proportionality of response and discrimination between combatants and non-combatants. Here though, the decision was made to employ a tactic that greatly escalated the kind and level of violence and, by its very nature, ruled out discrimination. According to a consistent pro-life ethic that weaves all of the life issues together, could not one say that any responsibility America bears for the aborting of innocents it also bears for this?

Closer historically, it is also worth pointing out that Christian just war doctrine prohibits pre-emptive wars, especially when the other tenets of the doctrine have not been rigorously applied. Key tenets include the necessity of pursuing (not just “considering”) all other mechanisms for solving the issues before resorting to violence. Saddam was a liar and a thug, but when we accused him of having weapons of mass destruction and he denied it, we were the ones who were wrong. Though there was a mechanism in place and in process to determine whether they were there, he was declared guilty and punishment was meted out. The problem is that he wasn’t the only one who bore the pain of the punishment.

In the summer of 2003, 14,000+ people died in France during a heat wave, Paris being maximally impacted. Many of the French utility workers and healthcare community were on vacation. The temperature rose to 104 degrees f and many of those who died were elderly. At that time, the population of Baghdad was 2 to 3 times the population of Paris and the sustained temperature was 10 degrees hotter. Unlike Paris, in Baghdad the infrastructure was largely destroyed during the “shock and awe” bombing of the city and for a sustained period of time (spring through summer) there was no electricity and there was no water. Additionally, there was very little medical care available to the civilian population. It is always the most vulnerable, the very young and the very old, who are most affected. How many non-combatants do you think died in Baghdad during this period of time? I can’t tell you because no statistics were kept or available. Do you think there will ever be a rigorous attempt made to reconstruct the statistics or answer the question? Do you think these deaths would have occurred anyway? Saddam was a terrible guy, but it would take an amazing sleight of hand to hold him responsible for these deaths. If America denies responsibility for them, who is? God?

Mike, you know that I am a veteran and that I served our country proudly and honorably. I am not a pacifist, but I am an adherent of the just war doctrine and attempts to make it conform to any war a US government may decide to undertake or any action that we might take in an otherwise just war is, in my estimation, not faithful to the gospel. When we say that now the stakes are so high that we cannot afford to live by principles developed long ago from the Scriptures, we are, in an albeit subtle and sophisticated way, saying that the end justifies the means. It may be a practical ethic, but it is not a Christian ethic.

While we are on the subject of inconsistency in life issues, I am concerned that the conservative Christian community is far less concerned about the 23,000 daily deaths due to hunger related causes throughout the world than it is about the abortion issue in the US. Speech like this always seems to sound like a minimization of the abortion issue. I do not think it is. What I do think is that our constant sounding off about that issue while minimizing or dismissing other life issues as irrelevant or too difficult to conclude makes us appear as one-dimensional as I believe we are being. This does, I believe, seriously compromise our witness and brings damage to the cause of Christ.

Obama - the Centrist? (Part 1)

I caught a snippet of an Obama commercial late in the election cycle. He said something to the effect that his election would initiate “fundamental change” in America. I remember thinking that Obama had finally said something with which I agreed.

Since the election, I’ve been amazed at all the people who have suggested that Obama will not introduce fundamental change. Many have suggested that he will govern as a centrist and not as a leftist/liberal. I’m skeptical of this claim.

It seems very strange to claim that a man with Obama’s record will be a centrist. If Rush Limbaugh was elected president, would anyone be saying that he would govern as a centrist? Rush has a record and strong commitments to certain ideological principles and I believe the same is true of Obama.

Obama’s record is liberal. The National Journal, a non-partisan group, ranked Obama as the most liberal senator based on his votes on 99 key economic, social and foreign policy issues that came before the U. S. Senate in 2007. Obama was tied for 10th most liberal in the 2006 senate and the 16th most liberal in the 2005 senate. His past voting record is clearly on the left/liberal side of the political spectrum. (Check here if you want to know more about the methodology of this survey – the methodology has been attacked as partisan by some who do not like the results but if you read about the methodology, I think you’ll agree it is the detractors who are partisan).

Despite my skepticism, I have no choice but to wait and see what happens with Obama. As the old saying goes, actions speak louder than words so let’s see how Obama actually governs. Here are some issues to watch that may give us an early indication of the direction of his administration.

Abortion
(Note: I’m going to talk about abortion as a political issue. As a Christian, I want to be careful to divorce the political issue from the personal issue. Any of us who have been personally involved in an abortion need spiritual rather than political guidance and I believe whole-heartedly that Jesus’ grace, mercy and forgiveness reaches out to those who have aborted babies. I’m not judging anyone’s past – my own list of moral shortcomings is rather long. At the moment, though, I want to look at this issue politically.)

In a July 2007 speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Obama said, “The first thing I will do, as president, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act [FOCA]. That’s the first thing I’d do.”

I believe Obama will follow through on this commitment. In a world where some of his proposals may be hard to implement due to economic constraints, this is one area where he can reward loyal supporters without having to spend any money. And there is one thing that is very clear about FOCA – it is not a centrist position on abortion.

FOCA will invalidate every restriction on abortion before the stage of viability including those restrictions previously found consistent with Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court. Such restrictions include parental notification laws, waiting periods, requirements for full disclosure of the physical and emotional risks inherent in abortion and restrictions on partial birth abortion. It will repeal the Hyde amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions. It might also force religiously based hospitals to perform abortions against their will.

That FOCA will wipe out every restriction on abortion is evident if you read the proposed legislation. It was introduced by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) in 2007. It is a short law with just three key provisions spelled out in only 154 words.

FOCA mandates that “A government may not … deny or interfere with a woman's right to choose … to terminate a pregnancy prior to viability; or to terminate a pregnancy after viability where termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman; …” It also says that a government may not “discriminate against the exercise of the rights set forth in [the Act] in the … provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information.”

A “government” is defined as any “branch, department, agency, instrumentality, or official … of the United States, a State, or a subdivision of a State.” In other words, it covers any federal, state or local government!

“Viability” is defined as the time when there is “reasonable likelihood of the sustained survival of the fetus outside of the woman” as judged by the woman’s attending physician. Even babies at seven months gestation are unlikely to have sustained survival outside the womb without significant medical intervention. Thus, the proposed law’s definition of viability allows for very late term abortions.

The fact that FOCA is designed to erase every restriction on abortion can also be seen by the arguments made by its advocates. The proponents of FOCA argue that the law is necessary because of over 500 “restrictions” on abortion that have been passed by state and local jurisdictions. What else can they be referring to except things like parental notification, etc. as listed above?

Furthermore, the proponents claim that passage of FOCA has now become urgent due to the Supreme Court decision in Gonzales v. Carhart in April 2007 where, according to NARAL and Planned Parenthood, the court upheld “the federal ban on abortion”. Abortion rights advocates consistently use this disingenuous language of a “federal abortion ban” to describe the Gonzales decision.

In reality, of course, Gonzales did not ban abortion. Gonzales was the case where the Supreme Court upheld the Partial Birth Abortion Act of 2003. Only partial birth abortion is banned but the vague terminology of Planned Parenthood, et. al. appears to be a deliberate attempt to mislead people. Those who read their literature would mistakenly believe that the federal government has somehow banned abortion when in fact it has only banned one particularly heinous version of it.

If FOCA is passed, it will be ironic on several fronts.

First of all, some Christians who have voted Republican in the past due the abortion issue indicated that they would no longer let this issue be a driving force in their voting decision. While acknowledging that they disagreed with Obama’s position on abortion, they noted that Republican presidents have promised to overturn Roe v. Wade and have failed to deliver on that promise. They have concluded that presidents cannot do much about the abortion issue. Besides, they argue, there are other “life issues” that need to be considered (I dealt with the “consistently pro-life” debate in a previous blog). Therefore, they claimed that Obama’s abortion position should not be a deal killer in voting for him.

Obama himself argued differently during the campaign. He said that Roe v. Wade would be overturned if he were not elected president. He pointed out that the next president might appoint as many as three Supreme Court justices and the fate of Roe would hinge on whether he or McCain was the one appointing those judges. Thus, some people may have been throwing in the towel on the abortion issue on the verge of success.

But let’s ignore Roe for the moment. The passage of FOCA would also be ironic because it would show that a presidential choice can make a big difference on the abortion issue. A largely Democrat house and senate is like to pass FOCA. If they do, I believe Obama will sign it. This would not happen if McCain was occupying the White House. He would veto the legislation and there would not be enough votes to override a veto.

Thus, Obama’s election may mean that 35 years of incremental progress against abortion will be wiped out in one stroke of the pen.

There are four other issues I’d like to consider more briefly that may give us an indication of Obama’s governing philosophy but this has already gotten way too long. So, I’ll try to include those items in a “Part 2” in the near future.

Getting Reacquainted with Ron Sider

I’m in a group that reads and discusses books related to faith and politics. It’s a great group with lots of political and theological diversity. Our current book is the newest offering from Ron Sider which is entitled The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World?

The timing is interesting for me. I haven’t read any Ron Sider books since I read his provocative Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger in the early 1980s. But I recently heard Sider give several talks at Denver Seminary and I had a chance to ask him a couple of questions in an informal discussion session over lunch.

Full disclosure – I’ve never been a big Sider fan. His heart is in the right place but I’m frequently skeptical of his proposed solutions to issues of poverty and injustice and skeptical of many of the inferences he draws from Scripture.

My skepticism was not assuaged when just five pages into the first chapter I encountered this complaint about evangelical political involvement: “Consider the inconsistency with regard to the sanctity of human life … many highly visible evangelical pro-life movements focus largely on the question of abortion. But what about … the millions of adults killed annually by tobacco smoke?”

I suppose that anyone who writes and speaks as much as Sider will inevitably make some silly statements but his argument here is just drop-dead loony!

If I take Sider at face value, it seems that he does not distinguish between a choice made by an adult for himself that has a statistical chance of shortening that adult’s life versus a choice made by a third party for an in-utero baby that is guaranteed to end the child’s life in a matter of minutes.

Have I missed something? Has there been a recent revelation that adults are being strapped to gurneys and having tobacco smoke pumped into their lungs against their wills?

In fairness, I imagine that Sider believes that tobacco companies have killing millions of people by concealing the connection between smoking and cancer. If so, I can only record my belief that such an assertion is unsupportable.

The first Surgeon General’s report linking cancer with smoking appeared on January 11, 1964. The SG held a big press conference and the news was in all the papers. In fact, I’m almost sure I saw the actual live broadcast of the press conference when I was sick and stayed home from school that day.

In 1965, Congress passed the first law requiring a warning label on cigarette packages. My dad quit smoking in 1968 because he knew he might get lung cancer if he continued this habit. My sister and I were frequently embarrassed by my dad in the late 1960s when we would go to restaurants because he would strike up conversations with smokers at adjacent tables about the dangers of cigarette smoking. He was positively “evangelical” about it.

You can’t make a credible argument that adults don’t know about the dangers of smoking or that they are somehow being “killed” by smoking in the same way that babies are being killed by abortion. The only people in America over the age of ten that are unaware of the health risks of smoking are those people in a coma.

At any rate, I’ll keep you posted on my new adventures with Ron Sider. He had some interesting things to say when I heard him speak at Denver Seminary and I’d like to see where he goes with some of those ideas. Hopefully his analysis will be more enlightening than what I’ve encountered in Chapter 1.

As always, your comments are welcomed and encouraged.

Cruise Blog #2

The best T-shirt with a message that we've seen so far:
Procrastinators of the world ... Unite!

Most perplexing thing heard so far:
"The life rafts are unsinkable." Why don't they just make the whole ship in the same way that the life rafts are made so that we would not even need life rafts?

The Myth about Corporate Taxes

Democrats generally favor tax increases. The last time a Democrat ran for president on a platform of cutting taxes, I was spending my days dressed up as Bat Masterson and struggling to learn long-division. So that you won’t question my mental health status, please understand that the year was 1960 and I was seven!

Of course, raising taxes is never popular. So Democrats almost always resort to class envy to advance their agenda of higher taxes. They are going to cut taxes for most Americans and only raise taxes on the filthy rich (defined in this year’s political debates as those making more than $250k annually ) and on greedy corporations. Don’t worry, average, hard-working Americans, you will not be affected.

For this post, let’s look at the idea of raising taxes on corporations. Imagine that a tax increase on corporations is implemented. One or more of the following effects will occur.

First of all, a company can simply pay the tax and accept a lower profit. With a lower profit, the company is worth less and the value of the company’s stock decreases. The net result is that individual stockholders have paid the tax.

The second thing that a company could do with a tax increase is to pass it on to consumers. This is inflationary and it means that consumers pay the tax through higher prices.

The third and final option for a company hit with a tax increase is to reduce expenses. This allows them to maintain profitability without raising prices. Since the biggest expense for most companies is wages and salaries, this is a logical place to look for savings. Even if wage and salary cuts are not made directly, expense reductions in other areas ultimately translate to unemployment somewhere. A company might, for example, reduce its advertising budget and this affects employment in ad agencies and various media outlets. Thus, in this third scenario, employees ultimately pay for the tax increase through reduced or stagnant wages and/or layoffs.

Lower profits, rising prices and job losses are the inevitable result of corporate tax increases.

A call by politicians for higher corporate taxes is really a call for a declining stock market, rising prices and increased unemployment – and all three impact average, hard-working Americans.

Now Democrats claim to be concerned about declining stock market values and unemployment and high prices for food and energy. Yet they are pursing policies that will create everyone of these problems.

According to Democrats, risky lending practices in the financial sector have caused recent stock market declines and impacted the 401ks of average Americans. Democrats claim that they will protect you from this sort of thing yet higher corporate taxes will create the same effect.

When oil spiked at close to $150 a barrel, Democrats rushed forward to blame manipulative oil speculators and greedy oil companies for a callous disregard of the impact on the budgets of average Americans. But a higher corporate tax is also a cost increase to a corporation and just as likely to lead to increased prices.

Unemployment has risen to 6.1% and Democrats blame this on the policies of the Bush administration and again claim to be terribly concerned about how this impacts the everyday American worker (forget the fact for the moment that unemployment averaged 5.1% for the eight years of the Clinton administration and has average the same 5.1% during the eight years of Bush). Well, empirical studies show that increasing taxes usually lead to job losses.

It appears to me that Democrats are only concerned about stock market declines and escalating prices and loss of jobs unless they are the ones causing them!

Of course, I’m not saying that Democrats want people to be hurt by stock market declines or increases in prices and unemployment. They don’t. But the danger of Democrat style liberalism is that it wants to be judged by its good intentions rather than its actual outcomes.

When Democrats tell you not to worry about tax increases because they are only going to be paid by others, rich corporations in this case, they remind me of the woman in England in WWII. She said that she would not be impacted by the bread shortage because all her family ate was toast! When the bread of corporations is sucked up in higher taxes, there will be no toast of rising profits, lower prices and abundant jobs that benefit all Americans.

The United States should eliminate all corporate taxes since such taxes are ultimately borne by individuals. Calling them corporate taxes simply disguises their true nature.