Hunger by the Numbers

This interesting article appeared in the Kansas City Star today. Wednesday, May 30

• The maximum benefit for one person on food stamps is $38.75 a week--that's $5.54 per day or just $1.85 per meal.
• Harvesters (a Kansas City local food network) clients who receive benefits say their monthly allotment lasts just 1 1/2 week.
• 65.4 percent of Harvesters clients shop at supermarkets or grocery stores. 24.5 shop at discount stores such as Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart.
• 9.1 percent of food-stamp eligible recipients who have not applied for benefits say they associate a social stigma with food stamps.
• 42.5 percent of those eligible who have not applied think others need the benefits more.
• Among households with at least one child younger than 18, 57.5 percent benefit from the school lunch program and 36.8 percent benefit from the school breakfast program.
• National studies show the average application process for food stamps takes 5 hours of client time and includes multiple trips to the local office.

Source: Local results from hunger in America, 2006

Promise Keepers--new version

Terry Mattingly is one of my favorite Christian columnists. Seldom do I read what I would call a boring or irrelevant column. This guy has a handle on what is going on in Christianity. So I am posting his latest column and would encourage those who read it to get on his mailing list. It's free.

This column was syndicated by Scripps Howard News Service on 05/23/2007

For generations, preachers have been asking the same sobering question to
provoke people to think about ultimate issues: If you died tonight, do you
know where you would spend eternity?

The Rev. Rick Kingham has started asking men a different question, knowing
that too many of them are living lives defined by solo commutes, office
cubicles, fast food, Internet niches, television remotes, eight-foot
fences, garage-door openers and gated communities. Here is the question:
Do you have any idea who will carry your casket out of the church after
your funeral?

Many men struggle to answer.

"It's a sad day when most men can't name six men that they know are their
close friends," said Kingham, president of the National Coalition of Men's
Ministries, a nondenominational network of 110 regional and national
groups. "There are men who -- if they really get honest -- will tell you
that they only have one or two real friends."

That's a huge gap in millions of lives.

A decade ago, waves of men gathered in Washington, D.C., to kneel and
repent of their sins, from spiritual apathy to workaholism, from absentee
fatherhood to emotional aloofness in their marriages. The event was called
"Stand in the Gap" and, with the Promise Keepers movement leading the way,
it drew a million or more men to the National Mall -- one of the largest
gatherings of any kind in the nation's history.

The goal of the 1997 rally, said Kingham, was to dare men to stand up at
church, home and work and say, "I'm a man. I'm a Christian. I'm not
ashamed of that." The event's original slogan was, "Where are the men?"

That remains a valid question, which is why some of leaders of the first
"Stand in the Gap" event have decided to mark its 10-year anniversary with
another rally. They hope to draw about 250,000 men to the Oct. 6 event,
which will be held at the Washington Monument and on the Ellipse, just
south of the White House. The Promise Keepers network, which is much
smaller than at its peak in the late 1990s, is one member of the larger
coalition behind "Stand in the Gap 2007."

Truth is, religious groups that want to reach men face many of the same
cultural challenges as they did a decade ago and some of the problems have
even gotten worse. In the case of online pornography, 1997 was the "good
old days," said Kingham.

"If anything," he said, "there are powerful forces at work in our society
that have driven men even further into isolation than they were 10 years
ago and even further from the kinds of community that they need in their
lives."

While the 2007 event will be smaller in size, its leaders hope to reach
out to a wider audience in terms of the ages of the men who take part.

For better or for worse, the original rally turned into a kind of
born-again Woodstock for men in the 77-million-member Baby Boom
generation. Organizers hope that the program at Stand in the Gap 2007 will
also include speakers and themes for the World War II generation that many
call the "Builders," as well as the post-Boomer generation known as the
"Busters" and the "Millennials," born after 1982.

"If we can find a way to let these four groups of men talk to each other
about what is going on in their lives and their faith, then we will have
accomplished our main goal," said Steve Chavis, who served as media
coordinator for the 1997 rally and is playing the same role again.

The first rally focused most of its energy on family issues and racial
reconciliation and these subjects will surface again. Kingham said Stand
in the Gap 2007 will also emphasize themes of loneliness, complacency and
disillusionment. But after looking inward, men must find ways to reach
beyond their own needs and help others.

Take, for example, all of those Baby Boomers who will soon face
retirement.

"We have to tell these men, 'Don't quit your jobs. ... Use your jobs and
skills in missions, relief and development projects around the world. You
can help the widows and children,' " said Kingham. "There are all kinds of
ways that men can offer a credible witness to what Jesus Christ is doing in
their lives."

NEXT WEEK: Fathers, sons and empty pews.


Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) directs the Washington Journalism Center
at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. He writes this
weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

African Bible Commentary

I lived in Nairobi Kenya for three years and taught Bible, Church History, and Theology at Daystar University College. I met hundreds of fine African scholars along the way. One thing that was noteworthy about them was their high regard for the Bible. Even though they came from backgrounds that included the worship of demons and spirits, they maintained what would be considered a very conservative theological position in regard to Christianity. For example, the Anglican church of Africa has rejected the position held by the Anglican church in the USA that homosexuality is not a sin.

My daughter-in-law, Alisha Paddock, is a fine scholar in her own right. We went to her graduation at Emmanuel School of Religion last week. While there she gave me a copy of the African Bible Commentary, recently published by Zondervan.

I decided that I would read the entire commentary as I prepared for classes. I started out with the book of Matthew in conjunction with my course, "Life and Teachings of Jesus." Immediately I was impressed with the quality of the writing and scholarship presented by the African writers.

My final point is simple. If you are looking for an excellent one-volume commentary on the Bible, then the African Bible Commentary is an excellent choice.

Thanks, Alisha. A great gift.

Graduation Daze

Four years ago our fourth child, a daughter, was enjoying a successful career in the newspaper industry in Anchorage Alaska. She had reached the position of executive assistant to the publisher. But being single and always hungry for adventure, she was ready for a change.

Vicki has traveled to and lived in Kenya. She made Alaska her home fifteen years ago and loves the outdoors--biking, kayaking on the ocean, even trying skydiving once (that was enough she said), playing softball on three or four teams a summer and volleyball all winter. Dull is not the way you would describe her life.

Along the way Vicki became good friends with a lawyer in the military. One result of that friendship was Vicki's decision to enter the world of law. She wrote about several schools she was considering including Kansas University. But at the little church where I minister we were immediately informed that the law school any prospective lawyer should attend was Washburn University in Topeka Kansas.

We sent that word to Vicki and told her that she could live at home free of charge and commute the 60 miles to Topeka every day. She took us up on our offer and as a down payment sent her dog down in May of 2004. Someone from Wamego Kansas was flying back from Alaska and offered to be the "person" accompanying the dog even though he made the trip in the cargo hold.

Vicki arrived in August and immediately began a three year sojourn through the law school of Washburn. On May 12 she received her degree in law. As soon as she passes the bar exam in Alaska she will officially be a bonafide lawyer.

It was celebration time. Her siblings came from Tennessee, Colorado, Oklahoma, and California. A group of friends flew in from Alaska for the big event. For three days we had more excitement than one can imagine. My wife, Arletta worked day and night to keep food prepared for everyone. She had help from church ladies from Zeandale as well as a family in the Presbyterian church where we occasionally go to teach.

Saturday we had open house with all the food people could want. About 50 people showed up and enjoyed Navajo tacos. If you have never had Navajo tacos, then you haven't lived yet. I won't try to describe this delicacy that we learned about from the Navajo Indians in Arizona. But it is great! Vicki's brothers worked to roll out the tacos and deep fry them.

Now the dust is settling. All of the siblings are gone. We put the youngest with his daughter on a Southwest Airliner and sent him back to Tennessee. Wednesday Vicki and her friend Kim begin the odyssey back to Alaska. She will be sorely missed.

Pope has new view of Limbo

Vatican report eases doctrine on fate of unbaptized children (From AP)
Vatican City: "Pope Benedict XVI has reversed centuries of traditional Roman Catholic teaching on limbo.

He approved a Vatican report released Friday that says there are "serious" grounds to hope that children who die without being baptized go to heaven.

Theologians said the move was significant, both for what it says about Benedict's willingness to buck a longstanding tenet of Catholic belief and for what it means theologically about the church's views on heaven, hell and original sin--which the church believes all children are born with.

Although Catholics have long believed that their children who die without being baptized are excluded from heaven because of their original sin, the church has no formal doctrine on the matter." [end of article]

Anyone who knows the history of the Roman Catholic church in this matter knows that this represents a significant change in doctrine. Not only do the Roman Catholics believe in original sin, but so do many other denominations, many of them mainline protestants. Perhaps God is able to cure original sin at birth, thus making it unnecessary to baptize infants any longer. Then we can return to the biblical and historical position that says baptism is for those who are old enough to understand what they are doing.

Further information can be found at

http://www.religioustolerance.org/limbo2.htm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070420/ts_nm/pope_limbo_dc
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2028721620070420

British view of America from BBC

My good friend Stacy Slagle keeps up with BBC every week and occasionally he sends by some interesting material. Check out this site for a British evaluation of the great American experiment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6613861.stm

First Blog

Thanks to an idea forwarded to me by Scott Caulley, I decided to try a blog. I then contacted one of my computer guru sons and he pointed me to the Google site for blogging. So it is here. I come across a lot of things I would like to pass on and perhaps this site will help me do that.