The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1286276
A-6 Wednesday, September 9, 2020 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg Race for the Cure By Star Parker Points to Ponder By Rev. Ford Bond In defense of common values I have returned with some regular- ity over the years to compare what is going on in our country today to what was going on in the 1850s, the years preceding the Civil War. America has always been about freedom of expression. And that freedom has often led to protests and tension. Generally, we've gotten through these tough and challeng- ing times and moved on. But what caused everything to break down in the 1850s, leading to a horrible Civil War? The answer, I think, is to under- stand the distinction between plurali- ty of opinions and plurality of values. Plurality of opinion is natural and vital to human reality and why free- dom and democracy are so import- ant. Each individual is unique and sees the world in his or her unique way. Each must be able to bring his or her own unique perspective, his or her own opinion, to the table. But plurality of values is different altogether. In order to have the dia- logue necessary to tolerate plurality of opinion, we must be on the same page. We must have the same core values. When we no longer have any com- mon ground in our most basic beliefs, in our most basic values, we lose all basis of being able to communicate and conduct civil discourse. We may have different opinions about health care, education, foreign policy and climate change. But in the 1850s, the differences were about the nature of man, wheth- er blacks were human beings and whether slavery should be tolerated. This is a breakdown in common values, not in opinion. Once the most common values were gone, the basis for civil discourse was gone, and the country broke into war, with broth- er killing brother. Current tensions are supposedly about police brutality, though I think this is a smoke screen. Police brutality is indeed a prob- lem. And it is possible to have civ- il discourse about how to deal with this problem. I have written about it. One issue is police unions. The unions make it al- most impossible to take meaningful punitive action against officers with a track record of poor behavior. Don't agree with me? Let's discuss it. If solving this problem is what all this is about, we can do something. But the violence that is wracking our cities shows there is more going on. Police brutality is being used as an excuse for something more basic. It is being used as an excuse to reject our nation and the truths on which it is based. This becomes obvious in a new book called "In Defense of Looting" by Vicky Osterweil. She justifies looting as a legitimate form of protest. "The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression," she says. This is a point of departure from difference of opinion to difference of common values. I simply cannot conduct civil dis- course with someone who does not accept as a core value and core be- lief that private property is sacred, derived from the biblical principle "thou shalt not steal." The idea that private property is sacred, that theft is sinful, is funda- mental to the truths enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. To attack this principle is to attack the core-value structure on which the country is built. And this indeed is happening. Those protesting, harassing and looting are not expressing displea- sure about police brutality. They are expressing displeasure about Amer- ica. They want to wipe out the USA. Their objective is not to solve the problem of police brutality but to tear down the USA as we know it. This is a time for vigilance for those who care about America as a free nation under God. It is a time for freedom-loving Americans to con- cede no turf and fight to preserve our nation. Star Parker is president of the Cen- ter for Urban Renewal and Educa- tion and author of the new book "Nec- Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Pray for your pastor I stumbled across an article in "Church Answers" written by Thom S. Rainer. Rainer is an internationally known church development expert. His recent article, "Six Reasons Your Pastor Is About to Quit," startled me, and it should you. Most of what I read is nothing new. What made it trou- bling is Reiner in just a few concise comments on church trends, flung open the curtain to the despair ma- ny churches are now experiencing. Despair does not mean hopeless- ness, but the COVID pandemic cou- pled with the social/civil unrest is having a negative impact upon the mission of the church. Reiner writes, "The vast major- ity of pastors with whom our team communicates are saying they are considering quitting their church- es. It's a trend I have not seen in my lifetime." Like the author I can feel the devel- oping undertow, but I was unaware the trend was at a critical stage. I know personally three pastors who have recently investigated finding work in the secular world because of the reasons given by Reiner. Why? Reiner writes, "The pandemic re- ally just exacerbated trends already in place. We would have likely gotten to this point in the next three to five years regardless." Covid-19 is not the main motivat- ing factor why pastors are consider- ing leaving the ministry, but the ap- athy and negativity within the local church that is creating a wall that blocks church growth.Allow me to share his six reasons. First, "Pastors are weary from the pandemic, just like everyone else." Church without people is not church! A pastor's role is shepherd- ing. Numerous governmental au- thorities and some religious organi- zations have restricted and/or forbid- den in-person meetings. The ques- tion being asked, "Is this the "new norm? " I can feel it and every pastor I have conversed with feels the same way –"Let us get back to normal-but what is normal? " Second, "Pastors are greatly dis- couraged about the fighting tak- ing place among church members about the post-quarantine church." Is Covid-19 overblown or are we doing enough? Covid-19 has morphed into a political/social issue and congre- gants have taken entrenched sides. A third point of discouragement is, "Pastors are discouraged about los- ing members and attendance." Atten- dance has fallen off and some mem- bers will never return. Reiner reveals that "up to one-fourth of the mem- bers will not be returning." Some of this is due to spiritual laziness, oth- ers have found churches that are con- ducting "in-person" services, still others have found "livestreaming" services suits their needs. A fourth reason generating dis- couragement is, "Pastors don't know if their churches will be able to finan- cially support ministries in the fu- ture."Is the church going to be able to support "full-time" staff? Who and what local outreach or mission will be cut if giving declines? The fifth reason given is, "Criti- cisms against pastors have increased significantly." In times of uncertain- ty, the most visible becomes the tar- get for misplaced anger and anxi- ety—this often becomes transferred to the pastor. Reiner writes "Church members are worried, weary, and the most convenient target for why the church is struggling is because the pastor is not doing-or has done xyz! We need a new pastor! NOW! The last reason is, "The work- load for pastors has increased great- ly." Considerable ministry is done during in-person worship and vis- its. This has been curtailed since COVID. The big question is, "How to minister when government or your ecclesiastical authorities say not to visit or open? " Add to this the rush to become all things digital (email, YouTube, and/or livestreaming) and make it meaningful? Reiner closes his piece with "Pas- tors are burned out, beaten up, and downtrodden and many are on the verge of quitting, and you may be surprised to discover your pastor is among them." Pastors are human and are sus- ceptible to job stresses and burnout. Most contemplating leaving ministry say it has nothing to do with a sense I like to travel and learn things out- side of my comfort zone. There was a time Rose and I were young and strong and blessed with opportuni- ties to go to far away places. It was not always easy because it involved a lot of preparation, patience and dar- ing. Now, since the restrictions on travel have practically stopped ev- erybody in the world from travelling, that made me seek other ways to vis- it other distant countries and cities. In this electronic age we live in, it is not hard to do that anymore. One of my best sources of information is Youtube. I search different programs for entertainment, information, and adventure via the electronic world. It's really not bad because there's no need to make the arduous task of preparation, do paperwork, pack lug- gage, disturb your body sleep cycles and physiology.(I failed to mention, we're reaching an era of life where stamina and endurance are not as good as they used to be.) I then did a search on different countries and cities for their ranking in regard to best and not-best places to visit, stay, or even live. This infor- mation I'm sharing I think was fair- ly well researched by the author of the program and has a fair amount of credibility. I do not want to leave the im- pression that they are absolute truths, nor absolutely fair or accurate. I take them as good ma- terial for satisfying curiosity, for enter- tainment, and for learning. So, buckle up and relax and stretch your imag- ination. • • • Here's a list of countries ranked as the ten happiest places in which to to live. The author of this analy- sis based his criteria on different things such as quality of life, social and economic support, education, health care, life expectancy, trans- portation, beauty of landscape, peace and order, and minimal to absence of corruption in the government. Here they are in the order of the lower ranked, and then the best. I won't as- sign a number for ranking but you get the idea. Here it is: Austria, Can- ada, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzer- land, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, and the best: Finland. Did you notice that most of them are in Europe, they are smaller in population, tend to have long, cold winters ex- cept one, and more homoge- neous in ethnic origin? I had the fortune to visit five of the ten, and indeed as a keen observer of what makes a country what it is, I think my personal observation is somewhat accurate. I lived in one of them for several years – Canada – and got to know the system and life quite well. It's the on- ly one mentioned to have quite a di- verse ethnic mix. Several of the common threads for these countries is I find they all have good roads, orderly traffic, clean environments, well-kept hous- es and you hardly see run down plac- es. Maybe because places I had the chance to visit were tourist areas. But then as we travelled by bus in those countries, we passed by towns off the beaten paths, and from a dis- tance I could see the view of near- My Point of View By Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Let's travel Heritage Viewpoint By David R. Shedd Enhancing capabilities to counter disinformation We are inundated with informa- tion from a wide array of media, from social media to commercial news feeds. That flood includes large amounts of disinformation. At times, it can pose a threat to national secu- rity. As a nation, we are still strug- gling to respond effectively. Social media has proved to be a remarkably effective platform for transmitting disinformation. A 2018 study published in Science Maga- zine, found that false news spreads on Twitter faster than other types of news and has a greater impact. In fact, tweets with false content were 70 percent more likely to be retweet- ed than fact-based tweets. In a world that faces an ever-in- creasing volume of misinformation, America's foreign policy and nation- al security analyses must be able to separate fact from fiction. The sheer magnitude of the job requires an "all hands on deck" mindset and the will- ingness to pursue non-convention- al approaches. For one thing, we will need to expand the talent base, both analytically and diplomatically, of our national secu- rity information op- erations. Despite being prolific users of social media plat- forms, women have little impact in an- alyzing or shaping the responses to cy- ber-originated dis- information. They remain a small mi- nority among those in the fields of computer science and data analyt- ics fields who have the skills to de- tect and respond to manipulated in- formation. Studies show that women use so- cial media differently and, in more ways, than men. More women re- searchers are needed to help under- stand how promoters of fake news are influencing us. The dearth of women analysts fo- cused on identifying and then coun- tering adversarial information op- erations handicaps us in re- sponding to malign cyber behavior. It's like a pro foot- ball team leaving their offen- sive coach at home and hav- ing their defensive coach call the quarterback's plays. The team may play a competitive game, but they could and should be putting a lot more points on the board. The significant shortfall of women in the field of comput- er and data science is highly prob- lematic. Data scientists are needed to help make sense of data. Comput- er science skills are needed to devel- op tools to detect manipulated infor- mation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have become the new go-to capabilities for addressing large-scale informa- tion access, and these require both data and computer science to devel- Continued on page 7 Continued on page 7 Minority View By Walter E. Williams Diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense Check out any professional and most college basketball teams. Their starting five, and most of their oth- er 10 players, are black, as is 80 per- cent of the NBA. This does not come anywhere close to the diversity and inclusion sought by the nation's so- cial justice warriors. Both profes- sional and college coaches have ig- nored and threw any pretense of seeking diversity and inclusiveness. My question to you is: Would a bas- ketball team be improved if coaches were required to include ethnically diverse players for the sake of equi- ty? I have no idea of what your an- swer might be but mine would be: "The hell with diversity, equity and inclusion. I am going to recruit the best players and do not care if most of them turn out to be black players." Another question: Do you think that any diversity-crazed college presi- dent would chastise his basketball coach for lack of diversity and inclu- siveness? Stanford Linear Accelerator Cen- ter (National Accelerator Laborato- ry) is home to the world's most pow- erful experiments, fastest super- computers and top-notch physics re- searchers. Much of SL AC's research is on particle acceler- ators that are com- plicated machines that are designed, engineered and op- erated to produce high-quality parti- cle beams and de- velop clues to the fundamental struc- ture of matter and the forces be- tween subatomic particles. You can bet that their personnel makeup ex- hibits very little concern about ra- cial diversity, equity and inclusion. The bulk of their scientists is not on- ly Americans of European and Asian ancestry but mostly men. My ques- tion to you is: What would you do to make SL AC more illustrative of the racial, ethnic and sexual diversity of America? As for me, my answer would be the same one that I gave in the basketball example: I am go- ing to recruit the brightest scientists and I do not care if most of them turn out to be men of European and Asian ancestry. In the hard sciences, one will find black Americans underrepresented. For ex- ample, a 2018 survey of the American Astronomical So- ciety, which includes un- dergraduates, graduate stu- dents, faculty members and retired astronomers, found that 82 percent of members identified as white and only 2 percent as black or A frican Amer- ican. Only 3 percent of bachelor's de- grees in physics go to black students. In 2017, some fields, such as struc- tural engineering and atmospheric physics, graduated not a single black Ph.D. The conspicuous absence of black Americans in the scienc- es have little or nothing to do with racism. It has to do with academic preparation. If one graduates from high school and has not mastered a minimum proficiency in high school algebra, geometry and precalculus, PASTOR INCLUSION