The Press-Dispatch
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The Press-Dispatch Wednesday, November 1, 2017 D-7 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 Five Hundred years ago yester- day an obscure Augustinian monk, Martin Luther, nailed a handbill to a castle door in Wittenberg, Ger- many, asking for an academic de- bate. He wanted to debate the mer- its of the church selling Indulgenc- es; as sold the purchaser was guar- anteed entrance to heaven. What would follow would shake the Catholic Church to its core, and it would never be the same. What had brought the Church to this point that a theological disagreement from an obscure monk in an obscure place would tear the church in-two? We begin with the Great East/West Schism of 1054 when the problems with- in the church tore it in twain. By the early 9th century, the Church had grown exponentially across the western world; while at the same time, two churches were de- veloping [West and East]. Issues that strained the two centered up- on what bishop held the highest rank, who spoke for the church, the use of religious icons, and the workings of the Holy Spirit just to mention a few. In 1054 AD, the emissary of the pope at Rome excommunicated the patriarch of Constantinople, who in turn excommunicated the pope. The excommunication were eventually rescinded, but the dam- age was done. The church was split in the Western Catholic [Univer- sal] Church and the Eastern Orthodox [right way] Church. The Western [Cath- olic] church began a slow and long de- cline in its spirituality, which would result in the Church at one time having three popes [1417] and becoming greatly divided. The issues among those seek- ing a revival within the church were more than the hierarchy of Rome. It involved dogmas of the church and traditions. The church tolerated no dissention and serious theological opposition was dealt with harshly. This is the back- ground that Martin Luther was born into in 1483. Luther loved God but was un- sure of his salvation. He made a pil- grimage to Rome, fasted, prayed, and confessed his sins constantly. However, no matter how hard he tired, he never shook the dread that he was condemned and would face the judgement of Christ. Lu- ther would write, "I lost touch with Christ the Savior and Comforter, and made of him the jailer and hangman of my poor soul." Over a period of years, Luther continued to wrestle with righ- teousness, faith, and judgment as he earned his univer- sity degrees in The- ology. Luther's spiritu- al wrestling came to a head while teach- ing at Wittenberg. He would write of his spir- itual deliverance years later: "At last [by 1514] meditating day and night, by the mercy of God, I ... began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith… Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise it- self through the gates that had been flung open." What had captivated Luther was the quote of the apostle Paul in the Book of Romans from Habakkuk 2:4: "Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith." Whose faith? Who is just? There it was; the repentant man was made just [justified] before God by his faith in Christ! His agony of the soul was over, and as he taught and preached, he did so with boldness. Faith, not rit- uals, is what justifies a man to God. Continued on page 8 Continued on page 8 Continued on page 8 Minority View by Walter E. Williams The Weekly by Alden Heuring Undermining America Points to Ponder by Rev. Ford Bond The just shall live by faith Subsidizing sports stadiums Lucid Moments by Bart Stinson Atheists decry public memorial Heritage Viewpoint by Edwin J. Feulner War memorials can be easy to miss. They're often tucked away in small parks, virtually invisible to all but those who approach them on foot. Not so the Peace Cross. Standing more than 40 feet high, the concrete edifice was dedicated almost a hundred years ago "to the heroes of Prince George's County, Maryland who lost their lives in the Great War for the liberty of the world." Each of the four faces of the cross is inscribed with a word: "val- or, endurance, courage, devotion." If this strikes you as a fitting and dignified expression of gratitude to those who gave what President Lin- coln called "the last full measure of devotion," consider yourself lucky. A fter all, you could belong to the American Humanist Association (AHA). The atheist group consid- ers this striking memorial to be not only offensive, but unconstitu- tional. In fact, the group has been suing for years to have the Peace Cross removed. In their view, the cross – which was listed on the National Regis- ter of Historic Places in 2015 – carries "an inherently religious message and creates the unmistakable ap- pearance of honoring only Christian ser- vicemen." The AHA has been rebuffed by the courts before, but on Oct. 18, they final- ly got their way. A three-judge pan- el of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that the Peace Cross amounts to a government sponsorship of a particular reli- gion. That would mean it violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Except, of course, that it doesn't. To understand why, consider why a Maryland federal judge, Deb- orah Chasanow (a Clinton appoin- tee), threw out the AHA's case in 2015. In an effort to prove that the Peace Cross somehow violates the Establish- ment Clause, the group offered a "Washington Post column indicating that there were at least three Sunday religious services held at the Monument in 1931." And actually, that's it. They had to go back more than 80 years to make their feeble case. Judge Chasanow countered this by noting that the "vast majority" of events and gatherings at the Peace Cross have been in "commemora- tion of Memorial Day or Veterans Day." In other words, they haven't been inherently religious at all. Moreover, the court could find no evidence of any "religious pur- pose whatsoever" in the work of the Commission that erected the Our nation's leftist progressives have long sought to undermine the American values expressed in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Though typical Democrats and Republicans do not have this leftist hate for our nation, they have been willing accomplic- es in undermining the most basic value the Founding Fathers sought to promote – limited government. Leftists have had their greatest successes in undermining Ameri- can values on the nation's college campuses. Derelict and dishonest college administrators, professors and boards of trustees have given them carte blanche. Let's look at some of it. Students at the University of Virginia desecrated the statue of Thomas Jefferson, the university's founder. Students at the University of Missouri want Jefferson's statue gone. Why? He was a slave own- er. Many in the college communi- ty supported Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential bid. They welcomed Sanders' belief that the United States was founded on "racist prin- ciples." There have also been calls for the removal of George Wash- ington's and Abraham Lincoln's statues. Some have called for the renaming of schools that honor Washington, Jefferson and 11 oth- er slave-owning presidents. Left- ists have called for the renaming of streets named after slave-owning presidents. There have been ma- ny leftist calls for the elimination of Columbus Day. Their success at getting Confederate statues taken down has emboldened them. What goes unappreciated is just why America's leftists' movement attacks the Founders. If they can delegitimize the Founders them- selves, it goes a long way toward their agenda of delegitimizing the founding principles of our nation. If the leftists can convince the na- tion that men such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were good- for-nothing slave-owning racists, then their ideas can be more easi- ly trashed. We find the greatest as- saults on our founding documents on the nation's college campuses. The average parent, taxpayer and donor has absolutely no idea of the bizarre lessons that col- lege professors are teaching stu- dents. Professor Adam Kotsko of Shimer College teaches, "Wheth- er or not your individual ancestors owned slaves, you as a white per- son have benefitted from slavery and are complicit in it." Dr. Micah Johnson, a research assistant and graduate student instructor in the University of Florida's department of sociology and criminology and law, teaches that the American notion of patriotism is "drenched in whiteness" and that patriotism implies that black people are "un- American." These types of attacks on Amer- ican values have reached one of our most prestigious institutions of higher learning – the U.S. Mil- itary Academy. The administra- tion at West Point knew of 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone's disqualify- ing insubordination at the acade- my, extremist political views and regulation-breaking online activ- ity. Proof has surfaced that West Point leadership knew as early as 2015 that Rapone was an avowed communist and held Marxist anti- American beliefs (http://tinyurl. com/ybnppvm6). One of his Face- book posts read, "F – – this coun- try and its false freedom." De- spite Rapone's conduct and dem- onstrated hatred of our nation, the U.S. Military Academy's adminis- tration saw fit to allow Rapone to graduate in 2016. But the rot at our premier mili- tary academy goes beyond the trai- torous ideas of Rapone's. That was revealed in an open letter written by retired Army Lt. Col. Robert Heffington, once a professor of his- tory at West Point (http://tinyurl. com/yb6dljy8). Heffington's letter exposed widespread corruption, cheating and falling standards at the academy to which the admin- istration has turned a blind, polit- ically correct eye. In response to Heffington's widely circulated let- ter, the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy, Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., released a standard bureaucratic letter saying the ad- ministration will address the con- cerns raised in Heffington's letter Let's play dress-up Continued on page 8 My Point of View by Dr. H. K. Fenol, Jr., M.D. Humor. It's one of the best medi- cines to heal a lot of things like sad- ness, depression, anxiety, boredom, and other ails. So the Good Lord in His wisdom endowed us with this gift, and when used appropriately, it lightens a lot of burdens. I do watch a lot of humorous pro- grams, and try very hard to be care- ful what I watch. There was a time when comedy was real clean, such as Bob Hope, Red Skelton, Johnny Carson, and humorous programs like The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. And then, the whole culture changed. I started hearing terrible lan- guage and raunchy jokes which be- came toxic and no longer entertain- ing. I am saddened by the prevailing use of unprintable words which make me cringe. It is very hard to find good comedy programs anymore, espe- cially stand-up comedy. One of the humorous programs I watch produced in the recent era is Humor Continued on page 8 Continued on page 8 Note: This column originally printed in October 2016—but good Halloween costumes never go out of style! All Saint's Day is almost upon us! Have you decided what cos- tume you're going to wear to the party? (Come on, don't be shy, we both know you got invited to one. Who wouldn't want you at their All Saint's Eve party?) Whether you're the Halloween party type or not, I hope you'll en- joy my hand-picked shortlist (and by short I mean I only have space for two) of hot and happening cos- tume ideas for this holy holiday. (It's easy to forget about the good ol' saints when you're guzzling a pumpkin-spice-flavored adult bev- erage and redecorating your best friend's lawn with two-ply rolled tissue, but they're up there, and they're praying for you. Probably smiling exasperated smiles and shaking their heads at you, too, you darned party animal, you.) So without further ado, let's get to the costumes! For each cos- tume, I'll briefly explain the con- cept, suggest some supplies to make it happen, then for the veter- an cosplayers out there, talk about how you can "really sell it" by get- ting into the role/character depict- ed by the costume. Enjoy! Costume: Saint Peter the Apos- tle Who better to flatter by imita- tion than that bad boy of the Book of Life, old Cephas himself? Saint Peter is perhaps one of the most relatable characters in the Bi- ble: he's brash and excitable, he doesn't run or swim well, he's just kind of stupid sometimes, but Je- sus works with him anyway and entrusts him with the keys to the kingdom. Then when the Spir- it comes down on Pentecost, Pe- ter steps up to the plate, goes all in on Christ's Church, and never looks back. (Maybe one too ma- ny sports metaphors there, but you get the idea.) What you need: There's a few di- rections you could go here. First, the obvious. "Peter" means "rock," so you'll need a lot of paper ma- che, some chicken wire, a buck- et of non-lead-based grey paint... Oh, you wanted to dress up as a person? Try a white tee ( V-neck is preferable because it looks more like a tunic), a warm robe or two, and some hiking sandals. Also some kind of pants and underwear, I guess. No socks though! Then find a fishing net (not fish- nets) and drape it over one shoul- Shortly before I was born, Mil- waukee's socialist government built a government-financed base- ball stadium and enticed the Bos- ton Braves to abandon the East Coast. Eventually, Atlanta would give Milwaukee a taste of its own medicine, and lure the Braves south. All my life, professional sport franchises have been pres- suring local governments to share the costs and risks of building their enormously expensive facilities on prime urban real estate. If you don't live in a major metro- politan area, you might be breath- ing a sigh of relief now. But not so quick—due to the municipalities' ability to issue tax-free bonds, your federal government effectively as- sumes a large fraction of the cit- ies' largesse to the sport cartels. Do you live in rural downstate In- diana? We thank you for your sup- port. You helped subsidize Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis by $163 million in federal tax benefits. Hate the Bears? Sorry about that, but you've subsidized Sol- dier Field by $205 million. I hope you're a Yankees fan, because you're on the hook for $431 million in the Bronx. Oh, and rap- per Jay Z thanks you too, even though he no longer owns the Bar- clays Center or its ten- ant Brooklyn Nets. Just think how much more valuable his stake was, and how much more he could sell it for, when enhanced by a whopping $122 mil- lion tax benefit. Since 2000, 36 new profession- al sports stadiums have been fi- nanced by tax-free municipal bonds. According to the Brook- ings Institution, a Washington think tank, federal taxpayers have absorbed $ 3.2 billion of the cost of building private sport stadiums during that time. It's even more ($ 3.7 billion) if you include the tax benefits to high-income inves- tors who buy the tax-free munici- pal bonds that build the stadiums. If you're bundling up for work in Fairbanks today, you may be mys- tified why you should underwrite the profit- ability of a New York City team already val- ued at $ 3.4 billion, 4,000 miles away. I can't help you with that. I don't even un- derstand why locals should subsidize a privately-owned pro- fessional team. The overall subsidy since 2000, including state and municipal con- tributions, is a much bigger num- ber, somewhere between $10 bil- lion and $12 billion. You could build a lot of bridges and hospi- tal wings with that kind of money. Maybe cities wouldn't need to send pink slips to kindergarten teachers and rookie cops if they didn't give the store away to sport tycoons. I've heard the claims that profes- sional sport franchises are an im- portant driver of economic devel-