The wind may be invisible but its coming
is known when its gentle breeze sounds a WindChime. Whoever has ears
for it can recognize it and will listen to it. God's revelation is like
a gentle wind. Man's spirit is like a windchime. When it is tuned
properly to the Spirit of God, it hears with understanding God's
inspired word.
The problem of human trafficking is once more gaining some attention on the news lately as reported.
I remember few days ago, as we were lining up for the baggage check-in procedure at the NAIA terminal on our connecting return trip from Singapore, I chanced upon this Jejemon-looking youngster remarkably advocating against human trafficking in his own unique little way. At his age, I was quite impressed that such social problem found some space in his young mind.
How many of our today's young generation have such sort of social awareness?
Why Fighting Corruption is not Enough By Walden Bello INQUIRER.net
After nine years of witnessing increasing poverty among the masses and spiraling corruption in high places, it is understandable that Filipinos see a strong correlation between corruption and poverty. And the judgment of many is probably correct that the candidates that are free of the taint of corruption stand the best chance of turning this country around. Moral leadership may not be a sufficient condition for successful leadership but it certainly has become a necessary condition in a country that has been so deprived of exemplary public figures like the Philippines.
Corruption, however, has become the explanation for all our ills, and this brings with it the danger that, after the elections, campaign rhetoric might substitute for hard analysis on the causes of poverty, leading to wrong, ineffectual prescriptions for dealing with the country’s number one problem.
Let me be more explicit: Corruption must be condemned and corrupt officials must be prosecuted because being a violation of public trust, corruption undermines faith in government and leads to an erosion of the moral bonds among citizens that serve as the foundation of good governance. Corruption, however, is unlikely to be the main cause of poverty. Wrongheaded policies are, and clean-cut technocrats have been responsible for more poverty than corrupt politicians.
The complex of policies that have pushed the Philippines into the economic quagmire over the last 30 years might be summed up in that formidable term: structural adjustment. Also known as neoliberal restructuring, it involved prioritization of debt repayment; conservative macroeconomic management that involving huge cutbacks in government spending; trade and financial liberalization; privatization and deregulation; and export-oriented production. Structural adjustment came to the Philippines courtesy of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, but it was internalized and disseminated as doctrine by local technocrats and economists as doctrine.
Prioritizing Debt Repayment
Corazon Aquino was personally honest and her contribution to the reestablishment of democracy was indispensable, but her submitting to the International Monetary Fund's demand to prioritize debt repayment over development brought about a decade of stagnation and continuing poverty. Interest payments as a percentage of total government expenditures went from 7 percent in 1980 to 28 percent in 1994. Capital expenditures, on the other hand, plunged from 26 percent to 16 percent. Since government is the biggest investor in the Philippines—indeed in any economy—the radical stripping away of capital expenditures goes a long way toward explaining the stagnant one percent average yearly growth in gross domestic product in the 1980’s and the 2.3 per cent rate in the first half of the 1990’s.
In contrast, our Southeast Asian neighbors ignored the IMF’s prescriptions. They limited debt servicing while ramping up government capital expenditures in support of growth. Not surprisingly, they grew by 6 to 10 percent from 1985 to 1995, attracting massive Japanese investment while the Philippines barely grew and gained the reputation of a depressed market that repelled investors.
Trade and Financial Liberalization
When Fidel Ramos came to power in 1992, the main agenda of his technocrats was to bring down all tariffs to 0 to 5 percent and bring the Philippines into the World Trade Organization and the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), moves that were intended to make trade liberalization irreversible. A pick-up in the growth rate in the early years of Ramos sparked hope, but the green shoots were more apparent than real, and they were, at any rate, crushed as a result of another neoliberal policy: financial liberalization. The elimination of foreign exchange controls and restrictions of speculative investment attracted billions of dollars in the period 1993-1997. But this also meant that when panic hit the ranks of foreign investors in Asia in the summer of 1997, the same lack of capital controls facilitated the stampede of billions of dollars from the country in a few short weeks in mid-1997. This pushed the economy into recession and stagnation in the next few years.
The Estrada administration did not reverse course, and under the presidency of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, neoliberal policies continued to reign. New liberalization initiatives in the next few years were initiated on the trade front, with the government negotiating free trade agreements with Japan and China. These pacts were entered into despite clear evidence that trade liberalization was destroying the two pillars of the economy, industry and agriculture.
Radical unilateral trade liberalization severely destabilized our manufacturing sector, with textile and garments firms, for instance, being drastically reduced from 200 in 1970 to 10 in recent years. As one of Arroyo’s finance secretaries admitted, “there’s an uneven implementation of trade liberalization, which was to our disadvantage.” While he speculated that consumers might have benefited from the tariff liberalization, he acknowledged that “it has killed so many local industries.”
As for agriculture, the liberalization of our agricultural trade after we joined the World Trade Organization in 1995 transformed the Philippines from a net food exporting country and consolidated it into a net food importing country after the mid-1990’s. The year 2010 is the year that the China ASEAN Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiated by the Arroyo administration goes into effect, and the prospect of cheap Chinese produce flooding our markets has made our vegetable farmers fatalistic about their survival.
Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman guards it in vain. (Psalms 127:1)
In the absence of a corruption-free governance in a society (corruption-free, in a deeper sense, free from spiritual corruption, that the divine principles of righteousness bring), no governmental and societal reform could ever succeed. No matter how strong and complex a structure may be built but if it sits on a weak foundation, it will just be a matter of time and the whole structure will fall miserably as soon as its weak foundation is crushed by its weight. The very heavy demands of genuine reforms' structural framework alone (click the figure above to enlarge and see the diagram) will already need the support of a very strong and most stable foundation.
[Luke 6:47-49] Everyone who comes to me, and hears my words, and does them, I will show you who he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it was founded on the rock. But he who hears, and doesn't do, is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.
Right reforms work for the accomplishment of the divine principles of righteousness because they emanate from the intellect of man -- intellect that the Lord blessed man with which enables him to choose to do the good and right things that bring prosperity and blessings to his fellowmen.
[1 Corinthians 3:10-13] According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ [the Divine Righteousness]. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble; each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is.
Since the end of the last decade the emphasis has moved from building public awareness on corruption issues to understanding the nature of corruption and its effects on the economy, society and politics; understanding the nature of the beast as it were. The global anti-corruption movement, therefore, has moved towards research and a host of rigorous tools have been developed to study and monitor corruption wherever it takes place. Hand in hand with this, efforts to combat corruption have moved from the moral exhortation stage to a phase that has seen greater attention focused on developing holistic anti-corruption strategies that are built on equal pillars of prevention, enforcement and public education.
In the past it was sometimes argued that fighting corruption meant mainly streamlining administrations and reforming bureaucratic red tape. The economic liberalization programs implemented by many African governments over the past decade and a half were partly put in place with the premise that the weakening of central controls on economic affairs would reduce discretionary decision-making by the government in economic affairs and thus corruption and inefficiency. Indeed, as you shall find out, economic liberalization in many cases has led to new and sometimes deadly forms of corruption and economic crimes generally.
What the efficiency argument proponents overlook is the fact that more often than not the inefficiencies and irritating red tape exists by design, not by accident, and that its removal is not simply a paper exercise. It is also acknowledged today that administrative reforms by themselves do not improve matters significantly, though they do help. The equation C (corruption) = M (monopoly) + D (discretion) -A (accountability) often used to explain corruption, omits V (values), and seems to suggest that ethics are an irrelevance. In studying the apparent intractability of corruption in many countries V (values) has risen to the fore along with other vital linkages that help present a more comprehensive picture of the nature of corruption in any given country. The link between poverty and corruption is one of these vital relationships and, as you shall find in chapter 2, corruption is an important cause of poverty because it promotes unfair distribution of income and inefficient use of resources.
Defining Corruption
It is not intrinsically useful to make qualitative distinctions between corruption in various parts of the world. At the end of the day it often means the same thing: the abuse of public office for private gain. However, this can be broken up into petty corruption, grand corruption and looting. Petty corruption involves relatively minor amounts of money or gifts changing hands where one of the parties is themselves a relatively minor official in the organization or system within which the transaction takes place. For example paying a policeman one dollar to ignore the fact that your car's license has expired. Grand corruption most often involves businessmen and government officials of senior rank and the figures involved are significant. Examples of these are kick-backs paid to officials on government public works contracts.
The third type of corruption is 'looting' and has recently been described by some commentators as large-scale economic delinquency. It differs slightly from petty and grand corruption, however, and is sadly prevalent in those developing countries where institutions of governance are particularly weak. It usually involves the kind of scams whose figures are so huge that when they are successfully concluded they have macroeconomic implications fairly quickly -- they cause banks to collapse, inflation to rise, the exchange rate to decline. The impetus for looting is often political and it happens under the direction or with the acquiescence of important political players in a given country. It often involves, for example, the printing of currency to fund fictitious projects, using public revenues to award enormous contracts to individuals who never supply the goods or the services. The primary movers in the companies behind these scams don't just cream off 10 or 20 percent with a cut within that for the higher-ups. In these deals the cut can be as high as 100 percent and most of the cash goes to the higher-ups. These resources fund election campaigns and pay for private militias in many African countries.
Another important distinction between grand corruption and looting is that in cases of grand corruption a minister may take a kickback of 100,000 dollars on a government road construction contract worth a million dollars. The road is built but its quality does not reflect its cost. Looting on the other hand is a much more premeditated activity because it often entails the deliberate creation of a government project for which resources will be allocated and spent but the project is not meant to be completed from the outset. If grand corruption is manslaughter, then looting is murder. Looting, as far as I can tell is most prevalent in a number of developing countries and I have also heard of it in relation to certain countries in transition. To understand it with a view to dealing with it one needs to examine the context that facilitates it.
Corruption As An Elite Activity
Many African countries are characterized by weak and vulnerable national governance institutions, such as parliament, the judiciary, civil service and police; a limited democratic culture; and, human, natural, technological resources that are not developed. Many of these countries are also characterized by an environment where there is limited awareness on the part of wider population with regard to consequences of corruption. In this type of environment, the very character of vital national institutions such as the civil service, judiciary, legislature, police and others are transformed. Even though one cannot sometimes tell from the outside, an alternative or parallel power structure develops that has tentacles in all economic, political and social sectors. This structure has one primary purpose, to maintain the ruling elite's hold on state power and, therefore, the primary mode of economic accumulation.
Many African elites of today have acquired wealth through connections to the state or via participation in the state itself through politics, the civil service or military. They are the ones who win most government contracts, are able to obtain loans from state-owned financial institutions most easily; are able to apply successfully for government allocations of public land and are able to lobby most effectively for government tax concessions, changes in investment regulations and the like. Corruption, the serious corruption that undermines development in the most sudden and debilitating ways, is an elite activity. When elites that are part of informal structures of power perpetrate much of the most harmful corruption, it exacerbates already serious levels of poverty and economic inequality. This is partly because in the economies where such elites flourish the governance institutions are weak and members of the elite and their associates are almost literally beyond the law. As a result the well-connected people don't have to pay the same taxes like everyone else; policemen and other junior officials seeking small bribes don't dare solicit cash from them. At the end of the day it is the poor and the weak who face the true brunt of corruption. This is a critical link between corruption and poverty. The fight against corruption in many developing countries like Kenya is economic because it deepens poverty, exacerbates inequalities and makes for economies whose very structure is skewed. It is also political because corruption breeds impunity and undermines vital governance institutions sustaining shadow power structures. The fight against corruption is also social and cultural because where impunity with regard to corruption prevails one finds the corrupt transformed into latter day heroes and the principles of honesty and hard-work become unattractive.
The fight against corruption is not an insurmountable struggle. The first step in dealing with a problem is recognizing it exists and this has happened in Kenya. The second stage involves understanding the nature of corruption and facilitating the implementation of viable anti-corruption strategies. This book, analyzing as it does the links between corruption and poverty, is an important step in promoting this understanding that exemplifies the second phase in the global struggle against corruption.
Obama turns up the heat for health care overhaul By Philip Elliott, Associated Press Writer Yahoo News
President Barack Obama is trying to persuade a weary public and wavering Democrats to get behind his frantic, late-stage push on health care, while Republicans dig in and demand starting from scratch after a year's worth of work.
"Now, despite all the progress and improvements we've made, Republicans in Congress insist that the only acceptable course on health care is to start over. But you know what? The insurance companies aren't starting over," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday.
"I just met with some of them on Thursday, and they couldn't give me a straight answer as to why they keep arbitrarily and massively raising premiums — by as much as 60 percent in states like Illinois. If we do not act, they will continue to do this."
Republicans were not swayed.
"It's not too late: We can, and we must, stop this government takeover of health care," said Rep. Parker Griffith, a retired physician and a first-term congressman from Alabama who switched parties in December and delivered the GOP message.
The competing addresses underscored the urgency behind Obama's last-ditch push for immediate health care reform. Without a victory — and quickly — Democrats move into a fast-approaching election season without a major, tangible accomplishment that affects voters' pocketbooks. And with a chasm remaining between the two parties, Democrats considered passing the overhaul with votes just from their party.
That process would let the 59 Senate Democrats declare victory with 51 votes instead of a 60-vote supermajority. It also would allow Obama's team to get back to talking about the economy, which has shed more than 8 million jobs since the recession began.
Obama is pleading with Democrats to overcome divisions to seize a historic moment to remake the health care system during this election year. The White House wants to pass a health care overhaul and then campaign on it. Voters will pick candidates to serve 34 Senate seats; the entire House is up for re-election.
White House officials hope the immediate changes in the health overhaul would be enough to satisfy voters' expectations — and Democratic lawmakers who were hardly unified in support of the plan.
If Democrats pass the plan, voters would find greater consumer protections and a ban on discriminating against customers with previous ailments. Small businesses would receive a tax credit this year, insurance companies would no longer be able to drop patients' coverage if they become sick, and plans would be required to offer free preventive care to customers.
Griffith said leaders of the Democratic Party he left last year were missing the point.
"For them, health care reform has become less about the best reforms and more about what best fits their 'Washington knows best' mentality — less about helping patients and more about scoring political points," he said. "This is no idle observation. I've witnessed it firsthand."
On a drizzly day in June 1978, Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn delivered a riveting commencement address to a crowded audience on Harvard Yard that would shake the foundations of the way Americans thought about themselves.
"When the modern Western states were being formed," he said, "it was proclaimed as a principle that governments are meant to serve man and that man lives in order to be free and pursue happiness. In the process, however, one psychological detail has been overlooked: the constant desire to have still more things and a still better life and the struggle to this end imprints many Western faces with worry and even depression, though it is customary to carefully conceal such feelings. This active and tense competition comes to dominate all human thought and does not in the least open a way to free spiritual development" (emphasis added).
Two years earlier Francis Schaeffer wrote that the majority of people had adopted two impoverished values: personal peace and affluence. "Affluence means an overwhelming and ever-increasing prosperity--a life made up of things, things, and more things--a success judged by an ever-higher level of material abundance" (emphasis added).
Why are Americans caught up in the constant desire for more and more things?
The material prosperity we enjoy is a modern miracle. In 1950 our homes were one-third their present size, no one had heard of an invention called a "personal computer," Greyhound was how America traveled, space exploration was an abstract idea, television was an infant, and a millionaire was a rarity. Our progress would make even Solomon burn with envy. Who would have guessed that, in the 65 short years since the end of the Great Depression (1942) and World War II (1945), America would achieve such a remarkable standard of living--even in the middle of such a devastating recession? Yet, our prosperity has a dark side.
The dominant economic theory in America in our lifetime has been consumerism. Webster's Dictionary defines consumerism as: "the economic theory that a progressively greater consumption of goods is beneficial." Is this true? A glance at newspaper ads and TV commercials readily proves that, true or not, the world of commerce diligently applies this theory to their marketing and business plans.
All in all, America is sick. We have a bad case of the "-isms." Standing behind this constant desire for more and more things are a host of addictions to "-isms," such as individualism, hedonism, materialism, relativism, careerism, secularism and materialism. Materialism is buying things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.
The American opportunity for prosperity has spun out of control. We have created a nation addicted to consumption rather than production. Rather than an overriding desire to produce value and make a contribution, we have created a culture that wants the benefits of labor without the obligation to perform it. Richard Weaver says we have observed the extinction of the idea of mission--that men no longer dream of high goals like building a cathedral. The end result is self-pampering and eventually self-disgust, for the ancient truth that labor is therapeutic has been lost. Man's decision to live wholly in this world is evidenced by the worship of comfort rather than making a contribution to the public good.
There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with consuming. It is elevating consuming and consumption to a philosophy of life that leads to sin. Paul said it best: "Those who use the things of this world (should live) as though not engrossed with them" (1 Corinthians 7:31). While consumption is no sin, it is "pre-sin." Virtually any good thing can become sinful when carried to the extreme. The Scriptures put it this way: "A little yeast works its way through the whole batch of dough" (1 Corinthians 5:6) and "'Everything is permissible for me'--but not everything is beneficial" (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Forces That Encourage Materialism in Social Structures
The constant desire for more and more things is encouraged in social structures. The availability of installment credit, which Daniel Bell calls "the greatest single engine in the destruction of the Protestant work ethic," has eliminated the need to postpone acquisitions and defer gratification until a time when people can pay with cash they have saved. Today, we can instantly gratify our desires for an ever-growing litany of products, which--according to Madison Avenue--symbolize progress and change.
A fascination with new things creates a restlessness in modern man. Through the structure of advertising the ethic of "sell" constantly bombards us with the newest, most improved gadgets. Madison Avenue pin-stripers have created a phenomenon we might call psychological obsolescence. We are made to feel itchy for a new car, even though the one we have had for only three years runs fine.
The advances of technology give Americans "convenience, comfort, speed, hygiene, and abundance" in such proportion that there seems to be little need to look anywhere else for fulfillment, meaning, and purpose. Indeed, we don't even need to plumb the meaning of death because we can postpone it.
Forces That Encourage This Desire in Philosophy
Previous cultures took it as a task to preserve their culture--its inventions, values, etc. Today, this is almost seen as a wicked idea. Change, even change for the sake of change, is a virtue. C. S. Lewis said that what one generation called permanence, we now call stagnation. This idea inexorably feeds the desire for more and more things.
An evolution from community to individualism has made us a more anthropocentric culture. Today the manager and the therapist, products of this individualism, define the outlines of American culture. The assumption is that we can manage and fix everything, whether a problem in production or making someone feel good about themselves. We have seen a loss of language that speaks for the public and common good, and of a concern for community. The triumphant language today is that of individualism, a concern for the individual. This has in turn led to self-centeredness. Selfishness inevitably leads to a desire for more and more things.
Problems It Has Caused: Theological Compromise
The constant desire for more and more things has led to a syncretism between materialism and Christianity (if such a thing was possible). People begin to think the purpose of Christianity is to help them become more successful, and that if God loves them He will bless them with a temporal blessing.
In the process, people become cultural Christians, which is to say there is not any marginal difference between the way they order their lifestyles and the way non-believers order theirs. There is a God we want and there is a God who is. They are not the same God. Cultural Christianity means to seek the God (or gods) we want and not the God who is. It means to want God to be a gentle grandfather type who spoils us and lets us have our own way. It is to live by our own ideas, to be a Christian on our own terms. To be a Cultural Christian is to abandon the first principles of orthodoxy. Whereas Cultural Christians are a community of orthopathos concerned for right feelings, Biblical Christians are a community of orthodoxy concerned for right beliefs.
The church, rather than calling people to sacrifice and self-denial, too often ends up catering to the ambitions of its congregation. The church shows men how to be successful but not how to be faithful. Rather than calling men from materialism, "me"ism, and worldly lifestyles, the church becomes the agent of personal fulfillment for men who cannot control their appetite for more and more things.
Individualism in the church, the infatuation with the "new thing," and an insatiable desire for more and more things has caused a segment of the church to refocus on meeting the felt needs of people. Seeker-sensitive services often entertain the mind, but do not engage the soul. The church begins to offer its attendees support rather than salvation, help rather than holiness.
In this process the church becomes worldly. People become consumers of religion instead of worshippers of the most holy God. They come to receive a blessing rather than give God a blessing. They come to be entertained rather than to be broken. The congregation is looked at as an audience to be entertained rather than a flock of sheep to be discipled. All this comes from an anthropocentrism fostered by culture, but not expunged by biblical preaching. Instead, the insatiable desire for more and more things is overlooked or, worse, promoted as the essence of how God blesses.
Furthermore, the church has often been too seeker-sensitive by allowing people to remain anonymous without at some point calling them to transition into becoming part of a community of believers. According to Bellah, religious individualism must be transformed by reconnecting it to the public realm.
However, in other ways, the church has not been seeker-sensitive enough. The church has not recognized the confusion of the average Christian about how to live an intentional, deliberate Christian life. The church has not discipled men and women how to go "into" the world without becoming worldly.
Ministry That Is Sensitive To Deliberate Christian Living
Ministry that is sensitive must simultaneously respond to the survival needs of daily living while at the same time elevate people's thinking to the higher plane of worship, praise, and thanksgiving.
So how does the church balance appealing to seekers with transforming them? The church needs to begin where people live day-to-day. Today the church and culture are so far apart that preaching "bridges" must be constructed that bring people from the world in which they live and struggle into the Holy of Holies, where they can feel a fresh touch from the living God. To do this effectively, we must give seekers what they need in the context of what they want--real needs cloaked in their felt needs. Today people want success. So let's talk to them about success, but then transition into what constitutes true success from God's eternal perspective.
Meaningful ministry must call people to right things: surrender, sacrifice, suffering, and service; not to success. It must help people discover their identity and purpose in Christ, not in satisfying worldly ambitions. It must help them discover their spiritual gifts and calling, rather than endorse the pursuit of pleasure. It must help men and women discover God's will rather than encouraging them to write their own script--a script that invariably includes a constant desire for more and more things.
For the half of our churches that are getting it right, to God be the glory. Enter into His rest. For the other half, God loves you, but he wants you to "repent and do the things you did at first" (Revelation 2:5).
Outraged at Brazen False Teaching By John MacArthur Crosswalk.com
I don't watch much television, and when I do I generally avoid the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). For many years TBN has been dominated by faith-healers, full-time fund-raisers, and self-proclaimed prophets spewing heresy. I wrote about the false gospel they proclaim and the phony miracles they pretend to do almost two decades ago in Charismatic Chaos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992. See especially chapter 12). I had my fill of charismatic televangelism while researching that book, and I can hardly bear to watch it any more.
Recently, however, while recovering from knee-replacement surgery, I decided to sample some of the current fare on TBN. From a therapeutic point of view it seemed a good choice: something more excruciating than the pain in my leg might distract me from the physical suffering of post-surgical trauma. And I suppose on that basis the strategy was effective.
But it left me outraged and frustrated - and eager to challenge the misperceptions in the minds of millions of unbelievers who see these false teachers masquerading as ministers of Christ on TBN.
I'm outraged at the brazen way so many false teachers twist the message of Scripture in Jesus' name. And I'm frustrated because I'm certain that if these charlatans were not receiving a large proportion of their financial support from sincere believers (and silent acquiescence from Christian leaders who surely know better), they would have no platform for their shenanigans. They would soon lose their core constituency and fade from the scene.
Instead, religious quacks are actually multiplying at a frightening pace. One thing I discovered to my immense displeasure is that TBN is by no means the only religious network broadcasting poisonous false doctrine around the clock. The channel lineup I receive includes at least seven other channels whose schedules are filled with false teachers and charlatans. There's The Church Channel, Daystar, GodTV, World Harvest Television (LeSEA), Total Christian Television, and several others. Some of them feature blocs of family television programming and a few fairly sound teachers who provide moments of escape from the prosperity preachers. But all of them give prominence to enormous amounts of heresy and religious claptrap - enough to make them positively dangerous. And TBN is singularly responsible for kicking that door open so wide.
The continued growth and influence of TBN is baffling for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the thick aura of lust, greed, and other kinds of moral impropriety that surrounds the whole enterprise. A long string of scandals involving notable charismatic televangelists between 1988 and 1992 should have been sufficient reason for even the most credulous viewers to scrutinize the entire industry with skepticism. First came the international spectacle of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker's moral, marital, and financial collapse. That was followed closely by the revelation of Jimmy Swaggart's repeated dalliances with prostitutes. Shortly afterward, an episode of ABC's Primetime Live exposed clear examples of deliberate fraud on the part of three more leading charismatic televangelists. Those incidents were punctuated by a score of lesser scandals over several years' time. It is clear (or should be) - based on empirical evidence alone - that preachers promising miracles in exchange for money are not to be trusted. And for anyone who simply bothers to compare Jesus' teaching with the health-and-wealth message, it is clear that the message that currently dominates religious television is "a different gospel; which is really not another" (Galatians 1:6-7), but a damnable lie.
TBN is by far the leading perpetrator of that lie worldwide. Virtually all the network's main celebrities tell listeners that God will give them healing, wealth, and other material blessings in return for their money. On program after program people are urged to "plant a seed" by sending "the largest bill you have or the biggest check you can write" with the promise that God will miraculously make them rich in return. That same message dominates all of TBN's major fundraising drives. It's known as the "seed faith" plan, so-called by Oral Roberts, who set the pattern for most of the charismatic televangelists who have followed the trail he blazed. Paul Crouch, founder, chairman, and commander-in-chief of TBN, is one of the doctrine's staunchest defenders.
While the act of sowing seeds in the Lord's vineyard is an instrument of faith and blessing within the Body of the Lord, it is not exempted from corruption and scam. Jesus himself during his time on earth was outraged at some people in the Lord's temple for practicing some sort of corruption concerning the way the temple's system of material offerings and sacrifices was corrupted.
Like any good thing, there always accompanies an opportunity for the Enemy of the Body to abuse and corrupt the minds of the believers concerning this holy and noble act of sowing seeds for the kingdom. And unless being reminded once in a while and fully made aware of the possibilities of the Enemy's camouflaged pits, the Lord's Body of believers could be in danger of stepping out of bounds of its true anointing.
So, if you have ears to listen, ignore not what the Spirit is saying to the Body. Lest there will come a time that the Lord himself shall whip the animal offerings to free and drive them out of their holding cages, and overturn the tenders' transaction tables and scatter the money and drive them away from the Temple.
The Temple (the Lord's Vineyard) is not an investment center. But many believers have now started to think and treat it like a "spiritual stock market". Their focus is now turned on the material or personal profit and they have looked away from the cross.
The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It's far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.
The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That's because we typically begin at the wrong starting point--ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life's purpose. The Bible says, "It is God who directs the lives of his creatures; everyone’s life is in his power."
Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won't discover your life's meaning by looking within yourself. You've probably tried that already. You didn't create yourself, so there is no way you can tell yourself what you were created for! If I handed you an invention you had never seen before, you wouldn't know its purpose, and the invention itself wouldn't be able to tell you either. Only the creator or the owner's manual could reveal its purpose.
I once got lost in the mountains. When I stopped to ask for directions to the campsite, I was told, "You can't get there from here. You must start from the other side of the mountain!" In the same way, you cannot arrive at your life's purpose by starting with a focus on yourself. You must begin with God, your Creator. You exist only because God wills that you exist. You were made by God and for God--and until you understand that, life will never make sense. It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.
Many people try to use God for their own self-actualization, but that is a reversal of nature and is doomed to failure. You were made for God, not vice versa, and life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using him for your own purpose. The Bible says, "Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life."
I have read many books that suggest ways to discover the purpose of my life. All of them could be classified as "self-help" books because they approach the subject from a self-centered viewpoint. Self-help books, even Christian ones, usually offer the same predictable steps to finding your life's purpose: Consider your dreams. Clarify your values. Set some goals. Figure out what you are good at. Aim high. Go for it! Be disciplined. Believe you can achieve your goals. Involve others. Never give up.
Of course, these recommendations often lead to great success. You can usually succeed in reaching a goal if you put your mind to it. But being successful and fulfilling your life's purpose are not at all the same issue! You could reach all your personal goals, becoming a raving success by the world’s standard, and still miss the purposes for which God created you. You need more than self-help advice. The Bible says, "Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self."
How, then, do you discover the purpose you were created for? You have only two options. Your first option is speculation. This is what most people choose. They conjecture, they guess, they theorize. When people say, "I've always thought life is...," they mean, "This is the best guess I can come up with."
For thousands of years, brilliant philosophers have discussed and speculated about the meaning of life. Philosophy is an important subject and has its uses, but when it comes to determining the purpose of life, even the wisest philosophers are just guessing.
Dr. Hugh Moorhead, a philosophy professor at Northeastern Illinois University, once wrote to 250 of the best-known philosophers, scientists, writers, and intellectuals in the world, asking them, "What is the meaning of life?" He then published their responses in a book. Some offered their best guesses, some admitted that they just made up a purpose for life, and others were honest enough to say they were clueless. In fact, a number of famous intellectuals asked Professor Moorhead to write back and tell them if he discovered the purpose of life!
Fortunately, there is an alternative to speculation about the meaning and purpose of life. It's revelation. We can turn to what God has revealed about life in his Word. The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life's purpose: Ask God.
God has not left us in the dark to wonder and guess. He has clearly revealed his five purposes for our lives through the Bible. It is our Owner's Manual, explaining why we are alive, how life works, what to avoid, and what to expect in the future. It explains what no self-help or philosophy book could know. The Bible says, "God's wisdom ... goes deep into the interior of his purposes.... It's not the latest message, but more like the oldest—what God determined as the way to bring out his best in us."
God is not just the starting point of your life; he is the source of it. To discover your purpose in life you must turn to God's Word, not the world's wisdom. You must build your life on eternal truths, not pop psychology, success-motivation, or inspirational stories. The Bible says, "It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone." This verse gives us three insights into your purpose.
1. You discover your identity and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ. If you don't have such a relationship, I will later explain how to begin one.
2. God was thinking of you long before you ever thought about him. His purpose for your life predates your conception. He planned it before you existed, without your input! You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life, but you don't get to choose your purpose.
3. The purpose of your life fits into a much larger, cosmic purpose that God has designed for eternity.
Andrei Bitov, a Russian novelist, grew up under an atheistic Communist regime. But God got his attention one dreary day. He recalls, "In my twenty-seventh year, while riding the metro in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) I was overcome with a despair so great that life seemed to stop at once, preempting the future entirely, let alone any meaning. Suddenly, all by itself, a phrase appeared: Without God life makes no sense. Repeating it in astonishment, I rode the phrase up like a moving staircase, got out of the metro and walked into God's light."
You may have felt in the dark about your purpose in life. Congratulations, you're about to walk into the light.
Thinking About My Purpose
Point to Ponder: It's not about me.
Verse to Remember: "Everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him." (Colossians 1:16b)
Question to Consider: In spite of all the advertising around me, how can I remind myself that life is really about living for God, not myself?
Charisma is not connected to ethics, moral literacy, mentoring or the design of an ethical culture for the organization by the leader. It is the character of the leader that is connected to these elements of a leader's behavior. Leadership, variously and however defined, has been well researched. Leadership, especially since the end of the last world war, has become the object of intensive and extensive scrutiny. The tendency is to concentrate the study under the rubric of psychology so there has come about a certain specialization and monopolization: what we might call the psychologizing of leadership. What began in antiquity as a profoundly philosophical concern - how to find the guardian - has become demythologized, secularized, empiricized, democratized, and psychologized, and now flourishes as a thickly tangled web where the notions of values, ethics, and morality have been leached away, ignored, or depreciated as irrelevant (Hodgkinson, 1993).
The underlying value system of an organization cannot be managed in the traditional way. Issuing an authoritative directive, for example, has little or no impact on an organization's value system. Organizational values are developed and reinforced primarily through value based leadership, a relationship between a leader and followers that is based on shared, strongly internalized values that are advocated and acted upon by the leader. Leaders influence cultural and ethical values by clearly articulating a vision for organizational values that employees can believe in, communicating the vision throughout the organization, and institutionalizing the vision through everyday behavior, rituals, ceremonies, and symbols, as well as through organizational systems and policies (Daft, 2002).
Charisma focuses on personality attributes such as dynamism, style, image, inspiration, symbolic behaviors (House, 1977) impression management, emotional intelligence (Coleman, 1998), extroverted style, self-confidence, empathetic understanding, and admiration for articulating a vision (Shamir, 1995). Leaders whose personalities are characterized by a high degree of narcissism are driven by intense needs for power and prestige. The use of coercive power, intimidation, and deception are some of the strategies used to enhance the power visibility of these charismatic leaders. As seen by most researchers, charisma is not a concept that is feasible in today's modern workplace. Charisma draws its motivational power from the followers' adoption of the transcendent mission of the leader and their belief in the divine source of this transcendence.
The dark side of charisma is essentially a crisis in character or character flaws of the charismatic leader, which neutralize his/her core value of integrity and his search for excellence. Charismatic leaders can be prone to extreme narcissism that leads them to promote highly self-serving and grandiose aims. As a result, the leader's behaviors can become exaggerated, lose touch with reality, or become vehicles for pure personal gain. In turn, they may harm the leader, followers, and the organization. House et al (1991) have gone so far as to speculate that there is a unique set of personality characteristics and behaviors that distinguish these positive and negative forms of charismatic leadership - are as they term them, socialized and personalized charisma. Their theory holds that although the socialized charismatic leader has a high need for power, it is counterbalanced with high activity inhibition, low authoritarianism, an internal locus of control, high self-esteem, and low Machiavellianism. In contrast, the personalized leader has a high need for power that is instead coupled with low activity inhibition, high authoritarianism, an external locus of control, low self-esteem, high narcissism, and high Machiavellianism. These characteristics promote leadership behavior that is largely self-service.
Character is based on the core values of the leader. Character influences his/her vision, goals, self-concept, strategies, work ethic, attitude, perception, code of ethics, behavior, and the search for excellence (Sankar, 1997). Character, therefore is an evaluation of personality. Becker (1998) grounds character of the leader on integrity 'Good character' means at least in part, that the individual has integrity. This is directly related to performance on the job.
Zauderer (2000) identifies specific behaviors of a leader associated with integrity as a super ordinate value on which character is rooted. How does one's integrity affect the trust of others and the strength of the commonwealth? In attempting to identify specific behaviors, a far-reaching search of literature that included religion, philosophy, biographies of great leaders, psychology, and business and government ethics was conducted. Cross-cutting moral themes and principles were identified and described in the following list: (The behaviors are expressed in a negative form - the opposite behavior follows in parentheses and italics) A leader's integrity is compromised when he or she: displays arrogance (possess humility), promotes self-interest (maintain concern for the greater good), practices deception (be truthful), breaches agreements (fulfill commitments), deals unfairly (strive for fairness), shifts blame (take responsibility), diminishes dignity (have respect for the individual), retains envy (celebrate the good fortune of others), neglects employee development (develop others), avoids risks (reproach unjust acts), holds grudges (be forgiving), declines to extend self (extend self for others).
A strategy based on integrity holds organizations to a more robust standard. While compliance is rooted in avoiding legal sanctions, organizational integrity is based on the concept of self-governance in accordance with a set of guiding principles (Paine, 2000). From the perspective of integrity, the task of ethics management is to define and give life to an organization's guiding values, to create an environment that supports ethically sound behavior, and to instill a sense of shared accountability among employees. An integrity strategy is characterized by a conception of ethics as a driving force of an enterprise and the leader. Ethical values shape the search for opportunities, the design of organizational systems, and the decision-making process used by individuals and groups. Kets de Vries (1994) connects some sub-values of a leader's character. Among the traits that have been discerned regularly among effective leaders are conscientiousness, dependability, achievement orientation, dominance, self-confidence, energy, agreeableness, intelligence, openness to experience, and emotional stability.
The current ethical - moral crisis in many occupations, business law, medicine, politics, and education can be partially attributed to the absence of moral leadership in these occupations. The crisis is a crisis of character. Many charismatic leaders suffer from basic flaws in their character and these impact on their vision, goals, strategies, judgment, choices, ground rules and behavior. The character of the leader is the building block or root system of his/her personality and of leadership excellence. Excellence unlike efficiency and effectiveness is a value based construct, it is the ethical ground rules of the leader that guide his vision, style, commitment, and the design of the corporate culture. Character is the missing critical variable in leadership research.
The leader can be a mentor or role model because of his/her character not his charisma. Mentoring is a value-based concept. The leader's credibility as a mentor is enhanced by her core values, ethical vision, moral commitment and her conception of her duty to organizational members. A leader's behavior speaks louder than his personality. Behavior is a function of values. To change problematic behaviors, such as mistrust, malice, manipulation, deceit, etc…, on changes such values as egoism, power obsessions, and greed. One practices one's moral calculus or virtues in the search for effective mentoring.
Virtue based ethics is the moral guidance system for changing the negative elements of one's character (MacIntyre, 1985). Character is grounded on virtues such as love, integrity, duty, patience, compassion, peace, fortitude, trust, truth and right conduct. Charisma is not connected to virtue-based ethics but to personality ethic focusing on etiquette, courtesy, style, image and dynamism. Character leads to transformation of one's personality, primarily to self-transformation of needs, self-concept, habits, moods, values, attitudes, perception, goals and style. Values or virtues are also the building blocks of a leader's self concept and therefore her self esteem and self confidence are more positive than if these were based on elements of charisma - image, style, and dynamism. As a mentor, the leader with a virtuous character will promote empowerment of his/her followers rather than a culture of silence because of intimidation and the coercive use of power and deception.
The moral intelligence, insight and imagination of a leader are connected to his character not charisma. What the CEO needs today in the business world is not more information but transformation, transformation of his vision, goals, intelligence, core values and behavior. The transformational leader is one who couples information with insight and ideals. Moral literacy consists of the basics of ethics, ethical principles, rules of conduct, conceptions of right and wrong, moral intelligence, imagination and moral commitment to our moral heritage and ground rules for decision-making. Moral literacy is connected to character, not to charisma. It is from moral literacy that a leader can articulate the core values that drive his or her vision and the ABC of ethics namely, the essentials of an ethical culture of his or her organization.
Leadership is crucial to the organization's ethical culture, as integrity (or the lack of it) flows from the top down. According to a report from the Business Roundtable, a group of senior executives from major American corporations, leadership is crucial to organizational ethics. The report issued by the Business Roundtable - also - discussed ethics, policy, and practice in one hundred member companies, including GTE, Xerox, Johnson & Johnson, Boeing, and Hewlett-Packard. In the experience of the surveyed companies, the single most important factor in ethical decision-making was the role of top management in providing commitment, leadership, and example for ethical values.
This article contributes to our understanding of leadership excellence by providing a more comprehensive focus on two variables, namely, character and charisma, than previous research. Another contribution of this article is the integration of ethics, personality and mentoring literature. Finally, the greatest contribution of our research may well be the generation of future research. In future research, an attempt should be made to further define the elements of the key construct, namely, character in terms of core values.
The leader plays a critical role in the propagation of an ethical culture within his/her organization. In view of the ethical-moral crisis in many occupations it can be deduced that this crisis is indicative of the absence of moral leadership in these organizations. Too often, the emphasis has been placed on the expertise, power, charisma, information, personality traits, strategic vision, and organizational characteristics in leadership research at the expense of the leader's moral character. The leader's character is a strategic source of power for in fusing the culture of his/her organization with a code of ethics, moral vision, imagination, and courage. Leadership excellence cannot be evaluated without an assessment of the leader's character. _______ Reference: Sankar, Y. (2003). Character not charisma is the critical measure of leadership excellence. The Journal of Leadership Studies, 9, No 4.
Eight Malayasian Churches Attacked after 'Allah' Decision Jasmine Kay Compass Direct News Crosswalk.com
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (CDN) — In unprecedented acts that stunned Christians in Malaysia, suspected Islamists have attacked eight church buildings since the country's High Court ruled that a Catholic weekly could use the word "Allah."
Firebombs were thrown into the compounds of four churches in Kuala Lumpur and neighboring Petaling Jaya on Friday (Jan. 8); three more attacks occurred on Sunday (Jan. 10) in Taiping, Melaka and Miri; and another church building was hit today in Seremban. There were no reports of injuries.
Judge Lau Bee Lan delivered the controversial court ruling on Dec. 31, arguing that the Herald had a constitutional right to use the word "Allah" for God in the Malay section of its multi-lingual newspaper. The ruling caused an uproar among many Muslim groups widely reported to have called for nationwide protests after Friday prayers, asserting that "Allah" can be used only in the context of Islam. Among groups calling for protests were the Muslim Youth Movement and the National Association of Muslim Students.
Inflammatory rhetoric has emerged in the escalating conflict; at a protest in Shah Alam since protests began on Friday, a speaker at one rally urged listeners to "burn churches," according to the online news site Malaysian Insider. The crowd reportedly stood in stunned silence.
Malaysia's Home Ministry filed an appeal against the High Court decision on Jan. 4. Two days later, the court allowed a freeze on the decision to permit the Herald to use the word "Allah" pending hearing in the Court of Appeal.
The attacked churches were Metro Tabernacle (Assembly of God) in Kuala Lumpur, and three churches in Petaling Jaya: Life Chapel (Brethren), Assumption Church (Catholic) and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Lutheran); also damaged were All Saints' Church (Anglican) in Taiping, Melaka Baptist Church in Melaka (vandalized but not firebombed), Good Shepherd Church (Catholic) in Miri (pelted with stones) and Sidang Injil Borneo (Evangelical Church of Borneo) in Seremban.
Though there were no casualties, a number of the church buildings were damaged in the attacks. Metro Tabernacle suffered the worst damage, with the ground floor of its three-storey building, which housed its administrative office, completely gutted. The main door of the church in Seremban was charred.
The Rev. Ong Sek Leang, senior pastor of Metro Tabernacle, reportedly said that the church harbors no ill feelings toward the culprits and would forgive those responsible, but that it does not condone the acts.
Most of the other church buildings suffered minor damage, though the Assumption Church was spared when the Molotov cocktail thrown into its compound failed to go off. The Melaka Baptist Church building was splashed with black paint, while stones were thrown into the Good Shepherd Church building in Miri.
The Malaysian Insider reported on Friday (Jan. 8) that two other churches received telephone threats from unknown sources.
Christian leaders, government and opposition leaders, and Non-Governmental Organizations have condemned the attacks. Police have promised to increase security around church buildings, but Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan told the Malaysian Insider that churches must beef up their own security since there is a shortage of police personnel.
Malaysia's population is about 60 percent Muslim, 19 percent Buddhist and 9 percent Christian. About 6 percent are Hindu, with 2.6 percent of the population adhering to Confucianism, Taoism and other traditional Chinese religions. [...]
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The problem of human trafficking is once more gaining some attention on the news lately as reported.
