Monthly Archives: March 2012

Videos

Evan Sayet explains “How Modern Liberals Think”

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A lecture given at the Heritage Foundation by Jewish pundit and former liberal Evan Sayet.

Excerpt:

Details:

Speaker: Evan Sayet
Writer, Lecturer and Pundit
Host: Becky Norton Dunlop

Vice President,
External Relations,
The Heritage Foundation

Location: The Heritage Foundation’s Lehrman Auditorium

Evan Sayet has been a top Hollywood writer and producer for more than 20 years. His credits range from The Arsenio Hall Show to Politically Incorrect. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Sayet decided to step from behind the camera and speak out in his own voice that of one of the nations top political satirists. At Heritage, his entertaining yet quite serious lecture will examine the modern liberal mindset and how it can lead to siding with evil over good and behaviors that produce failure rather than success.

This lecture is pretty strongly worded, so I would not recommend it to moderates. It’s very direct.

News

Has the passage of Obamacare reduced health insurance premiums?

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Investors Business Daily does the math.

Excerpt:

The cost of an average family premium shot up 9.5% in 2011 — the highest rate in seven years and three times the rate of overall inflation, finds a major new survey of employer plans by Kaiser Family Foundation.

Just before Obama signed his health overhaul, he vowed it would “bring down the cost of health care for families, for businesses and for the federal government.” In December, he told CBS’ “60 Minutes” he was “putting in place a system that’s going to lower health care costs.”

In fact, there’s evidence ObamaCare is fanning medical inflation.

Kaiser attributes the premium spike to “changes from the new health reform law.” The 200-page study explains: “Significant percentages of firms made changes in their preventive care benefits and enrolled adult children in their benefits plans in response to provisions in the new health reform law.”

In fact, 31% of covered workers are in a plan where the employer reported adding preventive services to comply with ObamaCare. And some 2.3 million adult children “were enrolled in their parent’s employer-sponsored plan due to the Affordable Care Act,” Kaiser said.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., notes that Obama, as a candidate, promised he’d slash family premiums by $2,500 a year by the end of his first term. That was in 2008, when health care coverage cost the average employer and American family $12,680 in annual premiums. Now it’s $15,073, nearly 20% higher. That means Obama has broken his promise by a whopping $4,893.

Costs are projected to simply rise as ObamaCare fully goes into effect. A recent McKinsey & Co. study found that 30% of employers will stop offering benefits after 2014, since “the penalty for not offering coverage is significantly below” the costs of the new mandates. This will make millions more individuals eligible for government subsidies under ObamaCare.

Not everything that Obama says while he is reading from a teleprompter is necessarily true.

Mentoring

An apologetics reading plan for beginners

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Would you like to have as much fun defending your faith as the Wintery Knight does?

Here is a post from Apologetics 315 that lists 10 basic apologetics books for brand new Christian apologists – and they are in a sensible order, too.

Here are my favorite 4:

2. The Case for a Creator by Lee Strobel

This book is just as readable as The Case for Christ, but this one delves into the evidence for the Creator. Another thing that makes this good reading for the beginner is this: whatever areas you find particularly interesting can be pursued further by reading the sources interviewed in the book.

6. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Greg Koukl

Information without application results in stagnation when it comes to apologetics. That’s why it’s time for a good dose of Tactics, which will train you not only to use apologetic content in everyday life, but it will also train you to be a better, more critical thinker. This is another “must read” book, and mastering its contents early in your apologetic studies will put feet to your faith.

7. The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus by Mike Licona & Gary Habermas

The resurrection of Jesus is central to Christianity. This book equips you to understand and defend the resurrection from an historical perspective. Not only does the book have useful diagrams, summaries, and an accessible style, but it also comes with a CD-ROM with interactive software for teaching you the material. This is an essential book for the apologist.

8. Is God Just a Human Invention? And Seventeen Other Questions Raised by the New Atheists by Sean McDowell and Jonathan Morrow

Now it’s time to look at some of the most common objections that have come against Christianity since the rise of the new atheism. There’s no better book at dealing with these in a concise yet dense way, while providing additional reading suggestions and introducing some of the key apologists that deal with these questions. If you really want to master this material, consider taking part in the Read Along project for this book.

I’ve read 8 of them, and I have given 6 of them to my Dad (he’s just an ordinary Dad) and he really liked all 6. These are meant for all ages.

I have been giving away books like this to friends, and even to potential Mrs. Wintery Knights, for many years. And what I’ve found in that time is that Christians have a very different experience in their relationships with God when they are prepared to defend his existence and character in public. Instead of treating Christianity as a private set of beliefs which are mainly for feeling happy and getting along with family at holidays, they instead treat Christianity as true, and they have very interesting discussions with their friends about many topics related to Christianity. Instead of being frightened to speak up, they become bold and confident – that’s what happens when Christians study and prepare.

Jesus doesn’t want his followers to feel intimidated by non-Christians and non-Christian culture. He doesn’t want us hiding what we believe. When we take the time to read books like this, it becomes possible for us to get into conversations that turn our relationships with God through Christ into a public activity. Instead of just taking, taking, taking from God, now we are in a position to give back. If you ask any experienced apologist, they will tell you what it feels like to work through questions with a non-Christian. It is a way of feeling closer to God, and a way of being faithful in our two-way friendship with him. You do not want to miss out on that experience – it is an important part of being a Christian.

Click here for the full list and Brian’s mini-reviews.