Couldn't Help Noticing

Vox Pop

I subscribe to A Word A Day, and each day receive a word in my email, try to slip it into conversation to look smarter, and fail.

Recently, the word was:

vox populi (VOKS POP-yuh-ly) noun

Popular opinion; general sentiment.

[From Latin, literally voice of the people.]

Underneath it notes that:

A related expression is “Vox populi vox Dei” meaning the voice of the people is the voice of God.

As I tried to slip it into conversations, I couldn't help noticing how infrequently we would ever use that phrase.

Cricket tragics

In a country where even the Prime Minister openly and proudly confesses to being a “cricket tragic” (ie. someone so hopelessly devoted to following the game of cricket that they take on a slightly pathetic aura), the start of “the Ashes” contest between England and Australia probably has, at the very least, economic implications (eg. reduced productivity at work, fewer people going out at nights, increased electricity consumption from keeping lounge rooms warm for longer each night, etc).

But does it have any spiritual implications for cricket tragics of a Christian persuasion? As Kim Hawtrey warns in his book The True and Living God, sport easily “begins to dictate our weekly program and command our primary attention, relegating God to the periphery”.

OK, so, public confession time for a few of us.

Cricket is a great game—a gift from God, no doubt, to be received with thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4). It is full of drama and skill. We love watching it and playing it with our kids. We love Test Cricket's traditions and its history, its fascination with statistics and player comparisons. Its droll commentary. And we just can't help getting engrossed in the game.

But staying up past midnight to watch it on TV five nights running, and then going to bed and listening to the radio until 2am, is most likely not a good thing. Walking in bleary-eyed to work or church, or not being able to concentrate in Bible study, is not good. Being grumpy with our family or workmates because Australia's poor performance in the last session of play was frustrating, is not good. Indeed, it begins to look very much like being a cricket tragic can also be a spiritual problem.

So, fellow Christian cricket tragics (and I know you're out there!) remember:

‘All things are lawful for me,’ but not all things are helpful. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ but I will not be enslaved by anything (1 Cor 6:12)

Get some sleep!

Da DVD that talks about Da Vinci Code

One of our former editorial colleagues, Dr Greg Clarke, has been giving seminars around Sydney churches talking about the success of Dan Brown's book, “The Da Vinci Code”. The seminar has an evangelistic goal, and, whilst critical of some aspects of the supposed “historicity” of the book, Greg spends time exploring reasons why the book might have hit such a chord with so many readers.

You may not be able to get Greg to run his seminar at your church or small group, but you can purchase a DVD of the seminar in our online store. Why not run a discussion evening, invite your non-christian friends who have read the book, and use this new resource as the discussion starter?

Abortion strategies and statistics

The headline that caught my attention was this:

Abortion in Minnesota Drops to Lowest Rate in 30 Years after Informed Consent Law

It was contained in an email from LifeSite News (a Catholic agency that reports on moral issues), together with the claim that:

The Center for Health Statistics for the Department of Health issued the study of the abortion statistics for the period January to December 2004 showing more than 2,000 women changed their minds after receiving the information. Abortion in Minnesota is at its lowest rate since 1975.

At the beginning of 2004, Minnesota implemented the Woman's Right to Know Act. This legislation required “physicians to provide women with certain information at least 24 hours prior to an abortion and to collect and report to the Minnesota Department of Health the number of women who were provided this information. The legislation also directs MDH to develop and make available certain materials, to collect information from physicians and to issue an annual report.”

You can download the booklet (PDF) that the MDH makes available through its web site to women considering an abortion. By law, physicians are required to give the woman information indicating:

1. the particular medical risks associated with the particular abortion procedure to be employed;
2. the probable gestational age of the unborn child at the time the abortion is to be performed;
3. the medical risks associated with carrying her child to term;
4. that medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care;
5. that the father is liable to assist in the support of her child even in instances when the father has offered to pay for an abortion; and
6. that she has the right to review materials made available by the Minnesota Department of Health.

The woman must also certify in writing, prior to the abortion, that all of the required information has been furnished to her.

If you have a look at the booklet, you will see that not only does it include all of the above information, it does so with the use of emotionally powerful photos of the unborn child at all the different stages.

Intuitively, looking at the booklet, it feels likely that the claim that 2,000 women changed their mind after getting the information and that the number of abortions reached its lowest level for 30 years, could be causally linked to this new information strategy.

However, when I downloaded the full report (PDF) from the MDH, which LifeSite News was citing, I was somewhat surprised to find no reference anywhere to women “changing their mind”. The 2000+ figure seems to be the difference between the number of women who enquired about abortions (and so were given the opportunity of obtaining information), and the number of abortions actually performed. However, it also appears from the data that the overwhelming majority (96%) of women did not receive any printed material (ie. with photos and an objective outline of all the information). Instead, they most likely received the information verbally from the abortion practitioner (ie. the person with a financial incentive to minimise the effectiveness of that information on the woman and to ensure the woman does not change her mind).

The report contains no information which verifies that the new regime is increasing the number of women who change their mind, because it contains no data on the number of women who changed their minds before the new regime was implemented (ie. prior to 2004).

And as for the claim that abortions are at a 30 year low, well, that is true according to the statistics in the report. But it is also true that the reduction between 2003 and 2004 was only about 2.7%—probably not even statistically significant—and that the number of abortions in the state have been on the decline since 1980, not just in 2004.

So, for all its good intentions, I suspect the impact of the Woman's Right to Know Act in Minnesota has not been all that significant, despite what the anti-abortion lobby says. Could it be that by the time a woman has phoned an abortion clinic, she has more often than not made the decision in her own mind, and is perhaps past the point of wanting to be persuaded back again? Which is not to say that the information should not be provided, but that we have to remember that it is not just a rational decision, but an emotional and moral one.

It was also a reminder to me to not necessarily believe the headlines on either side of the abortion debate (or any debate). Spin is, after all, ubiquitous.

Amazon Hall of Fame

I'm sorry to have to report, dear reader, the sad news that not a single Matthias Media author has made it into the 10th Anniversary Amazon.com Author Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is their list of the 25 top-selling authors through Amazon over the last 10 years.

No prizes for guessing #1, especially since the release of her latest book last Saturday was the lead story on the TV news that night. Yes, J.K. Rowling, not surprisingly, is the lead Hall of Famer.

I doubt, though, that you'd correctly guess #2. If you said “Dan Brown” (of Da Vinci Code fame), you are wrong. He comes in at a lowly #4, presumably because Amazon don't sell many books at airports.

Perhaps a surprise to most people would be that Dr. Spencer Johnson, author of Who moved my cheese?, and co-author of The one-minute manager was the Amazon #2.

If you are a student of romance novels, you may be able to guess #3. Nora Roberts, who (we're told by Amazon) was honoured in 1997 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Romance Writers of America. (There's something not everyone can engrave on their tombstone: “Here lies Nora Roberts. Life contribution: more than 130 romance novels”.)

So did any Christians make it into the Hall? Again, no prizes for guessing that Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye snuck in at #9 on the back of their Left Behind series. Sanity prevails by C.S. Lewis coming in a creditable thirteenth. And John Maxwell, who you'll also find in the pages of Christian bookstore catalogues is #21. I think we can claim John Grisham as a Christian author too. He came in at #6 (just below Dr Seuss).

Maybe the next decade will see the induction of Tony Payne. Then again, perhaps not.