Carl Wells Books

It takes a birth rate of 2.1 babies per woman to maintain a country’s population. Anything less, and the population eventually will begin to decline–slowly or quickly, depending on how close the country gets to 2.1.

Of the 28 member states of the European Union, how many are at the 2.1 birth rate or above? Eleven? Thirteen? Seven? How about zero. Recent stats show Portugal at the low end at 1.23 children born per woman, France on the high end putting up a figure of 2.01–the latter still well short of 2.1. So Europe is slowly committing suicide by refusing to have enough children to replace Europeans who die.

Not to worry, though. Europe will solve the problem by permitting the entry of millions of Muslims, who tend to have large numbers of children.

Oops.

So the choices for Europeans are a/slow death by refusing to have children; b/a much quicker death by permitting the entry of Muslims who will take over and run the European counties (while at the same time Europeans continue to refuse to have children of their own).

Scratching our heads in confusion, we ponder whether there might be a third option. No, probably not. Europe has chosen to live without the God of the Bible. It turns out that there are consequences–life and death consequences.

Europe wanted a democratic humanism which thumbed its nose at God, built a bite and devour welfare system way of life, killed countless babies via abortion, and told Christ to get lost. God said, “Have it your way.”

Wisdom says, ‘”he who sins against me injures himself;/All those who hate me love death.”‘ (Proverbs 8:36) Europeans hated wisdom and thus loved death–showed themselves to be suicidal.

Is the situation hopeless for Europe? Humanly speaking, it seems to be. But God has worked miracles in the past, and He can do it again. Pray for Europeans to repent and turn to God. He will help those who turn to Him in humility and obedience. Moreover, there are signs that some of the people of Europe are waking up to the fact that the pluralism of the elite sociopaths (sociopaths led by Germany’s Angela Merkel) is a death sentence for European culture. And “European culture” was only of value in the first place because it was Christian culture. Have Europeans connected the dots, and have they begun to see their need for Christ? Not to any dramatic extent, it seems. But there are signs here and there . . . don’t despise “the day of small things.” (Zechariah 4:10) Pray for Europe. Send them the gospel via Bible-believing missionaries.

Of course the U.S. is on the same suicidal path. We have our own demoncratic, sorry I mean democratic humanism to endure. We too have killed babies–hey, but only 57,000,000–we too have believed the lie of pluralism, we too want a tame God whom we tell what to do rather than have Him tell us, and we too have enabled sociopaths. We are bankrupt, financially and morally. But as we pray for ourselves, perhaps we can occasionally also spare a prayer for Europe. Who knows? Maybe God will hear our prayers and act, and/or cause us to act in practical, God-honoring ways, in both Europe and the United States. It ain’t over till it’s over.

Arthur C. Brooks began his research on charity while holding routine liberal beliefs. The ellipsis in the quote below is mine.

‘I have to admit that I probably would have hated what I have to say in this book. . . . Do rich people want tax cuts? I would have told you it’s because they are uncharitable. Europeans care more than Americans about the world’s poor. Socialism is more compassionate than capitalism. And so on. My personal views about “charity” amounted to little more than unquestioned liberal political beliefs.’ (p. 12)

So he started his research. Liberals cared about other people more than did conservatives. Obviously. We all know that.

“So when my early findings led to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.” (p. 12)

Mr. Brooks says the findings in his book appear to be “conservative and support a religious, hardworking, family-oriented lifestyle” (p. 12) but that they are contrary to his political and cultural roots.

“Indeed, the irresistible pull of empirical evidence in this book is what changed the way I see the world. It has also guided me in my personal search for truth–not only as a teacher and researcher but also in my private life as a donor and volunteer, as a father, as a skeptical political independent, and even as a Christian.” (p. 13)

Eventually, Mr. Brooks figured out the following:

“For many people, the desire to donate other people’s money displaces the act of giving one’s own. People who favor government income redistribution are significantly less likely to behave charitably than those who do not. Even if the policies they support do not come into effect, they are still far less likely to donate to charity. For many Americans, political opinions are a substitute for personal checks; but people who value economic freedom, and thus bridle against forced income redistribution, are far more charitable.” (p. 55)

The book, published in 2006, is Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism: America’s Charity Divide–Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters. Kudos to Mr. Brooks for a superb book–and for being willing to learn something unexpected and revise his worldview. People being willing and able to learn something new and change a wrong opinion, are pretty rare.

What is scary is that most of us in the Christian/conservative camp, although we may be doing significantly better than some portions of the population, are still far from faithful to the biblical teaching that we tithe to God’s church and then give generously to worthy causes beyond a tithe as well. If our generosity ever began to approximate true biblical proportions, who knows what effect for good that might have on the world around us? That may be a blog topic for another day, or maybe I’ve raved and foamed at the mouth on that topic often enough in my books.

I remember the day well, although many details are lost. I was having a pleasant meal with a highly educated Christian couple. Somehow the conversation arrived at who some of my favorite authors were. I named Jane Austen as one of my favorites. The husband, I think with a smile, said, “Aren’t those chick books?”

The question took me by surprise. I was used to thinking of Jane Austen as one of the supreme literary geniuses in world history. To suggest that her books would appeal only to females, was a new idea to me. I suppose I made some sort of defense of her books as suitable for everyone. I am pretty sure the man has never attempted to read a book by Jane Austen. I was a failure as a persuader.

Since then I have encouraged at least two other very intelligent Christian men to try the books of Jane Austen. No prize for guessing the results: complete failure again. I am not sure if they assume that the books are only “chick books” unsuitable for men. Or whether their reasoning goes something like this: “If an idiot like Carl likes those books, I had better avoid them.” Or maybe it’s just another case of The Iron Law of Inadequate Appreciation, which says that every good writer will fail to reach as wide an audience as he/she/it deserves, and will fail to reach as wide an audience as would enjoy his/her/its books. In any case, I am having no success at persuading anyone that they should try the books of Jane Austen.

In fact, it is probably time to admit I was wrong. Her books are rotten. Misery loves company, and I was just trying to encourage other people to read her so that a few other people would be in the gutter with me. Whatever you do, don’t read even one of the books of Jane Austen. The six finished books are chick books, of no interest to anyone, but especially of no interest to males. If you’re a male and you read one of Jane’s books, the next thing we know you’ll be demanding a transgender bathroom. If you’re a male and you see a Jane Austen book lying around, man up! Throw it in the wastebasket.

The first book by Jane Austen that you should not read is Pride and Prejudice. Many of her defenders would contend that it is her most clever book, and that it also contains a lot more than cleverness. They’re wrong. It’s just another chick book.

Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, all have little of potential interest to the normal person. Northanger Abbey, an early work, is even worse. Persuasion, her last work, may be her best (according to the sick people who like her books), and when not reading it, perhaps you should not read it last. After she wrote that book, God killed her. No wonder. What took Him so long?

If you were a Russian Christian in 1914, with a thinking head on your shoulders, and you looked around you, you might have seen great danger coming. “Don’t get involved in the European war!” you might have shouted. “It will bring disaster upon our own people as well as on the entire world!” No one listened, of course. No one heard you, and if they had, they would only have mocked you.

The disaster was as bad, or even worse, than you expected. The war brought countless Russian dead, brought defeat, brought revolution, and brought ultimately the horrific rule of the communists. Many died, and many suffered immensely, under communism. The great Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recalled how as a child, he heard a number of older people saying, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” More than half a century later Solzhenitsyn, who read hundreds of books concerning the Russian past, collected personal testimonies, wrote voluminously on the topic, and suffered life in the gulag thanks to the Russian communists, decided that ‘I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.”‘

You, the Russian Christian of 1914, were ignored, as were all the others who understood the danger your country might be putting yourself in.

Fast forward to 2016. A large handful of American Christians have been warning our country of potential dangers. Another large handful of non-Christian but thoughtful people have spoken up as well. Some have shouted, some have tried to speak quietly but straightforwardly. Nobody is listening. Some disasters have come, greater disasters may be coming. The Christians, at least, have been saying, “Disaster looms because we have forgotten God.” Some of us believe that the disasters could be avoided, if we took thought, turned back to God, and tried to obey Him. No one listens. Even most Christians seem determined not to listen.

You, the Russian Christian of 2014, were of course correct. Not that you needed to fret for long. You were either killed in the war, or killed by the communists. You went to your death with a continuing sense of foreboding for your nation. Things seemed hopeless.

But come back a century later, as a visitor from the heavenly realms, and you find some surprises. The communists are gone. Even the secular leadership of Russia has begun to sense the need for Christianity. BEGUN at best of course, but the situation is far less wretched than you probably expected. Civilization seemed, as you died, to have been completely destroyed, but now it seems to be making a comeback, fitfully and with no guarantee of great success, but with at least some hope for the future.

The lesson for us in the U.S. is clear: civilization is under attack and may indeed be overthrown on the North American continent, but we need not give up hope for the future. A defeat for civilization and millions of murdered or starved bodies, with enormous violence, hatred, and cruelty, will not necessarily mean the end of civilization here for all time. We too can be reborn. Mankind can’t live successfully without Christ, and without the teachings God has given us in His Bible. We can try, and often do try, but it doesn’t work. And when it doesn’t work for long enough, sometimes men look around for a better way.

Our danger is large. We’ve killed 57,000,000 unborn children. As a nation we are 19 or 20 trillion dollars in debt–money that can never be repaid. We have largely (not completely) trashed our free market economy, exchanging it for crony capitalism/fascism/socialism. Christianity is under attack. A suicidal pluralism is triumphant. The welfare state is destroying untold millions of our people. As a nation we are warmongers with the blood of many innocent people on our hands. Listen to the “man on the street” interviews and it seems clear that our entire populace is morally corrupt, and is incapable of thinking clearly. Our Mainstream Media, our politics, our education system are all left-wing and all corrupt. Race relations are rotten. This does not even begin to address the problems of American Christianity itself, and they are enormous–maybe a topic for another time.

So, our situation is very dangerous. We may have to go through great horrors. But maybe if we come back, a hundred years from now, the situation will be as surprising as the situation is for the Russian ghost returning a hundred years after the horrors of 1914 and following.

“There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace,
On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness
From then on and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:7)

God is sovereign. As men and women, even as Christian men and women, we seem unlikely to accomplish good things in the near or distant future. But they may get accomplished anyway, thanks to “The zeal of the LORD of hosts.”

Meanwhile, we should not give up. Who knows, maybe we can help rescue civilization before it collapses completely. If not, maybe we can be among those helping to rebuild it.

Bill Kauffman’s superb book lays out the options for us. “You can have your hometown or you can have the empire. You can’t have both.” (p. 10) The book is Ain’t My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialsm (published in 2008).

Ain’t My America–fantastic title, by the way–shows us that some principled conservatives have, throughout our history, opposed interventionism and warmongering. He has done the research, and what he has found is encouraging. There have been some people who saw to what end interventionism would lead. They spoke up. Granted, they weren’t listened to. But maybe it’s not too late, if we listen now. Trends don’t have to stay trends. Bad ideas can be replaced by good ones.

Mr. Kauffman, by his own description, doesn’t fit into one neat category of thinker. “I should own up to my own biases. I belong to no political camp: my politics are localist, decentralist, Jeffersonian. I am an American rebel, a Main Street bohemian, a rural Christian pacifist. I have strong libertarian and traditionalist conservative streaks. I am in many ways an anarchist, though a front-porch anarchist, a chestnut-tree anarchist, a girls-softball-coach anarchist. . . . My heart is with the provincial and with small places, and it is from this intense localism that my own isolationist, antiwar sympathies derive.” (p. 10; the ellipsis is mine)

Many people understand that liberalism is the enemy of civilization. But it is not our only enemy, as Mr. Kauffman points out: “There is nothing modest about the degraded Right of Bush, Limbaugh, McCain, Kristol, and their ilk. They are boastful, puerile, and aggressively ignorant of American history. What they do know, or sense, is the usefulness of militarism in subordinating local, individual, or parochial pursuits to the demands of the expanding center.” (p. 122) He is on to something in noting the type of ignorance involved. There is a qualitative difference between the careless ignorance of most of us–nothing of which to be proud, to be sure–and the aggressive ignorance of those who loudly send other people off to die for the foolish plans of the supposed elite.

“War: what is is good for? No one ever answered Edwin Starr’s question. Well, Edwin, I’ll tell you what it’s good for. It’s good for taxes; it’s good for day care; it’s good for year-round schooling; it’s good for the metric system; it’s good for daylight saving time; it’s good for the Interstate Highway System; it’s good for divorce; it’s good for school consolidation and the space program and the IRS. In short, it’s good for nothing that a genuine conservative might cherish.” (p. 176) He forgot to mention that it’s good for the body bag manufacturers and salesmen, but then he was making no attempt at giving us an exhaustive list.

Mr. Kauffman writes that ‘the love affair of “family-values” advocates with the Pentagon has been a disastrous shackup. No agency of the government has done as much to destroy the traditional American family as has the Department of Defense.’ (p. 231) He says we should remind conservatives that “the only foreign policy compatible with healthy family life is one of peace and nonintervention.” (p. 231)

If you are a bit depressed about how consistently most of the people in our country–including most Christians–continue to want to butt our noses into other people’s business, with death and crippling for tens of thousands including our own soldiers, and with the physical destruction of foreign lands which weren’t bothering us (leaving aside as scarcely worth mentioning the self-induced financial bankruptcy all this causes us), this might be the book to lift your spirits. Or maybe you’ve spent a lifetime supporting the notion that the uniquely virtuous U.S. should indeed be running the entire world . . . but just recently you’ve begun to smell a rat. Something, you sense, might be wrong with that old assumption. Again, this might be the book for you. Mr. Kauffman is both a very gifted writer, and a truth-teller. He helps us think through some important issues, with humor and passion and honesty and excellent writing.