Worldview

Apr

2020

When Life Turns Upside Down

I’ve mentioned my friend, John A. (Jay) Younts once or twice before (you could read the post HERE) and it’s a special delight that he resides not too far away from where I live in the upstate of South Carolina. Jay has contributed extensively to the Shepherd Press blog over many years. He and I share much the same kind of worldview, seeing all of life as belonging to God, and the direct involvement of God in day-to-day events.

With what we are now thinking of as the new normal, the advent of the corona virus, I was in discussion with friends at Shepherd Press about how we might be able to provide a resource that would meaningfully address this situation. Enthusiastically and unhesitatingly, Dr. Tedd Tripp saw the importance of the idea. “Ask Jay,” he guided me. “He could do this.” An email or two later, and Jay had confirmed that he would do it, requesting prayer for the project. And it made good sense for Tedd to contribute the foreword to the book!

Over the next few days, as he was writing the first draft, we kicked around some prospective titles, soon settling on When Life Turns Upside Down: Finding Stability through God’s Comforting Peace. The table of contents maps out nicely what is in the small book:

Foreword: An Upside-Down World
Introduction: Prayer Keeps Life Right-Side Up
Who Controls Tomorrow: Do Humans Control Tomorrow?
When Life Turns Upside Down: The Power of the Earthquake
The Fear Factor: Fear and Emotional Protection
The Dangerous Blame Game: The Game That Comes Naturally
Understanding the Fall: The Groaning Creation
Perspective: Throughout History, God Remains Faithful to His Promise
When Upside Down is Really Right-Side Up: So There Is Good News!
The Gospel is Your Anchor: The Lord Renews Your Strength
Your Future Is Secure: Death Is Swallowed Up in Victory
Appendix 1: Teach Your Children to Live Right-Side Up
Appendix 2: Comfort for Your Community

It was an interesting exercise figuring out what kind of cover design would work best for the project. Thankfully, there were various people on Facebook who shared what they liked, or did not like, about various proposed cover options!

My view is that this is a vitally important little resource to put in people’s hands. It’s available as an eBook, and coming soon–within a week or so–as a mini-book paperback of 88 pages. It’s easy enough to read in one sitting of under one hour, but also full of biblical content and application to life. Get one for you and your family, and several copies for your neighbors, friends, and work associates. Be sure to check out the Shepherd Press site to find out more about the book and the discounted offers HERE or read some pages from the book HERE.

Endorsements

Over the years, Jay Younts has been my personal Gandalf, my Mr. Miagi, my Paul. With fatherly wisdom and genuine care, Jay offers us this prayerful life-guide, showing us how to live life from God’s perspective and not our own, keeping us right-side up in a world that feels upside down.
Kirk Cameron: Actor, Film Producer

Younts turns our attention to hope found in the mercy of God and the provision he has made for mankind in the sinless life and sacrificial death of his Son, Jesus Christ. This book will provide encouragement and hope in these scary times.
Dr. Tedd Tripp: Author, Pastor, Conference Speaker

About Jay Younts

John A. (Jay) Younts is the author of this book as well as other materials on parenting and the Christian life. He is an experienced blogger, having served Shepherd Press in this capacity for several years. He has been teaching and speaking on current issues for over thirty years. He serves as a ruling elder at Redeemer Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Moore, South Carolina. He and his late wife, Ruth, have five adult children.

Follow Jay on Social Media
YouTube Channel: EverydayTalk 24/7
www.everydaytalk247.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jay.younts
Twitter: @wordsmatter247
jayyounts@gmail.com

Feb

2020

Rudolph W. Giuliani on Leadership

He faced the camera, his poise one of confidence, giving me, a viewer, a sense that he was in charge of the post-9/11 cleanup operation—and what an operation that was. That was my first impression of Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City as I watched my TV in Darlington, England. Subsequent views of the same man confirmed my impression that here was a man of competence, a leader, someone inspiring confidence in the stark face of deep trauma, a trauma that was felt by not only New Yorkers, but by people all round the world.

Fast forward nearly two decades: When I saw a secondhand book by Rudolph W. Giuliani in a thrift store in Greenville, I was tempted to buy it, but thought of the many other books at home clamoring for my attention. But I yielded and went back a week later and purchased a copy: Leadership

Written in three parts, the table of contents asserts several propositions about leadership, as below, which the author then engagingly develops in just under 400 pages.

1 September 11, 2001

2 First Things First

3 Prepare Relentlessly

4 Everyone’s Accountable, All of the Time

5 Surround Yourself with Great People

6 Reflect, Then Decide

7 Underpromise and Overdeliver

8 Develop and Communicate Strong Belief

9 Be Your Own Man

10 Loyalty: The Vital Virtue

11 Weddings Discretionary, Funerals Mandatory

12 Stand up to Bullies

13 Study. Read. Learn Independently

14 Organize Around a Purpose

15 Bribe Only Those Who Will Stay Bribed

16 Recovery

Giuliani’s childhood was shaped by strong Roman Catholic values, a love for history, an optimistic sense of what it is possible to achieve in this world, and, at times, being egged on to a good display of streetwise behaviors that helped him in his adult years to face down bullies and crooks.

The author’s can-do spirit breathes optimism through the book. At times, I found myself disagreeing with some of his faith values—I am protestant to the core—but I found myself loving his sincerity and zeal for faith as he knows it, and especially his commitment to a Judeo-Christian worldview and its outworking in the form of faith, family, and a good, solid work ethic—typical of a classical conservative. His treatment of the so-called squeegee men in NY is classic—Charge them for jaywalking, was his take on it. Nobody had thought of that!

At times a little self-congratulatory, Giuliani nevertheless charms the reader with his love for life, his love for doing the right thing, and for being a fighter to this end. And there is much in this book for ordinary people who are striving for excellence even within their own relatively minor circles. There is a feast in the chapter titles alone. I read this book over the course of a few months in bite sizes at occasional times of the month—in waiting rooms, waiting for a kettle to boil, and at other spare moments. The takeaways, for me, are largely in the propositions in the table of contents. There are many action points to be derived from these. I’ve seen too much blithering leadership in my circles—whether church, publishing, or charity work—over the years. Would that many leaders and prospective leaders would take on board some of Giuliani’s ideas and principles!

Featured image from www.biography.com/.image/t_share/MTQyODE5Nzc1NDczNTI2NTU2/rudy-giuliani-gettyimages-470786844_1600jpg.jpg

Jan

2020

Thinking About Ford v Ferrari

I am preparing this blog in consultation with my son, Matthew, aged sixteen years. He and I have prepared the text below, so some of the writing is entirely his. He and I saw the movie Ford v Ferrari late last year, and, because we found it thought provoking, I also took Sue to watch it a few weeks later. The movie is PG-13, largely as there is some fallen-world language.

It’s a sports action drama, a period setting from the early- to mid-1960s, the time I was growing up. It was fun to see how authentic the setting was—the style of cars, dress, décor, etc., though it did provoke discussion as to whether the Coca Cola bottles were quite authentic.

Characters and Plot

Based on the true story of Ford’s efforts to build a car that could rival Europe’s prime car, Ferrari, at the renowned twenty-four-hour, high-speed endurance race, the story line goes something like this:

Carroll Shelby is a former race-car driver who had to quit the sport because of a heart condition. Lee Iacocca, a member of the Ford Motor Company’s board of directors in charge of marketing, is challenged by Henry Ford (Junior) to find a way to appeal to an emerging youth demographic—baby boomers—who are attracted to more attractive, high-speed foreign cars. With Shelby, he thinks he has just the man for the job. Shelby decides to build a Ford car that will have capability to win the Le Mans race, and lobbies to have Ken Miles, an old friend, in the driver’s seat. Miles, a part-time racer, part-time auto-mechanic—a British man living in LA with his wife and son—is a hothead who is unwilling to help until the IRS come knocking. And then the need for finance propels him into the position.

After much corporate resistance, the Ford company reluctantly agrees to let Shelby and Miles apply their own ideas in a way that works, even if it does not conform to conventional company values. This climaxes in several thrillingly shot racing motor-racing sequences (the surround-sound effect in a cinema adds compellingly to the experience).

Well Produced

The movie would be entertaining but nowhere near as compelling if not for the strong character acting from Matt Damon and Christian Bale—and the good direction and cinematography that undergirds the production, courtesy the skills of people such as James Mangold. The witty, clever dialogue is the frosting on the cake, as my son insists!

A Key Quote

“There’s a point, seven thousand RPM, where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless, it just disappears. And all that’s left is a body moving through space and time. Seven thousand RPM, that’s where you meet it. It creeps up near you, and it asks you a question. The only question that really matters. Who are you?”

Thought Provoking

The movie elicited several thoughts:

This is a reminder of how the can-do American spirit can propel gifted people to excellence, notwithstanding several circumstantial challenges along the way.
Challenging the status quo—that is bucking the system—is sometimes the only way to get something done.
Life in this world is often fundamentally not fair! (And that is a profoundly biblical line of thought.) Without giving away anything in the movie, suffice it to say that not everyone is rewarded as he should be!
Facts can be as entertaining as fiction; the movie is well rooted in historical fact.

Matthew offered a parting summary: “A movie about American men doing manly, American things in the masculine America of the time.”

View the Trailer HERE: or below

Featured Image Credit: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ford_v_ferrari/pictures

Dec

2019

Thinking about Books

Earlier in the year, I was challenged on Facebook to write notes on books that I have read and enjoyed. Here are some of the notes:

Pilgrim’s Progress

My sister Margaret Jones asked me to share books that I have found significant. So I thought of my copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress and am thankful for being persuaded to purchase the cloth-bound copy as long ago as 1981! Did you know that PP is said to be the second-best-seller to the Bible?

The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister

Continuing to engage with my sister, Margaret Jones, who asked me to share books I have found significant, I thought this time that I would reference John O’Sullivan’s “The Pope, The President, and the Prime Minister.” While there are some aspects and interpretations in the book I would not agree with, I very much enjoyed the way in which O’Sullivan wrote so engagingly about three figures who had a remarkable influence on the world in the 1980s onward.

Hard Call

As I continue this short journey of reflection on books I have appreciated over the years, as requested by my sister Margaret Jones, a leadership book by the late John McCain comes to mind, “Hard Call.” I first read it about ten or more years ago, perusing the chapters with enjoyment as I was flying from place to place in my sales and marketing job. McCain engagingly teases out lessons of leadership from a wide range of people and events! You can dip into any of the chapters without reference to the others.

A Body of Divinity

Continuing the thought of books that have made a strong impact on me, as requested by Margaret Jones, I am thinking right now of the remarkable writing of Thomas Watson, a puritan minister, who prepared, inter alia, “A Body of Divinity.” It proved to be my first puritan book purchase, and came from The Bible Centre in Pietermaritzburg in 1982.
Watson is incredibly readable. You can find something quote-worthy at random on any page. Here is one:
“The wisdom of God is seen in making the most desperate evils turn to the good of his children. As several poisonable ingredients, wisely tempered by the skill of the artist, make a sovereign medicine, so God makes the most deadly afflictions co-operate for the good of his children. He purifies them, and prepares them for heaven. 2 Cor 4: I7. These hard frosts hasten the spring flowers of glory.”
Pictured is a later edition; I am pleased to own the hard-cover edition with muted red tones!

The Forgotten Spurgeon

As I continue this occasional journey through books that have been seminal in my thinking (at the request of Margaret Jones), today’s reflection is on Iain H. Murray’s “The Forgotten Spurgeon.” I received my copy as a gift from a good friend in the early 1980s but I only read it a few years later. And when I did, it was most helpful, relative to some issues I was working through. In it, Iain Murray provides a brief bio of CHS, the so-called (and well-deserved name) of the prince of preachers, 18th century Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Thereafter, Murray traces three noteworthy issues CHS faced: baptismal regeneration, the free offer of the gospel, and the Downgrade Controversy, a battle he faced with fellow Baptists who were crumpling and crumbling under the effects of modern, liberal, Bible-denying criticism. Spurgeon’s oft-repeated saying, as I recall from memory, “Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin,” should be axiomatic in today’s church, but sadly is not so. There is much to learn and apply from this excellent work, and I commend it as the right medicine for many of the issues modern believers are facing.

Surprised by Joy

Continuing the meander through thoughts about books I have enjoyed over the years, as requested by Margaret Jones, the next one that comes to my mind is one by C.S. Lewis. I was a university student at the time, battling my way through a mountain of indiscriminately varied books in an English syllabus–many of them patently boring, others full of filth. Then, in a secondhand store, I came across Lewis’ little gem, “Surprised by Joy.” The title is derived from a Wordsworth sonnet and of course also has peculiar significance to C.S.L. personally. Tracing his early life and influences, the author, with grace and freshness of style, paints beautiful word pictures of the earlier parts of his life, and how even in his rebellion, he found himself finding God and grace. What an oasis this book was to me in the wilderness of everything else I was reading at the time!

Look out for more book reflections as we move into 2020!

Dec

2019

Some 2019 Projects in Review

The year has been one of steady focus on numerous editing, production, and publishing projects. Here, in no particular order of priority, are some insights into them…and this is by no means an exhaustive list!

Devotional Poems

IMMANUEL: Poems and Meditations on the Life of Jesus: This is the second in a series of Christmas books produced for EvangAlliance Publications, an 80 page full color cloth-bound book (with loose dust jacket), with beautiful poems and is truly a magnificent production. It is a companion to a book we worked on last year, INCARNATION Poems, also by poet Tom Worth. See more HERE.

The One Anothers of the New Testament

31 Ways to be a One Another Christian An email from Dr. Stuart Scott initiated this one. He and Andrew Jin had been working on a script that teased out the implications of what the New Testament has to say about “one another.” Would Shepherd Press be interested, he asked? Of course! The year was well progressed, and an ACBC deadline for launching the book was approaching with uncomfortable rapidity, so we accelerated the editing and production and were able to launch this excellent book in October. More info HERE.

365 Plus…

Daily Readings books have a special place in my heart. There are two that have been under my purview this year, both relatively late in the year.

The first is a compilation of the wonderful My Coffee Cup Meditations books by Roger Ellsworth and family. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to get all twelve of these volumes into one big book. And the name that came to mind was simply The Big Book of Coffee Cup Meditations. It is truly a magnificent book, cloth-bound, nearly 800 pages in length. Roger writes on the back cover as follows:

Early mornings are very predictable for lots and lots of Christians. Roll out of bed, turn on the coffee pot, pour a cup, settle into a favorite chair and enjoy what is called “the daily devotional.” This usually consists of reading a passage from the Bible and a selection from a daily readings book. It concludes with prayer.

Believers who follow this pattern can go through a good number of devotional readings as the years go by. So they are always looking for new material—something to go along with their Bible and their coffee.

Hoping that I could be helpful in supplying the need for more of these kinds of readings, I gathered up some articles I had written and put them in a book—A Dog and a Clock. The idea was to supply brothers and sisters in Christ with enough devotions to carry them through one month. That quickly led to another book—The Thumbs Up Man—to carry “devotion-doers” through another month—and so on.

You can guess what happened after three or four books came out. There are twelve months in the year. So why not provide enough books to cover a year? Well, off we went and out the books came until there were finally twelve! Since these books were designed to go with the Bible and a good cup of coffee, it seemed right to call them My Coffee-Cup Meditations. Here are all twelve books in one big volume—372 readings in total!

More information HERE.

A good friend and former colleague connected me with new friends in TMAI–The Masters Academy International–in California who were in the final stages of preparing a large devotional book with multiple authors for publication. Would I help guide it through the process? The timing was tight, but the outcome is a beautiful (nearly 400 page) book, Declaring His Glory among the Nations. An edition of this book is available on Amazon HERE.

Esther: For Such a Time as This

Colin Mercer labored faithfully in Greenville, SC, for about a decade. I got to know him and appreciate his preaching at Faith Free Presbyterian Church. Friends there, Charles and Verta Koelsch, worked tirelessly on Colin’s sermon notes to prepare a very useful book on God’s care and providence as seen in the Old Testament book of Esther–with the title For Such a Time as This: The Sovereignty and Goodness of God in the Book of Esther. The outcome is a beautifully produced book of 176 pages. An edition of this book is available on Amazon HERE.

Tennessee Author Friends

Reggie Weems is a good friend in ministry in Eastern Tennessee, and we just released an excellent introduction to C.S. Lewis. In his series of “Ten Things About…”, the new The Man Who Made Narnia is a welcome addition to a man whose influence is truly remarkable. Also in preparation for 2020 is Good, But not Safe. The first title is available on Amazon HERE.

Dave Harrell, also a pastor in Tennessee, wrote a very good book on pastoral leadership. It was my pleasure to guide this through the editing and publishing process at Shepherd Press early in 2019. Soon after this was complete, Dave reached out to me with the thought of how his ministry, Shepherds Fire, could publish mini-books. After conferring on some strategic options, we came up with the idea of “The Compact Expository Pulpit Commentary Series,” small books of around 88 pages, each one packing a powerful punch in terms of both content and application. You can read more about Dave and his ministry HERE and obtain his books on Amazon as follows:

God, Evil, and Suffering HERE

God’s Gracious Gift of Assurance HERE

Our Sin and the Savior HERE

South African Connections

Dr. Francois Carr is based in Pretoria, South Africa, and has a global ministry in calling people to Christ and a consecrated walk with Him. One of his earlier books, Lead Your Family in Worship, had gone out of print. Francois reached out to me with the question: How could this book be brought back into print? Well, we found a way! We did a couple of prototype runs and the book has a few tweaks to go, and we expect to launch the agreed final version early in 2020.

“It is an old but good saying that families which pray together stay together. This refreshingly up-to-date book on family worship is a valuable contribution to a much-neglected area of Christian practice. May God be pleased to bless its teaching to many.”–Rev. Maurice Roberts: Minister, Free Church of Scotland Continuing, Inverness, Scotland

The contents for Francois’ book are good for whetting the appetite:

Introduction
1: A Forgotten Command of God
2: Why is Family Worship Necessary? (A)
3: Why is Family Worship Necessary? (B)
4: Why Don’t Families Worship Together Anymore?
5: Common Excuses for Not Having Family Worship
6: How Do I Prepare Myself and My Family for Worship?
7: How Do We Worship as a Family?
8: What are the Foundations of Family Worship?
9: A Final Encouragement
Appendix 1: Where Do I Start?
Appendix 2: Suggested Format for Family Worship
Appendix 3: Suggesed Format for Family Worship
Appendix 4: An Example of Family Worship

The Man in the Gap Martin Holdt was my pastor for many years in South Africa. A good and godly man, the story of his life is more than worthy of being told. Friends Rex and Esta Jefferies in South Africa have labored hard to prepare a biography, and they and I have been exchanging files for a couple of years or more to get the text prepared for publication. We anticipate launching this book in the first quarter of 2020. Dr. Joel Beeke in the Foreword describes this as a “must-read” book!

Here are three fragments from Dr. Beeke’s Foreword

I love good biographies of godly men. They are so stimulating, convicting, edifying, moving, challenging, and alluring. This is one of those biographies. It is a “must read” book—one that is so true to a godly pastor who lived, by God’s grace, wholly for Christ and out of love for the souls of people.

Martin Holdt was one of the very best friends in Christ Jesus that I have ever had. He was also one of the most godly people I have ever known. When he died so suddenly in the last week of 2011, I grieved as if I had lost a brother—because I did. He was like an older brother to me.

Read this book prayerfully, meditatively, and slowly. I pray God that Martin Holdt’s life story will move you to follow him insofar as he followed Christ.

Sep

2018

The Writing Apologetic Ministry of Edgar Andrews

The Writing Apologetic* Ministry of Edgar Andrews

*Apologetic: Here meaning having to do with the defense of, or reason for, the faith that one holds.

I first met Professor Edgar Andrews in 1999. I recall him, distinguished, articulate, erudite—in many ways, just what you might expect a professor to be. At the time, he was chairman of Evangelical Times and Evangelical Press. I had just relocated to England and was finding my feet in a new climate, adjusting to a new work situation, meeting new friends, discovering the joys of navigating around English traffic roundabouts (“Who gives way to whom, or do you just pray and take a chance?”) and experiencing many other new things. Our pathways would cross at occasional board meetings and when he would come to the Faverdale office in Darlington to oversee the production of the monthly paper.

We enjoyed good interactions whenever we met. I knew Prof. Andrews was much more than a brain on legs, but I always felt somewhat in awe of his great intellect—a man who knew so much about the science of materials, and yet who was at home with English literature, history, theology, ancient Greek, and many other disciplines.

I had first known of him through various of his writings, and in South Africa had enjoyed selling his books in several of my sales initiatives through Reformation Heritage Trust, subsequently renamed Barnabas Book Room. Always solid in their content, always clearly written, always with modern application, his books resonated with me and with the reading clientele Sue and I served…

So when Edgar contacted me again some years after I moved to the USA, I was delighted to have the opportunity of working with him again on some new projects. One of his earlier publications, Who Made God?, had captured the imagination of the reading public, selling tens of thousands of copies. “I’ve been working on a new book, one on the origin of man, titled What is Man—Adam, Alien or Ape?—do you think you could help promote it?” Edgar asked me. His explanatory email was predictably through in his description of the text and his plans for promoting it internationally. Of course, I was delighted to do so, and once it was in print, it was my pleasure to review it in these words—which you may read on Amazon HERE. (It’s a very good book—as I think you will see from my review notes.)

My Amazon Review Notes

A sequel to his bestselling book, “Who Made God?”, Edgar Andrews’ book “What is Man?” is a carefully thought-through, well prepared, wittily and engagingly written piece.

The author’s background in both arts and science (he is a well-rounded intellectual) eminently qualifies him to write both at length and in depth in areas of science, philosophy, literature, art, and the Christian faith—the latter from a well-informed perspective of faith. He engages robustly with some important minds along the way.

While Professor Andrews might be described as a “brain on legs,” he is a very capable communicator, taking complex concepts and subjects, breaking them down into bite-sized examples, making judicious use of illustrations to simplify them (yet without being simplistic) and then drawing lines of application to modern life and especially in challenging the thinking of people who may have mistakenly and uncritically imbibed the presuppositions and worldview of a generation who have more often been informed by talk-shows and TV than by well-reasoned scientific disciplines and carefully considered theological and philosophical conclusions.

To sketch the book by way of overview, Professor Andrews takes readers, as it were, by the hand (never condescendingly) and guides them page by page, step by step, idea by idea, through a maze of considerations considered within three categories: Man and the Cosmos, Man and the Biosphere, and Man and the Bible.

Under the first part, (Man and the Cosmos) the author gives consideration to key concerns such as the identity of humankind, the impossibility of the universe being self-creating, the willful conjecture of the media in inventing and embellishing highly detailed “facts” when there is no undergirding evidence, the habitability of the world (what he refers to as a fine-tuned universe) and the difficulties posed by the conceptualization of a multiverse.

Part 2 (Man and the Biosphere) considers people as unique creatures, traces the ramifications of the complexity of genetic mapping, spends some time on speculations that have arisen in light of fossil research and dating, and rounds off with some philosophical and ontological sketches with respect to human consciousness.

The third part of “What is Man?” (Man and the Bible) begins to draw many of the ideas heretofore explored into a unified conclusion, and provides a probing analysis of worldviews, the historicity of the fall of our first parents, the imago dei, Christ as the Second Adam, and the undeniability of the resurrection of Jesus.

Is this a “preaching, condescending kind of book”? I didn’t find it so. The author’s calm writing style, his eloquence, his gentle wit—these are all engaging features. In it all, I felt he was letting his readers come to their own conclusions at their own speed. Truth is compelling. Truth has the power, under God, to be life-transforming. This is the kind of book most people will easily be able to read. Be sure you are one of them and get one—and an extra one or two, too, for a family member or work colleague whom you might like to challenge to rethink some aspects of life!

Other Writings of Professor Edgar Andrews

I have worked with Edgar in lightly editing, reformatting, and republishing his most helpful book on Galatians (EP Books used to have it in the Welwyn Commentary Series—though Great Writing Publications it is titled Free in Christ—The Message of Galatians for Today) (more about that in another blog entry another time) and it’s on my radar soon to have his excellent commentary on Hebrews—A Glorious High Throne—back in print, also in the Great Writing Publications imprint.

Sep

2018

Everything Says, “GLORY!” (Jim Albright)

Our pathways crossed some years ago when I was introduced to Jim Albright and helped him get his first book into print. We kept in contact, and some months ago, he reached out to me and mentioned he was ready to do his second book–and would I help him to do so? Well, the pleasure was all mine!

In the book, Jim Albright really does a great job to undermine and demolish some of the axiomatic beliefs of evolution. And what is so useful about it is that he uses many “insider” quotes from the evolutionists themselves in pointing out the weaknesses and inconsistencies of their assumptions and conclusions. As the blurb on the back cover of the book puts it,

In seven articulately written chapters, Jim Albright persuasively pinpoints and exposes the pseudo-scientific tenets of macro-evolutionary thinking. Replete with quotations from scientists across many disciplines, this is a book that every Christian should own. Missionary Keith Jones is right, “The best part of this book is that it will provoke you to a whole new level of worship!”

The book comes with several compelling endorsements, such as

“. . . a staggering number of relevant (often shocking) quotations from scientists and researchers.”—Professor Don Whitney
“Albright makes the case in a way that causes you to say, ‘How could it be possible to believe in evolution?’”—Pastor Jim Elliff
“. . . utilizes scientific and logical evidence to expose the lie that evolution is.”—Professor Jim Ehrhard
“My advice, dear reader, . . . sincerely contemplate what you find in these pages.”—Pastor Lance Quinn
“. . . your tongue and heart are loosed to speak what you know is true with confidence and assurance.”—Missionary Alan Johnston
“A great resource for the church . . . a layman’s synopsis.”—Pastor Brad Vaden
“. . . a treasure of quotable science.”—Pastor Dow Welsh
“Read this book closely; think deeply; observe inquisitively; worship passionately.”—Pastor Doug Richey
“The best part of this book is that it will provoke you to a whole new level of worship.”—Missionary Keith Jones

Peacock and Poppycock

My colonial and English background make me rather like the word “poppycock.” Jim uses it to good effect in some descriptive text. There is a peacock motif that runs through the book. That was really why the cover was so important to “get right.” Below is the text from some early matter in the book:

About the Cover

So, why the peacock feather on the cover? Because Charles Darwin hated it. He wrote, “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail, whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick!”^[i]

The obvious problem was that he did not know how to plausibly explain this large, mathematically patterned, jewel-colored, gratuitous display of beauty in evolutionary terms. A peacock tail can stand five feet high. And all those cumbersome feathers are most inconvenient regarding the chief survival-of-the-fittest issue—namely, not being eaten. This was no small dilemma for Mr. Darwin.

In keeping with his general approach to science, Darwin concocted a story. Give the man credit. He knew how to weave a narrative. This is, of course, the foremost skill of his disciples. Storytelling is far less bothersome than engaging in the exacting rigors of real science.

Darwin proposed a theory of sexual selection. That is, peahens prefer peacocks with the best tails. Best meaning, the biggest and most colorful. The gaudier the tail, Darwin surmised, the better the peacock would fare with the peahens, and consequently pass on more of the flamboyant plumage genes to male offspring.

Oops. Yeah, this doesn’t actually happen. This is where storytelling, as opposed to truly doing science, puts one in a bit of a bind. A “seven-year study that observed 268 matings”^[ii] conducted by scientists seeking to confirm Darwin’s theory, found that peacock sexual selection based upon the coolest tail, is, and sorry, I couldn’t resist borrowing Ph.D. David Catchpoole’s quote, “poppycock.”^[iii]

The “tail tale”^[iv] is the perfect parable of Darwinian evolutionary theory. It’s all just unsubstantiated anecdotes. Regarding the macro-Darwinian hypothesis, there is no hard data. Zero. But oh, what a fanciful myth of unparalleled imagination has been fabricated for the incurious and unwary!

Darwin hated the peacock feather. It makes no evolutionary sense. Exactly!

[i] Charles Darwin and Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, including an Autobiographical Chapter, Vol. 2 (New York: D. Appleton, 1911), 90-91.

[ii] Catchpoole, D., Peacock tail tale failure, creation.com/tale, 2008. (Creation 31(2):56–Jun 2008).

[iii] Catchpoole, D., https://creation.com/peacock-poppycock (Creation 29(2):56 – Mar 2007).

[iv] Ibid.

Favorites 4: Innovation and Endeavor

View Planet Earth from the Orbiting International Space Station

Tracker map detail. Click to enlarge.

This has to be one of the most fascinating sites you can visit. I like to view two sites simultaneously (or, rather, to toggle between them):

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/iss-hdev-payload gives a real-time earth view from the orbiting station
http://www.isstracker.com/ enables you to plot exactly where the station is, and what part of the globe you are currently viewing.

What is really neat about the second link is that you can zoom the view and also get a map or hybrid view. And you can observe the velocity and altitude (in miles!) of the craft!

Psalm 111:2 “The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.”

Psalm 24:1,2 “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”

Video clip below, screen capture for 20 seconds, ISS south of Australia, 20180920

The Car That Can Fly

Maverick in flight

This is about Steve Saint, son of Nate Saint (remember the account of Jim Elliot, murdered in the early 1950s, by the Auca Indians in Ecuador?). View the YouTube video below of Steve’s invention.

(Jim Elliot famously said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”)

This is a fine example of endeavor driven by a real and practical need on the one hand, and a zest to bring the message of God’s love and grace, in practical terms, to people out of normal and easy reach.

Come to think of it, to buy a flying car for a price ticket of around $80,000 sounds quite good!

Sep

2018

Favorites 2: Devotion and Discipline

Noteworthy and Quoteworthy

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
? Jim Elliot, Martyred missionary to the Auca Indians

“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
? Francis Bacon, The Essays

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
? Thomas A. Edison

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
? Winston Churchill, Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches

“Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.”
? Theodore Roosevelt

Asking Questions

“I keep six honest serving men:
They taught me all I knew:
Their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who.”

? Rudyard Kipling (Image credit: Wikipedia)

Said the Robin to the Sparrow

Said the robin to the sparrow,
“I should really like to know,
Why these anxious human beings
Rush about and worry so.”
Said the sparrow to the robin,
“Friend I think that it must be,
That they have no Heavenly Father,
Such as cares for you and me.”

Aug

2017

Publishing: 4

Jim Continues His Thoughts. . .

Who Moved My Cheese?

The cover design of the book caught my eye as well as the title. “Who Moved My Cheese?” it asked. It was a slender volume, no more than 96 pages as I recall, and it told the story of a number of mice that had to face change in life. The longstanding supply of cheese from which they have helped themselves is no more. “What is to be done in securing more cheese?” is the challenge facing these four mice. Written as a parable that takes place in a maze, the story engagingly describes Sniff and Scurry, and their associates, Hem and Haw, and how they go about finding more cheese. Spencer Johnson’s intention is to introduce readers to the concept of positive change and how to cope with it. The book makes for engaging reading.

Shifting paradigms are always interesting, especially when they involve adjusting to new ways. Just because something has always been done in a particular way is no guarantee that such a way will always work—or that it cannot be improved.

When I first purchased my AB Dick printing press in the 1990s (more HERE), there was really only one way to produce books cost-effectively: by printing quite a lot at a time. The prevailing philosophy in the printing industry was to find a sweet-spot—establishing a printing number that was high enough to enable unit price to be attractive but not causing the publisher to have to mortgage his house to pay for the print run and then take take forever to sell the books—and not too short a print run to sell all copies too quickly. Of course, the fact that I owned a printing press did give me a strategic advantage at least when it came to the printing of sales leaflets and catalogs, but book printing was really a larger and more complex operation than my press would be able to manage.

After I relocated to Britain, the first publisher I worked for in the UK operated on the principle of having access to a fairly big warehouse to keep all the books safely stored during the time they were being fed out to the marketplace. Paper and print does not accrue in value under those circumstances, and it can be challenging to keep a large warehouse tidy and functioning in an orderly way. Maybe that got my thinking going about whether there was a better, a different way…

Other publishing wisdom I encountered in the early 2000s went like this: “We’ll print books in large quantities, but first find publishing partners—that is, buyers with whom we can engage in a kind of strategic alliance.” I liked that. It meant that the financial load could be spread and shared between two or more parties, stakeholders in each instance, and created a strong and efficient force for buying print and then for moving it into the market. I do still very much favor this approach, and I think it works really well under the right conditions.

Enter Amazon

The “Big A” has changed a lot of things. At one time, nobody took Amazon too seriously, but not so anymore. Amazon’s ability to operate on a relatively low overhead and to have negotiated specially preferential, volume-related relationships with shippers has dealt the death knell to many vendors who had maybe become comfortable with the status quo. The reality is that people’s buying habits have changed and continue to do so. Most people today are quite relaxed in making online purchases.

So What About a New Author?

Where does a new author, someone not yet published, fit into this shifting paradigm? There are many variables, but it’s usually fair to say that the new author is relatively without connections and can offer no track record to a prospective publisher. Jack Canfield (co-originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books) records how he had to work exceptionally hard to find a publisher who was prepared to take the risk with his publishing idea. But that publisher was not unhappy with the outcome. (Canfield has subsequently had several New York Times bestsellers to his credit.)

It’s a hop, skip, and jump (at least in one sense) for an unpublished author to fly solo, and there is significant temptation to do so. The ease with which self-publishing can take place has given newbie authors a lot of rope. Some such authors make good use of the rope for hanging themselves, speedily finding an in-law to help with the editing, a friend to design the cover, and a teenager to help with the uploading of files to the printer; others are more cautious and with due circumspection do a better job. The point is that homemade usually looks homemade. I’ve seen enough to make me queasy!

But let me get back to my story and to tell you why I publish. . . and to address three important questions that need to be kept under consideration.

Below: Some of the books I have published so far

1. The Question of Editing, Design, and Production Quality

It soon became apparent that I could easily help a new author (or an established one) bring a very presentable book into print. And that was gratifying for me as well as for the author! Editing and book design are closely related, and I found that even as I was working with an author, ideas were coming to me in terms of how we could develop the work to make it look like a nice project once it was in print.

Any would-be self published author MUST think carefully about how to achieve an outstandingly good result!

2. The Question of Financial Risk

So, now finding myself in the position of working with authors and others in the publishing realm, but without a full-time employer, my instinct was to push forward and to push hard in developing a new model, one that would facilitate the kinds of people who are gifted writers, but who, for whatever reason, are not able to achieve success with a mainstream or established publisher. One of the most likely things that will happen to a self-published author is that he or she will end up with numbers of cartons of a well (or badly) produced book in the garage. The first ten or twenty copies were relatively easy to sell (or give away as complimentary items); and then things just dried up. That can be an expensive mistake!

DSR Printing

So I reasoned that we could find a way around that by using digital short-run printing (costs have become much lower in recent years) so that only a small number of books at a time would need to be produced. Wow! That made such a difference to how people saw things! In fact, I coined the term “Perpetually in Print” (more info HERE). An author’s book never has to go out of print. And an author never has to face the sight of cartons of unsold print in the garage gathering dust!

Then I turned my attention to how I could help people promote (and therefore sell) their books. That was fun, if you find Facebook and such portals to be fun! This is all about enabling an author to use his or her voice and to achieve maximum amplification through low-cost or no-cost promotional portals. But that’s for another post I’ll write another time!

3. The Question of Distribution Efficiency

But that still did not quite solve the challenge of global distribution. I loved it that my US-based clients could enjoy success in selling their books in the States, but what about my clients in the UK? Well, I am happy to report that there turned out to be a solution—a very good solution to that, too, and one of the print-and-distribute models that I now use is highly efficient in making my authors’ books available anywhere in the world, usually available to ship within just a couple of days.

It was pleasing to be able to see good and reasonable answers to each of these challenging questions as I moved forward in my thinking.

Doing It the Right Way

One of my clients–a self-published author (in fact, he has since started his own imprint with my involvement)–was happy to report to me that when he made his book publicly available, one of his associates spoke these words to him: “Dewey, this beautiful book is self-published, and yet it does not look self-published.” And that is exactly the point! An author who has invested years and years, who has toiled tirelessly to produce a manuscript surely deserves the very best treatment and the prospect of getting a really pleasing outcome from such labors!

The “Either/Or” and “Both/And” Relationship

There is something of a watershed emerging in publishing. One the one side, there is the traditional model, a model that I love and that continues to be effective. I work closely with established publishers, publishers who have been around for a long time and will continue to be so. But there is a new way of publishing, and it is imperative that established publishers recognize the new dynamic and, where appropriate, make use of it for some of their printing needs. Of course, for the newbies who are careful enough not to hang themselves on the long length of rope suddenly available, judicious use of new technologies and systems provide the enabling to bring them into new realms of effecitveness.

To one of my clients, I recently used the analogy of what the skies are like to aircraft. Her husband, a retired doctor, loves flying his single-engine, four-seater Cessna 182. A 182 is not a Boeing 747. But it flies in the same skies, and uses the same principles of thrust and lift in order to stay airborne, and has many of the same capabilities. And so it is that she, a self-published author who may be unknown to many, is able to appear side by side with the greats when it comes to platforms such as Amazon, and the public response to her writing (expressed in customer ratings and reviews) has much the same visibility authors who may be much better known.

Ask me whether I am an either/or person or a both/and person, and I will tell you immediately that I am the latter, especially when it comes to publishing. And the interesting thing is that the two can sometimes morph together in related projects. An author who is going to enjoy spectacular success will most likely have his or her books printed many at a time, and published and promoted by a publisher and distribution network that can accommodate the speed and urgency of demand, and where the cost of sale relative to the final selling price dynamic is in a satisfactory and realistic relationship. Supply and demand factors often determine this quite naturally.

But there is so much to be said for the author whose books are just quietly selling through key portals, and where the ongoing activity is sustained through quiet and unobtrusive means. You might not find such books in window displays or endcaps in bookstores, and the authors might not be doing public signings, but the reality is that the reader interest and demand is there, and it fuels the life of the book over a good length of time.

There is More to Come. . .

I cannot complete this cluster of posts without sharing a little about some of the books I have published, and introducing you to some of the authors and the fun we had in getting the books from concept to completion. So look out for the next post or two in this series!

When Life Turns Upside Down

Endorsements

About Jay Younts

Rudolph W. Giuliani on Leadership

Thinking About Ford v Ferrari

Characters and Plot

Well Produced

A Key Quote

Thought Provoking

Thinking about Books

Pilgrim’s Progress

The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister

Hard Call

A Body of Divinity

The Forgotten Spurgeon

Surprised by Joy

Some 2019 Projects in Review

Devotional Poems

The One Anothers of the New Testament

365 Plus…

Esther: For Such a Time as This

Tennessee Author Friends

South African Connections

The Writing Apologetic* Ministry of Edgar Andrews

My Amazon Review Notes

Other Writings of Professor Edgar Andrews

Everything Says, “GLORY!” (Jim Albright)

Peacock and Poppycock

About the Cover

View Planet Earth from the Orbiting International Space Station

The Car That Can Fly

Noteworthy and Quoteworthy

Jim Continues His Thoughts. . .

Who Moved My Cheese?

Enter Amazon

So What About a New Author?

1. The Question of Editing, Design, and Production Quality

2. The Question of Financial Risk

DSR Printing

3. The Question of Distribution Efficiency

Doing It the Right Way

The “Either/Or” and “Both/And” Relationship

There is More to Come. . .

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