Magic Statistics

Globe and Mail writer Neil Reynolds departs from his usual business beat today with a column about the hymn "Amazing Grace" and the abolitionist campaign shown in the film of the same name.  He points out that the word "wretch" in the magnificent hymn's first line grates on modern ears more receptive to the language of self-esteem and self-respect.

It was a tenderhearted bunch of people, a few years back, that first censored Amazing Grace, excising from the great hymn its reference to English slave trader John Newton's sense — hey, it's Theology 101 — of separation from God. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound," he had written, "that sav'd a wretch like me."

I have seen hymnbooks in which the first line has been bowderlised to read, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved and set me free".  Yecch!

As is usually the case, the original wording not only sounds right, it also carries deeper and truer theological meaning.

In our time, the word "wretch" has proved too demeaning. The campaign against it goes on to this day. Yet in its original sense, it meant exile — symbolically, in religious parlance, excommunication. It was the perfect word.

Mr Reynolds runs down the list of British evangelical Christians who laboured for decades to abolish the slave trade.  Inspired by John Newton and led by William Wilberforce, the small band of religious reformers included Governor of Sierra Leone Zachary Macaulay, Governor of India Lord Teignmouth, popular female author Hannah More, aristocratic philanthropist The Countess of Huntington, and Sunday school pioneer Robert Raiken.

Finally, and here we arrive at a business angle, there was the wealthy London banker Henry Thornton,

who gave away so much of his wealth that, toward the end of his life, he risked bankruptcy. Wilberforce gave away much of his wealth, too — in 1801, for instance, giving £3,000 more than he earned. Thornton, much richer, gave more. Proportionately, the very generous Bill Gates and the very charitable Warren Buffett can be regarded as tightwads. Thornton kept detailed accounts of his philanthropy. In 1790-1793, he donated £20,000 and kept £7,000 for all other purposes. He routinely gave away sixth-sevenths of his income.

These dedicated and self-sacrificing men and women are towering examples of the social good that Christians have brought, and continue to work for.  Their dedication to give their all for the good of others reflects Christian discipleship at its most profound.  Their example is humbling and truly inspiring.

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• Is there such a thing as “Christian politics”?
• St Mary Woolnoth Church, King William Street, London

Science writer Nicholas Wade has investigated the current state of knowledge of anthropology, which has now incorporated findings from DNA analysis.  The resulting book, Before the Dawn: Recovering the lost history of our ancestors, sharply challenges romantic notions of peace and harmony among pre-historic civilisations.

Rousseau's Noble Savage is French toast.

Wade presents compelling evidence that humans appear to be genetically predisposed to warfare. Among ancient hunter-gatherers, "incessant warfare" was the norm, just as it is today among the Stone Age tribes of New Guinea and South America. Humans have a long history of cannibalism, so much that we carry genes to guard against the toxic consequences of eating human flesh (similar to Mad Cow prion disease).   Modern humans are less aggressive than our ancestors were. The very fact that we can live in mass societies at reasonable peace with each other is an extraordinary advance.

This is a bombshell for politically correct beliefs that indigenous American cultures lived at peace with the land and each other before the nasty Europeans arrived.

h/t: Faith-Science News

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About a hundred staff and students had to be evacuated from Templeton College, University of Oxford, following discovery of two firebombs.  A notice claiming responsibility was posted at an internet site allied with Animal Liberation Front.

Both failed to explode but are the latest in a wave of attacks on the university which refuses to end animal testing in its laboratories.
. . .
Central to the controversy has been the construction of a vast new £20 million animal research laboratory. This has led to anyone connected to the university becoming a 'legitimate' target for the fanatics.

About a year ago, 16-year-old Laurie Pycroft organised Pro-Test, a popular movement to oppose animal-rights fanatics who threaten Oxford faculty, students, and facilities.

h/t: Pearcey Report

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Globe and Mail columnist Gary Mason came all the way to Whitehorse to take in the 2007 Canada Winter Games.  Despite being on the scene, however, he still managed to disseminate disinformation about our fair city.

The City of Whitehorse has even introduced climate-change-friendly bylaws.

For instance, you can be fined for idling your car unnecessarily. Who would be crazy enough to turn their car off at a red light this time of year?

That is utter nonsense.  The city has no such by-laws and, even if it did, waiting for a red light is beside the point.

A complete list of municipal by-laws is posted at the website of the City of Whitehorse.  Take a gander, Mr Mason: there's nothing about limiting vehicle idling.

Someone could have phoned the by-law enforcement office for corroboration, but I guess he left his fact checkers back in Toronto.  Did someone play a little joke on the Globe and Mail reporter?  And then he was taken in by his own romantic notions of environmentally aware Northerners?  He wouldn't be the first.

There was an attempt to enact such an ordinance, but it went nowhere.  An environmental activist somehow got elected to City Council about five years ago.  She proposed an anti-idling by-law and got no support from the mayor or the other five council members.  In fact, as I recall, some members had a few chuckles over it.  (That Council member soon moved out of town and did not run for re-election.)

Undaunted, a small group of local eco-wackos took it upon themselves to oppress alert drivers who left their vehicles parked and running for more than a few minutes.  But that didn’t last long because widespread idling occurs only when the thermometer drops below -20 Celsius or so, and the self-appointed idling police didn't like standing around outside in the cold for hours staring intently at their stopwatches.

In the North, vehicle idling has nothing to do with waiting at a red light.  As the temperature falls past -20, more and more drivers leave their vehicles running when they park anywhere away from a plug-in.  Last weekend, for example, the mercury dropped below -30.  The parking stalls along Main Street and the parking lots at Wal-Mart and Superstore were full of vehicles left idling while drivers and passengers went shopping.  This is common and accepted practice in the North (as long as one carries a duplicate set of car keys).

And then there's this.

Locals say the recent blast of frigid temperatures is not representative of the weather the area's been getting. In fact, Woody, my taxi driver, says the past three years in Whitehorse have been the warmest he can recall.

Couple of problems there.  First off, the temperature statistics prove Woody is mistaken.

What's more, I heard that same story from an old-timer less than two months after I arrived here in late October 1988.  The temperature dipped to -25, and a long-time resident assured me it was nothing.  He said, "It used to get really cold here back in the 1970s, but it doesn't anymore."

He was proved wrong in no time.  For six solid weeks during January and February, 1989, the temperature did not rise above -35.  For three of those weeks, it didn’t get above -40.  (And that’s ignoring wind-chill factors.)

Gary Mason complains about a few days with highs of -25 and lows of -35.  Take my word for it: That's nothin'.  It used to get really cold in Whitehorse back in the late 1980s, but it doesn’t anymore.  If you missed the winter of '89, you don't know what cold is. 

Click here for the latest Whitehorse weather forecast.

Previous related post:

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Drive busy streets carefully, RCMP advise — Whitehorse Star, 23 February.

(Unfortunately, the link is behind a subscriber wall.) 

A new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation exposes Britain as a centre of human trafficking.  Over 5000 children are presently being compelled to work as sex slaves in the UK.  Thousands are bought and sold by international criminal gangs that victimise, intimidate, and exploit women and children as young as five.

The human trafficking trade now generates an estimated £5bn a year worldwide, making it the second biggest international criminal industry after the drugs trade. Children's charities in Britain say there has been a "dramatic" rise in referrals of trafficked children to sexual exploitation services.

An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that gangs, especially those from Romania and Lithuania as well as Africa, are increasingly targeting Britain because markets in other European countries such as Spain and Italy are saturated.
. . .
[T]he report finds that the UK's response to trafficking is too biased towards law enforcement at the expense of victim protection. It also reveals that many victims are deported to their home country where they face assault from gangs and the threat of being retrafficked. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is urging ministers to draw up policies that treat those in slavery as victims, not as immigration cases.
. . .
The Rowntree study was carried out by the University of Hull along with Anti-Slavery International and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation.

A companion piece tells the story of a young teenager lured from Lithuania to Britain.  She was forced to work in a brothel.

Danielle was excited at the prospect of leaving her home in Lithuania for a summer job in Britain at the age of 15. The work had been arranged through a friend who was unable to join Danielle until later and so put her in touch with a man who would take her to London.

Danielle suspected nothing until the stranger took her passport once they passed through customs and left her with two Albanians and a Lithuanian woman. It turned out that she had been sold for £3,500. The "holiday job" was working in a brothel in Birmingham.

Danielle, now 18, finally managed to escape and return home.

A woman who runs a shelter for trafficked children in Romania says that this criminal enterprise, unlike drugs, is a “low-risk, high-income trade”.  The children don’t know their rights and typically have no support from their families, while the traffickers can afford the best legal help money can buy.

It is shocking to realise that slavery exists in the land that supposedly banned it two centuries ago.

Tony Blair promised last month to join a European campaign to eradicate slavery, but as yet he has not formally done so.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu led a service at York Minster this morning in honour of evangelical Christian and abolitionist campaigner William Wilberforce. 

Dr John Sentamu paid tribute to the former Hull MP to mark the 200th anniversary of the aboliton of the slave trade in the then British Empire.

The service included a performance by the choir of Pocklington school in East Yorks, which Wilberforce attended.

Some of Wilberforce's descendants were be among the hundreds at the service.

Today’s York Minster service is the first in a series of events and remembrances to be held in Britain this year to commemorate Wilberforce’s achievement.

In March it will be 200 years since the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed.

The Very Rev Keith Jones, Dean of York, recalled the night the Bill passed second reading in the House of Commons.

"On the night of February 23/24 1807, the Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons.

"It was a tremendous scene when at 4am, after a long debate, Wilberforce was cheered to the echo and tears streamed down his face."

In 1807, the slave trade was abolished, but not the institution of slavery itself.  It was not until 1833 that slavery was outlawed throughout the British Empire.  The news that his life’s work had been accomplished was delivered to Wilberforce on his deathbed, only hours before he passed away.

Wilberforce’s legacy lives on, and this anniversary is bringing renewed dedication to abolition of slavery around the world.  As the home page of Wilberforce 2007 reminds us, there are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The photo at right shows the statue of William Wilberforce at St John’s College, Cambridge.

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The offertory hymn on the First Sunday in Lent at Christ Church Cathedral, Whitehorse. (Hymn #533 in the Anglican Church of Canada's hymn book, Common Praise.)

Jesus, Lover of my soul,
let me to thy bosom fly,
while the nearer waters roll,
while the tempest still is high:
hide me, O my Savior, hide,
till the storm of life be past;
safe into the haven guide,
O receive my soul at last.

Other refuge have I none,
hangs my helpless soul on thee;
leave, ah! leave me not alone,
still support and comfort me!
All my trust on thee is stayed;
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing.

Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
mor than all in thee I find;
raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
heal the sick, and lead the blind.
Just and holy is thy Name;
I am all unrighteousness;
false and full of sin I am;
thou art full of truth and grace.

Plenteous grace with thee is found,
grace to cover all my sin;
let the healing streams abound,
make and keep me pure within.
Thou of life the fountain art,
freely let me take of thee:
spring thou up within my heart,
rise to all eternity.

Words: Charles Wesley, 1740.
Music: Aberystwyth.

Charles Wesley, one of greatest hymn writers in the history of the church, was the younger brother of John Wesley.  Although both remained Church of England ministers all their lives, their work together in 18th-century Britain led to the rise of Methodism.  They were sons of Samuel Wesley, Anglican rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire, and Susanna Wesley, daughter of dissenting minister Samuel Annesley.

This year marks the tercentenary of Charles Wesley’s birth.  He was born 28 December 1707 in Epworth, and died 29 March 1788 in London.  He was buried at St Marylebone Parish Church, London.

“Jesus, Lover of My Soul” is generally recognised as one of the best of Charles Wesley’s 6500 hymns.  Some have called it the finest hymn in the English language.  It is found in almost every hymnal ever published and has been translated into most of the world’s languages.  Yet, when Charles’s brother John first read it, he did not like it, considering it too sentimental.  The hymn did not become popular until after the brothers had died.

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Lent, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights; Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness, and true holiness, to thy honour and glory, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11

The central Asian republic of Kazakhstan is preparing to outlaw all unregistered religious organisations and activities. Religious bodies with fewer than 50 members, even if registered, will face severe limitations.

Kazakhstan's religious minorities have told Forum 18 News Service of their concern over the new Religion Law now being prepared by the government's Religious Affairs Committee. According to one recent draft, seen by Forum 18, all unregistered religious activity would be banned, while communities with fewer than 50 adult citizen members would be prohibited from publishing or importing religious literature, maintaining open places of worship or conducting charitable activity.

The draft law does not spell out the procedure for registration, leaving wide scope for arbitrariness and abuse.

The proposed law requires foreigners entering the country in order to lead religious activity to obtain permission from the Religious Affairs Committee.  The committee's approval would also be necessary for construction of places of worship.

Most Protestant churches in the country have fewer than 50 members.

Kazakhstan is by far the largest and most economically prosperous of the Central Asia republics.  It is also the only one with a large ethnic Russian population.  Russians, who are predominately Orthodox, comprise almost half the population.  Most of the rest are ethnic Kazakhs who tend to be Sunni Muslim, but few are fanatical, or even particularly devoted, followers of Islam.