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Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, 2018 | Photo: Gage Skidmore
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Back to School
President Trump is demanding that schools open in the fall. Even after many schools have announced that they will re-open, the surge in cases has caused some to reconsider. Harvard and several other Ivy Leagues have announced they will do online classes for the next school year - and they haven’t lowered tuition. In an era when many are questioning whether it’s worth going to college at all, universities are going to have to be even more prepared to vouch for the value they offer students planning to enroll in the next two years.
The major issue will be opening K-12 schools. Sec. of Education Betsy DeVos called for schools to open in the fall. She acknowledged the need for some local exceptions but that there is no medical reason students cannot return. The goal is ensuring a full year of learning in as safe an environment as possible. That means the norm is re-opening, with possible local exceptions. School openings affect far more than education; economic recovery will lag behind school openings. To get the nation back up and running schools need to open as soon - and as safely - as possible.
Opponents have cited safety concerns for teachers and administrators, on top of the small chance that the children will come down with the virus. Teachers’ unions have called the Trump administration’s approach “anti-scientific” and accused the President of endangering the nation’s children. The American Association of Pediatrics has called for children to return to school in person, arguing that keeping children out of school is a greater hazard than sending them back. In addition to missing vital educational windows and milestones, keeping children home has led to an increase in misbehavior and in domestic abuse.
Scott Gottlieb, writing in the Wall Street Journal, has summarized the issue: “The debate over schools has been swept up in a political maelstrom. Reopening schools will draw more controversy if people believe their school district was forced into opening. I’ve talked to Republican and Democratic governors about their strategies. The commitment to reopening is universal. Their approach is appropriately varied to local conditions.” This is largely a battle over control. Gottlieb proposes that while children appear to be less susceptible to the virus, safety measures can ensure that they return safely as the data unfolds.
The Coronavirus is spreading quickly among younger people, leading to more cases and fewer deaths - but death rates may be starting to rise. Cases in the U.S. are topping 70,000 and show no signs of leveling off. Florida accounted for over 20% of the new cases with 15,300 Saturday. In the last month, South Carolina has seen cases rise almost 1000% among those 11-20 and over 400% among those 21-30. Texas, Florida, and Arizona have attracted national attention for their rise in cases, low testing rate per 100,000, and high positive test rate. These three states also have the highest hospitalization rate in the U.S. However, their death rates remain low and hospital capacity remains high. Arizona has the highest death rate per 100,000 among the three with 28. Compare that to New York at 166 and New Jersey at 174. Texas has only seen 10 deaths per 100,000.
In an interview with the FT, Dr. Anthony Fauci said we’re living in a “perfect storm.” After rocketing to world-wide prominence, Fauci has receded from national influence. This marks a shift in the way many Americans see the national response. Some see little purpose in the opinions of “experts” many of whom have been wrong about predictions, masks, transmission, symptoms, and treatment options. Others have simply focused on the economy and social aspects of the virus, taking the medical reality as a given.
Fauci worries that the waning trust in experts is leading states to make bad decisions about reopening. Even if a vaccine is developed, how can we know that everyone will trust it? People are losing trust in what the government tells them, and that he says, is “very, very problematic right now.”
PPE is emerging again as a pressing issue for healthcare workers. Hospital capacity and healthcare workers are the keys to responding to the virus, even as the country continues to manage the re-opening.
Amazon is the first major American company to prohibit its employees from using Tik Tok on company equipment, citing security concerns with the Chinese-owned app. Peter Navarro forecasted strong action from the U.S. in the coming weeks, including a possible ban on the apps. In another move against Chinese-owned tech companies, Britain walked back its commitments to Huawei concerning their 5G network.
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Study Philippians
When Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians, he saw an opportunity for the Gospel in a difficult time. In this series, Terry Feix walks through the unique opportunity we have to see our world changed by the Gospel during these unprecedented times.
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Roger Stone, 2019 | Photo: Victoria Pickering
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Jolly Roger
Less than a week before he was scheduled to report to prison, Roger Stone had his sentence commuted by the President. The Friday night backlash was almost immediate. David Frum called it “one of the greatest scandals in American history.” Sen. Mitt Romney called Stone’s commuted sentence, “Unprecedented, historic corruption.” Andrew McCarthy took a more historical approach than the “amnesiac Democrats” citing similar and more egregious moves in the Clinton and Obama administrations.
It’s never good to read that the President is pardoning his friends, particularly those convicted of charges tied to defending him. However, as is so often the case in our news-media world today, the truth is a bit more complicated. Roger Stone will not be remembered as a person of integrity. He was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering, and lying to Congress as an offshoot of the Mueller investigation. So why did the President commute his sentence?
Robert Mueller broke his silence and defended his investigation in a Washington Post op-ed. He summarized Stone’s involvement as a go-between for the Trump administration and WikiLeaks, which was allegedly in contact with the Russian government and offered to funnel emails stolen from the Clinton campaign to the Trump campaign. Stone claimed to know about the emails from WikiLeaks and communicated with individuals the Mueller investigation identified as Russian intelligence agents.
Mueller makes one point clear that’s often overlooked in coverage of the investigation, “We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities.” Russia attempted to influence the election, but there’s no proof that the Trump campaign played along. Many of these lines of communication, though, run through Roger Stone.
When Mueller’s team targeted Stone, he lied about his contact with WikiLeaks and pressured a witness to refuse to speak to Congress. For Mueller, this is about the legitimacy of his investigation. At no point does he take a stand on the President’s actions, he simply asserts that Stone was rightfully convicted and rightfully remains a felon; “Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham tweeted that if Robert Mueller was willing to defend his investigation in the pages of the Washington Post, he should be able to do it in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, something Democratic members have previously called for.
Trump’s rationale for commuting Stone’s sentence probably has far less to do with his crimes than with his sentencing. While his opponents see this as a case of using political power to save one of his buddies, Trump likely sees this as a stand against unfair treatment by a judge against her political enemies. He did not pardon Roger Stone; he commuted his sentence days before he was set to report to prison, and days after his appeals over the coronavirus were rejected.
Those who have called the President’s actions corrupt have focused on Stone’s crimes. David French wrote, “It's worth remembering what he did, and why it was right and necessary to investigate the Trump campaign's attempts to cooperate and/or collude with Russians.” But the problem here seems to lie with the presidential power to pardon and commute, not anything about this specific case. As Mueller made clear, Stone may have communicated with the Russians, and then he lied about it, but he did not collude with them. This would be a powerful argument if Trump had pardoned Stone, or if he had intervened during the investigation, but he did not.
Prisoners all over the country are being released because of the threat of the coronavirus. California is planning to release 8,000 inmates after one-third of the inmates tested positive at San Quentin. Infection rates are a serious problem in prisons. In Texas, cases per 100,000 are three times higher than they are in New York. In Arkansas and Tennessee, the number is close to seven times as high.
Stone’s attorneys made the argument that given his age and health conditions, he should be able to serve the beginning of his sentence at home. The judge denied it. Then the president commuted his sentence. After all the information that’s come out about Michael Flynn in the last two months, this is hardly a surprising move.
It’s not good for the country to have both sides railing against a politicized justice system. What’s interesting in this situation is that Mueller and Trump could both theoretically be in the right. But the pressure to side unilaterally for or against the President, to completely support or completely deny all the caricatures of the Russia investigation, or to selectively view every political motive as corruption will ensure that justice is not served in our country.
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Best Reads:
“How to Reach the West (Again)” - Tim Keller, The Gospel Coalition
“We are entering a new era in which there is not only no social benefit to being Christian, but an actual social cost.” This is the reality we’re all slowly coming to grips with. The question is, how do we adapt our ministries, strategies, and evangelism to meet this new reality? Keller lays out five elements for “missionary encounters” that remain connected to our society, confront it, and aim for conversion. We’ve got to re-learn how to show the stark difference between what the world offers and what God offers, to present the gospel in a way that can be understood by people with no Christian background, and how to catechize young Christians in the church. This is the kind of thing Tim Keller does best. As you work through this list, think about how we might begin to learn, adapt, and pray to reach the coming generation for Christ.
“Humble Yourself and Fast” - David Mathis, Desiring God
Fasting is a lost discipline, and not just because most of us don’t do it anymore, because many of us don’t know what it’s for. Fasting has become a practice relegated to Lent, when you give something up for 40 days leading up to Easter, or worse yet, an emblem of austere legalism. Social media fasts have become popular too as efforts to disconnect with the pace of the digital age and reconnect with God. Unfortunately, many fasts are seen as detoxes and diet plans with a spiritual component. This is not the way the Bible talks about fasting. Mathis covers four Old Testament stories that each emphasize a different reason for fasting; self-humbling, responding to God’s chastening, changing our orientation and expectation in prayer, and expressing our hearts to God. These passages remind us that God has designed us to fast for many different reasons and that prayer and fasting should be part of our lives today.
“Does Anyone Need to Recover from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood?” - Andrew David Naselli, CBMW
One of the most interesting and significant discussions in the Christian world right now is over complementarianism. How should the church define gender roles in the church and in ministry in the era of #MeToo, LGBTQ, and stories of abuse within the church? Amy Byrd’s book, Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, is a landmark in this discussion and so is the reaction to it. Naselli’s review is really long, but I think it might be the best primer on the debates over complementarianism available right now. He goes through the different positions, discusses the arguments prominent writers and speakers like Beth Moore, Abigail Dodds, and Kathy Keller have made and puts them into dialogue with traditional complementarians like Wayne Grudem and John Piper. He also moves through Byrd’s book with precision and clarity. Regardless of what side you find yourself on, this is a really important discussion within the church and among those who have a high view of Scripture and want to understand how God has designed men and women to thrive together in the kingdom.
“Slate Star Codex and Silicon Valley’s War Against the Media” - Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker
This has been a big week for defining the state of the American media. Between the Harper’s letter, the Princeton Faculty letter, the recoil at Vox, and the pushback to all three, it’s probably safest to say that illiberalism and liberalism are both ascendant, and thus, so is polarization. But the mainstream media, outlets like CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, and others consistently side with the illiberal groups, especially in their opinion pages. The Slate Star Codex saga is an interesting story about the intramural battles for free speech, free expression, and control going on among those on the left.
Slate Star Codex is a version of the “Intellectual Dark Web” on the left. The community “distinguish themselves not only on the basis of data-driven argument and logical clarity but through an almost fastidious commitment to civil discourse.” When a NYT writer told SSC founder Scott Alexander that he would reveal his real name, Alexander deleted the blog and closed down the community. Silicon Valley types began to emerge protesting the Times’ and the pressure they had placed on Alexander and the SSC community. This story, written by a former writer at NYT Magazine, sides with the NYT but he - wittingly or unwittingly - sketches the divides forming on the left that look very similar to those between the left and the right. Illiberalism is threatening to anyone who wants to foster open debate and a free exchange of ideas, liberals included.
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