Eric Sharp blasts Pilgrims on Thanksgiving

Eric Sharp, staff writer for the Detroit Free Press, is the latest writer proving how arrogant we are when we pass judgement on previous generations. For maximum affect, Mr. Sharp's article appeared in the Thanskgiving Day paper where he proceeded to disparaging the Pilgrims from the safe, and arrogant distance of 390 years.

Mr. Sharp, wrote, "We should not teach our children that the Puritans were any more tolerant than most of their European counterparts." My memory may not be as fresh as it once was, but I don't remember "tolerance" and "diversity" being major lessons. Instead we learned they endured a miserable journey across the Atlantic in search of religious freedom.

Later in school we learned about the Salem witch trials coincident with studying the McCarthy era. In English we were supposed to read The Crucible. All were lessons about intolerance, gave meaning to the term witch hunts. Many years after graduating I realized those lessons also warned against political correctness.

Worse, perhaps, than teaching the wrong things (in Mr. Sharp's opinion) years ago is pretending we did for the purpose of building a strawman against which Mr. Sharp can work out his anti-Christian anxieties and moral-relativism.

Before setting out to re-write history, or even reinterpret it from a safe distance, we should remember the lessons of Professor Thomas Sowell and not judge people from years ago using today's "morality."

As soon as I can find the link to his article I'll include it above.

Pastor Camping didn't just miss the date, he missed the point

Pastor Camping predicted the rapture would happen on Saturday, but according to recently-filed missing-persons reports, it either didn't happen, the 2000-year-old estimate of 400,000 believers was optimistic, or at least none of them lived in metro Detroit.


Whenever the date arrives, now is a good time to take a refresher course in faith, and at Pastor Camping's expense, why he shouldn't have made the prediction in the first place regardless his convictions.


I worked with a man for nearly eight years that was a minister before he became a computer programmer.  His aptitude for programming probably influenced his uniquely insightful and reasoned interpretations of scripture.


Whatever his unique blend of talents was, he once explained to me what the word faith means.  It is important to know this, because it might help some avoid being caught-up in doomsday "prophesies," or wondering what we should be doing in the present.


The etymology of faith comes from the Latin root, fidere, meaning trust or confidence.  A popular New Testament story about trust, confidence, and faith is from Matthew (and Luke), about a Roman centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant.

⁵ When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. ⁶ “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
 ⁷ Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?” ⁸ The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
 ¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.

What my co-worker pointed out from this story is that the Centurion isn't the only one with faith, or trust, or confidence.  Each of his subordinates has an equal amount of faith, and presumably, so does the centurion's commander.  The important, and often missed, point of the story is that each person knows where they are in the chain of command.  Each of them knows who is above them and who is below.  Having faith isn't only having trust or confidence in others, it is knowing where you are in the chain of command.  It is knowing your own place, whether that be as a parent, child, teacher, student, employer, employee, or a pastor in Oakland, California.


Where the pastor, whom I presume understands what faith is, tripped was he forgot both his position and his scripture.  Starting with Matthew 24:36, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father," Pastor Camping forgot that he is not God, and if neither Jesus nor the angels know, why should he?


The damage is already done.  Pastor Camping's insubordination (forgetting his place in the chain of command--or worse: abusing it) has caused many people to lose their homes and jobs, he's squandered the resources of his ministry, will lose dedicated employees, and may cause many Christians to stumble in their own faith.  Such is the cost of losing faith, not by losing trust in others, but forgetting where you are in relationship to them.


God is perfectly capable of pulling-off a rapture or destroying the world on His own and likely doesn't need Pastor Campings, or anyone else's assistance, to let us know when it's coming.  We're not supposed to know, and if you're good with that then you are a centurion.

Ferndale council acts predictably--and that's no compliment

Monday night's hearing on South Oakland Shelters' (SOS) request to move their administrative offices to unused space at The First Baptist Church (FBC) in a north-west Ferndale neighborhood brought few surprises. After going through the mechanics a hearing requires the council voted as expected; four-to-one in favor of letting the FBC rent to SOS. After the vote, two council-persons did surprise me, in a disappointed-surprise kind-of-way.

Freshmen councilwomen Kate Baker demonstrated how personal bias can muddle a person's ability to understand what people say. Ms. Baker sounded exasperated as she defended the commitment and professionalism of the many volunteers that serve on the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals, and lamented how she was unprepared to defend them against accusations to the contrary.

I never said the volunteers (who serve without pay and too little gratitude) weren't dedicated or professional. What I said was that on the issue of allowing SOS to move into the church neither body supported their decisions by publishing their findings of fact or communicating to the community (and especially ZIP) their interpretation of how SOS' business is an accessory use. But I can see how a personal bias for SOS and FBC, a weak interpretation of the zoning ordinance, and the knowledge of having dismissed the concerns of nearby residents would make the councilwoman a little touchy.

If someone is going to vote on a matter that affects my family, neighbors, and community I believe residents and businesses deserve as unambiguous an explanation as those voting members are able to provide--especially an issue as controversial as the FBC/SOS zoning ruling became.

Councilman Mike Lennon also surprised me, but his lone "no" vote wasn't the surprise. Mike Lennon often casts the only dissenting vote against the majority. Also not surprising was Mr. Lennon's not advocating the sentiments of the myriad of phone calls and emails from residents he claimed were the reason for his vote.

What was disappointing was his blasting ZIP for being disorganized and redundant, and wasting the city manager's time countering their false claims.

Where to begin?

First, why was our city manager handling SOS' public relations (PR) in the first place? If they had enough money to hire two attorneys they surely didn't need Bob Bruner to volunteer his (city-paid) time to act as their press secretary.

And when did council defer to the city manager permission to speak for the city or give him permission advocate for-or-against political issues that may come before the council? I thought "speaking for the city" was the Mayor's job, and Mayor Covey is more than up to the challenge.

Maybe council hasn't given the city manager carte blanche but is complacent letting him practice his politics on the city's dime rather than making sure FBC is following ordinances already on the books--or even the lower standard councilwoman Baker suggested at a commission meeting: that FBC would only need to be, "close to compliance."

Nice.

SOS' attorney asked that SOS be treated just like any other business. I bet every Ferndale business wishes they only needed to be "close to compliance."

But disorganized and redundant? I'm uncertain what standard councilman Lennon is comparing ZIP against, but I'm confident that if ZIP were given the same considerations the applicant was given they could have been more organized and less redundant.

Because ZIP wasn't the applicant for the zoning ruling they were not allowed to sit with the grown-ups. ZIP's concerns had to be posited in three-minute monologues--even during hearings. Being excluded from conversations, having questions ignored or repeated in patronizing tones does not inspire feelings of fair representation.

ZIP was certainly no more redundant than the FBC's or SOS' supporters were during the long parades of three-minute comments. Perhaps if citizens living near FBC (or any church) thought anyone on the council held their interests before FBC's they wouldn't have felt the need to line up for their three-minutes of if-a-resident-speaks-in-the-middle-of-the-forest time.

Perhaps if one of the councilpersons hadn't delivered a "true Christian" sermon during a council meeting, or if another of the councilpersons didn't suggest lower standards of compliance for the applicants or state (and restate--redundantly) what long-time SOS supporters their family has been, ZIP wouldn't have felt the need to organize.

Perhaps if the city manager hadn't acted contemptuously in meetings and press interviews ZIP may not have thought the entirety of the city's administration was against them, and wouldn't have had to publish their own literature.

But maybe I'm being redundant (perhaps), so I'll try something different.

In the motion read by Councilman Galloway, five criteria were identified that the Planning Commission supposedly used to grant SOS' request. One of them was that the commission didn't feel SOS' operating their business at the Church would negatively impact the immediate area's economic value (or words similar to that). For the sake of argument let's suppose it doesn't. We could ask, "does SOS's operating their business at the church improve the area's economic value?"

I can think of multiple, better-suited and properly-zoned areas in Ferndale where SOS' arrival would improve the economic prospects of the immediate area, the economic prospects of the property owner, and the economic prospects to the city as the property owner would be better able to pay his property taxes, participate in city events, or sponsor a softball-team or scrapbooking club.

I don't have statistics or numbers handy, so I'll make some up and tell a story that can't be verified (which seems to suffice for some councilpersons' pet causes--like the PSD tax).

When you purchased your home or looked for a neighborhood to move to was its proximity to an SOS administrative office on your list of desirable neighborhood traits?

When cities work to increase property value do they focus on schools, recreation, police, fire, and other essential services or does SEMCOG, the Michigan Municipal League, or the Michigan Suburbs Alliance recommend deferring to churches' need to offset lower collections to really bring-in the house hunters?

I sincerely hope SOS is successful in all they do, just as I do that churches thrive. Their missions are important. But I am as sincere in my belief that zoning laws protect neighborhoods as much as they do churches and businesses. In this case, at least, there was no need for the three to be in conflict. There is space enough in Ferndale for all three without all three being in the same space.

Is God a socialist?

Today's Detroit News contained an interesting op-ed from Doug Bandow, author of the book, Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics. I haven't read the book so can not comment on it, but his op-end, Is God a Socialst?, contains an interesting perspective on people, religion, and politics--specifically Christians.

The version appearing in the Detroit News is an edited-down version of a longer piece published in The American Spectator on January 9, 2009.

Rather than dilute his commentary with mine, I'll simply quote my favorite sections below and encourage you to read either the short version or the long version for yourself. I've only written two related articles to his points below. They are; Thou shalt not covet or graduate your neighbors' taxes and Christ among the partisans.

To understand the context of his comments and why I like them it is important to know the sections below were preceded with examples of churches, church leaders, and religious people praying and demonstrating to influence public policy. The implication being that some people's faith creates a desire to model public policy after their interpretation of scripture. But more importantly that compassion must be connected to consequence. Good intention are not enough and we should remember where the path paved with good intentions leads.

"However, applying Christian principles requires more than a little humility. The Bible tells much about man's relationship to God and man, but very little about the role of government. That is, Christian principles yield no specific legislative agenda.

"For instance, one cannot read Scripture without a profound appreciation of our duty to help our neighbors. However, we are commanded to give, not to make others give.

"The welfare state is a matter of political prudence, not religious principle. That is one reason why the Apostle James encouraged us to ask God for wisdom. Christians are expected to be compassionate, but God does not detail how we are to give compassion practical effect. The point is, compassion is not enough. Consequences matter.

"Should the government further bail out the auto industry? Channeling scarce resources into failing industries will divert needed money from existing companies and potential new enterprises, destroying even more jobs.

"Attempting to freeze the housing market would merely prolong the agony of many people who borrowed too much. Artificially propping up housing prices also will penalize potential buyers -- especially low-income and new purchasers.

"A Christian's walk in the political world will never be easy. But Christians should never forget that their principal duties have nothing to do with politics."

Ferndale First Baptist should break agreement with SOS

Ferndale's First Baptist Church should break its agreement with The South Oakland Shelter (SOS) to lease an unused building for SOS to use as administrative offices.

The best argument citizens have in favor of SOS's relocation to First Baptist from its current Royal Oak address on Main Street, is that SOS does good work. Personally, I think the Murphy brothers did a great job on my kitchen but its unlikely the church would have offered a lease to them for that reason and I don't think that's what was meant by "good work."

Instead, what was meant by good work is that SOS has a charitable mission. As charitable as the Murphy brothers may be charity isn't the brothers' mission so the church is still unlikely to lease space to them.

But ultimately, niether SOS' or the Murphies' missions are the issue that should be debated. The real argument is that by becoming a landlord to SOS, First Baptist's mission suddenly changed from leases on the after-life to leases in general.

I have nothing against landlords or churches and am on good terms with several of both. But if I purchased a property near a church I expect the church to do church-like things. I do not expect them to turn the temple into a den of landlords and not expect me to toss a fit or two.

It seems the neighbors supporting SOS at the church feel the church is simply extending its charitable and religious mission to include SOS' mission to the newly homeless. SOS' is indeed a noble and virtuous mission, but the church can support that mission by donating money or volunteering time to the SOS. It doesn't have to lease space or upset its neighbors to do that.

The church could also donate the space to the SOS. That would be charitable, too, and it would successfully silence my argument about their becoming a landlord (I think). As long as the charity isn't bartering with the church or paying a share of the utility bills I might change my mind.

But I'm pretty confident that won't happen. A Christmas-day article in the Detroit News detailed how the bad economy and worries of job security have driven-down donations to all charitable organizations. GM recently cut-off funding to arts and cultural institutions (I don't think anyone wonders why). Those facts combined with the area's other demographics suggest Ferndale may not be able to support as many churches as it used to with either members or donations, just as it can't support as many schools or tool & die shops.

So if churches, like automakers, are reluctant to close or combine with other churches; what are they to do with all that empty, unused space? Why not supplement Sunday collections by going into the property management business?

The residents protesting the 25-year lease agreement aren't evil or uncharitable. Councilman T. Scott Galloway's recent city-council sermonizing stated his certainty that the Christian thing to do was to support SOS. So, before Christ did his big "den-of-thieves" thing in Jerusalem's temple he should have checked with Scott first.

The much over-quoted Ecclesiastes 3's "To every thing there is a season.." is worth paraphrasing as, "To every thing there is a place." And that's why Ceasar created zoning commissions and zoning plans, so the interests and quality of Ferndale's neighborhoods would be balanced against the interests and quality of Ferndale's commercial districts. For a building surrounded on three sides by homes to switch from friendly neighborhood church to a competitor for tax-paying landlords violates zoning rules.

If the church doesn't see fit to break its agreement for biblical reasons the zoning commission or city council should break it for secular reasons.

"Thou shalt not covet.." or graduate thy neighbor's taxes

Not everyone may have excelled in story problems in fifth-grade math, but these should be pretty easy.

A Catholic, a Jew, and a Muslim are sitting next to each other at Tony's Sports Bar and Grill and each orders a $2.50 Bud Lite. Which one should the bartender charge $4.18 for the beer?

A heterosexual, a homosexual, and a transvestite order identical, $14 pizzas at Como's. Which one's bill should be $23.38 (not including tip)?

A 55-year old married man and a 25-year old single woman are on opposite sides of the island at Citgo on the corner of Nine Mile and Central roads. Both pump 10 gallons of $3.09 regular unleaded. Which one should pay $39.55?

The correct answer to all of them is, "None of the above." Why? To treat one person differently than another simply because of their religion, sexual preference or identity, age, or marital status would be discriminatory. Charging someone more for something simply because they're different is discriminatory. It penalizes them for being who or what they are.

Let's try one more.

An average Bloomfield Hills tax payer making $185,000/year and the average Ferndale tax payer making $45,000/year both file their 2007 state income tax returns in April, 2008. Which one should pay a 67% higher rate on their income?

Is your answer still, "None of the above?"

Both the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News are reporting polls that show growing support to amend Michigan's constitution to allow taxing some residents at higher rates than others. For politicians, a graduated income tax's purpose is to save them from making hard budget decisions by increasing the amount of money they have to spend. It's a proverbial win-win for politicians because they can solve their budget crisis and pander to the majority of voters who don't count themselves among "the rich."

But why would citizens be in favor it?

In the movie, The Silence of the Lambs, FBI agent-in-training Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) is trying to profile a serial killer called Buffalo Bill with the help of famed psychologist and serial killer, Hannibal Lecter (played by Anthony Hopkins):

Hannibal Lecter: First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?
Clarice Starling: He kills women...
Hannibal Lecter: No. That is incidental. What is the first and principal thing he does? What needs does he serve by killing?
Clarice Starling: Anger, um, social acceptance, and, huh, sexual frustrations, sir...
Hannibal Lecter: No! He covets. That is his nature. And how do we begin to covet, Clarice? Do we seek out things to covet? Make an effort to answer now.
Clarice Starling: No. We just...
Hannibal Lecter: No. We begin by coveting what we see every day. Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice? And don't your eyes seek out the things you want?

It wasn't until recently I finally appreciated the difference between jealousy, envy, and coveting. The difference isn't as subtle as I had once thought.

Jealousy is how you treat, guard or hoard something that belongs to you--or that you think belongs to you. Jealous men are described that way because of their reactions to the attention wives or girl friends may attract. Jealous companies may lavish on their employees and simultaneously not allow them to attend seminars or join professional organizations for fear of losing them. Jealousy can hurt the thing your jealous of by suffocating it.

Envy is wishing you had something someone else has. You may be envious of a friend's talents or a neighbor's large-screen television or weed-free lawn. You may be envious of a co-worker's promotion or office and wish they were your own. Envy might motivate you to learn more, save more, or work harder so you may have what others have. But envy can become harmful to yourself when you go into debt to keep up with the Joneses or jeopardize your career with demands or ultimatums of your employer.

Coveting starts out as envy, but instead of using it as a motivation to do more ourselves it becomes a reason to take from others. Coveting makes us vandalize others' property instead of improving our own, sabotage others' careers instead of developing our own, seduce another's spouse rather than romancing our own, or become complicit-in or advocate raising others' taxes disproportionately higher than our own.

What are graduated income taxes?

Graduated taxes are designed to take a greater percentage of taxes from "the rich" than they are "the poor" or "the working class." The premise being "the rich" can afford to pay a greater percentage of their income than those that are not "the rich." A simple formula might be that every return less than $100,000/year in gross income would be taxed at the current 3.9%, income up to $200,000 at 6%, and perhaps those over $200,000 at 7%. The tax is called graduated because it gradually increases as gross income increases.

Of course it misses the point that "the rich," by their inclusion in that nebulously-defined stereotype, already pay more than the rest of us who fancy themselves excluded from that club. A tax return with an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $200,000 at a flat rate of 3.9% pays $7800 in state income taxes. That's four times as much as a tax return showing $50,000 AGI paying $1950.

Notice that I said "tax return" and not "tax payer." The difference is important.

According to a breakdown of Michigan's 2004 income tax, tax returns for couples filing jointly made up 41% of Michigan returns, but paid 74% of all income taxe. "The rich" aren't "the rich" because of their individual incomes. As far as their tax returns are concerned (which is all that matters because that's where graduated taxes will be assessed) "the rich's" tax returns will be penalized with graduated taxes because it combines two incomes. To borrow again from Michigan's 2004 Income Tax summary:

Married taxpayers filing jointly reported 69.8 percent of AGI and paid 73.9 percent of the Michigan income tax. Married couples tend to be older and earn higher wages, due to greater accumulated human capital. Human capital includes formal education plus skills acquired through work experience and on-the-job training. Couples also have an additional potential worker.

Some quick math tells us the average combined income of couples filing jointly was $91,544 and filing as a single was $27,800. If we applied the same graduation to Michigan's income tax as the IRS does our federal returns would indicate joint filers will pay a 28% higher tax rate than single filers, and the average Bloomfield hills tax return would be taxed at a 67% higher rate than those from Ferndale.

So, under at least one graduated income tax model (the IRS') people who are older and earn higher wages due to more formal education, work experience and on-the-job training will be rewarded with income tax rates over one and two-thirds times higher than younger people with less education, experience, and training.

If tax policy is supposed to encourage good behaviors and discourage bad ones, or to incent that which furthers a healthy society and dis-incent those that do not, exactly what goals do graduated income taxes promote?

I scream, you scream, we all scream for...

The funny thing about "the rich" is nearly everyone wants to be a member of this supposed by-invitation-only club. If we spent as much time going to school, working harder, saving money, investing money, taking risks, and reading trade magazines to improve our family's lot as we do watching TV, arriving late, leaving early, extending breaks, buying what we can't afford, and reading The National Inquirer or The New York Times, we might discover membership to "the rich" isn't by invitation--it's by ambition.

When we outwardly despise that which we want to become--or are afraid of becoming--we exhibit something the psychology profession calls reaction formation: avoiding a strong desire by taking a strong, opposite position. We'll gleefully increase their taxes and cry foul at their rebates but regularly buy lotto tickets. Many people desire greater income but despise those that have already achieved it (or appear to) and so proceed to persecute them, thinking "the rich" not as people who have worked for their rewards but as the beneficiaries of undeserved good fortune.

That sounds a lot like coveting to me, and discrimination isn't any better. Think about that the next time someone tries promoting graduated taxes. Ask them if they favor graduated taxes because they're bigoted, in denial, or because they covet.

Christ Among the Partisans - New York Times

Christ Among the Partisans - New York Times

Garry Wills, a professor at Northwestern University posted a thoughtful and thought-provoking op-ed in the New York Times Sunday probing the relationship between Christianity and politics, specifically chastising any effort by political parties to shoulder the mantel of "God is on our side" as being blasphemous, or at least missing the point, and on that he and I are in agreement.

After reading the article you might agree with Mr. Wills, that Jesus wouldn't pursue a career in politics, and I'm inclined to as well. But I wasn't left wondering What Would Jesus Do (WWJD), as much as What Would Jesus Want Me to Do (WWJWMTD) or How Would Jesus Vote (HWJV)? Mr. Wills quotes scripture to suggest prayer belongs in a closet. I'm left wondering if he'd rather religion stayed in the closet forcing everything else out. But if we are religious and believe we're accountable for our actions to both God and government then we're compelled to act differently than if we feared no consequences, terrestrial or not, in this life or the next.

How would Jesus want me to vote on abortion? How would Jesus have wanted me to vote on slavery? How would Jesus want me to vote on immigration, welfare, or the preservation of marriage act? If God asks for our prayers and Caesar asks our opinion, aren't our consciences obligated to give our best to both? If whatever we do for the least of us we also do unto Jesus, would we make Jesus dependent on our charity or teach him to live by the fruit of his labors?

As a Christian I don't believe God wants me to be the best Jesus I can be--he wants me to be the best Thomas Gagne I can be. He wants me to be the best husband and father I can be, and he wants me to be the best citizen I can be. I want Christ to be with me wherever I go for strength, guidance, and wisdom--and that includes the voting booth.

Book Review: What Went Wrong?

This is the second year I gave Thomas Sowell's recommended Christmas book list to my wife for ideas, and this is another year I wasn't disappointed and her shopping was abbreviated (for me at least). Of the many books he recommends, Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong? is the first (and shortest) I've completed.

In What Went Wrong?, Mr. Lewis outlines Muslim history starting with the creation of Islam and follows its rise to the pinnacle of civilizations and religious tolerance to its current state where its arts, sciences, human rights, politics, and education are at historical lows when measured against nearly any other present-day non-Arab culture. This hundreds-year-long trend began long before the United States ever existed. Some of the most interesting (and perhaps incriminating) evidence of Arab civilization's attitude towards the rest of the world includes its complete disinterest in reports of Columbus' new world, time (clocks, watches, etc.), or even electricity.

Of the many interesting facts and stories in this book is Mr. Lewis' discussion on the problems many cultures and languages have with the word secular, and how the concept of religion being separate from politics is an invention of Christianity. Even if by necessity, no religion before Christianity imagined politics and religion could or should be separate. The US Constitution's non-establishment clause may owe much to Jesus' ".. give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's."

If you're in a rush, reading the forward, conclusion, and afterword will give you the gist, while still leaving your appetite whetted for the meat between.

This accounting of Muslim's past and present serves as a warning for us all. First is how a civilization's arrogance begins its downfall. Whether that civilization is secular or religious its dismissal of other culture's progress in politics, arts, or science leads to its stagnation and that stagnation leads to is isolation and makes it vulnerable to both military and cultural invasions. Both have plagued Arab states for the past few hundred years.

Once a culture has fallen behind instead of planning to catch up or seriously ask what went wrong or how to fix it, it asks, "who is to blame?" With few exceptions blame is placed externally. Rather than confess responsibility for the problem or the solution and proceed to a remedy leaders of trailing cultures fault outsiders and not their own beliefs, traditions, or attitudes. Paranoia becomes the national psychosis and loathing its foreign policy.

This is not an argument for multiculturism. It is an invitation to consider the value of the cultures, groups, churches, and parties we belong to or identify with, weigh the benefits each provides us, the opportunities we've taken, the values they promote, and whether we're better off as members or if it's time for our own reformation.