Faith: March 2009 Archives

Tulsa Teachers Credit Union, one of the area's largest thrift institutions, has been running radio ads lately about their humble origins -- a cigar box in the desk drawer of a Central High School teacher, as teachers pooled funds to help one another meet their financial goals.

In the US, the cigar box approach to finance is long gone, and it's hard to tell credit unions apart from banks these days, but the idea of mutual finance on a small scale is alive and well in the developing world, and it's being used to lift people out of poverty in a way that's sustainable over the long run. The idea is called microcredit, and it's just one of the economic development tools being researched and taught by an organization called the Chalmers Center for Economic Development, which is affiliated with Covenant College and the Presbyterian Church in America. (The PCA is one of the Presbyterian denominations that still believes that Jesus is the Son of God and rose from the dead and that the Bible is the Word of God.)

The Chalmers Center's director, Brian Fikkert, spoke this morning at Christ Presbyterian Church (CPC) about the work of the center. The organization is not a charity or a missions agency; rather, it researches best practices in the realm of sustainable economic development and then trains missionaries and church leaders in their application, by means of seminars, distance learning, and literature. The aim is to help the church to help the poor to help themselves, without creating dependency.

(For the OK-SAFE folks who are freaking out because I used the word "sustainable," this has nothing to do with the environment. We're talking about an approach to economic development that becomes self-perpetuating, unlike anti-poverty programs that require continued massive infusions of money from the outside.)

For example, about a year ago, CPC funded a Chalmers Center training course for Pentecostal pastors in Uganda, so they could start microcredit and micro-business development courses through their congregations. A Chalmers-trained woman is working for the Anglican Church in Rwanda; the archbishop wants every parish to begin one to three rotating savings and credit associations (RoSCAs) in the next year. So far they're on track to have 80,000 families involved in a RoSCA by the end of 2009. A group of 50 HIV-positive Kenyans, rejected by their families and living in a slum in Nairobi, have been meeting weekly as a RoSCA. After a year or so, not only have they been able to build capital for their own needs, nearly every member has started one or more RoSCAs on their own.

Here in the US, the Chalmers Center is training churches to teach jobs preparedness and financial literacy and to set up Individual Development Accounts, to help the poor build wealth toward lump-sum expenses -- a home, a car, education, equipment for a small business, resources to handle emergencies.

I hope to tell you more about what I learned this morning. It strikes me that these techniques may become more and more useful in the US and the west as our massive banking infrastructure falters. Going back to small groups, with mutual trust and accountability, pooling money to lend to one another, may be the way to escape the credit crunch.

This evening (Sunday, March 8, 2009) from 5 to 8:30 at Christ Presbyterian Church (51st St, between Lewis and Harvard), Fikkert will lead a Christian Economic Institute seminar on these topics. There's no charge to attend or for dinner, which will be served during a break. If you're interested in how to help the poor both here and abroad, please come.

A reminiscence from Pastor Ray Pritchard:

Legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey died today at the age of 90. Besides virtually creating his own medium that combined reporting with news commentary, he also knew how to tell a story. He gave the tease, paused, told a bit more, paused, let the story unravel a bit at a time, pausing along the way, then he would hit the punch line. He was a master writer with an utterly distinctive voice. For more than a generation, his was the dominant voice on the AM dial.

I mention his passing to honor him and because I knew him slightly during my early years in Oak Park. He and his wife Lynne (whom he always called "Angel") lived in nearby River Forest, and some years before I came to Calvary, he had attended the church on a regular basis. When the pulpit committee interviewed me, they made sure I knew that Paul Harvey had once attended the church.

And who showed up on my very first Sunday but Paul Harvey and his wife Lynne.
That created a bit of stir, and I was ushered out to meet him. I remember him as being tall with a shock of reddish hair. When he saw me, he stuck out his hand and said, "Hello, Tex!" in exactly the same tone in which he would say, "Hello, America . . . Stand by for news!"

Paul and Lynne Harvey attended services at Calvary a half-dozen times during the first couple of years of my ministry. We never had a lengthy conversation, but he was always very friendly and very gracious. It is a tribute to the power of his personality that although I haven't seen him in many years, I still vividly remember his first greeting.

Paul Harvey was a believer in Jesus. Now he knows . . . the rest of the story.

Tampa Bay Rays blogger Cork Gaines:

We would be remiss if we did not mention the passing of Paul Harvey, the man we consider the original blogger.

Harvey often worked with stories that flew under the radar knowing that the news that was presented was not always the news that most people were talking about. And he would often take a very popular story and find a new angle, like the time I heard him tell the life story of the iceberg that sank the Titanic.

And quite frankly...what is more blog than that?

Richard A. Sherman, Mr. Modem, remembers a visit to Harvey's Chicago studio:

I was first introduced to Mr. Harvey in name only, a number of years ago, by a mutual friend. Subsequent to our introduction, Mr. Harvey would periodically mention "Mr. Modem" during his radio broadcasts, particularly in conjunction with several books I had out around that time. Each time Mr. Harvey mentioned my books, I would immediately begin receiving email from listeners worldwide who heard it, and book sales would spike. And for one brief period of time -- okay, one VERY brief period of time -- I had the number one book on amazon.com, thanks to Mr. Harvey.

I'll always be grateful for his generous comments and support. He didn't have to say anything about me or my books, of course. His radio sponsors paid enormous sums of money for his folksy, conversational style of product promotion -- something I could never have afforded -- yet he and his wife, Angel, read my books and weekly newsletter, (http://www.mrmodem.com/) enjoyed them, and without any fanfare, nor any advanced notice, he would occasionally wax expansive about "Mr. Modem" to his listeners in his unique style of personal endorsement. It was Mr. Harvey who first described me on the air as "taking the gobbledygook out of computers," then graciously gave me his permission to use that quote and audio clip from his broadcast. It was a tremendous gift to me and it opened a lot of doors and created many opportunities....

As he entered his studio, I assumed I would remain outside, in the engineer's booth to observe the broadcast. Instead, Mr. Harvey invited me into the booth with him. I sat across the table, he being behind the microphone. Knowing that his broadcast would be heard on more than 1200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces networks, I kept thinking to myself, "Whatever you do, don't sneeze or cough in the middle of his broadcast!" Fortunately, I did not.

With a well-rehearsed cue from his engineer, The Voice emerged, "This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news." It was a voice I had heard for many years, from many parts of the country, at varying times in my life, and I couldn't help but think back to times I listened to Paul Harvey with my parents as a child, as an adolescent, or throughout my adult life. Paul Harvey was always there, his distinctive voice a calming, reassuring presence no matter what other events might have been transpiring. And suddenly here I was, sitting across a table from the iconic Paul Harvey, knowing at that precise moment millions of people were listening. The word "awesome" is grossly overused these days, but I can truly say that I was awe-struck sitting there...listening...observing the master at work.

During the broadcast, Mr. Harvey announced to his worldwide listening audience that he was pleased to have "Mr. Modem" with him in the studio, and he went on to say some very nice things about my books and newsletter and encouraged his listeners to subscribe. How can one ever adequately thank someone for an endorsement like that?

At one point he looked at me during the broadcast and asked what sounded like a rhetorical question -- but I wasn't sure. Terror-struck, it flashed through my mind, having listened to his broadcasts for many years, that there was never another voice on the air with him. It was always Paul Harvey's voice alone. So in classic "deer-in-the-headlights" fashion, I didn't know whether to speak or simply sit there like a muted lump. In that split second, I decided to say nothing and selected the muted-lump option. I was later told by his engineer that I made the right decision. Whew....

In the months after our visit in Chicago, Mr. Harvey would periodically call me to ask a question about the Internet, or verify something technological he was planning to talk about on his show. When prospective computer-related sponsors wanted to advertise on his show, he would ask me to evaluate the product or service and share my opinions with him. If a given product was not up to par, or if it failed to perform as represented, he would not accept it as a sponsor at any price. Integrity of that caliber is in woefully short short supply these days.

Sherman goes on to tell how he rescued the domain name paulharvey.com from a squatter, gave it to Paul Harvey, and then in 2000, when Harvey was negotiating with ABC for contract renewal, he had Sherman come along to provide advice as they discussed the network's plans for his website.

Marketing coach and columnist Terry Brock offers "Principles We Can Learn And Apply From Paul Harvey". Harvey was "different, but professional," did his homework, was extraordinarily creative in his delivery, would only advertise products he had personally used, and stayed young by doing a job he loved:

This working at what you love thing gives us life and energy --- science now proves it. Find a job you love so much you'll keep doing it till the day you die. Live life passionately and with vibrancy always --- you'll live longer and healthier that way. Keep going strong mentally and physically and you'll not only help others but you'll do better for yourself.

Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily called Paul Harvey "my inspiration":

Later, when I became a professional [newsman], I thought about what made Paul Harvey so special, what gave him the universal appeal. It was clear to me it wasn't just the voice, the cadence of his speech and the repetition of keywords. It was much more than the style - which was artistic, original, creative and captivating. It was mostly the content - his news judgment.

Paul Harvey made his living sorting out the news for America - giving us a glimpse of what was really important and entertaining. Long before Matt Drudge entered the scene with the Internet, Paul Harvey was giving us headlines we might not see in our local newspapers or hear on the network TV news.

And all during my many years running daily newspapers, I would often instruct my editors what I expected from them - Paul Harvey-style news judgment.

Paul Harvey, who passed away last week, was a giant in broadcasting. But, more than that, he was a giant in journalism. He was a giant in the news business.

Yes, he could tell a great story, as in "the rest of the story." But what I loved most about him was his ability to find those great little gems of news - stories that escaped the attention of so many of his colleagues.

Farah was especially proud of an on-air mention of his book, Taking America Back, which Harvey said, "might make a real good Christmas present for the uninformed." It was in the context of an item about the legality of saying, "Merry Christmas": "And if anybody tries to tell you you cannot say 'Merry Christmas,' you have God and government on your side."

Shortly after his death, the biography Good Day! The Paul Harvey Story was published. That link leads to a WND preview of the book, which contains a number of Paul Harvey "quotes worth re-quoting":

• "In times like these, it's important to remember there have always been times like these."
• "The only people who get hurt on a roller coaster are the ones who jump off."
• "Like Mark Twain reportedly said about the music of Richard Wagner, 'It's not nearly as bad as it sounds.'"
• "Be careful ... when a government is mocked by its own citizens, that laughter is often the death rattle with which empires die."
• "It's OK to be worried - that means there is still hope! Let's just worry about the right and important things."
• "In the history of the world, God often chooses the simple ones to confound the wise."

This message board about Georgia radio has some reminiscences about Paul Harvey. Ben Sandifer wrote:

WNEX was a top 40 station in those days, but having Paul Harvey didn't matter even with their target demo. When I was in high school, my best friend and I would eat lunch together every day. We'd hurry through our lunch just so we could go sit in his car and listen to Paul Harvey at 12:30.

Gerry Marshall wrote:

The first time I ever heard of Paul Harvey or found out who he even was, I was a student at Virginia Tech in 1970. I was having a bad time with some grades and had an appointment with a guidence counselor to help me work through the problems, get my schedule readjusted, and hopefully keep from flunking out! I waited in the counselor's waiting room for about 35 minutes. Finally, he called me in, told me to have a seat, and tell him what was on my mind. I reached down deep in my gut and spilled out everything a 19-year old in panic of his college career could muster out. The counselor just leaned back in his chair and appeared to half-listen. When I finished, I took a deep breath and was waiting for him to come to my rescue. Instead, without saying a word, he stood up, walked over to a bookshelf on the other side of the room, and turned on a radio. I noticed the clock read 12:30pm. I looked at him totally puzzled as he came back around to his desk and plopped down in his chair. He pointed to the radio he had just turned on and said, "Shhhhh! Paul Harvey is on. We'll get back to you in a few minutes!" Oh yeah...I flunked out and got drafted!!

Another user posted the ABC Radio Networks bulletin to affiliates about what would fill Paul Harvey's timeslot. "Embedded network inventory" refers to ads read by the presenter; "local avail" is a slot for the local station to run a commercial. (KRMG would insert additional commercials at the end of each "page"; my recollection is that the broadcast would run to nearly 20 minutes. That's an indication of the audience Paul Harvey attracted.) Gil Gross took over the morning (Mon-Fri) and midday (Mon-Sat) newscasts; Doug Limerick took over the "Rest of the Story" slot, but with a different focus.

Beginning Monday, March 9, ABC Radio Networks will feed the following programming from ABC News Radio talents Gil Gross and Doug Limerick via XDS to all current Paul Harvey affiliates at the existing feed times. This programming will match the current Harvey feeds exactly.

Gil Gross

An award-winning journalist with more than 30 years experience reporting on global events, Gross has covered major stories including the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, the terrorist attacks of September 11, Timothy McVeigh and the Iraq War. He previously hosted The Gil Gross Show for CBS and was the trusted, primary substitute through the years for both Paul Harvey and Charles Osgood. He brings an array of news experience and perspective to the day's top stories.

* Morning Report (4 minutes of content plus minute of embedded network inventory)
o Weekdays at 8:30 a.m. ET (refeed at 9:30 a.m. ET)

* Midday (11 minutes of content plus 3 minutes of embedded network inventory, plus a 1 minute local avail for a total of 15 minutes)

o Weekdays
+ 11:35 a.m. ET
§ 12:06 p.m. ET (refeed at 1:06 p.m. ET)

o Weekends
+ Saturday (4:30 minutes of embedded network inventory)
# 11:10 a.m. ET (reefed at 12:10 p.m. ET)
# Also fed at 10:45 a.m. ET (prefeed) and 1:10 p.m. ET
# We also send a prefeed of the Saturday report at 7:25 p.m. ET on Fridays

Doug Limerick

ABC Morning News anchor Doug Limerick is a master at highlighting the unusual and quirky from the current news and pop culture and showcasing the information in an entertaining fashion for radio audiences. He has won two prestigious Edward R. Murrow Awards for Best Newscast. Limerick's features for ABC Radio Networks will focus on the day's news mixed with folksy, positive stories.

* Afternoons (4 minutes of content plus :30 embedded network inventory)
o Weekdays at 2:06 p.m. ET (prefeed) 3:06 p.m. ET

* Weekends
o Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. ET (refeeds at 9:30 a.m. ET and 10:30 a.m. ET)

From May to August 2001, Paul Harvey was off the air, having completely lost his voice, the result of a virus. WND reported on his Thanksgiving weekend broadcast that year, in which he reflected on his recovery and the state of the nation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks:

"Inescapably, I was haunted by the possibility that I might not broadcast again," he said.

Many friends including fellow broadcasters Mike Wallace of CBS and ABC's Sam Donaldson - both of whom had endured their own periods of voicelessness - called Harvey to provide encouragement. "Don't let anyone touch those vocal cords with a knife," Harvey was admonished....

In Harvey's on-air explanation of his absence, he said he was invited to speak at a Salvation Army event in Cincinnati, but sought to be excused due to his voice problem. The organization, though, had sold thousands of tickets, and asked him just to show up to the event without having to utter a word.

"I'll never forget the delegation who met my plane," said Harvey. "I was unable even to return their greeting."

On the tarmac of the airport, Harvey recounted how Salvation Army Maj. Philip McMichael led a prayer with his colleagues for the speechless newsman. "Lord, we know something good will come from Mr. Harvey's silence."

"Well, by George, something good did," Harvey continued. He says over the ensuing days, an epiphany taught him a new way to pray.

"You remember Jesus had prescribed for his disciples a perfect prayer, the essence of which is 'Thy will be done.' My prayers so often had been a shopping list of things I wanted to be done, and I began to pray for what He wanted.

"And doors began to open. I was led to a voice specialist. An outpatient procedure reinforced a weakened muscle alongside a vocal cord and within minutes, the voice which had been mostly mute for weeks came back to life."...

Harvey concluded by focusing on the brighter side of events, stressing that storms are part of life's normal climate, and that Americans need to learn to ride them.

"Don't let noisy news distress you, don't let the headline writers rain on your parade," he said. "My goodness, there's resiliency in this country we've not yet begun to use."

Paul Hale, writing at the Christian Index in 2016, told the story of Paul Harvey's belated baptism:

Paul Harvey Aurandt was born on September 4, 1918 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Twenty-five years later, the surname was dropped for professional reasons as his star rose in the world of radio.

Tragedy struck early as three-year-old Paul lost his father while he was in the line of duty as a Tulsa policeman. The burglar's bullet put the family in desperate financial straits. To keep debt collectors at bay, Paul's mother had small apartments built into their house to make money from renters....

Leaving Chicago for a needed vacation in Arizona, Harvey tells the story of driving up a mountain road on Sunday morning to visit a country church in a hilltop clearing. He said, "The little steeple pierced an azure sky, and white clapboard siding reflected the morning sun."

As the Chicago city slickers settled into their wooden folding chairs amid a dozen or so worshippers, the country preacher announced that he would be preaching on being baptized the Bible way. Harvey was reminded of his long-ago experience of believing in Jesus while alone in his room as a young man. He grew up going to church. He was reminded of clinging to his favorite Bible verse of John 3:16 through the years.

The simple eloquence of the country preacher made Harvey twist in his chair as he realized that he had never done what the Lord Jesus commands all new believers to do. Harvey realized that he had never taken that step of obedience in following Jesus in believer's baptism.

As the sermon drew to a close, and as the pianist plinked out a familiar hymn, the country preacher's closing invitation to the small gathering was to yield themselves totally to Christ. Paul Harvey found himself stepping into the aisle and walking forward with a desire to be fully obedient to Christ.

After coming up out of the watery grave of baptism, Harvey said, "I cried like a baby, a kind of release I suppose. I remember looking at Angel and her eyes were shining. She knew well what this meant to me, for she had been blessed with the same experience as a girl."

A new joy invaded the daily routine of deadlines and headlines in Harvey's world. With one of the most powerful microphones in the free world before him each day, his humbling step of public baptism seemed to free him up to be more vocal about his Christian faith.

Paul Harvey aircheck from 1966 from KRSI, St. Louis Park, Minnesota. He was broadcasting that day from Nashua, New Hampshire.

Another Paul Harvey aircheck from March 1966 included the report of Cassius Clay's refusal to be inducted into the Army.

NOTE 2019/10/15: This item was originally planned to be a description of Tulsa's Pearl District when Paul Harvey lived there, from his birth in 1918 until his graduation in 1936, but it became a place to collect other tributes I came across shortly after his death. At the time I never got around to cleaning up the links and hitting "publish." In the intervening 10 years, many links have broken. Those I couldn't find in the Wayback Machine are captured here for posterity.

Life coach John C. Donahue offered a quotable quote from Paul Harvey:

"They have gun control in Cuba.
They have universal health care in Cuba.
So why do they want to come here?"

A folksy essay about the value of dirt roads, attributed to Paul Harvey, but seems to lack his touch:

There's not a problem in America today, crime, drugs, education, divorce, delinquency that wouldn't be remedied, if we just had more Dirt Roads, because Dirt Roads give character.

I was trying to find out who came up with the threefold classification of American political cultures as moralistic, individualistic, and traditionalistic. (For moralistic, think English Puritans and Norwegian Lutherans -- think Minnesota and the upper Midwest. For individualistic, think Scotch-Irish, frontiersmen, and the Southwest. For traditionalistic, think big cities in the Northeast with their machine politics and small towns in the South with their good ol' boy networks.)

It seems to have originated with Daniel Judah Elazar, in his 1966 book, American Federalism: A View from the States. Elazar, who passed away in 1999, wrote a number of books on the cultural, religious, and ethnic influences on American political institutions, as well as explorations of federalism in its various manifestations worldwide. It's an interesting mix of topics. Here are a few links, as much for my benefit as yours.

This is collection of Daniel J. Elazar's writings on Federalism, on the website of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. One of the articles describes Minnesota as the epitome of the moralistic political culture.

From Google Books:

• The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism


• A summary of Elazar's concept in Public Budgeting in the United States By Steven G. Koven


• The three political cultural types described in terms of episodes of The Simpsons, in Homer Simpson Goes to Washington By Joseph J. Foy, Stanley K. Schultz

And there's this: The first two chapters of his memoir of his father, who was born in Jerusalem during Ottoman rule and lived through the British mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The excerpt includes a description of Elazar's Sephardic heritage and life in turn-of-the-20th century Jerusalem -- fascinating stuff.