You know, those quiet conservative thinkers might actually be right

I am not one to come down strongly on one side of an issue before amassing a fair amount of evidence, at least on social media. Long-time readers also know that I am a somewhat snarky individual. Therefore, on the recent developments of public opinion on George Floyd's untimely death, I present a commentary on various links and videos.

Was the police pursuit of Floyd justified?

• One conservative commentator says that it was, but that the restraint technique was not.
• Floyd did have an extensive criminal record; per one attorney's social media post, he was likely under the influence of psychotropic drugs at the time, and the MPD was trained to use the specific technique Derek Chauvin employed with such individuals.

What about systemic racism?

• Racial inequality in housing and finance has been an issue in various places for decades. However, mayors of a certain political persuasion have been either unable or unwilling to solve that inequality, given up to 125 years.
• Racism may or may not be a part of who we are as a country.
• Systemic racism may not actually exist as we are told. Focus on facts, not on emotions. Beyond that, actually, focus on values.
• White-on-Black violence is comparatively and absolutely quite low compared to the ignored other categories of interracial violence (Black-on-White and Hispanic-on-White). (Check out also the Bureau of Justice Statistics' NCVS 2018, Table 14).
• White privilege is not something to focus on, as it actually disadvantages those who claim it. Don't apologize for it, either.

What about the protests and police response?

• Things are not as they seem, in this case of force that was not excessive, combined with deliberate antagonism of the officers.
• Black officers have been killed, but it is not in line with certain agendas to acknowledge that.
• Police, as a whole, likely do not have systemic racism.

What about Black Lives Matter?

• Unborn Black lives do not matter, apparently. Killing the unborn should matter.
• Black gun deaths in Chicago don't matter unless they're caused directly by law enforcement.
• BLM as a movement does not care about free speech, and therefore, not about ending racism either because free speech is a prerequisite to informed, courageous discussion of issues.

How do we respond as thinking Christians?

• Don't dilute the gospel. Don't prematurely side one way or the other - the world's actions are not in line with the whole counsel of Scripture.
• But, if you are going to side on a political position, weigh very carefully which side faces facts more, which side prefers to escalate versus discuss an issue, and who thinks about consequences.
• Also, don't listen to the media as a preferred factual source. Hasty generalizations are one logical fallacy that diminish their credibility.
• Drop the color mindset.
• Realize that each of us is as bad a sinner as the one who died and the one who lived.

The Post-Christian Mind

I have lately enjoyed reading H. Blamires' book of the same title (2001, Regent College Publishing). Quotations are as hard-hitting today as when it was published.

3: "[The] distinction between the Christian mind and the post-Christian mind is analogous to the distinction between civilization and the jungle, between order and anarchy."

5: "In the nineteenth century the threat to Christianity in the West was in some respects a clear-cut one. The development of scientific thinking encouraged an assumption that gradually a full understanding of the origin of the world and its inhabitants would be reached.This understanding would be such that past reliance on so-called 'revealed' truth. . . would be rendered unnecessary."

7-8: Around 1960, "the taste for reasoning faded. . . . Absolutes were non-existent. . . . It has led the clergy to an emphasis on the immediate which is neglectful of history and tradition."

Terms the book calls out as being misused in popular culture:

• Rights
• No specific right attaches to any personal trait (whether left-handedness, female sex, or homosexuality).
• Individual rights can be better termed 'entitlements.'
• Holding a right maintains the need for moral imperative and responsibility.
• The term 'duty' should be resurrected and the use of 'responsibility' lessened.
• Family
• Where does a norm become a variant?
• The post-Christian mind pursues "omni-inclusiveness . . . as somehow virtuous" (19).
• Increased housing prices in response to a greater proportion of two-income households is an imperfection in the economic system.
• Regarding the modern feminist movement against full-time homemaking, "one woman's liberation may be another woman's slavery" (25, to a boss rather than one's own home).
• Because emphasis is laid on the abnormal or unusual, this battle in morals has been lost by abdication.
• 31: "And when the heart is touched, the head ought not to be seduced into temporarily accepting patterns of sexual relationship that are destructive of family life."
• Marriage and divorce
• 37: In the post-Christian mind, "erotic love . . . is a god. It has its own authority."
• 39: "If we take everything into account, is it better to be over-severe about adultery or to treat it too lightly?"
• 41: In media writing about divorce, "the post-Christian mind allows a degree of selectivity in recording facts about the lot of children in such circumstances. The post-Christian mind is deceptively evasive. It dare not face facts."
• Morality under attack
• 46: "The post-Christian mind cannot do 'wrong'. He or she can only act ill-advisedly. . . . The implicit downgrading of free will is significant."
• 48: "In what civilizations was the basis of morality established by majority vote? . . . Nazi Germany . . . Muslim countries that [execute] adulterers."
• 49: In the post-Christian mind, "responsibility must be shifted from the shoulders of human beings."
• 50: "What is peculiar about the current post-Christian climate of thinking is that the mature age groups seem frightened of handing on to the young the values that they themselves inherited--and benefited from." It is also more qualitative than quantitative in thinking patterns. Therefore, "the tyranny of the average holds the post-Christian mind in its grip" (54).
• Values
• Do they change based on how we behave? Or is it our ability to live up to values that changes? No value is strictly private, because morality is always public.
• 60: "Our [Christian} belief in the resurrection of Chris is not an interesting personal preference on a par with our fondness for colourful ties or detective novels."
• Novelty
• The modern belief in inevitable progress has the untrue logical extension that the new is always better than the old.
• A deeper question to this: how should the Church relate to the world?
• 69: "Chop away everything that makes it different and the thing can be gradually destroyed. . . . This is the way of abdication from cultural responsibility. It is the betrayal of the young we should be educating."
• Discrimination
• Popular culture does not use this term in a neutral way (as its denotation prescribes).
• 79: "Christian men and women are taught to be grateful for God's creation of the world and its inhabitants. The desire to improve on the Creator's work is silly as well as arrogant. Accepting the pattern of the human family is generally a matter of joy as well as of obedience."
• Bodily beauty
• 86: Regarding indecent advertisements and media, "we have lost the distinction between the public and the private."
• First principles
• 93: "The post-Christian mind has divested itself of moral absolutes."
• 94-95: "We can turn the question [of why we believe in a good God while the world has evil] back on the questioner. 'How can you expect the world to be other than in a mess when the good God and his laws are ignored?' . . . There can scarcely be specifically 'Christian' solutions to problems produced by anti-Christian behaviour."
• 97: "[The] post-Christian mind has become obsessed with sometimes specious 'obligations' which arise only because fundamental obligations have been ignored."
• Democracy
• While democracy does protect against injustice and tyranny, it does not follow from equal representation that everyone's opinions must be equally valid.
• 102: "So Christians do not get enthusiastic about democracy because all men and women are blessed with good judgment. Christians get enthusiastic about democracy because they know that all men and women are subject to temptation and corruption."
• 103: "There can be no education without submission to disciplines." Children, while creative, do not know best!
• The post-Christian mind has no concept of sin.
• Freedom
• Couples enter freely into marriage; therefore, it is not a prison.
• Likewise, boundaries and constraints actually enable freedom within them (while the individual is protected by the boundaries).
• 114: "The post-Christian mind is quite prepared to inherit the traditions of Christian practice while emptying those practices of Christian content."
• 116: "'Freedom of thought,' as now accepted, is in effect an ultimate commitment to non-thought."
• Freedom of expression
• In the popular mindset, it is worse to allow minority-damaging material than actually offensive material. Due to this shift, and poor judgment and logic, "words about defending the freedom of the media are not only misguided but themselves offensive" (118).
• 121: "[The post-Christian mind's] external obsession with sex is perhaps the product of minds unequipped to grapple with the inner reality of its driving power."
• Modern "art" is often offensive. Censorship operates on both the one whose expression is censored, and the intended audience.
• Economic freedom
• Economic reform never quite works, regardless of the system, because conduct cannot be truly separated from humans' motivations.
• Advertising and insurance are forms of taxation without representation as well as abetters of criminal activity, because criminals get stolen goods for free, and advertising cost is included in the cost of the goods sold, without the consumer's choice.
• Back-to-nature movements
• Civilization and nature are falsely contrasted. It is more proper to distinguish between the urban and the mechanical.
• Charity and compassion
• 146-7: "[Our] welfare systems have presupposed a moral climate that post-Christian thinking has destroyed. . . . men and women are trying to be God."
• Denigration of Christianity
• Post-Christian writers and speakers call virtue vice, and vice versa.
• False comparisons also denigrate Christianity in the public eye.

Just Plain Data Analysis

My reading notes from the book of this title by Gary M. Klass (2nd ed., 2012 Rowman and Littlefield Publishers), because many of us need practical data analysis skills regardless of our position.

1. Measuring Political, Social, and Economic Conditions

• When presented with data, how do we respond? Do we cry "opinion"? Do we analyze our motives and presuppositions, and those of the ones interpreting the data?
• Be aware of reliable sources of statistics such as The National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau.
• To interpret social indicators, one needs to understand the survey questions used, and what standards were used to determine counts. What is the numerator? The denominator? The form of comparison (cross-sectional, cross-time, or cross-demographic)? Why was each chosen?
• Measurement validity relates to an indicator's context and how the numerator and denominator were determined. That is, we look at how well a measure assesses an underlying idea.
• Measurement reliability, the repeatability of a measurement whose value is relatively constant, is affected by sampling error (random? Large enough?), response rate, and reasons for response or non-response.

2. Measuring Racial and Ethnic Inequality

• Shift the discussion away from personal motives toward evidence of data/numbers.
• The U.S. uniquely classifies citizens by race and asks about both race and ethnicity. Most data comes through the Current Population Survey (also for education) and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement, of non-institutionalized individuals. However, net family wealth is rarely reported (varies among families with the same income).
• Most health data are in the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
• Crime data mainly come from the Uniform Crime Reporting program (FBI) and National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS, subjective)

3. Statistical Fallacies, Paradoxes, and Threats to Validity

• Some fallacies in daily conversations and media:
• Ad hominem - something is false because its author has unacceptable character or motives
• Post hoc, ergo propter hoc - because something occurred after something else, it was caused by that temporally prior thing
• Appeals to authority - the majority is always right
• Appeals to loyalty - we should support others doing things for us
• Slippery slope
• Straw man
• Begging the question
• Red herring
• Hasty generalization
• Statistical fallacies to be aware of:
• Cherry picking - choosing evidence that supports one's claim (compounded by opposition bias, i.e. people accept data that agrees with their position)
• History - ignoring the potential for other past events to have influenced results
• Reverse causation - an unclear cause-effect relationship that could go either way
• Self-selection - remember that comparison groups might not be equivalent to start
• Sample mortality - disproportionate dropout in one group versus another group
• Maturation - potential for change due to simple participant aging
• Simpson's paradox - subgroup differences disappear when the whole sample is looked at
• Regression fallacy - participants gravitate toward the mediocre middle naturally (especially when extreme scores are selected at the outset)
• Instrumentation/measurement reliability - can one trust the tools?
• Ecological fallacy - making conclusions about individuals based on a geographical group's data
• External validity - do randomized experiments apply to real-world situations?

4. Examining a Relationship: New York City Crime Rates

• Case: Rudy Giuliani claimed responsibility for a major reduction in crime rates in NYC. However, this claim can be weakened by several fallacies:
• Regression artifact: he may have been elected when crime was high. Evidence does not support.
• Maturation and long-term processes: a general national effect might have been taking place at the same time, including an aging population
• Historical events: actions of his predecessors
• Instrumentation: possibility of manipulation of statistics (or changing definitions) of crime. Likely - a police hiring binge took place years before he took office.
• Other causes: could have included semi-related policy changes, decades before
• Conclusion (p. 59): "In cities across America in the 1990s, mayors touted their success in fighting crime in their reelection campaigns. For most, it was dumb luck; they just happened to be in office at the right time. As for Giuliani, the evidence presented here offers no final proof that the mayor's policies reduced crime, but most of the counterarguments, with the exception of Nevin's lead paint hypothesis, do not hold up."

5. Tabulating the Data and Writing about the Numbers

• Two kinds of people read research: those who focus on the text over the tables/charts, and those who focus on the tables/charts while skimming the text. Both should complement each other.
• General writing principles:
• Meaningful measures/comparisons
• Rates and ratios compare between groups and over time
• If measuring over time, select an appropriately long time frame (e.g., 5 years)
• Clearly differentiate whether you are referring to net, percentage, and percentage point change
• Unambiguous data presentation
• Organize by rows and columns with precise headers
• Define both numerator and denominator when applicable (rates/ratios) and always the count, divisor, and comparison
• Vary the amount of detail by the intended audience
• Labels should be brief while complete
• Cite sources precisely in footnotes to allow fact-checking
• Efficient communication of key ideas about the data
• Organize rows and columns to present similar types of data in any one table
• Sort data by high-low numbers, not alphabetically
• For large numbers, use 2-3 significant digits and 1 decimal place at the most. "There is no need for any correlation coefficient, R-Square, standardized regression coefficient, or even a measure of statistical significance to be displayed with more than two decimal places" (p. 73).
• When writing in-text about numbers, round them even more than in a table
• If using ordered categories in multiple tables, keep the same order
• Use as neutral a table title as possible
• Highlight critical numbers in tables for comparisons
• If you have a paragraph with 5 or more numbers, use a table! If you want more precision than a chart, use a table! If you use a table, reference it in a text! Get to the point in your writing.

6. The Graphical Display of Data

• "Good information design is clear thinking made visible, while bad design is stupidity in action" (p. 79, quoting Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations)
• Avoid the problems of both hiding information and distracting the reader
• D. Huff, How to Lie with Statistics
• E. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
• Rules:
• Self-explanatory charts
• Precisely and concisely defined data
• Meaningful, interesting numerical comparisons
• Efficient presentation of numerical information (no 3-D effects)
• Organized, sorted data by most to least meaningful variables
• Show data unclouded by design and scale
• Be scrupulously honest
• Use the most appropriate type of chart for whatever data
• Be consistent across chart formatting
• Chart parts (never 3-D):
• Title - neutral definition
• Axis titles/labels - vertical text for y axis
• Axis scale - limit to 5 increments
• Data labels - may make y axis labels and gridlines unneeded
• Legends - for charts with multiple data series; label the trendline
• Gridlines - minimize ink
• Sources - use complete citations
• Pie charts:
• Avoid them - only for data summing to a relevant 100%
• Avoid legends and cross-chart comparisons
• Prefer pie charts over doughnut, cone, pyramid, radar, and cylinder
• Bar charts:
• Minimize ink, color, and shading
• Sort data by most important variable; left-right time
• Place legends in the plot area
• Avoid scaling distortions
• If 8-10 or more categories, use rotated charts
• Time series/line charts:
• Make lines distinct and directly labeled
• Avoid for unordered categorical data; time goes left-right on x axis
• Stacked charts:
• Use only for meaningfully ordered data series; each stack must be a meaningful addition
• Place the most meaningful data on the bottom of the stack
• Scatterplots:
• Use 2 fully defined, interval-level variables
• Title should state both variables and units of analysis
• If an independent variable exists, place it on the x axis
• Adjust axis scale to maximize area for data points; prefer labels to dots
• Boxplots:
• Shows median and 4 data quartiles for interval-level variables
• Use to compare one variable's distribution across multiple groups or time points
• Can compare one case with many other cases

7. Voting and Elections

• Are American voters really disengaged (indicating an association with bad government all around)? A better explanation is voter fatigue due to number of voting opportunities and number of offices; other citizen participation opportunities also exist (e.g., contacting officials).
• How to measure voter turnout? Is it the number of people who went to the polls, or the number of valid votes for the highest office? Do we measure the voting-age population, or the voting eligible population?
• Election day registration has potential to increase turnout while reducing fraud and costs, but only in non-presidential elections.

8. Measuring Educational Achievement

• Unique features of American education (which make comparison of scores and achievements statistically difficult internationally) include high localization, self-selection bias, and inclusion of students with disabilities in the same classrooms.
• "A general finding of much of the research on educational achievement is that school resources, measured by factors such as the amount of money spent per pupil, teacher salaries, and class size, have little effect on what students learn" (p. 139). However, family resources are much more of a determining factor.
• Are standardized tests valid, culturally biased, or predictive of academic achievement? Conclusions depend on the closeness to the test's intended use. No Child Left Behind has been subject to severe reliability and validity issues, as well as cherry-picking misinterpretation.

9. Measuring Poverty and Inequality

• "You are entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts." (p. 157, quoting Daniel Patrick Moynihan)
• Poverty is defined relatively, measured differently in developing vs developed nations. In the U.S., the Consumer Price Index is periodically adjusted, based on a not-necessarily-representative hypothetical family of four.
• Statistics require thought to interpret.

Every One His Witness sermon series

Christians are called to witness to their faith - the important thing being that Jesus Christ is the object of such faith. To that end, Concordia Publishing House put forth a workbook with video series called Every One His Witness (2017). The cyclical approach to fulfilling Christ's command to witness as we are going about our daily lives is abbreviated LASSIE: Listen, Ask, Seek, Share, Invite, Encourage. Recently, my church completed a sermon series on this approach.

Every One His Witness: Listen (James 1:19-21) (LISTEN)

• We are all witnesses to Jesus' Word and work; this is our task and mission. Do we delight to talk about our faith in Him to others? It is my job to share - but the Spirit's job to bring others to faith.
• Ephesians 2:10 - God placed people already around you to evangelize.
• Listen 1st. Say nothing at first (you have 2 ears and 1 mouth). Learn about the other. Your goals are to first listen, then understand, and then respond without prior agenda. Be fully present, without defense or attack - "quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger."
• The most vital listening is to receive the Word meekly, deeply, salvifically, like Mary. Focus on Jesus, then others, then yourself. Climb down; be a servant; lift others.

"And I will make you . . ." (Matthew 4:19) (ASK)

• "Come, follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
• Four truths:
• God will gift those whom He calls. All of us have spiritual gifts, to be used as faith's fruit. Some are gifted evangelists, but all do the work of evangelists. God gave us the command, the tools, and the message: Turn to Jesus.
• God invites each of us to use our gifts.
• God enables us to be His witnesses. The Holy Spirit gives the words.
• ASK - toward the head (mind), heart (emotions), and/or hands (practical side).

Every One His Witness: Seek (Luke 19:1-10)

• Zaccheus got a high enough vantage point to see Jesus. He sought Him - but Jesus called and sought him by name! "He received Him joyfully." Why, then, do we complain - "how could He love that person?"
• You were lost, too. The only-powerful Holy Spirit called you to Jesus. Trust now that He will speak through you - seek opportunities and connections (their needs) to do so. Use prudent silence and care for others.
• Discern the need for connection to the head, heart, hands, or combination of the three.
• Share the blessings of tithing - lead by example, be wise and joyful.

Every One His Witness: Share (Isaiah 55:10-11, 1 Peter 3:14b-16, Luke 8:26-39)

• A true, un-shared testimony is useless to others. To witness is to share.
• Questions and answers:
• What should I share? The Gospel, God's deeds meaningful for you (Gospel text).
• How should I share? Gently and respectfully, winsomely, clothing the truth by walking the middle road between brashness and "niceness" (Epistle text). Spend time listening first. Be patient to gain rapport. Love does not mean affirming someone in his or her error, but does mean challenging, toward repentance, toward God.
• How can I be confident? Remember that my power to share rests in the invisible, trustworthy God: His Word (Old Testament text).

Every One His Witness: Invite (John 1)

• Receiving an invite makes one feel honored, cared for, and desired.
• Philip simply invited Nathanael to evaluate Jesus' claims for himself.
• Remove obstacles - pick up your invitee, go to the same service, talk him or her through the service, be friendly and sincere.

Every One His Witness: Encourage (Matthew 28:18-20)

• God sees man in his hopeless darkness: "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah needed encouragement to keep on living. God was with him. (In a later turnaround, he got to be in the light of Christ on the mount of Transfiguration, celebrated today!)
• We need to give encouragement: our job isn't done once we share the Gospel. Jesus says: "Go and make disciples" - ongoing hearers and doers and breathers of Christ. Keep the conversation and LASSIE cycle going. Have a solid prayer life, because prayer and encouragement are linked.
• We need to receive encouragement because we feel alone: "I have to . . ." But every one is His witness alongside us! Plant and water; He is with you. God gives the growth. His Spirit is upon us, transforming our weakness.

+Soli Deo Gloria+