Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

U.S. takes lead in Libyan airstrikes

The USS Barry launches a Tomahawk missile in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn. This was one of approximately 110 cruise missiles fired from U.S. and British ships and submarines targeting about 20 radar and anti-aircraft sites along Libya's Mediterranean coast. (U.S. Navy/ March 19, 2011)

Even as President Obama sought to assure Americans that the U.S. would only play a supporting role, the U.S. took the lead in the initial assault in an effort to cripple the Kadafi regime's air defenses along the coast.

Gone With The Wind: The Money

Mr. Kilough writes in his March 15 letter:
We can be thankful that with the tremendous Internet capability and potential we don’t have to wait until we accumulate certain high levels of income to start.

On the other hand, no effort to spread the gospel comes free of charge, and neither does Internet development. That brings us to the next matter of income and financial management. In this arena we started with nothing and knew not what to expect. On the positive side, due to the generosity and support of a large number of members, our current income stream is covering everything we have committed to so far—subsidies to international areas, congregational expenses, member and retiree assistance, salaries, ministerial expenses, and special programs such as camps and the feasts. Otherwise, we would not have made the commitments we have.

On the downside, it’s still challenging to ascertain income trends with enough firm data to make long-term projections and budgets. Plus, the commitments made and some yet to be made are quickly laying claim to the income we have. But realistically, for a three-month-old organization just beginning to walk, and considering the fact that January through March is historically the lowest income period of the year, such a level of uncertainty should probably be expected... 

First, we are looking for better, more efficient ways to do things. Starting over gives us a fresh opportunity to look hard at everything we do and ask key questions: Are we making the best use of the human and financial resources we are blessed with? Why do we do things this way? Is there a better way? Can a different approach achieve a better outcome? Can we engage more volunteers? How can we better use resources without sacrificing quality and effectiveness?

Second, we are implementing two budgets this year: one with a short-term view for income and expenses until the end of June, the second for the last six months of the year. Why two? Let’s start with the second one. Come midsummer we will have a much clearer picture of both weekly and holy day offering income trends. By waiting until then we can more confidently plan for the long term, knowing how well we can cover expenses, especially in preaching the gospel. It just makes better sense to wait and develop a long-term budget based on more accurate information than we currently have. The short-term “saving and setting aside” budget aims to lay a good foundation for the future. We need to immediately set aside a prudent amount of resources for preaching the gospel, and we must look hard for more ways to save.

The ministry is on a “go lean” program for the next three months—a financial diet, if you will, strictly monitoring expense “calories” and brainstorming for ways to trim. Our pastors have recently demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice. Many went weeks without salaries, and when rehired many took significant cuts; mileage reimbursements were cut in half from what they used to be and recently raised only slightly, meaning they are losing money in the long term due to the increased costs of gas and upkeep. But no one has complained, and we know they will continue to be diligent stewards.

Third—and this is something we are delighted to announce—we are dedicating the first holy day offering of the Feast of Unleavened Bread entirely to preaching the gospel. This will provide the “seed money” for sowing our future efforts. In a time when we don’t have an annual budget in place and there are many hungry mouths, it will also assure that the gospel is guaranteed its seat at the resources table and that its share isn’t gobbled up before it even has a chance to get started. We are very grateful that we can make this type of commitment in advance, and we trust that you will be 
pleased with this too.


--

Mr. Kilough must realize what Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong did. The Passover and Fall Festival Holy Day special offerings are a cash cow windfall for the ministry! Mr. Armstrong wrote about this in a monthly co-worker financial crisis collection letter: 

Formerly we had to borrow a million dollars in January and pay back out of Passover special offerings. Then we had to borrow another million in July to be paid back from the Fall Festival offerings. 

Will Mr. Kilough collect a million dollar "special" sacrificial cash offering over Passover? One thing is certain. Third tithe is not now being spent on church jet(s), maintenance, insurance and fuel burning up thousands of dollars each minute airborne. The COGaWA ministry class is economizing by having to drive it themselves or fly on commercial aviation to warn the world the end is nigh. But how IS the offering money really getting spent? Church of God financial statements in the past have been usually secretive matters, deceptive, or substantially uninformative. Salary information, too is kept hidden from donors.
  

Restricting the first holy day offering of the Feast of Unleavened Bread entirely to preaching is really a grandstanding gesture, intended to prime the COGaWA pump. But what one hand giveth in accounting the other can taketh away, without too much slight of hand. Just ask church auditor Arthur Anderson.  Without detailed financial statements or tracing the cash account journal entries, what this holy tranche of passover money actually pays for is anybody's guess.   

And Ralph Levy writes about the Abolition of Slavery on March 14th: 

Slavery—we often think of it as a relic of the past. The children of Israel came out of it when they left Egypt. The United States supposedly saw the last of it at the time of the Civil War. It’s something that existed in ancient Rome, in the medieval age, in the colonial eriod. But it’s now gone, right?

Wrong. Sadly, slavery is still with us. The International Labor Organization estimates there are at least 12.3 million people in some form of forced labor in the world today. That is, over 12 million people are “treated as property and are forced to work” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery). They may be “held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation” (ibid.).

The modern world has not seen the last of slavery. Debt slavery is common in South Asia; it involves depriving vulnerable people of their freedom and forcing them to work to pay off real, invented or exaggerated debts.

A recent feature on CNN.com highlighted this situation in parts of India, where, for a debt of as little as 1,000 Indian rupees ($22 or 16 euros), poorly educated, sometimes illiterate people are kept against their will and forced to work with few or no freedoms and no apparent prospect of paying off their presumed financial obligations (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2011/03/08/cfp.sidner.india.slave.labor.cnn?iref=allsearch). This kind of debt slavery also exists in African and Middle Eastern countries such as Mauritania, Sudan, and the Ivory Coast. It often involves child slavery, with whole families at times forced to perform menial tasks, such as making bricks.

If they only knew what Ralph Levy knows. Triple tithing, tithe of the tithe, and special offerings to the Church of God - would completely end their financial slavery! 

Soulriding

Jim West brings to our attention the story of what is allegedly the world's most absurd Phd.

No, despite what you are thinking, it wasn't awarded by Ambassador College.

An Anglican priest in British Columbia has earned a doctorate for his research into the spirituality of snowboarding.  A chap by the name of Rev. Neil Elliot of St. Andrews Anglican Church in Trail, B.C. "began his studies 10 years ago in England, pulling together a love of snowboarding, an interest in spirituality and a desire to understand the relationship between spirituality and religion. It was the word 'soulriding' that first captured his attention more than a dozen years ago, while he was living in England and snowboarding in the Alps in Europe. The term made him wonder if there was a spiritual dimension to carving a path down a mountain." 

I've gone skiing in the Alps - at Mont Blanc - but not snowboarding. My epiphany there, if any, probably came out of the thin air, ice cold, rarefied altitude.  Continuing:

Elliot began his studies at the University of Central England in Birmingham, but his research brought him to the B.C. Interior in 2003-04, where he fell in love with Red Mountain in the Kootenays. When an Anglican bishop in the area offered him a job in nearby Trail, he and his wife were thrilled. "We love, love being here. It's the most wonderful spot.” Following the move to Canada, he had to transfer his studies to Kingston University London, which is the institution that recently awarded him his doctorate.

Neil Elliot has published a helpful shorthand summary of his research.

The issue at the heart of this research can be expressed in the question "It's special, but is it spiritual?",   from the interview with WA.  What is it that makes snowboarding a spiritual experience for many of its participants?  If it is spiritual for some, why is it not spiritual for others?  This thesis has developed and explored a model of spirituality which helps to understand the answers to these questions.  This model identifies the significance of context as the third dimension of spirituality alongside experience and identity.  The model locates spirituality as a subjective frame of reality. In this chapter I will first summarize the argument I have made in this thesis, and consider whether the model is effective. I will comment on issues of constructionism and circularity within the thesis. I will then clarify how this thesis contributes to the sociology of religion.  Finally, I will suggest areas of further research on the model of spirituality I have presented here.

And from this model frame what conclusions does he draw? 

What he learned from his research is that context and location largely determine whether an experience is spiritual. For example, he said, many people describe their experiences with nature as spiritual, but few would use the same term in reference to a night of fun at a club downtown. "It may be the same kind of experience, but they don't frame it as spiritual because of the context." 

His research contains bad news and good news for organized religion. "One thing that was very clear in the research that I did is that people didn't see any necessity to include God or any kind of structure in their understanding of spirituality. In fact, a number of people said it's about spirituality; it's not about God. That's quite challenging, coming from an institutional church which very much sees God as key in spirituality." 

His work also brought him to the conclusion that people want community but they don't want institutions, rules and regulations. Although he insists churches are communities, they are often viewed as inflexible institutions and that's what drives people away.

Neil's latest sermon.  

College, Inc.

Meet Michael Clifford. Clifford's important new book is "How To Run A College - By A Guy That Never Went To One!". He could relate to high school dropout, Ambassador College adman and "Chancellor" Herbert W. Armstrong.

MARTIN SMITH: Why did the university need to be reinvented? What's wrong with the way that universities were running up until the time that John Sperling came along with Phoenix?

MARK DeFUSCO: John saw the constraints of most- most college professors. You know, anybody who's got any new ideas in college are quickly beaten down. The academy hasn't had a real change in how it works for almost 500 years.

...

ANNOUNCER: [Univ. of Phoenix television commercial] Which university revolutionized education in America?

MARTIN SMITH: The granddaddy, University of Phoenix, spent $130 million on ads in 2008.

ANNOUNCER: [Univ. of Phoenix television commercial] Which university has the largest business school in the country?

MARTIN SMITH: That's more than brands like Tide, Revlon and FedEx.

ANNOUNCER: [television commercial] Why wait any longer?

MARTIN SMITH: What they spend on sales and marketing can rival or exceed what they spend on teaching.

MARK DeFUSCO, Dir., University of Phoenix, 1994-'02: If you take a look at for-profit colleges, the analysts will tell you that anywhere between 20 and 25 percent of the total revenue of a company is in sales and marketing, about a quarter. In most cases, the faculty are in the 10 to 20 percent range.

MARTIN SMITH: [on camera] Should that make us uncomfortable?

MARK DeFUSCO: I don't know. Why would one be uncomfortable?

MARTIN SMITH: Well, you're spending more on getting me to come to the school than you are on the service you're providing once I'm there.

MARK DeFUSCO: I understand. Well-

MARTIN SMITH: Is that right?

MARK DeFUSCO: When I go and buy perfume for my mom, the chemicals in the bottle and the bottle itself amount to about $0.50. The advertising amounts to five or six bucks.

MARTIN SMITH: But you're not selling perfume.

MARK DeFUSCO: What makes education so special? For-profits have to get people's attention, and they do a very good job of getting people's attention.

Read the full transcript here.