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Faith Of Gov. Harris
FORMER PRESIDENT Jimmy
Carter has openly criticized Ronald and
Nancy Reagan for their belief in astrology.
Carter, a staunch Baptist, believes along
with a lot of other church-going folk that
following the dictates of the stargazers is
blasphemy. Carter says the Reagans have
brought shame on America.
Gov. Joe Frank Harris won't comment
directly on the use of astrology in the
White House, and still deflects reporters’
questions about the subject by declaring
that it's better to believe in prayer than
astrology.
* * *
HARRIS GREW up in a very religious
Methodist household, and even married
the preacher’s daughter. To this day, his
father quips that ‘‘the best day’s work Joe
Frank ever did was getting Elizabeth to
marry him."” Elizabeth’s father was one of
the pastors at the Faith United Methodist
Church in Cartersville, where the Harrises
still are members.
In his high school years, Harris once
considered becoming a minister, and
almost enrolled in the theology program
at Asbury College in Kentucky. He final
ly admitted to his dad, however, that, ‘“the
Lord hasn’t called me to the ministry.”
ok T Ty
PRIVATELY, the governor says he
has a close relationship with God, and uses
prayer often to get guidance in the day-to
day affairs of his family and his state.
Harris, who by law cannot seek a third
term, will leave office after the 1990 elec
tions. But he won’t share with reporters
his thoughts about what he will do after
that. It's all really up to God, anyway, he
says.
“I'm not closing any doors, but I'm not
looking to open any doors either,” he said.
“I feel like that my future is going to be
in the hands of the good Lord. He has pro
vided the opportunity for me to be here,
and made it this far, and that another door
will open either in the business world or
some other area.”
* * *
WHAT ROLE does Harris’' faith in
Jasper Dorsey
Going Down Tubes?
WESTERN CIVILIZATION has been
under attack by the barbarians for more
than 2500 years since its beginning in an
cient Greece. The attack continues, but
from a very peculiar place today . . . from
the left-liberal faculty and left-liberal
students of one of America's most honored
and prominent universities. From Stan
ford University, of Palo Alto, Calif.
Stanford's Black Student Union,
radical feminists and others had agitated
for changes in the Western culture require
ment for freshmen to include the study of
non-European cultures and works by
women and minorities. They also renam
ed the requirement, effective in the fall of
1989, “Cultures, Ideas and Values,” to
confront ‘‘issues relating to class ethnici
ty, race, religion, gender, and sexual orien
tation.”” Students must also have one ma
jor reading each quarter on race, gender or
class issues.
EDUCATION SECRETARY William
Bennett, who's done more to waken the
education colussus in America than
anyone in half a century, told Stanford
students and faculty, ‘A great university
was brought low by the very forces which
modern universities came into being to op
pose; ignorance, irrationality and intimida
tion.” He added that the changes in
Western culture represented a victory for
radicals who employed *‘the tactics of in
timidation.”
Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson
led a chanting group of students with “Ho,
Ho, Western culture’s gotta go.”
BERNARD LEWIS, Dodge professor
emeritus of near Eastern studies at
Princeton, wrote scathingly of the move
ment in the Wall Street Journal, “It
wasn't clear, he said, whether what must
go is Western culture itself, or merely its
teaching in the universities, but given the
central role that Western culture assigns
to universities in our life, the two may in
the long run come to the same thing.”
He suggested that if Western culture
was forced out, many things could go with
it. Restoration of slavery could be one con
sequence. That institution has existed
throughout our history and in all societies.
The peculiar thing about Western slavery
is its abolition, he believes. The West
alone, by its own choice and action abolish-
Capitol Beat
By Andy Bowen,
Capitol Correspondent
ed slavery and procured its abolition in all
parts of the world where it has power or
influence. In some countries abolition of
slavery is recent and could be' easily
reversed.
* * *
ANOTHER ALMOST universal non-
Western institution like the harem could
return. The idea that marriage between
one man and one woman is peculiarly
Western with its roots deep in Greece,
Rome and Christianity. Other non-
Western practices that might accompany
this change could include child marriages
and the burning of widows.
Naturally these changes would arouse
opposition, even resistance, but that could
be easily overcome by the removal of
another peculiar and unique feature of
Western culture like individual political
freedom, Lewis wrote. Freedom is purely
a Western idea from ancient Greece, the
Roman Republic, the English Parliament
and the American Revolution. Take away
this outworn political freedom and almost
anything is possible.
UNIQUELY WESTERN, too, says
Lewis, has been curiosity about other
cultures and a willingness to study them
and learn from them. The other great
cultures of history saw themselves as self
sufficient and considered outsiders as bar
barians, gentiles, untouchables,
unbelievers, foreign devils . . . all contemp
tible. Only under pressure, conquest or
domination did they change in
self-defense.
What a contrast has been Western
culture. Without constraint we developed
a compelling interest in other cultures to
study them and enrich our own intellectual
and cultural life in the process. This
curiosity remains peculiar to Western and
Westernized cultures. It's regarded with
bafflement, even anger by those who
neither share it, nor understand it.
SO THERE YOU have it. If Western
culture goes, think of what goes with.it.
VARIETY
Is your husband on a liquid diet? No!
He eats a pretzel sometimes. — Kodiak
(Alaska) Beak
God play in his ability to govern? How
much strength does he draw from his
faith?
“The relationship that I have, and my
total belief in prayer, gives me the ability
to respond in the proper way whenever
challenges come and whenever decisions
are here,” he said. “It gives me a lot of
reassurance of knowing that I'm not here
by myself, that the Lord is with me. And
I don’t have any problem in com
municating with Him either.”
Harris says he prays several times dai
ly, and laughs that when it's needed,
“maybe it's on an hour-to-hour basis.”
WHEN ASKED by reporters the
state’s plans for reducing the effects of the
drought, Harris will explain in detail steps
taken by the Department of Natural
Resources, the drought committee’s work,
plans for long range water resources being
developed by the Growth Strategies Com
mission, and so on. Invariably, he might
add: “And we'll pray for rain.
“The greatest thing that has ever hap
pened in my life has not been not being
elected governor, not being in the General
Assembly for 18 years, not having been a
high school quarterback or the things you
get glory out of as you go along,” he said.
B e
“BUT THE GREATEST thing that
ever happened in my life was when I ac
cepted Jesus Christ as my personal
saviour. That gives you a reassurance and
an inner strength that enables you to
tackle whatever is before you.”
Harris believes without his close rela
tionship with God, he would not be where
he is today. Nor, he says, would Georgia
have been the recipient of some of the good
fortune that has come its way since he has
been governor.
* * *
“I THINK the good Lord has blessed
this state, not just because of Joe Frank
Harris, but we've had a real window of op
portunity in this state in the last six years.
And we’'ve been blessed.”
Z
. 1 i i
Letters
To The
Editor
AIDS Moral
Suicide
Edi'{.‘(;‘r: o ;
e Cox newspaper in
Dayton recently fi.redp publisher
Dennis Shere when he refused
to accept ads from homosexual
groups. Correctly claiming that
such ads violated his religious
beliefs because homosexuality
was resgonsible for spreading
AIDS, Shere stated, again cor
rectly, that AIDS was “moral
suicide.” i\
Cox president David
Easterly defended the firing by
claiming that the paper’s
policies could not be set by per
sonal feelings and that all
groups mustgbe treated fairly.
At the risk of wasting this
Epace. I'd simply remind
asterly that the victorious
allies prosecuted...and ex
ecuted and jailed . . . numerous
nazi war criminals precisely for
their failure to exercise g'heir
belatedly discovered ‘‘personal
feelings”” as regards Hitler's
Eolicy of genocide. The
olocaust which ensued cost
the lives of six million Euro
pean Jews and a like number of
non-Jews.
Mr. Shere, and many
others, are beginning to share
the belief that AID§ is moral
suicide and is spread by
homosexuality, heterosexual
promiscuity and IV drug
abuse, all of which activities
were, until recent times,
violative of our rapidly eroding
traditional Western moral
value system. Mr. Shere has
coura§eously refused to be a
part of what will, unless halted,
make the loss of 12-million at
the hands of an insane little
Austrian look like a warm-up
exercise. ;
Another distressing parallel
with Europe is the bubonic
{Jlague which wilped out one
hird of its people. The major
difference between the bubonic
glague and AIDS is that the
lack plague was carried by the
rat flea: AIDS is spread by the
rats. That's the only way to
view those who, once made
aware of the threat their
perverse and disg'ustinf habits
pose for the rest of civilization,
persist in them!
It is, however, possible that
I am wrong in that: Who can
tell me which version of “How
AIDS is Spread” to believe?
The one being perpetuated by
the homosexuals to quiet the
fears of the “‘straights’ which
says that only those engaging
in high risk behavior are in
danger. Or, confusin%y, the
one also afut forth by the
homosexuals that everybody is
in peril unless we fundy a
massive research effort to find
a cure for a disease statistical
ly so far at least confined to
them! They seem to want it
both ways. (No pun intended!)
The least costly way to sto
AIDS — depending on whicg
story you buy into — is for
these folks to stop fooling
around and stop I'V drufis. But,
again, they want it both ways.
We are told that the way of
the transgressor is hard. The
condition of this culture is am
ple evidence that many of us
missed that lesson earlier.
Perhaps this is simply His way
of driving the point home once
and for 51.
This monogamous
heterosexual non-drug user ap
plauds Mr. Shere for putting
God before mammon and
princple before expediency.
And a pox on the Cox a}gers
and David Easterly for A{)l ing
and abetting our incipient
“moral suicife.”
Dick Bachert
4053 Glen Meadow Dr.
Atlanta
Thanks
For Help
Dear Editor,
We would like to publicly
thank and express our ap
preciation to all Historical
Society members who furnish
ed recipes and assisted in com
pilin%) our “Olde and New
Cookbook.” Special thanks,
also to the merchants and
business firms who generously
contributed to this%ook.
All proceeds from the sale
of this cookbook will }fo to the
Chattooga County Historical
Society.
A special word of thanks to
Linda L. Williams whose ef
forts and Eatience helped make
thisH coli)k Sook abreahty.
ol prayberry
Lind); L. V&yilliams
Susan Huff
MIKE
RENTS
BULL
FLOATS
Shamblin Hardware
PHONE 857-1115
, /}w
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