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Santorum Takes His Gospel of Individualism to Dordt College

“You go to Dordt College and you ask me that question?” Rick Santorum said to Ryan Walters, Dordt College freshman, when Santorum spoke in Sioux Center recently. And the question that Santorum seemed amazed at was this: “If not for our [government] social programs, how can we take care of our poor?” Santorum asked the audience who should take care of the poor, and the answer he got first was “the church,” and then, the answer he wanted, it’s up to “the individual” to take care of himself. Before we parse those three answers, I want to comment on Santorum’s amazement at Walters question. Why was he so amazed? I can only speculate. Santorum was amazed because he had been led to believe that Dordt College is a bastion of conservative Republican political views. Where did he get that idea? Again, I can, only speculate. Perhaps his colleague in the House of Representatives, Steve King, told him that. Perhaps the fact that Sioux County is called the most conservative county in the country in
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A "Plumbline" I wrote that will run on KDCR Friday, 3/19

What Glenn Beck Does Not Know Should one even bother to reply to Glenn Beck? Clearly, he does not use reason when he tries to convince folks to think like he does. Often, he attempts to frighten people by using words that carry all sorts of emotional baggage. Sometimes he talks as if he knows a lot about something, but in reality he’s not very well informed. I would hope that people would see through this sort of manipulation, but I hear that Beck has a huge following—even in a town like Sioux Center. So I am going to respond to something he recently said. Beck said that Christians should check their church’s web pages for the words “social justice” or “economic justice” and if they find them, they should resign from the church. Why? Because those words are really code words for communism and Nazism. Now for those Christian Reformed folk listening, if you bother checking the website of The Christian Reformed Church in North America, you will discover—if you did not already kno
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Seed Catalogs and Crookneck Squash

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One of the good things that happens each cold, snowy January is the arrival of seed catalogs. Well, good and bad. They are jam-packed with summer—fruits and flowers and vegetables and leafy trees; pumpkins the size of volkswagons and watermelons so red and juicy your mouth waters just looking at them. A seed catalog is a wonderful escape from the plain white world of winter. But it can also manufacture discontent. Three months of mostly cold, dead weather lie ahead of us before we will see growing things. In addition to the seed catalogs that come in the mail, one can find all kinds of online seed catalogs. I spent some time yesterday browsing the Seed Saver catalog online. It contains primarily heirloom varieties and the wonderful pictures make your mouth water. In the squash section I found the Pennsylvania Dutch Crookshank squash that we grew last summer—squash so big that each one provides us with at least four meals. They are supposed to have a curved neck, but most of ours have s
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