THE EGGHEAD

Adlai Stevenson ran for president twice against Dwight Eisenhower, losing big-time, both times, in his attempt to live in the White House. When he ran the second time, he lost the Electoral College 457-73 and the popular vote by 35,590,472 to 26,022,752.

Upon his death in 1965, The New York Times euologized Stevenson as being "cultivated, urbane, witty, and articulate." People lauded him for his diction, his eloquence; they said his words flowed easily, precisely, and steadily. Adlai could chew up a dictionary and spit out vocabulary; he liked to use big words.

Academic types, those who lived in their ivory towers in the groves of academe` loved him. They liked his erudition, because he, a politician, was one of their own, their golden boy. He was as they, the intellectual elite. Birds of a feather vote together.

During the campaign, Richard Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, called Stevenson an "egghead," as people were wont to call those in the academic world back then. (His balding head was shaped like an egg.) An egghead was an intellectual, a person considered too out-of-touch with ordinary people and lacking in common sense on account of their intellectual interests. It would be like someone devoting himself to the study and use of the cognate accusative, but who couldn't hammer a nail into a 2x4. We'd call them "elitists" today.

The schools Stevenson attended were the upper tier institutions of the day. The list of the universities of Adlai's matriculation would choke a horse: Choate Rosemary Hall, Harvard, Harvard Law School, Northwestern, Northwestern School of Law, and Princeton. The only elite school he missed was Texas Tech.

WHERE DID HE "DO CHURCH?"

In his day, people considered him a liberal, just as they would label him today, a liberal both politically and when it came to "church," because Adlai Stevenson was a Unitarian Universalist, which is, biblically speaking, no church at all, but a heretical group that denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, the Resurrection, the inspiration of Scripture, the Second Coming, and any other cardinal doctrine of the faith you'd care to name. Neither did it help his presidential chances that he was small ("vertically challenged" at 5' 10") and divorced, a marital status not nearly as socially acceptable in the 1950's as it is today.

BUT, AT LEAST ON ONE OCCASION

When I was investing inordinate hours at the Baptist Student Union in the pursuit of ping-pong excellence, on those (rare) occasions when I might lose a game, I'd say of my opponent, "Even a blind pig finds an acorn every once in a while." Stevenson was off base politically and spiriturally on almost everything, but on October 7, 1952, Stevenson, the egghead academic, did get something right when he said, "My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

Are Christians and Christianity safe? Read on:

"For all their cries for equality and the right to assemble in peaceful protest, liberal college students and their like minded professors are banding together to attack Christians and push them off campuses across the country.

"Colleges like Vanderbilt University marginalize Christian groups and make it harder for them to organize and recruit members by banning them from using email, not allowing Christians to advertise at the college, refusing them funding for speakers and not allowing Christian groups to cosponsor events. Now the college is banning the use of the word 'Easter' saying it offends non-christian students attending the college. (How did this happen--it's unsafe to say "Easter"?)

"The University of Michigan kicked an InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter off campus because the college is not happy that the group requires it’s leaders to be Christians." (Medford CitySearch, March 29, 2013)

"At Cal State, the nation’s largest university system with nearly 450,000 students on 23 campuses, the chancellor is preparing to withdraw official recognition from evangelical groups that will not pledge not to discriminate on the basis of religion in the selection of their leaders." (Ibid. June 30, 2014) 

They did so in September of that year. To show how absurd all this is getting, one university official said that if a s wants to join the chess club, the club must approve his membership or lose their status. But the stakes are higher in the Inter-Varsity situation because, were an atheist, agnostic, or a communist were to get into a position of leadership, the organization is destroyed.

"Similar situations [attacks on Christian groups] have occurred on other campuses like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Rutgers University, Marquette University, and the list goes on."(The College Conservative," Elena Reynolds, March 23, 2013)

ARE JEWS SAFE?

Are Jewish students safe? Read on:

"Over the last several years, Jewish students on campuses across the country have been physically, emotionally, and intellectually harassed, intimidated, threatened, and bullied, not only by their fellow students but also by some of their professors.

"Anti-Israel student activists at the University of Michigan last month hurled death threats at Jewish student council members and called them “dirty Jew” and “kike.” At University of California, Berkeley, a Jewish girl holding an “Israel Wants Peace” sign was ramrodded with a shopping cart by the head of Students for Justice in Palestine.

"At Harvard University, the Palestine Security Committee frightened Jewish students by placing mock eviction notices on their dormitory rooms. At Northeastern University in Boston, Students for Justice in Palestine vandalized a menorah and disrupted Jewish events.

"At San Francisco State University this past fall, the General Union of Palestine Students hosted an all-day event where participants could make posters and t-shirts that said, “My Heroes Have Always Killed Colonizers,” meaning Jews. And just last week, at New York University, pro-Palestinian students slipped “eviction notices” under the doors of 2,000 undergrads, scaring Jewish students and parents.

"The official response to these episodes has been silence." ("Independent Sentinel," by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, May 5, 2014)

ARE YOU SAFE?

A barbaric enemy who has burned a condemned man alive in a cage and who has televised beheadings of military personnel as well as journalists threatens America. Not only that, but also for drawing a cartoon, they have invaded offices and massacred employees. Yet, our mass and social media see two Christian bakers as a more sinister threat.

On a moment's notice, a media storm erupts to insist upon and get their way about the firing of a CEO who made a contribution to a cause with which he was in agreement, but a cause which they opposed.

When savages decapitate people for their faith, our leaders try hard to stifle a yawn, while those same politicians rush to microphones and TV cameras to denounce and demonize Christian florists. Somewhere, somehow, we've lost our way.

AND YOU?

Are you safe? Would you draw a cartoon like they did in France? Would you speak up in a business training seminar on diversity and multiculturalism with a differing opinion than the approved one? Are there unpopular viewpoints or words you won't utter because you're afraid you'll come under attack, lose your job, be written up, or be shamed.

"A free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." We do not live in that society. Not any more.

DON'T SHOW THEM THE MONEY

People need to rethink their donations to universities where all this stuff is incubated, then hatched. Christian parents need to consider their options, instead of putting their tuition and their students into such asylums for four years only to see their children for whom they've sacrificed graduating and returning home to hate them and all they stand for.

Churches need to realize that it's time to cultivate and mentor more Luke 14:25-33 and Acts 4:20 disciples. The America in which we're living needs more disciples, not more church socials. Yet, instead of making robust disciples, we find ourselves creating more business meetings so we can fight over the color of the auditorium carpet.