Acton Institute PowerBlog - Entries from Friday, October 13, 2006

A Helping Hand: Charity Art Auction

Friday, October 13, 2006

“Rest on the Flight to Egypt,” from the Matthaus Evangelium. From the collection
of Edward and Diane Knippers. By Otto Dix.

Five Talents International, a ministry which aims to “to fight poverty, create jobs and transform lives by empowering the poor in developing countries using innovative savings and microcredit programs, business training and spiritual development,” is sponsoring an art auction beginning this coming Monday, Oct. 16.

“A Helping Hand: Artists’ Exhibition and Sale,” is an online silent art auction, with the proceeds devoted toward the creation of the Knippers Eduation Fund. The newly established fund will “provide scholarships for the next generation of church leaders, missionaries and poor entrepreneurs, who are living or working in developing countries, with business and management tools needed to transform their communities and churches.”

The fund is named in memory of Diane Knippers, a Five Talents founding board member who coined the organization’s name and president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy. Time magazine named Diane one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in the United States in 2005.
Here’s the agenda for the auction:

Starting Monday, Oct. 16, bids for paintings, sculptures and original prints will be accepted online at www.fivetalents.org. Featured art will include the works of nationally recognized artists such as Sandra Bowden; Tim Botts; Tanja Butler; Bruce Herman; Ed Knippers; Dean Larson; Nathaniel Mather; Dorsey McHugh; Sam Nash; John Olsen; Ted Prescott; Karen Swenholt; and David Zuck, among others. Works by Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, and a page from the Nuremberg Chronicle will also be included.

The online auction will close at 5 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 10 and culminate with a silent auction and reception on Saturday, Nov. 11, at the Foxhall Gallery, 3301 New Mexico Ave. NW, Washington, D.C. The auction and reception will be from 5:30 to 9 p.m.

More details are available here.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in News and Events at 08:43 | Leave a comment | Trackback

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art, auction, diane knippers, five talents

Environmental McCarthyism

Friday, October 13, 2006

David Roberts of Grist magazine, responding to his recent read of George Monbiot’s new book Heat, wrote about skeptics of climate change:

When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.

Following this, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works issued a statement calling Roberts to task and deemed his comments to be part of a broader movement, noting a “new found penchant by environmentalists and some media members to charge skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming with ‘crimes against humanity’ and urge Nuremberg-style prosecution of them.”

Roberts later responds by saying that he “was, as might be obvious, rather angry,” and that “Too often, this kind of thing is treated like a partisan political squabble, a game of rhetorical sparring between the ‘sides’ of a debate.” Not much rhetorical about calling for Nuremburg-style criminal tribunals, though, eh?

Yesterday the New York Times editorialized and took Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, to task, “He accuses scientists and the media of hysteria. But if there is such a thing as a hysteria of doubt, then Mr. Inhofe is its master.” Might the Times editorial staff be amenable to the sorts of trials Roberts called for?

If the scientific case is so rock solid and the consensus is so sure, why are climate change believers so worried about criticism? Are they truly that thin-skinned? Or is the evidence perhaps not as airtight as they would have us believe?

Talk about an affront to a free and open public debate.

Posted by Jordan J. Ballor in Environmental Stewardship at 07:56 | Leave a comment | Trackback

Defined tags for this entry:
climate change, david roberts, global warming, james inhofe, nuremburg trials