Jonathan Day

This book contains all kinds of information that I have found useful in the classroom and for a general understanding of news and media.  Some of the writing is dry, but in not letting that deter me, it was a very good book to read.  One of the most fascinating things I learned from this book is how society has not changed much for their desire and consumption of sensation news, only the technology and means by which humans get the news has really changed.

This was the textbook I used for teaching the Presidency class at Western Illinois University in Fall 2010.  There were about three competing textbooks that I was looking at and this one was the best on organization and conciseness.  It also had a chapter at the end specifically devoted to Barack Obama, which I can use to lead the class in a discussion of all the concepts we learned and apply it to the current president.

CS Lewis, the master of analogies and metaphors, takes the time to write about this paradox.  If our God is omnipotent and omni-benevolent, then why is there pain in this world.  How are these two characteristics of God consistent with the existence of pain.  This is similar to the problem of evil, but deals specifically with the issue of pain.  What is first in foremost in the explanation is that God wanted humans to have free will.  However, in our free will, we sinned against God which divided us from his holiness.  He desires greatly for us to come back to Him, but we must choose Him without Him making us for it to be consistent with His will.  We are now living in the natural world because of our sin and governed by natural laws not just spiritual laws.  In the natural world there is pain, but this is actually a blessing.  In our pain, we need help, and we often turn to God for help.  CS Lewis’ famous line in this book is:  ”God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pains”.  But pain produces good.  When someone is in pain, it produces the virtuous feeling of pity in those around that person.  It also strengthens the character of the person in pain.