The World and Everything in It: September 23, 2024

PREROLL: Paul Butler here, executive producer of World Radio. Later in the program, the World history book and today a poet who writes about the world and everything in it.

Stay tuned.

JENNY ROUGH: Good morning!

Today on Legal Docket: Election law.

MULLER: It's easier to vote than ever, I would say in the United States. And it's probably harder to cheat than ever in the United States.

JENNY ROUGH: So it all comes down to the margin of winning and losing .

NICK EICHER: Also today : The Federal Reserve is stepping on the gas and riding the brakes—that is, cutting interest rates but continuing so-called quantitative tightening. Economist David Bahnsen is standing by to explain.

JENNY ROUGH: It’s Monday, September 23rd. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Jenny Rough

NICK EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

JENNY ROUGH: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Israel-Hezbollah » Air raid sirens in northern Israel as Hezbollah launched another barrage of rockets over the Israeli-Lebanese border.

A senior leader with the Iran-backed terror group said it launched more than 100 rockets … and is now locked in an open-ended battle with Israel.

Israeli military chief Herzi Halevi responded Sunday saying, we “will hit anyone who threatens the citizens of the state of Israel."

The rocket barrage came after an attack last week against Hezbollah militants, targeting the group’s communications devices.

Biden/Kirby on Israel-Hezbollah conflict »  The White House, meantime, continues to call for calm. President Biden was asked Sunday if he’s concerned about the possibility of an all-out war along Israel’s northern border.

BIDEN: Yes, I am, but we're going to do everything we can to keep the wider war from breaking out, and we're still pushing hard.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby added that the White House does not believe

KIRBY:  … engaging in another full front, another all out war in the north is the best thing for Israel.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog told CBS’ Face the Nation that Israel has never wanted war.

HERZOG: This war was waged upon us by the proxies of the empire of evil of Iran on October 7th by Hamas and on October 8th by Hezbollah and ever since from Lebanon in the north.

Israeli leaders say the military has taken action to preempt attacks that Hezbollah was planning against Israel.

Biden Quad summit » 

BIDEN: My fellow leaders, Welcome to Delaware. Welcome to Claymont, Delaware.

President Biden heard there at his Delaware home over the weekend hosting leaders of the so-called Quad. A four-nation group of Indo-Pacific powers whose primary aim is to keep China in check.

Along with the U.S., that group includes India, Japan, and Australia.

BIDEN: Our four countries are more strategically aligned than ever before. And today we're announcing a series of initiatives to deliver real, positive impact for the Indo Pacific.

The president said that includes launching cooperation between their Coast Guards for the first time … and providing new maritime technologies to partners in the region, so that—in his words—“they know what's happening in their waters.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albenese added

ALBANESE: All of this, uh, the promise in the region, uh, does depend on continued peace and stability and the wise management of strategic competition and disputes.

Biden, in a ‘hot mic’ moment after opening remarks, could be overheard saying he thinks Beijing has been testing the resolve of allied democracies in the region, with China’s growing military assertiveness.

Trump assassination hearing/probe » On Capitol Hill, the bipartisan task force investigating assassination attempts against Donald Trump is set to hold its first hearing this week.

Democratic leaders are pushing for more funding for the Secret Service. And Democratic Congressman Jason Crow says he’s all for that, but

CROW:  Additional funding and resources is not going to solve the problem between now and election day, so we need to have a discussion about what needs to happen in the next 45 days, actually sooner than that, to make sure this does not happen again.

Many Republicans, though, say something is fundamentally broken within the Secret Service, and that more funding isn’t the answer at all. GOP Congressman Mike Kelly says the incompetence on display surrounding the first attempt against Trump in Pennsylvania, is unacceptable.

KELLY:  The preparation for that event leaves a lot in our minds as to how in the world, the most elite group of the people we rely on to protect people was so casual about that. And that's the way it seems right now.

The hearing will focus on the Secret Service and their reliance on state and local law enforcement at the former president's July rally in the town of Butler.

The task force is also looking into the second assassination attempt against Trump just over a week ago at his South Florida golf resort. 

Presidential politics » Donald Trump, meantime, was back out on the campaign trail over the weekend in North Carolina campaigning on immigration.

TRUMP: Today, I’m announcing a new plan to end all sanctuary cities in North Carolina and all across our country. No more sanctuary cities.

North Carolina is shaping up to be a critical battleground state this year. And recent polling there has the race effectively tied.

The same holds true in Pennsylvania and Nevada.

Congress reaches spending deal »  Congressional leaders have a deal on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, delaying any funding fight until after the election.

The deal announced on Sunday averts a possible partial government shutdown at the end of this month.

Bipartisan talks began in earnest last week, after a Republican push to link government funding to an election security bill failed in the House.

I’m Kent Covington. 

Straight ahead, a look at election law on Legal Docket.

Plus, the Monday Moneybeat

This is The World and Everything in It. 

JENNY ROUGH, HOST:  It’s Monday the 23rd of September.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Jenny Rough.

NICK EICHER, HOST:And I’m Nick Eicher.

Today on Legal Docket: election law.

JENNY ROUGH: Yes, we’ll go back to last March for a Supreme Court decision that not only touched on the presidential election, it brought a lot of attention to Justice Barrett because of her concurrence.

NICK EICHER: I do remember: Trump versus Anderson. Six plaintiffs suing over then-President Trump’s actions, or inaction, on January 6th, 2020. The claim is that he disrupted the peaceful transfer of power, and in doing so claiming he violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the insurrection clause.

JENNY ROUGH: But the Supreme Court held the Constitution doesn’t give states the power to enforce that provision when it comes to federal elections.

It resulted in a 9 to 0 judgment, but a fractured opinion. Judgment meaning who wins the case. Opinion meaning the rationale for it. In other words:

MULLER: They all agreed that the Colorado Supreme Court got it wrong. They all agreed that Trump should appear on the ballot. … But the reasoning is what caused a lot of hang-ups.

JENNY ROUGH: That’s Derek Muller. He’s a professor at Justice Barrett’s alma mater, Notre Dame. And his scholarship focuses on election law.

MULLER: —especially how states administer federal elections.

NICK EICHER:  But a majority of justices went further to say only Congress has the power to enforce the insurrection clause, meaning Congress needs to pass a statute before a candidate can be disqualified.

You mentioned, Jenny, the fractured opinion. Justice Barrett offered her view in a one-page concurring opinion. She expressed disappointment with her conservative colleagues who made up the majority. She said … they decided more than they needed to resolve the case. But it was equal opportunity disappointment: Justice Barrett disagreed with liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying their rhetoric was overly hostile.

JENNY ROUGH: Yeah. Dissents can often be fiery, but this dissent was unusual. It actually said, “we protest!” They were saying: “We protest” the majority’s refusal to practice judicial restraint.

Justice Barrett said this is “not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency.” In a politically charged issue like a presidential election “writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up.”

So, it’s interesting. Justice Barrett has not written volumes since coming on the court in 2020, but Muller says her concurrences like this have carried great weight in public discourse.

I asked Professor Muller whether he thought the decision would play a role in the November presidential election. He said he didn’t expect it to boost former President Trump.

MULLER: He's on the ballot in all 50 states. I don't think there's going to be any challenge to his candidacy on that basis. Because again, the states can't really do anything about it.

NICK EICHER: So what potential disputes does Muller foresee this November? Of course, it’ll depend.

MULLER: I think the larger the margin is in the electoral college, the lower the likelihood of disputes or any important disputes. And the larger the margin in any given state, the lower the likelihood of disputes.

NICK EICHER: Thinking back to Florida 24 years ago in the 2000 election, that was the perfect storm in terms of narrow margins. The candidate who won that state won the presidency. And it all came down to 537 votes.

And a lawsuit that made it to the Supreme Court, George W. Bush versus Al Gore.

JENNY ROUGH: Exactly. And in 2004, Republican George W. Bush again, this time running against Democratic Senator John Kerry … it also came down to one state: Ohio. But there, the margin was much larger, 120-thousand votes. So .. no Supreme Court case.

Looking to 2024, though, Muller has his eye on Pennsylvania as decisive.

MULLER: And I pick a state like Pennsylvania because it's a deeply decentralized election process in that state. It's a lot of decisions made by the counties. A lot of disparities in how the counties administer elections and a lot of contests over absentee ballots.

NICK EICHER: Such as absentee ballots missing dates with signatures.

MULLER: So you have already some grumbling about some of these ballots in dispute where the legislature has known for years and has been unable to reach a conclusion about. And it's a state that's been very close, very much a swing state, and very much could be the tipping point in the electoral college. So I look at places like that to say, well, that, that's a potential trouble spot.

NICK EICHER: But again, any call for a recount will probably come down to margins.

MULLER: A decision of a thousand votes as opposed to 50,000 votes in the state of Pennsylvania. Because if it's a thousand votes, you know, all bets are off. There's going to be intense litigation.

NICK EICHER: Unless either one of the candidates runs the table.

MULLER: Pennsylvania's not a big deal if you also need to win Georgia and Michigan in order to win the electoral college. Because now you have to win legal challenges in three states. So as I look ahead to 2024, trying to make those sort of risk tolerance assessments about where we might see that difficulty.

JENNY ROUGH: I asked Professor Muller what he thinks about the prospect of election fraud:

MULLER: It's easier to vote than ever, I would say in the United States. And it's probably harder to cheat than ever in the United States. We have a lot of robust checks of bipartisan oversight and backend verification of citizenship and exchanges of information to find people who are ineligible because they've died or moved or whatever it might be in the voter rolls.

JENNY ROUGH: Harder to cheat … not impossible.

MULLER: I mean, fraud happens.

JENNY ROUGH: But—

MULLER: It's very rare to see it happen at scale. That is at a level that would really affect the outcome of an election of thousands of votes.

NICK EICHER:  Again, it all comes down to margins. Reminds me of a book written a decade or so ago, of the title, “If it’s not close, they can’t cheat.”

But so often it is close and often comes down to absentee ballots which a generation ago were thought to favor Republicans.

MULLER: It was the military. It was elderly voters. And Democrats said, we want to vote in person. Racial minorities are skeptical of the postal service. They prefer to vote in person.

JENNY ROUGH: Then it flipped.

MULLER: During the height of the COVID pandemic, lots of changes were made to election rules, which created a lot of consternation and distrust in 2020. But in addition, a significant influx of absentee voting.

JENNY ROUGH: … which are complicated.

MULLER: They have multiple envelopes. There's secrecy sleeves, there's dating, there's signing, there's things that voters might not do correctly. And then you have a lot of more technical provisions unlike voting in person.

NICK EICHER:  And then even if done correctly, there are additional risks.

MULLER: Somebody picking up somebody else's, pressuring someone at home, taking an elderly, person's vote from a caregiver.

NICK EICHER:  Muller says this creates a lot of pressure in the system.

JENNY ROUGH: And another consideration: It’s important to distinguish intentional fraud from unintentional fraud.

MULLER: A husband and wife who accidentally sign each other's absentee ballot.

JENNY ROUGH: Innocent mistake.

MULLER: And in theory, when you would run that through the signature tabulator, they would look and that would look like two invalid votes, but probably you would want to count those ballots. Nobody would say that those were somehow fraudulently cast. They were maybe not in accordance with law.

NICK EICHER: Some states say only family members can carry your absentee ballot. So if you’re visiting a friend who drops it off for you … illegal.

MULLER: So there's a difficulty in the United States because we have so many technical rules, and they're important rules, and they're rules designed to prevent fraud, to prevent intimidation. But at the same time, at the end of the day, sometimes there are technical violations, but in a very close election, you start looking at those technical violations and say, boy, what happens if things went the other way?

NICK EICHER: The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act makes it a crime for aliens to vote in federal elections. But checks come not on the front-end but on the back-end. So some states now want to require proof of citizenship for federal presidential elections before allowing someone to vote.

JENNY ROUGH: There are a handful of cases now percolating in lower courts. So perhaps we’ll see one at the Supreme Court.

And that’s this week’s Legal Docket.

JENNY ROUGH, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the Monday Moneybeat.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s time to talk business, markets, and the economy with financial analyst and adviser David Bahnsen.

He’s head of the wealth management firm The Bahnsen Group and he’s here now.

David, good morning!

DAVID BAHNSEN: Good morning!

NICK EICHER: All right, David. Here’s the chairman of the federal reserve last week.

POWELL: Today, the Federal Open Market Committee decided to reduce the degree of policy restraint by lowering our policy interest rate by a half percentage point.  Inflation is now much closer to our objective and we have gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent.

NICK EICHER: So let’s start at the top and just kind of drill down through it—hit the key points—but certainly a momentous decision cutting those 50 basis points, dropping the target interest rate a half of a percent.

DAVID BAHNSEN: Yeah, there're a few things that are momentous here. I mean, just in the sense that it's the first cut of rates in 54 months. The last time the interest rate had been cut was in March 2020, when the Covid moment was taking place. It's the first change in interest rates since July of 2023, so about 14-15 months ago. And of course, that last change was a hike. So to have that long a period of time, well over 400 days where there was no change at all, what we would call a pause, is very unique. And now to start with a 50 basis-point cut, to really telegraph that they want to get it down 100 by the end of the year—but then another 100-plus change next year. The issue that I wrote about over the weekend in Dividend Café is, this is the first time in my adult life that the two policy tools the Fed has are pulling in different directions. During the financial crisis, Ben Bernanke famously started using something called quantitative easing, and it was meant to be an additional policy tool, to either be easier in monetary policy, looser, or to be tighter by the Fed buying bonds with money that didn't exist. Okay? And so when interest rates were low and lower, they were doing quantitative easing. When interest rates were high and higher, they were doing quantitative tightening. Right now they're lowering rates, but they're doing quantitative tightening. So you have two policy tools pulling in opposite directions. I don't believe that's sustainable, and that's, to me, the big issue as to what they're going to end up doing. If they were really that worried about the economy that they were lowering rates, why would they also be continuing to tighten with their balance sheet? I believe that they desperately need to get the short-term interest rate lower, which is why they're lowering, but they don't want to see the long term rate come lower—and the reason is the long-term growth expectations are just too low.

NICK EICHER: So interesting. And I think it’s important for the listener who wants to sit with this a little more and understand better, I’ll post a link to your Dividend Cafe column, and we’ll have it embedded in the program transcript.

But just to pursue this a little further, David, I think anyone who follows this even casually knows about the fed’s setting of market interest rates by its own policy rate.

But that other tool, quantitative easing or tightening relating to the fed’s buying, holding, or rolling off government bonds. Would you walk through how that second policy tool works and why it’s considered a policy tool?

DAVID BAHNSEN: So if you're a central bank and you believe that you can use the cost of capital and various monetary conditions—money supply, liquidity—to affect economic activity, what do you do if you're trying to stimulate and you're already at 0 percent? That's the question Bernanke faced in October of 2008 going into 2009: We're at zero - what do we do? And what they decided to do was further stimulate, by the Fed using its balance sheet to buy treasury bonds and mortgage bonds from banks. So there's more cash on the balance sheet of the banks, and it's an asset for the Fed. So now the Fed owns this bond. 

And your question to me, Nick is, How is that a policy tool? It's adding liquidity into the banking system, and then if they're buying enough bonds, the Fed can use it as a tool to manipulate the interest rate. You know, if they want the 10-year bond yield to be lower, they can go buy a bunch. If they want it to be higher, they can sell a bunch, right? That's what it means. Is it's an additive tool, for when you run out of efficacy from the main tool you're using, which is the interest rate. And you're right: People understand the interest rate and the media talks about it. The other tool is a little less understandable, but the media doesn't understand it either, Nick. But I would say the central bank doesn't fully understand it in the sense that you can't understand something that's never been done before. So when you do something experimental, you're kind of going by trial and error.

NICK EICHER: So on the one hand, we’ve got the interest rate coming down, which is stimulative of the economy short term, while doing quantitative tightening. That has the effect of pulling the reins long-term. What’s the point of that?

DAVID BAHNSEN: Yeah, so here's the issue: You cannot go lower the short-term rate from 5-1/2 percent to 2 percent overnight. You destroy central bank credibility. It would create panic everywhere. People would say, What in the world is wrong that they're doing this dramatic cut? However, right now, the 90 day T-bill is 4.7 percent, and the 10-year treasury is 3.6. Well, why does that matter? Because it points to something broken. You want a higher level of interest to loan money for 10 years. So what is the problem? Growth expectations. And I recognize for listeners that there's a lot of jargon here, and it's complicated, but I really believe this is important stuff, because it gets to something finally that I've been talking to you about on The World and Everything in It for years, which is that the excessive amount of government debt has put downward pressure on long-term growth—you would not have a 10-year bond yield at 3.6 percent. That basically means that people are expecting about 1.5 percent real GDP growth, okay? This is less than half of our historical average.

NICK EICHER: And let me stop you on that. Knowing the historical average for economic growth, or what we’ve considered good, normal economic growth, is 3 percent or a little better. Do you think, then, that what’s happening now could be the beginning of a monetary policy reckoning around the issue no presidential candidate or member of Congress is willing to tackle—and that is slow-growth, high-debt?

DAVID BAHNSEN: Well, first of all, we've been in slow-growth, high-debt for 15 years. So it is absolutely not the beginning of it, but it's a new iteration of policymakers dealing with it. But the only reason why I hesitate to answer your question the way I think you want me to is because I don't think they're going to hold that. I think that the two policy tools are going to be on the same side of the field again. And more than likely, it'll be quantitative tightening, reverting to either quantitative easing or just a neutral position. You know, to their credit, the balance sheet of the Fed got up to $9 trillion during Covid. They've gotten it down to $7 trillion. And I've said for a year or so now, if someone told me that they were going to take $2 trillion of financial-system liquidity out of the economy, and that there would be no spike in unemployment, no decline in GDP, no collapse in the stock market, I wouldn't have believed it. And they've done it. But are they going to get another $2 trillion out? No, they are not. There is a there's a reckoning in that sense, yeah.

NICK EICHER: Ok, David Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group.

Check out David’s latest book … Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life … at fulltimebook.com.

Have a great week, David!

DAVID BAHNSEN: Thank you, Nick.

NICK EICHER: Today is Monday, September 23rd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH: And I’m Jenny Rough. Coming up next: The WORLD History Book. Today the life of a prolific poet, who remained unknown for more than two centuries, until his unsigned manuscripts were uncovered in a used book stall. WORLD’s Paul Butler has his surprising story.

PAUL BUTLER: There’s a lot we don’t know about Thomas Traherne, but one thing we do know is when he died. September 27th, 1674. That said, no one today is quite sure when he was born. It was likely sometime in 1636. He writes often of his youth.

JON GAUGER:
These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins.
Where have ye been?
Behind what curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?

The early 20th century scholar who discovered Traherne’s unpublished poetry says he was the son of a shoemaker, others claim his father was a well-known politician. Thomas Traherne probably wouldn’t have cared either way. For his mind was occupied with other things. From a very young age, he was filled with wonder about the world and all it contained:

JON GAUGER:
To note the Beauty of the Day,
And golden Fields of Corn survey;
Admire each pretty Flower
With its sweet Smell;
To praise their Maker, and to tell
The Marks of His Great Power.

GENE VEITH: Thomas Traherne is a great poet of joy.

Gene Edward Veith is a retired English professor…and author of Between the Lines, A Christian Guide to Literature.

GENE VEITH: And one of his great themes is what he calls felicity.

JON GAUGER:
His talk was to be all of praise,
Thanksgiving, rapture, holy-days;
For nothing else did with his state agree;
Being full of wonder and felicity…

GENE VEITH: (con’t) …that's the joy that Christians should have when they realize that God who loves you made this whole world.

After earning degrees from Oxford’s Brasenose College, Traherne served as an Anglican minister in a few village parishes before becoming a private chaplain. An unnamed friend published these reflections…writing that he was “free from anything of the sourness or formality by which some great pretenders to Piety rather misrepresent true Religion…” Little more than that is known of his ministry. But his poetry speaks of a grateful sinner saved by grace.

JON GAUGER:
O holy Jesus who didst for us die.
And on the Altar bleeding lie,
Bearing all torment, pain, reproach, and shame,
That we, by virtue of the same.
Though enemies to God, might be
Redeemed and set at liberty:

The 17th century saw a handful of exceptional Christian writers—often labeled as “metaphysical” or “mystical poets.” Gene Veith says the term is misleading.

GENE VEITH: Usually mysticism is about trying to become one with God, but Christianity is about God’s coming to us, a very incarnational kind of appreciation and praise of God that I think is just very very powerful and very beneficial for Christians to read.

Beneficial…yet Veith says, sadly neglected in much of the evangelical church today.

GENE VEITH: We sort of lost poetry and don't know how to read it or even approach it.

Gene Veith believes it’s time for Christians to rediscover the renewal of the mind includes both reason and imagination…and poetry is well suited for that.

GENE VEITH: It's been said that a poem is a trap for meditation…It speaks to our imagination.

JON GAUGER:
Sure Man was born to meditate on things,
And to contemplate the eternal springs
Of God and Nature, glory, bliss, and pleasure ;
That life and love might be his Heavenly treasure ;

GENE VEITH: Sometimes it takes a poem to help us pay attention to really the wonders that are all around us.

And that’s one of the things that Thomas Traherne does so well. Veith reads here a few stanzas from his favorite:

GENE VEITH: Even to our earthly bodies hast thou created all things, all things visible, material, sensible. Animals, vegetables, minerals…trees, herbs and flowers…clouds, vapors, wind, dew, rain, hail and snow. Light and darkness, night and day, the sun, moon and stars. What then, O Lord, has so intended for our souls who give us to our bodies such glorious things?

Veith admits much of the poem seems like a list of disconnected things that God has made and uses for His purposes. Yet the imagination is engaged as the reader is called to meditate on what the list means.

GENE VEITH: This world is wonderful enough. What's heaven going to be like? And he immediately just opens up into an even greater kind of joy that waits before us.

Thomas Traherne discovered that joy before turning 40. When he died, none of his poetry was known much wider than his church and friends. He never married, so he bequeathed his books and manuscripts to his brother Phillip. When Phillip later died, his wife’s family inherited the collection. Where it remained undiscovered for generations. In the 1890s the property was sold to a book stall vendor where a scholar stumbled upon it and purchased it for pennies…unsure of what he’d found.

He thought the unidentified manuscripts were undiscovered poems of Henry Vaughan—another Christian Welsh poet of about the same time. The man nearly published them as Vaughan’s work, but he died suddenly leaving the project unfinished. His library changed hands. And that’s when bookseller, essayist, and publisher Bertram Dobell discovered the manuscripts and eventually pieced together the mystery of the author as Thomas Traherne. Dobell’s anthologies introduced the unknown cleric—and his felicity—to a whole new world.

JON GAUGER:
While in those pleasant Paths we talk
Tis that towards which at last we walk;
But for we may by degrees
Wisely proceed
Pleasures of Love & Praise to heed,
From viewing Herbs & Trees.

Thomas Traherne is buried in St Mary's Church at Teddington, the last church where he served unofficially. His earthly remains are interred under the church's reading desk.

My thanks to voice actor Jon Gauger for bringing Traherne’s poetry to life.

The poem selections are from Dobell’s second edition of the anthology—and available for free on the Internet Archive.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER: Tomorrow: Kentucky’s governor bans so-called “conversion therapy.” Critics say it shuts off Biblical paths of escape for those who experience unwanted desires.

And, part three in our series on lending libraries.

That and more tomorrow.

I’m Nick Eicher.

JENNY ROUGH: And I’m Jenny Rough.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says: “The words of the wise heard in quiet are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.” —Ecclesiastes 9:17-18

Go now in grace and peace.

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