Awake!, August 8, 1989

Awake! — August 8, 1989

Source: jw.org

Contents

Page Two

A Global Crash

How Does Wall Street Affect You?

The House That Greed Built

The Search for Solutions

Can a Homosexual Be a Minister of God?

What Can I Do About School Bullies?

Living With Down’s Syndrome

Part 15—1095-1453 C.E.—Resorting to the Sword

The Library That Fits on Your Desk

Watching the World

From Our Readers

Small but Significant Clues

Easy-to-Read Bible in Large Print

Page Two

Page Two

THIS JAGGED LINE IS A PORTRAIT OF A FINANCIAL NIGHTMARE.

It represents the plunge of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1987. In just one day the market fell a staggering 508 points and dragged down with it the other top 22 markets of the world. Why did the markets fall so far? What did their crash mean for you?

A Global Crash

A Global Crash

OCTOBER 19, 1987, was a strange day on our planet. On that day a storm was unleashed that swept the globe and wreaked havoc in dozens of nations. Yet the storm was windless. It sent no pelting rains, blew no houses over, killed no one. That day a crash reverberated around the world, and for a while a charging bull became a runaway bear.

Windless storms? Bulls turning into bears? As you may know, this storm had nothing to do with the earth’s weather but, rather, with its economy. October 19 was the day of the now famous Crash of 1987, when Wall Street’s stock market took the deepest, fastest plunge in its history, setting off panic around the world. The market stopped charging upward in value (a “bull market”) and temporarily turned to run madly downhill (a “bear market”).

While the crash was without real sound and the bear without real claws, the victims were real. A reporter in Zurich overheard a man cry out, “I’m ruined, totally ruined,” and noted that the people in the financial district reading the newspapers looked as if they were reading their own obituaries. In Hong Kong the panic reached such a fever pitch that the market was shut down for four days. It fared worse than any other market in the crash, losing some 33 percent of its value. One Hong Kong businessman alone lost $124 million. In New York a 63-year-old widow found not only that the crash had wiped out the value of her portfolio of stocks but also that she now owed her broker over $400,000!

Millions Poorer

Helmut Schmidt, former chancellor of West Germany, said in Die Zeit, a German newspaper: “The fall of stock markets all over the world by more than $1 trillion has made 100 to 200 million households in the West poorer than they had believed themselves to be before the crash.” Yet the crash was not limited to the West. Markets toppled like dominoes in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, Taiwan, Australia, South Africa, and Latin America, as well as in Europe and North America.

Le Quotidien of Paris bore the bold headline “LE CRASH.” Cambio of Lima, Peru, proclaimed “PANIC IN NEW YORK, TOKYO AND LONDON!” The Australian Financial Review of Sydney asserted that Wall Street had “fallen with a thud equivalent to a dead bull being thrown off the Empire State Building.” But as former chancellor Schmidt pointed out, these falling markets meant more than a jumble of numbers and screaming headlines. The crash meant real losses to many who had to sell their stocks at the lower levels. Life savings, pension funds, nest eggs put up for retirement, plans to buy a house, plans for the care of children​—all were vulnerable in the financial storm.

The optimism of the runaway bull market leading up to the crash only made matters worse. The number of direct investors in the U.S. stock market nearly doubled between 1975 and 1985. The number of those who own stock indirectly through pension funds, insurance companies, and banks had increased during the same period by nearly 35 million. The charging bull market drew investors like flies to honey. Many invested too late, paid too much, and couldn’t get out again fast enough.

Another Depression?

As the crash rippled outward from Wall Street and around the world, people began to recall another year infamous in economic history: 1929. In that year, a similar stock market crash led to a global depression. The world still cringes at the thought of that era, with its breadlines, soup kitchens, rampant unemployment, and poverty. Would the new crash lead to a similar depression? After all, on the worst day of the 1929 crash (Black Tuesday), the market dropped by 12.8 percent. But on Black Monday of 1987, it plummeted by 22.6 percent. A New York Times headline of October 20, 1987, asked, “Does 1987 Equal 1929?”

The answer, to the great relief of multitudes, turned out to be no. Nearly two years after Black Monday, many experts surveying the lasting damage done by the storm found it to be minimal. The U.S. economy was still expanding. The unemployment rate was low. After all, even after Black Monday the market was only 4 percent lower than it had been a year earlier; it even managed to finish out the year slightly ahead.

Many experts regarded Black Monday as the mere bursting of a bubble, a much needed correction of bloated stock market prices. If the crash has had any enduring legacy, it has been the record flight of many individuals from the market. ‘Never again,’ they vow. They seem to mean it.

Does that mean that Black Monday was unimportant? Far from it! Some experts feel that the crash should be taken as a warning, that it illuminated some deep flaws that run from Wall Street through the world’s economy. But has the world in general heeded the warning? Not according to an economics professor, who told Time magazine: “It’s like a bunch of drunken teenagers driving a car and thinking that just because they made it through the last curve, they’ll be able to make the next one as well.”

Just what went wrong with Wall Street? Could it crash again? And does any of it affect you personally?

How Does Wall Street Affect You?

How Does Wall Street Affect You?

ECONOMICS has been called the dismal science. Still, it’s a science that touches the lives of all of us. The prices you pay in the store, the availability of jobs, the services your country’s government provides​—they all depend on the strength of the economy in your land.

‘But what does that have to do with Wall Street?’ some might ask. ‘It’s too far away to matter to me.’ Well, the stock market is like a mirror of the economy. And today the nations of the world are so interdependent that no economy is an island.

A Globalized Economy

The president of the American Stock Exchange said that the shock of Black Monday “made it abundantly clear that no country is totally in control of its own destiny.” In Italy a writer for La Repubblica put it this way: “West Germany’s taxes yesterday, the Latin American debt today, and . . . legislation by the U.S. Congress tomorrow are events that once were isolated from one another or interconnected only over a long period of time. Today they are welded together instantaneously. To realize this, just step into the trading room of a big international bank, where a kind of electronic spaceship is linked day and night with all the world markets.”

What country, what economy, can claim isolation from this globally interconnected and interdependent system? African countries? The editors of a business monthly that monitors the African economy say that “African economies are very vulnerable to exterior shocks.” What about Latin-American countries? An editor of Jornal do Brasil said that the stock market crisis was part of an international financial crisis. What about the Middle East? The deputy editor of Ma’ariv of Tel Aviv cited a saying of a former prime minister of Israel: “If America catches cold, Israel sneezes.”

Who, then, is safe from today’s economic storms? If a passenger basking on the deck of an ocean liner was told that the ship had sprung a leak in the hull below, could he reasonably feel safe from danger just because the trouble spot was so far away? No; all parts of the ship are connected​—not one of them floats alone. The same might be said of the world’s economies. Trouble in one may spell trouble for you.

Dangerous Waters for Little Fish

After the crash, small investors left the market in droves. The mass exodus meant severe losses to the brokerage industry, which suffered some 25,000 layoffs after the crash. But it has meant even more trouble for the stock market itself.

What scared many investors away from Wall Street? Obviously, the crash had a lot to do with it. But in other ways too, Wall Street began to seem a hostile environment for the small investor, like waters too dangerous for little fish to swim in. Let’s briefly explore three of the trends that have contributed to this: computerization, the buyout binge, and the debt explosion.

Are Machines Running the Show?

Black Monday was a bad day for computers. The tidal wave of trading that day was more than they could handle. All across the country, brokers watched in impotent rage as their terminals flashed a screenful of question marks or just went blank. In the heart of the storm, the New York Stock Exchange, the crash caused shutdowns in almost every part of the system. But many felt that computers were not just victims of the crash but actually accomplices in generating the selling stampede. One man put it this way to The New York Times: “It’s just computers selling to computers.”

Of course, that’s not strictly true. But with some complex trading schemes favored by big institutional investors, computers are automatically triggered by conditions in the market​—such as a drop in the price of a stock—​to suggest to the broker what he should do. The problem is, he rarely has time to question his computer’s suggestions. Thus, computers can choreograph hordes of traders like a troupe of dancers. They obey their computers in unison, creating huge selling waves that in turn generate other selling waves. So computers may have amplified the crash, much as noise feedback on a public-address system can escalate into an ear-splitting screech. Some blame computers for 300 points of the 508-point drop.

Computers may be indispensable to the stock market, but they made the little fish feel smaller than ever on Black Monday. Individual investors couldn’t even get their brokers on the telephone in order to sell their plummeting stocks. Meanwhile, big investors with their computer-driven program trades were unloading their shares in huge blocks.

A Feeding Frenzy

Many find it worrisome, too, that the large- and medium-sized fish have been embroiled in a feeding frenzy over the last several years, devouring one another in hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts. “People are buying companies today the way they used to buy stocks,” said one retired investment banker interviewed by Awake!

The leveraged buyout, or LBO, is very popular on Wall Street. One company uses “leverage” (massive amounts of borrowed money it has raised by, for instance, selling junk bonds) to “buy out” another company by buying up the outstanding shares of its stock. Once the predator has bought up its prey, it cuts it up and sells the pieces to pay off all that debt. So the predator may end up owning what is left for free! By selling junk bonds, small companies can afford to devour big ones, like minnows gulping down sharks.

Takeover deals yield almost unthinkable amounts of money to the banks, lawyers, and businessmen that put the deals together. In one gigantic LBO in late 1988, the fees to banks and advisers alone approached $1 billion. Some men who grew famous as predators made hundreds of millions of dollars in just a few years. Not a few ran into trouble with the law.

The Debt Explosion

LBOs are but one illustration of America’s continuing love affair with debt. Individually, Americans save only about 5 percent of their earnings. West Germans save about 13 percent, and the Japanese about 17 percent. Americans’ love of the credit card and the ‘buy now, pay later’ credo have become legendary. U.S. corporations owe over $1.8 trillion, and the federal debt is over $2.6 trillion. The U.S. government has also managed, in just eight years, to go from being the world’s largest creditor to its biggest debtor in its international trade. A writer for Canada’s Globe and Mail summarized the U.S. policy as “spend, spend, and just borrow.”

A recession could spell big trouble for America’s debt-laden corporations. Companies saddled with debt would suddenly become fragile in such a climate. A wave of defaults and bankruptcies could ensue. Banks too are out on the debt limb: They have made billions of dollars of risky loans. Several hundred are in trouble, and many have been forced to close.

Debt on a global scale is even more ominous: Third World countries owe a staggering $1.2 trillion. No wonder, then, that investment banker Felix Rohatyn assessed the economy this way: “We have created a gigantic financial house of cards. We have had fair warning about its weakness.”

The Exodus

So to the small investor, Wall Street may seem dominated by computerized trading making huge waves, the big fish in a feeding frenzy, and a bottomless chasm of debt threatening to swallow the whole pond. Is it any surprise that the little fish have made an exodus from the market?

But even more than fear, there is one trend that has driven many small investors away from Wall Street. It is governed by the same emotion that seems to be running the whole world these days. What is that emotion?

[Blurb on page 8]

Several hundred U.S. banks are in trouble, and many have been forced to close

[Box on page 6]

A Guide to Wall Street Words

What happens on Wall Street may seem foreign to you because the financial world has a language all its own. The following is a brief sampling of Wall Street’s most common words.

◆ STOCK: When you buy a share of stock in a company, you are actually buying a piece of that company. This is one way companies raise money. Periodically, stockholders may receive a small percentage of the company’s profits, called a dividend.

◆ BOND: Another way corporations raise money is to borrow it by selling bonds. When you buy a company’s bond, you are lending it money. The company pays for the use of your money by means of interest payments. Stocks and bonds both fit under the blanket term “securities.” While bonds do not generally grow in value the way stocks sometimes do, they are often considered a safer investment. An exception is the junk bond, one that has been officially rated as very risky. The company that issues it is more likely to default, not paying you as agreed. People buy them because junk bonds pay a high interest rate.

◆ STOCK EXCHANGE: An organized auction, or marketplace, where securities such as stocks and bonds are bought and sold. On the floor of the exchange, brokers carry out the buy-and-sell orders of their clients, investors, and get paid by means of a commission.

◆ THE DOW: Short for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, this is the most popular indicator of the health and value of the New York Stock Exchange. It is an average based on the current value of 30 industrial stocks. When people ask, “How is the market doing?” the common answer is to quote where the Dow stands.

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“We have created a gigantic financial house of cards. We have had fair warning about its weakness.”​—Investment banker Felix Rohatyn

The House That Greed Built

The House That Greed Built

“GREED is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.” Those words, part of a speech to the graduating class of a business school, reportedly met with laughter and applause. (The Roaring ’80s, by Adam Smith) The speaker was one of Wall Street’s great successes, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Not long afterward, though, Fortune magazine named the same man “crook of the year.” Within months, he was in prison.

Greed, it turned out, was not so healthy after all. But the man’s words are often quoted as typifying the attitude of Wall Street. What do the facts show?

Consider the Wall Street trends we have already observed. Lightning-fast computer trading, frenzied buyouts of companies for enormous profits, mountains of borrowed money, all seem to share a common thread: a focus on the short-term gain.

All eyes are on the instant profit. An editorial in Canada’s Maclean’s magazine phrased the point powerfully: “The newly rich of the 1980s want something for nothing: the most amount of money with the least amount of effort.” Is it any wonder that such a profit-driven society has spawned its own brand of crime? It is called . . .

Insider Trading

“Just what is it?” Awake! asked a retired investment banker. His answer: “In its broadest sense, insider trading is using something that you as a professional know but that the investing public does not know. It gives you an edge if you take advantage of it.”

This practice is illegal. But it became so prevalent on Wall Street during the 1980’s that in just over one year, some 70 Wall Street businessmen were arrested. Like many of Wall Street’s problems, this one too has swept the globe. In Japan a man under investigation for insider trading tried to bribe a legislator involved with the case, kneeling before him with a briefcase stuffed with $40,000 in cash. But he did not know that the whole scene was being filmed and would later be aired on national television!

Other stock markets​—Canada’s Bay Street, France’s Bourse, and Italy’s Borsa among them—​have been rocked by insider-trading scandals. One insider-trading ring that stretched from England to Israel was uncovered. Markets around the world have set up laws to prevent this kind of cheating, but as the aforementioned banker told Awake!, insider trading is “hard to define and even harder to control. We had elaborate systems of security, but information is easier to steal than money.”

The Yuppie Syndrome

While the greed of Wall Street led some into crime, it led many more into materialism. Newsweek magazine reported that Wall Street was the very heart of America’s greedy “money culture.” The bull market of the ’80’s attracted hordes of young graduates intent on making their fortune. They were nicknamed yuppies, for young urban professionals. Known for their high ambitions and incomes to match, yuppies were targeted by advertisers as ideal consumers, veritable spending machines.

A former Wall Street trader who describes himself as an ex-yuppie told Awake! about his life on Wall Street during the boom years. The thinking at his firm, he said, was: “Your job is your life. Everything else is second.” It was common to be up at 5:00 a.m., off to work all day, and then out entertaining clients until late in the night.

He vividly remembers one incident that, to him, summed up the way people were thinking. A colleague showed him a series of photographs of a broker suffering a heart attack on the floor of a stock exchange. Fevered trading went on all around the stricken man; nothing slowed, nothing stopped.

The New York Times reported that the crash would be a blow to yuppies not only because of their borrowing and spending ways but also because of their thinking. Many yuppies just didn’t know the difference between net worth and self-worth.

[Blurb on page 10]

Many yuppies just didn’t know the difference between net worth and self-worth

The Search for Solutions

The Search for Solutions

WHEN it comes to curing what ails Wall Street, there is no shortage of ideas. But there is a shortage of agreement. Some experts argue that debt and LBOs must be limited, while others insist that both are good for the economy. The two sides are heavily armed with statistics to “prove” their points.

Helmut Schmidt feels that the world’s major economic powers (United States, Germany, Japan) must cooperate to solve the world’s economic woes. He says: “The mediocrity of all three governments can be no excuse for spending more time complaining about one another than recognizing their own deficiencies. Even mediocre people can shoulder responsibility.”

But ask yourself: How much can we reasonably expect from inherently mediocre human governments? Schmidt readily admits, for instance, that the problem of Third World debt is “unsolved and virtually insoluble.” Can the mediocre solve the insoluble?

These words of a wise man of some 25 centuries ago are right on the mark: “It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” (Jeremiah 10:23) How true those words have proved to be today! The world’s economy is too complicated for even the experts to understand, let alone repair.

What can you do in the face of the world’s economic instability? The Bible again has some pointed advice: Invest wisely! Note Jesus’ words at Matthew 6:19, 20: “Stop storing up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break in and steal. Rather, store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

But how do you do that​—store up treasure in heaven? You begin by realizing that you, like all of us, have spiritual needs to fill. (Matthew 5:3) You can address those needs by investing something even more precious than money​—your time—​in studying the Bible. You will be amazed at the simplicity and reasonableness of the answers it gives to your most troubling questions.

The ex-yuppie mentioned in the previous article did just that. He returned to the study of the Bible that he had abandoned during his busy years on Wall Street, and he found that doing so changed his life for the better. He was fascinated to learn that the Bible foretells the final collapse of all the greed-driven economic systems of this world. When God brings this world system to its cataclysmic end, no stock portfolio, no bankroll, will buy protection or escape. Money will be so useless that people will throw it into the very streets. (Ezekiel 7:19; 1 John 2:15-17) Only spiritual investments will have any value then.

Especially comforting is the Bible’s promise that after that time of destruction, greed will no longer rule the world. Justice, not profit, will then reign forever. (Isaiah 9:6, 7) Indeed, some day people will say, ‘Wall Street​—what’s that?’

Can a Homosexual Be a Minister of God?

The Bible’s Viewpoint

Can a Homosexual Be a Minister of God?

IT WAS January 1987, and Robert Arpin was dying of AIDS. That, in itself, was no longer newsworthy. But Robert Arpin was a priest, one of a growing number of openly declared homosexual clergy.

In recent years not only are homosexuals “coming out of the closet” but they are also coming out of the seminaries. An underclassman at the Catholic University Theological College in the United States told the National Catholic Reporter: “I would estimate 60 to 70 percent of my class is gay and an equal figure for the seminary.” Commenting on the trend of homosexuality in seminaries, Anthony Kosnick, editor of Human Sexuality, said: “It’s far more common than I ever thought.”

Various religions have voiced a wide spectrum of views on whether a homosexual should be a minister or not. Many people, though, are not interested in opinions shaped by current trends but, rather, in what the Bible says. What, then, is God’s standard for ministers? Does a homosexual qualify?

Priests in Israel

In ancient Israel the standard for priests of Jehovah God was high. (Leviticus, chapter 21) Since they represented the Most Holy One, they had to remain spiritually, physically, and morally clean. “Anyone who touches the altar is to be holy,” God commanded. Thus, when Israel’s first high priest, Aaron, and his sons were installed as priests, a seven-day ceremony was held to sanctify them for their sacred duties.​—Exodus 29:37.

The priests were also responsible to teach God’s Law and, along with the judges, to see that it was enforced. (Malachi 2:7) Included in that Law was a clear condemnation of homosexuality. God decreed: “And when a man lies down with a male the same as one lies down with a woman, both of them have done a detestable thing. They should be put to death without fail.” (Leviticus 20:13) Consistently, the priests would have to live by that same Law.

When the priests failed to uphold divine law, they were censured, as in the case of one high priest, Eli, and his two immoral sons. (1 Samuel 2:12-35; 4:17, 18) Later, in the prophet Ezekiel’s day, Jehovah said: “[Israel’s] priests themselves have done violence to my law, and they keep profaning my holy places.” Because of this, God rejected them.​—Ezekiel 22:26, 31.

The Christian Standard

The standard for those taking the lead in worship in the Christian congregation is also high. Among the qualifications listed in the Bible, note these: “irreprehensible,” “moderate in habits,” “sound in mind,” “qualified to teach,” “[having] a fine testimony from people on the outside.” (1 Timothy 3:1-7) Thus, a Christian overseer must be blameless. His view of what are proper and improper practices must be based on the Bible, and his own conduct must not close the minds of those he seeks to teach. Does a homosexual meet those Scriptural standards?

Before writing the above guidelines, the apostle Paul warned Timothy about some members who desired “to be teachers of law.” Timothy was to command these disturbers of the faith “not to teach different doctrine.” Next, he warned Timothy of “persons lawless and unruly, ungodly and sinners,” and then he specifically identified “men who lie with males” as being “in opposition to the healthful teaching.” (1 Timothy 1:3-11) Surely, one who leads a congregation in worship must not hinder the beneficial teachings of the Bible either in word or in life-style.​—Compare Romans 2:21.

The force of this admonition is also seen in what Paul wrote to Titus in Crete. In setting requirements to “ordain elders” (King James Version), he stipulated their being “free from accusation,” “righteous,” “self-controlled,” “holding firmly to the faithful word as respects his art of teaching.” (Titus 1:5-9) Included in that “faithful word” was Paul’s earlier letter to Christians living in Corinth, which stated that “men who lie with men” would not inherit God’s Kingdom. (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10) Holding to “the faithful word” would enable a minister “to reprove those who contradict.” (Titus 1:9) How can a homosexual minister reprove others when his own life-style contradicts “the faithful word”? On the contrary, the apostle Peter said of “false teachers” that “many will follow their acts of loose conduct.”​—2 Peter 2:1, 2.

‘I Shall Reject You’

Consider also this: In a vision, the prophet Zechariah of the sixth century B.C.E. saw high priest Joshua clothed with befouled garments. How could he have them cleansed so he could continue as priest? “If you obey my laws and perform the duties I have assigned you,” God said, “then you will continue to be in charge of my Temple.” (Zechariah 3:7, Today’s English Version) To individuals who fail to obey divine laws, including those laws that prohibit homosexual practices, God says: “Because the knowledge is what you yourself have rejected, I shall also reject you from serving as a priest to me.”​—Hosea 4:6.

Therefore, may a homosexual be a minister of Jehovah God? No. Persons who do not qualify according to the “healthful teaching” contained in the Bible are not true ministers of God.​—Titus 2:1; 1 Timothy 1:10; see also Romans 1:24-27, 32.

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How can a minister accurately teach others when his own life-style contradicts “the faithful word”?

What Can I Do About School Bullies?

Young People Ask . . .

What Can I Do About School Bullies?

RYAN used to attend a small country school where violence was unheard of. But then he was transferred to a larger and tougher high school​—and soon became the target of school bullies. Ryan relates: ‘The 15-minute bus ride became a torture that seemed to last for hours as my tormentors progressed from verbal abuse to physical mistreatment. They twisted a paper clip into a swastika, heated it red-hot with a cigarette lighter, and then sneaked up and branded me with it on the hand. I broke down and cried.’

Elizabeth finished school several years ago. But tears still come to her eyes when she recalls her school days. “I looked different from the other children,” she explains, “because my mother is of another race. So from the second grade up through high school, I was constantly teased and rejected. There seemed to be an ‘I Hate Elizabeth’ club, and even in the later years, I avoided going to the school rest rooms so as not to become the object of certain other girls’ threats to put their enemies’ heads in the toilet. I figured I was a prime candidate.”

School terror is the daily experience of a frighteningly large percentage of school-age youths who regularly receive oral and written threats, are harassed in locker rooms, intimidated into regularly giving up their lunch money​—even pressured into having sexual relations—​by school bullies.a And if you are one of the victims, this may be such a huge problem in your life that you can concentrate on nothing else! Happily, something can be done about it! But first you must understand the problem.

What Makes a Bully?

Researchers generally agree that no one is born a bully. “A bully at school is a victim at home,” claims psychologist Nathaniel Floyd. The bully may thus be passing on the mistreatment he receives at home.​—Compare Ecclesiastes 7:7.

Other experts cite “watching too much violence on television” and “too little love and care and too much freedom in childhood” as other contributing factors. Even normally unaggressive youths are sometimes drawn into bullying out of a desire to be part of a group or to deflect attention from themselves.

Profile of a Victim

Anything that is considered different, such as an odd physical feature or flaw, or simply being new to a school, can incite a bully’s attack. However, one trait in particular is found in many victims of bullies. Elizabeth, quoted earlier, points to it: “I always cried very easily, so that others could tell right away that I was hurt or afraid.”

Parents magazine listed the following characteristics common to victims of bullies: “anxiety, shyness, cautiousness, sensitivity, low self-esteem,” and a “tendency to cry or flee when attacked”! (Italics ours.) No, victims are not to blame for their suffering. Nevertheless, knowing that bullies are attracted to helplessness can help you handle them.

Assertive, Not Aggressive

First, do not be tempted into striking back at a bully. Not only is ‘returning evil for evil’ wrong but it could get you into trouble that you don’t deserve, and it may simply intensify the problem. (Romans 12:17) But while being aggressive is unwise, being assertive may prove helpful. “By simply telling the bully to stop,” recommended Parents magazine, “explaining that he doesn’t like what the bully is doing, and then walking away, the victim substantially decreases his chances of being bullied in the future.” Or as one psychologist put it, ‘take a stand and leave with dignity.’

Another approach (at an appropriate time and place) is to attempt to reason calmly with the bully. ‘Reason​—with him?’ you might ask. Yes, it is possible that there has been some misunderstanding on his part, that you have unwittingly done something to arouse his resentment of you. At the very least, approaching the bully calmly and courageously will send out the message that you refuse to be a helpless victim. Explains Dr. Kenneth Dodge: “Bullies are looking for passive acceptance, for tears. The child who doesn’t respond as desired is not likely to be chosen as a target again.” Well does the proverb say: “Trembling at men is what lays a snare.”​—Proverbs 29:25.

Tell Your Parents!

What if the bullying doesn’t cease? Educators and researchers overwhelmingly agree that you need to tell your parents about the problem. True, you may feel that your parents will not understand. And you may have been threatened with even worse treatment if you tell on the bully. But your parents have the right to know what’s happening to you in school, do they not?

This does not necessarily mean that your parents should speak directly with the bully. But they can give you encouragement and thus build your sagging self-confidence and conviction to live by godly principles. They can also give you practical advice. They might, for example, suggest that you speak to a school official about the bullying. Schoolteacher Gerald Hoff suggests: “Try going first to the guidance counselor, especially when you have the backing of your parents, but without letting other students know you are doing so, if possible. The counselor is trained to know how to talk nicely to the bully, but if the matter gets worse, it is his duty to notify the principal.”

Sometimes parents decide to speak to school officials on your behalf. Understandably, you may be reluctant to have them intervene in this way. Ryan, mentioned at the outset, recalls: “I begged my mom and dad not to get involved because I feared gang action against me, and also I hoped each day things were going to get better.” But after the branding incident, his father insisted on contacting the school authorities. The result? Discreet steps were taken on his behalf. “Without implicating me any more than necessary,” recalls Ryan, “strict seating assignments were made, and the offending students were watched closely.”

If relief still does not come, your parents can decide if sterner measures must be taken against the offender.

Preventative Measures

It is best, though, to avoid being harassed in the first place. How? For one thing, simply being conversational with others in and out of class can help to dispel the loner image to which bullies seem drawn. Being friendly with teachers and bus drivers, even giving them just a smile and a pleasant hello, likely will afford you more of their favorable attention, hence a measure of protection. You can also try to avoid times or places where trouble is liable to occur.​—Proverbs 22:3.

Work on displaying a more relaxed and poised bearing. This too will make you less of a target for bullies. The Bible says: “God gave us not a spirit of cowardice, but that of power and of love and of soundness of mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) You can strengthen that confident spirit by meditating on this fact: “If anyone loves God, this one is known by him.” (1 Corinthians 8:3) Knowing that God is aware of your problem and really cares can do much to help you cope with it.

Recalls Ryan: “I did a lot of praying during all of this, and I feel closer to Jehovah as a result. I’ve gained more self-control. More than anything else, I’ve gained more faith in Jehovah when he says he ‘will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.’” (1 Corinthians 10:13) God can help you too to deal with your problems​—even one as troublesome as a cowardly bully.

[Footnotes]

In one study, 25 percent of U.S. junior high school students listed “bullies and disruptive behavior” as their chief worry. In Great Britain and West Germany, educators have likewise expressed concern that bullying has increased in incidence and severity.

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Bullies delight in picking on smaller, weaker opponents

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If the situation is too much for you to handle, confide in your parents

Living With Down’s Syndrome

Living With Down’s Syndrome

SUZANNE’S problems, which were diagnosed at birth, were a tremendous shock to my husband, Gil, and me. Suzy was our second child. I was 24 years old, healthy, and had a normal pregnancy, labor, and delivery.

When Suzy was born, she weighed seven pounds and five ounces [3,300 g]. Within two hours of Suzy’s birth, the pediatrician came in and said: “The baby seems healthy, but we are afraid she has a problem. We are quite sure she has Down’s syndrome.” He listed handicaps that she could have: a heart defect, hearing and vision problems, severe mental retardation, susceptibility to respiratory infections, hip problems that could mean she would never walk normally, poor motor coordination, and a short life expectancy. Then the doctor rather abruptly left the room. I found out later that he did so because he was crying.

I asked the nurse to bring the baby to me. As soon as I held Suzy in my arms, I knew she was different. She was so relaxed, so floppy, not at all as her sister had been as a newborn infant. But she was a precious life to be nurtured and loved.

Gil and I prayed to Jehovah God together, holding our little daughter close to us. We determined to care for her as best we could with God’s help.

Many of the hospital staff were surprised when they learned that we planned to take Suzy home instead of placing her in an institution. But the pediatrician and the obstetrician were encouraging, telling us that studies indicated that children with Down’s syndrome seemed to do better when raised at home. Family and friends were very supportive. They immediately came to see us and brought flowers and gifts for Suzy.

Activity to Stimulate

We wrote for information about mental retardation and Down’s syndrome from every source we could find. At that time there were no infant stimulation programs as there are now. But the University of Minnesota was doing an experimental study in this area and shared much information with us.

Gil and I determined to provide Suzy with as much physical and mental stimulation as we could. Rather than just let her lie in her crib, we would bring her into whichever room of the house there was activity. She sat with us at the table while we ate our meals, and went shopping with us and to restaurants and other places.

When she was in her own room, we made sure she had brightly colored objects to look at, and we often had the radio on or played records for her to listen to. We also spent a lot of time playing with Suzy to encourage her to exercise her muscles. Her sister often played with her and talked to her too.

With encouragement, Suzy made progress. At 11 months she finally sat up alone. She walked alone at three and a half years. These achievements prompted major celebrations in our family. Suzy was so proud of herself that she would smile and clap her hands with delight. Although she responded to sound and made the usual baby noises, it was several years before she said her first words.

From the time she was just weeks old, we took every opportunity to read to her. She loved the publication My Book of Bible Stories. Each night before bedtime, she would say, “Book, book,” and I would sit down with her and read one of the stories. I wasn’t sure how much she really understood, but one evening she pointed to a picture of Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden of Eden and said, “Naughty, naughty!”

She was always included in our family Bible study, and while her participation was limited, she sat quietly and seemed to enjoy the study. She had her own book, of course. And prayer was important to her. For example, she would not eat until prayer was offered. If someone happened to forget, she would remind him by frowning at him and saying in a loud voice, “Prayer!”

When we talked about the Bible, I would tell her about the Paradise to come here on earth and that some day Jehovah would make everything perfect again. Suzy would then be able to read and talk, run and jump, and never be sick again.

Meetings at the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses were enjoyable for Suzy. She loved her friends there and they loved her. She loved the songs and would accompany the congregation’s singing by waving her arms in time to the music. At a very early age, she also learned to sit quietly at meetings.

Special School

When at the age of five she began attending a special school for mentally retarded children, her teachers were amazed that she could sit so quietly. But that did not mean that Suzy was always a model student. We learned early on that she could be as mischievous as any child and needed discipline.

Since we had been told that Suzy might never walk, when she did, we were delighted. At school she received occupational therapy to help her learn to walk more normally. We were given instruction so we could help her with exercises at home. Her school program was carefully worked out at a meeting each year with her teachers and therapists. As parents, we really appreciated being able to participate. It ensured continuity in what Suzy was learning at school and at home. Emphasis was on self-help skills, such as dressing, eating, grooming, preparing simple foods, washing dishes, and making beds, as well as language development.

Although Suzy would probably never learn to read, she was learning to identify important words. How thrilling it was when, at age ten, Suzy was able to recognize some words spontaneously!

One of the hardest things for mentally handicapped children to learn is to concentrate on a project until it is completed. Suzy would quickly lose interest in the simplest task, even playing with a doll or other toy. To increase her ability to stay with a project, her teachers at school and we at home would begin by just expecting a few seconds of concentration before giving her a reward, either a verbal “good work” or perhaps a small edible treat. In this way Suzy would feel a sense of accomplishment. Gradually, over the years, the time expectation was increased.

When Suzy was 13, tests determined that she functioned at about the level of a 2-year-old child. So working with her required much patience, especially when it came to toilet training and feeding and dressing herself. But we felt it was important for her to be as independent as possible. Progress was slow, but it was there.

We were grateful that we could raise Suzy at home, rather than place her in an institution. But that is a decision each family has to make for itself, since each situation is different. Some handicapped children have such severe problems that it would be extremely difficult for them to be raised at home.

There were many things that we could not do as a family because of Suzy’s limitations, and naturally we wanted our other children to live their lives as normally as possible. We found that while they may have missed out on some things, our children learned patience and understanding and developed a compassion for others that many people never experience in a lifetime.

Final Illness

Suzy’s health problems gave us many worries over the years. They were harder for us to deal with than her mental retardation. We felt that she could always learn new things, albeit slowly, but we felt so helpless when it came to her illnesses. No matter how hard we tried to keep her healthy, she was always getting sick. She never made it through a winter without at least one major illness.

Suzy’s final illness began one winter before she was 15 years old. She had to be hospitalized with pneumonia. By this time she had progressed to the point where she could say some simple phrases and sentences. During one of my visits with her at the hospital she said, “Hi, Mom. No school today.” The nurses and I couldn’t help laughing. There was Suzy, in her oxygen-humidity tent (her house, as she called it), very sick with pneumonia, and she was concerned about school.

A week after being admitted, the doctor said that she was better. One evening we left the hospital at ten o’clock. Shortly after 11, just after we had gone to bed, the telephone rang. The nurse was crying. “You’d better come at once. Your daughter has taken a turn for the worse.”

We got to the hospital as soon as we could, but Suzy had died. The doctors explained that two nurses had been with Suzy, settling her down for the night, when suddenly she had trouble breathing. They immediately got help, but Suzy’s heart just stopped, and they were unable to revive her.

We never fully realized how many people had been touched by our Suzy. Nearly the entire staff from her school, as well as other friends and relatives, came to her memorial service. We received cards and letters from people we hardly knew but who knew Suzy. It was very comforting.

After her death, we experienced grief far worse than we did during her life. At times I would be overwhelmed with grief and would burst into tears at the most inopportune time. I couldn’t understand why Jehovah wasn’t ending my grief. But Gil and my Christian brothers and sisters were very patient with me, and I began to see that I was expecting God to remove the grief right away, which was unrealistic. Time and continued reliance on Jehovah made the grief easier to bear.

The Resurrection Hope

Now Jehovah’s promises for the future in his Paradise on earth under Kingdom rule have a deeper meaning for us. We look forward to seeing Suzy again in the resurrection. (Matthew 6:9, 10; John 5:28, 29) Since she is asleep in death at present, for her it will be like going to bed one night, a sick little girl with so many handicaps, and then waking up the next morning to a happy, beautiful life in God’s new world.

More and more, as time goes on, we think of Suzy, not as she was, but as she will be in that restored Paradise. What will her interests and talents be? Since she liked music, I know that she will enjoy it to the full then. Will she paint pictures with me and enjoy sewing and learning how to crochet? Will she enjoy reading and cooking like her sister, Cari? Will she have a talent for detail and mathematics like her father and her brother, Mark?

We know that Suzy will be thrilled to be able to run, dance, and play without being physically limited. We know she will love being able to find the words to express her feelings. And we know she will enjoy the flowers, the songs of birds, the sunshine, the blue skies, the fluffy clouds, the sparkling water of a lake, and the gurgling sounds of a stream. How thrilling it will be for us to watch her absorb all the wonders of life and to help her learn!

We do miss Suzy very much, and there will always be an empty space in our family until we have her with us again. Meanwhile, it is comforting to know that she is in the memory of our loving God.

The resurrection promise, the help we have from God through prayer, association with our Christian brothers and sisters, and the guidance from God’s Word enabled us to face the challenge of caring for a special child and the pain of losing her.​—Contributed.

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Suzy could be as mischievous as any child

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Suzy’s health problems gave us many worries over the years

Part 15—1095-1453 C.E.—Resorting to the Sword

Religion’s Future in View of Its Past

Part 15​—1095-1453 C.E.​—Resorting to the Sword

“Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but live for it.”​—Charles Caleb Colton, 19th-century English clergyman

CHRISTIANITY in its early years was blessed with believers who lived their religion. In defense of their faith, they zealously wielded “the sword of the spirit, that is, God’s word.” (Ephesians 6:17) But later, as events between 1095 and 1453 illustrated, nominal Christians, not living true Christianity, resorted to using other kinds of swords.

By the sixth century, the Western Roman Empire was defunct. It had been replaced by its Eastern counterpart, the Byzantine Empire with Constantinople as its capital. But their respective churches, suffering the shakiest of relationships, soon saw themselves threatened by a mutual foe, the rapidly spreading Islamic domain.

The Eastern church realized this, at the latest, when in the seventh century the Muslims captured Egypt and other parts of the Byzantine Empire located in North Africa.

Less than a century later, the Western church was shocked to see Islam moving through Spain into France, reaching to within some one hundred miles [160 km] of Paris. Many Spanish Catholics converted to Islam, while others adopted Muslim manners and embraced Muslim culture. “Embittered by its losses,” says the book Early Islam, “the Church worked ceaselessly among its Spanish sons to fan the flames of vengeance.”

Several centuries later, after Spanish Catholics had regained most of their land, they “turned on their Moslem subjects and persecuted them without mercy. They forced them to deny their faith, drove them from the country, and took drastic steps to uproot every trace of Spanish-Moslem culture.”

At Swords’ Points

In 1095 Pope Urban II called on European Catholics to take up the literal sword. Islam was to be deposed from the holy lands of the Middle East to which Christendom claimed exclusive rights.

The idea of a “just” war was not new. For example, it had been invoked in the fight against Muslims in Spain and Sicily. And at least a decade before Urban’s appeal, says Karlfried Froehlich of Princeton Theological Seminary, Pope Gregory VII “envisaged a militia Christi for the fight against all enemies of God and thought already of sending an army to the East.”

Urban’s action was partially in response to a request for help from Byzantine emperor Alexius. But since relations between the Eastern and the Western parts of Christendom seemed to be improving, the pope may also have been motivated by the possibility this offered of reuniting the bickering sister churches. At any rate, he convoked the Council of Clermont, which declared that those willing to engage in this “holy” undertaking were to be granted a plenary indulgence (the remission of all penance for sin). The response was unexpectedly positive. “Deus volt” (“God wills it”) became a rallying cry in East and West.

A series of military expeditions began that covered the better part of two centuries. (See box on page 24.) At first the Muslims thought the intruders were Byzantines. But after realizing their true origin, they called them Franks, the Germanic people from whom France later got its name. To meet the challenge of these European “barbarians,” sentiment grew among the Muslims for a jihad, a holy war or struggle.

British professor Desmond Stewart points out: “For every scholar or merchant who planted the seeds of Islamic civilization by precept and example, there was a soldier for whom Islam was a call to battle.” By the second half of the 12th century, Muslim leader Nureddin had built an efficient military force by unifying the Muslims in northern Syria and upper Mesopotamia. So “just as Christians of the Middle Ages took up arms to advance the religion of Christ,” continues Stewart, “Moslems took up arms to advance the religion of the Prophet.”

Of course, advancing the causes of religion was not always the motivating force. The book The Birth of Europe notes that for most Europeans, the Crusades “offered an irresistible opportunity to win fame, or collect booty, or carve out new estates, or rule whole countries​—or just to escape the humdrum in glorious adventuring.” Italian merchants also saw an opportunity to establish trading outposts in Eastern Mediterranean lands. But regardless of motive, all were apparently willing to die for their religion​—be it in a “just” war of Christendom or in a Muslim jihad.

The Sword Brings Unexpected Results

“Although the Crusades were directed against the Muslims in the East,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, “the zeal of the Crusaders was exercised on the Jews who lived in the lands from which the Crusaders were recruited, that is, in Europe. A popular motif among the Crusaders was vengeance for the death of Jesus, and the Jews became the first victims. Persecution of the Jews occurred in Rouen in 1096, followed quickly by massacres in Worms, Mainz, and Cologne.” This was but a forerunner of the anti-Semitic spirit of the Holocaust days of Nazi Germany.

The Crusades also increased the East-West tension that had been growing since 1054, when Patriarch Michael Cerularius of the East and Cardinal Humbert of the West mutually excommunicated each other. When the Crusaders replaced the Greek clergymen with Latin bishops in the cities they captured, the East-West schism came down to touch the common folk.

The break between the two churches became complete during the Fourth Crusade when, according to former Anglican Canon of Canterbury Herbert Waddams, Pope Innocent III played “a double game.” On the one hand, the pope was indignant about the sacking of Constantinople. (See box on page 24.) He wrote: “How can the Church of the Greeks be expected to return to devotion to the Apostolic See when it has seen the Latins setting an example of evil and doing the devil’s work so that already, and with good reason, the Greeks hate them worse than dogs.” On the other hand, he readily took advantage of the situation by establishing a Latin kingdom there under a western patriarch.

After two centuries of almost continuous fighting, the Byzantine Empire was so weakened that it was unable to withstand the onslaughts of the Ottoman Turks, who, on May 29, 1453, finally captured Constantinople. The empire had been slashed down not simply by an Islamic sword but by the sword wielded by the empire’s sister church in Rome as well. Divided Christendom had given Islam a convenient base for moving into Europe.

The Swords of Politics and Persecution

The Crusades strengthened the papacy’s position of religious and political leadership. They “gave the popes a controlling hand in European diplomacy,” writes historian John H. Mundy. Before long “the church was Europe’s greatest government . . . , [able] to wield more political power than any other Western government.”

This climb to power had become possible when the Western Roman Empire collapsed. The church was left as the sole unifying power in the West and therefore began playing a more active political role in society than did the Eastern church, which at that time was still under a strong secular ruler, the Byzantine emperor. This political eminence held by the Western church lent credence to its claim of papal primacy, an idea the Eastern church rejected. While allowing that the pope was worthy of honor, the Eastern church disagreed that he had final authority on doctrine or jurisdiction.

Driven by political power and misguided religious conviction, the Roman Catholic Church reached for the sword to stamp out opposition. Hunting down heretics became its business. History professors Miroslav Hroch and Anna Skýbová of Karls University in Prague, Czechoslovakia, describe how the Inquisition, the special tribunal designed to deal with heresies, operated: “Contrary to general practice, the names of informers . . . did not have to be revealed.” Pope Innocent IV issued the bull “Ad extirpanda” in 1252, which allowed torture. “Being burned at the stake, the usual method employed to put heretics to death by the 13th century, . . . had its symbolism, implying that by administering this kind of punishment, the church was not guilty of shedding blood.”

The inquisitors punished tens of thousands of persons. Other thousands were burned at the stake, leading historian Will Durant to comment: “Making every allowance required of an historian and permitted to a Christian, we must rank the Inquisition . . . as among the darkest blots on the record of mankind, revealing a ferocity unknown in any beast.”

The events of the Inquisition recall the words of Blaise Pascal, a 17th-century French philosopher and scientist, who wrote: “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.” Of a truth, swinging the sword of persecution against persons of a differing religious persuasion has been characteristic of false religion ever since Cain struck down Abel.​—Genesis 4:8.

Severed by the Sword of Disunity

Nationalistic dissension and political maneuvering led in 1309 to the transfer of the papal residence from Rome to Avignon. Although it was restored to Rome in 1377, further strife was caused shortly thereafter with the choosing of a new pope, Urban VI. But the same group of cardinals who elected him also elected a rival pope, Clement VII, who settled in Avignon. Things became even more confused at the start of the 15th century, when for a short time three popes were ruling simultaneously!

This situation, known as the Western, or Great, Schism, was ended by the Council of Constance. It invoked the principle of conciliarism, the theory that final ecclesiastical authority lies in general councils and not in the papacy. Thus, in 1417 the council was able to elect Martin V as the new pope. Although once again united, the church had been seriously weakened. Despite the scars, however, the papacy refused to recognize any need for reform. According to John L. Boojamra, of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, this failure “laid the foundation for the Reformation of the sixteenth century.”

Were They Living Their Religion?

The Founder of Christianity instructed his followers to make disciples but did not tell them to use physical force in doing so. In fact, he specifically warned that “all those who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Similarly, he did not instruct his followers to abuse physically anyone who was unfavorably disposed. The Christian principle to be observed was: “A slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, qualified to teach, keeping himself restrained under evil, instructing with mildness those not favorably disposed.”​—Matthew 26:52; 2 Timothy 2:24, 25.

By resorting to the literal sword of war, as well as to the symbolic swords of politics and persecution, Christendom was clearly not following the lead of the One it professed to have as Founder. Already wracked by disunity, it was threatened with total collapse. Roman Catholicism was “A Religion Badly in Need of Reform.” But would reform come? If so, when? From whom? Our August 22 issue will tell us more.

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Fine Christian Warfare?

Were the Crusades the fine warfare Christians were instructed to wage?​—2 Corinthians 10:3, 4; 1 Timothy 1:18.

The First Crusade (1096-99) resulted in the recapture of Jerusalem and the establishment of four Latin states in the East: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli. An authority quoted by historian H. G. Wells says of the capture of Jerusalem: “The slaughter was terrible; the blood of the conquered ran down the streets, until men splashed in blood as they rode. At nightfall, ‘sobbing for excess of joy,’ the crusaders came to the Sepulchre from their treading of the winepress, and put their blood-stained hands together in prayer.”

The Second Crusade (1147-49) was initiated because of the loss of the County of Edessa to Syrian Muslims in 1144; it ended when the Muslims successfully turned back Christendom’s “infidels.”

The Third Crusade (1189-92), undertaken after the Muslims retook Jerusalem, had as one of its leaders Richard I, “the Lionhearted,” of England. It soon “disintegrated,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, “through attrition, quarreling, and lack of cooperation.”

The Fourth Crusade (1202-4) was diverted for lack of funds from Egypt to Constantinople; material assistance was promised in return for helping enthrone Alexius, an exiled Byzantine pretender to the crown. “The [resulting] pillage of Constantinople by the Crusaders is something that the Orthodox East has never forgotten or forgiven,” says The Encyclopedia of Religion, adding: “If any single date is to be cited for the firm establishment of the schism, the most appropriate​—at any rate from a psychological standpoint—​is the year 1204.”

The Children’s Crusade (1212) brought death to thousands of German and French children before they even reached their destination.

The Fifth Crusade (1217-21), the last under papal control, failed because of flawed leadership and clergy interference.

The Sixth Crusade (1228-29) was led by Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, whom Pope Gregory IX had previously excommunicated.

The Seventh and Eighth Crusades (1248-54 and 1270-72) were led by Louis IX of France but collapsed after his death in North Africa.

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The Jewish cemetery in Worms, Germany​—a reminder of the First Crusade

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