Author: Tim J. Clark

“Evangelical Catholic”

Tim J. Clark Uncategorized

11 reasons I’m an Evangelical Catholic  By Joseph Mattera, Op-ed Contributor 

Who founded the Catholic Church?  Short video that explains the historical context and what led to the “30,000” different denominations.

Article shared at LinkedIn.

“Evangelical Catholic” – The description covers both perspectives. Christians share a common mission to “spread the gospel and make disciples of all nations,” as outlined in Matthew 28:16-20.

On Nov 23, 2025, in a letter titled “”Unity of Faith,” Pope Leo marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea and the Nicene Creed with the intent “to celebrate with Orthodox and Protestant leaders the anniversary of the Creed Christians share.”

Beyond the Nicene Creed, Christian denominations can have unique interpretations of one or more aspects of scripture. Excellent explanations and arguments have been made for and against a specific position – the Rapture, for example. AI tools such as ChatGPT and Grok can quickly identify the respective positions to facilitate discernment.

Another shared creed among Christians is the Apostles’ Creed.  Turning Point USA and TPUSA Faith created by the late Charlie Kirk, selected the Apostles Creed to unite Christians in support of the Great Commission.  A local example – Turning Point Brown County, IN.

Another major intiative: Share the good news with 120 Million Homes in the U.S. BY 2027

The Truth may set you free, but it may take awhile

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The new knowledge in managing variation was classified during WWII, declassified after the war, and shared worldwide. It is still a relatively well-kept secret.  Test your knowledge? Can you handle the Truth?
LinkedIn Post.

 “All truth passes through three stages: first, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer

“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea… Naturally, therefore, common men hate a new idea, and are disposed more or less to ill-treat the original man who brings it.” – Walter Bagehot

“The person who fights for a dying cause is admired, supported and honoured. The person who fights for a new cause struggling to be born is misunderstood, reviled and attacked. Nothing is more difficult than taking the lead in a new order of things.” — Dee Hock, Founder & CEO, Visa

Throughout history, people have been punished for saying something an institution or society could not allow to be true or could not even see.

Different centuries, different contexts, same human reflex.

The pattern continues in our organisations today

Galileo Galilei (astronomer & physicist)
His act: Demonstrated that the Earth orbits the sun, contradicting Church doctrine.
Outcome: Tried by the Inquisition (1633), forced to recant and lived the rest of his life under house arrest. The Church took over 300 years to formally admit he was right.

Ignaz Semmelweis (physician, early pioneer of antiseptic practice)
His act: Showed that handwashing with chlorinated water stopped doctors transmitting deadly infections from autopsies to maternity wards.
Outcome: Ridiculed, removed from his post, suffered a breakdown, committed to an asylum and died there from an infected wound. His insight was only accepted after his death.

General Billy Mitchell (U.S. Army aviation pioneer)
His act: Warned that air power would define future warfare and criticised military leaders for neglecting aviation readiness.
Outcome: Court-martialled for insubordination, suspended without pay and forced out. Decades later, WWII proved him correct and he was posthumously honoured.

Roger Boisjoly (NASA engineer)
His act: Warned that the Challenger O-rings would fail in cold weather and urged NASA to delay the launch.
Outcome: After the disaster proved his warning correct, he was shunned and sidelined within his company. Later honoured in ethics circles, but his career there never recovered.

Sinéad O’Connor (musician & activist)
Her act: Protested sexual abuse in the Catholic Church on live television in 1992.
Outcome: Ridiculed, boycotted and condemned for years. Later reinterpreted as someone who named a truth long before society recognised it.

Stanislav Petrov (Soviet lieutenant colonel & air-defence officer)
His act: In 1983, he judged a Soviet nuclear warning to be a false alarm and refused to escalate — preventing a likely nuclear exchange.
Outcome: Reassigned to a lower-level post, denied the commendation he was promised and quietly moved into early retirement. Only after the USSR collapsed was his decision publicly honoured.

The truth-teller becomes the problem long before the truth becomes accepted.

 

Religious ‘nones’ would outnumber Protestants among young people in ‘small town’ America

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This post at Linkedin.

Religious ‘nones’ would outnumber Protestants among young people in ‘small town’ America: Pew
By CP Staff

Would Christianity still dominate the United States if it were reimagined as a small town of 100 people?

How about framing the issue (belief in God) a little differently? What philosophy or worldview produces the best results?

Knowledge and understanding of variation provide a proven standard for assessing whether change results in improvement. A “None” cannot conclude that variation does not exist.

In a Christian worldview, continuous improvement by reducing variation from the ideal (more perfect) is a moral imperative where good enough never is. This philosophy influenced the design of the American Constitution and system of government. What is the competitive advantage of other philosophies?

Information on Variation at: SuccessThroughQuality.com

The Golden Age of Humanity?

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The Golden Age of Humanity? We’re Living in It. Modernity is more meaningful and moral than medieval Christendom. By Steven Pinker and Marian L. Tupy, 11.24.25 — The Free Press

Post at Linkedin

The article presents the argument for secularism. The counter-arguments are provided in the comments. One area of consensus may be to the statement: “Our moral purpose, then, is to use knowledge and sympathy to reduce suffering and enhance flourishing: health, freedom, peace, knowledge, beauty, social connection.”

The Christian worldview holds that God is love and that love is willing the good of others. “Love is not a feeling but an act of will.”

A “more perfect Union” could be described as one in which more needs are met, thereby reducing the harm caused by unmet needs. Consequently, continuous improvement becomes a moral imperative. Take crime, for example: the less crime, the fewer people who are being harmed.

Whether you believe in God or not, a moral imperative would be to reduce the gap between the ideal (all needs met) and the actual situation.

Successful actions, including determining whether change results in improvement, can be supported by quality management methods and tools.
The Taguchi Loss Function reinforces that the closer any product or service gets to the ideal or target, the better the quality and the lower the cost to the individual and society.

Fossilized Faith

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Post at LinkedIn.

Fossilized Faith by Aaron Reen, Nov 14, 2025.  I have a review of sociologist Christian Smith’s important new book Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America in the new December issue of First Things magazine.

“As Smith writes, obsolescence doesn’t mean extinction”. .. religion is just “less relevant to mainstream society”. Smith and Renn make the case that the “method” (“fossilized forms”—of traditional religion) of communicating the message is certainly becoming less relevant.

The topic of obsolescence is a little surreal to me. The expectations from a belief in the Christian message are timeless. God is love; love is willing the good of others, followed by taking the appropriate actions.

In the American system of government, the responsibility of citizens is to work together toward that more perfect union, which includes providing products and services as employees, entrepreneurs, elected officials, business owners, and ministers, where everyone benefits or at least, is not any worse off.

Meeting expectations requires reducing variation from the ideals advertised through promotions, marketing, and electioneering.

In a different context, how many parents and guardians who love their kids do not take the action needed to do what they think is best for them? Who doesn’t like to be the recipient of a kind word or deed?

Excellent quality results from doing the right things (effectiveness) and doing them right (efficiency). How can the management of quality ever be “obsolete”? Some people may always associate their motivation to do good with a higher power (God or a God), and others won’t – nothing new or obsolete about that. What “method” produces the best results for everyone?

Linkedin: “We have been subverted”

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This post at Linkedin.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: We Have Been Subverted. The Free Press.“What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.”

From a Biblical worldview, the subversion is spiritual and started in the Garden of Eden when mankind was deceived by the belief that they could be God.

The U.S. system of government (a Republic) is exceptional in that Judeo-Christian principles influenced its design. These principles enable “We the People” to work together towards that “more perfect Union.”

The quality management technology provides the methods and tools to support both a secular and non-secular approach to improvement.

https://lnkd.in/gSJrGKmE

Linkedin: “How Intellectuals Found God”

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Posted at LinkedIn – Oct 9, 2025

12.28.24 — The Big Read,  The Free Press, How Intellectuals Found God
Almost 150 years after Nietzsche said ‘God is dead,’ some of our most important thinkers are getting religion. Peter Savodnik meets the new theists.

W. Edwards Deming introduced an additional convincing argument for the belief in God. Deming recognized that an inherent part of God’s design is variability. Reducing the variation from God’s standard of perfection (where all needs are met) meets the expectations God has for his faithful servants.

Deming has been referred to as a Prophet of Quality who supported a secular approach to improvement. His contributions were recognized by Fortune magazine as being among the 20 that have shaped the modern world of business and by U.S. News and World Report as one of nine turning points in history. The top turning point was identified as “The Apostle Paul, whose preaching and eloquent writings led to mass acceptance of Christianity.”

Deming’s experiences were similar to the Prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 6:9-10), where the simplicity and truth of the message lead many to “Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive. “

The quality profession, through the Taguchi Loss Function, has reinforced that the closer any product or service gets to the target or ideal (more perfect), the higher the quality and the lower the cost to the customer and society.  Deming referred to this as a Chain Reaction: “When you improve quality, costs decrease, productivity improves, capture the market with better quality and lower costs, stay in business, create jobs, and more jobs. “  https://lnkd.in/gc3egWgB

References:

The Discovery of the Prophet of Quality,  by Clare Crawford-Mason

Kirk Effect: On The Goodness Of American Evangelicals

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Excerpt: Now It’s The Mormons’ Turn And: Our Fragile Economy; Rethinking Comey; Digital IDs; Good Evangelicals; More, Rod Dreher, Sep 29, 2025 (paywalled)

Along those lines, Peggy Noonan had this to say (paywalled) about the Christian Right, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk service:

There is something you could have said at any time the past decade that is true now in some new way. It is that the GOP is becoming a more explicitly Christian party than it ever has been. A big story the past decade was that so many Trump supporters, especially but not only working-class ones, were misunderstood as “those crazy Christians” but in fact were often unaffiliated with any faith tradition and not driven to politics by such commitments.

But it looks to me as if a lot of those folks have been in some larger transit since 2015, as Kirk himself was. He entered the public stage to speak politics but said by the end that his great work was speaking of Christ. If he had a legacy, he told an interviewer, “I want to be remembered for courage for my faith.”

The secretary of state of the United States gave personal testimony on what Christ is in history and in his life. The vice president did the same. John Foster Dulles and Hubert Humphrey didn’t talk like this!

The whole thing was self-consciously and explicitly Christian. Kirk’s widow, Erika, talked of new converts and asked the crowd to help them. She said of her husband’s assassin, “That young man—I forgive him.” And she received a standing ovation.

As I watched I realized: This is the true sound and tone of the Republican Party right now. This is the takeover of the previously patronized.

She added that when she worked in the Reagan White House as a speechwriter, Christian conservatives had a seat at the table, so to speak, but they were quietly looked down on by the “pragmatists” in the room. No more.

It is no secret that as the GOP has become more religious, the Democrats have become more secular. This is not something you are going to see reflected in media coverage, because US journalists, being overwhelmingly secular liberals, are blind to how their own party has moved to the extreme on religious and cultural matters, just as the Republicans have. I think this is unavoidable, this schism. What you, reader, should watch out for is the attempt to shape the Narrative such that it looks as if religious conservatives are the ones taking America away from Normal. As Bill Maher said in his closing monologue on Friday:

LinkedIn: Who has no coherent idea?

Tim J. Clark Uncategorized

Who has no coherent idea? In his NYT article, David Brooks remarked: “My problem with the Kirk memorial service and all the conversation about his assassination generally is that many people seem to have no coherent idea about the proper relationship between faith and politics. In their minds, the two spheres seem all mixed together higgledy-piggledy.”

The aim of the U.S. system of government is to enable We the People to work together towards “a more perfect” Union. Who defines “more perfect”?

In a biblical context, perfection is described as having all needs met (the Garden of Eden being a notable example). The more needs that are met, the less harm caused to people as a result of unmet needs.) Thus, continual improvement becomes a moral imperative for Christians.

Take the example of crime: A Christian would embrace the belief that all crime should be continually reduced. A secular belief could include that crime is an acceptable, unfortunate, or normal part of life. A run chart showing a predictable trend would provide feedback on current mitigation strategies.

Within the quality management profession, it is an accepted fact that the closer any product or service (such as crime reduction strategies) approaches the ideal or target (i.e., the more perfect it is), the higher the quality and the lower the cost to the customer and society. (Ref: Taguchi Loss Function).

So, who has “no coherent idea”?
https://lnkd.in/gfMXjiaj