Backbone Radio

Columbine for Christians?

Slated on Backbone Radio, December 16 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

Lots of news this week, as well as the approach of Christmas -- but overshadowing all of it is Colorado's bloody Sunday and the shooter's murder manifesto. "This is for all those young people still caught in the nightmare of Christianity, this evil sick religion," the killer said on a website between his shooting rampages in Arvada and Colorado Springs on Dec. 9. "Christian America, this is your Columbine," he continued. Never mind the deranged man's name; let's not widen his fame. The point for us is that the living God and his followers offend the world, the flesh, and the devil merely by reflecting light in the darkness. With this come the risks, and sometimes the high price, of a life of faith. As I've written (see center column), Jeanne Assam knows that; so should we all.

Jesus' mother was prophetically told her newborn son would become "a sign which shall be spoken against," even to the point of "a sword piercing" her own soul. It turns out Christmas and Hanukkah aren't so antithetical to danger, sacrifice, and tragedy after all, when you know the history. The good news is that faith is worth the price, as the steady advance of freedom against barbarism shows.

** Mark Earley of Prison Fellowship, plus educator Bill Moloney, plus actor and author Joseph C. Phillips, will be among my guests on this week's show to help us make sense of the headlines in light of these timeless questions.

** Steve Schippert of ThreatsWatch.com will talk with Joshua Sharf and me about Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, and the Islamist fifth column here at home.

** And with AP reporting Al Gore has refitted his Nashville mansion to make it less of an energy hog, we'll welcome former Denver Post reporter Trent Seibert, who broke the story on Gore's carbon hypocrisy last spring.

Christmas is coming, Hanukkah's over, the Kwanzans and Wiccans are warming up. If the holidays are getting to you, try Backbone Radio. We're not fattening like eggnog, indigestible like fruitcake, fake like a mall Santa, or grating like yet another Rudolph rendition. Our one-horse open talk show is about to come dashing through your Sunday -- jump in and ride along.

Yours with spirits bright, JOHN ANDREWS

Freedom requires religion?

Slated on Backbone Radio, December 9 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.... Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." What? Mitt Romney would dare say that, in today's secular-haunted America? He would, and he did, and we at Backbone Radio agree with him. Romney's speech in Texas on Thursday was powerful and hit the mark. Go to his website and read it, even if you've already seen the TV clips and the analysis. Our show hasn't taken sides in the presidential race; we won't until there is a Republican nominee. To us it's more a matter of who's on our side for a country that honors the Creator in its politics as the founders did, and Mitt the Mormon is clearly one of those. Well done.

Politics, education, civics and civil rights, war and peace, will be among our topics on this Sunday's program. We'll dig even deeper than usual into what America really means, what dangers it faces, and each of us ought to be doing as citizens.

** I'll talk with Kimberly Field, co-author of a new book on Romney and religion, and with Paul Mero of the Utah-based Sutherland Institute. Is anything different about the LDS home state, we'll ask him.

** Terri Hill of the Fund for Colorado's Future, an education policy group, joins us again for a hard look at Bill Ritter's vision for schools: more money, less accountability. And we'll hear from Paul Mero about how the teachers union killed vouchers for Utah kids.

** That visionary plan for a US Department of Peace that you've been hearing about is serious stuff for Ron Cole of Centennial, a Navy veteran and airline pilot. He'll be in to tell us why.

** Plus an update from Ward Connerly on his national push for colorblind laws, and a look into the future with high school students Nanxi Liu and Max Dovala, who led last month's mock legislative session for Colorado Youth in Government.

Christmas is coming, Hanukkah has come, and Kwanzaa; sorry, don't know. Try Backbone Radio for fast relief if the holidays are getting to you. We're not fattening like eggnog, indigestible like fruitcake, fake like a mall Santa, or grating like yet another Rudolph rendition. Our one-horse open talk show is about to come dashing through your Sunday -- jump in and ride along.

Yours for a long winter's nap, JOHN ANDREWS

Churchill's birthday

Slated on Backbone Radio, December 2 Listen every Sunday, 5-8pm on 710 KNUS, Denver.. 1460 KZNT, Colorado Springs... and streaming live at 710knus.com.

Friday, Nov. 30, marked the 133rd anniversary Winston S. Churchill's birth in 1874. "I confess I am quite disheartened about you," his mother later wrote to the young cavalry officer in India. "You seem to have no real purpose in life and won't realize at the age of 22 that for a man life means work, and hard work if you mean to succeed." Little did she know what his future held: by age 30 he would already be world-famous, a combat veteran several times over, a successful author and lecturer, and a rising member of Parliament. Reading Churchill's book about those years, "My Early Life," helped prompt my newest Denver Post column on modern mediocrity, entitled "Where are the great?"

Greatness, its sources and its lack, the difference it makes and the occasions of history that call it forth, will be one of our themes on the next edition of Backbone Radio. I hope you'll be listening.

** We'll hear how Reagan's faith anchored his politics from Nicholas Wapshott, formerly of the London Times and now at the New York Sun, author of a new book about the Gipper and his transatlantic partner, Lady Thatcher.

** We'll talk about America's war with radical Islam as I welcome former state Rep. Rob Fairbank, just back from a government trip to Iraq, and terrorism expert Daveed Gartenstein-Ross of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

** Who has greatness (or the potential for it) in the Dem and GOP presidential contenders, will be my question to Stephen Keating of PoliticsWest.com and Mike Littwin of the Rocky Mountain News.

"A man's life must be nailed to a cross either of thought or of action," Churchill says he believed during those years in India when his mother was so impatient with him. In time, however, and greatly to the world's benefit, he lived a life filled with both. We who love liberty should aspire to do the same, to which end Backbone Radio is dedicated. Please join us Sunday.

Yours for self-government, JOHN ANDREWS

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