George Beverly Shea turns 100 years old on February 1st

Happy 100th Birthday, George Beverly Shea!

George Beverly Shea
Profile

"I've been listening to Bev Shea sing for more than 50 years, and I would still rather hear him sing than anyone else I know." -- Billy Graham

Since George Beverly Shea first sang for Billy Graham on the Chicago radio hymn program, "Songs in the Night," in 1943, he has carried the Gospel in song to every continent and every state in the Union. He is the recipient of ten Grammy nominations, one Grammy Award (1965) and is a member of the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame (1978).

As the musical mainstay in Mr. Graham's crusades, Bev Shea is often called "America's Beloved Gospel Singer." However, he cannot be claimed by any one country--a Canadian by birth, he is a favorite of people in many nations.

Born in Winchester, Ontario, February 1, 1909, where his father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister, Mr. Shea's first public singing was in the choir of his father's church. Later, he sang with the Houghton (N.Y.) College Glee Club.

Through the years, Mr. Shea has been one of the busiest men on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Team. Between crusade, radio, and television dates in many countries, he has sung hundreds of concerts and recorded more than 70 albums of sacred music--including nine CDs.

Every hymn he sings is a testimony to the saving power of Jesus Christ and to Shea's faith in Him. He is a noteworthy composer, and the songs he has written incorporate the same message. He composed the music at age 23 to one of his best-known solos, "I'd Rather Have Jesus," to words by Mrs. Rhea H. Miller. The poem had been left on the family piano by Shea's mother, and after reading the words he sat at the piano and composed the tune. He also wrote "The Wonder of It All," "Sing Me A Song of Sharon's Rose," and "I Love Thy Presence, Lord." His most recent CD, entitled "Out In The Country," was released by Homeland Records.

Mr. Shea has utilized all available media to share the "Good News" of Jesus Christ. From 1952, he was heard regularly on network radio, and in more recent years his bass-baritone voice has been transmitted on weekly shortwave programs around the world.

Mr. Shea's network radio singing started on "Club Time," a program carried for more than eight years on ABC, the Armed Forces network, and many independent stations. When Billy Graham, then pastor of the Village Church in Western Springs, Illinois, took over the "Songs in the Night" radio program on Chicago's WCFL in 1943, he recalled hearing Shea's radio singing and enlisted him to help with the broadcast.

That was the beginning of a long association between Mr. Graham and Mr. Shea. In 1947 Shea went to Graham's hometown, Charlotte, N.C., to sing in the first of Mr. Graham's city-wide crusades.

The fledgling evangelistic team worked together in several other crusades, and in 1949 the famous Los Angeles tent meetings catapulted Mr. Graham and his associates to national attention. From there, the team went on to share the Gospel on every continent.

Because of Mr. Shea's weekly singing on the "Hour of Decision" radio broadcast since 1950 and his numerous personal appearances, his voice is recognized now in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, South America, and throughout North America.

Since the beginning of Mr. Graham's crusade ministry, Shea and Cliff Barrows have been the nucleus of the crusade musical team. Barrows is choir director, platform emcee, and radio-television program director. They were joined in 1950 by pianist Tedd Smith, and through the years, organists Don Hustad and John Innes have provided additional accompaniment.

Mr. Shea is noted for the simplicity of his faith and testimony. To him, compromise is unthinkable. All his life and work is aimed at telling "of the Christ who died for me." A man of deep sympathies, he will listen endlessly to the troubles of others but dismiss his own with a word and a smile.

For his significant contributions to Gospel music, he was inducted into the Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame (NRB) in February 1996. As a special honor, in 1998 the North Carolina Public Television Station produced Mr. Shea's life story, "The Wonder of it All," titled after one of his most popular gospel songs.

Mr. Shea and his wife, Karlene, make their home in North Carolina.

Here is his biography:

George Beverly Shea

BORN
George Beverly Shea; February 1, 1909; Winchester, Ontario, Canada

PARENTS
The Reverend A. J. Shea and Maude Whitney Shea (both deceased)

MARRIED
Karlene Aceto

EDUCATION
Annesley College, Ottawa, Ontario
1928-29: Houghton College, Houghton, New York

VOCATION
1929-38: Radio Broadcasting (singing on WMCA & WHN) as an avocation while working as a clerk in the headquarters office of Mutual of New York insurance company
1938-44: Announcer and staff soloist, WMBI, Chicago
1944-52: Soloist on ABC's "Club Time"
1947 - present: Soloist, Billy Graham Team
1950 - present: Soloist on the "Hour of Decision"
1951 - present: Recording artist with RCA and Word Records (more than 70 Albums of hymns, including nine CDs)

AWARDS AND HONORS
1956: Doctor of Fine Arts, Houghton College, Houghton, New York
1965: Grammy Award, sacred category, National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, for album "Southland Favorites" with Anita Kerr Singers; Ten nominations
1972: Doctor of Sacred Music, Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois
1978: Elected to Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame, Nashville
1996: Elected to Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame (NRB)
1998: North Carolina Public Television produced his life story, "The Wonder of it All"

PUBLISHED WORKS
1968: "Then Sings My Soul," autobiography, Fleming Revell Company
1972: "Songs That Lift the Heart," about his favorite songs, Fleming Revell Company
1984: "Then Sings My Soul," Film Musical/Documentary, World Wide Pictures
2004: "How Sweet the Sound," Tyndale House Publishers

HOBBIES
Boating

CHILDREN
Ronald and Elaine

RESIDENCE
North Carolina

Here is another story about George on CBN: http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/531396.aspx

CBNnews.com Report on What Public Schools are Teaching

Watch Low Band

Public Schools Teach the ABCs of Islam

By Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News Terror Analyst
January 9, 2009

CBNNews.com - Several recent studies have shown that American students are alarmingly ignorant about U.S. history and world events.

Experts have attributed the problem to everything from failing schools to substandard teachers.

But what about content?

Who Discovered America?

For instance, did you know that Muslims discovered America? Or that Jerusalem is an Arab city? That's just some of the "history" that students in America's K-12 classrooms have been taught in recent years--with the help of taxpayer money.

A new report by the non-profit Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that American high school and elementary textbooks contain countless inaccuracies about Christianity, Judaism, Israel and the Middle East.

The Institute examined 28 of the most widely-used history, geography and social studies textbooks in America. It found at least 500 errors.

One book ignored the Jewish roots of Christianity, saying the faith was founded by a "young Palestinian" named Jesus.

Another stated as fact that the Koran was revealed to Mohammed from God.

Yet another said ancient Jewish civilization contributed "very little" to to the arts and sciences.

The Stealth Curriculum

Textbooks like these are used by millions of schoolchildren in all 50 states. Sandra Stotsky --now an endowed chair at the University of Arkansas--has seen some of them firsthand.

Stotsky was a commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1999 until 2003. In that role, she helped set standards for students and teachers on the K thru 12 level. Stotsky wrote a book about her experience developing standards and professional development for history teachers called The Stealth Curriculum.

"We heard from a number of groups who were outraged because theydidn't want what they called a 'Euro-centric' version of history," said Stotsky. "They literally wanted an Islamo-centric version of history.

Which means you look at the world from the perspective of Islam and you don't talk about any negative aspects of Islam."

Islamic Seminar

After the 9/11 attacks, the Massachusetts Board of Education funded a special seminar for K-12 teachers to learn about Islamic history and the Middle East.

The outreach coordinator at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies helped organize the seminar. Stotsky said she was shocked by the teachers' lesson plans that came out of the week-long seminar.

"They ranged from having students make prayer rugs; describe what it would be like to go on a hajj--a pilgrimage; learn and memorize the five pillars of Islam; listen to and learn how to recite passages from the Koran; dress like a Muslim from a particular country.it was, to me,a clear violation of ethics involved in how one would expect childrento learn about another culture. That they would literally go through the memorization and the learning of religious beliefs."

"These are unacceptable practices in a public school," she added. "In fact, they would be unacceptable academic practices in any school."

Title VI

Harvard is one of 18 universities that receives government funding under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. To qualify for that funding, the universities are required to conduct outreach to K-12 teachers, helping them to shape lessons for schoolchildren. Elementary and secondary teachers have taken full advantage of the arrangement: after all, they believe they're getting expert insight on Islam and the Middle East from distinguished university scholars.

"You have a lot of politically naive teachers--well intentioned teachers who do want their students to learn more about Islamic history," says Stotsky. "It has not been well covered in most history courses they've ever taken, so they do genuinely want to learn more for themselves and teach their students more."

In some cases they may be getting more than they bargained for: the Saudi government has donated millions of dollars to Middle East Centers at universities that receive Title VI funding.

The Harvard Middle Eastern Studies Center--whose proposed lesson plans for K-12 history teachers originally drew Stosky's concern--is one of them. As CBN News reported earlier this year, the Harvard Center received a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2005. Georgetown University--another title VI recipient--also received $ 20 million from the Prince that same year.

It's through these Title VI university centers--all of them government-sanctioned and taxpayer supported--that Saudi-funded materials find their way into K-12 classrooms.

Education or Islamic Propoganda?

"Saudi donations to American universities should be seen in a much larger picture of Saudi promotion of a Saudi point of view," said Daniel Pipes, Director of the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia. "Whether it be Islamic or political, the Saudis have a point of view. And they have been very clever and very generous over the decades to promote that point of view."

Among the textbooks the Saudi-funded Harvard Center recommends for schoolchildren is the Arab World Studies Notebook. The book is published by a New Mexico-based group called Arab World and Islamic Resources , which was founded in 1990 with funding from organizations
that include Saudi Aramco, a Saudi government-owned oil company.

'The Notebook'

The Notebook has come under fire for negatively portraying America and Israel while whitewashing Islam. It's been banned by some school districts.

"It's very difficult to find any discussion of ancient Israel--that it actually existed in time as a country,' Stotsky said of the Notebook. "That it had a king, that it had kings. That King Solomon existed, that Jerusalem was established as their capital city. It would discredit
even the founding of the state of Israel by claiming that it was imposed by European or Western powers."

One of the Notebook's most controversial claims was that Muslim explorers beat Columbus to the New World. Older versions state that some Native American chiefs even had Muslim names, like Abdul-Rahim. These passages were eventually removed after widespread criticism from scholars and Native American groups. The Notebook's editor, Audrey Shabbas, did not respond to our requests for an interview.

The Middle East Policy Council--a pro-Arab advocacy group in Washington, D.C.--also conducts teacher training programs for K-12 teachers and has promoted the Arab World Studies notebook as an ideal educational tool.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal donated $1 million towards the Council's teacher training programs last year. The group did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.

Stronger Curriculum Standards Needed

Stosky says there needs to be stronger standards for K-12 curriculums to help offset the influence of outside pressure groups.

That's traditionally been a job for local governments.

"State governments have not been given the power to set curriculum,"she said. "No, this is a local responsibility. It was devised this way by our framers. You know, the local governments, local communities,would develop their own curricula, decide what they would want to teach their children. State governments could assess, as they now do, but they can't prescribe curriculum for local communities. And the federal government certainly can't prescribe a curriculum. That's why we're having a battle over where national standards are going to come from."

The standards Stotsky helped craft for Massachusetts schools include what she calls politically incorrect but historically accurate" objectives about the Islamic slave trade, Islamic expansionism and treatment of women in Islam.

"What state governments can do--which to me, is the path we were taking in Massachusetts--is to make sure that the standards you create for a subject have been thoroughly vetted by first rate scholars--and a range of first rate scholars," said Stotsky.

Title VI Battle Hits Capitol Hill

The battle over Title VI has also reached Capitol Hill. In August, Congress approved revisions to the Higher Education Act of 1965--which includes Title VI. Universities must now explain how their Title VI funds will be used--and K-12 schools are now required to reflect a wide range of views on global issues in their lesson plans. Whether the Saudi point of view is still among them remains to be seen.

*Original broadcast October 9, 2008.

From CBN News - The Brody File

In the course of covering the campaign, we want to make it clear that neither CBN nor CBN News supports or opposes any candidate seeking public office.

Palin Blasts McCain Campaign for Series of Katie Couric Interviews

January 8, 2009

Sarah Palin is talking…again.

This time she sat down with film maker John Ziegler as part of his upcoming documentary on How Obama got elected and the issue of ‘media malpractice”.

Palin blasts the McCain campaign for allowing her to continue to do interviews with Katie Couric even after she knew the first one didn’t go very well.

She also talks about how she still gets questions about whether Trigg is really her son and she questions the media on the double standard between the treatment she received and the media treatment Caroline Kennedy is receiving. In addition, she thinks she would have been treated much better if Obama picked her as VP.

The Brody File provides a link to the 10 minute video here. It has just been posted on You Tube.

David Brody

CBN News Senior National Correspondent

Read David's Bio

E-mail David Brody