Inroads in Hostile Territory by Steve Watters on 11/20/2006 at 12:35 PM

It's easy within our cultural divide to huddle with like-minded people and throw verbal grenades at those on the other side from the safety of our ideological bunkers. As a resident of Colorado Springs, I'm well aware (and all too often guilty) of this posture. Which is why I'm always blown away by stories of people making inroads in hostile territory. This morning, the Wall Street Journal spotlights just such a story on its front page -- that of Dr. Wade Horn and his promotion of marriage within the Department of Health and Human Services. The article opens by saying:

The notion that government can help children escape poverty by promoting marriage for their parents was once considered a fringe idea from right field. It is now federal policy. In very large part, that's due to Wade Horn, a child psychologist turned bureaucrat who has put marriage atop the Bush administration's limited antipoverty agenda.... Today, more than 200 programs are at work across the country, seeking to change public attitudes surrounding marriage, persuade teenagers to aspire to matrimony and teach relationship skills to young couples.

What's more impressive is the article's attention to Dr. Horn's approach: that of co-opting his critics and fine tuning his rhetoric. This was the approach Dr. Horn taught Candice and me when we took a class he taught at Regent University in the summer of 1996.

I remember in that class being asked to defend public school sex education as an assignment. I have all kinds of problems with sex education in public schools, but having to stand up and defend it in a debate was a valuable exercise in learning to understand and work through ideological conflict in a way that's also respectful of the opposition.

In fact, it made enough of an impression on Candice (who was debating against me by the way) that she asked Dr. Horn to write about his approach for engaging the opposition as one of the first Boundless articles in 1998 (No Man is an Island).

Reading this classic article, you can get a sense for how Dr. Horn has been able to stay focused and effective in one of the most challenging environments a Christian can work in -- a federal government bureaucracy. Back when I was a teenager, I remember looking up to Bill Bennett in his courageous effort to reform the Department of Education when he headed that behemoth. Watching Dr. Horn steadily make progress and win key converts over the past seven years to achieve what this morning's article describes, however, I have a new hero in the category of Christians making inroads in hostile territory.

Inroads in Hostile Territory by Steve Watters on 11/20/2006 at 12:35 PM

It's easy within our cultural divide to huddle with like-minded people and throw verbal grenades at those on the other side from the safety of our ideological bunkers. As a resident of Colorado Springs, I'm well aware (and all too often guilty) of this posture. Which is why I'm always blown away by stories of people making inroads in hostile territory. This morning, the Wall Street Journal spotlights just such a story on its front page -- that of Dr. Wade Horn and his promotion of marriage within the Department of Health and Human Services. The article opens by saying:

The notion that government can help children escape poverty by promoting marriage for their parents was once considered a fringe idea from right field. It is now federal policy. In very large part, that's due to Wade Horn, a child psychologist turned bureaucrat who has put marriage atop the Bush administration's limited antipoverty agenda.... Today, more than 200 programs are at work across the country, seeking to change public attitudes surrounding marriage, persuade teenagers to aspire to matrimony and teach relationship skills to young couples.

What's more impressive is the article's attention to Dr. Horn's approach: that of co-opting his critics and fine tuning his rhetoric. This was the approach Dr. Horn taught Candice and me when we took a class he taught at Regent University in the summer of 1996.

I remember in that class being asked to defend public school sex education as an assignment. I have all kinds of problems with sex education in public schools, but having to stand up and defend it in a debate was a valuable exercise in learning to understand and work through ideological conflict in a way that's also respectful of the opposition.

In fact, it made enough of an impression on Candice (who was debating against me by the way) that she asked Dr. Horn to write about his approach for engaging the opposition as one of the first Boundless articles in 1998 (No Man is an Island).

Reading this classic article, you can get a sense for how Dr. Horn has been able to stay focused and effective in one of the most challenging environments a Christian can work in -- a federal government bureaucracy. Back when I was a teenager, I remember looking up to Bill Bennett in his courageous effort to reform the Department of Education when he headed that behemoth. Watching Dr. Horn steadily make progress and win key converts over the past seven years to achieve what this morning's article describes, however, I have a new hero in the category of Christians making inroads in hostile territory.