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Online dating services may be getting too big for their britches. Not content to spotlight the things they do relatively well (i.e., introduce users to a large pool of potentially like-minded single men and women ) they make wild claims of being able to help you find "your soul mate," "the perfect love you were born to meet," "satisfying marriage" and more. But not only that. They now claim, in view of their moderate success, that they can do so better than anyone else. The reason: scientific algorithms.
A New York Times story Tuesday described it this way: Once upon a time, finding a mate was considered too important to be entrusted to people under the influence of raging hormones. Their parents, sometimes assisted by astrologers and matchmakers, supervised courtship until customs changed in the West because of what was called the Romeo and Juliet revolution. Grown-ups, leave the kids alone.
But now some social scientists have rediscovered the appeal of adult supervision — provided the adults have doctorates and vast caches of psychometric data. Online matchmaking has become a boom industry as rival scientists test their algorithms for finding love.
The leading yenta is eHarmony, which pioneered the don't-try-this-yourself approach eight years ago by refusing to let its online customers browse for their own dates. It requires them to answer a 258-question personality test and then picks potential partners. The company estimates, based on a national Harris survey it commissioned, that its matchmaking was responsible for about 2 percent of the marriages in America last year, nearly 120 weddings a day.
Wow. Two percent of marriages are thanks to eHarmony. Sounds impressive till you realize their conversion rate is only around 3 percent. Yes, three percent of 12 million is a lot of people. But the number they don't spotlight is even bigger number: the 97 percent for whom eHarmony fails.
Aside from the one eHarmony marriage I know of personally, my single friends have all been part of the 11.6 million members who've experienced months of repeated -- and expensive -- frustration; with little, if anything, to show for it. (That is, unless you consider months of go-nowhere phone calls and meetings something.)
For all its bravado about results, eHarmony's methods remain veiled in unreviewed mystery. The story reports, As the matchmakers compete for customers — and denigrate each other's methodology — the battle has intrigued academic researchers who study the mating game. ... So far, except for a presentation at a psychologists' conference, the company has not produced much scientific evidence that its system works. It has started a longitudinal study comparing eHarmony couples with a control group, and Dr. Buckwalter says it is committed to publishing peer-reviewed research, but not the details of its algorithm. That secrecy may be a smart business move, but it makes eHarmony a target for scientific critics, not to mention its rivals.
Until outside scientists have a good look at the numbers, no one can know how effective any of these algorithms are, but one thing is already clear. People aren't so good at picking their own mates online. Researchers who studied online dating found that the customers typically ended up going out with fewer than 1 percent of the people whose profiles they studied, and that those dates often ended up being huge letdowns.
So where does that leave the 97 percent for whom the leader in online dating was unable to help? I think the secret lies with the people who used to be a big part of this process. The people so quickly dismissed by the NYT, eHarmony and large segments of our culture: parents and matchmakers (forget the astrologers). The happiest matches are still those that began with an introduction by someone the couple knew, who also knew them. And it's that first-hand knowledge that no algorithm, no matter how fancy, will ever be able to mimic.
Steve poses a good question about the next generation of the church. One trend I've noticed in my generation is a desire to take Christ to the culture instead of forcing them to come to us inside the church.
Eric Simmons' article "Meeting God in the Saloon" talks about that very thing. He recounts an unexpected opportunity for evangelism that happened when he and a buddy were passing through Colorado on a cross-country road trip: We were dead tired, we were starving, and the only place open was ... The Saloon. I kid you not: The Saloon. When Andrew and I walked through the double doors it felt like the record player scratched to a stop. Everybody turned to look at us. They could tell we weren't from around them thar parts.
Andrew and I hurried over to the corner, doing our best not to make eye contact. Near us was a group of about six people. They probably had 20 shot glasses on their table. They were toasting, one shot at a time. One of the men toasted, "To Jesus Christ and to Satan, his brother."
I had prayed that morning for an opportunity to share the gospel but this was not what I had in mind. Six drunk people in a saloon was not my idea of opportunity. I had in mind some hikers on a beautiful train in Rocky Mountain national park.
Simmons points out that sometimes we are not aware of the mission field God has given us. He says: Our hearts should cry to God that the whole world would know Jesus. But in our post-Christian society there's an emerging unreached people group. And they're not in a foreign country. They live right down the street.
Frankly, sometimes I think the most unreached people in the world are the ones next door. The neighbors, the classmates, the co-workers, the acquaintances at the shops I frequent -- all of them are in need of the gospel.
Living like a missionary who's sent by God changes my perspective on life. I no longer just go to the gym, the store, school, the staff party, the restaurant; now I recognize that God sends me. I'm not "just going"; I'm sent.
When you look at your life that way, you begin to see the many possibilities. I told a little bit of Eric's story in my article "The Impatient Evangelist." Something he said has stuck with me: "If you're praying for opportunities, your mind and your heart and your eyes are open," Eric says. "When you love people and listen to people, you're going to see entry points."
I think our generation of the Body of Christ desires that: to be loving, listening Christians who are sensitive to the entry points God provides. Think of that next time you find yourself in the gym, grocery store...or saloon.
Consider the haiku. It is the poetic embodiment of the Japanese penchant for beauty in simplicity. A haiku consists of three unrhymed lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, respectively, and traditionally described something in nature.
Of course, something so elegant could not be left well enough alone. Hence the "spam-ku," the delicate art of Japanese poetry turned to praise the quintessence of mystery meat. An example: Ate three cans of SPAM
But there's still room for Jell-O
I love this country.
But why stop with Spam? What's wrong with all the other food? I hereby announce the food-ku: Day-old burrito
Ominous tummy rumble
Global warming looms
Golden spongy cake
Survives nuclear first strike.
Twinkie, I love you!
Sweet crispy goodness
My morning treat, Cap'n Crunch
Eyebrows on hat? How?
Magically delish!
Lucky Charms sweet marshmallows
Leprechauns! Our friends.
Greenish orbs of death
Alien plot to kill us
Brussels sprouts. Don't touch!
Shake ketchup bottle
Shake, shake some more. None comes out.
But then a lot'll
Give me a hot dog
Think it contains real dog meat
Who cares? More mustard!
Yellow, green, red balls.
Trix are for kids. I love ‘em!
Go, Silly Rabbit.
You call it sushi
Raw tuna, caught fresh from sea
But I call it bait.
Oozy pizza cheese
Roof of mouth, scorched bits of flesh
Hot mozzarella!
Oh, and why not? ... Succulent pink slab
Mystery meat, thou art Spam
Rests between bread. Yum!
"Baby Boomers are no longer the future of American religion. As they grow older, they are rapidly becoming its past. The future now rests with younger adults." This is how Robert Wuthnow kicks off his book called After the Baby Boomers: How Twenty- and Thirty-Somethings Are Shaping the Future of American Religion. He continues: Baby boomers are now moving past their mid-life crises, becoming empty nesters, and retiring. To be sure, their influence on American religion remains strong. With the graying of America, they will be the most numerous group in the typical congregation. They will have more time to serve on committees and more money to put in the collection plate. They will also be the members who lament that things are no longer as good as they were in the 1960s (or 1980s). They will not be so sure that change is a good thing, especially if it is being advanced by someone considerably younger than they are. Baby boomers will also increasingly be high-maintenance members. Besides populating the pews, they will require sick-visits from the pastor. As they die, or move away to retirement communities and nursing homes, they will leave the leadership of American religion in other hands.
Maybe you've already had a chance to dig into this book by Wuthnow, the professor who directs the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. I'm only just now starting it, but I'm finding it to be one of the most helpful for anyone who cares about the future of the local church. Wuthnow makes a good case that the generation coming behind the boomers is not very well understood--especially in the context of their faith and relationship to the local church. He writes: In the absence of solid information, speculation about the religious needs and interests of the next wave runs rampant. Self-styled cultural experts have been arguing that young adults will be the leaders of a great spiritual revival. ... Other forecasters are placing their bets on technology. Persuaded that religion is somehow a function of gadgets and electronics, they predict an Internet revolution in which congregations will be replaced by Web sites and chat rooms. Still others see in their crystal balls that young adults will flock to jeans-and-sweatshirt ministries where everything is warm and supportive -- as if that were something new.
The truth is, these futuristic speculations make headlines, but seldom make sense. The reason is that they are the product of someone's imagination, rather than being grounded in any systematic research -- or, for that matter, a very good understanding of young adulthood and social change. Pastors and interested lay leaders can titillate themselves reading such speculation in religious magazines. But they need to realize how flimsy this sort of information is.
Only a few pages into this book I'm struck by just how significant this generational shift is going to be in the local church. How's your local church facing this shift?
The elder President Bush once referred to political momentum as "the big Mo." And it appears that one presidential candidate has finally gotten some heading into "Super Tuesday" -- Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). As today's Wall Street Journal reports, Sen. McCain inevitably gains an important edge in momentum and fund raising heading into "Super Tuesday" next week, with primaries and caucuses in more than 20 states across the nation. Even before the Florida win, polls in three of the largest states voting -- California, New York and Illinois -- showed Sen. McCain with big leads over Mr. Romney and other rivals.
McCain won with broad support from seniors, veterans and Hispanics. However, he again lost the largest Republican voting bloc, conservatives. His challenge will be to win them over heading into next weeks Super Tuesday and, subsequently, the general election.
On the Democratic side, Hillary won Florida easily but got nothing for it because the Democratic National Committee stripped the state of its delegates for moving up the primary date. Like McCain, however, Hillary has sizable leads in delegate rich states like California, New York and New Jersey.
The only other news coming out of Florida is that both Giuliani and Edwards dropped out of the race. Giuliani is expected to endorse McCain but Edwards is staying mum for now.
Madison Avenue hates women. Can I say that without controversy? The female physique has been used to market everything from cars to power tools. In fact, this blog title derives from Big Tobacco's generous decision to allow women to share in the same ghastly death as male smokers.
But even with today's crass exploitation of the female image, it's hard to believe that we live in a relatively enlightened age when it comes to women and advertising. Have a look at some really cringe-inducing advertising from the not-so-distant past. Every stereotype is exploited. The Palmolive soap ad plays on many women's fears and reinforces the belief that beauty is, literally, only skin deep. And the ones for Chase & Sanborn Coffee and Bitney-Bowes postage meters are just mind-boggling. Imagine trying to run something remotely similar today. (More such ads have been collected in a gift book called You Mean a Woman Can Open It...?)
But as I think about it, Madison Avenue hasn't become more enlightened. It's just changed its target. In place of the Helpless Woman is the Doofus Dad. Ward Cleaver has been replaced by Homer Simpson. How advertisers expect to be successful by insulting half their intended audience is beyond me, but apparently it works; they keep doing it.
So, in the end, maybe we haven't come a long way at all. So why am I not surprised?
Jacob Douvier, whom we see commenting regularly on The Line, has started a series on his blog highlighting A Puritan Catechism. Questions addressed include:
- What is the chief end of man?
- What rule has God given to direct us how we may glorify him?
- What do the Scriptures principally teach?
- What is God?
This systematic collection of 82 doctrinal points was compiled by Charles H. Spurgeon, a man I greatly admire. Feel free to stop by Jacob's blog to leave a comment as each point of doctrine has its day, or visit Spurgeon.org to read them all in one sitting.
I appreciate the feedback I received from my "just choose one" plea at the end of the roundtable discussion of our first podcast. For those who haven't listened (and really, you should), I was responding to the generally accepted "I just haven't found the right one" defense from single guys in their 30s.
And before you start hatin' on me here, let me explain what I meant.
I've been married 10 years. And over the years I've learned that I could allow myself to become attracted to a great many women. All of whom would probably have made excellent wives. But I made my choice a long time ago. That's what you do when you ask (and accept) someone to marry you -- you choose, you forsake all others.
It's just a fact of life that many women probably share my Christian and doctrinal beliefs, complementarian views, child-centeredness, political leanings, sense of humor, etc. (note: these qualifications are for illustration purposes only). And in my opinion, it's not difficult to find many beautiful women with these characteristics.
So you might be asking yourself what all this has to do with single guys who just haven't found the "right one." Just this: I don't think there is "a right one." I think there are many right ones. And single men simply need to make a choice from all of the right ones out there. Because it's not about finding the right one, it's about making the right one by laying down your life for the one you chose until death do you part.
Before I popped the question, I was anxious about making the wrong decision. I asked my pastor how he knew his wife was the right one. He said simply, "Because I chose her over all the others. And she said yes." The rest is an act of the will.
A frequent comment on BoundlessLine is the question, "Why do you talk about marriage so much?" Initially, this question makes me wonder if people really don't know that Boundless is a service of Focus on the Family, a group that specializes in Christian marriage and parenting principles.
Our editorial mix for years now has been divided between 1) Christian worldview, 2) Christian community, 3) stewardship of time, money and calling, 4) purity and 5) vision and preparation for marriage and family.
Here are some of the reasons we included #5 in the mix:
- 85 to 90% of the general population eventually gets married. Some back their way into it, or as Leon Kass puts it, "they stumble on to the altar as if by accident." Once people marry, half of their pregnancies are unplanned. That means a lot of the families out there are made up of people who backed their way into the whole family enterprise. As with any major initiative in life, vision and preparation make an important difference.
- You can't talk effectively about the Biblical standards of absolute sexual purity among unmarried Christians without talking about how people can have their natural sexual drives fulfilled within marriage or within the high calling of lifelong celibacy.
- While we know that marriage will not meet all your needs, will not solve all your problems and will not remove all your loneliness, we still believe that Genesis 2 demonstrates that in His goodness, God specifically designed marriage to meet some needs, solve some problems and remove some loneliness (and that's putting it conservatively). As a result, we want to encourage singles in this honorable aspiration.
- We believe that too many men and women have been unable to experience the marriages they desire because of Christian subcultures that don't talk about it. These subcultures might have the intention of not wanting to frustrate those who haven't achieved their goal of marriage or of not pressuring someone into a bad marriage, but their silence has often left Christian singles without a compelling alternative to the complete dysfunction of our post-marriage culture.
We continue to appreciate your constructive feedback as we seek to be as accurate and Godly as possible in how we talk about marriage, but these are the reasons why we plan to keep the topic as an integral topic within our editorial mix.
Last night I watched 60 Minutes and saw a fascinating interview with the FBI agent who was Saddam Hussein's main contact after being captured by the U.S.
George Piro -- an agent who had only been employed by the FBI for five years before this assignment -- was picked because he had been born in Lebanon and spoke fluent Arabic. They also thought Hussein would respond to a young Arab man (even if he was working for the U.S.).
I was fascinated by this piece, mainly because of the way they got Hussein to talk. They used subtle tactics to show who was in control of the situation. When talking to Hussein, Piro would have him sit with his back against the wall while he stood against the door -- a way of showing who was in charge. Piro would be the only one Hussein would ever see with a watch -- an indication that he controlled the time. Piro fooled Hussein into thinking he was much more influential at the FBI than he really was -- Hussein thought he reported directly to the president.
Piro did get Hussein to talk. They talked about Bin Laden, WMDs, Kuwait, the killing of his own people and much more.
Piro says that Hussein didn't believe the U.S. would really invade Iraq the way it did in 2003. He said that when the U.S. invaded, there were no WMDs, but Hussein had plans to recreate his weapons program.
In the end, Piro said that Hussein didn't regret any of it. He felt that his brutal acts were necessary and acceptable. His final act of defiance was refusing to wear a hood when he was hanged.
I would encourage you to check out the interview. Piro was able to get into the mind of this brutal dictator and get answers to questions that were a mystery to the United States. Interesting -- frightening -- stuff.
Are there any errors in the following paragraph? In order to insure the magazine's success, Candace Watters asked an author from Bogota, Columbia to write on the issue of Latin American dating practices. That particular issue of the magazine was comprised of articles that explored dating from a variety of cultural perspectives. Once it was published, the author received many complements.
If so, tell me what they are.
An actual e-mail I received from "Robert Mueller III, Director of the FBI," exactly as I received it:
We believe this notification meets you in a very good present state of mind and health. We the Federal bureau of investigation (FBI) Washington, DC in conjunction with some other relevant Investigation Agencies here in the United States of America have recently been informed through our Global intelligence monitoring network that you presently have a transaction going on with the Central Bank of Nigeria as regards to your over-due contract payment which was fully endorsed in your favour accordingly.
It might interest you to know that we have taken out time in screening through this project as stipulated on our protocol of operation and have finally confirmed that your contract payment is 100% genuine and hitch free from all facet and of which you have the lawful right to claim your fund without any further delay. Having said all this, we will further advise that you go ahead in dealing with the Central Bank office accordingly as we will be monitoring all their activities with you as well as your correspondence at all level.
In addendum, also be informed that we recently had a meeting with the Executive Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, in the person of Prof. Chukwuma Soludo along with some of the top officials of the Ministry regarding your case and they made us to understand that your file has been held in abase depending on when you personally come for the claim.
They also told us that the only problem they are facing right now is that some unscrupulous elements are using this project as an avenue to Scam innocent people off their hard earned money by impersonating the Executive Governor and the Central Bank office.
[blah blah blah, huge sums of money, blah blah blah]
Should in case you need any more information in regards to this notification, feel free to get back to us so that we can brief you more as well are here to guide you during and after this project has been completely perfected and you have received your contract fund as stated.
Thank you very much for your anticipated co-operation in advance as we earnestly await your urgent response to this matter.
Best Regards,
ROBERT SWAN MUELLER III
My response:
Dear Director Mueller:
Many thanks for your kind e-mail. I'm pleased that the FBI is concerned with my present state of mind and health. This greeting works so much better than crashing through doors shouting, "Hands up!" And I'm pleased to see that you're taking some time out of your hunt for Osama bin Laden and other baddies to look into my personal banking transactions. It's such a pleasure to see my tax dollars so well spent.
At first I was suspicious of your return e-mail address. It wasn't the standard fbi.gov address, but I think I understand. You're using a special e-mail address to avoid being spammed by al Qaeda. I mean, who needs an inbox full of e-mails that all start with "Dear Infidel Running Dog …" and the like? I'm pleased that the FBI is being so smart about these things -- another good use of my tax money. Don't worry: your secret is safe with me!
I'm guessing you're being deliberately vague about those "other relevant Investigation Agencies here in the United States of America" for the same reason. I'm sure they all have super-double-top-secret classification, so why should a peon such as myself know exactly who they are. You can never be too careful.
Thanks for the good news about my pending transaction with the Central Bank of Nigeria. I'm pleased to hear that it is "100% genuine and hitch free from all facet." There's nothing more annoying than a facet holding up a transaction with an institution that is otherwise a paragon of virtue and trustworthiness such as the Central Bank of Nigeria. And if Chukwuma Soludo is who I think he is, we were good beer-drinking buddies back in the day. Boy, could he knock 'em back! Get a few beers in him and he'd tell these amazing stories about gullible Americans. He's such a kidder, that Chukwuma! But I digress. If he's today anything like he was back then, I'm sure my impending riches are truly in safe hands.
Oh, and thanks for the warning about Scams. (Capitalized, no less! I'm guessing those are worse than your garden-variety scams.) Who'd have guessed it? After all, I'm dealing with the Central Bank of Nigeria! They're the Gibraltar of the banking world! What's the world coming to if you can't trust a financier from Nigeria? The Swiss got nothing on them!
Which is all to say, I'm looking forward to my transaction being "completely perfected." I already have a nice, fire-engine-red Porsche all picked out. Thanks!
Warmly,
Tom Neven
PS. I noticed you've adopted British spelling, including all those superfluous u's. Good for you! I've always said you can never have too many u's. (In fact, my use of superfluous was an opportunity to max out this most excellent of letters.) Thanks again!
Not one to stop with just half the story, journalist and author Kay Hymowitz presents the other side of the "Child-Man in the Promised Land" problem in "The New Girl Order." The evidence Hymowitz presents is overwhelming: single young females a la Sex in the City are no longer a New York City phenomenon. They're everywhere. Hymowitz writes: Carrie Bradshaw is alive and well and living in Warsaw. Well, not just Warsaw. Conceived and raised in the United States, Carrie may still see New York as a spiritual home. But today you can find her in cities across Europe, Asia, and North America. Seek out the trendy shoe stores in Shanghai, Berlin, Singapore, Seoul, and Dublin, and you'll see crowds of single young females (SYFs) in their twenties and thirties, who spend their hours working their abs and their careers, sipping cocktails, dancing at clubs, and (yawn) talking about relationships. Sex and the City has gone global; the SYF world is now flat.
Is this just the latest example of American cultural imperialism? Or is it the triumph of planetary feminism? Neither. The globalization of the SYF reflects a series of stunning demographic and economic shifts that are pointing much of the world—with important exceptions, including Africa and most of the Middle East—toward a New Girl Order. It's a man's world, James Brown always reminded us. But if these trends continue, not so much.
Hymowitz's research reveals three drivers of this rise of SFYs: 1) women are delaying marriage and childbearing, 2) women are looking for careers, not jobs, and pursuing the degrees that make that possible and 3) women are leaving home and moving to the city.
She describes the shift in the landscape this way: Combine these trends—delayed marriage, expanded higher education and labor-force participation, urbanization—add a global media and some disposable income, and voilà: an international lifestyle is born. One of its defining characteristics is long hours of office work, often in quasi-creative fields like media, fashion, communications, and design—areas in which the number of careers has exploded in the global economy over the past few decades. The lifestyle also means whole new realms of leisure and consumption, often enjoyed with a group of close girlfriends: trendy cafés and bars serving sweetish coffee concoctions and cocktails; fancy boutiques, malls, and emporiums hawking cosmetics, handbags, shoes, and $100-plus buttock-hugging jeans; gyms for toning and male-watching; ski resorts and beach hotels; and, everywhere, the frustrating hunt for a boyfriend and, though it's an ever more vexing subject, a husband.
So what does it all mean? "There's much to admire in the New Girl Order," she says, "but as with any momentous social change, the New Girl Order comes with costs -- in this case, profound ones." Her conclusions are mostly economic; showing the logical outcome of so little marriage and low fertility to be an initial surge in prosperity, followed by dramatic downturns. "Economies will plunge in ways that will be extremely difficult to manage," she says, "and that, ironically, will likely spell the SYF lifestyle's demise. As Philip Longman explains in his important book The Empty Cradle, dramatic declines in fertility rates equal aging and eventually shriveling populations."
But it's not just money that matters. She hints at a deeper concern when she notes that by and large, single American women still want to get married and have babies, due in part to the influence of religion. What remains to be seen is if a lifestyle so focused on earning, spending and partying will eventually lead to marriage and family. And if it does, what those marriages and families will be like.
We often get grief whenever we talk about an article or stat documenting trends among young adults. Our readers often say it's not fair for us to assume that general trends are also true of the Christian sub-set of the population. And that, indeed, should be true. Christians are supposed to be different and various studies by Barna and other Christian researchers do prove that Christians don't neatly parallel a general audience -- although they've found the margin of distinction shrinking in recent years.
It was through this lens that I read an important new article by Kay Hymowitz in City Journal titled Child-Man in the Promised Land. This is not a flattering description of today's young men. Kay makes the point that the values of Maxim magazine that set the standard for so many men aren't even as refined as the values Playboy held out for earlier generations. A core observation appears halfway through the article: We can argue endlessly about whether "masculinity" is natural or constructed—whether men are innately promiscuous, restless, and slobby, or socialized to be that way—but there's no denying the lesson of today's media marketplace: give young men a choice between serious drama on the one hand, and Victoria's Secret models, battling cyborgs, exploding toilets, and the NFL on the other, and it's the models, cyborgs, toilets, and football by a mile. For whatever reason, adolescence appears to be the young man's default state, proving what anthropologists have discovered in cultures everywhere: it is marriage and children that turn boys into men. Now that the SYM can put off family into the hazily distant future, he can—and will—try to stay a child-man. Yesterday's paterfamilias or Levittown dad may have sought to escape the duties of manhood through fantasies of adventures at sea, pinups, or sublimated war on the football field, but there was considerable social pressure for him to be a mensch. Not only is no one asking that today's twenty- or thirtysomething become a responsible husband and father—that is, grow up—but a freewheeling marketplace gives him everything that he needs to settle down in pig’s heaven indefinitely.
Getting back to your comments to us that Christian men shouldn't be judged by general observations, my preference is to believe there is a subset of Christian men who are living transformed lives distinguished from the single young men this article spotlights.
Is that your experience? Are you living/seeing distinctive lives from the "Child-Men" of this article?
The gift of singleness, as it were, has subtle associations with the intricacies of both climate change and certain individuals' concern over social justice. Some might argue that there's merely a correlation, with no causation, but both global warming theorists and progressive activists would disagree. In fact, because some marry in their teens, and others marry in their mid- to late-30s, the consequences are much more dire -- especially for those who've chosen to "date" rather than "court." And especially especially among the "marriage mandate" crowd. Factoring in to the entire equation is the polemical political talk coming from both the liberal wing of the Democrat(ic) party (which some would associate with Nazism) and the far right wing of the Republic(an) party (which some would associate with Nazism). The introduction of children, whether intramarital or extramarital, further complicate the matter. As do aliens, both illegal and extraterrestrial, some of whom support the practice of capital punishment in certain instances. And puppies.
Discuss.
Do single men have an obligation to pursue the single women in their church? And do single women have an obligation to say yes? Or at least to seriously consider all offers?
These are some of the questions we grapple with in the inaugural episode of The Boundless Show, our weekly audio companion to the Boundless Webzine.
The Boundless team has been working for months finding voices and tweaking formats in order to leverage a growing, on-demand media channel -- podcasting. And we think we've landed on just the right mix.
Our segments include a brief chat session, a roundtable discussion, a look at culture, a personal story, and answers to questions from our readers (and soon, our listeners). All the segments will be hosted by Lisa Anderson, Focus on the Family's director of public and media relations who's been known to speak at national conferences wearing tall boots and a skull T-shirt.
In this first episode, all the music you hear is from Jeff Caylor's latest album, "Okay."
Candice Watters will be joining us each week to provide her valuable insights. She'll also be a regular in the question and answer session. Steve, Ted, and I are consistent contributors to the show's roundtable and will be occasional voices in the other features.
We'll tackle the hard stuff, answer the tough questions and have fun while doing it. Hopefully you'll have fun, too.
The show is available on iTunes. We also have an RSS feed set up for it.
There are many stories of mothers choosing life for their babies; Lorraine Allard is just one of them. According to FoxNews, the 33-year-old Allard learned that she had advanced liver cancer when she was four months pregnant with her fourth child. Allard, of St. Olaves in the U.K., had a choice: Delay treatment to save her baby, or terminate the pregnancy to save herself.
She chose the former, waiting until the fetus was viable before scheduling a Caesarean section.
"If I am going to die, my baby is going to live," Allard told her husband, Martyn, according to the [Daily] Mail.
Two months after giving birth to her son, Liam, Allard died.
Perhaps what is heartening about this story isn't only that Allard chose life for her baby, but that this article was at the top of the "most read" list yesterday. In our basic nature, we humans cherish life. And we acknowledge the beauty of a mother's sacrifice for her child. In the words of Allard's husband: "Lorraine was positive all the way through," Martyn Allard told the paper. "She had strength for both of us. I can't begin to describe how brave she was. Towards the end we knew things weren't going well, but she was overjoyed that she had given life to Liam."
I really liked Gary Thomas's Boundless article today, titled "Why I'm a Big Fan of Hell." In it, Thomas takes on those who would whitewash Hell out of the Christian message: "Attacking hell, though popular and seemingly compassionate, is not a parlor game; it is a full frontal assault on God's goodness, sovereignty, lordship and love."
It reminded me of something I discovered a few months ago: The young reader Bible that my daughter and I read each night has no mention of Hell or Satan. It took me a couple of times through the entire thing, which is a good 437 pages, to realize it. But as we read the last story, "Jesus is Coming," one night and did our little "we just read through the Bible" happy dance, it hit me. No hell. No Satan.
Huh, I thought. Too scary? No, that can't be it, because there are still some seriously disturbing stories included: Cain and Abel, Abraham almost sacrificing Isaac, Joseph's brothers and the crucifixion. Maybe, I thought then, it's because this Bible is in "story" format and skips straight from the events of Acts to Revelation. But what about the 40 days of temptation--surely that's a good story if there ever was one?
Yes, Satan is scary. But wouldn't that be a great opportunity to talk about how God reigns, is the all-powerful One and how we already know how the story ends? There's a lion out there who would sooner devour my daughter than look at her. I think she needs to know that.
When I wrote about Heath Ledger's death this week, emotions ran high in the responses. Several of those commenting were concerned that I was presuming to know anything about Ledger's life or spiritual condition. One person wrote: So, Heath Ledger "hadn't yet discovered peace and hope and joy."? Suzanne, since these are your words, I wasn't aware that you were a close personal confidante of Mr. Ledger. In fact, I was under the impression that you didn't know him nor had you ever met him -- and, therefore, couldn't possibly know what he had felt in his 28 years of life, or even felt at his death (the cause of which is still undetermined). Which makes your declaration a rather off-putting bit of presumptuous speculation.
I am not attempting to belabor this story (although many of you made excellent points in the comments section), but this theme of, "Who are you to judge?" has arisen in many other posts. I don't understand why people get so irritated about judgments and assumptions. We are intelligent human beings, and whether we speak them or not, we are constantly drawing logical conclusions about the world around us. Yes, sometimes we're wrong, but many times we're right.
Of course, I do not know Ledger's heart. And I sincerely hope that he knew the Lord. However, certain details about Ledger's life invite certain assumptions about a potential lack of peace and hope.
God does not condemn believers for making these types of observations. David did it all the time. Consider Psalm 73: When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.
(vs. 16-20)
Perhaps what I am being accused of is making assumptions about someone else's spiritual state and somehow attempting to elevate myself by doing that. I assure you, that is not my intention. David continues: When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
(vs. 21-23)
I recognize that I am a soul in need of God's mercy, too. Without Him I have no hope or peace. But David was not shy about calling things the way he saw them. And we don't see God responding, "David, who are you to call those people wicked? How can you know their final destiny? How dare you say that I will despise them?"
It's very comfortable to avoid making judgments about anyone; however, I wonder if those judgments might inspire us to recognize the needs of those who don't know God. Refusing to ever make assumptions about people's spiritual condition will render us unconcerned, useless bystanders. If I end up being wrong about someone's spiritual lack, praise the Lord! But if I'm motivated to help someone because I believe he or she is lost, that is a high calling.
John Fuller (who happens to be both a friend and vice president of Focus on the Family's Audio and New Media division) wrote a powerful blog post a few days ago reflecting on a beautiful life that's come to a close for now.
Just as God shined through the young girl's helplessness, Christ has regarded my own helpless estate ... and shed His own blood for my soul....
He's given me permission to re-post it in its entirety below....
* * *
It was a cold and wintery Colorado afternoon, although the sun did hang in the partly cloudy sky. Traffic on the interstate buzzed by, oblivious to the proceeding inside the church. The only odd thing someone might have noticed was the crowded parking lot -- not typical for a Monday.
There were more people present for this memorial service than usually occupy the sanctuary. The number of folks gathered spoke something to me of how her life had touched so many in just a few short years.
We came together to ... what? Pay tribute to a life well lived? Celebrate the "home going" of a saint? Honor the family? Share their grief? It wasn't apparent, even as we entered the great room. There was a somber tone, a conspicuous quiet, a lack of the usual laughter and conversation that takes place before a service.
The video screen at the front showed pictures of the girl, at various stages of life. Shots of her at the hospital, obviously physically afflicted in some way. There she is with her doting mother. Now she is a toddler being hugged by a relative. And the wheelchair ... an ever-present part of her life. She spent all her years confined to a bed or in that wheelchair.
Katie suffered a particularly cruel sort of physical condition. Severely affected, she was very small and most fragile. Her head fell to one side, her eyesight unfocused on anything close ... she seemed to be gazing off at something, someone in the far distance. She communicated with a simple smile, or by an utterance in an unknown dialect ... sometimes grunting or groaning in such a way as to seem in agony. Those close to Katie knew her communications. They could tell in some way what it was she wanted them to know: her joy at someone's kindness, or her displeasure at the country music being played on the radio.
Unable to do anything on her own, she was caught in a body that wouldn't work as God intended the body to work. Not in a way our society understands or values. It would be easy to look away, to ignore the figure there in the chair, to wish she would not intrude into one's comfort zone. Katie's humanness pushed through her broken frame and confronted everyone with the courage to look closely at her, to talk to her, to stroke her. This much was clear by the dozen or more who shared in the memorial service.
The pastor opened up the time together, indicating that this was to be a time of reflection upon who she was and what Katie meant to us. As individuals shared, it was apparent that this girl who lived into her teens, about 15 years longer than doctors predicted at her birth, possessed the fullness of humanity, and of God's beautiful design. She had touched many, many people. Tears were shed, some smiles and even a bit of laughter.
Many paid homage to her parents, who with undying hope and fathomless love tended to her needs and refused to hide her away. They included Katie in their family routines and events, which included trips to the store shopping, church services and even the burrito place. They deserved the kind words, the affirmation. They have been examples of how to parent a special child, how to offer unconditional love, how to honor the Lord's handiwork, even when we don't understand it.
One comment that stood out, which sounded out a loud and eternal truth to me, was something to the effect of, "God shined through her helplessness." Oh yes. That seems so True to me. My soul said, "Learn a lesson here. Don't regale in your accomplishments, your abilities, your successes. Take a good hard look at your values and see what God considers valuable ... a life of helplessness, a life which can be used to reflect His glory and His love. Don't think for a moment that He needs anything you can offer in order to bring glory to Himself. On the contrary, He is best honored in our weakness and helplessness."
Another thing that struck me. "She didn't own anything." Of course not. Few 15 year-olds have much in the way of material things. But this girl had even less than most. She couldn't hold onto a book, a special blanket of coat, a prized stuffed animal. She had nothing to speak of. And yet, look around the sanctuary and see how God took her lack of possessions and touched so many through her. How often do I feel a need for things -- things to signal my success, or my belonging, or my desire for earthly security and well-being.
And then we sang. And the thoughts became clearer.
"Though Satan should buffet,
tho' trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
It is well with my soul ..."
I cried at the truth of that lyric, newly embraced by my heart and mind. Lord, let me not shy away from my helplessness, let me not get stuck in my own distorted priorities, let me not get sucked into a world which is upside down in its values. Let me instead consider all that You have done for me, all that You seek to do -- and all You already do, in spite of my interferences and protestations. Your ways are not my ways, they are higher and more noble than anything I might dare to think of or embrace. Lord, let me say, with the saint of so long ago, "it is well with my soul" -- even when my flesh struggles and refuses to see or believe it to be so.
And the overriding thought that melancholy Monday: life is sacred. All life is given by God and deserves our respect and love, from the cradle to the grave.
Not only the strong are made in God's image, the weak are as well. That's what Katie would have said.
Actually, that IS what Katie said for her entire 15 years.
For the first time in 15 years, teen pregnancy is on the rise. According to the report on abcnews.com, Despite millions spent on ad campaigns and abstinence-only programs, for the first time in 15 years the teen birthrate rose, according to government statistics for 2005 to 2006, the most recent numbers available. That translates to 750,000 women who have become pregnant at least once before age 20.
How can this be? 18-year-old expectant mom, Teka Steward, a Young Life member, mission-trip participant and self-described “goody two shoes,” said, "It was just kind of an image and then temptations of doing stuff.”
Steward concludes, "I'm a regular teen. I fall sometimes ... all the times."
At least she understands that sex before marriage and unwed pregnancy is "falling." Given the avalanche of sexual information teens get in school, most of it "how-to" in nature, this stat really shouldn't surprise.
But, it does. "In the last two decades, tweens and teens have been inundated with info and programs about sex and protecting themselves in a post-HIV world," says the story. "Some wonder how a generation with access to so much information and so many contraceptives, unlike previous ones, can have a higher rate of pregnancies."
Huh.
The news story links readers looking for more information and help to the teenpregnancy.org website. According to the site, "The goal of the National Campaign is to reduce the rate of teen pregnancy and unplanned pregnancy in young adults by one-third between 2006 and 2015."
It's a reminder that until the goal is to reduce the rate of pregnancy among unmarried women, whatever age they are, any "progress" will be hollow. Yes, it's better when babies have mothers who are done with high school and no longer spending their weekends cheer leading. But without the support of a stable family, including a mom and a dad, babies suffer.
And women who mess up the order of what used to be the life script for success –- first love, then marriage, then baby in the baby carriage –- are often consigned to a life of poverty and hardship.
In "Confessions of a Teenage Mom," Bethany Torode sets the record straight, Despite what you may read in the papers or hear on the nightly news, America does not have a "teen pregnancy crisis." In reality, we have a crisis of children born outside of marriage -- to parents of all ages and classes, from impoverished teenagers to fifty-year-old movie stars, who want the fun of sex without the responsibilities of marriage. We have a crisis of maturity and morality.
Yes, I am among those contributing to the teen pregnancy rate. [But I am married.] I would encourage other responsible young Christians in their late teens and early twenties to do the same. Women, these are the best years of your life to have a baby (ages 18-to-27 are when your body is at its peak for childbearing, and having your first child during these years significantly reduces your risk of breast cancer). Men, why not channel your youth and energy into something with profound eternal value?
I do hope the ranks of pregnant teens can, in the words of 18-year-old mom Ashley Chapman, "make new statistics." For their own sake and the sake of their babies. Sadly, it's not that easy. Until the "adults" who think it's a good idea to fill teens' minds with visions of sex (years out from when most of them will marry) start connecting the dots, it's likely wishful thinking.
Jesus is my Savior, my Lord. He was present at creation, and even before creation He enjoyed the fellowship of the Trinity. He is from everlasting to everlasting. Eternal. He is my destination, my heaven, and provides meaning in all the little things and big things that make up my life. He holds both the whole world and the tiny tiny baby in His hands.
But He's not all I need.
I need a bit of food every once in a while. I need an occasional glass of water or tomato juice. I need some sort of vehicle to get me from my home to where I work. I need my Nord Electro and Korg Triton for this weekend's worship service. I need this computer keyboard that I'm clicking away at in order to convey my thoughts to you. I've come to need my wife and the love of my children. I need the fellowship of the men at church. I need some sleep.
This "Jesus is all I need" sentiment sounds pleasant enough. But it's meaningless. It's sloppy sophomoric theology. I think it's even dangerous. If Jesus is all you need, then why pursue education? Why get a job? Why hang out with your friends from church?
And why pursue marriage, since it's incompatible with the conviction that ... Jesus is all you need?
Yes, my very being is held together by Christ. And yes, heaven will have no need of things we currently need, such as incandescent light bulbs, because "the glory of God gives it light."
The thing is, though, as long as I'm reliant on oxygen, I need a good deal more than Jesus. I'm grateful for His providence as I pursue meeting those needs.
A couple of weeks ago, Ted mentioned that the makers of "Facing the Giants" were making a new movie called "Fireproof." This week, a group of people from Focus on the Family had the opportunity to see some scenes from that movie. Stephen Kendrick and Jim McBride came out representing the team from Sherwood Baptist (in Albany, GA) who play dual roles as church leaders and filmakers.
Stephen explained that as the team prayed about what kind of story to tell after "Facing the Giants," they felt drawn to a story about marriage including the sub-plot of a husband's struggle with pornography. He explained that this wasn't a topic they necessarily wanted to do but one that they've grown to believe was the best one to take on.
And from the scenes they showed us, they are telling the story well. The success of "Facing the Giants" opened the doors for more support (both from volunteers and professionals) and that support shows in a look and feel that is another step up from the last film.
One of the most obvious aspects of that additional support is the contribution Kirk Cameron makes in the lead role. He plays the part of Caleb, a fireman with a failing marriage, and brings much believability and strength to the story.
What I'm most encouraged about with the film is that it puts the issues of pornography and marital struggles on the big screen in a way that can't help but move many in the audience to reflect on their own relationships and Internet habits.
You'll be hearing more from Focus on the Family in the future about this promising film (that is aiming for an August 2008 release). From the sneak peek, however, I think it's fair to say that the little church with the big dream of using film to reach the world is making another good vehicle to do just that.
To find out more, you can visit the "Fireproof" Website.
 It's been many months in the making. Long hours praying and pondering about what to include, and how best to say it. Receiving input from family and friends. Typing and re-typing deep into the night after the kids are in bed and early in the morning before the kids are up.
The galleys arrive, and more last-minute tweaking. Dr. Albert Mohler writes a glowing forward to the book. And finally ... the book that Boundless founder Candice Watters has been pouring her life into -- Get Married: What Women Can Do to Help it Happen -- is ready for you to read.
It's already received very favorable reviews: Refreshing! Practical! Encouraging! I'm confident you'll find the book to be those things and more.
 We wanted to do something special for Boundless readers, so we asked Candice to come in and sign some copies. Which, of course, she did. We had 112 of these signed copies on Tuesday; today we've only got 42 left. If you place order #43, you'll get one powerful read, but the title page will merely have a title on it. No sig. Let me encourage you to not delay placing your order.
Here's the link to get the book. After you've read it, let us know what you think!
And whether you get the book or not, you're free to join Candice's hip new social network just for single Christian women: Women Praying Boldly.
Oh, I almost forgot. We published an excerpt from the book earlier this week on Boundless: "Marriage: An Idol?" Now there's a provocative title.
Yesterday, on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, I read a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute reporting that one in five women having abortions claim to be born again or Evangelical Christians.
If that's correct, that would man that this last year over two hundred thousand of our Christian sisters had an abortion. Even if the number were half that, that is still a staggering number of women in crisis. It made me think, what must it be like to hear a celebration of the Sanctity of Human Life knowing that you had an abortion? All I can imagine is that it must be extraordinarily painful.
This statistic helped to open my eyes. It's easy to forget -- especially since we don't talk about it much -- that there are post-abortive women in our churches, our Bible studies, our singles groups and, probably, reading this blog. Earlier this month, Focus on the Family issued a challenge to Christians to reach out to both post-abortive women and those at risk of an abortion.
"Many women choose abortion out of fear or a perceived lack of support, and the abortion industry is capitalizing on a woman's vulnerability by selling her an abortion at the most challenging time in her life," said Kim Conroy, the Sanctity of Human Life Director for Focus on the Family. "Justice, mercy and compassion must be at the forefront of the conversation if we truly desire to extend healing to the women in our churches affected by abortion -- both those who've experienced it and those who are right now contemplating it."
Justice, mercy and compassion. That's a challenge that I needed. What will I do this year to reach out to the post-abortive and at-risk women around me?
If you have had an abortion, or know someone who has, and want to learn more about post-abortion syndrome, you can go to troubledwith.com. If you'd like to talk to a Focus on the Family counselor, you can call 1-800-A-FAMILY toll free.
Denise's recent blog on the sanctity of human life covered a lot of bases when it comes to abortion and adoption. But as a lot of people noted, the concept of the sanctity of human life involves other issues, too. Boundless has several times tackled the issue of war here and here, and Focus on the Family has plenty to say on assisted suicide and euthanasia, particularly here.
The death penalty, however, seems to be less clear-cut for many people, and in fact Focus on the Family takes no position on it. Can one be pro-life and still support capital punishment? Isn't the taking of human life always wrong? I'll try to tackle some of these questions, but I must stress upfront that these are my personal opinions and not necessarily those of Focus on the Family or Boundless.
Many opponents of capital punishment cite the Sixth Commandment as prohibiting the death penalty, quoting it as, "You shall not kill." But if that's what it really says, then God would contradict himself, since there are many places throughout Scripture where His people are ordered to kill. In fact, the better translation is, "You shall not murder." And the difference between kill and murder is key to the discussion. Killing can be justified for a number of reasons, including self-defense or just war. Murder can never be justified because it is, by definition, the unjust taking of an innocent human life.
The distinction is important, because we are beings with the ability to reason morally. We never accuse animals of murder, even if they kill a human, because we recognize that animals do not have this ability. (We might still kill the animal after the fact, but that’s done for practical reasons, not moral. We're protecting ourselves from an animal that has tasted human blood and might want more; we’re not "punishing" the animal.)
A better, more definitive passage in Scripture dealing with the death penalty is Genesis 9:6: Whoever sheds the blood of man,
by man shall his blood be shed;
for in the image of God
has God made man.
Note that this is the only command in Scripture that is predicated on the fact that man is created in God's image. Old Testament scholar Walter Kaiser explains: It was because humans are made in the image of God that capital punishment for first degree murder became a perpetual obligation. To kill a person was tantamount to killing God in effigy. That murderer's life was owed to God; not to society, not to the grieving loved ones, and not even as a preventative measure for more crimes of a similar nature.
In effect, the death penalty is pro-life because it affirms the value of the life of the victim, a being created in God's image, and because it also affirms the value of the murderer as a human with free moral agency. That's why we make exceptions for people who might not have been able to exercise such agency, e.g., the mentally retarded or children. So heinous is the crime of murdering a being created in God's image that only one punishment will do: death. A life for a life.
Objection: Doesn’t God say it is His place to avenge?
Yes, but when it comes to this passage in Genesis, it's clear that the punishment for murder is not to be some future act by God; it is to be carried out by man ("by man shall his blood be shed," my emphasis). The principle is carried through to the New Testament, too, which makes it clear that it is the state's duty to punish evildoers, not individuals. This passage in Romans precludes any appeal to personal vengeance or vigilantism. It is for the state to punish, not individuals.
Objection: The death penalty doesn’t deter.
Well, yes and no. It doesn't deter crime in the sense that some people will continue to murder, often in the heat of the moment. Indeed, in 18th century England the punishment for pickpockets was to be hanged. So who did we find working the crowds at the public hanging? Pickpockets. But in another sense, it does deter in that the executed murderer will not be around to murder someone else. (Check out how many times people in prison are murdered, or paroled murderers kill again.)
But the more pertinent response to that objection is, So what? Prison doesn't deter drug dealing, car theft, or any number of other things, yet we see no one advocating that we do away with prison. More important, you punish people for one reason and one reason only: Because they deserve it. (Of course, if deterrence should come about, it's only a beneficial side effect; it should never be the primary purpose.)
It's the principle of retributive justice. Retributive justice is part of God's nature, and it's a natural response to wrongdoing. We see God's anger burn against injustice, and we, too, have an instinctive reaction to injustice, particularly murder. That's because we're made in God's image and share that attribute. Of course, as sinful humans our response might be wrong, but just as anger in and of itself is not sinful, the instinct for retributive justice is also not in and of itself sinful.
Objection: But there were a lot of things in the Old Testament that required the death penalty, including kidnapping, adultery and homosexual acts.
Yes, but with the exception of first-degree murder,every one of these punishments allowed for a form of substitutionary payment or commutation, and as Christians we say that Christ fulfilled the Old Testament law and was our substitutionary payment. But the passage in Romans 13 makes clear that the state still carries the sword -- an instrument of death.
Objection: But shouldn’t we forgive those who do wrong against us?
Certainly, and there are instances of people forgiving a killer, and that's admirable. But just as the state forbids capital punishment to individuals, the power of forgiveness does not rest solely with the individual. The state has a duty to punish wrongdoers. I could personally forgive the man who, say, stole my car, but nobody would then advocate letting him out of jail for that reason.
Objection: But we know that innocent men have been freed from death row because later DNA evidence has exonerated them.
Yes, and this is the strongest objection of all. And it's why I think capital punishment should be applied very carefully. I believe the principle behind the death penalty is strong, just and ultimately pro-life, but I also believe that because we are fallible, we should be extremely careful in its application. We should always err on the side of life. But I also believe that when the guilt of the accused is without doubt, it is an abomination that he is allowed to live. There's something wrong with the fact that Charles Manson remains alive, supported by the taxpayers of California, while his victims have been moldering in their graves for nearly 40 years now.
It is out of my deep respect for human life, created in God's image, that I think the only just punishment for a cold-blooded murder is that that life be avenged, as God commands.
 Someone suggested that I blog about this article: Russian scientist says Earth could soon face new Ice Age.
It would be tempting to do so, to quote from the head of a space research lab at the Pulkovo observatory in St. Petersburg, who said that in 2008, global temperatures would drop slightly, rather than rise, due to unprecedentedly low solar radiation in the past 30 years, and would continue decreasing even if industrial emissions of carbon dioxide reach record levels.
The scientist explained, "By the mid-21st century the planet will face another Little Ice Age, similar to the Maunder Minimum, because the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth has been constantly decreasing since the 1990s and will reach its minimum approximately in 2041."
The person suggesting I blog on this alerted me to the final paragraph of the article: "Mankind will face serious economic, social, and demographic consequences of the coming Ice Age because it will directly affect more than 80% of the earth's population, the scientist concluded."
But I've decided not to blog on it. The so-called "scientist" doesn't have his Ph.D. in Global Climatology, unlike climate change spokesman Al Gore, and so is unqualified to speak on this issue. He likely receives his funding from Big Oil, and so is bound to be unethically deferential to their interests. His views differ from the scientific consensus on climate change. And he speaks Russian, and is therefore unable to communicate clearly; something likely was messed up in the translation.
So instead, I'm blogging on cute, fuzzy puppies. I like puppies. Except when they exhale CO2, of course.
USAToday.com reports on a survey of 301 business leaders about the preparedness of college graduates entering the work force. And it seems they're giving them a failing grade. Aptitude is important, they say, but what they really want is for colleges to help students apply what they've learned in real-world settings. Forget transcripts, multiple-choice tests or institutional scores. The surveyed business leaders want faculty assessment of internships, senior projects or community-based work.
"Too many policymakers and educational leaders are focused on the tests rather than on what is really important: whether students are learning what they need to know," says Roberts Jones, president of Education & Workforce Policy, a consulting firm based in Alexandria, Va.
The "what they need to know" is never really spelled out in the article. They just know they're not getting it. But I think it has something to do with working well with others and demonstrating an ability to get the job done. As USAToday notes, Carol Geary Schneider, President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, said that colleges and universities must look for new ways to demonstrate student success.
Last year, I blogged about the importance of on-the-job mentors for graduates entering the work force and offered some tips based on my personal experience. But I'd be interested in hearing from our readers who've completed internships or just entered the job force on what they learned from their "real world experience."
My friend came over for dinner last night, and we were talking about the death of actor Heath Ledger. He was just about our age. "It actually really threw me for a loop," my friend said.
"Me too," I said. "I shed a tear."
Maybe we felt like we knew him because his films have been part of our lives for the past 10 years and he was our peer. Ledger's death is being called accidental, but he certainly had experienced pain in his personal life. Today on the radio, the DJ was speculating that Ledger was depressed over his split with actress Michelle Williams, his ex-fiancée with whom he has a daughter, and tormented by the psychopathic Joker character he was playing in the upcoming Batman movie. Whatever the facts of his death, it seems Ledger -- like many in Hollywood -- was unhappy.
Perhaps the sadder thing is Ledger's empty legacy. He was a talented actor. The headlines scream his claim to fame: "'Brokeback Mountain' actor dies at 28." He will be best remembered for his role in a controversial film about gay cowboys.
I felt a similar sadness when Anna Nicole died about a year ago. Denise wrote an excellent blog about that event. In it, she says: I was surprised and saddened to hear of Anna Nicole's death, mainly because her life seemed so tragic. She will probably be remembered as someone who made poor decisions and flaunted them in public -- not the legacy most people want to leave behind.
Something like this makes me realize the humanity behind all of the people we see on television and in the tabloids everyday. If I ever pay attention to them, it's usually only to be offended by their antics or to crack jokes at their expense. But when someone like Anna Nicole -- who was obviously so lost -- dies, reality hits. These are real people with real problems, real hurts, real insecurities, and most importantly, real souls.
And Ledger was a soul just one year younger than I. A man with a daughter. A person who hadn't yet discovered peace and hope and joy. And maybe that's why I feel the tragedy so keenly even though I never met him. When people my age die, it is a wake-up call. For this one, high-profile example of pain, there are thousands of others. Let's not forget about them.
Recently my walk with God has been ... dry. I've lacked excitement, joy and hope. I think part of it has to do with the fact that 2007 was a somewhat difficult year for me, and it has made me kind of numb to everything. Last week our department had an offsite and most of it was spent in personal prayer. Honestly, it was difficult for me to get into, but once I did, the Lord did some work on my heart -- reminding me that He is good, even when I don't feel it.
I've been reading the Screwtape Letters, and in it, Screwtape the demon points out that sometimes God uses the difficult, dry times as a way to bring us closer to Himself: Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.
We can see this throughout Scripture in Job's story, Paul's trials, Jesus' suffering, and so on. The dark times in life are used by God to "make us mature and complete" (James 1:4).
Screwtape goes on to say: He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys (emphasis mine).
It is during the dry times that our faith is really tested. Do I really believe what I say I do about God and who He is? Even when I don't feel hopeful, do I trust that He is my strength and my shield -- that He brings my joy?
I recently memorized Ezekiel 37:1-14 and sometimes I repeat it to myself, even when I don't feel the hope in the words. But I know they are true because He is.
So, for any of you who are just not feeling much for God lately -- press on. He is good and His love endures forever. Make the choice to obey, to continue, to seek Him out. In the end, it'll definitely be worth it.
Today's Washington Post praises RU-486 for transforming abortion in America and offers its rise as "good news" in light of a competing report that the number of abortions are at their lowest since 1976. According to the Post, At a time when the overall number of abortions has been steadily declining, RU-486-induced abortions have been rising by 22 percent a year and now account for 14 percent of the total -- and more than one in five early abortions performed by the ninth week of pregnancy.
In contrast, the National Right to Life reports, Abortions dropped a stunning 8% between 2000 and 2005, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI). This most encouraging news went hand-in-hand with a decrease in the abortion rate and abortion ratio.
... AGI reports that there were 1,206,200 abortions performed in the U.S. in 2005, the lowest annual figure in nearly thirty years, and down nearly 25% from their high of 1.6 million in 1990. Abortion rates and ratios were also down to their lowest levels since 1974, strongly indicating pregnant women and the babies' fathers are more likely to choose life.
This is good news, says NRL, "This one-two-three development is a testimony to the impact of pro-life education, outreach, and the passage of state laws that require women be given a chance to reflect before they abort their unborn children."
And the declining abortion ratio is evidence of the pro-life message's success, even given the rise in the use of RU-486. NRL explains, Both the number of abortions and the abortion rate can be affected by any factor that reduces the overall numbers of pregnancies, whether it is family planning, abstinence, or disease. Not so with the abortion ratio.
The abortion ratio deals specifically with those women who already are pregnant. It asks this question: for every 100 pregnancies, how many end in a live birth and how many end in abortion? (Miscarriages are not factored in).
According to AGI, the abortion ratio has substantially declined. AGI reports that in 2005, out of every 100 pregnancies ending in birth or abortion, 22.4 ended in abortions. By contrast, in 1983, AGI estimated the ratio to be 30.4. That ratio stayed above 25 from 1976 through 1998.
Undoubtedly the shift in public opinion is at the heart of the increase in the number of pregnancies that end in live births. We owe a great debt to all the faithful pro-life workers who have braved harsh Washington winters to march on the Capitol and stand, shivering, in defense of the unborn. Today as the annual March for Life takes place in Washington, D.C., our prayers are with you and our hope is increased. May the Author of Life bless your efforts and Himself, protect the unborn.
So here's something I've been thinking about recently: Animals -- what's their deal?!
It started because we've been reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn in my Bible study. He has a Q&A section, and in it, he addresses whether or not animals will be in heaven. Alcorn points out passages in Isaiah that speak of specific animals finally being at peace with one another in heaven. There are passages in Revelation that speak of animals as well. I'm fairly convinced that there will be animals around on the New Earth -- I have no reason to think there wouldn't be.
The interesting thing for me has been realizing the importance of animals to God. Now, I'm not a big animal person -- I never had any pets when I was growing up, so I think I just lack an appreciation for animals. But after reading through some Scripture passages, I think they may be a beautiful part of God's creation that I've ignored.
First of all, God specifically saves the animals during the flood. And then -- this is crazy -- He includes the animals when He makes His covenant with Noah after the flood. If you take a look at Genesis 9:8-17, you'll see that when God promises never to flood the earth again, He makes the promise with all living creatures: Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you -- the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you -- every living creature on earth."
So, God makes a covenant with Noah and his sons -- and with the animals. I also find it interesting that when God finally answers Job's lament, He goes on and on and on about -- animals. He mentions the animals He's created, how He takes care of them, how He counts the months until the doe gives birth -- it continues for a few chapters.
One more tangent -- did animals speak before the Fall? The serpent in the Garden of Eden is chatting it up with Eve, and she doesn't seem to be surprised. Also, if you read the story of Balaam and his donkey, it says that the angel of the Lord "opened his mouth" -- as if it's been closed for the time being. (That story is really funny to me, by the way. The donkey starts talking with a bunch of attitude about Balaam beating him even though he's always been a good donkey. It reminds me of Shrek.)
All of this to say, that I've recently begin to wonder about how I should think of animals. All of God's creation is important (humans being the most valued by God, since we're made in His image), and perhaps I should be more conscientious about the way I treat what He's created. We've been given dominion over the animals, but should I consider the way the animals I eat are treated before they die? (Chipotle serves free-range meat -- good excuse to eat there more often!)
Anyway -- I've not made any life-changing decisions or anything, but I think all of this is interesting. Throughout the Bible, we can see how God really cares for all that He has made. And maybe I could do a better job of doing the same.
In "A Hole in Our Holism," CT writer Stan Guthrie tackles the issue of Christians balancing social consciousness and evangelism. He points out that the late D. James Kennedy, who founded Evangelism Explosion (E.E.), clearly had a passion for winning souls. Guthrie asks: Do we who remain have that same commitment to good, old-fashioned soul-winning? Historian David Bebbington has identified four emphases of our evangelical movement: conversion, Christ's redeeming work, the Bible, and social engagement and evangelism. Right now our passion for social issues of all kinds is ascendant. And indeed, our old, narrow, world-rejecting fundamentalism needed a decent burial.
Today, it's great to see how much easier it is to draw crowds by organizing a conference dealing with race, anti-Semitism, abortion, Darfur, homosexual marriage, sex trafficking, AIDS, or environmental stewardship. Loving our neighbor via these issues is right and good. And our newfound activism also can help make the gospel we preach attractive to outsiders. As Jesus said, "[L]et your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
But it seems harder for us to get excited about evangelism. Our holistic mission has a hole in it -- not enough evangelism. For instance, while the American population continues growing, our own evangelical numbers barely tread water.
Guthrie considers whether there is a connection between our rediscovered social passion and our evangelistic indifference. Maybe it's just easier to join the social issues bandwagon. It's a whole lot better on the image. This isn't surprising. Evangelism -- calling sinful people to repent and follow Jesus -- is always a tougher sell than giving a cup of cold water in Jesus' name. As the apostle Paul said, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing."
A more troubling possibility is that we have forgotten the destiny of the lost, or don't truly believe it. But maybe our preference for social activism reveals a more basic problem: that we don't really believe our neighbor's deepest need is to be forgiven by and reconciled to God. We seem to think that if only he or she is fed, or lives in a society brimming with Christian principles, or sees our battles against the world's many injustices, then we will have discharged our responsibility to Christ.
Our greatest social duty is to imitate Christ in His mission stated in Luke 19:10: "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." Social consciousness is part of the seeking, but ultimately people must be saved. If saving people from eternal separation from God was Jesus' priority, it should also be ours.
I was 13 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. There was no Internet, no blogs, no 24-hour cable news. If you missed the broadcast news that Thursday evening -- you had only ABC, CBS and NBC to choose from -- you might not hear the news until you got the next morning's newspaper.
I stood there in the early morning dampness of April 5, 1968, folding newspapers for my paper route, every new paper to fold revealing the 72-point headline announcing King's assassination. I didn't know much about the man at the time except that a lot of adults in my world hated him. The pre-Disney Florida I grew up in was still very much a Southern state, and King was denounced as a Communist, a rabble-rouser and much worse. The names he was called in my presence would cause a sailor to blush. As I folded the newspapers that morning, I wondered what about the man caused so much hatred.
But it was a different world, then. Jim Crow laws had only recently gone by the wayside. My junior high school had been desegregated only the year before, and there was wary tension between the black and white students -- and more than one fight. The school buses leaving the school all tended to hit the same traffic light at the Granada Avenue bridge in Ormond Beach. One line of buses waited to turn left to cross the Intracoastal Waterway onto the peninsula where the white, middle-class students lived. The other line waited to go straight or turn right toward the depressed neighborhoods where the black students lived. That stoplight was a sometimes a war zone, with gobs of spit and sometimes books thrown between the two lines of buses as white and black students shouted epithets at each other. The mindless hatred is hard to conceive if you didn't live through it, and I'm ashamed to say I absorbed some of it. One of the first of many things the Lord had to deal with when I finally became His, 13 years after King's death, was my attitude towards blacks.
I look around now and see black and white students easily mingling on high school campuses. One of my daughter's best friends in high school was a young black man whose dad works here at Focus on the Family, himself a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. It seemed perfectly normal to see them hanging out and laughing together. In 1968, I would never have seen that coming.
Yes, we have work still to do. But from a perspective of 40 years later, it's amazing to see how much Dr. King's dream is being realized. Yes, there's still too much focus on race, but I see increasingly that people are willing to judge others on the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
I look back now and shake my head at the courage of Martin Luther King, his steadfastness in the face of purple-faced, fist-shaking hatred. He's been accused of many things, but anyone reading his Letter from a Birmingham Jail cited in Suzanne's blog cannot doubt what King's ultimate motivation was.
I simply stand in awe of his courage and faith, and we're all better people for it.
The primaries over the weekend did little to produce a Republican or Democratic frontrunner. McCain and Romney sort of canceled each other out with victories in South Carolina and Nevada respectively. And though Hillary won Nevada by 6 percentage points, Obama got more delegates.
I see two stories from this weekend. First, the South Carolina results were really more of a defeat for Huckabee than a big win for McCain. Any momentum Huckabee had after Iowa seems long gone. I don't think you'll be seeing any more jokes from him about catching flak because he's over the target -- sort of self-ascribing himself as the frontrunner. The flak he caught likely did the damage intended.
Second, the race between Hillary and Obama is getting ugly. The rhetoric is heating up and both sides accused the other of voter suppression in Nevada. It's possible that schisms may develop between the core supporters of each campaign that could prove harmful to the Democrats in November.
Now the Democrats go into South Carolina with African-Americans and young voters solidly behind Obama and Hispanic voters and older women backing Hillary. But I think Florida will be more telling for each party. That is, unless Giuliani somehow pulls it out. Then it's a whole new ball game for the Republicans.
On the Desiring God blog John Piper exhorts: Don't Waste Martin Luther King Weekend. The point of this weekend is not to celebrate all that MLK was. You need not belabor his sins. The point is to lift up some magnificent things he stood for and some necessary and amazing achievements of the civil rights era in which he was a key leader. We are Christians and can see these things in the light of providence and the gospel. Let everything point to Christ and him crucified. Consider Revelation 5:9 if you wonder whether ethnic diversity and ethnic harmony are Jesus-blood issues.
All you have to do to find some good word from MLK is Google his name. His "I have a dream" speech has some powerful lines. He dreams that some day his children "will not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their character." That cry is as important today globally and locally as it was in 1963.
Martin Luther King, Jr., has been a controversial figure among Christians, but the truths he preached and the moral change he accomplished holds up by its own merit. Consider Piper's favorite excerpt from "Letter From a Birmingham Jail" (April 16, 1963): Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging dart of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six- year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness" then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
These words challenge me. Who, today, feels "nobodiness?" King's words help us as we strive to "love one another deeply." The echo the words of Paul: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Don't waste today. Celebrate and remember a man who helped to teach a country how to better realize God's beautiful truth of equality, unity and love.
HT: Justin Taylor
As soon as I saw the words, I knew this would not be pretty. In the "letter to editor" world, starting the letter off with someone's name is the real world equivalent of your mom using your middle name. You know you're in trouble. But there it was -- "Heather Koerner."
So, what happened? Well, I got a bee in my bonnet about a local happening, sent a letter to the editor about it and got an, um, response. It was an interesting, and also humbling, experience and reminded me of something: words are powerful.
I didn't particularly like what my responder said about me. But before pointing the finger at him, I needed to look at myself. While writing my own letter, it was very tempting at times to target specific people (rather than stick to the general point) and let both barrels blow. I was convicted, though, that snarkiness is not one of the fruits of the Spirit and tried to hold my tongue. As one cartoon I saw the other day pointed out, "You were right about the Christian part, you just forgot the don't-be-a-jerk-about-it part."
I think this is where we Christians sometimes need some work. Tom just wrote about how we need truth. Steve just wrote about letting Christ transform our attitudes. It's getting these two concepts together that seems so difficult for us. We're either gentle with little truth, or truthful with little love. We need to proclaim the Word (Tim Challies has a great piece this week about spiritual discernment) and do it with love.
Even though this letter stung a little, I will probably remember the lesson more than the topic. Words matter. Whether I'm conversing, blogging or writing, I need to remember that.
I agree with Steve. We need to live transformed lives "so that those around us will know we've been with Jesus." But I think it's difficult to do if we aren't committed to a church.
In Mark Dever's What is a Healthy Church?, he explains that church membership and church discipline are essential components of making disciples who won't "bring disrepute onto the gospel." Which seems to be a problem if we are to believe unChristian.
On the benefits of "careful church membership," Mark writes, It will make the witness of our churches to non-Christians more clear. It will make it harder for weaker sheep to stray from the fold and still call themselves sheep. It will help shape and focus the discipleship of more mature Christians. It will help church leaders know exactly for whom they are responsible. In all of this, God will be glorified.
But if a church doesn't exercise biblical discipline, membership doesn't mean much. Mark says that church discipline is what gives membership it's meaning. Membership draws a boundary line around the church, marking the church off from the world. Discipline helps the church that lives inside of that boundary line stay true to the very things that are cause for drawing the line in the first place.
If we are to be walking billboards in the way Gary Thomas describes in The Beautiful Fight, maybe it begins with committing to a body of believers and submitting yourself under the authority of its leaders.
Earlier, Denise blogged about the book unChristian. It's been unsettling for me reading that book to think about how others see us as Christians and to then process the implications for how we should then live. And so I was encouraged to come across a thought in The Beautiful Fight by Gary Thomas. Under the sub-title Walking Billboards he writes: "When [the Sanhedrin] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13).
When we allow God to mark our manner, alter our attitudes, and burnish our behavior, people will naturally ask, "What is it about him? What is it about her?" They'll take note that we have been with Jesus -- and have undergone dramatic change. This gives glory to God as we become walking billboards that proclaim his reality and redeeming power.
The reverse is also true: if people take note that we claim to be with Jesus and haven't changed, that we're still driven by fear of others and our own passions, then the gospel gets robbed of its glory.
Anyone who has grown upset by the reputation Christians have developed and who is seeking to make things right can appreciate The Beautiful Fight and the emphasis on personal transformation. I know my temptation whenever I read anything about the bad reputation of Christians is to get argumentative and defensive or to put on the hat of the image consultant and think of how we can rebrand the faith -- but that only shows once again my fear of others and focus on my own passions. The higher call, I realize, is to be personally transformed so that those around us will know we've been with Jesus.
Okay, let me admit upfront that I'm not much of an American Idol fan, and I haven't paid much attention to the show over the previous six seasons. In fact, I don't watch much TV outside of football, hockey and Lost. (I used to be a big fan of the Stargate series, but they jumped the shark several seasons before they finally gave it a merciful death.)
I've watched bits and snatches of Idol in the past, but the style of music doesn't appeal to me, nor does the overemphasis on looks vs. simple musical talent. And anyone who's seen Jennifer Hudson's stunning performance in Dreamgirls also knows that the best person sometimes doesn't win. But after seeing all the hype about the beginning of Idol's season 7 and reading about how mean Simon Cowell is, I thought I'd check out the season premier Tuesday night.
Wow. Not quite what I was expecting. Sure, they have to weed out a lot of wannabes in the beginning, but what are some of these people thinking? Here's a clue: If you show up in public dressed as a Star Wars character, be prepared not to be taken seriously. (And thank goodness for TiVo's fast-forward function when it came to that thoroughly confused Princess Leia dude getting his chest waxed!) Some of them have zero talent and are apparently clueless about it -- this from someone whose singing has been known to frighten young children and small dogs. Too many of the wannabes exemplify what's wrong with so much of music today, chiefly mistaking volume for good tone and the annoying habit of bouncing all over the scale -– deliberately, that is. (I bounce all over the scale quite against my will.) Whatever happened to hitting a note and holding it? But those are simple matters of taste, and I wouldn't want to argue over them.
One poor fellow (49 seconds in), however, was apparently the victim of a cruel prank by his coworkers, who told him he had a good voice and encouraged him to apply. He seemed genuinely stunned at the judges' reaction, a reaction that really bothered me. Sure, tell the guy he's not cut out for singing, but don't laugh at him -- to his face, no less. This bothered me greatly. I felt bad for him, and I felt guilty for watching his humiliation.
Why does Idol spend the first few episodes featuring the worst of the worst? It's like watching a train wreck: horrible, but you can't take your eyes off it. I felt so bad afterwards that I'm not likely to imbibe again.
But one final word: Everyone talks about how mean Simon Cowell is, and I understand that he's been pretty cruel in the past, but there is a biblical place for telling the truth to people, especially if those people are about to make a terrible mistake. There's wisdom in Cowell's words here: I met someone the other night who's 28 years old, and he hasn't worked a day since he left college because he's pursuing a dream he'll never, ever realize: He thinks he's a great singer. Actually, he's crap. But nobody has said to him, "Why have you been wasting your time for eight years?"
If I said to most of the people who auditioned, "Good job, awesome, well done," it would have made me actually look and feel ridiculous. It's quite obvious most of the people who turned up for this audition were hopeless.
The object of this competition is not to be mean to the losers but to find a winner. The process makes you mean because you get frustrated. Kids turn up unrehearsed, wearing the wrong clothes, singing out of tune and you can either say, "Good job" and patronize them or tell them the truth, and sometimes the truth is perceived as mean.
We should speak the truth in love, but speak truth nonetheless. Several years ago here at Focus, we had a family band perform during our chapel service. They were wretchedly, wincingly bad, but no one over the years had had the courage to tell them this. They were told how nice they were, how they were a nice Christian family and their music really cute, and they went on embarrassing themselves time and again.
The truth is, most of the people I saw on Idol with stars in their eyes are due for a fall, and the sooner they learn this, the better it is for them. And in that limited sense, hooray for Simon.
January is Sanctity of Human Life month, and it's a great time for us to think about abortion, euthanasia, orphans, and other quality of life issues.
For some information on the details of the abortion debate, I'd encourage you to check out this article by Francis Beckwith. He also has a great book called Politically Correct Death that I highly recommend.
I wrote an article awhile back about the sanctity of human choice -- the idea of "personal rights" that we have so highly exalted in our society. I explore where this idea came from and ask if it's the most biblical perspective.
Focus on the Family also has plenty of resources about sanctity of life issues on the Be A Voice Web site.
Oh, and one more thing. We often talk a lot about abortion and how we think it's wrong. But what about the children who aren't aborted and are left homeless, parentless and afraid? For more information on how you can get involved in orphan care, please check out icareaboutorphans.org. It's a great resource for what you can do to help those in need in your community.
This month is a great time to remind ourselves of all the sanctity of life issues our culture faces. But let's not just think about it. Let's do something as well. Let's care for the orphan and the widow, let's be a voice for those who can't speak for themselves.
Tom makes a good case for his analysis that twenty-somethings are too young for a crisis and ... well, a little bit whiny. But as your comments reflect, the Quarterlife Crisis remains a crisis nonetheless. As many of you pointed out, cultural influences and our families have set us up to expect more -- a lot more -- than we will likely get. And when that realization hits -- it's a blow.
In my article "Set, Go ... Ready," I examined the Quarterlife Crisis and its impact on our generation. One of the discoveries I found most interesting was our loss of an "inner life." A lack of decisiveness regarding career choices coupled with anxiety over achieving financial success is paralyzing young adults. And it's costing them something. Wikipedia reports:
"The era when a professional career meant a life of occupational security -- thus allowing an individual to proceed to establish an 'inner life' -- is coming to a crashing end."
It is troubling that young adults have lost something as valuable as an "inner life." They are delaying some of the most personally satisfying pursuits -- getting married, committing to a church, establishing a home and having children.
Not only do twenty-somethings struggle to achieve the traditional marks of adulthood and establish families, we have also been raised to view both success and self-fulfillment as equally necessary. Speaking of the current twenty-something generation, developmental psychologist Jeffrey Arnett says: "They have grown up as the most affluent generation in American [or world] history, so they have high expectations for life. They all expect to find a job that not only pays well, but is enjoyable, and they all expect to find their 'soul mate.' "
And I know many of you are thinking, What's wrong with that? Nothing ... exactly. Only, affluence is not a requirement for abundant life. How many of us confuse cultural values with biblical ones? ("God wants me to be happy, right?" Wrong. And is that your definition of happy or God's?)
If looking for a person who doesn't exist is keeping you from getting married and accepting the responsibilities of adulthood; if the pursuit of finding a vocation that completely "fulfills" you is holding you back from doing something you're good at and can succeed in; then perhaps you need to ask the Lord for a reality check and start pursuing an "inner life." I said it in the article, and I'll say it again: Get set and go ... you're probably more ready than you think.
Bonnie Eslinger doesn't believe in marriage. She says she doesn't "need a piece of paper from the state to strengthen [her] commitment to Jeff" or "a white dress to feel pretty." She says that and a lot more in a short essay in Newsweek magazine designed to raise a ruckus. And it has. On both sides of the debate.
Dr. Albert Mohler blogged about it on Tuesday, concluding that Eslinger's article, "Yes to Love, No to Marriage," is an "eloquent testimony to the absolute victory of personal autonomy as an ideal." In one short paragraph, notes Mohler, "the first-person pronoun appears no less than eleven times."
As a staunch defender of marriage both because I've experienced its benefits first-hand and I believe in the God who made marriage for our good and His glory, I'm so glad leaders like Dr. Mohler are publicly exposing the problem with Eslinger's thinking. He wrote: Marriage is not primarily about what we as individuals think we want or need. It is about a central public commitment that the society needs, that couples need, that children need, and yes, that the spouses need. Marriage is a public institution, not merely a private commitment. It identifies the couple as a pair committed to lifelong marriage and thus to be respected in this commitment. The fact that our society has weakened marriage offers only further incentive to get it right and to strengthen this vital institution.
The traditions of the wedding ceremony are important as a part of solemnizing and recognizing this covenanted relationship -- but the traditions are expendable. Marriage is not. There is a universe of difference between a private promise and a public pledge. Marriage is about a public vow made by the man to the woman and the woman to the man whereby they become now husband and wife.
I didn't need a white dress to feel pretty, either. Eslinger knows better, or should. Women who believe in marriage as God made it are about far more than a dress. We know that marriage is the building block of our society. Without it, democracy crumbles and pathologies abound. That's why the divorce rate is so tragic.
As Mohler says, "There are things we really cannot not know, and one of these truths is that marriage really does matter."
(For more on the Boundless perspective on marriage, see "What if We Love Each Other?")
Well, he won Wyoming too but the pundits seem to ignore that one.
Anyway, Mitt Romney got the "big" win he needed last night. And it was a decisive 39 percent to McCain's 30. But all it means is that the race for the Republican nomination is as wide open as ever. McCain's distant second confirmed the trend this year that there are no bumps from primary victories. So we go from state to state, wondering whether any candidate will catch fire.
The McCain campaign sort of dismissed Romney's victory as a "favorite son" win -- Romney's father was a three-term governor in Michigan. But I think it was a little more than that. The exit poll data shows that Romney's economic message resonated well with the citizens of this recession weary state. Still, much like Huckabee's evangelical victory in Iowa and McCain's independent win in New Hampshire, Romney's seemed to be similarly circumstantial.
The one thing to note with Michigan's non-binding Democratic primary is that Hillary lost the African-American vote to "uncommitted." Though pundits were wrong about the Obama surge in New Hampshire, it appears that the African-American vote continues to swing his way. And this could bode ill for Hillary in the South.
So where does that leave us? Which of the three Republican frontrunners will be able to gain some traction? And does Hillary or Obama have the momentum moving forward? The answer: I have no idea. And a quick scroll of poll averages from the remaining states doesn't help much either. I mean, even Guiliani has a chance if no one grabs the 'big mo' on the Republican side.
David Carlson at the Point brought this Mark Earley commentary to my attention. In it, Earley discusses our strained relationship with sleep. Judging by the response to my previous post "Get Some Sleep," which dealt with the correlation between rest and a high GPA, sleep -- and its proper place in our lives -- seems to be a hot topic. Society certainly goes to great lengths to decrease its power over us. According to a recent article in Wired Magazine, "A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called 'orexin A' reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests."
Personally, I would rather not take a chemical that helps me perform like a well-rested monkey. But the prospect of a chemical that could reduce sleepiness without the side effects other stimulants are known for could have far-reaching repercussions.
While the drug is still many years away from reaching pharmacies, it reminds me how important it is to examine the trends facing society from a biblical rather than a purely cultural perspective. We live in a culture today that spurns rest.
Isn't that the truth? We view sleep as the enemy -- a threat to the things we want (although I must admit, I am a sucker for a good 3-hour nap). Earley points out that we should consider rest not only from a cultural perspective but also from a biblical one. God built rest into the very rhythm of creation. Keeping a day of rest made His top-10 list. And believe it or not, rest serves a purpose -- a divine purpose. It reminds us that God is in control. What happens when you cannot finish everything that you think you need to get done and your body is telling you, "you have to go to sleep"? You are thrown into a situation in which you must depend on God.
Rest reminds us that there is Someone we can rest in. And our need for rest is a daily reminder that we are finite creatures and must trust in an infinite God.
So what's the verdict? Do you get enough rest?
Steve's blog on the so-called midlife crisis comes when I've become aware of another alleged time of adversity: the "quarterlife" crisis. Briefly, the quarterlife crisis hits people sometime after college and before they turn 30 when they realize that, well ... life is hard!
I first became aware of it while interviewing Tim Elmore, a protégé of leadership guru John Maxwell. "It's 25-year-old people who are seeing counselors and therapists because they haven't yet made their first million, haven't yet found the perfect career or the perfect mate," Elmore explained. "It's self-imposed stress and pressure."
This age group, dubbed "millennials" by demographers, are "much less attuned to reality" than previous generations, Elmore said.
There's even a book for this phenomenon, called, appropriately enough, Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. (I have struggled mightily not to use the adjective whiny up to this point.) According to the Booklist review, this slim volume talks about "the pressure of coming from a relatively stable environment, such as college, and then being flung into a world where they [the whiny people ... um, sorry ... the 20somethings] have to worry about finding out exactly what they want to do, land the right job, pay the bills, and still manage to have time for friends and family."
I'm sorry. I hate it when someone plays the "wise elder" bit with me, but I'm going to do it here. (Yeah, I also once asked my daughter, "If everyone else was jumping off a cliff, would you?" It happens.) To those people suffering from this self-indulgent "crisis," I want to say, "Welcome to the world!" Whoever told you it would be easy? Oh, I forgot: All your teachers did. You're the "self-esteem" generation who were told you were great even if you never actually accomplished anything or put forth any effort.
It's as though these people are the first to discover that nothing in life is handed to you. It's similar to my generation"s apparent discovery that humans can procreate -- witness all those silly "Baby Onboard" decals during the '80s. (Oh, wait! A lot of Boundless readers probably were those babies onboard!)
Okay, I exaggerate. I know many fine 20somethings who are nothing like this. I work with several of them. In fact, I suspect most 20somethings are nothing like this. But then most men my age are nothing like the stereotypical midlife crisis guy. I haven't bought a Ferrari. (As if!) I don't need a toupee. (Thanks to whoever passed on the full-head-of-hair gene.) And I've never had a mistress. (I love my wife just fine, and we're going on 28 years now.)
But like many 20somethings, I have at times struggled with life: Am I doing what I should be doing? Am I living up to my potential? Does my life matter? And why does Sylvester Stallone keep making dumb movies? Fortunately, I know that God is sovereign, and even through my bumbling His grace sustains me. Those simple truths should be enough to banish any sense of crisis should it try to creep in.
Do you know anyone who has claimed to have a midlife crisis? Writing in the New York Times, Dr. Richard A. Friedman says we may be too generous in letting people use that euphemistic description. He writes, "With the possible exception of 'the dog ate my homework,' there is no handier excuse for human misbehavior than the midlife crisis. ... But you have to admit that "I'm having a midlife crisis" sounds a lot better than 'I'm a narcissistic jerk having a meltdown'."
Dr. Friedman's plain spokenness about this phenomenon resonated with me because it hits close to home. One of my family members is having his heart ripped out by a wife who is excusing her reckless behavior under the label of a midlife crisis.
The piece comes around to a point that I found relevant to BoundlessLine readers: The main culprit, I think, is our youth-obsessed culture, which makes a virtue of the relentless pursuit of self-renewal. The news media abound with stories of people who seek to recapture their youth simply by shedding their spouses, quitting their jobs or leaving their families. Who can resist?
Most middle-aged people, it turns out, if we are to believe the definitive survey.
Except, of course, for the few -- mainly men, it seems -- who find the midlife crisis a socially acceptable shorthand for what you do when you suddenly wake up and discover that you're not 20 anymore.
What does this commentary on the link between pursuing endless youth and midlife meltdowns say about how we should spend our twenties and thirties?
Hope you're not sick of hearing about online dating. Camerin Courtney wrote one of the more insightful articles I've read on the subject. She begins by describing the opening moments of taking the online plunge: In the privacy of our own homes, we logged on, fed in our credit card numbers, and created clever screen names. We searched endlessly for electronic images of ourselves looking thin and content and non-desperate and spent too long figuring out how to post them. Then we agonized over the three best adjectives to describe ourselves, the five things we can't live without, our hopes for the future, our ideal first date.
When we were finally satisfied with this electronic dating resume, we sat back and marveled at the ability to search for and e-mail interesting-sounding single people while in our bathrobe. We requested communication, and winked, and waved, and employed all other kinds of newfangled ways to drop a hankie or bat an eye -- and we held our breath, hoping this smiling stranger who loved Jesus and Russian literature would look at our picture and profile and find us worth a message, a minute of his life.
As Courtney's tongue-and-cheek account reveals, the process of online dating is deceptively easy. Forming a quality relationship and getting married -- not as easy. Without bashing online dating, she takes a careful look at some of its inherent flaws. She talks about how potential matches can become almost like cartoon characters: My online dating buddies and I have devised a shorthand for identifying these guys by combining their name with one of their most identifying characteristics. Thus, Acid Reflux Joe, Saucy Bob, Texas Stan, and the like.
But at times I fear nicknaming these guys strips away some of their value and worth. On the web, I too easily forget each of those names and faces is a person with feelings and hopes and gifts and fears. This medium too easily facilitates nicknaming, rejecting, snubbing, or recreationally flirting without respect for a brother in Christ's feelings.
She goes on to describe how greediness for a better online match may cause one to pass up someone that we'd be thrilled to meet at church. In real life an attraction may take time to grow, and quick online judgments just don't allow for that possibility. "Some people just don't offer an instant razzle-dazzle," Courtney says, "they're more of a slow burn."
In "Browsing for a Mate," Candice pointed out that online daters should be aware of the medium's limitations. Online dating services are a tool -- better at some things than others. It's important to figure out what they're good for and not ask more of them than they're designed to provide.
And don't forget that even in our digital world, non-digital romance is still possible. Candice says: If all you read is the online services' promotional material, you might believe romance, love and marriage just can't happen anymore without their help. But lots of people do still fall in love and marry without them.
Last night, the Jane Austen fest officially began in the Koerner household.
If you didn't know, PBS is kicking off its Masterpiece Theatre year "with The Complete Jane Austen, featuring adaptations of all six Austen novels and a new biopic of her life." Ah, 10 uninterrupted Sunday evenings of pure Austen bliss.
Persuasion started the series off last night. I was literally running in the door from church to make sure I got it recorded and as I watched it (so my husband informed me, gently teasing) a dumb grin never left my face.
I admit it. I love Austen. Am I just a hopeless romantic who loves to imbibe girly fluff? Well, probably half true. But I think it's a little bit more too. Candice, a fellow fan, talks about how Austen captures the "dance of courtship" -- something we no longer have and long for. J. Budziszewski talks here and here about how Austen's Christian beliefs "penetrate her writing" and how reading her books, among other great writers, "will keep you from being shut into the narrow little views of our time."
For me, it's the sense of hope. I discovered this over Christmas break. Recognizing my Austen bias, I decided to intentionally expand my horizons and pick up a few Henry James novels to read over the holidays. I started with Washington Square and was left, let's just say, flat.
It's not just that the couple didn't live happily ever after, as Austen lets them do. It was that James' story just seemed to ooze cynicism. Virtue wasn't rewarded. Worldly pursuits won and the heroine didn't even have the strength of character to move on, instead wallowing in her pain for the rest of her life.
I know that the Christian life will not be all happily ever after. But as one who is living the wonderful consequences of choosing a mate wisely in the great adventure of Christian marriage, I know there is hope. I'm glad Austen did too.
Some companies are known for having a family-like atmosphere, but have you ever worked for a company that was predominately built around a family?
Last month, the L.A. Times ran a profile on the photo-sharing company SmugMug that was launched as a family affair.
Seven members of the MacAskills (ranging in age from 23 to 63) make up what is now 28 employees of SmugMug. The article describes how they've made it work: They started on a shoestring budget in 2002, not moving into real offices in Mountain View, Calif., until April. Before that, the MacAskills and their employees set up shop in the five-bedroom home of Chris and his wife, Toni. Engineers bunked two to a bedroom. Blow dryers and vacuums routinely blew circuit breakers. Barking yellow Labrador retrievers chased tennis balls up and down the stairs.
Toni, the SmugMug matriarch, referees family squabbles. When things get out of hand she sometimes jokes that she'll send everyone to their rooms for a time out.
The MacAskills deftly blend business and family -- a radical concept in the youth-obsessed Internet industry, which admits adults, particularly of the gray-haired variety, only reluctantly.
I enjoyed reading this article because I often dream about the opportunity to run a home-based business with my wife (and hopefully even my kids) some day.
What's been fascinating to me is how technology is beginning to make it possible for families to once again run the kind of home and family-based businesses that were the norm before the industrial revolution split family members up for work in various factories.
I'm hopeful technology and emerging business models will create more and more opportunities for families to find ways to pool their skills together and to have the option of blending their work and family life. Already, this trend is giving moms of young children more alternatives to simply going back to conventional offices and giving road warrior dads more options for re-integrating into their families.
No telling what the options will look like for entrepreneurial couples and families who want to work together in the coming years.
Copyright 2009 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The Line and Boundless Line are trademarks of Focus on the Family.
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