I had an experience recently with a Christian young man who shall remain nameless, and it inspired a blog post. He looked me in the eye (which I respected) and told me that it’s okay for Christians to have sex before marriage. I was taken aback, and asked him why he thought this. He said, because the Bible doesn’t say you can’t, that’s why! I was embarrassed how poorly I answered his challenge. Most Christian young people wouldn’t say such a thing out loud, especially to someone considerably older than they are, and it had never happened to me. After all, surely young Christians know that sex before marriage is not okay, right? Even if they indulge in it? I guess not, so I wasn’t prepared. I’m going to flesh out a short response that includes “the Bible says so,” but goes beyond that. I don’t doubt there are many books on the broader topic of Christian sexuality, so I can only scratch the surface here. (more…)
It probably won’t be a surprise to anyone that an author of a book on parenting is a big fan of kids, and of families having lots of them, especially Christian families. As we drove up to our church on Sunday, a young family got out of a car in front of us, and they pulled four kids out of that car. Love it! It so happens they sat behind us, and we found out the daughter that stayed in the service was “almost five,” and she was the oldest! There are many families in our church with four kids or more, which to me is the sign of a very healthy church. So when I saw the title, “The Gift of Children” at First Things, I knew I would be writing about it. It bums me out that many Christian couples limit the gifts of God to the culturally acceptable two. There are few things more counter-cultural today than having a big family, and it’s one of many reasons that I always encourage young Christian couples to receive lots of these precious gifts. (more…)
My youngest, our 17 year-old son, came to me the other day and said I had to watch the beginning of this short video:
The mechanism that allows human beings to hear is insanely complex. Either we are incredibly lucky, or that mechanism was created by an all powerful, all creative, all intelligent divine being. Can something so intricate that works as perfectly as does human hearing not be designed? Luck is a terrible explanation, as is an unguided process of natural selection and random mutation (Darwinism). The design inference (e.g., looking at human hearing and inferring a designer), is something I’ve used innumerable times with my children as they’ve grown up. It’s the reason my son would see this and instantly make the comparison: chance versus design? Luck versus God? I’ve programmed (we need to do this) my kids to see such things biblically, so of course they see God as the only plausible explanation, and chance as ridiculous, even ludicrous (more on this below).
In case you are not aware where “Eat the babies” came from, watch this priceless satire of the leftists’ absurd obsession with “climate change”:
The woman was a plant at an AOC townhall, and she appears distraught at the “three months” we have before “climate change” doomsday is upon us. Every time I think of the phrase, “We need to eat the babies,” I laugh, and hearing her voice saying it makes me laugh all the more. The point, so artfully made, and to the oblivious crowd gathered in that room, is that human beings are not the cause of our supposedly impending climate catastrophe. If the “climate change” alarmists are right, then we are, and why not “eat the babies.”
Nobody likes a bully. I had my fair share growing up, and would much prefer life without them. The problem is that there can be no life without bullies because we live in a fallen world in a fallen body among fallen, sinful people. On this side of eternity, there will always bullies. Unfortunately, we live in a very strange age where a certain segment of the population thinks life can be cleansed of its unpleasantness, often through some government program or other. There is even government program to stop bullying! So I learned from a piece at Intellectual Takeout with a decidedly different take on bullying: “We Need Bullies so We Can Be Heroes.” That got me to click, because as my kids will tell you, I’m big on the whole life is hard thing, of which I never get tired of reminding them. The piece speaks to the schizophrenic nature of our culture:
Culturally, we understand the role of adversity in growth. Adversity is like Miracle Gro for character. Adversity forms the plots of our most popular films, books, and TV shows. But as our culture works to stamp out “toxic masculinity,” it is also attempting to stamp out human nature itself. Both attempts are doomed to fail at accomplishing their stated goals, but they are likely to do unpredictable damage. If we are able somehow to eliminate bullying, how do we replace an often necessary rite of passage from weakness to strength?
If you’re at all familiar with popular music in the last decade or two you surely know of Amy Winehouse. This young talent died of alcohol poisoning in July of 2011 at the ripe old age of 27, joining the pantheon of young musicians who’ve died before they got old. My wife, son, and I recently watched the heart-wrenching documentary of her short life on Netflix; it was not easy to watch. Sadly, her most famous song is aptly titled “Rehab,” and the lyrics prophetic:
They tried to make me go to rehab
I said, “no, no, no”
Yes, I been black
But when I come back, you’ll know, know, know
I ain’t got the time
And if my daddy thinks I’m fine
He’s tried to make me go to rehab
I won’t go, go, go
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