Breakthrough

4/3/02

I have been born, the younger of two

And many people saw me right through

Mother had a grateful love

But had no thoughts to show that love.

I grew up in many places

I struggled through life’s many mazes

I tried really hard, and fell right down

But I stood back up when I hit the ground.

After many times of stand and fall

I learned in life to give my all.

I started soon, to come out on top,

And after a while, I could not be stopped.

And then they came, and said of me,

“Your smarter than me, just look and see”

“For you were given so many thoughts”

“I’m jealous of you, you have lots”

“I look your way, your so great”

“I was a failure, that was my fate”

“You were given everything at birth”

“I was given nothing, that’s for sure”

The thing to behold, as I do say

Is nothing was handed freely my way

The fact that separates me from you

Is the work you don’t, but I choose to do.

“You have everything that I want” he said

You have it too, it’s in your head

“I am different than you are”

“I have nothing, see? Your so far”

“You are smart, smarter than me”

THEN WHY DON”T YOU LISTEN TO ME???

Breakthrough to What?

We are not breaking on through to the other side!  I am talking about the various people over the years that kept telling me that I was lucky or given more talent or knowledge.  I do not believe that.  I was raised in a terrible condition overall.  You can read my testimony which talks about most of it. I almost failed many classes growing up, I had a hard time learning, and was placed in some of the lowest classes in reading, writing, etc.  I learned that if I just apply myself I can overcome.  I made a conscious decision that what ever it took, I would finish college in 4 years.  I was almost blocked by what my adviser called the ‘impossible course load”.  Since I kept getting locked out of classes due to low offering in my freshmen year, I had to do Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry all in the same semester, and I needed more classes to still meet my goal. I succeeded, never getting any grade less than a B in college.  I am not a generous, I ignored fun and entertainment as much as I needed to in order to overcome.  I passed 7th grade science with a D- and went on to finish my PhD in science in 6 years.  None of it had to do with brains.  It had to do with hard work, what MacArthur calls ‘planned neglect’.  In other words, I plan to neglect things that do not have any specific bearing on my goals.  This poem talks about people making the excuse that I am smarter than they are, so I end it by asking why they do not listen to me!

Origins

The exact origins of Halloween is unknown.  Some will speculate to know the absolute truth from the celtic druids, but that is mostly fable since that particular culture did not have a written history.  The time of year is very significant.  You see, humans are a very religious people, we seek gods and signs because it is a natural part of us, we just do not naturally seek the one true God.  As such, the end of the harvest has spawned many religious ceremonies over the years as people have worshiped their mind-made gods during the rest at the end of the harvest.  That is the truest origin of the holiday.  Even our modern day celebration can not be tied to the Judao-Christian roots as some have suggested.  Even the Adventures in Odyssey (a program I highly support) was totally wrong on the origins.  In that program, entitled ‘What Are We Going to Do about Halloween’ the kids are led to believe that the church dressed up as demons to prank people.  That is close to the truth, but a farse.  The fact is, very few people understand why Halloween is so bad, but Churches preach it to be a day of witchcraft and satanism.

Witches do have some minor celebration on Halloween according to some witches that I have dialoged with.  It is only, in my opinion, to the same degree that pagan people used to worship at the end of the harvest.  As for satanism, according to an open and dialoging satanist, they don’t care at all about Halloween.  So are you ready for the shocking reason why protestant Christians are against Halloween?  Really?  It is because the Puritans banned it due to being a Roman Catholic holiday!  That’s right!  Here is the brief truth of the name of Halloween.  November 1st was a day to worship saints in Roman Catholic tradition.  It was called ‘All Saints Day’ and it was to be one of the most holy (hear Hallowed) days of the year.  They thus believed that demons ran around the day before playing pranks on people to ruin a Hallow day.  So on the night before, or the Evening, saints would dress up as other people, and sometimes as demons, to trick the real demons away.  A means to protect their Hallow day.  That was the Evening before the Hallow day, or the Hallow Evening, which was eventually shorted to Halloween.

In truth, our modern American Halloween had roots in the Irish that came to the country during the great potato famine.  They had a lot of folk-lore tradition that was merely some fun which became most of our modern day Halloween tradition.

The Christian Response

As I mentioned last year, there are three common responses, and two years ago, I saw all of them being played out just in the down-town section of our town.  First, the full-blown cultural participation.  I believe that this is the wrong response.  This church created a slaughterhouse-style funhouse and charged a fee to go in.  They raked in the profits and while people were in line, they were glad to sell hot dogs and soda.  I believe this response is wrong because it embraces the culture and does not do anything to address the sin (some would even argue that this method participates in sin). The second response is to not respond.  Most of the churches in town were just closed.  They wanted nothing to do with this day.  Some of the churches were just confused about what to do, and other churches were branding it as a day from Hell, so we should just lock the doors and turn out the lights.

The final response is to participate in a manner worthy of your calling.  One church dressed in appropriate costumes that would not offend your normal person, and they gave out healthy snacks, tracks, and Bibles.  I believe that this is the best response.

Whats a Parent to Do?

If you have kids, you will want to weigh very heavily if you want to restrict Halloween.  You may cause more issues in our modern culture than you want to.  I would personally give this advice:  If you have younger kids, a community Halloween party would be a fun time with games, activities, and costume contests.  Nothing is wrong with these.  If you have teens, be very careful where you let them go.  Halloween can have an influence on some inappropriate behavior (like any party situation).  So just keep tabs on where they are and who they are with.  You should be doing this all the time, anyway.  As for Trick or Treating, have fun.  Nothing is inherently sinful in that action.

I found these articles informative and helpful:

Grace to You – Christians and Halloween
Focus on the Family – Halloween: Trick or Treat or Abstain?
Challies.com – My Halloween Theory

When I was finishing graduate school, I started to work as a college professor during the finalization of my dissertation.  This was a time of great busy-ness for me and I found myself in a car an average of 3 hours a day.  I moved to a small town between the two universities that were 65 miles apart and commuted to one college for work during the day, and the other college for dissertation related items, and the ministries that I still had in that town.  I was not walking and had no time to exercise.  So it was for the next two years of my work. I found myself a little too large, to the tune of 30-35 pounds over the healthy level for me.  So I needed to start running to counteract the weight gain.

Wakeup Call

The bottom line, I did not wait to suffer a heart attack to get the message that I needed to take better care of my body.  And then I got to thinking, that is frequently the case with us.  We need to experience the suffering in our life to get the message.  It should not be this way.  I thought to other things like vitamins.  I look quite a bit younger than I actually am.  I believe this is because I have generally taken good care of myself, starting with vitamins from the time I was 18 years old.  I did not want to wait until I was getting the consequences of poor choices to learn that I need to act now.  A general tip in life is that when you have had your heart attack, you might live, but you are coming too late to the health and wellness scene!

This principle also applies to raising kids.  I have observed many families and discipline structures.  I know from experience that once a teen is no longer a child, and he is making poor choices in life, it is too late to make easy course adjustments.  The youngster is who he is by this time.  It will be very difficult to impact change.  Do not wait until your child is in jail to try to change him or her.

And finally, this applies to salvation.  Isaiah 55:6 says, Seek the LORD while He may be found; Call upon Him while He is near.  The Parable of the Ten Virgins is an example of this principle from the New Testament (Matthew 25:1-13).  In this parable, Jesus is telling the story of ten virgins, five are wise to bring extra oil, five are foolish and did not.  So when the foolish ask the wise for oil, the wise tell them that they need to go and buy some lest they run out.  As the foolish are out buying oil, the bridegroom comes and lets the five wise virgins in.  When the foolish come back, they are reprimanded for “not knowing them”. Jesus says, ‘Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day nor the hour’ of His coming.  We need to seek the Lord while He may be found.  Hebrews gives us this admonition (Hebrews 2:1-4):

For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also testifying with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.

Let us not neglect the day of salvation.  If you need help with it, check out the Gospel, and if you need to talk, found a local church in your town so that you can meet face to face with a pastor that can help you.  Come to Christ before it is too late!

Today’s post is a review of the book, Jesus, Lover of a Woman’s Soul, by Erwin Lutzer and Rebecca Lutzer.

Unquestionably today, there is a blurring of the sexes which has led to problems both in the church and out of the church with respect to biblical manhood and womanhood. The man has become a louse and the woman has begun to ‘wear the pants’. Throughout time, in Jesus’ day as well as ours, the culmination has been movements to either separate the two, or to unite the two. In our day, the feminist movement is closely tied to the homosexual movement as well as paganism and Witchcraft. Dan Brown has certainly added fuel to the fire with the accusations that the church is a male-dominating, woman hating oppressor. Feminists blame the Bible for men dominating women. Jesus, Lover of a Woman’s Soul calls for a return to the truth of the scripture. What is that truth? That men and women are both people in the eyes of God. They are both created in the image of God, they both have a distinct position in the kingdom. They are both loved by Jesus, partakers of the sacrifice that God has offered, and must stand alone, or with Jesus, in the final judgment day.

Summary

Rather than do a comprehensive study of manhood and womanhood in NT times as well as now, the Lutzers created a book targeted directly at women who are suffering, or have suffered, and the book seeks to lead them to the healing power of Jesus.

The book focuses directly on the particular women that Jesus interacted with instead of a doctrine about what the standard should be. Don’t get me wrong, the doctrine is present, but somewhat obscured. The ladies covered are Mary Magdalene, the Samaritan woman at the well, the Canaanite woman who’s daughter was possessed, the Prostitute at Simons house, the woman with the 12 year hemorrhage, the young girl who died, the woman caught in the act of adultery, Martha, Mary (sister of Lazarus), and then they do a chapter of Mary Magdalene in response to The Divinci Code.

I liked the book in the sense that is covered all the major women that people encounter in the Gospels with respect to Jesus’ ministry. It points out that woman are not second class citizens (the truth that the Bible teaches), and that they are important. The Lutzers, once again, lead us to a great resource for suffering people.

What Was Missing

In almost every case, the Lutzers speculated on the life of the woman involved, and often portrayed her as a victim (sometimes that is justified, sometimes it is not). As such, it overemphasized the grace given the victim, but never mentions anything about the proposed perpetrator whether grace or wrath.

It did not address the controversial issue of submission at all since it was not to be a comprehensive doctrine on the Biblical view of womanhood, but rather a book on helping a suffering person.

Conclusion

This book was a good read, and an interesting speculation at times. If you are a woman who is suffering, I would recommend it. Otherwise, it might be worth the time. Me personally, I did not get much out of it. I would like to pass it over to some ladies to see how they like it.

Temptations

8/5/04

A decision is set firm

In the depths of my mind

I go through life aware

Of what to set behind

I talk and preach

Of what I do not do

And say what others

Should not pursue

I live my life with

My mind on straight

And set out from the beginning

With what to hate

A passion burns

Within my heart

Of what I never

Wish to start

And I move in life

With a place to point

To a place where

I shall not disappoint

And that one thing

Stares me in the face

And without the strength of Christ

I’ll do what I distaste.

We all struggle with sin

We all have issues with sin.  I recall a case where I was talking to a child at summer camp that kept on misbehaving.  I asked him if he knew Jesus personally and frustrated, he said that he had prayed to receive Christ seven times.  I said to him that he does not need to pray to ‘receive’ Christ again, he has to work out his salvation in Christ.  That is, the fact that he is struggling with sin is a sign that you are saved.  Unregenerate people have no conscience of the tiny poke of sin in their mind.  This poem details that it is the power of Christ that keeps us from sin.  If we focus on Christ, we will decrease the likelihood of sin.  If we focus on the flesh, we increase our chances of sin.  Be strong and avoid sin.

The Bad

The translation is a gender neutral which totally removes it from use for some people (I am referring to the people that think all gender-inclusive Bibles are evil). It does add to the language, but not nearly, or as bad, as the TNIV (Todays New International Version).

• The Hebrew characters are removed from Psalm 119 which takes out some of the character, but does not impact the meaning.
• Cheribum is simply translated as “creatures“, which certainly does NOT add any value to the splendor for God.
• References to God are lowercase as in the NIV (Note, that was also true in the old 1611 edition for you who think that capital references to God are absolutely needed).
• Some specific parts (womb for example) are translated way to general (body). Although the womb is part of the body, it is better to be more specific!

Some verses are TOTALLY translated wrong. I do not have a complete list, but a serious and common verse is this:

Romans 10:17
NASB – So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
KJV – So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
NIV – Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
NCV – So faith comes from hearing the Good News, and people hear the Good News when someone tells them about Christ.

As you can see, the typical translations focus on the word being the transforming mediator, but the NCV, the person becomes the mediator. This is certainly not faithful to the text. There are several other verses that can be used.

The Good

There is not much that I really considered extraordinary. There are a few verses that I liked the wording for Romans 1:32 – They know God’s law says that those who live like this should die. But they themselves not only continue to do these evil things, they applaud others who do them.

Other than that, one can get some comedy relief from reading Ezekiel 12 and counting how many times he writes “Human”…I can almost see a fraternity drinking game spawn out of this one. Why does it say this so much? Because the term “Son of Man” is not gender neutral!

Conclusions

I don’t quite think we should engage in book burning here, but when you get an NCV, you may not be getting the most faithful translation. It is of note that this translation is sold as many other names, most commonly, ICB, or the International Children’s Bible (I think that there are 7 verses that are different between the two).

I had a wonderful debate in the past with a Christian over the author John Eldredge. I deny this author as completely sound, discounting his theology as open theism (which he denies in his books, yet he fits the definition exactly), I have friends who agree there are a few problems, but the author is well know for helping people think differently about Christ.  What do you think?

I am not sure how long we discussed this issue, but it was certainly a while. I kept coming back to doctrine and she kept coming back to experience. It should be noted that we BOTH agreed that both doctrine and experience are required to live the Christian life (i.e., we worship in truth and in Spirit).

We agree that it is God that will cause the final meshing of these two, but we all seemed to come to a different end: I was raised with experience but no faith at all, and other person was raised with pure doctrine and no experience. Where to turn?

I will list only my argument since I may have mis-interpreted my friends. First, I believe that it is Doctrine first as the primary means to interpret experience. I do not think that we need a series of books that have no, or worse yet, shady doctrine in order to combat the obvious cultural problem of an over-emphasis on experience (existentialism for example). On the other hand, I agree that pure doctrine is meaningless unless it is applied. It is my belief, however, that we need to study sound doctrine first and foremost! It is only AFTER we understand doctrine we can make sense of experience. I could give examples (and will if someone asks), but this is getting long.

Now, how all this fits into the author, I have not read his books myself, but I have read from works of some very discerning theologians about the issue. The best article came from the book “Fools Gold”, John MacArthur is the general Editor and the particular essay is called “Roaming Wild: Investigating the Message of Wild at heart” by Daniel Gillespie.

In brief, Eldredge is on target with identifying a problem: men that do not act like men in the church. The main problem is that in trying to correct the problem, he gravitated to the opposite extreme and presented not just a wrong view of how a man should act, but even at times, a sinful view for how a man should act. To do so, Eldredge often pulls out selected actions of Jesus (very few of them), but seems instead to rely on scenes from popular movies like Braveheart to point out how a man should act. The material goes so far that Gillespie says:

We believe that a thorough assessment of Wild at Heart reveals that Eldredge’s solution, although innovative, falls short of true masculinity. In fact, many of Eldredge’s arguments are directly opposed to the biblical teaching on the subject.

Gillespie points out four major problems:

1. An Insufficient View of Scripture in the form of either absent or misinterpreted texts; often Eldredge provides more proof texts from Hollywood movies than the Bible.

2. An inadequate Picture of God. Gillespie says that it is not possible to mention all about who God is in such a narrow targeted book, however, Eldredge fails to balance the view by making leaving out balancing points. This is most evident in giving only the attributes of God relating to Eldredge’s proposed man. He then paints a false view of God as a God who takes risks in what he does.

3. An Incomplete Portrait of Christ by once again only ascribing to Jesus traits of the masculine man that Eldredge wants to paint.

4. An Inaccurate Portrait of Man in two ways. The first is that man’s responsibility for sin is overlooked preferring instead to bank on modern psychology in finding a reason (blame) for the sin in your past. The second is twisting the purpose for man. Eldredge believes that the purpose of a man is to follow his passions and desires, yet he fails to acknowledge that even our desires and passions are effected by the fall.

Regarding these points, Gillespie says:

Eldredge should certainly be applauded for seeking to present Christ as a model for manhood. Nonetheless, he falls short when he limits the characteristics of Christ to those that fit his thesis.

My conclusion is that Wild at Heart in particular, and many of other John Eldredge works that I have flipped through, would not be a good place to go to learn about God with respect to true doctrine. Is there something good there? Yes, we do indeed need men to step up in churches and culture. I think that John’s work here has illuminated that. I just feel that his approach is off base. What are your thoughts?

I have been thinking of this again as I continue to watch Hells Bells 2 over and over. I think about the old music that I gave up when I became a Christian. I think also of what I still have. Not only the music, but I also examine the movies, games, etc. 2 Thessalonians chapter 5 tells us to examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good, and abstain from every evil thing. I lent out Hells Bells to a friend and she was impressed by the people that were listed. She has brought up Sarah McLachlan on a few occasions. I agree that a lot of her songs are indeed full of trash, like the song ‘Adia’ (featured on Hells Bells) holds this lyric, “We are born…innocent”, while the Bible clearly teaches that we are born in sin! Do we condemn such artists? I don’t think so, but I will also not listen to such music for my entertainment as a regular habit. I believe that is part of the life of a Christian. But how am I doing? I got rid of the Heavy Metal stuff, but I still see lots of other things in my collection: John Lennon (an unashamed Jesus hater), Real McCoy that has many songs about sex (mostly ones about one night stands, really), and numerous others. What to do with these? Well, I am praying on that matter.

All that being said, how do we, as sinful men and women, justify what we see and enjoy? How can we say that what we do for entertainment does not impact us? Well, there are two things:

1. We don’t recognize the wrong – This is mostly from lack of time in the Word, a directly inverse practice to our entertainment (ahem)!
2. We don’t care – This is a scary thought! If we don’t care to follow the commands of Christ, are we really His sheep? He says that “My sheep hear my voice and they follow after me” in the 10th chapter of John.

It seems to me that we have shifted from Christ as our measure of orthodoxy to entertainment as our measure of orthodoxy. We are no longer a culture that seeks truth, but one that seeks pleasure! If it is enjoyable to us, we allow it. “I know it is bad, but…” is the mantra. People, let us realize again that sin is sin, enjoying either the practice of or watching the practice is detestable to God. For the love we have of our awesome savior, let us abstain from these evil things as soon as we see that they are evil. But let us not do it legalistically, but with understanding.

Modeling

We are the ministers to our own children.  The Search Institute (www.search-institute.org) has identified 40 developmental assets for children to grow up to be healthy, caring, and responsible.  The top two items on this list are family support and family communication.  The 14^th item on the list is modeling itself (both parents and other adults).  Modeling has a particularly important role in the Church.  How is one to learn the love of Christ without a model to share what that love of Christ is?  The answer is that someone teaches them; but who?  There are two good answers to this question: One is the children’s ministry staff, and the other is the parents.  Luke 6:40 tells us: A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. The modeling aspect is shown here as the teacher / student role.  What the teacher does, the student will learn.

In America today, many people live very compartmentalized lives.  A time exists for work, play, being home, and for God (often Sunday morning).  Although the faith of many people is genuine, for better or worse, we do tend to compartmentalize and as a result, our kids often do not see us in the pursuit of God.  There is one time in the life of this church that does occur: During the praise and worship time.  We, as adults, tend to think that when the kids are sitting on the floor using the chairs to color on is wasted time, and that there could be a better use of that time.  I would submit that is not really the case, and for several reasons.  One I will mention here, and I will refer back to this at a later time.  The one I am concerned about here is the modeling aspect.  When the kids look up (as they often will because their eyes are not yet fully developed for long periods of concentration on the children’s bulletin) they see mom and dad, with a (hopefully) genuine love in their eyes praising and worshiping our Lord and Savior.  When we remove them from this seemingly insignificant sight, we remove them from yet another critical modeling opportunity.

“In addition to cooperate among the institutions that serve youth is a critical need for a new sense of shared responsibility with families.  Too often, people point to the family as the source of problems, yet little is done to support families.  On the other hand, families too often turn over their children to schools or congregations or others, expecting those programs to provide young people with whatever they need in a particular area, such as spiritual development or education” (Youth Development in Congregations page 32, Search Institute)

Structure vs. Non-structure

There are some points were we lose our grips between structure and control.  Structure is having a whole plan of design, while control is having a situation under containment.  These are two very separate concepts.  There is a misconception that non-structured time leads to problems with sin and unrighteousness, but that is not the case.  Lack of control is what leads to sin and unrighteousness.  It is entirely possible to have a non-structured, but controlled time.  This time is actually good for kids because they do not feel herded around.  The time during praise and worship (assuming they are not participating) is a non-structured, but controlled activity.  Often times, it is a relaxing time which adds to their available attention span during the service.  On the other hand, if you add more structure (even with breaks), the attention span will decrease greatly and they will be lost during the critical teaching times.  The times sitting on the floor is a time to “do whatever” without getting into trouble.  This is not a waste of time, but a time to see the parents worship, a time to gather and build friends (when they do activities together), and again, a time to relax before the time they are required to pay attention.

Unity vs. Segregation

I recall the last day I was an atheist.  I was under the solid implication that the family structure of America had totally collapsed.  This, of course, is the driving force behind a most controversial and appalling book called Birthrights, by Richard Farson.  The background of this book is a psychologist who looks into the society and sees a total segregation of adults and children.  The answer he comes up with is to offer total freedom to children, a move that has the most devastating of consequences.  As I read though this book, I notice that healthy people from healthy families have seemed to solve the problem.  The solution is family unity.  You must understand that in my background, I have seen my father less than ten times in my life, my mother divorced my first stepfather when I was a young child, and she married the next when I was 16 years old.  The majority of my life has been lived in isolation.  I did not have many friends at all and my mother was either at work, her boyfriends house, or the neighbors house for hours on end.  You can understand how I perceive of the total breakdown of the family unit.

Three places exist for a segregation of adults and children.  The first is that they will be alone.  This is the area that I moved to.  First described by Wegscheider and Cruise, it is characterized by dealing with patterns of dysfunction through escape.  The aloneness is not a healthy alone, but a very unhealthy alone (Adult Children – The secrets of Dysfunctional Families).  The second is group isolation.  This is when a series of kids gets together in an unorganized group in the case of some, or organized gangs in the case of others.  They gather together in such groups as a response to the God-made desire for relationships.  They find comfort in one another.  These two groups have little to no adult supervision and are lead into the sinful desires beyond imagination because without any supervision, anything imaginable is done, mostly, it would seem, for attention.  This is what has lead to the radical views of the Goth culture.  The third way to deal with the separation is to have groups with adult supervision. This more or less is what occurs with the public education sector, for better or for worse.  I do not argue that there is an intrinsic problem with this, but only that when the segregation is not required.  The advantage to this segregation is to provide age-appropriate materials where relevant and further, if done correctly, can create or reinforce friendships among peer groups.  The disadvantage to this segregation is that it removes role modeling from the most important people in the child’s life: the parents.  Role modeling is addressed above, so I will not go further here, but “age-appropriate materials” needs some serious consideration.

What is age-appropriate?  I would submit that in the Church of Jesus Christ, about everything.  We live in a culture where kids are exposed to too many messages of objectionable content far too early.  Here is why: in 2004, 21.6% of 8^th graders have used some kind of illegal drug.  One can make two assumptions that are pretty good.  The first being that this statistic, like many other, is low.  The other is that not every kid who has seen drugs will use them.  If almost a quarter of the kids in America by 8^th grade have used an illegal drug, how many have seen them?  That same statistic for 12^th graders in 2004 is 51.1%.  The sad thing is that the stats are showing that drug use in 2004 was LOWER than other years reported (High school and youth Drug trend, National Institute on Drug Abuse, http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/HSYouthtrends.html).  Considering Sexual Activity, in 2003, 46.7% of adolescents experienced sexual activity in all grades reported from 9-12.  The breakdown is as follows: 9^th grade – 32.8%, 10^th grade – 44.1%, 11^th grade – 53.3%, 12^th grade – 61.6%.  (National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, Teen Sexual Activity in United States, http://www.teenpregnancy.org/resources/data/pdf/TeenSexActivityOnePager.pdf – As of now, this link is not active, but the site is still there and they have lots of research)

I must ask a question:  With trends as they are, are we concerned with children hearing a message at church that says that premarital sex is wrong?

In a conversation with one of my mentors not too long ago, they said it was appalling how many teenagers in middle school and high school are coming out and saying they are gay?  Why are they doing this?  I can only wager that it is for attention.  There is material in the school system today that doesn’t just promote tolerance, it teaches that such behavior is OK.  This was the controversy over a speech by James Dobson not long ago.  The media misquoted his statements, but his point was that material is being introduced into the public school system today actually promotes homosexual activity (Focus on the Family February 2005 Newsletter, Setting the Record Straight).

According to Neil Postman, there are only two institutions with enough interest to help prevent the decline of children.  One is the school system and the other is the family.  I will focus here on the family, since it is the backbone of the church.  In his book , The Disappearance of Childhood, Postman observes that a major decline in childhood as a whole and the blurring of adult / child boundaries and attitudes has to do with media entertainment.  He explains in another book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, that even under the heading of  ‘education’ such media is still entertainment and leads to several false assumptions.  The first of these being that entertainment is the core of life, the second that anything that is educational is best done with entertainment.  In addition, viewing media entertainment under the guise of education leads to a desire to more entertainment, which is the cornerstone to instant gratification.  According to Postman:

“Almost all of the characteristics we associate with adulthood are those that are (and were) either generated or amplified by the requirements of a fully literate culture: the capacity of self-restraint, a tolerance for delayed gratification, a sophisticated ability to think conceptually and sequentially, a preoccupation with both historical continuity and the future, a high valuation of reason and hierarchical order.” (Page 99, Dis).

Postman tells us later in this book that some parents have lost the confidence to parent (I would, however, submit that this is true, but the loss of confidence has to do with culture as a whole, not just media).  In response, Postman says: “Thus psychologists, social workers, guidance counselors, teachers, and other representing an institutional point of view invade large areas of parental authority, mostly by invitation.  What this means is that there is a loss in the intimacy, dependence, and loyalty that traditionally characterize the parent-child relationship.  Indeed, it is now believed by some that the parent-child relationship is essentially neurotic, and that children are better served by institutions than by their families.” (Page 150-1, Dis)  This final statement is at the core of being detrimental to the church.  Giving kids educational and fun programming does not encourage them to love the subject matter of the program, it teaches them to loved the means of delivery, i.e. television.  Further notes, I know that some people in the church do not allow their kids to watch more than an hour of TV or movies a day (which I believe is a VERY good trait), this is the same with both of my mentors.  Adding extra media to the curriculum may do little more than add to the desire to see more.

That concludes the remarks in my letter.  I was very pleased by a church leadership that took this letter very seriously and modified their plan to allow for more modeling in the church.

Peace in Christ,
Tom

I have sacrificed many things.  While some people went from college to great jobs, I went to graduate school and learned how to live on almost nothing.  I remember the conversations about struggles with money with some of my mentors.  One person said that every college student is going backwards, at least I know it!  That was good advice.  I had to turn off my home phone number, get rid of internet, and live on pancakes and chili for a long while.  I have $1200 every month and I had to make that stretch.  In this, I had the temptation of a dysfunctional mother that was trying to give me money.  I refused because I had to learn to live on my own, and what better way is there than balancing a budget with no money.  I sacrificed a lot to go to graduate school, and in the end I determined that it was worth it.  I learned a lot about science (my field of study), but I learned a lot more about life.  I learned to persevere, to tough it out, to look to the brighter times ahead.

We, as Christians, are told to persevere.  We will endure many difficult things, many challenges and temptations, but if we last, it is like the church in Smyrna, “Be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev 2:10b).  James echos the same sentiment: Blessed is he who perseveres, for when he has been approved, he will received the crown of life promised by the Lord for those that love Him (James 1:12).  We must endure the hard times and make it through.  Let us run the race that is before us!  Let us persevere in Christ, sacrifice, and have great joy in the promise that the Lord will give us.

Peace in Christ.