Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marriage. Show all posts

Monday, July 22, 2019

Against Heterosexuality by Michael Hannon [abridged]


Over the course of several centuries, the West had progressively abandoned Christianity’s marital architecture for human sexuality. Then, about one hundred and fifty years ago, it began to replace that longstanding teleological tradition with a brand new creation: the absolutist but absurd taxonomy of sexual orientations... 
Michel Foucault, an unexpected ally, details the pedigree of sexual orientation in his History of Sexuality. Whereas “sodomy” had long identified a class of actions, suddenly for the first time, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the term “homosexual” appeared alongside it...designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”...cementing these categories of hetero- and homosexuality in the popular imagination...Sexual orientation, then, is nothing more than a fragile social construct, and one constructed terribly recently. designating not actions, but people—and so also with its counterpart and foil “heterosexual.”
My own prediction is that we will see this binary thoroughly deconstructed within our lifetimes. But in my view, we proponents of Christian chastity should see the impending doom of the gay–straight divide not as a tragedy, but as an opportunity. More than that, I want to suggest that we should do our best to encourage the dissolution of orientation within our own subcultural spheres wherever possible...

Monday, July 6, 2015

Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment



Within the churches are those who defend the historic Christian teaching on sexuality.  It is assumed that there will always be some discernible dissonance between the Church and the world and that part of the mission of the Holy Spirit through the Church is, as Jesus says in John 16, to “tell the world that it is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment.” 
On the other side are those who reject the historic Christian teaching and who seem to believe that the world, as represented by its most self-consciously progressive institutions and thinkers, is ahead of the Church in ushering in the Kingdom of God. Indeed, that the world is right in telling the Church that it is wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement. They say that God is doing a new thing. But they seem unable to imagine that God might say ‘no’ to any new thing done in the world in the name of progress. There seems to be no room on the part of the revisionists for any truly prophetic word to be spoken to the world’s claims about love and justice.

-Ken Myers

Monday, April 6, 2015

Real Churches & Fake Ones


"The fact that some churches become dysfunctional should be grieved but is not a surprise to those who truly live in community.  True community is always messy, for it seeks life in the friendship of embodied living persons.  A church with no discord, a church that has climbed to the mount beyond the possibility of dysfunction, is no longer a community but an ideal facade where the preaching becomes only principles and worship just Muzak.  
There is no way to avoid discord, and the Christian leader that wants community without discord wants not true community but to drug himself with a needle of the ideal to the vein.  The leader who wants the ideal of community does not want community at all, for the ideal is community without the humanity of physical bodies in relationship.  The leader who wants the ideal community has turned community into an idol."  

- Andrew RootBonhoeffer As Youth Worker
 

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Marriage Gospel


"Half of our marriages end in divorce." No they do not. The real numbers are in and it seems that little more than half of half end in divorce.

As a homeschool dad, I often refer to the “smell test” when reviewing math assignments with my sons.  ‘Okay, if you multiply a big number by another big number, the answer is not going to be a small number, right?’

Well, perhaps we can do the same here.  How many married people do you know?  Okay, now how many divorced?  This is a difficult thing to get our minds around, but try.  Think about the sheer staggering number of married adults you know.  It is far easier to list the unmarried adults than the married.  Now think about the divorces.  Do they even begin to approach half?

Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn are Christian marriage counselors, popular conference speakers, and family enrichment authors.  This month Shaunti released The Good News About Marriage reporting the findings of an 8-year research project reviewing the statistical data on marriage and divorce in America.  Her conclusions are shattering many of our most common conjugal clichés. 

Among her more noteworthy findings were:

-          The divorce rate in America has never even been close to half.  While the actual divorce rate is impossible to establish, [the Census Bureau stopped trying in 1996] realistic estimates put the societal divorce rate as low as 27% with almost every source reporting a decline in divorces for the last 30 years!


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Book List [what I've been reading lately] ... 4 biographies

Since It's been ages since I've posted one of these ... I did recently just finish this latest set of 4.
You are what your mind eats ...






Monday, March 31, 2014

Who were the Nephilim?



Since the question is back on the table with this weekend's release of the Noah flop film, here is an answer deep from the archives.

As it turns out, the Nephilim have everything to do with Christian boys who lust after the Emma Watsons of the world and nothing to do with fantastic CGI rock giants or prurient alien angel-demons.


WHO WERE THE NEPHILIM?
An exegetical study of Genesis 6.

CONTEXT

According to the O and NT’s, Moses was the author of the Torah[1].  His audience was a post-Exodus, pre-conquest Israel.  His main spiritual concerns would have been: 
A. education – Israelite [and Canaanite] history and that of the land she was to inhabit; 
B. Faith in God through hardship and uncertainty [grumbling vs perseverance - especially while traveling; trusting God as He works in time and processes; being subverted by the temptations of food, idolatry, and compromise with powerful empire-builders]; 
and C. Purity through separation [ethical and marital; being subverted by women].  

All three of these themes are nearly omnipresent subtexts undergirding every portion of Genesis.  They explain the content and emphasis of nearly everything contained therein. 

To answer the question at hand, I would like to key in on the third concern – spiritual purity and marriage.  At the risk of overstating my case, if Genesis were written today as a sensational political paperback, it would be called something like: “Setting the Record Straight: The true history of the Israelite Nation: how women, paganism, and faithless compromise almost destroyed God’s people, why Canaan is rightfully theirs and why the bloodthirsty, idolaters must be driven from it.” 

Monday, March 10, 2014

Cheap Imitations of Grace


"All the pleasures money can buy are but cheap imitations of grace."

-Jamie Soles

Song Title: Anything in Life, Album: River

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Emergency Valentine's Day Love Letter Template


My updated list of things I love and appreciate about my bride, _____________:

Your dogged determination and faithfulness to  _____________.
Your true and far-reaching commitment to my  _____________.
Your passionate devotion to  _____________.  You really care about  _____________.
How you  _____________when I’m stressed or grumpy.
For all the thousand hours of personal time you’ve given with gladness to  _____________ .  
How you model  _____________.
How you sacrificially give of yourself for  _____________.
How you speak with  _____________.
Your willingness to give up  _____________.
All the years you  _____________.  
Your cute love of  _____________.
Your heart for helping others by_____________.
Your zeal for_____________ with excellence.
The way you have shown/taught me _____________.
Your selfless bravery in _____________.
Your lifelong love of _____________.
Your unwavering commitment to _____________.
Your resolution to _____________.
How much courage it took to _____________.
Your patience/dedication to me through _____________.
How carefully you always _____________.
How you always take the time to _____________.
How much you've helped our family over the years by _____________.
How you use your God-given gift to _____________.
Your willingness to _____________ when I asked you to, even though you didn't want to.
The consistent way you sacrifice so we can _____________.
Your desire to _____________.
The glorious way you _____________.
The honest and brave ways you _____________.
Your almost expert eye at/for _____________.
The way you honor _____________.
The strength you displayed by _____________.
The way you patiently _____________.
The way you have learned to _____________over the years.
Your vision for/to _____________.

photo: hdwallpapers.in


Friday, September 13, 2013

"Missional" Living


"All the people of the Church [must] live their baptism in a missionary way... throughout the developed world today, every territory is mission territory; when you walk out the door of your house - and even before you walk out the door of your house - because Christian mission really does begin at home."

- George Weigel

Monday, July 22, 2013

Top 4 Questions a Father should ask a Young Man Interested in His Daughter ...


Gleaned from Pastor Burke Shade after years of family courtship, matchmaking, and counseling:

1. What is your Church experience, background, and practice?
2. How is your relationship with your mother, sisters, and father?
3. Are you sexually pure?
4. What is your work now, plans for the future, and can you provide?

Thursday, June 27, 2013

DOMA & Gay "Marriage" - a Christian Evaluation Part 2


In the aftermath of the SCOTUS DOMA ruling, here are 7 points to help us understand why we are where we are and 7 things Christians should do about it.

1. Heterosexual couples destroyed the sanctity of marriage long before the gay rights movement hit the mainstream. "I have two dads, you know." This is what a young boy I know recently told me. His words struck me. I knew they were true. But I'd never thought of it ... like THAT before. His birth parents divorced while he was an infant [for what I believe were sound, Biblical reasons]. His mother went on to remarry a fine Christian man and so, like so many other boys around, he has "two dads". Today this trend continues, though now with the ruthless efficiency of eliminating the mother altogether. A long time ago, our society began to deliberately streamline the process by which a man or woman can dissolve the oath they had previously made before God, church, family, community, and state, to stay united until death.  And for decades, the process of oath-breaking has been made more and more convenient.  At this point in our history, "the sanctity of marriage" is a hollow-sounding string of words that used to mean something.


2. It was heterosexual promiscuity that paved the yellow-brick road on which gay rights activists now march.  What young people really mean when they say "Don't tell THEM what THEY can't do in THEIR bedroom" is "Don't tell ME what I can't do in MY bedroom".  This is what 'the pill' is all about. What we see today is the fruiting of seeds that were planted fifty years ago and have been faithfully watered and fertilized ever since. Pulling levers and pushing buttons isn't going to change that or stop what has been in motion for so long. But being faithful will... eventually. This is a bitter fruit, but the story is far from over.  As a society, we seem to have lost the ability to to make even the most basic moral judgments and distinctions.  Just open up your iTunes store and watch the scrolling "what's hot now" banner at the top.  By and large, we are daily consumers of the obscene.


3. The black church is crucial in our culture wars. They have been the sleeping giant that has been roused in the recent cultural reversal of popular-level abortion views. They will be crucial in courageously speaking out to reject FALSE equivocations between civil rights struggles and the campaign to make sodomy a socially-acceptable sexual practice. One of my best friends in the world was born with very, very dark black skin.  His ethnic background is Nigerian.  He was black last year as a Ph.D. student in Seattle.  He is black today as an entrepreneur in Charleston.  He will die black.  None of this has the slightest thing to do with extraneous cultural influences or his own behavior and personal choice.  He is a black man, pure and simple.  To equate his blackness with another man's decision to engage in sodomy is false and wrong, and there is no amount of voice-raising or finger wagging that will change that fact.  But my voice here isn't the one that matters.  Those belong to my brothers of color, [many of whom are speaking out] such as Voddie Baucham, Thabiti Anyabwile, Ken Jones, Jemar Tisby, Philip Holmes, Reddit Andrews, Mike Campbell, Anthony Carter, LaCrae, Shai Linne, Curtis Allen, and others.

4.  Gay is cool.  Let's face it.  Well, perhaps it would be better to say it this way -  the gay cause is the cool side.  For the general public actually being gay is not the cool thing [see the horrifying long-term health statistics below], but it is most definitely cool to have gay friends.  It is cool to support them vocally and frequently.  It is cool to be passionate for their cause.  And the gay rights movement has found a way to morally tap into the fashion sense of the American public.  Many have wisely noted that in current public opinion, image trumps character.  The average Joe arrives at his ethical views in large part the same way he chooses his shoes, skinny jeans, and coffee brand.  Designer ethics is part of a designer lifestyle.  Pro-gay is chic and fashionable.  But as we've seen with fanny packs, disco, and eugenics, trends change and fashions - material and ideological - alter.

5.  This is an experiment - a cultural experiment.  I'll admit, I'mm an optimist, not a henny-penny kind of guy.  I probably wouldn't run around like my hair was on fire if my hair were actually on fire. And here is one of the reasons. This is an experiment. Will state-sanctioned gay marriage result in a happier, healthier society?  The answer is 'no'. This experiment is doomed to NOT work. Our great, great grandchildren will look back on this sort of thing and scratch their heads. You cannot rebel against a creational pattern as deep as gender and think things will just keep rolling forward. So stay faithful and keep on keepin' on. Roe was hardly the end of the abortion debate, and we are not even close to the end of this discussion either. There are plenty of people paying attention and taking notes. The numbers are being counted.

6. And this brings us to a separate societal trend which is set on a direct collision course with the Gay Rights Agenda: that of fully-socialized medicine. We've already heard it loudly suggested that lawmakers ban soft drinks because of this conflict.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Great Budget Tool

Not long ago we finished the Ramsey course at Trinity and so far, we've been doing a fair job at sticking with it.  But Dave recommends re-doing/reviewing your household budget every month.  I have to admit that because of the way I'm wired, I really hate that idea ... but he's absolutely right.  Here is a handy tool to make that dreaded task MUCH easier:

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Marriage, Divorce, and Gay Rights


"Under the new arrangement, a mutual pledge made by two people ... has been transformed by law into a pledge which can be revoked at will by one party.  And the party who wishes to maintain the marriage and to stick by the original vows can - in the end - be dragged, under threat of prison, from the family home."
-Peter Hitchens ...
...on how divorce "reform" laws undermined the sanctity of marriage a long time before anyone thought to legalize homosexual marriage.  

Monday, April 1, 2013

The Sounding Brass of Lust and Tinkling Cymbal of Temptation


When two people love each other - truly and deeply - when they are committed to each other in life-long, selfless devotion and companionship; when they seek to serve and care for the other and join together to synergistically serve and improve the community around them ... the world should rejoice and pray for more like them and that couple should continue on while never allowing sexual impurity to intrude and corrupt the priceless gift their real love is.
I am afraid that when I do not understand this, it is because of my own relational shallowness and weakness in the face of our current temptations.

- Meditation on True Friendship, Real Marriage, David and Jonathan, Chastity, and our current temptations

[Paintings: David and Jonathan by Rembrandt above and Conegliano below.]


Friday, January 18, 2013

What ever happened to Promise Keepers?


"Men relate shoulder-to-shoulder with a common quest/vision/passion/etc.  Women sit face-to-face [romantically relating].  Try to make relationships happen to men when the relationship is the end and it is not going to last.  It's just not going to last.  There needs to be principles/Scriptures/a mission/a project/something there.  Because they bond deeply when they have a common passion.  I think forcing the relational thing as a constant getting together to talk about your relationship will abort eventually."

-John Piper

Thursday, October 4, 2012

The Pressing Duty of our Time


"To establish the fact of decadence is the pressing duty of our time."

- Richard Weaver

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Visual Family Budget




Dave Ramsey's recommended category percentage of overall spending:


Housing 25-35%
Utilities 5-10%
Transportation 10-15%
Healthcare 5-10%
Food 5-15%
Investments/Savings 5-10%
Debt Payments 5-10%
Charitable Giving 5-15%
Entertainment/Recreation 5-9%
Misc Personal 2-7%

[graphic: visualeconomics.com]

Saturday, January 7, 2012

The Death of Pretty ...

by Pat Archbold
[abridged]

Pretty is dying.

People will define pretty differently. For the purposes of this piece, I define pretty as a mutually enriching balanced combination of beauty and projected innocence.

Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different.

Pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend. Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity. Its value is temporary and must be used. It is a consumable. A consumable that consumes as it is consumed but brings no warmth.

Most girls don’t want to be pretty anymore even if they understand what it is. It is ironic that 40 years of women’s liberation has succeeded only in turning women into a commodity. Something to be used up and thrown out.

Of course men play a role in this as well … But here is the real truth. Most men prefer pretty over hot.

Our problem is that society doesn’t value innocence anymore, real or imagined. Nobody aspires to innocence anymore. Nobody wants to be thought of as innocent, the good girl. They want to be hot, not pretty.

Girls, please, bring back the pretty.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Context of Abortion ...

"Abortion is a religious issue not just because traditional religions happen to oppose it but because abortion is necessarily about sex... A woman (or more usually, the man!) wants abortion only because she wants to have sex without babies.
So in order to fully persuade the people in our society that abortion is not an option, that babies are holy and not to be treated as toys to be thrown away at will, we must achieve a much harder task: we must persuade them that sex is holy and not to be treated as a toy. For sex is the context of abortion. Abortion is different from other issues because sex is different from other issues."

- Peter Kreeft