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This weekend’s NY Times Magazine has a fascinating article about plummeting birthrates in Europe - basically, at current trends, European populations will be cut in half by 2050.  But there was a telling quote about differences between Europe and the U.S. from a researcher studying the problem.  He noted that two places that buck the trend of falling birthrates are Scandinavia, where there are large state subsidies for child care and maternity leave, and the U.S., where it is relatively easy to leave and re-enter the workforce. The article’s author writes:

So there would seem to be two models for achieving higher fertility: the neosocialist Scandinavian system and the laissez-faire American one. Aassve put it to me this way: “You might say that in order to promote fertility, your society needs to be generous or flexible. The U.S. isn’t very generous, but it is flexible. Italy is not generous in terms of social services and it’s not flexible. There is also a social stigma in countries like Italy, where it is seen as less socially accepted for women with children to work. In the U.S., that is very accepted.”

This is something I have repeatedly heard in nonprofit circles.  Because there isn’t a government program for a particular something, the “U.S. isn’t very generous.”  Mind you, this is only talking about government programs for child care and maternity leave, not benefits from private companies, low-cost programs from nonprofit organizations, or community programs from churches or other groups.  ”Society” is narrowly defined as “the government.”  I think this brief quote speaks volumes about the different cultural assumptions between the U.S. and Europe. 

This morning, an interesting article from the UC student newspaper caught my eye.  Here’s the lede:

The University of Cincinnati’s Student Government Association and Faculty Senate recently voted to support including “gender identity and expression” in the university’s non-discrimination statement. 

I don’t think that is too surprising: the city of Cincinnati passed a similar law in 2006 and, as the article notes, UC was just following the leads of Ohio U. and Ohio State. 

However, near the end of the article, a comment caught my eye: Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve long been uncomfortable with our contemporary habit of attacking our dead ancestors in the church for their blind spots.   I hope you know what I mean: you’ll be reading some Christian classic from 100, 200, even 1500 years ago, and suddenly come across a phrase or thought that is so utterly abhorrent to you, that for a second you can’t believe that this person was actually a believer. For example, I read a book review recently, in which the reviewer condemned the book’s author for making the same mistakes as Augustine, Aquinas, and Calvin.   (If I’m going to be making mistakes, that’s the company I want to keep!) 

It’s easy for us to condemn these uncomfortable statements from the past as patently absurd and plainly anti-gospel.  And our culture habitually favors the new, so it’s easy for us to see our current culture as inherently superior to that of the past.  And, let’s admit it, it’s easy: the dead are no longer around to defend themselves.  We don’t have to worry about some preacher from 300 years ago calling us up and giving us an earful for distorting his sermon. 

We have our own cultural blind spots, and reading books from the past with a hyper-critical eye robs us of the chance of having our own blind spots pointed out.  C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton each made this point in various places, and I recently heard an interview with the late Jaroslav Pelikan that again made this point well.  Pelikan was a church historian, and he described his role as “filing a minority report for the past 2,000 years.” 

Secondly, we deny the communion of the saints when we are too quick to point out the faults of our spiritual ancestors.  Today, it is easy to condemn a dead believer or long-gone community of believers for their now-rejected beliefs.  It is much harder to extend grace to them and accept them as brothers and sisters in Christ. It is much harder to forgive their faults, and praise them for the accomplishments they achieved without the benefit of hindsight.  It is much harder to put aside judgment, and submit ourselves to their judgment, so that our own blind spots can be revealed. 

Last week, while my wife and I were getting to know our new son, a group of prominent evangelical leaders released “An Evangelical Manifesto,” which issues to evangelical Christians (or “Evangelical” with a capital “e,” as the document recommends)

an urgent challenge to reaffirm Evangelical identity, to reform Evangelical behavior, to reposition Evangelicals in public life, and so rededicate ourselves to the high calling of being Evangelical followers of Jesus Christ.

There is much to commend in this document, and the signatories are some pretty heavy hitters in the Evangelical world. Since this is an election year, it touches on the issue of religion and politics.  Here’s GetReligion’s take on one aspect: 

Granted, “An Evangelical Manifesto” lacks specific examples of evangelical political misbehavior. It urges an “expansion of concern beyond single-issue politics,” but fails to sketch out how this might be accomplished or what form this would take. A Communist Manifesto this is not.

Here is the section from the manifesto itself:

We call for an expansion of our concern beyond single-issue politics, such as abortion and marriage, and a fuller recognition of the comprehensive causes and concerns of the Gospel, and of all the human issues that must be engaged in public life.  Although we cannot back away from our biblically rooted commitment to the sanctity of every human life, including those unborn, nor can we deny the holiness of marriage as instituted by God between one man and one woman, we must follow the model of Jesus, the Prince of Peace,  engaging the global giants of conflict, racism, corruption, poverty, pandemic diseases, illiteracy, ignorance, and spiritual emptiness, by promoting reconciliation, encouraging ethical servant leadership, assisting the poor, caring for the sick, and educating the next generation.  We believe it is our calling to be good stewards of all God has entrusted to our care so that it may be passed on to generations yet to be born.  (”An Evangelical Manifesto, 13-14)

Nothing I particularly disagree with here, but I am puzzled by the hand-wringing over “single issue politics.” If our goal is to be obedient to Biblical truth, and to call both major political parties to a deeper faithfulness to Biblical truth, then I’m not sure that accepting abortion rights - or, at least, accepting an acceptance of abortion rights - is all that good of an idea.  Abortion is a “hot button” issue precisely because it is an important issue, just as slavery, suffrage for women, and civil rights have been “hot button” issues in our country.  

Neither political party fully embraces God’s desire for our nation or our world.  We should never expect them to.  But when we vote, we’re faced with an imperfect choice.  We can’t say “I’ll vote for Candidate A on Issues X, Y, and Z, and Candidate B on Issues T, U, and V.” If, as this manifesto suggests, voting based on the issue we consider most important is not acceptable, what, then, is the right way for a Christian to vote in America? 

[I've been away from the computer for about a week because of the birth of our third child.  Hurrah!  I put those hours of waiting in the hospital to good use by reading a book that had been on my shelf for a couple of months.]

I’m a bit late to the table with The World Is Flat 3.0: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman.  It was published in 2005, to many rave reviews (here’s one from the New York Times Book Review by Fareed Zakaria) and brisk sales (it was a #1 bestseller, and is still #160 at Amazon.com 3 years after its publication).  Friedman uses the term “flat world” to describe the new era of globalization, in which I can visit a California-based website, order a computer assembled in Taiwan, call customer support when it breaks in India, and then return it to a store half-a-mile from my house.  Friedman credits a number of “flatteners” for creating this new world, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, the growth of the Internet, new software that lets people work from home, and the “just in time” global supply chain.  The book not only looks at the causes of this newly flat world, but also takes time to consider both the positive (cheaper goods, rising standards of living in China and India) and the negative (loss of jobs in the U.S.) - including the most negative development of all, the creation of Al-Qaeda, the “global supply chain” of terrorism. 

This flat world also explains my job.  I work from home via computer and phone lines with a small team of people from around the country, ministering to an international network of students and faculty.  (We recently gained our first international ESN mentor, a philosophy and religion scholar from New Zealand.) My job would probably have been possible in the 19th century, more likely in the form of something like the original National Geographic Society, but in this flat world, my work is much more effective. 

How should American Christians regard this newly flat world? To many of us, “globalization” means losing our jobs to India and China, losing America’s importance in the world, and watching out-of-control capitalism trump issues of justice and community.  Friedman, however, makes a compelling case that globalization can be a powerful force for justice, if it harnessed correctly.  For Christians - especially American Christians - I think that the flat world can heighten our sense of the communion of the saints.  For example, a family from my church recently moved to Kosovo, to assist with the creation of an American-style high school.  We’ve been able to follow their story and pray for them through their blog. Many more examples could be outlined. 

Friedman doesn’t sugarcoat the flat world: he is the first to point out that we now must compete for our jobs with people around the world, and threats to our national security are created in caves halfway around the world.  At the same time, we (as a global community) have an unprecedented opportunity to increase standards of living, international peace, and individual opportunity in places where peace and prosperity have rarely been see before.  Friendman has also led me to consider the current presidential race in a new light.  Which president is best suited to lead America in the flat world? I worry that the all three leading contenders may take the easy, short-sighted path, and fail to challenge Americans to accept the hard work ahead.  

The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a recent article (sorry - subscription required) called “So Much for the Information Age,” from a college professor lamenting his students’ deplorable grasp of current events and world history. This professor teaches journalism at one of our countries’ top universities, yet here is a sampling of what he found when he surveyed his students:

Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, India, and Japan — not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. The question of when the Civil War was fought invited an array of responses — half a dozen were off by a decade or more. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975. You get the picture, and it isn’t pretty.

I don’t think this is all that surprising, and it probably says much more about our nation’s primary and secondary educational systems than it does about the university world. 

The professor goes on to express concern about our nation’s future, and about how we as a nation have failed our students, by considering them “educated” when they can’t discuss the front page of The New York Times.  

I hope that Christian students are taking a different approach to their studies, and educating themselves whether or not the system is.  After all, we worship a God who made the world, who loves the world, and who loves the people of the world so much that he sent his Son to die for the world.  That same God then calls us to emulate Him and be formed in the image of Christ.  

Since God loves our neighbors and the world they live in, so should we.  And the first step is to learn about the world in which we find ourselves. 

The use of abortion to choose the gender of a child has long been a concern of the pro-life movement, especially in countries like China or India where cultural and legal norms make both gender selection and abortion more acceptable.  A new study is suggesting that some ethnic groups - specifically Chinese, Korean, and Indian - in the United States may also be using abortion to choose the gender of their children. William Saletan of Slate.com has a good writeup of the study and some implications. 

However, the conclusion of the article is a bit confusing, 

If you think of yourself as a techno-progressive—someone who believes, as Barack Obama does, that “maximizing the power of technology” will help fix everything from energy to theenvironment to health care—the increase in sex selection should give you pause. Technology can facilitate regression as easily as it facilitates progress.

OK - I’m good with that.  I thought that “technology=progress=unlimited good” went out with the Victorians, but that’s fine if people are just now waking up to reality.  The rest of that paragraph is a bit odd. 

But if you think of yourself as a pro-life conservative, the data should humble you, too. In the populations in which it has increased, sex selection isn’t a newfangled perversion. It’s a custom, and a patriarchal one at that. If the sex-selection story teaches us all to be a bit more skeptical of both tradition and technology, that’ll be real progress.

Eh?  Perhaps some pro-life conservatives base their position of “patriarchal custom,” but I’m not aware of custom or patriarchy or tradition - much less Chinese, Korean, or Indian tradition - being used as a foundation for pro-life arguments in the United States.  

This recent story - about a Vietnamese man who runs an orphanage for unwanted children next door to an abortion clinic in Vietnam - notes that he receives donations from “Christian and Buddhist organizations.” I have not encountered any Buddhist or Hindu approaches to abortion - either for or against - so I would be very interested in learning more about how non-Western religions regard abortion. 

Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let’s read our bibles. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.

- Barack Obama, June 28, 2006, “Call to Renewal”

The more I read this passage, the more confused I am.  Obama goes on to make a good distinction between the commandments of a religion based on the teachings of that religion and general laws and policies that must be agreed upon by people of many religions.  But I wonder what he had in mind about basing “public policy” on the Sermon on the Mount.

Does he mean outlawing anger or lust?  Or providing tax incentives for the meek?  Or passing national building codes requiring foundations to be set on solid rock?  It’s not a simple equation from Scripture to public policy - and, I would argue, many of the opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage are not basing their positions on proof texts, as Obama parodies them.  I’m not sure if this is political rhetoric to play up to his crowd, or if Obama legitimately doesn’t understand the Biblical arguments against abortion or homosexual marriage.

Obama has been increasing his religious language in the last few days, and the great website GetReligion.org posted an article calling for reporters to ask Obama more direct questions about how he sees various Biblical passages influencing his policy positions.  I second that motion.

In USA Today, David Gushee writes a plea to evangelicals suggesting that evangelical Christians should not be “married to the Republican Party.” I agree. But I think Gushee overlooks something vitally important when he writes,

Conservative evangelicals generally offer an unbiblically narrow policy agenda focused on just a few moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage instead of tackling the full range of biblical concerns, which include poverty, oppression and war.

There is no doubt that poverty, oppression, and war are important issues.  However, if you believe that an unborn baby is a living human being with the right to life, then abortion has killed millions of children in the 30+ years since Roe v. Wade.   As much as I might agree with a politician on a broad range of issues, I find it impossible to support someone - Republican or Democrat - who thinks that abortion is either no big deal or a fundamental human right.  And I think many evangelical Christians feel exactly like I do.

The Republican Party platform opposes abortion.  The Democratic Party platform states “we stand proudly for a woman’s right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay.”  I wish that it weren’t as simple as that - I wish that I had a legitimate choice between two or more political parties who opposed killing unborn children.  There’s a lot about the Republican Party that I dislike.  But I could no more vote for a pro-choice Democrat (or a pro-choice Republican) than I could vote for a candidate who accepted slavery as a moral right.

I have not paid attention to Lou Dobbs in a long time, but this commentary on cnn.com caught my eye. Dobbs claims that religious leaders are “encroaching” on politics, particularly when it comes to illegal immigration, Dobbs’ pet topic. Dobbs feels that it’s inappropriate for religious leaders to criticize government policies regarding immigration, but at least he includes this great quote:

The Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners Magazine put it this way: “If given the choice on this issue between Jesus and Lou Dobbs, I choose my Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

I don’t often agree with Jim Wallis, but here I say, “Go, Jim!”

Then Dobbs kind of goes off the deep end. He counters Wallis by citing Romans 13:

But before the faithful acquiesce in the false choice offered by the good Reverend, perhaps he and his faithful should consult Romans 13, where it is written: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established…”

Um, Mr. Dobbs, I hate to break this to you, but the last time I checked, you aren’t a governing authority.