Susan Shapiro’s article at The New York Times is as sad as anything I’ve read in a long time. She is the quintessential modern woman, having pursued a career and a life in the city through her childbearing years. Twice she got pregnant, and twice she aborted her children. She didn’t want to be pregnant before her life and finances were stable. She would “have it all” eventually–so she thought. After entering her forties in a more secure situation, she decided to try and get pregnant only to find that she couldn’t. She had always said that she didn’t want the life of her mother, who begin having children at…
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How incest exposes the emptiness of “marriage equality”
I just finished reading an article in New York Magazine that I wish I could unread. It is an interview with a young woman engaged to marry her own father. I am not even going to link the interview here–it is just too vile and disturbing to share. You can read USA Today’s coverage of the situation here if you are interested. I mention the article because it raises some issues for the “marriage equality” movement. The sexual revolutionaries have been pushing to normalize any an all sexual relationships so long as they are between consenting adults. In effect, the only constraint on sexual morality is consent. Flowing from that,…
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Study Finds More Reasons to Get and Stay Married
From The New York Times: A new economics paper has some old-fashioned advice for people navigating the stresses of life: Find a spouse who is also your best friend. Social scientists have long known that married people tend to be happier, but they debate whether that is because marriage causes happiness or simply because happier people are more likely to get married. The new paper, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, controlled for pre-marriage happiness levels. It concluded that being married makes people happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who remain single – particularly during the most stressful periods, like midlife crises… A quarter of…
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It’s time to move past the Madonna cult
Denise McAllister has an excellent little piece at The Federalist about ageing women and the cult of youth. She argues that women generally miss out on the joys of different life-stages because they have been conditioned to pursue that which time will ultimately take away from everyone—youthful beauty. She writes: “On and on it goes, as women move from motherhood to the crone years, desperately holding on to their maiden visage. But that identity is gone. Time has stolen it from them… Motherhood was either rushed through and not savored or it was rejected altogether, so there isn’t even that aspect of womanhood to carry with them into the twilight…
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My Husband’s Not Gay
TLC will air a special on January 11 titled “My Husband’s Not Gay.” It follows the lives of several different Mormon men who experience ongoing same-sex attraction but who have also chosen to be married to women. They have families, and they are trying to live out the teachings of the Mormon faith, which prohibits homosexual conduct and encourages conjugal marriage. Watch ABC News’s report about the program above.
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Some Shortcomings of Modern Views on Gender Identity
Carl Trueman has some trenchant observations about the shortcomings of modern understandings of gender identity. The public response to the recent and tragic suicide of Josh “Leelah” Alcorn is a case in point. It seems that anyone who refused to acknowledge and affirm Alcorn’s transgender identity is being blamed for the suicide—which is why so much vitriol has been aimed at Alcorn’s Christian parents. Trueman writes:
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My thoughts on “Interstellar”: It asks all the right questions but gives all the wrong answers.
I saw the movie Interstellar a couple nights ago, and I’m still thinking about it now. It’s a mind-bending meditation on the meaning of life set within an epic intergalactic journey to save humanity. Superficially, it’s a sci-fi flick. But most fundamentally, it’s about metaphysics and theology. Here’s the plot in a nutshell. At some point in the not too distant future, the world becomes increasingly uninhabitable to humans. The food supply is afflicted by blight, and the world becomes a giant dustbowl. America no longer has a military and has ceased to lead the world in innovation and technology. In this dystopian future, the decline of American greatness seals…
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How to wage culture war and win
Peter Leithart has a great little piece over at First Things about the rapid shift in public opinion on gay marriage. He concludes with a sage word about how Christians should “wage war” in the midst of a majority culture that stands decidedly against what God has revealed about human sexuality. Leithart writes: I will be accused of demonizing opponents, but my argument leads to the opposite conclusion. If “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and rulers in heavenly places,” then flesh-and-blood persons are not our principal adversaries. They are victims—willing victims, perhaps—of demonic deceit. But we should focus on fighting the real enemies,…
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When Team Secularism gets envious of Team Christian
Ross Douthat has an insightful blog today about “Pagans and Christians” that you should read. Among other things, he argues that America isn’t really a “pagan” nation yet. So much of its middle-class spirituality is still deeply informed by the judeo-christian tradition. He is certainly right about that. He also argues that secularists don’t know what to do when Christians outshine them in acts of mercy and charity. Case in point: the overwhelmingly Christian identity of western doctors on the ground in Liberia right now. They are missionaries, they are there to heal, and they are there to proselytize. Everyone likes the healing part. But secularists get really uncomfortable about…
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Coercing a Christian couple to host a gay wedding
The story in the video above is not a new one. Still, you need to see this. Here’s the story in a nutshell. Cynthia and Robert Gifford are Christians who own a family farm near Albany, New York. They regularly rent their property for special events, parties, weddings, etc. In 2012, a lesbian couple attempted to rent the facilities for their lesbian wedding, and the owners declined. Why? Because the Giffords are Christians and believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. They simply did not wish to use their property to host an event that contradicts their deeply held religious beliefs.