There’s a lot to agree with in her post and it’s hard to not wonder how pyrrhic the marriage “victories” ultimately will prove.  The best way to ensure that the principles beneath the marriage amendment in North Carolina grows in more fertile soil is to hold it with something of an open hand.  Even if it is never overturned, no one likes a boastful winner.

What’s more, the categories of “winning” and “losing” seem alien to the work of discerning and crafting legislation, and even in another world getting it passed.  Yes, the hostilities exist and the sides are deeply divided.   But the only way through the culture wars is not to shout about our need to go beyond them, but to set about ignoring them altogether and get on with the work that is given to each generation:  providing the positive vision for society that has been informed by our Christian commitments.

It may be, in fact, prudent to simply avoid celebrating much altogether.  We ought to recognize, after all, that the overwhelming passage of traditional marriage amendments are not signs of our society’s health, but its disease–and we are all implicated in it.  Legislation ought to be the fruit of a long and careful discernment, what some have called “judgment” if we can get beyond the stereotypes for a moment.  That process costs us all something, for it demands reflection upon both the moral norms we ought to strive for and the society in which we live.   The attempt to close the gap, with legislation or some other effort, must be founded upon the recognition of failure.  It will not do to foist the burden of responsibility on others before moving on.  Not as Christians, anyway.  ”Weep with those who weep” is an exhortation given to the church, but it is for the world.  For as George MacDonald wrote somewhere, were it not for our tears the world would not be worth saving anyway.

It is clear in light of last week’s events, though, that those who have spoken of the culture wars’ completion were considerably too hasty with their judgment.  The younger evangelicals of the moderate variety may be gaining in strength and number, but they are still rowing upstream.  And we are mostly living off the culture war’s legacy, too.  Those who shout the loudest that the culture war needs to end stand to gain the most by it continuing.  Ressentiment is not a phenomenon bound by age and it seems like there is plenty of it among Rachel’s commenters.  

The real question that everyone wants to know is what comes after the culture wars.  And here, beyond the few platitudes that I’ve now heard enough of, no one seems to have much of an idea.  I’m on board with Rachel’s suggestion that we ought to share stories.  But my experience makes me think that sharing stories is helpful for establishing friendship but not exactly sufficient for unwinding what shape our society should actually take.  I can’t imagine any of my gay and lesbian friends resting content with sharing their story with me without them agitating to get me to vote differently.   Most of them are looking for social and legal changes based on the perceived (and sometimes real) injustices they have experienced.  And so they should.  But that simply means our political and legal differences take shape within the context of a friendship that is almost inevitably strained because of those differences.   Stories have changed much for me, but I remain a gay marriage skeptic.  And while I work to keep the question open for the sake of inquiry (doing better with this at some times than at others), I have confidence in my position and can’t forsee ever changing it.

Of course, I have never been much of a culture warrior.  I have been to the Values Voter Summit and while I remain friends with folks at the Family Research Council, I found the whole thing off-putting.  But the possibility of evangelicals being conservative without engaging in the culture wars tends to get lost among younger evangelicals.  Many people in North Carolina doubtlessly were of the culture warrior variety.  But if I know anything about the Acts 29 movement, I find it laughable to believe that folks in J.D. Greear’s church would be among them.

“There are many times,” Oliver O’Donovan once said, “when the most pointed political criticism imaginable is to talk about something else.”  When Jesus says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, he does not make Ceasar irrelevant.  But he does ground his political theology in a sense of indifference, undermining the passions that would have incited both devotion and rebellion.  Jesus first concern is government, but the point has implications for all those creaturely realities that we might be tempted to exalt above the Kingdom of Christ.   Like Caesar, “culture war Christianity” has become an object of either devotion or rebellion, a matter for defense or denial by evangelicals both young and old. We  have not yet escaped its grasp.  And we only will when we can begin our political theologies by speaking of something else.

Remember the media prattle about a conservative “war on women?” It would seem that meme has come to an abrupt end thanks largely to DNC strategist and frequent White House visitor, Hilary Rosen, and her less than charitable view of homemakers.

Rosen infamously opined that Ann Romney (a homemaker) “has never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of women in this country are facing.” While Rosen was undoubtedly making a dig at the Romney family’s relative wealth, she was also diminishing the real value that a homemaker brings to the family.

Political operatives on both sides of the aisle quickly distanced themselves from her remarks, and Rosen offered an apology to Romney and the many women (homemakers and not) she offended.  But as Cathy Ruse points out, “Wasn’t [Rosen] just being honest, saying what everyone around her really thinks?”

Not Esteemed

Rosen’s comments aren’t an aberration, and Cathy correctly lays much of the blame at the feet of the modern feminist movement. The narrative, as Cathy notes, has been “careers optimum, husbands optional, conception avoided and the unplanned products thereof aborted.”

The reality is that our culture has little esteem for homemakers. Consider for a moment the conspicuous lack of homemakers in our sitcoms and entertainment today. Our protagonists don’t do diapers. (With the exception, perhaps, of Will Arnett.

It’s not surprising then that our tax policy rewards families where both parents work outside the home by providing credits for childcare, while offering no similar benefit for families who choose to forgo one income by having a parent remain at home.  Our law reinforces the ideal of a two income home by facilitating childcare, and exposes our belief that homemaking has little value. I’ll return to tax policy a little later, but allow me to suggest two simple reasons why homemaking isn’t esteemed by our culture. First, there is a general ignorance of what homemaking entails. And second, more importantly, we don’t value children.

Homemaking is Work

According the New York Times, 70 percent of married women over the age of 25 with children work outside the home. If this wasn’t the model they received, it was certainly the model reinforced in school and pop-culture. With so few families choosing the homemaking route, it should come as no surprise that homemaking is so poorly understood. Only someone with no experience in homemaking would dare suggest that it isn’t work, or that home economics are disconnected from the broader economy.

In a recent study by Investopedia researchers tallied the market value of the various services that a homemaker provides for the family. The list in itself is informative for those unfamiliar with a day in the life of a homemaker: cooking, cleaning, childcare, driver, laundry, home maintenance, etc. The market value of these combined tasks totals over $96,000.

It’s an impressive amount, but looking at the list of services the firm included, I can think of a handful they missed: personal shopper, interior designer, event planner, family counselor, first responder, private tutor, and accountant. Trying to list the intangible benefits would undoubtedly turn this blog post into a novela. So let’s leave it there for now.*

When presented with the Investopedia numbers, Rosen would likely agree that these tasks represent real work, or more likely, drudgery. After all, who’d want to be cooped up at home playing nursemaid and laundress for children? The “uneducated.” That’s who.

In profiling the modern homemaker, the Times couldn’t resist quoting the CensusBureau’s 40-year review, “Those with the least education are now the most likely to stay out of the labor force as stay-at-home mothers.” While this may in fact be true, it obfuscates several important realities.

The absence of a college degree does not imply an inability to obtain one. For many women, and some men, homemaking is a vocational choice. They’re not stuck due to a lack of education; these homemakers are doing precisely what they want to do—what they believe they’re called to do. According tosociologist Bradford Wilcox, an astounding 74 percent of married mothers who work full time would prefer to work fewer hours or not at all. For these women and the families they represent, homemaking represents anaspirational choice. And why shouldn’t it?

Because we don’t value children. Or, as my friend Josh Bishop observed, we eschew the self-sacrifice and “drudgery” that children entail more than we value children. Which is, I believe, all of a piece.

It is quite true that Rosen and many others would argue that they provide all the services Investopedia has tallied and work outside the home. I tip my hat to them. This was the case in my family growing up. But talk to any homemaker and you’ll find they place an emphasis on the relationships being nurtured in the home, not on the responsibilities of maintaining a home.

Valuing Children

Any discussion about the value of children must begin by acknowledging that our law persists in denying the humanity of the unborn child until the moment of birth. And the law is a teacher. We have enshrined the belief that the wellbeing, nay, the existence, of children is less important than the happiness of adults.

Mother, homemaker and author Rachel Jankovic captures this well:

The truth is that years ago, before this generation of mothers was even born, our society decided where children rank in the list of important things. When abortion was legalized, we wrote it into law.

Children rank way below college. Below world travel for sure. Below the ability to go out at night at your leisure. Below honing your body at the gym. Below any job you may have or hope to get. In fact, children rate below your desire to sit around and pick your toes, if that is what you want to do. Below everything. Children are the last thing you should ever spend your time doing.

Set aside the platitudes about children being our greatest resource. We don’t believe it. Author Anthony Esolen poignantly observes, “if we loved children, then we’d have a few.” But Americans aren’t having many children. In fact, if you were to take away population growth due to immigration, we’d be a shrinking nation. Our nation’s fertility rate is just hanging on around replacement level, considered to be 2.1 births per woman.

Undoubtedly, our policy of abortion on demand and the 50 million lives lost to abortion over the last four decades play a role in suppressing fertility and reshaping our view of children. But consider again how even our tax code plays its dubious part.

During a lecture at FRC, Ramesh Ponnurupointed out that the child tax credit, (whichFRC crafted a decade ago) would need to be increased to about $4,000 per child just to make our tax code “child neutral.” Ponnuru noted that those raising children are not only paying into safety net programs to fund current beneficiaries, they are also investing in the next generation of those who will pay into the system. It’s a form of “double taxation” that their childless peers do not face. So while Roe undercuts the humanity of our children, the tax code places a disproportionately heavy burden on families with children.

A Christian Response

So how ought Christians to respond to a culture which has little esteem for homemaking and places so little value on children? It seems to me that opportunities to live a curious, countercultural lifestyle abound.  But before we get there, I’d rather hear from you:

How have you seen the Church influence culture either through valuing children or validating homemaking? How do you see the Church being influenced by our culture in these areas?

Does the idea of promoting contraception to sexually active Christian singles, debated vigorously here at Mere-O, signal agreement with culture about the value of children?

* In full disclosure, my own wife is a homemaker and when I spell her for a day or two at home, I’m reminded all over again how much energy goes into the formation of  little people and into maintaining the forward momentum of our family. Needless to say, I’m somewhat relieved when she’s home and I can return to… ahem, “work.”

Last week President Obama’s campaign website premiered “The Life of Julia,” a slideshow in which a fictional everywoman character benefits from a government program at every stage of life.

Each slide contains a retro-chic illustration of Julia against a pastel-hued background, but the slideshow lacks the full color of a human life.

Julia’s story focuses almost entirely on government policies and programs.  In its own slideshow, “A Better Life for Julia,” The Heritage Foundation illustrates why these policies and programs are problematic and suggests how a better life for Julia is possible.

But the problem with the slideshow lies not only with the policies.  The fictional account of Julia’s life shows an underlying way of viewing the world that is as revealing as it is troubling.

According to this worldview, only two primary characters appear on the stage of life: individuals and government.  The relationships and institutions of civil society that animate life and promote flourishing remain hidden to the audience.

We don’t see Julia surrounded by any kind of faith community.  We don’t see her volunteering at a ministry, nor do we see her encounter a crisis during which fellow church members bring over dinner or help out with transportation needs.

We don’t see Julia married.  At age 31 “Julia decides to have a child,” but with whom?  There is no mention of a husband.  Better not tell Julia that raising a child outside of marriage increases his likelihood of child poverty six-fold.

We don’t see Julia calling upon her friends for help, and—other than being on her parents’ health insurance—there is no mention of a relationship with parents, siblings or other relatives.

We don’t see Julia donating time at the local Habitat for Humanity.  We don’t see her asking her neighbors to watch her kids while she and her (non-existent?) husband go for a date night. We don’t see her approaching co-workers or local businesses to raise funds for her son’s band trip.

The only institution Julia seems to rely on is government.

In short, Julia’s life is monochromatic.  Despite the different pastel backgrounds, everything in the slideshow appears in shades of government dependence.

The worldview that seeps through the slides of this campaign tool is that, for a full and happy life, all we need is a government that gives us more and more.

But experience teaches us that this simply isn’t true.  There is a rich palette of other relationships and social organizations that give color to life.  Marriage, family, neighborhood, church, and local non-profits may not appear in Obama’s narrative, but millions of Americans turn to and rely on these institutions every day for a myriad of needs.

America’s policies and policymakers should stand up for women throughout their lives.  That starts with viewing women as more than isolated Julias and appreciating the many valuable institutions and relationships present in each phase of their lives.

A more accurate worldview is needed to improve upon the shallow, monochromatic lens of the Obama campaign and enable us to see Julia—and all Americans—in living color.

Ryan Messmore, D.Phil., is a Research Fellow in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.

A good plot needs conflict, an unsettled situation whose outcome we care about. For more than two centuries, the theme of “individual vs. society” provided a ready tension for it, as in Huck Finn’s personal feelings for Jim clashing with the norms of slave society, or Edna in Kate Chopin’s The Awakening rebelling against patriarchal demands in turn-of-the-century Louisiana. The conflict worked precisely because the social side isn’t powerless and on occasion voices a legitimate criticism of the specific individual with whom we sympathize. Once all legitimacy lies on the individual side, once social institutions have no claim upon the one, tension dissipates and the novel reads like a chronicle of events in the life of _____, not a meaningful examination of human affairs in this or that setting.

Bauerlein unpacks the point with reference to Jeffrey Eugenides popular novel, The Marriage Plot.  I haven’t read it, so I can’t comment on the accuracy, but it’s still worth considering.

This is the position of The Marriage Plot. The one area in which the novel does evoke larger concerns that did affect American culture during those years—or at least an important enclave of it, the college campus—only proves the decline of those concerns into a strictly individualist import. As Madeleine proceeds in her English major, she takes a seminar in semiotics, where she gains from Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse not insights about humanity at large but rather resonance with her own experiences. Of the book, she first observes that “the writing seemed beautiful,” and then Barthes’ sentences crystallize into an insight: “Here was an articulation of what she had been so far mutely feeling . . . Madeleine was in a state of extreme solitude.”

The insight ends the paragraph on that expanding clarity, but the very next sentence shrinks it back to the peer scene: “It had to do with Leonard. With how she felt about him and how she couldn’t tell anyone.” The moment fails. A Lover’s Discourse doesn’t draw her out of her paltry individual existence, but instead reinforces it. She continues with Barthes obsessively for weeks, but “She was reading A Lover’s Discourse and marveling at its relevance to her life.”

Precisely. Once social institutions deteriorate and people live contained by their own sole selves, relevance becomes the first measure of value. Barthes appeals to her not because he imparts truths about life or expresses well a plight many of us share, but because he voices her state of mind and feeling, locally and immediately. He prompts a broader understanding of love—“It explained what love was like and, just maybe, what was wrong with it”—but only for a second before she returns the text to her personal circumstances. It’s the dilemma of the narcissist, and of the postmodern novelist. The dominant venues of our culture empower the personal perspective, a do-whatever-you-want-as-long-as-you-don’t-infringe-on-others outlook, and the contemporary novelist interested in current conditions represents sensibilities that result from it. But the more those characters care about themselves and circle events, ideas, places, books, and everything else back into the sphere of their direct experiences, the less we care about them.

I’m not qualified to assess whether Bauerlein’s description of the modern novel is any good, though given that he’s a professor in the field he clearly is.  But I do think there’s something to it.

After all, consider the rise of memoirs as a genre.  Last year Neil Genzlinger attributed it to the rise of oversharing, and perhaps there’s something to that.  But there’s something even more self-referential in the memoir than there even is in sharing on, say, Facebook.  The status is a transference of information, an “update.”  It’s hard, if not impossible, for any relatively mature person to try to get at the meaning of things there.  The medium simply doesn’t suit it, and those who try are playing with the wrong set of rules.  There are probably lots of folks who do, but then it’s an easy problem to commit that takes relatively little effort.

Blogs do this better, of course.  And there are plenty of those out there still, with talented writers admirably working to pull the significance out of their daughter’s visit to the dentists or their latest adventures in food.  There is doubtlessly a connection with readers here, one that is more meaningful than the social networks.

The memoir, however, is a different ball of wax.  The genre points to an attempt to discern the meaning, to layer the story in such a way that a point (hopefully) emerges and allows for a connection with others.  Only it does so not instantaneously, but by seeing the events from years past within a plot where the conclusion is, if not known, at least more clearly discerned than it is while the events were transpiring.

We may hope for a response to a status update  But the goal of the memoir is to resonate, to find a sympathy and commonality from the reader within the experience and prose that the status update simply cannot do.  And the medium of the memoir actually simplifies a life to a more discernible shape and outline in the way an ongoing blog can not.  Almost like a movie versus a TV show, except the difference isn’t quite as stark.  The parallel may make the memoir seem more superficial, less complex, and hence less able to connect.  But then, there’s something about the telling of a shape of a life when the ending is understood by the author and the events interpreted through it.

That is what the memoir makes possible, which is why it shouldn’t be rejected.  But as Genzlinger points out, even the best memoirs are the least self-referential.  Like Beurlein’s more traditional novel, those memoirs that work best are more interested in the world and its inhabitants than reflecting on the shape of one’s own lives.   Which is, perhaps, why the loss of the plot in fiction has been coextensive with the rise of the memoir in nonfiction.

One need not be an academic to apply, though familiarity with the academic literature (and an ability to responsibly rearticulate it) is clearly a must.  But the deadline is far enough out that some more enterprising and energetic Mere-O readers may want to do some reading and give it a shot.  After all, it’s called the “C.S. Lewis Essay Prize,” which means someone around these parts should give it a go.

When I was told about the prizes, I wanted to hear more.  So I invited Dr. Michael Rea, Director of the Center, to answer a few questions.

1) It seems unusual for an academic center to offer to publish in a non-academic venue. Why’d you all set up this project?

It probably is unusual; but our reasons for doing this directly relate to the mission of the Center for Philosophy of Religion. One of the Center’s main goals is to promote not just abstract research in the philosophy of religion, but distinctively Christian philosophy in particular. There’s a lot that might go under the heading of “Christian Philosophy”, but most of the academic research done on that topic is done with an eye to explaining central Christian doctrines and solving puzzles or dealing with other sorts of tensions and difficulties that arise out of a broadly Christian worldview.

Work like this is of intrinsic interest, of course; but it also has a lot of potential for serving the Church by helping ministers and lay people outside the academy to better understand, discuss, and live out the faith that they profess. The trick is making it accessible; and (believe it or not) this is very difficult work for which there aren’t many incentives within the academy. So the purpose of the essay prize is to provide some financial incentive to people working on the problem of evil to take some time away from their ordinary research to make their ideas accessible to a wider audience.

2) The topic (evil) is a perennial one, yet the website suggests that the modern period was particularly fertile for constructing theodicies. Do you think that there’s a particular urgency around the subject today?

As anyone familiar with the popular writings of folks like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and other “New Atheists” knows, atheists have, in recent years, become increasingly “evangelical”. Religious belief is now being openly mocked in books and lectures that are engaging, persuasive, and widely marketed (in print and on the internet). And the problem of evil in various forms lies at the very center of all of it.

The problem of evil is has always been the most powerful and important argument against God’s existence; but its most vivid and persuasive formulations have not always been placed at the fore of everyone’s consciousness in the ongoing way that they are today. So yes, it is an urgent and important topic nowadays. Believers in God cannot sensibly ignore it, and so there is need for accessible resources to help them to think through the issue carefully.

I should add, too, that it is not just religious believers who need these sorts of resources, nor are “defenses of the faith” the only resources that are needed. As a Christian myself, I would very much like to see a growing body of literature providing new and interesting responses to the problem of evil.

But all of us–religious believers and unbelievers alike–would also benefit from the development of more careful expressions of the problem. This is an important point to notice. If you’re an atheist and you care about convincing people that the existence of evil gives us good reason to disbelieve in God, you should (obviously!) want to make the case as carefully and strongly as you can. But you should also want to see the case made carefully and strongly if you are a Christian who cares about solving the problem, or an agnostic who is still trying to sort out the evidence, or whatever. For it is only by seeing the case presented in its strongest and most careful form that we can see clearly just what sort of evidence the existence of evil provides and just how Christians can most sensibly respond.

3) Part of The Center’s mission is bridging theology and philosophy of religion. It seems like–and correct me if I’m wrong–most of the recent energy on the problem of evil has been among philosophers. Is the chasm crossable on this issue, or does the problem pose unique challenges for theology?

Yes, I think that most of the energy has lately be spent by philosophers. Of course, some theologians–especially those who have taken an interest in responding to the New Atheists–are working on the problem of evil. But my impression is that contemporary theologians are, for the most part, taking one of two other reactions to the problem.

Some think that it is crass to try to provide responses to the problem of evil (because they think that doing so will inevitably involve explaining why horrendous evils, like the holocaust or the brutal torture of children) are somehow “okay” or (worse) contribute to great human goods.

Others think that philosophical reflection on the problem of evil diverts us from the more important task of addressing evil itself. So, for example, N.T. Wright, in Evil and the Justice of God, says that the problem of evil is just that evil is bad, and something needs to be done about it. He then goes on to devote the bulk of his book to explaining what God has done about evil.

Now, I can sympathize with both of these reactions. Nobody in the midst of suffering wants to hear that their suffering is “all for the best”–especially when it involves horrible things like excessive pain and suffering or tragic personal loss. And all of us, I should hope, would place a premium on doing something about evil, as opposed to just sitting around and thinking about evil.

Still, the fact is that quite a lot of people lose their faith or are prevented ever from coming to faith as a result of reflection (and often rather careless reflection) on the problem of evil as it is typically discussed by philosophers. So, although I think that there is an interesting discussion to be had about why we might wish to turn our attention away from discussing the problem of evil, I think that there are also good reasons for thinking that we should not turn our attention away from it.

To get to your last question, then: No, I don’t think that the problem poses unique challenges for theology; and I do think that the chasm (such as it is) is crossable. Crossing it is just a matter of having these interesting conversations that I just mentioned, so that the philosophers and the theologians can together get clear on just what is valuable about trying to address the problem of evil and on ways in which some of our past efforts may have gone awry.

4)  Anything else that you’ve been itching to tell people about The Center or this prize?

Only this: Your readers may wish to keep an eye on our website. We have recently been trying to develop and expand our “resources” page so as to make ourselves more useful to the wider public. In particular, we hope eventually to have a lot of resources (both video and print) that might be of genuine help to ministers and lay people who are trying to think through difficult questions about the Christian faith. We also welcome suggestions as to what might be helpful.

“[W]hat the young properly demand is an account of life and the initiation into a community that makes intelligible why their interest in sex should be subordinated to other interests.  What they, and we, demand is the lure of an adventure that captures the imagination sufficiently that for Christians ‘conquest’ comes to mean something other than the sexual possession of another.”

                                                                                                                             — Stanley Hauerwas

Let us start with a given:  most single evangelicals have troubles with sex.  Or rather, they have no troubles with it at all.  Many of them are, as Jenell Paris points out, having a bit of a good time while showing up in our pews and then compounding their sin by choosing abortion.  That all of this is a scandal is a given on which everyone agrees.

The question is what our churches should do with this fact, what course of action they should pursue.   The solution put forward by Paris is to “encourage” and “educate” about contraception, to advocate for it even without “pushing” it.

What should we make of her reply?

Straight away, I’ve no problem walking back from the language of “pushing.”  It wasn’t mine originally, though I suspect I know why the editors chose it (pageviews, people, pageviews).  Whatever conceptual difference Paris sees between that and advocacy is one I am happy to let stand.

What’s more, she is correct that the panel had a variety of voices.  And I didn’t intend to suggest that all of them agreed.  None of them objected, which is why I said the answer was “tacit,” but silence is not necessarily consent.  What’s more, Paris might be right that “many ideas” were presented for reducing abortion in churches.  But outside of contraception, there was precious little that was said about reducing pregnancies altogether.  Getting folks married before they turned 30 came up, but only to be criticized.

Moving on, however, Paris writes:

“By presenting young adults with choices that shut down conversation and relationship (either do it God’s way, or your own way that is so depraved we can’t bear to discuss it respectfully or extensively), churches don’t prevent people from learning about or accessing contraception, nor from having premarital sex.”

Here’s my dilemma:  Paris is writing, I take it, in response to my original piece at Christianity Today.  Her opening paragraph suggests that she is, on some level, framing her points in reply to mine.  That’s how I think I’m supposed to read it, because that’s how internet conventions work.

But that simply can’t be right, as I am pretty sure my suggestion doesn’t imply shutting “conversation and relationship,” or that those who have premarital sex are “so depraved we can’t bear to discuss it respectfully and extensively.”  If that sort of straw man is what the argument for contraception needs, then I may just bow out and go drink my tea.  It so badly misrepresents doesn’t even rise to the level of misrepresenting my views because I didn’t say anything close to it.  And no responsible person who holds an “abstinence absolutism” position would be committed to holding it either.

Besides, who said anything about churches preventing people from accessing education about contraception?  I take it that if a single person likes to read, so much the better for the world.  In fact, keep reading about contraception long enough and you come across interesting little pieces challenging the premise that contraception reduces abortion anyway.

But let’s entertain the idea.  Maybe churches should educate folks about contraception.  What would they say?  They could say, for instance, that there is significant debate over whether the pill is actually abortive.  And they could discuss the way taking steps to create the conditions for sin actually incline our will toward it (I’d like for someone to explain how contraception follows the Biblical exhortation to “flee temptation”).  Those are, of course, cheeky ways of framing it.  But my point is that information about contraception isn’t the issue here (though we can haggle over who should deliver it, and what this means about the failure of both the home and those hallowed sex education programs in our public schools).   The question is instead one of encouraging and advocating for its use, of presenting the information in ways that signal (tacitly or otherwise) approval and exhoration.

Let’s move on:

“Instead, we deny young adults conversation and prayer about the moral, spiritual, and practical dynamics of their intimate relationships, support that is not nearly as easily available as contraception. If church support is available only when abstinence is practiced or professed, many will either go elsewhere or feign chastity in order to avoid shame or even expulsion. When unintended pregnancy happens, church may then be far down the list of potentially helpful places to go, and deservedly so.”

Paris and I are agreed that the culture of shame around pre-marital sex is a problem and that our communities are not the sort of grace-filled places that they ought to be.  I said as much in my original piece, after all, the existence of which I’m still looking to see reflected in Paris’ response.

But I frankly don’t understand the logic here:  we deny our young adults sober and adult conversations about their intimate relationships, a form of support that’s harder than contraception.  Is she meaning to suggest that our communities ought turn to contraception because it’s the easiest form of “support” for young people?   Because, you know, nothing says “love” these days quite like denying ourselves the cross while handing out the pill.

The only other alternative is that while we’re denying young folks the difficult support of serious conversations, they’re out getting easy access to contraception and so having more sex and making more babies (and, Lord have mercy, then seeking abortions).  That can’t be right, though, as that seems to undermine the premise of the discussion:  given that both the education and the access to contraception are easy to get, it’s not clear why churches need advocate for it at all.

I think at the heart of this paragraph is the same false dichotomy on which this whole argument depends:  the churches who major on abstinence cannot be hospitable to those who do not.  Paris has, of course, the full weight of empirical and anecdotal evidence on her side.  The churches that are “abstinence only” in their approach have not been particularly welcoming of those with unplanned pregnancies.  But for that, Paris wants us to change our sexual ethics while I’d like to set about changing the churches.

But the paragraph that gets me is this one:

Advocating contraception for unmarried churchgoers certainly is a compromise, but consider what that really means. Com- means with, and promise means to agree, or to make a pact. To compromise is to work toward agreement or commitment with another. Like compassion, community, or companion, com- is about being in relationship with others. Unipromise isn’t even a word; without compromise, you’re just alone, speaking your ideal into thin air. It’s fine to have ideals, and to proclaim them with perfect phrases in perfectly planned church services. Contemplating perfection is a holy exercise that lifts our aspirations. Lived experience, however, is far from perfect; when I consider ideal parenting, ideal marriage, or ideal teaching, my life pales in comparison. I count on my gracious children, husband, and students to make daily compromises—as I do for them—as part of healthy relationships in the real world.

I take it that the bit about “perfect phrases in perfectly planned church services” is a reference to my line about the ways in which we ought speak about sex (namely, with reverence).  That bit of evidence that she’s read beyond the title isn’t exactly comforting, for reasons I’ll articulate below.  And yet I should make clear that there’s no reason to limit my point to our worship services:  I’d like that way of speaking to pervade our small groups, our mentoring relationships, and every part of our communities.  And for whatever it’s worth, I serve in a local church in a role where I’ve had some opportunity to try to make that happen.

But let’s address the sacredness of this compromise.  Contraception may be a compromise, but it doesn’t seem particularly sacred.  As a solution, it lacks any imagination that takes its cues from the cross.  There are all sorts of compromises we could make with single people who are sexually active and desiring to change, but the problem with an easy technological solution is that it precludes them from ever coming up.

Here, for instance, is a promise we could make to our unmarried folks:  we will open our homes and marriages to you so you can see why sex is worth waiting for (a good, I will point out, that can be discerned outside the bedroom in the quality of our lives).  What’s more, for those single folks I know, I promise to make my phone line available to talk if you think you might go home with someone you shouldn’t.  Or we can chaperone, to make sure you both go home alone.  Or better yet, double date and do the same thing.

There are, then, a host of compromises that our communities could make before ever encouraging someone to take the pill.  Yes, pregnancies might still occur.  But the communities that have taken steps toward solving the problem where it really lies—in the arrangement of our lives together—an unplanned pregnancy will be more of a gift than a threat.

One final paragraph, then some closing thoughts:

After all, “just saying no” to premarital sex, important as it is, is not the heart of the gospel. The heart of the matter is saying yes to God. Maybe we often rely on shame and fear because it’s hard to believe that people would say no to something as tantalizing as sexual pleasure if they didn’t stand to lose something extremely valuable such as honor, the affection of family and church, or even eternal life. If people knew they were loved, no matter what, and that God and God’s people would have their backs even if their own sin is the cause of their troubles, wouldn’t they just sin freely because grace abounds? Perhaps some would, but even then, love can be a kindness that leads to repentance. Others may find the real reason to reject immorality: not for fear of shame, disgrace, or hell, but for love of the right and the good. Right loving—full of compromise, compassion, and companionship—is the best encouragement for right living.

Frankly, I’m at the point where I’d rather not believe that Paris read my piece at all, evidence noted above notwithstanding.  The alternative is that she read it and has strategically decided to ignore its substance, or is grossly distorting what I’ve said.  All those options are, honestly, rather frustrating.  It’s one thing to say that the church should have a conversation about contraception.  It is a very different thing to have that conversation badly, to ignore your interlocutors together or badly misrepresent them.  If this is how the “conversation” is to proceed, well, I don’t expect it to get far.

Which is to say, I categorically reject the notion that the above paragraph has anything to do with what I said.  I’m not “just saying no” to premarital sex or relying on shame and fear.   Allow me the pretention of quoting myself, please:

It is not enough to name human sexuality as a good before moving on to our list of rules. We must allow ourselves to linger there, to reflect upon its unique texture and explore its inner recesses. If we will do that, our proclamation will ring with the sort of poetry that will convince people that we can genuinely say with God that he has made it very good indeed.

–

The fear, shame, and isolation that unexpectant mothers feel suggests that our churches rarely exude the warmth and grace of those who live under the mercy of Christ. Their report is reason for repentance, and for serious self-examination.

It may be the case that churches that have taken an abstinence only line have depended upon shame and fear.  But they need not do so.  If I am right—and the comment boxes are God’s gift to those who are eager to show how I’m not—their  “yes to God” leads to a “no to contraception” and another “yes to sinners and their children.”   All that can and must be held together, as without it the church is something less than the community of sinners covered by grace and called to perfection and holiness.

The idea that evangelical churches should advocate for contraception for their unmarried members signals the end of our courage.  To en-courage is to instill the virtue, to fortify, to equip a person to stoutly face the challenges before them.  It takes no courage as a community to blame our unmarried people’s ignorance about contraception for the abortions in our midst.  It takes no courage to say that the forces of sexual libertinism are too great for our young people to overcome, and to give up calling the single people to a form of life that our culture resists.  It takes no valor, no mettle, no virtue to shift the blame for our community dysfunctions on to our unmarried people and hand them a pill to make up for it.  It takes no vision, no imagination, to undermine the work (under the pretension of supplementing it) of helping our young people imagine their single lives in ways that do not include fornication, of instilling in them the strength and the desire to actually bring them about, and of building within our communities the systems of support and care that can help them become a reality.

The paradox, of course, is the very thing that every high schooler, college student, and young adult I have met so desperately wants is that which the solution of contraception necessarily denies them.  It may be sex that they’re having, but it’s meaning and adventure and romance that they want.  And those are goods that are only attainable through a heroic self-denial that refuses the lure of compromising with sin, even as we seek to work with and alongside the people who inevitably will commit it.

Or she linked to it anyway. Her reply gives little indication that she read beyond my first paragraph. I’ve more to say about her response later this week, but first a few general observations.***

Someone asked me this past week why I was up in arms over this contraception business. From what I can tell, it’s something of a tipping point for the evangelical movement.

There is a strong pragmatic streak that runs through evangelicalism, an ideology that postures as a rejection or marginalization of ideas and theology. You can hear it every Sunday, as pastors seek to make their sermons “relevant” and “practical” because good theology and rigorous thinking simply doesn’t sell. Closer to the point, you see it most clearly in our appropriation of technology, in our video sermons and our online church. Whatever it takes to reach the lost, whatever it takes to “be effective,” principles and ideals of Biblical anthropology notwithstanding.

Unlike video sermons, however, contraception as a pragmatic concession actually contributes to the conditions where Christians can sin without consequences for themselves or their community. Paris suggests that “abstinence absolutism” simply has not worked. Which is to say, unmarried Christians are still having sex and sex (surprise!) still makes babies. The implication is that the proclamation of abstinence in our churches has been tried and found wanting, when in fact it has not yet been properly tried at all, either from our pulpits or throughout our communal structures.

In short, the problem is both our failure to proclaim the ideal beautifully and our failure to cultivate communities that can uphold it with grace and truth. Which means the failure of chastity in our churches is an occasion for everyone to repent, not only the unmarrieds. For it is a symptom of a community disease, a disease that contraception simply cannot solve and will almost certainly make worse.

Eliminating abortion is a worthy goal, one of the highest and most noble aspirations we could reach for as a church and society. I am on the record saying that abortion is the most significant moral evil that Americans have committed.

But there are no shortcuts toward goods that do not corrode us from within. We may, like The Matrix, take a pill and wake up as Leonard Bernstein, a master at the keyboard. We may have some technical competence, and even an enormous emotional range. But the performance of music depends in part upon the cost we know was paid in the learning of it. Goods demand sacrifice: they require tears and groans, blood and sweat. And the more we are willing to go through such toils, the higher and more delightful will be the goods before us. There is no good worth having that will not cost us more than we might be willing to pay at the outset.

At its best, then, an unmarried who uses contraception has failed to grasp the nature of the goods of sexuality—and a church that encourages him to use it has doubtlessly done the same.

It is well known, or at least frequently stated, that evangelicalism’s public witness has been frequently undermined by our lack of integrity and our hypocrisy, especially on sexual issues. I fail to see how more contraception for our unmarrieds will do anything except deepen such a culture of hypocrisy by making it more comfortable and convenient to sin sexually while remaining in unbroken communion in our churches.

At the heart of this discussion is a question about whether the church will pursue integrity as a body or whether it will not merely accommodate sin among its members, but encourage the conditions for it.  Like advocating, for instance, risky investments that have minimal negative consequences that would appeal to people’s greed.

But like the stock market, the church does not operate on the grounds that past performance indicates future success. The reality of grace always makes transformation possible, which means the church’s faithful witness cannot be determined by the “effectiveness” of her results. The status of the church as “holy” is a confession, a “not yet” that is made “already” through the repentance of its members. Contraception is not merely a shortcut to avoiding abortion for the individuals who take it: it is a shortcut to “holiness” for the community as well, as the community no longer has to confess both its failing to disciple in matters of sex and its failing to disciple in matters of bioethics.

This idea is not a new one. It is simply evangelical pragmatism applied to a new area. But at some point, evangelicals of good sense must say “no,” cheerfully and patiently with eyes wide open. Advocating for contraception for unmarried Christians would represent a new low for the evangelical churches understanding of human sexuality.

This is, for me, a hill that is worth dying on. And I am not prepared to die quietly.
***I also wanted to offer a few quick clarifications on my original piece. 

First, I don’t want to associate Q as an organization or conference with the views of the people on the panel or the poll.  There’s a gap there, and it wasn’t quite clear enough in my piece.  I don’t know what Gabe Lyons’ opinions are about such things, and I gather he enjoys helping this sort of dialogue happen.

What’s more, Paris suggests in her reply advocating contraception was only one of “many options” the panel presented.  I don’t know whether they all agreed with advocating for contraceptive use, and I should have made that clear.  But I do know that if anyone disagreed, they didn’t speak up.  And the only two other options I remember were adoption and marrying folks off younger—the latter of which was (wrongly) dismissed as untenable. 

Finally, there was some question about whether or not the poll numbers were 70%, as I remember, or 64% as the Huffington Post reported.  I didn’t verify them, and I don’t think much hangs on the 6% difference.*** 

Don’t get me wrong. There are active theologians in each context, as well as people who care about Christian teaching beyond one or two hobbyhorses. But each place can have its own way of radically prioritizing practice, or denigrating serious theological inquiry as divisive logic-chopping. And most of them have people itching to call the cops on the doctrine police.

The doctrine skeptic can push towards a real truth, though I have rarely seen one hit directly on it. Christian theology is a system—or better, a seamless garment woven in one piece from the varied strands of Scripture—but it is so not in the sense of being a free-standing structure. It is not the Doctrine Tower, overlooking Good Works Park and the Port of Missions. It is better understood as the skeleton of the inner man.

The study of scripture, sitting under good teachers (in the flesh and on the page), prayer, rote memorization, and sheer force of habit together change one’s mental shape and build spiritual reflexes. In that sense, better the simple Christian who stammers at describing justification but implicitly trusts in Jesus for all things than the sharp fellow who memorized three heavy theology books but despairs of his salvation over the smallest sin. But better still is the one who is aware of the truth, lives the truth, and recognizes it joyfully on sight. So growing in the knowledge of God, in the love of God, and in the good works for which we were created, are more connected than we often assume.

I think that is also the grain of truth in often problematic discussions of “head knowledge” vs “heart knowledge.” One should not pit reasoning against emoting. They are different activities, but each makes a bad mess when practiced without the other. You either end up with Spock minus the charm, or Anakin Skywalker minus the writer’s fiat that makes him a protagonist. (Episode II, I’m looking at you…)

So perhaps it is the same error to let doctrinal learning outpace sanctification as it is to try to be conformed to the image of a hazy, indistinct Jesus. Either way, the outcome will look more like a tacky plaster statue than like the Man Himself.

But what of those who make idols out of doctrine, or of doctrinal systems? Many respectable people these days tell me that’s a big problem. I don’t deny that idolatry is a serious matter, or that we are prone to turn all kinds of good things into idols. Calvin was right to call the human heart “a perpetual idol workshop.” (Or however you prefer to render fabricam idolorum from Institutes I.11.8) A sufficiently meta person can even make an idol out of denouncing idolatry.

I suspect the temptation to make an idol is more a problem for the Doctrine Tower than it is for a doctrinal ribcage. Doctrine Tower, standing tall and disconnected from individual and church practice, or from practical working principles, is doctrine that is not serving its purpose. Its right use neglected, it is easier to set it up in the place where it should not be.

But taken internally, so that the teachings shape mental habits and give form and direction to piety, doctrine is much harder to abuse. Rather, it becomes a valuable protection against idolatry. False images of God and misguided forms of devotion will stop fitting right. The eye gains the skill of spotting excellence and becomes harder to fool with fakery. It is easier to have the right posture before God when the spiritual backbone is the right shape.

Beneath the issue of contraception is a question about the role ideals and norms play in our communal lives. Yes, they restrict our behavior in ways that are sometimes inconvenient. Yet in doing so, they intrinsically call us and our communities toward a life that we might not otherwise choose on our own. What’s more, they amplify the need for repentance and reconciliation, rather than watering down such a need through the “pragmatic” concession to the fallenness of the world. We may occasionally fail to meet them. But confronting our failures can be heroic and acknowledging our sins a moment of beauty. The only thing to be gained from lowering the expectations is greater secrecy about our sexual lives within our communities. And that, somewhat ironically, only stigmatizes unplanned pregnancies within our midst all the more by making them all the more rare.

At the same time, ideals can inspire. “The more transcendental your patriotism,” Chesterton once said, “the more practical will be your politics.” Communities where contraception is advocated as a solution (whether from the pulpit or in the counselors office) are communities free from the deadly burden of the cross, free from the sufferings and co-laboring that will inevitably come from caring for single mothers and their children. When I posed this idea to someone they suggested that no one would be with the single mother at 3 a.m. while the child is crying. That the possibility is ruled out before it can be considered says more about the extent to which we strive to keep our communities free from a bloodless martyrdom than it does about whether we should accept contraception.

There is no question that we need to reduce abortions, both inside the church and without. But as a church, we are not called to reduce abortions by any and every means available to us. Sin is compounding: error has a long train, and abortion is near the end of it. It is easy to turn to contraception in order to prevent abortions. But in doing so, we have not done what only the church can do: call people to repentance for our sins and exhort us toward the holiness that ought to mark us off as the people of God.

Let’s do a bit more here, though, some thinking out loud:  Can anyone name a sin that Christians commit that we would suggest, as a pastoral measure, taking preemptive action to free people from experiencing the consequences–good or bad?  Analogies are tricky business, as I’m one of those rare souls who thinks that sex is sui generis, one of a kind, within the moral landscape.  But give it a whirl:  you might be more successful than I.

Try, for instance, lying.  Deceit is a moral wrong with potentially only the most positive of consequences. Would we counsel a chronic dissembler who refuses to listen to pastoral guidance to at least do their best to avoid the consequences of their actions?  Hardly likely, despite the fact that lying is clearly corrosive to the soul of the one committing it and to the community where it is enabled.

Remember, an analogy.  Yes, a pregnancy is an incredibly grave consequence for a sin, almost certainly more so than what comes from most lies. But that alone does not justify letting go of the principle so that people can have their sex.  If anything, the suggestion seems to further engrain in our evangelical communities the notion that the kids are going to have sex anyways, so we might as well keep them safe.  That notion is not only false:  it is self-fulfilling and inherently infantilizing.

But let’s have a go at this, please.  This is all too important of an issue to simply let it drift into the ether, forgotten and undiscussed.  I’m curious to hear the feedback, pro et contra.  So let me have it in the comments:  what, precisely, am I missing?

There’s no question that Division I football is about money. Lots and lots of money. And power. And TV contracts. Hundreds of NAIA, DIII, DII, and FCS football programs may play mostly for the fun of the game.  But at the highest level of the college game, money and politics have become an intrinsic part of the competition. The pressure to win has created almost impossible conditions for many coaches, players, and administrators who presumably have at least some desire to act virtuously.

The situation with Petrino crystallized this dilemma, especially for fans. Arkansas AD Jeff Long was put in the nigh impossible position of either firing Petrino and incurring the wrath of the entire Natural State for firing the first coach to place the Razorbacks firmly on the national stage for the first time in 40-odd years, or else leaving him in place. Letting him continue would essentially communicate that the University is comfortable with a philandering coach who lies to police and his boss and by all appearances gave a job to his paramour precisely because of their relationship.

The dilemma made a particular impression on me because I grew up in Southeastern Conference (SEC) football country and have many friends who have attended various SEC schools, as well other well-known and successful schools/programs like Ohio State, Michigan, Southern Cal, Texas, etc. I cannot list the number of instances in which the psychological well-being of a friend (or myself!) was shattered over our team losing. My team might lose on a Saturday afternoon and I would be gutted until Monday morning when I achieved emotional equilibrium again. In the words of James, “My brothers, these things ought not be so!” (James 3:10).

Humans are lovers. We teach each other the things that are important to love and not to love. Many of us communicate love that is demonstrably stronger for a college football team of choice than for, well, you name it.  Our love for college football has transformed into idolatry, and it is rampant among college football fans (uh-oh, it’s only April). There are six or seven high holy days every fall wherein worshippers ascend to worship and give homage at the temple of Bryant-Denny (Alabama), Neyland (Tennessee), or the Big House (Michigan). College football fans who are also Christians have yet to remove the high places where our forefathers falsely worship. Our loves have become grossly misaligned; they are not rightly ordered. In the Southeast especially, football pride, state pride, and school pride combine to form a powerful loyalty that often transcends rational thought. It is essentially pre-cognitive. To say it another way, one is a Georgia Bulldog fan the way that one is Caucasian or left-handed.

As it turned out, the decision for AD Jeff Long became quite easy after the details came out. I sympathized with the plight of my Hog-fan friends down in Fayetteville and what they were thinking about the Petrino situation, but it became apparent that if the university were to save face at all, Petrino would have to go. After all, if one argued that he ought not be fired, then one certainly must concede that Arkansas is prepared to do anything to win, participating fully in the zeitgeist of the BCS era. One could certainly not pretend that future wins for the Hogs would be part of the ‘storied tradition of the university,’ connection with Hog teams from yesteryear, about character, grit, will to win, and all that. Those elements might be present, but they would be vastly subordinated to the priorities of cold, hard cash, the virtue of celebrity, and the interests of a powerful few.

If you pushed for the firing of Petrino, you were voting to rob your fellow fans of the ecstasy of potential wins that Arkansas fans have not experienced since the Nixon presidency, but you attempted to hold the single most visible man in the state responsible for his actions and declared that character still matters in an admittedly broken system. You cast a vote for loving honesty and a very basic level of trust over loving to win.

Petrino was fired April 10 and left to pick up the pieces of his career and life and I hope that he can be restored to his family. As for the University of Arkansas, they will mourn the loss of a good football coach and–hopefully–be happy about the character shown by their administration.

This is a guest post by John Patton, Associate Director of Admissions at Covenant Theological Seminary.