I was watching the latest episode of Better Bachelor and saw that this 38-year-old athlete named Lolo Jones was complaining about how hard it was for her to find a husband. Apparently, she’s been trying very hard to get married all along, and has not had any success. Let’s take a look at her Instagram page and Twitter page, then her previous boyfriend, and see what she’s doing wrong.

So, here’s her Instagram. She claims to be a Christian, but it’s a constant stream of glamorous pictures of herself, many featuring swimwear or workout apparel. Her Twitter feed is more of the same. Lots of inconsequential things about herself. What she had for breakfast. When she got up from sleeping. That she prefers voice notes to texts. What video games she likes. Etc. The only mention of God I saw is when God helped her win a gold medal. Because that’s what God’s priority was in the world that day – her happiness. Is that what the Bible teaches – that it’s God job is to make his human pets happy? That seems to be a popular view among the books that Christian women are reading today. But is that what Jesus was telling us about God with his life?

Anyway, why aren’t marriage-minded men interested in her?

What marriage-minded men are looking for

So, I have a list of questions that I use when evaluating women for wife and mother roles. I’m trying to see whether the woman is capable of making a marriage to me achieve the goals that God has for his world and his creatures. Right now, the primary threats to God’s view of the world and us that I see are atheism, feminism and socialism. (I’m open to adding or subtracting from this list)

I’m looking for capabilities like these in a wife:

• demonstrate the existence of God objectively using philosophical arguments and scientific evidence
• demonstrate the truth about who Jesus was and his resurrection using historical evidence
• answer philosophical, scientific and historical objections to the Christian worldview
• explain why other major religions and ideologies are false
• understand and defend the Bible’s teachings about moral issues (chastity, abortion, divorce, etc.) using philosophical arguments and/or scientific evidence
• explain her Christian role models and what they have done for Christ and his Kingdom that makes you admire them
• explain what your goal is for your children, and what you intend to do to achieve those goals
• explain male and female roles in marriage, what you have done to prepare to perform your roles, and how you evaluate marriage candidates for performance of their roles

So, looking at her Instagram and Twitter, I don’t see anything relevant to a Christian marriage enterprise there. Bikini photos and tweets about silly personal details are unrelated to the Christian marriage enterprise. Even when she promotes virginity, she talks about herself, which is not rationally persuasive to anyone else, since it’s just her subjective opinion. The right way to persuade people that the Bible is correct about sex and sexuality, (and I’ve been doing that for 12 years on this blog), is by appealing to evidence, such as the evidence from research papers.

What is she looking for in a man?

Lots of Christian women like to talk about their desire for marriage, but their actions are not focused on choosing men who demonstrate ability to perform husband and father roles, e.g. – defending truth, providing, charitable giving, chastity, sobriety, romantic love, selflessness, mentoring, etc. What about Lolo?

Consider Lolo’s comments about a man she is impressed by:

Double Agents rookie Nam has been described as “hot” (by Wes), “a physical specimen” (Jay) and “built like a statue” (Kam). But what does his partner, fellow newbie Lolo Jones, think of the Ultimate Beastmaster competitor?

“My teammate’s kind of growing on me. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve seen him come out of the shower a few times, but I’m really liking this chemistry we have,” the Olympian stated during this week’s Challenge episode. “He’s so good-looking.”

[…]Lolo (wants) him to pursue her (since she’s the lady), but he hasn’t.

“I’m throwing everything out his way, but he’s just stoic,” she admitted in a confessional.

If you click through to that article, you’ll see her postive reaction to how “good-looking” this man is. She bends her head forward, and lifts up both arms in excitement. She’s not excited by (or respectful of) marriage-related capabilities or willingness to commit. She’s not raving about a man’s chastity or his sobriety or his theology or his apologetics ability or his mentoring of other Christians or his charitable giving. She’s excited by his height and his appearance.

Her last boyfriend was apparently a basketball player. He’s 7 years younger than she is, 6’7″ tall, and he can really put a basketball into the basketball hoop. But is that relevant for making a marriage that impacts the world for Christ and His Kingdom? Not at all. What a man does in marriage is teach people (church, university, workplace, etc.) about the truth of God’s existence, his character and his interaction with his creatures in history. Men are equipped to be persuasive with reason and evidence when discussing behaviors that cause harm to children, like abortion, divorce, promiscuity, same-sex parenting, etc.  Men are equipped to defend the policies that promote marriage and family, like low tax rates, limited government, the rule of law, etc. Men invest in other Christians, partnering with them to promote Christian truths and Christian convictions to those who don’t accept them. And men know how to help and support their wives as they do their mothering and ministry.

Serious Christian men do not marry women who don’t understand the importance and value of marriage-related capabilities and achievements.

It’s very important for conservative marriage activists like Mark Regnerus, Brad Wilcox, Greg Stanton, pious pastors, etc. to understand that for Christian men there is more to being a wife and mother than holding a Bible, attending church and singing in the choir. I am a man who has the marriage character and the marriage ability. I can pull the trigger on a commitment – I’m equipped to do that, and do it well. But I want my marriage to fight against atheism, feminism and socialism. Lolo Jones is fit and attractive. She is not equipped for a Christian marriage.

I’m trying to decide from Biden’s actual governing what policies  Biden-support groups – Never Trump writers, pious Democrat pastors, and Evangelicals for Biden, etc. – wanted. I remember these people were anxious during the election to tell everyone how concerned they were about Trump’s past sins, and his manner of speaking.

Here’s an article from The Federalist about their boy Biden:

Last week, legal accountability group Judicial Watch dropped a bombshell: a nearly 600-page report proving the U.S. government has been buying and trafficking “fresh” aborted baby body parts. These body parts, purchased by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to “humanize” mice and test biologic drugs in scientific experiments, came from babies up to 24-weeks-old gestation, just weeks from being born.

I’m pretty sure I remember one of those Never Trump people talking about how much they wanted the government to purchase sliced off parts of 24-week-old unborn babies. Maybe it was David French or Russell Moore or John Piper or Tim Keller? Or someone else… Anyway, did you know that 22-week-old unborn babies can survive outside the womb? Those were pretty developed unborn children. I can understand atheist abortion rights activists wanting policies like this. But I’m curious why Never Trump “conservatives” wanted it. Maybe they’re not conservative? And why did pious evangelicals for Biden want it? Maybe they’re neither pious nor evangelical.

Here’s another article from Daily Wire about more Biden policies:

President Joe Biden on Tuesday filed an appeal seeking to force doctors and hospitals to perform potentially harmful transgender-related procedures and surgeries even if they hold objections.

As outlined by BECKET Law’s Luke Goodrich, a court in January struck down the administration’s move to punish doctors who don’t perform transgender-related procedures for supposed “sex discrimination.” Biden on Tuesday officially appealed the ruling.

I’m pretty sure I remember one of those Never Trump people talking about how much they wanted to get their biological sex re-assigned for free by a Christian doctor. Maybe it was David French or Russell Moore or John Piper or Tim Keller? Or someone else… Anyway, did you know that Trump had opposed all these LGBT policies, and protected the conscience rights of Christian doctors? I knew that, because I was more concerned about policy than about virtue signaling my superior morals to people at church.

I noticed that Life News – a pro-life web site – is pretty upset about Biden’s policies so far.

They write:

Joe Biden is rapidly becoming the most pro-abortion president in U.S. history as he takes multiple actions to expand abortions and force taxpayers to subsidize them.

On Wednesday, the Biden administration released a rule that will force taxpayers to fund the abortion industry through the Title X family planning program.

The rule, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will end a pro-life regulation that President Donald Trump put in place to ensure Title X grants are not used to subsidize the killing of unborn babies in abortions.

Pro-life groups like Susan B. Anthony List and National Right to Life considered Trump to be the most pro-life president ever. I even wrote about all the specific actions, policies and nominations he did to help the pro-life cause. That’s the kind of article that our pious pastors and conservative leaders should have written, if they were serious about getting results instead of virtue-signaling. When it comes to politics, you have to look at the actions taken by the candidates – what did they achieve? – not their words.

Why Christian men supported a bad candidate

So why do we have so many “conservative” Never Trump people and “pious” evangelical pastors and leaders supporting policies like these Biden policies? These people aren’t stupid. They know perfectly well what Biden said he was going to do. They shouldn’t be surprised at what he’s doing. It’s the job of organizations like the Southern Baptist ERLC to know what policies affect religious liberty. It’s their job to know what policies affect the rights of unborn children. It’s their job to know what policies affect the conscience rights of Christian medical professionals. So what happened?

Well, I know a few Never Trump men, so let me tell you what happened to them. They are married to women who don’t know very much about law and policy. Those women often have non-STEM degrees, no private sector experience, and if they work at all, they work as teachers – especially of very young children. They’re not used to speaking about policy to adults, other than other teachers of small children in the faculty lounge. Teachers talk about how people look, how they talk, how mean they are. They talk about teacher pay, being nice to illegal immigrants, and making the government provide free stuff for irresponsible people. They are terrified of standing up to bad behaviors like having babies out of wedlock or same-sex marriage. They don’t like to make moral judgments – they’re “compassionate”. And they worry a lot about how they are perceived by non-Christians. They don’t want to be seen as “mean”.

So, at least for the men I know, what happened is that these low-information wives – who are all active in their churches with essential oils and self-help books and feelings-based Bible study guides – all convinced their “conservative” evangelical husbands to support Biden’s policies, because of Trump’s “mean” appearance and words. And the strong, tough “conservative” evangelical men went along with it. They wanted a peaceful home, available sex, and not sleeping on the couch more than they wanted conservative policies.

During an online game, I asked one of these men I was playing with which policies he considered the most important, as a conservative Christian. His reply? “Teacher pay and universal healthcare”. His wife was a teacher, and I’m pretty sure he got those priorities from her. Keep in mind that universal healthcare means taxpayer-funded abortions and sex-changes. That’s how it works in countries like Canada, that have a true single-payer health care system.

We need to be careful about appointing weak men as conservative, Christian leaders. If they can’t stand up to their own wives, what good are they as leaders?

My family is half Muslim. I’ve often noticed that Christians who attend church don’t really learn a lot about how to talk to Muslims. They’re sort of in their own silo, and not interested in having these conversations with outsiders. Although you might get lucky and find a Muslim who wants to hear about Christianity, a much better approach would be to ask a Muslim questions that show that you know something about what they believe.

When I was working for a Fortune 100 company, a Muslim co-worker asked me if I had looked at any of the other religions. He was an Indian-born Muslim who had married a Hindu wife, then gone atheist in response to their families rejecting them. I mentioned that my mother’s side was all Muslim, and my father’s side was all Hindu. He asked me whether I knew what the difference was between Sunni and Shia Muslims. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but my answer was close enough to correct that he was delighted. We had a good conversation after that.

With that in mind, I wanted to recommend to you a resource from a staff apologist who works for Women in Apologetics. You might remember her from my previous posts linking to her work. She is the one who dumped sharing her testimony in favor of making an evidential case for her worldview, and the one who also likes to have conversations with people about spiritual things. And it turns out that she knows quite a lot about Islam, from her experiences as well as from her studies.

Here is part of her biography:

I have been privileged to serve in member care, discipleship, counseling, missions, college ministry, women’s ministry, and music ministry. I’ve traveled to nearly thirty countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, Jordan, Burundi, Peru, Uganda, India, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Italy, the Philippines, and throughout Central America. My relationships with people of other cultures have solidified my faith, broadened my perspective, and enriched my life immensely.

What I like about this is that she chose Islam for her area of interest based on her compassion for Muslims living in these countries. But it’s a controversial topic, not one that is designed to attract popularity. Clearly, her ambition is to make a difference for God and for Muslims who need God, not to make a name for herself by appealing to people looking for entertainment. I get so discouraged by the top books that Christian women are reading. I would like to see the careful use of reason and evidence a normal part of the Christian woman’s life.

She has a new 20-part course starting June 7th that will equip you to have conversations with Muslims. Registration is open now.

Here’s the description:

Led by WIA’s Islam Ministry Specialist, Laura Powell, Islam Foundations is a 10-week course that will equip Christians to have productive conversations with Muslims by preparing them to understand the similarities and differences between the two worldviews, respond to the most common objections to Christianity made by Muslims, and raise thoughtful objections to Islam, out of love and compassion for God’s image-bearers.

Each week features two lessons. Here are the weekly topics:

• Week 1: Introduction & Barriers to Understanding
• Week 2: The Islamic Dilemma & Building Bridges
• Week 3: The Deity of Jesus & The Death of Jesus
• Week 4: The Resurrection of Jesus & Muhammad’s Life and Teachings
• Week 5: Violence According to the Prophet of Islam & Slavery, Supremacy, and Spiritual Slipups
• Week 6: The Death of Muhammad & The Miraculous Qu’ran – Perfect Preservation
• Week 7: The Miraculous Qu’ran – Four More Evidences & The Three Stages of Jihad
• Week 8: Violence in the Old Testament & Violence in Church History
• Week 9: Trinity or Tawhid & Was Muhammad Prophesied in the Bible
• Week 10: Women in Islam & A Christian Response

She’s also bringing in other experts and interviewing them about their experiences discussing worldviews with Muslims.

Here’s the trailer for the course:

And the speaker will be answering questions about Islam this evening live on Youtube at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM Eastern.

If you know any women who are interested in learning apologetics, this would be a good thing to show them.

I’ve had a good impression of her organization “Women in Apologetics”. They seem to favor an evidence-based approach that strikes me as very good for men like me who like engineering and evidence and problem-solving. What I want is to be equipped for adventures. Give me some good material that will wow my Muslim or atheist co-workers. Apologetics conversations make my pulse race. It’s fun to be called by God and to be a good ambassador.