Tag Archives: Christianity

Commentary

George Will on the secular left’s opposition to freedom of association

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From the liberal Washington Post.

Excerpt:

Illustrating an intellectual confusion common on campuses, Vanderbilt University says: To ensure “diversity of thought and opinion” we require certain student groups, including five religious ones, to conform to the university’s policy that forbids the groups from protecting their characteristics that contribute to diversity.

Last year, after a Christian fraternity allegedly expelled a gay undergraduate because of his sexual practices, Vanderbilt redoubled its efforts to make the more than 300 student organizations comply with its “long-standing nondiscrimination policy.” That policy, says a university official, does not allow the Christian Legal Society “to preclude someone from a leadership position based on religious belief.” So an organization formed to express religious beliefs, including the belief that homosexual activity is biblically forbidden, is itself effectively forbidden. There is much pertinent history.

[…][I]n 2010 the [Supreme] court held, 5 to 4, that a public law school in California did not abridge First Amendment rights when it denied the privileges associated with official recognition to just one student group — the Christian Legal Society chapter, because it limited voting membership and leadership positions to Christians who disavow “sexual conduct outside of marriage between a man and a woman.” Dissenting, Justice Samuel Alito said the court was embracing the principle that the right of expressive association is unprotected if the association departs from officially sanctioned orthodoxy.

In wiser moments, the court has held that “this freedom to gather in association . . . necessarily presupposes the freedom to identify the people who constitute the association and to limit the association to those people only.” In 1984, William Brennan, the court’s leading liberal of the last half-century, said:

“There can be no clearer example of an intrusion into the internal structure or affairs of an association than a regulation that forces the group to accept members it does not desire. Such a regulation may impair the ability of the original members to express only those views that brought them together. Freedom of association therefore plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.”

As professor Michael McConnell of Stanford Law School says, “Not everything the government chooses to call discrimination is invidious; some of it is constitutionally protected First Amendment activity.” Whereas it is wrong for government to prefer one religion over another, when private persons and religious groups do so, this is the constitutionally protected free exercise of religion. So, McConnell says, “Preventing private groups from discriminating on the basis of shared beliefs is not only not a compelling governmental interest; it is not even a legitimate governmental interest.”

Here, however, is how progressivism limits freedom by abolishing the public-private distinction: First, a human right — to, say, engage in homosexual practices — is deemed so personal that government should have no jurisdiction over it. Next, this right breeds another right, to the support or approval of others. Finally, those who disapprove of it must be coerced.

Sound familiar? It should. First, abortion should be an individual’s choice. Then, abortion should be subsidized by government. Next, pro-life pharmacists who object to prescribing abortifacients should lose their licenses. Thus do rights shrink to privileges reserved for those with government-approved opinions.

The question, at Vanderbilt and elsewhere, should not be whether a particular viewpoint is right but whether an expressive association has a right to espouse it. Unfortunately, in the name of tolerance, what is tolerable is being defined ever more narrowly.

Although Vanderbilt is a private institution, its policy is congruent with “progressive” public policy, under which society shall be made to progress up from a multiplicity of viewpoints to a government-supervised harmony. Vanderbilt’s policy, formulated in the name of enlarging rights, is another skirmish in the progressives’ struggle to deny more and more social entities the right to deviate from government-promoted homogeneity of belief. Such compulsory conformity is, of course, enforced in the name of diversity.

I’m surprised by George Will. I always thought he was a moderate. But since I started writing this blog, I’ve been happy to see that he is a lot more conservative than people like Charles Krauthammer, Michael Barone, and other well-known moderate conservatives. I don’t require that he agree with me – I just want him to understand my views. And he does.

My Experience

When I’ve spent time talking to secular leftists in my office, they seem to have a horror of disagreements. They are desperate to make sure that everyone believes the same thing on every issue. The conversations typically proceed as follows:

  1. They express their view on some  subject and imply that it is the only intelligent view, since they learned it from their college professors.  (Evolution is a fact)
  2. I produce peer-reviewed experimental data that falsifies their view. (The synthesis of functional proteins by unintelligent forces is impossible)
  3. They try desperately to find some area that we agree on that is unrelated to my evidence. (But you agree that the Earth is older than 6,000 years, right?)

This is what the left means by diversity of opinion. Everyone has to agree, even if no one can prove that what is agreed to is actually true. They believe that rent controls doesn’t result in a shortage of affordable apartments, even though this is not what has been observed. They believe it because it sounds nice, and it makes people think that they are nice people. And they get very confused and flustered if you try to prove them wrong with evidence.

Mentoring

Does the Christian life involve taking the initiative and executing plans?

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Does God expect us to make plans and achieve goals?
Does God expect us to make plans and achieve goals?

I’ve noticed a disturbing view that many Christians seem to absorb who grow up in the church. Basically, the church view says that life is so unpredictable and unknowable that it’s pointless for Christians to make plans to achieve goals. In fact, the only thing that Christians can do, on this view, is to wait for God to provide whatever he’s going to provide, without the person having to know or do anything that they don’t feel like knowing or doing. On this view, it’s best not to know too much about how the world really works, because what God wants from us is not to produce a return on our talents, but for us to just muddle through on our prayers, intuitions and feelings.

Well, which view is right? Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason has an opinion on this question.

Excerpt:

In Matthew Jesus talks about prayer and says, “Ask and it shall be given to you.” But Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on to say, “Ask and it shall be given to you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.” So it’s not just asking, there’s seeking and knocking as well. In the same passage Jesus gives us this famous promise. He tells us not to worry about food and clothing because food and clothing will be provided by Him. He says, Look at the lilies of the field, they don’t toil or weave. Look at the birds in the field, they don’t plant and harvest. The Father takes care of them. He’ll take care of you as well.

Now, are we going to read that verse and conclude that God doesn’t expect us to weave or till the soil? Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 3, “Anyone who does not work ought not eat.” It seems to me we could say to Paul, “Why should we work? Jesus has promised to take care of us.” We all understand that in a verse like there is a corporate effort. God has promised to take care of us, but we have to couple that command with other commands that God has given us to toil and weave, as well. To work, as well. And, I would say, to try and find ways to get pregnant that are morally acceptable. The same thing with dating and getting married. We have the liberty to find a mate, and I don’t see in any way, shape or form that that’s not trusting God.

Now, in any of these things there may be a sense of franticness in getting a job, or getting pregnant, or getting a mate that represents an attitude that’s wrong. It can be taken to extremes, but then our Christian ethic would inform our attitudes. The very act of taking the initiative in itself is not unbiblical.

In fact, the way I would put it is that it’s 100% God and 100% man. What does that mean? It means that God, even though He is in control and we must look to Him, still delegates a portion of active responsibility to us so that He can see to it that we’re fed and clothed, but it’s our responsibility to go out and look. You can do the act of looking with confidence that God will provide. I think that that obtains in all of these other circumstances, as well.

So there’s is not this sharp dichotomy between God working and our working. They go hand in hand. If God expects our initiative in the area of food and clothing, though He has promised to provide, by what standard do we disqualify taking initiative in the ares of reproductive technology and dating? It appears that He’s in control here, too.

I think that there are three places where the fatalistic view is most likely to creep up. Those are: 1) romantic relationships, 2) parenting and 3) money management. I think people really want to be free to do whatever “feels good” in those areas. Praying about these matters is a way of stealing God’s blessing for a decision that we are making based on feelings, because we don’t want to be bothered to take the initiative and do what we have reasons to believe will work. We don’t want to have to put in the work to study something and then bind our will to what our investigation shows is the most prudent course – even if it’s more difficult.

Some things aren’t going to work whether we pray about them or not, because of the way the world works. For example, buying lottery tickets instead of stocks as our retirement plan or marrying the buxom blonde stripper. Praying about a bad idea isn’t going to make it work, because our feelings don’t change the universe in any way. The universe is the way it is. My advice is to set specific goals, find out how the world really works, and then make informed decisions to achieve those goals. At the very least, don’t think that praying about something morally wrong gives you permission to do it.

I really recommend that people consider reading “Decision Making and the Will of God“. And, if you are male and you like fiction, then read “Rifleman Dodd“. In case you missed my previous post on decision making and the will of God, you should definitely click through and read it.

Mentoring

How to pick a husband who will love you for a lifetime

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One of my female Facebook friends was concerned about the way that some men seem to be able to cheat on their wives so easily, and she asked me for a piece of advice on how to avoid being the victim of adultery.

My advice for her was to choose a man who is interested in her for the right reasons – reasons that go beyond 1) her appearance and 2) her ability to be fun. The first thing to know is that a good man understands the value of women beyond superficial things. And the second thing is that a woman has to understand what men need from women in their roles as wives and mothers and then 1) take steps to prepare for those roles, and 2) be willing to improve in their abilities to perform those roles.

Choose a man who wants a woman for the right reasons

Let’s talk about the first point – finding a man who needs a woman for more than beauty and entertainment. Think of going for a job interview. Let’s say that a woman was interviewed by a man for a job as a combination of 1) housekeeper, 2) therapist, 3) investment manager, and 4) teacher. There’s more that wives do than that, but let’s leave it at those 4. Now, suppose that the man hires that woman and she is able to perform all 4 of those duties well – so well that the man really really appreciates her. Does it matter if she gets a little older? Of course not! That just means that she is even better now than she was when she started, and her value has gone up! So if the job is based on the right criteria, getting older actually makes the woman a better employee.

But what if the job description is 1) look sexy, 2) go out to nightclubs, 3) play ice hockey, 4) go parachuting. Well, now we have a problem… because getting older usually means that those things are less likely to happen well – or happen at all. And what happens with workers that don’t perform? They get unappreciated and their work gets handed off to someone else who can do the job. The thing to realize here is that there is nothing wrong with a woman who is rejected because she isn’t sexy or fun. The problem is with the man – with his wrong desires. A man who wants sexy looks isn’t really a candidate for marriage – marriage isn’t for people who want recreational sex and thrills. Marriage is for life-long love and parenting.

So the first thing that a woman needs to do is to choose a man who needs her to perform tasks that she can still perform when she is older. It’s even better if you choose a man who values you for things that you can do even better as you get older.

How to do it

So how are we going to find a man who has a requirement for a woman who will get better and better at over time?

1. How does he treat his previous girlfriends?

It’s a good idea to interview his previous girlfriends and ask them what it was like for them with this guy. Can those ex-girlfriends explain his long-term plan? Where did the ex-GF fit into that plan? What did he do to prepare her to fit into his plan? How much emphasis did he place on appearance and entertainment as opposed to talking about finances, parenting, education and moral values? What kinds of activities did he choose – fun things (ballroom dancing and yoga) or things that would prepare the couple for marriage (talking to the woman’s father)? What did he talk about – silly stuff like sports and beer, or apologetics and public policy? How did he lead on moral issues – did he just assert his view, or did he try to persuade? How was he on spiritual questions – had he thought about his religion or was it just what he grew up with? How did he evaluate ex-GF for his plan? How did he lead – did he just give her orders or did he try to persuade her? How did he try to explain to her what men are like and what men need from women, practically and emotionally? What was his plan for having children? How did a woman fit into that plan to have children? What was the goal for having children at all?

If we are specifically worried about not getting cheated on, then the only way to judge that IS by having each of his previous girlfriends come forward and tell you that he was opposed to sex outside of marriage. I think absolute chastity is required, because what it says to you is 1) the man can control himself, 2) the man wants to retain his judgment during courting, 3) the man does not think that relationships are for recreation but for commitment, 4) the man is child-focused – he thinks that marriage is the safest place for raising babies. If a man does not believe that the place for sex is in a marriage, then he is basically going to have affairs whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Either he knows what sex is for, or he doesn’t. Either he is serious about having a stable, loving marriage, or he isn’t. Either he has a purpose for women that is not just for recreation, or he doesn’t. Either he can control himself or he can’t.

2. What decisions has he made to prepare for marriage?

The best thing to do here is to make a list of the roles that men play in marriage and just ask the man point blank – what have you done to prepare for these roles? The roles are 1) provider, 2) protector and 3) moral/spiritual leader.

For 1) just ask him what he studied in school, what his resume looks like, and what his balance sheet looks like. Don’t ask him about the future – ask him about the past. A man can make up any lies about the future he wants. Remember: only money he earned counts as “provider” evidence. Beware of men who take out loans or spend a lot. Beware of men who study political science or psychology. Beware of men who drive their parents’ cars or live in their parents’ homes. Beware of men with expensive addictions to alcohol or cigarettes. Beware of men who spend a lot of money trying to appear trendy and macho.

For 2) we care more about ideas than physical brawn or weapons training. A man is far more likely to have to go to bat for his family armed with his mind than with his fists or weapons in this day and age. And that means understanding logic and evidence and having studied issues like economics, education, science and so on. It’s easy enough to spring secular leftist friends on him and see if he can handle debating them.

For 3) we are looking for a man who holds to Biblical values, whether they are popular or not. A man who can lead morally should be able to argue for Bible-based moral values using secular arguments and public evidence – preferably peer-reviewed. He needs to have a record of being to be persuasive on moral issues with non-Christians. It’s not enough to express opinions. He has to accept the Bible’s teaching on moral issues and then be able to be convincing to people who don’t accept the Bible. That’s the requirement.

The example I like to use is that he needs to be able to explain why premarital sex is morally wrong by showing the evidence that it reduces the stability and quality of the marriage, and this is unacceptable because his goals for the marriage require that the children be developed in a stable, loving marriage. Don’t listen to his opinions – demand the evidence. Why does morality matter to him? How do we know he is telling the truth? For spiritual leadership, it’s the same thing. He needs to be convincing – not just give his opinion. He needs to explain the alternative views and then refute the false ones and prove the true ones. He needs to appeal to logic and observable, testable evidence. Church attendance is not a good way to test a man for being a spiritual leader, since you learn almost nothing of value in most churches.

I think this is important because today there is a lot of pressure from people to just be nice – to back away from unpopular moral values and from exclusive theological statements. If a man cannot defend his views using public, testable evidence, then he is not safe to marry. A man who can only state his opinions and say “the Bible says” is not reliable. To make the right choices, he needs to know why. He needs to not be twisting what the Bible says just because he wants people to like him.

3. Fathers know best

It is very, very important to get to know that man’s father before you marry him. Make sure his parents are still married, then sit down and talk to the father to find out how he treats his wife. It’s also a good idea to just talk about the man’s character with the father. He will be able to think of anecdotes to show what the man is really like. Test the man’s father for his ability to provide, his ability to protect, and his ability to lead on moral and spiritual issues.

But most important of all is to let your father (the woman’s father) have all the time in the world to ask the man questions, to see his resume, financial statements, and letters of reference from past girlfriends (and past girlfriend’s fathers). The father of a woman is the one who cares the most about her – he is her protector. So he has to be given complete carte blanche to perform investigations and interviews. In my experience, the mothers of young women are not as reliable as the fathers.

4. Make him work for it

The man’s job during courting is to evaluate the woman by asking her difficult questions. But the woman also has a job – her job is to make the man prove that he is worthy by making him invest in her life. That means giving him plenty of tasks to do – tasks related to his roles. Not stupid things like being a good dancer, but important things like scheduling time with her to talk and listen about specific topics related to the relationship. And he has to do work, like solving her problems and performing tasks for her, and bringing her gifts. A man should keep a woman supplied with books and build her up so that she has confidence and strength to put forward her views convincingly.

He also needs to understand the role of emotions and do what it takes to keep her spirits up – frequent flowers, notes, poems, essays, etc. A man should know how to make a bad woman into a good woman – so that he can compliment her when he is finished building her up. That’s what men do. That could involve careful use of praise and blame to point in the right direction, or it might involve correcting her false beliefs and confirming her true beliefs with evidence. Men are supposed to make women more moral and more effective – that way the man has someone he can trust and rely on to turn to for care and help.

A woman has to make sure that the man has the habit of making commitments and following through on them when things get hard. A woman should look for evidence of long-term friendships, long-term ownership of pets or property, long-term stability in career or housing. No quitting or dropping out.

Conclusion

I hope that those ideas will at least provide some food for thought. The main point I want to make is that there are some men who are capable of love and marriage and some who aren’t. A woman cannot pick a man who is handsome and fun and penniless and non-judgmental and then nag him into making more money, being interested in religion, being able to set moral boundaries for kids, being faithful, etc. The only sure way to get a man to love you for life is to choose a man for that specific purpose, and for no other purpose.

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