Sweden: The "Good" Socialist State?

Every time you talk to a soft-hearted, left-leaning liberal who thinks that the welfare state is the answer to poverty, Sweden comes up. If I talk about China, the USSR, Eastern Europe, Cambodia, Vietnam and North Korea, they want to point out that Sweden is democratic and free despite being a social democratic state. Sweden is the poster-child for "enlightened social democracy." This is a myth that needs to be exploded.

Lydia McGrew has an article on the growing state totalitarianism in Sweden in the area of education. In some ways, total government control of the educational system of a country is even worse than total government control of the economy since thought-control is worse than external control. Even prisoners in Soviet concentration camps were intellectually free so long as every aspect of their lives were controlled but they were left free to educate each other at night in secret: their minds were not taken prisoner.

Some of us have already heard about Sweden's totalitarian and utterly committed attack on home schooling. Home education is illegal, and that's that. See here for more links and information.
But mandatory daycare, too, is on the horizon if not already here. In this article, along with more details on the persecution of home schoolers, we learn this:

Parents are pressured to put their children in daycare at age one.
"One mother told me when she went with her 18 month son to his medical checkup, and he was not in daycare. They said, 'Oh, your son is not in daycare? But he has to go to daycare. He needs that and you need to work,'" Himmselstrand told CBN News.
"The argument they give about this is that every child has a 'right' to daycare. This is not a right that parents are allowed to interfere with."

HSLDA translates from this link (which is in Swedish) the following argument for compulsory three-year-old daycare: “We cannot allow parents to deny their children the right to go to pre-school.”
The idea of children as free-standing actors in relation to the state, which enforces its own ideas of their "rights" against their parents, is not a new one. HSLDA has been warning about it for a long time. Sweden seems to have few qualms about a fairly extreme interpretation of the concept of the "rights of the child." A child has a right, in essence, to be separated from his mother.

As this article points out, the policies and attitude of the Swedish government are in violation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights signed in 1947.

Swedish human rights lawyer Ruby Harrold-Claesson calls what's happening in Sweden a "parental inquisition."

"Sweden's treatment of parents in the area of education is totalitarian, essentially. They want to take children from birth to graduation and control them," said Michael Donnelly, director of international relations at the Homeschool Legal Defense Association.

Donnelly claims Sweden's treatment of parents violates established standards of human rights.

"In fact, the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights signed in 1947 actually says ... that parents have a 'prior right' to decide the kind of education their children should have," he explained.

Contacted for a response, the Swedish government replied in the haughty tone of an absolute monarch addressing commoners below his rank:

But Sweden's ambassador to the United States said, "The [Swedish] government does not find that home schooling is necessary for religious or philosophical reasons."

The arrogance is breathtaking: "The Swedish government does not find . . . " = diplomatic-speak for "Shut up, he explained."

Sweden has a number of problems including declining educational standards, an increasing trend toward single-person households, an unsustainable welfare state and increasing anti-Semitism among its growing immigrant Muslim population and Swedish officials who are afraid of Muslims. Sweden is a rich country and free market economics influenced the current structure of the economy to a great extent, which means that socialism will need more time to utterly degrade the economy than it needed in an economic basket-case like Imperial Russia or China. The social democratic experiment, however, is barely 50 years old at this point, so we need to give it some time.

But there likely is not enough time to play out the full economic experiment because economic collapse is just a matter of time anyway due to the population decline in progress. Like most European nations, Sweden only has a few more generations of existence anyway. The total fertility rate today stands at 1.67, which is well below replacement level. This explains why Swedes have no choice but to bring in increasing numbers of immigrants with a totally different culture, religion, politics and priorities.

The connections between post-World War II feminism and socialism in Sweden and the looming demographic nightmare are discussed in Allen Carlson's book: The Swedish Experiment in Family Politics: The Myrdals and the Interwar Population Crisis. The experiment is ongoing and the long-term results are not in yet.

Pointing to Sweden as "the great Socialist success story" is like the man who fell off a 50 story building saying "So far so good" to people as he passed the 40th, 30th and 20th story windows. That is the best you can say for Sweden's social democratic, post-traditional family experiment: "So far so good." But the ground (reality) is coming up quickly.

If You Want Fewer Social Problems, Fight the Sexual Revolution

Mike Pence should run for president, particularly if Mitch Daniels does not. Here is the most sensible thing I've heard a politician say in a long time:

To those who say conservatives should set aside social issues and stress only economic ones, Pence replies: Economic problems are urgent, but social problems remain important in a way that blurs the distinction between social and economic issues. With the fluency of a former talk radio host, he says: "You would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse." This is, he says, "Moynihan writ large," referring to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's preoccupation with out-of-wedlock births, which now are 41 percent of all American births.

If liberals actually cared about solving our massive social problems, and not just making the world safe for sodomy, divorce and the hook up culture, that is, if they really cared about people, they would focus like a laser on how to keep families intact as the highest social priority. Compared to this issue, poverty is just a symptom of the real problem, especially in North America.

Committed to Grandparenting

What no posts for nearly two days? Have I died? No, I traveled to Alberta on Saturday to be with my daughter, son-in-law and 21 month old grandson as they anticipate the imminent birth of a sister for little Isaac.

Because of the G-20 summit, I decided to get to the airport extra early on Saturday even though I had an evening flight, so I got 200 pages read of the bestselling Ann Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged. I can't believe how similar the way the characters talk in the novel is to the stuff you regularly hear today on the Left. It is almost eerie because the socialist rhetoric in the book is so cheesy and formulaic and yet so close to what Obama says almost every time he opens his mouth. The socialists have not had a new idea in over 100 years and the progressives have not had a non-socialist idea since they got started in the early 20th century.

Anyway, we had church this morning and then Beth and Chris went off to the "big city" (i.e. Red Deer!) for their last dinner and movie date for a while. The next few weeks will be a big adjustment as they get used to having two little ones at once. My wife will fly out as soon as Beth goes into labor so she can be here to help for the first two weeks after the baby is born. She has less vacation that I do and I'm actually working here with my books and computer until such time as labor begins and my "vacation" officially starts.

But today was my day to give Beth and Chris a break. So Isaac and I did nap, dinner (my 'grilled cheese sandwich special' using the homemade bread Chris made before he left), playing soccer, skyping with Grammie and Uncle Steve and then more playing peek-a-boo, blocks and cars, stories, bath, prayers, drink of water, songs, rocking and finally sleep. Whew! 10:15 pm Alberta time (12:15 am my body's time) and I have the rest of the evening free. I hope the reason for the lack of blogging is now quite clear!

Grandparenting is part of the deal when it comes to marriage and family. When two people commit to the most intimate and personal relationship possible, they open themselves to new life and to the formation of a new family - with all the implications that follow from that decision. One of the implications is the responsibility to pitch in and help one's kids with the raising of their children: i.e. grandparenting.

A life centered on family is the best kind of life for everyone included married, single and consecrated celibates. Family is the place where we grow in Christian discipleship, practice servanthood and learn to love and be loved. The path of loving mutual service is not an alternative to complete commitment to Christ, but the form and shape that commitment takes. The family is a "little church" where members of the body of Christ ministers to each other and learns how to serve others outside the family as well.

I am thrilled to spend my vacation helping my daughter and son-in-law make a successful transition to having two children under the age of two. Isaac is a joy and a delight to be around. He is very verbal and very polite, although he is a typically rambunctious boy. Our three children and now their spouses and children have become more precious to me as I grow older and not less. Family is truly a blessing from God and more important than so man other things that compete for our attention and fill our days.

Any Exuse to Take a Shot at Good Fathers: Who Needs Them Anyway?

CTV has this story about Russ Hiebert, a conservative MP with a young family from BC, who has higher than average travel expenses because he brings his wife and two young daughters to Ottawa with him when Parliament is sitting.

Russ Hiebert, the B.C. Member of Parliament elected on a promise to fight government waste, is defending his use of taxpayer dollars to fly his family to and from Ottawa during the six months Parliament is in session.

The Conservative MP for South Surrey – White Rock – Cloverdale racked up $637,093 on his expense account for the 2008-2009 fiscal year – more than $200,000 more than the national average.

The former lawyer spent $214,360 for return trips for himself and his family between Ottawa and his home in Cloverdale, B.C. The average MP spends $87,415.

Hiebert told CTV News he was actively encouraged to travel with his family by his peers and he believes he is the only MP with a young family who has to travel a long distance.

"Because my wife and I made a commitment to keep our family together, that means my wife and kids come with me when the house is in session," Hiebert said.

The MP insists his spending is within the limits set forth by the House of Commons.

"They allow for MPs, all MPs, to bring a spouse and dependent children to Ottawa," he said.

"As far as I can tell, most MPs take advantage of that opportunity because they recognize how important it is."

But some of Hiebert's constituents don't feel that he deserves that opportunity.

"With the economy the way it is, you shouldn't be able to make those kinds of expenditures," said Ken Lloydsmith.

"Why does he have to fly with his family?" asked Norma Sproston.

The "central budget" of the House of Commons includes 64 return trips a year for each MP to travel between their constituency and Ottawa, as well as covering meals and incidental expenses.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says the auditor general needs to examine whether the spending guidelines are too lax.

"If you have a regular job at a regular company and you want your family or children to travel with you, you pay for it out of your own pocket not out of the company pocket," said Scott Hennig.

What is with these people? Why is Russ Hiebert not a hero and role model as an example of a caring father in a society in which so many children have dead beat losers as absentee fathers? Let's probe a bit deeper here.

First, Hiebert is a Conservative so that is one strike against him with the mainstream media. It is hard not to be suspicious right away.

Second, he lives in BC and the complaint is that his $214,360 is higher than the national average of $87,415.00. I'm surprised his total is so low, considering how far away from Ottawa he lives. After all, many MP's live so close to Ottawa they wouldn't even need to fly home and their expenses figure into the national average.

Third, perhaps the subtext here is that there is something wrong with a man not being willing to sacrifice his family for his career. Or perhaps the idea that his wife is not busy with her own career irritates some people. Whatever the real issue, it is difficult to see why an MP who has broken no rules and has simply tried to be a good father should get beat up by the media like this. (Some of the comments in the comment section after the story were far worse thant he story itself, which suggests that the story was designed to provoke without going too far explicitly.)

Ezra Levant has a great response entitled: "Let's Have a Parliament with Only Childless Toronto MPs." Yep, that would be just dandy. It would get rid of all those pesky social conservatives and representatives of the far flung outposts of civilization like the Lower Mainland.

Is Having a Large Family a Sin?

Well, you would think so to hear the prejudice and animosity directed against those who obey God's command to be fruitful and multiply. A cornerstone of the culture of death is a hatred of fertility and a denigration of family.

But even in this climate, it takes a lot of nerve to claim that your opponent for political office can't do his job properly because he has a wife and six children. (Apparently having six children is now considered "freakish" and "impossible" in some circles.)

Here is a story from Thomas Peters at Catholic Vote Action about a Pennsylvania Republican primary race in which a woman accused her opponent of being unable to do the job of holding public office just because he was a father of six: "Opponent claims Catholic candidate, father of six, too busy for office." Methinks that if he were to be as rude as she was in reply he might have told her to get back into the kitchen and leave politics to the men! Honestly, in this day and age, prejudice against women is outlawed but prejudice against Christians is A-OK. One step forward, two back.

How did the primary turn out, you ask? Well, the "Minivan Dad" crushed his anti-natalist opponent 67% to 33%!

The moral of the story: if you want to run for office, have a large family. Eventually, they all will be voters! Let the secularist barbarians observe our fertility and tremble!
__________________

A Clarification:
It seems there was some misunderstanding by at least one reader about what I wrote above:

"Methinks that if he were to be as rude as she was in reply he might have told her to get back into the kitchen and leave politics to the men! Honestly, in this day and age, prejudice against women is outlawed by prejudice against Christians is A-OK."

I posed a hypothetical "If he were to be as rude as she . . . " with the implication that it would be equally rude of him to dismiss her as a woman that way as it was for her to dismiss him as a father of six. Both would be wrong; my point was that while one would be recognized as wrong by everyone, her prejudice would not be. So it was a shock tactic to say "See how bad you sound." I myself of course would never tell a woman to get back in the kitchen. That was the farthest thing from my mind. So I'm sorry if that was left unclear; I'll try to be more clear next time.

Naked Totalitarianism in Hamilton Public Schools: It is Time For Revolt

Here is a LifeSiteNews.com story on the attempt of Hamilton Public Schools to take away the rights of parents to educate their own children on moral issues. If this does not cause a public revolt, the frog the kettle is certainly cooked.

This is naked totalitarianism: a power grab by the school board that deprives families of their God-given rights. It is anti-democratic and it is anti-Christian. Will we stand for it or capitulate to the State? I say protest, withdraw children from school en masse, organize, and never give in. Will we have religious freedom or will let the fascists take away from us?
___________

''Public school children in Hamilton, Ontario will not be permitted to withdraw from classes that promote homosexuality, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. At the same time, according to a leaked document obtained by a local journalist, teachers are being instructed to tell parents who object to the curriculum that “this is not about parent rights.”

At the end of January, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board (HWDSB) hosted a professional development day dedicated to “equity” training, where they distributed a sheet to teachers with “quick responses” they can offer to parents who object to the school board's “anti-homophobia” curriculum.

That document was obtained by journalist Mark Cripps, and posted on the website of the Hamilton Mountain News. Cripps observes that the handout “basically indicates parents have no rights when it comes to their child’s education at the HWDSB.”

In addition, Cripps reports that, “The board says no child will be excused from the class when topics of homosexuality are brought into the classroom.”

The school board is developing a new equity policy, as required of all boards under the Ontario Ministry of Education's equity strategy, announced last year. Among other things, the Ministry is requiring all boards, Catholic and public, to develop a plan for combating “homophobia.”

The sheet given to the HWDSB teachers specifies that teachers do not “condone” the removal of children from classes that deal with homosexuality. If told, “This is against our rights as parents to teach our own set of family values,” the board suggests teachers offer the following responses:

- “As teachers, we do not condone children being removed from our classes when we teach about Aboriginal People, people of color, people with disabilities or gays and lesbians.

- “You can teach your child your own values at home. Public schools teach everyone about respecting diversity and valuing everyone.

- “This is not about parent rights. Children have the right to an inclusive education free from discrimination.”

Jim Enos, President of the Hamilton-Wentworth Family Action Council (HWFAC), told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that he was struck by “the obvious point that parents who object [to the homosexuality curriculum] will be ignored, and that the schools educate your children in their ideology whether you like it or not.”

Since HWFAC was founded 14 years ago, they have fought hard with the school board to ensure that Judeo-Christian values are respected. On this latest initiative, Enos says that the school board's response has been to say, “'You can do what you want at home, we understand, but when you get to school, different matter.' In other words, they're saying that schools have priority rights in the education of children.

“That's wrong,” he insisted. “We are the educators of the children. [Schools] are an extension of us, we're not an extension of them.”

In addition to the examples above, teachers are advised to respond to the objection by parents that the homosexuality curriculum is “recruitment or teaching about sex!”, by saying that high school students need “accurate information about relationships and safe sex.” If parents insist that their child is too young for the subject matter, the teachers are to tell them that it is the teacher's job “to teach accurate, up-to-date information to every child, including yours.”

Enos says that requiring children to participate in the “anti-homophobia” classes is “forced indoctrination.” While the school board claims to provide “accurate information,” Enos pointed out that the program is “indoctrination because they won't give both sides of the story. They only give good news about [homosexuality].”

Enos sat on the school board's Sexual Orientation Steering Committee for two years. He explained that he had attempted to make a presentation to the Committee on the negative health effects of homosexuality, as documented by the Ontario Ministry of Health. The Committee would only allow him to distribute a handout, he said, and dismissed his concerns.

“We won't have any negative bias, just positive bias,” they told him, he said.

Journalist Mark Cripps also wrote that while he disagrees with the view that homosexuality is a sin, he questions the board's disregard for parents who hold that view. “Does the board believe faith has no value in its schools?” he asks. “Does the board really support the principle that parents have no rights over their child’s education?”

“Right or wrong, rejecting the dogma of specific faiths doesn't seem very inclusive,” he concludes.

Contact Information:

John Malloy, Director of Education
Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board
100 Main St. West
P.O. Box 2558
Hamilton, ON L8N 3L1
Phone: (905) 527-5092 ext.2297
E-mail: pat.stones@hwdsb.on.ca (through Executive Assistant)

The State was invented by the people; the family precedes the state ontologically and politically. The State has no right to infringe on the religious rights of the family. This is an attempt to take our children away from us and it probably is in violation of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Pray for justice and don't forget to vote while we still can.

The UK's Labour Party Tries to Portray Itself as "Familly-Friendly"

In a move that is as cynical as Adolph Hitler suddenly announcing in early 1945 that "some of my best friends are Jews," the UK's Labour government has attempted to spin on a dime with regard to its policy on marriage and family. The Telegraph's Will Heaven reports:

"Since the launch of Webcameron, when the David Cameron allowed a “homemade” video of himself to be broadcast online, the Conservative leader has made it clear that the Tories are the party for families, and that they back marriage. In a speech in March at the Welsh Conservative Conference, he affirmed this, saying: “We want to see a more responsible society, where people behave in a decent and civilised way, where they understand their obligations to others, to their neighbours, to their country. And above all, to their family. Families are the most important institution in our society. We have to do everything in our power to strengthen them.”

Now Labour, recognising the success of this idea, are to publish a green paper in January supporting wedlock and conceding that children fare better when parents stay together. “In the past I think our family policy was all about children. I think our family policy now is actually about the strength of the adult relationships and that is important for the progress of the children,” Ed Balls told the Sunday Times."

Now I trust that readers of this blog will not be surprised that I refuse to be taken in by such blatant posturing and one can only hope that voters in the UK will realize that a death bed "conversion" based on polling numbers is no substitute for a government that actually will implement policies to enhance the institution of marriage. It doesn't take a political Einstein to know that handing out condoms to 12 year old boys in school are not the kind of policies that strengthen marriages or families.

Even the Times of London exhibits a skeptical tone with regard to what it labels in its headline as "Labour's U-Turn on Love and Marriage Ahead of Election"

"Gordon Brown is preparing to pitch Labour as the party of marriage and the family in an audacious bid for core Tory votes.

In a shift in strategy ahead of the general election, the government is abandoning its long-standing ambivalence towards wedlock, conceding that children fare better if their parents are together. A green paper to be published in January will outline new measures to shore up “stable parental relationships”.

Labour’s 11th-hour acknowledgment of the importance of marriage has been derided by the Conservatives, who accuse the government of ignoring evidence about the benefits for the past decade. The Tories are preparing their own green paper on promoting family units, setting the scene for an election battle for the parental vote.

Since 1997 Labour has directed resources at children rather than their parents, fearing voters would see attempts to shore up the declining traditional family unit as discriminatory or judgmental."

I wouldn't call it so much audacious as laughable. But note the final sentence where Labour's excuse for undermining traditional marriage is said to be that it did not want to appear "discriminatory" or "judgmental." How can you be discriminatory for strengthening the family? Who are you discriminating against? Who is potentially being judged? Adulterers, promiscuous individualists who abandon children, swingers? Why not judge such people? What kind of failure of moral nerve causes a person to be hesitant to say that marriage is good and that children deserve to be raised by their biological parents? Tradition, the accumulated experience of the human race, and social scientific studies agree that children thrive in intact families but suffer in broken families.

If Labour has largely abandoned economic Marxist ideology, it has yet to depart from cultural Marxism and its anti-family bias. This is what drives Labour policy and no green paper produced in a hurry just before the Spring election can paper over the evil, anti-family policies and biases of this government. One hopes that the voters treat this tactical maneuver with the disdain it rightly inspires.

European Parliament Condemns Lithuania for Standing Up for the Family

It looks more and more like tolerance both for homosexuals and religious people who oppose the homosexual lifestyle is just not going to happen in the Western world. The aggressiveness of the pansexualist movement, its demonization of those of us who defend a traditional view of marriage and family, and the widespread tendency to conflate intolerance with disagreement means that either the traditional view will rally and maintain its legal and social dominance or else the pansexualist jaggernut will supress and outlaw the traditional view.

I personally, like the vast majority of reasonable people, would have preferred a compromise and mutual toleration. But the pansexualists are adamant and determined to trample religious freedom underfoot in order to realize their dream of a post-heterosexual society. They don't just want freedom for themselves as individuals; they want to re-shape society in their own image. Their committment to social engineering reminds one of the worst fanaticism associated with religion in past centuries. It is apparently just fine now that that boot is on the other foot.

Congratulations to Lithuania for standing up to the jaggernut.

"(NEW YORK – C-FAM) The European Parliament voted 349 to 218 today to
condemn Lithuania for its "law on the protection of minors" which prohibits
promotion of "homosexual, bisexual or polygamous relations" among children
under 18 in the Baltic nation. Conservative critics contend that the measure, crafted in reaction to the domestic legislation of a sovereign member state pertaining to the family, oversteps the Parliament's authority.

The resolution directs the Agency for Fundamental Rights to opine on
whether the law contravenes European anti-discrimination standards. Any such
opinion would be non-binding, though activists would likely use it to press
for greater recognition of rights based on "sexual orientation." An earlier proposal by the Alliance of Liberal and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), the "liberal" parliamentary faction, would have initiated proceedings to suspend Lithuania pursuant to article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, the 1992 pact that created the European Union
(EU). Parliamentarians principally affiliated with the Christian Democratic
grouping, the European People's Party (EPP), worked behind the scenes to soften
the resolution and remove the Article 7 reference.

While "progressive" parliamentarians lined up to charge Lithuania with
promoting "homophobia," several EPP and conservative members spoke in opposition to the measure and in support of the country's sovereign right to pass laws protecting families and children, including Lithuania's first post-Soviet head
of state Vytautas Landsbergis and Slovakian parliamentarian Anna
Záborksá."

Read the rest here.

Let us remember that "progressive" here means those who hate tradition and Christianity, while confidently anticipating a brave new world built by the human will. It is heartening to me that the vote was so close, 349-218, because that means that the base must exist for a political movement that could challenge the "progressive" hegemony. Is European conservatism dead? Or is it lying dormant? Only time will tell.

The Case for Early Marriage

The cover story for Christianity Today (Aug. 2009) is "The Case for Early Marriage" and features a story by Dr. Mark Regnerus, a sociology professor at the University of Texas, Austin. He is the author of Forbidden Fruit: Sex and Religion in the Lives of Amderican Teenagers (Oxford, 2007), which sounds good and which I have ordered from Amazon as a result of reading this story.

Regnerus argues that one of the basic reasons for rise of extra-marital sex in modern culture is the biologically ridiculous gap between puberty and age of marrying in modern culture. Age of first marriages has risen in America from 21 for women and 23 for men in 1970 to 26 for women and 28 for men today. Puberty takes place earlier than it did in pre-modern societies due to better nutrition etc. and therefore a gap of over a decade exists between when humans come to sexual maturity and the age at which most marry. Marriage actually occurs at the precise moment a women's fertility starts a slow decline (late 20's). This is a recipe for moral failure. We are fighting the healthy reproductive urge most people have and Regnerus' studies show that we are losing that fight as far as overall statistics are concerned. It is also a recipe for an epidemic of infertility problems, which we are currently experiencing.

But Regnerus is not calling for Christians to throw in the towell and join the culture in embracing casual, pre-marital as the norm. He has a different solution. Encourage earlier marriage. The statistics for teen marriages are not encouraging because they have a higher failure rate, but if you eliminate teen marriages from the picture earlier marriages (i.e. in the early 20's) have no more chance of failure than later ones.

Delaying marriage unnaturally (to the late 20's) not only has the effect of encouraging pre-marital sex, it also cuts down on fertility. The casual sex people have in their teens and 20's often leads to sexually transmitted diseases which can impair fertility. And fertility declines starting in the late 20's and accelerating after the late 30's. So many people put off marriage off and the decision to try for a baby (or several babies) until it is too late.

Surely, Regnerus is correct in discerning that the best way to approach this problem is to work with, not against, nature and re-structure social expectations so that society bends to accommodate nature. For Christians this may have several implications.

1. Parents may have to help young married couples financially in the first few years, especially if education must be completed.
2. Churches should be ready to help young couples practically with showers, counselling, mentoring, etc. Marriage is a good thing.
3. We all need to resist the materialism that lures us to put consumerism ahead of human relationships and family.

Nobody is saying it is going to be easy and this article does not have all the answers. But surely this basic insight - encouraging earlier marriages - is part of the overall solution.


In response to the article, Read Mercer Schuchardt, professor of media ecology at Wheaton College has some trenchent things to say in support of the general thesis. I want to quote him extensively because he says some things so well that need saying:

"Imagine a species that, for the first 5,600 years of recoreded history, arranged its cultures so that when youth began to grow the bumps and curves that signaled biological adulthood, the culture said, "You are an adult now," and welcomed them to adulthood's responsibilities and freedoms. . . . Now imagine that species enlightenened by the blessings of the Industrial Revolution. Advances in media and technology made a way to achieve longer life spans, lower infant mortality rates, and 2,300 square-foot homes with more TV's than children. With biology the mother of neither necessity nor economic life, it soon lost its role in religious and political life as well.

Born into this vast technopoly, today's child understands her world primarily through mass media. Thanks to media's total-disclosure nature, she will be a world-weary 72 year old by the time she reaches 12, but she won't have the maturity of a medieval 12 year old until about age 36. Ages 12 to 22 will be spent in mandatory survival training called higher education. Regardless of her primary course of study, her secondary course, undertaken when she is biologically fittest and physically strongest to raise children, will be the ironic but ironclad dogma that she must never consider having a child until she is economically, psychologically, and spiritually a fully realized autonomous self. If, after a decade of ingesting this dogma, she still has the desire to become a mother, she can only have at most two children.

If life's most meaningful work for couples is raising children, then it's a cynical system that requires the false choice between having children young, when a large family is physically possible but financially hard, or waiting until they can afford a large family, when fertility has dropped. Technology, it turns out, is a harsher taskmaster than biology, offering a world where the best form of birth control is economics, the best predictor of income is education, and the best deterrent to having children is guilt over failing to give them the very best a consumer society offers.

Meanwhile, the ocean of sorrow continues to fill with the tears of those who are childless or heartbroken by the lie that tells a woman she is free to be anything she wants, so long as she is a man about it."

Man Tells Woman to Shut Up and Be Liberated!

The CBC is reporting that the Liberal leader of Alberta, Mr. David Swann, is badly bent out of shape by an opinion expressed by an Alberta cabinet minister that is not politically correct. He gets downright cranky about putting "that woman" in her place:

"Alberta's Liberal leader is demanding an apology from Finance Minister Iris Evans, who suggested that in order to raise children "properly" one parent should stay at home while the other goes to work.

"If she really said these things, she must apologize. If she doesn't apologize, the premier must fire her," David Swann said in a statement Wednesday. "These are truly outrageous claims. I have never been as stunned by the sheer arrogance and ignorance of the Tories as I am today."

So David Swann, a man please note, is outraged by the idea that Iris Evans, a women please note, is giving a voice to the largely voiceless and marginalized women who are rebelling and refusing meekly to accept their assigned role of earning money by working outside the home in addition to homemaking and raising children and are tired of being discriminated against by the tax system, by the way.

Isn't it fascinating that the liberation of women entails a man saying "must" so much? What an interesting concept of "liberation." How are women supposed to be liberated if the women won't just shut up? He won't put up with expressions of dissent. There is no room for free speech when the opinions are not judged politically correct by the noisy, bossy feminists Mr. Swann obviously trembles in fear of offending and whose mouthpiece he is.

The idea that this is an issue that requires debate, that better solutions might arise from a vigourous exchange of opposing points of view, is foreign to Mr. Swann's universe. The concept that the debate might actually be about what is best for children has obviously never entered his mind.

This is heresy! This is an assult on a item of high orthodoxy that cannot be questioned lest the foundations of modern society tremble. This must be stamped out by force!

Oh please. Get a grip. If she is so obviously wrong it should not be hard to show how she is wrong with a few well reasoned arguments. Or can't you think of any, Mr. Swann? Is that why all you can do is call for her to be fired?

OK, two can play the bluster game. I demand the David Swann be fired immediately as leader of the Alberta Liberal Party. I have never been so outraged etc. etc. blah blah blah.

Q. Now where does that get us? A. Nowhere.

Mr. Swann, all you have managed to do is to convince us of three things:

1) that you think that you know what is best for women better than women do
2) that you don't like actual debate about serious issues
3) that you are against free speech

None of these would induce a reasonable person to want to vote for you. And your "on behalf of women" stance is as phoney as a three dollar bill.

The Demise of Fatherhood in the Western World

Andrew J. Peach has a terrific article "On the Demise of Fatherhood" at First Things. He argues that the Enlightenment call to rational self-determination has led to fathers abandoning their posts:

"I would like to propose that the demise of fatherhood is largely the result of a relatively recent and thoroughly unjustifiable faith in rational self-determination. Indeed, nearly all of the culprits that cultural observers have previously identified—contraceptives, abortion, women’s liberation, increased secularity, the usurpation of the functions of the father by the state—can probably best be understood as instances of this more general tendency."

Here is a section near the end that is lyrical and profound:

"Most fathers-to-be suppose that their old ego-centered lives will continue more or less unabated after the child arrives. With the exception of a few more obstacles and demands on their time, their involvement with their children is envisioned as being something manageable and marginal. Nothing like a complete transformation—an abrupt end to their former life—really enters men’s minds.

But then the onslaught begins, and a man begins to realize that these people, his wife and children, are literally and perhaps even intentionally killing his old self. All around him everything is changing, without any signs of ever reverting back to the way they used to be. Into the indefinite future, nearly every hour of his days threatens to be filled with activities that, as a single-person or even a childless husband, he never would have chosen. Due to the continual interruptions of sleep, he is always mildly fatigued; due to long-term financial concerns, he is cautious in spending, forsaking old consumer habits and personal indulgences; he finds his wife equally exhausted and preoccupied with the children; connections with former friends start to slip away; traveling with his children is like traveling third class in Bulgaria, to quote H.L. Mencken; and the changes go on and on. In short, he discovers, in a terrifying realization, what Dostoevsky proclaimed long ago: “[A]ctive love is a harsh and fearful reality compared with love in dreams.” Fatherhood is just not what he bargained for.

Yet, through the exhaustion, financial stress, screaming, and general chaos, there enters in at times, mysteriously and unexpectedly, deep contentment and gratitude. It is not the pleasure or amusement of high school or college but rather the honor and nobility of sacrifice and commitment, like that felt by a soldier. What happens to his children now happens to him; his life, though awhirl with the trivial concerns of children, is more serious than it ever was before. Everything he does, from bringing home a paycheck to painting a bedroom, has a new end and, hence, a greater significance. The joys and sorrows of his children are now his joys and sorrows; the stakes of his life have risen. And if he is faithful to his calling, he might come to find that, against nearly all prior expectations, he never wants to return to the way things used to be."

Many of us who are fathers recognize ourselves in this description. The deep wisdom of the words of Jesus that it is only in losing our lives that we find life are worked out by Peach in his analysis of fatherhood. Being out of control is the only way for a finite creature to be truely happy. Happy Father's Day! Read it all here.

Why Christians Should Have Large Families

In my last post, I discussed the call of several Southern Baptist leaders for Christians to have larger families. Here is why I agree with them. This list is just a brief introduction to the issues. Much more needs to be said; this is just an introduction.

1. God has never rescinded his command to "be fruitful and multiply." Some say that NT believers are not under this command, since the admitted OT emphasis on the goodness of large families only applied to Israel as a nation. But the Gen. 1:28 command to be fruitful and multiply command is given long before Israel was in the picture and applies to all nations, not just Israel.

2. There are numerous passages in the OT that view children as a blessing from the Lord, eg. Ps. 127:3. Children are a delight and a life devoted to raising a large, Christian family is one of the most valuable contributions a couple can make to their society and to the Church.

3. Contrary to much conventional wisdom, the world's birth rate is declining rapidly and in 59 nations it is already below replacement levels. We are facing first an aging population followed by a declining population. This will have serious implications for the economies of those nations that are on track to have aging populations first (like Japan) and declining populations first (like Russia).

4. Christians have hope for the future because of our faith in God. Many secularists have very little hope for anything beyond this life and so they become self-centered and hedonistic. Christians can make sense out of suffering and self-sacrifice (the essence of parenthood) because they do see a future beyond this life and they have a hope for the future that unbelievers simply find it hard to sustain without faith.

5. All abortion and some forms of contraception should be rejected by Christians. The pill has a lot of side effects and in some cases it may cause early abortions. The IUD certainly does cause early abortions and should be avoided under all circumstances. But even if some forms of contraception for married couples only in certain, temporary circumstances are accepted, it is still critical that Christians not fall into the "contraceptive mentality" in which sex is increasingly detatched from procreation and trivialized as a form of recreation instead of a deeply personal self-giving of the husband and wife to each other.

6. Christians need to submit their wills to God and accept children as gifts from Him, rather than as "projects" or "products" of our own wills. No form of contraception is 100% effective and so any Christian who is married must be open to the possibility of new life at any time. That is what is means to be married and that is why sex is only for married couples. As Christians, we believe that God is involved in our lives and that He will provide for our needs, though not necessarily for our selfish wants. The Church is deeply infected with materialism and hedonism as it seeps in from the culture and spritual resistence is necessary.

A song by Michael Card expresses the nature of the spiritual battle we face eloquently:

The Spirit of the Age (Matt. 2:16ff)

1. I thought that I heard crying coming through my door.
Was it Rachel weeping for her sons who were no more?
Could it have been the babies crying for themselves,
Never understanding why they died for someone else?

(chorus - Jer. 31:5)
The voices head of weeping and of wailing,
History speaks of it on every page.
Of innocent and helpless little babies,
Offerings to the spirit of the age.

2. No way of understanding this sad and painful sign.
Whenever Satan rears his head there comes a tragic time.
If he could crush the cradle, then that would stop the cross.
He knew that once the Light was born his every hope was lost!

3. Now every age had heard it, the voice that speaks from hell."
Sacrifice your children and for you it will be well."
The subtle serpent's lying, his dark and ruthless rage.
Behold it is revealed to be the spirit of the age!

4. Soon all the ones who seemed to die for nothing
Will stand beside the Ancient of Days,
With joy we'll see that Infant from a manger
Come and crush the spirit of the age (Rom. 16:20)

(Note: The author's royalties for this song have been donated to Americans Against Abortion.)

Baptist Leaders Call For Larger Christian Families

Well, it's about time. Joe Carter over at First Things Blog reports that Southern Baptist leaders are calling on Christians to have larger families. He notes that the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary writes:


"Southern Baptist leader Daniel Akin is concerned about declining baptism totals, a benchmark used by the denomination to gauge the effectiveness of missions and evangelism. To fix the problem he proposes that the denomination focus on ten “commitments” including committing to biblically healthy churches, sound biblical preaching, and . . . having more babies."

Other Southern Baptist leaders who have called for larger Southern Baptist families include Al Mohler, the president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Russell Moore, the Academic Dean at Southern. Joe Carter writes:


"Over the past few years, one of the hot topics in evangelical bioethics is whether the Catholic Church hasn’t been right all along about contraceptive use being a sin. And on the popular level, the pro-natalist quiverful movement has exploded within churches and homeschooling circles.

Soon when you see a family with a dozen children you may find yourself thinking, “Oh, they must be Baptist.”

I don't think we are anywhere near that point yet. But it is true that as the culture of death takes hold in North America, as it has already done in Europe, any family of larger than two children will look "large." This does raise the question, "Should Christians have larger families?" My answer is "yes" and in the next post I will give a brief list of reasons why I think so.

The Education of Children: Parents versus the State in Alberta

The family preceeds the state. It is older, more basic and more clearly rooted in nature than the state, which is an artificial construct by comparison to the biologically-based human family of mother-father-children. This has been recognized by the United Nations and by most non-totalitarian states. Article 16 of the Universal Declarations of Human Rights says: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."

Nevertheless, there are powerful forces in our society seeking to undermine this fundamental human right and to replace the authority of the parents in raising and educating children with the paternalistic state and its agencies. These social engineering busybodies are convinced that "modern" and "progressive" ideas need to govern how children are educated and that parents who object must be silenced and coerced into compliance. Ironically, this is often done, in true Orwellian fashion, in the name of "democracy."

But today the Alberta Legislature struck a blow for the freedom of the family with a bill that allows parents to pull their children out of classes that deal with controversial issues such as sex, religion and sexual orientation. Many Canadian parents probably assume that they have this power and that it is not in danger. But they are not aware of the mood of many in the the country's educational and political establishment that "progressive" ideas that some people do not accept must be imposed by coercion. We have seen this done through Human Rights Commissions. We have seen it done by the imposition of the course on relativistic ethics and religious pluralism in Quebec. But in Alberta today, we see a small victory for freedom and the family.

All that happened as a result of this bill is that Alberta has ensured that it will be in compliance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It isn't exactly an extreme measure. But if you want to see extremism, watch the reaction from liberal groups who are mightily displeased that the erosion of the family as the fundamental unit of society has been dealt a small set-back.

How to Fight Poverty

Left wingers profess to be extremely concerned about the poor and they are constantly talking about how to "help" the poor, "serve" the poor and "eliminate poverty." Just check out the Sojourners website or any other website that is based on left liberal ideology. Not only are these folks extremely proud of their political activism on behalf of the poor, they are highly critical - and I mean highly critical - of conservative Christians. To them the right wingers are unChristian, unloving, selfish hypocrites or they are just stupid (and probably both). It comes through pretty clearly.

Now, I have two problems at this point. First, I associate with a lot of middle class conservative Christians who love God and serve Jesus Christ by reaching out with compassion to people who are in various kinds of distress - pregnant unwed mothers, prostitutes, women abandoned by their irresponsible husbands, the poorest of the poor in Africa, AIDS orphans - and here I'm just listing some of the ministries of people in my own home church as examples. My own experience and various research over the years tell us that conservative Christians give more money to charity than liberal Christians do. Also, they volunteer more and are more active in their communities.

In addition, these conservative Christians also do evangelistic work and help people become believers or recover their faith as well. Liberal Protestants, by contrast, have pretty much ceased doing evangelism. I can't even see a category for Evangelism on the United Church of Canada website, for example. So conservative Christians love the whole person - body, mind and soul - while liberal Christians emphasize political and government solutions to the problems of poverty. So why do liberal Christians assume the moral high ground and act so superior to conservatives? This is puzzling to me.

Secondly, on the issue of how to fight poverty, I have some questions. We live in the richest society in history at this point in the history of North America; yet children go to school hungry. How can this be? Over the past 40 years, since the sexual revolution, family breakdown has been the single greatest cause of poverty for women and children. The social acceptance of promiscuity, pornography and adultery has led first to high divorce rates, then to casual divorce and, in probably the greatest terminological example of wishful thinking in the world, "no-fault divorce." We know that children from broken families have higher rates of school problems, psychological problems and by every social measure do worse.

Yet, liberal Christians do not propose public policies that would help to reduce the numbers of divorces and keep families together. They do not want married couples with children to be treated better taxation-wise than people who are merely living together. Why not? They do not want laws requiring counselling for couples seeking divorce. Why not? They do not set out to de-legitimize casual sex and stigmatize adultery? Why not? Instead of debating which social policies might help at least slow down the rate of family breakdown, they actually advocate policies that may very well exacerbate the problem by sending the message to men that they can feel free to abandon their children because the government will take care of them.

Even if we could agree that increasing the welfare state by increasing government support for single mothers and their children did not affect the divorce rate, (which is highly debatable), why would we not at least try to provide incentives for couples to stay together and work out their problems? Why do we accept so readily the lies that children recover quickly from the effects of divorce and that nothing can be done to help couples get through rough patches?

I have heard it said that the reason why children of broken homes do so poorly is the social stigma that comes with divorce and so the answer is to "normalize" divorce. I suppose that if you got the place where every home was a broken home, there would be no more discrimination on that account. But is that really what we want as a society?

So my questions are genuine, not just attempts to score cheap debating points.

1. Why are liberal Christians not at the forefront of trying to mitigate family breakdown, rather than simply accepting it as inevitable and trying to get the governent to take on the financial support of children fathered by irresponsible males?

2. Why is male irresponsibility not attacked by liberal Christians as the social evil it is? Why not de-legitimize easy divorce?

3. Why do liberals seem to suggest that the only way to fight poverty is to treat the symptoms (welfare checks) rather than dealing with the root causes (strengthening families)?

I'm sincerely asking.

Singleness and the Christian Vision of Marriage and Family

A question was raised by my post on the Chastity Ethic versus the Promiscuity Ethic. What about singleness? Is celibacy not an important part of the Christian witness? Does not an ethic that exalts marriage inevitably denigrate singleness? (I think this captures the spirit of the question.)

First, single people are part of families. Everyone has a mother and a father and, hopefully, siblings, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents etc. Everyone has been raised in some sort of family and has personally benefited from that family (or in many cases, of course, been harmed). Everyone a single person knows and is in community with is also a product of a family. And single people inevitably will know more married people than single people (unless they live in a monastery or convent). The average local congregation will have many families in it. So, the point is that single people, just like everyone else in society, have a serious interest in the well-being of the family as an institution and how it is doing in contemporary society. (Strong families improve everything from the crime rate to the amount of mental illness in a given society.) And single people will very often have an impact on families as friends, mentors, teachers of children, uncles or aunts etc. We must never think that singles are somehow indifferent to families and the influence (for good or ill) flows both ways. (This is similar to argument that everyone should pay taxes to support public schools, rather than only the parents of children in the schools.)

Second, Luther was wrong to urge the destruction of the monasteries and convents. I believe it was a political move and endeared his version of the Reformation to land greedy princes. Apart from the shoddy politics, however, it was a theological mistake. He thought that most people should marry and that no one should be forced into a life of celibacy. Both points are undoubtedly true, but they do not justify the denigration of the celibate life or the positive contribution celibates have made to the Church down through the centuries. At times, the secular clergy have been so abysmally corrupted and the Church so weak and in need of reform that the Church was literally saved by celibate monks being appointed bishops and sometimes wearing their hair shirts under their colorful robes in the execution of their duties. (Study the history of the island monastery of Lerins, which at one point provided most of the bishops of Gaul.)

Luther was also wrong because the celibate is a living rebuke to the calumny that all must inevitably succumb to the temptation to sin sexually. Of course some celibates have fallen into to sexual temptation, but that many have not is the thing that should cause wonder. And indeed, the world is always gleeful when a priest or monk falls because that provides a rationalization for its sins. But when a celibate lives a chaste life, that is in itself a rebuke to licentiousness.

Luther was also wrong because humans created in the image of God are rational, moral creatures with the power of moral choice. We can, through repeated sinful acts, fall into vice and become sexually addicted. But we can also, with the help of grace, through repeated resistance to temptation, develop the virtue of chastity. Protestantism has, I believe, offered such feeble resistance to the sexual revolution in part because it does not have a monastic movement helping to hold up the virtue of chastity for the Church as a whole.

Third, much of the Christian Tradition, building on Paul's words in I Cor. 7 has viewed the celibate state as the superior one. This is going too far; a balanced view sees both the celibate and the married state as good and virtuous (both being founded alike on the virtue of chastity) but different in the goods that each one embodies. The most important good of the celibate state is not the functional one - i.e. the ability to serve Christ and the world in ways that a married person could not. This is a good, but not the highest good. The highest good of the celibate state is that single persons bear a witness to future eschatological state of the kingdom in which, as Jesus said, there will be no more marrying or giving in marriage. Just as Christian marriage witnesses to the goodness of God's creation and the continuities between creation and redemption (continuities relating to the central importance of love), so Christian celibacy witnesses to the goodness of God's plan of redemption and the goodness of the coming Kingdom (a goodness that has love at its core.)

Love is central both to the married and the celibate state. In both cases there is a need for the mortification (in the sense of the disciplining) of the flesh and the gift of self to the other. The celibate life enables a different (non-sexual but real) gift of the self to others; think of pioneer missionaries who took the Gospel to remote places of the earth and often suffered martyrdom. Celibacy enabled this costly witness. Celibacy can also enable less dramatic, but nevertheless significant ways of giving of the self in ministry and service.

To summarize, then, celibacy is a vocation within the Church and a witness to the Kingdom of God. It is not to be despised, but rather embraced by the Church as a necessary component of the Church's mission in the world. In the Kingdom, we will all be celibate. Yet, in that state, the virtues of marriage will not be left behind, but taken up and transfigured along with the resurrection body and the life in God. And this will be true both for those of us called to marriage in this life and also for those of us called to celibacy in this life. Both celibates and married people are one in the body of Christ. All of us are finally the bride and he is the groom.