In the past two days I've managed to offend both Wild at Heart lovers and Beth Moore lovers. Since I'm on a roll with my soapboxes, allow me to climb on a few more before I settle down for the summer. Note: to those of you who are not Christians who read the blog or for those of you blessedly outside the seriously intense Christian sub-culture, I promise that I'll try to get out of the Christian ghetto tomorrow.
1. Focus on the Family. Really, these guys do some decent stuff working with families and working policy issues. But my concern is this: we can only fix our eyes on one thing. Scripture invites, warns, and commands that thing to be Jesus. If we focus too much on the family, family can become (like so many other good things) an idol. In the evangelical sub-culture, we often teeter dangerously close to the edge of this--and we often fall off. When we build our golden calf out of cute kids, wise parenting strategies, and pro-family legislation, it's much harder to see that it is, in fact, a golden calf. What focusing overly-much on the family does in our churches is it marginalizes those who are single, can't have kids, or just honestly don't want kids. I saw a bumper sticker once in Richmond that said, "Focus on your own damn family." I think if I weren't a Christian, I'd feel just about the same way. As it is, I think that the culture that Focus on the Family helps create can be one where the family becomes the be-all, end-all. Really tough, actually, to build much of a case for that from Scripture...
2. Courting v. Dating. I thought that this issue had run it's course, but a student that was in my small group last week at Rockbridge talked about how she had to put away all the Christian dating books that her private Christian school made her read because they stressed her out too much. With "I Kissed Dating Good-Bye" Joshua Harris made the case that courtship is a more Biblical way of relating than dating is. Again, some good things here--clearly the way that the culture views dating is entirely unhealthy, and Harris' book offers some good correctives. But really, the good that he does is undone by his creation of another cute Christian cliche with more rules that we can beat people up with. To say that courtship is more Biblical than dating is like saying that the Bible commands us to eat McDonald's rather than Burger King. The whole system didn't exist back then. And while there are certainly some helpful principles about relating in Scripture that apply to the process of finding a spouse, it's actually pretty quiet on the whole dating v. courtship thing. Let's not make up stuff and say that the Bible says it, okay? That's generally bad.
3. "Growing Kids God's Way" is a manipulative, terrible title for a book, playing off of Christian parents' desires to raise their kids faithfully and bullying them into attempting parenting techniques that may or may not actually be faithful for their family. It works for some kids and families, not for others. Personally, Kelly and I have decided to blend together other parenting strategies--so apparently we're growing our kids Satan's way. Future parents, read all the books you can about parenting, there's some great wisdom out there. But don't get bullied into this book by the cult-like sub-culture that's grown up around it.
Okay, I'm putting away the soapbox for a couple days.
5 comments:
Amen on GKGW and the same goes for Babywise. Creepy! :)
ahem, thank you alex. earlier this week, i had a conversation with another iv-er friend of mine concerning similar issues. my complaint is how i'm now debunking all the "right" and "wrongs" that wre put in my head about living a Godly life as i was deeply immersed in campus Christian culture at carolina. some of the ideas and habits that i picked up were good and solidly rooted in scripture..others not so good. something i'm still working through and it's been three years since i've graduated!
Let's not make up stuff and say that the Bible says it, okay? That's generally bad.
Well, there go most of the books in my local Xtian bookstore. Way to go, Alex. Sheesh, why do you have to go and ruin a perfectly profitable industry like that?
On a more serious note, in pulling both your first and third points, let me recommend the book, Never Mind The Joneses, an IVP book by Tim Stafford. I'm all about his grace filled, hope motivated, contextual approach to shaping a family's culture, which in turn shapes all of the family members.
This, I think, is one of the more profound insights of the book: parents don't influence their children directly as much as the general family culture shapes both children and parents.
I'm not doing it justice here, though. Go through the link and read all about it. Then buy it. Then read it. Rinse, Lather, Repeat.
reba, thanks for your comments. certainly there's an unfortunate amount of group-think that goes on in any sort of campus fellowship and along with that goes the need for spiritually-led de-tox during and afterwards.
i think that this is actually an ongoing process no matter where you are or what life stage you're in. the messages we're receiving about what it means to walk with Christ are always mixed and imperfect. our own presuppositions and assumptions and inferences and jumps are also flawed.
so the Spirit has to always be at work (and we must always be open) to being corrected. i think that this is why the Scriptures celebrate teachable hearts so much!
macon, thanks for the book recommendation. i certainly don't want to come across as anti-family in my blogging and i'm eager to learn from those who have much to teach me about parenting and raising a family!
I think it's a great point, Alex, that some of the concepts in these books are helpful to some people and not to others. I read I Kissed Dating Goodbye a while ago and found myself a bit disturbed by the fact that he did present everything in there as though it were the only correct way of doing things. So I ignored it. But I've heard of others who loved it and have benefited from it. Everybody's different, I spose. Anyway. See ya in the fall, bro.
Post a Comment