Culture
Religious Leaders Say: The Baby Boomer Generation Was RIGHT to Get Married While Still in College
Getting married during school is a multi-generational tradition in my family. Grandpa started it: many aunts, uncles, and siblings on both sides have also made it a habit. So we have heard all the usual objections:
“You’re too young;” “It’s financially unwise;” “You won’t finish your degree;” “Babies will end your career before you can start it;” and so on. Some people have assumed that the weddings must be shotgun weddings — why else would you get married before you have a degree and a job? Others think that parents will indulge and provide financial support until there is enough money for a nice house. A few think that home must have been a horrible place for us to make such a reckless choice.
In America, even Christians assume that finishing school before marriage is a logical and irreversible chronology. Try and change the order, and you will end up poor, uneducated, with marriage problems, and three preschoolers. There is genuine pressure for young Christian couples to wait for marriage until their degrees are done. Most often, the pressure comes from the culture, then the Christian community, and even parents.
This week, we asked half a dozen couples from different countries, married in different decades, to look back on the plus side of being married in school. The variety of answers opens up new ways to think about when to get married, and why.
Read MoreARP Views on Abortion
We believe that the Scriptures clearly and plainly testifies to the infinite worth of human life by virtue of man having been created in the image and likeness of God, and that decisions about life and death are God’s prerogatives and not man’s, and that even in the case of rare exceptions such as judgments by medical personnel about highly technical medical problems, human judgement should always stand in submission to the divine judgement and wisdom of God.
Young Pro-Marriage Conservatives Undaunted by the Battle Ahead
They hear that their cause is lost, that demographics and the march of history have doomed their campaign to keep marriage only between a man and a woman. But the young conservatives who oppose same-sex marriage – unlike most of their generation – remain undaunted.
They identify themselves as part of the “pro-marriage movement” and see themselves at the beginning of a long political struggle, much like the battle over abortion. If they can begin shifting the terms of the debate away from gay rights and toward the meaning of marriage, they say, they have a chance to survive short-term defeats.
“The primary challenge that our side faces right now is the intense social pressure,” said Joseph Backholm, 34, the executive director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington. “To the extent that the other side is able to frame this as a vote for gay people to be happy, it will be challenging for us.”
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To put it another way, opponents of same-sex marriage say they must argue in favor of traditional marriage, not against gay people or gay rights. “It’s really a broader defense of marriage and a stronger marriage culture,” said Will Haun, 26, a lawyer and member of the Federalist Society.
Read MoreWhich Politician Stood Before 65 Mill Viewers and Labeled Our National Debt Immoral? — Revelation 11:15-19
When Lot was in front of the people of Sodom, he weakened the message of the Bible so that the people would leave him and his family alone.
Churches do the same thing today. We have lowered our rhetoric against sin.
During the last presidential debate, one of the candidates said that our national debt was immoral. Even good Churches don’t talk about morality.
Maybe this is why there isn’t much persecution of believers in America.
We have stopped saying what God told us to say for our own comfort sake.
Read MoreWhy I Am Participating in Pulpit Freedom Sunday — Wayne Grudem
This Sunday I have agreed to join nearly 1,500 pastors nationwide and participate in Pulpit Freedom Sunday, sponsored by Alliance Defending Freedom. In my sermon, I plan to recommend that people vote for one presidential candidate and one political party that I will name. We will then all send our sermons to the IRS.
This action is in violation of the 1954 “Johnson Amendment” to the Internal Revenue Code, which prohibits tax-exempt organizations like churches from endorsing any candidate by name. But in our nation, a higher law than the IRS code is the Constitution, which forbids laws “abridging freedom of speech” or “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion (First Amendment).
If you participated, please tell us how your sermon was received in the comment section below.
Read MoreCalifornia Makes It Illegal to Try and Convert Gays Under the Age of 18
Gov. Jerry Brown announced Sunday that he had signed SB 1172 which prohibits sexual orientation change efforts for anyone under 18.
Conservative religious groups and some Republicans have argued that banning conversion therapy would hinder parents’ right to provide psychological care for children experiencing gender confusion.
The Encino, Calif.-based National Association for Research and Therapy on Homosexuality said in August that the bill was a case of “legislative overreach,” and Lieu’s claims of harm to children were based on politics, not research.
The effect of the law, in brief, makes it illegal to try and convert any gay person under the age of 18 if your goal is to free them from the sin of homosexuality.
Read MoreThe Powerful Legacy of William Tyndale
A hundred years ago a comet made of frozen gas entered our atmosphere and made impact in Russia, in a swampy forest in western Siberia. When an ice comet travels through Earth’s atmosphere, the friction melts and atomizes the frozen gas into a trail of flammable vapor that spreads from the Earth’s crust all the way back to the highest parts of our stratosphere. When the explosion happens on the surface of the earth, the fire ball has the potential to reach thousands of miles high with the explosive power of a thousand atomic bombs.
The shock wave from that explosion flattened 80 million trees over 800 square miles. The center of the impact left all the trees standing straight up with no branches.
The fireball stretched back into the outer atmosphere, as high as there is burnable oxygen to ignite the trial of gas left in the wake of the comet’s path. This produced so much light that a day later Londoners could read their newspapers under the night sky.
The comet struck at 7:17 am on June 30, 1908. Just over a hundred years ago.
But the energy from that event pales in significance to another explosion that happened 500 years ago in London, an explosion of light that set the world ablaze, and still shines today. That light is the glory of the Son of God shining forth from the pages of Holy Writ. That light wasn’t shining very well for a thousand years before Tyndale.
Read MoreThe Deep Things of Satan . . . in the Church of Thyatira
Christians in Thyatira felt pressure from the trade guilds. We would call them Unions.
Imagine yourself living in Chicago as an electrician. If you are willing to join a Union and vote for the local politicians then you’re fine.
But let’s say you’re a Tea Party radical and a conservative political activist. Could you get employment as an electrician in Chicago?
The Unions in Thyatira were teaching immoral and corrupting values. Each guild worshipped a deity who promised financial success and good health.
Worship was like a Mardi Gras Party. The guilds sponsored immoral festivals like what you might see in Rio de Janeiro. Union members were expected to participate or possibly lose their benefits.
Christians faced a huge dilemma. They could attend these festivals and eat the meat offered to the idols, or boycott the festivals and damage their careers. Some Christians did speak out and call the society to repentance. Others, within the church, argued that participation was fine. Jesus calls these church people Jezebels.
Read MoreCan We Negotiate a Ceasefire with Satan? — Revelation 2:12-17
Abraham Kuyper said that, “There is not a square inch in heaven or on earth or under the earth in which there is peace between Christ and Satan.”
Jesus said that Satan lived in Pergamum. Does Satan dwell in your town?
You can tell be answering this question — “Do your neighbors publicly express their animosity toward God without shame?”
Is homosexuality celebrated? Are cults and witchcraft treated as acceptable religious options? Does the culture treat abortion as a morally neutral decision? Is living together without the benefit of marriage considered moral? Is pornographic material readily available?
How much animosity against God can citizens flaunt without being shunned? Can people be publically sinful and not become social outcasts?
Answering these questions will measure the level at which Satan is allowed to feel at home within your own community.
Do you help Satan feel comfortable by going along to get along? Have you lost your saltiness? Have you negotiated a ceasefire with Satan to protect your own skin? Jesus calls this the error of Balaam.
Read MoreIn Defense of Marriage — Focus on the Family
Dear Friend,
I have some bad news to report. Just yesterday, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston declared that part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional. The federal definition of marriage as being the union of one man and one woman has applied to all federal laws, regulations and benefits since 1996. This lawsuit involves claims from same-sex couples demanding federal benefits that are reserved for heterosexual couples.
Essentially, the appellate court said the federal government—and by extension, the taxpayers in all 50 states—must subsidize whatever types of arrangements a state may choose to call “marriage.”
Think about that for minute. In the 1800s, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of Congress to forbid polygamy in any territory wishing to apply for statehood. But the federal appeals court in Boston today ignored that history and declared Congress has no interest in keeping the definition of marriage the same as it has been for thousands of years.
Also visit the Heritage Foundation’s BLOG Roll on the Defense of Marriage.
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