In the Family Way

by Frank Turk

Yes, all right now:

Bookmark this: buff.ly/YFJOAh the idiots at Newsweek are in for a merciless beating next week.
— Frank Turk (@Frank_Turk) February 20, 2013

Have you read the link?  Good heavens: don't read the criticism without reading the source.  What are you - Baptist?

OK, first of all: "so what?" if Newsweek somehow makes money publishing trash like that link when there is literally a gem every day (that DJP posts) here and we can't even maintain 2 Kindle subscribers who aren't members of the Johnson family.  It may be, to say the least, unjust in the "problem of evil" sense.  It is utterly evil that people will pay Newsweek money to publish paragraphs like this one:

Sitting around a table at a hookah bar in New York’s East Village with three women and a gay man, all of them in their 20s and 30s and all resolved to remain childless, a few things quickly became clear: First, for many younger Americans and especially those in cities, having children is no longer an obvious or inevitable choice. Second, many of those opting for childlessness have legitimate, if perhaps selfish, reasons for their decision.

In a feature piece which also says this (avert your eyes if you cannot abide the world being itself):

Crudely put, the lack of productive *****ing could further be *****ing the *****ed generation.

I mean: sure -- Crossway has paid Mark Driscoll to talk like that, but that was missional style back in the day.  That's what passed for cultural engagement.  You can't blame them for, well, whatever that was in the mid-aughts.

But then Newsweek has the real audacity to let this be said:

While postfamilialism isn’t nearly as far along in the U.S., American marriage is faltering—and the baby is being thrown out with the bath water. Forty-four percent of millennials agree that marriage is becoming “obsolete.” And even among those who support tying the knot (including many of those who say it’s obsolete), just 41 percent say children are important for a marriage—down from 65 percent in 1990. It was the only factor to show a significant decline. ... On the flip side of the coin, the percentage of adults who disagreed with the contention that people without children “lead empty lives” has shot up, to 59 percent in 2002 from 39 percent in 1988.

Now, look: some of you are just so-whatting already, because frankly this is post-christian America, this is in the post-Christian West, and how surprising is it that this is where we are in 2013.  In some sense, I agree with you: this is who we are in the West now, simply glad to be over the idea of families and children even if it means our death as a race or (in less hyperbolic terms) as a society.

But what is excruciatingly-galling about this piece in Newsweek is that one of the major contributors to this cultural achievement is ...  Newsweek!  Seriously: how on Earth did anyone in their offices have anything but a glowing face of red hot humiliation as they either read or composed this:

In his provocative 2012 book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, Eric Klinenberg writes that for the hip urban professionals who make up the so-called creative class, living alone represents a “more desirable state,” even “a sign of success and a mark of distinction, a way to gain freedom and experience the anonymity that can make city life so exhilarating.” Certainly, the number of singletons has skyrocketed: more than half of all adults today are single (a group that includes divorcées and widows and widowers), up from about one in five in 1950.

After they were so proud to offer this back in 2008:

More basic than theology, though, is human need. We want, as Abraham did, to grow old surrounded by friends and family and to be buried at last peacefully among them. We want, as Jesus taught, to love one another for our own good—and, not to be too grandiose about it, for the good of the world. We want our children to grow up in stable homes. What happens in the bedroom, really, has nothing to do with any of this. My friend the priest James Martin says his favorite Scripture relating to the question of homosexuality is Psalm 139, a song that praises the beauty and imperfection in all of us and that glorifies God's knowledge of our most secret selves: "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made." And then he adds that in his heart he believes that if Jesus were alive today, he would reach out especially to the gays and lesbians among us, for "Jesus does not want people to be lonely and sad." Let the priest's prayer be our own.

As the counterpoint to this, which is their rendition of what the Bible "really" says about marriage:

Let's try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists. The New Testament model of marriage is hardly better. Jesus himself was single and preached an indifference to earthly attachments—especially family. The apostle Paul (also single) regarded marriage as an act of last resort for those unable to contain their animal lust. "It is better to marry than to burn with passion," says the apostle, in one of the most lukewarm endorsements of a treasured institution ever uttered. Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple—who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love—turn to the Bible as a how-to script? 

Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.

What a tawdry little lie. What an enormous act of self-deception.  Doesn't it turn out that what "of course" no one really wants is what, for millennia, kept the West in the people business at least -- and in the family business in spite of the project being full of (in Newsweek's view) the morally-callow and those looking for a last resort?

Maybe what bothers me most about this story is the actual humility of it -- the humble omission to represent Newsweek's own role in the situation.  Go ahead and search the Daily Beast (hey look: it's not my fault they asked Jerry Jenkins to name their endeavor) for "birth control" (1333 stories) or "gay marriage" (1607 stories), and you'll find that after molesting and man-handling the child-rearing social unit with both hands for years -- for decades, if you can find the old print Newsweek archives -- suddenly they have discovered that "in the coming decades, success will accrue to those cultures that preserve the family’s place, not as the exclusive social unit but as one that is truly indispensable."

Listen Newsweek: we warned you.  You laughed at us and said Jesus was a pansy and Paul was a prude, and that Abraham and David were philanderers.  You made traditional marriage out to be the sexual sand trap for the great deviants of the ages -- and now you want to call it all a mulligan and hope we can muster up our putting game for the sake of the team so that there will be a team next season?

It's a good thing the rest of us who were already laughing at you behind your backs and praying for you through tears didn't listen to you in the first place.  It's a good thing we raised our kids to love families and love each other.  It's a good thing we didn't take your word for it about Abraham, David, Paul and Jesus -- because otherwise, in your own words, well, we also raised our kids not to speak like that because it demeans something which is utterly holy and utterly indispensable for society.  Let's just say that we forgive you for doing what seemed right in your own eyes -- but we has to remind you: admitting that your math was bad isn't enough.  That wasn't your worst fault by any means.

If you've discovered that what you have actually done is condemned a civilization to death by your cavalier and banal view of what makes people possible, and teaching others to do the same, you should repent.  That is: you should admit that people are made for something other than what you made up in your own minds, and then turn to the One who made them and repent.  Some actual Penance -- in spite of my staunch Protestant theology -- on your part might do you some good.

We'll be here if you have any questions.

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The Worse Indictment

by Frank Turk

UPDATED: Hoss said this post had to go to the top of the blog today, so who am I to argue?  With Phil, I mean?

You know what?  Maybe I’m just geeked up on the week before Easter, and the week before T4G (which are not the same thing, but are two good reasons to get geeked up).  Maybe I’m on a theological bender after giving the wobbly post-emergents the what-for in the movie review.  But today you’re getting two posts from me, and you’re probably going to wonder what hit you.

As the readers of this blog know, I have no love for the anti-theological post-American secularists at Newsweek.  When it comes to thinking clearly about anything related to anything older than things born or invented in 1960, they have the uncanny ability to completely disgrace themselves in every way imaginable – sociologically, intellectually, ethically.  They tell blatant lies as if they were transparently true or unfathomly clever and undiscoverable as false, and they slander the wise and the loving as foolish, hateful, stupid and crass.  If tomorrow all the issues of Newsweek printed in the last 10 years were consumed by a fire or a herd of donkeys, I would cheer on the blaze and make the burros honored guests in my home.

There is nothing good to say about Newsweek except maybe that they have somehow survived in spite of being utterly useless for the reporting of American events  – and to be that incompetent and yet that durable ought to at least get a nod of appreciation even from their most bitter enemies.

This week – Easter week, of course – they published a cover story from the nearly-irrelevant Andrew Sullivan, titled (now get this) “Christianity in Crisis.”  In that article, Sullivan’s thesis is transparent: Stupid, hateful Christians are bad, but you can kick them all to the curb and just love Jesus.

Now, Sullivan is not saying what the young and untested rapper Jefferson Bethke was taken to task for – namely, a bit of hubris when it comes to distinguishing between “the church” and “self-indulgent religion”.  What Sullivan said was that the Jesus we should love should be the Jesus who never did anything miraculous, and died at the hands of his oppressors – but did not raise from the dead.  Whatever it is that Sullivan believes about Jesus, it doesn’t include Easter: Easter is for rubes and racists and rich people who need a hobby.

My singular response to Sullivan is this: since you’re not a Christian, you don’t really get a say in it.  I don’t really have the time or the patience to debunk the ignorant musings of a fellow who can’t even decide which moral teachings of Jesus are worth striving for; when he wants to come to the table and thereafter talk about whether Jesus actually died for a good reason, therefore giving us a good reason to live, I find him unqualified at best.

But that is actually not why I’m writing today.  I am actually writing because Trevin Wax gave it his best yesterday over at The Gospel Coalition to respond to the frothy gurgling noises coming from Newsweek on this subject, and frankly I thought he utterly blew it.

You see: Trevin was attempting to reason with Andrew Sullivan.  That is, in spite of the fact that Andrew Sullivan is a self-proclaimed Roman Catholic who dismisses the authority of the Pope in moral and religious matters, Trevin thinks he can root out the central yet vulnerable thesis in Sullivan’s essay and overcome it with good will and sound rationale.  It’s a nice thought, and I credit it to Trevin’s youth and Christian upbringing, but the odds of convincing one single person who agrees with Sullivan’s essay that Sullivan is wrong about anything is only slightly better than winning last week’s Mega Millions lottery for which you can now no longer buy any tickets – the drawing is done, and the winner(s) are already chosen.

Let’s get a flavor of what Sullivan wrote to get an idea of why I think Trevin got it all wrong:

[American Christianity] would also, one imagines, baffle Jesus of Nazareth. The issues that Christianity obsesses over today simply do not appear in either Jefferson’s or the original New Testament. Jesus never spoke of homosexuality or abortion, and his only remarks on marriage were a condemnation of divorce (now commonplace among American Christians) and forgiveness for adultery. The family? He disowned his parents in public as a teen, and told his followers to abandon theirs if they wanted to follow him. Sex? He was a celibate who, along with his followers, anticipated an imminent End of the World where reproduction was completely irrelevant.

And here’s where Trevin wanted to go with that:

On the one hand, Sullivan is absolutely right to point out the politicized nature of Christianity in the West. He has witnessed the counterfeit gospel of activism that gives us “culture warriors” from the Right and the world’s “errand runners” from the Left. He has seen what happens when churches unite around a cause rather than the cross, and the results are indeed repugnant. If we deny the shortcomings of the church or minimize the scandals, the abuse of power, or the existence of injustice behind our stained-glass windows, we are departing from the righteous vision of Jesus’ kingdom and joining the first-century Pharisees. 

Likewise, we should admit that we have too often been known more for our denunciations of those outside our walls than for our passion to uproot our own self-righteous hypocrisy, something Jesus was always confronting in His day. Sullivan sees many of the problems within contemporary Christianity with a perception that should give us pause and bring us back to our knees.

Unfortunately, his solution is woefully inadequate. He wants to return to the simple message of Jesus as if that message can be divorced from the Man who delivered it. Despite his protests against a politicized faith, Sullivan is saying we should follow a Man whose primary message concerned a kingdom. You can’t get more political than that.

That is to say, “well, Sullivan is mostly right about us, but he just misunderstands Jesus.”

To which I, today,  respond: what an innocent act of self-immolation as an attempt to gain the sympathy of people who have no urge toward sympathy for anyone but those who are in full agreement with them.  “Yes, I know we’re a sick and sad lot of malcontents, but Jesus Saves,” is the argument?  Jesus saves?  In what way then? And how does he save since you think you’re such a lousy example?

What is grossly unfortunate in this approach is that it assumes that we ought to accept the stereotypes thrust upon us in the media.  Does it ever occur to anyone (Andrew Sullivan, for example, or Trevin Wax) that there is a reason that the only people the media can find who hate homosexuals (and anyone associated by any means necessary with homosexuals) are the inbred heretics at Fred Phelps’ church?  While the Red Cross is often reported as the first responders to all manner of tragedies worldwide, why aren’t the demographics of the volunteers in the Red Cross ever examined?  Why are the statistics about marriage and social achievement, and the relationship of education and marriage to social prosperity, ever discussed seriously in the media rather than the constant cheer-leading for potential alternatives paraded out as equally-acceptable even though they frankly and objectively are not?

The stereotypes don’t hold up to the slightest examination – and to say so as I am here, frankly, gets one branded as ego-maniacal, hateful, and pompous.  Yet if even the hint of a stereotype is alluded to toward the other side, it’s the intellectual equivalent of sexual misconduct (you know, the bad kind, not the kind absolved by Newsweek and Andrew Sullivan) – and the outrage it ignites is unquenchable.

So for Trevin to approach this like a fair fight is, frankly, unworkable.  He’d be better served carrying a blancmange upon entering an MMA cage to soothe Brock Lesnar than hoping his aw-shucks apologetics will faze these people.  It can’t succeed – especially when he never actually gets to the Gospel.  Sure: he mentions an atoning cross and a victorious resurrection – but that is not declaring the Gospel.  That is not even reciting it: that’s citing it as if it was one proposition among many – which, by the way, Sullivan would agree to.  There’s  no offense there to disarm Sullivan’s self-reverential importance.

What Trevin ought to be doing, since he is writing at the Gospel Coalition, and he’s the editor of something called the Gospel Project at Lifeway Resources, is trot out the Gospel.  Sullivan has the unmitigated gall to call himself righteous-by-works in this article – and to crudely slander all manner of people who would plainly say they need a savior and not good advice.  Yet Sullivan thins Jesus out to a fortune cookie we can randomly quote in order to “learn how to live,” – as if Sullivan lives like either Jesus or the medieval monk he praises in his article.

If we’re citing  Jesus at random, Sullivan, here’s one for the ages:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

That one rarely comes up when folks like you want to quote the red letters – but it takes the little painted pheasant egg of ethical philosophy you have produced this Easter and scrambles it soundly so that we have to make something other than a soft-boiled sauce of it for our toast.  And it speaks to a man in a way which he can’t ignore.  You many dismiss it, or change the subject, but Jesus’ view here is plain: there’s something about the Law which Jesus can fulfill (not obey: fulfill) which your obedience cannot reach.

And that is the Jesus of Easter, Sullivan: that is the Jesus who matters, and to whom you will one day bow your knee along with the rest of all creation.  The question is only if you will meet him as your savior, or as your judge.  In spite of my disdain for you – perhaps in some way because of it, because you insult him, and make it clear that you are an enemy to him now, as I once was – I pray that Jesus will overcome you now when repentance and salvation is possible, rather than at that time, when your redemption is impossible.

And that Trevin Wax and the Gospel Coalition couldn’t find a way to say that much to you after your insults and your condescension is, frankly, a worse indictment of us Christians than you could have composed.

I’ll take next week off unless we live-blog T4G.  This Sunday, you should find yourself someplace where the people are rejoicing and broken in spirit over the fact that the tomb, which seemed to hold the defeat of Jesus, was found miraculously open and victoriously empty.  Because we serve a God of miracles and victory – not a god too small to bother to worship -- be there and be blessed.

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