Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.

In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood — biological, social and legal — into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.

There is lots to say about this, but Blankenhorn’s piece is refreshingly cogent for such an emotionally charged issue.

“Do you agree that the magical potency of today’s ceremony is exactly equal to the magical efficacy of ceremonial baptism with dihydrogen oxide, and do you agree that the power of all magical ceremonies is nonexistent?”

If this didn’t make me so sad, I would find this rather funny.

A couple notes: First, this ceremony, albeit funny, shows that atheists continue to define themselves by what they are against. Sarcastic humor unites by tearing down a foe, but sarcasm is hardly creative. Nor does it create community.

Secondly, the de-baptismal formula quoted is utterly devoid of any sort of moral demand. Baptism in the Bible is about both faith and repentance from sin. At it’s barest meaning (i.e. devoid of “magic”), baptism is a statement and commitment to humility, growth and change. The de-baptism formula above is simply about declaring “unfaith,” which I find insipid and uninspiring. As such, and quite ironically, Christian baptism is more humanistic than this atheistic de-baptism.

(Please pardon me while I tear my hair out.)

I appreciate that this prospective juror is taking seriously “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” but we need to read that command in context: Matthew 7:1-5. Judgment of a person’s behavior is wrong if unfair, hypocritical and arrogant. Proper judgment, as Lewis Smedes says, is necessary:

I would suggest that, in our day and age, we need more—not less—judgment. Modern Americans suffer from a fear of judging. Passing judgment on the behavior of fellow human beings is considered an act of medieval, undemocratic intolerance.

Why? Because, our culture tells us, we are all flawed people, and people with flaws have no right to judge other people’s flaws. Furthermore, modern Americans do not believe that there are objective standards by which to judge. And where there are no standards, there is nothing by which to measure behavior.

Standards are vital. “In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable.” (Smedes, again) There is no holiness without standards, no love without judgment.

All I can say is, please judge me. Just do it fairly, humbly and with love, and always aim for repentance and reconciliation. And of course, know that full, final and eternal judgment is God’s alone.

For instance, Glenville advises, “A special occasion calls for special treatment, and taking the time to visit your hairdresser, go for a massage, and have a facial scrub will all add to your confidence.” In another section, he tells us, “At sporting events, whether cheering your team on or participating yourself, the wrong footwear can completely skew an outfit.” I wonder if Chipper Jones knows this?

Stinson’s point is that pampering oneself encourages the sin of self-absorption. “We do not need prettier boys. We do not need softer men. What we need is a church culture that will call boys and men to lives of self sacrifice as exampled by the picture of Christ in Ephesians 5 who loved the church and gave himself for her to his own neglect and sacrifice.” [Read the article]

Although the verification test has changed to adapt to new scientific understandings about gender — athletes are now evaluated by an endocrinologist, gynecologist, a geneticist and a psychologist — critics say the test is based on the false idea that someone’s sex is a cut-and-dried issue.

“It’s very difficult to define what is a man and what is a woman at this point,” said Christine McGinn, a plastic surgeon who specializes in transgender medicine.

I’m not in a position to debate all the intricacies of the genetics of sex and such. I appreciate the complexity. But I do think that the “intersex” exceptions should not rule the day and encourage us to blur the lines between men and women. One of the basic ideas of creation in Genesis 1 is that God is making order out of chaos by making distinctions between things: light and dark, sky and water, water and land, land and plant, plant and animal, animal and human, human male and human female. If God makes distinctions in creation, we should uphold these distinctions as good.

…some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.—all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument—they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. “Science and reason are important,” says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. “But science and reason won’t visit you in the hospital.”

Essentially, some atheists want to throw out the baby and keep the bathwater. The socializing functions of church are desirable, but the crux of the church—God and the Gospel—are to be laid to rest.

The movement to “churchify” atheism is in a very early stage. There is disagreement even on what to call it. To define a movement simply by what one is against (i.e. “atheist” or “Anti-Theist”) is strikingly uncreative and uninspiring for a movement that celebrates humanism and achievement. More importantly, to define and “canonize” what a movement believes (as opposed to what one simply stands against) will be a challenge that I don’t see atheists overcoming any time soon.

To be passionately anti-Something easily galvanizes movements. Stones thrown from any angle can all hit the target. But to be passionately for-Something takes submission to an authority greater than the community itself. That authority, in turn, shapes the community. Christians look to the Bible. Muslims look to the Qur’an. The U.S. looks to the Constitution. Since some of the defining characteristics of atheism is skepticism of authority and even the possibility of knowing anything for sure, I’m very interested in seeing how the movement tries to define itself.

I must say, as a leader in an organized religious movement, it’s hard enough keeping people together when God is on our side. Good luck without.

I do notice that when unchurched people come into a church sanctuary, they’re a little more quiet, respectful and conscious of things numinous (i.e. the spiritually “other”). This is why I think our wedding ministry is an important outreach to our community that we haven’t fully realized.

1. Drug abuse
2. Morally debatable experimentation
3. Environmental pollution
4. Causing poverty
5. Social inequality and injustice
6. Genetic manipulation
7. Accumulating excessive wealth

P.J. O’Rourke’s reaction to these new Seven Deadly Sins is hilariously tongue-in-cheek:

Not to argue theology with the Vatican, but environmental pollution is hardly among Satan’s strongest temptations. Pollution is not a passion we resist with an agony of will for the sake of our immortal souls. I’ve been to parties where all seven of the original deadlies were on offer in carload lots. Never once have I heard a reveler shout with evil glee, “Let’s dump PCBs in the Hudson River!” …Unfortunately Bishop Girotti’s late-model sins make as little sense as a Jeremiah Wright sermon. They have no gravitas. Imagine the reaction in the confessional when you say, “Father, I have littered.”

At some point I’ll have to draft up my own list of seven deadly sins. I think “smugness” might be at the top of the list. Kyrie Eleison!

(I don’t think this is a shipping product.) I don’t mean to make light of people’s fears, but I am amazed at how fear-driven our world has become. C.J. Mahaney writes:

Fears reveal lies and lusts. Fears reveal idols. Fears reveal functional gods. When we submit to fear we submit to a false god rather than serving the God of Scripture, the God we seek to serve.

Mahaney quotes from Edward Welch’s Running Scared: Fear, Worry and the God of Rest (Greensboro: New Growth Press, 2007):

…We know that worry and fear are more about us than about the things outside us. They reveal what is valuable to us, and what is valuable to us in turn reveals our kingdom allegiances. We also know that God is patient and compassionate with us, and he gives grace upon grace. Though alert to our divided allegiances, he persists in calling us away from fear and worry, persuades us of the beauty of the kingdom, and gives more than we can imagine.

I humbly suggest adding this corollary to G.K. Chesterton’s famous line: “When we cease to fear God, we will not fear nothing, we will fear anything.”