Tag: Parents

Book Plunge: The Toxic War on Masculinity Part 7

Are men dumb? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Across the board, are men dumb? No. Some are brilliant. Some are dumb. The same applies to women. (And if you think otherwise for either one, that says a lot about you.) Unfortunately, in our society, men are usually seen as the dumb ones.

I really enjoyed watching Home Improvement with my family. I still enjoy it today, but I have to agree that it’s clear who is the brains in the family. Tim is an idiot who screws up consistently and he needs his wife to make sure that he handles things properly.

Usually in a show, the woman is the voice of reason. The guy is the one who is just thinking about sex, watching sports, and drinking beer. Men have a really bad reputation in our society.

Suzanne Venker, author of The War on Men, writes, In the span of just a few decades, America has demoted men from respected providers and protectors of the family to superfluous buffoons. Today’s sitcoms and commercials routinely paint a portrait of the idiot husband whose wife is smarter and more capable than he.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 191). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Churches aren’t safe either. As Pearcey says:

Even churches sometimes send negative messages to fathers. One of my graduate students, Grace, leads the women’s ministry at a large Baptist church. She told me, “On Mother’s Day, we honor mothers, passing out roses. But we spend Father’s Day scolding men and telling them to ‘do better.’”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 191). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Pastors. Hear me on this. If you spend Mother’s Day praising the mothers and Father’s Day scolding the fathers, you are contributing to the problem. Either praise both or scold both or tell both how they’re wonderful and how they both need to improve. I recommend the last one. Point out to them how essential their role is in society and then tell them how they can be even better at it without assuming that they’re miserable failures.

You all know I’m thoroughly conservative, but when I saw this quote in Pearcey from Obama, I had to say “When he’s right, he’s right.” I would honestly at least want to stand up and cheer if I heard this.

In the words of former president Barack Obama, “We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child—it’s the courage to raise one.”

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 192). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Could that be political pandering? Sure. All politicians do it to some degree. It’s also right.

Something I have heard black conservative commentators say about LeBron James is that he needs to stop being a race hustler. The man has been faithful to his wife and raised his children. That should be his main message he has out there. Fatherlessness is a huge problem in the black community.

Pearcey also says fathers have often been reduced to just pals. The problem is kids have plenty of friends they can be pals with. None of those friends can be a father.

There’s no doubt that shared recreation fosters positive father-child bonds. Some of my students say they cherish memories of their father coming home from work and throwing a ball with them in the backyard. Nevertheless, the idea that the father was primarily a playmate or buddy was new in the nineteenth century, and it entailed a steep loss in status. It contributed to the idea that fathers were not essential to family life.

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (p. 196). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

I liked times my Dad and I played games together. I remember playing Jaws and Golf and Dr. Mario for instance. When I come to see my folks, we inevitably break out a round of Trivial Pursuit. I liked hearing my Dad tell stories about when he was in college and when we see superhero movies like Batman movies, he can tell me about what those heroes were like when he was growing up and I can tell them what they are like now.

Also, I have come to see many shows thanks to my Dad and inevitably, I know them better than he does. My Dad grew up watching Adam West in Batman. Today, I know the series better than he does. He watched Cheers when it came on. Again, I know the series better. Finally, definitely Smallville, and yes, I know that series better than the Smallville magazine writers did. Before I moved to New Orleans, we were watching The Flash together.

But I could do that with any of my friends too. The most important gift given was affirmation and being a Dad growing up. No one else could do that. Fathers. Plenty of children can be friends to your kids. Only one can be a Dad to them.

I also encourage fathers of girls to do this. When Valentine’s Day comes around, don’t just get something for your wife. Get something for your daughter too. Treat her like a princess. Why? Because you want it that when she starts dating, she won’t settle for a man who doesn’t treat her as good as her Daddy does.

By the way Dads, help out your wife at home too. Pearcey says there are benefits.

And if that’s not enough of a motivator, Sandberg and Grant report that couples who share housework and childcare also have more sex. As they put it, “women and men who ‘work hard’ also ‘play hard.’” Apparently, this last finding sparked considerable interest, because several other researchers have studied the same phenomenon: “Men who do more housework and child care have better sex lives and happier marriages than others” (John Gottman, Why Marriages Succeed or Fail). “Men said the happier their wives were in the division of housework, the happier the men were with their sex lives” (Newsweek). “Couples enjoyed more frequent and satisfying sex for both partners when men made a fair contribution to housework” (Science Daily). “Men’s performance of child care is generally associated with more satisfaction with the division of child care, more satisfying sexual relationships, and higher quality relationships” (Gender and Society). “Couples report having more and higher quality sex when they are satisfied with their relationships. . . . Relationship quality and stability are generally highest when couples divide up the household labor in a way they see as equitable or fair” (Council on Contemporary Families).

Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity: How Christianity Reconciles the Sexes (pp. 204-205). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Also ladies, this is a deep need for your man and meeting that will motivate him more and more.

But how do you do all this with a work schedule?

That’s for next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

What Really Hurts Children

What is the real danger to children? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently, I wrote about the hysteria that comes whenever any new piece of technology comes out. It’s always argued that this will lead to the children being corrupted. The reality comes and goes and there’s no major change. Most of us look at what happened with comic books in the past as silly today. Odds are years from now today’s fear will seem silly.

But yet, no one can deny that children are being hurt. Yes. We do have problems with children committing violence and we do have problems with sexual promiscuity in children. Children often do drugs and children struggle with suicide, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and suicide.

It’s really easy to blame this on the surrounding culture. It’s comic books! It’s TV! It’s movies! It’s music! It’s smartphones! It’s video games! It’s the internet! I am not denying that some of these can play a part, but there is something far more influential that comes beforehand that if this gets wrong, the others are far more likely to be hazardous to children. If this gets right, they are far less likely to be hazardous.

What children most need right is a stable family.

By this also, I mean that children living with a mother and a father both, and preferably their own biological parents. I realize that sometimes this can’t happen. I have a wonderful friend who’s a widower raising children on her own which is wonderful. A cause like being widowed suddenly due to a tragedy often cannot be helped.

Technically on my end, my sister is my step-sister as we have the same mother, but my mother left an abusive marriage and remarried my father and I come from that one, but my Dad has never treated my sister like any less of his own flesh and blood. I never got preferential treatment growing up that way. You could ask my sister and she would say the same thing.

Today, divorce is often prevalent because if the parents aren’t happy, well surely the children aren’t. Often, with a bad divorce, it doesn’t change the happiness of the children. Sometimes what they want most is their parents to work matters out and it can set the path for them to do the same.

If anyone thinks that’s what happened on my end, no. You can ask most anyone and I fought tooth and nail for my marriage and this was even when wise people told me I should seek divorce. I always said no. If it ended, it would be on her end, but I also told her when she was telling me she was going to divorce that I didn’t want her to do that, but if she sent me papers I would sign them. I wasn’t going to hold her hostage or anything.

Children can wrestle with abandonment over divorce and issues of trust. One reason I am sure of this personally besides my own reading on the topic is I am 42 and divorced and I still wrestle with this as a result of my divorce. It’s far harder when you’re a child who doesn’t have a fully developed cognitive faculty to know how to handle this or a whole worldview behind it. I remember the story of a man in his senior years who at the age of five had his Dad kill himself and he still wondered why his Dad didn’t want him.

Don’t think that just having the right parents is all that matters either. No. Invest in your children. If your children are engaging in media you think is harmful, talk to them about it. Find out why they like it. What are they really gaining out of it?

Don’t think also that if you’re in ministry, you can bypass this. You can’t. Some people can be so committed to ministry that they fail to be committed to their own families. I hate saying it, but Billy Graham was even like this. There’s an account of how he left his wife behind sick once because he had to preach somewhere. If children think your ministry matters more to you than they do, they are more prone to resent your ministry and the God that ministry is about.

Children need to be invested in. We can often think that if we take them to church every Sunday, which we should, then we’re okay, but it needs to be more. Christianity needs to be lived in the home. It needs to be shown. Christians need to do actions that will speak love to their children.

If this is actively going on, you have far less to be concerned about with the media around them. I have been in the world of video games since I was in kindergarten, and yet I have never had a violent streak or anything like that. I was a virgin until I married and will be one, God willing, until I marry again. I never use profanity and I have never had a drug problem. I have struggled with anxiety and depression, but overall, my upbringing has been very helpful for me.

Also, if you are someone alone raising a child, get them involved with someone who can be a role model of their own sex. If you are a man raising daughters, find a woman who is a role model for them and vice-versa for a woman raising sons. Let them know how they are to be.

Your children are yours and they are to be a great investment. You will be the greatest influence on their life. Use it well.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

The Influence of Christian Parents

How important is a Christian education to a child? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I recently read J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity in Conflict. This is being read for school and if I read something for school, I don’t really want to do a book plunge on it for the most part. Machen in his day was one of the most influential New Testament scholars and was revolutionary here in America.

Machen wrote about the virgin birth, which I do affirm, especially and so much that even a 100 years later, we’re still talking about what he wrote. He was a man of great learning and one of the great Princeton Theologians. He also went and studied abroad in Germany.

The book is largely an autobiography of his and he does touch lightly on the education he got in the secular schools growing up, but if there’s one aspect of his life that was influential on him remaining a strong Christian, it was his parents. His parents were devout Christians and also very learned Christians. His father was a lawyer who in his 80’s started learning Italian and reading Italian authors just for the fun of it. I don’t think as much was said about his mother, but her character shone through and through.

Both of them encouraged Machen to read and learn and both of them encouraged him to ask questions. They were not people who shied away from doubts and Machen did often times have doubts. However, as time goes by, he gets more and more help in getting a higher education, but one can see throughout his life, the great influence his parents had.

When he studied abroad in Germany, he was not in a conservative environment at all. He was in one where he was challenged every day and yet, he held on and argued his case well and read all he could of his opponents. What really helped him so much? The preparation he had at the feet of his parents.

Christian parents. This is for you. Please never lose sight of the influence that you can have on your children. For all you know, you could have another Machen growing up in your household.

That means that you do take them to church regularly, but don’t just do that. Educate them in your home. Make Christianity something you live seven days a week and not just on church days. Do not be afraid of your kids having questions and if you don’t know the answer, go and find it.

I am sure some atheist readers could say something about indoctrination, but the reality is I expect most parents will somehow raise their children up with their values. I suspect Muslim parents, Mormon parents, Jewish parents, and atheist parents all do this. You don’t really want to force your kids, but if what you believe about ultimate reality really matters to you, you will pass that on to your children.

If you’re wondering some on how to do that, I have a resource for you. I recommend you check my friend Elizabeth Urbanowics’s program Foundation Worldview. Her work is aimed to help extremely young children start to learn about the Bible and how to think and about what it means to be a Christian.

Raise your children well. Welcome their doubts and questions. Be there to support them. Our world is not a safe place and you will have more influence than anyone else.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Your First Ministry

Where does your Christian service begin? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this post, I’m mainly writing to my fellow apologists, but I think what I say applies to every field of ministry. Also, I will be using male pronouns throughout and such, but if you’re a woman, just find the counterpart. It will apply to you just as much.

In apologetics, it’s understandable that you have to be specially equipped. You have to spend that time in study and there are those debates that you have to attend to. That happens. I have the same situation. I read my books as much as I can. I want to be able to answer as much as I can.

We also know that what we do, well, we do for God. There should be no question about that. We are not in the ministry for ourselves. We are in it for the cause of a  greater good. God is not a means to the success of our kingdoms. We are a means to the success of His.

Despite all of this, many of could still be failures in ministry. I have something specific in mind for a failure in ministry. This is someone who no matter how good they do in the apologetics field, even if they’re someone like the next William Lane Craig, they have failed their first ministry.

That ministry is their family.

Now I know some of you might say “Well Jesus said if we do not hate our families, we cannot be His disciples.” We all know that means that the Kingdom has to come before our families, yes. If we rank our priorities, the Kingdom is our first priority. Still, that doesn’t mean we abandon our family responsibilities for the Kingdom. This is said in passages such as Jesus talking to the Pharisees about eating with unwashed hands or in Paul’s talking in 1 Tim. 3 about the requirements of a deacon and one being that they lead their own families.

You see, if you’re in apologetics, there are plenty of other people that can take the work for you if you need a break. I don’t debate on Sundays for instance. It’s just a day to recharge. On those days, I don’t worry. There are plenty of other people who can do apologetics meanwhile. I don’t have to jump into every debate I see. There are other people who can handle debates.

Despite all that I do, there is only one person who can be a husband to Allie, and that is me. So it is for all of you out there. Only one person can be a husband to your wife and only one person can be a father to your children. You don’t want to risk that role going to another man because you shirked your responsibilities.

I encourage men for instance when they get married, go on your honeymoon and take no book with you except your Bible for daily reading with your spouse, not for academic reading for yourself. Do not do Facebook or email while there. The world can wait. This time should be devoted to your spouse and the rest of the world can wait.

Now, of course, there will be valid exceptions. If you’re on your honeymoon and you meet someone who just wants to know how to be a Christian or you encounter someone who is suicidal, by all means, do your Christian duty, but don’t be seeking it out. These kinds of exceptions apply across the board, but don’t be looking for them.

Please never ever forget this. Your marriage should be your first priority and dare I say it, it is more important even than your children. One of the best gifts you can give your children is a good marriage. In fact, don’t hesitate to gross the kiddies out. Let them see you two kissing together.

Some of you who follow me on Facebook know that every day, except Sunday, I’m posting something about how much Allie means to me. Why do I do this? Because it’s my belief that a husband and wife should have Facebook pages that others can be clear about their love for their spouse. If you come to my page, I want you to know how much Jesus means to me and I want you to know how much Allie means to me.

So my friends, please do the work and study hard and learn all you can, but remember, if you have a family, do not neglect them. You have a work with them that no one else can do. Your family is your first ministry.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 6/18/2016: Paul Vitz

What’s coming up on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Father’s Day is almost here, a time for us to stop and think about how important all of our fathers really are to us. Many people have good relationships with their fathers and the day is a special day. Many have poor relationships or maybe through an untimely death do not have a possibility of a relationship with their fathers. We all know of impacts that this can have on a child, but what if you were told that the possibility of a child being a theist or an atheist could be influenced by their relationship with their Dad?

Well it’s not just me saying it. It’s Paul Vitz saying it. He’s the author of Faith of the Fatherless and he will be on my show this Saturday. Who is he?

Paul summer 2011 at St. Patrick's Retreat House

Paul C. Vitz, Ph.D.

Senior Scholar and Professor, Institute for the Psychological Sciences, Arlington, Virginia; Professor Emeritus, New York University

(Ph.D., Stanford University)

 

Dr. Vitz’s teaching and research is focused on the integration of

Christian theology, especially Catholic anthropology, with psychology. This requires breaking from the modern secularism and post-modern relativism prevalent today. He is presently also addressing the following special topics: the psychology of hatred and forgiveness, the psychological importance of fathers and the relevance of psychology for understanding atheism and the psychology of the virtues.

Dr. Vitz’s books include: Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, 2nd ed; Sigmund Freud’s Christian Unconscious; Modern Art and Modern Science: The Parallel Analysis of Vision; Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism (which came out in a revised edition in fall 2013 from Ignatius Press); and The Self: Beyond the Post-modern Crisis. He is also Professor of Psychology Emeritus at New York University where he taught for many years prior to joining IPS.

He is married to Evelyn Birge Vitz, best known as Timmie, who is a Professor of French at NYU; they recently moved down to Arlington, VA after living 44 years in downtown Manhattan. Dr. Vitz commuted to Arlington for over 10 years but now walks to work; Timmie is still a Professor at NYU so she commutes up to NY City. It is her turn now! They have six grown children and 18 grandchildren.

It’s important to note that Vitz’s claim is not that a good father necessitates having a child grow up a theist and a bad or absent father does not necessitate that a child grow up an atheist, but there is an interesting connection. As we think about Dads this week, we’ll talk about how that relationship can influence a child. We’ll discuss why it is that there seems to be this connection between the two and what Christian parents need to know about the importance of a father and what we can consider in our own interaction with atheists that we meet.

I hope you’ll be tuning in this Saturday to the Deeper Waters Podcast to hear this important discussion on Dads. Please also consider going to ITunes and leaving a positive review!

In Christ,
Nick Peters