January Touchstone and Issues, Etc.

Check out the current issue of Touchstone: The Marital Embrace

Especially note:

Sanger's Victory
How Planned Parenthood's Founder Played the Christians, and Won
by Allan Carlson

Dr. Carlson was interviewed about this article on Issues, Etc. on January 19.

Excellent Posts Found

Hat tip to Rev. Chris Gillespie for alerting me to the writing of Rev. Ken Kelly Jr.

Here are his two most recent postings readers of this blog will find of interest:

On Condoms, BCP’s & Pro-Life

On Right to Life

The Proverbs 31 Superwoman

If looked at as the ideal that all wives and mothers should strive to emulate, it seems the Proverbs 31 superwoman can only make women feel inferior and/or guilty that they don't measure up. After all, "who can find such a woman? for her price is far above rubies."

What purpose would it serve for the Word of God to simply be describing a seemingly unattainable goal?

The Proverbs 31 woman also would appear to possess a few characteristics (e.g. being a land speculator and merchant) that are not necessarily consistent with other biblical descriptions of virtuous womanhood (i.e. Titus 2:3-5). At the very least we must agree that these unusual characteristics are not necessary for ideal womanly virtue.

If, on the other hand, the Proverbs 31 woman is seen as being uniquely fulfilled in the Bride of Christ (i.e. the Church), this exhaustive list of grand virtues takes on a completely different meaning.

"The heart of her husband (Christ) trusts in her (after all, the gates of Hell cannot prevail against her), and he will have no lack of gain (in making disciples of all nations). She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life."

She makes provision for those in her care, is diligence in her work, is an enterprising merchant and steward for her Husband. She also "opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy."

And how about this imagery: "She is not afraid of snow for her household, for all her household are clothed in scarlet." What better clothing can be found than the baptismal robes which are washed clean in the scarlet blood of the Lamb? With such raiment, one can weather anything!

"Her Husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land. ...Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come." (She has nothing to fear in the coming tribulations.)

Proverbs 31:10-31 is a complete stand alone proverb, and is set apart from the first nine verses by a particular poetic device. It is an "acrostic." Each line of this proverb begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, spanning the entire alphabet, in proper order. This "A to Z" type of acrostic device is likely a way of indicating that it offers complete coverage of the subject matter. I wonder if we could therefore find within its verses all seven marks of the Church identified by Luther: possession of the Word, Baptism, Sacrament of the Altar, Office of the Keys, Office of Ministry, Discipleship, and the cross (suffering on account of one's faith).

Rev. Burnell Eckardt opines: "She spends a lot of time spinning and sewing and feeding, etc. Yet 'strength and honour are her clothing.' So this is a parable: what she's sewing is a baptismal garment of righteousness; what she's feeding is the Feast of Salvation."

Of preaching and teaching: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue."

Luther writes:

"Thus St. Augustine, too, in the ninth chapter of his book On the Spirit and the Letter, where he treats of the statement in the last chapter of Proverbs (31:26), 'Law and kindness are on her tongue,' makes the most excellent remark: 'Therefore it is written of wisdom that she bears law and kindness on her tongue for this reason—law, in order that she may render the proud guilty; kindness, in order that she may justify the humbled.'”

[Luther's Works, vol. 27, pg. 274. Lectures on Galatians]

Law and kindness = Law and Gospel.

Ambrose writes:

"The beauty of a good thing pleases the more, if it be shown under various aspects. For those are good things, whereof the texture of the priestly robe was the token, that is to say, either the Law, or the Church, which latter hath made two garments for her spouse, as it is written* —the one of action, the other of spirit, weaving together the threads of faith and works."

*The footnote here references Proverbs XXXI

[Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. X. Ambrose: Select Works and Letters. (225)]

More from St. Augustine:

"Let no one say that one gave the law, and that another teaches the law: for the same teaches it who gave it; He is the Master of His own law, and teaches it. And mercy is in His tongue therefore mercifully teacheth He the law, as it is said regarding wisdom, "The law and mercy doth she carry in her tongue.”* Do not fear that thou art not able to fulfill the law, flee to mercy."

*The footnote here, again, references Prov. XXXI

[Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Vol. VII. St. Augustin: Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homilies on the First Epistle of John Soliloquies. (51)]

The parallels between the Proverbs 31 woman and the Church seem almost endless. After all, should we not consider that the Bride of Christ would be the fullest embodiment of the virtuous wife? Earthly marriage is but a shadow of the greater mystery of Christ and the Church. In all her virtues, the Bride of Christ is the perfect help meet of her bridegroom, and He will present her spotless to His Father.

"Who can find such a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies." "Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all." She, the Church, is the pearl of great price, and Christ gave up everything He has to purchase her.

Until this week, I did not have any patristics to back this up. It just made perfect sense to me when I first reviewed this Proverb two years ago in light of Rev. Eckardt's comment quoted above. However, after researching it further now and finding the above quotes from Ambrose, Augustine, and Luther, one can see that this interpretation is not just a pious personal opinion, but is consistent with what the Church has taught from the earliest of times.

It is certainly also true, as found in many other patristics and commentaries, that many aspects of the Proverbs 31 woman are certainly things which could be praised in a uniquely accomplished and virtuous earthly wife. However, the text itself makes it quite clear that this is not what is expected of every godly woman. In fact, it seems to indicate that there is only one example of such a woman to be found. The entire Proverb is framed with these two statements: "who can find such a woman? She is far more precious than jewels" and "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou hast surpassed them all."

Women who heed the godly admonitions of Titus 2:3-5 are to be praised as virtuous wives and mothers. Yet earthly marriage is but a shadow of the greater mystery of Christ and the Church. The Bride of Christ "surpasses them all." Women, therefore, should not measure their personal accomplishments next to the Proverbs 31 woman, but rather should seek comfort and shelter within Her.

A sermon reflecting on John 2

Dear friends,
Following some correspondence with Erich Heidenreich, he suggested that I might post here a sermon of mine on the topic of marriage I preached in my parish last weekend. For what it's worth, I hope it serves to encourage you.

http://stephenvdh.blogspot.com/2011/01/epiphany-2-john-21-11-16-jan-2011.html

The Fall of Western Civilization

"Read today, Spengler's forebodings have an uncanny and chilling association with our present predicaments. He was not saying Western civilization would vanish overnight in a puff of smoke. It would erode more slowly, as did some ancient civilizations—not to vanish forever but with symbols of their power and influence surviving (the Pyramids, the Aztec temples, the Parthenon), with the potential to re-emerge as civilizations many centuries later."

So we read in The Danger of a Global Double Dip Recession Is Real, a November 29 opinion piece in U.S. News and World Report by Mortimer B. Zuckerman, the 73-year-old publisher and owner of the New York Daily News, editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report, and the 147th wealthiest man in America (at least as of 2008).¹

Zuckerman's excellent (and I believe very true) opinion piece draws upon the intellectual work of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), a brilliant German philosopher whom I have quoted before on this blog.

What truly amazes me (and apparently Zuckerman) is the seemingly prophetic accuracy of Spengler, who wrote The Decline of the West at the time when the total fertility rate was still well above replacement level worldwide. Spengler knew that the same fate awaits all great civilizations if they last long enough to witness the ultimate triumph of materialism:

"When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard 'having children' as a question of pro's and con's, the great turning point has come."

Spengler understood that a selfish attitude toward the gift of procreation not only signals the irreversible decline of civilization, but also becomes a primary cause.

At this level all Civilizations enter upon a stage, which lasts for centuries, of appalling depopulation. The whole pyramid of cultural man vanishes. It crumbles from the summit, first the world-cities, then the provincial forms, and finally the land itself, whose best blood has incontinently poured into the towns, merely to bolster them up awhile. At the last, only the primitive blood remains, alive, but robbed of its strongest and most promising elements.

Worldview at the Heart

While the following link does not exclusively address the issues of procreation, this week Rev. Jonathan Fisk does a fine job articultating a Biblical stance for the procreation of children and their natural flow from a Christian marriage. Often times, Rev. Fisk points to the culture we live in and recognizes that our current popular worldview is indeed at odds with the Biblical worldview. The real recognition of sin, its profound effects on the world, and the emphasis on personhood and most importantly that Christ cares so much for you that he suffered, died, and rose to give you forgiveness, life, and salvation. In this video Rev. Fisk gets to this topic stemmed from the question of homosexuality. He is absolutely right in speaking that this topic as well as the many other sexual sins that are prevalent in our world today are against the same commandment. Yet, for these sins has Christ died and redeemed.
If you have yet to discover this site, I highly recommend it for some comedic and yet very confessional Lutheran discussions. www.worldvieweverlasting.com

A Brave New World

This is not the first time we've heard this: Do parents make the best parents?

HT: Rev. Robert Baker, Bioethike

Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation

HT: Rev. Hoppe's "Meditations of my heart":

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6350303.ece

Vatican clarifies pope's comments re: condoms

From an AP article:

Monsignor Jacques Suaudeau, an expert on the Vatican's bioethics advisory board, said the pope was articulating the theological idea that there are degrees of evil.

"Contraception is not the worst evil. The church does not see it as good, but the church does not see it as the worst," he told the AP. "Abortion is far worse. Passing on HIV is criminal. That is absolute irresponsibility."

He said the pope broached the topic because questions about condoms and AIDS persisted, and the church's teaching hadn't been clear. There is no official Vatican policy about condoms and HIV, and Vatican officials in the past have insisted that condoms not only don't help fight HIV transmission but make it worse because it gives users a false sense of security.

"This pope gave this interview. He was not foolish. It was intentional," Suaudeau said. "He thought that this was a way of bringing up many questions. Why? Because it's true that the church sometimes has not been too clear."

Lombardi said the pope didn't use the technical terminology "lesser evil" in his comments because he wanted his words to be understood by the general public. Vatican officials, however, said that was what he meant.

"The contribution the pope wanted to give is not a technical discussion with scientific language on moral problems," Lombardi said. "This is not the job of a book of this type."

The Problem is Not Too Many People

An article by Thomas Storck at The Distributist Review.

Reducing Human Life to a Popularity Contest in Which Your Vote Counts

On ongoing poll at Birth or Not? will determine whether Pete and Alisha keep or kill their child in the womb. From their blog:

You can vote and choose whether we abort or keep our unborn child. For the first time, your vote on the topic of abortion can make a difference.

This is their child, from a seventeen-week ultrasound:



Vote and comment here. The deadline (what an unfortunate word) is December 7. At last check, the baby was loosing by about 200,000 votes.

Kyrie, eleison.

A Lutheran Reappraisal of Natural Law

Be sure to check out this new CPH book due out January 7, 2011: Natural Law: A Lutheran Reappraisal. Pre-order your copy today!

Natural Law: A Lutheran Reappraisal presents engaging essays from contemporary Lutheran scholars, teachers, and pastors, each offering a fresh reappraisal of natural law within the context of historic Lutheran teaching and practice. Thought-provoking questions following each essay will help readers apply key Bible texts associated with natural law to their daily lives.

Why the Natural Law Is Necessary
No contemporary thinker is interested in a wooden repristination of the natural law that is tied necessarily to the particular metaphysical foundations in the Thomistic–Aristotelian synthesis. The history of natural law shows a wide variety of interpretations and applications. But they all have some elements in common. They all oppose cultural relativism, the notion that laws are mere moral conventions that vary among societies, with no transcendent ontological claim to being universally valid and binding. To the contrary; those who hold to the natural law believe that for a law to be just, it must conform to the structure of reality itself and not depend on the oscillating opinions and preferences of human beings. The law must be the same for all human beings and at all times, so that if murder is morally wrong in America, it is equally so in Asia and Africa. If torture is to be condemned as evil in Jerusalem, it must be equally so in London and Tehran. The United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights formulates rules with respect to freedom and equality that are binding on all nations and peoples, not because of any majority vote, but because of an inherent correspondence between reason and nature. That is what is meant by saying that the Law is “written on the hearts” (Romans 2:25) of all human beings.
- Carl Braaten -

CONTRIBUTORS
Rev. Robert C. Baker (LCMS)
Rev. Dr. Carl E. Braaten (ELCA)
Mr. Matthew E. Cochran (LCMS)
Rev. Dr. Albert B. Collver III (LCMS)
Mr. Jacob Corzine (LCMS)
Dr. Adam S. Francisco (LCMS)
Rev. Gifford A. Grobien (LCMS)
Rev. Dr. Korey D. Maas (LCMS)
Dr. Ryan C. MacPherson (ELS)
Dr. Thomas D. Pearson (ELCA)
Rev. Prof. John T. Pless (LCMS)
Rev. Dr. Carl E. Rockrohr (LCMS)
Rev. Dr. Armin Wenz (SELK)
Rev. Dr. J. Larry Yoder, STS (NALC)
Prof. Marianne Howard Yoder (NALC)
Rev. Prof. Roland Ziegler (LCMS)

What Others Are Saying

Natural law was a common idea among the Reformers and their heirs. There has been some fledgling reconsideration of this heritage in recent years in my own Reformed tradition, and it is very encouraging to see similar discussions taking place among Lutherans. Natural Law: A Lutheran Reappraisal helpfully wrestles with natural law from various historical and theological angles and also explores its relevance for several important social and ecclesiastical controversies of the present day. These essays on natural law—some enthusiastic, some cautious, others skeptical—are a wonderful contribution to the literature and should help to stimulate important conversations about this perennial issue for years to come.
David VanDrunen
Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic
Theology and Christian Ethics
Westminster Seminary California

As a Catholic, I found it fascinating to read these fine essays and “listen in” on a conversation about natural law conducted by an outstanding group of Lutheran scholars. The authors consider such topics as whether there really is a natural human capacity to identify and affirm valid moral norms, and whether belief in a moral law accessible to unaided reason is compatible with an acknowledgment of the devastating impact of sin on the human intellect as well as the human will. Lutherans will benefit from reading these essays, but so will everybody else.
Robert P. George
McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Princeton University

God's law is written in two ways and two places: Not only in the words of revelation, but in our being, for we are made in God's image. For a long time, many Christians neglected or even denied this insight because of the mistaken idea that if the image of God can be obscured by sin, then for all practical purposes there is no natural law. How ironic, and how deadly to our common witness, that this common ground among all human beings, this universal prologue to the gospel, should have become a battle ground among Christians themselves. Catholic myself, I rejoice to see the rekindling of reflection on natural law among Lutherans, and I look forward to many interesting conversations.

J. Budziszewski
Professor of Government and Philosophy
University of Texas at Austin

Pope approves condoms?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AJ1CC20101120

There seem to be some reports that indicate that the Pope was speaking specifically of homosexual condom use (e.g. "a male prostitute"), where conception is already impossible. The media seems determined to blow this up into a major change in Roman Catholic teaching on contraception.

Update:

Actual quoted text:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11804798

His [the Pope's] comments came in a series of interviews given to a German Catholic journalist, Peter Seewald, which are published in a question and answer format in a book to be launched on Tuesday.

Here is an extract of the book - entitled Light of the World: The Pope, the Church and the Signs of the Times - in which the Pope refers to the use of condoms in preventing the spread of Aids:

Peter Seewald: On the occasion of your trip to Africa in March 2009, the Vatican's policy on Aids once again became the target of media criticism. Twenty-five percent of all Aids victims around the world today are treated in Catholic facilities. In some countries, such as Lesotho, for example, the statistic is 40 percent. In Africa you stated that the Church's traditional teaching has proven to be the only sure way to stop the spread of HIV. Critics, including critics from the Church's own ranks, object that it is madness to forbid a high-risk population to use condoms.

Pope Benedict: The media coverage completely ignored the rest of the trip to Africa on account of a single statement. Someone had asked me why the Catholic Church adopts an unrealistic and ineffective position on Aids. At that point, I really felt that I was being provoked, because the Church does more than anyone else. And I stand by that claim.

Because she is the only institution that assists people up close and concretely, with prevention, education, help, counsel, and accompaniment. And because she is second to none in treating so many Aids victims, especially children with Aids.

I had the chance to visit one of these wards and to speak with the patients. That was the real answer: The Church does more than anyone else, because she does not speak from the tribunal of the newspapers, but helps her brothers and sisters where they are actually suffering.

In my remarks I was not making a general statement about the condom issue, but merely said, and this is what caused such great offense, that we cannot solve the problem by distributing condoms. Much more needs to be done. We must stand close to the people, we must guide and help them; and we must do this both before and after they contract the disease.

As a matter of fact, you know, people can get condoms when they want them anyway. But this just goes to show that condoms alone do not resolve the question itself. More needs to happen. Meanwhile, the secular realm itself has developed the so-called ABC Theory: Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condom, where the condom is understood only as a last resort, when the other two points fail to work.

This means that the sheer fixation on the condom implies a banalization of sexuality, which, after all, is precisely the dangerous source of the attitude of no longer seeing sexuality as the expression of love, but only a sort of drug that people administer to themselves. This is why the fight against the banalization of sexuality is also a part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being.

There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.

That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality.

Peter Seewald: Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?

Pope Benedict: She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality.

Light of the World is to be published in English on Tuesday and available for general release from Wednesday. To order a copy of the book, or for more information, please contact the Catholic Truth Society.

Worldwide vigil for all nascent human life 11/27

I recommend we join with Christians throughout the world in beginning this Advent penitential season with a solemn “Vigil for all nascent human life” on Saturday, November 27.

http://www.lifenews.com/2010/11/11/int-1681/

Pope Benedict XVI has issued what Catholic pro-life advocates are calling an unprecedented request for prayers worldwide from all pro-life people. The call is not limited to Catholics as the Pope is asking that “all Diocesan Bishops (and their equivalent) of every particular church preside in analogous celebrations involving the faithful in their respective parishes, religious communities, associations and movements.” The head of the Catholic Church will begin Advent by celebrating a solemn “Vigil for all nascent human life” at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, November 27.

Mary McClusky, the Special Projects Coordinator at the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the call is especially important at a time when attacks on the dignity and worth of human life seem to be at an all-time high. “At this moment in history, when societies are now endorsing the killing of humans as a perceived solution to social, economic, and environmental problems, the Holy Father is reminding us of the necessity and power of prayer to protect human life,” she said. “Despite the challenge of these events being held on Thanksgiving weekend in the United States, Catholics should not miss this opportunity to pray for unborn life.” She said the Pope’s call “may help increase awareness among family and friends about abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and other threats to children in their earliest days and weeks of life” while women who have had abortions “may be inspired to learn more, or to begin a much-needed conversation about healing from a past abortion.”

The Wrongs of Women's Rights

The Wrongs of Women’s Rights
by Thomas Fleming

(More by this author, and along these lines, can be found here: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/category/thomas-fleming/ )

The recent decision to deploy women on submarines has been hailed as a victory in the continuing struggle to liberate women from the oppression of the domineering male sex. Conservatives have generally deplored the move, citing the inevitable sexual tensions and lowering of morale that will result from putting young males and females in such close quarters for long periods of time. (And, think of all those poor male homosexuals who find the submarine service so attractive because of the lack of female competition!). Some conservatives even go so far as to declare their opposition to women serving in any military capacity, but they are a species on the endangered list: Even the great nemesis of women in uniform, James Webb, has backed off, proving once again, that no honest man can be a US senator.
What almost no decent conservative is willing to revive is the old argument that differences between men and women should be reflected in legal, social, and economic structures that encourage women to pursue their traditional role as wives and mothers under the protection and authority of the senior men in their life: fathers, husbands, or guardians. There is, it is true, a “men’s movement,” consisting mostly of disgruntled peripheral males who are forever whining about their manhood. But if we set such marginalized creatures aside, we can safely conclude that there are few defenders of what feminists like to call “the patriarchy.” Even conservative Republicans have largely adopted the feminist myth that one of the triumphs of civilization has been the liberation of women that has taken place in the past, roughly 150 years.
The “patriarchalist” counter-argument, which I have been making for over 30 years, denies the so-called facts in the case. Traditional sex roles, they say, are a function of natural differences—physical, emotional, intellectual—between the sexes. The authority of senior males over a woman is, then, a natural means of protecting her in her role as wife and mother, a role essential for the bearing and rearing of the next generation, which is, after all, the primary duty of each generation. To speak of the oppression of women is like speaking of the oppression of men whom gravity prevents from flying.
When we say that an institution or custom is “natural” (as I have indicated earlier), we mean that it is a response—sometimes quite imperfect—to natural needs. To determine the naturalness of an institution, we look first for a biological basis and then try to establish a base line by making a broad cross-cultural examination. Finally, since there can be quite a wild variation in cultural forms, we should look most closely at the highest traditions to which we are heirs—Christian, Greek, Roman, Medieval. If we determined that the subordination of women was natural, it would not follow that we should approve of clitorectomies, foot-binding, or brutality.
Then, in talking about the “liberation” of women, we shall have to be very careful about what we mean. Many people speak of women’s suffrage as a large part of the liberation movement, but the right to vote is clearly irrelevant. A French resident-alien female here in the United States cannot legally vote, but she is possessed of nearly every other civil and social right the feminist revolution has dreamed up. To make the discussion very precise, let us speak only of the liberation of married women from their husbands and look most carefully at the Anglo-American tradition.
But before beginning such an inquiry, we should also make up our minds about corporal punishment within the home. Do we think it is never to be permitted? (If so, on what grounds.) Is it permitted against children but not women? Are there limits that have been observed among civilized peoples? The most extreme case is killing an adulterous wife and/or her lover for honor. This was permitted in Italy and in several American states down into the second half of the 20th century. Are Italians and Texans simply brutes or are such customs—extremely common both in our own and in other traditions—a reasonable response under certain circumstances.
In any such discussion, we must set aside irrational convictions and all the misinformation we may have picked up in school or in popular books on either side, whether the pro-feminist inventions of modern social historians like Lawrence Stone or the simian fantasies of Lionel Tiger, followed by George Gilder.
Then let us start with some very simple propositions. To make the task easier I am going to insert a brief overview that summarizes my earlier work as a preparation for a discussion of the revolutions in English and American law that took place in the past 150 years:
“Feminists, looking back at the traditional sex roles of 19th and 20th century Europe and the Americas, have often written sneeringly of “the patriarchy,” as if the insertion of the definite article confers an academic anathema upon the word. Anti-feminists have responded by explicitly defending patriarchy or by discussing male dominance in terms of the rigid hierarchy of baboons. But human social life has little in common with that of the boorish baboon, and “patriarchy,” as the word suggests,[ refers properly not to the virtually universal human tendency toward male dominance but to societies in which the fathers and senior males rule over the family and tribal structure with sovereign authority.
Our image of patriarchy inevitably comes from Old Testament patriarchs like Abraham and Jacob, who exercised a regal authority over their wives, children, and extended kinfolk. This pattern of authority is not uncommon among other pastoral peoples, but, as societies grow and develop greater complexity, much of this authority is transferred to chieftains, kings, and representative bodies. Nonetheless, in every known society, men have occupied and continue to occupy most of the highest niches of power and prestige.
Why is this so? Anyone who has taken a look, however brief, at his fellow human beings, will have noticed that members of the male sex tend to be bigger and stronger than their nearest female relatives. The difference–on an order of roughly 10%–is not so great as in some species, but it is enough to ensure that most men can physically dominate most women. This disparity is partly a function of inherent physical differences but even more of the different roles played by men and women in society. Most women in history have had to spend a good deal of their time and energy on bearing and rearing children. In primitive societies, this burden, though it might be shared with female relatives, was a good deal heavier than it is in an era of daycare and electrical appliances.
Social roles are not, however, the whole story. Organized women’s athletics are, for the most part, a recent development, but they have existed long enough and, in recent decades, with a good deal of government encouragement without really eliminating the gap between the sexes. Even today women do not often compete with men in aggressive male sports such as boxing and football, and even in sprinting men maintain a significant advantage. The fastest official score for a man running 100 meters is Usain Bolt’s 9.58 seconds, about 9% faster than Florence Joyner’s record 10.48, about which questions have been raised. At the 2008 Olympics, gold medal winner Shelly-Ann Frazier’s 10.78 seconds was beaten by the number 8 male runner’s 10.00. We can begin to believe in sexual equality in the physical sense when there is no sexual distinction in sports, that is, when men and women compete in the same leagues.
It is only natural to assume—and scientific research has gone a long way to verify this assumption—that in the evolution of mammalian, specifically primate species, males and females developed specialized roles: Men became the experts in hunting large game and fighting the enemies of family and clan. Because these specialties are associated with certain attributes of mind and spirit as well as with bodily functions, the nervous and hormonal systems of males and females develop somewhat differently. The differences, in any individual cases, may be quite slight, but overall women are more verbal, men more analytical, women more inclined to what is now called “multi-tasking,” men more prone to concentrating on problems one at a time. For a detailed survey of evidence down to the early 1980’s, see my book, The Politics of Human Nature. As human societies have grown and developed—often in strange and wonderful ways–they have always been shaped by these fundamental facts of sexual dimorphism. In a near-universal pattern of dominance, younger humans defer to their elders and females to males.
But, given the creativity of the human race, the type and extent of that power varies greatly, from the easily familiarity of pygmy husbands and wives to the rigidity of Chinese men who (down into the early 20th century) bound women’s feet to make them more dependent. Then we have to distinguish between the basic principle, the sexual differentiation of political power, and, for example, the family practices of nomadic shepherds. Wherever our search may lead us, it will not be toward the reestablishment of a patriarchal theonomy based on Old Testament law.
It is dangerous to speak too broadly, but, in general, sexual distinctions have been more marked in developed civilizations than in primitive societies. At the same time, the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome–and of Medieval Europe—developed traditions and rules that required respect for mothers and wives, sisters and daughters. Men controlled the government and the army, dominated the economy, and occupied most of the high status positions. Women who inherited power were often regarded, fairly or not, as weak rulers, and both the woman pharaoh Hatshepsut and Queen Elizabeth I were sometimes portrayed or described in terms that hinted at masculinity. Nonetheless, while men may have ruled (theoretically) their children as absolute monarchs, their authority over wives was, as Aristotle says, political rather than monarchical in the sense that it was limited by law, custom, and respect.
Ancient civilizations, as they developed more complex social, political, and liberal systems, increasingly took steps to protect wives from abusive husbands. The institutions of power were, nonetheless, dominated by men. This domination did not reduce women to slaves or chattel or even to the level of dependent children. While Athenian women were generally subject to the authority of a father, husband, or guardian, some of them were involved in commerce. Roman women were much freer to engage in business and to evade the control of a guardian. They could not, however, engage in public (that is, most legal and political) business, which must have restricted their sphere of operations. Nonetheless, Roman women had greater economic opportunities and a wider sphere of liberty than most European and American women had down to the late 19th century.”
So, to conclude this introductory argument, distinct sex roles are more or less universal in human societies and a natural adaptation of the human species to the needs of propagation and social order. Natural tendencies, however, can find almost infinite types of expression. Higher civilizations, while continuing to protect women, have also found ways of accommodating the needs of complex societies, for example by finding the ways of establishing contract rights for married women engaged in business. What the feminist movement has done is to destroy the institutional framework of marriage and society and reduced many men and women to a form of social organization more typical of non-human primates than of even the most primitive human societies.
More to come…

Newly-weds offered 'no baby' bonus

If they manage two years without having children, the government of India will pay them US$110 – a decent amount of cash in rural India.

Why Don't Lutherans Like Babies?

The "Blog of the week" picked by Jeff Schwartz (Issues, Etc. producer) featured this excellent post by Rev. Larry A. Peters of Grace-Clarksville, TN, on his blog, "Pastoral Meanderings".

HT: Rob Olson

Liberty and the Family

Note to the wise: If you are not a subscriber to The Family in America - The Quarterly Journal of the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, you need to be! Every issue is jam-packed with absolutely great articles, book reviews, and new research. Subscribe today! Here's a sample from the current issue to whet your appetite:

The Limits of the American Founding: What Our Political Fathers Didn't Teach Us
by Peter Augustine Lawler, Ph.D.

A review of:
We Still Hold These Truths:
Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future
by Matthew Spalding
ISI Books, 2009; 267 pages, $26.95

The following excerpt is taken from Dr. Lawler's review, as printed in the Summer 2010 edition of The Family in America, pages 304-307.

Liberty and the Family

"The Founders did not write much about the family,” Spalding observes, and "it is not mentioned in the Constitution and the core documents of the era.” That was because we consent to government as free individuals and not as members of classes or groups and certainly not as husbands or wives or children. But this Lockean understanding of who we are was to be limited to the national government. The Founders also assumed that the family's "centrality could be taken for granted," and its protection was reserved to the states. "State and local laws," Spalding goes on, "recognized and supported marriage, family, and the authority of parents in the upbringing and education." But they did so, he neglects to add, in ways that most Americans now believe violate the rights of adults as free individuals.

The history of our country has certainly been about the liberation of marriage from sacred and traditional duties given to us by God and nature. If the idea of marriage still depended on the confinement of sexual relations to the marriage bed, lifelong fidelity, and the almost universal expectation of multiple children, same-sex marriage would not be an issue today. But free persons, it seems, have liberated marriage from biological imperatives, and those that sign a marriage license these days are consenting to a few new rights but to no new duties. Because marriage has become a duty-free entitlement between any two autonomous individuals, the homosexuals are right to wonder why they, at this point, should be excluded. It's the Lockeanization of marriage - the reconfiguration of the social institution in terms of individual rightsthat created the context in which Lawrence v. Texas became plausible. Most of that Lockeanization did not come from the Courts but was the product of an increasingly more consistent application of the idea of individual rights to state law from a variety of sources. We consent to all government, as we see more clearly than ever now, to secure our rights and for no other reason than that, while our duties are limited to respect for the rights of other persons.

Anyone who has read Locke on marriage and the family in his Second Treatise knows the problem here: Marriage is the right of free individuals to one another's bodies. The result will often be children, and Locke recognizes the duty parents have to them. But he also says the duties of parents to each other as spouses are limited to the time required to rear the children. Locke would be all for individuals inventing their way out of that seemingly natural duty-say, through contraceptive technology. More than anything, Locke's intention was to free individuals by emptying the marriage contract of anything genuinely sacred, honorable, or even enduring. His intention was also to depend as little as possible on love, because love turns free, calculating individuals into obsessive suckers. The central individualistic or autonomous principle is the reversibility of every personal commitment according to changing conceptions of one's own interests and "lifeplan." Marriage becomes just another form of individual self-fulfillment in which individuals can switch their partners freely in their personal pursuits.

That the Founders presupposed a more traditional view of marriage is obvious. They also intended Lockean principles to have a quite limited effect on transforming marriage. They lost lots of sleep over their denial of rights to the Africans they brought over as slaves but were not particularly bothered by a world where women could not act as free and equal citizens just like men. Even a small women's liberation movement, based on applying the principle of the Declaration equally to both men and women, did not appear until after the founding generation.

The key process of change was the gradual transformation of state law in the wake of the Fourteenth Amendment, the gradual Lockeanization of all areas of American public life. Sex, remember, was added to race in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the eleventh hour by Southerners who hoped that it would seem much more controversial, even ridiculous. But whatever controversy there was evaporated quickly, and women quickly flooded the workforce. The Lockean idea of marriage as a contract between two equally free individuals has prevailed, as did the idea, expressed by the Court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that women, just like men, are free to define themselves as they please. That means that they are free not to limit themselves by being stuck with having babies, even babies already living in their wombs. A generation of American women, the Court pointed out, has organized their lives counting on the inventions of contraception and abortion. The Court argued that even if it had erred on what liberty is in Roe, it is impossible to roll the clock back now.

I agree with Christopher Wolfe that a shortcoming of Lockean liberalism, the kind of liberty to which the Founders were primarily devoted, is its tendency to undermine the stability of the family over time. As the nation's elites become more devoted to such principled individualism, the family weakens. Well before the Progressives, Tocqueville noted the many factors that would exact a toll on the kind of devotion that produces lots of well-raised children: self-obsessive, petty materialism; the restless anxiety that accompanies democratic affluence; the theoretical denial that we're anything more than ephemeral, biological beings; and doubt that human beings share moral or social goods in common-doubt that we really are, deep down, social and relational beings. The modern democrat has more and more trouble, as he becomes both more principled and more narcissistic, thinking beyond his own, personal being toward generating biological replacements or finding loving personal compensation for his own natural finitude in his family, children, and personal accomplishments generally. From its beginning in 1776, one dimension of the nation's heritage is the thought of the Lockean individual in the state of nature that being starts and ends with me. If I don't endure, nothing endures. .

That's not to deny that modern, democratic liberty has in some ways improved family life. As Tocqueville says, the disappearance of cold aristocratic formalities has been good for love in America, maybe especially for the friendship of the father with both son and daughter. Because everyone is free to marry the one he or she loves, there 1111ell excuse than ever for the dangerous liaisons that inevitably accompany being stuck with marrying for money or property or social standing. Who can also deny that thinking of women more consistently as free, consenting individuals has done wonders in the eradication of unjust "double standards;' making us much more attentive to the various dimensions of spousal abuse, undermining arbitrary and otherwise excessive reliance on "gender roles" in excluding women from the worlds of work and politics, and even in leading fathers to share the ordinary duties of parenthood? In general, we should follow Tocqueville in resisting the temptation to romanticize what was better about even the recent past by making our nostalgia so selective that we forget the human misery and injustice people endured then and which we should be grateful not to have to endure now. Lockean progress, we have to admit, has in many ways been real progress. But that progress has not proven beneficial in every way, and it has not delivered personal benefits without imposing personal costs.

That means, as Wolfe says, that "natural law theorists should help people as well as we can to be more self-critical about aspects of our liberalism that are less attractive." Even the Founders' principled devotion to liberty points in the direction of both the noblest and the most disorienting and degrading features of American life today. So we are grateful that the Framers were more than Lockean. But we should not pretend that they had some kind of comprehensive theory that incorporated all their influences, a theory that could be the foundation of the development of only the advantages and not of the shortcomings of modern liberal democracy. Nor can we blame only or even mainly the Progressives for the way the shortcomings are displaying themselves today.

Bo Giertz on Love and Marriage

Cross-posted here from Rev. Johann Caauwe's blog, A Shepherd's Story:

The fact that we can fall in love is a gift from God, but it has to be handled according to God’s will. The natural avenue to a marriage is through falling in love deeply and seriously.

Love is more than falling in love, however. Falling in love can be very powerful and overcome many obstacles. As long as it lasts all one can see is the good points of the one he loves. However, that’s not a tenable basis for marriage. Falling in love seeks its own objectives. It expects happiness by owning the object of its love. It naturally expects that happiness exists when you own each other. Then the problems come, however. The romance cools down. That’s when true love shows its worth. You see a lasting marriage isn’t built on infatuation but on love. God’s intention isn’t that you should be happy by getting something for nothing, by and through another person. God’s intention is that you experience happiness by making somebody else happy. Marriage contains the greatest mission in life: to be useful, a blessing, to be supportive and helpful to someone else, with whom God Himself united you to be able to fulfill just that mission. The idea is that we two, who now are one, should grow together in a devotion to each other that doesn’t seek its own objectives, but instead finds its happiness in being able to give and to share troubles, obligations, responsibilities, and decisions.

To Live with Christ: Daily Devotions by Bo Giertz, devotion for the Monday after the 20th Sunday after Trinity. CPH, 2008.

America's One Child Policy

Highly suggested reading here. The best line was "When you meet couples with more than three children today, chances are they’re making a cultural and theological statement."