Eric vs. the Volcano

Last year at school one kid from Eric's kindergarten class ot to bring home Eeyore the stuffed donkey. They were supposed to take some pictures and write about what they did over the weekend and bring it back the next week for the teacher to read to the class. This is what we wrote:

Today is Eric's seventh birthday, so I post these today in honor of him.

A Long Time Ago...

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary, and why yes, we did have Han Solo and Princess Leia on the top of our wedding cake.

Hope also agreed to walk down the aisle to the Throne Room March from the end of Star Wars: A New Hope.  Wow, I love her!

When Do Children Do the Best?

This week a United States district court ruled against California’s Proposition 8 which specified marriage as being between one man and one woman. Among other problematic statements, the court asserted in it’s “finding of facts” that “Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology” (finding #70, p. 95). This is a misleading and incorrect assertion.  Children with same-sex parents are statistically much more prone to have behavioral and psychological problems compared to children being raised by two biological parents.

Numerous studies have consistently shown that children do best when being raised by two biological parents.  This is documented “not in tens or hundreds but in thousands of published studies over the past decades.”1 For example, Timothy J. Biblarz and Greg Gottainer in the Journal of Marriage and the Family report that “Evidence over the past 30 years shows that children raised in single-parent households generally have lower average levels of psychological well-being and socioeconomic achievement than those raised by two biological parents.”2  Sociologist James Q. Wilson wrote, “Almost everyone—a few retrograde scholars excepted—agrees that children in mother-only homes suffer harmful consequences: the best studies show that these youngsters are more likely than those in two-parent families to be suspended from school, have emotional problems, become delinquent, suffer from abuse, and take drugs.” Although some of the difference can be explained by income, “[T]he rest of the difference is explained by a mother living without a husband.”3

Same-sex advocates often point to a 2002 technical report made by the American Academy of Pediatrics which stated that, “a growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or 2 gay or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual.”4  However, this report produced by an eight-member committee received the strongest negative reaction from its members on any issue. The report also cautioned that, “The small and non-representative samples studied and the relatively young age of most of the children suggest some reserve.”

Importantly, although the AAP report states that these children do “as well as” children in heterosexual homes, the comparison is actually being made between children in same-sex households and “stepfamilies formed after heterosexual couples divorce”.5 Thus it is highly misleading to give the impression that children raised in same-sex households do as well as children raised with their biological mother and father.

There are exceptions, but unfortunately stepfamilies are statistically associated with a host of serious behavioral and emotional problems, equal to or greater than the problems of children in single-parent families. One researcher concluded, “The best strategy for dealing with them is to do everything possible to minimize their occurrence.”6 Judith Wallerstein, in her twenty-five-year study concluded that children from divorced and remarried families are more aggressive toward parents and teachers, experience more depression, have more learning difficulties, have more problems with their peers, are two to three times more likely to be referred for psychological help, more often end up in mental health clinics and hospital settings, have earlier sexual activity, more children out of wedlock, less marriage, and more divorce.7

If children raised in homes with same-sex parents “closely resemble stepfamilies formed after heterosexual couples divorce” this does not indicate a healthy environment for these children. On the contrary, the sharp difference between stepfamilies/same-sex families and families with intact biological parents is so striking that the AAP report actually confirms that strengthening heterosexual marriage is in the best interest of children. We must remember, “It is not just marriage between any two adults that benefits children, but the marriage of their own mothers and fathers.”8

Since it is to the benefit of society for marriages to be strong since children do best in all aspects of life when raised by their natural father and mother, it would be wrong for society not to treat these unions specially. As Allan Carlson comments:

To extend the same honor and special benefits [of marriage] to gay and lesbian couples (or, by logical extension, to bisexual arrangements and ‘polyamorous’ households) undoes, by definition, the very point of granting special status. If all group living arrangements enjoy equal ‘honor’ and ‘special benefits,’ then no arrangement has recognizable honor or special status. And in this case, the only proven, effective incubator of new and healthy human life would be cast aside as merely another lifestyle choice.9

Although advocates of same-sex marriage insist that same-sex marriage would not devalue heterosexual marriage, James Spiegel likens this to giving the purple heart to all military personnel who see battle, not just those who are wounded or killed. Whatever the intent, this would necessarily devalue the special significance of the Purple Heart. Spiegel argues that to deny the special social value of what has special social value is unjust; therefore, gay marriage is unjust.10 There is something special about the time-honored arrangement of marriage as being a man and a woman. We are not doing children or our country a service by devaluing it.

1 Glenn T. Stanton and Bill Maier, Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004), 73.
2 Timothy J. Biblarz and Greg Gottainer, “Family Structure and Children’s Success: A Comparison of Widowed and Divorced Single-Mother Families,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (May 2000): 534.
3 James Q. Wilson, “Why We Don’t Marry,” City Journal, Winter 2002, < http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_1_why_we.html>
4 Ellen C. Perrin, “Technical Report: Coparent and Second-Parent Adoption by Same-Sex Parents,” Pediatrics 109, no. 2 (2002):341.
5 Perrin, “Technical Report,” 341.
6 David Popenoe, quoted in Stanton and Maier, Marriage on Trial, 83.
7 Judith Wallerstein, quoted in Stanton and Maier, Marriage on Trial, 86.
8 Stanton and Maier, Marriage on Trial, 109. Emphasis added.
9 Allan C. Carlson, Conjugal America: On the Public Purposes of Marriage (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 112. Carlson also states, “. . . public policy on marriage must be built on this ideal family structure, and not on some lowest common denominator” (44).
10 James S. Spiegel, “Why Gay Marriage is Unjust,” Paper delivered at the National Meeting of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, New Orleans, Louisiana, November, 2009.

Is God to Blame for My Daughter's Birth Defect?

Today my daughter Zoe turns four year old. The following is something I wrote shortly after she was born:

Sometime about three weeks after conception—before my wife even knew she was pregnant—the small ribbon inside her that should have become our baby’s spine didn’t form correctly. By the time we found out about the spinal bifida, the damage was already done. When the specialist told us there was very little chance that our unborn child would ever be able to walk without assistance I got clammy and lightheaded and I had to sit down. I felt like all my blood had just evaporated.

The car was very quiet as I drove my wife home. By God’s grace, she was being very strong. I was having a harder time. Suddenly a thought ran in front of my mind. “Did God plan this? Some people would say that if God is responsible for this then He is to blame for this.”

Rewind one year: I had just finished my master’s thesis on God’s sovereignty, using Jonathan Edwards’ Freedom of the Will to critique openness theology. One openness theology book is titled Is God to Blame? Its author, Gregory Boyd, says no. God does not know the future until it happens. God does not plan our pain and suffering. If they were part of God’s plan, then God would be to blame for them. We can’t get God off the hook by appealing to some higher purpose that supposedly makes pain acceptable. Boyd writes, “If every evil event could have been avoided had God so willed, how are we to avoid thinking of God as a conspirator in evil?” (Boyd, 56.)

This was the theology I had examined and rejected. After years of studying this subject, I had come to some settled conclusions. But now it wasn’t abstract. Theology can look different when you are driving home after a doctor’s appointment.

As I drove, the question suddenly divided like the lanes in front of me. Is God responsible? Is He to blame? There are two questions, not one. “Is God responsible?” is not the same question as “Is God to blame?”

Was God responsible for the spinal bifida? Did He plan it? Yes. Was God to blame? No.

Yes, God was in control of my baby’s problem. God has revealed too much in His Word for me to believe anything else. If a sparrow can’t fall without his permission, how can a human be born paralyzed apart from His ordination? I couldn’t deny God’s sovereign plan just because I didn’t like part of it.

But was God to blame? No. Definitely no! That is a completely different question. Being blamed for something means having done something wrong. It means being blameworthy.

Thus Greg Boyd and I agree that God is not to blame for my child’s birth defect—but for different reasons. Open theists say it is because God does not control the situation. I say it is because God has done nothing wrong. God has committed no fault. As I continued to drive, I felt indignation—not at God, but at the idea of accusing God of guilt.

God knows what He is doing with our lives. I’ve heard some say not to throw Romans 8:28 at people in pain. They say it’s glib, insensitive, and unhelpful. Now, we need to be careful how we use Scripture to counsel people—but isn’t it true that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose? Painful times are when we need God’s truth the most. The promises of God are not placeboes. They are only glib clichés when they are not believed. When believed, they are a fortress.

Pain and tragedy force Christians to ask ourselves if we really believe what we say we believe. Be sure of what you believe before hurt hits home. To do otherwise is like waiting until the car crash to strap your seat belt.

As the c-section grew closer I grew in experiential—not just theoretical—knowledge of God’s providence and goodness. I pray that Zoe might someday be able to walk, but even more that she would walk with Christ. I don’t know God’s plan, but it is up to Him to decide how He wants to be glorified. I don’t say this as if it’s not hard. God knows it’s hard. The Father is no stranger to the pain parents experience when their children suffer. My daughter was born with a hole in her back. God’s Son was born to have holes in His hands and feet.

Death is Such an Ugly Enemy

This is an excellent section from D.A. Carson's book Scandalous.  John 11:33 says that when Jesus saw Mary and others weeping over Lazarus' death He was "deeply moved" in His spirit.  Carson stresses that the phrase “deeply moved” really should be translated as “outraged” because the language communicates anger.  Part of what Jesus was experiencing was anger.  Jesus was angry because death is always ultimately because of sin, the ultimate tragedy. Although God brings good out of the death of a believer, death itself is something evil.  Carson writes:

“There is a compassion in these tears, but there is also outrage. Jesus is outraged not because he has lost a friend but because of death itself. Death is such an ugly enemy. It generates endless and incalculable anguish. And for anyone steeped in the entire biblical heritage, death itself is a mark of sin. How is death introduced to the [human] race? Death itself is nothing other than God’s insistence that human hubris [prideful arrogance] will go so far and no farther. It is God’s judicial response to our warped rebellion. Whether death afflicts us at five or ten or thirty or fifty or seventy or eighty years, it comes and it is implacable [it can not be bribed away]. We are sinners, and we will die. Every time there is death, it still hurts. It is still painful. It is still ugly. And it is still the result of sin. This is not the way God made the creation in the first place. Jesus is outraged by the whole thing. He is outraged by the death that has called forth this loss, by the sin that lies behind that, and by the unbelief that characterizes everyone’s response to it. . . [The Bible] dares to recognize death as the last enemy. Death is an enemy, and it can be a fierce one. Death is not normal when you look at it from the vantage point of what God created in the first place. It is normal this side of the fall, but that is not saying much. It is an enemy. It is ugly. It destroys relationships. It is to be feared. It is repulsive. There is something odious about death. Never pretend otherwise. But death does not have the last word. It is the last enemy, but more to be feared is the second death. Thank God for a Savior who could claim, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’” (132-2.)