When Fathers Cry

Alabama Pastor Scott McCown has been featured at C201 before, but this is his first time here.  You’re encouraged to read this at the original source and then browse the rest of Scott’s blog, The Morning Drive. (And yes pastors, you should file this away for Father’s Day…)

I have had a number of fathers cry while talking to me. Watching these men (strong men I look up to) cry started me thinking about the reasons why fathers cry.

Six main reasons fathers cry:

1. Birth of child.
2. School – that day you drop them off at Pre-school or kindergarten.
3. When their children are hurting physically or emotionally.
4. When their disobey and rebel.
5. When their children leave the nest (I have seen as many fathers crying at weddings as I have mothers).
6. When they come home (cf. Luk 15:7).

God is our Father who cries:

1. When a child is born into His family. (Joh 3:5 – new birth; 3Jo 4; 2Th 2:19-20).
2. When we enter the school of life (Mat 10:5ff).
3. When we are hurt (Psa 18:1-6; Luk 7:11-14).
4. When we disobey (Luk 15:11ff; Gal 1:6-7).
5. When we rejoice (Rom 12:15; Isa 62:5; Joh 15:11; Psa 35:27).
6. When we come home (Luk 15:7, 10, 20-24).

Are God’s tears for you, tears of joy or tears of heartbreak?

Adoption: Before and After

My friend Graham tipped me off this week that veteran Christian musician, author and CCM columnist John Fischer launched a new blog recently called The Catch – Connecting Life to Faith.

In the time it took me to read just a half dozen posts, I knew I had found the theme for today’s blog here at Thinking Out Loud:  Adoption.   Not spiritual adoption — the way God adopts us into His family — although that’s important.   But the adoption of children.

This is a big theme right now in a lot of churches.   At North Point in Atlanta, Andy Stanley is encouraging church families to be at the forefront of program like Foster Parents and to consider adoption.

In the case of John Fischer’s story though; instead of reading his recent post as I did, and then linking back, I want to walk you through this as a “before and after” journey.    No cheating.

But you have to promise to actually click on the links, okay?   You won’t regret taking a few minutes to read this.

Here’s the before story.

Don’t even think about reading this sentence if you didn’t read the before story.   I can’t include a quotation from it ’cause you need to read it all.

Here’s the after story.

Isn’t that awesome?

Rock Music and Pornography: Parallels

The 1960s was a time of accelerated social change in Western Europe and North America.   No chronology of those times is complete without some reference to the role that popular music played in both reflecting and shaping those times.

As folk singers protested Vietnam and The Beatles sported longer hairstyles, the church began to establish its somewhat defensive posture; and by the end of the ’60s, the psychedelic branch of rock music combined with the message of free love to confirm all their worst fears.     Any band with guitars and drums was immediately caught in the line of fire.

The actual music form itself was no different than the modern worship that was played in the church service I attended yesterday.   The drums, bass guitar, electronic keyboards, lead guitars and rhythm guitars would later be regarded as morally neutral.

By the 1980s we began to hear a redefined meaning to the term “rock music;” it wasn’t the music itself, but the performers and their lifestyles and ideals; it was the attitude and the surrounding culture.   The music itself — the notes, the harmonies, the rests — were simply the wave which carried youth culture along; in fact it was the youth culture itself that the church had really been afraid of all along.

The eventual emergence of Christian rock wasn’t so oxymoronic.   It showed the spiritual neutrality of the musical forms, and showed that those forms could be used to carry a positive and even Biblical message.

Over two years ago, I posted a rough manuscript online of a short book titled The Pornography Effect:  Understanding for the Wives, Mothers, Daughters, Sisters and Girlfriends. Part of the reason that I’m still looking for a publisher for the print version is that some people disagree with the book’s basic assumption.

I believe that the visual images that one thinks of when they hear the term “pornography” are not the ultimate core issue.    I do believe that they are addictive, that they are exploitative and that they can be devastating to men (and women) and especially teens and pre-teens.

But like the music issue of the ’60s, I think we may be focused on the wrong target.   (The parallel ends there however; I don’t foresee those images appearing in our worship services 25 years from now the way that contemporary music styles are part of modern worship.)

Just as rock music is about lifestyles and ideals and attitudes, pornography changes the worldview of those who partake.   Again, I think that the point in my manuscript that some people can’t get past is the idea that text pornography — chats, forums, stories, blogs, etc. without pictures — is every bit as serious a threat as sites with various types of pictorial images. If not more so.

The Church’s response is to think in terms of pictures and videos (a concern not to be minimized) and think in terms of addiction (an issue to be taken seriously) but to neglect what exposure to porn does in terms of how men look at their wives and girlfriends, and even their sisters, daughters and mothers.   (The promotion of incest is a major agenda on many websites.)  Perhaps we’re more concerned with the physiological sexual response than the brain ‘wiring’ or brain conditioning that is at work here.   Perhaps it is easier to choose a target we can see than consider the more serious concern which is invisible.

Pornography has even changed the expectations men have as to what constitutes normal sexuality within marriage.   (And, as we’re seeing, increasingly changing the expectations of women also.)   The result is an increase in unusual requests and even demands in the bedroom.   But it also causes men to think nothing of considering an office affair; it causes boys to make advances toward their sisters; it causes heretofore straight individuals to nurture same-sex attraction.

It’s the 1960s all over again.   The “Summer of Love” of 1969 is back with its message of free sex without consequences, but aided by a new technology tailor-made to get that message to the widest audience.

It’s the escapism drug-of-choice; with each dosage customized to meet individual desires.   In online pornography nobody ever gets pregnant, no STDs are spread, no one is arrested for rape or indecent exposure, no small children are ever left without a daddy.

Hedonism is the reigning philosophy.

Jesus said He came so that we might experience life to the fullest; however the “abundant life” is also the “narrow way.”  Countering the ‘message’ of pornography isn’t about saying “don’t look” anymore than putting up a wet paint sign on a freshly whitewashed fence is going to accomplish “don’t touch.”    Pornographers, advertisers and fashion designers will continue to keep pushing the envelope.   Men’s thoughts will continue to stray.

So while we do need to tell the world that,

• pornography is an addictive behavior;
• as an addiction it is subject to the laws of diminishing returns; the addict is never satisfied;
  
• with God’s help you can be set free;
  

we also need to be proclaiming,

• the version(s) of sex depicted online does not generally represent God’s intention for sex;
• many of the subjects in online images are being exploited or being forced to participate; it’s not true that “nobody is being hurt”;
• the movies and stories are unbalanced; they don’t show disease, unwanted pregnancy, loss of self-respect, or ruined lives;
• if you keep watching, the images are changing you; as you give more time to worship at the altar of porn, the pornography effect is a sacramental effect; as you receive it, you’re allowing it to shape you and define you;
• those so exposed need to recognize, confess and confront how pornography has so changed their worldview; both in subtle and greater degrees;
• the consequences of long term exposure to the larger society is that it places that society in a downhill spiral (what pilots call a ‘graveyard spiral’) from which there is no recovery apart from dramatic repentance followed by dramatic intervention from God (or what might be called “a turning” or “revival”)
• because it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness; more energy needs to spent promoting models of modesty, purity and chastity; and less energy on appearing spiritual by simply “denouncing” porn;
• in the end, pornography is not the problem; the human heart is deceitfully wicked; the core of the problem is human rebellion against God;
• finally, we need to proclaim the omnipresence of God; men and women need to be reminded that God is constantly sitting next to us as we click the mouse, turn the scroll wheel and stare at the monitor; His Lordship has to extend to be Lord over the URLs we visit daily.

Allowing myself to be a spokesperson on this topic has had to involve some awareness of its magnitude, and I think the people who say there are 200,000 pornographic websites online are terribly low in their estimating.   I believe the person who suggests 1,000,000 might be more accurate.

This means that realistically, we’re not going to see an end to pornography any time soon.  (Although, I applaud those who faithfully file objections to blog hosts, internet service providers, and search engines; each day sites all over the world are shut down because of their counter-measures; and even some of the most liberal pornographers recognize a need for someone to be applying the brakes, though often for different reasons.)

What we can do is build resistance (not immunity) to it.   We can recognize that just as the music debate really wasn’t about the musical forms itself, the sexual ethics debate is not about this picture or that video.

It’s a battle for the mind.

It’s a battle for the heart.

—

Want to study more on this?  Here’s an article also posted today on the complications of leaving internet choices to filtering devices.

Appreciating the Vision Even When you Don’t Get The Technology

Happy Father’s Day!

In a few weeks it will be seven years since my dad passed away.   I was thinking last night and this morning about him, and about how interested he was in everything I was doing individually, and what we were doing collectively as a family.

It suddenly occurred to me that he would have liked the concept of this blog.

He wouldn’t understand all the nuances of the technology, and I’d probably talk about “articles” I had written instead of “posts;” and “letters” people had written back instead of “comments;” but I think he would love the idea of people sharing ideas over the internet.

He’d also be fascinated by the number and variety of readers this thing pulls in; I know I am.   He’d be impressed that it’s not just shouting into the wind, but that there are real readers who are sharing real dialog; and that some of them “blog” (I’d use the word “write”) as well, and I share in what they are doing online also.

I think he instilled in me the idea that it’s better to be “effective” than to be “successful.”

Yesterday, we listened as Christian talk-show host Drew Marshall interviewed self-proclaimed humanist and popular singer-songwriter Dan Hill.   I actually went to high school with Dan.   Anyway, the title of Dan’s book is I Am My Father’s Son.

Hill said this was a real breakthrough moment when he realized the truth of that statement, and he is realizing it more and more each day.  (That interview will be posted online here on Friday, June 25.)

I can resonate with that statement.   I am also my father’s son.

My father believed strongly in putting effort into things that have eternal value.   I have failed at a lot of things, but at least when I get to the finish-line, and He asks me “What did you to do build My kingdom?” I will at least be able to formulate some kind of answer.   Despite my imperfections — which are many — I am trying to keep the cross in view as I map out my days, my weeks and my months.

Better this than never attempting anything, right?

I think my Dad would have liked this blog.   For all I know, he’s being allowed to look over my shoulder as I type this, and got to read this before you did.

Father/Son Relationships

This weekend, I’m doing something a little different.   My world normally consists entirely of reading and evaluating books that will be sold in the Christian book market.   This weekend, I’m reading I Am My Father’s Son by Dan Hill, a singer-songwriter who was inescapable here in Canada in the late ’70s and early ’80s; and whose songs (Sometimes When We Touch; You Make Me Want To Be; etc.) have been recorded by artists around the world.

Is this book biography or autobiography?    Hill masterfully manages to do both at once.   He tells the story of the constant tension between himself and his father against the backdrop of the story of his own success in the music industry.   But he tells much of his father’s story as well.   Honestly, I’ve never read a book quite like this; a book which manages to successfully carry out several different objectives.

Dr. Daniel Hill III is a name known to Canadians for his groundbreaking work in the area of human rights.   As a black scholar with an earned PhD in Sociology, he forged new territory in Canada in the 1960s; both easy and hard to do in a place where racism was more subtle than in the U.S.

But it’s the younger Dan Hill — that would make him # IV — whose story I have tracked throughout reading the book, for one very personal reason:  We went to high school together and Dan was a good friend with my next door neighbor.    (Though, I have to note, that even this story has a Christian element to it, as Daniel Hill’s father — Dan’s grandfather — was a pastor who went on become Dean of the School of Religion at Howard University in Washington, D.C.)

The book takes us into the living room and kitchen of the Hills home in Don Mills, and invites us, like the proverbial guest at Thanksgiving, to be part of the debate atmosphere that characterizes the senior Hill’s interactions with his oldest son.  To many readers, these scenes are all too familiar.

As most men will attest, the main subject of this book, the relationship between fathers and sons, is a theme that forms the underpinnings of many a man’s life.   We men are all shaped by our fathers in more ways than any of us would want to admit.   Many of us men end up becoming like our fathers in ways we never imagined.

When it comes to defining that, Dan Hill nails it.

.

The book is available in Canada from HarperCollins and in the U.S. by special order with the publisher.

Pornography: Help for Wives, Sisters, Mothers, Daughters, Girlfriends

Redemption comes in various forms.   The redemption of a period of several weeks being counted among the this-could-never-happen-to-me addicted to the internet’s dark side, was a book manuscript that would help females understand what’s going on in the lives of some male they know.

Today marks one year that The Pornography Effect has been available online as a free internet resource.

Sadly, this is totally defeating the point.    The original idea was that as a crisis resource — which describes the under-24,000-words length — this book would be a print product that would be given to women who might be completely unfamiliar with the workings of the internet.    Having the book online is helpful, but that help is now limited to those who can get online to find it.

The original publisher contact — who told me his company did over 400 titles in 2007 — took this one step further and suggested that the book be shrinkwrapped in packs of four or five, so that pastors and counselors could have copies on their desk to put in the hands of those dealing with this problem.   But then came the “backhanded complement” that this project was “too big” for his company to handle.    Hmmmm.

Sadly, I’ve been unable to find a publisher who would catch that vision and meet two industry criteria as to its distribution to retail stores.   But then again, I think this topic is “hot” enough that I’m not prepared to pay an agent to place the title; and some of the largest publishers of Christian books only work through agents.   (Essentially, that’s how they all missed out on The Shack, which, whether you agree with the book or not, you have to admit it’s a major title to have missed out on.)   Perhaps I shouldn’t have limited its potential to the Christian book market.

In the meantime, people needed help; hence the online version.

So here’s the highlights of my book for those of you that don’t want to click the link at the beginning and end of this article.   If you do click; allow about 50-55 minutes to read the thing fully, and since it’s formated as a “reverse blog,” click on “previous entries” to find chapters 7-15.

Chapter by chapter, the book goes something like this:

1. Any exposure to internet pornography results in immediate changes in relational dynamics between men and women.    A man who watches this stuff over time will look at his wife, or girlfriend — and perhaps even his sister, or daughter, or even his mother — differently.
   
2. Addition to porn is at the extreme high end of the spectrum of addictive behavior and addiction consequences.   Its availability is not unlike the cigarette company is standing outside the junior high school passing out samples.
   
3. After much exposure, the tastes of porn viewers “skews” to interest in things they would have previously considered reprehensible.   I don’t believe anyone just gets up one morning and says, “I think I’ll look at pictures of naked eight-year-olds.”  Doesn’t happen instantly like that.   But does happen over time.
   
4. The long-term consequences of pre-teens and teens growing up with pornographic images freely available won’t be known for at least 20 years.
5. Immersion in pornographic and related websites will eventually change your worldview on a number of issues connected to family and sexuality.
6. Porn is more than pictures.    The guy in the office staring at a screen that is all text may well be reading erotica.   Text sites can also be a gateway to visual or photographic porn.
7. For all the pictures on pornographic websites, don’t expect to see shots of people in love.    Porn sites are all about people “using” other people.  Nobody “cares” about anybody else but themselves and their own personal gratification.
8. Whether it’s passive viewing on internet sets, or the more interactive nature of chat rooms, the “next step” of “acting out” on something seen online is just a heartbeat or two away from happening.
9. There is a limitless number of formats that pornographic websites can take.   Many are inter-linked and all of them eventually want to you to produce a credit card number so that you’ll pay for what was formerly free.
10. Just because it’s set up as “photography” or “art” or “modeling” or “recreation” doesn’t mean it’s not porn.   Many of these are just shallow attempts at establishing legitimacy.
11. Cartoon pornography is porn nonetheless.   Aimed at kids, it’s actually more dangerous.   And it has a mission:   The incest agenda.   Promoting the acceptance of incest.   (Betcha those other books on this subject didn’t tell ya that one!)   And the kids are watching.   And downloading.
    
12. While psychologists debate genetic predispositions to homosexuality, a lot of same sex attraction begins with the internet and is based somewhat randomly on the type of website — and surrounding online community — that gets to a young person first.
13. If a family member is caught up in online porn, you are — whether you like it or not — engaged in a battle.   You have to start fighting back, for the sake of that person and the sake of nuclear and extended family.   The forces you are fighting are giants and you are David.   But…
    
14. …Faith can be the slingshot you’ve got to go up against the giant.   Pray, yes; but pray very specific prayers. Teach your kids self control and delayed gratification.    Be intentional about the spiritual formation of yourself and your family.   But always remember that many people clicked on that first website because of personal hurts that also need to be addressed.
15. You are not alone.   There are number of different types of resources available to help.

That’s the bullet-point version.   But you may know someone who needs to read this in full, with the topics fully discussed.   For them, here’s the link one more time to The Pornography Effect.