Separation of Sports and Faith?

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Tim Tebow, a Heisman trophy winner and two-time national champion quarterback for the Florida Gators football team, is a committed follower of Jesus Christ.  The son of missionary parents, Tebow wears his faith literally on his face, writing Scripture references like John 3:16 on the glare-tape under his eyes.  His works give evidence to his faith: he preaches in prisons, helps the poor in the Philippines, and is committed to celibacy until marriage.

What a great young man, right?  Not so fast.  Two recent articles, one in USA Today and the other in Read more

Legislating in the Belly of the Beast

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Guest: Michele Bachmann, US Congresswoman (MN, 6th District)

TRANSCRIPT

Government-run health insurance. Just-signed hate crimes legislation. Enormous government spending. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Obama proclaimed a fundamental transformation of the United States when he became president and he has certainly delivered on that promise, enacting socialistic, humanistic policies on the above issues and many others. Read more

The Divorce Divide — A National Embarrassment

There are few national tragedies that can match the devastating effect of the Divorce Revolution. Four decades after California launched the revolution, the impact of divorce and the break-up of marriages and families is now well documented, coast to coast.

The availability of divorce without cause, so-called “no-fault” divorce, rendered every marriage less than it was before. Once impermanence became a mark of marriage in the law and in the culture, couples were required to muster a special level of marital commitment to remain married. Right before the nation’s eyes, divorce redefined marriage.

The revolution was, as is so often the case, led by members of the cultural, academic, legal, and political elites. Liberal intellectuals made the case for divorce as liberation, subverting marriage as a repressive institution. The moral revolutionaries attacked marriage as sexually limiting and oppressive. Feminists demanded divorce as a means of escaping marriage and achieving a right of exit for wives. There were even liberal religious leaders willing to offer a benediction over the dismantlement of marriage.

But as University of Virginia sociologist W. Bradford Wilcox recounts, it was none other than Ronald Reagan, then governor of California, who signed the nation’s first no-fault divorce bill. Reagan, who had recently experienced a bitter divorce from actress Jane Wyman, saw the legislation as a way to humanize divorce. Reagan later saw his role as, in Wilcox’s words, “one of the biggest mistakes of his political life.” Nevertheless, the damage was done — with effects far beyond California. As Wilcox explains, the availability of no-fault divorce “gutted marriage of its legal power to bind husband to wife, allowing one spouse to dissolve marriage for any reason — or for no reason at all.”

Professor Wilcox is one of the nation’s most knowledgeable authorities on the effects of divorce. He is director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Institute for American Values. In “The Evolution of Divorce,” published in the inaugural issue of the journal National Affairs, Wilcox traces the effect of the revolution:

This legal transformation was only one of the more visible signs of the divorce revolution then sweeping the United States: From 1960 to 1980, the divorce rate more than doubled — from 9.2 divorces per 1,000 married women to 22.6 divorces per 1,000 married women. This meant that while less than 20% of couples who married in 1950 ended up divorced, about 50% of couples who married in 1970 did. And approximately half of the children born to married parents in the 1970s saw their parents part, compared to only about 11% of those born in the 1950s.

Every revolution requires cultural preparation, and the Divorce Revolution is no exception. Wilcox helpfully traces three developments that fostered the acceptance of no-fault divorce. First came the sexual revolution. An age of sexual obsession not only celebrated sex outside of marriage; it also elevated sex as, in effect, the only motivation for a relationship. Second, the “anti-institutional tenor of the age” undermined the authority of the churches to oppose divorce. Third, the psychological revolution undermined marriage with its “focus on individual fulfillment and personal growth.” Of these three factors, the last was most central.

Wilcox’s article covers a wide range of issues related to the evolution and effects of divorce, but one section of his article deserves particular attention. Early in his analysis he cites the complicity of the elites in bringing about the revolution of no-fault divorce. Yet, the elites never felt the impact of divorce in the same way that the poor and less educated did. As he explains, “This imbalance leaves our cultural and political elites less well attuned to the magnitude of social dysfunction in much of American society, and leaves the most vulnerable Americans — especially children living in poor and working-class communities — even worse off than they would otherwise be.”

Later, Wilcox returns to this imbalance, documenting the “divorce divide” that marks American society. Among more educated and wealthier Americans, divorce is now more rare that it was in 1980. These privileged Americans have seen the impact of divorce and have more to lose if a marriage dissolves. They are now more likely than their parents’ generation to remain married. It is surely good news that “a clear majority of children who are now born to married couples will grow up with their married mothers and fathers.”

Furthermore, elite opinion among the academics has also shifted significantly on divorce. As Wilcox reports:

Although certainly not all scholars, therapists, policymakers, and journalists would agree that contemporary levels of divorce and family breakdown are cause for worry, a much larger share of them expresses concern about the health of marriage in America — and about America’s high level of divorce — than did so in the 1970s. These views seep into the popular consciousness and influence behavior — just as they did in the 1960s and ’70s, when academic and professional experts carried the banner of the divorce revolution.

So far, so good. But this is not the end of the story. Hauntingly, Wilcox observes that “marriage is increasingly the preserve of the highly educated and the middle and upper classes.” Further:

When it comes to divorce and marriage, America is increasingly divided along class and educational lines. Even as divorce in general has declined since the 1970s, what sociologist Steven Martin calls a “divorce divide” has also been growing between those with college degrees and those without (a distinction that also often translates to differences in income). The figures are quite striking: College-educated Americans have seen their divorce rates drop by about 30% since the early 1980s, whereas Americans without college degrees have seen their divorce rates increase by about 6%. Just under a quarter of college-educated couples who married in the early 1970s divorced in their first ten years of marriage, compared to 34% of their less-educated peers. Twenty years later, only 17% of college-­educated couples who married in the early 1990s divorced in their first ten years of marriage; 36% of less-educated couples who married in the early 1990s, however, divorced sometime in their first decade of marriage.

This “divorce divide” compounds the scandal of divorce, adding yet another level of moral responsibility to the issue and even greater culpability to the culture at large. The subversion of marriage flowed from the elites to the larger society. As Wilcox observes, working class and poor Americans once held more conservative views of marriage and divorce than the elites. No longer.

Now, the effects of the Divorce Revolution fall disproportionately on the poor. Even as the elites recover a significant level of commitment to marriage (and to being and remaining married in order to raise children), the effects of the revolution now fall on the poor, the less educated, and the less powerful. Even more tragically, the tragedy of divorce and the subversion of marriage fall on their children.

The Divorce Revolution is a national tragedy with enduring pernicious effects. Now we can see more clearly that the “divorce divide” is nothing less than scandal added to tragedy.

What Bradford Wilcox calls “the fallout of America’s retreat from marriage” now disproportionately harms the least among us. Shame on us all.

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I am always glad to hear from readers and listeners. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Albert Mohler.

Professor Bradford Wilcox was my special guest on Tuesday’s edition of The Albert Mohler Program. Listen here.

National Affairs is an important new journal of ideas. As editor Yuval Levin explains, “To think a little more clearly means first of all to be better informed, and National Affairs will publish essays that bring to bear hard facts and figures and employ the social sciences, even as we remain aware of their limitations. It also means thinking more deeply, and we will publish essays that look to the philosophical foundations of our public life. And it means thinking constructively, so that we will publish not only diagnoses but, when possible, proposals for plausible remedies.” I welcome this new journal and recommend that you take a closer look.

Jonah – Man Overboard

S. Lewis Johnson Message of the Week

Jonah 1:4-16 A believer’s neglect of the word of God is like strapping on a suicide bomb; the damage is devastating and rarely limited to the life of the offender. Listen as Dr. S. Lewis Johnson exhorts us to obedience in light of Jonah’s behavior during his escape from God’s will.

Click here to listen: Jonah – Man Overboard, or The Doctrine of Christian Declension Part 2 of a 5-weeks series on Jonah

Helping Teens Through The Danger Zone

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Guest: Bill Maier, Host, Weekend Magazine, Focus on the Family

Raising children to be committed followers of Jesus Christ is 2009 America is anything but easy. What with pervasive internet porn and online social networking sites, television and movies that glamorize unbiblical values, a sexual ethic that sees nothing wrong with “hooking up”, an educational system that is humanistic to the core, and drug and alcohol availability that would make any parent lose sleep, Read more

Why the Next Generation of Christian Young People is “Already Gone” (Part 2 of 2)

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Guest: Ken Ham, founder, Answers in Genesis

TRANSCRIPT

Last week in part one of our interview with Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis and author of Already Gone, we learned the sobering statistic that 2/3 of conservative evangelicals young people will leave the church in their 20’s.  Ham said this is partly the result of Sunday Schools and youth groups (and parents) not teaching a more literal and historical interpretation of Scripture, Read more

Feminism Unfulfilled — Why Are So Many Women Unhappy?

“The woman’s movement wasn’t about happiness.” That judgment, attributed to feminist Susan Faludi, seems to be the blunt assessment shared by many other women. As numerous recent studies now indicate, a remarkably large percentage of women describe themselves as increasingly unhappy.

This issue came to light last month in a fascinating essay by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times. Dowd, whose columns often reveal the nation’s Zeitgeist, cited the fact that a number of major studies indicate that “women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.” She asked: “Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?”

A very similar set of questions arises from TIME magazine’s current cover story and special report, “The State of the American Woman.” As the cover of the magazine explains, “A new poll shows why they are more powerful — but less happy.”

Reporter Nancy Gibbs traces the vast changes brought about by the feminist revolution. “It’s funny how things change slowly, until the day we realize they’ve changed completely,” she observes. As she documents, these changes are easily visible in contemporary America:

In 1972 only 7% of students playing high school sports were girls; now the number is six times as high. The female dropout rate has fallen in half. College campuses used to be almost 60-40 male; now the ratio has reversed, and close to half of law and medical degrees go to women, up from fewer than 10% in 1970. Half the Ivy League presidents are women, and two of the three network anchors soon will be; three of the four most recent Secretaries of State have been women.

Along the way, Gibbs also traces more fundamental changes. With remarkable understatement she simply notes “the detachment of marriage and motherhood” among other transformations. “Women no longer view matrimony as a necessary station on the road to financial security or parenthood,” she explains.

Nevertheless, “Among the most confounding changes of all is the evidence, tracked by numerous surveys, that as women have gained more freedom, more education and more economic power, they have become less happy.”

Gibbs cites a growing body of research that documents this trend toward unhappiness. In “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” [pdf file] published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers explain that women in the 1970s “reported higher subjective well-being than did men.” Now, the opposite is the case.

The big question raised by these studies is this: Has feminism produced unhappiness among women? That question is inescapable when seen in light of the historical context. The great transformation of society by feminism took shape only after the 1970s. As a political and social movement, feminism has been stunningly successful. In the span of a single generation, the society has been overwhelmingly transformed. But, over the same period, women report themselves less happy, especially as compared to men.

As Gail Collins notes in her new book, When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present, the pace of this transformation has been absolutely stunning. “The cherished convictions about women and what they could do were smashed in the lifetime of many of the women living today,” she observes. “It happened so fast that the revolution seemed to be over before either side could really find its way to the barricades.”

Nevertheless, Collins, also a columnist for The New York Times, concluded: ” The feminist movement of the late 20th century created a new United States in which women ran for president, fought for their country, argued before the Supreme Court, performed heart surgery, directed movies, and flew into space. But it did not resolve the tensions of trying to raise children and hold down a job at the same time.”

These tensions have erupted as flash points in our national conversation over recent years. Some feminists have accused women who decide to stay home with their children as “letting down the team.”  Gail Collins cites Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard University as saying, “It really does raise this question for all of us and for the country: when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for women, what kind of return do we expect to get for that?”

The essays by Maureen Dowd and Nancy Gibbs both raise the fundamental question of feminism –  Has it led to greater unhappiness among women? Dowd and Gibbs remain committed feminists. Nevertheless, as Dowd notes, feminism has served to increase the burdens upon women, even as it promised to open doors.

Sadly, most feminists seem incapable, given their ideological commitments, of asking the hardest questions. “Progress is seldom simple,” Gibbs explains, “it comes with costs and casualties, even challenges about whether a change represents an advance or a retreat.”

In reality, feminism was never only about opening doors for women. In order to make the case for the vast social transformation that feminism has produced, the feminist movement aspired to nothing short of a total social, moral, and cultural revolution. Along the way, feminism redefined womanhood, marriage, motherhood, and the roles for both men and women.

Nevertheless, it appears that most women are uncomfortable with this total package. Instead of producing a vast expansion of happiness among women, the feminist movement must now answer for the fact that women, by their own evaluation, appear to be less happy than before the revolution.

The reason for this is probably quite simple. Women are in the best position to evaluate, not only what feminism has gained, but what it has lost. Maybe Susan Faludi is right –  The women’s movement wasn’t about happiness.

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I am always glad to hear from readers.  Write me at mail@albertmohler.com.  Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbertMohler.

I discussed this topic on Thursday’s edition of The Albert Mohler Program with special guest Dr. Denny Burk, Dean of Boyce College.

Turkey Turns on Israel

Turkey is a beautiful, wonderful and fascinating country.

The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament either in Turkey (then “Asia Minor”), or to the churches located throughout that remarkable land. The Apostle John saw in Turkey the startling vision of the End Times that became the Book of Revelation. The country later became the seat of the Ottoman Islamic empire. Later it became a modern democracy, a NATO ally, a friend of Israel, and the original “Reformer” country. I have been there numerous times and shot part of the Inside The Revolution documentary film there last year.

But something is amiss. Just back from a family vacation abroad, I have come home to find the international news media filled with stories about escalating tensions between Turkey and Israel. Over the past 10 days or so:

• Turkey has canceled a NATO military exercise because Israel was invited to participate
• Turkey has aired a drama on state-run TV portraying an Israeli soldier walking up to a Palestinian child and barbarically shooting her point-blank
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Iran and Syria, including choosing to engage in military exercises with Syria instead of Israel
• Turkey has made moves to draw closer to Russia
  

These are troublesome developments on two levels.

First, they indicate that Turkey is not simply turning against Israel but doing so, in part, to curry favor with an emerging Russia-Iranian-Syrian alliance.

Second, these developments are consistent with Bible prophecies found in Ezekiel 38-39 which indicate that in the “last days” Turkey (identified in the prophecies as “Gomer” and part of “Beth Togarmah”) will join a Russian-Iranian alliance against Israel. While it remains too early to draw any conclusions on whether the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies will come to pass in our lifetime, much less soon, it is not to early to be concerned about the pivot Turkey is making away from Israel and toward her enemies, and ours.

Please pray for the leaders of Turkey to resist the temptation so many other world leaders are having to turn against Israel. Please pray, too, for the gospel to spread throughout all of Turkey and that many in that country find the amazing love and grace and forgiveness found in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Finally, please pray for the leaders of Israel to have the wisdom to know how best to handle the current tensions with Turkey.

HEADLINES TO TRACK:

• AP: US chides Turkey for canceling NATO air exercises because Israel was participating
• Syria says to hold military exercises with Turkey
• Turkey Tightens Syrian-Iranian Axis after Snubbing Israel
• AP: Analysis — Turkey gets tough on Israel
• Turkey’s Erdogan slams Israel as ‘persecutor’
• NPR: Tensions Between Turkey And Israel Escalate
• Ynet News: Disengaging from Israel: While reconciling with past enemies, Turkey increasingly shunning Israel
• Ynet News: Strategic blow to Israel — for time being, Turkey is no longer a dependable strategic ally of Israel
  
• Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick: How Turkey was lost
• Haaretz: Israel rebukes Turkey over brutish TV portrayal of IDF
• AP: Italy, Russia, Turkey sign pipeline deal
• U.S., Russia agree to delay sanctions on Iran

Time to Separate Church and Sports?

A New Agenda Takes Shape

Sam Cook has had enough. A sports columnist for the Fort Myers [FL] News-Press, Cook recently referred to quarterback Tim Tebow of the University of Florida Gators and told his readers: “I don’t know how many more ‘God bless’ comments I can stand from the 2007 Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback.” Tebow, Cook argued, should play football and forget about his religious beliefs while he is wearing the Gator uniform.

“Somehow, we’ll survive without him displaying a ‘John 3:16′ Bible verse under his eyes,” Cook wrote. “We separate church and state. Why not church and sports?”

Sam Cook’s column was prompted by a far more prominent essay published in Monday’s edition of USA Today. In “And I’d Like to Thank God Almighty,” Tom Krattenmaker leveled a comprehensive critique of the evangelical Christian message that, as he laments, permeates so much of the sporting world at both the college and professional levels.

The Bible verses painted in eye-black, fingers pointed heavenward, and expressions of thankfulness to God at the conclusion of a big game amount, Krattenmaker argues, to “a faith surge that has made big-time sports one of the most outwardly religious sectors of American culture.”

Krattenmaker’s concern is that this “faith surge” is overwhelmingly evangelical in its substance and message. He addressed this issue in a recently-released book, Onward Christian Athletes: Turning Ballparks into Pulpits and Players into Preachers. In both the column and his book, Krattenmaker seeks to describe “the infrastructure and strategy of the sports-world evangelicalism” that is the source of his concern.

In his book, Krattenmaker offers a more nuanced and developed argument than what is found in his recent column. Nevertheless, in both contexts his main concern is what he sees as a near monopoly of evangelical influence and expression in the sporting world.

He writes:

How did this come to be? Suffice it to say that Christianity is a strong presence in sports is no accident. It happened because a movement of athletic-minded evangelical Christians have been making it happen since setting out more than a half-century ago to reach and convert athletes and leverage their influence to spread the gospel to the wider sports-loving public.

Krattenmaker correctly traces evangelical influence in sports to the “muscular Christianity” movement so popular in America between the Civil War and World War II. He expresses appreciation for the moral influence of evangelical Christians and Christian conviction within the lives of athletes. Nevertheless, he is clearly alarmed by evangelical displays of the Gospel.

Looking beyond Tim Tebow, Krattenmaker points to Baseball Chapel, a Christian ministry that offers chaplains and worship services for professional baseball players on the road or at the ballpark. He is specifically offended by the fact that the ministry believes that those who do not come to faith in Jesus will face “everlasting punishment separated from God.”

He pointedly addresses the same concern to Tim Tebow. After praising his athletic ability and charitable works, he criticizes Tebow for his belief that faith in Jesus is necessary for salvation. Specifically, Krattenmaker cites the stated beliefs of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association. As he asserts, the ministry affirms the exclusivity of the Gospel and rejects “the modern ecumenical movement.”

In his USA Today column, Krattenmaker describes Tebow’s beliefs as “a far-right theology.” Yet, in his book Krattenmaker describes the same beliefs as “hardly fringe or half-baked.” As he explains, “On the contrary, they are quite consistent with the long tradition of conservative evangelicalism in America and the beliefs that more or less define the religious lives of millions of churchgoing Americans.”

In his column, Krattenmaker goes even further in denouncing Tebow’s beliefs:

Certainly, Tim Tebow must be applauded for the good he does working on his father’s missions, but he should be seen, too, as one who promotes a form of belief that makes unwelcome judgments about everyone else’s religion. Let’s not forget the twinge that is felt by sports-loving Jewish kids and parents, for example, or by champions for interfaith cooperation, when adored sports figures like Tebow use their fame to push a Jesus-or-else message.

Both Sam Cook and Tom Krattenmaker identify the exclusivity of the Gospel as the key issue of their concern when it comes to Tim Tebow and any number of other prominent sports figures. Krattenmaker repeatedly stresses that he believes athletes should be free to express their faith. Nevertheless, he argues that belief in the exclusivity of the Gospel of Christ is out of bounds for such expression.

What we face here is undoubtedly a sign of things to come. The belief that Jesus is the only Savior and that salvation comes only to those who come to Christ by faith is essential to Biblical Christianity. As Krattenmaker rightly observes in his book, when it comes to historic Christianity this belief is “hardly fringe or half-baked.” Yet, it is precisely this doctrine that is so odious and inconceivable to the postmodern mind.

Krattenmaker argues that evangelical Christians are unfairly using what he describes as “the civic resource known as ‘our team.’”  He demands that the management of professional sports open the door to other religious organizations and make room for expressions of other religious beliefs. He also calls for Christians to use “discernment” in seeking to evangelize their teammates.

Cook, on the other hand, calls for an outright separation of “church and sports.” The sporting world is hardly the only arena where the same arguments are made.  You can count on seeing these same arguments appear anywhere evangelical Christians express their faith in public or within ear-shot of those who may be offended. The belief that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation is now at the very center of secular outrage.

Consider this: Tom Krattenmaker ransacked the website of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association in order to find the statement that caused him to criticize Tim Tebow as espousing “a far-right theology.” The outrage directed at Tim Tebow is not just about a Bible reference written in eye-black. The outrage is directed at the sincerely-held beliefs of a young man and an evangelistic association.

Tom Krattenmaker suggests that Tim Tebow should adopt a “more generous conception of salvation.” And now we all know the price of being seen as “more generous.”  Just abandon the Gospel.

I am confident that Tim Tebow will withstand this pressure. He has shown enough theological maturity and strength of conviction to earn that confidence. But, we have to wonder, how many others will fold under the intimidation?

Jonah – The Doctrine of Satanic Providence

S. Lewis Johnson Message of the Week

Jonah 1:1-3 Is an “open door” clear evidence of God’s will for your life? According to Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, “open doors” are sometimes Satanic attempts to facilitate the believer’s avoidance of God’s will. Listen as Dr. Johnson exposits the text of Jonah 1:1-3 and examines the doctrine of Satanic providence.

Click here to listen: Jonah – The Doctrine of Satanic Providence: Jonah 1:1-3
Part 1 of a 5-weeks series on Jonah

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