Receding Men and Rotting Hollywood

Peggy Noonan takes a hard line against the vulgar fare that seems to be so ubiquitous in the material coming out of Hollywood. She begins by noting the general malaise that has fallen over our country. She writes:

We are making more sick teenagers and young men now, not fewer, and this is going to continue as our culture breaks up. I think we all know this, deep down.

Let that land on you. She says “we” are making more “sick teenagers and you men.” By that, she means that we as a society are failing to raise up boys to be good sturdy men. I agree with her. The fact that the majority of young men today fail to make all the major transitions to adulthood until they’re nearly 30 years old easily proves the point (e.g., moving out of their parents home, becoming financially independent, getting married, having children).

I also agree that much of the material that Hollywood churns out every year is not helping. It is coarsening our culture, not ennobling it. On this point, Noonan really takes Hollywood to task, and it is worth quoting her at length:

Everyone who has warned for a quarter-century now that our national culture has become a culture of death—movies, TV shows, videogames drenched in blood and violence—has been correct. Deep down we all know it, as deep down we know our culture has a bad impact on the young and unstable who aren’t sturdy enough to withstand and resist sick messages and imagery. 

When Hollywood wants to discourage cigarette smoking it knows exactly how to do it, because it knows exactly how much power it has to deliver cultural messages. When Hollywood wants to encourage environmentalism it knows how to do it.   Continue at Peggy Noonan

Why Boys Shouldn’t Play Football with Girls

I saw this video yesterday that’s going viral on the internet right now. It’s a highlight reel of a 9-year old girl playing football with a bunch of boys. She looks pretty spectacular in the video as she blows past all the defenders and rumbles down the field for some long running plays. My little girls were nearby while I was watching the video, and I confess that I did not want them to see it. What she was doing was impressive, but it is not an aspirational model for little girls.

In the video above, you can see the commentators from ESPN grappling with whether or not it is appropriate for a little girl to play football with boys. Most of the men say no. One of them learned the lesson the hard way after his 15-year old daughter was seriously injured playing on her high school football team. Another one sounds like he has completely succumbed to the feminist spirit of the age and says he would encourage his little girls to play. But the rest of the guys agreed that it’s a bad idea. They aren’t arguing from a Christian perspective, but something in their gut tells them it’s wrong, and they are right.   Continue at Denny Burk

Women aren’t Fish and Men aren’t Bicycles

In the seventies, Gloria Steinem famously quipped, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” Then she and the rest of her feminist buddies set about to convince us of this idea. Sadly, we swallowed the bait. And now a whole generation of girls is being raised to believe that men are inconsequential, and that women can make it just fine without them.

Take the T-shirt a friend of mine spotted for sale in Target, for example. In large, garish print designed to splash across a girl’s developing breasts the T-shirt proclaims, “Who needs boys, I can WIN by myself!”

Just think about it for a moment. On the surface, the slogan seems to encourage a girl to develop a healthy self-respect and avoid getting enmeshed in dependent relationships.  But there’s an underlying message here. The slogan insinuates that men are inferior, and that they are expendable. It fosters an unhealthy, independent, a-woman-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle, type of attitude.

Honestly, what would you think would happen if Target started selling a boy’s shirt that spouted: “Who needs GIRLS, I can WIN by myself”? Can you imagine the outrage?

Power and Independence

 

Today’s young woman is taught to value personal power and independence. She can WIN! She doesn’t need men. Indeed, in order to truly win, she must do so without them. Men are the bad guys. They’re the ones who stand in the way of a woman reaching her full potential. They’re the optional and disposable piece in a woman’s life. Independence is the highly prized and sought after trait that will guarantee her success. So she approaches relationships with the resolve to retain her autonomy at all costs.

Even in Christian circles, we cultivate an attitude of independence in our girls. The underlying message is that women need to be independent because men are untrustworthy, and will almost certainly let them down.

But can a woman truly “win” in a world without men? Is she better off without ties to a godly father, uncle, cousin, husband, or brother? Will she succeed when she fiercely exerts her autonomy and regards and treats men as non-essential? Will this attitude actually enhance her relationships and her life?

I think not.   Continue at Mary Kassian

The Tragic Lessons of Penn State — A Call to Action

No one thought it would end this way. Joe Paterno, the legendary head football coach at Penn State University heard of his firing by the school’s board of trustees by phone last night. Just two weeks after achieving the most wins of any NCAA Division One football coach in history, Paterno was fired. His firing — a necessary action by the Penn State board of trustees — holds lessons for us all.

Almost a decade ago, a graduate assistant told Coach Paterno that an assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, had been observed forcing a young boy into a sexual act in the school’s football locker room showers. Sandusky was himself a big name in Penn State football, and he was considered a likely successor to Paterno if the head coach had retired. Sandusky also ran an non-profit organization for boys, and he brought the boys onto the Penn State campus. He continued to do so even after his own retirement from Penn State’s coaching staff.  Keep Reading >>>

The Sex Test, Abortion, and the War Against Girls

It is one of the cruelest ironies of the modern abortion movement that while the movement advanced under the banner of women’s rights, it is unborn girls, in monstrously disproportionate number, who have been aborted.

If you must read only one thing this weekend, it should be Jonathan Last’s book review of “Unnatural Selection” by Mara Hvistendahl in today’s Wall Street Journal.

 Hvistendahl’s book treats the spread of sex-based abortion and the deleterious consequences for societies that systematically abort females.  Read it first for the statistics, which are gobsmacking.  The natural birthrate is 104-106 boys for every 100 girls.  Yet Hvistendahl — who is reflexively pro-choice, by the way — documents the wild disproportions abortion produces around the world:

Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China’s and India’s populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120…By Ms. Hvistendahl’s counting, there have been so many sex-selective abortions in the past three decades that 163 million girls, who by biological averages should have been born, are missing from the world.

What’s perhaps even more astonishing is what happens when parents try for the second, third or fourth time to give birth to a boy.  The increasing desperation of the parents is evident in the numbers: Keep Reading...

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Boys Adrift

Last week I posted a review of The Death of the Grown-Up by Diana West, a book that takes a hard look at our cultural obsession with immaturity. That review garnered quite a bit of attention, so I thought it might be interesting to go into the archives and pull out a review of another book I read some time ago, one with a fair bit of overlap—Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax. It takes a look at what may well be some of the background to some of this immaturity.

Something strange is going on with boys today. My memories of boyhood revolve around the great outdoors—running through fields with hockey stick guns, climbing trees, playing any and every sport, getting sunburns, heatstroke, ticks, sprained ankles and all the other bumps and bruises guaranteed to come to an active, rambunctious boy. Though today I live in a neighborhood filled with boys, rarely do I see them out and about; rarely do I see them engaging in the activities we’d expect of them. Something has changed. So many boys are inactive and unmotivated. Continue Reading>>>

Santa Claus with the Baby in Bethlehem (Part 2)

In honor of St. Nicholas the gift giver, Christians began to celebrate December 6 (his feast day) by giving presents. The tradition developed over time.  For good boys and girls, St. Nicholas would come in his red Bishop’s robe and fill boots with gifts on the night of December 5.  For bad boys and girls St. Nicholas was to be feared.  In highly catholic parts of Europe, St. Nicholas became a deterrent to erring young children.  In Germany, he was often accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht (farmhand Rupert) who threatened to eat misbehaving children.  In Switzerland, St. Nicholas threatened to put wicked children in a sack and bring them back to the Black Forest.  In the Netherlands, St. Nicholas’ helper would tie them in a sack and bring them back to Spain.  In parts of Austria, the priest, dressed up in Christmas garb,  would visit the homes of naughty children and threaten them with rod-beatings. At least nowadays, he only checks his list! Continue Reading>>>

CJ Mahaney: The Soul of Modesty

Alex and I are excited to share the following resource with you. It is heart-focused, grace-filled, gospel-centered message by CJ Mahaney, entitled The Soul of Modesty. We posted about this before the Modesty Survey results were released, but we felt it could use additional attention.

CJ Mahaney is the leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries, the man who mentored our brother Josh at Covenant Life Church, and one of Alex’s and my living heroes.

In his generosity and support of this project, Mr. Mahaney has given special permission to make this audio message available to our readers free of charge.

If we could have, we would have made everyone listen to this message before viewing the survey results. As it is, we strongly encourage each of you to avail yourself to this wonderful resource, which will help you to properly approach and apply the results of the Modesty Survey. We know you will be blessed. See it all HERE

An Unintentional Admission: Boys and Girls Are Different