Samson

Yesterday, at church with the kids, we looked at the start of Samson's story. It sort of seems harmless enough until you actually open your Bible at Judges 13 and start to read.

It all starts well - the people of Israel have forgotten about God. They are now bearing the consequences in the form of oppression by the neighbouring Philistines. God announces to a barren woman that she will have a son who will start to save Israel from its enemies.

Great news! Can't wait.

Then we get onto chapters 14-16, and we meet Samson grown up. At his wedding, he makes a bet with 30 of the guests. When they win, he goes off an kills 30 other people to cover the gambling debt. Then he storms off from the wedding in a huff, leaving his wife to sleep with the best man. Later, he gets his knickers in a knot about his wife's affair with the best man, and burns down all the farms around the town. They attack his missus and her old man, so he strikes back. The body count rapidly mounts over the thousand mark, and we're only at the end of chapter 14!

This guy's life is an absolute train wreck, and this is the man God put in charge of the Israelites for 20 years?

How on earth can I make sense of that for the kids?

It seems to me that there are two big ideas to come out of Samson's sagas:

1. This sort of leader can't be the height of God's plan. Samson is not the sort of man I want to follow, which sends me back looking for someone I am willing to follow and trust. I'd look in vain through the history of Israel's kings (although some are better than others). There's no-one else in the rest of world history that I can follow unconditionally. I'm driven, as ever, to Jesus - he is the only king worthy of allegiance; the only hero worth praising; the only role-model I can adopt without reservation.
2. God can still use messed-up people to put his plans into action. As I look at myself, at our leaders in government, religion and business, this is a comforting thought. God isn't limited to working through perfect people - if he can work through Samson, he can work through anyone.

In need of a Saviour too

I drove past a sign the other day:

My first thought was: “who can disagree with that?” Then, thinking further, it's also a statement that is nearly impossible to agree with! At least, any number of people might agree with the statement, without agreeing with each other. Do we all agree on what the “positive direction” is?

I want to make a case that:

• There is only one positive direction for our children (and indeed for all of us): to God through Jesus Christ. 
• As parents, we will be held to account for our leadership of our children – either toward or away from Jesus. 
• As a church, it is a vital part of our mercy mission to help parents discharge this duty, and to help children start in the right direction. 

One positive direction

All people are in terrible danger. All people are at risk of great judgement, wrath and punishment. All people are rebels against God, trying to wriggle out from His rightful authority and establish their own rule in God's place. Paul puts it succinctly in Romans 3:23:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

But surely this doesn't apply to children! Children are so innocent, so trusting, so good. Surely Paul is only talking about grown-ups? This is a tempting objection, because it plays to closely held cultural values about childhood. But to accept it requires us to ignore the plain language Paul uses here and elsewhere in Romans (eg. 3:9-18). It also requires us to ignore the consistent teaching of the bible elsewhere. Here is one example from Psalm 51:

Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me. (v. 5)

If David, a man whose heart was fully devoted to the Lord, can write this, then it is clear that the description applies generally to all people.

So children are alienated from God, just as adults are. They too are “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12), unless they too are “brought near through the blood of Christ” (Eph 2:13).

Society and the church have too often been satisfied with the lesser benefit of keeping a child out of trouble. As long as a child or teen doesn't get arrested, get drunk, or have a child out of wedlock, we think that the child is turning out OK – the more so if a child makes some positive contribution through music, sport, work or school. We have seen already that this obscures a child's separation from God, and his or her great need to be saved!

The remedy, the only “positive direction”, is to hear and believe the gospel – to trust in the person that gospel proclaims! As Paul wrote: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16) And Peter proclaimed: “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12).

The instruction of the Lord

Parents bear a heavy burden in ensuring that their children have a chance to hear the gospel and respond. This is clear common sense – who else spends as much time with a child as a parent? Who else is the child's first and most important role model? Whose words sink deepest into a child's heart, and exert the greatest influence over the person that child grows to be?

The bible emphasises this common-sense conclusion with a command and a warning. The command we see in Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” The warning is implicit in Mark 9:42: “And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.” Jesus said this while holding a little child (see verse 36), which adds a sharp edge to his words!

So parents are charged with the responsibility of bringing their children up in the Lord, and are warned not to be the cause of sin in their lives! Not something to take lightly.

But is this too much to put on parents? Don't children themselves bear some responsibility? And what about the church, doesn't the church have to reach out to children as well?

Firstly, the responsibility of children. Of course, they must make their own response to Jesus in due course. But this does not absolve parents of their responsibility. As Paul writes in Romans 10:14:

“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?”

What's more, the capacity to believe in Jesus is itself a God-given gift, outside the control of the parents: “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). We rightly celebrate God's greatness and goodness whenever anyone turns to Christ and is saved!

Parents are not responsible for results – they are responsible for their own obedience in presenting the gospel to their kids.

Where does the church fit in?

Secondly, the role of the church. There are two main jobs for the church in this area:

• Preparing God's people for works of service (Eph 4:12), particularly preparing parents for the task of leading their children towards Christ! 
• Going into the world to make disciples (Matt 28:19) – including of children and particularly of those children who will not hear of Jesus from their parents! 

We must do these things because God has commanded them. But aside from that, it is good sense to reach out to children and to parents of children. People become more set in their ways as they grow older. Reaching children when they are still young gives them the greatest opportunity to respond positively to Jesus, relatively free from the prejudices and attitudes that harden as they grown older. Twelve seems to be the crucial age. We need to be showing primary-school aged children the wonder and glory of God, and inviting them to accept Jesus as Saviour and King!

Love your neighbour as yourself

I was reading this post on the blog Stuff Christians Like the other day.

(For those who have stayed with me and not been distracted by Jon's great blog - thank you both.)  

Image: 'The Good Samaritan' by Chinese artist
Dr He Qi as found at He Qi Gallery. 

Anyway, the gist of the thing is that Christians like to pride themselves on being loving, especially to non-Christians.  It's kinda our thing.  We all know bits of 1 Corinthians 13 (Love is patient, love is kind, love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, - or something like that).  We remember three of the four characters in the parable of the good samaritan (there were the levis, the guy who got robbed, the samaritan and the ... other unhelpful bloke).  And we're really good at the "by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another."  Someone even wrote a song.

Problem is, as Jon pointed out on his blog, most of our love and service is directed inwards toward other Christians.  In our enthusiasm for the Great Commission, we oftentimes forget the Great Commandment.  Don't get me wrong, we should be loving other Christians (and let's face it, who would want to join the church if we didn't?), but when I look searchingly at my own behaviour, I see a worrying pattern - I spend very little of my time with non-Christians, and almost no social time with non-Christians.

We know that love is not primarily a feeling (like I discussed here), but rather an intentional action to work for the good of another.  If that is true, then one implication is the need to spend time with that other person.  If I don't, how can I be acting for their good?  Examine yourself - am I all alone here in my insulated personal Christendom, or are you nodding along?

It's about here that I'm meant to start making a whole lot of resolutions about inviting non-Christian co-workers, neighbours and school parents to barbecues - in fact I did in my head, before another thought occurred to me:

How will my children learn to love their non-Christian neighbour unless they see me doing it? 

My children get lots of time with their non-Christian friends - they go to a State primary school.  But how will they learn to be a Christian person in a non-Christian setting, rather than a chameleon that can adapt rapidly between church and school circles?

First and foremost, my trust is in God, that through greater knowledge of his Son, and through the gift of the Holy Spirit, my children will learn to look beyond themselves, their family and their church to the needs of the world.  I know that these lessons will not be downloaded Matrix-style to their minds, but that God will use people (primarily me and my wife!) as instruments to teach them.

So here are the thoughts that occurred to me - perhaps you have other ideas that you could contribute in the comments:

Incidental ideas:

• We've started praying each night and (when we have time) each morning, that the Holy Spirit would be with the children through the day, and that they would be good representatives of Jesus;
• We try to open our home to their friends for play dates, and then be present while the kids are eating and playing together;
• Do you do school pick up? Make time to chat to other kids and parents, or to keep kids company whose parents are late or need to meet with teachers;
• Volunteer in your child's classroom, music group, sports team, dance class, and look for opportunities to serve and to explain to your children why you do it;
• I really do need to invite the families of their friends over for a meal!

More structured ideas:

• For older kids, could they get involved in a family or church activity that is run for the benefit of others? Like landscaping the school, or shopping for a housebound neighbour, or inviting the migrant family for a meal and regular English conversation, or volunteering with City Mission, Salvos or Anglicare?
• Pick a cause - national or international - that demonstrates Christian love, and encourage the kids to learn about it and think how to support it.  It might be something like Samaritan's Purse "Operation Christmas Child", or sponsoring a child overseas, or supporting the work of the Leprosy Mission.

"Did they just want to get unmarried to each other?"

We'd been talking about people we knew in our last town when my 5-year-old came out with this question.  The couple had separated and were heading for a divorce.  My kids were trying to understand why.  Tricky topic, but a great teachable moment. What is love?  Why do people stop loving each other?

from 1 John 3

I had to explain that sometimes I don't feel like I love them - feelings come and go.  But even when I don't feel loving, I try to do things that show love for them, like making breakfast, like helping them get ready for school, like getting up to them in the night if they have a bad dream.  I usually don't feel like doing any of this, but I do it because I love them.  In fact, it is in doing these things that I am loving them.


Love, first and foremost, is a verb - it is what we do.  We see this in the quote from John's first letter.  What is love (noun)?  We know what it is by Jesus' action in laying down his life.  Not Jesus' feelings towards us; not some tangible thing; not some intangible concept; not even Jesus' passive acceptance of fate; but his active, chosen deed. 

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life - only to take it up again. No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

John 10:17-18

Our society misunderstands love.  We are fed the lie that love is how we feel, and that if we feel love, our highest duty and highest good is to act on it.  Conversely, we're told that when we stop feeling love, we need to move on.  As if all our morality hangs on how we feel in the moment.  We get this message in countless novels, movies and tv sitcoms.  We see this message implicit in the celebrity news, in magazines and on lifestyle programs.  


I even heard of a wedding where the couple, writing their own vows, promised commitment to each other for "as long as love shall last".  I suspect that many couples have this rider in mind, even if they don't say so out loud: "I'll be committed to you forever, until I don't feel like it any more."  How romantic.


Real love is active.  It is often hard work.  It is gritty and determined.  It is persistent.  It exists regardless of feelings, and sometimes despite them.

My eldest daughter got it pretty quickly: love is not how you feel, but what you do. 



Who has the strength for such love?  One man only, and he is not me.  Only Jesus has proven equal to such a high ideal.  It is only in Jesus' strength that I can follow Jesus' loving example.

Overly coy?

Sasha and Beck choose some beads for him to wear 
From Cambridge News

I stumbled across this article from Cambridge the other day - about a couple in the UK who concealed the gender of their child for some years after his birth. The boy, Sasha, is now 5 and attending school. The "experiment" is about to get a whole lot more complicated.

Why do it? The mother, Beck Laxton, said that her motivation was:

“Because I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,” she shrugs. “Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes? It’s like horoscopes: what could be stupider than thinking there are 12 types of personality that depend on when you were born? It’s so idiotic.” 

But for Beck, slotting a child into a ‘male’ or ‘female’ box isn’t just idiotic, it’s potentially damaging. “It affects what they wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person that they become.” And if that’s skewing their potential, she believes, then it is wrong. 

“That’s when I start to get cross about it: it’s not just a harmless bit of silliness, like horoscopes, it’s actually harmful.”

I'm willing to concede at the outset that we should, generally, avoid stereotyping - slotting people into boxes. Stereotyping practically denies that a person is "fearfully and wonderfully made" by God (Ps 139:14) - a unique individual. A stereotype diminishes a person's humanity. It diminishes the person Jesus died to save.

There are still some big questions about Ms Laxton's actions and motives. Can't you avoid stereotyping, and still identify with your gender? What is the cost of Ms Laxton's decision? Who bears that cost? Is that cost worth paying to make a point?

To her, the cost of her decision is nothing - her decision frees Sasha to become whatever sort of person he would like to be.

But I think that her reasoning falls into two significant errors. Firstly, she has swallowed the idea that ones biological gender is irrelevant; that it forms no significant part of ones identity. This is a position that is impossible to maintain biblically. The Bible speaks clearly about mankind being made "male and female" (Gen 1:27). It emphasises further the different purposes for which man and woman were created (eg 2:15,18), the different roles they were to play in God's perfect creation, and consequently the different effects on each of the decision to rebel against God (eg 3:16, 17-19). This theme is carried throughout Scripture - that men and women are different in fundamental ways, and that biological gender is an important factor in ones identity.

Even without the biblical witness, this conclusion is inescapable.  In just about every society on earth, and in every system of thought, the distinction between men and women has been recognised and respected. The detail differs between cultures and times, but the fact of the distinction does not. The distinction is real, unlike the imagined differences in horoscopes!

So in refusing to acknowledge her son's maleness and masculinity, she is denying him, from the earliest age, a significant part of his own identity. Who can say how that will affect him as he grows?

Secondly, she seems to believe that one can make a neutral decision about child rearing, one that leaves the child free to become whatever he or she wants. But why would this be so? Why would a decision to dress a little boy in boy's clothes affect (skew?) the man he grows to be, while a decision to dress him in "girl's clothes" leaves him unaffected? Why would playing with "gender-neutral toys, as well as plenty of dolls" have no effect on his emerging personality, where playing with cars or guns or robots or barbie dolls might limit his full potential?

The truth is that this is nonsense. Every decision concerning the raising of a child communicates some value judgement to that child. Every decision draws lines: this conduct is acceptable, that is not. More fundamentally, the potential of a child is not something that will grow and flower beautifully if left to its own devices; rather, a child must be carefully tended, nurtured and trained so that he or she can blossom into a mature man or woman. 

As the proverb goes: "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it." (Pr 22:6) This is not an optional instruction, along the lines of "if you want to be sure how your kids will turn out, then start early".  Rather, it is a truism: "the way that a person is trained as a child is the way that person will turn out as an adult."

The final, alarming thought that struck me about this article is Ms Laxton's attitude toward parenting:

But she also admits to an ulterior motive: to make mums who choose overtly ‘girly’ garb for their daughters think about what they’re doing. 

“These women dress them up like dolls, but they’re not dressed like that, so why are they doing it to their children? ... 

So is she hoping that dressing Sasha in pink will change anything? “Yes. If it just made one person think: ‘No, I won’t put that frilly dress on her because it’s a bit silly’ or: ‘Yeah, if he really likes that doll, then that’s OK,’ then that would be really brilliant. 

“All I want to do is make people think a bit.”

Did I read that right? Is she seriously using her son as a means to change the behaviour of other parents with their children?

As a Christian dad, my whole attitude toward my children must be markedly different.  They are individually created by God, loved by Him, saved by Jesus.  They are beings who will live eternally with Jesus (or separated from Him, if they choose wrongly). I get to love and nurture and protect them to the best of my ability, and have the joy and burden to train them up for maturity and independence. I must not treat them as tools to be used for my own ends, but help them to see their true identity - as sons and daughters of God.

ad hominem attacks (teaching our kids to think: Part IV)

... the next step? ...

We have heard the contribution from the Leader of the Opposition and I have to say from a personal point of view I felt sick listening to him.  I felt sick because what he espoused was actually bigotry, effectively.

- Ms O'Connor, MHR (Tasmania - Labor), 21 September 2011, 12:58p.m.

Your views are offensive, oppressive and unacceptable ...  It is little wonder that the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hodgman, made a speech unbefitting of a leader of a political party.  It was a shameful, divisive, reactionary, unpleasant speech that made me feel ill to even hear him utter the words that he spoke.  ...He is a man who clearly does not understand what discrimination means, a man who in my view has abused his position to represent people. ...In stark contradiction to the cowardice shown by the Leader of the Opposition ...

- Mr Booth, MHR (Tasmania - Greens), 21 September 2011, 3.01p.m.

Why on earth are we paying these people? I would have thought, in a supposedly rational age, that we are to be governed by evidence and by reasoned arguments. Instead, I find that we are governed by the delicate stomachs of some Labor and Greens MPs. 


Obviously that is overstated - I'm sure I hope I pray that the decisions of government that count (as opposed to symbolic motions such as the Tasmanian same-sex marriage motion) are made on the basis of evidence and reason.


This exchange in the Parliament shows a side of argument that is all too common, and extremely ugly. It's called an ad hominem attack (or argument), and just means an attack/argument directed at the person (rather than at the content of what a person is saying).


An ad hominem attack is a distraction - it could be intentional (to divert attention away from an argument that a proponent knows to be weak) or unintentional (I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll attack the other side). Frankly, it doesn't matter which. The point is to recognise an ad hominem attack, and to know how to sidestep it. It is vital not to engage with it (waste of breath), or descend to such tactics (because the person you're speaking with will stop listening!)


An easy technique to sidestep such an attack is to step out of the argument for a moment, and to narrate what's been going on.  For instance:

I've just supported my opposition to same-sex marriage by arguing that marriage is not just a word that can be redefined. It describes, in a unique cultural context, a treasure and widespread commitment between a man and a woman. You have responded by saying that my words made you feel sick. How does your physical reaction to my argument, or your guess about my motivations, have any bearing on the evidence or reasons for my position?

How might our kids benefit from such a technique? How could they use it? What about:

• I might just be a kid who knows nothing about this, but what would you say to an adult who asked the same question / raised the same objection?
• I know I still need to learn a lot. Can you please help me? Can you please tell me why you think my views are wrong?

Can you think of other examples? What do you get your kids to say in response to a personal attack?  

Whaddya mean? (Teaching our kids to think: Part I)

"An argument is a connected series of statements to establish a proposition!""Argument's an intellectual process, contradiction's just an automatic gainsaying of what the other person says!"

The "debate" on same-sex marriage in the House of Assembly reminded me of this Monty Python sketch. Slogans, contradictions, name-calling, and a failure to really engage with the positions taken by opposing sides.

It would have been far better, far more honest and far more polite for those in favour of same-sex marriage to have outlined a reasoned position, rather than having resort to the slogans that are trotted out at these occasions. Failing that, perhaps Mr Hodgman* could have asked some simple questions of Mr McKim, inviting him to say clearly what he supports and why. 

With a few fairly simple questions, it is possible to get a firm idea of what someone thinks, and why. Sometimes this is enough to show that their position has no reasonable basis, or no evidence to support it. Sometimes it will reveal a useful line of enquiry or attack. Sometimes it will compel us to rethink our own position or beliefs. Any of these outcomes is a potentially useful one! Let's spend a little bit of time looking at what Mr Hodgman might have asked.

There are three sorts of questions that are really helpful here - questions of clarification, questions of justification/substantiation, and questions of challenge**.

Clarification, self-evidently, is about clarifying what a person means by the words they use when they set out their position. Justification or substantiation is about getting to the reasons and evidence that support a person's viewpoint. Challenge questions are a tool for testing a viewpoint against other viewpoints and/or real life situations. Let's look at how this might run in the context of the same-sex marriage debate. We'll do what we can to follow one particular line of argument, rather than covering the whole field.

The first point in the motion introduced by Mr McKim into the Tasmanian House of Assembly reads: "That the House supports marriage equality". Immediately that begs the question - "what do you mean by equality? Equal to what? Equality with what?" Equality is a word that requires context for its meaning. It is meaningful to say that two plus three equals five. It is meaningless to say that two plus three equals. In the same way, it is meaningless to say "I support marriage equality". Do you mean

• you support the same access for all to the status of marriage? 
• that all marriages deserve the same degree of respect and legal protection? 
• that all relationships deserve the same degree of respect and legal protection? 

Mr McKim expressly talks about providing "access to one of the most fundamental civil institutions in our society, the institution of marriage", it appears that he means at least the first of the dot-points above. (He may also mean the others, as there is some overlap). Mr McKim spoke about "removing legally entrenched discrimination". When we ask what he means by discrimination, it is clear that he objects to the existing position where a heterosexual couple can choose to marry (or not), while a homosexual couple does not have that choice. Equality of access is the same as allowing equal choice to a couple to marry or not, regardless of the sex of the couple.

The next type of question we want to ask is: "why?" Why should the law be changed to allow this? On the face of it, the nature of the couples is evidently different, in a number of ways:

1. a heterosexual couple has a member of each sex; a homosexual couple consists entirely of men or of women. 
2. a heterosexual couple is capable of producing children naturally (with some exceptions); a homosexual couple cannot produce children naturally. 
3. a heterosexual couple naturally models adult male and adult female behaviour to any children in the household; a homosexual couple cannot.

There are probably other obvious distinctions too. The question remains - why should the law be changed?

The answer provided by proponents of same-sex marriage is "love" - that love doesn't discriminate, so neither should the Marriage Act. but that begs other questions - why is love a sufficient ground to permit a couple to marry? What of other "loves" - adults for children, parent for child, siblings for each other? Why not permit them to marry too?  

There must be some additional ground that justifies state recognition of both heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Something common to both, but not a feature of other close and loving relationships. I have not seen anything in the parliamentary debates, nor in the material on the Marriage Equality website that expressly states what it is, and there is no-one I can ask "what" or "why". So I'll have to guess, and I guess it's sex. That the argument is that the state should, for some reason, acknowledge and approve sexual relations between two people of the same sex in the same way that it does between a married couple. 

But why? Wasn't the argument of the homosexual lobby for so many decades that the state has no business enquiring into what is done in private between two consenting adults? Certainly that was the argument that saw Tasmania's criminal law changed in 1997, following challenges in the Human Rights Committee (UN) and the High Court of Australia. And now the argument is that the state should take note of those private sexual relations for the purpose of approval and celebration of them? And why is sex a basis for state recognition?

I haven't yet heard any compelling answer to these questions from those supporting same-sex marriage. That could just be a sign of the paucity of the debate here, and the narrowness of my reading on the issue. If you are aware of anything that answers my questions, do let me know.

But what of my original purpose? How can I act now to prevent my children learning to debate like a member of parliament?

Do you see someone who speaks in haste? There is more hope for a fool than for them.
Proverbs 29:20

Those who guard their lips preserve their lives, but those who speak rashly will come to ruin.
Proverbs 13:3

Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry
James 1:19

As hard as it is, I have to try to encourage my kids to ask questions - particularly "what?" and "why?" (although preferably without the whining voices!) I will try to teach my children to listen well to what others say, and what they mean.

*Please don't think I'm being hard on Mr Hodgman. I admire the fact that he was willing to take a stand for the cause of real marriage in a room full of his opponents, that he weathered personal slights honourably, and that he did it with good grace. I doubt that any questions he asked would have been answered by anyone on the other side of the chamber.

**I'm indebted to Rev. Andrew Osborne, as well as to Mr Gregory Koukl's book Tactics: a game plan for discussing your Christian convictions, for the organisation and description of these questions.

Sticky faith ...

This blog crossed my path the other day. It is a review of Sticky Faith: Everyday Ideas to Build Lasting Faith in Your Kids by Kara Powell and Chap Clark.  I haven't read the book yet, but I want to.  From the review, it looks like it provides some insight about a question that has been churning around in my brain: what can I do now to help my kids form a faith that will last with them into adulthood?

The three big themes that the blog picks out are:

1. They will follow what I do, not what I say.  If my faith is only lip service, and has no effect on how I live (in big and little things!), I should expect to see this mirrored in my kids in 20 years' time.
2. My kids need the gospel now!  Not a series of moralistic bible stories, or isolated "christian values", but an introduction to Jesus and a living relationship with Him.  Personally I need to trust Him, spend time with Him (in prayer and in the Bible), and as a Dad I need to model this faith for my children.
3. The whole Christian community is vital in help my children to form their faith and their character.

So, add another book to the reading list, and time to stop and take stock of the example I'm setting for my little acorns.

Which kid do I leave behind?

I got a letter the other day - another one asking for money. This one was different, though - it reached out a hand and twisted a knot in my guts. This paragraph particularly:

Australians understand drought. We understand having to leave the fields because there is no water for our crops. But we are not forced to make the choice between abandoning one very sick child or fleeing to a relief camp with your other child who may have a better chance of survival. We don't understand the anguish of getting to that camp after a long and dangerous journey to discover there is not enough food.

The letter was from ChildFund, and was about the famine in the horn of Africa. It really hit my Dad-soft-spot, and my brain started whirling through permutations in my own family: how would I choose between staying to tend my sick child (so endangering my others), and leaving with the healthy ones for a camp? How would I make the call that my sick child is too sick to travel, and should be left behind? Who would I leave them with?


And the endless second-guessing of whatever horrific decision I made? How would I ever sleep afterwards?


In the days that have followed, I have started to reflect on how to introduce such topics to my own children. They are 7, 5 and nearly 2. To date I have not had to think about this - the letters come, we make a donation, the kids know nothing about it. But my 7-year-old is quite bright and perceptive. She is starting to be exposed to things like the 40-hour famine at school. She has already got a Leprosy Mission money box from our church that she periodically drops some change into. I pray all my children will grow up with a desire to alleviate suffering wherever they can. I can see that the process starts here. What do I say to her? How much do I tell?


I don't have any answers yet.  What do you do?


PS.  ChildFund Australia has many projects in the horn of Africa, and has a long-term commitment there. They are involved in both aid and development work. You can donate to their horn of Africa appeal by calling 1800 023 600 or online at www.childfund.org.au. I receive no benefit from ChildFund (although I have been a supporter of them for a long time, so there's some emotional capital invested!)

Olive shoots around my table

Do you enjoy your children?

As I write this I'm sitting in an ancient rectory about 1300 km away from my wife and children. The distance frees me a little from that constant, immediate worry about whether I'm doing the right thing for my kids. And if I'm perfectly honest with myself, it removes the little annoying things that they do, and allows me to reflect on God's grace in giving me those kids and the enjoyment they bring. What a round-about way of saying that I'm missing them!

I love listening to them play together. Most of the time they're pretty good – they cooperate in their games, finding room for everyone in the game. When they argue, I catch myself holding my breath: will they work it out for themselves, or will I need to intervene? (I love it when they work it out for themselves!)

I enjoy when we get the guitar out after dinner (if there's time), and the kids pester me for yet another Colin Buchanan song. Their favourite this month is an old favourite by the prolific songwriter “anon”, with the verse:

The butcher was cleaning the back of his shop
he stopped for a moment to lean on his mop
he sat on the slicing machine with a jerk
and found that he'd got all behind in his work

They are transfixed, and howl with laughter every time we sing it.

I love when they create performances for us. The crowning glory so far was when my daughters and four of their friends created a play for all the parents who were present. The six of us crowded into the darkened auditorium (one of their beds) to watch the stage (the other bed) and the grand performance (five kids whispering to each other about who had to start speaking, and my youngest daughter hiding under a blanket). Suddenly, the door burst open and my smiling, crawling year-old-son started laughing at having found us all sitting in the dark.

I enjoy when I cook a dinner for them that they really love, and they announce that it's going in the “winner dinner list”. I don't get that accolade very often.

I love when my boy won't let me leave his room at night until I've held his hand and prayed with him.

My kids aren't perfect. They are sinners, just like their Dad. There are many ways in which I fail them. But from my current vantage point I can see God's grace to me through them. The words of psalm 128 really resonate with me at the moment:

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways.
You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands;
you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.
Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
Behold, thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
The Lord bless you from Zion!
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem,
all the days of your life!
May you see your children's children!
Peace be upon Israel!

Does this psalm always reflect my feelings about my children and my family? No, of course not. I mess up, and feel guilty about how I parent. I am frequently unsure about how to deal fairly with my children day-to-day. And of course I don't know how my kids will end up. But there is such great hope in psalm 128 – do you see it?

“Blessed are all who fear the Lord”, and “Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord”.

If I fear the Lord – if I am in awe of Him and walk in His ways – I can trust Him with my children and my parenting. He deals with my parent sins at the cross (just like all my other sins). As I entrust myself to His care and to His way, I find I can prayerfully entrust my children to Him. As my relationship with Jesus grows closer, my anxieties about my children recede and I find I can enjoy them more.

This is my prayer for you (and me) this fathers day:

The Lord bless you from Zion!
may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem,
all the days of your life!
May you see your children's children!
Peace be upon Israel!

Happy fathers day!

Sugar and spice ...

Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

Ephesians 6:4

If you have daughters, you will have heard the line "sugar and spice and all things nice, that's what little girls are made of." Well that line was written by a boy who was trying to get a girl - not by a man with daughters! To be sure, there is plenty of lovely things about daughters, but there is no doubt that they are full of all sorts of things that are not all nice. My daughters are a bundle of emotions, even at the tender ages of 7 and 5. They go from playing nicely together one moment, to screaming, physical violence and "I'm not your friend anymore, and I mean it!" the next. They can go from happily relating a fun night at the school disco to a complete teary meltdown because said disco ended 15 minutes early, and said daughter didn't get a spot prize.

I am not a particularly emotional man, so when the emotional whirlwind hits it takes me way outside my comfort zone. I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto!


My default position (to my shame) is "shut it down". I reach for whatever it takes to switch off the emotional storm - whether sending the offending child out of the room, or back to her bed, or bribing her with treats, or caving in to her requests. Although I know that this is not a good way to raise my daughters, I resort to this tactic all too often. When the crisis hits, my parenting range is too limited to change.


In the last couple of weeks, though, I have started to see a better way. It's nothing to do with me - it has entirely been the Holy Spirit prompting me. God is gracious even in my tiredness and inability to respond immediately to my girls - it has meant a precious few seconds of silence when I can hear the better way that the Spirit is leading me to. He has shown me that the better way is to weather the storm with my daughter, rather than to shield myself from it.


So the other day, when Eldest's voice was again raised in rage at her sister, I could encourage her to use words to express why she was angry, rather than relying solely on her tone of voice to convey the fact that she was angry. (Thanks again to Ross Campbell's book How to really parent your child, and particularly the excellent chapters on helping your children to nullify anger.)


And the other night, when my sleepless child melted into tears hours after the great disco disappointment, rather than blowing my top, I could take her in my arms and talk through her disappointments. I could tell her about similar times I'd had growing up. I could reassure her that she was normal, that she was precious. We could pray together about the tumult in her heart.  


And as we weathered the storm together, we both found that indescribable peace that Jesus promises.

Childicus offspringii

Chances are, if you are reading this post, that you have discovered an infestation at your place.  You may have a houseful of the noisy, destructive little critters, or there may only be one.  Make no mistake about it, even one of these creatures will completely take over your life.

But before you call the exterminators, you need to know that children (childicus offspringii) are legally protected, and I'm told that the penalties are pretty steep should you kill one of them.

"If I can't kill them, what can I possibly do?"  I hear you ask.  There is no need for despair.  True, these pests are wildly varied, so that it's not possible to give a 10-step guide.  Yet with a few carefully implemented strategies, and by following some basic principles, you can drive the little pests away from your home and hearth quite successfully, and then enjoy peace and quiet once again.  

"What do I need to do?"  You ask.  "I'll do anything, just give me my life back!"

Read on ... 

1. Love is a battlefield.  There is no point being a complete villain toward them - the tactic may backfire and see them try to save you from your problems.  Far better to make them think that the problem lies with them.  Make them earn your love and approval.  Nice behaviour and good marks gets affection  and smiles, disobedience gets the cold shoulder.  If there is more than one little devil infesting your home, why not switch affections around depending on who's behaving best?  Keep them on their toes.
   
2. They are going to get angry.  But you can't let something as trivial as their emotions upset your domestic equilibrium.  Force them to bury those ugly feelings deep, deep within - far away from civilised society.  Make sure that they understand that anger is a hideous and unnatural feeling, that they must never bring to the surface, and especially never in your presence.  This will have the delightful side-effect of ensuring that they don't bring any real problems to you, in case their shameful anger comes along too.   And after all, there are plenty of opportunities for them to vent their frustrations at an appropriate time - when they're married, when they're driving, at their workplace.
   
3. These two principles take quite a long time to be effective - anywhere between 18 and 34 years!  But there is no need to lose heart - there is a way that we have found that can shorten this time scale.  The critters will hang around as long as they are sheltered and secure.  Direct action is still illegal, but there are indirect methods that will see the pests actually wanting to leave as soon as they can.  The trick is to get them to believe that their security depends on their behaviour.  Impose a curfew, and then lock the door promptly at curfew time.  Open the kitchen for a few brief moments each day - eat then, or eat not at all.  The restrictions you could impose are limited only by your imagination, but the message remains the same: "You are here under sufferance - none of this is yours."
4. Finally, I know that you will need some hope for day-to-day life while you wait for these strategies to have their effect.  You want some degree of peace and quiet, and you're entitled to it right now!  You should, by now, be aware that a direct confrontation will produce all sorts of noise and inconvenience, so this strategy is simply to avoid confrontation.  Eventually the little monsters will tire of trying to wrestle with a jelly, and will leave you alone.  So let them eat what they want; watch what they want; go where they please whenever they like.  Give them access to video games and the internet (a great way of keeping them quiet, with the added bonus that it relieves you of much of your educational responsibility!).  Am I being inconsistent with principle number 3?  Not at all!  If they want to do something that really inconveniences you, you need to fight back.  But so much of what they do is very little trouble to your life, that it really is easiest just to sit back and let them raise themselves.  

Now if you follow these principles carefully, you should find that the severity and duration of your childicus offspringii infestation is dramatically reduced.

A final word of warning - in some quarters it has been put about that you could actually live with these creatures peacefully, happily and joyfully!  Some authors will actually advocate that you should love unconditionally, allow them to express emotions, provide security and stability, and try to train them up!  Some authors like Ross Campbell who wrote How to really parent your child.  

Be warned: Have nothing to do with such dangerous ideas.  Your life will never be the same if you do!

Fear at a 7-year-old's birthday party

Ok, so I'm not writing about the abundance of pink frills, girly squeals and kids tripping out on food colouring.  Although these are pretty fearsome things, they were in moderation at Eldest's birthday last week.  (And in the case of the food colouring, completely eliminated due to the brilliance of my wife and some strategically placed blueberry skins and raspberry jam).  No, the chilling topic today is the far more prosaic habit of children to try to scare themselves silly with ghost stories.

There are 0 ghosts in this picture.

We recently had four 7-year-olds and one 5-year-old huddled together in the darkened bedroom, with only a torch for protection, persuading each other that if they looked just right, they could see an eyelash.  That's right, THE EYELASH GHOST IS COMING!  Five little girls come pelting out of the bedroom, clutching at my legs for protection from disembodied optical follicles.  


"There's a ghost in my bedroom, Dad!  Friend#1 saw it.  It's real."
"Darling, there are no ghosts in this house, we don't let them in here.  Now what do you want on your pizza?"
"But it spoke to Friend#2, Dad.  I'm scared."


7-year-olds are really persistent.  So of course I exorcised the ghost as any good Dad would - turned on the lights, confiscated the torch, told the girls that ghosts weren't real and to come to the table and eat some dinner.  (I suppose I could've got my wife's eyelash curler and fought the ghost valiantly with that, but as the idea has only just occurred to me, I'm three days late with that bit of parenting brilliance.  Feel free to use it yourself if you haven't yet had your brush with 7-year-old eyelash ghosts.)


The whole incident would have passed with nothing more than a roll of the eyes if it hadn't been for the persistence of my daughters' fears after Friends#1, #2 and #3 had all left.  Suddenly we don't want to go to bed, because the ghost is in the room.  We don't want Dad to leave the room, because of the ghost.  What to do?


Plan 1.1, as usual, is: raise voice, issue ultimatum, and think up some suitably fearful consequence for disobedience (gotta be pretty big to compete with ghost-fear!).  Then I remember that I'm trying to wean myself off plan 1.1 - it just takes so long to do the job, and produces too much bad-parent-guilt.  So I try the newfangled plan 2.0.  It's hardly even out of the box, and I definitely didn't read the instruction manual, so I'm winging it.


"You know there's no such thing as ghosts, don't you?"
"But Friend#1 said she saw it."
"There are no ghosts.  I know, because they're not in the bible.  People think that a ghost is a dead person who has come back.   The bible says that when we die, with either go to be with Jesus if we love him (like you and me), or we go to hell if we didn't.  The people who go to be with Jesus stay there, and the bible also says that the people who go to hell can't get out of there.  So you see there's no way a ghost could come back to be here - they're all either with Jesus or in hell!"
(Brilliant!  This plan is working beautifully already!)


"But Friend#1 saw one!"
(Aha, I think, mistakes and misperceptions... )  "Whatever she thought she saw, it couldn't be a ghost, because they're either in hell or with Jesus."  (Quick, what else could it have been?)  "You know how God created angels, and some of them went bad like satan, well there are demons.  They're real."  (Uh, oh - this isn't going so well - from ghosts, which are a bit weird-scary, to demons which are, well, demonic.)
My poor scared little 5-year-old doesn't have any words left - just great big blue eyes.
"Here, lets read this promise that Jesus made" and so we read together from John 6:37-40.  We talk about how Jesus beat satan and demons, and that we now don't need to fear them because He keeps us safe.  We talk about how he promises never to let us go or lose us.  We sing the Colin Buchanan version of those verses.  And she settles down to sleep.  There is power in the word of God.


Epilogue
Driving last night in the car, the ghost theme came up again.  5-year-old protests: "There are no ghosts.  They're all in hell". 


Well, near enough.

Hearken to the evidence ...

I didn't catch the Q and A episode with John Lennox - it had started before it hove into my conscience, but some friends of mine on twitter were tweeting about it.  So it's in the iView queue, and I followed the thread on twitter for a while.  Two significant themes emerged from the tweets: One is an assertion that Christianity cannot be proved, and so should not be taught in schools at all; the second is that teaching any form of religion in schools is brainwashing.


Both views seem to be pretty widely accepted in our society, and both views are complete rubbish.  So I want to respond, and think about how we can inoculate our kids against these fallacies.


Firstly - evidence for Christianity.  The standard argument that there is no evidence is usually one that relies on there being no scientific evidence for Christianity: that the existence of God, or the occurrence of miracles, or the efficacy of prayer cannot be tested under laboratory conditions.  Therefore they are unprovable scientifically, and therefore there is no evidence for a belief system that includes these things.  But if we look at these statements, it's clear that there are many things that will fall outside the field of scientific enquiry.  I know that my wife loves me; I know that I can trust my close friends to keep my confidences; I know that I can believe what my parents tell me: but there are no scientific experiments that can prove these things.


Perhaps nearer the point, most of us only know what our children did at school today because someone who was there told us.  We only know that Hadrian built his wall, or that Stalin killed his millions, or that Hannibal crossed the alps on elephants because of historical documents that record what witnesses to those events observed.  Most of us only know that there are microscopic things like atoms, molecules and cells because someone has told us about them (and certainly not because we've undertaken the scientific experimentation ourselves!)


The fatal flaw in the "no evidence for Christianity" argument is that it overlooks other categories of evidence in exclusive favour of scientific evidence.  As a criminal lawyer for 8 years I saw this same error occur at times in jury trials.  Extremely persuasive and cogent eyewitness testimony was rejected because there was no forensic scientific evidence.  If we refuse to take note of any evidence that is not scientific, we exclude significant sources of reliable knowledge.


I think it is important to teach our kids about this!  Not everything can be known through science.  Not everything that science tells us is necessarily reliable.  Our kids need to be taught to sift through and evaluate the evidence.  Just as our kids need to be taught to sift through and evaluate other forms of evidence - eyewitness testimony, historical record and the like.


And that leads to the second false view circulating - that any teaching of any religion amounts to brainwashing.  In my view, the fact that the term is bandied about so freely in the religion-in-schools debate is either a display of ignorance about how religious education is (or can be) approached in modern schools, or else a misleading piece of rhetoric.


Let's assume ignorance to start with - I suppose that hangovers from the 40s or 50s might lead some to assume that any religious education in schools will be rigid, dogmatic, programmatic and allowing of no dissent.  Where belief (or expressions of belief) are coerced, then perhaps this does fit a description of brainwashing, such as occurs under some totalitarian regimes and in some times of war. It cannot seriously be suggested that Christians or the churches currently have the social or political power to coerce belief, even amongst children.  It cannot seriously be suggested that the churches would use a fear-based technique that would bring such fleeting and superficial results.  But do we truly believe that teaching kids the tenets and historical foundation for the world's greatest faith amounts to brainwashing?  Laying out a belief and providing reasons and evidence for that belief is not brainwashing - it is education!  


I suppose there might be some Christian parents who enforce belief in their children through objectionable means - but given that this is a universal parenting problem that spans all beliefs (and lacks-of-belief) - it's stretching things too much to credit this evil to the Christian side of the ledger.  The argument might more strongly be put that atheist parents are brainwashing their children by refusing to present the evidence for Christianity - certainly in the current prevailing culture those children are less likely to see both sides of the debate fairly presented.


Which brings us to the use of "brainwashing" as a rhetorical device.  If the real concern is coercive Christian education, why not say so?  We can understand that we are happy for our kids to learn about Christianity, but not to be pressured into a decision.  We can then truly agree, perhaps, that we want each person to make up his or her own mind by reference to all of the evidence and arguments.  I suspect, though, that this is precisely what many aggressive atheists do not want - they do not want every person to have the opportunity of fairly and individually assessing the evidence for and against Christianity: they want to push any discussion of Christianity out of the public sphere altogether.  They want the field to themselves.


Again, what to do for our kids?  Just as our kids need to know about different types of evidence, and need to learn how to evaluate such evidence, our kids need to know about different types of argument.  They need to be prepared to meet these different worldviews in their school yard, from their teachers, from their teammates.  They need to be prepared to present and defend their own beliefs (even as they are being formed and refined!), while they can carefully assess (and where appropriate, attack!) the beliefs that are being pressed on them.


Now how on earth do we do that!?