Media Lukewarm on Laodicean's Meaning

Last night Indian American girl Kavya Shivashankar, 13, won the televised Scripps National Spelling Bee and its $40,000 prize after rattling off the letters in Laodicean (pronounced lā-ˌä-də-ˈsē-ən). Like most spelling-bee words, the adjective doesn't get much use in everyday conversation, so news sources today have defined the word using American Heritage and Merriam-Webster Dictionary's entries.

American Heritage, 4th ed., second entry: "Indifferent or lukewarm especially in matters of religion."

Merriam-Webster's first entry is a little more helpful, but not one news source used it: "from the reproach to the church of the Laodiceans in Rev 3:15–16." Its second entry got the most play: "lukewarm or indifferent in religion or politics."

Bible readers, of course, will recognize the Greek term from the Book of Revelation and from Paul's letters to the Colossians. Laodicea was a city along the river Lycus in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) founded by King Antiochus II Theos and named for his wife, Laodice, in the 3rd century B.C. Church historians believe that Epaphras, one of Paul's helpers, preached the gospel to the Laodiceans, as he did to the inhabitants in nearby Colossae about 10 miles away.

Paul mentions the Laodicean church in passing five times in his epistle to the Colossians, encouraging them to "see that [this letter] is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea" (4:16).

Laodicea isn't associated with an attitude of lukewarmness until the third chapter of John's Revelation, which lists the church in Laodicea among the seven named churches in Asia Minor.

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!" John warns on behalf of Christ. "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (3:15-16). The Laodiceans, who were apparently too focused on material riches, were rebuked for their wishy-washiness about the gospel.

Laodicean pops up in conversations today as a label for those who have compromised orthodoxy in order to win cultural acceptance. It's important to note, however, that John's Revelation clearly connects the Lord's warning to the Laodiceans with his love: "Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me" (3:19-20).

Jon and Kate Plus a Lot of Bitterness

I admit that for a while I was hooked on certain reality TV shows, but I've pulled the plug on several as of late, keeping my viewing list a lot shorter. (However, I've kept Deadliest Catch on the list because I can't get enough of men battling the Bering Sea - it's quite thrilling!) Reality TV has destroyed its share of relationships, so I have been hesitant to spend time becoming emotionally involved with the real-life people who inhabit it.

Sadly, its most recent casualty seems to be Jon and Kate Gosselin. The once-happy couple that has endured the challenges of multiple births have now turned on one another, and Monday night's episode, the fifth-season premiere, revealed the pain that pride, anger, blame-shifting, and resentment bring to a marriage.

Watching as a counselor, I was squirming in my seat. The problems they were describing (in separate interviews) were actually quite common and normal in most marriages. I've heard many people express their anger and sadness about feeling underappreciated, having to put dreams on hold, and enduring their spouse saying and doing hurtful things. The biggest test will be how the Gosselins, who are professing Christians, choose to deal with these universal marital issues. If Monday's episode was any evidence of how they are proceeding, things do not look good.

Most disturbing was the eerie silence in the midst of their anger-filled monologues: there was no counselor to intervene. Self-justifying, self-righteous, bitter statements were left hanging in the air unchallenged and unquestioned, with no outside perspective. Unless they have an intervening wisdom, they are headed for destruction.

God's perspective on life, relationships, and marriage is not intuitive. In fact, it runs counter to our sinful nature, which is our default operating mode. When we manage our relationships on human reasoning, we inevitably end up "biting and devouring each other," and destroying each other (Gal. 5:15). Let's be honest: Women, in Kate's situation, how many of us would have chosen a submissive spirit as our primary mode of relating to our husband? Men, in Jon's shoes, would you be waking up daily wondering how you can love your wife as much as you love your own flesh? Probably not. Nor would we desire to display kindness, compassion, and forgiveness, getting rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger. Our fleshly thinking is actually stubborn, selfish, unkind, merciless, and vengeful. With no one to tell us otherwise, we are headed down a path of destruction in our relationships.

So what's the answer to these very familiar marital disputes? The intervening grace of God's Word and his redemptive work in our lives. Usually this is only found within the contexts of relationships with other believers who have access to our hearts to help us see where God's truth intersects with our daily lives. I'm only guessing here, but it seems that Jon and Kate's marriage is a reflection of where each is spiritually. Could it be that the pressures and stresses of fame and attention have pulled them away from their greatest love: Christ? Perhaps they have dropped church out of their busy schedules, and with that, a group of other Christians who knows them, is aware of their struggles, and helps to keep them accountable? Or has confessing to the TV camera replaced the biblical wisdom of "confess[ing] your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (James 5:16)?

Can Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage be saved? Absolutely. But not on human terms, not with human wisdom, not with a camera man playing counselor. Only Christ can change our hearts so radically that we are able to die to our wants, our needs, our desires, and live for something greater than ourselves.

Lynn Roush is a counselor at The Crossing Church, an Evangelical Presbyterian congregation in Columbia, Missouri. She received her master's degree in counseling psychology from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School.

Introducing Julia Duin

I'm very grateful to have been asked to join the list of contributors to Her.meneutics. I have worked as a full-time religion reporter, but I also veer off into related topics, such as a piece I did for Mother's Day on women who decide not to abort their handicapped children.

I got the idea for that article the way I get ideas for most of my columns and news articles: I get around, I talk with people, I experience things. I was hearing from various pro-life women about genetics counselors from hell who, once they learn you are pregnant with a deformed child, are on you in two seconds to abort. Which is why many such women were patronizing Catholic hospitals and clinics, where they knew they would not be pressured to get rid of their child. I looked into the matter and found a pile of websites and sources - many of them from women who chose to bear such children - geared to support difficult pregnancies. One thing I like to do in my work is highlight a group or point of view that doesn't often get mentioned in the media, so I embarked on learning what it's like to bear a child, only to have him or her die that same day.

The parents in my story all said they were so glad to have continued their pregnancies, because at least they had photos of these children to carry with them forever. With an abortion, there are no photos.

I had encountered parents of such children back in the mid-1990s during the partial-birth abortion debates on Capitol Hill. I met parents who had been told they needed a horrific third-term abortion, only to learn that their child's health was not terminal. One couple hoisted a boy about 10 months old who had some of his organs outside his body when he was born. Yes, his tummy looked like a train track, but medics managed to reinsert his organs, and he was a healthy child. That's when I realized that genetics counselors often tell parents to abort such boys.

They say 80 percent of all Down syndrome babies are aborted, and the stats aren't much better for kids suffering from other disabilities. When researching a piece on "selective reduction," I found that moms of twins (yes, twins) and higher multiples are routinely told to kill one of the children in their womb to make room for the others. Surrounded by doctors, geneticists, and perinatologists (obstetricians who specialize in high-risk pregnancy), they often cave under the pressure and allow the doctor to inject one or more of the fetuses with a chemical that quickly causes that little body to cease moving forever. I cannot imagine having to live through that. I cannot imagine the suffering. But there is a way out, the women in my latest story told me, and that is to allow these children to be born.

Often, doctors will paint a horrible picture of a Rosemary's Baby child who will be born should you allow that pregnancy to go on. The best quote I got was from a woman who agreed to abort because, "I was told she'd be a monster," the woman said, "but she was only a baby girl."

I hope to share these and other stories with readers of Her.meneutics so they can see a bit of the universe I glimpse from the nation's capital.

What to Do with Smoking Moms

The other day, a friend of mine was telling me about a recent trip she took to the park with her preschoolers.

"Two women were sitting on the bench by the slide, chain-smoking," she complained. "They must've gone through an entire pack in the time we were there."

"I would have said something," I told my friend. A park may be a public, outdoor place, but I still don't want people blowing smoke all over my children. Neither does my friend.

"But they had their own kids," she added.

Oh. That complicates things. While I might have the guts to ask a stranger not to smoke near my children, especially given that my youngest is only two months old, what if the stranger is also a parent? Suddenly my request smacks of one-upmanship - or should I say, one-upmomship, that smug, I'm-a-better-mother-than-you attitude that turns my stomach. Is there a way to ask another mother not to smoke near your children, without implicitly accusing her of being a bad mom?

I'm not sure that there is. "I probably wouldn't have said anything," I finally concluded.

Coincidentally, that afternoon I read a Chicago Sun-Times article about a study that found that smoking is more harmful to women than it is to men: "A study presented Monday at the American Thoracic Society's annual meeting in San Diego found that women developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at an earlier age and after fewer years of smoking than men." The article reports that women smokers have a greater loss of lung function, again even after fewer years of smoking, than their male counterparts. Researchers are looking both at lung size - women have smaller lungs - and at hormones, specifically estrogen, to try and understand why.

Despite recent strides to curb the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, it's still pervasive - in our cities, in our parks, and in our churches. True, I don't know that I've ever seen someone smoking inside a church building, but I've seen plenty of smokers just outside, and the smell of cigarette smoke in the sanctuary isn't unfamiliar.

People who smoke know it's bad for them, just like people who overeat, or who ride their bikes without helmets (a habit I'm currently working to break). But it brings me back to my friend and the chain-smoking mothers at the park: When your bad habit affects others, affects my children, do I have a right to say something? What if the consequences of your actions differ based on gender? If smoking is worse for women, does that matter?

I don't have firsthand knowledge of the addictive pull of nicotine. But I've watched friends struggle, and quit and quit and quit again, and I've prayed with them for God's mercy and intervention. When cigarette smoke is polluting not only our bodies but our parks and our churches as well, how should we as a Body respond?

And if I may be so bold as to ask those of you who smoke: what do you think? Is there anything we can to do help, as nonsmoking friends or even strangers? Or would any overture smack of accusation?

When Childbirth Means Risking Your Life

"Pregnancy and childbirth kill more than 536,000 women a year, more than half of them in Africa," writes Denise Grady from Tanzania in the May 24, 2009, New York Times. Her article, "Where Life's Start Is a Deadly Risk," contrasts the World Health Organization's (WHO) estimate of Tanzania's maternal mortality rate - 950 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births - with Ireland's: 1 per 100,000.

In other words, a Tanzanian woman has a 1 in 24 lifetime risk of dying in childbirth; an Irish woman's risk is 1 in 47,600. (U.S. statistics, which you can check at the WHO website: a mortality rate of 11 deaths per 100,000 births, with a 1 in 4,800 lifetime risk.)

"The women who die are usually young and healthy, and their deaths needless," Grady writes. "The five leading causes are bleeding, infection, high blood pressure, prolonged labor and botched abortions."

Most women give birth at home (50%) or in local clinics (30%), going to a hospital - sometimes by bicycle! - only when they have been in labor for days and realize they need a caesarean. Because hospitals are understaffed and overcrowded, the surgery may be performed by a physician's assistant, and the woman may end up sharing a twin bed with another woman. This is scary enough to read about, but the shock value is even higher in the series of 21 photos, "Childbirth in Tanzania," accompanying the article.

And yet "to persuade more women to give birth at the hospital instead of at home, [Berega] hospital is sending health workers with that message to marketplaces, churches, village elders and religious leaders." For women who live far away, they are creating a maternity waiting home and are trying to get government funds for an ambulance.

As I read this, I wondered if this is an example of well-intentioned Westerners making a bad situation worse. It's good to improve hospitals, to make them more easily accessible, to train health-care workers. But will better hospitals make a big difference in infant and maternal mortality rates in a culture where many women prefer to use traditional birth attendants, where many men insist that their wives give birth at home, where the journey to the hospital is long and difficult, where most people can't afford even the low hospital fees, and where the hospitals themselves have high rates of infection?

Google sent me straight to the Horizon Solutions website. An article by Joyce Mulama titled "Africa: Upgrading Traditional Midwives' Skills" discussed the high mortality rates, the conflict between traditional birth attendants and hospitals, attempts made to discourage the use of midwives, and the eventual realization that midwives and hospitals need to work together.

According to Warren Naamara, country coordinator in Ghana for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, drawing traditional birth attendants into the health system will involve providing them with the means to work in a clean, safe environment - and also with education.

"It is all about training TBAs in how far they can and cannot go. There are some things they cannot do, like surgery," he noted.

"Where they anticipate complications, let them refer such cases to the nearest delivery point, because their work has trained them to detect a woman who may not deliver smoothly."

Interestingly, 30% of Dutch births take place at home, whereas fewer than 1% of U.S. births are home based. And yet the maternal death rate in the Netherlands is only about half that of the United States. Improving African hospitals is good, but training African midwives may save more mothers.

Kris Allen Triumphs on American Idol -- in More Ways Than One

If you are one of the 28.8 million people who watched American Idol's season finale Wednesday night, you already know that Kris Allen, the 23-year old worship leader from Conway, Arkansas, beat out Hollywood rocker and musical theater vet Adam Lambert for the eighth season's title. Many saw this final battle as yet another chapter in the red-state/blue-state struggle, pitting Christian wholesomeness against bombastic worldliness. But in the days following Allen's surprise victory, the conversation has shifted from questions of whether devoted Christian voters propelled Allen past the season-long frontrunner, to the strong friendship the two performers have forged during the season.

Earlier this year, I wrote about the role of faith on American Idol. While contestants like Allen may benefit from "the Christian vote," non-Christian performers like Adam Lambert have been similarly embraced by voters who do not share his worldview. By allowing him into their homes (via TV) for the past few months, many viewers came to see Lambert as more than his sexuality. Writes Ann Powers in the Los Angeles Times:

Each singer has fans who should be rooting for the other one, according to the usual patterns linked to the culture wars. Some commentators have tried to make a stir over Lambert's sexuality - Bill O'Reilly questioned Lambert's appropriateness as a singing role model on his Fox News program. But he seems to have many Christian admirers. "My husband and I are Baby Boomer Christians and we LOVE Adam Lambert! After 8 seasons, we finally have the contestant who defines the title," wrote one reader in the comments section of Newsweek magazine's Pop Vox blog.

Allen's friendship with Lambert, who was his roommate for the duration of the show, embodied Christian love in a way that also surprised many in the mainstream media. During Rock Week (top 4), Allen painted his thumbnail black while Lambert removed the black polish from his thumbnail, showing support for Lambert as a performer and friend, even while the two were competing against each other. And in an interview with E! the morning after his surprise win, Allen said, "I told [Adam], I was like, ‘You deserve this,' and he was like, ‘No, you deserve this.' We love each other, man. We've been friends ever since the Top 36, we were in group two together, and we both made it. I'm really proud of him, and I know that he's really proud of me as well."

Wednesday night's win was just one moment in pop culture history, so it may be silly to read many larger implications into Allen and Lambert's friendship. But as the most-watched show on television, perhaps American Idol is a catalyst, or at least a mirror, of how Christians can engage those whose actions they do not fully embrace. For Christian viewers, this means we can celebrate Kris Allen's victories - both musical and spiritual - on America's biggest stage.

Arts Funding Slashed in Economic Crunch

In a bleak economy, budget cuts are a necessity - but from the arts? Even aside from a philosophical belief that art benefits a society and its citizens, such drastic cuts will inevitably mean massive layoffs for those who work in the arts sector if the House passes the bill.

Zero is a shock-value word, and I did indeed feel shock as I read reports of the Senate's decision. I don't want to see my state's arts and culture budgets slashed. Yet in a state where 16.8 percent of all children live below the poverty level - a number that climbs to nearly one-third of children in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and in several rural counties - I have to question if money spent on the arts is the best allocation of resources.

Muslih-uddin Sadi, a 13th-century Persian poet, said that if all he owned was two loaves of bread, he would sell one loaf and buy hyacinths to feed his soul. I love hyacinths, and I love the idea of feeding my soul, but I can't help wonder if Muslih-uddin Sadi was very hungry when he wrote that - or if, indeed, he had ever been very hungry.

Christine A. Scheller recently wrote about the high infant mortality rate in this country, a rate directly linked to maternal poverty. I can't quite wrap my mind around our country's infant mortality rate, any more than I can process a third of Philadelphia's children living in poverty. I look at my daughter's Sunday school class and try to imagine a third of them going home to inadequate housing, going to bed hungry. I can't do it. If it's fund the arts or feed the kids, I'm going to vote for the kids every time - which isn't to say that cuts in the arts budget will correspond to increased funds for hungry children. It's only to say that, quite simply, there isn't enough money for everything and difficult decisions must be made.

Pennsylvania isn't the only state slashing funding for the arts - Florida, Utah, and Michigan are looking at similar cuts, just to name a few. As the economy continues to tighten the proverbial purse strings, more cuts will almost surely follow.

So, what do you think? Fund the arts? Feed the kids? How should we decide where to make necessary cutbacks in an ailing economy?

How Would a Woman Change the Supreme Court?

This spring may mark another race - besides last weekend's Preakness Stakes - that finds a female crossing the finish line in first place.

Since Associate Justice David Souter announced May 1 that he would be retiring from the Supreme Court, pundits and Court watchers have predicted President Obama will nominate a woman to fill the seat. If appointed, a female justice would be only the third to serve. President Reagan nominated the first female Justice to the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor, in 1981. President Clinton nominated the second, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in 1993. Thus, from 1993-2006 two women served on the Court, until Justice O'Connor resigned and her seat was filled by Justice Samuel Alito.

Political scientists observe that Presidents are reluctant to reverse the precedent of appointing religious, cultural, and racial minority-group members once the initial barrier is broken. Roger Taney's 1835 appointment to the Court created a minimum threshold of one "Catholic seat" on the Court. (There are currently five.) Louis Brandeis's 1916 appointment similarly created a "Jewish seat" that was kept until Abe Fortas resigned in 1969. And in perhaps the most striking case of a President preserving the seat, President George H. W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas to fill the seat vacated by Justice Thurgood Marshall, appointed in 1967, maintaining an "African American seat." The Thomas appointment resulted in a dramatic change in both the political ideology and judicial philosophy of the person holding that seat.

Given this, restoring two women members to the high court seems in keeping with past presidential practice. According to recent American Bar Association data, women now compose about half of U.S. law school students, 30.1 percent of practicing attorneys, and about a quarter of judges on the lower federal courts. Current top prospects for the nomination include Judge Sonia Sotomayor, federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; Diane P. Wood, federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit; Elena Kagan, currently the U.S. Solicitor General, the federal government's top lawyer; and Janet Napolitano, current Secretary of Homeland Security and former governor of Arizona. Other maybes include Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, and Leah Ward Sears, Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. Of the top four contenders, publically available data suggest that at least two are Christians, and one is Jewish.

The Thomas appointment points to the challenge of using race, gender, or religion as the primary criteria in nominating a Justice. Judicial philosophy matters. Political ideology matters. And sometimes, despite an increasingly meticulous vetting process, Presidents pick Justices whose ideology or judicial philosophy is not clear enough to ensure a "match." Republication President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said that nominating activist Justice Earl Warren to the Supreme Court was the biggest mistake he ever made. In August 2008, at the Saddleback Civil Forum, then-candidate Obama and Pastor Rick Warren had the following exchange:

WARREN: OK. The courts. Let me ask it this way. Which existing Supreme Court justice would you not have nominated? OBAMA: That's a good one. That's a good one. I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas. [ applause ] I don't think that he - I don't think that he was as strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation, setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretations of a lot of the Constitution. I would not nominate Justice Scalia, although I don't think there's any doubt about his intellectual brilliance, because he and I just disagree. He taught at the University of Chicago, as did I in the law school.

More recently, President Obama has suggested that empathy and identification with everyday people's real lives are qualities he thinks are important in a nominee, so it may well be that he will seek a nominee from outside the ranks of the judiciary, in contrast to the current Court, which comprises only former federal court judges.

Ultimately, what role do political ideology, judicial philosophy, gender, and religion play in Supreme Court decision-making? It's important to note that, regardless of Obama's appointment, the Court's balance of political ideology will not shift. Souter, though appointed by George H. W. Bush, voted in the minority liberal bloc on the Court, so the conservative 5-4 majority will be kept. According to Sunday's New York Times, politically conservative interest groups, some of them religiously affiliated, are marshaling arguments opposing the purported frontrunners in the nomination race, centering their arguments on potential nominees' positions on abortion, same-sex marriage, and church-state separation

With regard to gender, the Court recently ruled 7-2 (with the Court's lone female Justice dissenting) that pregnancy leaves can be excluded from the working time used to calculate pension benefits. Still, there is no conclusive evidence that women on the Court - especially when they will have at most two votes - substantially affect the Court's decision-making. A recent book by New Yorker staff writer Jeffrey Toobin suggests that Justice O'Connor's presence on the Court significantly altered the Court's social dynamics, particularly within the world of her own clerks, for whom she cooked crock-pot lunches on Saturdays and sent baby gifts long after their clerkships had ended. On the effect of religion on decision-making, we have recent evidence from the Justices themselves - notably Justice Antonin Scalia, an outspoken abortion opponent who nonetheless noted,

"The bottom line is that the Catholic faith seems to me to have little effect on my work as a judge. . . . Just as there is no ?Catholic' way to cook a hamburger, I am hard pressed to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic."

While abortion, same-sex marriage, and embryonic stem cell research may be useful for political mobilization of politically conservative voters, and while the specter of liberal judges may help in fundraising efforts, religion and gender may not be good proxies for discerning a potential nominee's position on these issues. Ultimately, judicial philosophy and political ideology matter a whole lot more, though accurately discerning these attributes of potential nominees is a good deal more difficult.

Stacey Hunter Hecht is department chair of political science at Bethel University, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Obama: A Friend to Pro-Lifers?

In 1993, when Christine Todd Whitman was the Republican candidate for the governor of New Jersey, her views on abortion were muted at best. I recall being cautiously optimistic as I voted for my state's first and only female governor. By the time she ran for a second term, it was clear she had little use for us pro-lifers. In 2005, Whitman published a book called It's My Party Too and became an outspoken critic of "social fundamentalists."

I haven't read Whitman's book, but my guess is that she came to her convictions about "social fundamentalists" after losing significant battles as governor. In 1997, Whitman vetoed a ban on partial-birth abortion that was overturned by the state legislature. Then in 1999, avoiding another potential veto, she signed a parental notification bill into law. Pro-lifers, it would seem, could celebrate significant legal victories under an abortion rights governor. Not so. Both laws are permanently enjoined by court order. We won the political battle and nothing changed.

In 2008, Barack Obama ran on a platform of change. Change in tone, change in rhetoric, change in focus. When I was considering my vote, I wasn't terribly bothered by his "above my pay grade" response to Rick Warren's Saddleback Forum question about when a fetus is entitled to human rights. People of good faith disagree about when en-soulment happens. I understood his answer to be a nod to this reality. What did bother me, however, was a response he gave to an abortion question in western Pennsylvania a few months earlier. "Look," he said, "I got two daughters - 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby." That is an astounding statement from the child of a teen mother. It is also one I take to have sprung from a place of deep personal pain.

I disagree with Obama on abortion. Like many others seeking a consistent pro-life ethic, I was willing to forgive his stumbles and give him a chance to be a catalyst for change. But I was disappointed, though not surprised, when he rescinded the Mexico City Policy that barred foreign aid to organizations that perform or promote abortion. His reversal of the Bush policy on human embryonic stem cell research was less troubling to me for two reasons. First, because unless the Dickey-Wicker amendment is repealed, no embryo destruction will be funded; and second, because highly reputable sources that I have interviewed within the field over several years say the science is not there. No cures are coming. President Obama can set up false dichotomies between hESC research opponents and the parents of sick children (as he did in his Notre Dame speech) all he wants, but it doesn't change this reality.

At Notre Dame, the President outlined goals I can support, such as reducing unintended pregnancies, making adoption more accessible, providing support for women who carry their children to term, a sensible conscience clause, grounding health-care policies in both ethics and science, and broadening respect for the equality of women.

The President concluded this portion of his speech by exhorting opponents on this issue to develop open hearts, open minds, and fair-minded words. I'm all for that. I'm also willing to believe that he wants to be an honest friend to pro-lifers. I hope so anyway, because I'd rather have an honest enemy than a false friend. Whitman was a false friend, and I've never forgotten it.

Obama's Kinder, Gentler Culture War

I didn't see this one coming. K. and I had been talking about her sex life. We had arranged to meet before a sexual abstinence event at a church in Michigan. I was there interviewing young people for a book project on evangelical abstinence campaigns, and K. travels the country with an organization that promotes waiting for sex until marriage. K. is an attractive, gregarious young woman in her early 20s, but her easy laugh belied her deeper pain.

I had asked her about her previous dating relationships and what led her to commit to abstinence. What began as a tale of sexual escapades quickly devolved into a heartbreaking story of abortion. As can often be the case in the complex tangle of life, she wanted the baby, but at the same time she didn't. Her much-older boyfriend had left the cash for the procedure on the dresser. She bled for quite a bit afterward, and through her tears told me that she had found a fragment that looked like a small hand on the floor of her bathroom. It had happened a few years ago, but the pain was still fresh. She had been eleven weeks pregnant at the time. My eyes filled with tears, threatening to shatter my objective researcher posture, as I tried to nonchalantly continue taking notes. I instinctively touched my belly - I was eleven weeks pregnant myself.

Stories like K.'s often get lost in the vitriolic rhetoric surrounding abortion. President Obama's abortion rhetoric in his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame yesterday is a small step in the right direction. "How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?" Obama asked the graduates. But what about individuals like K. who are implicated by the rhetoric without holding strong convictions of their own?

President Obama's appearance at Notre Dame has sparked controversy and protests in recent weeks, but not as much as one might expect from an ostensibly pro-life Catholic institution. A recent poll from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life suggests that Catholics are little different from the rest of the population: For both groups, about half had not even heard of the Notre Dame controversy. Perhaps a sign of battle fatigue in the decades-old culture wars?

To his credit, Obama did not shy away from the controversy. He admirably sought common ground where he could find it: "So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women." He acknowledged that although the pro-life and pro-choice views may be "irreconcilable," he called on both sides to avoid "reducing those with differing views to caricature." His mantra: "Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words."

Despite such fair-minded words, Obama has quietly but swiftly enacted a pro-choice agenda, including lifting the ban on federal funding for international organizations that offer or promote abortions as well as lifting limits on embryonic stem-cell research. He may advocate for civil engagement, but generally he has tried to stay above the fray. During his campaign, he infamously dodged a question about abortion by responding that it was "above my pay grade."

The new administration is leaning left, but the American public may now be leaning right. A new Gallup Poll released last Friday reveals shifting attitudes on abortion: For the first time in nearly 15 years, a majority of Americans self-identify as pro-life (51 percent) instead of pro-choice (42 percent). Just a year ago, the numbers were flipped, with 50 percent pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. The poll may show that Republicans and other political conservatives and moderates are responsible for the shift. Lydia Saad, in an article on the Gallup website, suggests that the Obama administration has ". . . pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be "pro-choice" slightly to the left, politically." In this case, actions speak louder than words, fair-minded or not.

Honest dialogue and disagreement over deeply held issues like abortion would be a welcome move toward a kinder, gentler culture war. The orator-in-chief has the megaphone to make it happen. But in the case of young women like K., perhaps what we need is fewer words and more tears.

Forgotten Little Pitchers

You would think she'd been talking to a classmate, but no; as it happened she had read this in a book on Ancient Rome. Since the school's fourth grade bookshelf includes a number of colorfully illustrated reference books on the period, her mortified teacher's first thought was that one of these adult books was the source. It wasn't; the information came from an Usborne book. In other words, it came from a book written and designed for children.

It is not very original of either this mother or me to complain that our children are under siege, but they are. Some days, the pervasiveness of it seems remarkable.

I have fourth grader myself, who loves to read and loves words, so many nights now she and her father tackle the Jumble word puzzle which lies opposite the comics page in our increasingly thin Louisville Courier-Journal. This is a new game for them, and it took a day or two for my husband and I to notice that right above ATCATK and YLROLWD lies the "Annie's Mailbox" column, with its sad parade of grief, trouble and abuse. We cut or fold the page now.

Our daughter would like to look at the rest of the paper also, but since the front page may feature a large colored photograph of people exploded by a suicide bomber, or the murder of a child, or a personal assault highlighted in large type, some days she can't. (I don't complain that the paper reports bad news, but I do object to the increasingly tabloid fashion in which some stories are covered.)

Two weeks after our young friend made the school book discovery, she was in a locally owned coffee shop, where, in between sips of hot chocolate, she asked her mother what "rape" meant. Each table at the shop sports a little rolodex of laminated information cards, and there, along with cards telling about shade grown coffee and Louisville's recycling efforts, was one on a women's crisis shelter which the shop owners support.

This is a little thing, but it indicates an assumption made everywhere: that with the exception of certain slurs, there is no limit on what is deemed appropriate public language, and that what is appropriate language for adults is assumed to be appropriate for the children who follow in their wake. News is reported in a way that takes for granted children either aren't listening or don't matter, and this is as true for the "highbrow" radio on NPR as it is for the "lowbrow" so-called conservative TV shows.

The definition of adult-appropriate language and topics has changed in the last three or four decades to include words and speculations no one would have discussed before, outside a law court or an exceedingly frank one-gender get-together. These words leap out from everywhere - the TV, radio, newsstand, book store display, and conversations overheard on the sidewalk. I can remember when it was a big deal for a family news magazine like Time to run a cover story on STDs, but that was at least 25 years ago. I am also old enough to remember when the word "rape" would not have been said in public, and certainly not used casually as a metaphor. Time was when no one, certainly not a lady, would have begun a column with the story I began with above, because it is too indelicate (I am not old enough for that). But we are not able to be ladies anymore, and children are not allowed to be children.

The answer, but of course!, is to foster open communication with your children, because everything can be handled well with good communication — everything except a ten-year-old's concerned astonishment about what these strangely intimate details of adulthood can possibly mean. We can try to comfort, but any further explanation at this age will only make things weirder. There is plenty that even the most curious ten-year-old doesn't want to know. Not really, and not yet.

Unfortunately, we live in a world of people who are dying to tell her. We have to counter their words with our own, when what we really want on certain topics is silence. And talk as families will, children differ in their inclinations toward privacy and worry, and parents in their sensitivity and haplessness. I know most of what is going on in the head of one of my children; very little of what truly is felt by the other. We discuss some of the books they read as it is, for the fun of the discussion, and when the requests to read Pullman and the Twilight series come, as they will, then we may talk about why we avoid some books for a good while, or entirely. Maybe that talk will be enough to forestall sneaking, but I can't be sure. I am sure that with every publishing year which passes there will be more to sneak, and more we simply stumble upon.

Whatever my children may or may not be reading, I can see that they must grow up. I can see the Big Conversation visible on the horizon for my eldest, and I know that I cannot assume my standards will become her standards by osmosis. I can't protect my children from the ugliness of a lot of history, if they're going to learn any, or from all the horrors of our current wars and other countries' conflicts. I have no illusions I can protect them from pain, death or the knowledge of evil. I don't even desire to protect them from everything, since they must learn to stand up and fight on their own, and love the good on their own. But it is a heck of a thing, to live in a culture that works so actively and in so many ways, big and small, to undermine every possible standard - even the chastity of children.

This is a condensed version of Katherine Dalton's "The Immoral Life of Children," from the blog Front Porch Republic.

A Weighty Issue

Years of women being taught to develop a positive body image may actually be hurting them. A recent study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology surveyed 81 Philadelphia-area women who fell along all points on the body mass index scale. Conducted by Marisa Rose at the Temple University School of Medicine, the study found that, as the women's body mass index increased, two-thirds of them said they still believed they were at an ideal body size. When asked to pick out an ideal body shape from a series of silhouettes, 20 percent of the women categorized as obese chose an overweight or obese model.

This study points to the body-image confusion that has surfaced over and against Western culture's unhealthy emphasis on thinness as the ultimate feminine asset (e.g., the recent gossip about Jessica Simpson's pants size). The debate pits those who advocate health against those who preach unwavering self-acceptance, isolating the two as mutually exclusive. And Christian women often face an added, more complicated dimension as thinness becomes associated with moral purity.

As any woman who struggles with weight issues can well attest, finding a balance between loving yourself and changing bad habits can be psychological turmoil. I grew up bombarded by images of impossible thinness in ads and on TV, but at every turn - at school, at home, and at church - these standards were countered by messages of self-acceptance, even celebration. "We should be happy and proud to be who we are," I was told. "Don't let anyone make you feel bad about the way you look!" I internalized the messages all too well; for me, as I suspect it is for many others, the cycle of food addiction is deeply emotional and linked to my most essential understanding of self. Many of us have so successfully developed a sense of self-acceptance that we cannot find the motivation to break bad and potentially dangerous habits; to gain one would be to lose the other.

"We fatties are the only people on earth who can weigh our sins," said Charlie Shedd in his 1957 book, Pray Your Weight Away, the first "Christian dieting" book. But as a church, we are largely ignoring the problem in our pews, and in a circular way, that has become the problem. To suggest that people might need to address their food issues for spiritual reasons is practically unmentioned in pulpits and Sunday school teachings. Because food addiction is so personal and so closely tied to a sense of self, we avoid facing the issue at all and fail to get people the help they need. We have yet to find a balance between the Bible's admonishments against gluttony and its message of unconditional love. But overeating is a spiritual issue, and it demands a spiritual response.

There have been Christian attempts to address the issue in the past; Christianity Today, for example, has covered faith-based weight loss programs and the theology they espouse. One helpful voice is that of former American Idol contestant Mandisa Hundley. In a March 2009 interview with CT sister magazine Today's Christian Woman, Hundley described her struggle with the emotional and spiritual elements of her 75-pound weight loss and deliverance from food addiction. She said she is not losing weight to conform to media standards of beauty, but is responding to both the physical and spiritual war she realized she was losing.

Alongside calling out the harmful standards of beauty perpetuated by the media, the church also needs to take a firm stand on the seriousness of food addiction - and loudly proclaim the freedom that is found in the love of Jesus Christ.

Q+A: Kaffie McCullough on Craigslist

The same feature that has made Craigslist so popular - namely, unlimited free advertising - has brought the decade-old website under heavy criticism for providing unmonitored forums for prostitution in its 570 city hubs. After several state representatives met with Craigslist attorneys Wednesday, the site agreed to remove its "erotic services" section and replace it with an "adult services" section, in which posts will cost $5-10 and be manually reviewed by staff before going up.

While adding oversight to the free-for-all forum is an improvement, it's simply not enough - especially for stopping the sexual exploitation of children. Kaffie McCullough, who for eight years has led a statewide campaign to stop the prostitution of children in Georgia, is one skeptic. Her initiative, the Atlanta-based A Future. Not a Past. program, a wing of the Juvenile Justice Fund, released a study just this week on Craigslist and child prostitution. It showed that out of the 334 known adolescent girls in Georgia's sex trade, about 53 percent are advertised through Craigslist's erotic services section - what McCullough calls the "ground zero for pimps to profit from children." Further, the number of girls being pimped on Craigslist rose dramatically from November 2008 (100 girls) to February 2009 (176).

McCullough spoke recently with blog editor Katelyn Beaty about Craigslist's decision.

What was your response to yesterday's announcement?
I'm grateful that Craigslist is trying to monitor what's happening, because their erotic services [section] was clearly a place where young girls were being prostituted. I have mixed feelings as to whether this is going to work. I'd want to know what they mean when they say they're going to "monitor" it. And without training staff, for instance, the research that we've been doing since August 2007 says that people were not accurate when they'd make estimates as to whether somebody is young or not. I'd like to think Craigslist would be open to having training so that staff can screen more effectively.

I realize that all of this makes it harder for the perpetrators, but . . . the reality is that even if Craigslist had totally taken it down, that wouldn't stop the problem of the prostitution of children - it would just spring up somewhere else.

Why has Craigslist become a hotbed of prostitution?
Craigslist is so easy, and so accessible, and so large. In other words, when we first started our research, we looked at other places, but it happened to such a greater extent on Craigslist that there was no point in taking the time to monitor the other websites, because the amount that was happening on Craigslist so dwarfed everything else.

Are they going to be going on every single Craigslist site and monitoring it? I don't think they have the staff. It's a massive undertaking when you have all the major cities in the United States. Before they put in the $5 surcharge [for all erotic services ads], we were seeing about between 1,000-1,200 ads a day in Atlanta. Now we're down to about 500 a day, but that's just in Atlanta.

What advice would you give to Christians who want to learn more and prevent child prostitution in their own communities?
We have an organization here in Atlanta called Street GRACE. It's a collaboration of churches that are banding together. It started in a Presbyterian church that was supposedly on a street corner where child prostitution was happening, but I would suggest to your readers that they contact Street GRACE and begin to form similar coalitions in their own particular city, because the more we can start to have networks all over this country, the better off we'll be.

It's not a fun job. In fact, we looked at one ad [in a webinar training session Tuesday], and I was ready and steeled, but one of them looked so young, I just started to cry. I surprised even myself. This young girl was totally naked, on all fours on a bed that obviously looked like it was on a motel, and she looked so young. And we flagged that ad, and it was still there later. Even after you flag it, someone can just put it back up, or just take a different picture. So I just have a lot of questions.

I know Craigslist is trying to do the right thing, and whether that's because they're getting pressure or because they want to do the right thing because it's the right thing, I don't know. But I would never want anybody in the public to think, "This is going to make it go away," because it's not going to go away until we as a society start saying, "This isn't okay," and we're going to encourage our DAs to prosecute and our police to arrest and we're going to talk to our men and find out why buying sex period is okay, and how oversexualized we have become in this culture that it's okay to look at kids as sexual objects.

Stuff, the Sleeper Hit

A year and a half ago, Annie Leonard released The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute video about the dangers of over-consumption. It "has become a sleeper hit in classrooms across the nation," Leslie Kaufman wrote in Sunday's New York Times: "So far, six million people have viewed the film at its site, StoryofStuff.com, and millions more have seen it on YouTube. More than 7,000 schools, churches, and others have ordered a DVD version, and hundreds of teachers have written Ms. Leonard to say they have assigned students to view it on the Web."

Critics object to Kaufman's negative portrayal of big business, along with inaccuracies and oversimplification. Even if you agree with Leonard's main point - that we buy far too much, and that this is bad for us, for others, and for the earth - you may find the video unnecessarily confrontational.

Like it or not, chances are your kids (friends, relatives, coworkers) are going to watch this video, and it may come soon to a church near you. Stick with it, even if the first three minutes appall you. Leonard raises issues that Christians are already discussing (see, for example, the discussion of fair trade at the Ten Thousand Villages website) and that we need to talk more about with our kids. For example:

-- Let's assume that some businesses do operate for the benefit of humankind and the earth. How do these businesses care for the environment? What are their policies on work hours? Wages? Health benefits? Child labor? The products they make? The way they market their products?
-- Can a business care for the environment and its employees and still make a profit?
-- How much of my identity is related to things I buy? Which of my purchases have made me happier? Am I happier today because of anything I bought last year?

My parish offers a two-year class in church history, and today we read an encyclical letter, "On the Development of Peoples," written by Pope Paul VI in 1967. Noting that justice "calls for great generosity, willing sacrifice and diligent effort," he made the discussion personal:

-- Are we "prepared to support, at [our] own expense, projects and undertakings designed to help the needy?
-- [Are we] prepared to pay higher taxes so that public authorities may expand their efforts in the work of development?
-- [Are we] prepared to pay more for imported goods, so that the foreign producer may make a fairer profit?"

After thinking about these questions for a while, read the New Testament letter of James. It sounds like it was written directly to us.

Donald Trump Says Miss California Can Keep the Crown

If you haven't had enough of Miss California yet, she's still reigning in the news today. Donald Trump, owner of the Miss USA pageant, says Carrie Prejean can keep her crown, even after more racy photos were released online this morning.

A gossip site has posted more pictures of Prejean, some of which are topless. Trump called many of the pictures "lovely."

"We have determined that the pictures taken are fine," he said. "Some were very beautiful, some were risque, but, again, we're in the 21st century. . . . In many cases they were actually lovely pictures."

Trump and Prejean reminded the press at a news conference today that both she and President Obama oppose same-sex marriage. Several conservative Christian groups have praised Carrie Prejean for saying during the pageant that she is against same-sex marriage.

But Ben Smith writes that at the press conference, Carrie Prejean put some distance between herself and the movement, saying she stood by her beliefs but didn't plan to make a career of them.

"I am not working for the National Organization for Marriage. I spent about an hour with them," she said. Politico posted a short video from the news conference:

In an ad for USA Today, Focus on the Family asks "What would you sacrifice for your beliefs?"

Prejean appeared yesterday on James Dobson's Focus on the Family program, and Dan Gilgoff offers a partial transcript of their interview on his blog.

Dobson: And you did one of the most courageous things I've seen anybody your age or anybody else do. What was going on in your mind?

Prejean: I started off by saying I want to win this pageant so bad, I've worked so hard, I wanted to sound politically correct but still stay true to my values. But I just knew at that moment that God was just telling me "Carrie, how bad do you want this? Are you willing to compromise your beliefs for a one year crown of Miss USA." And I just knew right there . . . And I said you know what and the switch went off. And I said, "A marriage should be between a man and a woman and that's how it should be. "

. . . . And I knew there was no way I was going to win Miss USA. No way.

Dobson: So you put it on the line, that's what I mean when I said you're courageous because this was the goal of your life to that point. And yet you gave it up. And yet the Lord is using you all over this country.

Prejean: And we are all faced with that at times. And just by me being here, I want to encourage other people that when you're faced with an issue which you know in your heart what to say, but you're faced with someone asking it, don't ever compromise that just for pleasing them. Your goal should be to please God, not to please man. . . .

Dobson: Why did you give the answer you did with regard to the affirmation of marriage?

Prejean: . . . I felt as though Satan was trying to tempt me in asking me this question. And then God was in my head and in my heart saying, "Do not compromise this. You need to stand up for me and you need to share with all these people . . . you need to witness to them and you need to show that you're not willing to compromise that for this title of Miss USA."

After Christian conservatives jumped to Prejean's defense, Warren Throckmorton wrote, "But unless religious conservatives have some kind of answer to our girls about how they can lionize a Miss USA contestant and stress modesty at the same time, I do not see the virtue in giving her the platform." Randy Thomas, the executive vice president of Exodus International, writes on his blog, "... I really don't get some of my fellow Christians trying to turn her into some sort of modern day Mother Teresa." (h/t David Sessions)

In case you forgot what kind of merit beauty pageants offer, take a look at this quote: "If her beauty wasn't so great, nobody really would have cared," Trump said. Can someone show Trump the video clip of Susan Boyle?

The Upside of Never-Empty Nests

Many white Americans commonly assume that once children and parents go their separate ways, they should keep those ways relatively separate. Good parenting is captured by mother robins that push their children toward independence by knocking them out of the nest. We encourage our children to move out and away and our parents to retire in the Sunbelt or in a community filled with other older folks. If they come back home, we interpret it as a sign that something has gone wrong.

Yet the autonomous, nuclear family is a rather new arrangement in the scope of history, and Africa, Latin America, the Mediterranean - as well as Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans in the U.S. - still practice extended family living, and are comfortable with extra adult family members coming and going. Recent trends in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom show more young-adult children moving back in with parents, and more parents moving in with adult children.

Our daughter Megan Anna and son-in-law Luke moved into our home this week for a yet-to-be determined time. They've just landed in Oregon after finishing a grad-school stint in the East, and are looking for employment and a life here. Right now they are choosing locale and family over career opportunity, which is a tad un-American for white folks, but I'm hearing college students of every hue singing the same tune.

Maybe this trend will make for a sluggish economy, but maybe it reflects some doubt that more, bigger, faster gives us a better life anyway. Maybe by the time our economy recovers, we will have discovered that choosing locale and people over career has benefits beyond giving us a place to land when the going gets tough.

I used to think of mother robins as providing a good parenting metaphor, but for the last decade have preferred to think of the nurturing images of parenting in Scripture, like the hen that gathers her chicks under her wings. I was once secretly critical of a friend who invited her adult son, wife, and grandson back home as enabling them. Now I see the richness and blessing in opportunities to nurture our extended families.

We're treasuring this time with our daughter and son-in-law. As a bonus, our home gets better used, and we have live-in bridge partners (a game that takes four motivated players - which characterizes us well). Luke and Megan Anna don't feel pressure to take a pizza delivery job to pay rent, and for this season we get to share each other's lives the way that Spaniards, Africans, and Latinos do.

Often hard times help us rediscover what we have lost. Extended family living may be one of those finds.

Julia Duin

Julia Duin, former religion editor of The Washington Times, is the author of five books, the latest of which is Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community, and holds a master's degree in religion from Trinity School for Ministry. She's learned seven foreign languages for all her international travels. Most risky but rewarding decision: adopting a 22-month-old from Kazakhstan at the age of 50.

The Hard Realities of International Adoption | Torry Hansen's story and the ensuing Russian adoption freeze might make some families reconsider. (April 27, 2010)

Gay Marriage Leads D.C. Archbishop to End Foster Care Program | Catholic Charities has given its caseload of 43 children, 35 foster families, and 7 staff members to a Maryland-based family-care agency so as not to disrupt client care. (February 22, 2010)

Women at Halftime: Where to Go Next? | For many women, turning 50 means the best is yet to come. (January 25, 2010)

Adoption: Single Christians Need Not Apply | When there are 132 million orphans in the world, should unmarrieds really be discouraged from reaching out to them? (September 16, 2009)

The Lutherans and Twister Theology | Julia's first-person account of the strange events at last week's ELCA convention. (August 25, 2009)

The Charismatic Alberto Cutie | Time will tell if the celebrity priest lives up to Church of the Resurrection's lively tradition. (August 4, 2009)

Julia Duin: The Anna Syndrome | When hanging out at church only hinders single women. (July 17, 2009)

Introducing Julia Duin | And her untold story of women who choose not to abort their handicapped infants. (May 27, 2009)

Never Been Kissed

It turns out that Susan Boyle has been kissed. But her earlier claim that she hadn't was met with disbelief. So, too, are pre-20th century European mores, when premarital kissing was forbidden. Can you think of a recent historical movie where the hero and heroine didn't kiss before their wedding? Is it even possible?

Well, yes. It's more than possible. Some people have never been kissed without ever having decided against kissing. Others, like the Virgin Lips Movement, which The Tennessean recently profiled, are saying that premarital kissing is a morality issue for Christians.

The article starts off with Katy Kruger's wedding day, where she kisses for the first time in front of 200 guests. "I wasn't sure what to do . . . I thought I would mess up," she told The Tennessean. It turned out just fine.

The University of Missouri's student newspaper also published an essay on the movement, which emphasized that the idea isn't that weird.

Al Mohler writes that not kissing before wedding is an admirable decision, given our culture:

In the space of little more than a single generation, we have seen the breaking down of virtually every social and cultural support for sexual abstinence. Arousal and intimacy come with the romantic longing that marks the deepening relationship between a man and a woman. Young couples no longer court on the porch swing with the girl's parents sitting inside and very close at hand. Now, most young couples face the temptation of romantic contexts in which intimacy - and this means sexual intimacy - is a likely outcome.

The Virgin Lips Movement represents a serious effort to push back against this expectation and to create boundaries that will protect virtue and honor marriage.

The Tennessean's article mentions the usual objections to purity pledges: if you haven't, you won't know whether you and your fiance? have chemistry; if you try and fail, you'll feel terrible; purity shouldn't be a goal the way earning a bachelor's degree should. Idealists are unlikely to base their decisions on arguments like that.

Instead, they are likely to respond to I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris. The Tennessean calls it "the Virgin Lips Movement bible."

None of the non-kissers mentioned seemed to require that others not kiss. They all presented it as a personal decision. And so it is. But it's also their concrete answer to "how far is too far?" when it comes to the sexual immorality the Bible forbids.

Would premarital kissing get a "no" from the apostles if they were writing today? Neither dating nor premarital kissing come up in the epistles - unless you count the five exhortations for Christians to greet each other with a kiss.

D. A. Carson also didn't address kissing in his talk, "That By All Means I Might Win Some" (his discussion focused on alcohol). But he did spend a while talking about what it means to consider the weaker believer. The point is, he said, that you not violate a new believer's conscience (although it doesn't correctly distinguish between right and wrong) or lead someone into acute temptation, not that you always submit to all possible restrictions. In fact, legalism itself can fit under the category of acute temptations.

What do you think? Is premarital kissing wrong? Or is condemning it the result of a misfiring conscience? Is Virgin Lips praiseworthy purity? Or is it just making up new rules?

The Matriarchal Blessing

With Mother's Day just around the corner, I've been thinking about the matriarchal blessing - the moment when an old woman, staring death in the eye, communicates to a younger female relative or friend that life is good and love is eternal.

As far as I know, the only mention in the Bible of an older woman blessing a younger woman is when Elizabeth says to her young, unwed, pregnant relative Mary: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb" (Luke 1:42). Elizabeth probably wasn't the matriarch of her family, and she wasn't about to die, but her Spirit-inspired words were still similar to a matriarchal blessing. She welcomed the new life growing in Mary, and her loving hospitality surely must have given courage to the baffled young mother-to-be.

The more typical matriarchal blessing, however, is a deathbed event: think of Isaac blessing Esau and, inadvertently, Jacob; or Jacob blessing his own sons and grandsons.

"The last time I saw my mother alive was very, very special," my friend Kathleen told me. Her mother, who was 90 years old, had been declining from Alzheimer's disease for several years. "She was trying to talk about something but couldn't make words that were comprehensible, so she just decided to go to sleep. She must have napped for about a half hour. I stayed with her and held her hand. Her skin was so transparent that I wondered if she would die right then. But no. She woke up and squeezed my hand, and we had a chance to tell each other how much we loved each other. It was one of the best times I ever had with my mother."

Kathleen and her mother exchanged very few words that day, but the message of love and continuity was clear. And sometimes the blessing is given with no words at all.

A week or so before my wedding date, my 91-year-old grandmother was taken to the hospital. She was not in pain, but she seemed to be in a coma. The doctors said she was dying. "Should I postpone the wedding?" I asked my parents. "No," they said, "she would want you to go ahead."

A few days before the wedding, I visited Grandma in the hospital. I took her hand, wondering if she sensed I was there. I spoke, wondering if she could hear. "Grandma," I said, "I'm going to get married on Sunday." She opened her eyes, pushed herself up on her elbows, and gave me a great big smile. I knew without a doubt that she had just given me her blessing.

My grandmother died about three weeks later, in April. Almost exactly 27 years after her death, my first grandchild was born. When Katie was five weeks old, she met my 85-year-old mother, her great-grandmother, for the first and only time. Mother had been suffering for six years with dementia. For more than a year, following a series of small strokes, she had been unable to speak. I visited her at the nursing home nearly every day, but it was impossible to know if anyone was at home behind her sad, blank eyes.

On Mother's Day, four of us gathered in her room to honor her: me, my two daughters, and Katie. Mother was sitting in her recliner, and Molly carefully laid Katie on her lap, arranging Mother's arms around the baby since Mother was unable to arrange them herself. Molly stepped back to look at the exhausted old woman cradling the healthy new baby - and suddenly, Mother bent her head down and planted a kiss on baby Katie's forehead.

That was a matriarchal blessing beyond all hoping.

Mother died quietly the following month. Katie is now a teenager. Life is good, and love is eternal.

Women Benefit from Health-Care Overhaul

In an attempt to stave off a major federal overhaul of the $2.5 trillion health-care industry, health-insurance companies agreed yesterday to stop insuring women at higher premium rates than they do men.

Karen Ignagni, president of the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that she doesn't think gender should factor into rates for individual policies. Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) likewise introduced a bill that would prevent insurance companies from considering sex in setting policy premiums.

"The disparity between women and men in the individual insurance market is just plain wrong, and it has to change," said Sen. Kerry. His proposed bill also bars insurers from denying or limiting coverage based on a woman's "pregnancy status or delivery method." "With Mother's Day around the corner," he said, "there's no better gift to American women than discrimination-free, affordable and accessible insurance that meets their health needs."

Two-thirds of women in the U.S. ages 18 to 64 are medically insured through their employers, and so are already protected by federal and state laws that bar employer plans from setting premium rates based on gender, race, or poor health. It's the 5.7 million women, often self-employed, who buy insurance in the individual market that are most vulnerable for being charged at rates higher than men for similar policies.

According to an April story from NPR's Sarah Varney, a major reason for the disparity between men's and women's insurance rates is that women old and young alike are more likely than men to make regular doctors' visits. Another, more obvious factor is the incredible cost of childbirth, which the American Pregnancy Association currently puts between $6,000 and $8,000. (It goes up for high-risk pregnancies.) More sobering, the APA estimates that 13 percent of women who become pregnant each year are part of the 41 million Americans who are uninsured.

Perhaps unfairly, the high cost of childbirth affects young and middle-aged women who do not end up having children. Varney reports that in California, for example, even when maternity costs are factored out, women pay nearly 40 percent more than men for comparable individual policies.

What do you think? Is it discrimination by default for insurance companies to charge women at higher rates than they do men? Or do you think it only makes sense from a business standpoint for insurance companies to factor in the chance of pregnancy?

Glow-in-the-Dark Bark

My two-year-old has a pair of pajamas that glow in the dark. He loves them, and asks to wear them almost every night. And I say yes - as long as they're clean. But what do I say when he asks me for a glow-in-the-dark puppy?

Scientists at Seoul National University in South Korea recently announced the successful cloning of the world's first transgenic dog. "Transgenic," meaning that the dog, dubbed Ruppy (a combination of "ruby" and "puppy"), carries a gene from another species - in this case a red-fluorescing protein taken from a sea anemone. Headed by Byeong-Chun Lee, who made headlines in 2005 with Snuppy, the world's first cloned dog, the team of scientists injected cloned canine cells with the fluorescent gene in order to create Ruppy and four other glowing beagles. Ruppy doesn't actually glow in the dark, but she does fluoresce an eerie-looking red under UV light (see right).

I've seen fluorescing anemones at aquariums, waving in the water, their delicate fronds emitting a soft light alongside plaques explaining the gene they carry that makes them glow. And I can't help thinking about these creatures - hidden in the ocean for ages before being discovered by humans - glowing for perhaps no reason other than the glory of their Creator.

Now we have not only seen the fluorescing sea anemone, we have isolated what makes it glow, harvested the gene, and successfully implanted it into a mammal. We've made ourselves a glowing dog, though I doubt my son will be getting his glow-in-the-dark puppy any time soon - only 1.7 percent of the cloned embryos from which Ruppy hails developed to full term.

Besides, Ruppy wasn't engineered for the commercial market anyway. The implications of transgenics extend not only to medicine but to industry and agriculture as well. Although two other species of transgenic mammals have previously been created - mice and rabbits - transgenic dogs could be of particular use to researchers. Dogs, especially lab beagles, react to certain drugs in ways very similar to humans, and thus can be used to predict human responses in clinical drug trials.

I can't help wondering, though, as we push the boundaries of current scientific limitations, how far we will - or should - go. Ruppy is a far cry from the genetically engineered humans of futuristic movies like Gattaca; at the same time, I wonder if Ruppy represents a step toward that. We're not close enough for me to fear the day when parents will choose their children's hair or eye color, but as we inch ever closer, I worry about the degree to which we meddle in things we still don't fully understand.

A fluorescing puppy is interesting, and I appreciate the potential for future scientific discoveries that will benefit people. But I also fear the potential ramifications of genetic engineering, as it moves from less of a sci-fi fantasy into a reality.

How about you?

Nutrition for Nascent Human Life

This is going to sound odd, but I have fond memories of receiving WIC benefits as a young mother. For about two years, I gratefully took advantage of both Medicaid and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Perhaps because I was working in a health food store at the time, I liked the idea that WIC only covered nutritious foods like milk, peanut butter, and the soy formula my highly allergic toddler needed for his Cheerios. It also didn't carry with it the stigma of the Medicaid card. Unlike some medical professionals, grocery store cashiers didn't seem to begrudge my benefits.

In its annual report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reveals that it spent $60.7 billion on food assistance programs in 2008, an 11 percent increase from 2007 and the eighth consecutive record-breaking increase. WIC was the fastest growing program of the year, even though it only accounted for a tenth of the outlay.

WIC ensures basic nutrition for nascent human life. It's a program pro-lifers can heartily support. I would even say we have a moral obligation to support it. With an appallingly high infant mortality rate, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention links to maternal poverty, the United States is shamefully derelict in the health of its youngest members.

In a recent Atlantic post, Marion Nestle, professor of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University, wondered "what it means that half of U.S. infants are born into families so poor that they are eligible for WIC benefits." I can't answer that question because I wasn't poor, I was just eligible. I worked, lived with my parents, and later repaid my debt many times over through taxes and a public school mentorship to teen mothers. Three vital elements were at work in overcoming my situation. First was the support of my middle class family. Second was my own sense of responsibility for my circumstances. Third was government assistance. (Marriage eliminated this element.) Thus, I'm in no position to begrudge people their benefits.

Nonetheless, I've been struggling with one of the Capitol Hill Day action items I received at the Mobilization to End Poverty event sponsored by Sojourners and World Vision last week.

Attendees were asked to elicit support from their representatives for Congressional Resolution 102 - the goal of which is to cut poverty in half by 2020. It's a lofty, laudable goal, but the resolution defines poverty broadly to include systemic causes like "lack of opportunity" and "inequitable distribution of housing choices." Additionally, it opens by stating that the United States has "a moral responsibility to meet the needs of those persons, groups, and communities that are impoverished, disadvantaged, or otherwise in poverty," but it doesn't tell me who the United States is or to what extent we the people are responsible for each other.

Providing basic nutrition is one thing. Reforming health care is another. Ensuring opportunity and equitable distribution of housing smacks of social engineering, the likes of which give this Obama voter the willies.

An average 28.4 million of us received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits each month in 2008. That's nearly 10 percent of the population. Only 8.7 million women and children received WIC benefits. If CR 102 defined these United States beyond the federal government to include individuals, families, and culture-shapers, and if its goals were tangible, like cutting infant mortality in half and ensuring that every woman and child who needs WIC receives it, I might be interested in lobbying my representative. What I can't do is support a vague resolution that simultaneously makes all of us and none of us responsible for who knows what.

Miss CA Becomes Ad Spokeswoman for Traditional Marriage

Carrie Prejean, praised by conservative Christian groups for her statement on same-sex marriage in the Miss USA beauty pageant, is appearing in a TV ad for the National Organization for Marriage, a Philadelphia nonprofit led by Maggie Gallagher and Princeton University professor Robert George.

Prejean went on the Today show Thursday to defend her decision. "You know what, Matt, I never thought in a million years that this would be happening right now. I was attacked for giving my own opinion on stage at a Miss USA contest. I'm gonna do whatever it takes, Matt, to protect marriage. It's something that's very dear to my heart."

The Senates in both New Hampshire and Maine passed bills this week that would legalize same-sex marriage if the respective House of Representatives approves them. The New England states would become the fifth and sixth in the country to legalize gay marriage.

Meanwhile, two Miss USA pageant directors told celebrity gossip show Access Hollywood Wednesday that Prejean received breast implants - paid for by the Miss California Organization - six weeks before the Miss USA contest. Shanna Moekler, co-director of the organization, said, "Breast implants in pageants is not a rarity. It's definitely not taboo. It's very common. Breast implants today among young women today is very common."

"Let's not be naive," Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky urges. "Shanna's probably right in that boob jobs aren't exactly taboo in pageant-land. I don't know what's considered real or fake in the pageant subculture, where women hairspray their legs and wipe Vaseline on their teeth to look extra shiny. But a pageant organization paying for an already gorgeous 21-year-old to get breast implants shows where its real priorities lie."

(I rest my case on the real Miss USA scandal.)