Ezerwoman's Blog

For Teenage Girls

September 5, 2013 by ezerwoman

The following post was forwarded to me. Thank you, Terri! This is wisdom from another “ezerwoman.” This is true Titus 2 mentoring 🙂 Mrs. Hall, the mother of sons, expresses it so well that there’s no need for me — the mother of grown and married sons with sons of their own — to write something similar. Young women wherever you are and whatever you’ve been taught by this culture: Please read this! As for the moms of daughters (and sons), please visit Kimberly Hall’s blog “Given Breath.”

Dear girls,

I have some information that might interest you. Last night, as we sometimes do, our family sat around the dining-room table and looked through your social media photos.

We have teenage sons, and so naturally there are quite a few pictures of you lovely ladies to wade through. Wow – you sure took a bunch of selfies in your pajamas this summer! Your bedrooms are so cute! Our eight-year-old daughter brought this to our attention, because with three older brothers who have rooms that smell like stinky cheese, she notices girly details like that.

I think the boys notice other things. For one, it appears that you are not wearing a bra.

I get it – you’re in your room, so you’re heading to bed, right? But then I can’t help but notice the red carpet pose, the extra-arched back, and the sultry pout. What’s up? None of these positions is one I naturally assume before sleep, this I know.

So, here’s the bit that I think is important for you to realize. If you are friends with a Hall boy on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, then you are friends with the whole Hall family.

Please understand this, also: we genuinely like keeping up with you. We enjoy seeing life through your unique and colorful lens – which is what makes your latest self-portrait so extremely unfortunate.

Those posts don’t reflect who you are! We think you are lovely and interesting, and usually very smart. But, we had to cringe and wonder what you were trying to do? Who are you trying to reach? What are you trying to say?

And now – big bummer – we have to block your posts. Because, the reason we have these (sometimes awkward) family conversations around the table is that we care about our sons, just as we know your parents care about you.

I know your family would not be thrilled at the thought of my teenage boys seeing you only in your towel. Did you know that once a male sees you in a state of undress, he can’t ever un-see it? You don’t want the Hall boys to only think of you in this sexual way, do you?

Neither do we.

And so, in our house, there are no second chances, ladies. If you want to stay friendly with the Hall men, you’ll have to keep your clothes on, and your posts decent. If you try to post a sexy selfie, or an inappropriate YouTube video – even once – you’ll be booted off our on-line island.

I know that sounds harsh and old-school, but that’s just the way it is under this roof for a while. We hope to raise men with a strong moral compass, and men of integrity don’t linger over pictures of scantily clad high-school girls.

Every day I pray for the women my boys will love. I hope they will be drawn to real beauties, the kind of women who will leave them better people in the end. I also pray that my sons will be worthy of this kind of woman, that they will be patient – and act honorably – while they wait for her.

Girls, it’s not too late! If you think you’ve made an on-line mistake (we all do – don’t fret – I’ve made some doozies), RUN to your accounts and take down anything that makes it easy for your male friends to imagine you naked in your bedroom.

Will you trust me? There are boys out there waiting and hoping for women of character. Some young men are fighting the daily uphill battle to keep their minds pure, and their thoughts praiseworthy.

You are growing into a real beauty, inside and out.

Act like her, speak like her, post like her.

I’m glad we’re friends.

Mrs. Hall

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Life issues, Parenting & Education | Tagged "all about me, boys, dads, daughters, girls, Given Breath, internet, Kimberly Hall, moms, narcissism, parents, self-control, self-focus, sensual, sexuality, sexy, sons, texting, tweets | 6 Comments »

The Church Has Failed the Culture

August 8, 2013 by ezerwoman

In my vocation of helper, I sometimes have to do difficult things. It’s not easy for me as a Christian to point out that the Church has failed the culture, but it has. Keith Getty’s song “In Christ Alone” and Rachel Held Evans’ blog on why the millennials are leaving the church were already added to my Facebook page. John Stonestreet’s commentary reminds us that Jesus — as He defines Himself and what He has done for us — is all that matters. Thank you, sir! As for the rest of you, tell me. Do you agree with John who writes:

Recently, the Presbyterian Church (USA) dropped the hugely popular hymn, “In Christ Alone,” from its hymnal after its authors, Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, refused to omit a reference to Jesus satisfying the wrath of God.

In a powerful response over at First Things, which we’ll link to at BreakPoint.org, Colson Center chairman Timothy George quotes Richard Niebuhr who, back in the 1930s, described this kind of revisionist Protestantism as a religion in which “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

The response from the PCUSA, that their problem was not with God’s wrath but with the idea that Christ’s death satisfied God’s wrath, doesn’t change the fundamental problem of what George calls “squishy” theology. Theology is supposed to be true, not palatable.

Along these lines, maybe you’ve seen the recent viral opinion piece on CNN by my friend, Christian blogger and author Rachel Held Evans. In it, Evans offers her answers to the truly important question, “why are millennials leaving the Church?”

To counter the exodus of young people from American churches, Evans says it’s time to own up to our shortcomings and give millennials what they really want—not a change in style but a change in substance. The answer to attracting millennials, she writes, is NOT “hipper worship bands” or handing out “lattés,” but actually helping them find Jesus.

Amen. I couldn’t agree more.

Then she goes on, “[the Church is] too political, old-fashioned, unconcerned with social justice and hostile to [LGBT] people.” Well, okay—anytime political programs co-opt our faith, or we ignore the needy and fail to love those with whom we disagree, we do the Gospel of Christ great harm.

But when she writes that attracting millennials to Jesus involves “an end to the culture wars,” “a truce between science and faith,” being less “exclusive” with less emphasis on sex, without “predetermined answers” to life’s questions, now I want to ask–are we still talking about the Jesus of biblical Christianity?

The attempt to re-make Jesus to be more palatable to modern scientific and especially sexual sensibilities has been tried before. In fact, it’s the reason Niebuhr said that brilliant line that I quoted earlier.

He watched as the redefining “Jesus Project” gave us mainline Protestantism, which promotes virtually everything on Evans’ list for millennials. The acceptance of homosexuality, a passion for the environment, prioritizing so-called “social justice” over transformational truth are all embodied in denominations like the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church (USA).

But religious millennials aren’t flocking to mainline Protestant congregations. Mainline churches as a whole have suffered withering declines in the last few decades—especially among the young. What gives?

Well, in an another essay which appeared in First Things over twenty years ago, a trio of Christian researchers offered their theory on what’s behind the long, slow hemorrhage of mainline Protestant churches:

“In our study,” they wrote, “the single best predictor of church participation turned out to be belief—orthodox Christian belief, and especially the teaching that a person can be saved only through Jesus Christ.” This, said the researchers, was not (and I add, is still not) a teaching of mainline Protestantism. As a dwindling denomination rejects a hymn which proclaims salvation “in Christ alone,” this research sounds prophetic.

Evans is right that evangelical Christianity is responsible in many ways for the exodus of millennials. But ditching the Church’s unpalatable “old-fashioned” beliefs to become more “relevant” to the young won’t bring them back.

Posted in Commentaries of others, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education | Tagged " homosexuality, Biblical worldview, Christianity, church, environment, hymns, Jesus Christ, judgment, millennials, religion, sexuality, sin, social justice, the Cross, worship | Leave a Comment »

Sexuality, the Church and Culture

August 6, 2013 by ezerwoman

Many people attempt to speak for God. But it is a dangerous thing to play fast and loose with God’s Word. Bill O’Reilly, who consistently reminds his listeners that he attended Catholic school, is one example. He recently told his guest, a priest, that the whole homosexual thing doesn’t trouble him. Really? And, I wonder, why might that be?

Two thoughts come to mind. O’Reilly is a deceived creature who has raised himself above the Creator. He dangerously follows the example of Eve who, after putting herself in God’s place, spoke for Him. When Satan asked, “Did God really say . . . ?” Eve responded, adding words that God never spoke (compare Genesis 3:2-3 with 2:16-17). Does O’Reilly doubt that Jesus Christ is The Word (John 1:1-5, 14)? Jesus, who is God, calls homosexuality a sin in both the Old and New Testaments.

Second, it’s quite possible that O’Reilly has no difficulty with two men or two women living a gay or lesbian lifestyle because of another deception. It is much easier to accept homosexuality as just a personal form of sexual expression when we are deceived by false identity. That false identity is sexuality.

Identifying humans as primarily sexual beings is what motivates women to aggressively support “reproductive rights” and an American president who blesses Planned Parenthood. But with little or no fear of God, men and women worship the created rather than the Creator.

Once we have been deceived to see ourselves as “sexual from birth,” our thinking, speech, clothing and behavior soon reflect the lie. When we celebrate our sexuality — rather than the God who made us — we are more easily captive to the flesh. We may, indeed, proclaim: This is who God made me to be!

Homosexuality is accepted when we believe the lie: “my body, my choice.” At the core of all issues of life — abortion, marriage, homosexuality and euthanasia – is identity. We will most certainly have an identity problem when we deny or doubt the Word of God.

God identifies us not as sexual beings, but as holy beings. God is holy. He calls us to be holy. Holiness means seeking after the things of God, not the things of the flesh. It means denying self and, instead, being a vessel for noble purpose. This goes against the grain of the world’s thinking. “Express yourself,” we’re told. “Satisfy your natural desires.” And, in this present culture, what could be more natural than expression of our sexuality which appears to be the sum total of who we are.

O’Reilly (and the rest of us who call upon the name of Christ) should take care. It is a dangerous thing to play fast and loose with things of God. Our identity – and with it, our behavior – is defined by God.

To everyone who is called by God’s name, who has been created for His glory, He says, “. . . I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1, 7).

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Citizenship, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, Vocation | Tagged " homosexuality, abortion, Bill O'Reilly, creation, creator, creature, deception, euthanasia, false identity, gay, God's Word, holy, lesbian, lifestyle, Scripture, sin | Leave a Comment »

Marriage Is the Most Important Social Act

August 6, 2013 by ezerwoman

Defenders of marriage at the Family Research Council recently posted a blog entitled “Why Marriage Should Be Privileged in Public Policy.” What follows is a brief excerpt.

Marriage is the most important social act, one that involves much more than just the married couple. To begin with, extended families are merged and renewed through a wedding. It is also through marriage that the community and the nation are renewed. A new home is formed when a couple marries, one open to the creation of new life. These children are the future. Marriage also has beneficial social and health effects for both adults and children, and these gifts benefit the community and the whole society. Conversely, it is through the breakdown of marriage that society is gravely harmed. The future of the nation depends on the creation of good marriages and good homes for children.

Among marriage’s many benefits to society is an increased respect for and protection of human life, since married women are less likely to abort their children than are unmarried women. Married-parent families contribute to safer and better communities with less substance abuse and crime among young people, as well as less poverty and welfare dependency. Also, married parents help prevent young people from engaging in premarital sex and having out-of-wedlock births; they are also likely to produce young adults who view marriage positively and maintain life-long marriages. Marriage brings many health and economic benefits to society and helps citizens to be more involved in communities.

Because marriage serves a public purpose–namely, procreation and the benefit of children and society–government can legitimately privilege marriage and seek to strengthen it in its policies. Other relationships such as cohabitation and homosexuality do not benefit children and society, and, therefore, should not be supported by government. There is no evidence showing that these relationships have the same positive effects as marriage. In fact, there is considerable evidence that they have detrimental effects on both children and adults.

Please read the entire post on FRC’s blog. There are a great many reasons for the government to guard marriage. All of them have to do with the health, welfare and defense of our nation and civilization as a whole.

(Thanks, Bob, for being part of the FRC team!)

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships | Tagged " homosexuality, children, cohabitation, community, culture, economy, family, Family Research Council, good citizens, health, parents, poverty, premarital sex, relationships, sanctity of human life, society, welfare | Leave a Comment »

Did You Hear? Pastors Stood for Marriage and Won!

July 18, 2013 by ezerwoman

Redefining marriage to be whatever we want it to be is an idea whose time has come. Those who insist otherwise are a remnant from some unenlightened age. Or so the media appears to believe. Perhaps that’s why there was little if any coverage of a surprising victory in the state of Illinois.

Earlier this summer, the Illinois legislature took up the issue of same-sex “marriage.” A vote in favor of gay “marriage” seemed inevitable considering that Illinois is President Obama’s home state. He and both the governor and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel endorse the practice. But a remnant from the unenlightened age was busy at work. The state’s African-American pastors were working hard to reach and convict African-American legislators. They were asking them to stand tall for the truth of marriage.

The pastors wanted the legislators to acknowledge marriage as the “institution created by God to bring men and women together for the benefit of children that can only be created through the union of men and women.”

The media informed me that this vote was taking place but then fell strangely silent. I would never have known the outcome even if I would have channel-surfed or picked up the local paper. I guess the media just couldn’t bring itself to report the stunning victory…

… of the African-American pastors. Their faithful truth-telling made a difference. Illinois did not succumb to the “inevitable.” Illinois legislators defeated proponents of same-sex marriage in a hard-left-leaning state.

I believe that significant victories in cultural debates are happening more often than we know in families and neighborhoods across the country. It’s just that the media, with a religious bent of its own, can’t seem to tolerate people who don’t share their convictions. So, rather than report the news, the media seems more intent on shaping minds.

The mantra of the media beats away, but it does not silence the unchanging Word of God. Truth is. Trusting the Truth, the African-American pastors in Illinois refused to be intimidated and went to work. Their voices and actions mattered. It matters that all of God’s people “stand tall for the truth of marriage… ” and the order of God’s creation.

But it’s too easy for the believer to fear. To doubt. To grieve the loss of morality and see only dark days ahead. We are tempted to disengage and succumb to the “inevitable.” Have we forgotten that the Word came to live among us? The Word cannot be overcome. Using that Word, the pastors in Illinois exposed the darkness and held it at bay. If they can do it, so can we.

While we have opportunity, we are compelled to speak what God has given us to say, warn neighbors away from sin, and offer forgiveness and hope to the repentant.

Come to think of it, this is how a remnant of people have pushed back against evil for a long, long time.

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education | Tagged African-American, African-American pastors, Biblical marriage, children, enlightenment, gay marriage, Illinois, Jesus Christ, media, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, same-sex marriage, the church, truth | Leave a Comment »

Young Women Speak Up

July 2, 2013 by ezerwoman

Another Titus 2 for Life Retreat has concluded. I am tired, but encouraged. In a culture such as ours, the need for mentoring grows daily. This was affirmed most especially this past weekend by the younger women who attended. Perhaps it will be helpful to share a few quotes from their evaluations.

I wasn’t sure what to expect . . . considering the topics, I thought it might all be too judgmental . . . but it was not. You see, I spent my childhood and good part of my young adult life wishing I was a boy because no one had ever pointed out the joy and biblical blessing of being a woman.

I will be getting married soon and this was a great springboard and encouragement for helping me understand my role in our new family.

It’s o.k. to be a woman! This retreat really laid to rest a lot of the horrible post-modern and feminist myths that were always a part of my life but were causing such pain and discontent. Thank you for being such a real person and addressing the foolish women in all of us with forgiveness.

As I approach motherhood, I wanted to attend this retreat again . . . I love how you share with us God’s purpose and esteem for women and womanly traits . . . there is no indignity in God’s design of the woman as ‘helper’ . . . it helps to remember that Christ was submissive and that the Holy Spirit is a helper.

Many of my friends are unhappy, kind of restless and certainly discontent. They hear so many voices of the world which seem in conflict with their own heart. This retreat was like ten years of godly mentoring in just a few hours!

I was afraid this retreat might be hours of anti-abortion rhetoric. Instead, it affirmed my value to God, reminded me that my Christian upbringing is not a lie, and why my faith makes me so weird to the world . . . I am still trying to wrap my head around the fact that God made women not to compete with men but complete them. I’m very competitive . . . high school girls need to know about biblical womanhood.

The discussion on sex education and our mistaken identity was so important . . . I have had abstinence education for years but, no different from the culture, it was a constant focus on sex.

And what do I say to these young women?

Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:12).

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Culture Shifts, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy?, Vocation | Tagged abstinence education, choice, created order, deception, discontent, faith, feminism, feminist myths, foolish women, Jesus Christ, judgmental, mentoring, model for mentoring, motherhood, postmodern myths, submission | Leave a Comment »

Want to Make a Difference? View Children the Way God Does

June 22, 2013 by ezerwoman

I will never forget the mom and professional church worker who told me she hoped her sons and daughters would practice safe sex. We were serving together on a life task force and, during lunch break, she confided, “I raised them to be chaste . . . I want them to wait for marriage. But, once they started college, I encouraged them to use protection because, after all, they’re sexual, too, and I’m scared to death they’re going to be like everyone else.”

I remember the grandma who toured our local pregnancy center. She thought the best thing parents could do for their daughters was to get them on The Pill so they wouldn’t need a pregnancy test.

Then there was the single father who raised his daughter to believe in Jesus, but made sure she had the Gardasil shot and was using birth control. “I know what I was like at her age and I know she’s just going to sleep around so I have to look out for her.”

And there was the pastor who told me that he’s taken some girls from his congregation for abortions because “their parents wouldn’t be supportive of an unplanned pregnancy.” These girls are “just going to do it,” he explained. “They can’t help it . . . so I need to be there for them.”

Can’t help it? What does this say about the way adults view children?

Children are sinful human beings born into a love-to-sin-world. Do we say, “My child is a sinner. It’s just who he is, so I’m going to help him lie, cheat, and steal with the least amount of damage.” Is this how God sees children? Is this how He helps them?

When we don’t see children the way God does, then our mentoring role in their lives is compromised.

Yes, children are sinful… just like their parents and grandparents. But baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God sees us as His adopted sons and daughters in Christ. Jesus won for God’s children the privilege of becoming heirs of the heavenly kingdom. This not only bestows value but defines purpose.

Identity matters! Our sons and daughters are not “sexual from birth” as Planned Parenthood sees them. They are not captive to instincts and desires. They are persons created more in the image of God than the image of wolves and rabbits. To see children as God does is to realize they are more than flesh and blood but spirit and, because they are spirit, every choice they make will take them either closer to — or farther from — God.

It is the children who suffer when we fail to see them as God does. Expectations for their purpose and behavior are lowered. Their future appears grim.

Identity matters. And, because it does, my grandchildren need me to remind them of what happened at the baptismal font. Their baptism “is an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to Him” (1 Peter 3:21-22). I can literally tell my grandchildren that their Lord and Savior rules! This means that someday, when they are teenagers, they won’t have to be subject to raging hormones or made foolish by lack of judgment. In remembering who they are, they will know the source of their wisdom and strength. This will affect their choices and behavior. But that’s not all.

When boys and girls see themselves the way God does, the way they view each other will improve. Relationships will take on new meaning. Think about it. If boys see themselves in light of their baptism as sons of God and girls see themselves as daughters of God, then all baptized people become brothers and sisters in Christ.

Can you imagine? I mean, really! Can you imagine the impact this would have on high school and college campuses… at the beach… in the workplace… around the neighborhood… and for society as a whole?

I can. And it renews my hope.

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Identity, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Relationships, Sexy or holy? | Tagged baptism, behavior, campus life, choices, education, expectations, grandparents, Jesus Christ, life's purpose, mentoring, parents, school, sexuality, sin, spiritual, teenagers, wisdom | 2 Comments »

Government Fails Daughters But Shame On Us All

June 20, 2013 by ezerwoman

This government has failed to defend our daughters and granddaughters.

With its blessing of Planned Parenthood, this administration embraced a profiteering assembly line dangerous to women and fatal for children. Now, the administration has decided not to fight a judge’s ruling to allow girls of any age to get the morning-after-pill over the counter – with or without parental permission. Shame on this administration.

In fact, shame on us all – parents, grandparents and the Church – for approving pills, shots, and devices for our girls instead of providing boundaries, long-term mentoring, and truth about their bodies, minds, and souls.

The young women in my life are worth defending. Because I respect them as persons, I lovingly tell them the truth. It is for this reason that I vow to continue mentoring privately in my home, one on one, and publicly through Titus 2 Retreats. I begin with an apology for the women of my generation who were deceived during a silly season of feminist fantasies. Today, those fantasies are the social norm for our daughters and granddaughters. The mantra hasn’t skipped a beat: Men and women are just the same. But, no matter how a feminist might want to manage, minimize or manipulate the female body, she cannot fool the Master Designer.

Our daughters are not the same as our sons. Girls are influenced by oxytocin. This hormone produces a warm, cuddly feeling with the touch or kiss of a boy. Oxytocin is great for married women who want to bond with their husbands, but not so great for 16-year-olds. Girls are not ready for sexual intimacy. Their pre-frontal cortex, the thinking and decision-making part of their brain, is not fully developed and ready for dependable use until the late teens or early twenties. Girls have a sensitive ecosystem. The cervix plays a vital role in female sexual health, but can actually increase a girl’s vulnerability to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) because it, too, is undeveloped. A mature cervix can better guard against infection with its layers of 20-30 cells, but an immature cervix has only one layer of cells. Might this be the reason why girls under the age of twenty are hit hardest by the STD epidemic, most especially HPV and Chalmydia? (HPV can cause cervical cancer. Chalmydia can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and infertility.) A girl’s cervix is easily penetrable and becomes a nesting place for nasty bugs whose single purpose is to multiply.

So, when our government and the laws of this land disregard the science of our daughters’ anatomy to instead guarantee them access to the morning-after-pill, how must parents with the support of the Church respond? We should confess our own failures and then press boldly forward to defend those entrusted to our care.

It is to moms and dads that God entrusts children. God does not leave parents ill-equipped but gives them everything they need in His Word. The Church is to support parents in their courageous endeavor. Shamefully, it is parents who have handed over their mentoring responsibility to government schools. Every day, in public schools across the country, the government educates our children in sex. Shamefully, parochial schools assist busy or overwhelmed parents by wrapping Jesus around government-produced sex-ed material. But whether in a public or parochial classroom, talking a great deal about sex and encouraging a child’s celebration of sexuality has sure and certain consequences for vulnerable bodies and minds lacking maturity of judgment.

The government, confident in its role of educator, also sees itself as problem-solver. Shamefully, fearful parents entrust their daughters to government-funded industries such as Planned Parenthood and chemical companies who produce the before-sex-pill, the after-sex-pill, the just-in-case-shot, and the use-it-and-be-safe-device.

God did not give to government the role of parenting. Government has no personal, vested interest in helping girls be patient for love while their bodies mature and their brains kick in gear. Government was instituted by God to guard life and the pursuit of right things, make safe the highways and byways, and stand against enemies of the state. An amoral government has more interest in perpetuating itself rather than the people it was instituted to serve.

The government and courts of law have a voice. They can mandate a policy or a procedure. But they have no hands to pick up the pieces, no arms to hold the sick and dying, no way to nurture relationships, no heart and soul to comfort the brokenhearted and hopeless.

Parents and grandparents have a voice, too. With informed voice, we must dare to speak truth even at risk of being labeled intolerant or judgmental. And, while we speak, we can do what no government can do. We can use our hands to lead away from danger, our arms to embrace the confused and fearful, our homes as safe places to mentor and nurture relationships, our hearts to love unconditionally, and our souls to bring hope in the midst of hopelessness.

Note: I highly recommend Unprotected and You’re Teaching My Child What?
by Miriam Grossman, M.D.

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Faith & Practice, Life issues, Parenting & Education, Sexy or holy? | Leave a Comment »

Scouting Too Close to the Cliff (Part 2)

June 13, 2013 by ezerwoman

A Boy Scout learns how to survive in the wilderness. Trained correctly, he can sense danger and steer himself and others clear. But when faulty ideologies reconfigure the training ground, a young man’s moral sense is compromised.

Adults who should know better can boast, “Look at what we’ve done! We broke new trail for young men!” But this trail most definitely leads off the edge of a cliff.

Why would anyone want to tamper with moral behavior and remove boundaries put in place for the human good? Jesus said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42).

There is little that influences society more than mentoring a boy to be a man. Dennis Prager writes,

Wise cultures have learned that happiness is attained only when we conquer our nature . . . Historically, societies and parents have always known it’s a good thing to teach boys to control aspects of their male nature – their sexual desires and their predilection for violence. Decent men were taught from youth to touch a woman sexually only with her permission and to channel physical aggression into sports or into helping fight evil by joining the police force or military. Men who didn’t learn to control these aspects of male nature not only became bad men, but unhappy men.” (“Wanted by women: A few good old-fashioned men,” The Washington Times 6/30/08)

When a scout questions his male nature, how will his troop leader respond? Will he help the young man practice self-control? Will he remind the scout of his pledge to “do my duty to God . . .”? And, if so, what god will he be pledging to? Here he faces the most dangerous cliff of all.

Defined as a “sexual being,” a boy may be tempted to give himself freedoms that God does not; to trust his own reason and desires; to, in fact, worship and serve self rather than God (Romans 1:24-25). In time, sexual identity can influence everything… even the way a boy sees God. When society redefines morality, identity and even the character of a Boy Scout, then it redefines God. It will not just be young men who are in danger. It will be all the others who fall into idolatry with them.

I’d like to believe that many young men, in doing their “duty to God,” have been encouraged to see themselves as God does. God does not call a boy “gay” or “straight.” He calls him “holy.” Even in the midst of conflicting desires, God equips a boy to rise above self to Him and through Him resist dangerous attitudes and behaviors. God says, you “will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work” (2 Tim. 2:21). Identified this way, a young man can blaze a trail for himself and others away from danger.

What god does a boy pledge to — the Creator who made woman a “good fit” for man in the faithfulness of marriage, or the god who declares sexuality not a moral issue but a civil rights issue? It matters. It matters a lot because a god in our own image is no god at all. Such a god cannot help any boy navigate the wilderness of life.

Foolishness is tampering with marriage. Now it threatens another institution. God did not establish the Boy Scouts, to be sure, but He did establish the boundaries of morality and character. He does not give us license to do as we please. He does not make square pegs to fit in round holes. He does not delight in a boy’s frustration and misery. But He does offer wisdom and strength to change… or practice self-restraint. Only the God of all creation enters the chaos of this world to bring order and goodness to life.

New trail for scouting may have been broken, but it leads off the cliff. Rather than sinning against God and all that is holy, the most courageous thing a boy might do is to turn away to a trail less traveled. Separate from the pack. Together with dad, grandpa, and men of faith, set safer course.

P.S. Looking for a collection of outdoor adventures and character building supplies? I highly recommend Vision Forum.

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Citizenship, Faith & Practice, Identity, Parenting & Education | Tagged boyhood, children, dangerous behavior, family, freedom, God and country, heterosexual, homosexual, ideology, idolatry, Jesus Christ, Kinsey, lifestyle, manhood, marriage, mentoring, morality, parents, pedophilia, sexual identity | Leave a Comment »

Boy Scouts and Sexual Identity

June 11, 2013 by ezerwoman

The Boy Scouts now allow homosexual boys to participate fully in its programs.

What does this mean?

Weren’t all boys always welcomed into the Boys Scouts? Weren’t all boys invited to be morally trained in courage, tenacity, community service, trustworthiness, and good citizenship? Weren’t all boys equally mentored to develop character and skills that honor God, country, and neighbor?

Has there ever been a time when a Boy Scout had to declare himself a heterosexual?

Who turns the heads of boys to think they must demand their rights to sexual preference? Is sexual identity a pre-cursor to responsible citizenship? In the name of common sense, we’re talking about children here!

Sexual identity rules the day… even for a Boy Scout. Alfred Kinsey would be proud. He’s the one who coined the phrase we’ve heard over and over again: “Children are sexual from birth.” Prior to Kinsey, no one ever referred to children as being “sexual” or inferred that they enjoyed or responded pleasurably to a sexual experience. Prior to the 1950s, a child was never defined as “sexual” except in the mind of a predator or pedophile.

A Boy Scout pledges on his honor to do his best “to do my duty to God and my country . . . to help other people at all times . . . to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” What does it mean to honor God who never once identifies children as “sexual beings?”

God calls boys and girls by name. He entrusts children to moms and dads within the faithfulness of marriage so that they won’t be mistreated by those who do not see them as He does. To guard their personhood, God sets children apart from animals who are captive to instincts and bound to do whatever it is they do. Honoring God, boys are equipped to mature into self-controlled men who rise above selfish interests.

In a sin-drenched world, boys battle sinful natures and the distortion of identity. But a boy who is baptized is a son of God in Christ. He is not defined as sexual, but holy. He is not common, but uncommon. He is not slave to the weakness of body, but strong of spirit.

Baptized or not, we are all – beginning in the womb of our mothers – both body and spirit. Our bodies will change, but our spirits will live forever – either with God or apart from Him. Spiritual identity matters for eternity.

So here is my plea to the Christian community: Do not hide behind choice words like “tolerance” or “compassion.” Linger no longer in organizations shape-shifted by humanist ideologies. Take a stand for the sake of boys who journey to manhood. Treat them not as slaves to themselves, but as heirs of a Kingdom not of this world.

P.S. Fathers, grandfathers and pastors interested in alternatives to the Boy Scouts might visit Vision Forum. This ministry offers exciting resources to mentor godly young men.

Posted in Biblical manhood & womanhood, Citizenship, Faith & Practice, Identity, Parenting & Education, Sexy or holy? | Tagged boyhood, children, family, God & country, heterosexual, homosexual, Kinsey, lifestyle, manhood, marriage, parents, pedophilia, sexual identity | Leave a Comment »