This is kind of an amazing article. It details the experience of a GQ writer going to a Christian rock festival. You think he’s going to make fun of them, but he ends up not; he ends up in awe of their passion and love, and seems like he feels empty at realizing he’s got nothing in his life to compare. I ended up feeling kind of sorry for the writer. But it’s really good, and really perceptive. Check it out. It’s long, but worth it.

Via Sacred Journey.

Phil at Every Thought Captive, who spends a lot of time thinking about apologetics, has some interesting thoughts about the Emergent Church and their critique of modern evangelical apologetics.

The most annoying thing to me about the Emergent church movement is that whenever they want to identify themselves as such, they focus on their differences, but whenever confronted with a debate, they just say they’re the same as everyone else. Generalizations, I know, but there you are.

In my last book review I looked at the book Not Even a Hint by Josh Harris, which addresses the issue of lust. I said that while I found the book very helpful, I felt it somewhat unsatisfying at the end of the day, as it did not seem to really address the root issues involved.

Another book that I have read recently, False Intimacy by Dr. Harry Schaumburg, comes much closer, I believe, to a deep, Biblical analysis of what drives lust.

False Intimacy: Understanding the Struggle of Sexual Addiction

Dr. Schaumburg believes that all people need intimacy; that it’s what we’re created for. God created Adam and saw that “it was not good that he was alone.” Fellowship and communication is fundamental to God’s own nature, being a Trinity, and so it is also fundamental to man’s nature, being created in God’s image.

So we go into marriage looking for intimacy, but are inevitably disappointed because our spouses are sinners just like we are. So they hurt us, disappoint us, judge us, and the intimacy we crave either doesn’t come at all or in the best of circumstances comes only partially and at a high cost of effort in the relationship. People therefore turn to other things to fulfill their need for intimacy, things which can create an illusion of intimacy for a short time, and at little or no relational cost. They turn to pornography or prostitutes, or affairs, or romance novels or a hundred other ways to create the illusion they are looking for. There is no chance of rejection or judgment from pornography, from a prostitute, or even from a one-night stand, since the partner in a random affair doesn’t know you well enough to really hurt you. They also look to fulfill that need or at least to numb that pain in non-sexual ways as well- substance abuse, work, achievement, possessions, friends, and all of the other ways that people use to avoid the pain of their lives.

Often, and especially in the worst cases, this process has begun much earlier than marriage. In childhood, people are often hurt by parents, teachers or others. This may take extreme forms such as abuse and molestation, or more everyday forms like ridicule, neglect, emotional coldness or the like. And so the child perhaps from a young age learns patterns of behavior to protect himself from this emotional pain. He learns to create these illusions which will protect him from insecurity and rejection. He carries those patterns into marriage, and perhaps at first he thinks that marriage will give him what he’s been lacking all these years, but when the inevitable hurts and difficulties come, then he retreats back into his illusions. In the most extreme cases this pattern presents itself in sexual addiction, where the person engages in extreme, very dangerous and self-destructive behaviors in his quest to try to ease his craving for intimacy while avoiding relational pain.

This explains why these behaviors are so hard to stop, and why so many efforts to combat them are ineffective. Education is not the answer. The person knows these behaviors just create an illusion, that they’re not the real thing. The person knows that it will ultimately be unsatisfying and that the guilt will be terrible. But for a short time, it eases the unbearable pain, and so the cost is considered worth it. External efforts to create control will also ultimately fail. The sexual addict is seeking to ease a terrible pain, and no external pressure brought to bear against him will be worse than the internal agony of loneliness and alienation. Man needs intimacy, and needs it desperately, and he will soothe that agony even at great cost to himself.

This also explains the only real cure that is available to us. Ultimately, we must learn to seek real intimacy with God. He is the only one who can satisfy what we need. When we place the burden of fulfilling our needs on spouses, we ask something of them that they can never ultimately give us. We must learn instead to cultivate a real relationship with God. This means we need to learn to pray, not to get something, but merely to draw close to God. Likewise we need to learn to read our Bibles, not just to learn something or fulfill some duty, but to hear God’s voice and get to know Him. As James tells us, Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you.

The goal of the covenant of grace is fellowship with God. God did not save us because He had a bunch of rules that He needed someone to follow. He saved us to create for Himself a people with whom to fellowship. Jeremiah 31:34- “But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

Intimacy with all other people must first be based on intimacy with God. Fellowship with God was broken by the sin of Adam, and the immediate result of this was that Adam and Eve became ashamed of their nakedness and had to hide from each other, and from God. When I begin to re-establish fellowship and intimacy with God, with starts by accepting forgiveness of sins by the death of Jesus Christ, then I can start to learn how to have real intimacy, though not perfect intimacy, with my fellow man (and woman) as well, first and foremost being my spouse.

Schaumburg’s book is an excellent study of the nature of sexual addictions and what causes them. It’s well-written and very Biblical, going deep into the nature of the problem. His book, while focusing on fairly extreme kinds of behaviors, does much to explain a wider range of behaviors, as we come to see that sin has a common root- alienation from God and rebellion against His rule. I recommend it to anyone interested in the issue, whether for personal growth, to combat the particular issue, or for help in understanding a spouse or loved one trapped in sexually addictive behavior.

Say hello to my new baby!

Here’s some ultrasound pics, only likely of interest to family members and the like. Junior’s got all the right pieces and parts, as far as we can know at this point. Here’s a profile:

We got one of those neat 3d ones done. It’s so incredible- you can totally see your baby just swimming around in there! The scans are a little murky, but here’s the one I thought was the best:

And finally, we’re one of those modern couples that likes to find out the gender. Warning- this may not be suitable for some viewers.

The arrow is pointing to the reason the guy running the machine was 98% sure it’s a boy:

Serge at Imago Dei has written a great response to a challenge from NARAL for all pro-life supporters to support Harry Reid’s bill for government funding for contraceptives:

It should be self evident that any effort to “Put Prevention First” should concentrate on the methods most effective in decreasing pregnancy.

That why I was surprised that Senator Reid’s bill focuses mainly on increasing access to contraception. The idea that increasing contraceptive use as the major strategy in reducing pregnancy is severely flawed. Pregnancy is not a pathological disease that indiscriminately strikes unsuspecting women. Pregnancy is the natural consequence of chosen human behavior (excepting the rare cases of pregnancy by rape). You seem to want to treat pregnancy as a disease, in which we need more medication to battle. However, I suggest that we treat pregnancy like other behavior related issues, and concentrate not on the flawed pharmacological means of decreasing pregnancy, but on the behavioral aspects of human sexuality. In other words, our most way to decrease pregnancy is to discourage behavior that results in pregnancy.

Read the whole thing.

I have recently read two books dealing with the subject of sexual sins and I thought I’d share my findings. The first book is Not Even a Hint by Pastor Joshua Harris, and the second is False Intimacy by Dr. Walter Schaumburg.

Not Even a Hint: Guarding Your Heart Against Lust

Not Even a Hint is more a practical help at coming to understand lust on a general level, and to help men and women avoid it. He defines lust simply: craving sexually what God has forbidden. So, it can involve quite a large number of things, from romance novels to pornography to getting intimately involved with a boyfriend or girlfriend. He makes a very important emphasis from the beginning, that we cannot overcome this sin by our own power. He tells a story that I think many of us can relate to, of making a contract with several of his friends not to do certain things for a period of time to avoid lust, and the great sense of pride he felt at the beginning of the contract, and the shame and guilt he felt at the end at how completely he had failed.

I can certainly relate. I actually decided at one point to stop watching all TV and movies, for that exact reason. And I kept my bargain. I never watched any TV or movies until I decided, about a year and a half later, to end my “special dispensation”. Not only did it not help much at all with my problem, but it had the added benefit of making me self-righteous, even driving a wedge between me and my wife. It was when I realized this that I decided to quit. I’m still glad I did it, because I learned some important lessons about myself and about sin- pretty much the same lessons Josh Harris relates in this book.

We are utterly dependent on the Spirit, and can only be saved by the Gospel. So Harris exhorts us at the beginning of the book not to use his practical steps and suggestions as a legalistic means of change, as if we can work our way out of our problem. We must start by believing in Jesus Christ, accepting forgiveness and praying for the Spirit. Only then is real change possible.

Harris then lists a number of practical approaches to the problem. These include things like identifying your sin triggers, identifying times of day when you’re more susceptible or places where you’re more likely to be tempted, and avoid them if possible. Reading and memorizing Scripture is another suggestion he makes. He stresses the importance of accountability partners.

This last part of the book left me a little unsatisfied. The thing that kept defeating me over and over was that when faced with the opportunity to sin, I didn’t want to avoid it. I didn’t want to remember Bible verses, or think about Jesus, or avoid looking. I wanted the sin more than I wanted anything else, so I committed it. There’s the real rub to me- how do I stop wanting to sin? If I didn’t desire it so much, I wouldn’t do it. I knew it was a lie; I knew it wouldn’t satisfy; I knew the guilt would be horrible and the potential consequences very bad; but I didn’t care. It felt so good for a short period of time, and it was that short period of time that I cared about more than anything. All kinds of addictive behaviors report the same kinds of thinking. The drunk is in a love-hate relationship with the bottle. He is perfectly aware of all the negative consequences, but the bottle is the only thing that takes the pain away, even if only for a short time.

I also question the effectiveness of accountability partners. I would ask, if someone is unwilling to be accountable to God, why would they be accountable to some man? It seems to me that accountability would only work by creating the fear of external consequences, mostly shame, and if it’s just the external consequences that are feared, then you’d just lie to your accountability partner. And the other real danger is that people will use it as a crutch, thinking that just being involved in the process will somehow produce real change, much like people often get hooked on counseling.

In my experience, there’s only one thing that will produce real change, and that is cultivating a relationship with the Lord.

This is not to say that any of Harris’ suggestions are bad ones. I think they are good ones and helpful, and he makes all of the right caveats to get a person started in the right direction. But I don’t think Harris succeeds in getting at the real nature of the problem. To say that lust is desiring what God has forbidden is certainly true, but why do we desire what God has forbidden? Why do so many people, so many pastors even, pursue insanely reckless behaviors as downloading and storing pornography at their church office? Or even worse, have affairs with secretaries or counselees? Why do women pursue one meaningless hook-up after another, even after not only knowing about, but actually experiencing, all of the potentially deadly side effects such as STDs and assault? God did not forbid these things because He wanted to spoil our fun. He forbade them because they are very bad for us. So why do we chase after what will only make us miserable?

This is where the second book steps in. Dr Schaumburg’s book, False Intimacy, does a fine job of getting at the root causes of sexually addictive behaviors and provides real, but hard, answers. I’ll review that book next. [UPDATE: That review is here.]

Despite some of my misgivings about this book, Harris obviously speaks with sincerity, insight and experience, and gets the most important things so really right that I can heartily recommend it to anyone wanting to deal with this issue. I’d especially recommend it for teens and single young adults.

I have been just as sick as a dog. I thought I was going to die for sure. Every time I swallowed something, it felt like someone was cutting my head off.

Andrea has little patience for whining, so she reacted to my misery mostly by making fun of me, which I think on the whole is a good thing, since it encouraged me to get better sooner. And I am better today, thank God. My throat still hurts pretty bad, but the rest of me feels fine.

UPDATE: Andrea admitted that if I had died, she would have felt guilty for making fun of me.

I came across this post at Fraters Libertas which discusses, among other things, the debilitated state of the Democratic Party. After giving some advice, they say this:

Granted, I’m more than happy about the sorry state of the Democratic Party today. The more they continue on their tailspin towards insignificance the better. But the constant wailing and gnashing of teeth is getting very tiresome.

The sentiment that the worse off the Democratic party is, the better off America is, is one I see more than a little bit on the right. I don’t think anyone’s happier than me that Bush won the election. But I also know that Bush isn’t nearly as conservative as I and many others would like, on many subjects. And could it be that the reason for that is that when running against such very liberal candidates, one only needs to appear moderate in order to win?

From a conservative standpoint, would the Republican Party be better off if the Democrats were more moderate, had better ideas and were fielding stronger candidates on a national level? If you think the Republicans would be worse off, then you’re saying that the Republicans can only compete against weak opponents, and that competition would not force the Republicans to improve, thus contradicting the free market principles the Republicans are supposed to stand for.

Further, if you’d answer that yes, it might make the Republicans better, but they’d likely also lose more elections that way, that reveals that your only concern is power. You’re saying that having a Democrat in office is worse than having a Republican in office, no matter what either candidate is like. It’s only the political power of the Republicans that you’re concerned with if that’s your opinion, not the state of governance or the state of the union.

Here’s my point: It would be good for the Republicans and good for the country to have a decent opposition party in power. I would love to occasionally have the option of voting for Democrats. It would make the Republicans work more for my vote. But the Republicans know that any conservative will always vote for them, no matter how unconservative the Republican candidate is, because the option is so unpalatable. So the Republicans aim at the middle. We see that this year in Bush’s budget, which while promoting many conservative goals, also massively expands the federal government, which is not a conservative principle at all. The only consolation I have is that Kerry would have expanded it even more.

Of course the other option is that the Democrats fade to such a level that the Republicans become massively dominant, and then split along traditional conservative / Libertarian lines. Moderade Democrats would have already aligned with one of those groups, and what was left of the Democrats would become a fringe third party like the Greens or the Socialists. That would be fine with me too.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a great post summing up a number of perspectives on this point. Summing up is Glenn’s big strength, I think. He says,

Beinart’s views are marginal in the Democratic Party — heck, the kind of patriotism that Barney Frank and Chris Dodd demonstrated in Davos is indiscernible in the MoveOn / MediaMatters end of the Democratic Party — while the Seymour Hersh Vietnam-nostalgia strain runs strong. That’s bad for the Democrats, and bad for America, but it’s nonetheless the case.

Exactly. I’m not under any illusions that BushCo are angels, and all governments need strong opposition.

I haven’t posted much for a while, because my internet connection has been very bad. Also, I just haven’t had a lot to say. I’ve been doing nothing but argue with atheists for a while, and that saps me.

So tonight, I got an email from someone in South Africa who wanted to transfer $125 million dollars to the US, and needed someone to help, and he would give me a percentage if I could work it out. Whenever I check my spam filter, I have about thirty of these in there, but this one made it through. Not really news, right?

But I actually thought about it. I thought, “what if this one is legit?” Can you believe that? I’ve gotten maybe five hundred of these emails, and even posted on the scam, and still, one comes through, and for a second, I THINK ABOUT IT.

If that’s not proof of the depravity of man, I don’t know what is. My greed overcame all of my common sense and experience and moral precepts, if just for a second or two. It’s always good now and then to get a reminder that I need the Spirit not just to start me on the journey but to finish it too.

There’s an interesting discussion about Biblical vs. Systematic theology on Rev. Lee Johnson’s site, Two Edged Sword.