The May issue of First Things has an interesting article that looks at the impact of birth control through the lens of economics ('Bitter Pill' by economist Timothy Reichert). The gist of the article is that the availability of the birth control pill starting in the 1960's dramatically changed the marriage 'market'. His contention is that prior to the pill there was essentially one market: a marriage market. After the arrival of the pill the market was splintered into 2 markets: a marriage market, and a sex market. The pill, he contends, reduced the incentives for marriage, especially among men, while siimultaneously putting more pressure on women to enter the sex market before marriage since it was now 'safe'.
Like most economic models, I find this one oversimplified but interesting nonetheless. It seems clear to me that there has always been 2 separate markets, else the 'world's oldest occupation' would not in fact be the world's oldest occupation. However, it does seems clear that there are now more incentives for sexual activity before marriage, though the rise of out of wedlock births make it clear that it is not necessarily 'safe'.
His contention in the article is that in fact it is not safe and this market shift has hurt women, not 'empowered' them. It is of course sold by both feminists and the playboy culture that the pill has 'liberated' women. In fact, we now have 40% of all births out of wedlock, and up to 70% in some ethnic groups, and it is well documented that being a single mom is the single most powerful predictor of poverty. By giving men fewer incentives to marry, this also keeps more women and their children in poverty. He supports his article with lots of charts and graphs, of course, as any good economist would. This includes fewer and later marriages, earlier sexual activity, more women in the workplace to support their kids, and declining rates of female happiness.
He does not talk about some of the additional factors that confound his data: legalized abortion coming near the same time, for instance, and declining church attendance. Still, I think he has a point. This technology that is touted as helping women has actually hurt them. However, in my opinion it has hurt them because they use the technology outside of marriage. He does not mention this either. Were it utilized only within marriage, it would be a very different story. There, too, is a message. The more freedom we have, the more important it is that the freedom be exercised by a virtuous people. When we lack virtue, our freedom comes back to bite us.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Remembering the Unthinkable
This past weekend we went to hear a survivor of the Holocaust, Rose Price. She will be 82 sometime this year, but she was 10 years old and an Orthodox Jew in Poland when the Nazis invaded her homeland. Like our veterans who fought in WWII, survivors of the Holocaust are getting fewer every year as they die off. I had heard Rose back about 6 or 7 years ago, and she had more trouble staying on topic and not wandering this time than last, which was sad since there was a much larger crowd this time and the power of her story did not really come through as well as it could have.
She and her older sister both survived the death camps. Her mother, father, and younger sister all died there. She was chosen to be shot on two occasions: on those days the 'chosen' would be forced to dig a ditch, then line up in front of it to be shot. They would hold hands usually in those last moments. She held on and fell into the ditch with her dead compatriots, but had not been shot. She would crawl out later, only to be recaptured and put back in the camps.
One particular guard seemed to enjoy humiliating her and her sister. On rainy days he would force them to lie in the mud so he could walk on them to avoid getting mud on his boots. On fair weather days he would simply beat them. Though she left Germany after the war having abandoned faith in God, she later met the Messiah and went back to Germany to tell her story, and she met that guard there at a crusade where she gave her testimony. It was there that she really learned about the power of forgiveness.
There is much more in her book, and the other atrocities in the death camps, including the 'medical' experiments, are well documented in many places. Yet, today not only do the Palestinians and Iranians want to deny that all this happened, there also seem to be many even in the U.S. who are either ignorant or simply unconcerned that all this happened. They seem to have forgotten that Israel exists not because they conquered the Palestinians: it exists as a U.N. mandate, a mandate of the world community as a result of the Holocaust. The Arab world tried to overturn that mandate, and lost. The West Bank had been a location for Syria to shell Israel with heavy artillery until they lost that as well. The current leadership of the U.S. seems to have forgotten all that, apparently thinking that Israel should just give the land back and live with daily artillery barrages from those who to this day deny Israel's right to exist.
We dare not forget either the holocaust and the stories of those like Rose Price or the history of Israel's fights with the Arab world. To forget is to guarantee another holocaust will happen, this time in Israel.
She and her older sister both survived the death camps. Her mother, father, and younger sister all died there. She was chosen to be shot on two occasions: on those days the 'chosen' would be forced to dig a ditch, then line up in front of it to be shot. They would hold hands usually in those last moments. She held on and fell into the ditch with her dead compatriots, but had not been shot. She would crawl out later, only to be recaptured and put back in the camps.
One particular guard seemed to enjoy humiliating her and her sister. On rainy days he would force them to lie in the mud so he could walk on them to avoid getting mud on his boots. On fair weather days he would simply beat them. Though she left Germany after the war having abandoned faith in God, she later met the Messiah and went back to Germany to tell her story, and she met that guard there at a crusade where she gave her testimony. It was there that she really learned about the power of forgiveness.
There is much more in her book, and the other atrocities in the death camps, including the 'medical' experiments, are well documented in many places. Yet, today not only do the Palestinians and Iranians want to deny that all this happened, there also seem to be many even in the U.S. who are either ignorant or simply unconcerned that all this happened. They seem to have forgotten that Israel exists not because they conquered the Palestinians: it exists as a U.N. mandate, a mandate of the world community as a result of the Holocaust. The Arab world tried to overturn that mandate, and lost. The West Bank had been a location for Syria to shell Israel with heavy artillery until they lost that as well. The current leadership of the U.S. seems to have forgotten all that, apparently thinking that Israel should just give the land back and live with daily artillery barrages from those who to this day deny Israel's right to exist.
We dare not forget either the holocaust and the stories of those like Rose Price or the history of Israel's fights with the Arab world. To forget is to guarantee another holocaust will happen, this time in Israel.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Church Arrogant
The April issue of First Things had an interesting article about how economic theory can be applied to church, and along the way it shed some light on some of the mythology surrounding early American church attendance. In researching their book The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, the authors (Roger Finke and Rodney Starke) found that less than one-fifth of the American population claimed church membership at the time of the American Revolution. The rate of church membership then rose after the revolution, to about one-third by the mid-1800's and on up to about half in the 20th century. This is what they are refering to by 'the churching of America'. During this same time, Europe was rebelling against the church and beginning its long decline to today. Contrary to the theory of skeptics, the spread of education and industrialization in America did not force a decline in church membership or attendance. The skeptics insist that increasing education and prosperity necessarily lead to a decline in religion; the authors offer an alternative view.
Their alternative takes a more economic viewpoint, looking at both religious 'firms' (churches) and religious 'consumers' (members). In Europe, they maintain, the church was always a state church with a monopoly. Every nation had an established church so they did not have to compete for members, did not have to compete for funds, and did not have to be concerned about 'quality' or 'customer satisfaction', so the church could easily become focused on its own tradition and the desires of the clergy themselves. Since the 'consumers' had no other choice, they could either participate or stay home. This was also the case in the American colonies, each colony having its own established church and often persecuting dissenters. I well remember visiting Colonial Williamsburg some years back, and part of their living history drama on one of our visits included an intinerant Baptist evangelist being arrested and jailed for breaking the church laws of Anglican Virginia. No dissent allowed!
When the Constitution was approved, some states held on to their established churches for a while, but most of them were done away with in a few years. At this point, the churches had to raise their game to a higher level. Suddenly they had to give parishoners a reason to show up or they could go somewhere else. When that happened, membership began to grow.
This is not all sweetness and light, of course. This kind of religious competition also gave us Mormonism, Christian Science, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and various other aberrations. Still, it does point out to me that established churches have other problems even beyond the very serious problem of tying the church to a political establishment. It also makes for a very self-centered, non-ministering church.
The history, though, also sheds light on our 'Christian founders'. 20% of the population as church members is less than most of those shouting about our religious roots would want to hear about. While no doubt some non-members were dissenters who would have been members if their church had been allowed, most of those would have moved to a different colony I would think. While the rural nature of the colonies resulted in many folks not being near a church, that held true much longer and into the period of fast growth of members and attendance.
In any case, the article shed some interesting light on American Exceptionalism in religion: it may have been the arrogance of the church more than education and progress that brought down religion in Europe.
Their alternative takes a more economic viewpoint, looking at both religious 'firms' (churches) and religious 'consumers' (members). In Europe, they maintain, the church was always a state church with a monopoly. Every nation had an established church so they did not have to compete for members, did not have to compete for funds, and did not have to be concerned about 'quality' or 'customer satisfaction', so the church could easily become focused on its own tradition and the desires of the clergy themselves. Since the 'consumers' had no other choice, they could either participate or stay home. This was also the case in the American colonies, each colony having its own established church and often persecuting dissenters. I well remember visiting Colonial Williamsburg some years back, and part of their living history drama on one of our visits included an intinerant Baptist evangelist being arrested and jailed for breaking the church laws of Anglican Virginia. No dissent allowed!
When the Constitution was approved, some states held on to their established churches for a while, but most of them were done away with in a few years. At this point, the churches had to raise their game to a higher level. Suddenly they had to give parishoners a reason to show up or they could go somewhere else. When that happened, membership began to grow.
This is not all sweetness and light, of course. This kind of religious competition also gave us Mormonism, Christian Science, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and various other aberrations. Still, it does point out to me that established churches have other problems even beyond the very serious problem of tying the church to a political establishment. It also makes for a very self-centered, non-ministering church.
The history, though, also sheds light on our 'Christian founders'. 20% of the population as church members is less than most of those shouting about our religious roots would want to hear about. While no doubt some non-members were dissenters who would have been members if their church had been allowed, most of those would have moved to a different colony I would think. While the rural nature of the colonies resulted in many folks not being near a church, that held true much longer and into the period of fast growth of members and attendance.
In any case, the article shed some interesting light on American Exceptionalism in religion: it may have been the arrogance of the church more than education and progress that brought down religion in Europe.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
This God is Different
I just finished reading Walking the Bible by Bruce Feiler, which I had borrowed from my daughter. There is also a PBS mini-series based on the book, and my interest was piqued by seeing part of that a while back. The book is part travelogue, part history, and part personal introspection by a secular Jew trying to find his roots in the Holy Land. It is an easy read and it gives a nice view of many of the sites in Israel, Sinai, the Negev, and Egypt that are found in the Pentateuch as the author attempts to re-trace the path of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and the Exodus. He is basically examining the path that led from one man and his family (Abraham) to a nation that God used to reveal Himself to show His work of redemption, which we Christians view as the start of a path that inexorably led to the Savior.
It was quite interesting to see how the author and his archaeologist-travel-partner-and-guide visited many of the sites mentioned in the Bible, as best they could find them (many are not known for sure) and would then read and discuss the Bible passages about that site as they experienced the place for themselves. I like to do similar things when I travel, such as reading Jefferson's biography when visiting Monticello. The book would be a nice prologue to a visit to Israel by providing an overview of the history and archaeology of many of the sites that pilgrims to the Holy Land visit. It is somewhat sad, though, that while the author does find in himself a strong emotional response to the Promised Land and biblical stories, he never quite gets to the point of seeing God as personal and knowable. He becomes convinced that the biblical stories that led to the creation of Israel as a nation are believable in a general way, but he does not fully resolve his own doubts about faith though he does reach some sort of peace with himself.
One question that recurs in the book has to do with the question of life after death. On the one hand the Torah makes it clear that God is eternal and His people are to somehow be with Him, these books of Moses do not say a lot about life after death. Job, which pre-dates the Pentateuch, does make mention of seeing God in person after death, and so do the prophets and psalms which come later. Moses says little, although when Moses dies it seems to imply that God took him (and also buried him in secret lest his tomb be worshipped). The author seems to think that this means that the Jews saw God as only the God of this life, and that there was nothing beyond this life.
This was a matter of debate among the Jews in Jesus' time as well, with the Pharisees believing in life after death and the Saducees not. Christians see this debate as being settled by Jesus' resurrection and promise of our resurrection as a result. So why the lack of discussion by Moses?
My opinion is that much of the first 5 books of the Bible has to do with demonstrating how different the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob(Israel) is from the other gods of that time. While other pagan gods demanded child sacrifice, this God demanded the same level of devotion but intervened to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac and provided his own sacrifice. While other gods are unpredictable and unknowable, this God provided his Law to make clear what behavior He expected and what he abhorred. While the Egyptian gods in particular, where Moses was leading them out, were obsessed with death and so built the pyramids and other enormous burial 'cities', this God was more focused on holy living. In other words, I think God was intentionally pointing out the difference between Himself and the Egyptian gods, after having His people live there for 400 years in the midst of their 'culture of death'. It was not to imply that there is nothing after this life; it was to say that the Egyptian obsession with death was minimizing the reality of this life, creating a very bizarre and off-balance culture.
We have our own 'culture of death' today, comprised of the combination of abortion and euthansia. Though quite different from the Egyptian distortions of reality, it bears its own consequences in minimizing the importance of holy living. Today is Easter, our annual reminder that there is One whose Life will overcome. He is Risen!
It was quite interesting to see how the author and his archaeologist-travel-partner-and-guide visited many of the sites mentioned in the Bible, as best they could find them (many are not known for sure) and would then read and discuss the Bible passages about that site as they experienced the place for themselves. I like to do similar things when I travel, such as reading Jefferson's biography when visiting Monticello. The book would be a nice prologue to a visit to Israel by providing an overview of the history and archaeology of many of the sites that pilgrims to the Holy Land visit. It is somewhat sad, though, that while the author does find in himself a strong emotional response to the Promised Land and biblical stories, he never quite gets to the point of seeing God as personal and knowable. He becomes convinced that the biblical stories that led to the creation of Israel as a nation are believable in a general way, but he does not fully resolve his own doubts about faith though he does reach some sort of peace with himself.
One question that recurs in the book has to do with the question of life after death. On the one hand the Torah makes it clear that God is eternal and His people are to somehow be with Him, these books of Moses do not say a lot about life after death. Job, which pre-dates the Pentateuch, does make mention of seeing God in person after death, and so do the prophets and psalms which come later. Moses says little, although when Moses dies it seems to imply that God took him (and also buried him in secret lest his tomb be worshipped). The author seems to think that this means that the Jews saw God as only the God of this life, and that there was nothing beyond this life.
This was a matter of debate among the Jews in Jesus' time as well, with the Pharisees believing in life after death and the Saducees not. Christians see this debate as being settled by Jesus' resurrection and promise of our resurrection as a result. So why the lack of discussion by Moses?
My opinion is that much of the first 5 books of the Bible has to do with demonstrating how different the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob(Israel) is from the other gods of that time. While other pagan gods demanded child sacrifice, this God demanded the same level of devotion but intervened to prevent the sacrifice of Isaac and provided his own sacrifice. While other gods are unpredictable and unknowable, this God provided his Law to make clear what behavior He expected and what he abhorred. While the Egyptian gods in particular, where Moses was leading them out, were obsessed with death and so built the pyramids and other enormous burial 'cities', this God was more focused on holy living. In other words, I think God was intentionally pointing out the difference between Himself and the Egyptian gods, after having His people live there for 400 years in the midst of their 'culture of death'. It was not to imply that there is nothing after this life; it was to say that the Egyptian obsession with death was minimizing the reality of this life, creating a very bizarre and off-balance culture.
We have our own 'culture of death' today, comprised of the combination of abortion and euthansia. Though quite different from the Egyptian distortions of reality, it bears its own consequences in minimizing the importance of holy living. Today is Easter, our annual reminder that there is One whose Life will overcome. He is Risen!
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