Friday, July 20, 2012

Links: Single Motherhood, Sex, Star Trek, and more

"The Kids Are Not Really Alright":
Take two contemporary social problems: teenage pregnancy and the incarceration of young males. Research by Sara McLanahan at Princeton University suggests that boys are significantly more likely to end up in jail or prison by the time they turn 30 if they are raised by a single mother. Specifically, McLanahan and a colleague found that boys raised in a single-parent household were more than twice as likely to be incarcerated, compared with boys raised in an intact, married home, even after controlling for differences in parental income, education, race, and ethnicity.
"Sex, Submission, and Evangelicals":
Weirdly, Evans’s admission seems to suggest that the language of violence does more harm than the actual practice of violence within the home, even if such violence is itself consensual. But while reforming a culture’s attitudes toward sex is all sorts of difficult, it seems like beginning at home is a pretty decent start. Allowing couples to play at domination simply because they both like it strikes me as incommensurate with decrying the practice elsewhere. Our playing, simply put, matters and we get our ideas for it somewhere. The bedroom is not so self-contained and isolated from the rest of our lives as Evans seems to imply, and if looking at porn implicates us in a culture of hostility toward women, than certainly playing with sadomasochism must do the same.
"Where Are the Cast of Voyager Now?": Fun trip down memory lane for those of us who were teenage nerds (and maybe had a poster of the cast on their walls back in the day).

"Created to be his Helpmeet" (a review):
Pearl seeks to be the Titus 2 woman, sharing with her readers wisdom that she has accumulated in many years of being a Christian, of being a wife, of raising a family. But there is a serious problem. Throughout the book, Pearl shows that she is a poor and unwise mentor. In place of the wisdom and the fruit of the Spirit that ought to mark a mentor, she displays a harsh and critical spirit, she offers foolish counsel, she teaches poor theology, she misuses Scripture, and she utterly misses the centrality of the gospel.
Second part of the review is here.

"Top 5 First Lines" - Matt listed his. I listed mine in the comments. Go add yours!

Peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell


2 comments:

Anne said...

Wow, read the Challies review just now. Feel blessed to have never heard of the book but also feel a morbid fascination to actually read it. Sounds like maybe she gets half her "theology" from second rate "Christian" romance novels. Poor thing.

Jessica Snell said...

Man, I don't know where she gets it from, but her husband's the one that wrote that horrible book that endorses disciplining your children with plumbing supplies . . .