Tag: Family

Penn State and the Lost Idea of Personal Responsibility

~ Evan Lenow ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday, I gave a lecture on Personal and Corporate Responsibility for the Richard Land Center for Cultural Engagement (I’ll link to the audio when it becomes available). The thrust of my lecture dealt with the idea of corporate responsibility in the business world and an attempt to redefine something that has become a mantra for environmental concerns. My attempt at redefining corporate responsibility brought the focus back to society as a whole and not just a niche. At the end, I attempted to tie corporate responsibility to personal responsibility by showing that all aspects of corporate responsibility are an extension of personal responsibility. In that lecture, I noted the tragic circumstances at Penn State University as an example corporate responsibility failing because no one was willing to take personal responsibility along the way. In light of what has continued to transpire at that university, I want to offer a slightly re-worked version of my lecture from yesterday applied to this particular situation.

Relying heavily on an article by Robert P. George, we can see three pillars of a healthy society: 1) respect for individual human beings and their dignity, 2) the institution of the family, and 3) a fair and effective system of law and government. Aside from the alleged crime, I want to look at the response by the university as a study in corporate vs. personal responsibility in light of these three pillars.

The university (and the individuals involved) lacked a respect for the dignity of the victims. There seemed to have been a concern for the personal interests of the perpetrator and those with knowledge of the crime, but there was no concern for the dignity of the boys. As each person up the chain of command refused to take personal responsibility for alerting the authorities, they diminished the opportunity for the university to take corporate responsibility. As we see now, the university is attempting to correct this stance, but only now that they have been caught in a cover-up. The reputation of the institution is being discredited, and the individuals involved are losing their jobs. The message the university sent to the public is that they had more concern for the university’s reputation than the dignity of the victims.

The institution of the family is essential to a healthy society. George calls it “the original and best department of health, education, and welfare.” Jennifer Roback Morse states, “There is no substitute for the family in helping self-centered infants develop into cooperative adults.” The problem at Penn State is that the university saw its own “family” interests as more important than protecting the institution of the family. These boys have been assaulted, abused, and scarred for life. Their family structure has been permanently altered because they have been subjected to a version of sexuality that is distorted far outside God’s design. There was absolutely no respect for the institution of the family on the perpetrator’s part, and there was indifference to the institution of the family on the part of the university.

Finally, a fair and effective system of law and government is crucial to a healthy society. In this case, that system was in place to handle the problem, but no one alerted the proper authorities. Now that the police and judicial system are aware of the crimes, they are working swiftly to bring about justice. However, such justice could have been enacted years ago had those with knowledge of the crime taken personal responsibility to report what they had seen and heard.

What is next for Penn State? Obviously, the leadership is in a state of flux considering that four top officials have been fired including the president and the legendary football coach who has been the face of the institution for decades. One can only guess that the NCAA will step in and place sanctions on the football program—perhaps even the dreaded “death penalty” (suspending all football for at least two years).

With the tragedy at Penn State, we see that all three pillars of a healthy society were ignored or dismissed. Penn State University may very well look back at this week as the moment the university changed. I hope and pray it will be a change that involves acknowledging that football is just a sport, all people are worthy of respect and dignity (not just those who win football games), and that the government in its purest function is here for protection from evil and to establish order in society. Unfortunately, little will change unless we recognize that personal responsibility comes first.

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Robert P. George, “Making Business Moral,” First Things 186 (October 2008): 17–19.

Jennifer Roback Morse, Love & Economics (San Marcos: Ruth Institute Books, 2008).

For more information about the scandal at Penn State University, see Mark Viera, “Paterno Is Finished at Penn State, and President Is Out,” The New York Times, November 9, 2011.

Expiration Dates on Marriage Licenses

~ Evan Lenow ~ 1 Comment

ABC News reported that Mexico City lawmakers are proposing legislation that would allow couples to set an “expiration date” for their marriage licenses. Rather than making a commitment for life, the new marriage licenses would allow newlyweds to determine if they want to commit to simply two years and evaluate any extensions after that.

Leonoel Luna, the official who authored the proposed legislation stated:

The proposal is, when the two-year period is up, if the relationship is not stable or harmonious, the contract simply ends. You wouldn’t have to go through the torturous process of divorce.

In Luna’ defense, he recognizes that the process of divorce is long, difficult, and painful. There is plenty of collateral damage that comes from divorce, and I believe he is probably being sincere in his desire to prevent such pain. However, he has a completely wrong understanding of marriage. Rather than viewing marriage as a covenant, he sees marriage as a contract.

This current proposal sounds much like a sports contract. Right now we are in the throes of the World Series, and last night’s game had plenty of commentary about where different players had played. In fact, one player started the season for the Rangers but is now on the roster of the Cardinals. When a player signs a contract, he has terms for pay and length of contract. If things don’t work out, the team can simply refuse to re-sign the player. The contract ends, and both parties move on.

Marriage is not supposed to be that way. Throughout Scripture we see that marriage is described as a covenant through explicit statements (Prov 2:16–17; Mal 2:14) and comparisons to the covenant between God and his people and Christ and the church (Isa 54:4–8; Jer 3:14; Hosea 1:1–3:5; Eph 5:22–33; Rev 21:9). The covenantal model of marriage depicts marriage as a creation ordinance given to all people that creates a permanent bond between a man, woman, and God. Covenants cannot be broken arbitrarily at the whim of the parties involved.

The contractual model of marriage espoused by this legislator makes marriage nothing more than a legal transaction between two individuals for mutual benefit. In a contract, once one person no longer receives the agreed upon benefit, the contract can be broken. The reason this model does not work in marriage is because it bases the security of marriage on the ability of sinners not to sin. Theoretically, a “partner” in the contract would have an escape clause once he/she is wronged. In marriage, that probably happens weekly—if not daily.

Some people may respond with the thought. “This is just the world acting like the world.” Unfortunately, many people in our churches have the same understanding of marriage. They consider marriage to be a contract ruled by the civil laws of the day. Once they feel wronged, they begin looking for a way out. This is evidenced by Barna’s research that the rate of divorce among self-identified born-again individuals is the same as that of American society at large.

The solution to the divorce problem in our culture is not temporary marriage licenses. Instead, the solution is seeing marriage the way God sees it—permanent, covenantal, and sanctifying. Unfortunately, many both in the church and outside are not convinced. Therefore, we need to start by proclaiming God’s design from marriage in our churches. Once we start to look different from the world, then we may earn a hearing in our culture.

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Christina Ng, “Mexico City Considers Temporary Marriage Licenses,” ABC News, September 30, 2011.

The Barna Group, “New Marriage and Divorce Statistics Released,” March 31, 2008.

One Man, 150 Children

~ Evan Lenow

According to an article posted yesterday on The New York Times, the Donor Sibling Registry has identified 150 half siblings from one anonymous sperm donor. The article notes:

As more women choose to have babies on their own, and the number of children born through artificial insemination increases, outsize groups of donor siblings are starting to appear. While Ms. Daily’s group is among the largest, many others comprising 50 or more half siblings are cropping up on Web sites and in chat groups, where sperm donors are tagged with unique identifying numbers.  

I addressed the issue of egg and sperm donation as an ethical dilemma in January, but this issue continues to creep back into the picture. While the article to which I responded in the winter celebrated the idea of donation, this current article paints a much darker picture. The author states:

Now, there is growing concern among parents, donors and medical experts about potential negative consequences of having so many children fathered by the same donors, including the possibility that genes for rare diseases could be spread more widely through the population. Some experts are even calling attention to the increased odds of accidental incest between half sisters and half brothers, who often live close to one another.

The interesting thing is that there are few regulations in the United States governing the donation of reproductive material. Donors remain anonymous and are simply assigned a unique identification number. Men can donate a seemingly unlimited number of times. Potential mothers typically request a specific donor’s sperm with no idea of how many other children have been conceived with his genetic material. Behind all of it, donor banks make a fortune from the sperm of popular donors.

Wendy Kramer, founder of the Donor Sibling Registry, states, “Just as it’s happened in many other countries around the world, we need to publicly ask the questions ‘What is in the best interests of the child to be born?’ and ‘Is it fair to bring a child into the world who will have no access to knowing about one half of their genetics, medical history and ancestry?” These questions are legitimate questions to ask the government and the industry behind this growing problem.

In Great Britain, regulations have been in place since the early 1980’s to limit the number of offspring a single donor could father (10 per donor). While most donors in the U.S. are promised a small number of potential offspring, many have found that they now have dozens of children. The article states:

Ms. Kramer, the registry’s founder, said that one sperm donor on her site learned that he had 70 children. He now keeps track of them all on an Excel spreadsheet. “Every once in a while he gets a new kid or twins,” she said. “It’s overwhelming, and not what he signed up for. He was promised low numbers of children.”

So what are we to make of this? As I noted in January, the biblical model of procreation is intended to take place within the confines of marriage (Gen 1:28; 4:1; Heb 13:4). The introduction of donors (sperm and/or eggs) creates an unusual moral dilemma that raises the question of adultery. Have these reproductive technologies created a new category of adultery—reproductive adultery?  While difficult to say for certain, we certainly need to raise that question.

In addition, the article describes another set of problems that often go unnoticed—those related to the children.

Experts are not certain what it means to a child to discover that he or she is but one of 50 children—or even more. “Experts don’t talk about this when they counsel people dealing with infertility,” Ms. Kramer said. “How do you make connections with so many siblings? What does family mean to these children?”

How will children deal with the fact that they have dozens, or even hundreds, of siblings? While many parents typically want to keep it a secret from their children that they were conceived with the help of donors, can they afford to do so with the possibility of incest?

Technology is a great thing, but too often we accept the benefits of technological advances without considering the long-term ramifications. This is one example of something that has the potential to cause great problems in the future—and the future is now.

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Jacqueline Mroz, “One Sperm Donor, 150 Offspring,” The New York Times, September 5, 2011.

The Donor Sibling Registry, https://www.donorsiblingregistry.com/.

Evan Lenow, “Who’s the Mother?: The Tangled Web of New Reproductive Technologies,” January 11, 2011.

Divorce in the Bible Belt

~ Evan Lenow

Data from the 2010 Census has been flowing steadily for the last few months. Much of it has been the typical stuff—total population, redistricting issues resulting from population shifts, etc. Some of it is encouraging, but some not so much. CNN.com ran a story on a report released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau about marriage and divorce statistics, and the numbers are ugly. Here are a few snippets:

While the Bible Belt is known for its devotion to traditional values, Southerners don’t do so well on one key family value: They are more likely to get divorced than people living in the Northeast.

Southern men and women had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than their counterparts in other parts of the country: 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau released Thursday.

By comparison, men and women in the Northeast had the lowest rates of divorce, 7.2 and 7.5 per 1,000, which is also lower than the national divorce rate of 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women.

For those of us who call the Bible Belt home and think all things Southern are superior (food, culture, people—can I get an “Amen”?!), these statistics probably seem shocking. In fact, I did not believe them, so I set out to disprove them. Unfortunately, they seem to be fairly accurate.

Of course, statistics can say what the researcher (or reporter) wants them to say, and there are a couple of key factors buried in these statistics that are glossed over in the article. First, Southerners marry at a much higher rate than those in the Northeast. When you have more people marrying, then you have more opportunity for divorce. Second, the South is not the overtly religious region it used to be. Places like Texas, Florida, and Tennessee have become the homes of transplants from other parts of the country that often do not share the “steeped-in-religiosity” tradition of the South. These people have come for the weather, jobs, or tax benefits, but they are not Southerners by birth (or as the bumper sticker reads: “American by birth, Southern by the grace of God!”). In fact, native-born Southerners often no longer hold the values their parents or grandparents did.

The other difficult part of reading these statistics as gospel truth is that they merely report a snapshot in time. They give the total number of divorces that occurred in 2009 per every 1,000 adults (age 15 and older) in the population at that time. What is not told in the initial numbers is how long those marriages lasted before divorce and the prospects of durability for new marriages in 2009 and forward. If you dig deeper into the Census Bureau report (and not reported in the news article), you see that the duration of current marriages for women in their first marriages is much higher across the South and Midwest than in the Northeast. Therefore, Southerners stay married longer despite the fact that they divorce at a higher rate.

So what does this say about the Bible Belt? First, I believe it demonstrates religion is oftentimes more of a cultural expectation than a personal conviction. While Southerners claim to be religious, it does not always translate into how they live their lives—especially their marriages. Second, we see that marriage is in a precarious state everywhere—not just the “liberal” Northeast and West Coast. While marriage is more of a social norm in the South, it does not make it any easier to have a good marriage that lasts. Finally, the churches in the Bible Belt must not rest on their laurels of cultural significance to influence marriage. Instead, the churches need to fight to protect the marriages of the people in their congregations. Marriage is a picture of the relationship between Christ and the church (Eph 5:22–33). How can we clearly communicate the love Christ has for the church if our marriages are falling apart?

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Katia Hetter, “What’s Fueling Bible Belt divorces,” CNN.com, August 25, 2011.

Diana B. Elliott and Tavia Simmons, “Marital Events of Americans: 2009,” United States Census Bureau, August 2011.

Image credit.

Are Children a Burden or a Blessing?

~ Evan Lenow ~ 1 Comment

Earlier this summer, I picked up an old copy of Life magazine while on vacation. The cover picture and title caught my eye. There was a picture of a small baby (no older than a few months), and below the picture, the cover read, “The Baby Riddle: What will happen to American life if each family has one child? Or two? Or three?” The magazine was dated May 19, 1972.

After my wife gave birth to our fourth child two weeks ago, I decided to take out the magazine and read through some of the articles. Here are a few of the highlights—remember that it was written nearly 40 years ago. Addressing the “problem” of continued population growth, the author writes:

Both the Pill and easier abortion laws have helped lower the birthrate in recent years. So have inflation, job shortages and the women’s rights movement, all of which tend to encourage later marriages and fewer children. Last month, after an exhaustive two-year study, the presidential Commission on Population Growth and the American Future recommended that we now seize the chance to stabilize our population. The commission, headed by John D. Rockefeller III, favors abortion on request, free contraceptive information and supplies for all, including minors, and a national policy of zero population growth. Married couples would be encouraged to have an average of only two children (the present average is 2.3).

Back in 1972, many sociologists were sounding the alarm about a population bomb that would threaten food production, infrastructure, and the American dream. The magazine article proposed that if American families had three children, the population would balloon to 322 million by the year 2000 (current population of the US is over 312 million based on the population clock from the US Census Bureau), half the country would be short of water, food costs would increase by 40–50%, and 93% of all students would receive a worse education in 2000 than they could have received in 1972. These crises would all be the result of a population explosion.

But wait, there’s more:

Besides these direct measures [free contraceptive services, liberalized abortion laws, and state-subsidized sterilization], the commission noted with disapproval the large number of social and psychological pressures in our society that encourage too many people to get married and, once married, to have children.

Here we see a government commission disapproves of social pressures to get married and once married, for couples to have children. Well, I guess in some respects, they have gotten their wish. According to a report from the National Center for Health Statistics (a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), “nearly 4 in 10 U.S. births were to unmarried women in 2007.” In addition, the report states, “Most births to teenagers (86% in 2007) are nonmarital, but 60% of births to women 20–24 and nearly one-third of births to women 25–29 were nonmarital in 2007.” Social pressures for marriage have subsided, but women are still giving birth. The difference is that 40% of all births are now to single women, meaning that children are being reared in single-parent households at an alarming rate.

Some may see this trend as a positive example of the feminist movement. However, Maggie Gallagher suggests that marriage is important for the well-being of children. Among other conclusions, she reports, “Marriage reduces child poverty. Children in intact married homes are healthier, on average, than children in other family forms. Babies born to married parents have sharply lower rates of infant mortality. Boys and young men from intact married homes are less likely to commit crimes. Children raised outside of intact marriages are more likely to be victims of both sexual and physical child abuse.”

Finally, the article cites a then-forthcoming book by Shirley Radl bemoaning the fact that she ever had children. Here are some of her thoughts:

When I was pregnant the first time, we celebrated our eighth wedding anniversary. My husband gave me an exquisite pearl bracelet. Six years later I was picking up the pearls in my vacuum cleaner. My son had destroyed it. It is a sad symbol of how two children affected a once-beautiful relationship.

Bearing children is a gamble with lives of innocents. The greatest failure is to have children and learn too late you’re not equipped for that career. We who learned the truth must level with an unsuspecting generation of potential mothers. They must look beyond the myths, seek the truth, judge their capacities accordingly. Plan carefully: the life you save may be your own.

The overwhelming thrust of the articles in this 40-year-old edition of Life is that children are a burden. The act of having children must be weighed like a financial decision—do I invest in myself or in children? The focus is on personal rights, dreams, aspirations. If children get in the way of those things, then they must be a burden. Is that how Scripture describes children? Absolutely not!

In Psalm 127:3–5, Solomon writes:

Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them;
They will not be ashamed
When they speak with their enemies in the gate.

The biblical perspective is that children are a gift, a blessing, a reward. Do children place a burden on the lives of adults? Yes. I will not deny that there are things we cannot do because we have four children. Do the rewards of four precious lives outweigh the burdens? No doubt about it! We need to maintain a biblical perspective on children and the blessing of having them in our lives.

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“The Crucial Math of Motherhood,” Life, May 19, 1972.

U.S. Census Bureau, “U.S. POPClock Projection.”

National Center for Health Statistics, “Changing Patterns of Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States,” May 2009.

Maggie Gallagher, “(How) Does Marriage Protect Child Well-Being?,” in The Meaning of Marriage: Family, State, Market, & Morals (eds. Robert P. George and Jean Bethke Elshtain; Dallas: Spence, 2006), 197–212.

Shirley Rogers Radl, Mother’s Day Is Over (Arbor House, 1987).