This is the series home for the usage of Icons series.
Every now and then, on a Friday, I’ll step into the deep waters of Philosophy, ramble on about some idea and maybe even interact with something I might be reading. Most of the time, a real philosopher could probably read my drivel and speak into it offering a corrective—but for now I’ll speak from ignorance. After all, it is Friday; what better way to have fun than with philosophy. In this post I’ll answer the question “Who am I?” in under 700 words. Heh.
This is not a book review; this is an examination of a child rearing method, the theology that undergirds it, and the execution of the practice. This will be long. If you want to ignore my examinations and rebuttals you can scroll to the end and be done with it—but I would rather you read all of this. The end of the post will also contain several links of importance.
Up front: a warning—this will not be the last time this sort of examination has to come up.
Parents are like soldiers in the trenches. They’re afraid. They’re living in the moment. They’re wondering if they’re doing wrong and what they could do better while trying to discover what their parents did right (and wrong) in their own experience. Quick fix books, especially the short and easy to read variety, will keep showing up on the web and in bookstores. For Christian parents, these books will cite Scripture and give a façade of being Biblically grounded. The spurious glitter of their treasures of pseudo-wisdom will fade, but sometimes not before doing incalculable damage.
The current culprit is Michael and Debi Pearl’s To Train Up A Child. Their ministry (No Greater Joy) is known within individual fundamentalist circles for their training methods and some of their other writings regarding the marriage relationship. Up front: their book and their teaching is dangerous. Not only is it Biblically naïve, it is theologically confused and potentially damaging, at the very least, physically and mentally.
The other day I saw Gervais’ The Invention of Lying and it raised questions in my mind. The story, says the narrator (Gervais) occurs in a world where no one ever lied and that the protagonist eventually tells the first lie. In this world, whenever someone asked “how are you?” one would answer with the facts. People married because they wanted genetically desirable offspring. Movies consisted of historical narration of facts (which is part of the question that the movie raised). One of the major lies Gervais told was that there was an afterlife with a Man-In-The-Sky who was preparing mansions for everyone as long as they were good; but he had a bad place for those who were bad. I thought it was a bit wonky that this “lie” was in contrast to the professed “truth” of the people which was that when on dies, there is nothing. Doesn’t matter though since eventually everyone was professing Gervais’ lie that there was an afterlife.
I’ve gotten several questions in my email box and phone line about some terminology that has been bandied about as of late resulting in some serious confusion. It’s not the fault of the person listening to the terminology either since, I think, the terminology has been employed in such a way that it sneaks extra information into the discussion without proper cause.