Comments on: High Culture

By: Palmer

Palmer — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 15:01:58 +0000

I’m with you. I feel very uncomfortable with people who brag about being “Stay-at-home-CHRISTIAN-Moms” as if they are a superior species more pious and more worthy than the rest of us. I feel sorry for their daughters, stuffed into frilly dresses that look like Laura Ashley knock-offs and I feel sorry for their sons in their Sears chinos and short-sleeved button-down shirts with clip-on ties. The look is not attractive but it has become the uniform of a certain type of middle- or upper-middle class child of fundamentalist parents. Children should dress like kids, not like middle-aged folks at a Midwestern Rotary club meeting.
I’m especially sickened by the fathers who become obsessive custodians of their daughters’ virginity. The signed pacts to remain “pure” until marriage, the elaborate ceremonies with exchange of rings have creepy overtones. Girls whose fathers get intrusive about the condition of their hymens are not happy girls, IMHO.
I am a God-fearing person who tries to behave in a way that is moral and decent. I don’t go around boasting about my spiritual superiority and I don’t shun people who chose to believe in a different religion. If everyone tried to be more compassionate and stopped focusing on who is a “better” Christian the world would be a better place.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:35:55 +0000

Also, those perfect kids are a roiling mess of imperfections. I looked like one of those kids, too. I never watched TV or saw a movie before college…never so much as kissed a boy or had a date…never listened to music that wasn’t authorized by my father. I was easy pickings for predators and I got trashed, and bad, in the first year I actually left my protective bubble.

It’s taken me all these years (14+) to find out what I believe, make decisions because they are right for me, stop feeling superior because I’ve never done such-and-such. Leaving legalism behind to find the God who died for me (imperfect me!).

I feel really sorry for those kids, actually.

By: Joan

Joan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 04:13:55 +0000

Just a thought - pride goeth before a fall. Pride is sinful. If someone is living ‘perfectly’ and ‘without sin’ for the purpose of being more spiritually ’self-righteous’ than others, than that is a form of spiritual ‘pride’, and he will be humbled and brought to his knees by God in some capacity. The rest of the world may never know how or why. It’s not ours to know. Whether we choose to immerse our children in and embrace today’s societal culture, or refute the culture in an effort to retain more innocence, we must always recognize the importance of putting God first. Search your Bible - read the passages in whole with the leadership of the Holy Spirit. Don’t take partial passages and apply them without context just because they fit your reasoning. It’s God’s reasoning that matters. I could go through and cite chapter and verse for a number of issues in which I disagree with society’s mores, and from which I am attempting to protect my children and maintain their innocence until I believe they are more wholly grounded in God and mature enough to be able to make appropriate decisions for their lives. But I don’t believe I am ‘better’ than any of my peers - I just believe in raising my kids in a different manner. My daughter has been ostracized because I don’t allow her to watch a particular popular pre-teen TV show. I don’t disallow it because I feel she is ‘more righteous’ than her peers - I disallow it because I feel that, at age 8, she is a child and not a preteen, and should not yet be so exposed to and immersed in the preteen genre that she should want to ‘grow up’ and experience too much too soon. She should enjoy being an innocent child. If she were eleven or twelve, I would reconsider. Same with the whole home schooling thing. Some say I am over-protecting my children, and that I should let them go to public school with their peers. I have had one preacher who even disagreed with me, having sent his own children to public school because there they could reach more non-churched, potentially non-Christian people. I have heard all the arguments. Yet, I don’t feel that I am a better person than the rest. I am just making the decision that I believe, after much prayer and research, is the best one for my children and my family. God knows the intent of a man’s heart. You may never know whether that ‘high-culture’ family is prideful or not. But you can rest assured that they deal with the same issues that you do in different form. The more things change, the more they stay the same (read C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity), and human nature is the same regardless of race or culture. I personally hope that my children will stay sexually pure until marriage. In today’s culture, that becomes increasingly unlikely. I can do my best to teach them my views on that, and back it up with scripture and a heart for God. But at some point, I will be releasing them into the world to have their own experiences and make their own choices. They will sin (don’t we all?), and they will make bad choices, and they will have failures. I will be there to love them and give advice when requested, and, yes, I will judge, because someone has to teach them judgement over their own actions and over the actions of others as directed towards themselves. But through it all, I will pray that the lessons I have taught them about putting God first, respecting self, and loving others will have sunk in and been retained. They are, after all, not just my children, but children on loan to me from God.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 02:50:23 +0000

One thing about not managing to pull off perfection: it makes you so much more approachable to other people when they have troubles and need support.

When my son got divorced we felt so much shame because in our world, entrenched as we were in the conservative homeschooling movement, careful parenting is supposed to prevent this kind of thing.

But instead of condemnation, people came out of the woodwork to offer support. Especially people who had personal experience with the mess that surrounds divorce and betrayal. Pillars of our church shared stories about their own early first marriages and divorces. My initial reaction was “WHAT??? You were married before??? But you’re so perfect!!!” I was shocked to learn that several marriages I assumed to be first and always marriages were actually second marriages. That were now 25 or 30 or more years long.

God is a redeeming God. When Plan A doesn’t work out, He’ll take Plan B and make it Plan A.

I don’t wish hurt and pain and mistakes and sin on anyone, and I’d prefer to avoid them myself, and to save my children from them. But since it’s fairly inevitable that hurt and pain and mistakes and sin will befall us and entangle us, I will say this, it is nice to find a redeeming God working in the mess.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 02:29:47 +0000

I’m hearing you honey and as more often than not totally get what you are saying and agreeing. Thanks for making my tired brain think.

By: chewymom

chewymom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:34:10 +0000

Robin, I don’t think any of the things I mentioned are sin. Maybe that’s where we are misunderstanding each other. Being involved in the culture does not equal sin! I guess I’m just…confused. I have no idea where I encouraged sin in any way. What I hopefully DID say is that avoiding our current culture does not make a person more spiritual. And that IF my child struggles with sin as he is involved in the culture, but his sin drives him to Jesus, that is a GOOD thing. Not that I would ever encourage him to sin. But even the “high culture” person–or the person who never kisses anyone, or who only wears loose-fitting clothes, or the person who listens solely to classical music–sins. Sometimes those who live perfectly on the outside don’t recognize their sin, as they work so hard to shun the culture in which they live. Somehow that becomes equated with being a “good Christian” in their mind, and they look with pity at those who do things like dress stylishly and listen to popular music. It’s not that I would encourage my child TO sin, but when he does sin, I would rejoice if he recognized it and it made him run to Christ. It is easier to help the sinner who beats his breast and cries “Have mercy on me Oh Lord” to see his need of a savior than to help the sinner who says, “Thank God I’m not like THOSE people.” At least that has been my experience as a Christian and as a mom.

By: Robin

Robin — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:14:52 +0000

I guess I don’t see the value in having sinned. The value is in having not sinned. Yes, everyone sins. My son sins. But he has avoided sexual sins by remaining celibate (completely so) until he married. What is the value in sinning? Paul tells us in Romans that using grace as a reason to sin is wrong. When we can help our children avoid sin, there are many other things they avoid in the process . . . the consequences of sin. Will they still sin? Yes! But is hoping they sin so that they can experience grace a good thing? I guess that’s what I got out of what you wrote. Probably I misinterpreted it and for that I apologize. Maybe just a bad day for me.

By: chewymom

chewymom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:52:52 +0000

Thanks Joanna, That’s our goal–teach our children to love and appreciate ALL of that. And from there, they can form their own opinions about what they prefer.

Robin, I guess what I would ask is WHAT is the treasure in getting married at 23 and never having kissed someone? Why is that a treasure, but experiencing the culture in which they live is of no value? I’m not trying to be snarky, but I am trying to understand what gives one thing value over the other.

Emily, YES teaching our kids to avoid sin is a goal I think any Christian parent would and should strive toward. I think in the family I was writing about, there are things they would define as “sinful” that have no Scriptural basis–like pop music (or even Christian contemporary music, for that matter), sports, and certain ways of dressing. And I guess that’s what really rubbed me the wrong way–placing spiritual virtue on things that are actually just a matter of preference. And as a first-born who was “perfect,” I can say my faith has matured and deepened immensely as I have allowed myself to fail more and to see that failure. Once I let the facade go, grace stepped in….

By: TG

TG — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:48:48 +0000

Then again. . . I do believe God is faithful to His children. And those who have an appearance of innocence and perfection, though they may go many years without really knowing, experiencing their profound need for Christ — I believe God will allow sin to rear its ugly head in their lives at some point, driving them to their knees and exposing their need for Him.

Sometimes the sin struggles are internal. They are there, but are hidden from others. I also believe that eventually (prayerfully) God will break the veneer of perfection, and as grace is more deeply understood it will be “safer” to discard the veneer and be transparent with others about struggles, sins, and our need for God’s grace daily.

By: Emily

Emily — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:03:51 +0000

I completely agree with you, Chewymom!!!!! Of course anytime sin is avoided it’s a good thing, BUT a lifestyle that allows a family to feel pride at their personal avoidance of outward sins usually doesn’t do the kids much long-term good. I was a very “good” girl when I was younger, and without realizing it I was pretty proud of myself. Sin was never something I really experienced in myself, at least not the “big” ones. Now of course no parent should throw their child to the wolves in the hope that they’ll sin and get closer to God, Paul even addresses that in Romans. BUT, a thin veneer of innocence on the outside can do more harm by innoculating children to real grace than having children who struggle with normal things and consistently run to Jesus with it. While I long for my daughter to walk closely with God and stay on His path, I also would rather her fall a bit and grow more authentic and closer to Him because of it than realize in her twenties that she doesn’t know God or grace because she’s never done anything to make her feel her need of Him.