John Stonestreet – Page 45

Marijuana Harms

Sep 27, 2021John StonestreetMarijuanaMarijuana

*John Stonestreet, Radio Host and Director of the Colson Center*

According to Dr. Eric Voth in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “There exists clear medical evidence of increased psychiatric difficulties with marijuana use, including violence, psychosis, schizophrenia, manic episodes, worsening depression and suicide.”

These effects are particularly harmful for youth.

Of course, when it comes to public policy, the cat is largely out of the bag, and probably isn’t going back in. One thing, however, is becoming more and more clear with each study, despite what proponents claimed and promised: marijuana is not the harmless thing we were sold by advocates and the state.

For the record, states should not be in the business of promoting distractions to citizens in the first place, especially harmful ones used to self-medicate symptoms of loneliness, pain, or anxiety without actually addressing the root causes. But this is particularly disturbing when they accomplish this by overselling financial windfalls and underselling the social consequences.

When Parents Aren’t Enough

Sep 20, 2021John StonestreetFamilyParents and Family

According to a recent article in the Atlantic, a growing number of parents wish they’d never had kids. Citing surveys of parents from America, Germany, and Poland, the article points to various reasons for the regret, but Polish researcher Konrad Piotrowski says that the overriding cause is feelings of inadequacy. Or, as a researcher from Belgium put it, “They don’t want to be a parent, because they are not able to be the perfect parent.”

Parenting on social media is one source of that pressure, along with the fact that for many families, the state has taken the place of core institutions (namely, churches) that once provided essential support to parents.

Theologian Abraham Kuyper suggested that God created various spheres of culture, like government and family, church and education, with specific roles and responsibilities. When one or more of these roles and responsibilities are either abandoned or bloated, it puts undue pressure on the other spheres.

Individuals and families are feeling this pressure, and unsustainable. It’s also an incredible opportunity for the church to take the lead in a better way.

Why Asking Kids to Announce Their Pronouns is a Big Deal

Sep 6, 2021John StonestreetLGBTLGBT, Pronouns, Transgender

According to a friend, the first day of her son’s 8th grade class began with teachers asking students to stand up and declare their pronouns. This was in Ohio, but I’d be willing to bet it happened in most state schools this year.

Set aside for a moment the questionable wisdom of asking hormone-riddled middle-schoolers during the most awkward times of their lives to talk about their bodies in front of their peers…

This would have never happened five, even three years ago. Compared to other ways gender confusion is aggressively advanced in our culture, this one may seem like an innocuous first-day-of-school icebreaker. It’s not. Culture is most powerful not where it’s loudest, but where it makes things seem normal, or “common.” Encouraging students to view their identity as chosen, and their physical bodies as wrong isn’t normal. It isn’t true; and it’s harming our kids.

Christians shouldn’t participate. And parents should not let this classroom activity slide by unopposed.