Helping Kids With Difficult Passages of Scripture

Christianity,

We have highlighted several resources produced by our friends at Focus on the Family intended to help you teach your children and your church about important truths found in scripture.

Today, we want to share a resource intended to help parents teach their children about difficult passages of scripture.

There are plenty of stories in the Bible that, especially if taken out of context, appear confusing or downright evil. In fact, arguably much of the books of Genesis and Judges falls into this category.

Jessica Thompson at Focus on the Family’s “Thriving Family” magazine writes,

It’s easy to look at a lot of Bible stories and imagine them in some sleazy supermarket tabloid:

“War hero vows to sacrifice first thing he sees after deployment. It’s his daughter!” (Judges 11)

“King takes soldier’s wife as his own. Has her husband killed.” (2 Samuel 11)

“Jealous brothers sell their younger brother into slavery, tell father he was killed by wild animal.” (Genesis 37)

The headlines could go on. Rape, incest, homosexuality. Murder and polygamy. It can be difficult to answer our kids’ questions about these troubling scriptural passages. What is the moral? Where is the hero? Can God be both good and in control of this mess?

So what are we supposed to do when our children ask us to explain these confusing or difficult passages of scripture? Again, Jessica writes,

We need to help our children learn how to read God’s Word — how to understand what’s going on in individual stories and how to frame those tales within the big picture. This isn’t a collection of moral stories meant to inspire us to be better people. Rather, the Bible is a realistic depiction of the condition of the human race. While there are moments of heroism and moral clarity, the Bible isn’t about larger-than-life people making flawless decisions and reaping the reward for their perfection. Humanity has an ugly history, and the Bible doesn’t ignore it, but rather takes hold of it, owns it and gives us a Savior who makes things right.

“Thriving Family” lists age-appropriate talking points you can use in discussing these passages of scripture with your children. I hope you will check them out; besides equipping you to educate your children, they may help you gain a deeper appreciation for God’s word as well. Click here for more information.

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White House’s Latest Family Program Still Overlooks Marriage, Fathers

Marriage, , , , , ,

Last June we wrote about President Obama’s anti-poverty initiative called “My Brother’s Keeper.” The initiative focuses on “access to early childhood supports; grade school literacy; pathways to college and a career, including issues arising from school disciplinary action; access to mentoring services and support networks; and interactions with the criminal justice system and violent crime.”

While the goals are noble, the program completely fails to acknowledge the role marriage plays in preventing poverty and shaping children into productive adults.

Following criticism that My Brother’s Keeper focuses on young men to the exclusion of women, the White House has announced plans for a new initiative: “Women and Girls of Color: Addressing Challenges and Expanding Opportunity.”

In summarizing the necessity of the program, the White House Council on Women and Girls writes,

“Girls of color still lag behind in their performance on standardized tests, and they are more likely to be suspended from school. Women and girls of color still face higher rates of poverty and receive lower wages for their work than their white peers, and they are more likely to become involved in the criminal justice system. Women of color still have some of the highest rates of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other serious conditions, and they experience high rates of domestic violence. And when women are the primary or sole breadwinners for nearly half of all households of color, these disparities do not just affect them, but their families and communities as well.”

The initial 54-page report on the program outlines strategies for assisting girls and young women in areas of education, economic security, health, domestic violence, and criminal justice.

Here’s the problem: In all 54 pages, we could not find one mention of the word “marriage,” and we only found 4 instances of the word “father”–despite the fact that, statistically speaking, marriage and fathers have profoundly positive impacts on the lives of children.

The Women and Girls of Color initiative seeks to improve education among young women; decrease discipline problems at school; prevent crime; increase wages among young women; improve health; and decrease violence. Coincidentally, children in stable homes with a married mother and father are less likely to live in poverty; have fewer discipline problems at school; are less likely to commit a crime; enjoy better health; earn higher wages as adults; and are less likely to be the victims of violence.

The White House is repeating the same mistake it made with My Brother’s Keeper: If you want to help children out of poverty, one of the best things you can do is implement policies that maximize the possibility their parents will get married and stay married.

What’s particularly striking about this latest initiative from the White House is that it will deal in part with teen pregnancy, “supporting pregnant and parenting students,” access to fertility treatment, availability of contraception, and programs in which social workers will visit the homes of at-risk families to provide education and assistance. The program acknowledges parents and children; it focuses extensively on young mothers; but marriage never even enters the conversation.

Just like My Brother’s Keeper, the Women and Girls of Color Initiative seems to be another government program bent on solving many problems that parents and healthy marriages seem to solve or prevent naturally. I realize many people may see a program like this as a waste of tax dollars to begin with, but if you really want to reverse trends in poverty, juvenile delinquency, education, and violence, then you simply cannot afford to ignore marriage.

You Can Read the Entire Report from the White House Here.

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More Evidence Marriage and Family are Good for the Economy

Family, Marriage,

We have written before about research revealing how marriage contributes to household income. Studies from the Heritage Foundation have shown marriage is as effective at raising household income as adding a few years to a person’s education. In other words, being married with a college degree puts a person’s income in the same range as that of someone with, for example, some graduate school education or a Master’s degree. This week there is more emerging evidence that marriage is good for parents and children.

According to a new study by officials from the National Marriage Project, “Growing up with both parents (in an intact family) is strongly associated with more education, work, and income among today’s young men and women. Young men and women from intact families enjoy an annual ‘intact-family premium’ that amounts to $6,500 and $4,700, respectively, over the incomes of their peers from single-parent families.”

If those numbers hold true, that means a young adult who grew up in an intact family with a mother and father present will earn roughly $200,000 – $290,000 more over the course of his or her career than someone who grew up in a single-parent household.

There are plenty of other factors to consider. As other researchers have noted, children with a married mother and father do better in school; have fewer discipline problems and are less likely to get in trouble with the law; and are more likely to go on to college. However, one thing these positive outcomes all have in common is a married mother and father.

(more…)

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