Category Archives: cultural apologetics

June 19, 2012 · 5:08 am

If Sixth Graders Ruled the World…


…the world would be run by girls.

Such was the observation of my wife after attending our son’s graduation from elementary school and the 6th grade. I concur. 80% of the awards and recognition for leadership went to girls. Actually, to about 30% of the girls. Mind you, I am not the least bothered by this. It was great to see these young women so active in the life of their school and community.

However, I do have a question: Will their leadership last?

There seems to be a pattern of girls falling back from their high performance in athletics and academia (my general impression and surely not always accurate). Why would there be such a change? Social pressure to focus on looks and boys? Boys catching up development-wise and creating more competition? Or, are we seeing a change in culture that will continue? I’m hoping for this last question to be true. When my wife was in school, there were few opportunities for girls to excel in sports. That has changed. A goodly number of the girls mentioned aspirations of being a professional athlete. When my mother was in school, I doubt many of her classmates aspired to be doctors and lawyers. These days, girls recognize that most professions are wide open to them. So, I hope we are seeing a continued culture change. I’m all for girls wanting to be married and to become mothers (all in DUE time) but I am also worried about how much pressure we place on them regarding looks and body image.

Can you and I do anything about the world of sixth grade girls? Well, let us all endeavor to encourage young women to focus on their intellectual pursuits and god-given callings. And let us cease giving support to those cultural entities (ads, TV, movies, print media, etc.) encouraging young women to equate value with looks.

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Filed under Cultural Anthropology, cultural apologetics, education, Family, parenting, Uncategorized

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January 10, 2012 · 5:28 pm

Read this: What’s wrong with giving a girl a push-up bra?


Friend and fellow counselor David Wiedis just sent me this Dailing News column link about his wife’s new self-published book. Having seen a mock-up of it, I can’t recommend it enough. It is clever, beautifully illustrated…and nails it on the slippery slope of playing to our sexualized culture when it comes to clothing for girls.  It will certainly make you think! Miho is also an acclaimed performance artist and does a show called, “Clean Sheets.” You can read about her work here.

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Filed under Christianity, church and culture, cultural apologetics

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March 2, 2011 · 5:17 am

What causes mental illness and do you have any choice?


The common medical assumption is that mental illness is the result of multi-faceted vulnerabilities in combination with stressors. A person may have some vulnerability markers but those alone are not likely to result in mental illness without biologic, social, or environmental stressors “turning on” the markers.

If you want to see this model in action, you should watch a most troubling episode of “Independent Lens” on your local PBS channel. It aired in Philadelphia last night. You can find more about the episode here on their website and watch clips of the show.

The hour long episode follows a 16 year old girl, Cyntoia, facing life for murder. You will see extended conversation with the girl, her adoptive mother, her biological mother (who she never really related to). Her bio mother drank throughout her pregnancy, smoked crack and prostituted herself. Cyntoia was being prostituted and was at a “john’s” house when she shot him thinking he was going to kill her.

You can see that Cyntoia probably meets criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Watch her mother for a bit and you can see that she comes by it quite naturally. They both have a similar pattern of speech and attitude. There is a long history of suicide and paranoia in the extended family. Very interesting to see how this young woman talks to the forensic psychiatrist.

Choices?

Watch and wonder how Cyntoia could have avoided her predicament. She started out with poor genes, alcohol exposure and poor attachment opportunities. She lists 36 people she had sex with (she felt obligated to have sex with those who wanted her). The issues are legion.

Even more brutal is to watch the interviews with her adoptive mother who is trying to wrap her head around the facts that come out during the investigation. Watch also how Cyntoia talks about her and to her. Notice that there is love.

Very rarely would you get this kind of information from 3 generations of rape and sexual abuse (and adoptive mother’s story).

Watch the episode and consider this question: just how much choice do some people have? Even with her incredible insights (e.g., “everybody wants admiration, everybody wants to be desired. That is my **** problem too.”), this young woman had 3 strikes against her.

The truth is we often believe people have easy choices to avoid trouble. Cyntoia’s story reminds us that trouble begins generations before some people are conceived.And even when we acknowledge that Cyntoia could have made choices to tell adults about her abuse or to escape her pimp, we are left with the gnawing question, would we have made any different choice if in her place? For the record, I am a firm believer in that we do have choices to make. But some have a whole lot more than others and the roadsigns to better choices are bigger for some of us than others.

Challenging story which also pulls on your vision of redemption, restoration and appropriate punishment for minors who commit murder.

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Filed under Abuse, addiction, cultural apologetics, Psychology, stories, suffering

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February 22, 2011 · 11:47 am

One treatment protocol for many DSM diagnoses?


Could we devise one mental health treatment for many counseling problems? Given that so many problems have similar symptoms (anxiety, mood dysregulation, vigilance, intrusive and unwanted thoughts, etc.) and appear to involve common neurobiological processes (limbic systems), might we be able to find a single treatment for multiple expressions of problems?

David Barlow and others say yes.

The Renfrew Center (an eating disorder clinic) publishes Perspectives: A Professional Journal of the Renfrew Center Foundation, a free journal. In their Winter 2011 issue they have a brief article by David Barlow and Christina Boisseau about a new “transdiagnostic unified treatment protocol” (UP) that can be applied to all anxiety and depressive (and eating) disorders. Let me summarize a few points from the article:

  • 70 to 80% of clients with eating disorders also have anxiety disorders, 50% meet criteria for depression
  • A number of anxiety and depressive disorders have emotional dysregulation as a central theme
  • Etiology of these diagnoses may be best accounted for by “triple vulnerability theory”: biological vulnerability to negative mood…early negative childhood experiences due to attachment issues or unpredictable environment leading to an elevated sympathetic nervous system…and psychological learning from an event focusing on a particular issue (anxiety, panic, observation of parent’s panic, etc.)
  • The Unified Protocol (UP) focuses on “the way that individuals with emotional disorders experience and respond to their emotions” (p. 3). UP consists of 5 core modules
    • emotional awareness training (focus on “nonjudgmental present-focused awareness”)
    • cognitive reappraisal (“identifying and subsequently challenging core cognitive themes”)
    • emotion driven behaviors (EDB) and emotional avoidance (identifying maladaptive EDBs, learn new responses and avoid avoiding emotions)
    • awareness and tolerance of physical sensations (self-explanatory…as they relate to emotions)
    • emotion exposure (“…goal is to help patients experience emotions fully and reduce the avoidance that has served to maintain their disorders(s)”)
  • These modules are flexible and shaped to the individual needs of the client

Obviously, there is much work to be done to validate this protocol but it makes sense. You can see the CBT foundation but also a greater focus on emotion rather than cognition.

Those interested in the full text and references can find it here!

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Filed under Anxiety, counseling, counseling science, cultural apologetics, Doctrine/Theology, Psychology

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January 6, 2011 · 5:07 am

Some thoughts on the roots/shoots of genocide


Been thinking about the topic of genocide lately due to a possible symposium talk in near future. If you are like me it is hard to wrap your mind around such a horrific human/group behavior. Just how does one get to the point of being willing to massacre 10 people much less 1,000? How does one become “okay” with mass killing?

I think most would like to believe it is something different from normal human behavior–something in a different category from the rest of humanity. Maybe it comforts us to think of it as a massive work of Satan (it likely is) or a secret political conspiracy that the general population knows nothing of til afterwards.

I suspect, however, that genocidal behavior develops out of some rather basic, even mundane, human tendencies. Here’s the recipe for mass murder, abuse of power, and even use of porn in the privacy of one’s bedroom while acting righteous in public. Duplicity, abuse of power, or any willful sin starts with,

  1. The seed of a perceived problem or threat/loss, and then
  2. Sprouts in the soil of self-focus and deafness or complacency to the needs of others, and then
  3. Bears fruit in warm glow of deception of self and other fertilized by propaganda

Here’s my question to you. What else might I be missing in this “recipe”?

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Filed under Abuse, Christianity, cultural apologetics, deception, self-deception

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January 14, 2009 · 5:26 am

On apology: Do you lose your dignity when you apologize?


Really, my last post on this topic for now. But Lazare mentions that the dignity of the apologizer is diminished in the act of apologizing. Read his comment about his wife’s apology for a false accusation against their daughter,

Louise’s apology was successful because it diminished her own dignity while restoring Naomi’s. By saying, in effect, “I am the culprit, not you. I misplaced the brownie and blamed you when I should have known better.” (p. 50).

Later he talks about how apologies restore balance in relationships and restore dignity to the wronged. I agree with that, especially when the offender has power over the offended (like the illustration of the mother over the daughter).

But does the one doing the apologizing lose dignity when apologizing? To whom does that seem to be happening? When someone apologizes to me for something, I see their dignity going up, not down. It went down with the offense and returns with the heartfelt admission and request for forgiveness.

I think he has it wrong here. What do you think?

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Filed under book reviews, conflicts, cultural apologetics, Psychology, Relationships

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January 13, 2009 · 5:38 am

Does “Zero Tolerance” work?


The December 2008 edition of the American Psychologist takes up this question when their task force on the matter publishes the article, “Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations (pp 852-862).

What did they find?

1. “…despite a 20-year history of implementation, there are surprisingly few data that could directly test the assumptions. Moreover, zero tolerance policies may negatively affect the relationship of education with juvenile justice and appear to conflict to some degree with current best knowledge concerning adolescent development.” (abstract, p. 852)
2. Zero tolerance is based on several assumptions that the authors found wanting

a. school violence is at a crisis level and increasing still. No (is this because of the policies?)
b. Zero tolerance increases consistency of discipline and sends a clear message. Not found in the data.
c. Removal of violent children will create a better climate for those who remain. Data suggests the opposite, schools with higher suspension rates have lower climate ratings.
d. Swift punishment is a deterrent. Not borne out in the data. Opposite may be.
e. Parents are overwhelmingly in favor of the policy. Mixed data here at best, depending on whether your child is a victim or offender.

3. Impact on minority and disabled children? The assumption was the zero tolerance wouldn’t be a respecter of persons. Data suggests disproportionate discipline of students of color not based on poverty or wealth. The suspicion is that teachers may need some help breaking down cultural stereotypes.

There’s a lot more in the article but I’ll stop here. Interestingly, the policy was created to be more fair across the board. The article suggests more wise implementation with more options for psychological care (no surprise there) rather than immediately going to the juvenile justice route. Either way, the problem has to do with wisdom. If you give administration options (akin to Judges discretion with repeat offenders) some will use it well, others not so much. If you make rules, they work well in decisions IF making the decision the same way every time is the goal. But of course, no one really wants that since wisdom dictates different responses. But then underlying prejudices will come back into play. However, it appears the policy doesn’t really address prejudice and stereotype anyway.

Is there a better solution?

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Filed under Civil Rights, conflicts, counseling science, cultural apologetics, education, Psychology, Race

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December 16, 2008 · 6:43 am

Volf on “Giving and Forgiving”


On Saturday I attended Miroslav Volf’s 3 hour talk on the topic of renewing grace and forgiveness in a “culture stripped of grace.” The first talk, “A Culture stripped of grace” he had these things to say:

1. Our culture is oriented around satisfying desires. If you ask a person what makes us flourish, you may get get a blank stare, or, they perceive that flourishing means living with satisfaction. Can we imagine flourishing without met desires? Maybe we should speak of “living well” instead?

2. We have lost some of those things that religion teaches us how to curtail desire. We live in a “grab ass/kick ass world” We grab what we can and take revenge on those who try to take from us or block us from what we think we deserve.

3. We tend to live in 3 (maybe 4?) modes
a. Taking mode (get what we want) Notice that life becomes dull in taking mode and so you need bigger and bigger takes. “Opiate for the people is commercialized culture, not religion.”
b. Investing mode (try to get just a bit more than we get)
c. Exchange mode(rough equivalency of giving and getting). This is where we live most of the time and it isn’t bad
d. Gift mode (giving more than we hope to get). Here he made allusions to bad gift giving which he says is worse than exchange mode.

4. What happens when gift mode shrinks in culture or goes away? Human life is impossible w/o gifting. We cannot pay enough to cover the costs from being raised, for example. We begin to see, when gift mode shrinks, that giving is being a fool, a loser, a sucker. In this current crisis we are afraid not of going hungry but of not being able to have what we want. 

He ended the talk with the question we wants us  to ask: What is our life for? This requires us to think and stop just reacting to desires and culture cues. What is our life for? Is it for me or for giving? How might this current crisis move us to ask this question?

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Filed under church and culture, cultural apologetics, Doctrine/Theology, Forgiveness, sin

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October 29, 2008 · 10:01 am

Kids and political ads


Here in PA we’ve been under a barrage of political ads for some time now. The kids hear or see them quite regularly. When my now 10 year old was 4, he wanted to know why a certain candidate was so angry. He was seeing ads by the candidate’s opponent with less than flattering photos. He proclaimed that he would vote for the one candidate because he smiled more than another.

I suspect we adults choose using similar decision-making skills. Voting may be less intellectual than we would like to admit.

Now we come down to the wire and here are snippets of conversations with my kids

8 year old: Dad, who are you going to vote for? I hope it is Obama?
Me: Why?
8 year old: Well, he’s black.
Me: Why do you want a black president?
8 year old: White people are always being president and leaders and its about time a black person gets to be president.
Me: Yeah, I agree with you, its about time.
8 year old: Why do they have to be so mean to each other?

Conversation with my 10 year old this am:

Me: So, who would you like to vote for
10 year old: Obama
Me: Why?
10 year old: [after saying I don’t know]. I guess because he seems to have more ideas.
Me: Does his being black have anything to do with it?
10 year old: Yeah, about 50% of my reason.

FYI, my kids are black. It is clear that without any real influence one way or the other by their parents, they both really identify with Obama based on color. And I’m pretty sure that my youngest will be very crushed if Obama isn’t elected. He takes these things very personally when things don’t go the way he hopes.

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Filed under cultural apologetics, News and politics, parenting, Race, Racial Reconciliation

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March 4, 2008 · 5:46 am

ER: Is it easier to feel guilt than forgiveness?


Someone sent me a link to a recent ER show where a dying man is talking to a chaplain about his guilt and whether or not he can be forgiven for his taking innocent life. While some of the chaplain’s comments are relativistic mumbo-jumbo, she has one very insightful comment.  The dying man says something to suggest he can’t make up for his sins. The chaplain says,

“[Sometimes I think] it’s easier to feel guilt than forgiven….that your guilt is your reason for living…but maybe you need something else to live for.”

I may not have gotten that quote just right at the end as I was scribbling it down. But, this line is very powerful. In fact, some make a living out of guilt, depression, hopelessness, etc. They can’t imagine life any different. Pride makes it hard to give up what feels to have become a central feature to their identity. While her counsel was terrible, she was right on the money about the nature of guilt and the difficulty in giving it up. He would have to accept that he received something he did not deserve and could never pay back.  

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Filed under counseling, cultural apologetics, Forgiveness

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