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In response to a radio program I did on the blessings of having children, I received a letter from a listener who said he believed it is "a very inopportune time to have children." Lamenting the difficulties families have competing against "cultural indoctrination that is hammered into the tender minds of children," this preacher foresees an era in which "children will be taken away from Christian parents because of the 'narrow-minded' ideas that they teach them." He asks, "Who in their right mind would want to have small children through all this? My wife and I have thought about it and may never have children, and the good thing about it is that we will have more time to serve God."

To which I replied:

"Followers of the Lord Jesus face persecutions and sufferings. They always have. Jesus promised it. At the same time, he loves the children and receives them, as his Father does from the beginning of creation, as a blessing.

When the Israelites are in bondage to Pharaoh, God sees their children as a blessing. It is Pharaoh who sees them as a curse. When the people of God are under persecution from Babylon, Assyria, Rome, and in every other way, God always pronounces children as a blessing; barrenness as tragic.

I will agree with you on this one thing. The nihilistic, anti-Christian worldview is indeed pervasive. It is, in fact, more pervasive than you may think; you have embraced it.

I hope you will find the blessings of life, of parenthood, of hope."

- Russell D. Moore
(Excerpted from the April 2009 issue of Touchstone)

A study of Internet use and eating habits in Korean teenagers showed that the people who used the Web most tended to eat smaller meals. Out of the entire study, which compared light, moderate and heavy levels of "Internet addiction," the heavy users were the only group in which reduced meal size was a more prevalent trend than unchanged or increased meal size -- all of which raises an intriguing question.

- Excerpted from Slate

Ironically, Christians, who profess outright to believe in magic (what else is water into wine, resurrection from the dead, calming storms, etc?) are the most upset when you put it into a book, while authors like Pullman (a materialistic atheist who believes reality to be all mechanism as far as I can tell) works with it comfortably and well. It really should be the other way around.

- N.D. Wilson (via Justin Taylor)

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