Final Thoughts (for now) on Teens and Social Media

Zits and hormones. Chemistry tests, ACT tests, driving tests. Does he like me or doesn't he? Being a teenager has never been easy. Bills and jobs, marriage and parenting aren't a piece of cake, but I can't think of any adult who'd want to go back to being a teenager. And I know for sure I wouldn't want to be a teenager today. Reading the book American Girls has made me more aware of that than ever. Kids have always had to deal with self-consciousness, bullying, peer-pressure, and sexual issues, but not like they do now. Everything about our world is faster, more intense, more revved-up than ever before. It's more connected, for better and for worse. These changes have brought new levels of pressure to our teenagers that previous generations didn't know.

When I was in high school, I dealt with my peers from 8 to 3, five days a week. I took weekends, evenings, and summers off with only a few exceptions for close friends. I knew other kids from my school were whooping it up on Saturday night, but I had no evidence of it, no idea what I was missing, and I was happy to hunker down at home, grab a bowl of Cheerios, and watch an episode of Moonlighting (in real time, with commercials). Today there is no unplugging. Teenagers today are connected 24/7. Even if their parents mandate time away from social media, the young minds are still churning, churning away, wondering what they're missing, worrying that life is happening without them.

I knew a little bit about this before I read American Girls. Times have changed, things are hard, yeah, yeah. But really, I knew nothing. My teenagers and their friends aren't a real accurate picture of the bigger world. And let's face it; I'm old and out of touch. A curtain has always existed between the generations. Sometimes we can peek through it or around it, but it's there, and it's not budging. In some ways it's a healthy and necessary curtain. We parents want our kids to grow up, to take ownership of their lives, to organize their own schedules and be responsible for their own commitments. I like a nice, breezy, sheer curtain. With this generation, in particular, however, the curtain seems to have become an impenetrable drape. Technology, in large part, has been the seamstress. Parents, non-natives in this new world, stand on one side of the technological curtain, and teenagers, with their ever-changing apps, stand on the other. This is why I am thankful for Nancy Jo Sales's book. It pulled back the curtain. Here, boiled down, are some things it revealed to me:

• Social media addiction starts early, and the younger it starts, the more controlling it is. 
• Teen girls, and likely teen boys, have a love-hate relationship with social media. It makes them anxious, untrusting, and obsessive, but they can't imagine their lives without it. As one girl put it, better to let it ruin your life than to have no life at all.
• Teens are spending less time in person with one another, and when they are together, they're spending less time talking. One 16-year-old girl said: "I find most of the time I'm with my friends, I feel so disconnected because of the technology. They're always on their phones to play a game or see what someone else is doing somewhere else." What effect will this have on their ability to interact as adults?  
• No one on teenage social media can escape being bullied, and nearly everyone will display their own bullying behavior, whether they recognize it or not. Everyone will be ridiculed. Everyone will ridicule.
• Because life on social media is perceived as "not real," teens can make more impulsive decisions on it. "The younger you get a phone, the more impulsive your decision are," said one 14-year-old.  
• Sex is prolific on social media. It is "normal" for 14-year-old girls and boys to have dozens of nude pictures on their phones.
• The author contends that nearly every school has "slut pages," a site for boys to rank girls according to who's loose, who's hot, and who's not. Sometimes mothers are listed. 
• Porn is one click away at all times. Follow an innocent hashtag for a couple clicks, and you're going to see hard-core porn the likes of which Hugh Hefner never imagined. 
• The porn industry has hijacked social media, especially the kind designed for young people, and we cannot underestimate its power or prevalence in our kids' lives. Do not believe that your kid is the exception. 
• With porn as their model, boys have come to expect "porny" encounters with girls, and girls have learned to provide it. What will the future ramifications be on marriage, intimacy, and fidelity? 
• "There is no trust in our generation. Love is just a word; it has no meaning." --14-year-old girl
• Parents don't usually get involved in their teens' online lives until there's a crisis, and crisis is likely: cutting, eating disorders, attempted suicide, or criminal activity. Child porn is still a crime, even if it's a couple of 15-year-olds sending nude pictures of themselves back and forth. Lawmakers are puzzling over what to do about this.
• The author laments that we've taken huge steps back from the progress made in gender equality in the past 30 years. There are plenty of girls still going to college, but there are also plenty who just want to be "hot and famous." Their role models are the Kardashians and beauty vloggers like Jenna Marbles, who instructs viewers to "bleach the absolute **** out of their hair," go tanning, wear contacts, and cake on makeup. She has well over 15 million subscribers, most of them teen girls. 

I hope that by sharing the "highlights" of this book, I've given you a peek behind the curtain. I am no expert, and I don't presume to think I have all the solutions to the disturbing information presented in the book. The author proposed renewed feminism as a solution. That seems like a hollow answer to me. My answer, if I have one, is for parents to delay, delay, delay. Hold off on bringing new technology into our kids' lives. Choose "dumb" phones, which very well may be a smarter phone for a young teenager. For those whose kids have social media, we need to stay in our kids' business. Have family meals. Don't go our separate ways after dinner. Do homework in a community space. Know our kids' friends. Know what's on our kids' phones. Know what they're posting and viewing online. Know that they will cover things up, and they're smarter and slicker at this than we can imagine. Think hard about how much personal privacy they want versus how much they need. A violation of their personal privacy is better than a middle-of-the-night trip to the ER because they've tried to hurt themselves.

We can't check out. I know how easy it is. They drive, they have their own lives, they don't appear to need us as much. It's tempting to take our new-found time and launch ourselves into work or house projects or volunteering or our own social media worlds. But I so strongly believe that a 16-year-old needs a parent every bit as much as a 3-year-old, and possibly even more. This is not the time to check out. This is the time to put on our big-girl (and boy) parenting panties and do the hard, sometimes uncomfortable work of teaching and guiding teenagers. And while we're at it, let's watch what we're modeling. Am I texting while driving? Do I put my gadgets away when my kids enter the room and give them my full attention? Am I berating myself over a new pimple or a couple added pounds? How quick am I to criticize and ridicule others? They. Are. Watching. Us.

And as I said a month ago, we've got to pray. Even intentional, engaged parents are not going to catch everything. I know I'm not aware of everything going on under my roof. We have limited our kids' technology as much as just about anyone. But we can't limit what their friends are doing. We have no say in what's being passed around on the phone in the cafeteria. We've tried to teach them well, but they're going to make bad choices and stumble into bad situations. They're going to stay silent when they should speak up, and they're going to hide something when they know it's wrong. This is why I pray. I ask God to bring the things of darkness into the light. I ask Him to make my kids get caught, and for their friends to get caught. I pray that they will learn from their mistakes the first time, the easy way. And I pray that He'll give me the discipline and wisdom to stay at it, to not check out, to not be deceived when everything feels fine but it's not. I pray for the kids who don't live in my house, for those who will be my kids' roommates and spouses and coworkers and neighbors. For those who will be my dentist and maybe even my caregiver some day. God, be real to them. Show them that you alone are life and truth, joy and fulfillment, hope and peace. Pursue them relentlessly. Let them know that love is not just a word. It's a Person. Amen.

Social Media and the New World of Dating

"Dating is now just to hook up and take selfies."
--A 13-year-old girl interviewed by Nancy Jo Sales in the book American Girls


I went out on one real date in high school. It was a blind date with a boy from a neighboring school, set up by our friends. After a few phone conversations, this boy borrowed his dad's monstrously large car, picked me up, took me to dinner and a movie, and brought me home. I don't recall even talking to him ever again, although both of us had a fine night. Before the date, my dad, the football coach at my school, had contacted the football coach at the boy's school to make sure this was a decent kid. Edward (I think that was really his name) came in and made polite conversation with my parents before we left my house. Although nothing ever came of it, it's a sweet memory, especially how he nervously ran us over a few curbs in his dad's car.

Contrast that picture with teenage dating today, which happens mostly over cell phones. In her book, Nancy Jo Sales paints a picture of dating today that looks the same across the country, among junior highers, high schoolers, and college students. It goes something likes this: Boy meets girl over social media. They may or may not know each other in person. They share pictures. The pictures become more provacative. He is expected to follow and like what she posts. She is expected to follow and like what he posts. At some point, plans are made to "hook up." This often takes place at a party and involves some kind of sex. Also key is the taking of selfies, so that the "couple" has proof of their relationship to share with the rest of the world. Both are very likely carrying on similar relationships with others at the same time.

The college dating scene described in the book is even more perfunctory. Sales quotes the research of journalist Donna Freitas, who interviewed 2,500 current college students and found that hooking up, without the foundation of any kind of relationship, is the norm on their campuses. Here's how she describes it:

"Sex is something you’re not to care about. It’s almost like their job to get it done. One word I keep hearing from students is ‘efficient.’ They’re so busy, so overscheduled, hooking up is an efficient way to ‘get sex done.’ And you have to show that you’re doing it. The reason for hooking up doesn’t seem to be pleasure, fun, or intimacy; it’s all about performance, gossip, and being able to update about it on social media. Social media speeds it all up. Students hook up with someone after friending them on Facebook or following them on Instagram. They wake up the next day in bed with someone they  haven’t  had a conversation with.”  

The more this journalist talked with students, however, the more she began to unearth their true feelings about hook-up culture. Most college students, 83 percent of females and 63 percent of males, said they would prefer a traditional, committed relationship. Freitas writes, "The more I talk to students, the more the culture of hooking up seems really problematic for them. Both young women and young men are seriously unhappy with the way things are; they’re really ambivalent about the sex they’re having. According to everything they see in pop culture, they’re supposed to be having a great time, but it’s rare that I find a young man or woman who says hooking up is the best thing ever. In reality it seems to empty them out. There’s this sort of soullessness fostered in hookup culture; there’s a learned callousness."

Freitas says that alcohol becomes the way to numb their feelings: "I’ve got to drink so I can gear up to do this thing. I’ve got to get this over with, and alcohol is the way to get through it.” Porn becomes the model for sexual encounters, because it's got to be more exciting, more edgy to keep them engaged. The young men, and many of the young women, are well versed in porn activities and techniques, having viewed hundreds if not thousands of hours of it online.

Are these accurate descriptions? I don't know. My teenagers aren't dating yet, and I don't talk with the few college students I know about their dating practices. What I do know is that I can't open a newspaper or watch TV news without reading about the epidemic of sexual assault on college campuses. Freitas's research suggests that the mix of alcohol, porn, and the social media-driven normalcy of hook-up culture play a key role in what I'm seeing on the news. It's eye-opening, and that's why I share it here. While the idea of "free love" has been around for decades, this goes even beyond that. This is not your mother's college experience.

I write with the hope that we'll teach our kids another way to date. And yes, I still believe in dating, although I know some have followed the 90's trend to "kiss it goodbye." Healthy dating is a great thing if we can teach our kids that it involves personal, intentional, face-to-face communication and respect and romance instead of lust and sex. How about we teach our young men not just to text a meeting location to a girl, but to actually call her and make arrangements to come to her house and pick her up. To knock on her door and talk with her parents. Our daughters are valuable; they deserve to be treated kindly and honorably. They deserve more than incessant requests to send nude pictures of themselves to boys they barely know. Our boys were designed for something so much better and more fulfilling than alcohol-induced efficiency sex. Our kids need to know that they are worthy of being known and being loved.

Sales ends her books with a sobering story. She spent a weekend night with a group of college girls who lived together off-campus. She followed them as they hopped from bar to bar; she heard their stories as they went from one hook-up to the next. Some of the girls had several in one night. The next morning, most of the girls got up and went out for coffee. One stayed home. In her sweatpants, glasses, and messy bun, she looked nothing like the confident, vampy girl Sales had seen the night before. Her night had been full of hook-ups, but instead of talking about that, she talked to Sales about a very different kind of night she'd had in high school. She'd had a real date. A boy borrowed his dad's car, picked her up at her house, and took her out. They sat at a restaurant, and she was terrified and thrilled at the challenge of making real-time conversation. She didn't have time to come up with witty texts. This wasn't a selfie; she couldn't find her best pose or angle. She had to be herself. At the end of the night, the boy took her home, walking her to the door and saying goodnight with no expectations.

When Sales asked her how she felt about it, she said this: "It was awkward as hell because I’d never done it before, but it was a real-life thrill. It’s not like texting. Like you’re here, this is live, this is now. I need that. I want that. But that doesn’t happen anymore."

Sales ended her book with this 19-year-old's parting comments: “Do we even know how to fall in love anymore? Do we even know what being in love is? Will we ever get there because we have such a screwed up notion of what it should be, or how you should get there? Everyone wants love, and no one wants to admit it.”

Fascinating, isn't it, to those of us who dated in the 80s and 90s? So much to think about. I'll write on this book next week with some final thoughts, but I hope you'll keep thinking with me long after that.

Counting the Cost of Social Media

I was in Washington, D.C., recently and got in some good people watching. As I walked the streets with the masses of humanity, I noticed a number of very young children occupying themselves with cell phones as their parents pushed them along in strollers. Some of these kids didn't even look old enough to walk or talk, but they seemed to know exactly what they were doing with the device in their hands.

It starts so young: children entering our adult world of media fixation. They have their parents to thank . . . or blame. According to Nancy Jo Sales's research, 92 percent of American children have an online presence by the age of 2. Most have had their pictures posted on social media at least a thousand times before they reach kindergarten. It doesn't take long for these young children to figure out the routine. "Kids know their parents want them to make them look good on social media. So they work really hard at becoming good performers. But nobody is really thinking about what this is doing to the kids," writes journalist Donna Freitas, as quoted in the book American Girls. 

Kids were performers long before social media, but now they learn very early on of the vast audience "out there" beyond the walls of their houses. They quickly learn about "likes" and "followers." What used to amuse only parents can now be seen by the world. Perform well enough, and you could be rich and famous. Even the kids who don't aspire to be rich and famous want to be liked. By the age of 12, even 10, Instagram and Snapchat are the way to make that happen. (At least until they're made extinct by the Next Big Thing.) One very insightful teenage girl interviewed in the book said, "We've transferred high school popularity into social media measurements. The popularity contest--it's never been a good thing, and now that we have actual numbers, we've become obsessed with this attention. It's become an addiction to gain as much as we can." Could this be what Donna Freitas was talking about? Maybe we have evidence of exactly what social media performance is doing to our kids.

What is the cost to childhood? A New York principal told Sales he believes childhood is all but gone. Even elementary school students "have access to this world of adults they feel they have to participate in."  I don't think any parent would willingly take their kid's childhood away, but the evidence is mounting to show that's exactly what we've done by providing smart phones to 5th graders. I'd argue that it's even worse than just stealing their childhood. It's causing them harm. As I read Sales's book, I thought of the parents of my generation who have slathered their kids in sunscreen, attached a helmet to their heads on bike paths and ski slopes and skating rinks, strapped them down within an inch of their lives in carseats, and spent hours drilling "stranger danger" awareness into young heads. Then these same parents, quite possibly in the name of safety, provide cell phones for their children, which quickly become devices for social media, which drops their kids into a world of threats, harassment, sexual advances, manipulation, and emotional distress. (It is not at all uncommon for a kid on teen-driven social media to hear, "Why don't you just go kill yourself?") It's like the safety parents have unwittingly put matches and grenades into the hands of their children and walked out of the room.

Some of these parents (moms) have gone so far as to buy likes for their daughters. Some have spent hundreds of dollars getting their daughters' hair and make-up professionally done so that they can take the best possible selfie. The dangerous parenting sometimes reaches beyond the social media realm and into children's homes. In her interviews, Sales found a new trend among parents to allow and even encourage their teen daughters to have their boyfriends sleep over. One mom served the young teenage couple breakfast in bed. While trying to explain this attitude, a girl said: "It's the parents that say they trust their daughters to make their own decisions. They say it's being feminist, and they think their kids will think they're cool." So is it working? The girl went on to offer her own perspective: "A lot of parents don't get that it's putting a lot of pressure on their children. It's like a lot of pressure to be allowed to make all your own decisions, you know? We're just kids, and we don't always know what's the right thing to do." This girl who said this was 13.

This sounds like craziness to most of us, but the desire for our children to be well liked runs strong in all of us. Even the wise, intentional parents among us must be vigilant to stay off the crazy train because it's driving the culture, and it's threatening to plow us all down. I know that if I don't keep myself grounded in truth--both the truth of God's Word and people who speak His truth to me--I can easily get sucked into the world's definition of what's cool and who's popular.

It also takes discipline to keep my kids kids. I have to say no a lot. Sometimes giving them the gift of a simple childhood, one free from social media and endless technology, doesn't seem like a gift to them at all. I'm offering them undistracted minds and opportunities to dream and imagine when the world is offering them constant entertainment. And let's face it, parenting is a lot easier with screen time. I understand the draw to put screens in young hands so we parents can proceed without hassle or get our work done or simply read a magazine in the dentist's office in peace. I know it's hard not to give into the begging, and the true argument that "this is what everyone else is doing." But something as innocent as handing a restless kid a cell phone to play on is setting a precedent. It's opening the door wider and wider to that adult world where kids rely on someone else's imagination, where they're drawn into adult emotions and conversations. Every time we do it, we're stealing away their childhood. We're giving them matches and grenades.

Teenagers and Social Media: Part 1

I read a book this spring that left me stunned, grieved, perplexed, and fired up. If you know me at all, you know my concerns about social media. Yes, I know. It can and does advance the gospel, bring together loving marriages, and inspire fabulous last-minute party ideas. I know that social media is not the antichrist and serves some very good purposes. But anyone would agree that it has changed the landscape of our country and left a huge imprint on the way younger generations, especially, think, act, and relate with one another. Journalist Nancy Jo Sales documents the impact in her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers. Released in March 2016, it is recongnized as the most current, comprehensive look at how social media is influencing today's teenagers.

This was one of the hardest books I've ever read. I wasn't quite through the introduction when I thought, "I can't continue." But I pressed on. I have asked God to bring women and girls into my life who are hungry for discipleship, for truth, for Jesus. If I'm serious about that prayer, then I need to be prepared. I need to understand the context in which today's girls and young women are growing up. I need to know what's shaping their thoughts and driving their actions. I need to move way beyond my paradigm of what it was like to be a teenager in the 80s and begin to grasp what today's girls struggle with, obsess over, and live for.

And then of course there's the fact that I have three girls of my own, ages 14, 12, and 9.

I got a most unwanted education from this book. I don't recommend it. We parents need to wise up, for sure, but there is A LOT of stuff out there that we don't need to know. I now have mental pictures that I couldn't have conceived of six months ago, and I wish I could erase them. So by writing about this book, I am not encouraging you to drop everything and read it. But do read this blog over the next month or so. I'll try to summarize the important things we parents need to know without scarring you for life.

Nancy Jo Sales is a 51-year-old journalist who writes for Vanity Fair, Harper's Bazaar, and New York magazine. Somehow, she was able to embed herself in circles of teenage girls across the country. In big cities and small towns. With all kinds of girls: white, black, Hispanic, Asian, wealthy, middle-class, homeless. She shopped at the mall with high schoolers. She bar-hopped with college girls. She hung out with YouTube celebrities, 15-year-olds who can buy and sell their parents because they make videos in their rooms sharing wardrobe and make-up tips. She interviewed parents, many of them conflicted, most of them concerned, all of them clueless about what their kids were doing. She stood in a line that went around a New York city block, waiting with groups of young teenage girls who were desperate to meet Kim Kardashian and get an autographed copy of her book Selfish, a primer on how to take attractive naked selfies. Ms. Sales recorded the awe-struck words of one of Kim's 13-year-old superfans when she met the celebrity: "You've inspired me to be hot and famous." She also captured the words of a mother standing nearby: "You are such a role model to my daughters."

Ms. Sales got teenage girls to look up from their phones and really talk. They talked about 24-hour-a-day cell phone obsession that no one questions. About regularly being asked for "nudes" (pictures of themselves either barely dressed or undressed) by boys they'd barely met or didn't know at all. About "slut shaming," ridiculing girls who were too loose, and "slut pages," coveted internet spots in which boys rank which girls they want to have sex with. They talked about not being able to trust anyone, because everyone is a bully and everyone is bullied. Boys cheat. Relationships change minute by minute. Manipulation is constant. ("How long it takes to respond [to a text or post] is the one who has the power," one girl explained.) "Likes" are social currency, to the point where moms actually buy likes for their daughters so it looks like they're more popular. A 13-year-old said, "Every time I post a selfie, I need to check who's commenting--like, Oh my God, I'm getting so many comments. I'm so happy when I get likes! We're all obsessed with how many likes we get. It never feels like enough. I feel like I'm brainwasheed into wanting likes."

Partially brainwashed, yes, but not fully. Another 13-year-old observed, "It's funny it's called a selfie because half the time it doesn't even look like you. So you're getting people to like this picture of you that isn't even real." In their conversations with Ms. Sales, the idea of "real" kept coming up. I was struck by these comments from 13-year-old New Jersey girls, who called social media anxiety-producing and depressing. "So much drama happens over social media. Probably more stuff happens on my phone than in real life" one said. Her friend added, "I feel like we're living in a second world. There's a real world and a second world on social media. All we talk about all day is what's happening on our phones, but we never talk about how weird that is."

Older teenagers have even more perspective. The college girls remember what it was like when they were 11 and 12, before social media existed like it does today. They remember what life was like before they were tethered all day every day to their phones. Some of them are concerned for their younger siblings, who now start social media binging at 9 or 10. "It's destroying our lives," one older girl said, but then quickly added, "but without it, we'd have no life." Another girl wisely assessed the draw: "The temptation of being able to self-promote is just too strong. You can be whoever you want to be on social media." Another said, "Everything revolves around these Internet people we create. And everyone is super-aware of everyone else's ranking on these sites. I don't think we would be so addicted to it unless everybody else was, if everyone wasn't talking about it all the time."

I know a lot of adults who don't function well without their phones, who feel compelled to check them several times during a lunchtime meeting. But I don't think those of us in our 40s and beyond can imagine the all-encompassing, hypotic power that an app-filled phone has on a teenage girl. One girl described it as someone constantly tapping on her shoulder, while she was in school, while she was doing homework, while she attempted to sleep. "I can't help it. I have to look."

Social media is not the antichrist, but it is shaping our kids and our society in ways that cannot be overexaggerated. This is huge. I don't want to wake up suddenly in 20 years, when these kids are running our country, and wonder how in the world we got where we are. We're getting there right now by the decisions we make with and for our kids. The author of this book wrote with a clear agenda. She is promoting feminism and believes that's the answer to the exploitation, bullying, and manipulation of girls on social media. She blames men and boys, Silicon Valley CEOs, and a culture that has traditionally oversexualized and devalued women.

While I applaud her research, I don't wholly agree with her conclusions. I blame the enemy of Light and Life and Truth. (Ephesians 6:12, "We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in heavenly places.") I have my own agenda in sharing her findings with you. I believe the answer is for parents to wake up, to stop complaining about the hours their kids spend on their phones and actually find out what they're doing, to make family conversations about this topic a high priority in their homes. The ultimate solution for any spiritual battle is prayer. After reading this book, I don't walk nonchalantly into a room full of kids like I used to. I walk in and know I must pray.

More to come.

The Benefit of Being a Scribe

I am working on writing out the book of Acts by hand. Acts is actually my sixth book of the Bible to write out, and I've made it my goal to do the whole New Testament--and then maybe the Old Testament, too, if my eyesight and finger dexterity hold out. The kings of Israel used to do this; it was actually commanded of them (Deuteronomy 17:18). I only do about eight or ten verses a day, which gives me time to think deeply about the verses I'm copying. It's remarkable to see all the things I've read right over for years. Words and sentences and concepts become so much more meaningful to me when I write them with my own hand.

Here's an example. As I was writing out Acts 13 this week, I was struck by two great surprises.

Barnabas and Saul (whose name changes to Paul in this chapter) sailed to the island of Cyprus and were preaching the gospel there. In the town of Paphos, they were summoned by a high-ranking Roman official who wanted to hear what they were preaching. The only problem was that this official was under the influence of a "sorcerer" named Bar-Jesus. He was a Jew, and apparently he hadn't gotten the message that sorcery was strictly prohibited under Jewish law, or, more likely, he just didn't care. His powers as a magician had made him valuable to the Roman official, and this was not an arrangement he was willing to easily surrender. He opposed Barnabas and Paul, trying to keep them from sharing the truth with his important Roman friend.

Here's where I was surprised. Paul, "filled with the Holy Spirit," called this Bar-Jesus out. He called him a son of the devil, an enemy of all that's good, and a lying villain. He then made the man blind and went on his way. OK, God made the man blind, but Paul didn't seem too choked up when he told the magician what was happening. Paul, the greatest evangelist of all time, offered no invitation to repentance. He showed no compassion, no kindness, no interest in the man's salvation. He rebuked him for his sin and moved on. (The Roman official, on the other hand, was "astonished at the teaching of the Lord" and believed.)

I was caught off guard by Paul's treatment of the Jew. Where was the love? Why such harsh words of judgment and nothing more? And then, I was struck by the second suprise. I was surprised by my surprise. Has this tolerance-is-everything culture worn off on me in such a way that I'm now judging the Apostle Paul? Have I been tainted to think that loving someone means tiptoeing around their sin? I was surprised to find that the world's thinking had seeped into my own mind.

This story in Acts reminded me of this: There is a time to simply call out sin. Sometimes that is the most loving thing we can do. Of course that's not all Paul did. Most of the time his message was filled with grace and the good news that we can be set free from our sin. He cared deeply for people, to the point of preaching the good news even to those who were trying to kill him. He wrote letters of great encouragement and exhorted people to faith. But he also wasn't afraid to rebuke sin, to call out those who opposed God and tell them they were wrong. Wrong. Is it even a word we feel comfortable saying today?

Writing out the scriptures draws my attention to details I wouldn't otherwise notice. I think that's what it did for the ancient kings of Israel, too. Deuteronomy 17:20 says that writing out God's word would keep the king from becoming "proud and arrogant, changing the commands at whim to suit himself or making up his own versions" (The Message). I need to avoid this, too. When the world starts to rub off on me, when I'm tempted to reinterpret God's Word in a way that feels more palatable, more acceptable by today's standards, a word-by-word copy in my own hand keeps me grounded in truth.

Two Videos to Challenge Your Mushy May Mind

The basketball world has March Madness, and the mothers of the world have May Mayhem. If you're a mom with kids in school, you know what I'm talking about. May for a mom is like December for a UPS carrier, like April for an accountant, like July for the owner of a campground. I'm not complaining. Somewhere deep down I love it all, and I remember that I signed up for most of it. But school concerts and awards ceremonies and end-of-year potlucks and soccer games and track meets don't leave much time for pondering one's deepest thoughts. So for now, I'm sharing other people's thoughts.

If you have time and interest in watching thought-provoking videos, I recommend these two.

This one, about how far today's college students will take "tolerance," will provide good dinner conversation. It's about four minutes.

This second one is longer, about 22 minutes, but the first part of it is the most fun. It's fun for me because one of the most remarkable days in my life was the one I got to spend with Eugene Peterson. About 13 years ago, I had the incredible opportunity to meet for a few hours with Eugene one-on-one and ask him all of my questions. (Thank you, Dean.) While he is best known for writing The Message, NavPress's Bible paraphrase, he's also the author of some of my favorite books, and the genius behind what might be my favorite quote of all time. See below.

Rivaling me as Eugene's biggest fan is Bono. Yes, that Bono. This little documentary follows their relationship and Eugene's spiritual investment in Bono's life. I love the way God works! (And I can't help but note that this puts me one degree of separation from the biggest rock star in the world.)

"Every day I put love on the line. There is nothing I am less good at than love. I am far better in competition than in love. I am far better at responding to my instincts and ambitions to get ahead and make my mark than I am at figuring out how to love another. I am schooled and trained in acquisitive skills, in getting my own way. And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily—open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.” Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction

21st-Century Parenting: A Whole New World

This is not at all what I had planned to write about today, but I've got a burr under my saddle, and it's gotta come out.

When various groups and organizations find out you're a conservative Christian, they put you on all sorts of lists. They ask you to protest all sorts of things. I get a couple such requests a week, and I almost always hit "delete" and go on my merry way. This week, however, I followed a link that took me to Target's recent declaration about its restroom and dressing room policy. Now I find myself pondering my future with Target.

There are a lot of places I could easily boycott. Pep Boys and Home Depot come to mind. Target would be a very difficult place for me to avoid. I've been a fan since the mid-'80s, when I discovered I could get a box of Rice Krispies and a cute pair of shoes in the same place. But there's more to my pondering than just the inconvenience factor. The bigger question for me is whether or not this is an issue I want to take a stand for, and if so, will my "stand" accomplish anything for the Kingdom of God?

Does God care which bathrooms people use at Target? I don't ask that sarcastically or tongue-in-cheek; I'm serious. Some of you whom I love and admire and respect will adamantly say, "NO!" Boycotting is a waste of time and only stains the testimony of people who are to be known for our love, not our hate and judgment against others who are different. Others of you whom I love and admire and respect will say that God absolutely cares and that we must resist the tidal wave of political correctness and stand on the side of biblical truth.

Target could  have made this a much less divisive issue if they had gone the route of creating one "unisex" bathroom/dressing room. I might have rolled my eyes at it, but beyond that, I wouldn't have given it much thought. It would be an empty little room 99.9% of the time. But allowing people to choose the restroom that reflects their personal gender identification affects everyone. I'm not willing to say, as many have, that it compromises the physical safety of women and girls. If a bad man wants to get into a women's restroom and inflict harm, he'll figure out how to do it with or without Target's assistance. What I resist is someone else making a parenting decision for me, one that comes completely on someone else's terms and which I have very little control over. Here's what I mean.

I picture the many, many trips I have made to a Target restroom with a baby strapped to me, a kindergartner clinging to my leg, and a preschooler, still in the early throes of public-restroom-using, trying to convince me that she really doesn't have to go, despite all evidence to the contrary, and screaming over the self-flushing mechanism. Meanwhile, my older boy child waits outside the door, having deemed himself "too old," at 7, to go into the women's restroom, so of course I'm wondering what mischief he's gotten into while standing unattended next to a Skittles display. Now I picture, in the midst of all this, a man--clearly a man--walking into the restroom dressed like a woman. Two things are going to happen. First, one of my little girls would ask as loudly as she could, "Mommy, why is that man dressed up like a woman?" Next, I would have to answer her. Right there, in front of the transgendered person exercising his freedom, I would be forced into a parenting conversation that I am ill-prepared to have. It's 6:00 at night, I'm exhausted, my kids are dirty, crying, and worn out, and all I needed was a gallon of milk. Yet now I get to sensitively explain that this is America, and as this man "identifies" as a female, he has every bit as much right to be in there as we do.

I don't disagree that parents need to have these conversations with their children. We'd be fools not to. But I believe that we parents should get to choose when and how we have them. They should not be thrust upon us in a restroom at the end of a long day. All other moral and theological issues aside, that is my problem with the new Target policy.

Several years ago my family was preparing for a trip to Disneyland in October. We caught wind of the fact that we might be there over Gay Pride weekend, so I went online to investigate. Turns out it was not the weekend we were going, but I found myself sucked into the online dialogue about it anyway. There are people who want to make everything a Political Statement, and some of these people seem to show up on one weekend at Disneyland, eager to express their "pride" in the most demonstrative of ways. Let's kiss and cuddle and make a statement to the world! The flashier the better!

Then I saw a statement from someone who was more concerned with thoughtfulness and consideration of others' feelings than with his own personal liberties. He was a gay man who urged the members of his community to respect the intent of Disneyland. It's a place for kids. Parents have spent years saving up and planning for this trip, and they happened to be unlucky enough to arrive on the wrong weekend. We can be proud, the man said, while still being sensitive to these parents, by realizing that they may not want to have a tricky parenting conversation in the midst of their vacation. He called for restraint, for sensitivity, for kindness instead of boldness. Whether he had kids himself or not, he got it. He understood that teaching our children is the hardest, most important job a human being can have, and it should be done with thoughtfulness and intentionality, not on the fly while sitting behind two kissing men on the "It's a Small World" ride.

That's how I feel about the Target bathroom controversy. I truly don't know if this is a Kingdom issue or whether I should boycott or not. What I do know is that parenting is really hard, and that Target just made it harder.