God's Love Scene

I just listened to Frank Turek interviewing J. Warner Wallace on his book, God's Crime Scene (Colorado Springs, Colorado: David C. Cook, 2015). Near the end of the program, Wallace made a comment about how Christian romantic fiction books outsell books on apologetics, apparently by a wide margin. Turek suggested that Wallace change the name of his book to God's Love Scene. What a sad commentary on the state of professing Christianity in our culture.

Given how much time I see women spending on romance novels, I wonder how much better this culture would be if they spent even ten percent as much time reading material on apologetics, theology, philosophy, ethics, etc. I've often mentioned things men are more likely to waste time on in other posts (sports, pornography, video games, etc.), but I haven't said as much about the problem with women and romance literature. I've long been astonished at how often I see women reading one, two, or more romance books every week or every month who probably have never read through an entire book on, say, theology, politics, or apologetics. If you haven't read my material documenting how Americans have desperately false priorities and horrible time management, please click on the Time Management label below.

Something else that came up during the interview was a comment Richard Land has made about apologetics, to the effect that evangelism in our day requires apologetics. When people neglect apologetics, that tells us something about other areas of their lives as well. How involved are they in evangelism if they're so uninterested in apologetics? To the extent that they are involved in evangelism, what's the quality of that evangelism if apologetics has so little role in it?

More Bad Consequences Of Same-Sex Marriage

Amy Hall has a good post about the effects of same-sex marriage on friendship.

The Adjustment Bureau

I recently watched The Adjustment Bureau. I like a lot of movies which are based on Philip K. Dick's scifi. But I didn't think too much of this movie. Well, I didn't think badly of it. I just mean I thought it was pretty good overall, and probably a cut above most scifi movies Hollywood churns out, but it's nowhere near as good as, say, Minority Report or Blade Runner.

Spoilers ahead, so please don't read the rest of this if you don't want to read spoilers.

Also, apologies since this is more rambling and disorganized than I'd normally like.

Like a horse and carriage

(Posted on behalf of Steve Hays.)

An email correspondent asks about love and marriage:

1. For most Christian men, permanent bachelorhood would be a spiritual impediment to sanctification.

2. Having more things to be thankful for draws us closer to God. If a wife and kids are an occasion for thankfulness, that will draw you closer to God.

3. Loving God is not a substitute for sexual and asexual varieties of human love. God has not made us that way.

4. We can also love God by loving God's handiwork. By loving natural goods.

5. In this life, our knowledge of God is indirect. It is mediated in various ways.

Frankly, we can't expect to feel the same way about God that we do about someone physically present in our life.

6. Romantic desire is complex. In animals, the sex drive is purely instinctual. And there's an instinctual element in human sexuality as well.

But there are also elements of anticipation and memory. We are conscious of the future. We reflect on the experience of friends and family members.

Our feelings may change over the years. The sex drive may be most insistent in our teens, yet at that age we may also feel that we have our whole future ahead of us. What's the hurry?

As we grow older, the emotional element may become more insistent.

For example, if a young man enters the priesthood, he may, at that time, be quite sincere about his vow of chastity.

Yet life can look very different at 30 than it did at 20, or 40 than it did at 30.

7. It's true that those who never marry may have never made a conscious decision not to marry. It isn't that they never decided not to. Rather, they never decided to do so, and take the steps necessary to make it happen.

You don't have to do anything not to marry. Doing nothing takes no effort. It's not a choice, but the absence of choice.

Marriage is not automatic. It doesn't just happen all by itself. You have to create your own opportunities.

If we're not careful, we can let time pass us by. Life moves very fast. It's easy to become preoccupied -- to lose track of the passage of time.