Volunteering, Snow Shoveling, and IDs

A couple of years after my parents retired in a snow-heavy area of Michigan, they had a neighbor with a snow blower who would usually clear not only his driveway, walkway, and sidewalk, but also those of my parents. Prior to that, either my dad did it, or I did it when I was home for Christmas. One winter break, it snowed every single day that I was home, and I enjoyed (!) going outside with my snow scoop and taking care of it. My parents had another neighbor whose area I also took care of; before I turned 16, I earned money in the winter (in Iowa) by scooping snow for a few neighbors, but as a young adult, I was doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it!

All of this came to mind last week when I read about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s call for emergency snow shovelers to help dig out the snow-blanketed city. Prior to that, there had been reports of volunteers who were snow-shoveling, along with the employed city workers tasked with it. The pay was initially reported to be about $19/hour, but it was quickly increased to a very generous $30/hour. However, there were a few catches: first of all, paid snow-shovelers had to be at least 18 and eligible to work in the U.S. Second, they had to show two original forms of ID plus copies; their social security card; and two small photos sized 1.5 square inches. (This is not the same as a passport-sized photo, by the way, which is 2 X 2 inches.) If you were a snowed-in New Yorker and you happened to have all of this documentation, you were good to go! However, notice that you had to show not just two IDs, but copies as well; for those without printers, that would require the extra step of heading out into the snow and finding a business that was open and could make copies. Notice also the size of the required photos; if you had a couple of extra passport-size photos lying around (which I do), you would have had to do a little cutting. If you didn’t have extras, you could try to do it yourself, or you could head out into the snow and, again, hopefully find an open business that would do it for you. When I looked online, I did find a site that provides you with passport-size photos (for a fee, of course), which you could then print (again, if you had a printer) and then cut to the appropriate size.

As you might expect, Mamdani and other city officials received backlash over these stringent requirements. In response, New York City Department of Sanitation press secretary Vincent Gragnani said, “As with any employer, the City of New York has a legal obligation under federal law to verify work authorization and maintain proper documentation before issuing payment. We are not legally permitted to hand out checks without completing that process.” It is not clear whether there could have been a suspension of at least some of these rigorous requirements; however, given that this was officially an “emergency shoveling program,” it seems that should have been possible. To be fair, in spite of all of these requirements, there were about 7600 people who met all of them and signed up; this is even more than ten years ago, when New York City had its worst snowstorm on record and 6454 people were recruited.

Mamdani and other city officials received additional backlash, however, because New York City does not require registered voters to show ID to vote. For first-time voters, even a driver’s license number or a social security number is not required when registering to vote; a current utility bill will do. And even if that fails, you can vote by affidavit ballot, which means that your eligibility to vote will (hopefully?) be checked before your ballot is counted.

In sum, if you want to earn money in NYC as an emergency snow shoveler, you have to meet several requirements; on the other hand, if you want to vote, a utility bill will do, and even if you don’t have that, you can still cast a ballot. This blog is focused on Biblical answers to current issues and questions, not political decisions, but it seems to me that there is something askew here.

If I were living in New York City, I would be more than willing to shovel snow for myself and a couple of neighbors for free; I might even shovel crosswalks. Admittedly, in this hypothetical situation, when I learned about the city offering money to remove snow and ice from public areas–specifically bus stops, crosswalks, fire hydrants and step streets–I might do that as well!

I don’t live in snow country anymore, but one place I enjoy volunteering is at my church; over the years, I have done some in my community at large as well. I would encourage you to do the same, as you are able. I hope volunteering is something that never grows out of fashion; it sounds a lot like what the Bible calls serving one another.

Are Pets Becoming the New Children?

Recently, I saw the following post on nextdoor.com: “Our boy Toby is missing!” I was genuinely concerned that a family’s son was missing, but I should have known better. When I scrolled down a bit, I saw that a modest reward was being offered, and there was a picture of a cat.

On a typical day, at least two of the top three-four trending posts on nextdoor.com in my city are about dogs; yesterday it was two out of three. These posts are typically about either a missing dog or a stray that someone saw. The dog names are typically ones that are also names for people, albeit ones that are currently not popular: the aforementioned “Toby” is one example; “Bernie” is another. When I was a boy in the 1960s, pets had names that most likely no one would ever name their child: my family had dogs that were named “Skip,” “Squirt,” and “Boots.” An elderly lady in my town had a dog named “Fifi.” My best friend had a dog named “Belford” which, although a given name for a boy, was and is a very uncommon one, at least in the U.S.

Another growing phenomenon I’ve noticed is that many people, both in writing and speaking, have come to refer to their pet(s) as part of their “family.” Sixty years ago, people sometimes referred to their pet as the “family dog,” for example, but that is obviously different from being a “member” of the “family.”

Pet owners have become increasingly willing to spend money on their pets as well. We can see this in the expected growth in employment for veterinarians over the next ten years in the U.S. This growth is expected to be, on average, 15%, which is significantly higher than the average expected occupational growth overall; it is increasingly common for people to take their ailing pet to a vet. Another example of extra money spent on pets is rather bizarre to me: A recent survey found that the majority of pet owners have birthday parties for their pets! I should also mention that pet “clothing” has become a burgeoning industry, along with pet toys, which have been around much longer.

When my wife and I take our daily morning walk, a rather common sight is a man or woman, of varying ages, walking a dog. The women that we see tend to be younger than the men. I don’t know how many of these dog-walkers are living with someone, but my impression is that at least some of them probably live alone.

All of this aroused my curiosity, so I dug further, asking the question in the title of this post. I was not surprised to get several hits. Psychologist Mark Travers, for example, after noting the free fall in birth and fertility rates (at least in North America and Europe), questions whether pets are replacing children in families. He writes that researchers Laura Gillet and Eniko Kubinyi have found three reasons why many couples find “raising” pets— particularly dogs—as meaningful as raising children.

1) Attachment. The emotional bond between people and pets mirrors the attachment between parents and children.

2) Parenting styles. Childless pet owners tend to “raise” their pets in ways similar to the ways parents raise children, including establishing routines and boundaries.

3) Cognition. Dogs are “emotionally intelligent, socially attuned, and remarkably responsive to human behavior,” say Gillet and Kubinyi.

Here are a few stats related specifically to millennials and Gen Z in regard to pets:

  • 61% of young people under 40 agree that “pets are the new kids.”
  • 70% of childless millennial women view their pets as their children.
  • 43% of millennials and Gen Z prefer having pets over children. Notice the word “over,” meaning “in the place of.”

Maybe these stats don’t bother you, but they do me. My concern is that our younger generations may find it increasingly preferable not to get married. There has been a precipitous drop in marriage rates; more specifically, it is projected that only about 62% of millennials will ever marry, compared with an even lower projection of 57% for Gen Z. This has implications for having kids, which the Bible tells us are a blessing; in Psalm 127:3, we read, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.” There will always be people who have children outside of marriage, but God’s design will always be the best: a husband and wife raising kids in a loving, stable, secure home.

I’m not down on having pets; far from it! As I mentioned earlier, I grew up with three dogs at different times, and I enjoyed them; however, I enjoyed my friends even more! Additionally, when my daughter was 10, we bought a rabbit (named Cosmo) that we let run free in our tiny backyard during the day–and then we chased him into his cage at night. When he died after a good long life, I cried even more than my daughter did.

I think what we need is a kind of balance. Especially for our younger generations, I hope that as time goes on, pets will not take the place of children but will instead become a joyful addition.

Two Big Wins for Detransitioners and Kids

Last week, Fox Varian, a 22-year-old woman who had identified as a boy when she was a teen and had a double mastectomy, won a $2 million decision in a landmark lawsuit. Two doctors, psychologist Kenneth Einhorn and surgeon Simon Chin, had been accused of pressuring her to have the surgery when she was 16; a jury found them liable for medical malpractice. Varian’s lawyers put the primary blame on Einhorn, saying he was “putting the idea in her head” that she needed to change her gender with surgery.

Varian’s mother, Claire Deacon, testified that she was against the surgery, but agreed to it out of fear her daughter would commit suicide. “I think it was a scare tactic. I don’t believe it was malice, I think he believed what he was saying — but he was very, very wrong,” she said. The jury ruled that Einhorn and Chin did not take appropriate steps before suggesting the life-altering surgery.

Fox Varian is among a growing group of people called detransitioners, referring to people who had previously transitioned to the opposite sex but then transitioned back to their original biological sex. One thing that especially jumped out at me in this story is the statement by Fox’s mother that she was afraid her daughter would commit suicide if she did not have the double mastectomy. This fear has been promulgated by research which suggests that suicide rates are higher for those who are denied so-called “gender-affirming care.” There is other research which suggests the opposite: that suicide rates are higher for those who have surgically transitioned to the opposite sex. My guess is that over time we will find the latter to be true because people who are so unhappy that they have gender-altering surgery will not find happiness in their altered gender, at least not in the long run. Some detransitioners have expressed regret, for example, that they will never be able to have children. Thankfully, in most cases they are more at peace now than they had been before transitioning in the first place; this is at least in part because they have come to understand the roots of their gender dysphoria (meaning distress or impairment related to a strong desire to become the opposite sex).

In addition to the Fox Varian story, I noticed another one that has so far received less attention but which is also significant: The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) board of directors now recommends that “gender-affirming surgeries” be delayed until a patient is at least 19 years old. While this is “professional guidance,” not a legal decision, it is highly significant. It is also obviously not coincidental that this “guidance” came out a mere four days after the $2 million verdict for Fox Varian.

There are currently 28 other lawsuits in the works that have been brought by other detransitioners; we can expect many more similar lawsuits moving forward. I am not generally in favor of lawsuits, but this is an area where I think they are needed; the threat of such a lawsuit will have a chilling effect on other medical practitioners who might otherwise pressure people into having such surgeries. A good psychologist or psychiatrist, for example, would dig deeply into the reasons that a person has gender dysphoria and would suggest options other than sex-reassignment surgery.

The primary reason this professional guidance from the ASPS is so significant is that on average, 80% of minors who to some degree identify as the opposite sex change their minds before adulthood. You will find other research which suggests a much lower percentage, which has at least partly to do with having gender dysphoria vs. being gender-nonconforming. The latter is much more common and has to do with behavior that differs from societal gender norms, while gender dysphoria is a psychological disorder. Even a girl who is what we used to call a “tomboy” is now called “gender-nonconforming” by some. The point is that most kids who show a behavior typically associated with the opposite sex eventually grow out of it. Additionally, those who at some point “identify” as the opposite sex grow out of that as well. Thus, even minors with gender dysphoria should be urged to wait until they are at least 19 before considering sex-reassignment surgery.

Since this blog is devoted to Biblical answers to questions and issues, let’s look at what the Bible says. You don’t have to look very far because Genesis 1:27 says this: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” God is the Creator, and He is the One Who makes people as well. Psalm 139:13 says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  Even people who have sex-reassignment surgery cannot change who they are in the most fundamental way, at the depths of their being.

If you are reading this and identify to some degree as the opposite sex, my prayer for you is that you would come to know the One Who made you the way you are, including your biological sex. Jesus Christ is the only One Who can give you the contentment you desire.

Why Some People Think Heaven Will Be Hellish

In American culture, some people have strange ideas about what heaven will be like. One popular image is of a person (with wings and a halo) sitting on a cloud and strumming a harp. Even among churchgoers, there are misconceptions, including the idea that in heaven, the only thing we’ll be doing is singing praises to the Lord. While that will certainly be an important part of heaven, the idea that it will be our sole activity sharply diminishes the wonderful reality of what it will be like.

I recently came across an article from a few years ago by psychologist and writer Valerie Tarico about why she thinks heaven will actually be hellish. I will list her ten reasons here, with a brief rebuttal to each.

  • Perfection means sameness. Tarico says, “Perfect means finished and complete. It means there’s no room for improvement—for change and growth.” This quote reflects a misunderstanding of the word “perfect,” which in the Bible means “without sin.” She also ignores the wonderfully unique personalities which we have here, and which believers will also have in heaven.
  • Your best qualities are irrelevant. Tarico rightly says that in heaven, forgiveness will no longer be needed. She also says that compassion, generosity, creativity, courage, resilience, decisiveness, and vision will be useless. I will not attempt to address each of these, but the Bible is very clear that we will have work to do in heaven. What that work will be, I don’t know, and it won’t be the same for everyone. However, I have no doubt it will require creativity and vision, both of which we will have.
  • Gone is the thrill of risk. Tarico mentions jumping out of airplanes and surfing as examples of activities that produce an adrenaline rush in life here. I think that, as Randy Alcorn and Michael Youssef have written, there will be plenty of other activities that will give us unbridled joy and wonder. They have written, for example, that we will be able to easily visit other planets and explore; now that would give me an adrenaline rush! Admittedly, this is speculation, but we won’t need the “thrill of risk” in order to exult in experiences that we’ve never had before.
  • Forget physical pleasures like food, drink, sleep, and sex. The Bible is very clear in Revelation 19 that we will be eating and drinking in heaven! Whether we will sleep or not is something we don’t know, but it doesn’t seem likely that our glorified bodies will need it. Regarding sex: since there will be no marriage in heaven (Matthew 22:30), we will not experience the wonder and pleasure of sexual union with a spouse. However, there will be so much else to occupy us that we won’t miss it!
  • Free will ceases to exist. By this, Tarico means that we will no longer have the option to sin; in this, she is right, and thank God! However, the idea that we will no longer have the option to make any choices is simply not true.
  • 98% of Heaven’s occupants are embryos and toddlers. Tarico cites researcher Greg S. Paul, who suggests that if we include the unborn, more than 98% of heaven’s inhabitants would be embryos and very young children. First of all, I believe that unborn children and children of (at least) believers (and maybe also of unbelievers) who die too young to comprehend the Gospel will be in heaven. In 2 Samuel 12:23, after David’s child with Bathsheba dies, David says, “Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.” This indicates that David would see his child again in heaven and, I believe, gives us assurance that when young children of believers die, we will see them again. However, I don’t think that they will be at that preborn or young child stage in heaven. Alcorn speculates that everyone will be in the “prime of life,” roughly around the equivalent age of 30; admittedly, this is only speculation. As for the 98% figure: I’m not interested in probing exactly how the researcher came up with that number. However, I disagree sharply with Tarico’s contention that “the vast majority of the heavenly host would be moral automatons or robots.”
  • Gems and streets of gold define heavenly wealth and beauty. While it is true that there will be “gems” and streets of gold in heaven, to say that they will “define heavenly wealth and beauty” reflects a profound misunderstanding of the new heaven and earth. In Revelation 21:1-3, John sees the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Alcorn says (I believe rightly so) that we will literally have heaven on earth. I enjoy being in nature like nothing else, and I love to imagine what wonders the Lord will create on the new earth!
  • Take your pick of sadism or ignorance. By this, Tarico refers to the response of those in heaven to those in hell. “Either the faithful are blessedly blissfully indifferent to the endless suffering of the damned, or their joy depends on them being unaware, meaning ignorance is a condition of their eternal bliss.” When I think of people in hell now, I don’t gloat (which she also suggests some will do), but I think of God’s justice; they rejected Him here, so God rejects them there. I think that we will have that same understanding in heaven, but that we won’t dwell on it.
  • Your celestial day (and night) job is to sing God’s praises. I referred to this in the intro since even some churchgoers have this misconception. It should be clear by now that heaven will be so much more than this. “It has been said that the only god worthy of worship is one who neither wants nor needs it,” says Tarico. First of all, like many people, including Christians, Tarico has a misconception of worship, thinking that it is only singing to God. However, worship is everything we do that is pleasing to God. Second, God doesn’t need our worship; He deserves it, which is profoundly different!
  • This heaven goes on forever. Like most of us, Tarico can’t imagine eternity. The fundamental problem is that our thinking about it is always clouded by our sin. When I think about those who desire immortality here, on this earth, I am repulsed. I don’t want eternity on this earth in this body and mind, always tainted by sin. On the other hand, when I think about being in heaven, having no ability or desire to ever sin again, I rejoice!

I understand that for an unbeliever like Tarico that it is impossible to comprehend what the eternal home of believers will be like. This is in spite of the fact that she is a “former fundamentalist Christian,” which is a misnomer; there is no such thing as a “former Christian,” since we cannot lose our salvation. Speaking of: I have prayed for her, that she will turn to Jesus Christ in saving faith.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you probably have some idea of how much I am looking forward to heaven. If you are a believer that I will never meet face to face on this side of eternity, I look forward to meeting you on the other side. If you are not a believer, I pray that you will investigate the claims of Christianity; you may find and experience, as I have, peace and joy, as well as the answers to your questions.

Adventures in Premarital Counseling

Last week, my wife and I celebrated our 37th anniversary. We never had the benefit of premarital counseling (PMC), which was not very widespread back in the 1980s; in fact, I hadn’t even heard of it at that time, and our church didn’t provide it. Thankfully, however, it has become much more common in the last 30 years. In fact, for those couples who want to be married by a pastor, a majority of American churches have now made PMC a requirement.

Much of PMC is done by pastors, including at my own church. However, some churches have a well-developed program and curriculum that incorporates lay leadership; this used to be true of my previous church. One of my pastors there trained me to take premarital couples through a personality test (the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis) as well as a questionnaire assessment called the Prepare/Enrich. The church had well over 2000 members at that time, and the number of couples (usually young and never married) getting married there was initially 20-30 per year; over time, as our church started shrinking (which included a change in church leadership), that number went down to 6-8 per year. After I went over the two tests with the couple, I would “hand them off” to a mentoring couple; we had a list of about ten, including my wife and myself. The premarital couple could request a specific couple in the church but were never shown a list. The mentoring couple would then take the premarital couple through an 8-part curriculum (developed by one of our pastors) covering the areas of finances, communication and conflict resolution, spiritual leadership, and more.

The first time that a premarital couple met with the mentoring couple, they would be asked (using a five-phrase “scale”) where they were in terms of their physical relationship. If they were currently sleeping together, they would have to agree to stop. If they refused to agree, the process would stop, and the church would not marry them. In the majority of cases, the couple was not sleeping together, and there was only one couple (over the ten years that I was part of the process) that refused to stop sleeping together; the mentoring couple reported to me that this couple got up and left, never to return! They probably got married elsewhere in our city, but since ~70 churches here had agreed to require premarital counseling, that couple would have had a hard time finding a pastor to marry them.

Some of the premarital couples seemed to regard PMC as a “hoop” to jump through. However, I discovered that most of them took it seriously. Here are some couples that stand out in my memory.

  • The woman breaks down in tears multiple times while I’m going over the two tests with them. In fact, at one point, she leaves the room for a few minutes. The man looks rather bewildered, but I tell him that all couples have their strong displays of emotion at times. (I don’t tell him that in all my years of doing this, that I had never seen someone walk out!) When she comes back, we finish going over the tests. A few months later, after completing the premarital process, they get married, and they are still together 20+ years later!
  • The woman becomes quiet after a while, giving short responses to my comments and questions, while the man is more talkative. I decide to finish going over one test with them and then leave the other one for another day. When they walk in for the second time the next day, they are carrying three cups of coffee. I thank them for the coffee, but it is obvious that they have been in conflict; the atmosphere is quietly tense between them. We manage to finish going over the second test; the mentoring couple that I assign them to tells me later that the young man and woman hadn’t known each other very long (which I knew already), so the premarital process would be especially important for them.
  • The man and woman get into an argument right in front of me; thankfully, they face each other and don’t, for example, do any name calling. After a couple minutes, the man looks at me and asks rather challengingly, “Are you here just to listen to us argue, or do you have some insight?” I tell the woman that her intended is often not looking for a solution to a problem but just wants to be heard. He nods (whew!), and we continue with the tests.
  • A couple is obviously in conflict before we even start going over the first test; this continues throughout both tests. Later, I talk to my wife about this couple, telling her that this couple is “a conflict waiting to happen.” In spite of (or was it because of?!) this, we agree to mentor them. We take them through the eight-part curriculum, and they decide they are not ready to get married. I suppose some people might regard that as a “failure,” but my wife and I thought exactly the opposite; PMC had shown this couple that they weren’t ready to get married–and it was their decision not to at that time. Several years later, however, we found out they did get married!
  • While I’m going through the tests, the woman reveals that she doesn’t want to have kids; however, her intended does want to. My wife and I mentor them, and during the process, the man says that he wants to marry her even if they never have kids. However, after they have been married a couple years, she changes her mind; they now have three kids!
  • I had never asked a couple about abuse, but there was something nagging at me about this young woman; I had the strong impression that she had experienced it at some point in her life. I take a deep breath after finishing the tests and ask her if she has ever experienced physical abuse. She breaks down, and they tell me that yes, she had experienced it in a previous relationship. The next day, the man sees me at church, and he thanks me for bringing that up the day before; he says it will help his intended heal.
  • My family and I are preparing to take our two kids (13 and 10 at that time) for a few weeks to the Third World country where my son was born; I have secured a summer teaching contract there, and we want our kids to experience living in that country. A few days before we leave, I am going over the tests with a couple, and unbeknownst to me, they were told by one of our pastors that my family and I are leaving the country in a few days. Even though they are only 18 (just graduated from high school!) and 19, they are remarkably mature; they express their thanks to me for meeting with them, and they say that they will pray for me and my family. I feel like I’m going to cry.

One thing that is probably no surprise is that conflict was a common aspect of the premarital couples that I met with over the years. That, in fact, is the wisdom of requiring premarital counseling; couples can get a good start in learning how to deal with conflict before they get married. By God’s grace, my wife and I have been blessed in our marriage, but we would definitely have benefited from PMC 37+ years ago! If you are not married but plan to get married, I recommend that you and your intended get PMC, regardless of whether it is required or not. You will be glad that you did.