To the Remnant

Generational Changes in Men’s Need for Conversation

Historians have written about three major shifts in terms of revolutions (not of the political type) that have transformed how people live and relate to one another. The first is the Agricultural Revolution, often divided into two stages, from about 10,000 B.C. to the late 19th century. The second stage is the Industrial Revolution, also often divided into two stages, spanning the late 18th century into the early 20th. The third, the Information Age, began very shortly after the end of World War 2 and continues to the present–although some say we are now in a new “age” driven by AI and automation. Understanding these historical changes can help us understand changes over the centuries in how people relate to one another.

I grew up in a small town of 600 people in NW Washington, and my father was a pastor of a church made up almost entirely of families who farmed nearby; the students of the small Christian school I attended were almost all farmers’ kids as well. Most of my friends used to trash-talk about how I was a “city slicker” because I didn’t have to get up in the wee hours of the morning to do farm chores; I sometimes called my friends “country hicks.” Our conversations were rather wide-ranging, but I noticed that they had picked up on some of the things that their fathers talked about, including the weather. When you’re a farmer, this is not idle small talk; your livelihood is dependent to a significant degree on the weather!

When I was 12, my family moved to a town of 8000 people in central Iowa; my friends there were rather evenly split between “city slickers” and “country hicks.” I became aware, however, that their fathers didn’t seem to be much more conversational than the dads of my farming friends in NW Washington. (In both locales, I overheard plenty of talk after church services, as well as in the homes of my friends and in my own home.) In other words, now more of my friends’ dads were not farmers, but they didn’t seem to talk much more than the men in Washington had–and when they did, the content of much of their conversation didn’t seem that much different, either.

When I became an adult, I started learning about generations and developed a greater understanding of the men (including my father) who had preceded me. Men of both the “Greatest Generation” (born 1901-1927, like my father) and the “Silent Generation” (born 1928-1945) were characterized by things like frugality, a strong work ethic, and respect for authority. As I thought about it, I realized that the fathers of my friends in Washington and Iowa had always had to work hard to make a living; in that context, most of them were very tired from their manual labor at the end of the day and didn’t have the energy for a lot of conversation. For my father, it was different because as a pastor, he related to a lot of different people and had to prepare weekly sermons; however, he didn’t seem to have a lot of energy for talking at the end of the day, either. When he did, a lot of it was talking to my seven siblings and me about our behavior!

I’m a late “Baby Boomer” (1946-1964), and most men of my generation have tended to have smaller families; many of us have also had jobs that are more information-driven and have also had more free time than men of preceding generations. I believe that these are primary reasons why so many men of my generation and definitely succeeding ones (Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z) have tended to be more talkative than our predecessors.

I recently came across a pair of articles about how women respond to their men, whether husbands or boyfriends. One of them was written in 2019 by Melanie Hamlett (on harpersbazaar.com) called “Men Have No Friends and Women Bear the Burden.” Her thesis is that many modern men are far too reliant on their wives/girlfriends. She writes, “Men cast their wives and girlfriends to play best friend, lover, career advisor, stylist, social secretary, emotional cheerleader, mom—to him, their future kids, or both—and eventually, on-call therapist minus the $200/hour fee; this form of emotional gold digging is not only detrimental to men, it’s exhausting an entire generation of women.” Hamlett goes on to quote various women; the common theme is that men are far too dependent on their wives/girlfriends for far too much. She goes on to write that female Gen Xers and millennials are either leaving their men or holding them accountable. In the rest of her article, Hamlett writes about a man named Scott Shepherd, who founded a small group of men on the Internet who get together to talk in-depth; this, of course, takes a good deal of the pressure off their wives/girlfriends. This is nothing new, by the way: in a large church that my family and I used to be a part of, I was part of a small group of men for ten years (2000-2010) who did just that: the difference is that we used whatever Christian book we were discussing as a springboard for sharing what was happening in our lives. On a related note: one of the pastors (now in heaven) at that church made a distinction between communication and conversation. He said that in a marriage, especially, communication was about things like schedules and finances. Conversation, on the other hand, was the “fun stuff,” discussing various topics and ideas, for example. I thought–and still think–that his distinction was brilliant. He went on to say that a healthy marital relationship would include a good deal of conversation–again, a great insight. However, as Hamlett’s article makes clear, there is a limit to how much is “good!”

The other article I recently came across is by Kathleen Wong, writing for usatoday.com; it’s called, “Girls just wanna have fun; husbands don’t have to come.” It’s about a growing tendency among older, retired women who travel with their girlfriends–or in some cases solo–while their husbands stay at home. “According to the 600 senior women surveyed, 42% said it’s because their spouse isn’t interested in traveling and 40% said they have different interests when it comes to travel.” Even though Wong doesn’t bring this out in her article, I believe that another one of the reasons that some older women like to travel together, without their husbands, is because those men are of the Baby Boomer generation and Silent Generation. As mentioned before, men of the Silent Generation, in particular, are less likely to be very conversational; men of my generation are somewhat more likely, depending on age and personality.

I’m happy to say that my wife and I enjoy traveling together; we tend to go either where we can spend time with friends and family, or to beautiful places in nature, especially national parks–and occasionally, both. We enjoy conversing, too! However, I’ve told her that if she ever wants to travel with “girlfriends,” I’m fine with it. I have five close friends, in one case going all the way back to childhood, that I feel free to share in-depth with, although it doesn’t mean that we get together in-person; we are scattered across the country.

As time goes on, American men on the whole have become more conversational. Some of this has to do with fewer jobs that require exhausting manual labor; some of it has to do with smaller families (or none at all) and more free time; and some of it has to do with the Information Age in which we are living. I think it’s obvious that modern women need their men to be conversational, but there are limits! It’s also obvious that women need other women friends, and men need other men friends. When that happens, both husbands and wives are happier in their marriages.

Are Christians Dumber than Atheists?

I suppose the idea that Christians are less intelligent than atheists goes back to at least the Enlightenment, especially during the 18th century. Then in 1844 Karl Marx famously wrote, “Religion is the opium of the people.” In other words, religion was supposedly a form of pain relief for poor, uneducated people who didn’t know any better; it distracted them from their misery and offered them false hope for a better life after death.

In the 20th century and on into this one, there have been some research studies that at least seem to indicate a correlation between atheism and higher intelligence. However, when one examines the data more carefully, a more nuanced picture emerges. Very special thanks to Natasha Crain, author, speaker, and podcaster, for a careful scrutiny of the data from some of these studies.

There is a well-known research study of 137 nations on sciencedirect.com (2008) by Richard Lynn, John Harvey, and Helmuth Nyborg. This study showed that the higher the average national intelligence, the higher the percentage of atheists in a given country. In her book Keeping Your Kids on God’s Side, Natasha Crain questions the validity of this study. She points out, for example, that there were low response rates from people in the 137 countries, as well as the fact that there were cross-cultural problems defining words like “religious” and “secular.” To their credit, the researchers acknowledged these weaknesses. Even more significantly, from my point of view, Crain’s analysis found that the relationship between national intelligence and atheism was primarily limited to countries with a national IQ between 85 and 95; there were only 38 countries that fell into that category; that is only a little over a quarter. In the 63 countries with an IQ of less than 85, as well as the 36 countries with an IQ of more than 95, there was no relationship at all between intelligence and atheism. Another interesting fact is that of the 38 countries that showed a relationship, they were predominantly in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central America. Among other things, this means that in North America, Europe, and Africa, there was no statistically significant relationship found between intelligence and atheism. And it bears repeating: in almost three quarters of the nations studied overall, there was no significant relationship between intelligence and atheism.

In 2013, Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall analyzed 63 different research studies to see if there was a significant relationship between intelligence and “religiousness.” 35 showed the more intelligent a person was, the less likely they were to be “religious;” 2 showed the more intelligent a person was, the more likely they were to be “religious;” 26 showed no significant relationship. In other words, only about half showed a significant relationship. And again, a closer analysis is very revealing:

Who: a variety of ages and educational levels were represented in the studies
How many: the number of people studied varied from only 20 to 14,000+
When: 1928-2012
What: some studies measured religious behavior; some measured religious beliefs
How: different tests were used in different countries to measure intelligence

In statistics, there is something called reliability, which is concerned with trying to replicate as closely as possible the methodology of other studies–and getting the same results!–so that comparisons can be made across studies and conclusions can be strengthened. It’s obvious from the above analysis, however, that trying to compare these 63 studies is like comparing apples to oranges. In other words, trying to draw valid conclusions using a large number of studies about the relationship between intelligence and “religiousness” is fraught with difficulty.

However, in regard to these 63 studies, there were 2 factors that Zuckerman, Silberman, and Hall found to be slightly significant in terms of the relationship between intelligence and “religiousness:” life stage (precollege, college, or noncollege) and measure of religiousness (behavior or belief). Three key findings:

Religious behavior (e.g. church membership) has almost no relationship with intelligence at any life stage.
Religious belief has almost no relationship with intelligence in the precollege years.
Religious belief has a weak relationship with intelligence for college and noncollege adults; the higher the intelligence, the less likely a person is to have religious beliefs–but that relationship is very small.

Putting it all together, the idea that atheists are smarter than Christians (and other people with religious behaviors and beliefs) has very little basis in fact when a closer, more nuanced, analysis of data is done. Atheists can sound very convincing at times with their naturalistic worldview; however, Christians can also sound very convincing when equipped with the Bible and a Christian worldview.

I understand that not every Christian is going to be able to give all of the right answers, but we can equip ourselves to give at least some of them. If we just say, “Because the Bible says so,” that is not going to convince anyone, especially if we don’t even know what the Bible actually says about a given issue. My wife has a friend who was talking to her sister about abortion; they have opposing views. When the sister asked, “Why do you say that abortion is wrong?” the response of my wife’s friend was, you guessed it, “Because the Bible says so!” I find Psalm 139:13 to be a wonderful verse: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” If this college-educated friend were at least able to talk to her sister about the beauty of this word picture, I think it would be a start. In other words, yes, the Bible says so, but what exactly does it say? At the same time, I know that there are Christians who have a very simple (but strong) faith and will never be able to give some of the answers that people are seeking. My mentally-handicapped sister (now in heaven) was one of them.

May we who are Christians be increasingly willing to follow the words of 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” And if you are not a Christian, I hope that you will investigate the claims of Christianity further.

Two Girls and a Host of Virtue Signalers

Last week at a WNBA game in Seattle between the Seattle Storm and the Indiana Fever, two teen girls held up a sign saying, “Thank you, Sophie, for speaking up for girls.” Sophie Cunningham is a guard for the Fever and has spoken out against allowing trans women to compete in women’s sports. During the game, Celeste Keaton, co-owner of the Storm, approached the two girls and berated them, telling them that they were “f****** insane.” She also said that “Jesus loves everyone” and “I hope Jesus can forgive you for what sin you’ve done.” Some Seattle players made thumbs-down gestures at the girls, and some fans also booed them. To make things worse, after the game ended, a fan told security to “take the trash out,” in reference to the two teen girls and other Sophie Cunningham supporters. To their credit, the next day the Seattle Storm issued an apology, and the day after that, the WNBA fined Keaton and suspended her from attending the next five Seattle home games. Given that the Storm had (and still have) the worst record in the league, perhaps not being allowed to attend a few of their games isn’t such a bad thing!

Sophie Cunningham has been accused of being a “transphobe,” but she has denied ever saying she hates trans people. In her own words: “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.” Polls have shown that trans women in women’s sports is an 80-20 issue, meaning that roughly 80% of Americans are against trans women playing in women’s sports. (Trans women are defined as individuals who were born male but who currently identify as female.) By that standard, 80% of Americans are transphobes. More American men fit this definition than American women, which surprises me; if anything, I would have expected that more women than men would want the kind of protection and fairness that Sophie speaks about.

However, it seems that most Americans are reluctant, at best, to speak out against trans women in women’s sports, while there are plenty of voices who speak out for it. I think this can be attributed largely to virtue signaling, which means expressing public support of a viewpoint with the goal of gaining social approval or appearing to be morally superior, but with little to no action behind it. Given that the majority of American media is liberal-leaning, expressions of support for trans women in women’s sports will find an approving audience, while being against it will result in condemnation, which you will see more of if you google Sophie Cunningham’s name.

Celeste Keaton is a prime example of a virtue signaler. The reason I say this is because she is a co-owner of a franchise in an all-women’s league. If I could have a conversation with her, I would like to ask a couple of questions: “Do you really want trans women in the WNBA?” and “Would you protest if the opposing team had a trans woman and your team didn’t?” I can foresee the WNBA eventually allowing trans women on their teams, perhaps even with a quota of, for example, one per franchise.

Since Keaton injected religion into her remarks to the two teen girls, I have a couple of comments in response. First of all, as I have written elsewhere, I agree that there is a sense in which God loves everyone. For example, Matthew 5:45 says, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” In other words, there are ways in which God blesses everyone, whether they are righteous or unrighteous. However, I take issue with Keaton’s other “religious” comment: “I hope Jesus can forgive you for what sin you’ve done.” The girls were simply thanking Sophie for “speaking up for girls.” Keaton accuses them of “sin” because they, like Sophie, want to preserve women’s sports for women. And in doing so, she curses them with the f-word. So far, even though the Storm have issued an apology, Keaton has not. Another Bible verse that comes to mind in regard to this incident is Isaiah 5:20, which says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

If you disagree with Sophie Cunningham and the rest of the 80% of Americans (including me) who think trans women should stay out of women’s sports, that is your right. However, if you resort to cursing, as so many do, it weakens your position–and this applies to both sides, although I have noticed it more on one side than the other. At a minimum, let’s express ourselves respectfully, in all things.

Why Does Depression Keep Increasing?

Some years ago, a young (mid-20s) woman I know had treatment for clinical depression. This surprised me because she was well-adjusted and had a job she enjoyed. She was also a strong Christian, not simply a churchgoer.

A while after that, my wife told me about a conversation she had with a good friend (mid-50s). This friend reported that she was unhappy about the fact that another friend usually got more “likes” on her Facebook posts than she did. My wife encouraged her not to focus on the number of likes and instead on the content of the posts, but it didn’t seem to have much effect.

Over the last few years, I’ve seen more and more headlines about the rise in depression in the U.S., particularly among millennials and Zoomers (Gen Z). For a while, there were a lot of references to the COVID lockdowns as a culprit, and I have no doubt that they contributed a great deal. However, broadly speaking, the lockdowns had ended by the summer of 2021, and here we are five years later. I decided to do some digging to see what I could find.

Regarding demographics, I was primarily interested in age, and secondarily with gender. Even though the most recent CDC stats are from August 2021-August 2023, I think they provide a good picture. You can take a look at a rather illuminating graph here, if you’re interested: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/images/databriefs/501-550/db527-fig1.png One thing immediately obvious is that overall, depression was highest for the 12-19 age group (19.2%) and lowest for 60 and older (8.7%); furthermore, there was a very steady decline in depression with age, overall. One interesting difference in this trend was that for males, there was an uptick from 12.2% in the 12-19 age group to 14.3% in the 20-39 age group. However, in every age group, the percentage of females with depression was much higher than that of males.

It is well-known that girls and women are more likely to report depression than boys and men. However, I suspect that even if males reported it more, we would still find that females experience depression more than males do. Regarding age: I think there is definitely a reporting bias since people in the 60 and older age bracket were–and probably still are–significantly less likely to report depression than people who are younger. Nevertheless, I find this age difference interesting given that older people generally have significantly fewer years left to live than younger people. Regardless, since depression has become destigmatized in American society over the last 40 years or so, we shouldn’t be surprised that people are reporting it more than they used to, especially among younger generations.

In addition to the CDC report, I noticed a Gallup poll from 2023 that reported depression rates were at an all-time high. For adults (18 and older), the percentage of those with depression skyrocketed from 10.5% to 17.8% in a mere eight years, since 2015.

While I find these stats very interesting, the question I posed in the title of this post is why depression keeps increasing. First of all, there is the already-mentioned reporting bias. Second, I’ve noticed an increasing tendency among parents to say, “I just want my kids to be happy.” When parents communicate this to their kids, whether directly or indirectly, they are setting them up for disappointment because happiness becomes what their kids are likely to expect. When it doesn’t happen, we shouldn’t be surprised that eventually, depression is going to be a likely outcome. Third, as I thought about the two women I mentioned at the outset, one thing they have in common is that they both spend time on social media; this was especially noticeable with my wife’s friend, who complained about the comparative number of likes she received on her FB posts. Thus, I was not surprised, when I did some further digging into reasons for depression, that social media and comparison were frequently mentioned. Along with this, young adults, especially, reported being lonely. I suppose some might think that with the constancy of social media in the lives of so many, one might feel “connected.” However, it should be obvious that just because someone has hundreds of FB friends, for example, it says nothing about the depth of relationship. When a person doesn’t have truly close friends, some degree of loneliness is almost inevitable. And it’s impossible to overestimate the importance of even one or two close friends who live nearby.

I should mention that there are other causes of depression, including economic pressure and the pressure to achieve, whether it be in school or at work: no surprise there. The unrelenting negative 24/7 news cycle certainly doesn’t help, either. However, the large amount of time that the average person (certainly including kids) spends on social media is a relatively recent development. Facebook, for example, has been around for only 20 years. Reddit’s huge surge in popularity began in 2010, the same year that Instagram launched.

I’m not saying that social media is bad, only that its influence has very significantly changed the ways that people tend to interact. My primary social media account is right here, with WordPress, although I also have a Nextdoor account that I use a bit; that’s enough for me. I have very much enjoyed getting to know some of you online over the past six years; however, you are a very welcome addition to the people I know in person, not a replacement for them.

Jesus called us to love our neighbors. May all of us bless one another in good friendships, both in person and online–and in some cases, both!

Does It Matter How Old the Universe Is?

In terms of subjects, astronomy was my first love and is still way up there. (OK, bad joke.) When I was a teen in the mid-1970s, I began to study it in earnest through some books I had bought. In the process, one thing that began to trouble me was the age of the universe. Even though I wasn’t a Christian yet, I was very familiar with the Genesis 1 account of God’s creating the world in six days. I wondered if the six days were literal 24-hour days or not. (I also struggled with the transition from Day Three to Day Four, but eventually I discovered a scientific explanation for what happened, which I have written about elsewhere.)

Eventually, I talked to my dad (a pastor) about this, and he said there were a lot of things that happened on Day Six, including Adam’s naming the animals. He humorously illustrated this by saying, “I picture Adam sitting on a rock, with the animals parading by. He says, ‘Ah, let’s call this one with the big trunk an elephant, and here’s one with antlers; let’s call it a deer. And…’ Whoosh! An animal runs by super-fast. ‘Come back here!’ Adam calls out and then says, ‘That must have been the cheetah.'” I laughed and laughed at my dad’s imagination because of his humor, but also because I was relieved that he was open to the idea of an ancient Earth (and universe). And for decades, this is what I believed very strongly.

Fast-forward to the early 1990s, when my wife and I came back to the U.S. after spending a few years teaching English in a Third World country. I began to notice that there were plenty of Christians, including some church leaders, who not only believed that the Earth was only about 6000 years old; they even codified it in their churches’ statements of faith! This was certainly not a new idea; in 1650, Archbishop James Ussher published his calculations of the Earth’s (and universe’s) beginning in 4004 B.C. In fact, he wrote that God began creating on Saturday, October 22nd of that year at exactly 6:00 P.M.! I thought–and still think–that whatever you may believe about the age of the Earth, trying to nail down the exact date and time was great hubris on Ussher’s part.

Jumping ahead another two decades, to the 2010s, I began to read some attempts by “young-Earthers” to scientifically explain how the Earth and universe could be only a few thousand years old rather than billions of years old. A brief background: the reason that I believed so strongly that the universe (and Earth) are ancient has to do with the speed of light as it relates to distance. Regardless of your scientific background, you have probably heard of light-years. (Hello, Buzz Lightyear!) When we say that the most distant galaxy we have observed is about 13.5 billion light-years from us, that means it has taken 13.5 billion years for its light to reach us–which means that the universe is at least that old. The most recent calculations put the age of the universe at about 13.8 billion years. (The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.) Although light is super-fast, it cannot travel any faster than about 186,000 miles per second, which limits how fast it can reach us.

One intriguing way to explain how the universe (and therefore Earth) could be only a few thousand years old has to do with time dilation. Imagine that there’s a clock traveling so fast that it’s approaching the speed of light; that clock would “tick” more and more slowly the faster it goes. If it actually reached the speed of light, it would stop “ticking.” In fact, light itself does not experience the passage of time. Applying this to creation: light from stars created on Day 4 would take billions of years to reach us as measured by clocks in deep space, but could theoretically reach us in a few thousand years as measured by clocks on Earth. In truth, it’s more complicated than what I have very briefly laid out here, but by now I’ve probably “bent” your mind enough!

I mentioned earlier that in the 1990s, I noticed that some churches (not including mine, thankfully) even included a young Earth as part of their statements of faith. I also met other people, especially a couple of teens, who had questions about the age of the Earth. One of them was the son of a close friend of mine; the son was also a close friend of my son. His father was a scientist but was rather adamant that the Earth was only a few thousand years old; a church youth-group leader said the same. When my friend’s son asked me about it, I told him that I thought the universe and Earth were billions of years old; he is now in his mid-30s and is not a Christian, at least not yet. My son (a Christian) also had questions related to the age of the Earth as well as evolution; my wife and I answered those questions as they came. To be clear: I’m not saying that my son is a Christian because we at least allowed for the possibility of an ancient universe and Earth; neither am I saying that my friend’s son is a non-Christian because of what his father said about the same topic. I’m saying that if Christians and the churches they are a part of are not so adamant about a young Earth and universe, it helps keep the door open for more conversations about that topic as well as many other important conversations, including about evolution. I should add that as a lifelong friend of mine would say, what you believe about the age of the universe and Earth is not a salvation issue.

Regarding evolution: it seems that there are many Christians who believe that if the universe and Earth are ancient, that automatically implies macroevolution (the change from one species to another). Not so! I have written several posts related to evolution, which I think hardly deserves to even be called a theory anymore, let alone a fact as it’s presented in our schools. Some scientists have written that even 4.5 billion years is not enough time for evolution to have produced the amazing diversity of life that we see. And in fact, more and more scientists are coming around to the idea of intelligent design, which I have also written about. In other words, it’s possible to believe that the universe and Earth are ancient–and at the same time, it’s possible to believe that evolution is not true.

So, where do I stand now regarding the age of the universe (and the Earth)? I am an agnostic, meaning I don’t know if the universe and Earth are a few thousand years old or billions of years old. However, I lean somewhat in the direction of ancient rather than young. I believe that God created everything, regardless of the time frame in which it happened. When I get to heaven, I look forward to finding out the answer to this important question, and I am content with waiting until then. Much more importantly, I look forward to being in the presence of the Lord and all of His people for all eternity!