Category Archives: Family Issues

Governed by Faith

If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?  –Benjamin Franklin

April 25, 2005

From the Supreme Court, to Congress, to state legislatures, faith is under attack in America.  Or…more rightly expressed…certain faiths are under attack.  People of faith…certain faiths…are being asked to

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

go home…and stay there.

One state leader, questioned by a reporter this month about his faith, admitted the tragic truth.  This leader is informed by his faith.  He is what he believes.

The reporter went straight for the truth.  She asked Mr. Politician if he believed in God, which God, and why.  She asked him if he let his religious views affect his political life.  With simple candor, Mr. Politician stated he was a Christian and that his political views reflected Judeo-Christian moral values.

You would have thought the sky was falling.  The editor slapped a bigger-than-life headline on the interview:  Politician Wants to Convert You!  And readers responded.  A deluge of angry letters denounced this good man.

Culled from their letters, the tirade of invectives is amazing:  sanctimonious, supercilious piety, religious bigotry, quasi-Christian cult, extremist, radical fundamentalist mullah, theocratic fascism, chilling, the Crusades, the scariest person, religious dogma, Holocaust denier, neo-Nazi, creationist, astrologer, bigot, dictator, wacko, hell-bent on creating a Nazi-like theocracy, evil intention, theological fanaticism…and finally…duped by his religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation…the Inquisition!

Well, if Christians like Mr. Politician are truly duped by their religious fervor, circular logic and disinformation, they are not the only ones.  Overcome by hatred and distrust of Christians, these letter-writers have lost sight of what religion is…a worldview about man’s place in the world related to the universe, the earth, and his fellow man.  Everyone has a religious belief.  Everyone.

Friedrich Nietzsche had a religious belief.  God is dead.  Hitler had a religious belief.  There is no God.  Stalin had a religious belief.  From his deathbed, he literally shook his fist to the heavens in defiance of “the god” he didn’t believe in.

I have lived on both sides of the religious fence…without God…and with God.  My family and friends represent a wide rainbow of faiths:  Yogis, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Christians, agnostics and atheists.  And I can tell you…everyone is informed by their religious point of view.  Everyone.

Either deception or cowardice leads those who have a belief in the absence of God to pretend that they can separate their own politics from their religious beliefs.  Philosopher Richard Weaver has it right.  Ideas do have consequences.

In How Now Shall We Live, Colson and Pearcey expound on Weaver’s statement.  “It is the great ideas that inform the mind, fire the imagination, move the heart, and shape a culture.  History is little more than the recording of the rise and fall of the great ideas—the worldviews—that form our values and move us to act.”

Consider a small selection from the letters attacking Christian politicians:

  • They’ve found “the superior cultural norms”,
  • They want to highjack our political future and effectively end the possibility of intelligent political discourse and debate,
  • They want to take away my freedom to make decisions for myself…they are telling me what I can and cannot do according to their values, not mine.

One letter writer summed up the offense of being a Christian politician.  Mr. Politician was on a righteous quest of cultural change using thought control.  Another writer agreed.  It is not the right of any particular religious group to assert its moral principles on a society.

Yet, these are the very same people who want to force American society to conform to their own particular faith…the faith that God doesn’t exist, or that if by chance he does exist, he doesn’t care what on earth we do with our lives…or the lives of others.  This sincerely held belief is a faith-view, a worldview that informs every action of those who want Christians to leave public life.

And sadly, rather than engage in “intelligent political discourse and debate” about the consequences of political decisions based on their faith-view, they insist on “highjacking the political future” of all Americans by banishing people of other faiths to the stratosphere…most of all, those intolerant, bigoted Christians.

Somehow, the tolerance of this line of thinking escapes me.  Had these people held American politics in their tight little fists over the past two hundred years, we would never have benefited from the likes of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, Jr.

All lawmakers pass laws that reflect their deeply held beliefs…their faith.  There is no truth to the idea that a man is divided, that somehow he enters politics and votes for laws that violate his worldview.

Thus, for the benefit of those who will be impacted by the laws that reflect the faith of all lawmakers, please do everyone a big favor.  Quit attacking people of other faiths.  Spend your time explaining your own faith.  And then…please explain the eternal consequences of laws that will reflect your own piety.

Your faith matters, too, if you expect us to vote for you.  Make no mistake about it.  America is governed by faith.  It always has been…and it always will be.

October 29, 2004:  Food for the Brain

A little philosophy inclineth a man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.                                                                                                     –Sir Francis Bacon

Defending the Indefensible

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

April 4, 2005

Tina’s small table was inconspicuous in the back of the conference room.  Filled with brochures, posters and business cards, she was looking forward to sharing information about her abstinence program.

But, at the end of the day, packing to go home, she shared her frustration with me.  Here she was at a conference dedicated to problems caused by teen sex.  It had seemed reasonable to think that nurses and teachers would want her information.  Instead…she spent the entire day defending herself and the notion that teens could and should remain sexually abstinent until marriage.

At every turn, sexual restraint and abstinence are being challenged.  The Department of Health and Human Services has just launched a new website that helps parents promote abstinence to their children as “the healthiest choice.”  We should be thankful.  Instead the director of HHS must defend himself against attacks from the ACLU and gay rights groups.

On today’s news, reporters discuss candidates under consideration as the new Catholic pope.  They point out that some people are enthusiastically hoping for a pope who will “modernize the church”…a pope who will withdraw opposition to abortion, birth control, premarital sex, and divorce.  In essence, from his place in heaven, Pope John Paul II, must defend himself.

This week, an uncommon convergence of news stories gives shape to an ethic that has come to dominate our land.  America’s heart can be best be known by making a list of the beliefs and behaviors we oppose, by cataloging the great offenses that make us angry.

Maybe, instead of rejecting sexual abstinence, gay activists could speak out in loud and clear voices…not to mention angry and indignant voices…opposing individuals and organizations such as NAMBLA who advocate adult-child sex.  What a wonderful sight it would be to see a sit-in of gay leaders blocking access to bookstores that sell the two-volume book set, Loving Boys.

Or…when is the National Organization for Women going to take on the media and demand a return to respect for women…real respect?  Why did NOW pass up the chance to give a good tongue-lashing to NBC, Terrell and Nicolette over the prime-time striptease on Monday Night Football?  If anyone should defend himself, why not start with Commissioner Paul Tagliabue?

Where are the class action attorneys when you really need them?  No matter how much “protection” Planned Parenthood educators promise with a condom, there is no denying that the unacceptable incidence of genital herpes infections – accurately labeled an epidemic by experts – is due to the failure of condoms to protect.  Where is the attorney to represent the thousands of students betrayed by educators who labeled condoms “safe sex”?

What about journalists wedded to promotional packets put out by the ACLU, NARAL and Planned Parenthood, reporters who do not take the time to educate themselves and write about the basics of sexually transmitted diseases and fetal development?  Shouldn’t they have to offer a defense of their news stories filled with inaccuracies and bias for the sake of advancing the politics of these organizations?

The ACLU has a long history of spending millions supposedly to oppose injustice and defend our rights.  Maybe they could defend the right of helpless pre-born babies to make it through the birth canal in one whole piece, living and breathing as they were created to be.  Isn’t this a choice worth defending, the choice to be born alive?

And at the top of the defenseless mob are the judges who pass themselves off as arbiters of justice and sound reasoning.  Is there any serious person in America, much less a Supreme Court Justice, who can truly defend the notion that we are unable to determine the moment when life begins?

Defending the indefensible is big business in America.  We have an intricate set of laws, complete with elections, judges, courts and attorneys.  But it will all come to naught unless we can fix what is truly wrong with us…the list of things that make us angry…and those that don’t.

July 2, 2004:  Abused by Freedom

To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.                –Confucius

 

Sex Without Value

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

February 21, 2005

The large card still stands on my dresser, a sweet remembrance from the man who has shared over thirty years of life with me.  As February winds down, my mind is filled with the many pictures of love

renewed on this past Valentine’s Day.

At one luncheon, going around the table for introductions, we shared special thoughts about the husbands and wives who completed our lives.  From newlyweds to those married over forty years, it was refreshing to see the tenderness used to describe the object of each person’s affection.

Last Sunday, Andrew thanked those who organized this month’s Sweetheart Dinner.  As he talked, sounds of babies surrounded us, until one coo and babble turned more insistent.  Mom bundled up her hungry babe, and headed to the private room in the back.

Sex is at the center of so much loveliness.  It is the intensity of passion, the bond of reconciliation, the playful encounter and…the creator of life…building and sustaining relationships of love, promise and honor.

And then…we turn on the television and see sex purchased with a hundred dollar bill on prime time television during what used to be family hour.  Wives are traded, singles prowl the city in search of sex, and nearly naked ladies sell everything from potato chips to beer.

Computer filters must fight the ever-mutating attacks on family life by XXX fare.  Even public librarians defend the right to provide porn, resisting filters to protect the minds and hearts of children.

Cheap sex is not new.  Modern culture simply puts a new shine on the “world’s oldest profession” and magnifies the ways to profit from sex.  Yet, one sad result of our ability to reproduce sex on stage, television, music and film is the complete disconnect of sex from its greatest purpose and its best expression.

Promiscuity is a concept undone by American marketers and impotent judges.  Still defined by a dusty dictionary… aimless, designless, desultory, haphazard, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, irregular, purposeless, unplanned…the word promiscuity carries no meaning today because all sex is permissible.

The director of a major metropolitan agency worked to explain the finer points of their sex education program to me.  They taught it all, she said.  They empowered kids to embrace their sexuality.  They reinforced that sex was just a normal part of life, complete with deprovera, cherry-flavored condoms, and “confidentiality,” the promise they will help kids evade the loving supervision of parents who know that sex is not meant for teens.

What about abstinence? I asked.

Sure, she said.

Sure, what?  I asked.

For some kids, abstinence is a choice…until they are ready for sex.  Responsible sex.

Responsible sex?  What would you tell a thirteen-year-old girl in your sex ed class who came to you for your advice about having “responsible sex” with her sixteen-year-old boyfriend?  Could you tell her, since she asked, that you advised her not to have sex of any kind with him…that sex at her age was unhealthy and out-of-order…and even just a teensy weensy irresponsible?

Without a pause big enough to blink, she fired back at me.  No.

No?

No.  We are values-neutral.  We don’t teach values.

Sex without values?

What kind of educator is reluctant to teach our children the immovable healthy boundaries of sex?  This means more than mentioning boundaries…saying that abstinence is a choice…something that some kids will choose…until they don’t choose abstinence.

Sex education is a matter of connecting sex with a nobler, finer purpose than recreating in the backseat of a car with a kid you just met.  And it is a matter of believing in that purpose with enough conviction to commit to it and promote it and counsel for it.

Everyone teaches the value of sex.  It’s just a matter of focus.  Either you link sex to the values that sustain healthy relationships and support the care of our next generation with mothers and fathers who love each other…or you don’t.

Our children learn what we teach.  If they are having sex that is aimless, designless, desultory, haphazard, hit-or-miss, indiscriminate, irregular, purposeless, unplanned…need we wonder why?  Aren’t they doing exactly what we are teaching them?

Sex without value IS a value.

May 14, 2004  Order in the Courtroom!

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Abstaining from Failure

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

February 7, 2005

There’s no better time of the year to look at what makes a winner than at SuperBowl time.  New England made it look easy. But Philadelphia gave no easy ground, and to the very last second on the field, and in the minutes following in the locker room, both teams showed us the character of champions.

We can take a lesson from the big league winners when it comes to teaching our kids about life and success.  Players like Bruschi, Owens, Branch, McNabb and Brady don’t rise to the top by accident.

1.  Game Plan for Winning.

Any good game plan is based on the fact that you want to win.  You don’t build success on a plan that says you plan to lose gracefully.

You make a plan to win.  You study the plan.  You analyze and revise and execute and analyze and revise and execute…according to the plan!  Winning is not an accident.

2.  A Coach for Winning.

Winning teams are made of people who want to win.  Top on this list is the Coach who inspires with leadership, encouragement, correction, and celebration.  Sportswriter Vic Carucci gives them proper credit, “Bill Belichick and Reid are two of the finest football strategists to ever don a headset.”

3.  A Respect of the Rules for Winning.

Belichick and Reid plan their strategies around the rules of the game.  They know football backwards and forwards.  They earn the “highest respect for their depth of football knowledge.”

4.  Heart on Fire for Winning.

Winning is the goal.  It is not a suggestion.  It is not something that happens because you hope it will happen.  Quarterback, lineman, receiver, defender or kicker…your heart is on fire for winning.

5.  A Team United for Winning.

Every winner stands on the shoulders of people who made it possible.  In three years, the trophy for Most Valuable Player has passed from Jackson, Brady, to Branch.  Each MVP stands on the shoulders of unmentioned yet dedicated players who blocked, received and kicked.  They play as a team. They win as a team. They celebrate as a team.

6.  Practice Unending for Winning.

Winning teams are built with players who show up for practice…on time…ready to work…day after day after day.

7.  Imagination for Winning.

Practice on the field is not enough to win.  Tom Brady is reported to call in the middle of the night, “Can you come up to my room? I’ve got a couple of things I want to go over with you.”

“I promise you while everyone else is enjoying Super Bowl week,” said outgoing Patriots offensive coordinator Charlie Weis before the game, “two nights I’ve been sitting in my room between 10 and 11 going over the game plan per his request.”

Good players exercise the body.  Winning players exercise the mind.

8.  Accepting Personal Responsibility for Winning.

Brady is being compared to the great quarterbacks.  “He’s poised. He’s accurate. He responds to pressure. He deflects praise in victory as eagerly as he absorbs responsibility in defeat.”

9.  Regrouping from Failure for Winning.

A good team doesn’t always win.  But it knows what to do with losing.  When asked about their slow first half in SuperBowl XXXIX, Deion Branch said. “We went inside and regrouped, and figured out what we were doing wrong and had to capitalize on a lot of things.”

Winning comes from knowing what makes you lose. Winning teams learn and grow from each defeat.

10.  Accepting the Hard Work of Winning.

The Patriots are being billed as a Dynasty.  But they know they cannot rest on past success.  Sportswriter Pete Prisco sums it up.  “[Y]ou can bet the Patriots will forget any mention of [dynasty] by the time they report for offseason work in March…. Remember, this is a team to a man that doesn’t allow itself to look back.”

Football…or life…winning requires more than a game plan and practice.  Winning is a team affair, a plan to win, fueled by a burning desire to win, supported to the max by every single person:  player, coach, trainer, wife, and friend.

If we want our kids to succeed, we need to take a lesson from the pros.  Whether it’s drugs, tobacco, alcohol or sex, we need to create a society that takes winning at life seriously.  Our game plan must be fixed on a plan to win.

Winning in life is also a team affair.  It’s long past time we built a culture of support for our kids where the media, teachers, and parents are unified as part of the solution and not part of the problem.

The rules for winning make one thing crystal clear.  Our kids fail…because we fail to lead.

July 30, 2004  James Bond in Danger…For Real 

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Big Kids, Little Kids

Jane Jimenez

Jane Jimenez

January 31, 2005

He is the cutest little mouse, wide-eyed and innocent, wearing a red Russian peasant shirt with his soft blue hat slightly atilt.  And for $3.95, he can be yours this week on E-bay.

Fivel was the American sensation in 1986, the hero of An American Tale, a spectacular Disney animated feature cartoon.  At the time our kids were four and six, and it seemed like the perfect family outing.

Anticipation was high as movie theater lights dimmed and the music began.  Louder and louder, the music pounded as we squinted to make out dark sinister creatures slinking and skulking around what appeared to be an evil ship tossing wildly about in a raging storm.  Out of the darkness, small mouse eyes popped open in fear.  Drums pounded, lightening crashed and fangs big enough to drool over the entire movie screen snapped down over the horrified eyes.

Mice shrieked in terror.  And a scream rose from the chair next to me.  “Mommy,” my son cried.  “I want to go.”  Another larger-than-life cat screeched in the dark, and Justin pulled on my arm.  “Now.”

Suffice it to say, my husband stayed to watch the movie with our daughter.  Justin and I left the “room of doom” and spent two hours instead at Pier Imports playing with sea shells and beads and furniture.

I learned an important lesson about cartoons that day.  There are cartoons.  And THERE ARE CARTOONS.

It used to be enough to make a cute little cartoon to entertain children.  In the early days of television, while Bugs battled with Elmer Fudd, parents cooked dinner in the next room.  Cartoons were for little kids.

Not any longer.  Matt Groening was one of the first to break into popular culture with the “crass charm” of “Life in Hell,” featuring a rabbit called Blinky who lived “on the dark side of life.”  Seeing the potential for a wider audience, he gave Blinky a family…the Simpsons.

In 1989, Fox commissioned 13 episodes of The Simpsons.  Bart was originally the main character, an anagram of “Brat.”  However, after two seasons, Homer emerged as the viewers’ favorite.

Three years after Bart and Homer arrived in family living rooms around the country, Michael Medved published Hollywood vs. America: Popular Culture and Traditional American Values.  The Simpsons were a prime example illustrating his message…”that the entertainment business follows its own dark obsessions.”  Medved’s alarm fell on deaf ears.

In 1993, trying to teach fifth-graders American history, I overheard two boys trading insults.  “Butt-head!”  My ears turned red.  I was indignant.  I launched into a teacher sermon on manners and consideration and language.

The kids in the class started laughing.  All of them.  “But Mrs. Jimenez,” the offender protested, “it’s on television.  It’s a TV show.”  I couldn’t believe it.  Beavis and Butt-Head were the MTV sensation of the year, and I had no way to convince the kids that they were being rude and crude.

Not to be outdone, in 1997, Comedy Central aired the first episode of a cartoon created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.  Touted as a series for big kids…its stories satirized American culture, challenged deepset convictions and taboos, and quite often topped everything off “with a thick coat of black humor.”  It was also a hit with kids…of the little kind.

Cartoons used to be for little kids.  And that has made cartoons a perfect tool for big kids.  Michael Medved’s message rings more and more true all the time.  “Hollywood ignores–and assaults–the values of ordinary American families, pursuing a self-destructive and alienated ideological agenda that is harmful to the nation at large and to the industry’s own interests.”

It is no wonder that cartoons form the center of a new controversy in America.  Poor SpongeBob.  It’s not his fault.  But he doesn’t get to plead innocence just because he’s a cartoon.

In the world of modern marketing where big kids want to reach the hearts of little kids…cartoons provide access.  For those who want to reach the heart of the matter, they must take the time to ask the right questions.

Yes, SpongeBob is a cartoon.  But what is he saying and who is he saying it to?  Big kids?  Or little kids?

See Archives for past editorials.