Compromise

A dramatic change from the trend seen in previous years was marked by the unexpected increase in marriages that the COVID-19 lockdowns brought about. Marital records from 2022 show a significant increase, with the marriage rate reaching 6.2 per capita and over two million marriages in a year.

Marissa Nelson, a registered marriage and family therapist, believes that lockdowns forced couples to face difficulties head-on, resulting in increased intentionality in relationships. She writes, “Being in lockdown together gave many couples a unique hurdle to overcome,” resulting in a better knowledge of critical factors such as finances, compromise, and autonomy.

Divorce rates continued their downward trend from the previous years, even though they had been expected to increase in 2022. While the rate was slightly higher than the previous year at 2.4 per 1,000 individuals, it is still dramatically declining from the 2000 figure of 4 per 1,000.

The hurdles created by lockdowns forced couples to confront underlying concerns, potentially laying the groundwork for stronger relationships. Nelson highlights that being confined together forced couples to tackle relationship issues, which boosted resilience and stability for the future.

Ian Kerner, a registered marriage and family therapist, has noticed a movement in marital paradigms, from “romantic” to “companionate” relationships. Individuals are increasingly prioritizing attributes similar to those seen in best friends, preferring long-term stability and fulfillment to brief excitement.

After the pandemic, marital dynamic changes reflect ideas on commitment, stability, and partnership. While issues remain, trends indicate a greater emphasis on deliberate relationships and long-term compatibility.

Possible Preaching Angle:

There are some good lessons here for couples in the church who are having marital issues and doubts. Don’t give up on your marriage. Investing the time to discuss your issues, perhaps with a counselor involved, can often bring hope and healing to a relationship.

An article in The Financial Times claims that “the west is suffering from a crisis of courage.” The author notes:

And the problem is much broader than politics. Society itself seems to be suffering from a crisis of courage … Virtue signaling might be endemic, but courage, like honor, is not deemed a virtue worth signaling. Indeed, all the incentives are stacked on the opposite side: there is little to lose from going along with what everyone is saying, even if you don’t believe it yourself, and much to gain from proving that you are on the “right” side. Courage — sticking your head above the parapet and saying what you really think — can, conversely, get you into a huge amount of trouble, and, usually, you are not rewarded for it.

The mere mention of courage has been in decline for a long time. A 2012 paper in the Journal of Positive Psychology that tracked how frequently words related to moral excellence appeared in American books — both fiction and non-fiction — over the 20th century, found that the use of the words “courage, bravery and fortitude” (which were grouped together) had fallen by two-thirds over the period.

Moral courage does not equate to recklessness, and neither does it mean being a provocateur for the sake of it … But if we want our societies to thrive, we must be courageous enough to think for ourselves and stand up for what we believe in. The late writer Maya Angelou was right when she said: “Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”

The Starbucks at the CIA headquarters is not allowed to take names for orders. It’s not “business as usual” for the Starbucks franchise housed inside the CIA headquarters in Langley, VA. This particular store, code-named “Store Number 1,” operates much differently than their other 12,000+ stores in the U.S.—not surprising when it must accommodate clandestine spymasters working for the most powerful spy organization in the world.

This seller of skinny lattes and double cappuccinos is deep inside the agency’s forested Langley, Va., compound. Because the campus is a highly secured island, few people leave for coffee, and the lines can stretch down the hallway. Welcome to the “Stealthy Starbucks,” as a few officers affectionately call it.

Servers do not ask for the customer’s name (which they normally write on the coffee cup to expedite things), for undercover agents grow uncomfortable when someone asks for it. Even the receipts the baristas hand back have “Store Number 1” cryptically printed on them.

Each barista goes through a robust interview and background check before they are even told that they will be working at the CIA Starbucks. There are nine baristas working there and whenever they leave their work area, a CIA “minder” escorts them. All are regularly briefed about security risks and must report if someone seems overly interested in where they work or asks too many questions about their employment. They can’t even blow their own horns about working inside the CIA at nightclubs or parties and, if asked, can only tell friends, family members and acquaintances that they “work in a federal building.”

One barista said she has come to recognize people’s faces and their drinks. “There’s caramel-macchiato guy” and “the iced white mocha woman,” she said. “But I have no idea what they do. I just know they need coffee, a lot of it.”

Possible Preaching Angles:

1) Compromise; Hiddenness; Light of the World - Agents and even baristas must remain secretive and anonymous at CIA headquarters. But there should be no “undercover Christians” who follow this pattern in their daily lives. Christ wants no hidden Christians; he wants us to shine as lights and be bold and open in our testimony as his followers. 2) Accountability; Secrets; Secrecy – Christians must be open and accountable with one another; there should be no hidden areas of our lives that we conceal while pretending to be godly. 3) Persecution – Some are covert Christians who practice Christianity in secret, often because they fear persecution or discrimination because they live in countries where Christianity is illegal or heavily restricted.

Best-selling Muslim author and renowned critic of Islam, Irshad Manji shook the religious world with her ground-breaking and highly acclaimed book The Trouble with Islam Today. Translated into more than 30 languages, Manji writes about the lack of inquiry and freedom of thought and speech that pervades across the entire Islamic world.

In 1972, her devout Muslim family immigrated from East Africa to a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia, when she was four-years-old. She writes that she came to believe in the basic dignity of every individual not from Islam, but "It was the democratic environment to which my family and I migrated." A couple of years later, her always frugal parents enrolled her in free baby-sitting services at a Baptist church when her mom left the house to sell Avon products door-to-door.

There the lady who supervised Bible study showed me and my older sister the same patience she displayed with her own son. She made me believe my questions were worth asking. The questions I posed as a seven-year-old were simple ones: Where did Jesus come from? When did he live? Who did he marry? These queries didn't put anyone on the spot, but my point is that the act of asking always met with an inviting smile.

She cites another example at her junior high school and her evangelical Christian vice-principal.

[The majority of students] lobbied for school shorts that revealed more leg than our vice-principal thought reasonable. After a heated debate with us, he okayed the shorts, bristling but still respecting popular will. How many Muslim evangelicals do you know who tolerate the expression of viewpoints that distress their souls?

Of course, my vice-principal had to bite his tongue in the public school system, but such a system can only emerge from a consensus that people of different faiths, backgrounds, and stations ought to tussle together. How many Muslim countries tolerate such tussle? I look back now and thank God I wound up in a world where the Quran didn't have to be my first and only book.

A study published in June of 2022, estimates that nearly 1.64 million people over the age of 13 in the United States identify themselves as transgender, based on an analysis of newly expanded federal health surveys.

The study estimates that about 0.5% of all US adults, (1.3 million people), and about 1.4%, of youth between 13- and 17-years-old (300,000 people), identify as transgender (having a different gender identity than the sex they were assigned at birth).

On “Transgender Day of Visibility” in March, two Biden administration agencies released guidance promoting “gender-affirming” health care for minors. This includes puberty blockers, hormone therapy treatments, and sex reassignment surgery.

One document released by the Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs claimed that “gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being” for children and adolescents.

A parallel document released by the Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network claimed that providing “gender-affirming” treatment to kids is “neither child maltreatment nor malpractice.”

The executive summary from the study says that there are more "transgender women" than "transgender men."

Of the 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender, 38.5% (515,200) are transgender women, 35.9% (480,000) are transgender men, and 25.6% (341,800) reported they are gender nonconforming.

Research shows transgender individuals are younger on average than the U.S. population. Ages 13 to 17 are more likely to identify as transgender (1.4%) than adults ages 65 or older (0.3%).

LifeWay Research and Ligonier Ministries have once again examined the theological awareness, or lack thereof, of American evangelicals. This time, instead of defining “evangelical” by whether participants identify as such, they used a definition endorsed by the National Association of Evangelicals. Below are the areas where believers have most gone astray in their theology:

People have the ability to turn to God on their own initiative. 82% Agree

Individuals must contribute to their own salvation. 74% Agree

Jesus is the first and greatest being created by God. 71% Agree

God knows all that happens, but doesn’t determine all that happens. 65% Agree

The Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being. 56% Agree

God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. 48% Agree

My good deeds help to earn my place in heaven. 39% Agree

God will always reward faith with material blessings. 37% Agree

Google has published its most searched-for terms of 2021:

For the UK, the five most frequently asked “When” questions were:

1. When will lockdown end?

2. When will I get the vaccine?

3. When does Love Island finish?

4. When does lockdown start?

5. When does Love Island start?

For the US, the five most frequently asked “How to Be” questions were:

1) How to be eligible for stimulus check

2) How to be more attractive

3) How to be happy alone

4) How to be a baddie

5) How to be a good boyfriend

Possible Preaching Angle:

“Therefore, since you have been raised with Christ, strive for the things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:1-2).

Author David Wells asks:

What is worldliness? (It is) that system of values, in any given age, which has at its center our fallen human perspective, which displaces God and his truth from the world, and which makes sin look normal and righteousness seem strange. It thus gives great plausibility to what is morally wrong and, for that reason, makes what is wrong seem normal.

In the early hours of June 24, 2021, part of a slab from a high-rise condo building in Surfside, Florida dropped into the parking garage below. Within minutes, the east wing of the 13-story tower collapsed, killing 98 people in a disaster without modern precedent in the US.

Designed in the late 1970s, the 136-unit Champlain Towers South was completed in 1981 and marketed as luxury living. Officials are still investigating why the tower fell. Engineers point to some key decisions during construction, that while legal at the time, compromised the buildings foundation and integrity.

For instance, a Wall Street Journal report concluded:

[The original builders] skipped waterproofing in areas where saltwater could seep into concrete, the available evidence indicates. They put the building’s structural slabs on thin columns without the support of beams in some places. They installed too few of the special heavy walls that help keep buildings from toppling, engineers say, features that could have limited the extent of the collapse. And they appeared to have put too little concrete over rebar in some places and not enough rebar in others, design plans and photos of the rubble indicate.

Tragically, the construction flaws could have been repaired. The report continued:

Engineers say some issues would have been fixable, had the property’s condo board done more extensive repairs sooner. By 1996, the slab started showing cracks, and pieces of concrete had fallen off the garage ceiling, unusual so soon after construction. Workers patched cracks and waterproofed the pool deck, but that too eventually failed.

But the condo board failed to act. Roof work began weeks before the collapse, but repairs to the steel-reinforced concrete hadn’t yet started.

Demi Lovato and the Australian singer/songwriter Sam Fisher recently collaborated on a piece titled “What Other People Say” that reveals this generation's realization that living for the affirmation of others cannot fill the void in our heart.

Some of the lyrics from the radio edit of the song:

Thought when I grew up

I would be the same as the ones who gave me my last name

I would not give in, I would not partake

In the same old drugs everyone else takes

I'm better than that, I'm better than that

I'm living my life so I go to heaven and never come back

But look where I'm at, look where I'm at

I'm living the life that I said I wouldn't, I wanna go back

I used to call my mom every Sunday

So she knew her love wasn't far away

But now I'm all messed up out in LA

'Cause I care more about what other people say

I used to not take chances with God's name

But it's been so long since I last prayed

And now I'm all messed up and my heart's changed

'Cause I care more about what other people say

The song so resonated with Lovato she shared, "When I first heard this song, I cried. These lyrics resonate so much with me and are super meaningful. This song is a reflection on what it's like to lose who you truly are in an effort to please other people and society."

Fischer added, "'What Other People Say' is a confession, realizing how far away you can get from who you are in an effort to be liked. It’s about the pressures of society and how getting caught up with the wrong things can change you."

Rumors have been circulating that Mathew McConaughey might be considering a run for governor of Texas in 2022, and perhaps a higher office after that. In a recent interview in Men's Journal, Jesse Will cornered the Hollywood star on the topic. McConaughey, resisted confirming or denying his thoughts on the matter. But when pressed to give a hypothetical campaign slogan, he shared that his favorite suggestion has been, "Make America All Right, All Right, All Right, Again." Then he paused and said, "But for me . ..It’s ‘Meet Me in the Middle—I Dare You.'" He then explained:

When facing any crisis, I’ve found that a good plan is to first recognize the problem, then stabilize the situation, organize the response, then respond. You can’t have unity without confrontation. And to have confrontation, you have to at least validate the other’s position. We don’t even do that. So, I’d say, I’ll meet you in the middle. I dare you. It’s a challenge, a radical move. You come this way, I’ll come your way. That’s how democracy works.

In other words, to explain to another human why they are wrong (if in fact it is them and not us in error), we must listen to them. We must understand where they are coming from? Why do they make the choices they do? You must meet them in the middle.

Atheist Angel Eduardo argues that keeping our beliefs to ourselves, while avoiding confrontation and promoting harmony, is actually harmful and immoral. Beliefs are the “engines of our actions. They’re foundational to how we think and behave, and they have consequences.” He admits when atheists tell Christians and people of other religions to keep their beliefs to themselves, they don’t truly grasp what they are asking:

We rarely think about this from the perspective of the believer. For them, every encounter is of paramount importance. They are truly convinced that you are in danger and that they possess the keys to salvation. ... Their proselytizing is a moral act, even when we consider it a nuisance. However misguided or wrong they might be, their actions are motivated by a desire to make our lives (and afterlives) better. ... It’s hard to imagine how the consciences of the ethically devout are burdened by every skeptic they’ve failed to convert. ... How much worse would that guilt be if they’d instead been unwilling to try?

Eduardo wants atheists and skeptics to be more understanding:

Imagine us atheists indifferently watching the religious waste their lives believing nonsense. What would it say about us if we didn’t try to talk them out of it, to help them save what little time they have left on this mortal coil, because we’ve chosen to keep our beliefs—or unbelief—to ourselves? Sure, we’re being polite in the moment. We’re exercising tolerance, in our own myopic way. We are living and letting live, but at what cost? Not one I’m willing to pay.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This fresh perspective should give Christians even more motivation for sharing our faith.

Their hearts may be on their sleeves, but their tattoos are under them. While participating in the 2019 Rugby World Cup, the manager of Samoa’s men’s national rugby team required his players to don special sleeves to cover their tattoos. The edict complied with an advisory statement by World Rugby, issued as part of the sport’s cultural awareness program. Manager Va'elua Aloi Alesana said, “We have to respect the culture of the land we are in wherever we go. We have our own culture as well, but we are not in Samoa now.”

When asked to elaborate, Alesana clarified his stance further:

There are some training venues that have allowed us to show our tattoos and some places where we can't, and for those places, we've been given “skins” to wear to cover our tattoos. The extra skins are only for when we go to the pools though. At the training we can wear our normal clothes.

It might not have been an easy choice for the players to follow, because tattoos are a revered aspect of Pacific Islander culture. But in Japan, they are often associated with the Japanese organized crime syndicates known as yakuza.

In the run up to the tournament, coach Steve Jackson consulted Japanese cultural experts to ensure players respect and appreciate the local culture. As a result, team captain Jack Lam was on board. Lam said, “It's quite normal in our culture. But we are respectful and mindful to what the Japanese way is. We will be making sure that what we are showing will be OK.”

Potential Preaching Angles: Respect for others means understanding your own culture and being willing to adjust when you visit other places. The call of Christian discipleship involves the practice of laying down our own preferences for the sake of others.

In his book Transgender, author/pastor Vaughn Roberts draws on a distinction made by John Wyatt between the "Lego kit" view of the human body and the "art restoration" view of the human body. According to the "Lego kit" view, if we have just emerged from the primeval slime by chance, then there is no design whatsoever in how we happen to be. The structure of the human body is value free, so if you want to change your sex, that's fine.

The "art restoration view" acknowledges that we are not machines; we are flawed masterpieces. If you see a work of art and you're asked to restore it, you don't look at it and say, "Well, I think he would look much nicer with a pair of spectacles." Or, "This scene would look better with a car instead of a hay cart." To do that is to break the code of the art restorer. Art restorers respect the work, and know that their job is to bring out the artist's original intention. They work at cleaning and restoring the vivid colors. They study the work and the painter so they can carefully get it back to what it once was. They work so that people can see the original in all its glory.

Roberts' states further, "The aim is to restore the Creator's intention: but we are not to try to change it. And that will certainly mean accepting the sex that he has given us.

On August 10, 1948, a pioneering television producer named Allen Funt debuted a hidden-camera reality TV show called Candid Camera. The genius of the show is that it caught people in the act of being themselves. It produced lots of laughs, but it also offered a fascinating look into the human psyche.

In one episode titled "Face the Rear," an unsuspecting person boarded an elevator and naturally turned around to face the front of the elevator. That's when three actors entered the elevator and faced the rear. A hidden camera in the elevator captured the angst of the prankee. To turn or not to turn? Finally, a fourth actor entered the elevator and faced the rear. Without exception, the person facing the front would turn around and face the rear. The social influence exerted by those facing the rear was too overwhelming for that person to remain the only one facing the front.

Where's Susan? That's the innocent question Joshua Rogers's daughter asked as they were reading The Last Battle, the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia, by C. S. Lewis. Susan is the child queen who helped her siblings save Narnia from the White Witch in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. However, she is conspicuously absent from an early scene in The Last Battle that includes every character who traveled to Narnia as a child. Rogers writes:

"Daddy, where is she?" my daughter asked again.

"We'll see," I said, with a tinge of sadness.

Although I've read The Chronicles of Narnia dozens of times since I was a boy, Susan's tragic end gets me every time. The book eventually reveals that Susan grows up and outgrows her love for Narnia. We get few details about her until the end of the book, when High King Peter responds to an inquiry into his sister's whereabouts.

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, 'What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.'"

Susan thought she had become too grown up for thoughts of a great king like Aslan and a blessed land like Narnia and, though she had once experienced it, she left it behind.

After his 15 year career in pro basketball, Rick Barry had hit a remarkable 89.9% of his shots from the free throw line. But Barry also had one of the weirdest free throw shots—an underhand shot known as the "granny style" shot.

The stats don't lie—Barry's style seems to work better than the more familiar (and cooler looking) traditional free throw shot. As Barry said, "From the physics standpoint, it's a much better way to shoot. Less things that can go wrong, less things that you have to worry about repeating properly in order for it to be successful." In 2008, when Discover magazine asked a physics professor who agreed: the 45-degree arc angle and the natural backspin both increase the odds of the ball going into the net, relative to the more common method.

Wilt Chamberlain, a former NBA great who holds the record for the most points scored in one game (100), once tried it out. Over his career, Chamberlain made a pathetic 54% of his free throws. But on March 2, 1962, when he scored his 100 points, Chamberlain used the granny style approach and hit 28 of his 32 free throws.

So chances are, for many players shooting underhand is a much better strategy. So, why don't more players use this free throw style? (And why did Chamberlain give it up?) Rick Barry and Malcolm Gladwell propose a simple answer: because players are too embarrassed or too proud—or both. It looks silly, and most players would rather miss shots than look like a "granny" and score more points.

A 12-year-old girl in New York City is being hailed for her bravery in a recent argument with a male classmate that almost turned violent. The dispute? The boy asked for one of her McDonald's chicken nuggets-but she refused. The police report says that after being denied once, the boy then followed the girl into a nearby subway station, pulled out a gun, and pointed the weapon at her head. Incredibly, reports say that the girl slapped the boy's hand away, told him to leave her alone, and went about the rest of her day. Police found and appropriately charged the boy for juvenile attempted robbery, and the chicken-nugget-loving girl of New York City quickly become an internet sensation. You go, girl.

Potential Preaching Angle: (1) Courage; Boldness; Temptation; Satan —With a positive take on this story, you could talk about this girl's courage in refusing to give in to intimidation, oppression, or temptation. Sure, it was just a chicken nugget, but this girl refused to be bullied by a force for evil. (2) Temptation; Sin; Addiction—In contrast, a negative take on this story could focus on the girl's inability to let go of a chicken nugget—just like we hold on to our sin.

Football referees are unbiased, right? They would never be influenced by fans or football players, right? Well, according to a study football refs are often swayed by their surroundings. Michael Lopez, a researcher and statistician at Skidmore College in New York, led a study that referees are much more likely to make calls that favor the team whose coaches and players are on the sideline closest to the potential penalty.

Lopez analyzed five years of NFL games, including 1,400 penalty calls where the action happened close to one team's sideline or the other. One of the files he examined was whether referees called a late hit on a player. If one player is tackling another, you're allowed to do it while the opposing player is within bounds but not if he's out of bounds. But the bodies are usually flying into one another near a sideline. It's what's called a bang-bang play: it all happens so quickly and the refs have to make a judgment call.

Lopez measured how often these kinds of judgment calls go in favor of the team whose coaches are on the sideline closest to where the potential penalty is taking place. He found referees are much more likely to make calls that comply with what people nearest to them are demanding. In short, intimidation works. Pressure the refs, get in their face, and they will often cave into social pressure.

In an interview popular blogger Jen Hatmaker was asked, "Do you think an LGBT relationship can be holy?" Hatmaker replied:

I do. And my views here are tender. This is a very nuanced conversation, and it's hard to nail down in one sitting. I've seen too much pain and rejection at the intersection of the gay community and the church. Every believer that witnesses that much overwhelming sorrow should be tender enough to do some hard work here.

But former lesbian Rosaria Butterfield reproved Hatmaker for this "tenderness" that leaves people in sin. Butterfield wrote:

If this were 1999—the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved—instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker's words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead … [I would have thought], Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church …

Maybe I wouldn't need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn't ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin, and I suffered the consequences … Today, I hear Jen's words … and a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jen's words would have put a millstone around my neck.

To be clear, I was not converted out of homosexuality. I was converted out of unbelief. I didn't swap out a lifestyle. I died to a life I loved. Conversion to Christ made me face the question squarely: did my lesbianism reflect who I am (which is what I believed in 1999), or did my lesbianism distort who I am through the fall of Adam? I learned through conversion that when something feels right and good and real and necessary—but stands against God's Word—this reveals the particular way Adam's sin marks my life. Our sin natures deceive us. Sin's deception isn't just "out there"; it's also deep in the caverns of our hearts.