Recently in Parenting Category

Probably the biggest religion story of the past couple weeks has been the saga of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year-old boy from northern Minnesota who is dying of Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Yes, he's dying, unless he gets chemo. With chemo, there's a 90% survival rate. Without chemo, less than 10%.

After one round of chemo this Spring, Hauser refused to go back. At some point he and his mother -- and possibly other members of his family -- "converted" to Nemenhah, an online Native American "religion" that advotes homeopathic recipes of roots and herbs to treat illness. Daniel claimed to be a Nemenhah shaman, then it turned out that Nemenhahites (?) age 13 or older are automatically shamans. The Hausers are in no sense Indian.

When Daniel refused chemo, his doctor took him to court. Daniel defended himself with a first-person statement that I'm highly doubtful that he wrote himself. When the judge ordered Daniel to resume chemo, he and his mother fled to California, seduced by a sleazy lawyer to promptly ditched them. They were then flown back by a Hollywood movie producer, and yesterday, Daniel showed up for chemo at a hospital in Minneapolis.

Next fall, Doug and I are hosting a learning party in the Twin Cities for people who love Christ, love Christianity, and are interested in the future. The two of us have been given the microphone a lot in the past decade, and we began our event company with the express intent of giving the mic to others.

Our first few events have spotlighted one or two presenters, but for Christianity21, we wanted to follow the excellent example of TED Talks and give some of the most provocative and innovative voices in the faith 21 minutes each to communicate their passion. Some will give straight talks, others will use various media, still others will present 7 minutes each day, building their presentation throughout the event.

As you can see on the website, the presentations run the gamut of topics from theology to grassroots organizing to consumerism to ecclesiology to parenting. Although all of the voices are women, the topics are as broad as any Christian conference I've ever seen.

At our events, there is no "green room." In other words, the presenters (whom we are calling "Voices") won't be hiding away when they're not onstage. They, along with other Christian leaders, activists, publishers, and the like, will be mixing it up with everyone else. We hope/plan to build a true community at this gathering.

As I mentioned, all of the Voices are women. That's not a gimmick, nor is it an affirmative action decision. Instead, it's our attempt to catalyze a chemistry at an event that's never been achieved before. It's an attempt to do something different. (If you're a guy (or a woman) who feels uncomfortable about that, probably all the more reason that you should be there!) And, as well as their presentations, all 21 of these Voices will be in a pulpit somewhere in the Twin Cities that Sunday morning, so you'll get another chance to hear one or two of them.

We also thought it's high time that speaker/authors like me, Doug, Joe Myers, Shane Claiborne, Peter Rollins and others should be sitting behind the registration table, handing out nametags. And that's just where you'll find us.

We've done everything we can to keep this event affordable. As you can imagine, flying in 21 speakers and paying their expenses does add up, but we're working hard to raise sponsorship money to subsidize that. We've worked out a great deal on a hotel/breakfast combo, and we're committed to keeping the registration at our events under $200.

So, if this sounds interesting to you, if you're intrigued about the way the Christianity will be changing in coming days, if you're keen to hear women get the mic for a few days, then consider joining us, October 9-11, for Christianity21.

Yes, they do.  It's called "spanking."  Here's the premise: In order to improve your children's behavior, you hit them.  Makes virtually no sense, right?  Well, that's exactly what a new study confirmed: Children who were spanked tend to be more aggressive as they grow up.

But leave it to FOX News to provide a "fair and balanced" debate.  If you take the time to watch this short video, you tell me if you think the host's questions are "fair and balanced."

My dear friend, Carla, and her co-blogger Caryn over at TheMommyRevolution answer with a robust No!  Money Quote:

It boarders on idolatry. Dave made a statement that troubles me to no end. It is just the kind of statement that sends a deeper message to mothers: Dave mentions that a woman's proper focus is the family. I'm not sure where he gets that. Well, I know where he gets it, but I don't know what biblical basis he has for that statement. As I said, the gospel doesn't include specifics about parenting. Jesus didn't exempt mothers from participating in God's work in the world. And Jesus wasn't just talking to the men when he told his followers to feed and clothe and visit the poor and imprisoned. The idea that my three children are more important than other people goes against everything the Bible teaches. It makes an idol of my family. So I can't justify having tunnel vision about my parenting. I can't call myself a Christian and then live a life that centers only on a small, select group of people-no matter how much I love those people. And I can't fathom God giving me gifts and passions and dreams with the intention that I limit the use of those to the lives of three people. There is a huge, hurting world out there and mothers-with our heightened compassion, our deepened sense of justice, our ever-growing longing for a better world-are uniquely qualified to get out there and work toward bringing about the kingdom of God. I could go on and on about mothers who have changed the world, but we'll save that for another post.

My deep, deep thanks to my guest bloggers last week: Keith DeRose, Carla Barnhill, and Anthony Smith.  They may continue to post this week to run out the string on their thoughts.  And I hope to have them back in...

I'm fairly certain that most of what we attempt in the way of spiritual formation for children gets in the way of what God is doing in the way of spiritual formation for children. Thank you all for your thoughtful...

I am certain there will be comments about this and that some of them will insinuate I am not a very good mother. Or a very good Christian. But a conversation I had this summer has convinced me that I...

Filling in for Tony this week means I have to charge up a few parts of my brain that have been in sleep mode for about a decade.I will post a more involved blog later today, but I wanted to...

Panthera, Larry, Celsus, and others continue to have at on yesterday's COTD, but it's Christmas Eve, so I'm going to refrain from re-posting one of theirs here -- they're not particularly gentle.However, here's a comment by Panthera on yesterday's post...