Church and State (Dept.): John Kerry Gets New Adviser for Religion

 
if Secretary of State John Kerry were heading to college today, he'd study comparative religion. "That's how integrated it is [into] everything," he remarked in August.

Redoing college isn't an option for Kerry, who studied political science at Yale. But he's serious about religion. Kerry didn't waste any time launching the State Department's faith-based initiatives office just months into his appointment. To lead the office, Kerry selected his friend Shaun Casey, a professor of Christian ethics at Wesley Theological Seminary.

"My understanding is, in that first meeting, Kerry leaned over to a staff member and said, 'Let's get Shaun in here,' " said Casey, who grew up in the Church of Christ and previously coordinated evangelical outreach for President Obama.

Appointed through the end of Obama's term, Casey will be the first adviser to the secretary of state on the religious dimension of foreign affairs. He told ct that his new office will advise the secretary, help diplomats engage people of various religions, and teach faith-based groups to bring their views to bear on U.S. foreign policy.

Diverse groups from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs to the International Religious Freedom Roundtable have been suggesting such an office for years. In 2012, a white paper from the Interagency Working Group on Religion and Global Affairs made recommendations that appear to have been used as a blueprint for the office.

Raising Christian Kids in a Sex-Filled Culture

In a recent article, Catholic dad and blogger Raylan Alleman lists reason after reason "to NOT send your daughter to college." As a way to counter the evils of feminism that have invaded our society, Alleman advocates forbidding our daughters from attending college, and instead encourages them to learn through libraries and the Internet.

"We are NOT saying that sending a girl to college or women working is a sin," he writes. "But after looking at the issues we raise, we would challenge anyone to convince us that college for girls is not a near occasion of sin."

It's easy to poke holes in his myopic position; plenty have. For the record, I thoroughly disagree with him. I'd like to consider his argument that college is a dangerous place for young women because of its "near occasion of sin," particularly sexual sin.

Surely Jesus put himself and his disciples in a "near occasion of sin" when hanging out with prostitutes and sinners. Sending our daughters out the door at all, and even welcoming others into our home, is potentially placing them in "a near occasion" to sexual sin and the effects of sexual sin all prior to college.

While I can leverage a modicum of control over what my girls see and hear in our home, I cannot control what other children are exposed to or the images that will shape their brains and behavior. Children can recite hyper-sexualized song lyrics, rehearse sexually explicit film dialogue, and even swap porn back and forth like trading cards via social media and their smart phones.

Things Broke People Do

For the longest time i wondered why God allowed me—and my family—to go broke. After so many cries for rescue, after so many laments, after so many opportunities where God could've "fixed" our financial crisis easily, but didn't, I wondered what he was up to. Wondered why he wasn't "blessing" us with financial abundance the way he had in the past.

At long last, I figured maybe God was actually blessing us with a time in relative poverty. That maybe, God allowed us to linger in financial desperation so that we might learn something life-changing through a time of total and utter dependence on him. That maybe learning what it is to lean on God and God's people, to fully understand the beauty of asking for and receiving daily bread would be a bigger blessing than some zeroes on a savings account.

But I was wrong. At least, according to a post on Christian financial guru Dave Ramsey's site. Based on that advice, we went broke—from rich to poor—because I wasn't forcing my children to read at least two non-fiction books a month… or following those 19 other things Rich People Do Every Day that Poor People Don't.

If this is true, it makes total sense why I'm no longer rich: I may have spent two hours last night in bed with Jane Eyre, but since I did not spend 30 minutes reading something career-related, I have no hope. It doesn't help that I choose NPR over audio books or that I usually speak what's on my mind. You know, like we broke people do.

Quenching Russia's Drinking Problem

The death toll was seven: a teacher, her husband, and five orphans with disabilities. They were returning home from a crafts fair last September when a drunk driver, traveling 125 miles per hour through the streets of Moscow, plowed into them as they waited at a bus stop.

Following his arrest, 29-year-old Alexander Maximov, who had been drinking for two days straight and had landed a DUI arrest two years prior, told investigators, "I always do what I want."

Under current law, a drunk driver will spend less than 10 years behind bars if convicted of manslaughter. But the public outcry after the accident caused lawmakers to call for life imprisonment as a maximum punishment when fatal car crashes are fueled by intoxication.

The national tragedy also stirred soul-searching among pastors, priests, and other Christian leaders. Could the church help solve the country's addiction to alcohol?

Europe has the world's highest rate of alcohol consumption. But Russia's consumption rate of 15.8 liters (or about 4 gallons) of pure ethyl alcohol per capita annually is even higher. It is exceeded in Europe only by Moldova (18.2), the Czech Republic (16.5), and Hungary (16.3). Working-age men are Russia's heaviest drinkers, consuming the equivalent of 155 half-liter bottles (or about 20 gallons) of vodka yearly on average.

Russia's drinking problem affects every facet of national life. There's the sheer fact of 30,000 deaths each year from alcohol poisoning. Russian moonshine, called samogon, as well as "surrogate alcohols" like antifreeze, perfume, and cleaning solutions, play a large role in alcohol-related deaths.