The full text is up at National Review. I wanted to highlight a couple of points.
First, the importance of marriage and family for raising children:
As a graduate of Regent University you know that the obligations we have to our neighbors are not dependent on race, or sex, or social class. Neither are those duties dependent on age, or size, or stage of development. Or whether someone is wanted or unwanted, planned or unplanned, healthy or sick, “perfect” or disabled.
This starts with you and me. We need to love our children. Graduating class, if you have a daughter with Down syndrome, love her. If your son is conceived “by accident,” love him. As my late mentor Fr. Richard John Neuhaus explained, we have the responsibility to see to it that every human being is protected in law and cared for in life.
The best care comes from the family. Some of you may have already started your families. Most of you will start one in the next decade. And as you welcome children into this world you will experience firsthand that the best way to ensure that children are cared for in life by the man and the woman who gave them life is to unite that man and woman as husband and wife in marriage.
We are created male and female. And marriage unites a man and a woman permanently and exclusively as husband and wife to take responsibility for their children as father and mother. That’s what marriage is all about. And our marriage policy should respect these truths. So, too, should our churches and our own lives. Graduating class: Live lives of fidelity and service to your spouse and your children.
Your children will be educated in this society. And as mothers and fathers you have the responsibility to care for and educate your children. Government should empower you to fulfill those duties. It shouldn’t interfere or indoctrinate. Nor should it use healthcare laws or anti-bullying programs to promote a sexual ideology at odds with the values that responsible parents try to instill in their children.
Second, the free market and the need for job creation:
Our responsibilities extend beyond our families. One of the best ways to care for our neighbors is by serving them in our professional callings, performing quality work at a fair price. Creating wealth and value for our neighbors. Who among the Class of 2013 will be the next David Green, the founder of Hobby Lobby? Who will be the next Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-a? Who will improve our lives with new technology or medical devices? Who will create new jobs that pay decent wages? This is your responsibility as future business leaders and entrepreneurs.
We know that the market economy—along with families headed by married couples—has done more to lift people out of poverty and into a flourishing life than any other institution. But it only works if people of good character and upright morals are at the helm. Markets are inert apart from the values that actors bring to them—and you have responsibility for your market action.
Look at leaders like David Green and Truett Cathy. They run their businesses in accordance with their Christian beliefs. There’s a simple reason why: They know that they have duties to serve God—and not just on Sundays, but also on the other six days of the week, when they enter the workforce and marketplace. Remember, you can’t check your faith or morals at the door.
It’s worth a look. The actual speech can be seen here, starting at 41 minutes in. It goes on for about 19 minutes.
Filed under: News, Capitalism, Children, Civil Society, Commencement, Education, Entrepreneurship, Family, Free Market, Jobs, Love, Marriage, Parenting, Regent University, Ryan Anderson, Ryan T. Anderson
04/14/2013 • 2:00 PM 14
Christian men, be selective when giving attention to women
Here is a thought-provoking post from agnostic libertarian economist Captain Capitalism.
Excerpt:
So this caused me to think a little, because it echoes what Dina explained to me just a few months back, and Mariangela verified it as well. (My knowledge of women is mostly theoretical, so some of these obvious things have escaped me). Anyway, they basically agreed with the Captain’s assessment, that many of the things that women do are to get attention. This is fine. The point of this post is not to pick on women, but to warn men. And so here’s the warning for Christian men.
Christian Men: Like everything in life, God asserts sovereignty over your choices with women. One of those choices is who you pay attention to, and why. Whenever you pay attention to a woman, you are in some way validating her choices, beliefs and lifestyle. Therefore, you need to be careful to choose women who deserve attention for the right reasons. You need to pass on women who show a lot of skin to people they hardly know. You need to pass on women who are known to use sex to get attention from men easily, without having to listen to his values. You need to pass on women who won’t read things that men care about, like apologetics, economics, etc.
Whenever I get distracted by a woman who is trying to get attention from me without wanting to listen or be led by me, I ask myself questions about her and her motives.
I ask:
And so on. Now if you are a woman reading this, you might think “why do you have to do that? Obviously they haven’t, so why pay attention to them? I’ve done all that good stuff, so pay attention to me!”. But it’s not that simple for a man, not even a virgin like me. About 99% of the time, I don’t have to go through this process. But there are some days…. you could call it my time of the month… where suddenly blubbering out how great this woman looks to her seems *rational*. And I don’t want to do that. I would rather get on my e-mail or Facebook and encourage a Christian woman who is actually doing the right things. I don’t want to be encouraging other women who are trying to cheat their way to attention without letting me express my faith, talk about politics, and so on. If I can’t lead you to learn about God so that you can serve God, then you shouldn’t get attention from me. One of the most helpful things I ever learned was from a young lady who had a sexual past, who flat out told me that she used sex in order to pacify and control men so that they would continue to give her attention no matter how much of a witch she was to them. That helped me to understand why I have to be selective with who I am going to endorse with my attention.
I think that men need to recognize that just as women who embrace feminism are responsible for wrecking men with all of this hooking-up, high tax rates, gun control, no-fault divorce, etc., that men are wrecking women by rewarding them with attention for the wrong reasons. If you want to fix women, the easiest thing to start with is to favor the good ones – the ones who listen to you, the ones who study hard things, the ones who want to serve God. Avert your eyes from the flirty ones. Don’t talk to them. Consciously prefer the best, most moral, most hard-working, women. That’s going to communicate the right message to women, and give them an incentive to value the right feminine qualities.
Christian men, if you are single, why not just take a minute now to go to the book store and buy a good apologetics or economics book and some white flowers for the Christian woman you know who does the most good for God? That would be a start. I recommend “Is God Just a Human Invention?” and three white carnations, some baby’s breath and some greenery. They are not too expensive and they last a long time. If you get her that book, tell her about Brian Auten’s read-along, which just started again. We all have to do the best we can to fix male-female relations. Women, and men. The solution to the problem of women being bad is not for men to be bad, too. It’s for men to be selective.
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Filed under: Commentary, Attention, Chastity, Chivalry, Christianity, Complementarian, Courting, Dating, Egalitarian, Feminism, Leadership, Love, Marriage, Men, Modesty, Sex, Sex Appeal, Women