Since I’ve been gone a week, I certainly shouldn’t walk back into the Tavern and start calling people names, right? I mean, I’m a nice guy, so I should be nice. I certainly won’t point out that the two anti-magic-book guys around here have turned on each other over the issue and now one of them is quoting Capon who is parsing verses in a very magic-bookish way to make his point. That would be rude! I’ll just wait until that whole thing implodes. (JN)

On Mohler: There is a huge overlap between the pool of home-schoolers and the “quiver-full” crowd, so I’ve heard stuff like this my entire life, and I go back and forth on it. I don’t buy the RCC-style idea that we should all have kids as fast as we can for as long as we can, though a goodly number of my objections are borne of pragmatism: I am the oldest of seven kids and my wife is the oldest of six. But I also do question—and I’m sorry for the opportunity for offense I know I am offering to Tom and other who have made similar choices—why someone deliberately chooses no kids at all. When it all boils down, Mohler’s examples seem to be of people reveling in selfishness, no?

Heck, we’re all selfish. My decision to have three kids instead of fourteen can be seen by some as selfish, I’m sure, though I think selfishness was far from our minds when we had three kids in 36 months. I’m selfish in choices I make every day, so I’m really not trying to point fingers on selfishness. BUT—and here is where I am probably being offensive despite my intention—few things seem to be as significant in the maturity of an adult as having children. When I think of what my wife and I were like before kids and compare that to now, I’m astounded, and I think that experience is common to most parents. When I compare the evidence of maturity I see in the lives of the average parents with the evidence of maturity I see in the lives of the average childless couple, the contrast seems stark.

There are exceptions, of course. I know parents who are still mind-bogglingly selfish, and the kids suffer for it. Because of that, I question Mohler’s focus even on the days when I accept his premise. Determined permanent childlessness is a symptom, not a problem in itself.

But despite exceptions, I think that most people can agree that the common major events that lead to the most dramatic increases in maturity in the average person are marriage and parenting. Sure, moving out on one’s own can be a big deal, as can graduation from high school and college and so on. But looking backwards, nothing seems to compare to marriage and parenting. They’re make-or-break events, and your life will change or your marriage or parenting will fail, period.

Anyway, I’ve drifted from my point, which is this: Doesn’t Mohler have a little bit of a point? Does it say anything about where we are as a society that organizations exist in many major cities to celebrate the choice to permanently remain childless? Given that I’m trying not to—and failing—sound like I’m saying, “I’ve got mine, where are yours,” what is the real reason we choose how many children to have? Heck, why did I really choose to snip-snip after having three?

I honestly think that we can make the right decisions for the wrong reasons, and it is that on which I think Mohler should have focused. Maybe it is a good thing that he-and-she never have kids, but is it a good thing that they make that choice because they don’t want to disrupt their vacation schedule? It’s a more complicated issue than Mohler seems to represent, but I think he’s not wrong in identifying selfishness as a problem in America.

I’ve been studying James lately. What a corker is that book! The standard James describes for Christian living is so far away from how I live and how I view life I’m inclined to dismiss it as a “right strawy epistle” and muster theological arguments about why the book doesn’t carry weight and so on and so forth. Still, with the distinction between Law and Gospel in hand, imagine what would happen if North American Christians really started to live as James suggests! Just James 1 is enough for me to realize that I suck pretty badly at “the righteous live that God desires.” It’s a good thing it isn’t a requirement!

Oh well, I’m babbling. Sorry to all!