I think the expectation level on parenting has gone up a lot. You are expected to enroll kids in lots of programs and shuttle them around, for example. Whereas when I grew up kids were mostly left on their own. Maybe better in some ways. But you can't ignore the social pressures on parents today.
Yeah, I'm not sure I've reached that stage yet, though having a 3-year-old and 11-month-old currently feels like a big time commitment, much more than I was expecting (in a context with a wife who works from home full time and myself having the flexibility that comes with being a professor). I often find myself wondering how people were able to do it in the past.
In regards to the article about the religious composition of Harvard's student body, I have to wonder if many of those young 'agnostics' aren't a more accurate description of the 'protestants' of yesteryear. By PoYY I mean the protestants who would assume that label because of family history or status (positive world) but who would not have any serious faith commitment. If that's the case, then agnostic strikes me as a more accurate descriptor. And, in today's world of rampant untrustworthiness, those young students may be afraid of being branded and outed as a bad religious person (negative world). Even from an ostensibly anonymous survey. After all, the president of Harvard was just caught plagiarizing and amplifying certain words from said plagiarism to fit a pre-determined political narrative. If the organizational culture is so bad that you can't trust the college president, then are you really going to trust an 'anonymous' survey?
All that said, when I got my first dog tags ~25 years ago I selected "No Religious Preference" (NO REL PREF) instead of Protestant because I thought there was always a possibility of someday getting sent into a sectarian conflict somewhere. I dunno, you never know what the future holds.
Are people wary of anonymous surveys? It's a valid thought. When I've lived in states with open primaries, I've registered as an independent instead of a Republican despite never having voted for a Democrat in my life, because why give away more than I need to?
But in the case of Harvard, it doesn't feel correct, given everything else we know about the culture, to imply there are a significant number of Protestants holding back. Though perhaps there are a few.
2.
The average Ivy League Protestant of the early-to-mid 20th century was surely rather liberal and perhaps, in his heart of hearts, not so different from today's agnostic in his theological views. Though I would still say there is significance to abandoning the Protestant label entirely.
I recall Lyman Stone making the argument that, if you go point-by-point on theology, there is actually less theological distance between conservative Lutherans and conservative Muslims than between conservative Lutherans and the official positions of ELCA's hierarchy. Which is another way of framing Gresham Machen's argument that liberal Christianity is better thought of as an entirely distinct Abrahamic religion from traditional Christianity.
That all rings true, and yet even the most liberal ELCA church feels far, far more familiar and less alien to an LCMS Lutheran than any mosque in the world would. There is theological distance, and then there is sociological distance. The abandonment of the Protestant label by liberal Northeastern Ivy Leaguers represents a growing sociological distance from traditional religion. The theological distance, meanwhile, was there even before 1776, as Harvard started trending Unitarian.
A lot of good content here.
Can someone explain the phenomena the Vox article is about? Did parenting all of a sudden become a lot harder?
I think the expectation level on parenting has gone up a lot. You are expected to enroll kids in lots of programs and shuttle them around, for example. Whereas when I grew up kids were mostly left on their own. Maybe better in some ways. But you can't ignore the social pressures on parents today.
Yeah, I'm not sure I've reached that stage yet, though having a 3-year-old and 11-month-old currently feels like a big time commitment, much more than I was expecting (in a context with a wife who works from home full time and myself having the flexibility that comes with being a professor). I often find myself wondering how people were able to do it in the past.
In regards to the article about the religious composition of Harvard's student body, I have to wonder if many of those young 'agnostics' aren't a more accurate description of the 'protestants' of yesteryear. By PoYY I mean the protestants who would assume that label because of family history or status (positive world) but who would not have any serious faith commitment. If that's the case, then agnostic strikes me as a more accurate descriptor. And, in today's world of rampant untrustworthiness, those young students may be afraid of being branded and outed as a bad religious person (negative world). Even from an ostensibly anonymous survey. After all, the president of Harvard was just caught plagiarizing and amplifying certain words from said plagiarism to fit a pre-determined political narrative. If the organizational culture is so bad that you can't trust the college president, then are you really going to trust an 'anonymous' survey?
All that said, when I got my first dog tags ~25 years ago I selected "No Religious Preference" (NO REL PREF) instead of Protestant because I thought there was always a possibility of someday getting sent into a sectarian conflict somewhere. I dunno, you never know what the future holds.
1.
Are people wary of anonymous surveys? It's a valid thought. When I've lived in states with open primaries, I've registered as an independent instead of a Republican despite never having voted for a Democrat in my life, because why give away more than I need to?
But in the case of Harvard, it doesn't feel correct, given everything else we know about the culture, to imply there are a significant number of Protestants holding back. Though perhaps there are a few.
2.
The average Ivy League Protestant of the early-to-mid 20th century was surely rather liberal and perhaps, in his heart of hearts, not so different from today's agnostic in his theological views. Though I would still say there is significance to abandoning the Protestant label entirely.
I recall Lyman Stone making the argument that, if you go point-by-point on theology, there is actually less theological distance between conservative Lutherans and conservative Muslims than between conservative Lutherans and the official positions of ELCA's hierarchy. Which is another way of framing Gresham Machen's argument that liberal Christianity is better thought of as an entirely distinct Abrahamic religion from traditional Christianity.
That all rings true, and yet even the most liberal ELCA church feels far, far more familiar and less alien to an LCMS Lutheran than any mosque in the world would. There is theological distance, and then there is sociological distance. The abandonment of the Protestant label by liberal Northeastern Ivy Leaguers represents a growing sociological distance from traditional religion. The theological distance, meanwhile, was there even before 1776, as Harvard started trending Unitarian.