People at Risk, Not Just a Problem at Hand
Plus: A Peaches' Pick Review of Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up
Dear Friends,
If you’ve known the Dunhams for very long, you know that, with us, “It’s always somethin’.”
In September, the “somethin’” was a surprise two-week visit from Brian and Chloe as their planned weekend stop in Springfield on their move from Virginia to Utah got extended so as to replace one of the turbo boosts on their F-150 pulling their 5,000-pound trailer.
We’re thankful they made it to central Illinois, and it was fun getting the extra time to involve them in our lives here. It also seemed good decompression time for them as they closed the chapter in Roanoke to begin a new one in Springville (south of Salt Lake City) with Plant Utah.
Ministry Update
The theme of the month of September at Exodus Church has been the importance of evangelism as a marker of a healthy church. Through weekly devotional videos in our Friday newsletter, Sunday morning sermons, and (beginning Sunday) four evening evangelism trainings, our goal has been to raise the evangelistic temperature of our congregation.
On the eve of this evangelism kick-off, Pastor Stephen fell ill and asked if I could put together a message for that Sunday. I was glad for the opportunity and, by God’s grace, cobbled together on Saturday night a sermon titled, “Putting Some Compassion in Our Passion.”
Other September ministry opportunities included counseling through and coordinating an unexpected funeral for a dear family; sitting with a different family at the hospital during a surgery; participating in our presbytery’s quarterly meeting; attending our monthly men’s breakfast; and helping plan and lead Exodus’ Sunday morning worship. As a pastoral internship should be, it’s been a little bit of everything.
As for Megan, when she’s not planning for and teaching 2nd graders to read five days a week at Springfield Christian School, she has continued to put in a good amount of time toward her dyslexia education certification. She continues to co-teach Exodus’ children’s discipleship class each Sunday morning, and recently launched an embroidery group for women of all ages and experiences to connect personally and learn more about the craft.
Here’s a look at what’s ahead this month for the Dunhams:
October
6: Craig preaches at Exodus Church (10 a.m.)/Evangelism Training (5:30-7 p.m.)
12: Megan’s continuing Children’s Dyslexia Centers day-long training
13: Evangelism Training (5:30-7 p.m.)
20: Craig preaches at Forreston Grove Church (10:30 a.m)/Evangelism Training (5:30-7 p.m.)
24-25: Parent/Teacher Conferences at Springfield Christian School
26: Megan’s Extraordinary Embroidery (4-6 p.m.)
27: Craig preaches at Exodus Church(10 a.m.)/Evangelism Training (5:30 p.m.)
Reader Feedback
It’s always fun to hear from readers of Second Drafts. Here’s an encouraging email from a reader in response to September’s feature essay, “Recovering the Lost Art of Listening”:
“In the spirit of recovering the lost art of listening, we did a thing today: our neighbor is running for a state-level political office, and he’s in the party we would likely not be counted in. Another neighbor down the road held a pancake breakfast for him this morning, and we decided to attend. We are of the view that reading and being educated about local/regional issues, as well as voting locally, has just an important (maybe higher) influence than deciding who will be the next POTUS. And we also think it's important to see, know, and listen to our neighbors even if, and especially if, we don’t agree with them.
Our campaigning neighbor discussed his views on a few Constitutional initiatives that we will vote on to add to the State Constitution in November, and it was clear we didn’t see it the same way. However, we emphasized that we wanted to hear him out, have civil and respectful discourse, and look for ways to work together. We found some common ground, and while our vote will likely go to the other candidate, and we all still disagree, we all left the conversation having felt seen and heard. Many of our other neighbors were there as well, and we had similar conversations with them. Our focus is to love them well, and like your friend Mike Card said, to do that, we must listen well.
We kept our focus on our neighbors—their loves, lives, hurts, challenges, victories. We listened and asked heartfelt questions to help them share. We left feeling God’s smile on our heads. People matter. A lot. I don’t know where Christians have gone off the rails in knowing and loving people, but sadly, we are complicit in getting caught up in our culture’s ‘you’re not really living unless you have a celebrity-grade profile, platform, and brand’ demand on our identities. Our response in many cases has been to jump in with both feet, or react in the opposite direction: with our best Sunday-pressed Judgy Pants on. We forget God’s grace is free to us, but was enormously costly to Him.”
Such a good word, particularly on the cusp of what promises to be a very contentious final month leading up to our national elections. Pray for our country, vote according to conscience (preferably informed by Scripture), and follow and set an example of wisdom and winsomeness similar to that of our friends. May God have mercy on our nation and world.
Thanks (as always) for reading Second Drafts,
Craig (for Megan)
P.S.: Vote! Looking for a third-party option? Consider Peter Sonski and Lauren Onak of the American Solidarity Party. Why vote third-party? Karen Swallow Prior offers perspective here.
People at Risk, Not Just a Problem at Hand
(This month’s feature started as a “day-after” Facebook post that I’ve updated and expanded—a first draft to this “second draft,” if you will. Over the years, I’ve written from a distance on our ever-present national discussion on abortion, but this month’s offering comes from a vantage point closer to the playing field. My convictions haven’t changed, but my empathy has deepened. I pray you’ll take time to read my words, and that they are clear and resonate.)
It was a significant week for First Step Women's Center, the unplanned pregnancy center I’ve been volunteering at since January. Last Thursday evening was the Center’s annual fundraising banquet, with 550 people in attendance and over $220,000 raised. Guest speaker Kelly Lester was dynamic and told a powerful story (video below), and I was asked to offer the closing prayer for the evening.
Just a day before, I had put in my normal Wednesday volunteer shift from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. In general, not too many men come in with their female partners (I’ve probably seen all of ten guys—on average about one a month—since January), so the staff leave me alone otherwise so I can do my Exodus work and redeem the time.
There’s no question it’s very much a hit-and-miss opportunity. For instance, last Wednesday there were five appointments scheduled, but four cancelled with no notice given (which is typical). Even when appointments are kept, it’s usually the woman alone or maybe with a young child in tow (more than once I’ve provided lobby childcare with a 1-year-old while his mother met with one of our nurses).
But one appointment last week held—an older woman who came in with her younger (14 years difference) boyfriend—and while she was on the fence about the pregnancy, he was definitely more “abortion-minded,” dressing up his preference in the classic “I’ll support whatever she decides” language.
The Appointment
The protocol of an appointment is pretty simple: our female advocate meets with the woman and listens for clues as to both the felt and real needs underlying her visit before taking her in to the sonogram room where one of our trained nurses gives a pregnancy test and, if positive, looks for a heartbeat. Our nurses are top-notch and wonderfully caring, patiently answering all questions the client has before, during, and after the examination, and taking seriously the medical aspects of the visit.
While all this is going on, I get notified that we have a male partner in the waiting room (we don't allow men back in the examination room because, though rare, sometimes the man who came with the woman ends up not actually being the father). I then walk into the waiting room, make eye contact and introduce myself to the man, inviting him to come back to my office.
Though one might think the conversation would be awkward (and I suppose it is for the first few minutes), it’s amazing how quickly that dissipates. I ask some basic background questions (where the two are originally from, what they do in the Springfield area, how they met, etc.), as well as how they’re thinking about the pregnancy. First Step is careful not to pressure clients, so we don’t use words like “baby” or go beyond where the couple is in their thinking; it’s all very clinical.
I do, however, always try to affirm anything “fatherly” I can—the fact that the guy came in with his girl, wants to be supportive of her, etc. Several guys I’ve talked with express their desire to be more than just supportive (usually because they had a rocky or absentee relationship with their own father and they don’t want that for their child), so without accelerating the conversation beyond their comfort, we talk about what that might practically look like and how important it can be in their relationship.
With only a few exceptions, most of the guys I’ve talked with want to take responsibility. I view my job, then, as helping them hear themselves say that, champion them in saying so, and identifying a tangible "first step" or two of what that might mean. As already mentioned, few men have had good relationships with their own fathers, and even fewer of them have any significant interaction with an older man who’s in their corner, so our interaction seems to mean something to them.
At the end of our time, I thank them for coming in, tell them I’m a Christian, and ask if they would allow me to pray with them for what’s ahead. Whether out of actual desire or Midwest courtesy, I’ve never had anyone—even those who tell me during the course of our conversation they’re agnostic or atheist in their beliefs—refuse the offer. I pray, share my personal contact information, and invite them to call, text, or email me directly. If they’ve mentioned that they’d like to get back to church (almost every guy has had some kind of church experience in their background, usually with a grandparent during the holidays), I invite them to Exodus.
From there, I escort the guy back to the waiting room, and a few minutes later, our female advocate comes to get him and brings him back to see the sonogram results. The man and woman then walk out together, and I make sure I have my door open so as to meet his partner and ask what they as a couple found out.
That particular Wednesday, when the couple left the examination room and walked by my door, I asked what they discovered. They were both grinning ear-to-ear, and the young man’s words were overwhelmingly enthusiastic: “I’m going to be a father!” They planned to come back this past Wednesday for another appointment (First Step offers four examinations—all free—so they can listen to the heartbeat and see their baby’s development as the child doubles in size each week during the first trimester), so I hoped to reconnect to see how things were going.
Unfortunately this past Wednesday, she made the trip without him, as they had had a fight that morning. But the good news is she had scheduled her first prenatal appointment with a doctor and they’re following through on their decision to bring the little one they made into the world.
Hearts of Stone to Hearts of Flesh
First Step doesn’t just perform sonograms and then send people off; we provide medical and resource referrals for low-income couples, seek to link them up with churches and applicable government services, and pray for and stay in touch with clients months after they see us. It’s a wonderful ministry in Springfield and central Illinois, a state that needs places like First Step as much as any state in the Union.
Make no mistake: abortion is not health care, but neither is judgmentmentalness soul care. Yes, in all ten cases I’ve seen, adultery was involved and bad decisions were made, but the need of the hour is loving engagement to help people understand what abortion entails and what other viable options are available for the good of all involved: mother, father, and baby.
At the end of the banquet last week, I prayed and asked God to bring repentance and revival to our nation by changing hearts of stone into hearts of flesh a la Ezekiel 36. For context (God’s promise to OT Israel), here’s the full passage informing my prayer:
“Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes…
…And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” Ezekiel 36:22-23, 26-27
At its core, abortion’s violence against a child is the ultimate profaning of the holy name and image of God; on its surface, abortion’s politicization has contributed to our culture’s unhealthy preoccupation with/entitlement to unfettered individual choice and non-accountable autonomy. Both parties have given themselves over to its servitude, as both continue to shrug off responsibility in pursuit of winning elections.
And yet, responsibility—to God, to His Law—is freedom. The Ten Commandments were not given to be the apex of a civilization; they were given as the floor—as the minimum—required for a civilization to exist and flourish. Is there any question the past 25 years’ rhetorical transition from abortion being “safe, legal, and rare” to “anytime, anywhere, any reason” (despite only 2% of abortions being performed due to medical “complications”) has not degraded our view of the value of life? Ignoring commands like “You shall not murder” for generations does that to a people…and has.
But the hearts in need of change are not just ones who are abortion-minded; they are hearts like mine that need God’s grace so as to be broken and soft toward them.
This is what has been good about volunteering at First Step. My time these past ten months with just ten men—all coming from different places and involved with their women for all kinds of different reasons—reminds me of the people at risk and not just a problem at hand. It’s why I preached on Jesus’ compassion for those “like sheep without a shepherd” a month ago, and why I’m preaching on being reconciled to God while desperately trying not to make it about (only) being right in doing so this Sunday.
Pray for me in this, and maybe for yourself as well—that God would use us for His glory and in the lives of others even as he softens our own hearts along the way.
May God have mercy on all of us, and may babies be given opportunity to be born and come to know Him as a result of His love and grace.
As alluded at the beginning, here are my most recent posts (and one podcast) on abortion:
“After Roe: A Letter to My Young Adult Daughters about the Dobbs Decision” (7/1/22)
“Pro-Life, Pro-Woman: How and Why I am Both” (5/6/22)
“Podcast: The Discussion You Didn’t Know You Could Have about Abortion” (1/22/22)
“Everybody’s a One-Issue Voter” (10/6/20)
Peaches’ Pick: Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up
Speaking of people at risk, here’s a book that does a good job analyzing and identifying a problem at hand (bad therapy and over-prescribed medication for kids), but that would benefit from less snark and a little more heart for people in doing so.
I first heard journalist Abigail Shirer talk about her book, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, in this 15-minute Joe Rogan Experience clip, and while I found myself agreeing with the findings of much of her research and writing, the latter was as grating (particularly as the book went on) as it was good. Here’s an example:
“Parents today might be forgiven for not remembering what humor is. Of all the rotten traits of our parenting books, they are almost uniformly dour and humorless. Sweet Lord Above, these lousy books made every moment with our kids heavy and serious. Techniques to practice, situations to monitor, problems to recognize, apologies to offer when we failed to do all the above. They paint a world of severity, where the stakes are high and dourness reigns.” (p. 229)
Having read more than my fair share of parenting books (as well as education theory books, some of which are even worse), she’s not wrong. But Shirer can say things in ways that come off more over-the-top than a desperate parent needing help and investigating her claims may be willing to persevere through. This isn’t to say she hasn’t done her homework (she has; see the 40 pages of end notes), but Bad Therapy could have benefited from an editor culling 30 pages of redundant sass and dead horses beaten along the way.
That said, as a former teacher and headmaster, if there was a book I could recommend to document and challenge much of the parental outsourcing and outcomes of the past 35 years, this might be it. Why? Because Shirer pulls no punches in pushing back against the terrible parenting goal of raising perpetually happy kids. She writes:
“A decade ago, a writer for Slate noted that instead of using moral language to describe misbehavior, educated parents had begun employing therapeutic language. A-list adolescent hereoes from Huck Finn to Dylan McKay suddenly struck us as undiagnosed suffers of ‘oppostional defiant disorder’ or ‘conduct disorder.’ Agency slunk out the back door.
Suddenly, every shy kid had ‘social anxiety,’ or ‘generalized anxiety disorder.’ Every weird or awkward teen was ‘on the spectrum’ or, at least, ‘spectrumy.’ Loners had ‘depression.’ Clumsy kids had ‘dyspraxia.’ Parents ceased to chide ‘picky eaters’ and instead diagnosed and accommodated the ‘food avoidant.’ (Formal diagnosis: ‘avoidant restrictive food intake disorder,’ or ARFID.)” (p. 18)
But parents didn’t do this on their own, says Shrier; rather, they found (or were found by) willing co-conspirators in child therapists unafraid to wield the power of their prescription pads. Other accomplices: school counselors, administrators, and teachers, many of the latter of whom were unwilling but desperate accessories on account of being delegated behavior issues neither parents nor administration were willing to handle. The results over time, Shrier says, are not hard to recognize:
“We’ve all been swimming in therapeutic concepts so long we no longer note the presence of the water. It seems perfectly reasonable to talk about a child’s ‘trauma’ from the death of a pet or the routine humiliation of being picked last for a sports team.” (p. 19)
Fast-forwarding to young adulthood, the trajectory only gets worse, writes Shrier:
“‘Student Wellness Centers’ have sprouted at our most prestigious universities. Our best athletes withdraw from competition to attend to their mental health; and young Hollywood starlets, Prince Harry, and a slew of Grammy winners proclaim the ‘work’ they are doing in therapy against a continuous struggle with anxiety and depression. ‘Wellness’ and ‘trauma’ form the contrapuntal soundtrack against which the rising generation came of age.’
Seventy-five years of rapid expansion in mental health treatment and services has landed us here, marveling at the unprecedented psychological frailty of American youth.” (p. 19-20)
The remainder of the book is a deep dive into seminal behaviorial philosophies and studies through which Shrier introduces her primary villains: 1) iatrogenesis (“the phenomenon of a healer harming a patient in the course of treatment”); 2) social-emotional meddling and accommodations from schools that all but ensure children (not just teenagers) consider feelings and concepts way beyond their ability to accurately or appropriately do so; and 3) “the road paved by gentle parents,” which Shrier rightly recognizes as parenting without authority that doesn’t work.
As a whole, Bad Therapy makes a strong argument for both personal and systemic re-evaluation of the therapeutic, educational, and parenting trends of recent decades. While Shrier acknowledges there are cases for legitimate therapeutic diagnoses, she presents plenty of rationale that will make honest readers question how proliferative the culture has made them.
The book is well-researched and written, but as with many investigative books, the quality of analysis unfortunately outweighs the quantity of ideas for real change. This doesn’t mean one can’t benefit by reading between the lines and initially making a “stop doing” list in light of some of what Shrier outlines; however, as with most things requiring wisdom, a look back at the ancient ways rather than forward for the latest craze is a parent’s best bet for raising brave, resilient, and thriving children.
Until next month…
Craig and Megan Dunham live in Springfield, IL, where Craig serves as Ministry Coordinator at Exodus Church while pursuing ordination in the Presbyterian Church in America. Megan teaches 2nd grade at Springfield Christian School and is an occasional newsletter contributor.
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Want to contact the Dunhams? Email either or both: Craig and Megan.