Amy Simpson
We all have a responsibility to guide younger leaders.
Women LeadersJuly 7, 2016
Tokyo, Japan
When I was in my twenties, I thought life was effectively over at 30. Incidentally, I also thought time would move much more slowly than it does. When I was in my thirties I knew better, but I still dreaded 40. I looked ahead and saw a future with obvious signs of aging, aches and pains, cultural alienation, and my precious children leaving home—it all felt negative and a big overwhelming.
But now that I am unequivocally in my forties, I realize there are some great things about being roughly at the halfway point of my presumptive lifespan. For starters, a solid majority of marketing and pop culture messages are not aimed at me—it’s very relaxing. For another, I’m actually looking forward to seeing my kids ready to leave home. Yet another, I am legitimately an elder to about half the population, and I find I’ve picked up a nice little collection of wisdom to share—and people actually want me to share it.
I find myself equipped not only for mentoring, but for spiritual mothering, a role I believe all women are called to play during our lives, regardless of whether we mother children in our own families.
Titus 2:3–5 gives a brief glimpse of the importance of this role in the church, with Paul instructing Timothy to ask older women to act in the lives of their younger counterparts. Both men and women need spiritual mothers. In the early days of the church—with few models to follow—people needed spiritual mothers and fathers to teach them how to be Christians. In modern times, this role seems just as important: Many young people live far away from their parents, and naturally occurring intergenerational community is rare.
So what does it mean to be a spiritual mother? It means using some of the same skills in relationships with younger Christians that mothers use with their children.
Nurture—Mothers nurture their children, caring for them, soothing them, and providing an environment in which they can grow and feel safe. We can nurture younger Christians as well, caring for them in both practical and less tangible ways. Spiritually speaking, our interest in them and our willingness to be authentic can create a space where they can safely grow.
Push—Good mothers don’t simply soothe or reassure their children; they also gently push them to try new things, keep practicing, and develop skills and confidence. Spiritual mothers don’t let people stay the way they are either. We push people, not necessarily in the direction we want them to go, but in the direction God is pulling them.
Mirror—British pediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott wrote of a critical role mothers play in their infants’ lives: acting as a mirror to reflect babies’ own selves and moods back at them. As children grow up, good mothers continue to reflect for their children, telling kids who they are and how the world sees them. Spiritual mothers can do the same, pointing out potential they may not see in themselves, helping them identify their spiritual gifts, and identifying habits they need to change.
Share wisdom—Mothers teach their children, both intentionally and unintentionally, formally and informally. Spiritual mothers have both knowledge and wisdom to give, and they can help younger believers see things from a completely different perspective.
Impart vision—Mothers help their children see what’s possible and envision their own success in the future. Spiritual mothers help people develop vision too, particularly for how God can use them and what it might mean for them to take steps of faith.
Teach them how to walk—Speaking of taking steps, mothers help their children learn to walk—and cheer them on as they run. Spiritual mothers walk alongside as younger people take tentative steps of faith, struggle to maintain balance, and try again after falling. And they celebrate when their “spiritual children” sprint ahead.
Model how to talk—Mothers model speech for their children, who learn to speak the language that surrounds them. That gift of language becomes the chief tool children use to make sense of their experiences, learn, remember, and connect with the world around them. Spiritual mothers offer this kind of modeling too, helping to shape the words—and the thought processes—of the people they nurture.
Say yes—One of the great joys of motherhood is saying yes to children, having the ability or the means to give them what they need or want. Spiritual mothers not only can enjoy the privilege of giving people something they need; they can confirm people’s thoughts, convictions, and interpretations of Scripture. They can affirm the desires God has placed within them.
Say no—Saying yes may be fun, but every good mother also knows how to say no. Spiritual mothers, too, lovingly say no for the good of those they influence. Sometimes “no” is a correction or a challenge; sometimes it’s a much-needed confrontation. And sometimes it’s simply an assertion of boundaries.
Protect—Like their counterparts in the animal kingdom, human mothers have a powerful instinct to keep their children safe. And they can be just as dangerous in the face of a threat to their offspring. Spiritual mothers also want to protect younger Christians, and they do so by praying for them, warning them of spiritual danger, and encouraging them to live with integrity.
Let go—Mothers who cling tightly to their children will eventually hold them back; when the process of letting go doesn’t happen gradually, it will be forced upon them. And while complete physical independence may not come until adulthood, emotionally the process begins in toddlerhood. Spiritual mothers can influence and nurture younger people without trying to control them. Our leadership is good only if we let others be responsible for themselves.
Which of these skills do you need to develop? And who might benefit from your nurture and guidance? Even if you feel you need spiritual parents of your own, you may be the person whose influence someone else needs. Even if you’ve never thought of yourself as a mother, God may be calling you to that role in the life of someone who needs to grow. Through this kind of relationship, we affirm the psalmist’s call: “Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power” (Psalm 145:4).
Amy Simpson is an inner strength coach, a popular speaker, and the award-winning author of
Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church’s Mission
and
Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry
(both InterVarsity Press). You can find her at AmySimpsonOnline.com, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and on Twitter @aresimpson.
Ted Olsen
Issue 52: Dreams, animal GPS, and astronaut churches.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
Sometimes it’s hard to tie together an issue’s essays. Not this time! Our dreams of flying like the birds took us to the moon.
But one sentence is probably too succinct for an editor’s note—and it doesn’t even ring true for me personally. I haven’t dreamed of flight since I was a kid. And even then, I never dreamed of flying like birds. I dreamed of clumsily floating, banging around my home with no anchor. In stressful times covering news for Christianity Today, my dreams were blissfully boring. In my favorites, I’d dream of reading a book, cooking breakfast, or just sitting. Was my brain trying to tell me something? And if so, is it trying to tell me something now, when I wake up completely unaware of my dreams?
“Tell a dream, lose a reader,” goes the old advice attributed to Henry James. So I won’t go on; this issue is so delightful I don’t want to lose any of you.
We’re still playing with historical 3D images at the Behemoth members Facebook group. Come on over and make your own! Are you a Christianity Today subscriber who didn’t get your glasses with your July/August “Makers” issue? Let us know. We still have a few.
- More fromTed Olsen
Kyle Rohane
Why we’ve always tried to find transcendent meaning in an ordinary, everynight event.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
“All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own.” —Plutarch, Of Superstition, attributed to Heraclitus
“Every dream that anyone ever had is theirs alone and they never managed to share it. And they never managed to remember it either. Not truly or accurately. Not as it was. Our memories and vocabularies aren’t up to the job.” —Alex Garland, The Coma
A bell rings. I find myself wandering through the vaguely familiar halls of my old high school building. As I walk through crowds of kids scattering into classrooms, I revert to my 17-year-old self. I’m a student again. The others know exactly where to go, but I’m lost. Hallways branch out in every direction, with stairs leading to more levels. Why can’t I remember where my math class is held? If I don’t find it in time, I’ll miss the final exam. I realize I have no memory of the classroom because I’ve skipped math every day since the semester began. Why would I do that? Now if I don’t ace this test, I’ll fail. I don’t have long to fret before my teeth start falling out of my mouth, dropping to the floor one by one. Just then, the buzz of my alarm jerks me awake. I was only dreaming.
Dreams transport our consciousness to other worlds and present us with strange, often nonsensical, experiences and emotions. Elements from our recent past jumble together with people and places we haven’t thought about in years. When we awaken, the contents of our dreams evaporate from our memories. Dreams are a magnificent paradox, so familiar to the human experience, yet ephemeral and disconnected from our waking lives.
Events and imagery that would perplex or disturb a waking individual seem normal in a dream. Objects transform into other objects, settings change at random, and people are composites of multiple real-world individuals. Except in rare cases of lucidity, dreamers accept this dream logic without question, unaware they are dreaming. Isaiah captures the transience of dreaming and the dissonance of waking in the following analogy: “As when a hungry person dreams of eating, but awakens hungry still; as when a thirsty person dreams of drinking, but awakens faint and thirsty still. So will it be with the hordes of all the nations that fight against Mount Zion” (Isa. 29:8).
In ancient China, one common view of dreams suggested that, while a person slept, a part of his or her soul (the Hun) left the body to journey in the spirit realms. This would account for the seemingly authentic experience of dreams. Yet even at that time, some sought naturalistic explanations for these phenomena. Wang Chong of the Han dynasty questioned the consensus view: “The meaning of dreams is dubious. Some say that dreams are [caused by] the subtle spirit which lingers by itself in the body, thus producing good and evil signs. Others say that the subtle spirit acts and intermingles with people and things.” He argued that, since the people one encountered in a dream would have no memory of the meeting, the dream experience could not be authentic, but only an illusion. His argument anticipated with remarkable foresight the path dream analysis would take.
REM: What’s the Frequency?
Today, thanks to EEG (electroencephalographic) monitoring, we know dreams occur primarily during the REM (rapid eye movement) cycle of sleep. REM sleep happens four to six times a night, and during these cycles, a sleeper’s brain activity appears almost awake. In fact, the brain uses more energy during REM sleep than when solving complex math problems. Yet sleepers are more difficult to wake from REM than non-REM sleep.
During the REM cycle, the brainstem blocks motor commands so nothing happening in the motor cortex results in physical activity, like a temporarily useless keyboard during a system update. Except for respiratory and eye muscles, a dreamer’s entire body is immobilized. William C. Dement, a pioneering sleep researcher, calls REM sleep “an active, hallucinating brain in a paralyzed body.”
This property of dreaming may seem counterintuitive, even unsettling. We imagine that, when a sleeping dog snarls and gyrates its legs, it dreams of chasing squirrels. Actors toss and turn in a tangle of sheets when their characters have nightmares. The idea of nighttime paralysis, on the other hand, leaves us feeling vulnerable, exposed to unseen threats with no defense.
But REM paralysis actually guards us against threats—not external, but from ourselves. Our brains struggle to distinguish dreams from reality. REM paralysis keeps us from acting out our dreams, protecting others and ourselves. In rare cases, dreamers suffer from a condition known as REM sleep behavior disorder. These people lack typical REM paralysis and act out their dreams. One man dreamed he was playing football and tackled his dresser. Another believed he was protecting his wife from an assailant, but woke to discover he was attacking her instead. When REM paralysis functions as it should, our dreams stay in our heads.
Between 90 and 95 percent of people awakened during or after REM sleep report dreams. Even those who claim never to dream will, when roused from REM, recall a dream over 80 percent of the time. Bastien Herlin and his colleagues from the ICM Brain and Spine Institute in France studied 289 participants suffering from REM sleep behavior disorder. Some of these people claimed not to have dreamed in over 10 years; a few said never. However, due to their condition, all participants—even those who never recalled dreaming—showed physical activity during REM sleep, including “arguing, fighting, and speaking.” Herlin and his colleagues concluded, “Dreaming production is universal, while dreaming recall is variable.”
Whose Dream Is It, Really?
If dreams are nearly universal to the human experience, they must serve an important function. People have sought to illuminate the purpose of dreams across time and cultures, using whatever analytical tools were available to them. It’s no coincidence that the first recorded dream is more than a description; it is paired with an interpretation. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the eponymous character experiences a nightmare of misfortune and helplessness, which his mother later interprets. She analyzes the images from Gilgamesh’s dream as symbols and metaphors revealing information about future dangers and opportunities.
Dreams appear frequently in the Bible, and most are ascribed to divine revelation. In Genesis 41, Joseph is asked to interpret a series of dreams plaguing the Egyptian Pharaoh. Where magicians and wise men failed to guess their purpose, Joseph recognizes Pharaoh’s dreams as a prophetic message from God, encoded in a layer of symbolism for Joseph to decipher with God’s direction. Pharaoh raises Joseph to a position of authority, and entire nations are blessed by the correct interpretation of these dreams.
During the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther took a more skeptical view of dreams than many of his contemporaries. He suggested that most dreams were not from God but from Satan. In his commentary on Genesis 42:38, Luther called dreams “deceptions” and “empty visions.” His students remember him saying, “Satan plagues and torments people all manner of ways. Some he affrights in their sleep, with heavy dreams and visions, so that the whole body sweats in anguish of heart.”
We shouldn’t be surprised that Luther took such a skeptical view of dreams. After all, 80 percent of dreams include negative emotions: anxiety, fear, and grief. These nightmares torment dreamers with visions of relentless pursuers, humiliating rejections, and Sisyphean tasks of endless failure. Henry Fuceli captures this darker side of dreaming in The Nightmare, a painting reminiscent of Luther’s dream analysis. The Nightmare depicts a helpless dreamer beset by a demonic oppressor, an incubus sitting on her chest at night.
A print of Fuceli’s The Nightmare hung next to Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson on the wall of an apartment in Vienna belonging to perhaps the most recognizable dream analyst: Sigmund Freud. The founder of psychoanalysis, Freud sought a psychological function for dreaming, rejecting the spiritual interpretations that had dominated dream analysis for centuries. Although he saw himself as a successor of the biblical Joseph, he wished to distance himself from the method of dream interpretation Joseph represented. Dreams, Freud believed, did not predict the future; they exposed the past.
In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud called dreams “the royal road to the unconscious.” He believed they were primarily outlets for wish fulfillment, allowing dreamers to entertain sexual or aggressive whims. Quoting Plato, Freud summarized his theory in this way: “The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life.” These forbidden fantasies were, according to Freud, almost always encoded within a layer of symbolism. A trained psychoanalyst, by sifting through the allegorical imagery, could learn about trauma from a person’s past and heal them from neuroses in the present.
Recent theories of dreaming have little to do with Freud’s psychological interpretations. They take a biological approach. Dreams may provide sleeping brains with periodic stimulation, helping to preserve and develop neural pathways. According to Harvard University’s Alan Hobson and Robert McCarley, dreams might be the result of these random discharges as the brain tries to make sense of neural static. The cerebral cortex attempts to synthesize the disparate memories and sensory information into a sensible story or experience. Unfortunately, this theory doesn’t account for the fluidity of some dream experiences or the recurrence of certain dreams night after night.
Studies show that dreaming, or at least REM sleep, may be important for memory processing. Participants deprived of REM sleep remembered less information in the morning than those deprived of non-REM sleep. And EEGs show that parts of the brain that activate when learning a new task activate again that night during REM cycles. REM sleep, and possibly dreaming, help convert memories into long-term learning.
Dreams are likely a product of the natural cycles of our brains, carefully regulated to keep us safe, and associated with important brain functions such as memory consolidation. Yet it turns out, these mysterious phenomena are quite commonplace, occurring multiple times a night for nearly every person on Earth. What, then, are we to do with biblical stories of God reaching through dreams to reveal himself and his will? Perhaps—as with bread, wine, and water—God occasionally gives something ordinary, something meant for regular nourishment and wellbeing, a new role and significance. Dreams are a sign of God’s provision, both everyday and supernatural.
Kyle Rohane is editor at LeaderTreks in Carol Stream, Illinois. He wrote on synaptic pruning for The Behemoth’s Issue 39.
- More fromKyle Rohane
- Science
Andy Walsh
How birds and other animals travel so far so accurately.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
Second to the right, and straight on till morning” is one of the most famous navigational instructions in English literature. It is also famously nonsensical. “Second” what? “To the right” from where? What happens if I depart in the morning? Even young Wendy recognizes Peter Pan is just winging it with these instructions. Ambiguous and subjective directions may be fine for visiting lands of pure imagination, but in the real world you need concrete and constant references to navigate well.
Peter is not the only one who needs to fly long distance; migratory birds travel thousands of miles twice a year to find adequate food. But they probably aren’t doing so the way we’d think: They may sense magnetic fields. Birds obviously can’t navigate by line of sight, since their destination is beyond the horizon when they begin. In theory, they could just remember the route and pass it down from parent to fledgling. The unique sights, sounds, or smells of different regions could serve as landmarks along the route. Since their destinations are not as narrow as a single building the way ours often are, the route does not need to be demarcated precisely. Still, landmarks and landscapes can change, especially in the era of human development. While some birds have stopped migrating because humans have made it unnecessary, the ones that still do aren’t getting lost just because we put up our parking lots.
Another landmark available to birds is the Earth’s magnetic field. That field is relatively stable and strongly directional, which makes it useful for orienting one’s self. Biologists like Dmitry Kishkinev have modified and disrupted the navigation and migration behaviors of different bird species with artificial magnetic fields. In some cases, the birds can be made to follow a migration route from a different part of the world just by recreating the Earth’s magnetic field from that region. Recreating other sensory features of those regions did not have the same effect. This evidence leads scientists to believe that at least some birds can sense magnetic fields just like we sense light or sound.
In fact, birds may actually be able to see those magnetic fields. There is a light-sensitive protein in the eyes of birds that reacts to magnetic fields in a way that could generate a nerve signal. Since that signal would be carried to the bird’s brain by the optic nerve, it would likely be perceived visually. We may never know exactly what magnetic fields look like to birds, but I imagine a version of what you or I see enhanced with something like an extra color.
The magnetic field isn’t the only reference point for birds when they navigate. Homing pigeons apparently also use the position of the sun when it’s out. While the sun isn’t fixed, it moves in predictable ways that facilitate reliable orientation. Pigeons that know the time can use the sun to navigate, while pigeons whose internal clock has been artificially confounded go the wrong way—presumably because they misjudge where the sun ought to be relative to the Earth.
At night, the moon and the stars can also provide necessary “land” marks. And birds aren’t the only ones using them. Dung beetles can use the Milky Way in the night sky to keep themselves moving in a straight line. Keeping on a straight path is crucial to the beetles as they roll dung away from where they found it; it minimizes the risk that the ball of food they worked hard to collect isn’t stolen by others hanging around the source. To demonstrate that they specifically use the Milky Way, researchers had the beetles roll dung around in a planetarium where they could control what was in the night “sky”—a clever solution but probably a tough sell to the planetarium director! Eric Warrant, one of those clever and persuasive biologists, noted that this “complicated navigational feat” is “quite impressive for an animal that size.”
You don’t need to soil a science center to observe another nocturnal navigation solution. Moths and other flying insects often circle campfires, porch lights, and other manmade sources of illumination. Their navigation instincts may assume that the brightest object in the sky is very far away, so that when they fly over a relatively short distance in a straight line, their orientation relative to that light shouldn’t change. If it does change, they need to turn to stay on the straight and narrow. For a long time, this assumption would have worked fine because the brightest object would have been the moon. But now it might be a nearby streetlamp. If this theory is correct, as the moth flies near the lamp, it would sense that its orientation relative to the light has changed and so it would turn to correct in a way that would keep it going straight if the lamp were the moon, but instead keeps it going in circles.
We use many of the same tricks the birds and beetles use. Compasses make the magnetic field of the Earth visible to us so we can use it to get around. We know that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, providing some basic orientation references. Instead of one moon, we imagined a whole array of artificial “moons”—satellites whose locations we know at any given time. Instead of following the invisible magnetic field of the Earth, we receive invisible electromagnetic signals from those satellites, which we see with our GPS receivers and smartphones. Some days it may all seem like fairy magic, but these technologies still rely on the same basic principles that have always governed navigation. We may be more precise, but we’re not doing anything fundamentally different from what animals have worked out.
What does set us apart from our avian counterparts is that we don’t live on bread alone. While birds migrate and beetles roll to keep their stomachs full, we are seeking sustenance for our spiritual hunger as well. So if birds, equipped by special navigational senses, are enabled to find food when they need it, then surely our Father knows of the human need for spiritual direction. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:33).
Andy Walsh (@MadroxDupe42) is chief science officer at Health Monitoring Systems, Inc., a public health software company. Among his earlier articles for The Behemoth was a piece on ant travel.
- More fromAndy Walsh
- Science
David Bradstreet and Steve Rabey
How the church shaped early lunar exploration.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
In December 1968, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders became the first humans to orbit the moon and see the Earth “rise” over the lunar surface. To celebrate, the three Apollo 8 astronauts delivered a simple Christmas Eve message for everyone back home, taking turns reading the first ten verses of Genesis 1 from the King James Bible: “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. … And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.”
Borman concluded the broadcast with a brief farewell: “And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas—and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.”
From a distance or nearly 240,000 miles, the astronauts reached an estimated one billion TV viewers—the biggest audience ever at the time.
I felt thrilled to see astronauts praising God on TV. My passion to become an astronomer grew even stronger that summer. And my parents were glad to see good news about America after years of coverage of the bloody Vietnam War and violent student protests. Everybody seemed completely over the moon.
Except for Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the activist atheist whose lawsuit before the US Supreme Court had ended the widespread practice of mandatory Bible reading in public schools. After hearing taxpayer-supported astronauts reciting the Bible from space, she sued the US government for violating the First Amendment. The case was dismissed, but from now on, most Christian astronauts would find quieter ways to express their faith.
Fast-forward to July 1969. Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had safely landed their lunar module on the moon’s dusty surface. The next day Armstrong would take his incredible “giant leap for mankind.” But first, Aldrin paused to privately thank God for extraterrestrial travel mercies.
Like many astronauts and their families, the Aldrins were committed churchgoers. Buzz served as an elder at Webster Presbyterian Church in Clear Lake, Texas, a congregation known as the “Church of the Astronauts” for its long association with some of NASA’s biggest and brightest celebrities, including John Glenn, Jerry Carr, Charlie Bassett, and Roger Chaffee.
Before Aldrin left for the moon, his congregation provided him with an in-flight communion kit. As he rested in the lunar module that sat upon the moon’s surface, he poured out a few drops of wine. In the moon’s low gravity, the red liquid gracefully curled into the small silver chalice. As Aldrin swallowed the wine and chewed a small piece of bread, he read a passage from the Gospel of John that affirmed his complete dependence on God: “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
As Aldrin took Communion on the moon, members of Webster Presbyterian stood together in their church to celebrate the sacrament with their distant brother.
The public remained in the dark about Aldrin’s brief lunar liturgy, but he described his feelings about the moment years later. “It was interesting to think that the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the first food eaten there, were Communion elements,” he said.
Space Churches
Some churches teach their members to reach out and help people in their local communities. Some focus on service and missionary efforts that reach around the globe. Members of Webster Presbyterian developed a more cosmic conception of their faith.
Decades after one of its members walked on the moon, the church still celebrates Lunar Communion Sunday every July. Its sanctuary is still beautifully decorated with astronomical improvisations on the standard church furnishings. Stained glass windows portray nebulae, the gigantic clouds of stellar dust and gas that the Hubble Space Telescope is examining. The cross features slices of a Mexican meteorite that NASA astronauts used while training to handle moon rocks.
Webster Presbyterian is one of a handful of churches in and around Clear Lake, the Houston suburb that was home to NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center. Many NASA scientists, engineers, astronauts, and their families attended these churches, hearing sermons that wrestled with some of the new theological questions raised by the space race of the 1960s and ’70s:
- Do astronauts travel through heaven?
- Are angels extraterrestrial beings?
- What would the discovery of alien life mean for Christianity?
- Did Jesus Christ die to save life on other worlds?
- Could space travel be a sign of the approaching end times?
After the sermons, Clear Lake believers sang hymns like “Bless Thou the Astronauts”:
When first upon the moon man trod,How excellent thy name, O God.The heavens thy glory doth declare;Where-e’r we are, Lo! thou are there.
The Clear Lake–area churches formed a close-knit community. Members comforted loved ones of the three Apollo 1 astronauts who were killed by a fire in their command module during a prelaunch test. They calmed family members of the Apollo 13 astronauts who issued this emergency message: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
Christian fellowship was more than just a Sunday routine for the many NASA workers who regularly attended one of the many informal Bible studies and prayer groups held at the Manned Spacecraft Center throughout the week.
“Religious faith was shared through small groups and interpersonal interactions,” says Princeton doctoral student William J. Schultz. “The faith of people involved in the space race was a regular background presence that was never dominant but certainly never absent.” NASA employees attending one of these Manned Spacecraft Center prayer groups founded Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, which once videotaped its Christmas service so NASA could transmit the program to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
Priests from St. Paul’s Catholic Church were among local clergy participating in prayer breakfasts held at the center every Tuesday morning.
The Clear Lake churches continue to serve the NASA community today, long after the glory days of the space race have passed. In 2009, one local congregation reaffirmed its calling: “We at University Baptist Church consider it a privilege to serve Christ in the midst of a community of science and technology.”
A Lasting Lunar Legacy
The space race slowed down after NASA successfully met JFK’s audacious challenge. Manned missions to space continued, but none generated the same kinds of excitement we all felt when we witnessed the first men land on the moon. By the time of the Challenger space shuttle disaster of 1986, TV networks no longer did live broadcasts of NASA launches and landings.
The Apollo program ended in the 1970s, but not before twelve men had visited the moon during six separate lunar missions. Astronaut James Irwin was the eighth human to walk on the moon’s surface. “I felt an overwhelming sense of the presence of God on the moon,” wrote Irwin. “I cannot imagine a holier place.”
Irwin and the pastor of one Clear Lake church, Nassau Bay Baptist, cofounded High Flight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supported Irwin’s evangelistic ministry until his death in 1991. “God walking on the earth is more important than man walking on the moon,” he told his audiences.
The exciting stories of the space race and humanity’s first journeys to the moon have been told and retold in numerous books and movies, but the faith factor remains largely overlooked, despite the powerful role Christianity played in the lives of astronauts, scientists, and their families.
As Buzz Aldrin wrote at the time, “There are many of us in the NASA program who trust that what we are doing is part of God’s eternal plan for man.”
David Bradstreet is professor of physics and the director of the planetarium and observatory at Eastern University. Steve Rabey is a writer based in Colorado Springs.
This article is excerpted from their book, Star Struck: Seeing the Creator in the Wonders of Our Cosmos (Copyright © 2016). Used by permission of Zondervan (www.zondervan.com). The book comes out in September but is available for pre-order.
For more lunar exploration, see also: “Why the Moon?” (Issue 3) and “Earthrise” (Issue 6).
- More fromDavid Bradstreet and Steve Rabey
- Science
George MacDonald
“The stars are spinning their threads.”
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
The stars are spinning their threads,And the clouds are the dust that flies,And the suns are weaving them upFor the day when the sleepers arise.
The ocean in music rolls,The gems are turning to eyes,And the trees are gathering soulsFor the day when the sleepers arise.
The weepers are learning to smile,And laughter to glean the sighs,And hearts to bury their care and guileFor the day when the sleepers arise.
Oh, the dews and the moths and the daisy-red,The larks and the glimmers and flows!The lilies and sparrows and daily bread,And the something that nobody knows!
George MacDonald (1824–1905) was a Scottish writer and preacher. In an anthology of his works, C.S. Lewis wrote, “I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.”
- More fromGeorge MacDonald
Issue 52: Links to amazing stuff.
- View Issue
- Subscribe
- Give a Gift
- Archives
The Strange Blissfulness of Storms
We’ve been getting a lot of stormy weather lately in Chicagoland, where Christianity Today has its headquarters, and this article from Nautilus got us thinking about what we find so energizing about a good storm. Our editor, Ted, says that since he and his college roommate both grew up in Hawaii, “Midwest storms were a treat. We wrecked a lot of stuff our freshman year in college because we kept the windows open during storms—we didn't want to muffle the thunder at all.” The thrill of extreme weather isn’t only psychological. Research done by biometeorologists—scientists who study the effect of atmospheric processes on organisms and ecosystems—says it might have something to do with the onslaught of charged particles, called ions, that comes with storms.
Mapping the Creatures Living Beneath Our Feet
We probably don’t think about it much, but the ground beneath us is quite alive. To show us just how diverse our planet’s soil is, a team of more than 120 soil experts from the Joint Research Centre has collaborated on this brand new collection of maps, called the Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas. National Geographic’s All Over the Map blog warns that reading the atlas “might just turn you into a soil geek.” Speaking of rainstorms:
You know that earthy smell after a good rain? It comes from a compound called geosmin that’s made by Streptomyces bacteria and released when they die. The human nose is extremely sensitive to it. It’s the same compound that gives beets their earthy flavor.
Download the free digital version of the atlas here.
‘Brain Melting’ Optical Illusions
We hope you had as much fun reading our 3D issue as we had creating it! We’re still on a bit of a 3D kick, so we thought we’d share some awesome artwork we came across, thanks to Rebecca, our science editor. Kurt Wenner’s art is 2D (you can put away your anaglyph glasses now), but his skills in forced perspective are incredible. Don’t miss the Pavement Art galleries included in his online portfolio. And because chalk art is fun and summery, here’s a Buzzfeed-curated list of “33 Brain-Melting Works of 3D Sidewalk Chalk Art.”
The Blind Astronomer of Nova Scotia
As a child, Ted Doucette was diagnosed with congenital cataracts, and had to have the lenses of his eyes removed and his pupils widened. Because of this, Doucette is legally blind, but his eyes pick up more light at night—which means that he can actually see the stars better than most people can. When Doucette realized what his unique eyesight had given him, he decided to become an astronomer and built his own observatory, named “Deep Sky Eye.” “During the day, I see everything extremely bright; everything is overexposed. … But at nighttime, the tables are turned, and it’s like a curtain’s been lifted,” he says.
If this video has left you in awe like us, you might enjoy looking back at this Behemoth article from CT’s astronomer colleague, Richard Hammar. And then you can read about Paul Bogard’s journey into Class 2 darkness, or Morgan Lee’s ruminations on the Carrington Flare of 1859.
Culture
Alissa Wilkinson
A pleasant enough re-tread of every animated movie featuring talking animals that you’ve ever seen.
'The Secret Life of Pets'
Christianity TodayJuly 6, 2016
You’re reading a capsule review from the CT Entertainment newsletter, a weekly launching pad for your own pop culture exploration from CT’s critic-at-large, Alissa Wilkinson.
For more like this, sign up now to receive a cheat sheet for populating your to-watch list directly in your inbox.
Sign up for the CT Entertainment Newsletter
Somewhere around the middle of The Secret Life of Pets, I started jotting down the titles of animated movies about animals' secret lives. (Animals always talk in the movies about them—except, blessedly, Shaun the Sheep—and so they are, by definition, about their secret lives.) It wasn't meant to be an exhaustive list; I just jotted down the ones that occurred to me as I watched: Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp, Finding Dory, Finding Nemo, Chicken Run, Ice Age and its descendants, Madagascar and its descendants, Zootopia. And Toy Story, and Inside Out, neither of which are about animals but might as well be.

This list kept growing. That's for one clear reason: The Secret Life of Pets might as well be called Generic Animated Animal Movie, a puzzle constructed of pieces lifted from other sources. Max (Louis C.K.) is our hero, a terrier who lives with his owner Katie (Ellie Kemper) in New York City and is certain he's the luckiest pet in the world, until Katie brings home enormous furry brown rescue dog Duke (Eric Stonestreet) to be Max's “brother.” Max, as you might imagine, is unimpressed.
At this juncture I assumed this was going to be a movie for kids about accepting new siblings or something equally kids movieish. But things take a pretty sharp turn when Max and Duke get picked up by Animal Control (side note: isn't it potentially a bad idea to teach kids that Animal Control are villains?). They're sprung by a crowd of renegade “flushed pets” who live in the sewer and are led by a fluffy white rabbit named Snowball, who is voiced by Kevin Hart—which is meant to be funny but reads a tad racially awkward—and bears a suspicious resemblance to Alec Azam, the unruly white bunny in the Pixar short Presto, which ran in theaters before Wall-E. Whether or not the resemblance is accidental, I leave to your judgement, and only remind you that Snowball says he was dumped into his life of crime by a magician.
The most charming bits of the film come before and after the actual story, when we get to see various animals just going about their day. Tiny fluffy Pomeranian Gidget (Jenny Slate) yells out the window to Max all day. Chloe (Lake Bell), a very fat cat who is far too cool for everyone, tries to resist eating everything in the refrigerator. A poodle living in a posh apartment rocks out to thrash metal when his owner is gone. There's an elderly dog named Pops (Dana Carvey), strapped into one of those dog wheelchairs, who throws huge parties at his pad. Mel (Bobby Moynihan) and Buddy (Hannibal Buress) protect the neighborhood from the threat of squirrels.

In other words, had The Secret Life of Pets managed to actually imagine our pets' secret lives in a humorous fashion, it would have been a lot of fun; every pet owner secretly wonders what their cat or dog is up to during the day. Instead it sends them off on an adventure that's some cross between Toy Story, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Lady and the Tramp, Finding Dory, and probably a half dozen other things I can't recall. Max and Duke end up, variously, in the sewers threatened by a viper, in a sausage factory (and some kind of psychedelic dream), on the Brooklyn Bridge, on an East River Big Apple Boat Tour, in the dog park, out of the dog park, in an alley with a multitudinous horde of alley cats, at parties and—this cannot possibly be a spoiler alert—eventually, at home, thanks to the help of their buddies.
At every turn, The Secret Life of Pets resembles some other movie (not least Finding Dory, which it one-ups by having no fewer than three scenes in which animals drive vehicles). That can work, for sure, if the film's central conceit is that it's self-referential, some kind of winking parody, which would have been a great tactic for this film given that the target audience’s parents have grown up seeing these movies over and over again.
That is not this movie (though it seems determined, from a short at the beginning and a joke at the end, to remind us endlessly of the studio's prime property, the Minions). There are a few jokes that are funny because they're references (there's a Some Like It Hot joke that made me laugh out loud), and there's a dog with a GoPro strapped to his head in one place (a fumbled opportunity for a whole movie, if you ask me). But it's basically just the same movie they've been making since I was a kid, except with different voice actors.

At the same time, you won't be hurt by seeing The Secret Life of Pets—though the amount of chatter about killing humans is rather startling. It's the sort of movie you leave shrugging and saying, “That was cute.” You won't feel anything at all. There are no clever catchphrases. There is no message, meaning, or moral. Nobody even makes a speech about believing in yourself or the importance of friendship, those staples of children's entertainment.
No. The Secret Life of Pets is light summer entertainment of the sort that seems invented specifically for families who've already seen Finding Dory and need to entertain kids between summer camp sessions, or who don't have A/C at home. It's pleasant enough, pretty funny in some scenes, and clever in a few. See it or skip it, and it won't matter in the slightest.
Caveat Spectator
Some images of peril, including a pretty scary viper that (judging from my knowledge of various of my friends' phobias) may trigger some grown-up ophidiophobia. But the kids in the audience seemed fine. Also, the short that runs before the film—the most deeply unfunny animated short ever created—includes a naked Minion butt.
Alissa Wilkinson is Christianity Today's critic at large and an assistant professor of English and humanities at The King's College in New York City. She is co-author, with Robert Joustra, of How to Survive the Apocalypse: Zombies, Cylons, Faith, and Politics at the End of the World (Eerdmans). She tweets @alissamarie.
The Secret Life of Pets
expandFull Screen
1 of 3
'The Secret Life of Pets'
expandFull Screen
2 of 3
'The Secret Life of Pets'
expandFull Screen
3 of 3
'The Secret Life of Pets'
News
Kate Shellnutt
For the first time in 11 years, same-sex couples can find “God’s match for you” on the site.
Christianity TodayJuly 6, 2016
ChristianMingle.com will open its 16 million-member site to gay and lesbian users following an anti-discrimination lawsuit.
According to a settlement approved by a California judge last week, the country’s most popular Christian dating site will offer options for same-sex matches, rather than limiting searches to “a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
The plaintiffs in the case sued ChristianMingle in 2013 for violating a California civil rights law requiring “all business establishments of every kind whatsoever” to offer full accommodations regardless of a person’s sexual orientation (among more than a dozen other protected classes).
A spokesperson for ChristianMingle’s parent company, Spark Networks Inc., said in an email to CT that they recognize “this is a divisive issue and hope that the greater good of our mission is what people appreciate about us.”
ChristianMingle, known for its commercials promising to “find God’s match for you,” is the largest dating site owned by Spark Networks. The company brought in $48 million last year running niche sites including JDate.com, LDSSingles.com, CatholicMingle.com, and AdventistSinglesConnection.com, as well as sites for black, aging, and deaf daters. The settlement applies to a few other Sparks Networks sites.
ChristianMingle has already changed its homepage to ask users about their own gender and let them select their own search parameters.
“Like all other companies, we must abide by the laws that govern our state and nation,” said Michael Egan, Spark Networks CEO. “There is no greater agenda at hand here at ChristianMingle than uniting Christian men and women for the sake of finding happy and healthy lifelong relationships.”
While Spark Networks is not a Christian company, it relies on Christian advisors to “provide guidance and feedback.” Dallas-area Southern Baptist pastor Clayton Coates said his contributions to ChristianMingle and its affiliated Believe.com focused on a biblical understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman.
Coates told CT he stepped down from the seven-member board following the settlement decision. “As I am a Christian, husband, father of six … it hurts my Lord and it hurts my reputation … and the reputation of my church to stay,” he said.
California pastor and national advisory board member Bryan Loritts told CT he had no idea Sparks Networks would be offering same-sex matches until it came out in the news.
The 11-year-old site has not seen a decline in members or new registrations following the June 27 settlement. ChristianMingle profiles feature details about denominational affiliation and church attendance, but members represent a range of beliefs and practices. A 2014 survey found that 61 percent of users would have sex before marriage and 34 percent would be open to marrying outside the Christian faith.
Faced with a similar anti-discrimination lawsuit out of New Jersey, eHarmony launched a spinoff site for gay daters in 2009. Founder Neil Clark Warren later said the same-sex marriage debate “really damaged” eHarmony, which began in partnership with Focus on the Family, but distanced itself to reach a broader swath of users.
Advocates for traditional marriage consider the ChristianMingle lawsuit settlement an infringement on religious liberty, grouping the decision with broader societal and legal pressure on those opposed to gay marriage. Courts in multiple states have recently weighed whether Christian wedding vendors can refuse same-sex couples, and California lawmakers have proposed new restrictions designed to eliminate many existing faith and sexuality requirements at religious colleges.
Patheos blogger David Smalley defended ChristianMingle against the interpretation of the California anti-discrimination law, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, being applied in their suit.
“Since when can the government tell us what products or services we must offer to future customers?” he wrote. “Every atheist, every liberal, and every business owner needs to fight for ChristianMingle’s rights to offer the products or services they choose, even if we disagree with their practices or philosophy behind it all.”
Brandan Robertson, a blogger and former spokesman for Evangelicals for Marriage Equality, called the settlement “a huge win for LGBT+ Christians.”
Back in 2011, CT asked Christian relationship experts about whether evangelicals should embrace dating sites, and single Christians have since weighed in about the potential benefits and drawbacks of online dating on Her.meneutics.
News
Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra
Judge: Her belief in the sanctity of marriage put her at a disadvantage.
Christianity TodayJuly 5, 2016
British couple Sarah and Matthew Pendleton had been married for almost 13 years when Matthew was arrested for voyeurism and downloading indecent pictures of children. After her husband’s criminal charges, Sarah—an Anglican Christian—was forced to choose between her marriage and her career in education.
Despite her record as an experienced, well-respected teacher of 10- and 11-year-olds in Derbyshire, England, Sarah’s school made it clear that if she chose to stick with Matthew, they would assume that she condoned his behavior, and she would be out of a job.
“By making a choice to continue a relationship with her husband in full knowledge of the offenses he has admitted to, [Sarah’s] actions do not uphold the trust in the profession,” head teacher Jan Seymour said at a disciplinary hearing.
Sarah took her case to court, arguing that she had been unfairly dismissed and discriminated against because of her Christian belief in the sanctity of marriage.
Matthew, a head teacher at a nearby school, was sentenced to 10 months in jail for photographing boys in the locker room with a small camera hidden in a pen. At first Sarah’s school told her that her job was safe when she took a leave of absence to stay with her parents; later, it turned out her job was safe only if she left her husband. In August, the school suspended her. The next month, she was dismissed.
“As long as she stands by her husband, the LA [Local Authority, the UK equivalent of the Department of Family Services] has a clear view that she is not suitable to be a teacher,” the school’s human resources director wrote in an email.
Despite her employer’s ultimatum, Sarah took her vows seriously, the court documents stated. Satisfied that her husband was truly sorry, she decided to stay with him.
The employment tribunal generally sided with Sarah’s concerns, saying her decision not to divorce her husband was not grounds for termination. “The real reason for [Sarah’s] dismissal was the [school’s] view that she had exercised poor judgment in electing to stand by her husband despite the fact that he was a convicted sex offender,” they said.
But the tribunal didn’t agree that Sarah had been indirectly discriminated against because of her religious beliefs. After all, people who aren’t Christians could still also believe in sticking with their troubled marriage.
“Those who share the claimant’s religious conviction were at no greater or lesser risk of being dismissed than those who simply exercised their choice to stand by their partner or husband,” they wrote. “It seems to us, on the evidence, that those people who were unmarried but in a long-term loving relationship and who exercised the same choice as the claimant were just as likely to face the prospect of dismissal.”
On the flip side, other Christians who believed in the sanctity of marriage could have chosen to leave their spouse if faced with similar circumstances, they wrote.
The Church of England “wishes all who marry a lifetime of love” but “recognizes that some marriages do fail for all sorts of sad and painful reasons.” (Divorced people may remarry in the Anglican church if their priest agrees to it, the church decided in 2002.)
Sarah appealed the discrimination part of the ruling, and won.
Appeals judge Jennifer Eady said the tribunal was asking the wrong question—or rather, the right question but to the wrong hypothetical people. Instead of singling out what individuals might do, the court has to look at the characteristics of the larger group, she wrote.
“Comparing two groups, both comprising individuals in long-term, loving and committed relationships, facing the same difficult circumstances as arose in this case and given the choice between remaining with their husband/partner or their career but with one group also holding a religious belief in the sanctity of their marriage vows, I conclude the [employment tribunal] was bound to hold that the latter had an additional burden; a particular disadvantage,” she wrote.
That ruling means Sarah will be compensated for the discrimination by the school and the county; the amount has not yet been settled.
Last year, a member of the Village Church in Texas faced church discipline for filing for an annulment due to her husband’s secret addiction to child porn; the church later apologized and said she had “biblical grounds” for ending the marriage.
- More fromSarah Eekhoff Zylstra
- Discrimination
- Divorce
- International
- Marriage
- United Kingdom