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A La Carte (8/18)
- 08/18/10
- 18
Neither Boys Nor Men - Darrin Patrick shares a couple of ugly statistics in this article. Like this one: “Half of American males between the ages of 18 to 34 play video games every day--for almost 3 hours.”
Mischief in Manhattan - This is an interesting article on the proposed mosque in NYC. It is written by a couple of Canadian Muslims. “When we try to understand the reasoning behind building a mosque at the epicentre of the worst-ever attack on the U.S., we wonder why its proponents don’t build a monument to those who died in the attack?”
Getting Things Done - Matt Perman has some interesting things to say on how David Allen’s Getting Things Done can be improved.
On the Virtue of Wasting Time - Carl Truemen talks about the spiritual benefit of wasting time.
The Power - The Power is the next book from Rhonda Byrne whose book The Secret was massively popular and massively stupid (all about the New Age Law of Attraction). Check out this trailer for the new book. If this isn’t catering to itchy ears, I don’t know what is.
I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a husband to Aileen and a father to three young children. I worship and serve as a pastor at 
Releasing on April 1, The Next
Published in 2008, this book
This is a guide that calls men,
This review of the bestselling
New to the site? You can get
This is a guide written
Comments (18)
Wait a minute, maybe 3 hours a day on computer games is a spiritually beneficial wasting of time?!
Or, perhaps the godly option is to grab some beers and play computer games with friends. That seems to get the Trueman approval, right?
(Tongue firmly in cheek)
I will say this right upfront , I’m tired of Driscoll’s jock rants about men , not being men today. Yes , there is a problem but the more I listen to him go on and on ad nauseum , he reminds me of a spiritual jock , name calling and bullying. Do men need to step up and be men , yes but I do not find his sermons concerning this issue helpful or very good sermons . If you want to listen to excellent sermons concerning what it means to be a godly man check out Pastor MacArthur’s sermons . They are both convicting,challenging and solid expositions without all the name calling .I have 2 sons who have been raised in a growing feminine world when to be a man is something shameful. My wife thinks most of the problem has come from the pressures of society that has stripped men of their masculinity and women not growing up either.Young women are just as guilty . Many have rejected the role of wife,mother . Pursuing careers at all cost . Within the Church we need to show biblical truth of the roles of men and women . To spur both on to become grown ups . But this can be done without all the name calling .
Are men who spend 3 hours a day playing video games any worse than the guys who spend 3 hours a day staring at some stupid reality TV show instead of interacting with their families? Maybe they are playing the video games with their children, which I would consider a richer family interaction than just staring at some TV show together.
Don’t get me wrong, I think these guys probably need to play video games less, but that site seems to attack video games as some sort of juvenile activity. I don’t see it as any more juvenile than watching TV, and one could argue that it is a less juvenile activity since you are probably going to experience much more brain activity playing games than you are vegging out to what passes for television programming these days. And what about all the guys that spend the majority of their time memorizing sports statistics and obsessing over ball games? Are they really less juvenile than the guy playing video games?
Also, the statistics on that site are way too sensationalistic. “The average video game buyer is 35 years old”, so how many of those guys are buying those games for their kids to play instead of themselves? “Half of American males between the ages of 18 to 34 play video games every day—for almost 3 hours”, so how many of those guys are using this as a tool for bonding with their children? I’m not saying there isn’t a problem here, but that website seems to be blowing it a bit out of proportion.
I got a new video game a few weeks ago - the first one I’ve gotten in probably a decade. I’ll be honest, I’ve played it quite a bit over the past couple weeks. It’s during leisure time that I would otherwise be reading books or watching TV or something, so I don’t think I’m losing anything. In fact, it’s one of those games that’s mentally engaging and demanding, so it might actually be at least as beneficial as reading (although using a different part of the brain). At any rate, like most material things, it will grow old and I’ll be bored with it.
I think the main problem is people getting addicted to MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) which are subscription-based and are intentionally designed to keep people hooked on playing. The danger in these is that people invest so much time in an alternate, false reality that they neglect their real world relationships and responsibilities.
Although it would be interesting if someone began a sort of traveling preaching ministry inside one of those games. Ha. :)
Great article stating how some Muslims feel about the mosque. Certainly goes along with our discussion here a few days ago.
“New York currently boasts at least 30 mosques so it’s not as if there is pressing need to find space for worshippers. The fact we Muslims know the idea behind the Ground Zero mosque is meant to be a deliberate provocation to thumb our noses at the infidel. The proposal has been made in bad faith and in Islamic parlance, such an act is referred to as “Fitna,” meaning “mischief-making” that is clearly forbidden in the Koran.”
“Do they not understand that building a mosque at Ground Zero is equivalent to permitting a Serbian Orthodox church near the killing fields of Srebrenica where 8,000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered?”
Tim,
Regarding manhood, I don’t know if you saw Nick Bogardus’s article at Conversant Life discussing manhood and Esquire Magazine’s How To Be a Man issue, but I thought it was quite insightful. I linked it at the blog I write for here.
Thanks for the great stuff as always.
Andrew Faris
Someone Tell Me the Story
That book trailer is one of the slickest-sickest things I’ve ever seen. As soon as I read “All you need is one thing …” I could just visualize (ha, ha) the answer in my mind: why, your book, of course!
But apparently Thomas Edison, Galileo, rocket scientists and all those other Power-players (mostly white guys, did you notice?) did so before the book was published.
Carl Trueman says it is good to waste time, but chatting on facebook and twitterating (twitter+debating) is not ok with him… AND he posts this on a blog; the very thing he loves to hate on! Someone like to have his cake and eat it!
I understand the point Darrin Patrick and others like him are trying to make, but as a single person in my late 20s I’m tired of adulthood only being equated with marriage and parenthood. Our Savior was not married - was He not a man? Paul wrote that in his opinion it is better to be single. Is it not possible for us singles in the church to become grown-ups? I think we need to broaden our understanding, that is all.
Driscoll: Assuming the responsibilities of husband and father makes a boy into a man…
This is so ridiculously not true! Do you agree with this, Tim? Shame on you if you do because you’ve forgotten about those whom you may refer to as “called to singleness.” Driscoll’s attitude in the above statement is rampant in the church and is a huge stumbling block for single adult men to overcome.
Dora and Nathan,
Most people aren’t “called to singleness”. Some surely are. But they are called to singleness to live for Christ — 100% devoted to the work of the ministry in some way, as opposed to having to split time between ministry and family like a married person does. The problem is that many single people use “singleness” as an excuse to live a sinful and wasted life. I’m certain Paul did not mean “some are called to singleness so they can devote it to trivial matters like video games, parties, premarital sex, etc, etc.
“Driscoll: Assuming the responsibilities of husband and father makes a boy into a man. Nathan: This is so ridiculously not true!”
It is not 100% accurate, but believe me, nothing makes you grow up faster than realizing that you are responsible for the physical needs of others. God definitely uses our spouses and children to mature and teach us, as any parent knows.
Dont you know that REAL men watch 24, cuss, fully immerse themselves in the culture, and love the UFC?
Also REAL men leave their family at home while they travel all over the country at multiple conferences even though their priority is to their own local congregations as a Pastor/Shepherd.
REAL men reduce the Song of Solomon to a how-to sex guide and make homosexual jokes about Jesus.
Excuse me while I laugh and ignore any challenge to BIBLICAL manhood coming from the Acts 29 camp
I am definitely not in favor of building a mosque on that site and for reasons more than the fact that I am a Christian. It doesn’t do anyone any good and that includes Muslims who condemn acts of terrorism. Perhaps terrorists would think of a mosque on the site as a victory; especially considering they believed that the towers were a symbol of all that America stands for.I think it is fair to say that Muslim terrorists are responsible for killing more Muslims than they are of killing any other religious group. It is also true that there were non-terrorist Muslims killed in the towers.
On Mischief in Manhattan.
The funny thing is that an article on Politico reveals that the people behind the initiative doesn’t even have the funding for the mosque. Those Canadian Muslims are spot-on…the people behind the initiative only want to provoke the ‘infidels’.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41238.htmlQuotes:
“The group’s latest fundraising report with the State Attorney General’s office, from 2008, shows exactly $18,255 - not enough even for a down payment on the half of the site the group has yet to purchase. ”
“The group also lacks even the most basic real estate essentials: no blueprint, architect, lobbyist or engineer — and now operates amid crushing negative publicity. The developers didn’t line up advance support for the project from other religious leaders in the city, who could have risen to their defense with the press. ”
I learnt today that Rhonda Byrne is Australian.
I’m Australian too *shame*
But I’m like to remind all you Americans that Phillip Jensen is Australian too, and he’s, like, our own little Piper, Carson, or MacArthur *redeemed*
The video game statistic is wildly misleading. Clicking through to the article, then clicking through to another article and then did not give a citation.
The original article said 48% of men had played a video game at least once during the previous 6 months. Then it said that on average they played them for 2 hours 43 minutes. So even if the stat is true, which I seriously doubt, 48 percent of men do not play video games for 3 hours a day. There are some that play more, some that play less. My guess is that not even half of the 48 percent play for 3 or more hours a day.
So the article could have been more honest and said, 24 percent of men play video games 3 or more hours a day.
I could not find the specific study, but when I looked at other studies from Neilson on video games is was saying in households with a video game console, it was being used about 20 hours a week total by the whole family. And men ages 18-34 make up 35% of all users. So that would not seem to support the suggestion that half of men play video games 3 hours a week.
Ironic. Ms. Byrne knows this awesome secret, has this amazing power, is undoubtedly changing the world.And this is the first time I’ve ever heard her name.
Wow, that video for “The Power” is an impressive example of The Lie. Creepy.