Oxford coeds put children first...

One swallow doth not a summer make, but we’ve got two and I’m hopeful.

First, the day before yesterday I heard NPR hawking a story they’d be broadcasting the next day. Maybe some of you heard it? The lead-in was the statement that young people have been less religious than their parents for decades, now, with the trend increasing. But now, the trend is reversing and parents aren’t pleased. This is the story of our own congregation...

Regularly we have undergrad and grad students who have come to faith in the Lord and are now lovers of His Church and Word. But rather than rejoicing, their parents do everything they can to subvert, and even actively oppose, their child’s Christian faith. I tremble at the thought of the judgment seat of God and find myself wondering if it would not go better for these fathers and mothers if they had aborted their child than it will go for those who have intentionally placed stumbling blocks before their son’s or daughter’s faith in Jesus Christ?

Second, my son Joseph just forwarded a print story about Oxford (dare I say it?) coeds written by Lucy Tobin who’s in her second year of an English degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. Tobin begins:

A group of women students at Oxford are scrutinising a photo of 100 beaming freshers, wondering who will end up being famous. As an Oxford undergraduate myself, I am part of the group and I notice that, after identifying candidates for Prime Minister, next year's Pop Idol and a university professor, the girls all discount themselves from the top of any career ladder on the grounds that their maternal ambitions are stronger than their professional aims. Oxford's undergraduates are billed as among Britain's brainiest, but we female students are prioritising marriage and children over a career.… Feminists may be shocked.

Students being given the gift of faith in Jesus Christ; other students knowing already, as undergrads, that they’ll love their children more than whatever status and money their careers offer. Hope springs eternal from this human pest.