I’ve spent some time reflecting on how the historical American skepticism of government, which laid the foundation for our Madisonian political system, was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Our distrust of centralized government produced a decentralized, fragmented system that is indeed not worthy of our trust in many policy areas. People will often look to countries like France or Germany with envy of how they’ve managed to create public welfare institutions that seem to operate, by many reasonable measures, effectively and efficiently. I don’t disagree with them, but unfortunately this isn’t Europe. Asking the American federal government to handle our healthcare system U.K.-style amounts to handing a $2 trillion industry over to whichever political groups have the deepest lobbying pockets. No thanks.

But it’s much easier to knock an idea than it is to produce an alternative. What else, ask the Liberals, do we use to help the poor? Not even the most obstinate of Conservatives will argue that the marketplace itself will alleviate their plight. Market efficiency pays no attention to distribution. Most Conservatives will offer charity as the private alternative to government, after which Liberals will normally laugh for a few minutes, and then proceed to list the very real evidence that charities are completely incapable of helping the poor on a level even closely comparable to public programs. They’re absolutely right, for now.

“Uncharitable” by Dan Pallotta of the Harvard Business School offers (to use a somewhat trite term) a “third way” to the government/charity divide, sort of. What is it that the government has that non-profits don’t? Scale. What is it that non-profits have that the government doesn’t? Well, they’re not the government. They don’t have the policy hurdles that the political branches do. No interest groups, no constitutional litigation every time they want to insert some accountability into the system.

Pallotta thinks that we should focus on a bigger question: what is it that the private corporation, the hallmark of large-scale effectiveness, has that non-profits lack? Quite a few things, in fact. Well-compensated leaders, the ability to tap into capital markets, the ability to invest in long-term projects with delayed returns, the ability to spend heavily on advertising, a mergers and acquisitions market, the list goes on. Pallotta, who led America’s most successful fundraising campaign for a charitable cause ($500M for AIDS), thinks that the problem with the non-profit world’s inability to bring about large-scale alleviation of suffering isn’t about the greed of the American public, or some inherent advantage public entities have over private ones. The problem is that our ideology about how charities should operate has stripped non-profits of virtually every capitalist tool for building scale and real efficiency.

Any time non-profits want to pay their CEOs more than $200-300K a year, an uproar ensues. Yet few people take the time to ask whether attracting more effective leadership to the non-profit world through better compensation would lead to more charity, not less. It’s one thing to ask a single person to donate a few percentage points of their income to charity, but limiting the salary of non-profit CEOs to such arbitrary figures forces the most effective business executives to accept paycuts as high as 90-95% if they want to enter the non-profit world. Few of us are capable of such selflessness, including those who accuse non-profit leaders of ’stealing’ when they request better compensation. The result? They stay put, instead donating from their for-profit salaries to non-profits run by mediocre leaders.

Non-profits are consistently judged by myopic “efficiency” measures, which almost exclusively focus on how much of the organization’s funds are going directly to their causes. The idea is that donated funds should go to the poor NOW, not later. The result is that any non-profit that desires to invest in a large-scale advertising campaign or in infrastructure improvements will be immediately punished by donors for being ‘inefficient’, even if such projects could dramatically increase the amount of charity the organization can perform in the long run. There is no cost-benefit analysis in how we expect non-profits to behave. By forcing them to spend their funds immediately we keep them narrowly focused and small.

Allowing non-profits to offer returns to ‘investors’ in fundraising campaigns could dramatically scale up their ability to raise capital. But the idea of anyone receiving a ‘return’ in a non-profit fundraising campaign is seen as blasphemy by many in the charity world. The result is that funds used to pay for fundraising campaigns come exclusively from donors, which keeps them small, and the amount they raise small as well. Again, no cost-benefit analysis. Dogma trumps pragmatism.

It’s really a great book. He does spend a bit of time blaming Puritan theology for the ideas that keeps non-profits small and inefficient, and one even detects a bit of anti-Christian sentiment in the writing. I forgive him for that and for the few Ayn Rand quotes he includes in the book. His theological/philosophical views may be sketchy, but I hope his pragmatic ideas will go far. ‘Charity Capitalism’ could be a distinctly American answer to social welfare politics.

3. Twelve months of Christmas – Both Sophie and I love Christmas. No, seriously, we really love Christmas. Sophie has been known for blasting Christmas music not just in July, but June, August, March, whatever. Once October and November starts rolling around, we might start watching Christmas movies once a week or so.

2. The voices – No, not in our heads… kinda. We spend maybe half of our time talking to each other in ‘character’ voices. Sometimes it’s pseudo-baby talk. Sometimes it sounds more like a chipmunk. We’ll even sometimes sing along to pop songs in our chipmunk voices. I worry our neighbors will report us one day.

1. Flatulent terms of endearment – No typos there. Sophie and I find farts pretty hilarious. Sophie grew up in a house where it was ‘inappropriate’ to fart in the presence of other family members. And so for as long as I can remember, we’ve made it a point to be ‘open’ with history’s oldest instrument. That eventually evolved into nicknames. Sophie’s family is from southern Mexico and refers to farts as “puns” (pronounced poons). So my nickname is “pun man” (poon man) and Sophie is “pun girl.” That’s what we call each other 90% of the time, when outsiders aren’t around of course.

That’s my quirky marriage. “Pun baby” will be born in 5 months or so, and I’m sure he/she will carry on the traditions. I like to think that everyone has a little goofball inside that they close off from the rest of the world, sometimes manifested through underwear dancing, shower singing, or perhaps listening to that one cheesy song that nobody can ever find out about. I’m thankful for having someone in my life with whom I can really be my self: a nerdy goofball who sometimes acts forty years old, and other times four years old. Real maturity is about long-term thinking and learning to take joy in prioritizing other people before yourself, not completely conforming your personality to a socially defined sense of normality.

Taking the time and attention-span to look a little deeper reveals that the vast majority of poverty in developing nations is the result of failed political and social institutions, not western exploitation. Corruption and bureaucracy prevent small entrepreneurs from investing their savings in productive enterprises, and every decade or so a populist promising endless milk and honey to the poor gets elected, only to pillage tax revenues and further stall development.

Thanks to luck and gifts from God, I’ve grown up in a country with institutions that reward discipline and productivity. Despite having spent the majority of my life in the bottom socio-economic quartile of our country, in a short period of time I’ll be able to enjoy a level of prosperity accessible to only a tiny portion of the world. I don’t pretend to treat my life as anything close to ‘bootstrapping,’ even if I have had to make sacrifices along the way. I grew up incredibly loved, with an unearned skill for learning, and financial aid and scholarships have kept me afloat for years. I feel profoundly unworthy of my material blessings. I naturally want to enjoy the fruits of my labor and ensure my family’s security, but turning into a gluttonous consumer who uses ‘individual responsibility’ as an excuse for indifference towards the poor would absolutely crush my conscience.

And so I’m turning to the only person who can truly give me guidance on how a Christian should live in a capitalist society; God. The bible has an enormous amount to say on wealth, and I’d never pretend to be able to understand its mysteries on my own, nor should anyone else. Over the past few months I’ve worked through Craig Blomberg’s Neither Poverty Nor Riches and Ron Schneider’s The Good of Affluence (c/o Mithun). The titles obviously give their position’s away.

Both authors go to great lengths to denounce both “Liberation Theology” and the “Prosperity Gospel” as blatantly anti-biblical. Liberation Theology, with its heavy Marxist influences, isolates a few passages in the NT and treats them as the entire Christian message on wealth, to the neglect of Old Testament and New Testament notions of material prosperity and private ownership of property. The Prosperity Gospel does the reverse, focusing on Old Testament promises of prosperity for God’s people, while completely ignoring discussions of sacrifice and duties towards others; not to mention the fact that the OT promise of “righteousness leads to prosperity” does not carry over into the NT.

Neither Poverty Nor Riches

Blomberg’s thesis is that Christians should live lives not of ascetic destitution, but neither of great material abundance. We should seek to define a simple notion of “enough” and then give freely from whatever surplus remains. At the core of his argument is Prov. 30:8-9:

“give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise I may have too much and disown you and say, “Who is the Lord?” Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonour the name of my God.”

I obviously don’t have time nor space to go into all the passages he cites, but he places heavy emphasis on how radical Christian notions of charity were in ancient times. Greeks tended to view poverty as the fault of the poor, and even chastised them for it. The Stoics placed emphasis on a ‘rational’ approach to the poor, trying to avoid real empathy for their plight. Yet the bible is full of emphasis on how Christians should not only give to the poor, but deeply empathize with them. At the core of the whole Christian message is Christ carrying our deepest burdens out of deep love for us, and we should be willing to do the same for others.

A few cited passages:

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” Ezekiel 16:49

“Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.” (James 5:1-6)

“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” (1 John 3:17-18)

At the end Blomberg says that he personally lives in a comfortable suburban neighborhood, with a nice home. He and his wife have health insurance and other forms of usual insurance, they dine out on occasion, but ultimately spend “far less than their suburban peers.” They give about 30% of their income to charitable causes, although he acknowledges that the tax structure for ministers makes it easier for him to do so. He drives home the point that almost all Christians in America should acknowledge and give from their surplus wealth, not just the really rich.

The Good of Affluence

Schneider brings some pragmatism and context to the discussion. Behind his critique of the “live simply and give away the rest” perspective:

“Historic Christian teaching on wealth and poverty is as much a product of ancient economic times as it is of the full biblical narrative.”

“In [traditional systems] the only way to acquire non hereditary wealth was to get it (usually by force) from someone else…. The old habits of acquisition were thus mostly immoral.”

“The truth is that in modern market economies the main way that people acquire wealth is not by taking it away from someone else, but by taking part in its creation.”

In other words, the kind of affluence enjoyed by people in capitalist societies is quite different from the wealth of ancient biblical times. In transparent, non-corrupt capitalism, wealth results from adding to the world, not from taking it away. In ancient economies, wealth was gained by conquest and hierarchy. Schneider believes that this fact must have moral relevance in Christian discussions about material prosperity. His conclusion is that the bible clearly requires empathy and actively working to improve the lives of the poor, but this doesn’t amount to setting a maximum level of affluence beyond which nobody can be legitimately Christian.

Schneider focuses heavily on the OT, specifically how from Genesis and Deutoronomy we can derive a concept that he calls “delight” – namely that the holistic enjoyment of life is part of God’s vision for his people, and that material prosperity is part of bringing about such “delight.” Sounds cheesy, I know. It gets better though.

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains… a land of olive trees and honey… in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing….” (Deut. 8:7-10)

“Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments… When you have eaten your fill and have built find houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God… (Deut. 8:11-15)

“God’s purpose in setting his people free from slavery and poverty was, at bottom, linked to his larger purpose for human beings in the beginning. It was to place them in conditions where they might be free to cultivate spirituality and materiality of true dominion and delight… In this light, we must view affluence not merely as a circumstantial or relative good, but as a cosmic good.”

Schneider argues that there are simply too many examples in the bible of God’s people being promised and even enjoying extreme levels of affluence, without any mandate that they give all of it away except for absolute necessities, for Blomberg’s thesis to be true. He distinguishes this position from the “Prosperity Gospel” because he is not saying that wealth naturally flows from righteousness or that it is even a signal of God’s blessing. He simply says that wealth is clearly not inherently bad. His goal is to create “a framework of interpretation and theology that somehow takes all these disparate features of the narrative into account.”

But what of the New Testament condemnations of affluence? Schneider points out, correctly, that there are many examples of Christians in the NT who were relatively affluent and were never condemned for enjoying more than necessities. His main example is the very affluent Zaccheus, who offered to give back all of his unjustly acquired wealth 4x over, but was never required by Jesus to give away all but what was necessary for a ’simple’ life.

Schneider points out how a lot of the directives pointed to by anti-affluence Christians are temporary and contextual, not intended as general blueprints for Christian living. For example, in Luke when Jesus tells his disciples that they must be willing to give up everything to follow him, he later says:

“When I sent you out without a purse, bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” They said, “No, not a thing.” He said to them, “But now, the one who has a purse must take it, and likewise a bag. And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one.” (22:35-36)

The mandate that they give everything away was a test of their faith and commitment. It was not a requirement for legitimate Christian faith. Again, there aren’t enough hours in the day to cover all of Schneider’s arguments, but I found his discussion of the “Parable of the Pounds” in Luke also quite good.

“Let us beware, lest we find ourselves feebly wrapping our pounds in the piece of cloth, covering lives of fear and escapism with pious excuses about God’s indifference to the things of the world, and his severity toward those who work within it.”

In the same way that the master chastises his servant for timidly wasting his time and money for fear of punishment, Schneider argues that Christians should be careful not to use claims of an anti-prosperity God as an excuse for failing to engage the world and their talents.

Schneider also has this concept of moral proximity: that our duties to help people materially diminish as they become further disconnected from our lives. In other words, we first have duties to family, then our immediate Christian community, then cities, states, nations, and only then to the rest of the world. I don’t have the time to offer any critique of it, either biblically or philosophically, but I’ll just say that everyone lives with some variety of this concept in mind. As a general rule, however, it certainly has its problems.

Reflections

Anyone who reflects on this issue has to be mindful of the personal psychological motivations that they bring to the table. There is a natural tendency for people lower on the economic totem pole to adopt anti-affluence perspectives, not out of warrant, but because it allows them to rationalize their position as a deliberate moral choice. Conversely, there is a natural incentive for the wealthy to adopt pro-affluence views simply because it makes it easier to neglect the interests of the poor.

I think both Schneider and Blomberg make very plausible arguments, and I’m inclined to say that the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, I don’t think the bible requires the “live simply and give away the rest” attitude that Blomberg argues for. I agree with Schneider that in a capitalist economic system where consumption creates job opportunities, particularly for the poor, such a view ends up worsening their economic condition. Capitalism is built on the consumption of non-necessities and, unless we want to argue against the clear historical evidence that it raises living standards for the poor and the rich, a “simple life” attitude would put an end to it all. That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t seek to fix the system’s flaws through regulation and greater transparency, but cutting off its primary fuel is not the answer. The examples of the many wealthy biblical characters also seems to fly in the face of this perspective.

In fact, it’s not entirely clear whether Blomberg’s position really matches a strict reading of the passages that he himself cites. A suburban home, cars, TV, health insurance, etc. all go well beyond our “daily bread.” Unless we insert a kind of cultural relativism where the word “necessity” ends up being hyper-contextualized, there is a serious disconnect. Today’s poor end up being last year’s extravagant gluttons.

On the other hand, I think Schneider doesn’t emphasize the role of charity and active involvement with the poor enough. I agree with Blomberg that we need to be much more honest with ourselves in recognizing how much of our incomes amount to ’surplus.’ If you’re willing to carry someone’s burden, you are willing to take on some pain. Charitable giving has to hurt on some level, even if we should ultimately do it joyously.

Certainly consumption in a capitalist society helps the poor in the long-term, but there are billions of poor around the world who are completely disconnected from integrated economic systems, and their needs must take precedent in some way over the needs of developed-country workers to enjoy wage increases. We may need to put our communities first, but that doesn’t mean they should be our exclusive concern. (Galatians 6:9-10) Perhaps Schneider’s purpose in the book was only to defend affluence, assuming that we all already know how important charity is. I sure hope so. Because giving 2% of my income to charity, while spending the rest on my “delight” is far from any reasonable reading I get of the bible, although that is how many Christians today live.

Ultimately, the bible doesn’t give us a definitive answer as to just how much of our prosperity should be shared with the unfortunate. There’s even good reason to believe that tithing requirements didn’t translate into the New Testament. This might be dismaying to legalists who want a clear rule to follow (or to judge others by), but it fits quite well (to me) with the New Testament’s emphasis on God’s grace and a more personal spiritual relationship with Christ. That doesn’t mean the standard has been loosened. It just means it’s more personal.

One thing is clear: making an idol of money and having material prosperity be the driving motive in your life is clearly against Christianity. And that’s a whole lot easier to do when you actually have money to idolize. Nevertheless, just as success in one’s career doesn’t have to mean being a workaholic, material prosperity need not automatically result in materialism. I hope that I’ll have the empathy and strength to help the world’s poor in durable ways that accord with my conscience and beliefs. Whether I’m successful or not will clearly be a judgment left only for the Lord.

Other Favorite Quotes and Biblical Passages

Blomberg – “If you shut your ears to the cry of the poor, you too will cry out and not be answered” (Proverbs 21:13)

“We may debate the best way to help the poor through economic and governmental policies, but the needy and marginalized in our world should have no doubts as to our [the Christian community's] compassion and concern.”

Schneider – “I conclude that, in the light of these new kinds of acquisition and enjoyment, we have good reason to doubt the serious objections and, thus, we may hope to find a theology that enables Christians to integrate the experience of affluence under capitalism into the Christian life.”

“the model of Christianity that emerges in the last parts of Luke’s original narrative on wealth is world-affirmative and world-transformative, and not in the least a mandate of withdrawal and separation.”

John Piper is clearly not a Prosperity Gospel fan.

Then last night before bed time, Sophie started bleeding. ‘Spotting’ really, which means small amounts of visible blood but nothing flowing. At this point in the pregnancy spotting isn’t completely damning, but neither is it good news. Technically, it is bad news. As has been the custom with all of our past medical difficulties, Sophie quickly began to cry in terror, understandably, while I tried to play the calm and reassuring role. A trip to the ER and several ultrasounds later, we’re told that the original clot doesn’t seem to be there, which seems like good news. But, perhaps to ensure that we didn’t get too relaxed, the Dr. reminds us that bleeding can be (and often is) an initial sign of miscarriage. He says there is a 50/50 chance that the bleeding will resolve, versus that it will eventually result in miscarriage. So much for the reassuring ER visit.

Of course I’ve prayed for the security of our child. I tell Sophie that we must have faith that all will be OK, while trying to acknowledge how much easier it is for the husband to be the rational one at a time like this. Sometimes my attempts to calm Sophie’s worries backfire, because she takes my remarks about faith and optimism to be somewhat patronizing. Being a husband gets complicated sometimes.

I also try to keep in mind that simply assuming all will be fine, so long as we have enough faith, is wrong. People who believe that faithfulness and life outcomes go hand-in-hand either live in a bubble, or just aren’t paying attention. When we pray to God, we often say “thy will be done”, but we are really asking that our will be done. The Lord knows that I love my child and that I want nothing more than for him/her to live. I don’t think that he needs me to constantly remind him of that. All I can do is put my trust in Him, knowing that whatever the outcome, we are loved, even if that love is sometimes hard to see. In matching His unconditionality with my own, to the extent that I can, I find a security that no level of optimism could ever provide.

It’s about time that some of the most notorious contributors to escalating costs got with the program. Wanna know why union workers have absolutely no reason to care about healthcare reform? Look at the premiums GM workers pay: $5-75. Less than the cost of basic cable.

There’s often a lot of back-and-forth between the right and left about high-deductible plans. Republicans claim that they incentivize cost-effectiveness and operate like real insurance. The average American is clearly not so illiquid that they can’t cover a $2500-$5000 deductible in the event of a major illness. Democrats will respond with data about the ‘under-insured’ and how insurance that exposes people to high costs is no insurance at all. Who’s right?

As always, it’s complicated. There are people out there, millions to be exact, who are legitimately under-insured. Being under-insured, however, usually has more to do with with co-insurance and out-of-pocket maximums than deductibles. A $5000 deductible with a 20% coinsurance and $10,000 out-of-pocket maximum is a reasonable level of risk exposure for the average American, once they get over the expectation that all healthcare should cost $15 at the point of service. If most of America’s insured converted to this kind of plan, we’d all likely see drastically reduced premiums and more efficient utilization. Once you start pushing into 30 or even 40% coinsurance, then you really are legitimately under-insured. In a ultra high-tech health system where a major illness can easily set you back $200K, 40% exposure is serious.

Unfortunately, most Americans still consider gold-plate coverage (0-$500 deductible) like that offered to union members and employees of major corporations to be what health insurance is supposed to look like. Such plans are really more than health insurance; they’re healthcare cost insulation. It’s OK to save money for unemployment, education, etc., but for some reason health insurance is supposed to cover every headache and stomach flu that we get treated for. Get real. Insurance is supposed to be for unexpected events, not for those that you can be certain will eventually happen. For the latter, you save.

Realistically, in public policy one often has to take cultural attitudes as given. The truth is that under high-deductible plans a lot of people will forgo needed care because they perceive the marginal cost to be too high. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t use carrots and sticks to slowly get people to take more responsibility for their own care. One possibility is combining high-deductible plans with a lower marginal cost for primary care – like an exclusion for a certain number of visits from the deductible. This is probably where we’re headed. A lot of plans already do this, and the extra cost isn’t that high. It’s too-easy access to specialty care and brand-name drugs that is the real problem with escalating costs.

When democrats suggest that any public insurance plan for the poor should be modeled after Medicare, which is sometimes more generous than cadillac-plans, I start choking. Congressmen clearly can’t be that clueless, can they? No, healthcare will never operate like a conventional marketplace. Too much information asymmetry. Republicans need to acknowledge that. Regulation is clearly needed to reign in costs, but that doesn’t mean that government is exclusively the solution. Working on changing American cultural expectations about healthcare and educating people on the difference between health insurance and cost insulation would go a long way too.

But that’s not the point of this post. There’s been another relationship in my life for which I’ve allowed that ‘gulf’ to persist for much too long. There was a Gospel Coalition convo that I watched several weeks ago in which the speakers discussed a famous line from Jonathan Edwards about the joy that comes from truly experiencing God’s love, as opposed to merely understanding it in a theological, intellectual sense. He likens it to the difference between knowing that honey is sweet and actually tasting its magnificent sweetness on your tongue. I’ve slowly come to acknowledge this profound problem in my life; that God has often been more an object of study than a living being whose love flows through every moment of my day. My everyday thoughts and feelings are often irreconcilable with true knowledge and understanding of the good news. That needs to change.

Reflecting on this realization has drawn me towards a new perspective on the practices that Christians have often committed themselves to, despite their knowing (assuming they aren’t Catholic) that no number of practices can ever gain them the salvation that was already won on the cross. Making God not just someone you speak to before bed time, but a clearly delineated priority in your life routine and schedule, can go well beyond legalistic obedience. It’s the key to tasting the honey. I’ve already begun to see the transformation that this kind of commitment is bringing about in my life, but there’s obviously still a long way to go. That’s kind of the point, though. The moment you think you’re done with the journey, you’ve probably been moving backward.

Teenage births are nothing new and in 1960, pre-Pill, the rate in America was more than double what it is today. It is still well below its early-1990s bubble, but experts are getting worried about the trend line.

Texas has the third-highest rate of teenage births, after Mississippi and New Mexico. Dallas has the highest rate of repeat teenage births in the country, 28%, according to a September report from Child Trends, and several other Texas cities are in the top ten. In a nice illustration of Texan conservatism, girls under 18 have to get parental consent for prescription contraceptives, even if they already have a child.

Latina teenagers, for example, have a considerably higher birth rate than any other group, even though they have similar rates of sexual activity. Silvia Henriquez, the executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, reckons that access is the problem. Latina teenagers are less likely to have health-care coverage for contraceptives, and are more likely to lack transport to the free clinics in their cities.

This is sad news on so many levels, not just for the increased number of poorly parented children, abandoned mothers, and abortions that will result, but because of how the myopia of both social conservatives and secularists prevents real solutions from being implemented. Teen pregnancy and abortion are not ‘just’ public health issues, but neither are they to be simplistically approached with binary moralism. It’s good and proper to teach youth that pre-marital sex is against God’s law and that abstinence is best. That is biblical. We’ve already seen the collateral damage that results from treating sex as simply a morally neutral stage of human development. There is, however, something very wrong with restricting access to contraceptives and reproductive education out of a prudish desire to pretend that ignorance and fear are forms of birth control. That is not biblical.

There’s a not-so-thin line between secular utilitarianism and a morality that refuses to turn a blind eye to the practical consequences of public policy. We simply can’t condemn abortion and pre-marital pregnancy while simultaneously restricting access to those tools that effectively help prevent them. Doing so requires us to live in a fantasy world where only intentions matter. I wouldn’t want to live in such a wasteland.

Game theory meets criminal justice. Very sexy.

The evidence suggests that when hardened criminals are reasonably sure that they will be caught and punished swiftly, even mild sanctions deter them. But not even the prospect of severe punishment is effective if offenders think they can get away with their crimes.

One way to make apprehension and punishment more likely is to spend substantially more money on law enforcement. In a time of chronic budget shortfalls, however, that won’t happen.

The important step, he says, is to view enforcement as a dynamic game in which strategically chosen deterrence policies become self-reinforcing. If offense rates fall enough, a tipping point is reached. And once that happens, even modest enforcement resources can hold offenders in check.

To see how it works, suppose that all drug violence in a city is committed by members of one of six hypothetical gangs — the Reds, Whites, Blues, Browns, Blacks and Greens — and that the authorities have enough staffing to arrest and prosecute offenders in only one gang at any one time. Mr. Kleiman proposes that the police publicly announce that their first priority henceforth will be offenders in one specific gang — say, the Reds (perhaps because its members committed the most serious crimes in the past).

But why don’t the Reds, seeing that the police have moved on, start committing violent offenses again? The reason is that they always remain atop the enforcement priority list. If they start offending again, police attention will again quickly focus entirely on them.

After a few rounds, Mr. Kleiman argues, the Reds will get the point. In like manner, one gang after another is pacified, even though the police have no more resources than before.

Several notable law enforcement successes, like a crackdown on gang homicide in Boston and strategic drug market disruptions in High Point, N.C., and Hempstead, N.Y., provide further testimony to the effectiveness of focused deterrence.

All kinds of predatory animal species are nocturnal, with well-developed night vision. Those humanoids lurking around in the darkness would have been easily devoured by these species, and thus failed to reproduce. Those humanoids who developed a tendency to find shelter at night and rest until dawn would have incidentally avoided these predators, living well into their reproductive years. Hence, we are the result of those humanoids that avoided getting eaten because of their night-time sleepiness. It is only now in our advanced society that sleep, once beneficial for our survival, has lost its necessity. Thankfully, now that science has shown us how mistaken we were about sleep’s worth, we can now work on ways to get rid of our pesky sleepiness. Likewise, we should push for the education of those people who hold onto primitive beliefs about sleep, delaying human progress.

I’m sure that every human being, short of those whose circumstances dictate their lives, struggles to balance and reconcile competing desires. Some are clear-cut because we have outside guidance telling us that certain things are categorically wrong and should not be pursued. But it’s the grayer areas of personal preference that are the real tough ones. My own great meta-struggle has always been between ambition and a deep desire for what I consider a complete life.

If you’d come across me six or seven years ago, you would’ve felt the ambition radiating from my skin. Sleeping four hours a day, running 6 miles five times a week, gobbling up textbooks like there was no tomorrow; I was a soldier. I’d lie in bed at night thinking about my future plans, partially because of how chronically caffeinated I was. Marriage, friendship, creativity, even emotion could wait. I had things to do, grades to make, and scholarships to earn.

Fast-forward two years and things began to look a bit different. I had more free time to think about life and to observe people around me with lives different from the mostly dysfunctional examples of my childhood. I started to imagine myself having accomplished all of my goals and wondered whether I would still find life wanting. More importantly, I began to observe other people who’d followed a similar ambition-driven plan. What were their lives like at 30, 40, 50-years of age? What would they have done differently?

Not nearly enough young people engage in this kind of exercise. Youth, particularly in a wealthy, liberal society, has a way of insulating us (partially) from our choices. If you screw up, there’s always tomorrow. You’ll make new friends, find a new job, change your major, or just do something else. It allows us to keep our gaze on a very narrow time frame because, after all, there’s just so much time ahead of us. Until there isn’t.

When you first enter college, you’re bombarded with messages about how much freedom you have and what you should do with it. There’s no escaping the fact that you are certainly in the driver’s seat and will inevitably have to make tough choices. Nevertheless, observing the long-term outcomes of other peoples’ lives certainly eliminates a fair deal of garbage.

In the present, my life is a good deal more wholesome than it was at the height of my ambitions. I have an amazing marriage and now a child on the way, much praise to God, whom I’ve also slowly grown closer to over time. Still, I don’t think one could say that I completely subdued my ambition. I got my Phi Beta Kappa key at UT and make sure to get my portion of H’s at Harvard Law. I do have a much easier time saying when enough is enough, but easier doesn’t always mean easy. I carry a great fear of acquiescing into mediocrity. Almost as bad as having an empty life with a golden resume would be a life of endless hallmark-card moments without ever having conquered challenges or felt a sense of real accomplishment.

Sometimes I worry that I’ll drift toward that other comfortable extreme where so many men before me have gone. That’s life. You’ll never reach that elusive perfect balance that we all like to talk about. The moment you think you’ve arrived, you’ll turn on the TV and see what great things someone has done and wish you could do more, or you’ll look over some family videos and wish you could spend more time at home. Don’t ever expect to be 100% satisfied with your life. We should only hope for what God did on his day of rest: to look back at all we’ve done and say ‘It was good.’