No surprise: For the long haul, study says, women prefer altruism to hunkiness

The online edition of The Week refers to a study that answers the age-old question of what women look for in men they want to be with for life:

"Individuals who displayed high levels of altruism were rated significantly more desirable overall," the researchers write. While the self-absorbed guys were viewed as more attractive candidates for a one-night stand — suggesting a night with a "bad boy" retains its short-term appeal — altruistic guys were rated as "more desirable for long-term relationships."

In the study, 202 women were shown a series of photographs of two men--one hunky, the other not so much.

For each set of two pictures, scenarios described the varied reactions of the two men in question, one of which was selfish and the other altruistic or caring.

Researchers "mixed their pitches," sometimes ascribing altruism to hunks, other times to the plain men, sometimes to both, and at other times to neither. In this way, they controlled for finding how appealing altruism really was the women in the study.

One scenario particularly caught my attention:

"Two people are walking through a busy town, and notice a homeless person sitting near a cafe. Person E decides to go into the cafe to buy a sandwich and a cup of tea to give to the homeless person outside. Person F pretends to use his mobile phone and walks straight past the homeless person."

This little vignette reminds me of Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan in which two religious figures pass on the opposite side of a road from a man who has been badly beaten by thieves.

But the hero of Jesus' story, Mr. Altruistic, the man who proves to be the neighbor to this unknown man, walks toward the man, not away from hims, and then puts salves on his wounds, then takes him to an inn where he tells the innkeeper to track his expenses for the care of the injured man until he comes back to settle accounts.

Jesus told this story in response to a man trying to limit the definition of his neighbor. (He wants to make sure that with some people, like people who don't look like him or live in his own neighborhood, it's cool to like Person F above, able to keep doing what he wants to do, other people damned.)

But, through the parable, Jesus is teaching him (and us) that, in the eyes of God, our neighbor is any person whose need comes to our attention.

Altruism, in fact, is woven in as part of Jesus' Great Commandment, in which He says that all of God's moral laws--seen in the Ten Commandments--can be boiled down to summaries that come to us from the Old Testament: to love God completely and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Altruism toward our neighbors, including being charitable in the words we say about them to others, is meant to be the behavior of spiritual superstars, but of every human being.

Now you may have noticed something about human nature, if not about your own nature: Altruism doesn't come naturally to us, selfishness does.

That's exactly why God had to give His moral law. With it, we understand what it is to be fully human made in the image of God. But we also understand how most often we fail to be fully human by being altruistic.

And that's why God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus, bore our sins--our selfishness and self-centeredness--on the cross, taking the punishment of death we deserve and then rose from the dead to give forgiveness and eternal life and, for this life, the power of the Holy Spirit working within us to help us to repent, be made new, and to seek each day in that power to be altruistic, to be fully human.

Altruism is a trait none of us fully reaches in this life. That's why people like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr., Christians who struggled in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit to not be "in it for themselves," who strove and often failed to be the altruists God meant human beings to be, yet knew to return repeatedly to God in Christ's name to repent for their failures to love, to seek forgiveness, and to receive power to try to live love, the pure selfless love demonstrated on the cross, again today.

Altruism is a trait God wants to build up in us as we live in an ever-deepening relationship with Christ.

And, young men wondering why you find it hard to establish long-term relationships with women, it turns out that while women may like a jerk for a while--most people, women and men alike, are prone at young ages to want to take a walk on the wild side.

But, in the end young men, what women really want are men who have the strength of character to unselfishly care about others more than they care about themselves.

For marriage, the study suggests, women choose altruism over hunkiness. Of course they do, no surprise there: In men who can, at least occasionally, rise to the level of altruism, they get a glimpse of what God made we human beings to be like. And that's attractive!

[The story in The Week distills a lengthier discussion of the study found in Evolutionary Psychology and distilled in Pacific Standard.]

Saturday This and That

These are things that caught my eye this past week.

Fast food changes...
...here.

Anne Meara has died...
...and this New York Times obituary gives surprising facts about a woman who I've always associated with comedy. But she did a lot more.

As if Nepal's people aren't suffering enough...
...sex traffickers, often posing as relief workers, are exploiting the country's girls. No punishment a court might give would be harsh enough.

How is it that wonderful people are so often attracted to nasty people...
...of the opposite sex? A researcher claims to have found the answer. (It's plausible.)

Esther and Purim...
...was part of this week's readings for our congregation's Journey Through the Bible. This is a good article on Purim. Esther is a real hero of Biblical faith. Like Joseph, God used her to bring deliverance to His people.

Probably the most creative use of a baseball rain delay ever...
...and it will crack you up. What's even funnier about it is that players from both teams got in on the fun.

Is the Chinese government underestimating the United States?...
...This very good and short article regarding the current face-off in the South China Sea suggests that it is.

An eerie gallery...
...the last known photographs of 49 famous people. Amy Winehouse looks to be in the prime of life. Jim Hendrix, Freddie Mercury, and Steve Jobs all look vulnerable. You find yourself wanting to tell James Dean, "Don't climb into the car." None of us knows the day or moment of our demise. For all our pretenses to the contrary, we are never really in control.

How Luther showed that Christ is in the Old Testament...
...to Donovan Riley. This is one of the best short pieces on this subject I have ever read. It mirrors my own experience of reading and studying the Old Testament, as mentored by Luther's writings. This is the one article you should be sure to read of all linked here.

It's a joy to watch for the athleticism it required...
...but this catch probably cost him a shot at becoming baseball's all-time home run king. Ken Griffey, Jr. was one of my favorite players. And unlike many of his contemporaries, there has never been a hint that Griffey, whose swing was the purest and most beautiful I have ever seen, took Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs). Every hit legit! And he was an amazing defending outfielder, deserving of mention in the same breath with Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle.

Saturday This and That

Some things that caught my eye this past week.

David McCullough on the Wright Brothers...
...in an interview with the Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast.

The next time someone's offended because you fail to notice someone's new haircut...
...tell them it's that pesky inattentional blindness. Actually, this article makes me wonder about what a mess my brain must be because I always notice changes in people's haircuts.

What might Michael Jackson have looked like...
...if he hadn't had all those surgeries.

How has nobody thought of this until now?...
...it's a shoe that grows with a child's foot.

Disgusted with the misogyny and gratuitous sexual violence of Game of Thrones?...
...You're not alone. I've never seen it. This doesn't make me want to.

A way to get kids to listen to the sermon on Sunday...
...amazingly simple.

It's the only technique for learning...
...or so says James Altucher.

Science says that two basic traits...
...are what make all relationships work. Cinchy, right?

The Backwards Brain Bicycle...



Anxious, afraid?...
...Check out the Bible verses linked here.

Notes by Martin Luther found...
...They were jotted down (if you can imagine someone as intense as Luther ever jotting) as he worked on his important essay on Christian freedom.

How Lutherans might cross themselves...
...and why they might want to do so.

The five best running backs...
...in Ohio State history. Joe Dexter has so far named four of them on Buckeye Sports Radio:

#5: Howard "Hopalong" Cassidy #4: Keith Byars #3: Chic Harley #2: Eddie George #5: Archie Griffin

What the Inklings wrought...
...(Hint: They had an enormous impact on the world and still are impacting it.) A sample:

Drawing as much from their scholarship as from their experience of a catastrophic century, they had fashioned a new narrative of hope amid the ruins of war, industrialization, cultural disintegration, skepticism, and anomie. They listened to the last enchantments of the Middle Ages, heard the horns of Elfland, and made designs on the culture that our own age is only beginning fully to appreciate. They were philologists and philomyths: lovers of logos (the ordering power of words) and mythos (the regenerative power of story), with a nostalgia for things medieval and archaic and a distrust of technological innovation that never decayed into the merely antiquarian. Out of the texts they studied and the tales they read, they forged new ways to convey old themes — sin and salvation, despair and hope, friendship and loss, fate and free will — in a time of war, environmental degradation, and social change.

Tantrum...
...This mom seems to say, "This is how ridiculous you look when you have a tantrum. Now, let's go before I let you have it." Advert from the UK.



By the way...
...when watching the video linked in the article on inattentional blindness, I lost count of the number of passes between people in white shirts because I noticed the gorilla. Does that mean I can't focus? Maybe I suffer from the as yet undiscovered attention satiety. Squirrel...

The Causes of Addiction May Not Be What We Think

This article from The Huffington Post suggests that we may not know what causes addiction.

Three different colleagues posted links to it on Facebook today and when I read the piece this morning, for me it confirmed a basic truth of the Bible: We are made for relationship with God and with others, made for community. When community is distorted, we look for comfort where we can find it. That often leads to addiction.

One interesting section of the article:

If you get run over today and you break your hip, you will probably be given diamorphine, the medical name for heroin. In the hospital around you, there will be plenty of people also given heroin for long periods, for pain relief. The heroin you will get from the doctor will have a much higher purity and potency than the heroin being used by street-addicts, who have to buy from criminals who adulterate it. So if the old theory of addiction is right -- it's the drugs that cause it; they make your body need them -- then it's obvious what should happen. Loads of people should leave the hospital and try to score smack on the streets to meet their habit.

But here's the strange thing: It virtually never happens. As the Canadian doctor Gabor Mate was the first to explain to me, medical users just stop, despite months of use. The same drug, used for the same length of time, turns street-users into desperate addicts and leaves medical patients unaffected.

If the patient has been discharged into a loving family and to a life that gives options, it appears, she's less likely to be addicted to the drug than a person in whose life there are few close relationships or in which opportunities for happiness are few.

Difficult environments and relationships, not the allure of a drug's buzz, seem to be breeding grounds for addiction.

To me, the article suggests the importance of churches being strong communities in which faith in and relationship with Christ is both taught and lived.

It also suggests to me that some addictions, even those often seen as harmless, such as overeating, may be seen, and I think, should be seen, as symptomatic of a need for deeper relationships with God and others.

Addiction entails filling voids with stuff that can only be filled by community with God and with others. The call of the Church is to share Jesus so that the world can be free of its "stuff" forever!

Read the whole thing.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Stones Cry Out for linking to this post.]

Hell's Disruption of Marriage and Relationship

It's an alternative universe from the kingdom of God. That alternative universe appears very much to be the world in which we live today. From the informed imagination of C.S. Lewis, contained in the classic, The Screwtape Letters:

Screwtape reveals Hell’s intentions for human marriage: The Enemy’s demand on humans takes the form of a dilemma; either complete abstinence or unmitigated monogamy. Ever since our Father’s first great victory, we have rendered the former very difficult to them. The latter, for the last few centuries, we have been closing up as a way of escape. We have done this through the poets and novelists by persuading the humans that a curious, and usually shortlived, experience which they call ‘being in love’ is the only respectable ground for marriage; that marriage can, and ought to, render this excitement permanent; and that a marriage which does not do so is no longer binding.

This idea is our parody of an idea that came from the Enemy. The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specially, that one self is not another self. My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses. Even an inanimate object is what it is by excluding all other objects from the space it occupies; if it expands, it does so by thrusting other objects aside or by absorbing them. A self does the same. With beasts the absorption takes the form of eating; for us, it means the sucking of will and freedom out of a weaker self into a stronger. ‘To be’ means ‘to be in competition’.

From The Screwtape Letters
Compiled in A Year with C.S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. A Year With C.S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. Copyright © 2003 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

"The 5 to 1 Ratio for Relationship Health"

From a colleague of my Cincinnati days, Gary Sweeten.

Helps for Witnesses for Christ

[During yesterday's meeting with the Women of Saint Matthew, I did a presentation meant to help those who want to share their faith in Christ with others. It wasn't written out beforehand. After the presentation, one member of the group wondered if I would take on some "homework," putting everything in written form. I thought others might be interested in it as well. So, here it is: Helps for Witnesses for Christ.]

Why witness?

The eternal destiny of every human being hinges on belief in Jesus Christ.

[Jesus says:] "For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” (John 3:16-18)

Martin Luther called John 3:16, “the Gospel in a nutshell.” Simply taking this verse under consideration, we see that while God loves and wants to save all people from sin and death, God will not force Himself or His grace and forgiveness on them. They must receive Christ by faith. That is, they must trust in Christ.

Now, faith in Christ is a gift from God. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that we have the ability to confess that Jesus is Lord (1 Corinthians 12:3).

But faith in Christ only comes to those who are willing to receive it.

Remember the man who told Jesus, “I do believe; Help my unbelief?” Here was a man who had heard the Word about Jesus and wanted to believe, though, as is true for us, trust was foreign to Him. But Jesus took that willingness to trust in Jesus, answered that man’s prayer, and gave him faith.

Paul writes in Romans 10:17 that “faith comes by hearing.” But just as in Jesus‘ parable of the seeds scattered on different kinds of soil with differing results, people can hear the same Gospel word, resulting in some believing and some not. The mission of every Christian is to keep scattering the seeds of the Gospel. 

What this means for those who have never heard of Jesus is not something the Bible tells us about. But we can trust the God Who came to earth in Jesus and died and rose out of love for the world to take account of that reality. Any questions we may have about those who haven’t yet heard of Jesus and His Gospel should give more urgency to the Church’s pursuit of the great commission.

This leads to a second reason for every Christian to witness for Christ: Jesus commands that we be His witnesses.

[Jesus says:] “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inthe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:19-20)

What exactly does it mean to have faith in Jesus?

The only sermon by Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Mark is found in Mark 1:15. It summarizes Jesus’ mission on earth and the Gospel--the good news--itself:

[Jesus said:] “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15)

Jesus came into the world to bring His kingdom to us. We enter it by faith. 

To have faith means two things:

1. To receive the gift of repentance. In the Greek in which the New Testament is written, the most common word translated into English as repent is metanoia. It literally means change one’s mind. It doesn’t come naturally any human being to think God’s way. Instead, we’re born sinners. When we receive the gift of repentance, we’re able to turn from our sins and turn to the God revealed in Christ. God forgives our sins and grants us the Holy Spirit to confront and guide us to continue walking on what Jesus called “the narrow way” (Matthew 7:13-14), the way of following Him as God makes us more like Christ Himself (2 Corinthians 3:18).

2. To trust in Jesus as our only Savior and God. The word usually translated into English as believe is, in the Greek of the New Testament, pisto. It denotes absolute trust.

When I believe in Jesus then, I trust Him as I repent, not to use my sins against me to judge me, as I deserve, but to gracious forgive Him.

I trust Him too, to make me righteous and worthy of eternity not by my merits, but solely because of His grace--His charity--which I receive by faith in Him and His Gospel.
 
How do we witness?

Read John 1:35-46, part of an account of Jesus’ early ministry:

35 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, 36 and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God!" 37 The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, "What are you seeking?" And they said to him, "Rabbi" (which means Teacher), "where are you staying?" 39 He said to them, "Come and you will see." So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. 40 One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, "We have found the Messiah" (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "So you are Simon the son of John? You shall be called Cephas" (which means Peter).

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, "Follow me." 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, "We have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 46 Nathanael said to him, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip said to him, "Come and see."

Notice how it was that people came to follow Jesus. John the Baptist tells two of his disciples that Jesus is the Lamb of God. And they follow Jesus. Andrew tells his brother. Philip tells Nathanael.

Witnessing that results in faith in Christ doesn’t happen in a vacuum. John the Baptist, for example, had a relationship with the disciples. They knew him. They valued him and invested what he said with credibility. John’s relationship with them earned him the opportunity to be a witness for Christ.

Witnessing for Christ is most effective, authentic, and believable when the person doing the witnessing is someone we know. Witnessing is relational.

Witnessing, at its best, is also invitational. Jesus didn’t try to argue the two disciples of John the Baptist into following Him. He simply invited them: “Come and see.”

Philip didn’t have all the answers to Nathanael’s questions. He simply invited this man he clearly already knew to, “Come and see.”

The best witnessing then, is relational and invitational. As Christians, we should pray that God would help us develop relationships with people not yet in relationship with Christ and His Church so that, with credibility, we can invite them to, “Come and see”: Jesus in our church, Jesus in our lives, Jesus in the Bible, Jesus met in prayer.

How do you witness? By being a friend to those for whom Jesus died and rose and inviting them to come and see Jesus!

What if I don’t know a lot about the Bible?

1 Peter 3:15 says:

“...in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect...”

None of us is expected to know more than we actually know about Jesus and God’s Word. (Although that should never be an excuse for not knowing Jesus or God’s Word better!)

The best way to be prepared to “give a reason for the hope that is in you” through Christ is to cultivate a personal relationship with God. This is best done through what is sometimes referred to as “means of grace,” highways by which the God we know in Jesus promises to come to us, encourage us, teach us, chasten us, and renew us. These would include:

1. Holy Baptism. In Baptism, God claims us as His own children. God makes a covenant with us to be our God. We, in turn, are called to live each day affirming our participation in that covenant by honoring God, loving Christ’s Church, loving God and loving neighbor, and sharing the Gospel whenever and however we can.

2. Regular worship, including regularly receiving the Sacrament of Holy Communion. One of the things that most pleases me about life at Saint Matthew these days is that people have the opportunity to receive Christ’s body and blood every week. In the Sacrament, Jesus Christ comes to us--body and blood--and brings us His presence and forgiveness. It is food for our journey until that day we meet Him face to face with all the saints in the heavenly banquet hall.

3. Regularly reading and studying God’s Word, the Bible, with other Christians. The Bible isn’t just another book. It is God’s inspired--literally meaning God-breathed--word given to us through many Biblical witnesses (2 Timothy 3:16). When we take in the Word of God, we imbibe breath, life, from the only One Who can give it.

4. Regularly praying, yielding our whole lives to Christ. This includes the discipline Martin Luther called “daily repentance and renewal.”

5. Regularly obeying to Christ’s call to serve others in His Name. This includes, but isn’t restricted to, serving the members of your family and the people in your community. As someone has said, “Charity may begin at home. But for the Christian, it doesn’t end there.”

What are some basic truths I might want to cover with a friend I want to invite to “come and see”?

We all need Christ because every human being is a sinner.

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5)

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.” (Romans 3:10-11)

Simply put, sin is a condition into which we all are born. It is a condition of separation from God. To be separated from God is to be separated from righteousness and from life. We commit individual sins because we are sinners. As I’ve said before: “Plumbers plumb. Teachers teach. Sinners sin.”

We sin because we can’t help ourselves. That’s who we are. That’s why we need Jesus Christ, the Savior, to erase the separation that exists between us and God.

Sin will only earn us eternal separation from God, no matter how good we may try to be. But life with God--salvation from sin, death, and hopelessness--is given freely to those who believe in Jesus Christ.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23)

God’s Law, seen in the Ten Commandments and explained in many other places in the Bible, find us guilty for our sin. They can show us the will of God for human beings. But they can’t save, because none of us is capable of observing God’s Law with perfection.

In Jesus, God took on human flesh and kept the law perfectly for us so that, in His undeserved death, He could take the punishment for sin we deserve. And in His rising, He makes new and everlasting life with God available to all who trust in and follow Him. God makes righteous those with faith in Christ.

“21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.” (Romans 3:21-25)

We can only be certain of Jesus’ resurrection victory over sin and death--the truth on which our hope as Christians rests--by faith.

God, as someone has said, is a gentleman; He will not force us to faith in Him. But, for people who make themselves available to believe and ask God to give them trust in Him, “...faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). On the other hand, many clear-eyed, practical people who knew Jesus risked their lives in the face of persecution to affirm that Jesus rose from the dead.

[Paul wrote some twenty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection:] “3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)

All who believe in Christ have a freedom and joy that nothing can take from us, in this life or in the next. Neither sin, the accusations of conscience, or the unkindness of others can harm us.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1)

I hope that you find this helpful. God bless!

"If your faith is not personalized, it’s not faith"

Today's piece from Our Daily Bread goes to a conversation we were having in adult Sunday School class this past week on the differences between personal and impersonal relationships with Christ. Those with impersonal faith are all about religion, doing the "rite" stuff. Those with a personal faith understand that they're in a life-building relationship with the God of the universe. It's an entirely different--and wonderful--thing!

But Does Anyone Have the Guts to Answer Honestly?

Gretchen Rubin presents some questions to help people determine if they're difficult for other people. If a person answers the questions honestly, they're probably not that difficult, no matter what the answers may purport to tell them.