“She’s gaslighting me.”

“He’s a narcissist.”

I regularly hear couples lob these accusations at one another as they sit across from me in my office. We live in a therapeutic culture, where psychologized language has permeated the way we talk about relationships. Categories and lingo once limited to clinical settings have become everyday vocabulary for explaining conflict.

Last year, Samuel James wrote an excellent post titled If You Ask AI for Marriage Advice, It’ll Probably Tell You to Get Divorced. The article is as good as its title suggests. In it, James shares a striking graph that tracks 15 years of relationship advice on Reddit.

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1. Raising church-loving children: Katie Polski says, “Before we talk about cultivating love for the church in our children, we must first remember what Scripture says about the church itself, especially in a cultural moment when the phrase, “I can have a relationship with Jesus and not go to church” is all too common.

2. Get married young: Brad Wilcox argues, “You might not guess it from watching the latest episode of Emily in Paris, but the happiest young women (22-35) today are not footloose and fancy free

As I headed into a pastors’ lunch one afternoon, an older pastor I admired greeted me with a big smile and asked, “Can we chat afterward?” I wasn’t sure what Glen wanted to ask me. After the lunch concluded, we walked out to the patio together. Glen got right to the point. “Would you be interested in being part of a covenant group I’m forming?” He explained that he was inviting four other pastors to join the group. We would meet once a month and go on two retreats each year.

It was a significant commitment, but the answer was an easy yes.

1. The generational narcissism of thinking we always face the biggest crisis ever: A timely word from Trevin Wax, “It’s true, today’s challenges are real. But not unrivaled. This is why the insistence that we face the greatest crisis ever reveals something less about the moment and more about ourselves. It’s generational narcissism, the temptation to view our struggles as uniquely severe and our responsibilities as uniquely heroic.”

2. Would Jesus have been a socialist?: Christopher Cook answers, “Marx built his utopia through coercion, while Jesus builds His Kingdom through surrender.

In 2023-24, popstar Taylor Swift played 149 concerts in 21 countries in her “The Eras Tour.” She sold over ten million tickets and grossed over $2 billion! To get a VIP package some paid upwards of $20,000 a ticket.  K-pop sensation BTS begins their 79 stadium tour in a month and might challenge the secondary market cost for a VIP ticket.

Why do we pay such exorbitant prices? Because our favorite musician’s art and persona move us. Because we want to wring everything we can out of the experience. Because we want to get as close as we can to our heroes. Because we don’t want to miss out on any of the excitement. Because we want to take in every detail.

We do not do death well.

We avoid it. We deny it. We even pretend we can control it.

Last week, the French National Assembly advanced what many observers have called  “the most extreme euthanasia law in Europe since Nazi regulations in the 1930s.” French President Emmanuel Macron supported legislation framed as “medical aid in dying” but the proposal goes much further than many existing “death with dignity” laws.

The bill would legalize both assisted suicide—where a person receives a prescribed poison to end their own life—and euthanasia, where a doctor administers the deadly dose.

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