Coed Wrestling

Dear Fellow Seminarians:

I am having a wonderful time studying in my hermeneutics class. It is all pretty new to me and the content is at once challenging and wonderful. I have listened to some lectures twice and hope to listen to all lectures twice. I came to seminary expecting to improve my ability to bring the Gospel to others. It did not occur to me that the study of the various courses would improve the quality of my life so much as it has. Now, I would attend seminary even if I never expected to work in the field.

We had a busy two weeks getting our home ready for sale. My children seem to be happy. They enjoy studying on their own, but life should change for them once they move into a school in North Carolina. They have never been in an English-speaking school before.

Here is an article which mentions a young man who, for his Christian faith elected to forfeit a wrestling match to a girl. I applaud his integrity, making a decision which cost him a shot at the state championship. I believe he made this decision out of respect for the female body, thinking the sexual difference a sacred one, not to be tampered with by the hands of man.

Record-setting Iowa female wrestler's state tourney run ends

Here is a quote from the young man's father, who is a volunteer army chaplain : "I don't believe there are any specific pieces of Scripture that address this particular issue," Jamie Northrup told the Register. "But as men, the Bible talks to us about loving our wives, protecting our families, being there, as an older brother, just to protect his home and his sisters.

"And so, I would say that's more of a principle that we're following. We just don't believe that in a combat sport, a boy should be going against a girl in this manner." End Quote:

The Fireman's Carry: is a move that I learned from my juggling partner, Tom Gabriel (who turned down a wrestling scholarship to The Citadel). This move requires an arm shot through the crotch of the opponent. I cannot do that to a woman unless perhaps she be my wife. And then, I had better definitively win or plan to gently lose, as per usual -- no sitting on the pot like some pathetically effete aesthete who honestly cannot decide whether there truly exists an absolute moral precept that he might use to best guide his life and keep him from greater peril, as it were.

This is a touchy subject, I realize, in the sense that one does not want to regress on the truly positive gains which have been made for females, or gains in which it seems clear the Christians should have a strong interest in securing and maintaining. And, do not I wish to present myself as some chauvinistic fuddy-duddy who is ever out-of-step with the times. Hence, I strongly believe my sons should have the freedom to decide for themselves whether they might wrestle against a female when they go to high school.

Freedom of Conscience:
If for example, one of my boys, as a young man in his high school wrestling program, meditates deeply for several days and decides from the depths of his heart that he should extend a welcoming hand to the opposite sex, as a sincere gesture of his desire to support the equality of the sexes and reduce sexual discrimination (or for any other noble reason), and thereupon elects to wrestle against a female opponent -- then by golly he can sleep in the yard and eat at the dumpster behind Harris Teeter until he sees the error of his ways and apologizes to his mother and sister ... not that I have anything against him thinking independently and with the deepest sincerity and all.

It is just that you can entertain the most noble thoughts on earth and be flat wrong, and in your error cause untold harm to manifold souls. That, and I also believe that a father who knows better and neglects to make his opinion indelibly clear to his children on a significant moral issue can be guilty of paternal malpractice.

Expert:
If I am anything, I am not a genius. I have no Ph.D. and have no reason to expect I will ever be an expert in anything. Besides, my earthly father always told me that experts were overrated, "An expert is just a little pert away from home."

Bless his heart. I shall stop now for thirty minutes to call his wife, my mother, and keep her company. She has Alzheimer's so she does not remember my phone call from yesterday, or the day before. But, she always remembers me. I will read to her from the Psalms, and we'll do the Lord's Prayer together, using the original King James version.

Wrestling is a great sport, I think, even if you do catch more skin diseases than in other sports. I want all of my boys to wrestle. Besides that, they cannot avoid wrestling and boxing in their first year of physical education if they go to a military college.

Separate but Equal:

I also do not see why girls cannot wrestle in their own league, just like they do in basketball, softball and other sports, if they are so keen to wrestle. My daughter would make a good wrestler, so strong is she. I helped her do pull-ups from the time she was very young. She is descended from the Mongolian warriors who conquered this land under Ghengis Khan. They, too, were pretty good wrestlers.

Text Paucity:
I cannot write long now, as I should listen to more lectures. We will get to NC on the 23rd of April, later than we had expected, but necessitated by our sales contract, as the buyer has to have time to sell her other home first in order to be able to pay us.

The upshot is that will continue to study with a paucity of texts. I need to buy some reference books to help me with my exegesis. Dr. Akin says we need at least 6 to 8 sources, at a bare minimum, for our papers. My wife does not want me to order any more books from Amazon, because I pay 36 dollars in shipping each time I order one.

Love, Nathaniel