Then he took them out as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed
them. Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to
heaven.
Luke 24:50 - 51
Ascension was
considered to be confirmation of divine approval with the ascended acceding to
heavenly power. It is not an easy concept to understand or explain and yet it
is of such significance in the middle east and in particular of Judaism of the
first century that Jesus too ascends into heaven having given his great
missionary mandate to his disciples. Amongst those who ascended in the
scriptures were Enoch, Elijah, Baruch, Ezra and Moses. The emphasis was upward,
towards the heavens themselves. This is from a pre-Galilean world-view where
the firmament was unchanging and from where God ruled over creation. The last
of the ascended is Jesus. The effect of this most crucial remembrance of the
Jesus story being both a literal and symbolic event.
Literally, Jesus’
ascension is a way of explaining who Jesus
was. For if Jesus is the Son of God,
his ascension is the perfect completion, the total vindication of his life,
death and resurrection. As a symbolic event Jesus’ ascension marks the historical
beginning of the Messianic kingdom. The ascended Christ rules at God’s right
hand. The writer of Acts intimately links Jesus’ ascension with the sending of
the Spirit at Pentecost.
The part we miss because of the grandeur
of this divine vision and action is what happens to the watching disciples, and
by extension to you and me as we stand in awe at the spectacle.
Paul, in writing
to the Ephesians, prays this most gracious and wonderful prayer (Ephesians
1:17f)
May
the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a spirit of
wisdom and perception of what is revealed, to bring you to full knowledge of
him. May he enlighten the eyes of your mind so that you can see what hope his
call holds for you, what rich glories he has promised the saints will inherit
and how infinitely great is the power that he has exercised for us believers.
This extraordinary insight
calls for the gifts of wisdom, perception and full knowledge of HIM – Jesus the
Lord. The eyes of our minds must see
what God alone in Jesus can offer. So this
action takes place within us – not just ‘out there’ to Jesus. The ascension
means that I can break through the limitations of my fears and anxieties in my
life and gain a view of what is to come, first of all as a vision and then as a
new reality. Thus transformed by the Spirit’s power we are nourished for our
mission – to take this good news to
the world, to see the world anew, refreshed.
Peter Douglas
'If you want to
be happy for the rest of your life' - Study finds women of faith most satisfied
in marriage
1.3K262
Denver, Colo., 22 May 2019 (CNA).- A new study examining the correlation
between religion and marital happiness found that women who are part of a
highly religious, traditional couple are most likely to report being happy in
marriage, as well as sexually satisfied in their relationship.
In addition, a woman in a highly religious couple was most likely to
report that she and her spouse share responsibility for important household
decisions, rather than one spouse making all the family’s decisions.
The study of families in 11 countries, conducted by the Institute for
Family Studies, found that “highly religious couples in heterosexual
relationships” enjoy happier marriages and more sexual satisfaction than less
religious, mixed, or secular couples.
At the same time, however, religious couples are not any less likely to
experience domestic violence than are less religious or secular couples, the
study found.
“In many respects, this report indicates that faith is a force for good
in contemporary family life in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania,” the authors,
made up of a mix of sociologists, professors and researchers, wrote. Many of
the religious respondents to the survey cited family prayer as an important
factor in a flourishing family.
“Men and women who share an active religious faith, for instance, enjoy
higher levels of relationship quality and sexual satisfaction compared to their
peers in secular or less/mixed religious relationships. They also have more
children and are more likely to marry. At the same time, we do not find that
faith protects women from domestic violence in married and cohabiting
relationships.”
The 11 countries studied were Argentina, Australia, Chile, Canada,
Colombia, France, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United
States, and the study drew on data from the World Values Survey (WVS) and the
Global Family and Gender Survey (GFGS). Authors included those affiliated with
Brigham Young University and Pew Research Center.
The authors focused on four outcomes regarding marriage: relationship
quality, fertility, domestic violence, and infidelity. They note that many
societies are experiencing a general turning away from “traditional” family
life as fewer people marry and have children, and more people cohabitate or
wait to marry later than in the past.
“Faith may buffer against this post-familial turn, both by attaching
particular meaning and importance to family life and by offering norms and
networks that foster family solidarity,” the authors wrote in the introduction.
“But these questions are also important given that religion may be a
force for ill—legitimating gender inequality or violence in the family—a
concern that has taken on particular salience in light of recent headlines
about religion, domestic violence, and child sexual abuse.”
Relationship satisfaction
The researchers defined “relationship quality” in terms of several
factors, including a couple’s reported overall satisfaction, how important they
view the relationship in their life, their satisfaction with their sex lives,
and whether or not important household decisions are decided jointly or by just
one of the partners.
In the sample used, 19% of couples reported never attending religious
services, 60% attended only minimally, and 21% attended regularly.
Both women and men in “highly religious” couples— i.e. regular
attendees— reported significantly greater satisfaction in their relationship
than did both the other groups, with liberal, secular couples running a close
second.
The difference was especially notable for women: women in “highly
religious” relationships were about 50% more likely to report that they
are “strongly satisfied” with their sexual relationship than their secular and
less religious counterparts.
“For women, then, there is J-Curve in relationship quality, with secular
progressive women doing comparatively well, women in the middle doing less
well, and highly religious women reporting the highest quality relationships,”
the authors wrote.
“Among men, highly religious traditional men were found to be
significantly higher in relationship quality than men in shared secular
progressive and less religious progressive relationships.”
In addition, women in highly religious couples were most likely to
report that she and her spouse practice joint decision-making in their
relationship.
The researchers assigned a “relationship quality” score in order to
compare different religious affiliations in their sample, with a higher score
representing greater overall satisfaction. Catholic couples sampled reported an
overall score of 15.83, which is equal to the score reported by Muslims and
slightly higher than the score for nonreligious couples.
Protestants and Latter-Day Saints lead the table with scores of 16.36
and 17.24, respectively.
“In listening to the happiest secular progressive wives and their
religiously conservative counterparts, we noticed something they share in
common: devoted family men,” the authors wrote in a New York Times op-ed
accompanying the release of the study.
“Both feminism and faith give family men a clear code: They are supposed
to play a big role in their kids’ lives. Devoted dads are de rigueur in these
two communities. And it shows: Both culturally progressive and religiously
conservative fathers report high levels of paternal engagement.”
Relationship to domestic violence
The study found that “women in highly religious couples are neither more
nor less likely to be victims of IPV [Intimate Partner Violence], and men in
highly religious couples are neither more nor less likely to be perpetrators of
IPV.”
Domestic violence— including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional
abuse, and controlling behaviours— is neither more nor less prevalent among
religious couples than among nonreligious ones, they concluded. Infidelity was
highest among men in mixed or less religious couples than any other, however.
“Although women in less/mixed religious couples have a 26% probability
of ever having been the victim of violence in their relationship, compared to a
21% probability for women in highly religious couples, and a 23% probability
for women in shared secular couples, none of these differences are
statistically significant,” the authors note.
Religion’s and fertility
In terms of fertility, the study found that people aged 18-49, who
“attend religious services regularly have 0.27 more children than those who
never, or practically never, attend,” and thus “those with egalitarian
gender role attitudes are less likely to be married and have slightly fewer
children.”
The authors also examine a theory, which they say is common among
academics in their field, that a shift in many societies toward greater gender
equality, which often takes the form of married women continuing to seek work
outside the home, may actually help to raise the fertility rate back to
replacement levels in countries where it is especially low.
“In modern societies where women typically have high demands in the
public (paid work) sphere of their lives, support from partners is necessary to
make bearing two children commonplace,” the authors explained.
“Today, this support often comes in the form of a father involved at
home with his family. If women commonly carry a “second shift” of work after
they get home from paid work, they are more likely to retreat from childbearing
than if they have a supportive partner on the home front...it is men’s sharing
of the second shift—their involvement at home—that is expected to support
replacement fertility.”
In contrast to this theory, however, the authors’ research demonstrated
that those who hold egalitarian gender role attitudes have far fewer children
than people of faith.
“Individuals who support workplace equality, those who embraced a
progressive gender role ideology, actually had significantly fewer children
than those who supported favouring men when jobs were scarce,” they noted.
Even in areas such as Europe where fertility rates are low, across the
board people of faith have more children than their secular counterparts, they
found.
“Across low-fertility countries in the Americas, Europe, East Asia, and
Oceania, highly religious people are not decreasing in number, and neither are
their more traditional gender role attitudes impeding their fertility,” the
authors concluded in that chapter.
“We have shown that people of faith contribute toward sustainable fertility
in modern low-fertility societies.”
