The Hope of the Church in 2024

Abby McCloskey, the Anglican Mission in America, September 23, 2024

here are plenty of reasons to be discouraged about American politics in 2024. Lest you need reminders, here are a few: Political polarization is at levels not seen since the Civil War. According to Pew Research, 72% of Republicans regard Democrats as more immoral, and 63% of Democrats say the same about Republicans. Trust in public institutions has plummeted, with Congress at the bottom of the pile—this, at the very time that problem-solving is needed on a wide range of issues including immigration, abortion, the economy and multiplying wars overseas.

The natural response to duress of any type is flight or fight. We see this response playing out in our American political moment, including (and arguably especially) among Christians. For Christians tired out by our political moment, the “flight” response is grooved by that old Gnostic thinking that God cares only about eternal souls anyway. Nations, culture, humanity’s suffering or history’s arc are of little relevance to his work; it’s heaven that lasts. Under this belief, Christians may be tempted to isolate themselves in communities of similarly minded people and ride out an increasingly secularized and disoriented culture from a distance. Political scientists talk about this group as the “Exhausted Majority,” tuning out from politics all together. Among Christians, we might say it is Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option, a strategic separation of believers from public life.

For others, the “fight” response might be more alluring. The temptation to grab political powers and usher in a Christian nation has titillated since Constantine. Certainly today, many Christians are biting at the bit for political dominance and revenge for the secular progressive enemies who discredit and discriminate against Judeo-Christian values and beliefs. There’s a belief that our country would be better off with Christianity consecrated in the halls of political power and for Christianity to once again become the dominant religion (as opposed to the swelling ranks of religious nones) via political action. Among evangelical Christians, this group is concentrated in MAGA, as documented in Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory.

Far from new political responses, these are the oldest there are. They are right there on display in the Bible. Ancient Jewish belief was awash in the expectation—from the Torah to the manger—that the coming Messiah would overthrow the system of government and usher in a new kingdom. Instead, Christ was executed at the hands of the Romans, while not ruling out that he was a political leader (“You say that I am <King of the Jews>,” he says to Pilate). After the execution and scattering of nearly all of Jesus’ disciples and the invasion of Jerusalem and raiding of the temple, the early Church surely would have been tempted to run for the hills. Yet the records of the early Church as preserved by Larry Hurtado and Rodney Stark document a community rooted in pagan cities and loving its neighbors through the power of the Holy Spirit.

From Jesus’ life and the early Church, we see a rejection of the twofold temptation to fight the powers or to flee from them. These responses elevate political power, rather than recognizing that there’s another power to which all others submit. Nor do we see a middle way or political compromise in the Bible. The Christian answer to politics is far more radical. It’s a new creation altogether. . . .

Is America a Christian nation? It's complicated

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 22, 2024

“There’s a lot of confusion right now about how church and state relate in America, and it’s center stage this presidential election cycle. Even the pope is getting involved. This month, Pope Francis advised Catholics to choose the lesser of two evils in the voting booth, though he didn’t make clear which candidate fits that bill.

According to Pew Research, almost half of Americans believe that the U.S. should be a Christian nation, while two-thirds believe that the church should stay out of politics. (Close readers will note the clang of discord in those numbers.) . . . “

McCloskey: Don’t listen to candidate make-believe

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 16, 2024

Our presidential candidates are promising to spend money on all kinds of goodies. Former President Donald Trump has floated a baby bonus, historic levels of border security and more tax cuts, including ending taxes on Social Security and tips. Vice President Kamala Harris is promising five-digit housing credits, a ramped-up Child Tax Credit, small business tax credits and more clean energy investments.

Nonpartisan estimates for both candidates’ promises range in the trillions, which is not to say that all of these are bad ideas. Far from it. But I’ve heard much less about how to pay for this new spending or the drops in revenue from tax cuts. And as they say in economics, there’s no free lunch.

Now, to be sure, I’ve heard about some unicorn pay-fors, and by unicorn I mean make-believe. For example, massive income and wealth taxes on the rich will take care of it. Or tariffs will boost domestic production and raise wages and because of baby bonuses people will have more babies and we’ll grow our way out.

My 3-year-old daughter loves unicorns, especially pink sparkly ones. I recently learned on a trip to England that unicorns are a symbol of Scotland, where my ancestors came from, so now I’m on the unicorn bandwagon too. But there are not real unicorn pay-fors in the economy. More spending or less taxes comes with tradeoffs — tradeoffs that for too long our politicians have not been forthright about. . . .

Can Harris and Trump get serious about immigration policy?

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, September 10, 2024

For nearly half a century, Gallup has asked American voters their opinion about the biggest challenge facing the country. This year, immigration tops the charts.

Depending on whom you talk to and where you get your news, immigration is the reason Americans’ wages are low and our economy is resilient, or it’s a national security threat and a source of our national strength. It’s the reason you are voting for Trump or the reason you never would.

The campaigns have their flash-in-the-pan, finger-in-the-air talking points ready. On Trump’s campaign website, the first two issues are, and I quote “1) Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion, 2) Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history.”

We know less about Harris. But in her DNC acceptance speech, she promised to “bring back the bipartisan border security bill that [Donald Trump] killed.”

What lies beyond the talking points is less clear. For example, there’s confusion as to whether Trump’s “mass deportation” is an empty slogan (like Mexico paying for the border wall, which it did not) or more or less a continuance of existing U.S. policy to deport felons and continue apprehensions at the border.

Or if “mass deportation” is actually what it sounds like: militarized, door-to-door raids of largely Hispanic communities where many immigrants have children who are citizens, have been living here peacefully for decades, and are suddenly rounded up in buses or sent to detention camps or dropped off in a different country, maybe one they are not even from.

This would result in an economic shock, not to mention a humanitarian crisis. On this, we’ve had our first deposit: More than 1,000 children remain separated from their parents following the atrocious parent-child separation at the border during the Trump administration. . . .

Accountability for screen time in Dallas schools should go both ways

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 25, 2024

“As a writer, the problem of children and screen time is the gift that keeps giving columns. As a mother of three school-age kids, I find it exhausting.

Understanding and monitoring screen use in public schools feels like a game of Whac-A-Mole. It’s smartphones. It’s smartwatches. It’s universal iPads in kinder. It’s personal Chromebooks for third grade.

School is in full swing and my elementary school child brought home a “Chromebook contract.” I was struck about how one-way it felt. Where was the second page stapled onto the first that had a similar contract from the teacher, school and district? Accountability and trust with kids’ use of technology needs to run both ways. Especially when the research is piling up about the harm of screen overuse at home but also in the classroom.

In my column, I write about what a more two-way contract from the school could look like....

Do Harris and Trump want to save the country or not?

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 15, 2024

“If this presidential election is “apocalyptic,” you wouldn’t know it by how the campaigns are acting.

“They’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just standing in the way.” This is the quote at the top of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign website with a picture of him standing in front of Air Force One.

He’s not holding his bloody ear, but somehow the fear evoked isn’t about our international adversaries; it’s that our fellow citizens are coming for us.

This mimics much of the messaging on the political left. There’s a widely held belief (in the middle too, by the way) that Trump and his allies are a threat to democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. The Democrat ticket is the only thing standing in between America and mob-run dictatorship.

You would think that with such existential threats knocking at America’s door, the presidential campaigns would be swooping up the middle, the uncommitted, the exhausted, the normal people to protect them from what’s coming — to steady the country around its sturdy center with large coalitions and broad-based alliances and compromises.

Instead, Trump and Harris are running away from the middle. In a twisted way, each one allows the other to do so. “

New school technology policy makes this mom happy

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, August 11, 2024

“You wouldn’t know it from the heat, but summer is over. School begins Monday in Dallas ISD, and this year school has a new twist (at least in some parts of our city).

As a mother of three young children, I find the start of school to be bittersweet. As my priest said at my wedding rehearsal dinner, it’s the death of something and the birth of something new.

Summer’s end is the death of weekday morning cartoons and cereal bowls, endless hours in the pool and popsicles on IV drip, nights spent up late with the couches put together for the primetime Olympics coverage, our family vacation to Montana (which I’m pleased to report rivaled my parents’ adventures when I was young).

A new school year is also the birth of a new schedule — one that sets household wakeup and bedtimes, and work, and pickups and activities. It’s the return of the kids’ everyday socialization with people aside from siblings and friends, and the welcomed return of learning. “

Texas should be second state to ban phones in schools

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, July 5, 2024

“Consider the $82 billion asked for in the 2025 Department of Education Budget. With 50 million public school students across the nation, at $30 a pouch (and come on, it’s the federal government, so let’s get it down to $10), well that’s $500 million out of $82 billion — less than 1% of the budget.

Put it another way: Each year of public school costs around $10,000 per student. Hold that up against a $30 investment that could profoundly change academic, social and behavioral outcomes for students.

At the state level, Texas should ban devices on school campuses. It’s literally free; just don’t allow them. That’s what France does. That’s what several big private schools do here in Dallas. No sliding scale $5 punishments. First offense is parent pickup. The next offense, the device is taken away for keeps.

Newsom is getting pushback. The biggest, best I can tell, is from parents concerned with what to do about children in an emergency . . . “

My parents knew how to take a family summer trip

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning New, June 30, 2024

“You know that a family vacation is only a vacation if there’s no family save your spouse, right? Anything with children (or elderly parents) is a family trip. Let me tell you, my parents mastered the art of the family trip.

I pulled my first all-nighter at the tender age of 5 on one such trip. Each summer in Cleveland, it wouldn’t quite get hot enough nor would Lake Erie get quite clean enough, and so Mom and Dad would load up in the green Dodge Caravan with my two little sisters and me and we’d go to Hilton Head, South Carolina. It was a 12-hour drive with no stops and the speed limit being pushed.”

On Dobbs anniversary, red states have made progress, but more is needed

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning New, June 24, 2024

At a minimum, I would love to see Texas begin a Department of Child and Family Flourishing wherein more dollars would flow to families; where philanthropy and the private sector could share best practices and pool resources; where policymakers could have access to more frequent data on the well-being of young children and parents in our state; and where pilots of all types to improve child poverty and maternal and infant health would be encouraged.

Right now, red states can use permissive abortion policies in blue states to distract from the need to care for mothers and babies. Most blue states have robust services for women and children and yet seem proud of their few limitations on abortion, even after the point where a fetus can feel pain. President Joe Biden seems to think that because I find Trump dangerous, then I must be all in for abortion on demand. The extremes of both sides act as a safety net for the other.

I’m reminded of that old G.K. Chesterton quote from Orthodoxy: “The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”

These days, conservatives are keen to emphasize justice and protection; liberals to emphasize equity and autonomy. But untethered to love and unbound from each other, we get to strange places.

And so, even with marginal progress, I am still waiting on the state that can support life and love on both sides of the womb. That is where we are on this anniversary.

Yes, surgeon general, label social media

Abby McCloskey, Dallas News, June 23, 2024

“This week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote in The New York Times: “It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.” This is a fabulous idea. A bit little and late, but let’s get this train going.

We have more than a decade’s reason to act: A generation of kids who have used social media as a playground with no one telling them it was covered in poison ivy and used needles and venomous spiders and predatory adults lurking under the slides. Even if parents did warn them, well, everyone else was doing it and the itches and bites didn’t show up until a few years later and so things seemed fine until they weren’t.

The warning should be implemented immediately. Doing so is essentially free and top-down, which makes it easier than other surgeon general warnings on things like risky sex or obesity.

It might make people think twice before giving Bobby an iPhone for calling mom after Little League practice gets out. It should certainly put some pressure on schools to amp up their experiments with phone lock pouches instead of students lighting up with a Surgeon General warning item on campus. (I recently was allowed to preview a survey from a nearby school showing that teachers want phones taken from campus, parents too, but students want to keep them. I’m sure they wanted to keep the cigs too, back in the day.)

Politicians around the world have their finger to the wind. It’s blowing against Big Tech. AI seems too big to tame, so we have to take action where we can, like limiting kids’ exposure to addictive content and devices that destroy their mental health.”

Republicans have more in common with the French than they think

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, June 17, 2024

“I’ve just returned from Paris, which was abuzz in preparation for the Summer Olympics. At a cafe one evening hiding from a deluge of rain, when it became obvious my French did not extend beyond bon soir, the waiter asked where I was from. “There’s a Paris in Texas,” he smirked. I can easily imagine a similar jab coming from a Texan should a Parisian come to visit: “We’ve got all the Paris we need right here, thank you very much.”

After all, France has long been regarded as the embodied vision of the American left. In Paris (you know which one), people of all ages are riding bikes with baskets down the streets, some wearing fashionable trench coats. All the cars are electric, no gas-guzzling SUVs to be found. Everyone carries reusable bags, and water-bottle caps use so little plastic they’re more akin to a flap. . . .

. . . . But on this visit to Paris, I wasn’t imagining these progressive ideas spawning similar experiments stateside. If anything, I was surprised to find three very conservative aspects of the culture I hadn’t noticed before.

For example, did you know that in many parts of France there is no school on Wednesdays? In “liberal” cases, there’s school on Wednesday mornings, but still none in the afternoons. That time is reserved for family and extracurriculars. I spoke with many mothers who have Wednesdays with their children. In the States, it tends to be conservative Christian schools that prioritize parental time over a full-time, institutionalized learning.

As a result, the French have less of the modern parental shuffling to organized activities after school with fast-food dinner in car seats. Family dinners tend to be preserved. Students also have up to an hour and a half for lunch at school the other days, during which time they can go home. In Dallas ISD, I was allowed to have lunch with my second-grader once this whole school year and never with my kindergartner.”

McCloskey: School phone reforms still needed

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News,May 19, 2024

“I am an applied economist and the mother of three young children. On April 27, 2024, I wrote an opinion piece for The Dallas Morning News, “Phones are ruining childhood. Here are 3 steps Dallas ISD should take,” recommending a technology audit, playful recess, and banning smartphones for students on school campuses.

I had written a similar critique in the aftermath of COVID-19, when my kindergartener was required to carry a DISD-issued tablet to school and back in his backpack, alongside his turkey sandwich and juice box, with faulty safety controls and no clear communication with his parents.

These articles were built off of the burgeoning literature demonstrating the negative influences of children’s overexposure to screens in terms of distraction and compromised learning, addiction and weakened mental health, and the opportunity cost of forgone face-to-face interactions. Concerns about screen use and children have also been published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Surgeon General.

Most recently, this literature has been compiled and democratized in social scientist Jonathan Haidt’s new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, which dedicates a section to the impact of technology in schools.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development also recently released its first assessment of the impact of technology on learning, “Heavy Use of Tech in Classroom Can Lead to Worse Learning Outcomes.” The report finds that “even countries which have invested heavily in information and communication technologies … for education have seen no noticeable improvement in their performances in … reading, mathematics or science.”

In response to the piece, I received considerable feedback from other parents as well as from school and district administrators, including extremely helpful conversations with Dallas ISD. I wanted to share some of those questions, recommendations and conversations as we continue to think through the impact on technology and learning together.”

McCloskey: The motherhood issue no one will talk about

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2024

“It’s Mother’s Day. Each year I celebrate by staying home from church and having breakfast in bed. If you’re having such a day, perhaps continue with your magical glow by moving to the next column. Because this is going to get heavy fast.

Today of all days, I want to talk about how motherhood has fundamentally changed, relative to American history and relative to anywhere else in the world. The data tell the story best. In 1960, 5% of babies were born to unmarried mothers. In 1991, when the National Commission on Children raised this issue, it had risen to 25%. Now, about 40% of American babies are born to unmarried parents, according to research published by Child Trends. Whether a child is given a two-parent home — one of the biggest social advantages in life — is essentially a coin flip.

This is not a story about divorce. It’s not a story about cohabitation. It’s not even a story about teenage girls giving birth (the rate of which has plummeted). It’s about unpartnered women — and specifically women with a high school degree or less — increasingly choosing to become mothers alone.

As a result, a quarter of American children are raised in a home with a single parent (nearly always the mother), according to Pew Research. This doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. Truly. In China, it’s 3%. In Mexico, it’s 7%. In beautiful romantic France, it’s 16%. In Israel, it’s 5%. In Canada, it’s 15%.”

PODCAST: Speaking Of Kids

Abby McCloskey, First Focus on Kids, April 24, 2024

In this episode, our hosts Bruce Lesley and Messellech “Selley” Looby chat with Abby McCloskey, who directed the Convergence Collaborative on Supports for Working Families, a project bringing together 31 family policy leaders of diverse ideologies and included our co-host Bruce Lesley. The Convergence process issued a final report entitled In This Together: A Cross-Partisan Action Plan to Support Families with Young Children in America.

McCloskey discusses some of the collaborative’s cross-partisan policy recommendations, such as creating government structures focused explicitly on children and offering 12 weeks of paid parental leave. McCloskey emphasizes that bringing these recommendations to fruition will require bipartisan effort.

Today’s children are in crisis. They face rising maternal and infant mortality rates, a mental health epidemic, a public education system under attack, increasing homelessness, and other challenges. McCloskey outlines the importance of working through political polarization to create bipartisan solutions that address these and other issues affecting our nation’s children.

Stop Taxing the Life Out of Marriage

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, April 15, 2024

“Leave it to the government to discourage marriage. Especially when marriage rates are already cratering.

As families around the country file taxes this month, they might not realize that often their marriage leads to higher taxes than if they were single. These penalties range from light to heavy, depending on their household income, number of children, and whether both or only one spouse works.

A recent study by the Atlanta Fed found that the average lifetime net marriage tax is 2.69%. The rate rises to 3.71% on the lowest income bracket (earning up to $26,000 a year) and falls to 1.49% for the highest bracket (earning more than $103,100 a year). Notice that the average marriage penalty imposed on people with low incomes is roughly twice that incurred by the rich.

This might not sound like much, a few percentage points here and there. But for low-income women, this nets out to losing $60,000 over a lifetime, according to the Fed. Put another way, this is the equivalent of wiping out four years of full time work at the federal minimum wage level for a mom who says “I do.”

Eden's Apple is In Our Pockets

Abby McCloskey, Dallas Morning News, April 1, 2024

The iconic logo of our technical revolution — the symbol that represents all of human knowledge bound up in a handheld device — is an apple with a bite of it.

Maybe this is coincidence. Maybe it’s God’s sense of humor (we have to get ours from somewhere). Maybe it’s humanity’s continued defiance. But Apple’s logo smacks of Adam and Eve’s deceit and humanity’s fall as recorded in the Bible. That rebellion separated humans from God and from each other. The atomization that ensued mirrors our loneliness today.

These days, we’ve taken a bite out of another apple. It, too, promised to allow us to plumb the depths of human knowledge but the cost would be pulling us apart from each other and increasing our despair. Even now, perhaps it’s in your pocket, on your desk, in your kid’s backpack, on your nightstand; maybe all of them. The Apple with a bite is there, hiding in plain sight.

Its costs are in plain sight, too. I was thinking about this with Jonathan Haidt’s book released last week, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Haidt isn’t the only scholar tackling the connection between smartphones and our atomization, but he’s been ahead of the curve for a while now.

VIDEO: Brookings Event - Common Ground to Support Working Families

Brookings, April 3, 2024

Throughout 2023, the Convergence Collaborative brought together experts from across the political spectrum to find common ground on challenges facing working families with young children. The resulting consensus document was released in January of this year. The organization’s collaborative process is different from other attempts to find common ground on these issues because it emphasizes relationship-building and facilitated dialogue among people with deeply held convictions and diverse perspectives.

On April 3, join the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at Brookings to learn about the four pillars making up the Convergence Collaborative’s blueprint for action, and the Convergence process as a potential model for problem-solving in polarizing policy spaces.

Two members of the Collaborative–Lina Guzman (Child Trends) and Josh McCabe (Niskanen Center)–will join leader of the group Abby McCloskey (McCloskey Policy LCC) on a panel moderated by Brookings’ Molly Kinder to discuss the four areas of common ground for working families.

Following their conversation, Stuart Butler (Brookings), Maya MacGuineas (Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget), and Lindsay Torrico (American Bankers Association Foundation) will broaden the issue to discuss finding common ground on polarizing issues with the New York Times’ Jessica Grose.

The event will run from 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. EDT, followed by a light reception.

Video of the event can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DKkCOHMjYU