RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-human-cost-of-swedens-welfare-state-1531346908

American liberals sometimes hold up Sweden as a model of social order, equality of the sexes, and respect for parental responsibilities. Its welfare state offers excellent free or subsidized prenatal care, 480 days of paid leave for both natural and adoptive parents, and additional leave for moms who work in physically strenuous jobs. Swedish parents have the option to reduce their normal hours (and pay) up to 25% until a child turns 8.

But all this assistance comes at a steep cost. At 61.85%, Sweden has the highest personal income tax rate in the world. That money pays for the kind of support many American women would welcome, but it comes with pressure on women to return to the workforce on the government’s schedule, not their own. The Swedish government also supports and subsidizes institutionalized day care (they call it preschool), promoting the belief that professional care-givers are better for children than their own mothers.

If a mother decides she wants to stay at home with her child beyond the state-sanctioned maternity leave, she receives no additional allowance. That creates an extreme financial burden on those families, and the pressure is social as well. A 32-year-old friend told me that she was in the park with her 2-year-old son, when she was surrounded by a group of women who berated her for not having the boy in day care.

The Swedish government attempts to provide equal work opportunities for both sexes, which is laudable. But toward that end, it promotes the false idea that mothers are not uniquely important to babies. Women who prefer to stay home with very young children are stigmatized as regressive and antifeminist. The Feminist Initiative, a radical political party, touts day care as a way to “liberate women from their maternal instincts.”

Sweden’s maternity policies may be good for economic growth and egalitarian ideals, but not for the social or emotional health of young children. Ample scientific research shows that institutionalized day care is bad for very young children. The ratio of staff to children is too low, and the environment is confusing, overly stimulating and potentially harmful to a child’s developing brain.

Ninety percent of Swedish children under 5 are in day care. This likely contributes to mental-health problems. In 2012 roughly 20% of Swedish adolescents reported at least five instances of self-harming behavior, and the teen suicide rate hit a 25-year high in 2013. CONTINUE AT SITE

The Essenes were part of an internal struggle within Jewish society at the end of the Second Temple Period. Their customs and beliefs, their apocalyptic vision and rejection of accepted leadership not only created a rift between them and the rest of Jewish society; they provided elements for the beginning of a new religion.

The Last Supper which Jesus shared with his disciples was probably a Passover meal prepared with unleavened bread and wine; the Dead Sea Scrolls describe a sacred meal of bread and wine that will be eaten at the end of days with the messiah. Were Essene concepts and rituals incorporated into Christian ceremonies, like communion? The early Christian church was communistic; similarly, members of the Qumran community had to give up all private property. Both Christians and Essenes were eschatological communities — expecting the imminent transformation of the world. Although drawn from Jewish prophetic texts that spoke about the Day of Judgment, the Essenes gave it immediacy; Christianity gave it urgency. The similarity of texts is striking.

In the Gospel of Luke, an angel appears to the Virgin Mary and announces: “And now you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High…the son of God.” (Luke 1:31-35) Nearly the same language appears in one of the Dead Sea scrolls: “He will be called great and he will be called Son of God, and they will call him Son of the Most High…He will judge the earth in righteousness…and every nation will bow down to him…” (4Q 246)

Both communities tended to be dualistic — dividing the world into opposing forces of good and evil, light and darkness. There are references in the New Testament (especially in Paul and John) to this distinction. For example, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness” (John 8:12). And in the scrolls we read, “All the children of righteousness are ruled by the Prince of Light and walk in the ways of light, but all the children of falsehood are ruled by the Angel of Darkness and walk in the ways of darkness.” (Rule of the Community, 3) Even the famous beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-12) and in the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-23) have striking parallels in the scrolls and apocryphal literature.