This short video illustrates a boy’s entry into manhood; it requires no words.

The Hazardous Journeys Society (HJS) was founded to give glory to God, not man, as part of an exciting effort of world exploration. The purpose of the HJS is to provide teams of intrepid adventurers, photographers, students, scientists, journalists, and naturalists with an opportunity to engage in journeys of discover around the globe and to interpret their findings from a perspective that honors the Creator.
External Links

www.hazardousjourneys.org

One year ago, families from all across the country came together to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. It was an incredible event and one which gave glory to God for His hand of grace on the lives of the men who sacrificed themselves on that cold April night. With more than a hundred reenactors, soul-stirring messages, many live performances that highlighted the music of the era, and a memorable dinner cruise, we have been told by many that it was one of the most moving events in the history of Vision Forum Ministries.

The hundred-year mark of Titanic’s sinking truly stands as a place holder in a culture which has forgotten what it means to act nobly, to willingly give your life for another, and to honor women and children. At the heart of the forgotten notion of chivalry is the biblical doctrine of male sacrifice. This was exemplified in the life of Jesus Christ who gave his life for his “Bride,” the Church.

But the legacy of the men of the Titanic may not be ignored and left to end after its centennial mark. Click here to view a collection of more then thirty music, message, and performance clips from the Titanic 100.

The Legacy and Ongoing Work of the CBMTS

More than fifteen years ago, my father founded the Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society (CBMTS) to promote the biblical understanding of “Women and Children First” to future generations. Our goal is to study the many spiritual lessons which can be derived from the sinking of the Titanic and to apply them to our lives today, both spiritually and practically. Since that time, the CBMTS has come together for one evening each year to commemorate the legacy of the Titanic and to remind boys and men of our duty to carry the mantle of sacrificial manhood.

Last year, for the one hundredth anniversary celebration, my father passed the baton of leadership for the society to me. My desire is to see this important work advance. This next week, a group of men and boys will be gathering in San Antonio, Texas, headquarters of the Christian Boys’ & Men’s Titanic Society, to continue to honor the men of the Titanic and to commit to living sacrificially as we remember this monumental event with our annual dinner.

An Appeal to You: Gather a Dozen Friends and Hold Your Own Titanic Dinner

This year, I also would like to encourage each of you to begin a similar tradition. It doesn’t need to be big; it doesn’t need to be complicated. Just gather a few or many of your friends together for an evening meal of prayer, thanksgiving, and commemoration as men. What a wonderful thing it would be to know that, in dozens of places around the country, men are gathering to honor those who went before us!

How to Host a Dinner

The elements are simple:

• Gather your friends (men and boys).
• Eat out or in, but make it a memorable feast.
• Read excerpts from The Sinking of the Titanic or other historical accounts.
• Let each person share a Scripture, prayer, poem, or toast.
• Exhort each other to noble leadership and sacrifice.
• Leave a record of your gathering in some form or another for the future.

Remembering the legacy of an event from so long ago is not just about getting together, but it is about gathering, giving thanks, and applying the lessons to our own life.

For Women and Children First,

Joshua Titus Phillips
President, The CBMTS

America the Barbarous: New Pentagon Policy Sanctions Women in Combat

by Elijah Brown and Wesley Strackbein, Vision Forum staff writers

America has become a nation of barbarians.

For more than a decade, women representing the U.S. armed forces have been dying in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We have reported on this fact numerous times at Vision Forum, previously highlighting a 2004 front page New York Times article which featured a gruesome cover image of a wounded female soldier, blood running down her leg, with three men surrounding her, screaming. Rather callously, the Times titled the article, “A Routine Burst of Chaos Leaves a G.I. Wounded.” In writing the piece, journalist Dexter Filkins in no way keyed in on the fact that the wounded G.I. was a woman — he reported the story as if she had been any other male soldier hit by enemy fire.

While the Pentagon’s official policy has been to exclude women from being assigned to most units “whose primary mission” is “direct combat on the ground,” the reality has been far different, as was noted in a 2008 USA Today editorial which we previously cited on our website:

On the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s policy on women in combat looks like this: Women risk their lives as truck drivers, mechanics and medics attached to combat units. At checkpoints, they do a job that men can’t: search Iraqi women. They fire rifles and lob grenades. And when they are struck by the IED blasts and suicide bombers that characterize this war, they are wounded or killed just as surely as their fellow soldiers.

In other words, the written policy is divorced from reality.

Now policy has caught up to practice, as last week the Department of Defense announced a formal change in policy to “allow Military Department Secretaries to assign women in open occupational specialties to select units and positions at the battalion level . . . whose primary mission is to engage in direct combat on the ground.”

This will open nearly 14,000 “combat-related positions to female troops, including tank mechanics and intelligence officers on the front lines,” as the Washington Post summarized.

While American servicewomen have been in harm’s way for more than a decade — with nearly 200 coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq in body bags since 2001 — the Pentagon’s new policy now authorizes women to be officially attached to combat units on the ground, the very goal of which is to engage the enemy in battle.

This is a first for the United States of America, and it is a cause to mourn as our nation’s leaders — in the name of “empowering” women — are now self-consciously placing women in combat units to be shot at and killed as men.

What are we to think of a culture that openly welcomes our mothers and daughters being assigned to the heat of battle to have their limbs severed, their faces scarred, and their consciences seared as they lie beneath a flag-covered casket? Does this “enlightened policy” represent the fullest expression of Woman, as feminists would have us believe?

Not hardly. It represents an abolition of womanhood and the perversion of God’s design. It represents a deeply-rooted rebellion against the natural roles and functions by which God has distinguished manhood from womanhood.

Women are to be cherished as the weaker sex, not exploited to fill the roster of an army. Combat is the province of men, and God calls on men to protect women and children. Men fight when their homes and communities are threatened by wicked regimes and lawless rogues who would despoil their loved ones. When necessary, men carry weapons into battle and give their lives to preserve the liberty and sanctity of those they hold dear.

It is barbarians who place their women in the midst of war’s brutalities to fight as men. This is what pagan tribes in Scotland did before they were Christianized and embraced the “Law of the Innocents,” written by the evangelist Adomnan, which forbade sending women into battle.

Though America possesses advanced weaponry and great military might, we have become a nation of barbarians.

It is high time that we as a people repent of our barbarism — that we cherish our women as women, and call on our men to act as men.

— Elijah Brown and Wesley Strackbein, Vision Forum staff writers

This essay is being discussed on the Vision Forum Facebook page.