In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discuss the incredibly important role that money can play in a marriage. While many couples focus on the wedding and the checklist of what needs to get done before the wedding day, few realize the importance of discussing personal finances and how they view and value money.

At the top of the episode, Alexis mentioned an article written by Jake Hays for the Pew Research Center titled “8 facts about divorce in the United States.” The purpose of the study was to look at causes for the very high divorce rate in the U.S. and, in particular, why so many divorces happen so quickly - often within the first five years of marriage. Money was the reason behind many of those failed marriages.

Dr. White referenced a recent string of articles from The Wall Street Journal that are related to today's topic of marriage and money. They discuss things like financial infidelity, why men and women choose to often have separate finances, and how what we value when it comes to money can be a factor. You can find those articles below. You can also find the National Endowment for Financial Education study that Dr. White mentioned HERE.

Julia Carpenter, “What We Fight About When We Fight About Money.”

Gunjan Banerji, “Inside the ‘Financial Infidelities' That Tear Marriages Apart.”

Allie Jones, “She Almost Lost Everything in Her Divorce. Now Women Are Learning From Her Mistakes.”

Finally, for those interested in some pastoral wisdom when it comes to both marriage and money, we'd encourage you to check out the many marriage and finance series that Dr. White has delivered at Mecklenburg Community Church. You can find the various series on marriage and family HERE, and the series on finances HERE.

For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.

In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they discuss a topic that you might be wildly unfamiliar with - death doulas. Today's discussion was prompted by an article in The New York Times titled “How Death Doulas Support the Living.” It's about how actress Nicole Kidman is charting a new career path as a death doula after feeling a void in support when her mother passed away. A death doula is a trained, non-medical professional who provides holistic emotional, spiritual and practical support to people who are dying and their loved ones.

Dr. White explained how death is not a topic that people (obviously) like to talk about. But it is important to understand the stages of death. He mentioned a resource that was written decades ago, but that still proves to be incredibly helpful for processing death and dying. The book is titled On Death and Dying, written by Elisabeth Kubler Ross and published in 1969. You can find it on Amazon HERE.

Increasingly in our culture, the need for someone like a death doula to come alongside you has to do with loneliness. There was a recent article in The Washington Post on this titled “An age-old fear grows more common: ‘I'm going to die alone.'” The subheading summarizes the problem well: “As families fracture, people are living longer and are more likely to find themselves without close relatives or friends at the end of their lives.” These broken families, broken relationships, are really the heart of the problem. Dr. White recently did a series at Mecklenburg Community Church on the importance of “Relational Repair.” It struck a chord with so many people. If you wish to check it out, you can find it on Church & Culture HERE.

Dr. White pointed out something very vital to our lives - community that is found through the Church. If you don't already have a church home, I would encourage you to check out Mecklenburg Community Church. On our website - mecklenburg.org - you can find out more about who we are and what we believe. And you can even experience a service through our Online Campus if you can't join us in person. But we hope that you will find community through a local church.

For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.

You probably noticed something quite different for today's conversation. Alexis Drye is joined by Pastor Jonathan Emery White, who serves children and families at Mecklenburg Community Church. Along with his pastoral role at Meck, he also teaches classes through the Meck Institute, instructing parents about the realities of the new digital world when it comes to their children. It's this background that he brings to today's episode about some recent interesting studies and trends related to teenage sexuality.

There's an on-demand class at Mecklenburg Community Church that was taught by Jonathan called “FaceTime: What Parents Need to Know About Technology, Social Media, Video Games and More.” You can find that on the Meck website HERE. Dr. White also did a series at Meck called “Streaming Now,” which featured background on four of the most popular streaming series at the time and the lessons that can be applied to the Christian life through them. One of the installments was on the show Adolescence - you can find that series HERE.

Jonathan mentioned the software that he recommends to protect parents and their children from the dangers of pornography and the online world. It's called Covenant Eyes, and you can find that HERE. There are also a number of articles relevant to our conversation today if you'd like to take a deeper dive on this topic. We'd encourage you to check out:

Selena Simmons-Duffin, “Teen birth rates hit another historical low in 2025, CDC says,” NPR.

Lyman Stone, “Sexless America: Young Adults Are Having Less Sex,” Institute for Family Studies.

“The Impact of Pornography on Children,” American College of Pediatricians.

Mar Alvarez-Segur et al., “Impact of pornography consumption on children and adolescents: a trauma-informed approach,” National Library of Medicine.

Carmen M. Leon et al., “From Pornography Consumption to Sexually Violent Practices: Uncovering the Hidden Influence of Sexual Norms,” National Library of Medicine.

Taylor Lorenz, “The Hottest Chat App for Teens Is … Google Docs,” The Atlantic.

“Injections, Bone Hammering and the Pursuit of Peak Male Beauty: Inside the image-obsessed subculture that is ‘looksmaxxing,'” The New York Times.

John Koetsier, “80% Of Gen Zers Would Marry An AI: Study,” Forbes.

Finally, there are two past podcast episodes that we'd encourage you to go back and listen to when you have the time. They are: CCP152: On Women's Porn, CCP72: On Toxic Masculinity and CCP146: On Hooters and OnlyFans.

For those of you who are new to Church & Culture, we'd love to invite you to subscribe (for free of course) to the twice-weekly Church & Culture blog and check out the Daily Headline News - a collection of headlines from around the globe each weekday. We'd also love to hear from you if there is a topic that you'd like to see discussed on the Church & Culture Podcast in an upcoming episode. You can find the form to submit your questions at the bottom of the podcast page HERE.