R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 307

The Briefing 05-28-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Chimps’ day in court exposes confusion of human dignity with care for animals

Judge Ponders Whether Chimps Should Get Same Rights as Humans, Wall Street Journal (Jacob Gershman)

2) Leftward trend on social issues reflects cultural milieu more than beliefs of Americans

Americans Continue to Shift Left on Key Moral Issues, Gallup (Frank Newport)

3) Approval of assisted suicide dissipates as voters recognize threat of slippery slope 

The Assisted-Suicide Movement Goes on Life Support, Wall Street Journal (Aaron Kheriarty)

4) Chinese crackdown on religious groups reveals idolatrous effort to co-opt religion for state

China Aims to Break Foreign Influence on Religion, Voice of America (William Ade)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 05-27-15

The Briefing

 

May 27, 2015

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

 

It’s Wednesday, May 27, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Secularists note Gates’ membership proposal purely seeking survival of corporation

Sometimes events that take place around us, often erupting in the headlines, serve as a catalyst for understanding the bigger picture and larger issues. Such is the case with the current controversy that has focused on the Boy Scouts of America. As I discussed on The Briefing yesterday they had to the Boy Scouts, Robert Gates, former Defense Secretary the United States and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, announced that if the Boy Scouts were to survive as a national movement they would have to abandon their compromise policy of the present that allows for the participation of openly gay scouts, but not of openly gay adult leaders. He says that second part is simply going to have to go.

In comments made to a national gathering a scout leaders in Georgia Robert Gates said that the Boy Scouts would have to deal with the world as it is, not as the Boy Scouts might wish that world to be. In his extended comments he made quite an argument for the dropping of the prohibition against gay scout leaders. But his argument was almost entirely centered on how to rescue and preserve the Boy Scouts as a national organization. Moral principle basically did not enter into his discussion at all. As I pointed out yesterday from a Christian worldview perspective, this is pathetic and catastrophic at every turn. It raises the very question whether you can have an organization with any meaning that might be called the Boy Scouts of America. But now, again, one of the most interesting dimensions of the story is the secular response.

For instance, Sarah Kaplan and Michael Miller writing for the Washington Post point out that the Boy Scouts right now can do no right politically. They went on to say,

“That’s because the Boy Scouts are now in a position where politically they can do no right. Besieged by the left for decades for not allowing gay scouts or leaders, the Boy Scouts are now being attacked from the right. By allowing gay scouts two years ago and now considering allowing gay leaders as well, a deeply traditional organization is trying to stay attuned to the times.”

But then they state the obvious,

“But it also risks alienating many core members, for whom the Boy Scouts have long been a bedrock of conservative American life.”

They then make the interesting observation,

“In a way, the Boy Scouts are a barometer of how far the country’s attitudes have shifted on issues of race, gender and sexuality.”

But when it comes to that last statement, again where they say that the Boy Scouts are a barometer of how far the country’s attitudes have shifted on issues of race, gender and sexuality, we have to raise a fundamental question: is it the Boy Scouts who are shifting or is it the Boy Scouts of America, in terms of the national leadership that is indicating this shift? My hunch is that it’s the latter rather than the former, because time’s going to tell whether or not the scouts and their parents go along with this policy change. And even in making his proposal last week, Secretary Gates had to acknowledge that the vast majority of scouting units are actually sponsored by religious organizations, the vast majority of whom are not going to define human sexuality and sexual morality the way the Boy Scouts of America now propose.

Secretary Gates said that religious organizations should enjoy a first amendment privilege of determining the responsibilities and criteria for leadership in the Boy Scout units under their sponsorship. But he had to know, even in making a proposal, that that is a very thin reed.

Once again, as a compromise policy that’s going to please no one. And at this point, that’s a very important point. Because even the Washington Post, writing from a very secular and rather morally liberal perspective recognizes that the Boy Scouts are now in a predicament of their own making. For decades, as the Post said, they had brought about opposition from the cultural left because they resolutely refused to surrender their membership criteria, which as they acknowledged back in 2013 were expected by the vast majority of the parents of scouts.

But now there in the position of angering and alienating the parents of scouts, the scouts themselves, and the sponsoring bodies of the vast majority of scouting units. You’ll recall the fact that yesterday on The Briefing we pointed out that evidently Secretary Gates has one singular concern; and that is to use his own words to preserve the Boy Scouts of America as a national organization.

But that’s where Kevin D Williamson writing for National Review gets to the heart of Gates’ argument, and what’s absent from that argument, and that is a serious moral argument. Williamson writes,

“Gates, whose likeness appears in Webster’s with the entry for “bureaucrat,” says that the Boy Scouts’ policy on homosexuals is “unsustainable.” He warns that attempting to maintain it would mean “the end of us as a national movement.” This sentiment expresses a great deal of what is wrong with the leadership culture of the United States.”

You’ll notice he says a problem with the leadership culture of the United States, not just with the Boy Scouts of America. This is not, Williamson writes, because Gates is just taking what he calls a “friendlier attitude towards homosexuals.” It is because, he says, he is merely arguing from “organizational self-interest.” Nevermind if it is right or wrong. The policy puts Scouting Incorporated, says Williamson,

“so best to abandon it. Duty to God and country? [he says that’s simply out of the picture now]— management always has its own priorities.”

Then Williamson writes a very important line. In his words,

“Depending on your point of view Gates is either doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, or doing the right thing for the wrong reason.”

Williamson gets to the heart of the issue when he continues,

“ For those among the shrinking minority of Americans adhering to something like the Scouts’ longstanding view of homosexuality — that it represents a set of choices and behaviors that constitute at the very least a bad example for children — Gates’s decision must be understood as simple moral cowardice: The gay-rights movement is energetic and totalitarian, and its demands are fortified more often than not by the dictates of judges. Faced with overwhelming cultural and political pressure, Gates did not have the mettle to lead the Boy Scouts of America as a kind of Nockian remnant, keeping the tablets until such a time as civilization once again returns to certain eternal truths.”

With striking a brilliant prose Williamson gets right to the heart of the problem of the Boy Scouts of America under the leadership of Robert Gates. But in this case Robert Gates is mostly the bureaucratic spokesperson for the corporate board that is behind the Boy Scouts of America.

But the point made by Williamson here is that if one holds to a traditional understanding of sexual morality, then Gates is proposing the wrong thing, and for the wrong reason. But then he continues and he writes,

“For those who take the more contemporary view of homosexuality, Gates’s position is arguably even more distasteful. If the Scouts have been wrong about the moral and social status of homosexuals, then they have been wrong about something important. If their exclusion of gays from leadership positions was based on error or malice, then they owe it to those they have excluded to admit as much, freely and openly. Perhaps more important, if the exclusion of homosexuals has been wrongful, then the Boy Scouts’ leadership owes it to the young men whose moral development is in part entrusted to it to be forthright about that fact.”

What’s really interesting here is that two secular perspectives are agreed on this; the policy that was suggested by Secretary Gates is a morally bankrupt. It’s morally bankrupt whether one comes from the understanding of the sinfulness of homosexuality or the normalization of homosexuality. In either event what Secretary Gates called for was a capitulation to the direction of the culture – not to what was considered either right or wrong. The moral context used to be entirely absent from his argument.

2) Boy Scouts’ rules against water gun fights furthers estrangement from actual boys

Meanwhile in a far less important front (but also very revealing) the scouts found themselves in yet another controversy in recent days. This one not over sexuality, but water balloons and water guns. It turns out that in recent days the scouts have restated their position in an advisory to scouting units that even though Boy Scouts may play with water guns, they may not own them at other. Now as I said, in the great moral scheme of things this is a far less important issue, but it is nonetheless revealing. Because as I said the big question is whether or not you can have in modern America, an organization that might be actually called the Boy Scouts of America that might be appealing the boys.

In a statement no doubt timed for the beginning of summer, the scouting authorities intended to alert scouting units to the fact that the 2015 Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Sports Manual says,

“Water guns and rubber band guns must only be used to shoot it targets, and eye protection must be worn.”

When it comes to water balloons, the Boy Scouts of America has an official national policy,

“For water balloons, use small, biodegradable balloons, and fill them no larger than a ping pong ball.”

Just in case anyone should miss the details of the policy,

“Pointing any type of firearm or simulated firearm at any individual is unauthorized. Scout units may plan or participate in paintball, laser tag or similar events where participants shoot at targets that are neither living nor human representations.”

Now I will simply point out as a former Boy Scout and frankly, just as a former boy, that there is no fun and having a water gun unless you can shoot it at someone in proximity – hopefully, a friend, perhaps even a sibling. And that done with the full expectation that they will then turn and shoot their water gun at you. Now it should be stated (obviously) that this should be done with adequate adult supervision. But what are the adults to supervise is the kids can’t even shoot the water guns at each other?

Oh and by the way, if you’re going to allow water balloon fights and you think the boys are going to stop when they have enough water to constitute being about the size of a ping-pong ball then you’ve never been around boys, and you certainly never been a boy.Writing at World magazine, D.C. Innes simply points out that this is part of what can be described only as the end of the Boy Scouts. Similarly, Rich Cromwell writing at the Federalist simply uses the headline “The Boy Scouts Continue to Devolve into a Garden Club.”

On the far more important moral issue of human sexuality and the leadership of the Boy Scouts, the Boy Scouts are taking an unprincipled position that will surely collapse in the face of continued cultural opposition. Having abandoned the moral high ground, they now find themselves in a position of being swept along by the cultural currents by a matter of bureaucratic policy in order to preserve themselves as a national movement. That may explain, if this change takes place, why many parents pulled their scouts out in why many scouts have less interest than ever in participating in the scouting organization and why the religious organizations sponsoring the vast majority of scouting organizations may well try to find some other organization to sponsor.

But it also raises the question, if in the context of our current cultural and moral confusion you can even have a meaningful organization called the Boy Scouts of America, with a very politically charged word ‘boy’ right in the first name of the organization.

But this advisory on water balloons and water guns from the Boy Scouts simply raises the question of why any boy would want to be a part of this organization in terms of its continued direction in the very first place?

And that’s said with a real sense of loss, because the scouts have been such an important part of American culture and in the boyhoods and in the maturation of so many boys and young men in America – for that matter, many old men in America look back with great fondness and appreciation to their experience in the Boy Scouts.

3) Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts membership decisions reveal shrinking moral middle ground in culture

One of the most interesting aspects of this comes in the contrast between the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, because the Girl Scouts of also been in the headlines in recent days. That comes in report for instance, at CNN by Katia Hetter writing that the Girl Scouts are now to welcome transgender girls. The Girl Scouts are saying this is not an innovation, but just a restatement again of their policy.

As seen and reported,

“Transgender girls are welcome in the Girl Scouts of the United States of America, a stance that has attracted controversy from some conservative groups over the past [several days].”

A spokesperson for the Girl Scouts USA, that is Andrea Bastiani Archibald said,

“Our position is not new. It conforms with our continuous commitment to inclusivity”

Now when I see a statement like that, I simply want to remind all of us that there is no individual and there is no organization, not on the planet, that doesn’t discriminate on some basis. There is no individual, there is no congregation, there is no organization, on the planet that is actually committed to “a continuous commitment to inclusivity.” This is now the language of political correctness in terms of the new moral regime. She went on to cite a frequently asked questions page at the Girl Scouts website in which it is said,

“Placement of transgender youth is handled on a case-by-case basis, with the welfare and best interests of the child and the members of the troop/group in question a top priority. That said, if the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.”

Now without going into various arguments about the impracticality of that policy, I’ll simply point out that here you have a trajectory that is very different than the Boy Scouts of America, even when you take into account the statements made by Robert Gates in recent days. Because what you see, very clearly, is that the Boy Scouts of America – as Kevin Williamson said, regardless of which side of the divide you’re on – the Boy Scouts are being dragged, kicking and screaming as a national organization into this moral revolution. Not so the Girl Scouts. The Girl Scouts have been a driving force in so much of this ever since the ideology of feminism overtook that organization decades ago.

And it’s not just Christians operating out of a biblical worldview find this interesting. A very important article appeared at the Atlantic in recent days by Kate Tuttle. Its headline, “Boy Scouts are from Mars, Girl Scouts are from Venus.” The subhead of the article, “Behind the khaki uniforms and the merit badges the two organizations have vastly different political leanings.” Tuttle offers some very interesting historical background and the differences between the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts – both came out of the same historical vision rooted in Robert Baden Powell, the British man who gave the vision for the Boy Scouts and also by inspiration to the Girl Scouts. Tuttle then writes,

“In truth, while the two organizations were founded with similar purposes, history has enormously widened the ideological gulf between them. The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts share a founding father…[But] the Boy Scouts quickly came to represent a kind of all-American ideal of health, outdoor exploration, and patriotic goodness. It also served as a pipeline to leadership in a country still ruled mostly by men.”

She then acknowledges,

“Anyone could be a Cub Scout, but those who have ascended to the pinnacle of scouting, Eagle Scout, are overrepresented within military academies, NASA, and even Congress.”

Meanwhile, as Tuttle tells us, going back decades, the Girl Scouts begin moving in a profoundly feminist direction and also in the direction of secularization as far back as 1993, even though the Girl Scout manual included the words “love God.” in the Girl Scout promise. The national organization ruled that a girl could substitute whatever words fit her individual belief system. That explains in part, Tuttle acknowledges why back as far as 1995 conservatives formed an alternative to the Girl Scouts of America known as Heritage Girls. It also explains why only in recent years has an alternative organization to the Boy Scouts emerged. That group is known as Trail Life USA.

The development within both of the scouting organizations are important in and of themselves, but as I said in the beginning, the greater importance lies in the fact that they are catalysts for understanding just what’s going on in the larger culture. And they also point to the fact that there is no middle ground remaining on these issues. The Boy Scouts are trying to find middle ground. And now they find that there is no middle ground. Having abandoned moral principle and moral argument they now find themselves only trying to preserve themselves as a national organization.

In the final analysis, once you surrender a moral argument, there are no real arguments left. Add together the capitulation of the Boy Scouts of America and the continued trajectory of the Girl Scouts of America and then you’ll understand why there is so much worldview confusion in the world we know today.

4) Surge of cremation popularity in America linked to decline of Christian worldview in society

Next, when it comes to many moral issues, many pastoral questions a confront the church, there are issues in which it is very easy on a biblical authority to know what is right and what is wrong. When it comes to some other issues, it is not quite so easy. And moral judgments in some cases should be in the form of declarations, as when the church declares on the clear basis of Scripture, we understand about human sexuality and marriage. When it comes to some other issues we have to be a bit less declarative and put the issue into a larger context.

Such is true with the question of cremation. From a Christian worldview perspective cremation is not necessarily a sin, but it is according to the Christian worldview inadvisable. This comes to light in terms of a recent report that was published at Slate magazine, indicating that at least as many cremations as burials are now taking place in the United States. And given the trajectory of this movement, it is almost without question that by the end of this year there will be more cremations than burials in America.

Now what’s really interesting in terms of this article by Andrew Khan is that he recognizes that something basic in the worldview has to have changed. And though he doesn’t use the word ‘secularization’ that is exactly what he describes. Looking at the radical rise of cremation as a practice in the United States he acknowledges this couldn’t happen if the Christian convictions that had shaped the population in decades and centuries past had continued. He acknowledges the very basic Christian instinct against cremation because of the biblical understanding that we are created as a psychosomatic unity. And Christians are not seeking the liberation of the body (as we’ve discussed in the past) but we’re looking forward to the resurrection of the body. That is a fundamental conviction of Christianity and respect for that body is been very important to Christianity from the very beginning as it was also very important to Judaism.

It is our belief, based in Scripture that the body is not an accident, but that God has created us as embodied creatures made in his image. And also Christians have to remember that our eternal promises are also grounded in the fact that we will be embodied even in our glorified state. Even though then we will have a glorified body. As the apostle Paul argues in 1Corinthians 15 in one of his major emphases, as Christ now is in his resurrection body so believers one day also will be. It makes sense according to some worldviews to destroy the body by fire after death because in some Eastern worldviews this represents the liberation of the soul or spirit from the body, and in other situations it simply reflects a secular worldview that assigns no continuing importance to the body, and no divine origin of the body itself.

Andrew Khan writing at Slate.com about the growth in terms of cremation in America says,

“Meanwhile, spiritual views of the body and soul have also changed. Christians historically believed that the body should be preserved whole in the hopes of reunification with the soul at the end of days… [he’s there citing Stephen Prothero of Boston Universitym who is the author of the book Purified by Fire:  A history of cremation in America] But the ’60s ushered in a wave of New Age notions that reflected a new view of the body as subordinate to the soul, like reincarnation, karma, and transcendence.”

Kahn then writes,

“As the counterculture has gone mainstream, so has cremation.”

In another very interesting paragraph Kahn writes,

“Cremation is more environmentally friendly than burial, and it’s easier to “customize.”

He then cites Barbara Kimmis who is head of something called the Cremation Association of North America. He goes on to say,

“Cremation is more environmentally friendly than burial, and it’s easier to “customize,” as Kemmis puts it. You can enshrine cremated remains in customs urns or jewelry; you can spread them across a beloved landscape, or two, or three; you can divide them among multiple family members. You can embed them in a painting. Prothero once met a family that had packed some cremated remains into a bullet for hunting deer. “You dream it, you can do it with cremated remains”

according to Barbara Kimmis. She is again head of the Cremation Association of North America. She then added,

“Sorry, I get really excited about this stuff.”

Well, she may indeed get excited about this stuff, but Christian should think very seriously about the question of burial and cremation, understanding to the Christian tradition, the Christian worldview based upon Scripture has had a very strong understanding of the importance of burying the dead with respect rather than with destroying the body.

One of the most important aspects of this story that appeared at Slate is the reminder that we have to think about these things as Christians, and we should think about these things as members of churches where we are in a continual moral discourse about how we are to fulfill our discipleship in Christ. And the time to discuss the implications of burial and cremation is not just at the moment when that decision becomes necessary, but rather right now when Christians should be encouraging one another to think most biblically.

As I’ve suggested the question of cremation is not a question of right and wrong in the same sense that some other issues are. But Christian faithfulness is not found that merely in being on the right side of questions that are clearly right and wrong, but being on the side of faithfulness in terms of what the Scripture would encourage us to think when we think about major issues including what should happen upon our death.  But Andrew Kahn’s got itfundamentally right when he points out this radical rise in cremation in America couldn’t happen if Americans still held pervasively and overwhelmingly to a Christian understanding of both life and death.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-27-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Secularists note Gates’ membership proposal purely seeking survival of corporation

Why the Boy Scouts can do no right politically, Washington Post (Sarah Kaplan and Michael E. Miller)

Gates, Gays, and the Boy Scouts, National Review (Kevin D. Williamson)

2) Boy Scouts’ rules against water gun fights furthers estrangement from actual boys

Water guns OK for target shooting, not for firing at other Scouts, Scouting Magazine (Bryan Wendell)

The end of the Boy Scouts, World Magazine (D.C. Innes)

The Boy Scouts Continue To Devolve Into A Garden Club, Federalist (Rich Cromwell)

3) Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts membership decisions reveal shrinking moral middle ground in culture

Girl Scouts welcomes transgender girls, CNN (Katia Hetter)

Boy Scouts Are From Mars, Girl Scouts Are From Venus, The Atlantic (Kate Tuttle)

4) Surge of cremation popularity in America linked to decline of Christian worldview in society

Cremation in America, Slate (Andrew Kahn)

A Requiem for the Boy Scouts

The Boy Scouts were doomed the moment the national leadership decided to preserve the organization at the cost of the values and ideals that gave it birth. Speaking to a national meeting of Boy Scouts of America leaders, President Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, called for the B.S.A. to abandon its policy of allowing the participation of openly gay scouts, but not the involvement of openly-gay adults.

Speaking in Atlanta, Secretary Gates told his fellow B.S.A. leaders that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.” Gates presented a matter-of-fact briefing to the leaders, speaking in entirely pragmatic terms. There was not a shred of moral insight or argument in his statement, other than his belief that the Scouts must do whatever is necessary, or face “the end of us as a national movement.”

Even as he took office last year, Gates indicated that he was not satisfied with the compromise the B.S.A. national board adopted in 2013. After insisting, just six months earlier, that the Scouts would not change their policy excluding openly-gay scouts and scouting leaders — a policy national leaders acknowledged was expected by the vast majority of scout parents — the national board crumbled under external pressure, largely from activist organizations and major corporations.

By any honest account, the policy adopted in 2013 was a compromise that anyone could see would not hold. By allowing for openly-gay scouts but not openly-gay adult leaders, the B.S.A. put itself in a no-man’s land of moral evasion. As recently as 2004 the Boy Scouts of America had maintained that homosexual conduct is “inconsistent” with the Scout Oath’s requirement that a scout be “morally straight.” By 2013 that policy — successfully defended all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States — was an embarrassment to some leaders and in some regions of the country.

But the 2013 policy was stranded in moral ambiguity. If there is nothing morally deficient with homosexuality, why allow gay scouts but not gay leaders? Furthermore, about 70 percent of all local scouting units are sponsored by religious organizations, who found themselves in the position of choosing between remaining loyal to the scouting organization or committed to their own religious convictions. Some decided to wait it out.

Predictably, the waiting is soon to be over. Gates indicated to the press that a decision is likely by October. The handwriting is on the tent wall, and the direction is set. The compromised policy of 2013 is about to be abandoned, with scouting at all levels, including adult leaders, to be open regardless of sexual orientation.

Back in 2013, those who demanded the full inclusion of gay scouts and leaders registered their dissatisfaction with the new policy. The editorial board of The New York Times called the new policy “an unprincipled position” — and they were right. As the editors pushed onward, they warned that the move “should hardly satisfy” the demand for full inclusion. Once again, they were clearly right. Both sides could see the the compromise of 2013 was unprincipled and unsustainable.

Now, Secretary Gates proposes that the compromise be abandoned, accepting the inclusion of openly-gay leaders. His argument is entirely based on the self-preservation of the B.S.A. as a national organization. He made no moral argument at all. He did not celebrate the new policy he proposed on moral grounds, nor did he lament the loss of the older policy on moral grounds. There were no moral elements in his argument.

Tellingly, Gates referred to internal pressures from scouting organizations in several states that were openly defying the national ban on gay adult leaders, and he also made reference to the threat of lawsuits that, in his words, would threaten to “forbid any kind of membership standard, including our foundational belief in duty to God and our focus on serving the specific needs of boys.”

What Gates did not mention was the fact that the inclusion of openly gay leaders and scouts, along with the challenge that already comes from the feminism and and transgender advocates, makes the very existence of the Boy Scouts ever more vulnerable.

The inescapable fact is that America is becoming a society in which the very idea of the Boy Scouts is increasingly implausible. The current leadership of the B.S.A. would supposedly save the Boy Scouts as an organization, but leave scouting in yet another unsustainable compromise.

That was made clear when Gates argued that the religious organizations that sponsor local units should remain free to establish their own criteria for adult leaders “consistent with their faith.” But Gates surely knows that this assurance is a very thin promise. Perhaps Gates hopes that the lawsuits will now be directed against churches, instead of against the Boy Scouts of America.

The moral disaster of the Gates proposal is matched by a legal and political disaster. Writing at The Washington Post, Sarah Kaplan and Michael E. Miller called the move by Gates “an astute capitulation,” but they also recognized the predicament Gates had made deepened:

“That’s because the Boy Scouts are now in a position where politically they can do no right. Besieged by the left for decades for not allowing gay scouts or leaders, the Boy Scouts are now being attacked from the right. By allowing gay scouts two years ago and now considering allowing gay leaders as well, a deeply traditional organization is trying to stay attuned to the times. But it also risks alienating many core members, for whom the Boy Scouts have long been a bedrock of conservative American life.”

Writing at National Review, Kevin D. Williamson nailed Gates for failing to make a moral argument, when the issue, regardless of the side one takes, is inescapably moral:

“Instead, he argues from organizational self-interest — never mind if it is right or wrong, the policy puts Scouting Inc. in a tough position, so best to abandon it. Duty to God and country? . . . Depending on your point of view, Gates is either doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason or doing the right thing for the wrong reason. ”

As Williamson argues, those who are committed to both sides of the argument over homosexuality are making a moral argument — and Gates is not. To the defenders of the Scout’s longstanding policy, Gates’s proposal is “understood as simple moral cowardice.” On the other hand, those who Williamson describes as taking “the more contemporary view of homosexuality” will see Gates’s position as “arguably even more distasteful.” In the end, “As a moral rationale, ‘the end of us as a national movement’ fails, and fails pitifully, regardless of one’s views on homosexuality.”

So true, and so sad. As a former Boy Scout, I lament the inevitable loss of scouting, knowing full well how much good the scouting movement has done in the lives of countless boys and men. Secretary Gates has signaled his determination to preserve the Boy Scouts of America “as a national movement.” Again, he told the scouting leaders, “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might want it to be.”

Of course, he never even said how he wanted it to be. That would have required a moral argument. The most unforgivable truth about Gates’s proposal for the Boy Scouts is that it was presented with no moral argument at all. Nevertheless, the eventual requiem for the Boy Scouts will reveal a moral lesson to be sure. But it will be a lesson learned too late, and at so great a loss.

I am always glad to hear from readers. Write me at mail@albertmohler.com. Follow regular updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/albertmohler.

For more information on Southern Seminary, visit SBTS.edu and for more information on Boyce College, visit BoyceCollege.com.

Kevin D. Williamson, “God, Gays, and the Boy Scouts,” National Review, Sunday, May 24, 2015. http://www.nationalreview.com/article...

Sarah Kaplan and Michael E. Miller, “Why the Boy Scouts Can Do No Right Politically,” The Washington Post, Friday, May 22, 2015.

Previous posts at AlbertMohler.com:

http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/01/2...

http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/05/2...

http://www.albertmohler.com/2013/01/3...

 

Transcript: The Briefing 05-26-15

The Briefing

 

May 26, 2015

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

 

It’s Tuesday, May 26, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Irish landslide for gay marriage shows breakdown of cultural shaping power of Catholicism

There have been several important headlines of the last several days; the most important comes from Ireland where the nation of Ireland became the very first on the planet to legalize same-sex marriage by vote. In this case by a vote of the people, by a referendum. As the Associated Press reported,

“Ireland’s citizens have voted in a landslide to legalize gay marriage,”

and what we’re looking at here is – as the Associated Press reported – “a stunningly lopsided result that illustrates what Catholic leaders and rights activists alike called a ‘social revolution.’”

Indeed it is, of course, a social revolution and behind that it is more fundamentally a worldview and a moral revolution. Looking at the way the Economist reported from London, as they said,

“The sizeable majority reflects a dramatic shift in public attitudes in Ireland, a socially conservative country where 84% of the population regard themselves as Catholic.”

Now one of the interesting aspects of all this is that there is a theological dynamic that simply has to be noted here. For instance, you have a distinction between Catholicism in Ireland and Catholicism in the United States. Irish Catholics have higher rates of attending church than do Catholics in United States by statistics, and one of the most interesting things about Ireland is how much lower the divorce rate there is among practicing Roman Catholics. The very heavy Catholic influence in Ireland has been a fundamental fact of its moral and social existence. So much so that Ireland decriminalized homosexuality only in 1993, and only under pressure of other European nations and the European Human Rights Court. Ireland still has very restrictive divorce laws and very restrictive abortion laws. And so in this case, the legalization of same-sex marriage is something of an outlier or – as at least some in Ireland are beginning to argue – it is an indicator of other votes yet to come. Of larger moral change that is taking place of which the legalization of same-sex marriage is only a leading indicator.

Well, time will tell on that, but right now there are some very interesting theological issues at stake. In the first place there is that distinction that marks Irish Catholicism from over against American Catholicism just in terms of the fact that American Catholic don’t go to churches much of the Irish, and at the same time American Catholics indicate a greater propensity to break with the teachings of their church on issues like divorce. But now it’s Roman Catholics in Ireland – one of the most traditionalist Roman Catholic cultures in the world – that has reversed the influence of the church in that area and its official opposition to same-sex marriage, voting in what is rightly described as a landslide last Friday to legalize same-sex marriage.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said that when the most interesting aspects to him was the loss of the grip of the Roman Catholic Church not only on the nation of Ireland but in particular on the young. Before looking to Archbishop’s comments it will be important to note just how overwhelming the vote was: younger Irish citizens voted by the rate of 71% for the legalization of same-sex marriage. Speaking of those very young people the Archbishop said,

“I ask myself, most of these young people who voted yes are products of our Catholic school system for 12 years. I’m saying there’s a big challenge there to see how we get across the message of the church.”

Now let me just state the obvious here in terms of the lesson for evangelical Christians. By the time you hold a referendum like this and 71% of the young people, most of whom – the vast majority of whom, accorded the Archbishop – attended Roman Catholic schools then you have already lost. The challenge the Archbishop identified saying “there’s a big challenge there to see how we get across the message of the church,” the big lesson here is the failure of the church to get across that message at least in a convincing way. Now one of the most interesting and important things for evangelicals the ponder at this point is the question as to just what kind of argument these young people in Ireland had even as they were Catholics attending Catholic schools when it came to the institution of marriage as a biblical ideal, and also is it comes to same-sex marriage as a challenge to that ideal – a notion that according to the logic of Scripture is absolutely impossible, that is a same-sex marriage.

The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland faced other major realities as well, including the fact that many of the church’s own priests and nuns broke with the official teaching of the church and with the instruction of their bishops, and publicly supported the legalization of same-sex marriage. Looking at this merely from the political and not from a theological perspective, the Economist of London said,

“The lesson political parties will draw from the referendum campaign is that young people will turn out to vote if an issue captures their interest.”

Well we can also say, looking at the same data, that one of the most important things we can face is that if young people do not have a strong moral and biblical – indeed, a theological – argument against the legalization of same-sex marriage, they’re almost assuredly going to be for it. Which is to state it otherwise, if they are not committed to a biblical notion of marriage because they believe that it is biblical and because they believe the Bible is the word of God, then we cannot expect that they will be able to resist the tidal pressure of the culture around us when it comes to redefining marriage. And we should note, not just on these terms.

Another very important theological dimension of this the story was made clear by Mark Silk, a columnist now for Religion News Service. He wrote,

“The stunning vote of the Irish to legalize same-sex marriage will be taken as one more indication… of the collapse of the Catholic Church in a country where it once bestrode the sod like a colossus.”

That’s poetic, but it’s also quite accurate. Silk went on to point out that even though Ireland is overwhelmingly Roman Catholic by the identification of its citizens, and even as it’s a country where a higher proportion of Catholics go to mass than in United States, even there every Irish political party, he says, supported the referendum. And the citizens of Ireland voted in favor by a 62-38 margin. He then asked the leading question: What gives? It’s his answer to his own question that is really important. He writes,

“What gives, in part, is that Catholicism, understood as a religious culture rather than as a set of official doctrines, is far more amenable to same-sex marriage than is generally thought. Unlike Protestantism, it never valorized the nuclear family as the church in miniature. Catholics have, by contrast, exercised their analogical imaginations in understanding nuns as married to Jesus and bishops to their dioceses. Priests are fathers; abbeys are governed by mother superiors; monks are brothers; nuns are sisters. In Catholicism, there have always been different kinds of holy families that love makes — and so, why not add one more? It’s no accident that Catholics in the U.S. — white, Hispanic, and otherwise — support same-sex marriage at the same rate as the Irish voted.”

There’s a lot of theological insight in Mark Silk’s article. It will be very interesting to see how Catholics respond to Silk’s proposals. But what’s really interesting at the most fundamental level here is not just the continuing distinction on so many issues between evangelicals and Roman Catholics, but rather the fact that here you have Mark Silk talking about Catholicism – let me just use his words,

“understood as a religious culture rather than as a set of official doctrines.”

Now that raises a very important issue. It is possible – indeed most of us know this almost firsthand –  it is possible for many Catholics to live in a Catholic culture that is not bound to Catholic moral teachings or to larger Catholic theological and doctrinal teachings at all. One of the most interesting aspects of Catholicism throughout the centuries is that it can and often does exist as what Mark Silk calls here a religious culture rather than as a set of official doctrines. Now, the culture shaping power of Catholicism is legendary. Just look at Ireland.

But the breakdown of that culture shaping authority is now also going to be legendary; just look at Ireland.

But there are two big issues here for evangelical Christians. The first is this: evangelicalism simply can’t exist not even sociologically as a religious culture rather than as a set of official documents. Evangelicalism is more than doctrines, but it can never be less than doctrines. And fundamentally, that’s not just unique to evangelicalism, but is specific to evangelicalism because of our claims to a continuing theological identity with the Reformation which by its very essence was an argument that Christianity cannot exist as a religious culture without not only a set of official doctrines, but the right set of official doctrines. The second thing to see from this is a point that I’ve made over and over again and one to which will return many times, no doubt. And that is this: what marks evangelical Christianity a part in terms of our understanding of marriage is the authority for coming to that determination. It is in essence a biblical authority. And that is what’s going to set evangelicals apart even from those who are especially more cultural Catholics when it comes to the issue of marriage. It is because culture can evolve. But the Scripture doesn’t change. There are so many lessons coming in from the Irish referendum – of course there is a lesson about the young. And if we do not start with the young people in our own homes and in our own churches, we can’t possibly hope to have any larger influence on the young people outside of our homes and outside of our churches. That affirms once again the importance of teaching our own children, teenagers, and young adults the faith once for all delivered to the saints on a biblical authority. And giving those young people arguments and reasons whereby they can defend their claim to Christian truth.

The other thing we have to understand is that if our definition of marriage and our understanding of what marriage is and must be is drawn from anything other than Scripture, and if we understand Scripture to be anything other than the word of God, then we will not hold to this definition of marriage for long. The secularization of the culture around us explains why the culture in the United States and in so much of northern Europe is following a predictable pattern, losing its grip on the biblical definition of marriage because long before that it lost its confidence in the authority of Scripture as the word of God.

Finally as we leave this particular story and we leave Ireland there’s another irony in all of this. You would think by the headlines that Ireland is joining the vast majority of nations in legalizing same-sex marriage. Actually it becomes the very first to do so by referendum, and even in Europe it joins only about a dozen other countries. If you look at the total number of countries on earth, and you consider how many of them of legalize same-sex marriage it is a very tiny minority. But even if these countries represent a very small minority of all the nations on earth, they are a very influential minority.

And that is a parallel situation to the cultural and intellectual elites in the United States. They are also a small minority of Americans. But they are completely outsized in terms of their influence, dominating in the media, in the news, in entertainment, in politics in academia. That culture shaping class has determined that the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage simply must happen, and must happen fast. And they’re willing to use almost any form of coercion to make that happen.

2) Boy Scouts leaders urges capitulation to call for gay leaders to preserve national presence 

The most recent sign of this kind of capitulation came in a headline that also appeared over the weekend. As the New York Times reported “Scouts Head Calls for End to Ban on Gay Leaders.” Erik Eckholm reporting for the Times tells us the Robert M. Gates, the president of the Boy Scouts of America and former Secretary of Defense called to end the Boy Scouts’ blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning the group’s executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.”

You’ll recall that up until 2013 the Boy Scouts of America did not allow for the involvement of openly homosexual boys or Scouting leaders. That changed in 2013 when the Boy Scouts of America at the national level rejected what the group acknowledged was the majority position expected by parents in the organization, and opened Boy Scouts to the involvement of gay Scouts. But they said they would not open Scouting to the involvement of gay leaders.

Now I pointed out at the time that that was not a sustainable, that was not a justifiable position. It was a halfway position that was on the way to exactly what Robert Gates called for last week. And Robert Gates had already indicated this because when he became head of the Boy Scouts of America, the former head of the CIA and the former Defense Secretary had said that he thought this compromise position was not sustainable, and that eventually the Boy Scouts would have to be open to the involvement of gay Scouting leaders. This is a really, really important story. And I say that as a former Boy Scout and one who is highly valued the Scouting program.

Over the course of the last couple of years we’ve had to return again and again to the Boy Scouts because they have put themselves in the headlines over this issue. Up until 2013 the Boy Scouts held to a principled membership criterion. They said that they had a moral objection to homosexuality involving Scouts or Scouting leaders. They also said in 2012 through their own spokespeople that the vast majority of the parents of Scouts expected them to maintain that policy. And yet just six months after announcing in 2012 that they would not review the policy, they reversed course and not only reviewed the policy but changed it. They changed it to that compromise position saying that they would allow for the active involvement of openly gay Scouts but not of openly gay Scouting leaders.

Even in the months immediately following that compromise the fractures were already apparent. Some Scouting organizations in California openly defied the ban on gay . And similarly just a matter of weeks ago Boy Scouts in New York announced that they had hired an openly gay young man to work as a counselor at a Scouting camp.

We need to pay particular he just how Robert Gates brain to this argument as he reported to the annual meeting of the Boy Scouts, this time meeting in Atlanta. He said (according to Eckholm) that,

“cascading events — including potential employment discrimination lawsuits and the impending Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage, as well as mounting internal dissent over the exclusionary policy — had led him to conclude that the current rules “cannot be sustained.”

If the Boy Scouts don’t change on their own, he said the courts are likely to force them to do so, and “we must understand that this will probably happen sooner rather than later.”

Reading from the text of his statement that was released by the Boy Scouts of America, Gates said,

Nor can we ignore the social, political and juridicial changes taking place in our country – changes taking place at a pace over this past year no one anticipated.”

Well that can only be partly true because Robert Gates himself indicated that these changes were coming. He said, “We can expect more councils to openly challenge the current policy.” He’s speaking of the councils within the Boy Scouts of America, in other words of that internal dissent or mutiny in the ranks that the group is experienced over the last year. He said,

“We have the authority to revoke their charters, such an action would deny the lifelong benefits of Scouting to hundreds of thousands of boys and young men today and vastly more in the future. I will not take that path.”

Now what we need to note is that the former Secretary of Defense has set up a situation now as head of the Boy Scouts in which he will apparently capitulate to virtually anything in order to preserve the Boy Scouts of America as a national organization. He actually made that point over and over again. Later in his address he stated as his goal to preserve the Boy Scouts of America “now and forever.” He then stated, “I truly fear the any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement.”

Well, evidently that is his now singular and solitary goal: to preserve the Boy Scouts of America as a national movement. And is a former Boy Scout I can simply point out the what’s going to change is what the Boy Scouts are and always have been, regardless of what continues under that name as a national movement.

In a very strange and seemingly inconsistent portion of his address Robert Gates said that religious organizations that sponsor about 70% of all local Scouting units should be able to continue to establish their own leadership criteria based upon what he referred to as their First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom. And yet what we’re looking at virtually every day is an undermining of that religious freedom. And what we’re also looking at is the abdication by the Boy Scouts of America of a principled membership criterion in which they will simply leave these religious organizations to fend for themselves. And even as Robert Gates indicated that the moves made by the Boy Scouts of America put them into different legal terrain in terms of challenges to their criteria especially when it comes to antidiscrimination law with employment, it’s really interesting that now Robert Gates wants to tell these religious organizations that they can continue to establish membership criteria that I don’t believe he really believes will be continued for any real duration.

Caught in the crossfire now will be any religious organization that intends to sponsor a Boy Scout unit and to define marriage and it sexual understanding for leaders – not just for Scouts – in any terms other than that the demanded by the prevailing culture. Robert Gates and so many others, including the editors of the New York Times, pointed out that the policy adopted in 2012 was an unsustainable compromise. And we simply have to point out now that the policy proposed by Robert Gates is also unsustainable and inherently contradictory. Anyone looking at the situation from the side of gay activists will understand that the Boy Scouts of America will accomplish very little if it states that it’s going to change its national policy while allowing 70% of the local Scout units to continue to discriminate along these lines. Gay rights activists are already indicating they will not be satisfied with that policy.

The looming issue for America – not just for the Boy Scouts of America – is whether or not any organization like the Boy Scouts can even continue to exist. Not just as a national movement, but even as an idea. In this age of rampant gender confusion even to call an organization the Boy Scouts of America invites all kinds of challenges even to the wording of the organization’s name. And it was for that reason that the Girl Scouts of America found themselves also in recent days in much controversy over similar issues. But I have to close of the final word of warning to Secretary Gates. He stated to his organization, “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.” Those a very interesting words. But if he is successful in allowing the participation of openly gay Scouting leaders in the Boy Scouts of America, it will be true that the Boy Scouts organization that he has left will be an organization that is as it is, not as he might want it to be.

What does it gain for an organization to preserve its stature as a national organization if it no longer has moral credibility in the views of Scouts, and the parents of those very Scouts.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-26-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Irish landslide for gay marriage shows breakdown of cultural shaping power of Catholicism

Ireland approves gay marriage, talks about a revolution, Associated Press (Shawn Pogatchnik)

Landslide, The Economist

Same-sex marriage: Catholic church needs reality check, says Dublin archbishop, The Guardian

Irish Catholicism supports same-sex marriage!, Religion News Service (Mark Silk)

2) Boy Scouts leaders urges capitulation to call for gay leaders to preserve national presence 

Boy Scouts’ President Calls for End to Ban on Gay Leaders, New York Times (Erik Eckholm)

National Annual Business Meeting Remarks, Boy Scouts of America (Robert Gates)

The Boy Scouts Fall Short, New York Times (Editorial Board)

Limping Between Two Opinions: The Moral Evacuation of the Boy Scouts of America, AlbertMohler.com (R. Albert Mohler)

Transcript: The Briefing 05-22-15

The Briefing

 

May 22, 2015

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

 

It’s Friday, May 22, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Pot edible fad presents nationwide challenge police, parents, and even children

Here’s a headline that appeared earlier this week in the New York Times, New Police Challenge: Finding Pot in Lollipops and Marshmallows. This is something to which every parent needs to pay close attention. Catherine Saint Louis reporting for the Times tells us that even in places like Alabama and Tennessee police are confiscating marijuana in the form of edibles – in particular in the form of candy. As Catherine Saint Louis writes,

“After nearly 20 years on the job, Jim Jeffries, the police chief in LaFollette, Tenn., has seen his share of marijuana seizures — dry green buds stashed in trunks or beneath seats, often double-bagged to smother the distinctive scent.

“But these days, Chief Jeffries is on the lookout for something unexpected: lollipops and marshmallows.

“Recently his officers pulled over a Chevy Blazer driven by a couple with three children in tow. Inside, the officers discovered 24 pounds of marijuana-laced cookies and small hard candies shaped like gingerbread men, plus a tub of pungent marijuana butter perfect for making more.”

She goes on to say,

“The bags of Kraft marshmallows looked innocent enough. But a meat injector was also found in the car. After searching the Internet, Chief Jeffries realized that the marshmallows probably had been infused with the marijuana butter and heat-sealed into their bags.”

“‘This is the first time that we have ever seen marijuana butter or any of this candy containing marijuana in the county; we hope it’s the last time.’”

Well Chief Jefferies, I fear not. And is not just Tennessee, we’re looking at a major moral change on the entire American landscape when it comes to the issue of marijuana. And, as has been predicted, it’s not just the expansion state-by-state, it is also the radical expansion of the problem of how marijuana is going to be delivered – and in this case we’re talking about marijuana coming in the form of marshmallows and lollipops. As Saint Louis writes and I quote,

“Pot edibles, as they are called, can be much easier to smuggle than marijuana buds: They may resemble candy or home-baked goodies, and often have no telltale smell. And few police officers are trained to think of gummy bears, mints or neon-colored drinks as potential dope.

Some experts worry that smuggled pot edibles will appeal to many consumers, particularly adolescents, who are ill prepared for the deceptively slow high. Impatient novices can easily eat too much too fast, suffering anxiety attacks and symptoms resembling psychosis. Already, young children have eaten laced sweets left within reach.”

Now I’ve had conversation with parents, for instance in Colorado, who have seen their children and teenagers come across marijuana laced edibles even in the homes of neighbors – potentially even extended family – and this is a very dangerous development. But of course from the biblical worldview it points to how sin can never be localized and limited as proponents of marijuana legalization try to argue that it can be; it simply can’t be. And now you have the New York Times writing about something that took place in Lafollette, Tennessee, where you have police officers who are now all the sudden discovering that gummy bears might not just be gummy bears.

Later in the article Saint Louis also points to the fact that those who are trying to push the marijuana business are having to find new ways of expanding product lines and the edibles are the main way to do that. And of course you have the edibles that are now so easily transportable and in many cases, as this article makes clear, are actually laced with extremely potent forms of marijuana. Jonathan Caulkins, co-author of “Marijuana Legalization,” has been studying this for years and said,

“In a world where THC [that’s the active ingredient people are looking for in marijuana] becomes inexpensive, you would like to differentiate your product from other people’s products in ways that allow you to maintain a higher profit margin,”

Well the obvious is also true, they offer opportunities for all kinds of bad things to happen. It’s really interesting that you have law enforcement saying, ‘we’re not ready for this, we’re not ready to have to differentiate between a gummy bear that is just a gummy bear and a gummy bear that is dope,’ and if that problem is hard enough for law enforcement, how hard will it be for a 13-year-old? This is one of the problems that is unleashed by the legalization of marijuana, and as we have noted, this change in the moral landscape doesn’t come isolated from all others – this is part of the great transformation of American morality right before our eyes.

2) Use of energy drinks, ADHD drugs for productivity reveal redefinition of ‘normal’ energy

Next, in some ways an even more interesting story; this one made the front page of the Times. It is by Hillary Stout and it’s entitled, Selling The Young On ‘Gaming Fuel,’ and what this reporters writing about is the fact that the makers and marketers of energy drinks have found a new buying population: teenagers – especially teenage boys – who are involved in heavy video gaming. Stout writes,

“Two popular video gamers in black T-shirts posed as snipers wielding real semi-automatic guns at an outdoor range, blasting orbs of fruit and cups of deep orange liquid in ultra slow motion. ‘Introducing Blood Orange,’ announced a video of the spectacle.

“In the days afterward, online followers from hardcore gamers to middle-schoolers on Xboxes ordered tubs of the stuff, the latest flavor of a powdered energy drink called G Fuel that is marketed as a secret sauce to enhance focus and endurance for virtual battles.”

One cherub-faced YouTuber, named Michael according to the Times said,

“Oh, this is gonna taste so good!”

Even as his unmade bunk bed was visible in the background. Stout goes on to report,

“G Fuel and a competitor called GungHo are a new incarnation of energy drink, growing in popularity while the energy drink industry as a whole has been under scrutiny because of deaths and hospitalizations linked to consumption of caffeine- and sugar-laden beverages. Traditional energy drink makers have also been playing to the growing gamer culture in some labels — Mountain Dew Game Fuel (with extra doses of caffeine) and Nintendo Power Up Energy Drink.”

As Stout explains,

“The industry is tapping into the rock-star allure and young online fan base of ‘professional e-athletes,’ analysts say, with sponsorships of gaming competitions and players. Gamma Labs, the company selling G Fuel, heavily promotes a Call of Duty clan including those would-be snipers in the video ad.”

Stout then says,

“While major energy drink makers – including Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster – voluntarily agreed to stop marketing to children under 12 because of the adverse health effects publicly associated with them, a congressional report released this year excoriated those companies and others for continuing to target teenagers, whose brains and bodies are not yet fully developed.”

The marketers of these drinks are directing them to adolescents, calling them “brain energy” and “natural Adderall.” Again, this should be of concern to parents but one of the questions I think any Christian reading this article would have is, where are the parents in so many of the lives of these children and teenagers? Because after all the article reports,

“Last year a 14-year-old in Norway collapsed and fell into a coma after reportedly drinking four liters of energy drinks during a 16-hour Call of Duty party…”

On the other hand, the article indicates that there are some parents out there who are at least somewhat engaged and concerned about their children. It turns out that one 14-year-old discovered after he had spent AU$100 buying one of these powdered energy drinks that he had it confiscated by his father. One 13-year-old boy writing to the company itself on Twitter said,

“I’m a big fan, just wondering if you could send me some gfuel cus my parents won’t let me get some. I watch all you vids. Reply??”

The New York Times says there was no reply. It’s really interesting that the sole focus of this article is on the physiological effects of these kinds of energy drinks. There’s virtually no attention whatsoever to the larger effects of the gaming culture itself, even as the article registers concern that this gamer culture is reaching deeper and deeper into adolescence at younger and younger ages.

One boy using these products said,

“It makes me more focused while playing Call of Duty and I definitely see improvement, and it gives me very natural energy,”

He didn’t catch the irony of calling it a ‘natural energy’ after he just attributed it to a drink. Ethan York, a high school junior in Lancaster, California, said that drinking some of these products helped him improve his home run average significantly on an MLB baseball videogame he plays. He also lamented that these drinks are too expensive for him to consume regularly. But he did say this and I quote,

“It really feels like you have genuine energy, like you’ve just had a 30-minute-to-an-hour nap,”

But of course he didn’t have a 30 minute to an hour nap; instead he got this out of a bottle. And it’s very telling that it is becoming more and more routine for teenagers to think that the energy they need comes from a bottle. And there also redefining what normal is. That’s what’s really interesting here, because we’re looking at a redefinition of what normal energy and normal focus would look like. And the occasion of this is the intensity of a videogame and the experience of playing.

But next before we consider this just an issue of teenagers, the New York Times has also reported that it is adults not at younger ages but at older ages who are now showing up more routinely misusing pills, especially ADHD drugs, not in order to videogame but rather just in terms of their professional lives. Alan Schwarz writing for the Times quotes Kimberly Dennis, the medical director of Timberline Knolls, a substance-abuse treatment facility outside Chicago, who said,

“You’d see addiction in students, but it was pretty rare to see it in an adult, [speaking of the misuse of these ADHD drugs]”

She then went on to say,

“We are definitely seeing more than one year ago, more than two years ago, especially in the age range of 25 to 45,”

Again, when we were talking about teenagers we talked about the redefinition of normal energy, a redefinition of normal focus. You also see this when it comes to adults. One of the women quoted in the story, in this case in her late 20s said,

“It is necessary — necessary for survival of the best and the smartest and highest-achieving people,”

So now you have a proposed redefinition of normal in the workplace. Professional normal is now going to be defined by normal on drugs. As Schwarz said,

“…many young workers insist that using the drugs to increase productivity is on the rise — and that these are drugs used not to get high, but hired.”

The biggest increase in the use of these ADHD medications is now among adults aged 26 to 34 – where it almost doubled just in terms of the last four year period. In a sense of how this is transforming some workplaces, one employee said,

“It’s like this at most of the companies I know with driven young people — there’s a certain expectation of performance and if you don’t meet it, and I’m not really worried how, someone else will.”

It should be of concern to all of us that here we have a redefinition of the normal human experience, whether for a teenager or for an adult, in something that is chemically altered. Whether recognized or not this raises some of the deepest worldview issues of our consideration, what does it mean to be human? And how do we maximize what God has given us as our human potential? Do we maximize it by the use of some kind of natural means or do we turn to an external means? Whether it’s the form of an energy drink, or in this case the misuse of ADHD medications? In any event we’re watching a redefinition of the baseline of normal human performance; driven on the one hand by video games and on the other hand by professional pressures.

3) Addiction to porn and video games present crisis of masculinity, says pschologist

But next when it comes to boys and young men in America, one leading psychologists – one of the most are influential psychologists of recent American history – is warning of the end of masculinity and of the fact the boys and young men now face a crisis of pornography and videogame use. This isn’t coming from a Christian authority; it is coming from a professor emeritus at Stanford University. Psychologist Philip Zimbardo was saying that boys risk becoming addicted to porn, video games, and Ritalin. Stuart Jeffries, who is reporting on his new book first published in Great Britain, says,

“In the UK today, a young person is more likely to have a television in their bedroom than a father in their house by the end of their childhood. And even if fathers are around, their sons don’t engage with them much: boys spend 44 hours in front of a TV, smartphone or computer screen for every half hour in conversation with their fathers.”

Zimbardo’s book is not available in print yet in the United States, but it is making waves all over Great Britain where it has been published and the research applies to both sides of the Atlantic in terms of a crisis of masculinity when it comes to boys, teenagers, and young men. We’re looking at a very ominous set of developments and it should tell us something that hear you’re looking at one of most eminent psychologist and a secular university who is saying we have a huge problem. And he documents that problem very well.

His new book is entitled, “Man (Dis)connected: How Technology Has Sabotaged What It Means To Be Male.” He ask the basic question by the way, why do boys need fathers? And he answers that in a way that comes from a secular worldview but is embedded with a great deal of wisdom. He says that fathers offer children a different kind of love than mothers, and in his view, without the father’s influence especially on boys there is a very important missing element of expectation. He makes very clear that fathers have a set of expectations for boys that mothers in the main do not have. And that if you take that set of expectations out of the daily experience of boys in the household, then you face a crisis of masculinity and by any measure we’re already looking at the effects of this on both sides of the Atlantic.

Zimbardo and his co-author Nikita Coulombe argue that what’s happening in terms of the experience of boys simply isn’t happening with girls.

“They argue that, while girls are increasingly succeeding in the real world, boys are retreating into cyberspace, seeking online the security and validation they can’t get anywhere else.”

This is a truly devastating article.

“They are bored at school, increasingly have no father figures to motivate them, don’t have the skills to form real romantic relationships, feel entitled to have things done for them (usually by their parents) and seek to avoid a looming adulthood of debt, unfulfilling work and other irksome responsibilities. As a result, they disappear into their bedrooms where, he argues, they risk becoming addicted to porn, video games and Ritalin.”

In a very interesting turn Zimbardo ask why it’s boys who are retreating into this digital world rather more than girls. And according to the research, boys are more likely to retreat into cyberspace because as Zimbardo says,

“Boys have never been self-reflective. Boys are focused on doing and acting, girls are more focused on being and feeling. The new video-game world encourages doing and acting and not really thinking. Video games are not so attractive to girls.”

He also argues that the ready availability of so much pornography is simply distorting the lives of young men and boys because they are now bombarded with sexual stimulus without any narrative at all. There is no connection to a human being, there’s no requirement of romance, and there is no relationship. He argues about this toxic introduction, in his words, to human sexuality on the part of so many boys and he says,

“When you see 100,000 instances of it, it becomes the social norm.”

Zimbardo also warns that the entire world of pornography is going to be significantly changed with technological developments that are going to make it even more insidious in terms of its effect upon all its users, but in particular upon the young.

Reuters reporting on Zimbardo’s work says,

“For those who think online video games and porn are passive online activities that have no real consequences in the real world, take heed.”

Zimbardo argues that excessive solitary playing of video games and watching pornography is seriously damaging the social development of young men – that’s from the Reuters report. But Christians looking at this have to recognize it’s not possible that this is damaging only the social development of boys and young men – it is savagely affecting their moral development as well. So put all this together and consider the delay of marriage that is also marking the American scene and look at the fact that so many boys simply are not moving into adulthood and you can see a pattern.

Evidently this professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford University has seen a pattern. Back in 2011 he gave a widely distributed TED talk on the subject, and now he has expanded it into a book. As I said, it has been published in Britain, not yet in the United States. But it should indeed tell us something that here you have a secular psychologist, one of the most recognized in modern America, saying that the problem is that these things are now rewiring the brains of boys and young men.

The best research on this from a Christian worldview perspective has been brought about by William Struthers, a professor at Wheaton College near Chicago, in his book “Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain.” I wrote about this back in 2010 at AlbertMohler.com and will put up the link to that article with today’s edition of The Briefing.

4) American culture now discouraging taking on adult responsibilities

Finally, just to note that some of these patterns are getting larger secular attention, writing in the Washington Post columnist George Will writes about, once again, the delay of males going into adulthood. He blames it on the larger culture but he also blames it on fact that this culture is increasingly honoring all the things that do not encourage young men to grow up and is discouraging the very things that would lead to adult responsibilities. He points out that many of the modern philosophies of child rearing do everything to try to protect children from actually growing up. He cites Mark Hemingway writing at The Federalist, who asked the question,

“You know what it’s called when kids make mistakes without adult supervision and have to wrestle with the resulting consequences? Growing up.”

He cites also David Pimentel of Ohio Northern University writing in the Utah Law Review who points out that even as right now children have never been safer, there are more regulators and bureaucrats and others who are trying to come around to say children have to be protected from growing up. In a section that should concern every parent George Will goes back to 1925 pointing out that the Supreme Court then affirmed the right of parents “to direct the upbringing and education of their children,” then he writes,

“Today, however, vague statutes that criminalize child ‘neglect’ or ‘endangerment’ undermine the social legitimacy of parental autonomy.”

He’s writing about one of the things that have now caught a lot of secular attention and that is so-called free range parenting, where parents are now finding themselves in trouble simply for letting kids play even in the front lawn or simply even just to walk to school. Will write that these new social expectations,

“ignore the reality that almost every decision a parent makes involves risks. Let your child ride a bike to school, or strap her into a car for the trip? Which child is more at risk, the sedentary one playing video games and risking obesity, or the one riding a bike?”

Finally, he quotes Penn State historian Gary Cross who says that adolescence is being redefined to extend well into the 20s and what he calls the clustering rights of passage into adulthood (marriage, childbearing, permanent employment), “has largely disappeared.” Cross writes that in 2011 almost a fifth of men between 25 and 34 still lived with their parents where many play video games – well there is that issue recurring again. So while we’re looking at the problem of teenagers and their video games and their energy drinks, George Will comes back to report that the average videogame player is a male, 30 years old. He warns that American males are now in the position of slouching in his words from adolescence to Social Security, skipping adulthood altogether.

Christian parents have to understand that it is one of our central responsibilities to help our children into and not away from the responsibilities of adulthood. Even as we are concerned about the effects of all these things on everyone’s children, our first responsibility is for our own.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

I hope you and your family have a wonderful Memorial Day and I’ll meet you again on Tuesday for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-22-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Pot edible fad presents nationwide challenge police, parents, and even children

New Challenge for Police: Finding Pot in Lollipops and Marshmallows, New York Times (Catherine Saint Louis)

2) Use of energy drinks, ADHD drugs for productivity reveal redefinition of ‘normal’ energy

Selling the Young on ‘Gaming Fuel’, New York Times (Hilary Stout)

Workers Seeking Productivity in a Pill Are Abusing A.D.H.D. Drugs, New York Times (Alan Schwarz)

3) Addiction to porn and video games present crisis of masculinity, says psychologist

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo: ‘Boys risk becoming addicted to porn, video games and Ritalin’, The Guardian (Stuart Jeffries)

Porn and video game addicts risk ‘masculinity crisis,’ says Stanford professor, Reuters (Robert Galbraith)

Hijacking the Brain — How Pornography Works, AlbertMohler.com (R. Albert Mohler)

4) American culture now discouraging taking on adult responsibilities

Punishing parents who deviate from the government-enforced norm, Washington Post (George Will)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 05-21-15

The Briefing

 

May 21, 2015

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

 

It’s Thursday, May 21, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Appeals Court second denial of Notre Dame case exposes perilous state of religious liberty 

Over the course of the last three or four years one of the issues that has been regularly in the headlines is the contraception mandate that is included in the Affordable Care Act, better known as ObamaCare. And as you’ll recall this has become a major issue of controversy because the Obama administration has ruled, in terms of how the law is to be applied, that contraception has to be available in virtually every form to virtually every woman without regard for the religious convictions of the employer. And that went all the way to the Supreme Court, in particular it went to a famous case that is now known as the Hobby Lobby decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that closely held private corporations could not be required to compromise their religious convictions in offering this kind of insurance coverage that would include contraceptives that could include abortive fashions or contraception with an abortive fashion effect – it could bring about an abortion.

There is a scientific debate, there’s a public debate, over the potential abortifacient effects of some these contraceptive medications, but it is incontrovertible that the manufacturers of those contraceptives do include an abortifacient effect among the potential side effects of the use of the drugs. But even as the Hobby Lobby case for which we should be thankful was won at the Supreme Court, albeit by a narrow margin, the reality is that these issues are still very much in play.

On Tuesday the United States federal appeals court turned back a request by the University of Notre Dame that it be exempted from the contraception mandate when it comes the Obama Administration’s policy. This was the second time the seventh US circuit Court of Appeals had considered the case of Notre Dame and what’s really significant is that this appellate court heard the case again because it was instructed to do so by the United States Supreme Court.

Now let’s just look at the lay of the land here for a moment. The Supreme Court ruled in the Hobby Lobby decision that closely held private corporations could not be required to compromise the religious convictions on the issue of contraception. One would think, given the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty, that there would be even less question about a Catholic institution being required to compromise its Catholic beliefs on the issue of contraception. But the seventh US circuit Court of Appeals for the second time on Tuesday turned back the University of Notre Dame even as the Supreme Court had ordered that court to reconsider its previous decision. As I said, this sets up an almost assured appealed to the United States Supreme Court, but it also underlines again just how perilous our current situation with regard to religious liberty.

And one of the things to keep in mind here is that we’re not talking about some kind of lesser-known or peripheral Catholic institution, we’re talking about one of the central symbols of Roman Catholicism in the United States of America – the University of Notre Dame. You would think that if any Catholic institution would be in a strong position to press its religious liberty rights, it would be the University of Notre Dame. And yet for the second time it was turned back by United States Court of Appeals.

The majority opinion of the panel in this case was written by federal Judge Richard Posner. He’s been cited many times on The Briefing because again and again it seems that he finds himself at the center of these kinds of national controversies. In the opinion he wrote,

“Although Notre Dame is the final arbiter of its religious beliefs, it is for the courts to determine whether the law actually forces Notre Dame to act in a way that would violate those beliefs,”

That’s a very, very important sentence because here you have a United States federal judge at the appellate level saying that Notre Dame has the competence and the right to determine its own theological convictions but not the right to decide when those convictions are under assault or being compromised. That’s a very crucial argument; that’s an incredibly dangerous argument. But that argument explains why we find ourselves in this moment of peril.

At the center of the claim being made by the University of Notre Dame is that the so-called compromise offered by the Obama Administration isn’t much of a compromise at all because even as that compromise says that the religious institution cannot be required directly to fund this contraception coverage, it must send a letter that would then trigger the funding by its own insurer. In other words, it’s what amounts to a financial shell game and the University of Notre Dame says that violates our convictions – and we can understand why. In this situation you have many Roman Catholic institutions that are joined by evangelical institutions in pressing the same religious liberty cause and the same arguments.

Among the many massive shifts we are seeing reshape the American landscape, this remains one of the most concerning and one of the most urgent. Just in terms of the lifetime of most of us living, the issue of religious liberty the United States has gone from a public celebration of a liberty that has been enshrined in terms of the American tradition to an issue that finds itself in the headlines of newspapers in the media virtually every single day. And of course the great moral transformation that is reshaping the landscape explains why, because you can’t have this kind of moral revolution without reshaping the law and the judiciary. And you can’t have that without direct challenges to the liberties that were enshrined in the old moral order.

One of things that many Americans do not recognize is that religious liberty never can stand alone as an isolated liberty. And the liberties we cherish can never standalone without a moral structure that explains why those liberties exist and how they are to be guaranteed. The entire American constitutional order has emerged from a moral and cultural worldview that no longer exists for at least millions of Americans, and evidently for some American judges as well. That points to storm clouds on the American horizon; the very liberties that were enshrined at the beginning of the American experiment, those liberties are now very much at stake and very much at question as we look at the American future.

2) Retraction of gay marriage opinion study reveals need for firm foundation for truth

Next, one of the facets of our culture that Christians need to think about seriously is how we put trust in statistics and studies. And those also find their way into virtually every addition of the news and every day conversation – one way or the other. One basic reason for that is that Americans have a very native trust in numbers. When we don’t understand many abstract concepts at least the numbers we think are understandable, but that’s only true if the numbers are accurate. Many times, especially when it comes to so-called social science, we have all kinds of reports and surveys and other instruments that are thrown out without any adequate attention to whether or not the claims are credible. But even when it comes to research that is mathematically impeccable, there are still very credible questions about how the question is posed to the public, how a survey is put together. It’s not at all certain in some cases that the inferences or implications that are trumpeted in the media are actually in the numbers at all, and sometimes there’s an even deeper problem, and that emerged yesterday in the national press. But in order to get to this story I need to go back not just to yesterday but to last December.

Last December there were headlines all over the country and a great deal public conversation about a report that indicated that Americans would change their minds on the issue of something like the morality of homosexuality or the morality of same-sex marriage after even a brief conversation with the canvasser – that is someone going door-to-door. Now I did not speak about that report, I didn’t talk about it in public conversation, I didn’t report about it on The Briefing; I didn’t discuss this study because it just didn’t seem to make sense and now we know at least one of the reasons it didn’t make sense is because at least one of the researchers, whose name is on the report, says it evidently was made up – or at least he suspects that the research was invented.

As Fred Barbash reports for the Washington Post,

“A highly publicized and influential scholarly study about people’s views on same sex marriage has been disavowed by one of its co-authors, citing ‘irregularities’ in the data provided by his partner in the research. He is seeking a retraction of the study, published in the journal Science.”

Now let me just interject this: when you’re looking at scientific and academic credibility it’s hard to imagine a brand name better than the journal Science. It is in many ways one of the most respected journals in the American academic establishment. But now you have the co-author, indeed – let me state that again – the co-author of a study published in Science who is asking not merely that it be corrected, but entirely retracted because of his loss of confidence in the study itself.

As Barbash reports,

“The study purported to show the ease with which peoples’ minds can be changed on the subject of same-sex marriage after short conversations, particularly with gay advocates. It was described as being based on survey research conducted in California after voters passed Proposition 8, the referendum that banned same-sex marriage in the state and that has since been struck down by the courts .”

The co-author, who is Donald P. Green of Columbia University, acted on his own according to the Washington Post to request a retraction from Science in a memo dated May 19. And that was first reported on a website entitled Retraction Watch which the Post says closely follows scholarly publications for errors, retractions, and fraud. Professor Green who asked that the study be retracted said that he had had conversation with two University of California Berkeley graduate students who had attempt to their own research and,

“…brought to my attention a series of irregularities that called into question the integrity of the data we present.”

As Barbash also reports,

“The study attracted widespread attention in part because it seemed to fly in the face of conventional wisdom and scholarship about how people cling to their own points of view, sometimes regardless of what they read or hear to the contrary.”

That’s a very important issue because here you have the Washington Post saying this is why the story was newsworthy, it’s because it basically contradicted the previous research and conventional wisdom about how people hold or do not hold to moral positions, and that’s why this gained all those headlines. But it wouldn’t have gained the headlines if it hadn’t been published in the journal Science – and now you have the co-author of the study saying it should have never been published in the first place.

In his letter to the editors of Science Professor Green said,

“I am deeply embarrassed by this turn of events and apologize to the editors, reviewer, and readers of Science,”

So, what are we make of this? Well, in the first place it’s just an affirmation of the care with which we should approach any kind of claim coming from a survey or a research report or a poll. When we’re looking at this we have to understand that sometimes it all comes down to the credibility the numbers. But even more so comes down to the credibility of the researchers.

Secondly, Christians need to understand that we do not arrive at our moral positions by survey or poll instrument. Rather we understand they can be X-rays – moral X-rays of the sort – of a population. But we cannot believe in any sense that our moral positions, our moral convictions are to be drawn from public opinion. Rather we understand our sole authority for understanding what is right and wrong, what is true and false, how we are to understand these issues, is the authority of the word of God.

Finally we need to understand that in a fallen world things like this are going to happen. It turns out that in a fallen world (and here’s where there’s no surprise) even the academic discipline of science is not only driven by worldview, it is also distorted by sin.

We also have to put one other issue out before us, and that is there have to be some reason why the claim was made about this science. I think that one is pretty easy for us to understand. It will serve someone’s moral worldview and someone’s political cause to believe that the worldview of Americans on an issue so fundamental as sexuality can be changed by a mere conversation. Christians must understand as we look to this issue or any other that on an issue of this importance there is always the deeper level of worldview. Always. For all people. And that includes the scientists and the people they supposedly interview.

3) Influence of childhood hometown on likelihood of marriage evidences import of social norms 

Next, the New York Times is reporting on another piece of research, and what makes this one interesting is that it basically of firms and expands upon previous research – that’s something of scientific importance. David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy report that the hometown in which a child grows up affects the chances of marriage later in life. The authors say,

“The place where you grow up doesn’t affect only your future income… It also affects your odds of marrying, a large new data set shows.”

They write,

“The most striking geographical pattern on marriage, as with so many other issues today, is the partisan divide. Spending childhood nearly anywhere in blue America — especially liberal bastions like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and Washington — makes people about 10 percentage points less likely to marry relative to the rest of the country. And no place encourages marriage quite like the conservative Mountain West, especially the heavily Mormon areas of Utah, southern Idaho and parts of Colorado.”

Here you have a team of Harvard economists studying so-called upward mobility, housing, and tax policy. They’re not simply observations about correlation – that’s another very important issue in looking at scientific study. This study goes on to argue for causation, and that’s what makes it really interesting. Correlation, we need always to keep this in mind, merely indicates that there is a certain pattern to the data. There is no attempt to argue why the pattern is distributed as it is. Causation is the attempt to argue why the pattern exists and how the pattern came to be. And that’s what makes this study even more interesting than if it had merely pointed to correlation. What would the correlation prove? Well the correlation would say if you’re in a red state, you’re far more likely to get married than if you’re in a blue state. Causation argues there must be a reason behind that, and these scientist actually think they know the reason.

Christians looking at this study – even at this point – would say this must have something to do if not everything to do with worldview. And of course, that’s right. The causation being argued in this study is that children who grow up around married people, seeing marriage as an expectation, are far more likely themselves to be married. And not just by the cutoff age of this study, age 26, because they went back later and even age 30 the same pattern tended to prevail.

It turns out to the place that has the greatest suppression of marriage is Washington, D.C.,  but as they say,

“But the New York area stands out even more. If we boiled down the list to only the country’s 50 largest counties, the top five in discouraging marriage would all be in the New York area.”

David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy then goes on to ask the question,

“How can the researchers think they’re capturing a causal effect here — in which a child who moves to New York actually becomes less likely to marry? Because they have studied more than five million people who moved as children during the 1980s and 1990s. Those who moved to New York, among other places, were indeed less likely to marry than otherwise similar people who grew up elsewhere. And the younger that children were when they moved to New York, the less likely they were to marry.”

It turns out that if you’re trying to project where people are more likely to be married state-by-state just look at that state’s presidential vote. As this study indicates, it turns out there’s a great deal of predictability just in terms of the relationship between presidential vote and eventual marriage pattern. A couple of other insights in the study one of them is that those who grow up in small and medium-sized towns are more likely to get married and those who live in huge metropolitan areas. That’s because metropolitan areas turn out to be magnets of the unmarried, especially the young unmarried. And as the study indicates in a city like New York, the young unmarried are more likely there to stay unmarried than in other parts of the country. Looking at the data by the way, there is a negative likelihood of getting married of approximately 10 points or 12 points in a place like Manhattan. In most Manhattan it’s 12. There is a positive indication of more likely to get married in places like Provo Utah. Now, you look at that, it’s 20 points so if you look at the American demography in the great moral landscape that means you have a differential of 32 percentage points in terms of the likelihood of getting married. And that is absolutely massive.

To put the matter bluntly we should be surprised that children grow up to expect marriage when they are surrounded by people who expect marriage. And conversely we shouldn’t expect people to see marriage as the expectation if it’s not the expectation of the people around whom they grow up.

Of course, Christians understand that there’s a deeper issue here and that’s the worldview at stake with marriage. Marriage isn’t abstracted from the rest of life it is one of the most crucial issues in terms of worldview. Inevitably it’s so, no matter how you define marriage.

4) Death of Happy Rockefeller reminder of how far society has shifted

Finally in terms of the great change in the American moral landscape, sometimes it shows up unexpectedly as it does yesterday in the New York Times in an obituary for Happy Rockefeller who died at age 88. That is the widow of the former Gov. of New York and the former vice president of the United States, Nelson Rockefeller.

How does her obituary demonstrate the great moral change in America? Well, as Robert McFadden reported,

“Happy Rockefeller, the socialite whose 1963 marriage to Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York, soon after both had been divorced, raised a political storm in a more genteel time and may have cost him the Republican presidential nomination in 1964, died on Tuesday at her home in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was 88.”

And again, this demonstration of moral change is found in an obituary. It’s measurable in one woman’s life. As McFadden writes,

“In an era when marital infidelity and divorce were toxic for presidential candidates, many Americans were shocked when Margaretta Fitler Murphy, called Happy, and Mr. Rockefeller, who was nearly 18 years older than she, married on May 4, 1963. He was in the second of his four terms as governor and a leading contender for the presidency at the time”

having run strongly in 1960.

McFadden then says,

“As the couple left for a honeymoon in Venezuela, exposés retailed gossip of their extramarital affair and detailed their out-of-state divorces — Mr. Rockefeller’s in 1962 from Mary Todhunter Clark Rockefeller, his wife of 31 years and the mother of his five children; Mrs. Murphy’s “

from a man to whom she had been married, and to whom she surrendered custody of their four children five weeks before marrying New York’s governor.

This became one of the most sensational moral issues of the early 1960s, and as the New York Times indicated, it almost surely cost Nelson Rockefeller the Republican nomination for the office of President of the United States. Nelson Rockefeller was a Republican; he was a liberal Republican back in the early 1960s and he eventually did become Vice President of the United States when he was nominated to that office by then-President Gerald Ford and confirmed by the United States Senate (the first time that has ever happened in American history). But going back to the early 1960s Republican leaders were scandalized, as was the nation, by the fact that the governor and his second wife had both abandoned their children in order to marry one another after sensational divorces.

Indicative of the mainstream culture response of the time was Sen. Prescott S. Bush of Connecticut, who said,

“Have we come to the point where a governor can desert his wife and children, and persuade a young woman to abandon her four children and husband? Have we come to the point where one of the two great parties will confer its greatest honor on such a one? I venture to hope not.”

Of course, Sen. Bush was the father of Pres. George H.W. Bush, and the grandfather of Pres. George W. Bush. And that was a mainstream Republican response to marital infidelity and the breakup of a family with children going back to the 1960s. But we also need to note it was a Republican who was elected as the first and to this point only divorced man to be President of the United States. That was Ronald Reagan in 1980.

As McFadden writes,

“A year after Mr. Rockefeller died, in 1979, Ronald Reagan became the only divorced man elected to the presidency. His 1949 divorce from the actress Jane Wyman was not a major campaign issue in 1980, largely because it had occurred three decades earlier and because divorce, in a nation where it had become commonplace, no longer seemed a serious blemish on a candidate’s character.”

What the Times didn’t even point out was that as governor of California, it was Ronald Reagan who it signed into law one of the most liberal no-fault divorce laws in American history. As we’ve often discussed, the revolution taking place in marriage with the development of so-called same-sex marriage would not have been possible without previous redefinitions of marriage especially in the development of no-fault divorce. Here in the life of one woman, Happy Rockefeller, who died this week at age 88, you have the story in one lifetime. We can only now look to our children and perhaps our grandchildren and understand just how much they are likely to see in terms of transformation of their moral landscape in their times.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com. We’re taking questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition released. Call us with your question, in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058.

 

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-21-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Appeals Court second denial of Notre Dame case exposes perilous state of religious liberty 

Appeals Court Denies Notre Dame’s Challenge to Health Law’s Contraception Mandate, Wall Street Journal (Louise Radnofsky and Brent Kendall)

Notre Dame birth-control protest denied again, SCOTUSblog (Lyle Denniston)

2) Retraction of gay marriage opinion study reveals need for firm foundation for truth

Co-author disavows highly publicized study on public opinion and same-sex marriage, Washington Post (Fred Barbash)

Study on softening same-sex marriage attitudes retracted over ‘fake data’, The Guardian, (Lauren Gambino)

3) Influence of childhood hometown on likelihood of marriage evidences import of social norms 

How Your Hometown Affects Your Chances of Marriage, New York Times (David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy)

4) Death of Happy Rockefeller reminder of how far society has shifted

Happy Rockefeller, 88, Dies; Marriage to Governor Scandalized Voters, New York Times (Robert D. McFadden)