R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 312

Genesis 32:1-33:20

Transcript: The Briefing 05-18-15

The Briefing

 

May 18, 2015

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

 

It’s Monday, May 18, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Death penalty given to Boston Bomber in right recognition of need for justice

On Friday a federal jury handed down a death sentence to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev just weeks after he was found guilty of multiple federal counts, including several for which the death penalty was applicable. As the New York Times reported on Saturday,

“Two years after bombs in two backpacks transformed the Boston Marathon from a sunny rite of spring to a smoky battlefield with bodies dismembered, a federal jury on Friday condemned Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for his role in the 2013 attack.”

As Katherine Seelye went on to report for the Times,

“In a sweeping rejection of the defense case, the jury found that death was the appropriate punishment for six of 17 capital counts — all six related to Mr. Tsarnaev’s planting of a pressure-cooker bomb on Boylston Street, which his lawyers never disputed. Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, stood stone-faced in court, his hands folded in front of him, as the verdict was read, his lawyers standing grimly at his side.”

Now one of the most important points made by the New York Times and many other national media in response to the death penalty verdict is this and I quote,

“With its decision, the jury rejected virtually every argument that the defense put forth, including the centerpiece of its case — that Mr. Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, had held a malevolent sway over him and led him into committing the crimes.”

What we’re looking at here is one of the great moral dramas of our time, and it’s a drama that involves the American legal system – in particular the federal courts – but it’s a drama that has ramifications that go far beyond this jury, this defendant, and this case. We’re looking at the first time since the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001 that a federal jury has brought forth a death penalty recommendation – in this case the death penalty verdict. And that’s highly telling because when you consider all the cases that have been brought before the United States courts since 2001 it’s very striking that it has taken this case to bring forth a federal death penalty verdict.

In this case the jury was asked to weigh the question of the death penalty or life in prison without the opportunity of parole – and that was for the 17 capital counts of which Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted of weeks ago. Now you’ll recall that when his criminal trial began, the phase of the trial was to determine his guilt when it came to the crimes, his own attorneys conceded that he had done what the federal prosecutors alleged. They did not deny in any sense that he’d been an active participant in the terrorist attack that killed three and wounded so many others – so many of them grievously. It turned out that from the very first day of the criminal trial the main concern of his defense team was evidently to avoid the death penalty – and as the New York Times reflected on Saturday, they were spectacularly unsuccessful in doing so.

They had made two main arguments to the jury. In the first place they argued, as the New York Times indicated, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was under the sway of his older brother, that he was not culpable to the degreed would invoke the death penalty for the attacks. And yet it turns out that the jurors, looking especially at the evidence brought forth by the prosecution, came to the conclusion that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was not under the moral sway of his brother, or at least not to the extent that it alleviated his own moral responsibility. That’s a very key issue. And as the New York Times and others reflected, the verdict forms indicated that only three of the 12 jurors believed that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had acted under his brother’s influence – that’s a very telling finding.

The second argument made by the defense team was that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was repentant and remorseful concerning his participation in the horrible events of 2013. But, as the New York Times reported,

“…the jury put little stock in any part of the defense. Only two jurors believed that Mr. Tsarnaev had expressed sorrow and remorse for his actions, a stinging rebuke to the assertion by Sister Helen Prejean, a Roman Catholic nun and renowned death penalty opponent, that he was ‘genuinely sorry’ for what he had done.”

One aspect of this that’s crucially important is the demeanor of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev during his trial and even during the penalty phase of his trial. But as the reporting has indicated, virtually unanimously, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sat impassively in the court room even when the facts of the case were recited in all of their brutality and even when those who were the victims or the relatives of those who died in the attack had given very graphic testimony. One of the things we learned here is that being in that courtroom evidently made a great deal of difference, having the responsibility as a juror to weigh the relative arguments in this case, turned out not even to be a close call. And that is itself very telling.

There is a very important background to this and that is the fact that the state of Massachusetts does not have a death penalty in terms of its state books. There is no death penalty for any crime that is covered under Massachusetts law, but this was a trial in a federal court and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was being tried for federal crimes in a federal court with a federal jury. And this jury in this case was so-called death penalty qualified, which meant that all of the jurors had to state that given the opportunity they would not categorically reject the death penalty if it were called for in this case. And as we now know, the vast majority the jurors decided that it was called for. And this had to be a unanimous verdict at least on one of the death penalty convictions, not on all of them but at least on one of them.

A crucial insight on this issue was brought by the editors of the Wall Street Journal in an editorial that ran in its weekend edition. As the editors wrote and I quote,

“There are strong arguments for and against the death penalty, and there is no doubt that innocent men have been killed by the state. But there is no doubt of guilt in this case. And whatever else one believes about the death penalty, it sends an unmistakable message that even a society as tolerant as ours still believes that some acts deserve the ultimate penalty.”

That is one of the most important arguments being made in the aftermath of this death penalty verdict. The bigger question is not just, ‘was the death penalty indicated in the crimes of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?’ but, would the death penalty be indicated in terms of any crime. One of the most interesting aspects of our cultural and moral landscape is the polls indicated that a majority of the citizens of Boston did not support the death penalty in any case, and particularly in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But this jury in Boston did find, not only that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was guilty of the crimes, but that he deserved the death penalty, and they impose that penalty.

Other polls indicated that a majority of Americans did believe that the death penalty was indicated in this specific case, and in at least some other cases. The editors of the Wall Street Journal got right to the point when they indicated that this jury, illustrating the general position of Americans at the moment, believes that at least in some cases the death penalty is applicable. Now we should note that even in the Bible, even in the Old Testament, the death penalty was very severely restricted and when it came to, for instance, the death penalty for murder – there had to be a very high evidentiary standard.

But one of the things we need to note is that a great deal of the moral transition on the question of the death penalty has to do with the secularization of American culture, because the biblical worldview establishes the death penalty not in vengeance but rather in the sacred dignity and worth of every single human life. Christians should be reminded that the death penalty is rooted in the Noahic covenant, found in the book of Genesis chapter 9 when after Noah and his family had emerged from the Ark, and as the Lord made his covenant with Noah, the Lord said this and I quote – this is Genesis chapter 9, beginning in verse five:

“And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.”

And then verse six,

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

There you have the most important textual basis in Scripture for the death penalty. What follows in Scripture, in the Old Testament in particular, is an outlining of the circumstances in which the death penalty might be imposed. One of the most interesting aspects of our understanding of the Old Testament is the limitation that it puts upon the death penalty and the very high standard of evidence that was required before the death penalty can be applied. Christians looking at the issue the death penalty have to recognize that the biblical foundation of the death penalty is not in any sense rooted in retribution, but rather in the necessity of justice. And the fact that the crime of murder particularly demonstrates the fact that the one who would take a life forfeits his own life in so doing – that’s the biblical logic, its right there in the Noahic covenant.

In the United States at presents, an increasingly secularized country, the death penalty has lost much of that biblical foundation. And for that reason and for others it is itself now a highly controversial issue. And one of the things that we should note is that the death penalty has been significantly conscribed when it comes to laws in many of the states, including in particular the state of Massachusetts but also in terms of the crimes for which the death penalty is applicable in the federal courts. One of the most important moral points made by the editors of the Wall Street Journal is that the question of guilt in this case was never in doubt. As a matter fact, the very first statement made by the defense was to acknowledge the guilt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in terms of committing these crimes.

One of the things we’ve looked at, whether its the case of Anders Breivik in the Netherlands, or in this case Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Boston, the question, would the death penalty be applicable in any case? If indeed the death penalty is applicable in any case, then a civilized society – especially one that would operate out of a biblical worldview – has to be particularly careful, scrupulously careful, about making sure that the death penalty is actually applied only when it is called for by the evidence and justified by the actual circumstances of the crime. A conviction for murder is not itself enough to indicate the death penalty, but there have to be what is defined in the law as aggravating circumstances. There has to be intentionality about the act of murder; it can’t be merely manslaughter, it has to be intentional murder. And in the case of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev it was multiple cases of intentional homicide.

One of the things the Christian should note is that there are very legitimate, even urgent questions, about how the death penalty is often applied and whether or not it actually fits the circumstances of crimes and of convictions. But we must also understand that there is a basic understanding of the requirement of justice that appears to be shared widely by the American people. But we also need to understand that there’s a basic hunger and thirst for justice and when it comes to some acts, it turns out that there is a basic impulse towards understanding that at least some crimes are deserving of the death penalty. As I said, there are serious questions about how the death penalty is applied – especially at the state level – in many circumstances in the United States. And Christians need to be very concerned about achieving justice at every conceivable level, and that includes the state level.

But this was a federal case, and this federal jury brought a death penalty verdict. And as the editors of the Wall Street Journal indicated, even in modern America there is an understanding that was certainly symbolized by this jury that there are some crimes that simply demand the death penalty. The death penalty and the whole issue of capital punishment is going to be an ongoing controversy in American life, of that we can be absolutely certain. But Christians at least need to understand the biblical foundation that is at stake, and understand that what is centrally at stake is the understanding that every single human life is of infinite worth because every single human being is made in God’s image.

2) House passing 20-week abortion ban exposes institutionalized worldview division between parties

Next – also speaking about the sanctity of human life – a big development last week in the United States House of Representatives. As Tom Howell reported for the Washington Times and I quote,

“The House voted Wednesday to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy as Republicans delivered a key piece of the pro-life agenda and overcame an embarrassing false start earlier this year.”

Howell went on to write,

“Dubbed the ‘Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act,’ the legislation cleared on a 242-184 vote that largely broke along party lines, with just four pro-life Democrats joining in support and four Republicans voting against it.”

The deep worldview divide over the issue of abortion points to an even deeper worldview divide over the question of the sanctity of human life. And this bill, that past last week in the United States House of Representatives, is only the latest indication of how deep that divide actually is. Biblically minded Christians need to look at this story very carefully. One of the most interesting aspects is how the Washington Times introduce the story, telling us that it broke largely along party lines. There were four Democrats, identified as pro-life, who voted for the bill joining with the Republican majority, but there were four Republicans who brought from their Republican colleagues and voted against the bill.

Now when you look at the number four it’s an even exchange there, but one of the things we need to note is that the deep worldview divide over the issue of abortion is now rather institutionalized in America’s two dominant political parties. The Democratic Party addressed the issue of abortion in its 2012 national party platform, not only supporting abortion under every conceivable circumstance, allowing for no opposition to abortion legally whatsoever, but also calling for taxpayer support of abortion in the national party platform. In contrast, in that same year, 2012, the Republican Party indicated its pro-life position and made a pledge to work for just the kind of legislation we saw passed in the House of Representatives last week.

As the Times indicates, the Republican majority in the house delivered on a campaign promise. The response of the other party, not just those in the House of Representatives, was swift and it was clear. Maya Harris, Senior policy advisor for Hillary Clinton, said that the bill

“…puts women’s health and rights at risk, undermines the role doctors play in health care decisions, burdens survivors of sexual assault, and is not based on sound science.”

Now, again and again we see that phrase ‘sound science’ and there’s a very important issue to this that is indeed scientific – we’ll get to that in just a moment. On the other hand, the White House also responded with the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest declaring the bill passed by the house to be disgraceful. The bill is unlikely to pass the United States Senate, even with the Republican majority – there simply aren’t enough votes to get cloture in the Senate at this point. But if it were to pass the Senate, Pres. Obama has declared that he would veto the legislation if it were to reach his desk.

Meanwhile, the editorial board of the New York Times, that has stalwartly defended abortion under every conceivable circumstance, declared that the abortion ban was based on what it called bogus arguments. As the editors wrote,

“For the second time in two years, the House voted Wednesday to pass legislation that would ban almost all abortions 20 weeks or more after fertilization. The bill, called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, claims that ‘an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain at least by 20 weeks after fertilization,’ though medical evidence does not support this.”

Well, this is an editorial, it’s not a news report, but we simply have to point out that all depends on which scientific studies you are quoting and which medical evidence you are deciding to privilege. And that is virtually always dependent on whether or not you believe that the unborn child is a moral agent worthy and deserving, indeed demanding of, protection.

The most important section of the New York Times editorial comes when the editors wrote,

“The measure gained momentum after The New England Journal of Medicine published a study indicating that a tiny number of babies born at 22 weeks can survive if given intensive medical treatment. Representative Diane Black of Tennessee, one of the bill’s sponsors, released a statement last Friday saying, ‘Science tells us that, after 20 weeks, babies can feel pain and are increasingly able to live outside the womb.’”

One of most interesting aspects of this is that this very newspaper ran a front-page article, just days ago, that I discussed on The Briefing in which they made the very same point. They begin their editorial saying that “medical evidence does not support this,” but they actually reported on their own front-page some of the same medical evidence. Writing in her own essay published in the Washington Times Representative Black said this,

“Polls consistently show that upward of 60 percent of Americans support putting an end to the dangerous and inhumane practice of late-term abortions. Those numbers will only increase as hearts and minds are made aware of the pain that these babies experience during abortion and the evidence supporting their viability at increasingly early stages of development.”

It’s that very concern, we need to note, that led to the subhead on the front page of the New York Times, stating that the fact that this study had come out indicating that at least some babies at 22 and 20 weeks were capable of surviving outside the womb, it was that very paper that said that this would add fuel to the abortion debate and so it has.

In terms of The Briefing today, these two stories put together indicate that great chasm that now separates Americans on the issue of the sanctity of human life. But the two stories also point to the fact that there still is an amazing terrain of common ground. The vast majority of Americans believe that the death penalty should be applicable in at least some cases, and the vast majority of Americans believe that at least some abortions are wrong and at least some unborn babies deserve protection even in terms of the law. That tells us something about the conflicted and sometimes even contradictory understandings held by some Americans, even individually, on issues such as the death penalty and abortion.

Thinking as a Christian I simply have to say that the issue of abortion right now should be a far higher priority than the issue of the death penalty. On the issue the sanctity of human life on the American landscape there is much ground that must be reclaimed, and not all of this ground is level. But this much is abundantly clear: the loss of the Christian worldview in our culture is deeply subversive of the very idea of the sanctity of human life. To put the matter bluntly, you really can’t have the word sanctity and the words secularization at one in the same time. By its very definition a secularizing society holds to a lessening understanding of anything that is sacred, even the sanctity of human life. There are other issues to which we will turn as this week unfolds, but when it comes to the sanctity of human life it comes first and in this case it came first in the week.

 

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. Remember, 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.

 

Evangelical Titan: A Conversation about Billy Graham with historian Grant Wacker

The Briefing 05-18-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Death penalty given to Boston Bomber in right recognition of need for justice

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Given Death Penalty in Boston Marathon Bombing, New York Times (Katherine Q. Seelye)

Death For Tsarnaev, Wall Street Journal (Editorial Board)

2) House passing 20-week abortion ban exposes institutionalized worldview division between parties

House votes to ban most abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, Washington Times (Tom Howell, Jr.)

House Approves Revised Measure Banning Most Abortions After 20 Weeks, New York Times (Emmarie Huetteman)

An Abortion Ban’s Bogus Arguments, New York Times (Editorial Board)

Pain-capable opponents ignore science, Washington Times (Diane Black)

 

The Gathering Storm: The Eclipse of Religious Liberty and the Threat of a New Dark Age

Remarks Delivered Friday, May 15,  2015:

Mister Attorney General, Mr. Sears, and distinguished guests, it is a great honor to accept the Edwin Meese III Award for Originalism and Religious Liberty. That honor is greatly magnified by the presence of Attorney General Meese and by the fact that this award bears his name. He is one of America’s most courageous defenders of human freedom and the American experiment in ordered liberty.

I am also honored to receive this award from the Alliance Defending Freedom and its President, Alan Sears. I have known Alan for many years, and I know him to be one of the most powerful advocates of virtue and liberty of our age. The work of the Alliance Defending Freedom is essential, singular, and urgently vital. This battalion of defenders fights most of all—and most effectively—for our “first freedom,” religious liberty.

I am deeply, and always aware that I could not be here without the constant support and love of my wife, Mary Mohler.

You will recognize that I borrowed from Sir Winston Churchill for the title of my remarks. In the first volume of his history of World War II, the great statesman looked back at the storm clouds that gathered in the 1930s, when he had bravely warned of a war that would determine the destiny of human dignity and liberty for untold millions of people.

We are not facing the same gathering storm, but we are now facing a battle that will determine the destiny of priceless freedoms and the very foundation of human rights and human dignity.

Speaking thirty years ago, Attorney General Meese warned that “there are ideas which have gained influence in some parts of our society, particularly in some important and sophisticated areas that are opposed to religious freedom and freedom in general. In some areas there are some people that have espoused a hostility to religion that must be recognized for what it is, and expressly countered.”

Those were prophetic words, prescient in their clarity and foresight. The ideas of which Mr. Meese warned have only gained ground in the last thirty years, and now with astounding velocity. A revolution in morality now seeks not only to subvert marriage, but also to redefine it, and thus to undermine an essential foundation of human dignity, flourishing, and freedom.

Religious liberty is under direct threat. Just days ago the Solicitor General of the United States served notice before the Supreme Court that the liberties of religious institutions will be an open and unavoidable question. Already, religious liberty is threatened by a new moral regime that exalts erotic liberty and personal autonomy and openly argues that religious liberties must give way to the new morality, its redefinition of marriage, and its demand for coercive moral, cultural, and legal sovereignty.

A new moral and legal order is ascendant in America, and this new order is only possible, in the arena of American law and jurisprudence, if the original intent and the very words of the Constitution of the United States are twisted beyond recognition.

These are days that will require courage, conviction, and clarity of vision. We are in a fight for the most basic liberties God has given humanity, every single one of us, made in his image. Religious liberty is being redefined as mere freedom of worship, but it will not long survive if it is reduced to a private sphere with no public voice. The very freedom to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ is at stake, and thus so is the liberty of every American. Human rights and human dignity are temporary abstractions if they are severed from their reality as gifts of the Creator. The eclipse of Christian truth will lead inevitably to a tragic loss of human dignity. If we lose religious liberty, all other liberties will be lost, one by one. I am a Christian, and I believe that salvation is found in no other name than Jesus Christ and in no other gospel, but I will fight for the religious liberty of all.

There is a gathering storm, and its threat is urgent and real, but there are arguments to be made, principles to be defended, rights to be respected, truths to be cherished, and permanent things to be preserved. We face the danger of a new Dark Age marked by the loss of liberty and the denial of human dignity. Thus, there is a battle to be joined and much work to be done. Together, may we be found faithful to these tasks. As Churchill would remind us, in every gathering storm there is a summons to action.

Remarks by R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, upon receiving the 2015 Edwin Meese III Award for Originalism and Religious Liberty from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Friday, May 15, 2015 in McLean, Virginia.

 

 

 

 

Ask Anything: Weekend Edition 2015-05-16

1) Should Christians participate in snowflake embryo adoption?

2) How can a Christian overcome a struggle over assurance of salvation?

3) What is a pastoral response to people pursuing elective cosmetic surgery?

 

Call with your questions 24 hours a day, 7 days aweek: 1-877-505-2058

Transcript: The Briefing 05-15-15

The Briefing

 

May 15, 2015

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

 

It’s Friday, May 15, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Mobile games take advantage of unwillingness to delay gratification among many players

Two articles appearing in two different newspapers tell us a great deal about human nature. The first of them appeared on the front page of the Wall Street Journal just a few days ago; the headline, Mobile Game Makers Hunt For ‘Whales’. No, they are not looking for seafaring mammals, they’re looking for big spenders when it comes to online gaming, especially mobile gaming.

As Sarah Needleman reports for the Journal,

“Allen Sokol enjoys playing ‘Candy Crush Saga’ on a smartphone during his lunch break as assistant manager of a tire store in Grand Rapids, Mich., but often runs out of free turns.

“Rather than wait 20 minutes for one more free turn in the puzzle game, he presses a button on the screen to spend 99 cents for five turns. When he uses them up, he buys five more turns.”

Sokol said,

“I could get ahead without spending,”

But he goes on to say he has increased his spending on ‘Candy Crush Saga’ to about $50 a month during the past year. He says he could wait for the free games, but “then you have to wait.” This is one of those incredibly revealing articles about human nature, and of course it’s important it appears not in some page of the gaming magazine but on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. What does that tell you? It tells you the big dollars are at stake.

Where does the word ‘whale’ come from here, when it comes to the fact that these gaming companies are looking for whales as consumers? That goes back to the gambling industry where whales are those who enter into casinos and into gambling enterprises and are willing to spend a lot of money. It turns out that if you’re a casino operator you really can’t spend too much time getting people just to come in and spend a little bit of money, you’ve got to pay an incredible amount of attention to attracting and keeping the biggest gamblers of all, known as whales. And we shouldn’t be surprised that that is now being translated into the online gaming industry.

So what’s the importance of all this in the Christian worldview? It comes down to this, one of the things that is documented in this front-page article is the fact that there are people who are trying to build their entire business plan with billions and billions of dollars at stake on the fact that there are human beings who are unwilling to exercise what is called delayed gratification. It’s very, very interesting. We know, in terms of the human species, that what is called delayed gratification is one of the necessary signs of adulthood. The taking on of adult responsibility requires delayed gratification. We also know that children who show the capacity to delay gratification are the same children who tend to do so much better in school and so much better in other arenas of life.

A famous experiment was done years ago in which preschoolers were seated at a table. They were given one marshmallow. They were told that they could have that marshmallow right now, but if they could wait just a few minutes looking at that marshmallow they will be given another marshmallow as a reward. If they could just wait they would have not one marshmallow but two. They then divided the children between those who just couldn’t wait and immediately ate the marshmallow and those were willing to wait back and get the two marshmallows as a reward. The children who had waited, they were far ahead when it came to academic achievement, and they moved into adulthood – in terms of taking on adult responsibility – faster than those who had not developed the skill of delay gratification.

But as it turns out, it’s not just preschoolers who are at stake in this kind of experiment, here you have a man who is 29 years old and can’t wait for free games and has now increased his spending on online gaming on his smart phone to $50 a month – that qualifies him, says the Wall Street Journal, as a whale. And that’s where the online gaming industry is now directing their attention. They are looking for whales; they are looking for those who do not have the capacity of delay gratification.

There’s something else that becomes very clear in this article, the issue of the tie between this online video gaining and the gambling industry becomes clearer when it turns out that the same kind of pattern of response is operational here. It turns out that there are those who even have a medical explanation for what’s going on here. It turns out that being involved in certain repetitive activities brings about a certain thrill and that thrill even releases endorphins into the brain which can become an addictive phenomenon.

And so you have these customers who are buying these games over and over again on their phones, some of them to hundreds of dollars a month, because they are now accustomed to that jolts that comes by these hormones being released in the brain. And when you look at people who are sitting at slot machines hour after hour after hour, they are experiencing very much the same thing. And when you look at someone with a smart phone, looking at a break from working at a tire store, in order to spend what amounts to $50 a month now on this kind of gaming, you’re looking probably the same phenomena.

The article in the Wall Street Journal says that,

“Whales are a big deal because less than 3% of all mobile-game players make any in-game purchases. Buyers spend a rough average of $5 to $25 a month. Whales rank in the top 10% of all in-game spenders, and the mobile-game industry is scrambling to spawn and catch many more of them.”

And just in case you’re wondering if this is big business, the Wall Street Journal tells us that about 750 new videogames are added to app stores every day. Another little stat that is embedded in this is that it takes 15 hours of playing time on average before the typical mobile game user makes the first in-app purchase. So if they’ve got you for 15 hours, they probably got you to make a purchase. And if they can get you to make that purchase, they can probably get you to make more purchases. And what they’re trying to do is to create more and more whales.

The Wall Street Journal wouldn’t be giving attention to it if it were not a winning strategy, and again that tells us a great deal about how sin works within the human heart and in the human brain – even within our biochemistry. It tells us that the development of something like delayed gratification, which after all is very essential for Christian maturity, it turns out that there are all kinds of enemies of delayed gratification and some of them can be as easy as 750 new mobile videogames being added to app stores every single day. They are being added because somebody’s using them, somebody is spending a lot of time, and now we know, a lot of money, because they are effectively being hooked on the experience of these videogames.

2) Consumer debt linked to encouragement of easy credit on disregard self-control

But it’s not just that, even this very week in the same newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, on the op-ed piece there is an essay entitled This Is Your Brain On Easy Credit – that too tells us something very revealing. Peter C. Whybrow writing for the Journal tells us,

“The reward circuitry of the human brain is vital to our survival, but it wasn’t built to grapple with seductive credit card offers and no-money-down mortgages. Easy credit feeds our love of immediate gratification, distorts self-regulation and diminishes prudent market behavior, creating a destabilizing positive-feedback loop. Analysts trying to understand the explosion of consumer debt should look no further than neuroscience.”

Well, from a Christian worldview we do need a little bit deeper than neuroscience, but the neuroscience does tell us a great deal. So on the front page of the same newspaper you have an article about the mobile game industry looking for whales trying to hook them on buying videogames, and inside on the opinion page you have a complaint about the fact that easy credit is now becoming a form of the same kind of feedback loop when it comes to Americans – a lot of Americans are making easy purchases on credit for items they can’t afford, spending dangerously simply because the credit is easy and the experience is fun.

It tells us great deal that we are learning about human nature because even secular observers are somewhat concerned about it. Whybrow writes and I quote,

“Thanks to the seductive appeal of today’s consumer economy, perhaps for the first time in human history it is the affirmation of reward rather than the fear of punishment or failure that dominates the calculus of risk. We have become addicted to the quick fix, be that tasty junk food, the electronic cocaine of the Internet, or the painless ease of a credit card purchase.”

Finally, we point to another parallel to which we pointed several times on The Briefing and that is that the arguments for why pornography is so seductive, also comes back to many the same arguments. And of course there’s an entire industry trying to hook people on pornography – tragically, very successfully. And the same kind of techniques are now being used to sell Americans on easy credit they can’t afford, and for videogames as the makers are trying to create and keep new whales for their industry.

In one sense, a look at the book of Proverbs should be sufficient to understand the biblical priority on delayed gratification: wisdom, stewardship, thrift, maturity, common sense. But it’s important that Christians understand that every biblical virtue has enemies in the common world, some of them quite seductive, some of them not often recognized; a few of them here revealed in the most unexpected way in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

3) Alabama considers empty promise of gambling to resolve tax shortfall

Next, in recent days the New York Times has run an article telling us of the state of Alabama may turn to gambling in order to make up a shortfall from tax revenue. The article is by Campbell Robertson and the important thing about this article is the fact that it is datelined in Alabama, indeed in Montgomery – Alabama’s capital. Why is that big news? Because Alabama has been one of the state’s most resistant to any form of legalized gambling, and it has been so largely because Alabama has been so steadfastly rooted in an historic Christian biblical aversion to gambling as being reckless, as being a demonstration of forfeiting stewardship, and of preying upon the poor.

Robertson reports,

“After years of crackdowns, police raids, Bible Belt oratory and admonitions about corruption, Alabama lawmakers have had a change of heart. They are now seeking fiscal salvation at the casino.”

The article goes on to describe the Alabama state Senate president, a Republican, who is pushing a state constitutional amendment that would not only institute a lottery but also allowed traditional slots and casino table games at several horseracing tracks across the state. Meanwhile on the house side of the Alabama legislature, the Republican caucus,

“…while supporting an array of limited tax increases, is championing a stunning and unexpected offer from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, the state’s only federally recognized tribe: In exchange for a compact giving the tribe exclusive gambling privileges in Alabama at its three casinos, as well as setting aside land for a fourth, the tribe would foot the bill for nearly the entirety of next year’s state budget deficit.”

The New York Times tells us that Gov. Robert J Bentley of Alabama continues to insist that gambling is not the answer to the state, but rather it needs to reform its tax code. But the article cites the Senate President as saying,

“Republicans, by and large, aren’t big advocates of gaming, but they sure…don’t like taxes.”

Now his statement was a little more salty than that, but we get the point. He is saying that Republicans don’t like gambling, but they don’t like taxes even more so they might turn to gambling. So let’s look at the argument that is being deployed there in Alabama. Anyone who has been following this issue for any length of time will recognize the argument exactly as we would expect it to come. The Senate President who is behind this,

“…acknowledged the surprising politics but pointed out that his draft bill includes language barring racetrack operators like Mr. McGregor from making campaign contributions (a similar bill was introduced in the House on Wednesday). And though, as the governor has pointed out, this plan might take some time to start paying dividends, Mr. Marsh insisted that it would create thousands of jobs while negating the need for tax increases.”

That is always the promise. Just consider the fact that in recent months we’ve covered the absolute collapse of some multi, and I mean multi-million-dollar casinos in places like Atlantic City, all the jobs that were promised simply evaporated. The same thing is taking place in the Delta of Mississippi where casinos have been closing because the market falls off as more casinos open elsewhere. And all those jobs that were promised, and sometimes almost immediately materialized, almost as immediately disappear.

And now you have the state of Alabama, that it is interesting to note the New York Times acknowledges has been held back largely by a Christian resistance to gambling. Well we now are beginning to see that opposition crumbles, at least in the legislature. The big question is going to be, is it crumbling amongst the people of Alabama? Eventually the people of Alabama are going to have their say – even the Senate President is trying to bring about what would require a constitutional amendment. The people Alabama better speak up on this issue.

But we also need to recognize that in many other states, those who have held out in terms of the morality of gambling for a very long time sometimes tend to crumble when they’re being told it’s either gambling or taxes. And look at the promise of all these jobs, well that’s a promise that has been made many times before. People Alabama: simply look at the data from the states around you. Simply look where casino gambling has had its way and ask, is that we want for our state? You see those who are pressing this kind of thing don’t go to the pawn shops and they don’t go to the places where those who have been financially wrecked by their addiction and their practice of gambling simply have to go to feed their addiction or to feed their practice – literally to feed their sin. I guarantee that the people who are pressing this kind of proposal aren’t going to show you the shuttered casinos of Atlantic City and elsewhere.

The Christian worldview has resisted gambling for the very reason that it subverts biblical virtues and it encourages vices at every conceivable turn. It doesn’t entice people to be good stewards of their resources, but rather to waste them. It doesn’t encourage people to rely upon an ethic of hard-working labor and its proper reward; instead it honors games of chance. And, as we know, eventually the state becomes a predator upon its own people. Just look at how states try to encourage their citizens with the lowest incomes to spend the most when it comes to the lottery. Any way you look at it, this is big news. The New York Times knows it is big news because if this can happen in Alabama, it can happen anywhere.

Of course finally, we need tie this back to the pew research study that came out earlier this week on the secularization of America and the fact that secularization is happening in all regions of the country and, to some extent, in all generations. This kind of story coming from a state like Alabama wouldn’t be possible if the buckle were still on the Bible Belt so to speak. It wouldn’t be possible if we still had a clear exceptionalism when it comes to states like Alabama, clearly dominated by the vast majority of a citizenry, that indicates that they are Christians of one sort or another. The binding power the Christian worldview is what is at stake here. It’s one thing for people to say, ‘I’m a Christian’ – to self-identify on a survey saying, ‘I’m a Christian’ or ‘I’m a member of this church or this denomination,’ –  it’s another thing to see how the binding moral authority of the biblical worldview begins to crumble right before our eyes.

Journalistically, it’s a coincidence that this article from Alabama appeared in just the same period of a few days when the Pew Research Center data was released. But coming from a biblical worldview it’s not really a coincidence, we understand that the moral change reflects a deeper spiritual and theological change. And if something like this form of gambling can become plausible in a state like Alabama, it can only become plausible because of more fundamental shifts that are taking place in the hearts and minds of the people of the state. That’s the real warning to us here: Christians who are committed to a biblical worldview have to understand that we are increasingly finding ourselves arguing against even some of our neighbors who believe themselves to be Christians, and who may even tell themselves they are Christians, but who no longer feel bound by the moral teachings of the biblical worldview.

4) Gay couples object to likely requirement of marriage in order to gain health benefits 

Finally, here’s another front page article from the Wall Street Journal that caught my eye. It appeared in Wednesday’s edition; here’s a headline: Wed or Lose your Benefits, Firms Warn Gay Couples. The article is by Rachel Emma Silverman and this is one of those stories we’ve been watching for a long time. It’s one of those in inevitable stories, and here it lands this week on the front page of the Wall Street Journal. What is it telling us? It’s telling us that there are some gay couples who do not want to get married, but they do want the domestic partner benefits that their companies have given them largely because same-sex marriage wasn’t yet legal.

You can tell what’s happening here, when same-sex marriage becomes legal, many corporations are saying, ‘okay, now you have to get married in order to get the domestic partner benefits – especially when it comes to insurance and other employee benefits.’ As Silverman writes,

“Wedding bells will ring later this year if the Supreme Court decides that gay couples are constitutionally entitled to marry. But health insurance, more than romance, may nudge some couples down the aisle.”

That’s an interesting lead, but that’s not the most interesting portion of the article. The most interesting portion of the article is gay couples who are saying that it’s not fair that they be required to get married. Here’s how Silverman reports it,

“Now, some employers who offer benefits targeting same-sex partners say it is only fair to require those couples to marry where legal, just as their straight co-workers must do to extend coverage.

“That is causing some consternation among gay and lesbian employees and their advocates, who say they could be vulnerable to discrimination.”

Well as you follow the logic going on, they are simply saying that they want to be able to get married or not get married and still get the same benefits as if they were married. Well here’s the issue: if equality is equality, as being defined in the current secular legal context, then how can same-sex couples get those marital benefits without marriage if heterosexual couples can’t get those marital benefits without marriage? You see this is how the argument gets immediately turned, and here is what is also very revealing. Even as these companies are now saying, ‘okay if same-sex marriage is legal, then you have to get married in order to get the benefits,’ and even as there are those who are saying, ‘we don’t want to get married, but we do want the benefits’ and even as heterosexual couples are then going say, ‘okay, then we don’t want to have to get married in order to get the benefits,’ you can see where this is going – some of these companies are simply deciding to avoid the issue of marriage altogether.

Silverman reports,

“Recognizing that some employees, gay or straight, simply prefer not to marry, a number of employers are taking marriage out of the equation for benefits. Large companies, such as Google Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. are offering partner benefits to all unmarried couples,”

Well just imagine what that now means. Now we’re looking at the marginalization and subversion of marriage to the point that the confusion over marriage means that employers are simply say we’re not going to be able to look to marriage as a criteria at all. Look back at the words I just quoted from the Wall Street Journal, they say they are offering partner benefits to all unmarried couples. Let me just state the obvious, I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that couples who are hooking up for a weekend are getting these benefits. I don’t believe that some romantic or sexual coupling taking place between two people is going to be recognized for these benefits. No, I can assure you these companies are coming up with some criterion for how they’re going to determine how a couple becomes a couple in order to be covered by these benefits.  In other words, they are trying to come up with something that isn’t marriage that they can recognize as being almost marriage – for now.

The most important issue from the Christian worldview is this: you can try to deny marriage, you can try to redefine marriage, you can try to reject and subvert marriage, but eventually you’re going to have to come up with something like marriage. But if it isn’t really marriage, in terms of God’s gift to humanity, then it isn’t going to work. The controversy over insurance policies that made the front page of the Wall Street Journal tells us that, but of course from a biblical worldview it also tells us a great deal more.

 

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. Tomorrow morning there will be a new edition of Ask Anything: Weekend Edition released. We are still collecting your questions. Call us with your question, in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058.

 

I’ll meet you again on Monday for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-15-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Mobile games take advantage of unwillingness to delay gratification among many players

Mobile-Game Makers Try to Catch More ‘Whales’ Who Pay for Free Games, Wall Street Journal (Sarah E. Needleman)

2) Consumer debt linked to encouragement of easy credit on disregard self-control

This Is Your Brain on Easy Credit, Wall Street Journal (Peter C. Whybrow)

3) Alabama considers empty promise of gambling to resolve tax shortfall

Alabama May Turn to the Gambling It Has Long Fought, New York Times (Campbell Robertson)

4) Gay couples object to likely requirement of marriage in order to gain health benefits 

Firms Tell Gay Couples: Wed or Lose Your Benefits, Wall Street Journal (Rachel Emma Silverman)

Transcript: The Briefing 05-14-15

The Briefing

 

May 14, 2015

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

 

It’s Thursday, May 14, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Utah anti-discrimination law already considered insufficient compromise by LGBT community

On Tuesday an antidiscrimination bill went into effect in the state of Utah. As Michelle Price for the Associated Press reports,

“A Mormon church-backed anti-discrimination law that protects gay and transgender people and religious rights took effect Tuesday amid skepticism from some LGBT residents over whether it lives up to its promises.”

As you’ll remember some months back on The Briefing we discussed the fact that this piece of legislation in Utah had come about given an unprecedented kind of negotiation between LGBT activists and the Mormon Church – which is so politically and culturally dominant in the state of Utah. It was declared to be a grand compromise whereby the LGBT community gained what it was demanding, in terms of antidiscrimination protections especially when it comes to public accommodations and to employment and other issues, and as legislate doors promise there in Utah at the time, it would also protect the religious liberty interests of all religious groups in Utah – including, most centrally when it comes to the Utah population, the Mormon church.

But now I want you to notice the introductory paragraph that came out, just this week when the law took effect, that paragraph from the Associated Press. The last sentence tells us that even as the law went into effect, it did so “amid skepticism from some LGBT residents over whether it lives up to its promises.” Going back to when the law was first passed, I pointed out that it would not last. It virtually cannot last and that’s because this supposedly unprecedented compromise is a very fragile compromise.

The LGBT community was looking for the support, or at least they were looking to end the opposition of the Mormon Church, to any form of antidiscrimination legislation. But it was promised that that antidiscrimination legislation would offer ample protections for religious institutions, churches, and other organizations. But now what we’re being told, in the very lead paragraph of this story, is that there are those within the LGBT community who are already pressing to eliminate those religious liberty protections on the very first day that the law went into effect; this was predictable, and now it’s actual.

Going back to the story by Michelle Price she writes,

“Gay rights groups pushed for an anti-discrimination law for years and finally succeeded during the 2015 legislative session with a deal that won the crucial backing of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

She goes on to say,

“LGBT residents say the law is a positive step, but they worry it still allows discrimination because religious organizations and their affiliates – such as schools and hospitals – are exempt.”

Now let’s just go back to the fact that when this legislation was passed this was the point that was being trumpeted as the achievement, and now you have an Associated Press story coming out the very week the law goes into effect in which those who had called for the law and had largely celebrated its passage are already indicating that it doesn’t go far enough. And how does it not go far enough? It doesn’t eliminate the religious liberty rights of religious organizations – specifically, as identified here, schools and hospitals.

As if that’s not ominous enough, consider the very next words in this article:

“One example they cite is Brigham Young University, which is owned by the Mormon church and can still evict people from student housing for being gay.”

In terms of religious higher education, specifically I will speak of Christian higher education, the big three issues are housing and admissions and hiring. And the issue of housing basically is a stand-in for the larger issue of student services. If indeed a school cannot operate on the basis of its own religious convictions in housing and in hiring and in admissions, then it is not at liberty to operate as a Christian institution. The same thing would be true for a Mormon institution such as Brigham Young University or an Orthodox Jewish institution or a Roman Catholic institution.

Now that we have LGBT activists in Utah openly declaring that they are dissatisfied with this law that went into effect just this week, we’re being served notice once again. Why once again? Well just a few weeks ago before for the United States Supreme Court the solicitor general of the United States, in response to a direct query from the Chief Justice of the United States, answered that the issue of housing in religious institutions would be in question. And now you have activists in Utah specifically identifying the problem they seek to solve as being the fact that Brigham Young University, as a Mormon institution, is operating by Mormon theological principles in terms of housing, most specifically here, but that can be expanded quite easily to the issues of hiring and admissions as well.

Going back to the article from the Associated Press Price writes,

“In endorsing the measure, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said it follows the principles set out in the faith’s call for laws that balance religious rights and protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.”

We can understand why Mormon authorities would say that then, we have to wonder what they’re going to say now that the very religious liberty protections that they negotiated into this law are certainly going to be the subject of subsequent legislative review, and you can be sure almost immediate court action.

And speaking of the larger issue of that cooperation, Price also writes,

“LGBT critics of the anti-discrimination law said that cooperation is tenuous, and point to comments made by members of the faith’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles just weeks after the law was signed.”

And as the Associated Press report goes on to say, in that case members of the top leadership of the Mormon church had stated Mormon theological and moral principles in which they defined marriage solely as the union of a man and a woman. Now we just need to note the religious liberty implications of this controversy in Utah because even as there it is the Mormon church that is front and center in the controversy, elsewhere it will be any other believing community. And we need to note that even in Utah there are evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, and others when it comes to those whose religious liberties will be at stake here.

The main point in my citing these latter words from the article is this, here you have the claim that cooperation exists between a religious organization and gay-rights activists when it comes to striking a balance, and yet that balance is coming undone as many gay-rights activist say the very accommodations that were put into place, the recognitions of religious liberty, are untenable and unviable and to be opposed. But you also have the problem that here that cooperation is supposedly now threatened by the fact that the Mormon church is stating Mormon doctrine when it comes to the definition of marriage for that faith. So what does that tell us? It tells us what we already knew – that religious liberty is very much at stake; that religious liberty is very much under threat. And it’s under threat not only when it comes to religious organizations, institutions and schools, but even when it comes to religious leaders articulating the theological and moral convictions of their own faith in public. That in itself is being complained of in this article and that tells us a very great deal indeed.

2) Concerns over religious liberty rise as liberals urged to be magnanimous in victory 

On this issue, by the way, just a few days ago The Economist, one of the world’s most influential magazines, in this case published in London, wrote an editorial entitled The New Culture War; the subtitle: “if gay marriage triumphs, liberals should take care not to rub it in.” It’s a very interesting article, I am cited within the article in terms of my response to the oral arguments of the United States Supreme Court, but the really interesting part of this editorial, coming from London, are these words,

“Alas, at the very moment when the public seems ready to move on, there are signs that gay rights could spark a new round of cultural combat. The alarm is being sounded by moderate legal scholars and theologians who have spent years pondering fights over religious liberty and how to protect it within a legal order built around equality.”

The most important aspect of this article is that it appears in The Economist, a secular, largely financially dominated, magazine. The second thing is that it identifies those legal scholars and theologians who are now concerned about the religious liberty implications of same-sex marriage with the word moderate. Coming in this context, that is journalistically signaling that these are legitimate and very ominous concerns.

And in the editorial they then shift to a meeting that took place on May 4 and to words stated by John Inazu of Washington University School of Law. He was speaking at something called the Faith Angle Forum, described as a twice yearly gathering of academics, religious leaders, and political journalists. Listen to the next words,

“A shadow hangs over traditional Christian colleges, non-profit institutions (including some large hospitals) and businesses run by those whose beliefs lead them to see gay marriage as a grave sin,”

That was the magazine’s summary of the words offered by John Inazu of Washington University School of Law. The editorial concludes with these words,

“America has a long tradition of protecting minority beliefs through rights of free assembly and speech. Such rights have in recent years protected Christian groups on liberal campuses and gay groups in conservative spots, and remain a valuable means of bridging deep divides. If the summer brings the nationwide legalisation of gay marriage, liberals should be magnanimous in victory.”

Well that’s a very interesting argument. It is coming down to the fact that The Economist is making the judgment, also being made by most others watching the Supreme Court, that the court is likely to declare that gay marriage is to be legal in all 50 states. The big question then is: what comes after when it comes to religious liberty? And specifically citing what the magazine acknowledges are legitimate religious liberty concerns, especially when it comes to Christian colleges and similar institutions, the magazine calls upon the side of victorious in this new moral revolution to be, here are the words, “magnanimous in victory.”

And yet, day after day, we’re having warnings that it will be exactly the opposite. The latest of those warnings comes in the very response to the law that took effect just this week in Utah. The really interesting thing, in terms of the current cultural moment, is that those who had insisted for so long that same-sex marriage would not come with infringement of religious liberty are beginning to say, ‘well maybe it will, maybe that is inevitable; maybe that’s a problem.’

3) Attack on conservative view of marriage conflates historic shifts with radical redefinition

Finally on this issue, the Washington Post ran a very interesting article by Trevor Burrus, identified as research fellow at the Cato Institute Center for Constitutional Studies. When it comes to the marriage issue, the headline on this articles interesting, Conservative Say Marriage has always been between a Man and a Woman. They’re Wrong; the subhead, “matrimony is a constantly changing social institution.” What I want us to note in this is the shift of argument. It’s a very interesting propaganda device and it takes place right within this article, even within the headline and the subhead. Conservative Say Marriage has always been between a Man and a Woman. They’re Wrong. The subhead is: “matrimony is a constantly changing social institution,” and the subhead is almost assuredly right. It’s truthful. Anyone who is looking at the situation of marriage over the centuries understands that in some sense of course it has been a changing social institution, and yet when you look at the headline that is over the subhead stating that the claim that marriage is always between a man or woman is wrong, well there you have a severe disconnect. But that tells us a great deal about the kind of arguments we face in the larger culture.

So are being told that marriage is a constantly changing social institution, well anyone operating from a biblical worldview understands that in terms of the legal structure, in terms of the culture of romance, in terms of what’s being called now companionate marriage, there have been radical changes. In terms of marriage even as a man and a woman being isolated from the larger extended family, that’s a rather recent development. Changes, in terms of the family unit and indeed the economic identity of the husband and the wife in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, those came. The culture of no-fault divorce effectively changed the institution of marriage. Even the contraceptive revolution and advanced reproductive technologies are changing the nature of marriage.

But what isn’t changing is the fact that marriage, everywhere throughout all times, has been – with exceedingly few exceptions – the union of a man and a woman. And those exceptions are so unique that they have to keep going back and citing the same ones. Such as Emperor Nero, anyone who would suggest that one of the most corrupt of the Roman emperors is somehow an indication of what was normal in the Roman Empire when it comes to marriage is making a ludicrous historical claim. And those who are making the claim rarely even make it in such a bold form, instead they just throw it out as if there has been a question throughout human history as to what marriages it. That’s why it’s important to recognize that there was a moment of sanity, of moral sanity and historical sanity, when the justices of the United States Supreme Court – well several of them – actually pointed to the fact that marriage has been the union of a man and a woman, to use the very words one of the justices, “for millennia.”

Trevor Burrus, writing from a very libertarian worldview makes the argument and I quote,

“Marriage has seen so many forms that it is almost difficult to give a universal definition of the term.”

That’s the kind of claim that fails on its very face. Imagine going society by society and asking what marriages is; is there any question that it is the union of a man and a woman? Even in some of those societies where there will be the exception of polygamy, is there any question the marriage is defined as being between male and female? If you go throughout time, if you ransacked your back issues of National Geographic magazine, if you go to the literature virtually every culture as long as literature has existed, is there any question that marriage is understood to be the union of a man and a woman? Or even where there are exceptions in terms of number, the union of male and female? Of course not. That just shows the fact that there is desperation in the kind of argument being made here.

But the really dangerous thing is that if this argument is made widely enough and often enough, people will believe that it’s true. But of course, finally if this argument is true, it leads to absolute moral anarchy and that’s absolutely affirmed in the last words of this essay. Burrus writes,

“Social institutions evolve faster than recalcitrant and reactionary governments. People are now FWB (Friends With Benefits) rather than ‘going steady,’ and they’re ‘Facebook official’ rather than ‘being pinned.’ When social institutions evolve, those who are stuck in the past often prefer to use the coercive power of government to keep things ‘the way they should be’ than to go with the flow. That ‘flow’ has already changed the institution of marriage, and the Supreme Court should go with it.”

Well we simply have to ask, go with it, how far? Go with it, what’s next? Go with it, until what? When he says the Supreme Court should simply go with the flow we have to recognize the flows not going to stop when it comes to the legalization of same-sex marriage.

4) Silicon Valley efforts to solve mortality right recognition of death as the Last Enemy

Finally, anyone operating out of the Christian worldview will also find very interesting, another article that appeared in the Washington Post. This one is about Silicon Valley’s tech entrepreneurs trying to solve a new problem. What’s that problem? Mortality. It is a very interesting article, especially interesting that it appeared in the Washington Post. It turns out that many of the richest Titans of Silicon Valley are now investing deeply, and we mean hundreds of millions of dollars, in technology they believe will defy death and achieve human immortality.

Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal, is now estimated to be worth $2.2 billion, aged 47, is intending to spend a lot of that fortune investing in new biomedical technologies and new forms of engineering that he claims, and hopes, will solve the problem of human mortality and lead to the virtual everlasting life on planet earth. Speaking of the research he is funding he says quote,

“If you think you can only do very little and be very incremental, then you’ll work only on very incremental things. It’s self-fulfilling,”

He has indicated he doesn’t want to work on incremental things, he doesn’t want to solve small problems, he wants to solve the problem of human mortality – he wants to achieve everlasting life. This is a very serious article and it’s about very serious people. It’s being reported in one of the most serious newspapers in the United States, and these people are putting serious money into this project. They are funding researchers and scientist trying to come up with the promise of everlasting life. The researchers at work on this project seem to be driven by an incredible optimism when it comes to the capabilities of technology and they are also obvious being drawn by the quest for immortality – in this case to be delivered by science, something that has fascinated modern people ever since the advent of modernity.

Just look at the fact that so much science fiction is been predicated on this quest. But here we are not talking about science fiction; we are talking about well-funded scientific research. It has led to concerns even on the part of some secular scientists, one of them cited as Laurie Zoloth, a bioethicist at Northwestern University. In her estimation, some of these billionaires are obsessed with longevity and they may be driven, according to the Washington Post, as much by hubris is by a desire to do public good.

Zoloth said, and I quote,

“It’s incredibly exciting and wonderful to be part of a species that dreams in a big way, but I also want to be part of a species that takes care of the poor and the dying, and I’m worried that our attention is being drawn away to a glittery future world that is fantasy and not the world we live in.”

Going back to Peter Thiel, he said and I quote,

“I’ve always had this really strong sense that death was a terrible, terrible thing. I think that’s somewhat unusual. Most people end up compartmentalizing and they are in some weird mode of denial and acceptance about death, but they both have the result of making you very passive. I prefer to fight it.”

And then he made another statement that should particularly have our attention. As the Post reported,

“Peter Thiel is the embodiment of Silicon Valley culture at its individualistic, impatient extreme.”

He believes,

“…death is the ‘great enemy’ of humankind.”

Now here’s what’s really interesting, at one point and at one point alone, Peter Thiel’s worldview intersect with the worldview of Scripture because we are told in Scripture indeed that death is the great enemy. We are also told in Scripture that it is the final enemy that is defeated by Christ, and we’re being told that indeed there is the promise of everlasting life. But it’s never going to come from a laboratory; it’s never going to come by technology. It is highly revealing that you have so many incredibly rich, incredibly powerful, incredibly smart people, investing so much money believing that they will be delivered from the great enemy of death by technology. It is almost as if in the entrepreneurial culture of Silicon Valley a serpent appeared to some of these entrepreneurs and said, ‘I will deliver you, all it will take is technology. Eat of that tree.’

Here we simply have to come back to the fact that the biblical worldview alone adequately defines death and tells us what it really is. It isn’t less of an enemy than Peter Thiel thinks; it’s even more of an enemy. And when it comes everlasting life it’s never to come from a technology, it is not going to come from a test tube, and it is going to come only by the redemption that is accomplished for us in Jesus Christ. And it comes to those who believe in him and repent of their sins.

It took the Washington Post hundreds and hundreds of words to talk about this new initiative from Silicon Valley, it takes the Bible only a few words to give the only real answer: for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him might not perish but have everlasting life.

 

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. Remember we are taking questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Just call 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 05-14-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Utah anti-discrimination law already considered insufficient compromise by LGBT community

Some LGBT residents critical of Utah anti-discrimination law, Associated Press (Michelle Price)

2) Concerns over religious liberty rise as liberals urged to be magnanimous in victory 

The new culture war, The Economist

3) Attack on conservative view of marriage conflates historic shifts with radical redefinition

Conservatives say marriage has always been between a man and a woman. They’re wrong., Washington Post (Trevor Burrus)

4) Silicon Valley efforts to solve mortality right recognition of death as the Last Enemy

Tech titans’ latest project: Defy death, Washington Post (Ariana Eunjung Cha)