R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 314

Transcript: The Briefing 05-06-15

The Briefing

 

May 6, 2015

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

 

It’s Wednesday, May 6, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Pressure for religious groups to conform to culture on sexuality opposes biblical fidelity

Before you can have a massive moral change in a society, you have to have a more fundamental change that comes first – that is a worldview change and, at its very base, that’s going to be a spiritual change. It’s going to be in its essence a theological change. The theological convictions that establish the plausibility structures of a society have to change before the definition of marriage can change, before the prevailing sexual morality can change.

We’ve been witnessing for the better part of the last five or six decades a sustained effort to transform America’s sexual morality – it didn’t begin with same-sex relations and it certainly didn’t begin with same-sex marriage. Those are the presenting issues now, but the larger sexual revolution that began in the 1960s was both a sign of, and a driver of, and was itself evidence of, the kind of fundamental spiritual change that had to come before. But on the other side of that moral revolution there has to be a theological argument that buttresses the revolution and helps to keep it in place, that helps to create in the minds of the public the plausibility structures that make the new moral revolution appear to be just the commonsensical morality.

So here’s a pattern that we need to watch. On the other side of this great sexual revolution, in particular on the other side of the normalization of same-sex relationships, and on the other side of the legalization of same-sex marriage, there is going to be intense pressure to reform theological conviction to match the new cultural reality. And the evidence of that comes in an unexpected place, and that is the editorial page of the New York Times. And it comes not from a theologian, at least not explicitly so, but from a law professor at Yale Law School. The law professor is William N. Eskridge Jr., he’s the author of the book “Dishonorable Passions: Sodomy Law in America, 1861-2003.” He has been one of the major legal theorist when it comes to the moral revolution around us, and we need to note that in the larger cultural conversation in which we are all a part we are facing not only moral issues, and legal arguments, we’re also facing theological arguments as well. Rarely in such an undisguised form as that found in this article that appeared just a few days ago in the New York Times.

Eskridge begins by looking back last week to the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the same-sex marriage case and he says that the plaintiffs in that case were, in his words, committed gay couples who were seeking the right to marry and they had the opportunity to bring their case to the Supreme Court. And as they did so, various groups filed supporting arguments known as amicus briefs before the nation’s highest court. As he points out, those brief were offered by American corporations, by a good number of American law professors and other academics, by players in the NFL, and as he says, by a past chairman of the Republican national committee. But the real point of his article comes in the second paragraph when he writes,

“Religious groups are on their side, too. While several prominent religious organizations have filed briefs in opposition, leaders in the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalist Association, the official organizations of conservative and reform Judaism, and more than 1,900 theologians signed a brief urging the court to legalize same-sex marriage.”

The importance of this article that appeared in the New York Times by a law professor at Yale is that you have in the larger culture, even on the other side of this moral revolution now progressing so far and at such velocity, the apparent and explicit need for them to make theological arguments. To put the matter bluntly, they need the church to get in line.

And their examples of churches that have gotten in line with the new moral revolution are, at least in part, the very churches that professor Eskridge notes: the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ. He also points to other religious groups that you would think would oppose same-sex marriage, at least if you’re looking at the names on the groups, including conservative Judaism. But the point to think about when it comes to conservative Judaism is that that is not Orthodox Judaism. The conservative Jewish movement is not theologically conservative in this sense. Reform Judaism is the most liberal of the organized major branches of Judaism, and it has been in support of the legalization of same-sex marriage and the normalization of homosexuality now for some time.

Writing as if all of this is a surprise, this law professor says,

“That’s not where religion is supposed to fall. American religion is, in the view of many, stubbornly wedded to traditional one man, one woman marriage and is at war with efforts to expand civil marriage.”

But his whole point here in this paragraph is that’s what you’re supposed to think is going on but he argues that’s not what really is going on. Instead he says there is a great theological revolution taking place and he’s pointing to the trajectory that American churches and synagogues and mosques, American religion in general, is going to get in line with this new moral revolution. He then writes,

“The faith traditions supporting marriage equality are telling the court that religions, like American families, are diverse. An increasing number of Bible-based faith communities have an inclusive attitude toward gay families and marriages.”

Now on what authority does a law professor at Yale, whose been a major legal theorist for the gay-rights movement, have – in arguing – that it is “Bible-based religions” or as he says here “bible-based faith communities” that are joining the revolution? Well let’s just say that that requires a radical redefinition of the phrase Bible-based.

When you look at the very organizations and denominations that William Eskridge cites, he’s pointing to those denominations that are decidedly not Bible-based in any sense of understanding the Bible as the revealed word of God. Rather they are Bible-based only in the sense that they claim some continuing allegiance to the stories and to the narrative of the Scriptures. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about on Monday in the article that appeared in the Washington Post on Christianity without Christ. Evidently you can also add Judaism without torah. At least without the torah understood as the revealed word of God.

Now we ought to pay attention when an article like this appears in the pages of America’s most influential newspaper, and we should also note the irony, indeed the oddity, of a law professor at Yale instructing us on theology when it comes even to the exegesis and interpretation of the New Testament. This is what he writes and I quote,

“In his teachings, Jesus emphasized love for one’s neighbor and tolerance for the many kinds of people in the world. Jesus instructed his followers, ‘Judge not, and you shall not be judged; condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.’ These are not lessons that ought to inspire disrespect for two women in a committed partnership who have four adopted children — two of whom have special needs — as one of the plaintiff couples in Obergefell v. Hodges do.”

My point, he says,

“…is not that the Bible must be read in a gay-friendly way; it is simply that the Bible is open to honest interpretations that refuse to condemn or that even embrace such families. I am doubtful that Scripture speaks with one voice about how to define civil marriage.”

Now those are some complicated sentences, but the bottom line in all of this is that here we have a law professor at Yale who has been a major theorist for the gay-rights movement instructing us about how we are to understand the teachings of Jesus. And yet, what’s even more important is that he feels that he needs to. And what’s equally important is that the New York Times felt that it was important to its cause to run this article. That really tells us something.

When we look closer at the argument he is going back to where Jesus says, ‘judge not and you shall not be judged,’ it is clear that Jesus is not telling his disciples not to make moral judgments. After all this is the very same Jesus who is revealed throughout the New Testament and especially for instance in a passage such as in the gospel of Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount in which he is teaching his disciples how to make moral judgments. He is making a very clear statement that we are in no position as sinners to condemn other sinners to damnation – that is God’s business. He is not telling his disciples that we are not to make moral judgments. And when it comes to the definition of marriage, Jesus was abundantly clear in the very same gospel, in the gospel of Matthew, he pointed out that through Moses God gave the definition of marriage in the law as a man and a woman and it was always intended to be so.  Jesus, by the way, doesn’t root the authority for that definition of marriage in the law, but rather in creation as he says, ‘from the beginning.’

In a really interesting section of this law professors article he says,

“Assume that I am wrong and that the Bible unequivocally demands that marriage be defined as one man, one woman. Does that require people of faith to disrespect and exclude gay couples? No, it doesn’t. A recent example is telling.”

He then goes to the Bible’s very clear condemnation of adultery and to Jesus’ very clear condemnation of divorce. He then writes,

“A generation ago, many Christian churches followed these biblical admonitions and would not sanction what they viewed as ‘adulterous’ second marriages. Today, in large part because of the power of changing social norms, it is no longer common for most Protestant churches to refuse to marry a woman to a man who had divorced his previous wife. And few churches would exclude or disrespect a couple because either spouse had married before.”

Well is what he says true or false? Well to a considerable extent what he says there is true and we need to note exactly what he’s arguing. He’s arguing that America’s Protestant churches in the main joined the moral revolution when it comes to divorce, and in that sense evangelical Christians simply have to concede guilty as charged. Far too many American churches and denominations have done exactly what this law professor accuses us of doing, and that is accommodating morally to the divorce culture long before the issue of same-sex marriage or the normalization of same-sex relationships came along.

And yet before we draw a one-to-one correlation between that issue and the arrival of same-sex marriage, we need to recognize that even when it came to a marriage after a divorce, even when it came to a marriage after adultery, the Christian church never said that those marriages themselves cannot be a marriage – instead they said that those marriages are disordered marriages. That’s a fundamentally different argument, and that’s where the Christian church now, on biblical authority, cannot then look to same-sex couples and declares them to be married even in disordered marriages. That’s because if you have a biblical definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman, you can then understand that there are some marriages between a man and a woman that are disordered, according to Scripture. But they are not, by that definition, not married.

But when it comes to same-sex a couple, that is a fundamentally different argument. It’s also interesting here that when you have this law professor making this argument, he’s pointing mostly to liberal mainline Protestant denominations. He can’t say this about the Catholic Church because it has not changed its position on this, at least in terms of its doctrinal teaching, and he completely misconstrues the issue when he draws a one-to-one correlation between the kind of marriages he says that most Protestant denominations have come to accept and same-sex marriage. The acceptance of which he is clearly arguing will be in evitable by most churches. The argument he is making is that if we could fast forward in history just a few years, he suggest you will find most religious groups having come to terms with the moral revolution and with the legalization of same-sex marriage.

But we need to note two other paragraphs in the law professor’s article. In one he writes,

“Some congregations will double down, not only reaffirming their understanding of traditional marriage but denouncing gay people even more fervently. The First Amendment gives them the right to react this way.”

One thing we need to note there is that he is equating those who hold to a traditional biblical understanding of marriage and what he calls the denunciation of gay people. Now we need to remember that what’s being demanded is not just the legalization of same-sex marriage, but the celebration of same-sex relationships – that’s embedded in that paragraph. He then writes and I quote,

“But if all 50 states issue marriage licenses on an equal basis, more same-sex couples will choose to wed. Some religious communities will take this as an opportunity to reconsider their views of those committed unions, and quietly welcome these families into their houses of worship.”

He’s onto something in that paragraph and he points to the way that some churches and denominations will surrender on this issue without ever publicly declaring that they are doing so. They will just quietly make their piece with same-sex couples and except those in same-sex relationships into the fellowship of their churches and denominations without any kind of public statement.

The most important thing that those operating from a biblical worldview need to understand from this article is the very fact that it happened. And that it comes from a law professor at Yale University, a major legal theorist for the gay-rights movement, it isn’t even coming from someone who is a theologian or anyone from within the world of the mainline Protestant denominations and the more liberal groups that he’s describing here. His real target audience is the larger culture and what he’s saying is, ‘just wait, most religious groups will get in line and make their peace with this revolution.’

That raises a big issue for biblical Christians, is it going to be true? And this is where we have to understand that the cultural pressure will be enormous. We have to understand that the coercive power of the society around us will be pervasive, and we have to understand that there is only in the end one authority that will keep us from surrendering on this issue from advocating an understanding of marriage the Christian church is held for two millennia, and that is the authority of Scripture itself.

If the Bible is not the revealed word of God, then we can indeed join the revolution – and there is no fundamental reason why we would not. But if the Bible is the word of God, and if God defined marriage in the Bible as he does, then we have no choice but to obey and to receive that definition of marriage and to understand that we are not merely bound by biblical authority – as Martin Luther made very clear – it is biblical authority that liberates us to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ because it is on the authority of Scripture and Scripture alone that we even know what that gospel is.

Before leaving this issue, Daniel Burke at CNN has written another article; the headline is, Poll Shows Growing Religious Support For Same-Sex Marriage. This too doesn’t really come as a surprise. He writes for CNN,

“In 2003, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court became the country’s first to legalize same-sex marriage, less than 30% of religiously affiliated Americans supported gays’ and lesbians’ right to wed.”

That’s back in 2003, let’s just remember that’s not ancient history, we’re talking about 12 years ago. He then says,

“By 2014, that number had climbed to 47%, according to a survey conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute. That’s more than the 45% who said they opposed same-sex nuptials.”

The margin he says is small, but statistically significant. And he says that is true not only because the survey included such a large pool of respondents, but because of the generational pattern that it reveals. That generational pattern especially has to do with the fact that as you go younger in the American population the percentages in favor of the legalization of same-sex unions and the normalization of homosexual relationships go up tremendously – and they do so in a very clearly identifiable pattern.

So the argument being made now by many is that inevitable American religious organizations are going to join the revolution because the younger adherence of every one of these faith traditions, as they are called in the secular media, will force this to happen. Once again we have to ask the question, will that be true? Well obviously time will tell. But what will really be revealing here is what younger evangelical Christians believe about the Bible and about the nature and authority, the inspiration and inerrancy, of the Scripture. And we come back again and again to the fundamental bedrock issue and that is this: it is always the bedrock question of whether or not God has spoken in his word because if God has spoken in his word, then we have his revelation in the Scriptures, in the Bible, and we have the definition of marriage and God’s pattern for human sexuality.

And even though we can understand, and indeed sympathize, with the fact the younger evangelicals are under even greater pressure than many on the other side of the age divide, the issue always remains, and it will ever be so until Jesus comes. The issue is do we believe the Bible to be the word of God? If we do then we simply have no option of exchanging the Bible’s definition of marriage for any other.

2) Journalist notes traditional religious convictions are the new moral sin of American society

Finally, just a few days ago Charlotte Allen wrote the houses of worship article for the Wall Street Journal and it has a very interesting headline all to its own: Modern Sin: Holding Onto Your Beliefs. She writes that the way to sin, in terms of contemporary postmodern American culture, is to hold onto religious convictions – at least any religious convictions that are tied to what the Christian church has taught for 2000 years and what is revealed in Scripture.

She writes about the moral revolution particularly on the issue of same-sex marriage, and she points out how the argument on the other side has changed just in the last several years – in the span of far less than a decade. She writes,

“The irony is that only a few years ago, when the legalization of same-sex marriage didn’t appear so inevitable, gay-marriage advocates eagerly assured a skeptical public that scenarios like those above would never happen. Typical was since-retired California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald M. George, who wrote in the 2008 decision legalizing gay marriage in that state: ‘Affording same-sex couples the opportunity to obtain the designation of marriage will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person.’”

Well as Charlotte Allen says, that’s already happening contradicting what was promised just back in 2008. She then writes,

“The victors have dropped their conciliatory stance. Bubonic plague-level hysteria surged through the media, academia and mega-corporate America in March after Indiana passed a law—modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993—that would enable religious believers to opt out of universally applicable laws under some circumstances.”

She points out that in the face of enormous cultural pressure the law was changed by the Indiana legislature at the request of the Indiana Governor. But she points out that when we look at the oral arguments that took place just last week – and you’ll recall that in that exchange just last week you had justice Samuel Alito ask the solicitor general the United States, if religious institutions opposing same-sex marriage might lose their tax exemption, and the solicitor general conceded it will be a question. She then writes,

“…in today’s mood of vengeful triumphalism among the progressive elites who rule public opinion, don’t count on many compromises.”

That’s a very important expression. Charlotte Allen has stated the situation exactly right, she’s done so with crystal clarity. She writes about what she calls the vengeful triumphalism now amongst the moral and intellectual elites, and she says if you just look at the concession made by the solicitor general of the United States in the Supreme Court chambers last week you will see that triumphalism. And when you look at the national media, such as the article I just cited earlier in The Briefing by the law professor at Yale, William Eskridge, you notice that same triumphalism. She says, and let me just repeat her words,

“…in today’s mood of vengeful triumphalism among the progressive elites who rule public opinion,”

Her final words are haunting,

“…don’t count on many compromises.”

As we have to say so often, we cannot say we were not warned.

 

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 05-06-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Pressure for religious groups to conform to culture on sexuality opposes biblical fidelity

It’s Not Gay Marriage vs. the Church Anymore, New York Times (William N. Eskridge, Jr)

Poll shows growing religious support for same-sex marriage, CNN (Daniel Burke)

2) Journalist notes traditional religious convictions are the new moral sin of American society

Modern Sin: Holding On to Your Belief,  Wall Street Journal (Charlotte Allen)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 05-05-15

The Briefing

 

May 5, 2015

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

 

It’s Tuesday, May 5, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Value of democratic process as a national worldview test enhanced by increase of candidates

 

As of this morning there are five, as of later today most likely six, in coming weeks certainly more – we’re talking about declared candidates for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in 2016. As of last week there were three United States senators that were declared candidates: Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Rand Paul. The timing of the announcement made by those senators is at least in part due to the rules of the United States Senate when it comes to campaigning.

At the end of last week retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson added his name to the mix, announcing in an interview with the media the he would also be a candidate for the Republican nomination. In yesterday’s news he released a video announcing his campaign. But Carson’s video released yesterday wasn’t the only an announcement. Similarly former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Carly Fiorina, who would also run previously for the United States Senate from California, announced that she would be an official candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016.

Later today it is expected that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will also make his announcement. As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, both Carson and Fiorina are hoping to build support among voters disenchanted with Washington and the Republican leadership. Ben Carson was world-famous as a neurosurgeon; he is one of the most famous pediatric neurosurgeons in world history – long before he did anything that would promise any future in politics. In 2013 he spoke at the national prayer breakfast and in so doing he made very clear that he was concerned about the nation’s morals and what he called its moral decay – speaking of the larger culture. The Wall Street Journal had responded then with an editorial entitled, Ben Carson for president, speaking of the boldness with which the neurosurgeon had spoken at that national prayer breakfast. But that was then and this is now.

Now as the 2016 race has begun in earnest, there will be an increased media attention upon Dr. Carson and even as he is being championed by many for his stand on social issues, the glare of national attention will now come to his positions on a number of issues that he has not had to speak to in the past – including foreign-policy and domestic affairs, including the economy.

Carly Fiorina has been a major figure in American corporate life, most famously including her tenure as the chief executive officer of the computer giant Hewlett-Packard. But when it comes to national politics, or for that matter state politics, even local politics, neither Dr. Carson nor Carly Fiorina arena has ever held an elective office. That points to one of the very interesting aspects of the American electorate when it comes to both parties, at least in cycles. Voters in both parties tend to say they want an outsider for President of the United States, but when it comes to actually voting those same voters who say they want an outsider to the political system, they virtually never choose the outsider they say they prefer. Businessman Ross Perot ran as a third-party candidate and a corporate businessman like Herman Cain who did run in the Republican primaries did not make it all that far.

The Washington Post yesterday ran a very interesting editorial to this point. In one sense the Washington Post is something like the consummate insider media guide because it is after all the Washington Post. The editors of the Post point out that the last time a major American political party nominated an individual who had neither held elected office nor won a major war was in 1940 and that candidate was the failed candidate Wendell Willkie. It was in 1952, that was the last time either the major parties nominated as President of the United States an individual who had not held previous elected office, and that of course was the Republican candidate Dwight David Eisenhower – who had after all been the supreme commander of allied forces in Europe during World War II and was generally considered to be the most respected man in America at the time.

When it comes to Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, they’ve got a rather awesome mountain to climb, but this is after all the political process that they have decided to enter, and this does give voters a genuine choice. One of the most interesting things that will happen over the next several weeks and months is that Americans, first in places especially liked Iowa and with the media focus the rest of us looking over the shoulders of Iowans, are going to gain a keen insight into who these candidates are, how they handle the pressure, what their positions are on an array of issues, and whether or not when Americans look at these candidates they see a President in the making.

The editors of the Washington Post make the rather obvious assertion that the presidency is generally not considered to be a starter job, but they end their editorial yesterday with these words and I quote,

“As of today, Ms. Fiorina and Mr. Carson are politicians on the national stage; we look forward to seeing what they can do.”

That’s the attitude we should all take when it comes to any of these announcements made by any of these candidates. Let’s indeed see what they can do. Once they made the announcement that Fiorina and Carson made just in the last couple days, they are the Washington Post editorial board stated, politicians on the national scene and we’re going to find out indeed what they’re made of.

That’s where Christians looking at an election process like this have to understand that the dance of democracy is a very important process. More than anything else we understand that it is an exercise in the fact that a candidates worldview will eventually come out. In that sense a national election is perhaps one of the most regularly scheduled worldview tests not only for candidates but also for the electric. We find out what their worldview is inevitably, but the electoral results don’t really reflect their worldview so much as ours. Since this is a democratic republic, in short order we’re going to find out not only a great deal about the candidates, we’re to find out a great deal about the American people and what the American people actually believe. Their worldview, our worldview, will also assuredly come out.

Finally on the topic of the 2016 elections, later today it is expected that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will also make his announcement that he will be a candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016. Back in the 2008 presidential cycle on the Republican side Mike Huckabee won the Iowa caucuses and then went on to win seven other states in terms of a race for the Republican nomination. The eventual nominee of course in 2008 was Mitt Romney. Since leaving the 2008 race and the governorship of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee has gone on to be a rather successful conservative speaker and commentator on Fox News with his own program until he had to leave Fox news in preparation for this expected announcement.

When it comes to having run for the republic nomination back in 2008, the good news for Mr. Huckabee is that a good many of voters know a great deal about him – and the fact that he actually won the Iowa caucuses and seven other states. Of course when it comes to that political calculation there is also the fact that it was back in 2008 that he won the Iowa caucuses and those seven other states, and in terms of electoral politics that’s an entire generation ago. In other words, the profound reality at the end of today begins where it left off and leaves off where it began.

By the time the sun goes down tonight there will be, by all reckoning, six declared candidate for the Republican nomination and it is likely that at least one Governor, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and a former Governor, Jeb Bush of Florida will also join the fray. There could well be others. The bottom line is that the race for the Republican nomination is wide open and the worldview questions of course are wide open as well.

2) Texas gunmen exposes collision between honor religion of Islam and gospel religion

 

Yesterday on The Briefing we talked about the late breaking news that had to do with the killing of two gunmen outside a cultural center in Garland, Texas outside of Dallas. The two gunmen had been shot by Dallas police after they had opened fire and the big question was, was this some kind of random incident or was this part of the larger challenge of Islamic terrorism? And yet, as the New York Times reported yesterday, as we had feared, the story was bigger than may have at first appeared.

Reporting from Garland, Texas the New York Times writes,

“One was an extrovert drawn to basketball as well as to Islam, who had been identified by the F.B.I. as a jihadist terrorism suspect and was once a regular at Friday Prayer at a mosque near his Phoenix apartment. The other was more quiet, ran a carpet cleaning business in Phoenix and often prayed at the same mosque, sometimes accompanied by his young son.”

As reporters Manny Fernandez, Richard Pérez-Peña and Fernando Santos tell us, it is not entirely clear what led the two men identified as Elton Simpson, age 30, and Nadir Hamid Soofi, age 34, who lived in the same apartment complex in Phoenix, to come to the Dallas suburb and open fire on Sunday outside a gathering that showcased artwork and cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed. The shootout, according to the Times, during which Mr. Simpson and Mr. Soofi dressed in body armor, fired assault rifles at police officers left both of them dead. But then the Time states the most important of the revelations,

“What has become clear, however, is that what took place in a suburban Texas parking lot near a Walmart has pointed up the volatile tensions between the West’s embrace of free expression and the insistence of many Muslims that depiction of the Prophet Muhammad is a sacrilege. It served as a grim reminder of the attack 16 weeks ago on the Paris offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper.”

Now, the story coming out of Garland is decidedly still somewhat confused. It isn’t known if this is part of a larger conspiracy for a network of Islamic terrorism. It is known that one of the men was known as a terrorism and jihadist suspect by the FBI. As the Times reports,

“Mr. Simpson, an American-born convert to Islam who was adored by the young men who frequented the Islamic Community Center in northwest Phoenix, was convicted in 2011 of lying to F.B.I. agents — denying that he had made plans to travel to Somalia when in fact he had. Federal prosecutors charged that he wanted to go ‘for the purpose of engaging in violent jihad,’ but a judge ruled that the government had not proved that part of the charge, and sentenced him to three years’ probation.”

Just several months ago, according also to national media, the FBI and local law enforcement in Phoenix had opened a new investigation into Mr. Simpson, but it appears that there had been no federal investigation of Mr. Soofi. This points to the fact that even though we have a vast law enforcement network, even though we have a vast system of intelligence even when it comes to terrorism threat, there is no way that every single person who might be involved in jihadist efforts can be identified – much less tracked. And as the action of the federal judge in the case of Mr. Simpson makes clear, even when someone is at least accused by prosecutors of being a potential jihadist, if the government doesn’t prove its case according to American law, then the case falls apart. And in this case the man was simply given probation for lying to the FBI.

What is abundantly clear to anyone looking at this situation is, as the New York Times has suggested, the situation at Charlie Hebdo has now come to the United States and it comes with the full force of all the worldview issues that are at its very base. There is a direct collision between the Western ideal of the free expression of ideas and the Muslim understanding that it is a sacrilege that ought to be punished – indeed often by violence – to depict the prophet Mohammed, much less than a way that is satirical. Islam in that definition is an honor religion, and time and again we have to point to the vital contrast between Islam, a religion that teaches the duty of every faithful Muslim to protect Islam from any dishonor and especially the prophet Muhammad from any dishonor, even the dishonor of being graphically depicted. And on the other hand Christianity which is not an honor religion – or at least it isn’t an honor religion when it comes to the disciples of Jesus Christ being assigned the responsibility to defend his honor. It was he who would be despised and rejected of men. He took our dishonor, he bore human scorn on our behalf, he does not call his disciples to protect his honor.

Now the book of Revelation does make clear that he will vindicate his own name, and as the book of Philippians tells us, when that Day of Judgment comes every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. But that is brought about by divine judgment and by the divine will, not by the disciples of Jesus Christ because we are not assigned that responsibility nor do we have that authority. Rather we are to be witnesses of the one who is identified in Scripture as the suffering servant. We are to be witnesses of the gospel of the one who laid his life down willingly for his own. We are to preach the gospel, not to defend the honor of Jesus. And now that we have this that even the secular worldview understand as a direct collision between the Western ideal of free expression and the Muslim understanding of the honor of the prophet Mohammed, we as Christians have to understand that that’s not the only collision we are witnessing. The even more profound collision is between Islam as an honor religion and Christianity as a gospel religion. Let us remember the instructions that Jesus gave to Peter when Peter was tempted to try to act to defend the honor of Jesus. As Jesus told Peter, put away your sword.

3) Fascination over Nepali deities reveals distance between secular and Eastern worldviews

 

Finally as we are thinking about the clash of worldviews, our hearts continue to go out for the people of Nepal, even as the death toll in terms of that nation’s recent earthquake has now exceeded 6,000. As we are praying for the people of Nepal, and we need to continue to pray because the rebuilding of that nation and the grieving of those families will surely continue for many months to come, we also have a bit of display of the differences between the majority religious faith of Nepal on the one hand and Christianity on the other.

One testimony to this came over the weekend in a cover story that appeared in the Financial Times, the headline; Houses Of Nepal’s Child Goddesses Stand Intact Amid Quake Devastation. As reporters Victor Mallet and Binod Bhattarai report from Kathmandu,

“Amid the devastation of Kathmandu’s Durbar Square, where the old royal palace and Hindu temples were reduced to rubble by last week’s earthquake, one house …stands almost unscathed: the home of the Kumari, the city’s living child-goddess and the nation’s protector.”

One of the members of the family that guards the 10-year-old girl revered by Nepal’s Hindu said,

“We believe that it was her powers that might have protected the place, although there are some cracks inside…”

That man, who was one of the protectors of the child goddesses, stood outside the intricate wooden doors, says the Financial Times,

“…of the Kumari House, leaning on one of the brightly painted stone lions that guard the entrance and watching troops and rescue teams sift through the debris of the historic square with their bare hands,”

As the Financial Times reminds us, it was a 6.8 magnitude earthquake in central Nepal a week ago this past Saturday that killed more than 6,000 people; including tourist who were then visiting fragile Hindu temples, villagers in whose homes were destroyed in the foothills of the Himalayas, and climbers swept away in an avalanche that tore through Everest base camp. But in the aftermath of the earthquake we also have the support in the Financial Times telling us about Kumari, identifies as the 10-year-old girl who is Kathmandu’s child goddesses and the protector of the nation.

The Financial Times goes on to tell us that Matina Shakya, who is Kathmandu’s Kumari, is the most prominent of the child goddesses who represent the fearsome Hindu goddess Durga and are worshiped in the poly towns until they reach puberty and are replaced. When the earthquake struck says the Financial Times, demolishing most of the older structures in the square, she was upstairs in the house where she is revered and had just finished eating. The Time says it isn’t clear how the Kumari, as she is known, reacted to the earthquake, although the selection process for the position is so severe that she might have been less frightened than other girls her age. Now I read directly from the Financial Times again when I read,

“…not only must a Kumari have a body like a banyan tree and a neck like a conch-shell; she must also calmly endure a test of nerve in which the young candidates are confronted in the dead of night by men in demon masks and a roomful of severed buffalo heads.”

Now when we talk about a clash of worldviews, often we’re talking about something that is far more subtle than this. It tells us a great deal that this appears on the front page of one of the most influential newspapers in the world, the Financial Times published in London, and the very placement of this new story in the Financial Times tells us that the editors of that paper, along with the reporters behind this story, understood that here you have something that would interest Western readers precisely because of that clash of worldviews – although they almost certainly wouldn’t put it that way.

There certainly is a direct contrast here between biblical Christianity as we know it and the fact that here you have in Nepal 10-year-old girls who are child goddesses and especially child goddesses who are considered to be protectors of the people over against a very fearsome Hindu deity – in this case a Hindu goddess. That tells us a great deal about the contrast between Christianity and a different belief system, in this case very specifically Hinduism. Hinduism being at least in this senses a subset of an Eastern worldview with its cyclical pattern and within this case of Hindu a very polytheistic worldview.

But what we also need to note is that the placement on the front page of the story in the Financial Times tells us that the editors of this paper almost assuredly looked at the very existence of the Kumari in Kathmandu as pointing to something that is quite obviously different than the worldview of most of the readers of the Financial Times. But that raises an obvious question, what do the editors of the Financial Times think that the default worldview of their own readers might be? If it’s one that would find as absolutely astonishing the existence of the Kumari in Kathmandu, what would the editors of the Financial Times think that the default worldview of their own readers might look like?

Well, when it comes to the Financial Times it’s pretty indicative of the worldview of the Western elites, a highly secularized worldview. It should tell us something that in Kathmandu the existence of the Kumari, understood to be a 10-year-old girl, makes sense and to the editors of the Financial Times and others in the Western elites, the modern secular worldview simply makes sense, it is simply obvious because it’s the most prevalent and accessible worldview.

But Christians must always keep in mind that worldviews are never quite so obvious and that’s why we have to give such careful in strategic biblical attention to developing a worldview that is indeed Christian rather than simply picking up the default worldview around us. It is easy to see when it takes place on the part of others; it takes far more discipline to make sure that it doesn’t happen in our own thinking and in our own hearts. To be a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ in obedience, is to develop a worldview that is genuinely Christian and genuinely biblical. And the Bible itself is our only rescue from the worldviews of the age around us.

4) Hindu pyres following quake reminder of significance of Christian doctrine of resurrection

 

Finally, another article from Kathmandu that demonstrates the consequences of worldview thinking; Chicago Tribune newspapers reporter Julie Makinen reported a story with the headline, Hindu Funeral Pyres Line the River. As she reports, the funeral pyres are now following the rivers outside Kathmandu. She describes a scene whereby one family stacked the body of one of its victims on a funeral pyre and hired a professional body burner to stack logs of the salwood, a teak-like timber, onto a small platform and then laid packets of ghee, a clarified butter amidst the timbers to ensure the flames would take light.

One by one, we are told, the women’s three sons prostrated themselves at her feet, their weeping uncontained by the surgical master stretched across their faces. Then we are told the eldest son performed an ultimate responsibility of the eldest son, laying the flaming stick that started the funeral pyre that consumed her body. I will not going to further detail from the story, but as Makinen ends the news report she says,

“Ideally, the dead are cremated on the day of death or the day after. But like many Nepalese men, [this woman’s] sons were working overseas and had to fly home for her funeral, so her rites were delayed until Monday.”

But as is reported, with the death toll now exceeding 6,000, the funeral pyres continue to burn especially along the rivers of Nepal. One of things we need to note very quickly is the reason why this kind of very formal cremation is very much a part of the Hindu understanding of death is because they understand the necessity of freeing the spirit from the imprisonment in the body. This is not something that is unique to Hinduism and it’s a rather complicated belief. But it comes down to a direct contrast with Christianity and to the reason why Christianity throughout its history, along with Judaism, has traditionally disfavored cremation.

It is because cremation in the societies of most cultures is understood to be tied to a worldview in which there is some necessity of the spirit gaining release from the body – often understood as an imprisonment in the body. To put the matter squarely, here we have another glaring contrast from which we ought to learn a great deal. Biblical scriptural Christianity doesn’t hold in any sense that we are spirits trapped within a body, rather we are a psychosomatic unity – as evangelical theologians have affirmed – body and soul together. The spirit in the body combined, even in the sense that we are saved by the power of the resurrected Christ who was, we remind ourselves, bodily resurrected and as he is now so we shall one day be. Not liberated from our bodies, but instead experiencing by God’s grace, a glorified body.

We will not inhabit this earthly body, first Corinthian 15 tells us that it must pass a way, but we look forward to a resurrection body. That is the promise, not liberation from the body, but a glorified perfected body as a part of the promise of the gospel of Jesus Christ. As he is now, in terms of this body, so one day we shall be. He is the first born of many brothers.

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’m speaking to you from Pompano Beach, FL, and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-05-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Value of democratic process as a national worldview test enhanced by increase of candidates

Three New GOP Candidates to Enter 2016 Race, Wall Street Journal (Reid J. Epstein and Elizabeth Williamson)

Ben Carson for President, Wall Street Journal (Editorial Board)

Enter the un-politicians for 2016, Washington Post (Editorial Board)

2) Texas gunmen exposes collision between honor religion of Islam and gospel religion

Gunman in Texas Was F.B.I. Suspect in Jihad Inquiry, New York Times (Manny Fernandez, Richard Pérez-Peña and Fernando Santos)

3) Fascination over Nepali deities reveals distance between secular and Eastern worldviews

Nepal earthquake fails to shake child goddess from her home, Financial Times (Victor Mallet and Binod Bhattarai)

4) Hindu pyres following quake reminder of significance of Christian doctrine of resurrection

Hindu Funeral Pyres Line the River, Chicago Tribune (Julie Makinen)

Aftermath

This message was originally delivered as a breakout session at The Gospel Coalition 2015 National Conference

Transcript: The Briefing 05-04-15

The Briefing

 

May 4, 2015

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

 

It’s Monday, May 4, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Gunmen killed at anti-Islamic Texas art show raise question of international involvement

As morning broke on Monday it was clear that a new story that broke late Sunday night will require further information. As Reuters reported, two gunmen opened fire Sunday evening at an art exhibit in Garland, Texas – that’s near Dallas. The art exhibit had been organized by an anti-Islamic group and it featured caricatures of the prophet Mohammed. The gunmen were themselves shot dead at the scene by police officers. As Reuters reported, the shooting was an echo of past attacks or threats in other Western countries against art depicting the prophet Mohammed. It took place in the parking lot of the Curtis Colwell center there in Garland, located northeast of Dallas.

At this point it is not clear exactly what was taking place in this incident, though as a spokesperson for the police said,

“I have no idea who they are,”

Speaking of the dead gunmen,

“…other than that they’re dead and in the street,”

As a precaution, Dallas-area police were examining the suspect’s car for any explosives that might be in the vehicle. As I said, this is one of the stories that will require a great deal of further information. At this point police in Dallas and the law enforcement and national security officials elsewhere are aware of the fact that this may be a major story – then again it might not be. This might be a story with major international repercussions; then again it might be basically a local law enforcement story there in the area of Dallas. Time will tell.

2) Baltimore officers charged with Freddie Gray death, illustrating value of judicial system

In the meantime the headlines alone serve to remind us that a major story can interrupt virtually anywhere, anytime, without any kind of warning. Often we simply have to wait for more information to be available in order to put the story into context and to know just how big a story this might be.

Meanwhile, the nation knows the city of Baltimore is Ground Zero of a very big story and over the weekend it was announced that six law enforcement officers will face charges in the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray – the young man, an African-American young man, who died after being taken into custody by Baltimore police. The death of Freddie Gray led to widespread protests in the streets of Baltimore that turned violent, leading not only to the arrest of many protesters but to the torching and looting of several Baltimore area businesses and to the serious injury of the least about a half-dozen Baltimore police officers.

But as the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday morning, six police officers were charged on Friday in the death of Freddie Gray, as Baltimore’s top prosecutor acted with what the Post described as, ‘surprising swiftness’ in a case the paper described as one that ignited protests and rioting in Baltimore. As the Post also reported and I quote

“Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby publicly delivered her stunning, detailed narrative of extensive police misconduct in the latest of several cases nationwide that have fueled anger over heavy-handed law enforcement tactics in low-income communities.”

But the paper went on to say that her decision to file charges that brought joy and relief to low income West Baltimore and beyond at least temporarily, had also brought a great deal of criticism. According to the paper she described in her indictment how Freddie Gray,

“…allegedly was arrested illegally, treated callously by the officers, and suffered a severe spine injury in the back of a police van while his pleas for medical help were ignored.”

Mosby’s decision, coming in the very heat of this urban conflict, including rioting and protesting along with the defense of the officers offered by others, well the action of the state attorney itself drew a great deal of attention.

As the Baltimore Sun’s reporters Liz Bowie and Michael Dresser reported,

“The decision of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby to file charges of murder and false imprisonment against police officers in the death of Freddie Gray was both bold and novel, according to legal analysts — but some said they will be challenging to prove in court.”

The paper’s reporters cited Steven H. Levin, a former federal prosecutor, as saying, “she has overcharged.” He went on to say that the state’s attorney could lose credibility with the jury because she brought the charges so quickly,

“…making it more difficult to obtain a conviction on any of the charges,”

Meanwhile, other legal authorities disagreed with Levin, saying that it was impossible, as the paper reports, for them to judge the strength of the state attorney’s case without seeing the evidence. A. Dwight Pettit, a defense attorney, said the prosecutor “is going to have a rough road to travel,” but he says the charges are at least, and this was his word, reasonable. As he said,

“At least the public will be able to see that battled out in the courtroom. For the first time, it is not swept under the rug.”

That’s something of an incendiary comment by itself, but let’s look little closer at the situation. Here we have a state’s attorney who brought charges against six police officers and did so very, very quickly. Too quickly? Well, once again we simply have to say, time will tell.

One of the things we need to keep in mind here – whether the story is datelined Ferguson, Missouri or Baltimore, Maryland or anywhere else – is that we actually only have the legal system we have. The legal system that is in place in the United States is decidedly imperfect. On the other hand, even those who are currently arguing about the fallacies and frailties of America’s legal system, whether they are addressing local or state wide or more national issues, even they generally would not want to scrap the justice system altogether. Furthermore, the most responsible on any side of this kind of controversy understands that the only way to achieve justice – any kind of genuine justice, any approximation of justice – is actually to go through the legal system that we have.

Conservatives and liberals on these issues, not to mention those divided by ethnic identity, often find themselves looking at apparently the same facts with a completely different analysis of the moral and legal situations at stake. Even as there were many who were saying that we should trust the legal system in Ferguson, Missouri when the prosecutor there decided not to bring charges the same kind of logic should mean that we extend to the states attorney there in Baltimore, the understanding that even as she has filed charges in these cases she will have to prove them in court.

The checks and balances, the protection for anyone arrested for a crime in the United States in any jurisdiction, these are very important parts of our legal system. And an indictment does not lead in any way necessarily to a conviction. It could lead on the other hand to a plea bargain agreement – that’s what’s going to be very interesting to watch here. Many people looking at this in terms of the immediate aftermath of the handing down of these charges in Baltimore are pointing to the fact that it would probably take at least a year for these charges ever to reach the form of a trial in a courtroom. Furthermore, given our system of justice at several points between here and there something else could intervene. Whether that is the prosecutor at some point dropping the charges or, as might be the case, we can have a grand jury’s involvement, or we can have one or all of the officers charged in the case reach some form of plea agreement with the prosecution that would be acceptable to the courts. This is going to be a very interesting case.

But at this point what this prosecutor has done is unlike what has been done in other recent cases. As the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, there locally looking at the issue very closely, have both pointed out –  both of them very liberal newspapers –  that this is not a departure from recent patterns, but it also means that now, as the prosecutors has filed these charges, the issue now very clearly goes through a defined legal process.

Christians understand, operating out of a biblical worldview, that that defined process is itself, though very imperfect as anyone must admit, it is itself a testimony to the American understanding of human rights and human dignity – an understanding that is deeply rooted in the Christian worldview and in Western jurisprudence. What we have to do now is hope that peace will return to the streets of Baltimore. That’s a beginning, a very necessary beginning. That’s not the end of this process however, we do understand that what this case in Baltimore has revealed, in terms of a series of other events that didn’t just begin in Ferguson, Missouri, this nation faces a powder keg in so many of our urban areas. And that is something that isn’t going to be alleviated by one prosecutor bringing charges – or even by a court bringing convictions, or any other single legal issue.

This presents the country with a huge moral challenge, and a moral challenge that isn’t reducible to just the city of Baltimore and isn’t reducible just to issues that are the presenting question here of whether or not the police acted rightly in arresting Freddie Gray. What we’re looking at here is a much larger picture and it’s going to take some time for America to sort out these issues. But even as peace, we must pray, will return quickly to the streets of Baltimore, this is an issue that simply will not be swept clear of the nation’s agenda – nor should it be.

But we do know that the way to deal with this is through the defined legal and political process, even the reform of that process has to take place not in the streets but rather in the courtrooms and the legislatures of this nation. The alternative to working through the system in order to achieve the best approximation of justice and righteousness is nothing less than anarchy. And at times we’ve seen that anarchy breaking out on the streets of America, most recently in Baltimore. And anarchy is not just the enemy of order; it is the enemy of human dignity. That anarchy endangers everyone.

3) Journalist argues for a cultural Christianity without Christ as way of saving Christianity 

Speaking of the Washington Post, yesterday’s edition of the post included an article that should be listed amongst those that one has to see in order to believe. The headline of the article is, Taking Christ out of Christianity. And it didn’t appear in a theological Journal, it didn’t appear in a Christian magazine, again it appeared on the editorial pages of the Washington Post in its Sunday edition. The article is by Alana Massey and she writes,

“When I tell my socially progressive, atheist friends that ‘I’m culturally Christian,’ they’re momentarily concerned that I have a latent preoccupation with guns and the Pledge of Allegiance. Using the term with devout believers gets me instructions that I just need to read more sophisticated theology to come around. I’ve tried hard to accept my fully secular identity, and at other times I’ve tried to read myself into theistic belief, going all the way through divinity school as part of the effort. Still, I remain unable to will myself into any belief in God or gods — but also unable to abandon my relationship to the Episcopalian faith into which I was born and to the ancient stories from which it came.”

What Alana Massey is up to here is a very audacious argument. She’s arguing that she can remain culturally Christian while abandoning virtually the entirety of the Christian truth claim – beginning with the fact that she doesn’t even believe in God. She goes on to write,

“And though I am without a god, I am not alone.”

She points to the rise of the so-called Nones, that in n-o-n-e-s, that’s the fast-growing segment of the American population that when asked to identify themselves by religious affiliation they respond ‘none.’ Now as we recall, the pew data indicates that about one out of five Americans responding to the survey instruments now identifies himself or herself in this way, and that rises to about one out of three when it comes those aged 29 or younger. But the amazing thing here is what Alana Massey argues in the article.

She argues exactly as the headline in the article indicates, that what she wants and thinks she has achieved, is Christianity without Christ. Now we need to note, even before we look at her argument, that this has been tried before. In one sense this is the great experiment of liberal Protestantism beginning first in Germany in what became known as cultural Protestantism. And that was the belief held by many in the German elites in the mid-and late 19th century – well into the 20th century. But of course it quickly evaporated into absolute secularism. Alana Massey argues, not without evidence, that much of what calls itself formal or organized religion in the United States is increasingly non-doctrinal, non-theological, and has no reference to beliefs.

She writes about the large number of American Jews who identify themselves as secular and she writes about the incredible number of Roman Catholics who report, in terms of their own responses to surveys and polls, that they do not hold the crucial Catholic teaching in terms of doctrine or in terms of morality. But then she writes about liberal Protestantism and she says that in many ways liberal Protestants don’t fare much better. She cites Connor Wood, a PhD candidate in religious studies at Boston University who wrote,

“Liberal Protestant churches, which have famously lax requirements about praxis, belief, and personal investment, therefore often end up having a lot of half-committed believers in their pews,”

That statement is marked by a profound obviousness. What we have in liberal Protestantism is exactly what Alana Massey calls for – increasingly Christianity without Christ. Would there be any surprise therefore that these churches often end up, as Connor Wood said, having a lot of half committed believers in their pews? The question is, why would they be even half committed?

In another statement of the obvious Connor Wood said and I quote,

“The parishioners sitting next to them can sense that the social fabric of their church isn’t particularly robust, which deters them from investing further in the collective.”

That’s an example of academic jargon. What he’s saying is that those who are sitting in the pews of these mainline liberal denominations look to each other and recognize they don’t believe very much and on that basis they have a hard time making any kind of deep or robust commitment. But Alana Massey goes on to argue that we should take an example from the secularizing trend within Judaism and understand that even as she reports the majority of younger Jews in America indicate that they are culturally Jewish rather than theologically Jewish, Episcopalians and other Protestants should choose to move in the same direction. And furthermore she invites Roman Catholics and evangelicals to take a very similar kind of direction.

She cites Rabbi Miriam Jerris of the Society of Humanistic Judaism who said,

“These people are looking for communities and for memories from their background, but they want to do it in an intellectually consistent way.”

That means intellectually consistent, by her definition, with the fundamental worldview of secularism. Alana Massey argues that the rather infamous new atheists are simply too harsh, furthermore she castigates them for throwing out Christianity without understanding that they – according to her logic – can have Christianity without Christ. She cites as an authority Daniel Maguire, a theologian at Marquette University who is also a former Catholic priest, who in a book entitled “Christianity without God” claims that we can reclaim the Bible’s epic moral narrative, in her words, and leave behind its theistic elements – that is in other words, its belief in God.

Alana Massey is indeed bold in making her argument of Christianity without Christ and she’s bold in suggesting that this should be the future for American religion – if not of Christianity than of some other variety. She also says the evangelical leaders in what she calls the convergence movement have stated commitments to save places, she says, for theological discussion and effort in inclusivity – she’s apparently here referring to the so-called emerging church and it’s branded by some as convergence. But the example she cites is that of All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa. She says,

“…that inclusivity is lived out every Sunday: The building hosts Protestant, Pentecostal and humanist services under one roof.”

Whether she intended to associate the convergence movement with Unitarianism – after all Unitarianism is an ancient Christian heresies – that’s unclear, but in any event she did. She concludes her article by writing,

“Believing Christians need not water down the fact that God is at the root of their commitments and traditions to accommodate nonbelievers. And nonbelievers need not make a point of telling their believing brethren that general goodwill or humanism is a better motivation for good works…Though families will quarrel over what they don’t have in common, they are meant to come together for what they do: an ancient story of a new family formed in a place most of us will never go and a call to peace in the world that none of us can ever entirely live up to. And that is worth keeping alive for its radical, enduring and miraculous love.”

Well what we have here is a perfect example applied to liberal Protestantism of what Malcom Muggeridge called the great liberal death wish – arguing that the way to save Christianity is by destroying it. It is almost as if Alana Massey is unaware of the fact that she is almost perfectly becoming a parable of what the novelist Flannery O’Connor wrote as the fictional holy Church of Christ without Christ.

Alana Massey’s article is striking for at least three reasons. First of all, that it appeared on the front page of the review section of Sunday’s edition of the Washington Post. The second striking factor is the audacity of her argument. Alana Massey is simply saying out loud what many people in a liberalizing direction are simply doing – trying to have Christianity without Christ. Most are just not nearly so bold in making argument. The third striking feature is specifically that she claims that she can continue her Christian identity without any belief in God, or any other Christian doctrine, while remaining formally attached to and faithfully within the Episcopal Church – claiming, as she says, her Episcopalian roots and tradition, going all the way back to her parents and beyond.

But the most striking thing of all, the key insight from this story, is the fact that here we have an argument that falls flat on its own face. Why in the world would anyone attribute any compelling power to stories that are untrue? As C.S. Lewis pointed out about half-century ago, if one actually reads the New Testament one cannot come to the conclusion that the stories about Jesus are merely stories about Jesus – they are direct truth claims made by Jesus and the apostles as recorded in Scripture. There is no way to rescue Christianity from Christ, there is no way to have Christianity without Christ, there is no way to come up with any compelling reason to be a Christian but for the fact that Jesus Christ is very God of very God, and that he accomplished all that is necessary for our salvation by his death, burial, and resurrection from the dead. There is no point at all to Christianity without Christ.

She cites Daniel Maguire as pointing to church buildings saying that they are poems in stone and glass. Well if they are that, they are nothing. It was none other than the apostle Paul himself, who in first Corinthians defending the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, made clear if you’re looking for meaning in this life only, in terms of the Christian truth claims, than we’re are of all people – to use his very words – most to be pitied.

The route of cultural Christianity leads not only to doctrinal disaster, it leads to denominational implosion and theological death. The ample evidence of that is all around us, mostly in the fact that the denominations that have been most keened to take the very advice that Alana Massey is now bringing, advice that liberal theologians have been offering for almost 200 years, it’s those denominations that have been imploding in terms of membership most disastrously. Cultural Christianity isn’t the way to save Christianity; it is the way to destroy it.

There is one final question as we come to the end of The Briefing today: why in the world did the editors of the Washington Post decide that this was an article that merited the front page of its opinion section yesterday in the Sunday edition? That is a question only the editors themselves can answer.

 

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’m speaking to you from Pompano Beach, FL, and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

New York Pulpits and the Fate of American Protestantism: A Conversation with Historian Matthew Bowman

The Briefing 05-04-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Gunmen killed at anti-Islamic Texas art show raise question of international involvement

Police shoot dead 2 gunmen at Texas exhibit of Prophet Mohammad cartoons, Reuters (Mike Stone and Lisa Maria Garza)

2) Baltimore officers charged with Freddie Gray death, illustrating value of judicial system

Six officers charged in death of Freddie Gray, Washington Post (Lori Aratani, Paul Duggan and Dan Morse)

Legal experts divided on charges against Freddie Gray officers, Baltimore Sun (Liz Bowie and Michael Dresser)

3) Journalist argues for a cultural Christianity without Christ as way of saving Christianity 

How to take Christ out of Christianity, Washington Post (Alana Massey)

Transcript: The Briefing 05-01-15

The Briefing

 

May 1, 2015

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

 

It’s Friday, May 1, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Nick Loeb presents unexpected defense of dignity of human life of embryos

The Christian biblical worldview points to the sanctity and dignity of every single human life at every point of development. One of the most crucial points of development at which human dignity is now at risk is at the level of an embryo, at that stage of human development. The Christian biblical worldview tells us that every single human embryo is a human person, deserving of protection and the full recognition of the sanctity of life. That has been undermined by so many developments in assisted reproductive technology, by the fact that there are now millions it is presumed of frozen embryos that will one day be discarded or destroyed in American reproductive technology clinics, and also by the fact that for most Americans the frozen embryos are out of sight and out of mind.

That’s what makes an article that appeared this week in the New York Times of such importance because sometimes an argument on behalf of human dignity appears from an unexpected source in an unexpected place, at an unexpected time. Nick Loeb’s article that appeared as an op-ed piece in the New York Times on Thursday fits all of those criteria. It is very unexpected. The headline is also unexpectedly clear: Frozen Embryos Have a Right to Live. Nick Loeb takes us right into the story as he writes from Delray Beach Florida,

“Last August, I filed a complaint in Santa Monica, Calif., using pseudonyms, to protect two frozen embryos I created with my former fiancée. I wanted to keep this private, but recently the story broke to the world.”

He explains his concern when he writes,

“When we create embryos for the purpose of life, should we not define them as life, rather than as property? Does one person’s desire to avoid biological parenthood (free of any legal obligations) outweigh another’s religious beliefs in the sanctity of life and desire to be a parent? A woman is entitled to bring a pregnancy to term even if the man objects. Shouldn’t a man who is willing to take on all parental responsibilities be similarly entitled to bring his embryos to term even if the woman objects?”

Nick Loeb writes out of the heartbreak of trying to become a parent. He writes about several incidents in his life including a former marriage in which parenthood was not successful, even though it is clearly his heart’s desire to be a father. He writes with a deep moral sense of urgency about the two little girl embryos that are now in storage and are very much at stake. It is because his ex-fiancée, with whom the embryos were created, has refused to allow him to have access to the embryos, arguing through her attorney in court that the embryos should remain in a frozen state indefinitely.

Nick Loeb then writes, what about the moral status of those little girls? He even boldly refers to them as little girls. He wants to have those little girls born and he wants to raise them as his own. He wants to release his former fiancée, with whom the embryos were created, from any ongoing financial or legal obligation or responsibility, but at present she is able to block him even from gaining access to these embryos preferring that they remain in a frozen state indefinitely rather than that they be allowed to live.

There are all kinds of moral issues involved here, including the fact that Loeb and his fiancée at that time were not married – that’s very clear – but also by the use of these assisted reproductive technologies both are responsible for bringing these frozen embryos into existence. But now that those embryos exist the moral issue is what shall be done with them? And the moral situation is that Nick Loeb wants to bring these embryos to full gestation and then to raise them as his daughters. He’s been prevented from doing so, at least at present, under the law because the woman in this case has a legal right – at least at this point – to prevent these embryos from being unfrozen at any point.

Nick Loeb writes about the yearning in his life and the moral responsibility for those two little girls. He then says,

“Many have asked me: Why not just move on and have a family of your own? I have every intention of doing so. But that doesn’t mean I should let the two lives I have already created be destroyed or sit in a freezer until the end of time.”

That’s a profoundly important paragraph. Once again we simply insert the fact that this was found in Thursday’s edition of the New York Times. That is altogether very interesting. Why would the New York Times that is heretofore offered no encouragement in terms of the moral status of even babies in the womb when it comes to the issue of abortion and certainly has never, at least to my knowledge, offered any encouragement when it comes to understanding the moral status, the personhood, of frozen embryos that are now in laboratories – why did this article appear? Why Thursday did an article by Nick Loeb with the headline Frozen Embryos Have a Right to Live appear in the New York Times?

Well the story is also embedded in the article. Nick Loeb is a very wealthy businessman whose former fiancée, in this case the mother of the embryos, is Sofía Vergara, an actress well known for starring on ABC series “Modern Family.” That ABC series is well-known in terms of the moral revolution, especially when it comes to sexuality in our culture, because two of the prominent characters on that program are a male couple who are not only married but also parents. And that leads to the fact that when you consider the modern family being presented in terms of the new moral revolution on ABC, it turns out that there’s even more to the modern family story than appears on screen and that is made very clear in yesterday’s edition of the New York Times; it is made very clear in an article by the ex-fiancée of Sofía Vergara, who is simply asking in this article why he cannot be allowed to have these two little girls as embryos now so that they can come to life and he can raise them as a father.

At the end of his article he simply says,

“I take the responsibility and obligation of being a parent very seriously. This is not just about saving lives; it is also about being pro-parent.”

Now the startling thing, in terms of that final paragraph in this article, is that yesterday’s edition of the New York Times included an explicit statement found on the opinion page by a man stating that the unborn human embryos about which he is so concerned our lives worth saving. They certainly are, but this article points to the moral quandaries that come with all kinds of new technologies and with the revolution in morals and the revolution that is happening in the family. As we’ve said, it turns out that when you’re watching “Modern Family” there’s more about the modern family than you see on screen.

2) Commodification of human reproduction exposed by effects of Nepal earthquake

Next, before leaving the issue of assisted reproductive technology, one of the headlines that had to do with the earthquake that was so devastating in Nepal in recent days was this, Babies Born to Surrogate Mothers Flown to Israel. Now as we’re praying for the people of Nepal – the death toll now over 4,000 people in the aftermath of that earthquake – as is almost always the case, stories emerge that tell us there is far more to the story than we first knew.

Jane Onyanga-Omara writes,

“Among those rescued from the aftermath of Saturday’s devastating earthquake in Nepal were babies born to surrogate mothers and their Israeli families.

“A small plane carrying premature babies — along with wounded people — landed in Israel early Monday, followed by another aircraft with five more infants and their Israeli families aboard, [this according to the] Jerusalem Post….

“Israel on Sunday said it planned to airlift 25 babies recently born to Indian surrogates in the Nepalese capital of Katmandu — whose parents are mostly same-sex [Israeli parents]”

Later in the article we read,

“Commercial surrogacy is banned in most nations. In the United States, it is legal in some states and can cost more than $100,000, leading some prospective parents to seek services in countries including India, Russia and Ukraine, where it can be half the price.”

The article also says that in Israel, according to Israeli law, same-sex couples do not have access to surrogacy – leading to the fact that many are now going to Kathmandu looking to become parents by means of hiring a surrogate. The main point from the Christian worldview here is that what we’re looking at is a commodification of human reproduction. We’re looking at the fact that an earthquake in the Nepal includes as one of its less known headlines the fact that in that earthquake were 25 babies from Israel being raised by a contract between Israeli mostly same-sex couples and surrogate mothers in Kathmandu.

It tells us a great deal about the moral revolution of our times that in a single week we can have headlines as unrelated as this pointing to the same reality – the new modern age has brought modern assisted reproductive technologies that come at an enormous moral cost. And what we’re looking at here are headlines that come from the New York Times about two frozen human embryos in the United States and also about 25 babies born to surrogate mothers for Israelis in Kathmandu.

3) Velocity of moral revolution on gay marriage evident in comparison to past social issues

And speaking of that moral revolution we had pointed out repeatedly that it is coming with an unprecedented velocity. We’ve looked at historical accounts, looking at the fact that this particular revolution when it comes to redefining marriage and sexual morality has come more quickly than other long-term moral efforts that have taken the better part of centuries in order to be accomplished. But now we have documentation coming from a rather unusual source. Bloomberg Business has put out a graphic this week entitled, This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind. It looks at a number of moral issues in which the nation has changed its mind: interracial marriage, prohibition, women suffrage, abortion, same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana.

The point of the graphic is very clear. It is on the question of same-sex marriage that America has moved most quickly of all. And when it comes to same-sex marriage it is not just a standout, it is a stand out with only one parallel and that parallel is very instructive. That parallel at this point is the issue of abortion. What Bloomberg is looking at is the point at which an issue became a question of public law and when there was a government intervention to supposedly settle the issue.

On the issue of abortion, they’re dating the beginning of the controversy to somewhere in the early 1970s and the conclusion of that issue in 1973 with the Supreme Court’s Roe V Wade decision. Now looking at this the problem with this graph is it doesn’t point to the fact that there were very long-term controversies over abortion, it’s one of the issues that was most controversial in America even in the last decades of the 19th century. But understanding how they did this, it is interesting that legislative efforts to try to legalize abortion were largely and quickly preempted by action of the United States Supreme Court. And that’s exactly what’s happening on the issue of same-sex marriage, and the graphic from Bloomberg BusinessWeek makes that abundantly clear.

They are in fact timing the issue between the legislative initiative and the federal action at about 2.5 years. Even when it comes to the issue of abortion, the beginning of legal action was only about six years before the Roe V Wade decision in 1973. In the case of same-sex marriage we’re looking at barely over two years. The moral velocity of this revolution is unprecedented. We know that from an historical analysis, we know it from judging different kinds of moral change over history; we know it of course now because even this graphic from Bloomberg Business Week tells us that as you’re looking at how a neutral secular source will consider this moral change. It has even caught the attention of Bloomberg Business Week that this particular revolution has come at nothing less than warp speed.

That tells us a great deal about our culture and its trajectory. As I said, it also points to the fact there’s a common link between the issue of abortion and same-sex marriage. It is because both of them, at this point, have been largely driven by the courts. When you look at the issue of abortion it was the 1973 intervention by the United States Supreme Court in the Roe case that changed the entire moral landscape, and that’s exactly what we now face as a likelihood with the decision on same-sex marriage expected from the same court late in June.

That points to both the relevance and the limitation of this Bloomberg BusinessWeek graphic because it really doesn’t point to moral change, it points to legal action and that is indicative of the pace of the moral change. But the moral change is actually more frightening than this graphic can demonstrate because a bigger concern to Christians must be not just what’s taking place in the mind of the courts, but what’s taking place in the hearts and minds of the American people. If we were able to come up with a graphic that would demonstrate the change of heart on the part of the American people, it will be even more instructive and even more revealing and certainly even more frightening than what we see here in this graphic from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

4) Bernie Sanders announces Democratic candidacy, making race more interesting

Next, here in the United States, the 2016 presidential race looms before us as one of the most definitive issues of our times. You one of the things you’ll hear from commentators almost every election cycle is, ‘this election means more than any before’ and in almost every case that’s actually true. It’s because the issues are growing greater in terms of importance and it is because as we look at our own political lifetimes the number of elections in which we are likely to be involved, every coming cycle seems to bring more and not fewer issues for our electoral interest and our voter responsibility.

One of the things to keep in mind by the way as we are thinking so much about the United States Supreme Court was brought to mind by Fred Barnes writing in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago when he pointed out that one of the consequences of the upcoming election is almost sure to be the direction of the nation’s highest court. He points out the no less than four of the current justices of the United States Supreme Court our age 76 or older – that really tells us something about the inevitable of the fact that the next presidential administration is likely to be one that will have a major impact on the future of the court.

But speaking about the election on the Democratic side, it got unexpectedly more interesting at the end of this week when Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders announced that he will run against former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. Hillary Clinton is a household name in America and for a good deal of the world as well, Bernie Sanders – unless you’re a political insider – probably is not, but he is one of most colorful characters in the United States Senate.

He holds two distinctive in particular, others are sure to be added. On the one hand he’s the longest-serving independent in the United States Senate. The second thing is even more instructive, he is the only socialist, the only devout socialist in the current United States Senate. That’s what makes his entry into the race so interesting, he is an independent as United States Sen., but he is going to run for the Democratic nomination because that’s the means whereby he hopes to get on ballots state-by-state.

Bernie Sanders is a fascinating, very interesting figure; he’s a man of true political conviction. He is an about Democratic Socialists. Raised in a household of liberal secular Judaism during some of the most tumultuous decades of the 20th century, he is a man of the far left elected by the people of Vermont to the United States Senate and the expectation is that the clash of worldviews now in the Democratic Party will draw Hillary Clinton further to the left simply because Bernie Sanders appeals to so many, in terms of his populist arguments, as a socialist. It is going to be very interesting to watch.

Heretofore, most of the media thought that the great debate is likely to be held amongst the rather many Republican contenders for that party’s nomination, but now it’s almost certain that there will be a debate –if not a race – there is going to be a debate on the Democratic side. Those on the liberal side who had hoped for someone like Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to run now have Bernie Sanders running as their progressive flag bearer. And it is going to be very interesting when you actually add a socialist to the race on the Democratic side, and when you know that this is a socialist who is almost certain to speak his mind.

And about his mind and his worldview, RNS ran a story on Friday reminding us the Bernie Sanders is one of the most unabashedly irreligious or secular members of the United States Congress. The article is by Lauren Markoe, and she points to the fact that Bernie Sanders is, as she says, the anti-Bible thumper. In her words, he is now the presidential contender most willing to disassociate himself from religion. Though he identifies as Jewish she writes,

“…and by Jewish law is Jewish, he has freely acknowledged that he is not a religious person.”

Growing up in a context of liberal Jewish activism, he is avowedly secular. He also has a 100% rating from the abortion-rights group NARAL pro-choice America. As we said to reference to the United States Supreme Court, elections have consequences and now the race for the Democratic nomination – though it might not be much of a political contest – is going to be very revealing at the level of worldview. Bernie Sanders is going to see to it. And that promises to make the 2016 presidential race even more interesting than we had expected.

5) Dissipation of teen summer jobs removes opportunity to learn work ethic, perspective

As we go into the weekend I want to point back to an article that appeared just a few days ago in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. It’s by writer Dave Shiflett and it has to do with something that is disappearing fast right before our eyes. What’s disappearing? The summer job for teenagers. As Shiflett writes, when he talked to people about their teenagers offspring these days very few of them have any reference to a summer job. They have summer experiences that they hope for. Some of them, he says – and this tells us about his friends – have teenagers that are going to study in an ashram for the summer or they’re going to go work with a documentary filmmaker. He says,

“What on Earth is an ashram? And when did teenagers start doing all these exotic things instead of working summer jobs?”

He says,

“I wish them well, of course, and hope that they build the finest latrines ever to grace the Guatemalan countryside. I should also acknowledge that I wish such opportunities had been available to me when I was growing up.”

But then he goes on to say,

“At the same time, there is value in recalling the grit and glory of traditional summer work, which has taught generations of teenagers important lessons about life, labor and even their place in the universe—which turned out to be nowhere as close to the center as we had imagined.”

The article is actually glorious in its own way, pointing to what many of us in his generation discovered in terms of the summer job – that is that it was a major responsibility to work for someone who was going to give us a paycheck only if we delivered in terms of the labor that they expected. As Shiflett makes clear, a lot of the work wasn’t at all glorious. He writes about some construction jobs he had, he writes about some agrarian farm jobs he had, and most of us in that generation can look back and imagine all kinds of jobs we had and glory was not a part of it.

As he writes, one of the most important things that teenagers did learn from that experience was the work ethic. Something that is now something teenagers are going to have to gain at some other point of life than in the developing period of adolescence. Many of today’s young people, not only teenagers but many young adults, are effectively outside the job market – never learning these lessons. And Dave Shiflett points to another basic reality and that is, when you work for someone, even if just over summer, you do discover your place in the universe and it is not as close to the center as you might’ve thought.

Shiflett’s article is, as I said, very interesting – even humorous – glorious in its own way and it points to the reality that Christian parents operating from a biblical worldview understand, at some point our children have to understand that life is not delivered on a platter. At some point a work ethic is going to have to be developed. As Dave Shiflett says, even about teenagers who do not have a summer job, he says may the force be with them, but at some point they’re going to have to go out and do what they are not doing this summer. They are going to have to get a job.

Frozen embryos, surrogate moms, the sexual revolution, Bernie Sanders, and teenage summer job – that’s enough for a Friday.

 

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 on Monday for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 05-01-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Nick Loeb presents unexpected defense of dignity of human life of embryos

Frozen Embryos Have a Right to Live, New York Times (Nick Loeb)

2) Commodification of human reproduction exposed by effects of Nepal earthquake

Babies born to surrogate mothers flown out of Nepal, USA Today (Jane Onyanga-Omara)

3) Velocity of moral revolution on gay marriage evident in comparison to past social issues

This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind, Bloomberg BusinessWeek (Alex Tribou and Keith Collins)

4) Bernie Sanders announces Democratic candidacy, making race more interesting

Why the Stakes in 2016 Are So High, Wall Street Journal (Fred Barnes)

Bernie Sanders Announces He Is Running for President, New York Times (Alan Rappeport)

5 faith facts about Bernie Sanders: Unabashedly irreligious, Religion News Service (Lauren Markoe)

5) Dissipation of teen summer jobs removes opportunity to learn work ethic, perspective

In Praise of the Teen Summer Job, Wall Street Journal (Dave Shiflett)