R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 316

Transcript: The Briefing 04-24-15

The Briefing

 

April 24, 2015

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

 

It’s Friday, April 24, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Arrest of ‘Flash Crash’ instigator exposes critical need for trust for economic success

Most of us go about our everyday lives without much concern for exactly how the economy works, in particular exactly how the financial markets and the commodity markets work. Most of us will go through our day without much conversation or thought about what keeps the economy going and what could lead to a meltdown or a significant disruption in our economic lives – not just those of people on Wall Street on the Chicago Board of trade and elsewhere. That’s why the headline that appeared all over the world yesterday really has the attention not only of investors but should, from a worldview perspective, have the attention of all of us.

The headline in USA Today yesterday: Traders Arrest Spooks Investors. Reporter Kaja Whitehouse for USA Today gets right to the point when she writes,

“The arrest of a London trader who allegedly helped cause the 2010 Flash Crash isn’t boosting investors’ confidence. It’s spooking them.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban said,

“If this one random guy could impact billions of market value in seconds or milliseconds, what’s going on?”

Cuban went on to say,

“If a guy in his underwear can manipulate markets, anybody can. The optics look really, really bad,”

We go about our everyday lives without much thought to the fact that there is an enormous amount of financial infrastructure, and behind that infrastructure is an enormous amount of technology, and behind that technology is an enormous amount of trust.

The most important economist in Western history was Adam Smith, and Adam Smith was operating out of a Christian worldview. He pointed out that economies happen when one individual comes to the conclusion that he or she cannot meet all of his or her own needs and then has to turn to someone else. At that point some economic transaction takes place. The one individual trades something that he or she has for something that is more desirable, or perhaps more needed or necessary at the moment. You start adding up all those individual transactions made by economic agents and you end up with a massive global economy now numbering in the billions.

But we are not doing face-to-face business with most people; nonetheless we are embedded in an economic web with them. And what this new disclosure makes very clear is that there are vulnerabilities beyond the imagination of even the people who thought they had regulations and protections in place. Mark Cuban points to the problem when he looks back to the 2010 ‘Flash Crash’ – and let me just remind you, in a matter of milliseconds the Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 600 points; that means that in terms of milliseconds, as financial transactions are now done electronically, hundreds of billions of dollars of value were wiped out.

That’s one of those absolutely mind-boggling realities about the contemporary economy. We turn on lights switch and we expect the lights to come on. We go to the gas station and we expect to be able to buy gas. We go to the supermarket and we expect food to be available in the aisles. We expect when we swipe our credit card that the transaction will go through. We expect that when we put money in the bank that money will be safe. We expect that when we look at financial returns that come in printed forms, or when we check our accounts online, we trust that there’s actually money behind those numbers. But how do we actually know? The point from the Christian worldview is this: you cannot have an economy without trust.

That goes back to Adam Smith with just those two individuals; those two individuals cannot have a thriving economic relationship if they do not trust one another. And back in the day when most economic transactions were face-to-face, we can pretty much judge whether or not the individual with whom we presume to do business was going to be trustworthy or not. We are now living in a global economy and that trust is now extended not only to billions of people far flung across the planet, that trust is now also extended to digital technology that evidently has massive vulnerabilities.

That’s why Mark Cuban was speaking of this guy in London, who evidently truly in his underwear, manipulated the market’s leading in milliseconds to the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of value. The market recovered, but as the financial reports make very clear no one is sure exactly why. We should just be thankful that that flash crash back in 2010 didn’t become an enormous market crashes as happened in 1929, it didn’t become the kind of recessional crash that happened in 2007; otherwise we would be having a very different conversation.

But right now the conversation is this, and is not just billionaire entrepreneurs like Mark Cuban who are having the discussion. It made the front page not only of the Wall Street Journal, but it made the front page of USA Today, asking the question: if one man in a middle-class house in London in the middle of the night, not even wearing his business clothes, can crash the market, then just how safe are we? Oh, you know the answer to that question. We’re not actually as safe as we might want to be. It goes back to the fact that the market is a moral reality and it’s the Christian worldview that underlines why. It’s because God made as moral creatures. He also made his economic creatures, but it’s the Christian worldview that affirms that it’s morality that makes economics possible – it’s not the other way around.

And so the short answer to the question, ‘how is it that a man in his boxer shorts in London can crash the market?’ the short answer that question is: it’s because our first mother and father ate of the fruit of a tree that had been forbidden. In the final analysis, it is still all about sin and its effects – now writ large in a very strange set of headlines in the world press yesterday.

2) Chinese scientists manipulate human genome in attempt to redefine the species

Next, a truly ominous headline that appeared early yesterday in the international press; the dateline is China. Rachel Feltman, reporting for the Washington Post tells us,

“In March, a rumor surfaced in the scientific community that was intriguing, and perhaps a bit chilling: According to those in the know, researchers in China had successfully edited the genomes of human embryos, altering their DNA in a way never accomplished in our own species. MIT Technology Review reported on the murmurings that someone had altered the germ line — the genetic information that come together and form something new when eggs and sperm collide. Even unconfirmed, those rumors led to a lot of debate about the potential downsides of altering the germ line.”

Now the Washington Post says, we know the rumors were true. The issues behind this headline are absolutely enormous. We’ve been watching this bioethical revolution take place before our eyes and we need to know exactly what is being attempted here. What’s being attempted is the redefinition of the human species. From a Christian and biblical worldview perspective it is hard to imagine anything that is more challenging because we’re talking about the creature trying to redefine himself. That’s exactly what we’re looking at here. Now we also need to understand that this is being done in the main in the name of addressing certain genetic diseases. That’s what’s being presented.

David Baltimore and his colleagues, who sounded the alarm in recent weeks – you’ll recall that he’s a Nobel laureate himself – stated the fact that there are indeed hopes that some of these germline therapies may eventually prove very effective in dealing with certain genetic diseases. But even Nobel prize winner David Baltimore and other scientists were trying to sound the alarm saying, ‘but at what cost?’ And the biggest ethical issue here, most immediately, has to do with the fact that when you change the human germline you are making genetic changes that will last so long as humanity lives. In other words, those genetic changes will be passed on from generation to generation.

There has been, in terms of the worldview of bioethics even in the secular world, an understanding that we bear responsibility not to pass on any genetic modification that would be negative in any sense to the next generations and then to generations following. But the article that appeared early yesterday makes very clear that in China the rumors of those experiments turn out to be absolutely true. And as we now know from the report that came yesterday, the experiment – in the eyes a scientist – was not a success.

Don’t take any relief from that because in one sense it doesn’t matter morally whether the experiment was a success or not simply because almost every major scientific effort has begun with failure and it will move on to subsequent experiments that may indeed one day be successful. There’s another reason not to take any solace or hope from the failure of this experiment, it is because the failure itself came with a horrific moral cost. I read to you from the Washington Post article,

“The team injected 86 embryos and then waited 48 hours, enough time for the CRISPR/Cas9 system and the molecules that replace the missing DNA to act — and for the embryos to grow to about eight cells each. Of the 71 embryos that survived, 54 were genetically tested. This revealed that just 28 were successfully spliced, and that only a fraction of those contained the replacement genetic material.”

One of the scientist said,

“If you want to do it in normal embryos, you need to be close to 100%. That’s why we stopped. We still think it’s too immature.’

Well that’s a bit like opening Pandora’s Box and then trying to close it. What we’re looking at here is important at so many levels. One is the source of the story. It is coming from China; that should be an alert to us that there are parts of the world in which there are virtually no ethical, legal, or moral qualms about moving ahead with the intentional genetic modification of the human species. That in itself is a very chilling reality. And then we are told that without evidently any opposition from the Chinese government there were those who went ahead with these experiments.

And note also the cost to human dignity in the experiment itself. We’re talking about the specific creation of 86 embryos. Notice the word dismissing from that: human – 86 human embryos. That is, according to the Christian worldview, 86 human beings who were the sources and the objects of scientific experimentation. And then you look at the numbers – 71 of them survived, that means that 15 did not, 54 those were genetically tested, only 28 were successfully spliced. You’re looking at the destruction of these human embryos after they were specifically created merely for the purpose of being used in scientific experimentation. We’re looking at the Brave New World taking shape right before our eyes.

George Daley, a stem cell biologist at the Harvard Medical School, told the journal Nature,

“I believe this is the first report of CRISPR/Cas9 applied to human pre-implantation embryos and as such the study is a landmark, as well as a cautionary tale,”

He concluded,

“Their study should be a stern warning to any practitioner who thinks the technology is ready for testing to eradicate disease genes.”

What is truly significant in those words is this: here you have someone even operating from a secular worldview, teaching in a secular university, operating medicine as a secular discipline, who says the moral issues at stake are simply massive and it would be wrong to continue with this kind of experimentation on humans. The question is, will anyone hear? They didn’t listen to David Baltimore; they did listen to warnings that have come in recent months, years, weeks, and even decades, in all likelihood they’re not going to listen now.

3) Tendency of media to celebrate violence result of allure of sin in fallen world

Next, as we think about human beings as a moral creature, there is a very interesting article that appeared also in yesterday’s edition of USA Today. This is in the media column by Rem Rieder. He asked the question, ‘what’s is the allure of the violent graphic images that are now coming to us by groups such as the Islamic state?’ But readers actually asking a question that has to do with his own newspaper and its website again, again we’re talking about the newspaper that calls itself America’s newspaper: USA Today. And he asked a question, ‘why do we watch?’ He goes on to ask,

“What is the allure of reading about and looking at images of hideous behavior, unspeakable violence, deeply disturbing reminders of man’s inhumanity to man?”

He then reports about his own paper,

“On Sunday and Monday, USA TODAY‘s most popular digital article, on both mobile and desktop, was a story headlined, ‘ISIL video purports to show killing of Ethiopian Christians.’ The story did not include the 29-minute video released by the Islamic State, but it did include images from the video showing armed Islamic State members marching the Christians to their deaths.”

He goes on to say,

“[This is] Important news, to be sure. A big story, no doubt. But why?”

It should be very interesting to us that the media reporter for a major American secular newspaper is asking such a profound question. Why did the readers of USA Today online, on both mobile and desktop editions, seem to go to this article more than any other? But then the question even behind that raised by Rem Rieder is this: why do so many people go beyond even the print edition or the online edition in terms of using words to report these horrifying stories? Why do so many people seem to want to go and watch the videos themselves?

Rem Rieder is asking the question, what does this tell us about human nature?And it’s really interesting that this appears in USA Today in yesterday’s edition. According to Rem Rieder it should tell us something, in his words, that “barbarity gets clicks.” Indeed it should tell us something. And from the Christian worldview it probably tells us something rather complicated. It certainly tells us that we are sinful creatures; it tells us that we have an imagination that seems to be inclined towards an interest in wrongdoing and evil. This is something that we do need to recognize is a rather complicated picture.

You look in terms of the fact that for instance there is an enormous market for films of vulgarity and violence, and that tells us something very disturbing about ourselves. And one of the most interesting things in Rem Rieder’s article is the fact that, as he says, Hollywood has figured out that Americans don’t want a lot of serious stories but the stories they want should include a lot of manufactured violence. Americans it turns out are keen to go to movies and are very likely to watch entertainment in which violence is taking place if they believe that the violence looks realistic but isn’t actually real.

I think we can safely assume that the people who are right now being threatened by the sword of Islamic state are not interested in clicking when it comes to the videos, and certainly aren’t interested in watching videos or movies of manufactured realistic, but not real, violence. It does indeed say something about us as a human species that we seem to be drawn to these very horrific stories in such a way that we almost can’t turn our had from. And at that point, again the biblical worldview comes in to remind us that the Bible itself is sometimes very explicit about reporting violence to us.

The Bible is sometimes very explicit in terms of the inerrant and infallible word of God, in telling us details that in another context we might think we could’ve done without – evidently God wanted us to have those details. The Bible presents human evil in a very realistic manner, but never in an enticing manner. The Bible presents the reality of human sinfulness in reality. It is indeed not only realistic, it is real. But the Bible never intends to tempt us to find any celebration whatsoever in human evil, in human sin, and in human wrongdoing. There we see, in the mirror relief of the modern media, something that the Bible has warned us about all along – it is the allure of evil. It is indeed, as we read even the book of Genesis, that temptation crouches at the door. Sometimes it crouches in the form of a movie, sometimes it crouches in the form of a link to be clicked or to be ignored, sometimes it comes in the form of a video, and sometimes it comes even in the form of a news story. We may read it in order to be concerned about those Christians who are threatened at the point of the sword or it could be read as simply some kind of enticement to imagine an evil context in its horrific reality and its violence.

It should probably tell us something, by the way, that the development of the modern murder mystery, the modern detective story, grew out of the Christian worldview. The fact that these detective stories, many of the most famous detectives in certainly English literary history, emerged from Christian writers who intended to show the reality of human evil, and for that matter, the reality of God’s moral law by the context of the literary device of the murder mystery or the detective story.

Ralph McInerney, a philosopher who taught for many years at the University of Notre Dame, pointed out that in one sense only a Christian can write a good murder mystery. But for the Christian to write the good murder mystery, murder must be shown in all of its sinfulness, never in any enticement. That a balance for any writer to strike, it’s evidently a balance for any reader to strike. Evidently is a challenge for all of us, even as we merely watch the evening news. This article from Rem Rieder in USA Today reminds us to ask the question, not only what do we watch but why do we watch what we watch?

4) Scalia tribute to Ginsberg asserts value of learning from those who disagree with you

Finally, the current cover story of Time magazine is its annual issue of the 100 most influential people in the world. And one of the things you should keep in mind when you see a list like this is that whatever the magazine claims, this almost assuredly is not the list of the 100 most influential people in the world. And the one of the proofs of that is that Time does this just about every year and it’s a different list. They’re looking for people that will catch our attention and they are looking for a way to catch our attention as they talk about people who are undoubtedly among the most influential people in the world.

But the interesting thing this year is the approach that Time magazine has taken in providing these short articles about what they claim are the 100 most influential people on planet earth. It is because they did something rather unexpected; they asked people who would be in worldview disagreement with the people that their writing about to write the articles that appeared in this week’s edition of Time magazine.

An example of that fact is that one of the people that is cited here as being amongst the most influential 100 people on the planet is Thomas Piketty, the economist whose work on capital in the 21st century came from the far left and basically changed the debate over inequality in economics –especially when it comes to the most influential circles in the United States. What’s really interesting is that the article about Thomas Piketty is written by Grover Norquist, someone who comes from the far right in terms of a libertarian conservative economic model. And Grover Norquist, writing about Thomas Piketty, points out one man with one book changed the conversation. Grover Norquist very much more identified with Republicans than Democratic candidates says that Thomas Piketty’s influences is seen in the fact that even Republican presidential candidates in the 2016 cycle are going to have to make reference to his arguments as they deal with economic issues in the presidential campaign.

But to me, the most interesting of these articles by far was about the liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the article about Justice Ginsburg was written by none other than the symbol of the right wing of the court, Justice Antonin Scalia. It is known that Scalia and Ginsburg have a friendship that goes across ideological and political lines on the court. It is understood that as couples, the Ginsburg’s and the Scalia’s, had developed something of a very warm relationship. And there’s an important lesson to us there from the Christian worldview, but a direct lesson is to be drawn from the words in the article about Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Antonin Scalia. Justice Scalia writes this,

“Having had the good fortune to serve beside her on both courts, I can attest that her opinions are always thoroughly considered, always carefully crafted and almost always correct (which is to say we sometimes disagree). That much is apparent for all to see.

What only her colleagues know is that her suggestions improve the opinions the rest of us write, and that she is a source of collegiality and good judgment in all our work.”

The Christian worldview would remind us that intellectual integrity means that we credit those who make us think better, even if, perhaps even especially if, they are the people who operate from a very different worldview and set of convictions than our own. It’s also often the case, and we should admit this right up front, that often are arguments, our language, and our expression, turn out to be better when we learn from and are corrected by those who are our adversaries even when it comes to very important arguments. It should tell us a great deal that on the United States Supreme Court when you’ve got nine justices, if you lined them up ideologically it’s hard to imagine there can be two justices further apart than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia, and it is rather sweet and significant to see Antonin Scalia saying, ‘I’m a better justice because of the arguments made by Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the way she makes me a better jurist on my own.’

So the final word today, when it comes to developing the Christian worldview, is we can’t develop it in an intellectual bubble, we develop it in terms of contest and sometimes controversy – sometimes even argument with those who hold very different opinions. And that’s also why, as we are determined to develop a Christian worldview when it comes to these issues, we look to how the secular world is framing its arguments. That’s a very important exercise of developing a Christian worldview. And sometimes looking at the secular media we get the oddest lessons in the most unexpected form, as in this cover story in this week’s edition of Time magazine.

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

 

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

 

The Briefing 04-24-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Arrest of ‘Flash Crash’ instigator exposes critical need for trust for economic success

‘Flash Crash’ arrest shakes investors’ confidence, USA Today (Kaja Whitehouse)

2) Chinese scientists manipulate human genome in attempt to redefine the species

 The rumors were true: Scientists edited the genomes of human embryos for the first time, Washington Post (Rachel Feltman)

3) Tendency of media to celebrate violence result of allure of sin in fallen world

What’s the allure of graphic images?, USA Today (Rem Rieder)

4) Scalia tribute to Ginsberg asserts value of learning from those who disagree with you

The 100 Most Influential People, TIME

Transcript: The Briefing 04-23-15

The Briefing

 

April 23, 2015

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

 

It’s Thursday, April 23, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Human trafficking bill finally passes in Senate despite conflict over abortion restriction

The logjam finally broke when it came to the sex trafficking bill that had been held up in the United States Senate because of the issue of abortion. If you missed the linkage between those two issues let me remind you that just a matter of a couple of weeks ago the United States Senate had been poised to pass a bipartisan bill that would have crackdown further on sex trafficking – one of the major scourges of humanity and something that is increasingly coming to the attention of the United States Congress. And yet that bill that had been expected to pass without any major opposition at all, had failed to proceed when Democratic staffers found out that the bill included a provision, that had been there evidently all along, that would’ve prevented proceeds from a fund to be established from seizing the assets of sex traffickers to be used to pay for abortion.

Well as we said back when the story broke, it’s a very revealing development when the United States Senate is poised to crackdown on sex trafficking and the bill fails because Democrats, number one had read the bill, and because secondly they were so determined to support abortion under almost any circumstance that they said they would not support the bill if it did not pay for abortions. On the other hand you had Republicans who said they would not go forward with the bill if it did pay for abortion. And then the Republican majority in United States Senate announced that the nomination of Loretta Lynch as the next Atty. Gen. of the United States would be held up until the sex trafficking bill impasse had been resolved.

Now at the beginning of this week it was announced that the impasse had somehow been resolved. And the resolution of that impasse tells us a great deal about how politics is done and about how the issue of abortion is often handled not directly but indirectly; and we might say not so honestly but rather dishonestly. But we also have here a reminder of how different issues that are seemingly disconnected can be connected because of political agendas and because of the necessity of putting together enough votes – either for the nomination of the new Atty. Gen. or for the passage of the sex trafficking bill. When you have the necessity of putting together at least 60 votes in order to achieve cloture in the Senate – that is to move forward a final vote – at that point you often have the practice of linking issues that would in no other context be naturally linked.

First, to the sex trafficking bill: it did pass yesterday, rather late yesterday, but by a vote of 99 to 0. 99 senators eventually voted for the sex trafficking bill, no Sen. voted against it, but there was one senator who did not vote. So remember the impasse was over abortion, not sex trafficking itself. How did it get resolved? Well as Emmarie Huetteman and Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times reported yesterday, and I quote,

“The bill hit a snag last month when Democrats said they had become aware of an anti-abortion provision, blocking the legislation from moving forward as they demanded that Republicans remove language barring victims from using criminal fines in a victims’ fund to pay for abortions.”

The next paragraph is especially crucial when you think about how politics actually happens,

“As a compromise, the fund will now essentially be split in two. One pool of money, collected from criminal offenders, will be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury and used for non-health care services, which will not be subject to abortion restrictions. Other money would come from that already appropriated by Congress for Community Health Centers. It would be available for health care and medical services and would be subject to longstanding laws restricting the use of federal funds for abortions. Many victims would be able to obtain abortions under the laws’ exception in cases of rape.”

So what does that paragraph tell us? It tells us that the two issues that wouldn’t be naturally linked – that is the issue of sex trafficking and abortion – that did become linked because of this bill only became resolved in terms of the impasse between Democrats and Republicans when both sides were able to find what amounts to a face saving victory. The creation of these two separate funds is the mechanism by which both parties can say to their own constituencies that they held fast. The Republicans are able to say that they did not retreat on the hind amendments restriction against the federal funding of abortions and the Democrats are able to say that they did not vote for a sex trafficking bill that would have added new funds that would’ve been restricted by the Hyde amendment.

My main purpose in pointing to this story today is to point out, once again, as we go back to the impasse that we are looking in America at a divide over the sanctity of human life that is sold radical that at least a significant numbers of the members of the United States Senate would not vote for a bill that would have crackdown on sex trafficking because in their view that bill would have added to the restrictions on abortion that are now in place by the Hyde amendment. That tells us a very great deal.

But also tells us in a fallen world politics looks pretty much like this. It comes down to a paragraph in which both sides can now claim that they didn’t retreat, even though both sides to some extent did. And it also tells us that when it comes to the issue of abortion, the divide is almost every day seemingly deeper than it was the day before. And when it comes to the Christian worldview there are few issues that can be more revealing than that.

2) Republican candidates’ approach to same sex marriage reveals tension between two values

Speaking of politics, yesterday’s edition of The Guardian had a very interesting article when it comes to Republicans and the issue of gay marriage. As we discussed on The Briefing at the end of last week, one of the unexpected developments in recent days has been Republican candidates talking about gay marriage, but talking about mostly whether or not they would attend a same-sex marriage ceremony. As we went into the weekend last week the candidate was Marco Rubio, but as The Guardian reports virtually every major Republican candidate, or presumed candidate, is now being confronted with the question about same-sex marriage and with the same kind of question, ‘Would you attend a same-sex marriage ceremony?’

But just to deal with that issue straight on, as I have argued over and over again, we need to remember that attendance at a wedding is a moral statement and is always throughout weddings been understood as a moral statement of the rightness of the union. That’s why I have argued that no consistent Christian can argue that I oppose same-sex marriage on the one hand but I can show up at a ceremony that celebrate same-sex marriage on the other. But the point of The Guardian article really isn’t so much about the morality of the situation but with the politics and that’s actually what makes it even more interesting. Because as The Guardian is arguing in the headline of the story, Republicans are in knots over gay marriage ahead of the Supreme Court decision.

Now we’ve often noted in anticipation of the oral arguments in the Supreme Court same-sex marriage case coming up on the 28th of this month, that when it comes to politics politicians rarely want to be put on the spot on an issue that will likely cause controversy and may cause them to be represented in the media in a way they do not want, and may cause than either to lose votes or even to alienate entire constituencies by how they answer the question in a yes or no fashion. And so The Guardian’s point in this article is that the new Republican way, the way at least chosen by some Republicans to try to find some middle ground on this issue, is to say I’m opposed to same-sex marriage but I would go to a same-sex ceremony if I were invited or if it were a family member or loved one who was involved.

The Guardian calls this verbal jujitsu and I think we can understand why they came up with that compound. They then said,

“This verbal jujitsu adds a new layer to the dilemma facing the Republican party on marriage equality: how to give tacit approval with one hand, but deny legislative approval with the other – without drawing too much attention to the cognitive dissonance.”

Now, that raises a very interesting category for the Christian worldview: cognitive dissonance. That’s a phrase that comes in the world of psychology and psychiatry that refers to the fact the human beings sometimes say they affirm two seemingly contradictory things and affirm them at the same time. Of course we might point out that it takes a certain degree of clear thinking even to achieve cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance actually occurs when people know that they’re trying to hold together two contradictory statements or two contradictory truth claims. Cognitive dissonance doesn’t actually take place if the individual isn’t stressed in some way by the pain or at least the struggle of holding two contradictory positions at the same time.

But now The Guardian is saying that when it comes to at least many Republicans they are facing, not just candidates but members of the party writ large, they are finding themselves in the position of cognitive dissonance. And it’s interesting how the Guardian defines that. Again, they define it as the dilemma now facing Republicans on marriage equality – remember their words – how to give tacit approval with one hand but denying legislative approval with the other. Now that’s an odd and unexpected confirmation of the point I made about this situation when it comes to opposing same-sex marriage and on the other hand attending a same-sex marriage ceremony. Even The Guardian now understands that that actually isn’t a consistent moral position, and they identify what is at stake in precise moral terms.

They’re saying that on the one hand the temptation is to give tacit approval; that is not explicit, that means approval by being present but not approval by having to say I approve. And then they talk about the reluctance on the other hand to denying legislative approval. And so you have at least some people, and it’s not just Republicans that have been caught in this position, who want to say, ‘I am not in support of same-sex marriage, but I’m sort of in support of going to a same-sex ceremony.’ That’s not the only way that cognitive dissonance on this issue is showing up. And frankly it’s not just showing up among politicians of either party, it is showing up amongst many Americans who are also trying to do exactly what The Guardian describes: to explicitly or officially oppose same-sex marriage, or perhaps to say they believe that marriage is actually the union of a man and a woman the way it’s always been through human history, but they also want to give – and here’s that key expression – tacit approval.

That’s a very interesting point from a Christian worldview. It points us right to the book of Romans 1:32 where the apostle Paul, and we have to go here rather frequently these days, says that God’s judgment is upon those who also give approval to what they know to be sin. As we’ve noted the really interesting turn in this entire discussion is likely to come immediately after the Supreme Court rules one way or the other and the anticipation is that the Supreme Court will rule in favor of the legalization of same-sex marriage in all 50 states. At that point politician who had been on the hot seat are likely to say, ‘look the issue is now settled, let’s move on’ – it’s interesting to note that before it happens. You can almost write it down that’s going to be what comes. And The Guardian notes that, and it also notes that this has been a bipartisan dilemma.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this article that is ostensibly about Republicans is actually about a Democrat and that Democrat is none other than former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Guardian writes,

“Recognizing that states may soon prove inconsequential to the discussion, the Democratic frontrunner, Hillary Clinton, last week shifted her stance and came out in support of gay marriage as a constitutional right.”

As we have noted back in 2013 after she left office as Secretary of State, she came out in favor of same-sex marriage but as a matter for the states to decide. Now she said just last week she believes that it is a basic constitutional right. The Guardian again stated this,

“The former secretary of state was previously an avowed member of the ‘leave it to the states’ camp, an issue that has earned her criticism in progressive circles [that is circles of course that are in favor, ardently in favor, of legalizing same-sex marriage].”

The article just gets more interesting. The Guardian writes that even as Clinton positioned herself to face the general electorate, at least one or her potential primary opponents refuse to let her get off that easy. Now whether or not she faces an opponent in the primary the one Democrat that is most likely to oppose her is Martin O’Malley, the former Gov. of Maryland. And he told The Guardian that he was

“…glad Secretary Clinton’s come around to the right positions on these issues”.

After releasing a video in which he claimed to have been for same-sex marriage for some time now – long before former Sec. Clinton. Now the article just gets more interesting,

“However, Clinton campaign aide Karen Finney twice told MSNBC on Monday [that’s just three days ago] that Clinton has always supported gay marriage, and it was the media’s fault for not asking her the right questions.”

Well, it’s just a matter of fact that Sec. Clinton indeed opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage. Before she was merely not for the legalization of same-sex marriage, before she was for the legalization of same-sex marriage if it were left up to the states, before just a matter of a week ago she was for same-sex marriage and as a constitutional right. The Guardian then says,

“But despite Finney’s efforts to pin the blame on the media, just last year Clinton said ‘marriage had always been a matter left to the states’ in her view during a memorably tense interview with NPR’s Terry Gross. And as recently as last month, a Clinton spokesperson did not respond when asked for her position on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage.”

So between the, I’m against it, I’m a little bit for it, I’m greatly for it, I now for it for everyone, was the other position was ‘I don’t actually have a position, you can ask my spokesman and get no response.’ The great moral lesson, the great worldview lesson, as we are observing all of this is that there is evidently a bipartisan dilemma. Not only that, it’s not just the politicians dilemma. They are the ones who right now are having microphones thrust in their face, but we can count on this: every single American – and that means every American Christian – will face the same kind of question. And the temptation we can now understand is going to come; right now it is the temptation to give tacit approval without officially or explicitly doing so.

After the Supreme Court rules there’s going to be another temptation, to say I was actually for it all along, or I was against it in the way you might think. There’s going to be a very interesting process of moral dissembling that is of trying to create a new moral narrative that is going to come along. It’s easy, it’s quite revealing, to look at Sec. Clinton, or for that matter Pres. Barack Obama, on this kind of evolution – that’s the word the politicians often use. It’s also interesting to note that at least some Republicans are trying to evolve on the issue in some way, or at least find some wiggle room or middle ground, in a very tense political and moral context. But we’re not just looking at politicians here; we’re looking squarely in the face of a challenge that will come to every American, and a challenge that every Christian is going to face.

And the great test that will come to us is: this will we maintain fidelity to all that God has revealed in his Word; knowing that it not only points to his glory but also to human flourishing? And will we do so without cognitive dissonance? Fidelity to the Scripture, fidelity to the gospel, does not allow for cognitive dissonance.

3) Americans approve gay marriage legalization on basis of practicality, not Constitution

Next, when it comes to that Supreme Court case – again the oral arguments will come on the 28th of this month – it’s very interesting that this week USA Today came out with a front-page story in which the headline is: no turning back on gay marriage. Susan Page wrote the article and it’s the kind of article you should expect to come in a barrage in coming days with the Supreme Court oral arguments now looming before us. And it also tells us a great deal about how America’s opinion culture is indeed trying to move on, saying this is an unstoppable movement, there are no significant arguments against, no credible arguments against the legalization of same-sex marriage so you better get in line.

One of the interesting things about the USA Today front-page story is not the headline as so much as the subhead. It tells us a very great deal and not just about same-sex marriage or even just about morality, the headline is no turning back on gay marriage, the subhead reads like this: “in poll majority say it’s no longer practical for court to ban unions.” Now that leads to a very important issue from the Christian worldview. How is a court to rule on the basis of a legal text? In this case the Constitution of the United States.

You see when it comes to the actual process whereby judges should confront a text, the issue has always been what does the text require, what did the framers of the text intend, how does the plain language of the text lead to its necessary interpretation? Now what’s interesting is that evidently that traditional way of looking at the relationship between the text and its interpretation isn’t even present in the minds of a majority of Americans if this poll is to be taken seriously and I see no reason why it should not be. You’ll note that the majority of Americans, according to the subhead on this story, don’t believe that it’s practical for the Supreme Court to do anything other than to legalize same-sex marriage in all 50 states.

The Constitution basically is absent from the entire equation, it’s not even a part of their thinking. They’re thinking in purely pragmatic terms. They’re thinking what should the court do in order to get to the right place and the right place right now in the minds of a majority of Americans is one way or another, towards the legalization of same-sex marriage. That’s the great moral shift we have experience. But we also need to note this isn’t just a moral shift, it’s also a shift in the way the High Court is expected and understood to operate.

The majority of Americans don’t seem to be saying that they believe the Constitution of the United States, in any reading of the words, calls for the legalization of same-sex marriage. They’re saying it’s not practical to rule otherwise. That tells us a great deal about the moral shift that is taking place in America. And it tells us something else: how Americans now understand the Supreme Court to operate and how they understand a text to operate as well. How does the text operate? It apparently isn’t even present in their thinking.

4) Editorial dismisses religious liberty concerns while attacking religious liberty

And next, back to the issue of this great moral shift taking place around us, back to the worldview consequences, and back to that London newspaper, The Guardian, we find an editorial that appeared on 17 April; the headline, The Guardian view on religious liberty: Christians in the West have nothing to fear. It’s a very interesting, very revealing, editorial in which this very liberal newspaper in London tells us that Christians really don’t have to fear anything in terms of religious discrimination or in terms of the loss of religious liberty. As they argue, it really comes down to whether or not belief can be coerced. And they argue that no Christian is going to be compelled, in our heart, to believe in the rightness of same-sex marriage, but we’re going to have to comply with it when it comes to all areas of the law and in the pervasive application of that law to the culture.

But what’s really interesting is the paragraph in which the editors of the guardians write, and listen to these words carefully,

“In the west we privilege conflicting but broadly liberal values. We no longer privilege the authority of the Bible. So, once we have determined that discrimination against homosexuals violates the principle of equality – and that is the settled position in both law and public opinion now – the fact that some people are compelled by their consciences to disagree does not exempt them from behaving as if it were true. There cannot be a special exemption for mistaken beliefs held on religious grounds when these harm others.”

There is so much there to be taken apart, but just note: here you have the editors of one of the most significant newspapers in the English speaking world declaring, “We no longer privilege the authority the Bible.” Now that’s not so interesting, the fact that modern Western secular societies don’t privilege the authority of the Bible, what’s interesting is the acknowledgment in that statement that Western societies once did. You’ll look at that language carefully: ‘we no longer privilege the authority the Bible.’ So when you look at this great moral revolution it’s only possible because of the loss of biblical authority in the larger culture. And it is acknowledged right here, explicitly on the editorial page of The Guardian.

But there’s something else. That paragraph began with the Guardian’s editorial board saying, ‘we privilege conflicting but broadly liberal values,’ that’s also interesting because one of the points we come to again and again is the fact that this moral revolution itself has conflicting liberal values. Those liberal values point to an inherent problem in the worldview that produces the secular age and the new moral revolution. This gets back to cognitive dissonance, even on the side of those who are pressing for this moral revolution. There is no absolute agreement as to how these conflicting, but broadly liberal, values, according to The Guardian, are to be decided, how they eventually will be applied.

But notice also the final sentence because recall the fact that the Guardian said that religious liberty isn’t threatened because there is no coercion of belief, but then listen again to the final sentence that the editors wrote right here in print. They said:

“There cannot be a special exemption for mistaken beliefs held on religious grounds when these harm others.”

We don’t have time to look at the entire sentence, but just note this: here you have a secular newspaper that says it is speaking up for religious liberty and that religious liberty for Christians really isn’t even in danger. And then they use the phrase ‘mistaken beliefs.’ So here’s the really interesting thing, whether or not they recognize that they are saying this. They’re saying it: they’re saying it in public and they are saying it in print.

They’re not just saying that Christians have to get in line; they are saying that Christians hold to mistaken beliefs. That’s a radically revealing statement, but perhaps the most revealing thing is that it doesn’t appear that the editorial board of The Guardian even understands that they have said this. They live in such a secularize world they can assume that it simply makes sense to them to put in public and in print that what Christians are holding to are simply a set of mistaken beliefs. And then they tell us religious liberties are not in danger. So what does that tell us? It tells us that religious liberty is in big danger

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

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 04-23-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Human trafficking bill finally passes in Senate despite conflict over abortion restriction

Senate, Clearing Hurdle, Sets a Thursday Vote on Loretta Lynch, New York Times (Emmarie Huetteman and Jennifer Steinhauer)

2) Republican candidates’ approach to same sex marriage reveals tension between two values

Republicans in knots over gay marriage ahead of supreme court decision, The Guardian (Sabrina Siddiqui and Nicky Woolf)

3) Americans approve gay marriage legalization on basis of practicality, not Constitution

Poll: No turning back on gay marriage, USA Today (Susan Page)

4) Editorial dismisses religious liberty concerns while attacking religious liberty

The Guardian view on religious liberty: Christians in the west have nothing to fear, The Guardian (Editorial Board)

Transcript: The Briefing 04-22-15

The Briefing

 

April 22, 2015

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

 

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

1) ‘Accountant of Auschwitz’ asks forgiveness, reminder of magnitude of crime

Every once in a while in world history – every once in a while in our own times – something happens that simply makes a moral point that cannot be evaded, and that’s what happened in a German courtroom yesterday when a man by the name of Oskar Gröning, at age 93, stood before a court and admitted his complicity in the Holocaust; in particular he admitted that the charges against him were true, that he was the infamous accountant of Auschwitz. As Alison Smale reported yesterday for the New York Times,

“Seven decades after the liberation of Auschwitz, a 93-year-old former SS member at the Nazi death camp shuffled into a German court … to answer charges of complicity in the murders of 300,000 mostly Hungarian Jews in two months during the summer of 1944.”

Now before we go on any further, let’s just look at that one paragraph. That paragraph tells us that this is one man charged with complicity, with being an accessory to murder, not in one murder but in 300,000 murders. It also tells us that at the Auschwitz death camp during a two-month period in 1944 at least 300,000 Jews, mostly Hungarian Jews, were exterminated in the Nazi death camp. Just consider the juxtaposition of morality and math – in this case the numbers point to a profound, if unimaginable, moral responsibility. How in the world can we consider the morality of one murder? How do we set that over against the morality of complicity in 300,000 murders? How do we set that over against the complicity that is now true, we know, of Oskar Gröning and so many others, in the death camps that killed between six and 12 million people during the Holocaust in the midst of World War II?

The mathematics and the morality simply defy our imagination. The Christian worldview is the only worldview that can take an adequate understanding of evil and roots human evil in something we know as sin, not merely a human misbehavior, and roots the problem of human sinfulness, not just in the actions of a human being but in the matter of the heart, the intention and desires of the heart – what the book of common prayer calls the devices of our heart – these too are a part of the complicity of every single human being in the reality of human sinfulness. And that human sinfulness now stares at us in a way that cannot be evaded.

The shock that came in that Tuesday courtroom in Lüneburg, Germany is that Oskar Gröning stood before the court and did not deny his complicity. As Gröning told the court,

“It is beyond question that I am morally complicit. This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility.”

He then spoke to Judge Franz Kompisch saying,

“As concerns guilt before the law, you must decide.”

As the French Press Agency reported that he had said,

“For me there’s no question that I share moral guilt, I ask for forgiveness,”

Now according to the report in the French Press Agency, Mr. Gröning had actually asked for forgiveness – that raises a host of questions. Again he had said to the court, “you have to decide on my legal culpability,” or the New York Times reported he said, “You have to decide where I stand when it comes to the law.” But when it comes to moral guilt Oskar Gröning became one of the very first accused in terms of direct complicity with Auschwitz and the Nazi war crimes to stand before a court and say explicitly I am guilty of the charges against me.

So just consider the spectacle that took place Lüneburg, Germany when a 93-year-old man, that is a man in the 10th decade of life, a man who had been relatively young 70 years ago when these crimes took place, a man stand before a court room that was filled with witnesses – including some of the survivors of Auschwitz and other death camps – and just imagine that man saying, ‘I am guilty, I am morally complicit, I did what is alleged against me, the crimes of which I am charged, and I ask for forgiveness.’ That is one of the most vexing questions of the 20th century: how is forgiveness possible set over against the magnitude of crimes like this? But this is where Christians have to think very, very carefully. How in the world, biblically speaking, do we consider the question of the magnitude of crime? That is a very difficult question. Biblical theology does not allow us an easy formula to understanding the magnitude of crime.

We do understand the Bible’s clear teaching that every single one of us is infinitely guilty of an infinite assault upon the glory of God in terms of our own sinfulness. That’s abundantly clear from Scripture. In Romans chapter 1 Paul says that there will be no one who will have any excuse; no one is going to be able to stand before the court of divine justice and say ‘I am not guilty of the crimes alleged against me.’ Now on that Day of Judgment will there be some who will be found guilty of crimes of a particular magnitude? We have to believe that that will be so. But it will not be a matter of heaven or hell; it will be a matter of the execution of divine justice.

And that gets to another very important issue of the Christian worldview. We do not believe that any single human being is innocent. Furthermore, we believe that every single human being is infinitely guilty. That’s one of the most important insights of the Christian understanding of sin. But we also believe that true justice, seen over against the crimes that mark human history, will be found only in the judgment of God and will be found fully in the judgment of God. And that means that there will be an accounting for every single human sin, for every lie that any human being has told another, for every act of disobedience of a child over against parents, for every act of murder and violence – and that means, according to the sermon on the Mount, that Jesus will judge us on the intentions of our heart not merely on the actions where we may be found guilty by human court.

But we are awaiting that justice that can only come, and in that judgment there will be no escaping the sure and certain judgment of God. And the just penalty over against every human sinner is going to be death and the only escape from death and hell and everlasting punishment is going to be the fact that one has faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the ground and foundation of that atonement is nothing other and no one other than Jesus Christ himself and his perfect obedience and his substitutionary atonement.

This story coming from Germany, shocking and revealing as it is, points to the inadequacy of any human worldview. How does any secular worldview come to terms with the question of the mathematics and morality of a sin of this magnitude? How does any human court actually try to achieve anything like justice when it comes to the Holocaust, when it comes down Auschwitz, when it comes to the actual charges against this man – charges to which he has now pleaded guilty of complicity in the killing of 300,000 persons? According to the news reports the maximum sentence that can be brought against him is a sentence of 15 years in prison. It is imaginable that that is an appropriate sentence for a crime of this magnitude – humanly speaking. Because the difference between the divine court of justice and the human court of justice is that the very best to human court can do is what we would call proximate justice or approximate justice. All the human court can do is try to do the very best that human beings can do to assign moral responsibility and to come up with some kind of fitting punishment.

That’s one of the issues that is now vexing a set of jurors in Boston, Massachusetts dealing with the penalty phase of the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who has been found guilty of over 30 counts, 17 of which can carry the death penalty. But that’s Boston, Massachusetts, with the death of three people and the injury of many more. What do you do against the magnitude of the deaths of 300,000 people in just two months and millions of people over the course of the Holocaust? How do you deal with the crimes of the 20th century at the hands of Stalin and the Chinese communists and Hitler and his regime and Pol Pot in Cambodia and so many others? There is no human accounting, and yet human courts have to do their very best. And it was a moment of very rare, even precious, moral clarity when Oskar Gröning, at age 93, stood before a German court on Tuesday and said ‘I am guilty.’ It is also very revealing that he asked for forgiveness.

And this is where Christians have to think again in a way that is distinctively biblical and distinctively Christian. What would it mean for a man to look at a courtroom in the 10th decade of his life, when that courtroom includes some who are the survivors of Auschwitz, and ask for forgiveness? What kind of forgiveness can actually be granted, and what will be the meaning of that forgiveness? We understand that Oskar Gröning was right to admit his complicity in these crimes, he was right to ask for forgiveness. What is then the right response?

It is interesting that at this point from the period of the end of the Second World War to the present, Jewish opinion is divided over whether or not forgiveness – that is human forgiveness – should be granted. On this the Christian worldview is not divided. We are told that we are obligated, by the command of Christ and by the power of the gospel, to forgive those who sin against us. That raises a host of other issues; can we forgive someone who has sinned against others? Are even the survivors of Auschwitz present in that courtroom morally qualified to forgive on behalf of those who died in the death camps? That’s one of those questions that we will never be able to answer in any way that is satisfactory as human beings.

That’s where Christians have to say, when it comes to forgiveness the ultimate issue is the forgiveness that can come only by the atonement achieved by Jesus Christ; the forgiveness that comes to those who confess their sins and repent of those sins and trust in Christ as Savior. And it comes only because of the power the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus Christians are obligated to forgive not because Christians as human beings have in themselves the capacity to forgive, but because those who are united with Christ and are under the obligation of the gospel are commanded to forgive sins of any and all magnitude against us simply because we have been forgiven our sins, which are an infinite insult to the glory of God.

Oskar Gröning was known as the Accountant of Auschwitz, that’s because the responsibilities he had in the death camp was to account for the money taken from those Jews who were brought into the camp and were later exterminated. He sorted the money and he was the bookkeeper for the money, and there are those who would say this is a low level of complicity. That’s what for decades Oskar Gröning had said of himself, now as he appeared in the court room and had to face down some of those who survived the death camp he appears to have step back from claiming that he had nothing but a minor role. When he said,

“It is beyond question that I am morally complicit. This moral guilt I acknowledge here, before the victims, with regret and humility.”

When he said that he requested forgiveness and then said,

“As concerns guilt before the law, you must decide.”

He was speaking the obvious in that last phrase; it is now up to a German court to decide where Oskar Gröning stands before the law. But as Christians know, that is not the most important question. The most important question is this: where will Oskar Gröning stand before the court of God’s justice? Before that court the only verdict will be guilty. Every single human being, a sinner guilty of every crime alleged against us. And the only hope will be Christ, but in Christ we have – as the New Testament tells us – a sure and certain hope.

2) Chimps granted day in court, exposing dangerous worldview confusion over dignity of humans

Shifting now to New York State and to the issue, at least the presenting issue, of animal rights, there’s a story that few people might connect with that story that come from Germany, and yet I will argue from a Christian worldview the connection is very, very important. The article broke by Rachel Feltman of the Washington Post yesterday and I read,

“On Monday, a New York judge appeared to grant two chimpanzees a writ of habeas corpus. In other words, the chimps have the right to a day in court — under a law that only applies to people.”

This isn’t, according to Feltman, coming from nowhere. The non-human rights project known as NHRP has been trying to get chimps the rights of personhood for years. They represent the animals in court, arguing that their living situations as pets or performers should be considered as unlawful as the inhumane detention of a human. Previous cases, she says,

“…in the United States have failed to produce such a result, but in December an Argentinian orangutan won her case…and was moved from a zoo to a sanctuary.”

Now I’m just reading to you from the Washington Post report, again it is by reporter Rachel Feltman, she writes,

“The U.S. case isn’t quite at that point yet: The judge never ruled that the two chimps, who live in a Stony Brook University lab, need to be released. The decision really only means that the chimps have the right to fight their detention in court.”

Now, let me just state the obvious, these chimps are not going to argue their case in court. These chimps didn’t file any legal documents, these chimps have not hired attorneys, and these chimps are represented by attorneys who have decided to represent a firm that claims to represent the chimps.

This article demonstrates the great chasm between the Christian and secular worldviews today when Rachel Feltman goes on to quote one of the representatives of the group, the Non-Human Rights Project, as saying,

“This is a big step forward to getting what we are ultimately seeking: the right to bodily liberty for chimpanzees and other cognitively complex animals. We got our foot in the door. And no matter what happens, that door can never be completely shut again.”

Well, in that case, Natalie Prosin, the executive director of this animal rights group, may be right, she may be wrong, time will tell. But it is telling that we have a very significant turn in the legal culture and a very significant turn in terms of our worldview and the cultures developing understanding of morality and human nature in this article. Now once again we point to the obvious, neither chimps nor orangutans have hired attorneys and they are certainly not making their cases in court.

This leads to one of the great issues of worldview confusion in our day. One of the constant temptations, in terms of humanity, especially after the enlightenment, after the rise of the modern age and secular worldviews, is to try to come up with some way to blur the distinction between Homo sapiens (that is human beings) and other creatures. In particular here you will note that this organization is trying to argue for bodily liberty – that’s their term for chimpanzees – and let me get back to their language, “and other cognitively complex animals.”

Now just note that designation. How in the world would we define a cognitively complex animal? Evidently, according to this group, to be a human being is to be marked by cognitive complexity and evidently to be an orangutan or a chimpanzee is to be marked by cognitive complexity. So what’s the distinction between a human being and another cognitively complex animal? Well according to this group when it comes to fundamental human rights, when it comes to even something they define as bodily liberty, that will be the right, presumably, not to be a laboratory or in a cage, there is no distinction.

So what is the link between the first story and this story? It is this: in our modern secular age it has become increasingly difficult for anyone operating from a secular worldview to come up with any adequate means of distinguishing between human beings and other creatures; in particular, other “cognitively complex creatures.” How in the world did we get here? We got here because having abandoned a biblical worldview, a worldview that ground every single human being and only human beings as being creatures made in God’s image, with the modern secular worldview that says we’re merely on a continuum of life. We are merely on a continuum, to use the language of this organization, and if it is just a continuum how do we privilege human beings as being merely more cognitively complex when measured over against other supposedly cognitively complex beings?

And by the way, we do not deny that there are mammals that are similarly cognitively complex. Evidently we are told even whales and porpoises are able to have some cognitive complexity to the point of intelligence even to the point of some kind of language and communication. But what we see here is that the modern secular worldview is trying to say we can ground human dignity in some definition that comes by a criterion we can establish that makes human beings different, different in some way, different to some extent, from other creatures.

But that fails. It fails utterly. And just notice how it fails in this particular article because it fails on its face in that neither the orangutans nor the chimpanzees are going to be making arguments in court. They’re not going to be hiring attorneys; they’re not going to be making their own case. It is actually a moral fiction, as we see in this article that appeared again in yesterday’s edition of the Washington Post, that these champs or the orangutan will have their day in court. No, someone will have their day in court on behalf of these animals.

It’s a very different moral equation and the confusion here is going to be deeply subversive to human dignity, because the Christian worldview would tell us that we have a moral obligation to all of creation and any person who would honor the biblical worldview would know that we have some obligation to every creature God has made to his glory. But we also understand that we have a unique obligation not just to some human beings, but to every single human being because every single human being, and only human beings according to the biblical worldview, are made in the image of God. And therefore the biblical worldview makes very clear that there is an absolute distinction between human beings and all of the rest of creation; and in particular all the rest of the creatures. That’s a point that is made already in Genesis chapter 1; it’s a point that is affirmed in Genesis 2. It is so fundamental to the biblical worldview that it even continues to the entire storyline of Scripture.

So again we ask, what is the link between these two stories? It is the fatal, the horrifyingly dangerous confusion, about grounding human nature. Grounding human dignity in anything other than the biblical worldview because the horror is this: once we abandon the biblical worldview, human beings are merely animals, are merely a part of the natural order, are somehow distinct from all the rest of creation simply because we may be more cognitively complex, more linguistically able, more communitarian, more relational. But it’s all on a spectrum and at some point that spectrum will be negotiated away.

That’s exactly what happened in the Holocaust. Human dignity was negotiated away when people were defined as being lebensunwertes Leben, to use German, life unworthy of life. We have seen that in the horrors of racism, we have seen that in the horrible institution of slavery, we have seen that even written into law and the only correction, the only corrective possible, is the worldview that comes directly from the Scripture, the worldview to which we as Christians are not only accountable but the worldview for which we are infinitely grateful, a worldview that tells us the human beings are special, not because were smarter, not because we have greater linguistic ability, not because we can manage fire and cook our food as some modern people are trying to argue, but because every single human being and only human beings are made in the image of God. The issue is not ourselves, but our creator; our dignity is not rooted within, it is rooted in him.

And confusion over this issue, admittedly at this point with very different effects, is seen in a courtroom in Germany, but also in a courtroom in New York State. The danger is quite frankly that many Christians may look at this new story in the Washington Post and think of it is quirky or cute, it isn’t. It is downright dangerous. We’re being sent a signal in this story, a signal once again of the vast evacuation of the Christian worldview in our age. The headline in the Washington Post actually says it all, Chimps given human rights by US court for the first time. To be told that chimpanzees are given human rights is not in the long-term going to prove to the advantage of the chimpanzees, over the long run it will prove to the depreciation and to the endangerment of every single human life.

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. Remember we’re taking questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. 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 04-22-15

Podcast Transcript

1) ‘Accountant of Auschwitz’ asks forgiveness, reminder of magnitude of crime

Trial of Former Auschwitz Guard, 93, Opens in Germany, New York Times (Alison Smale)

Ex-Nazi ‘bookkeeper of Auschwitz’ asks for ‘forgiveness’, Agence France-Presse (Coralie Febvre)

2) Chimps granted day in court, exposing dangerous worldview confusion over dignity of humans

Chimps given human rights by U.S. court for the first time, Washington Post (Rachel Feltman)

Transcript: The Briefing 04-21-15

The Briefing

 

April 21, 2015

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

 

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

1) Mediterranean boat disaster reveals desperation that drives quest for freedom and security

We learn a great deal about human nature and about aspirations for freedom and security by looking at the disaster – the horrifying disaster – that took place on Sunday in the Mediterranean. There, according to the most credible press reports, between 700 and 950 persons are likely to have perished in an effort to migrate from northern Africa – specifically for Libya – to Europe; first probably to Italy and then onward to the northern countries where there might be the hope of employment and security.

What we’re looking at here is something that we have seen over and over again: the quest for freedom and security. You have people who crowded themselves onto a boat, reported to have been 66 feet long – a fishing vessel that was intended for just a few human beings and the task of fishing that became a platform for human trafficking. With people enticing those who were desperate for freedom and desperate for the security of themselves and their family to crowd onto a boat that eventually was so overloaded that it capsized in the Mediterranean about 150 miles off of the coast of Libya.

As Jim Yardley of the New York Times reports,

“Hundreds of people were feared dead on Sunday after a ship crowded with migrants capsized and sank in the Mediterranean, as the authorities described a grisly scene of bodies floating and submerging in the warm waters, with the majority of the dead apparently trapped in the ship at the bottom of the sea.”

Yardley went on to report,

“The fatal shipwreck may prove to be the Mediterranean’s deadliest migrant disaster ever and is only the latest tragedy in Europe’s migration crisis. Warmer spring weather has unleashed a torrent of smuggler boats, mostly from Libya, bearing migrants and refugees from the Middle East and Africa, often fleeing war and poverty for a foothold in Europe.”

Now in order to place this disaster in its moral context we need to consider the fact that we’re not just talking about Libyans fleeing Libya, we’re talking about people from all over the Middle East and North Africa who have gathered in the North African coast because it offers the easiest and most direct access to Europe. Why would so many people from these parts of the world want to get to another part of the world? Why are so many people, especially from the Middle East and Africa, trying to get to North Africa in order to get to Italy in order to get to the larger continent of Europe? The answer is actually simple: Europe offers a promise at least of security – the promise of some notion, the affirmation, of basic human rights, the opportunity to feed oneself and one’s family in a way that is fast disappearing in much of the world.

Now from a Christian worldview one of our responsibilities is to imagine ourselves in a situation of such desperation. That’s relatively difficult for middle-class Americans to do. It is hard for us to imagine a situation into which we would throw ourselves, much less our own families and children, putting them into a situation of imminent danger and trusting our lives to human traffickers simply because it is a yet better option than staying where we are. Much of the world is torn by war; much of the world is experiencing radical famine – often associated with that kind of war. In much of Africa there are tribal and ethnic conflicts such as those that have taken place in Somalia and elsewhere. There is almost no hope of feeding one’s family, no hope of an ongoing employment, no hope of the affirmation of human rights.

The sinking of the ship on Sunday came just after reports of increased activity of the Islamic state in Libya. No doubt increasing the desperation on the part of many there to flee before the imminent disaster that has now been broadcast in so many videos across the world. But from a Christian worldview perspective the other thing revealed in this horrifying disaster is the difficulty of knowing what is the right and moral thing to do. What is the right thing for the Italian government to do – or for any government?

One of the interesting things to watch in the immediate aftermath of this horrifying new story is how many people in politics and otherwise were immediately stating the morally obvious; that is that this is a horrible situation that must be stopped. But how exactly is it to be stopped? Italy had operated over the past months in something known as Mare Nostrum, a policy whereby they had tried to intercept and save as many people as possible who were fleeing North Africa on ships headed for Italy and the rest of Europe. The problem is that even as that was a widely praised program, it might actually have led to the fact that increased numbers of people began in desperation to risk their lives simply out of the hope, largely by that Italian government naval program, of being intercepted by Italy and thus saved.

And so it’s a terrifyingly difficult situation; it’s hard to know what is right. The intended and unintended consequences of action often are very difficult to foresee, and in this case the unintended action of trying to save many people over the last several months may actually have incentivized people to risk their lives to human traffickers out of hope that they similarly would be taken into custody by Italy and eventually brought to at least a safer situation with some opportunity of appeal there in Italy.

Furthermore we’re looking at another situation that we all need to think about. It is something that often doesn’t come to us. We think of our lives ordered by a context by a society that privileges law and order and where we understand that if difficulty arises we can call 911. We often don’t think about the fact that if you were to take a look at the globe, if you were to take a snapshot of the globe at any single moment, much of the territory on that globe, and especially the territory that is covered by water, would be outside any effective call to anyone – 911 or otherwise. There would be no police force in any range to be able to intervene in any way, there might be no Navy in any ability or any proximity to be able to respond in any way, there may be no legal authority at the end of the day to ensure any kind to safety or even to offer a court of justice.

We can only imagine the desperation that led between seven and 950 people to cram themselves on a boat described as being only 66 feet long – just imagine that. We can only imagine the horror that took place as that boat capsized and began to sink. We can only imagine the very difficult decisions now faced by governments, not only in Europe but elsewhere, trying to determine what is right to do in this situation. Obviously it’s right to save people in any circumstance, but there is the danger that announcing a certain policy will lead to even increased numbers of hundreds of people risking their lives under the hope of being similarly apprehended.

Europe faces enormous challenges and so does North America, but this much is clear: we need to be reminded with great thankfulness of the fact that we are not facing this kind of desperation, that what we now see taking place in so many parts of the world is not something that we experience – that’s not an accident and it’s not something to be taken lightly. As we remember prayerfully all those around the world who are marked by such desperation and are such easy victims of human trafficking and the kinds of hopes that human traffickers traffic in, we need to remember as we tuck our own children in at night how many blessings or hours by God’s hand and how many people would give almost anything and risk almost anything to note even a day of freedom as we know it.

2) ISIS video announcing specific targeting of Christians driven by theological motivations

Next, as we said about that story, the ship that led to such disaster had left the shores of Libya. It is no coincidence that in the same edition of the paper that reported that maritime disasters there’s also a report datelined from Cairo Egypt in which David D. Kirkpatrick of the New York Times tells us,

“The Islamic State released a video on Sunday that appears to show fighters from its branches in southern and eastern Libya executing dozens of Ethiopian Christians, some by beheading and others by shooting.”

We’ve been watching the rise of extremism and attempts to exterminate Christians in much of the Middle East and North Africa but this story represents a significant development beyond what we knew even a matter of just a few days ago. Kirkpatrick’s story tells us of that Islamic state, especially in Libya but also in other nations of the world, is now announcing a campaign to eradicate Christianity and Christians from its territory.

The background for the new story tells us that the Islamic state is claiming that according to Quranic law Christians either must convert or pay a very significant tax. But the national and international media are also reporting that that tax is often set where the Islamic state knows that Christians cannot pay it, effectively leaving only two options: either die or convert to Islam. The new information in this report coming from the attacks by the Islamic state indicates just how Christians in particular are being targeted. Again this comes in the New York Times, yesterday’s edition, David Kirkpatrick reports,

“The video released Sunday begins with about 25 minutes of scenes that appeared to have been filmed in Syria and Iraq. After reviewing the portrayal of Jesus in the Quran, a narrator briefly walks through the history of the emergence of Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Protestantism.”

Let me just interject here, this is an amazingly sophisticated description of Christianity and of the Muslim assessment of Christians. Kirkpatrick goes on to say,

“The video intersperses what appear to be scenes from a costume drama depicting rows of medieval Muslim soldiers marching with spears, fighting with bows and arrows, and assaulting a castle. Then it cuts briefly to images of the Islamic State’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, climbing the steps to the minbar, or pulpit, of the Mosul mosque where he proclaimed himself caliph.

“A narrator, identified as Sheikh Abu Malik Anas al-Nashwan, says in formal Arabic that the Islamic State requires Christians living under its dominion to convert to Islam or pay jizya — the tax levied on non-Muslims living under Muslim rule in the Middle Ages. He speaks against a backdrop of lush foliage that looks more like northern Syria than anywhere in Libya, and the video shows a building and van used by the Islamic State to handle such payments in a town in the Syrian province of Aleppo.”

The details that follow are similarly alarming,

“The narrator repeatedly uses a derogatory term for Christians that is something like calling them Nazarenes. Yet much of the video is devoted to testimonials from people speaking Arabic with Syrian or perhaps Iraqi accents who say they are Christians living happily under the Islamic State in Aleppo, Raqqa and elsewhere. All say that they live freely after paying the tax; it is impossible to know how much coercion they may have felt at the time.”

Let me just intersperses, that is certainly an incredible understatement. Kirkpatrick’s report then continues,

“At one point, the video includes a scene of what appear to be two Islamic State fighters lecturing a schoolroom full of adult Christians on the virtues of Islam. A rifle leans against the wall behind them.

“For those who refuse to convert or pay the tax, the narrator promises death and destruction, and scenes of Islamic State fighters desecrating the churches of Mosul illustrate the threat. ‘The Christians in Mosul have chosen their own destiny,’”

As the video ends, it ends with the threat that Christians either convert to Islam or pay this tax. And then the words:

“…we owed nothing except the edge of the sword,”

A similar report that came in yesterday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal says that poking a pistol toward the camera a fighter on the video says,

“To the nation of the cross, we are back again…telling you Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap.”

3) Legislative support for right to die exposes velocity of moral shift in America

Now historically a very interesting aspect of this is that the Islamic state by means of this video appears to be going back to argue that the Crusades of the medieval era are the adequate moral pretext for their extermination of Christians now. This goes back to the language about those who are fighting under the cross; it goes back to the identification of nations of the cross – that’s language that goes back to the Crusades. But what we’re also looking at here is the reality that under Muslim rule, according to the Quran, all the Muslims owe Christians is what is known as “dhimmitude,” said specifically this is what the Quran says that Muslims owe Christians and Jews – identified as people of the book. They owe of them only a subservient status under which, as the Islamic state has now threatened, Christians must either convert to Islam or pay a tax. And often that tax is set at a limit that it is well-known that Christians cannot pay, effectively meaning they have only one choice – either convert or die.

Now we have absolute evidence that the Islamic state is framing the extermination of Christians in explicitly theological terms. One of the most interesting developments in the report in the New York Times yesterday is that this video released by the Islamic state includes a recital of Christian history, the development of Catholicism and Eastern orthodoxy and Protestantism, and also deals with the understanding of Jesus that is claimed in the Quran.

This is a very interesting development; on the one hand it is almost as if the Islamic state is declaring that it is intending to take the world back to the Middle Ages and to reenter the age of the Crusades, but it’s also true that by its brutality and by its specific targeting of Christians, the Islamic state is announcing its intention in terms of the expansion of its caliphate – that is the territory under its rule – that the options given the Christians will be either convert or pay the tax, and the tax may be set so that there is no opportunity, realistically, for anyone to pay it. Which means convert or lose your lives, and the video that was released on Sunday indicates that the Islamic state fully intends to fulfill that threat.

One final issue related to that story. It is unclear exactly what the theological convictions of those who were executed on this video might have been, but what’s most crucial from a Christian worldview is this: they were identified as those who were followers of Christ, they were identified as those who identified with the cross, and they were identified with the derogatory term of being Nazarenes; in other words followers of Jesus of Nazareth. One of the interesting developments in terms of this story is that the Islamic state is now specifically identifying the Christians it intends to target as Eastern Orthodox and Catholics and Protestants; all three under its threat.

The Islamic state may or may not be more theologically sophisticated than we knew when it comes to its understanding of Christianity, but this much is abundantly clear: it intends to target anyone who identifies with the cross of Christ, anyone who identifies with the name of Christ, anyone who claims to be a follower of Jesus the Nazarene.

4) Oldest person in world dies, leaving only four people who’ve seen 19th Century

Shifting to the United States, on Sunday in USA Today moved a story; the headline is, Half of states plus DC [that is the District of Columbia] look at right-to-die legislation. Malak Monir is reporting for USA Today,

“More than a dozen states, plus the District of Columbia, are considering controversial medically assisted death legislation this year.

“The laws would allow mentally fit, terminally ill patients age 18 and older, whose doctors say they have six months or less to live, to request lethal drugs.”

Now the background to this is a massive moral shift taking place in Western cultures at large, but most particularly right now in the United States. One of things to watch in a great moral seismic shift like this is how quickly what was unimaginable becomes then thinkable, and after becoming thinkable it becomes plausible in terms of policy. When we’re looking at something like assisted suicide we need to recognize that it has not been on the American scene for very long, certainly with any momentum. It was the state of Oregon that was the first day to implement a so-called death with dignity act in 1997 and four other states (Montana, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington) now allow for medically assisted suicide.

But you need to note that is a tiny minority of states. When it comes to assisted suicide and euthanasia in the United States there has been a massive cultural negativity to the very notion and those who have been pressing for it had not gained much momentum until the last several months. And again that tells us that when a moral shift happens there’s often a catalyst that becomes the signal that that moral shift is taking place. And once the moral shift is in movement the velocity is often much quicker than might be imagined.

You’ll recall that just a matter of a few months ago a young woman by the name of Brittany Maynard who was then 29 years old died in a very well-publicized case of assisted suicide after she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She became, by her own intention, a symbol for a nationwide effort to legalize assisted suicide being done in the name of individual autonomy. As Monir reports for USA Today,

“As of April 10, at least another 25 states have considered death with dignity bills, according to Compassion & Choices, a Denver-based nonprofit organization that advocates for these laws.”

President Barbara Coombs Lee of that group said,

“The movement has reached a threshold where it is unstoppable,”

Well she might be right or she might be wrong, but there is no doubt that the movement has reached a certain critical velocity as it is moving forward.

Now what does that tell Christians? It tells Christians that the very deeply embedded Christian biblical belief in the sanctity of every single human life, and that deep beliefs implanted in the culture by Christianity that the creator and not the autonomous creature gets to determine the length and the understanding of life, that that has evaporated very, very quickly. Now it doesn’t evaporate in an instant, it doesn’t evaporate in all likelihood in a single generation, what this tells us is that the worldview of Americans on the issue of the very nature of human life has been in transition for some time.

And then we take a step backward and think, well it certainly must have been because as we go back to 1973 in the Roe V Wade decision and come to understand that Americans evidently, by the millions then and the American Supreme Court as indicative of the nation, were willing to allow for the legalization of abortion, of the intentional targeting of babies in the womb, and that tells us that the ship was already well underway.

What this also tells us is that when the sanctity of human life is compromised and redefined at one end of the spectrum, in the earliest stage here when it comes to the beginning of life, thus the issue of abortion, it is inevitably also compromised, subverted, and undermined at the other end of life spectrum now at the end of life. The very fact that we are looking at momentum for assisted suicide and euthanasia in America, the very fact that on Sunday USA Today declared this in a headline story, that tells us that something fundamental had shifted long ago. Even as it was imperceptible, it’s undeniable now and that starkly identifies one of the central challenges we will face in months and years ahead.

 

Finally, when it comes to the end stages of life I refer to an article that recently appeared on the front page of the Financial Times from London. The headline, World’s oldest person dies at 117. The next part of the headline is what’s perhaps most striking, “leaving only four witnesses to the 19th century.” The article in the Financial Times tells us that the oldest person then in the world, Misao Okawa, who died just a matter of days ago at the age of 117 leave four persons documented to be alive right now on planet earth that was alive in the 1800s.

Interviewed on her 116th birthday Ms. Okawa iin Japan said that the secret of her life was,

“…eat tasty food and sleep well,”

Speaking of her long life she had said then “it seems short to me” on her 116th birthday. Speaking of 116, according to the Financial Times, the world’s most senior citizen right now is Gertrude Weaver, who at age of 116 lives in Arkansas in the United States.

I don’t know about you but I find it striking that according to the Financial Times and its front-page news story there are still four people alive who were alive to welcome the dawn of the 20th century, born with the years ‘18’ in front of their birth.

The Bible tells us that man knows not his time. Whether the length of our lives is 117 years or something less, according to the Bible our times are in the hands of God.

 

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

 

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 04-21-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Mediterranean boat disaster reveals desperation that drives quest for freedom and security

Hundreds of Migrants Are Feared Dead as Ship Capsizes Off Libyan Coast, New York Times (Jim Yardley)

Europe grapples with deadly flow of migrants, USA Today (Jane Onyanga-Omara)

2) ISIS video announcing specific targeting of Christians driven by theological motivations

ISIS Video Appears to Show Executions of Ethiopian Christians in Libya, New York Times (David D. Kirkpatrick)

3) Legislative support for right to die exposes velocity of moral shift in America

Half the states look at right-to-die legislation, USA Today (Malak Monir)

4) Oldest person in world dies, leaving only four people who’ve seen 19th Century

World’s oldest person Misao Okawa dies aged 117 in Japan, Financial Times (Robin Harding)

Transcript: The Briefing 04-20-15

The Briefing

 

April 20, 2015

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

 

It’s Monday, April 20, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide reveals challenge of mists of history to human judgment

The German philosopher Georg Lessing, well over a hundred years ago, talked about what he called history’s ugly ditch. He said it was an ugly ditch, speaking of a metaphor, because he said we can’t pass from the present to the past and make actual judgments on what happened in reality in times past. Now Christians actually cannot affirm that reality of the ugly ditch, we do believe that we can have real knowledge of past events; most importantly we believe we can have real and certain knowledge of past events based upon divine revelation in Scripture. It is the claim of divine revelation that crosses that ugly ditch between the present and the past. But when it comes to the more recent past and when it comes to knowledge outside of Revelation, there is a great deal of controversy and that occurred over the weekend.

Several things very much in view, most importantly it was 100 years ago that the first genocide of the 20th Century took place and it was a genocide that took place by the Turks against the Armenians. And the very fact that I used the word genocide is itself quite controversial in terms of world history for the last century. This is because the Turks insist that the use the word genocide is illegitimate, meanwhile the Armenians insist that it was a genocide. And as the New York Times reported on Friday, the facts are absolutely incontrovertible in the fact that about 1.5 million Armenians died, mostly at the hands of the Turks.

The why’s and the wherefores are in much as a part of the early history of the 20th century. Specifically it has to do with what took place in the period that would include the fall of the Ottoman Empire – that is the great Muslim Empire that existed for centuries right up to the end of World War I – and the rise of what is now the modern secular state, or at least the presumably secular state when it comes to its government, of Turkey. One of the things that happened in the transition there in Anatolia, or what is now called Turkey, is that the Armenians were accused of siding with Russia.

Now you’ll also recall that just a matter of decades before World War I was the Crimean war in which Russia was involved, along with other great European powers. You’re talking about a part of the world that has seen warfare and contested battles over territory going back to the most ancient records of history. But as New York Times reporter Tim Arango reported as we went into the weekend and I quote,

“Worried that the Christian Armenian population was planning to align with Russia, a primary enemy of the Ottoman Turks, officials embarked on what historians have called the first genocide of the 20th century: Nearly 1.5 million Armenians were killed, some in massacres like the one [that took place in Cungus] here, others in forced marches to the Syrian desert that left them starved to death.”

The Times went on to report,

“The genocide was the greatest atrocity of the Great War. It also remains that conflict’s most bitterly contested legacy, having been met by the Turkish authorities with 100 years of silence and denial. For surviving Armenians and their descendants, the genocide became a central marker of their identity, the psychic wounds passed through generations.”

From a Christian or biblical worldview perspective the interesting thing is that we’re talking about it – the fact that the world’s talking about it, that almost every major newspaper in terms of the Western world was dealing with this controversy on the 100th anniversary of the facts that took place on the ground in the year 1915. That tells us something, it tells us that long-term history doesn’t settle a lot of issues the way we might hope that history would; the scholarly view of history and the politicized context of history, as it is known by different peoples.

The Armenians in the church remember these events very differently. The Turkish government says right down to the present that it is ethnic discrimination against the Turks to claim that the genocide took place or even to use that word. The Armenians say that it is immoral and it is a sin against history not to recognize that nearly 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of the Turks.

Unraveling the knots of history is notoriously difficult, especially when you’re looking at the distance of 100 years. The facts on the ground about the deaths, they are very well attested. And the responsibility for those deaths, well it’s very well assigned in terms of history. But the details behind the events that took place a hundred years ago; they are shrouded in what was called the mists of history. It is difficult to go back and determine all the particulars. But we do know this: history cries out for moral verdict that often time’s history simply can’t deliver. That’s one of the lessons of the biblical worldview. If all we’re left with in terms of moral judgment is history, then we’re not left with enough. There is no restitution, there is no redemption, and there is no true justice here.

Once again we find ourselves waiting for that judgment which is yet to come. A judgment that will not depend upon reportage from the New York Times or any of the newspaper, a judgment that will not depend upon any human court or any human tribunal, a judgment will come from God in which the vocabulary will be his alone, and the justice will be perfectly righteous.

2) OKC bomber exposes pride of human assumption that we are masters of own fate

But closer to home we also need to remember that yesterday, that is Sunday, marks the 20th anniversary of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – one of the first major incidents of homegrown terror in the United States over the course of the last several decades; a turning point in so many ways in American history. Those who are old enough to remember that event that took place 20 years ago yesterday, we probably remember where we were standing and with whom we were accompanied when we heard the news about this horrible terrorist attack.

The first thought of course was that it was some kind of external attack, even years before what would eventuate in terms of the September 11, 2001 attacks, even back in 1995 there was the assumption that some foreign power, some foreign influence, some foreign threat, must be behind this. Only later did we discover it was a homegrown threat. That the entire conspiracy and the bombing of this federal building and eventually the killing of 168 people and the wounding many others was undertaken by a homegrown threat by Timothy McVeigh and his accomplice, his co-conspirator Terry Nichols.

Based upon information they were able to assemble from public sources, they were able to create and then to detonate a 4,800 pounds fertilizer bomb outside the federal building there in Oklahoma City. Included in the carnage was a large federally subsidized preschool program, mostly for the children of those who were working in the facility. And now when you go to Oklahoma City you can see the stones that mark every single individual life lost on that day – April 19, 1995. Again, looking back across the record of history it is hard for us to come to a moral accounting of certain individuals and their moral thought process – or the lack of the moral thought process.

McVeigh, who was executed in the year 2001 for the crime, never showed even one second of remorse, even when he was granted multiple opportunities. McVeigh had intended to kill as many people as possible and his only regret seem to be that he did not kill even more than he accomplished in 168 deaths just 20 years ago yesterday.

Kevin Johnson, a reporter for USA Today remembered the opportunity he had to interview Timothy McVeigh and as he writes,

“His self-absorption, against the backdrop of such enormous loss, was particularly striking. It remained a constant theme throughout the session.”

McVeigh said,

“…that authorities placed him at undue risk on the evening he was formally charged with the attack. It was the moment the world got its first glimpse of the accused bomber, being led in shackles from a small courthouse in Perry, Okla., as some in an angry crowd yelled, ‘Baby killer!’’”

McVeigh told Johnson,

“‘I was a perfect target,’ he said, adding that without a bulletproof vest he was vulnerable to an attack,”

Now remember this was a man who claimed credit for having just days before killed 168 people, including children, then he had the audacity in his immense self-centeredness to claim that it had been his life was put at risk by the law enforcement authorities when they arrested him. He had the audacity to complain that he wasn’t giving a bulletproof vest when there was no attack was made against him even as he had admitted and even bragged about killing 168 people. Johnson then writes,

“The unvarnished selfishness would shadow my future encounters with him, from his subsequent 1997 appearances in a Denver federal courtroom where I saw him convicted, to his 2001 execution where I was one of 10 reporters to witness his lethal injection.”

Johnson reports at the end of his article and I quote,

“Offered the chance to speak final words, he said nothing.”

“Instead, he provided the warden a copy of the poem Invictus, copied in his own slanted handwriting:

‘My head is bloody, but unbowed. … I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.’”

As Johnson said, he was selfish to the end. I would simply add that selfish is hardly the right word here. There is not really a word in terms of our moral vocabulary that adequately describes the situation of Timothy McVeigh. No word, no moral vocabulary, is adequate to this and that’s one of the most important points we can understand.

But it is interesting that the statement that he left behind was the quotation from that famous poem Invectives, which is one of the most classic literary expressions of unvarnished self-assertion and idolatrous pagan self-assertion. And it’s almost, in every case, whether one reads it in middle school or reads it in the pages of USA Today in this context, it almost obviously makes fun of itself even in terms of its words.

Remember that when it comes to Timothy McVeigh, he died strapped to a gurney executed by the federal government for the callous killing of 168 people including many children and his only regret was that he could not kill more. And he dares to leave a statement saying “I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul.” Not even close. But as easy as that is to see when we look at Timothy McVeigh in his final moments, we need to recognize the same is true for every one of us. Not one of us is the master of our fate, not one of us is the captain of our own soul. We can say those words but those words judge us by the very fact that we can’t deliver on them for even a moment. Timothy McVeigh couldn’t deliver on them on the day of his execution and not one of us will deliver on those words on the date of our judgment.

3) Canadian Supreme Court rules for neutrality’s sake town council cannot open with prayer 

Next, shifting to Canada, our northern neighbor, a very important court decision was handed down last week that did not get adequate attention. As Religion News Service reports,

“Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that a small town in Quebec may not open its council meetings with prayer.”

That’s the opening sentence, and that should immediately bring to our mind the fact that in the last Supreme Court session, the court handed down a decision in a case known as the town of Greece. And in that case, the Supreme Court by a rather narrow majority ruled that city commission meetings and similar kinds of governmental sessions can begin with prayer. And that pastors, rabbis, imams, and others may show up along with ordinary citizens to pray according to their own convictions. That is a very crucial affirmation of American religious liberty. It is a very crucial affirmation of the fact that if one is involved in something like prayer before even a city assembly, there is no responsibility to try to pray some kind of nonsectarian prayer, as if that were even possible. From a biblical worldview, it isn’t impossible. There is no biblical possibility of anything like a generic prayer. Just look at 1 Kings 18 if you need any textual affirmation of that.

But this decision handed down last week by the Canadian Supreme Court demonstrates just how much cultural and legal distance there is when you compare the American constitutional system to the legal system and culture just across our northern border in Canada. As Religion News Service reported, in a unanimous ruling that was handed down last Wednesday,

“Canada’s highest court ruled that the town of Saguenay can no longer publicly recite a Catholic prayer because it infringes on freedom of conscience and religion.”

According to RNS the case goes back to 2007, when a resident of that town – a very small town in Québec – complained about public prayer at City Hall. RNS goes on to say that the Canadian High Court ruled that the country’s social mores have,

“given rise to a concept of neutrality according to which the state must not interfere in religion and beliefs. The state must instead remain neutral in this regard. This neutrality requires that the state neither favor nor hinder any particular belief, and the same holds true for non belief.”

But notice what’s actually happening here. Because in stating that the state must be neutral (in this case the state is the Québec government, or the government of this little town, or the Canadian government writ large) is stating that the Canadian Constitution and Canadian law requires that the state be absolutely neutral. Here’s the point we need to make; no state as well as no individual is actually neutral. Neutrality is actually an impossible condition in this sense to achieve. It’s impossible because now you’ll note the bottom line is there can be no prayer when it comes the opening of the city session in this little town, nor in Québec writ large, as we shall come to understand nor in Canada writ large. Why? Because the state claims neutrality. But this neutrality means now that there is no prayer.

Neutrality means on its face now that there can be constitutionally no prayer. Who can actually call that neutrality? It means that citizens in Canada are now no longer free to pray in public at the opening of the city council meeting, even in a town that is overwhelmingly representative of their own convictions. Even when others of a different conviction would be also allowed and invited to pray. And even, as the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled, if the prayer were to be even by its definition non-sectarian. Why? Because the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that any prayer effectively implies a deity, which infringes upon the religious liberty of people who believe in no deity at all.

As RNS reports,

“The court said a nondenominational prayer is still religious in nature and would exclude nonbelievers.”

So there is the modern ideal of neutrality. It really isn’t neutrality at all. And it’s not the fault of this court that it was unable to achieve neutrality. No court can. No government can. A government that allows any prayer, according to this Canadian court is actually siding with a religion over against nonbelief. But now the court sides with nonbelief in order not to infringe upon the religious liberty of nonbelievers. But now the people who are disenfranchised when it comes to prayer before civic occasions there in Canada (at least in terms of government meetings), the people disenfranchised are believers.

The great lesson from all of this were Christian worldview is that there actually is no possible condition of neutrality when it comes to religion. There can be fairness. There can be accommodation. There can be openness. There can be an invitation to any and to all to pray, but the elimination of prayer altogether is a hardly a position of neutrality. And it tells us something that right across our northern border this decision was handed down by a unanimous court.

4) Conservative Anglicans gather to consider schism from Canterbury for sake of gospel

Last week, we discussed the article that appeared in the Guardian by Andrew Brown in which he pointed out that the Church of England was disappearing even faster than the rest of British culture which – as he said – is also disappearing. He pointed to the distinction between cultural and countercultural religion, as you may remember, explaining that in order to take the countercultural stance, deeper conviction is required. So when you find what he called ‘countercultural religion,’ you find a religious faith that is undergirded by specific doctrines and deep theological content. Cultural religion requires no such content, and generally, the closer one gets to the heart of cultural Christianity or cultural religion in any form – what you find is a minimal theology disappearing or evaporating in almost no theology at all. Now you’ll remember that Andrew Brown was specifically talking about the Church of England, which gets to a major story that moved over the weekend when it comes the Church of England. The headline in the Independent was this; “Evangelical critics of gay marriage and women bishops meet in London to plot schism.” And as Jamie Merrill and Emily Dugan of the Independent reported, the Church of England is now

“…at risk of an unprecedented schism as conservative Anglican leaders gather to discuss forming a “parallel” church in protest against women bishops and gay marriage.”

They go on to report,

“Evangelical leaders from the US and across Africa are meeting in London this week to consider a revolutionary plan to turn their backs on the Archbishop of Canterbury. The meeting [according to the group known as GAFCON – that is the global Anglican futures conference] will “chart the future of global Anglicanism” and could back the creation of a new evangelical church opposed to the liberal direction of the Church of England, which would cater [not only for the global church, but also] for conservative Anglicans in Britain.”

Now the threat of a breakup of the Anglican Communion is hardly new. We’ve been tracing these development all the way back to changes that took place, most importantly, in the church of England and the Episcopal Church US – both of those churches moved in a very liberal direction, especially when it comes to controversial issues of sexuality. And at the center of that of course is homosexuality; the question of homosexual clergy and the question of same-sex marriage. Behind that is also the issue of gender, especially when it comes to the ordination of women not only as priest but now also in terms of the Episcopal Church and the Church of England, of bishops as well. And it also points to much more fundamental differences when it comes to biblical authority and theological integrity and doctrinal continuity.

Now one thing should be made clear, within the Church of England and within the Episcopal Church there are still evangelicals. But what also must be made clear is that they are vastly outnumber, especially in terms of the Episcopal leadership of those denominations by those who are headed in a very different direction and have been so for a very long time.

The development of GAFCON, or the Global Anglican Futures Conference, several years ago was brought about in order to bring together evangelical conservatives within the Anglican communion – that’s the worldwide communion of Christians that is tied to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to historic origins in the Church of England – GAFCON was established in order to bring together representatives of these conservative churches in the so-called global South; particularly in South America, South East Asia, and also perhaps most importantly in sub-Saharan Africa.

But GAFCON originally came together with the possibility of a breakaway from the Church of England and from the Anglican Communion, but not with the intention. They had hoped for some kind of theological and biblical correction within the Church of England and the larger Anglican communion, but that suffice it to say has not happened. Indeed the Church of England and the Episcopal Church US have moved in even more liberal directions and when it comes in particular to the African churches they have apparently had enough.

And that means not only Africa, but bishops and archbishops from elsewhere in the global South as well – that includes GAFCON’s general secretary, the most Rev. Peter Jensen, the former Archbishop of Sydney in Australia. He said, and this well summarizes the development over the weekend, and I quote,

“I think we will have churches in place which will be regarded by most of the Anglican Communion as Anglican but not be Church of England Churches,”

Jensen, a very well identified evangelical in terms of the larger Anglican Communion and in GAFCON, he said very interestingly,

“Things have happened in the last decades which have been truly astonishing; we are looking at a totally new age from the point of view of the cultural milieu around us. Christians are having to work things out which worked out for millennia. This might be the beginning of something as big as Wesley.”

Well what remains to be seen is just how big this movement might be, just how large the schism might be within the Church of England and the Anglican communion, but this much is clear: it tells us a very great deal that in the year 2015, given all that is developed in these churches in the decades just behind us, the time has now comes says these leaders to start something new – something separate from the Church of England. And it’s timely that this comes just days after Andrew Brown declared that the Church of England was disappearing right before his eyes.

And we end with a reminder to pray for the faithful to keep the faith wherever they are found.

 

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. Remember we’re taking questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. 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 04-20-15

Podcast Transcript

1) 100th anniversary of Armenian Genocide reveals challenge of mists of history to human judgment

A Century After Armenian Genocide, Turkey’s Denial Only Deepens, New York Times (Tim Arango)

2) OKC bomber exposes pride of human assumption that we are masters of own fate

Meeting McVeigh, USA Today (Kevin Johnson)

3) Canadian Supreme Court rules for neutrality’s sake town council cannot open with prayer 

Canadian Supreme Court rules against prayer at city council meetings, Religion News Service (Ron Csillag)

4) Conservative Anglicans gather to consider schism from Canterbury for sake of gospel

Evangelical critics of gay marriage and women bishops meet in London to plot schism, The Independent (Jamie Merrill and Emily Dugan)