R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 317

The Integrity of Words and Our Confession of Faith

In the beginning was the Word. Christians rightly cherish the declaration that our Savior, the crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, is first known as the Word — the one whom the Father has sent to communicate and to accomplish our redemption. We are saved because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Believers are then assigned the task of telling others about the salvation that Christ has brought, and this requires the use of words. We tell the story of Jesus by deploying words, and we cannot tell the story without them. Our testimony, our teaching, and our theology all require the use of words. Words are essential to our worship, our preaching, our singing, and our spiritual conversation. In other words, words are essential to the Christian faith and central in the lives of believers.

As Martin Luther rightly observed, the church house is to be a “mouth house” where words, not images or dramatic acts, stand at the center of the church’s attention and concern. We live by words and we die by words.

Truth, life, and health are found in the right words. Lies, disaster, and death are found in the wrong words. The Apostle Paul warned Timothy, “If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” [1 Timothy 6:3-5]

Later, Paul will instruct Timothy that sound words come to us in a revealed pattern. “Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” [2 Timothy 1:13-14]

Theological education is a deadly serious business. The stakes are so high. A theological seminary that serves faithfully will be a source of health and life for the church, but an unfaithful seminary will set loose a torrent of trouble, untruth, and sickness upon Christ’s people. Inevitably, the seminaries are the incubators of the church’s future. The teaching imparted to seminarians will shortly be inflicted upon congregations, where the result will be either fruitfulness or barrenness, vitality or lethargy, advance or decline, spiritual life, or spiritual death.

Sadly, the landscape is littered with theological institutions that have poorly taught and have been poorly led. Theological liberalism has destroyed scores of seminaries, divinity schools, and other institutions for the education of the ministry. Many of these schools are now extinct, even as the churches they served have been evacuated. Others linger on, committed to the mission of revising the Christian faith in order to make peace with the spirit of the age. These schools intentionally and boldly deny the pattern of sound words in order to devise new words for a new age — producing a new faith. As J. Gresham Machen rightly observed almost a century ago, we do not really face two rival versions of Christianity. We face Christianity on the one hand and, on the other hand, some other religion that selectively uses Christian words, but is not Christianity.

How does this happen? Rarely does an institution decide, in one comprehensive moment of decision, to abandon the faith and seek after another. The process is far more dangerous and subtle. A direct institutional evasion would be instantly recognized and corrected, if announced honestly at the onset. Instead, theological disaster usually comes by means of drift and evasion, shading and equivocation. Eventually, the drift accumulates into momentum and the school abandons doctrine after doctrine, truth claim after truth claim, until the pattern of sound words, and often the sound words themselves, are mocked, denied, and cast aside in the spirit of theological embarrassment.

As James Petigru Boyce, founder of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, argued, “It is with a single man that error usually commences.” When he wrote those words in 1856, he knew that pattern by observation of church history. All too soon, he would know this sad truth by personal observation.

By the time Southern Baptists were ready to establish a theological seminary, many schools for the training of ministers had already been lost to theological liberalism. Included among these were both Harvard and Yale, even as Yale had been envisioned, at least in part, as a corrective to Harvard. Theological concessions in theological seminaries had already weakened the Baptists of the North. Drawing upon the lessons of the past, Southern Baptists were determined to establish schools bound by covenant and constitution to a confession of faith — to the pattern of sound words.

Confessional seminaries require professors to sign a statement of faith, designed to safeguard by explicit theological summary. The sad experience of fallen and troubled schools led Southern Baptists to require that faculty members must teach in accordance with the confession of faith, and not contrary to anything therein. Added to this were warnings against any private understanding with a professor, or any hesitation or mental reservation. Teachers in a confessional school not only pledge by sacred covenant to teach “in accordance with and not contrary to” the confession of faith, but to do so gladly , eagerly, and totally.

We are living in an anti-confessional age. Our society and its reigning academic culture are committed to individual autonomy and expression, as well as to an increasingly relativistic conception of truth. The language of higher education is overwhelmingly dominated by claims of academic freedom, rather than academic responsibility. In most schools, a confession of faith is an anathema, not just an anachronism. But, among us, a confession of faith must be seen as a gift and covenant. It is a sacred trust that guards revealed truths. A confession of faith never stands above the Bible, but the Bible itself mandates concern for the pattern of sound words.

Theologian Russell Reno has noted that confessions of faith serve a dual purpose — to define truth and to isolate falsehood:

“The impulse behind confessions of faith is doxological, the desire to speak the truth about God, to give voice to the beauty of holiness in the fullest possible sense. However, the particular forms that historical confessions take are shaped by confrontation. Their purpose is to respond to the spirit of the age by re-articulating in a pointed way the specific content of Christianity so as to face new challenges as well as new forms of old challenges. As a result, formal confessions are characterized by pointed distinctions. They are exercises in drawing boundaries where the particular force of traditional Christian claims is sharpened to heighten the contrast between true belief and false belief…. As they shape our faith, confessions structure our identities.”

Confessions structure our identities. If not, they are useless. Within a theological seminary, the confession must function as a living commitment, not as a dead letter. As Reno notes, confessions are characterized by pointed distinctions. They are exercises in drawing boundaries, addressing new heresies and new forms of old heresies. False teachings are always around us. Our task is to make certain that they do not take hold among us.

For many denominations, churches, and seminaries, confessions of faith are kept as references to a faith once believed, but available only in the present as a remembrance of things past. Among us, the confession must guard the faith once for all delivered to the saints as a living faith.

Southern Baptists learned these lessons the hardest way, and we have paid the price of theological controversy for the sake of recovering that which was lost. By God’s grace, we have been granted a recovery, if we will keep it. Now, a new generation must take up this responsibility in the face of new challenges, knowing that these challenges, like the denial of biblical inerrancy, will require the full force of conviction to confront, and the full force of confession to contain.

We must look to a new generation of teachers who will gladly teach in accordance with and not contrary to all that is affirmed in our confession of faith, without hesitation or mental reservation. We must pray for an army of theological teachers ready to do battle with the spirit of the age and, at the same time, to offer a glad defense of the hope that is in us, with gentleness and respect. We must look to professors who will be determined to stand with the apostles and the saints of God throughout the ages in the sacred democracy of the dead that points to doctrinal fidelity.

Faithfulness will be found in the stewardship of words, in the pattern of sound words revealed in the Holy Scriptures, and in the teaching that accords with godliness. There can be no lasting fidelity without confessional integrity.

The ultimate purpose of confessional integrity is indeed doxological — to make certain that we rightly worship and love God. The confession guards the sound words of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and is thus essential to missions and evangelism.

As Fanny Crosby taught us to sing: “Tell me the story of Jesus, write on my heart every word; tell me the story most precious, sweetest that ever was heard.

In the end, theological education–and preaching–is all about the stewardship of words. So it was when Paul commissioned Timothy. So is it now.

“Follow the pattern of sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.” [2 Timothy 1:13-14]

May those words serve as the Magna Carta of theological education and the teaching ministry of the church.  May the church faithfully teach, even as it is faithfully taught, until Jesus comes.

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

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

Transcript: The Briefing 03-11-15

The Briefing

 

March 11, 2015

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

It’s Wednesday, March 11, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Erskine College criticized by students, others, for making Christian convictions explicit

Yesterday I talked about the embarrassing predicament faced by the Roman Catholic schools in San Francisco. It turns out that after the Catholic Archbishop had ruled that all the teachers in those Catholic schools had to uphold Catholic doctrine that 80% of the teachers – that’s right, eight out of 10 – protested the Archbishop’s decision. As I suggested yesterday, this is a humiliating embarrassment for that diocese. What in the world were they doing hiring teachers, eight out of 10 of whom wouldn’t support Catholic doctrine when it was required of them? My point was to hold up the controversy in San Francisco over the Catholic schools to serve as a warning and as a message to evangelical Christians that we had better be very serious and unapologetic about hiring on the basis of our own conviction in our own schools, or eventually we won’t have schools that matter.

But as a recent report in the New York Times makes clear, it’s not just about the hiring of teachers, it’s about the entire set of convictional expectations that will mark a campus. Because what is happening in San Francisco is being mirrored, in a very strange way, by a controversy that also made the pages of the New York Times – this time not from California, but from South Carolina.

Jeré Longman reporting for the New York Times tells us from Due West, South Carolina about a controversy has erupted at Erskine College. That’s a college affiliated with the Associated Reformed Presbyterian Church – that’s a rather conservative form of American Presbyterianism; very conservative when compared to the mainline Protestant denomination known as the Presbyterian Church USA. The ARP, as it’s commonly known, is far more similar to the Presbyterian Church in America. But when it comes to the school there in Due West, South Carolina known as Erskine College it appears that the same kind of messaging – that is, that it intends to take its doctrinal convictions seriously – has met with a sense of shock, not on the part so much of faculty but of students on the campus.

Longman reports,

“It has been a year since Juan Varona and Andrew Davis, volleyball teammates at Erskine College, a conservative Christian school, came out as gay in an interview with Outsports.com.

“During that time, Mr. Varona said, he has been embraced by teammates, coaches, teachers and fellow students. The president of Erskine’s student government association called Mr. Varona and Mr. Davis ‘some of the most-liked guys on campus’ at the rural liberal arts college, which has about 600 undergraduates and was founded 176 years ago by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.”

So Longman writes, and this is one of the crucial paragraphs,

“So it was jarring to many last week when Erskine publicly condemned same-sex relationships, calling them sinful, in what was widely interpreted as a direct or indirect response to the two volleyball players.”

About a week before the story made the pages of the New York Times it made the pages of the Washington Post, and as Longman reports, Erskine’s President said last week that the private colleges position on sexuality was developed over the past two a half years and,

“…had everything to do with the Bible and nothing to do with the volleyball players,”

As Longman tells the story, students on the Erskine campus seem to be surprised on the one hand and at least some of them very outraged about the convictional statement made by the Board of Trustees with the support of the school’s President. There’s a story here of course and the bottom line of that story is that Erskine College has elected a President in recent months and they have charged that Pres. to return the school to its very clear convictional roots. Roots established by the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, roots that are very biblical in terms of their theology and moral teaching and would ground them consistently in a biblical standard of sexuality. And yet the coming out of these players on the school’s volleyball team has demonstrated the fact that the school has at least in the past recruited a large number of collegiate athletes who evidently aren’t with the program and aren’t with the convictions when it comes to the schools understanding of the biblical standard of human sexuality.

As Longman reports,

“Erskine has drawn widespread attention and criticism in juxtaposition to increasingly tolerant public attitudes in the United States.”

Before going any further, one of the issues that biblically minded Christian should note is that evidently you don’t have to be in San Francisco to get national attention on this kind of issue. The New York Times found this story all the way down in rural South Carolina in a little town called Due West. And it’s a big story, and they know it. Longman reports that the two volleyball players at the center of the story have both left the college or are no longer going to play on the volleyball squad. Longman reports last week, Erskine said on its website that the student services and athletic committee of the Board of Trustees has submitted a statement on human sexuality. The statement said,

“We believe the Bible teaches that monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is God’s intended design for humanity and that sexual intimacy has its proper place only within the context of marriage.”

Now at this point we simply have to note that that’s a very standard statement of a biblical understanding of human sexuality. There’s nothing at all unusual there. Furthermore, it’s not an elaborated statement, but it was enough to get Erskine College in Due West, South Carolina in due trouble with the national media.

The school statement went on to say,

“Sexual relations outside of marriage or between persons of the same sex are spoken of in Scripture as sin and contrary to the will of the Creator.”

Again, we simply need to note absolutely standard biblical teaching. The final section of the statement according the Longman read that those in Erskine College were expected to adhere to scriptural teachings about sexuality and that,

“…institutional decisions will be made in light of this position,”

Now just to ask the obvious: on what other basis would even a secular newspaper assume that a Christian school would establish its policy decisions? But in reality, we can answer that question by saying that the controversy both in San Francisco and in South Carolina demonstrates that huge numbers of Americans, especially those in the media and secular elites, find it rather incomprehensible – shocking at the very core – that there would be religious institutions that intend to operate by their own religious convictions.

At this point the article in the New York Times gets even more interesting,

“Pete Savarese, the student government president at Erskine, said that while college officials had the right to state their position on sexuality, the statement seemed unnecessary, given that everyone at the college knew what the Bible said. He echoed others in expressing regret that a college that considered itself inclusive had suddenly gained a reputation for intolerance.”

That’s one of those sentences you simply have to unpack. And I’m going to give this young man the credit that perhaps the national media has misconstrued his words. But he appears to be saying that the college didn’t need to make a statement because, after all, everyone knows what the Bible teaches already and he’s now embarrassed that his school, since everyone knows what the Bible teaches, is now saying that what the Bible teaches is supposed to be the policy. That’s a very strange predicament, but it doesn’t appear to be out of keeping with where other students of the college may well be.

As the article continues, Longman tells us that Erskine, believing that it’s position had been misunderstood, issued a secondary statement saying that it’s stance on sexuality was,

“…not intended as policy, and no students would be barred from attending or asked to leave because of their sexual orientation, the statement said.”

That’s the wording from the New York Times summarizing the statement. Erskine, according to Longman, does not discriminate against,

“…any protected categories of individuals,”

He’s citing there that secondary statement. And Longman also tells us that the school’s current policy means that,

“…all types of students are welcome,”

Well I’ll admit as an academic president I’m not at all certain what that language is supposed to mean. But again, I’ll allow for some confusion on the part of the national media reporting the story. According to the Times Erskine stated that its position shouldn’t be considered unusual or unexpected for an evangelical Christian college. According to Longman the school insisted it had simply establish

“…a point of reference for discussion that should be conducted with civility and respect,”

Again, I’ll be honest and say I’m not sure exactly now where this policy stands. But I do know this, a school that announces its open and welcome to all kinds of students – including students who oppose and resist the convictions of the school – is a school that set itself up for an inevitable disaster. While it’s certainly true that a Christian College or University will find it very difficult to know exactly what every student believes, at least the students shouldn’t have any difficulty understanding what the school believes, affirms, teaches, and expects. That should be abundantly clear. It should be virtually impossible for a student body to be surprised when a Christian college declares its Christian convictions. What else would they have expected?

At this point in his very important article, Longman leaves Erskine College and goes to Baylor University where for several years Brittney Griner was a famous member of their women’s basketball team. Soon after graduating from Baylor she announced that she was a lesbian and had been during the time she was at the Baptist affiliated university. As Longman writes,

“A number of private Christian universities have instituted policies on sexuality that have caused tension within their athletic teams. During the 2011-12 basketball season, Ms. Griner, an all-American center, led Baylor to an N.C.A.A. title and a 40-0 record. But she said she felt pained as a lesbian by having to remain publicly closeted for appearances’ sake.

“In her memoir, ‘In My Skin,’ Ms. Griner wrote that Baylor seemed to want to have it both ways, a charge that might carry broader resonance in light of the situation at Erskine.”

He then cites Brittney Griner as writing,

“They want to keep the policy so they can keep selling themselves as a Christian university, but they are more than happy to benefit from the success of their gay athletes. That is [she says], as long as those gay athletes don’t talk about being gay.””

In taking the action that has brought them this kind of national news coverage, the Board of Trustees of Erskine College has done the right thing, as has its President. But the responsibility of the college is now to stick by its guns and by its convictions. And the New York Times article makes very clear, not only Erskine college or at Baylor University, we can find Christian schools running into direct conflict with athletic programs, their own recruiting, and the expectations of intercollegiate athletic groups perhaps very soon including the NCAA.

In this day of such pressure from a secular society no genuinely Christian school, that is a school that intends to operate by Christian principles on Christian truth, is going to be able to – as they say – fly under the radar. Every single one of these schools is going to pop up on the radar screen of a secular society just by virtue of its convictions and its intentions to teach and to operate by those convictions. When that in evitable moment of controversy comes – and make no mistake, it will – let’s make certain, let’s make absolutely certain, that at least there is no surprise on our own campuses. If the secular world is surprised, well we’ll leave it to them. But if our own students and faculty are surprised, the responsibility undeniably is ours.

2) Ohio eyes legal marijuana, as awkwardness between state and federal government increases

Next, several news stories that we ought at least to note: one appeared recently in USA Today; an article by Don Campbell in which he writes about Ohio asking if Ohio’s going to be the next trendy pot state. He writes knowledgeably that the Midwest is not overwhelmingly friendly to the legalization of marijuana. And yet he says there’s big money behind an effort to bring legal, medical, and recreational marijuana to the state of Ohio. And he also makes clear that at least some groups are already intending to commercialize the sale of marijuana; ready to build big warehouses in order to facilitate that sale. Campbell then writes about what he calls the elephant in the room. In his words,

“How can state and local jurisdictions continue to make something legal that is patently illegal under federal law?”

That’s a hugely important question and Don Campbell writing at USA Today takes this point logically further – and I’m very thankful he did. He writes this,

“In December, Congress approved and President Obama signed a spending bill that defunds federal prosecution of medical marijuana sales, yet a U.S. attorney in Oakland continues a campaign to shut down California’s largest medical marijuana dispensary.

“Obama [according to Campbell] has not only instructed the Justice Department to not interfere with state laws legalizing marijuana, he also has even encouraged more states to ‘experiment’ with such laws. So what happens if a Republican is elected president in 2016 and he or she orders a new attorney general to stamp out marijuana wherever it is found?”

That’s an interesting political question, but there’s a huge constitutional question here. The President took the oath of office swearing to uphold the laws of the land. Those laws, at present, include – undeniably – a very clear criminalization of the use, possession, or sale of marijuana at any quantity, for any reason. And yet the President of the United States has not only ordered federal prosecutors not to prosecute cases in those states that have legalized marijuana, but he has also openly invited governors of other states to experiment with their own laws.

How is it possible that a President of the United States, sworn to uphold the laws of the nation, can encourage the governors of the respective states to experiment with laws that violate the law that he has taken an oath to uphold? That’s the kind of question we’re asking in this very strange age. Campbell, by the way, doesn’t seem to be at all opposed to legalizing marijuana, he just thinks the law needs to be clarified and he’s calling upon the Supreme Court to make the clarification. But he also raises a point in his column that deserves some very close worldview scrutiny. He writes, and I quote,

“Doesn’t it just make sense, really, to control and profit from transactions that will otherwise be engaged in illegally by those who have a yearning for pot?”

That’s a rather convoluted sentence but he says, ‘shouldn’t the states basically take tax money and legalize what people are going to do anyway, even if it illegal, simply because they yearn for pot?’ Now, that’s one of those very interesting questions that simply have to be resoundingly answered from a Christian worldview in this way. Every single society decides to sanction, to make it illegal, even to criminalize, some things that other people want to do. You can’t simply make the argument that because people want to do it, and maybe even make the argument that inevitable they are going to do it, and then say that you ought to legalize it, tax it, and profit by it. Of course, even those who are making the argument to legalize marijuana don’t want to take the argument that far. But the point is they want to take the argument as far as the legalization of marijuana – for now. We simply have to ask the question, how long is ‘for now’?

3) Addition of Muslim holidays to New York public schools a victory for religious liberty

Next, a good number of Christians have noted that the Mayor of New York City has announced that that city schools will become the very first in the nation, in terms of major school systems, to observe two Muslim holidays – that is, as public holidays for the schools. As reporters Michael Grynbaum and Sharon Otterman explain, New York will become the nation’s first major metropolis to closes its public schools in observance of the two most sacred Muslim holy days; that was announced last week by New York’s Mayor Bill De Blasio. And a good number of Christians, both in New York and far beyond, are asking, ‘is this a good thing or is it a wrong thing?’

The quick answer to that question is that this is basically a good thing; Christians should support this. Why? It’s because we do not believe that Christian holidays that are observed by the public schools in New York City or elsewhere are an establishment of religion. Furthermore, we don’t actually believe – or at least we shouldn’t believe – that the New York City public schools observes holiday such as Christmas because they are somehow going to be institutionalizing or establishing Christmas as an official holiday because the schools are in some way Christian. No, these are public schools and the secularization of those schools is a different matter than the fact that the argument used for why the school should observe those Christian holidays isn’t a because the school should be Christian in that sense but because they should recognize that millions of New Yorkers are. It’s out of respect for the convictions, the religious convictions of those New Yorkers and for their family traditions, that the public schools are closed for what we might call the Christmas holidays. They’re not closed because the New York City public schools are observing Christmas per se.

The same is also true in New York City as the mayor has made this announcement about Muslim holidays. There may be some question about the population of Muslims and when that particular tipping point is reached, but I’m going to support the mayor in saying that at this point there must be – in New York – a sufficient number of Muslim families that it would make sense, out of equal respect for their convictions, to close the schools on their two most holy days. Frankly, I don’t think many schoolchildren in New York are going complain about the holidays. It’s probably true when it comes to those who are non-Christians who will also enjoy that break at Christmas time.

From a Christian worldview perspective of the rights and responsibility of government and respecting the religious convictions of citizens, it would make sense that if there is a sufficient number or percentage of Muslim families in a community for the public schools to recognize in the school calendar those holidays as holidays. There’s nothing there that is an establishment of religion and there is nothing there that should cause Christians the slightest concern on constitutional grounds. And we better be very careful about that because we are certainly not arguing that the respect of the public schools for our holidays is somehow based on an establishment of our religious convictions.

And by the way, if we do make that argument, we’re destined to lose in court because that’s not a winning argument. But if it’s not a winning argument for us, it’s also not an argument to be used against others. If there would be a sufficient number of any religious minority to allow for the reasonable plausible suggestion that it ought to be reflected in the school calendar, it’s not that big of a practical problem. And from a constitutional perspective, this is something we should support rather than something we should oppose. And from a missiological perspective, armed with the Great Commission, the fact that there is a significant number of Muslim families in New York City – sufficient to justify this decision being made by the mayor – then we need to note how great our challenge is, how this underlines our Great Commission challenge in an increasingly diverse America. Because when we hear a report like this our first response shouldn’t be constitutional, it shouldn’t be legal, it should be quite explicitly theological – grounded in our understanding of the gospel and our responsibility by the Great Commission.

Oh, and by the way, we as evangelical Christians have better be very careful about how many issues in the news we decide are issues in which we need to take a stand; certainly some kind of stand of complaint. In this case, neighborliness – as in love of neighbor – is commanded by Christ, should mean that we respect our Muslim neighbors when it comes to their holidays, even as we ask them to respect outs. Oh, and when it comes that Great Commission responsibility, one good way to start a conversation with our Muslim neighbors might be to ask them to explain to us their holidays. That just might be a very good way to begin a conversation that we certainly hope and pray will end with the gospel.

 

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 information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

 

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The Briefing 03-11-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Erskine College criticized by students, others, for making Christian convictions explicit

Erskine College’s View on ‘Sin’ Jolts Gay Athletes, New York Times (Jeré Longman)

South Carolina college denounces homosexuality after two volleyball players come out as gay, Washington Post (Marissa Payne)

2) Ohio eyes legal marijuana, as awkwardness between state and federal government increases

What, Ohio a trendy pot state?, USA Today (Don Campbell)

3) Addition of Muslim holidays to New York public schools a victory for religious liberty

New York City Adds 2 Muslim Holy Days to Public School Calendar, New York Times (Michael Grynbaum and Sharon Otterman)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-10-15

The Briefing

 

March 10, 2015

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

 

It’s Tuesday, March 10, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Footage of OU fraternity’s racist anthem exposes persistence of racism in ‘modern people’ 

Yesterday we talked about the 50th anniversary over the weekend of Black Sunday; that Sunday when violence was visited upon African-American protesters at the now infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. And yet today we find ourselves talking about an incident that wasn’t 50 years in the past, but just a matter of days ago. As Eliott McLaughlin reports for CNN, a video broke Sunday afternoon and into Monday showing members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity house at the University of Oklahoma on a bus headed to a fraternity party chanting and singing a violently racist song.

The words that were sung by the members of the fraternity actually cannot be repeated on this program, but they had to do with the fact that they were promising never to allow an African-American young man to become a member of the fraternity – instead they said, ‘you can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me.’ After using the most derogatory terms imaginable, these fraternity members at the University of Oklahoma made their racism and their views abundantly clear. And they did so while being videoed apparently by either a member of their own fraternity or someone else who was allowed to be on the fraternity bus at the time.

While it is not at all clear that the members of the fraternity filmed in the video understood they were being recorded singing their racist song, it is clear that they knew the words and it was apparent – at least to many observers of the video – that this was something that was not new to these fraternity members. It appeared to be a song they well knew and knew together. One of the most shocking aspects of this is the sheer brazenness of the racism. And frankly, coming 50 years after Bloody Sunday, what we’re looking at is the realization that racism never actually goes away. Even as some come to terms with the reality of racial equality and come even to champion it as a cause, others are taking up a far more racist ideology.

For many people looking at the video, perhaps the most shocking aspect of it all was the fact that these were privileged young white men who were singing this song. Even as they had to be as educated members of the University of Oklahoma community, they had to be aware of exactly what they were singing; they have to be aware of the symbolism, they had to be aware of the threat they were making even as they were singing songs that celebrated the lynching of African-American males – even as they were singing a song which amounted to a fraternity version of an anthem of white supremacy.

It is shocking to see these young white men of privilege singing this song. It is shocking to believe that members of the so-called millennial generation, who are supposedly a generation so committed to diversity – so embracing of the diversity that marks the demographics of their generation – shocking to see these young men singing that song and singing it in a spirit of fraternal comradery that appeared to be reminiscent (horrifyingly enough) of groups such as the Hitler Youth in the 20th century. It has become increasingly common in recent years to speak of ideas (lasting and pernicious ideas especially) as memes – that is m-e-m-e-s – units of thought that are equivalent to units of biology like genes. Just as parents and previous generations passed down a genetic inheritance to the generations to come, so also is there an ideological and intellectual inheritance that is passed down. And one of the things that is most humbling to us as Christians is the recognition that sin has so marked the human species that these memes (toxic as they are) tend to erupt again and again here and there, showing the pernicious persistence of the most horrifyingly evil ideas; in this case the evil idea is racism. And it is nothing less than shocking to see this video and recognize it is not dated to 1965, it’s not dated to 1975, it’s dated to 2015 – just a matter of days ago.

One thing we also need to note (and this too is important): the response of a society to this kind of incident tells us a great deal about the moral character of a people. And on an issue like racism there is abundant evidence that the response in 2015 was very different than it might’ve been, almost assuredly would’ve been, in 1965. Even as the persistence of racism is important to note, it’s also important to note that this society is now sending a very clear signal about what racism is – identifying it as both sin and evil and responding to it in ways that are neither delayed nor indirect.

The president of the University of Oklahoma, former US Sen. David Boren, responded with tremendous firmness – closing down the fraternity chapter and ordering its inhabitants to move out by midnight tonight. Pres. Boren told a press conference yesterday,

“The house will be closed and as far as I’m concerned, they won’t be back.”

There is also evidence that the University may pay for the misdeeds of this fraternity chapter in ways that might have been unexpected. For instance, in the immediate aftermath measured not in days but in hours of the publicity about this event, African-American recruits to the university’s much respected athletics program began to indicate that either they were not coming or they well may not come. Given the importance of a sport like football in the state of Oklahoma, the biblical adage that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons may well be politically reversed with the sins of the sons being visited upon their own fathers.

In his public comments yesterday Pres. Boren also said,

“It was unbelievable that this could have possibly occurred with UO [meaning University of Oklahoma] students. Sooners [speaking of the name by which fans of the University of Oklahoma are known] are not racists, they’re not bigots. There are people who respect each other and care about each other,”

Well to state the obvious, and certainly Pres. Boren knows this, at least some of his students were people who did not respect each other and did not care about each other, at least some of his students did do what he said was unbelievable; at least some of the students are racists and certainly it’s not limited to the young men who were video on that fraternity bus. The reality is that racism is far closer than we want to admit and even as it’s much safer to talk about racism 50 years in the past, it’s much more urgent to talk about the racism that is all too present in the present.

One of the things that Christians must always keep in mind is that we do not get to choose the moral fronts that are addressed to us. We don’t get to choose the videos that erupt in the public square and force the kind of conversation that we must have about this video from the University of Oklahoma. It isn’t fair of course to suggest that the video is indicative of Oklahomans, it’s not fair to say that the video is indicative of all the students or the faculty and administration of the University of Oklahoma. It is fair to say that this was a group of students who had gained admission to the University of Oklahoma and until this video met the eyes of the American public there’s every reason to believe that they could’ve continued on that campus with a more subvert and quiet form of racism, but racism nonetheless.

We can be thankful that just about every cultural authority imaginable has condemned the video and the actions of this fraternity chapter without reservation and without any form of hesitation. But we also need to recognize that we’re talking about young men who evidently felt the freedom, the liberty, to sing this song on their fraternity bus. And as Christians we’re well aware that the biggest problem isn’t what was in their words, but rather what was in their hearts – their words have betrayed them.

We will certainly know a lot more about this story in coming days. There is no way this will not be a major topic of conversation in the news and in the culture for some days to come. But one of the things that Christians also need to think about is what this reveals about America’s meritocracy. A meritocracy is a system whereby people rise to the top, they gain opportunity by the exercise of what is at least claimed to be their talent or their labor, their hard work. In this case what we like to talk about is that America’s meritocracy is made up of those who somehow deserve to be where they are and to enjoy the privileges that they so often are publicly seen to enjoy – in this case, young men who had gain the privilege of admission to the University of Oklahoma. But we need to note that America’s meritocracy, whether it’s on the American college campus or the University culture or the corporate culture or in politics, our meritocracy is increasingly detached from the issue of character.

If you look at official student handbooks just of a couple of generations ago on America’s most prominent colleges and universities, you will see the young men addressed as young men or young gentleman. And you’ll see young women addressed also with very respectful terms. And the understanding was clear, there was an expectation of character and behavior on the American college and University campus but that seems to have largely evaporated – at least on most of America’s most prestigious and America’s public University campuses. Even to cite these old student handbooks seems to have the ring of something from an entire civilization ago. Nowadays young people are admitted to the University on the basis of their grades and scores, or perhaps their athletic ability, not on the basis of their character.

Furthermore, there has been a systemic intellectual assault on the very idea of character. Add to that the fact that we see scandal after scandal in athletic programs, in academic programs, scandal after scandal on college and University campuses where people are misbehaving – not only students for that matter, but also faculty – because just about whatever generation you observe, the reality is that America’s meritocracy is, as we just said, increasingly separated from any question of character. Christians are those who understand that you can never take character out of the equation; that character always remains central. And if you deny the importance of character, as a culture, as a society, as a campus, don’t be surprised when a video like the one that erupted just in recent days of this fraternity chapter at the University of Oklahoma should meet the social media world and digitally explode. Because when you separate meritocracy from character what you end up with is a bunch of privileged young white men singing a song that sounds hauntingly enough like something right out of a chapter of the Hitler youth.

2) Lesson for evangelical institutions to hire according to convictions underlined by San Francisco controversy

In recent days, looking at the inevitable intersection between religious institutions and infringements upon religious liberty, I looked at the controversy that followed the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, as he recently issued a policy that the teachers in Catholic high schools in his diocese had to uphold Catholic teaching privately and publicly. Now as the story says, to make very clear, in the San Francisco media and beyond, what the Archbishop did was to require (in terms of changes in the faculty handbook) those who would teach in the Roman Catholic high schools in his diocese to do nothing that would in any way publicly dissent from or violate Catholic moral teaching.

As I reported last week, citing the New York Times, in Oakland three teachers quit rather than to adhere to the rules. But as the Times reported in San Francisco, in addition to the petitions and protest, eight state legislatures from the Bay Area asked the Archbishop to withdraw the clause as discriminatory. Two of them called for an investigation, accusing Archbishop of using religion – in the words of the legislators –as,

“As a Trojan horse to deprive our fellow citizens of their basic civil rights,”

This is one of those very important stories that just gets more important as the story unfolds and that seems to be the case as every day goes by. In yesterday’s edition of the Los Angeles Times we are told that the response not only in the community but in his schools has been very fierce opposition – at least on the part of some very vocal forces. Lee Romney reporting yesterday for the Los Angeles Times writes,

“Eighty percent of faculty and staff at the four San Francisco archdiocese high schools subject to the archbishop’s new moral strictures have signed a petition rejecting his additions to the handbook for the next school year.”

Now before I read any further in this article, let this be a warning to anyone who hires anyone in a religious institution. If you have 80% of those who are teaching in your school complaining about your policy to uphold the convictions of your church, you have done a very poor job of hiring teachers. And it’s abundantly clear that the archdiocese there in San Francisco has done an exceedingly poor job of hiring Catholic teachers to teach in Catholic high schools.

Furthermore, we also come to understand as we read the media reports that the archdiocese has been hiring many people who weren’t Catholic at all and is now expecting all of them to uphold Catholic teaching. Now let me be clear, I believe it is not only the right but the responsibility of the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco to require every teacher in the Catholic schools in his diocese to uphold publicly and privately Catholic doctrine. But the first principle of that hiring thus should be: hire Catholics; and if you’re hiring Catholic, higher real Catholics. The lesson in mirror form for evangelicals is this: if we intend for our institutions to be genuinely evangelical in doctrine, in morality, in conviction, then we must higher self-confessing, privately and publicly committed evangelicals, and only such evangelicals to teach in our schools.

It makes no sense to hire people from outside our own convictions and then be surprised when we find ourselves in conflict with them over convictional matters. But there are huge religious liberty issues that are at stake in the controversy there in San Francisco. As Romney writes,

“[The controversy] comes in the wake of unanimous approval Tuesday by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors of a resolution calling Cordileone’s efforts to bring employees in line with strict sexual teachings ‘contrary to shared San Francisco values of non-discrimination, women’s rights, inclusion, and equality for all humans.’”

One of the interesting things to note by the way in that statement from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is that evidently they have to use the word ‘humans’ rather than saying something like ‘men and women.’ The failure of these Catholic schools to hire truly Catholic teachers is something that must now be something of an embarrassment to them. Frankly, it has put them in a very weak position. But still, the fact that you have the Board of Supervisors of a major American city calling upon the head of the Roman Catholic Church in that diocese to reverse course from upholding Catholic teaching in the schools of that diocese, that is an outrage that can’t pass by American evangelicals without us understanding that you could very quickly put one of us in that same position of censure. We’re talking about a city Board of Supervisors and in the same state we’re talking at least about some legislators who have threatened to investigate the Archbishop and to bring some form of political pressure against him, charging him with discrimination.

Well let’s be abundantly clear: shame upon any Roman Catholic archbishop who doesn’t discriminate on the basis of Catholic teaching, and shame upon any evangelical who doesn’t discriminate in hiring and in terms of the basic curricular decisions in terms of discriminating for evangelical conviction. If evangelical Christians do not exercise due diligence and care in the teaching of our students and the hiring of our faculty and the formation of our curriculum, then we’ll find ourselves in a position of equal embarrassment with that now being experienced by the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco. And watch the religious liberty front with extreme care and deep interest because what’s happening in San Francisco won’t stay in San Francisco and of that you can be abundantly sure.

3) Secular media shocked by theological shape of evangelical support for Israel

Finally, a case study in how the secular media deals of all things with a theological subject that they at least recognize is theological. And the fact that it’s such a surprise to them that this theological conviction would exist, well that tells us a great deal about the media and about the media’s attempt in the secular age to try to understand us. This article appeared in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times, it’s a column by Frank Bruni entitled Christians loving Jews. The background to the article is Bruni’s surprise that the response of appreciation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech seem to come even more from American evangelical Christians than from America’s increasingly secular Jews.

This cause Bruni to want asked some questions and as he was trying to answer these questions, he came across some serious theological issues. As he was trying to understand why so many American evangelicals are so supportive of Israel in general and so supportive of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu specifically, the question was ‘why?’ and the answer turned out was theological. And it turns out that this answer was news, or at least certainly appears to be news, to the editorial pages of the New York Times.

To his credit Frank Bruni understands that the answer to this question is theological. And then he writes two really interesting paragraphs. Paragraph 1:

“Some evangelical Christians’ interest in Israel reflects an interpretation of the Bible’s prophetic passages that’s known as premillennial dispensationalism. It maintains that the End of Days can play out as God intends only if Jews govern Israel and have reconstructed a temple on the Temple Mount, where there’s now a mosque.”

That’s paragraph 1, here comes paragraph 2. Again I quote:

“But just a subset of evangelicals subscribe to that. Others are motivated by their belief, rooted in scripture, that God always intended Israel for Jews and that honoring that and keeping Israel safe is a way of honoring God. God’s blessing of America, they feel, cannot be divorced from America’s backing of Israel.”

Now in response to that I simply want to say that Frank Bruni has well described two evangelical understandings of the relationship between our convictions and the nation of Israel. There is a third, which he does not treat in his article, and that’s the belief on the part of many American evangelicals that Israel is a very necessary vessel for the protection of the Jewish people and the sustenance of Jewish identity until that great turn to the gospel that is revealed to us in the book of Romans on the part of the Jewish people can be accomplished. If you put it all together the bottom line is this: the vast majority of American evangelicals see a very special significance to the land of Israel, but far more see a very special significance to the Jewish people.

And in terms of the geopolitics of our generation, it’s also abundantly clear (at least too American Christians, overwhelmingly to American evangelicals) that the fate of Israel has a great deal to do with the fate of the Jewish people in the world today. This leads me to an issue of which many American Christians seem to be unaware and that is that most of the modern founders of the state of Israel, Zionist to a person, were largely secular Jews. They were largely operating out of a secular worldview. They no longer saw the Jewish people as the covenant people of God. Several of them were openly agnostic; others of them were officially secular. Secularism was not the universal worldview and belief of the founders of the Israeli state but it was nonetheless seemingly the majority opinion in that generation and frankly the majority opinion now.

But the reality is that American evangelical Christians committed to the worldview of the Bible cannot fail to see an important role for Israel. We can’t fail to understand a very important issue in terms of the Jewish people. And whether one is committed as a dispensationalist or one who is committed to a form of covenant theology, the reality is we understand the importance of speaking as a friend of the Jewish people; and in this era, also speaking as a friend of the Jewish nation.

Looking at Frank Bruni’s column I think I can understand what raised the question in his mind. How is it that when it comes to American evangelical support for Israel, what it appears to demonstrate is that American evangelicals think in theological terms about the Jewish people even when the Jewish people don’t necessarily think in theological terms about themselves? That’s an irony that shouldn’t be missed either by the editorial page of the New York Times nor by us.

 

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 information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

 

We’re gathering questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Just call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058.

 

I’m speaking to you now from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

 

The Briefing 03-10-15

1) Footage of OU fraternity’s racist anthem exposes persistence of racism in ‘modern people’ 

University of Oklahoma Fraternity Closed After Racist Video Is Posted Online, New York Times (Liam Stack)

University of Oklahoma fraternity closed after racist chant, Washington Post (Justin Moyer)

Oklahoma loses 4-star OT’s commitment after racist fraternity video surfaces, report says, Times-Picayune (Amos Morale III)

2) Lesson for evangelical institutions to hire according to convictions underlined by San Francisco controversy

Morals Clause in Catholic Schools Roils Bay Area, New York Times (Carol Pogash)

S.F. archdiocese teachers overwhelmingly reject moral strictures, Los Angeles Times (Lee Romney)

3) Secular media shocked by theological shape of evangelical support for Israel

Christians Loving Jews, New York Times (Frank Bruni)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-09-15

The Briefing

 

March 9, 2015

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

It’s Monday, March 9, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

 1) 50th anniversary of Selma march points to importance of Christian worldview to civil rights

This past weekend marks the 50th anniversary of one of the darkest hours in America’s Civil Rights history. It was 50 years ago in early March of the year 1965 that those who were trying to bring attention to the injustice of Jim Crow laws as they were known across the American South, sought to bring attention to their cause by marching from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. And yet the march failed – twice it failed. In both cases, the first and the second, there were those who opposed the civil rights movement who intervened. In the case of the first march this included police, and there were at least 600 protesters – those who were intending to march in the parade – who were gassed and otherwise besieged in that first attempt.

When a second attempt was made a couple of days later it ended in violence further along the trail from Selma to Montgomery. Only the third march succeeded; in about the middle of March when, as it turned out, it took FBI agents and federal Marshals protecting the marchers that enabled them to get safely to Montgomery and to make their point. But by then the point had been made. Not so much by those who were involved in the March, but by those who opposed it. Iconic images of those who were wounded simply seeking peaceably to protest by crossing the Edwin Pettus Bridge in Selma have become seared into the American conscience. Pres. Lyndon Johnson at that time understood the power of the symbolism and he moved quickly to push what became known as the Voting Rights Act through the United States Congress where it eventually passed.

What we need to notice as Christians looking at this anniversary is the fact that the actions of those who opposed the marchers now seem to be inexplicable. It seems to us nearly incomprehensible that there would’ve been those who opposed African-Americans simply demanding to be understood as equal citizens with equal rights in a nation that officially pledge itself to equal justice for all. For Americans, particularly for American Christians, looking back at this 50 year anniversary, there is the humbling acknowledgment of the evil that lurks in the human heart in the form of racism.

One of the most unsettling realizations as we look back to 50 years ago is how many Americans, including churchgoing Americans, were quite happy to allow and even to voice support for a system of injustice that meant there was one kind of justice for white Americans and another for black Americans. In so many cases the Jim Crow laws pointed to the reality that there had been, at least in recent American history at that time, separate water fountains and separate schools for American schoolchildren. But one of the things that becomes most evident is that the righteousness of the cause of those marchers in 1965 was made evident not only in terms of their witness and their argument, not only in terms of their activism, but in terms of the mirror image that American saw in the actions, the words, and the faces of those who opposed them – those who arrested them, those who beat them.

Along the path of these street marches, at least 3,000 protesters were arrested – mostly for the act simply of protesting and protesting a system that almost all Americans now would recognize was horrifyingly unjust. How could it be that so many people supported a system of such inequality? How was it that so many people felt defensive in the face of challenges to that unjust system and actually put themselves on the line to defend it rather than to overturning it. This is one of the darkest realizations in terms of fallen humanity. We are capable of massive self-rationalization, we are capable of massive lying to ourselves, and we are capable of supporting horrifying injustice. And in the case of the Civil Rights movement what we see is the righteousness of a cause that eventually reached the conscience of the American people.

But one of the most important truth we need to realize on this 50th anniversary is that the arguments that won the day in terms of the civil rights movement were arguments that were, by and large, offered by the most influential leaders of that movement – deeply biblical in terms of the shape of the argument and in terms of the substance. Some of the most important of these victories of course were won in terms of protests and eventually in terms of courtrooms and legislation. But as is always the case, the major battle was for the hearts of Americans. And arguments that won the day were, as offered by the most famous leaders of the civil rights movement, couched in biblical language. Using the very language of the Bible to demonstrate the equality of all human beings and the fact that America was at that time settling for a grossly unequal and unjust system.

We need also note that in the year 2015, as we face new challenges when it comes to racism and new challenges when it comes to understanding the relationships between all Americans, the reality is that not only as we look to Americans, but as we look throughout the entire world, only the biblical worldview offers an adequate explanation as to why all human beings are worthy of respect and worthy of the recognition of rights – basic human rights. It’s because only the biblical worldview, that explains that every single one of us is made as the loving creation of an omnipotent and sovereign creator, explains why humanity is distinct and why every single human being is worthy of respect and dignity. It is because every single human being is created in the image of God, and it’s because every single human being thus possesses those realities we call human rights, not because we are humans who deserve rights but because we are creatures made by a heavenly father who endowed us with certain rights and privileges simply because he made us in his image.

And one of those most basic rights is the right to be respected by every other member of the human race, understood that we are all united in the fact that we are creatures made by God. We are all united in the fact that Adam and Eve are our common mother and father – that means, in the ultimate sense, we are all truly brothers and sisters. It is also the gospel of Jesus Christ that explains our common need as fallen humans for a Savior. It is also the Christian gospel that points to the common provision for our salvation through the substitutionary atonement achieved by the Lord Jesus Christ. It is the understanding clearly revealed in Scripture that all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved and that means that those who confess with her lips that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in their heart that God has raised Him from the dead will be saved. And we are promised, not just the picture of a potential, but of a reality in which men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb and are eventually seated and what we know as the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Christians do well to remember that we do not support the equality of all human beings and the respect that is due to every single human being regardless of race, skin color, ethnicity, or even stage of development because we simply believe in justice – no. We believe in the full equality of all human beings because we believe in the gospel. We do believe in the demands of justice, but far more than that, we believe in the call of obedience to Jesus.

2) Lingering mystery of Malaysia Flight 370 reminder of untold secrets of human heart

Also speaking of anniversaries over the weekend, yesterday was the one-year anniversary of the strange disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. That was a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing that simply disappeared, disappeared without explanation. And one year later, the wreckage of that aircraft still has not been found – that is a Boeing 777, a very large jumbo jet that has inexplicably disappeared not only for days not, only for hours, but now for an entire year.

By now, as international press looking back in the one-year anniversary make clear, there is virtually no hope that any survivors will ever be found. That’s because the main theory right now is the very theory that first emerged in the aftermath of the plane’s disappearance and that is that the plane must be somewhere in the South Indian ocean, it must be somewhere on the seafloor, and it must be there because someone eventually intended for it to be. That is to say, that one year after the disappearance of the plane, the main theory now being held by investigators is that it was a deliberate act.

Last Friday’s edition of the New York Times included an article by Michael Forsythe and Keith Bradsher. Their point, as they report from Kuala Lumpur, is that officials there are beginning to be settled in a public way on the fact that the only explanation that seems to work is the explanation of what they call a rogue pilot. The article begins by citing the chief pilot of Malaysia Airlines; that is Nik Huzlan. He’s speaking of the fact that he finds it very difficult to believe that one of his friends, including the pilot and the copilot of the disappeared flight, could have possibly been involved in an effort not only to kill themselves but 268 other human beings.

As the reporters tell us, and I quote,

“Mr. Huzlan is convinced that deliberate human intervention, most likely by someone in the cockpit, caused the aircraft, on a red-eye flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, to suddenly turn around, cease communication with air traffic control and some six hours later run out of fuel and fall into the ocean. But he also said that he had never seen anything in more than 30 years of friendship that would suggest that Mr. Zaharie was capable of such a deed.”

Mr. Huzlan said,

“Based on logic, when you throw emotion away, it seems to point a certain direction which you can’t ignore.”

And then he said these words that are of particular importance from a Christian worldview perspective. He said,

“Your best friend can harbor the darkest secrets.”

The reality is we do not know what happened to this airliner and to the 269 souls aboard. But we do know this: it’s very hard to believe, given the circumstances, that this was not a deliberate act. That statement made by the chief pilot of Malaysia airlines deserves our close attention. Speaking of the pilot, in this case the chief pilot rather than the copilot, and at this point the chief pilot is the chief suspect, he said,

“Your best friend [and this man was his best friend] can harbor the darkest secrets.”

When we look back at the 50th anniversary of the Selma march, when we look back at the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of the Malaysian airliner, both of them come to us with major lessons. But of course one of the most troubling aspects of that one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 370 is that we really don’t know how the story is explained; we really don’t know the details, we don’t know why – and that’s the most difficult question because human beings are made to ask the question ‘why?’ We simply can’t avoid asking that question and we want to know because, as God made us in his image, he made us moral creatures and we understand there is a moral issue that is at the bottom of this entire question.

Was this in truth a deliberate human act? That seems almost incomprehensible – that’s the word the gets bandied about and reported in the international media over and over again. And yet, it isn’t quite so incomprehensible as we would like to claim. As the chief pilot of Malaysia Airlines now tells the New York Times, he has come, over his own inclinations and wishes, over against his own experience of friendship with this pilot, to believe that the most likely explanation is that his friend flew this plane (in one very real sense) into the ocean – deliberately killing himself and 268 others.

You know when we look at the disappearance of this airliner we ask the question why because we want to know if there was a mechanical problem. We want to know if there was a weather problem. Those explanations would settle our mind somewhat because even as that would not lessen the tragedy of the 269 deaths, at least they would not be direct moral responsibility, human moral responsibility, involved. Far more ominous to us, and we know it even as we say it, is that the reality of murder in this case is far more haunting to us. The horrifying idea that a pilot could get behind the wheel of an aircraft, go into the cockpit and fly the plane to a high-altitude, only then to disable the mechanisms whereby it was directed, disabled all communications, and effectively set an autopilot to lead the plane away from civilization into the open expanse of the South Indian ocean only to run out of fuel and eventually crash.

There are those currently searching much of the Indian ocean right now – an area far larger than the state of West Virginia – in which computer projections indicate there is the greatest likelihood that the wreckage will be found. But one year later and hundreds of millions of dollars spent, no wreckage has yet been found. The reality that is the most important issue for us is the reality articulated by that chief pilot, it’s the moral reality when he said “your best friend can harbor the darkest secrets.” That’s even scarier to us than an airplane crash. The reality that someone we know, someone we think we know, can harbor these horrifyingly dark secrets – as it now appears the chief pilot of that airplane may well have harbored.

That statement made by the chief pilot of Malaysia Airlines was made better by the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 17:9 when he stated, and I quote,

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”

It is impossible for us as sinful humans to understand the true nature of the sinfulness of the human heart. As the prophet said, who can understand it?

3) Rise of ‘new’ secular religions point to spiritual nature of humanity

Yesterday’s edition of the New York Times included a very important commentary by Ross Douthat in which he cites the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. Harari is arguing that the problems now faced by humanity are so new that, in his words, the old answers simply are irrelevant. And when he speaks of old answers he’s writing from the context of modern Israel, dismissing all religious truth claims as being a part of that irrelevant past, the answers offered by the past that we can very well now do without – indeed he argues we should do without them, we should simply dismiss them. Ross Douthat’s point is that secularist making this kind of argument, like that made by Harari, had better be very careful what they ask for because to put it bluntly, if they get what they ask for, they won’t like it when they get it. That’s because Douthat understand what Harari does not and that is that there are no explanations, there are no answers, there are no truth claims being made by the secular world that can in any way suffice; can suffice to uphold human dignity, can uphold any promise of a human future.

Douthat says that one of the problems that we should face is the reality that so many in the elites actually nonetheless believe the secular assertions, they believe the secular promises. As Douthat writes,

“This argument deserves highlighting because I think many smart people believe it.”

I think Ross Douthat’s right in that, and I think it points out the fact that there are many intelligent people who hold to rather unintelligent worldviews. But one of the most important aspects of Harari’s argument is where he states,

“In terms of ideas, in terms of religions, the most interesting place today in the world is Silicon Valley, not the Middle East.”

In terms of the biblical worldview, the most important thing for us to note is Harari’s celebration of the fact that in Silicon Valley we are witnessing the creation of what he calls ‘new religions:’ techno-utopian religions, trans humanist religions, and as Harari sees it, it is those religions,

“…that will take over the world,”

Now just to be honest, I’m not very fearful that these new trans humanist and techno-utopian religions from the Silicon Valley are indeed going to take over the world. But I point to this important article in yesterday’s edition of the New York Times because it points to a profound biblical truth and that is that God made us as spiritual creatures; he made us with a spiritual capacity, he made us to ask spiritual questions, and to seek spiritual answers. And as many have noted throughout the history of Christianity, those who reject Christianity saying that they want nothing to do with religion and spiritual realities, they do not turn to a truly secular worldview, no they very quickly turn to some alternative religious worldview and that’s easily explained by the worldview of the Bible.

According to the Bible it’s actually theologically impossible to be an atheist. I don’t mean that the Bible says there are not those who claim to be atheist, maybe even those who believe themselves to be atheist, but even as the psalmist said, the foolish said in his heart there is no God. And as Paul makes very clear in Romans 1, God has implanted the knowledge of himself in all of creation. And as he makes clear elsewhere in Romans, that includes the revelation of himself within the human conscience.

It should be really interesting to us that here we have a testimony coming from an Israeli historian, writing from a clearly secular worldview, that when he looks to the future he has hope in the fact that there are new religions – exciting new religions – coming out of the Silicon Valley. Biblical Christians can appreciate at least this much from Mr. Harari’s argument: the recognition that these new philosophies, these new worldview coming out of Silicon Valley, these worldviews that hold up the promise of a utopia coming from technology, these promises of trans-humanism whereby human beings by technology in modern medicine can eventually live forever, at least Mr. Harari understands rightly that these are religions.

Finally, speaking of Silicon Valley, a very important article about California appeared in the weekend edition of the Financial Times from London. What makes this article really interesting is that here you have a British newspaper trying to explain California to British readers. The articles is entitled, California is too far out for politics; it’s written by Gary Silverman. His point is basically this: even though California is the most populous American state with 39 million people – as he notes, that’s about three times as many as the nation of Greece – even though California’s annual economic output is about $2 trillion – that’s roughly the same as Russia – and even as many of America’s largest companies, especially high-tech companies, are located there in Silicon Valley (he notes Apple, Google, and Facebook together) have a total market capitalization rivaling the gross domestic product of Spain, he says nonetheless it’s very curious because even though California has all these assets and all this power, this huge population, it doesn’t seem to be poised to elect a President of the United States – that is, anyone who actually from California. And this is where Mr. Silverman’s article gets really interesting because he points out, very adroitly and quite accurately, that in California conservative candidate simply don’t have a chance. No conservatives been elected to statewide office here in over a decade. But when it comes to the issue of liberals from California, as Mr. Silverman points out, largely trying to explain California to a British readership, California’s liberals are simply too liberal even for most of the liberals elsewhere in the country. And so he explains the conservatives can’t get elected in California and the California liberals can’t get elected outside California. It’s an interesting quandary.

As we well understand, politics is reflection of worldview and if you want to understand the politics, especially of the left in California (and right now, politically speaking, the left is in the driver seat) maybe we need to look back to the worldview explanation offered by that Israeli historian, Prof. Harari. Maybe it’s because of these new religions coming out of Silicon Valley. At least to Mr. Harari’s credit, he understands this is a spiritual issue, that these worldviews are inherently religious. You have to wonder how many, on the far political left of California (and that means left in control) understand that as secular as they think themselves to be, their worldviews are inescapably theological, inescapably religious.

Think back to what professor Harari said about religion; these new religions coming out of the Silicon Valley. He said of the Silicon Valley, in terms of religion, it is

“…the most interesting place today in the world,”

His point is very clear. When you’re looking at Silicon Valley you’re not just looking at a digital revolution, you’re looking at a religious revolution as well.

 

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 information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

 

Remember we’re collecting questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Just call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058.

 

I had the privilege of preaching over the weekend in Kingsburg, CA. I’m speaking to you now from Los Angeles, and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

 

The Briefing 03-09-15

Podcast Transcript

1) 50th anniversary of Selma march points to importance of Christian worldview to civil rights

‘Bloody Sunday’ Commemoration Continues in Selma, NBC News (Elisha Fieldstadt and Amber Payne)

Revisiting Selma, New York Times (Malin Fezehai)

2) Lingering mystery of Malaysia Flight 370 reminder of untold secrets of human heart

To Explain Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight, ‘Rogue Pilot’ Seems Likeliest Theory, New York Times (Michael Forsythe and Keith Bradsher)

3) Rise of ‘new’ secular religions point to spiritual nature of humanity

The Case for Old Ideas, New York Times (Ross Douthat)

California is too far out for politics, Financial Times (Gary Silverman)

 

Ask Anything: Weekend Edition 03-07-15

1) How should Christian doctors respond to patients seeking gender-reassignment?

2) How dangerous is the New Age movement?

3) What will Judgment Day look like for Christians, already justified in Christ?

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-06-15

The Briefing

 

January 28, 2015

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

 

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

1) San Francisco archbishop criticized for having Catholic schools hold to Catholic beliefs 

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of the city of San Francisco has been discovered to be Roman Catholic. That’s evidently huge news to many people in San Francisco, at least in terms of the fact that the Archbishop has now been found guilty in the eyes of a secular society (and even of many liberal Roman Catholics) of holding to Roman Catholic teaching and expecting Roman Catholic schools to do the same.

Our concern this morning is not the Roman Catholic Church and its institutions per se, but rather what this story coming out of San Francisco represents in terms of our future; the future of evangelical churches evangelical denominations and those institutions that would serve the evangelical churches. Our concern is to watch what’s going on in San Francisco, and recognize this is almost exactly what we can expect will happen elsewhere – if not almost everywhere in the United States – in coming months and years.

The story is reported for the New York Times by Carol Pogash, and she writes this way;

“It is the issue that is stirring San Francisco: The archbishop has specified that teachers at four Bay Area Catholic high schools cannot publicly challenge the church’s teachings that homosexual acts are “contrary to natural law,” that contraception is “intrinsically evil” and that embryonic stem cell research is “a crime.” He also wants to designate teachers as part of the “ministry,” which could, under a 2012 Supreme Court ruling, strip them of protection under federal anti-discrimination laws.”

There is a great deal embedded in that paragraph, but what the New York Times wants us to do is to recoil in horror that a Roman Catholic archbishop is requiring Roman Catholic high schools in his diocese to teach Roman Catholic doctrine. In the eyes of the secular world around us that’s becoming increasingly scandalous. Indeed, they’re responding with shock and incredulity. How could it be that in the secular age, even a Roman Catholic archbishop would expected the schools in his diocese – the Roman Catholic schools – would uphold Roman Catholic doctrine?

As I said, our concern is not the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the ability Roman Catholic schools to teach those convictions. But in another sense it is, because the blowback that is now being faced by this Catholic archbishop in San Francisco is the blowback will come for every single one of us in short order.

As Pogash reports for the New York Times,

“In this city that helped give birth to the gay rights movement, the backlash has been fierce. A top concern is that gay teachers could be fired.”

One senior quoted in the article – this is again a senior at a Roman Catholic high school in the Bay area –  Jessica Hyman said,

“Our community is in pain; our teachers are scared.”

According to the Times, the Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, made the changes this month and has been under fire ever since. As Pogash reports,

“Technically, what he has done is to change the handbook that covers the 318 faculty members in the schools in his jurisdiction, which are in San Francisco, Marin and San Mateo Counties and which educate 3,600 students. The new language about not challenging church teachings takes effect Sept. 1.”

There been several reports about this controversy in national media, but the most important of the reports is this article that appeared in the New York Times by Carol Pogash. And this article is really important because it tells us about two forms of the backlash against the Archbishop’s decision about this very important decision to uphold Catholic teaching in Catholic schools. Because the first blowback is from the secular community. Now, after all were talking about San Francisco, and as Pogash said this is the very city that claims to have given birth to the gay-rights movement in America. And that’s a pretty credible claim.

And so in San Francisco, you’ve got a pushback that is coming from the secular society, and that’s reflected in the fact that according to Pogash’s article in the Bay area, in addition to petitions in protest, “eight state legislators from the Bay Area have asked the archbishop to withdraw the clause as discriminatory.”

Even more shocking, two of the legislators, according to Pogash, called for an investigation accusing the Archbishop of using religion “as a Trojan horse to deprive our fellow citizens of their basic civil rights.”

This is one most disturbing things I’ve read in a long time, especially when it comes to religious liberty and especially because I read it as a seminary president. I’m reading it with the understanding that the challenge to the Archbishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of San Francisco is in effect a challenge to all of us. A challenge that there are those who are going to claim that we can’t discriminate even in terms of the hiring of professors in an expressly evangelical institution in terms of evangelical theology and evangelical conviction. The challenge that is represented by this is simply huge. You have eight legislators in the state legislature calling for the diocese to change its policy, and you have two of them who have officially called for an investigation. An investigation of the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco for being Catholic and for intending to uphold Catholic moral teachings and Catholic doctrine.

We also understand that the secular backlash means that there in the San Francisco and Bay Area communities there are those who are responding with abject horror that the Roman Catholic archbishop would’ve taken this position. So far as they see it, this is a throwback to something like the Inquisition of the Middle Ages. This is something that in the worldview of so many who live in the Bay Area is virtually unthinkable. And thus they are shocked; seemingly genuinely shocked that a Roman Catholic archbishop would expect the schools in his jurisdiction (the Roman Catholic schools) to teach Roman Catholic conviction, Roman Catholic official doctrine.

But a closer look at the revisions that the Archbishop forced in the handbook for faculty indicates that he actually arguably didn’t even go that far. A look at the actual language indicates that what he is requiring of those who will teach and Roman Catholic high schools is that they will not publicly defy or deny official Roman Catholic teaching on these crucial, very important moral issues. That’s where we have to face the fact that the Roman Catholic archbishop here is playing something of defense with in his own schools within his own diocese, and therein is the second form of blowback.

It’s one thing (as we might expect) for a secular society such as the Bay Area like San Francisco to press back on a decision like this as being something that is simply unthinkable. But what we need to note very carefully is the second form of blowback that the Archbishop of San Francisco is receiving. And that is blowback not from the secular culture, but from some Roman Catholics. It’s one thing to have the pushback from the secular world; it’s a very different thing, a more ominous thing for the Roman Catholic Archbishop to have a pushback from Roman Catholics.

But we now know by ample documentation that there are millions of Roman Catholics in the United States who are openly defying Roman Catholic teaching on these issues. And we need to note that there is huge political pressure that is represented in the blowback coming from Roman Catholics on their own diocese. But turning to our own evangelical context, the question would be this: if the president of an educational institution that is sufficiently committed evangelical doctrine, the evangelical worldview, and even to an evangelical confession of faith would make very clear, the determination to hire only teachers who would hold to that faith – especially in terms of the school that is explicitly evangelical in terms of the total worldview – would there be adequate support coming from evangelical churches for that decision? We can certainly hope so, but honesty compels us to ask that question.

What if this were not the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco? What if this were a seminary president or Christian college president? What if this were a pastor of a local church very clearly committed evangelical conviction when it comes to the Christian school that is operated by that church? Herein is another lesson coming from this story.

Why did the Roman Catholic archbishop in the city of San Francisco have to make this decision in 2015? Glaringly and obviously it should of been made of very long time ago. And even now there’s a certain amount of elasticity that seems to be built into the policy change and the archbishop’s determination. As the Times reports,

“Expressing surprise at the strong reactions, Archbishop Cordileone said this week that he would form a committee of theology teachers to help “contextualize” the morality clause. But he said that he had no intention of deleting his wording, and that the committee’s recommendations would retain “what is already there.””

The Archbishop then added, “This is been a very trying time for all of us.”

Well, one lesson for evangelicals is that the Catholic archdiocese bears at least partial responsibility for bringing this crisis upon themselves by not having the policy in place long, long ago. Why did the archdiocese wait until the year 2015 to state very clearly tht teachers in its Roman Catholic schools would have to uphold Roman Catholic doctrine? What about all the years preceding? If this policy would be directed at teachers were already in the schools (as clearly the policy is), then they should of had the policy long ago, because they have very clearly hired people they should not of hired.

As I said there are huge lessons here for evangelical Christians. How many of our own institutions supposedly committed evangelical conviction have been hiring teachers who actually are not committed to the same convictions? And, furthermore, we would have to ask in some institutions, how would you know? Without a confession of faith that is explicit, without a contract that is absolutely clear how would one know unless a problem arises?

One of the lessons for all of us is if you wait until a problem arises you’re waiting far too long and far too irresponsibly. But the big story here is that the fact that the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco is now requiring all teachers and Roman Catholic schools under his jurisdiction to uphold Catholic doctrine makes the pages of the New York Times, thousands and thousands of miles away. That tells us something about the reality of the challenge we face in this increasingly secular age.

But we also need to note before we leave the story behind, that the story will not be left behind. This is a story that will arrive in its own way at every single evangelical school, every evangelical college and university, every evangelical seminary, there will be no place to hide. If this story about the Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco being after all Catholic makes the New York Times is a major new story, brace yourself for when the newspaper also discovers that there are evangelical Christians who expect their evangelical schools to uphold evangelical conviction and evangelical doctrine. Just wait for the scandal, for it is almost surely to come.

2) Story of priested twins points to importance of grounding our children in doctrine

A very different new story has my attention as it appeared in Wednesday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. It’s found in the personal Journal section. The headline is “When we quit one faith for another.” Claire Ansberry, reporting for the Journal tells us that more than half of US adults change religions. She goes on to tell what she calls a tale of twin brothers and their paths  to different churches. Now before looking at the tale of these twin brothers, when you look at the claim that half of all US adults change religions. As Asberry writes,

“More than half of the U.S. adult population has changed religious affiliations at least once during their lives, most before they reach 50, according to a 2009 Faith in Flux report by the Pew Research Center. In many cases, the move is from one major religious tradition to another, say, Protestantism to Catholicism…but it also includes those who leave organized religion altogether.”

Well, having looked at the report itself I’d also have to point out that the claim of changing religions would include some of the changes from a Baptist to a Methodist, or from a Lutheran to a Presbyterian, by theological definition we certainly wouldn’t say that’s changing religions. But according to this report, it would be. So as we’re looking at the claim now widespread in the media, having look at the report I can simply say that it’s an overstatement of how much change is taking place. But is still comes as an affirmation of the fact that all lot of change is taking place and that’s the reason behind the story. The loosening of the religious identification generation by generation is something that should certainly have our attention, and I’ll return to that in just a moment.

But first let’s look at the two brothers Chad and Brad, the twins that grew up in the first Baptist Church of Elkin, North Carolina. As they are described here, they had the experiences during their childhood that most evangelical children would expect to have, and certainly most Southern Baptists. We’re told they went to Vacation Bible School, they went to Sunday school, they sang in the choir, and they did so along with extended family.

But now Brad, age 43, is a Roman Catholic priest in the diocese of Charlotte and Chad is an Anglican bishop in Atlanta. Let’s just say those are very different trajectories. Somehow you start out with two twin boys who are growing up in a stable evangelical context, in a very stable community in North Carolina ,being raised by parents who clearly identify not only is evangelical Christians, but specifically as Southern Baptists, and somehow you end up nearly a generation later with one of the twins being a Roman Catholic priest and the other being an Anglican bishop in Atlanta. What in the world happened here? Well, as the story unfolds and as it is reported in the Wall Street Journal, the brother started asking some very deep theological questions, and those questions led them to the people who were talking about those questions. As becomes very clear in the article the twins ended up in different places because even though they had a common quest for a deeper theological knowledge they found themselves in very different places; one a celibate Roman Catholic priest, the other an Anglican bishop with four children.

As Ansberry tells the story,

“Like many kids, in their early teen years they began questioning things, including the teachings of the Baptist Church, she says. [She says this speaking of the mother] Their curiosity was piqued in large part by an older, much-respected cousin, who lived in Greensboro and had recently converted to Catholicism. During one visit, their cousin took the boys, then about 12 or 13, to Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church. It was their first time inside a Catholic church. That Sunday morning remains 30 years later one of their most vivid memories.”

She goes on to report,

“The beauty of the building itself—the vaulted ceilings, marble steps, intricate woodwork, statues and stained glass—the smells of burning incense and the sounds of bells had a mystical quality that is hard to explain, says Father Brad. What struck Bishop Chad was watching the priest standing in front of the altar and elevating the Communion host.”

Ansberry then writes,

“For them, the Catholic liturgy made the invisible God palpable and tangible to the senses. Their own Baptist Church, where the walls are white and flat, the altar austere, and the worship focused largely on Scripture alone, didn’t.”

Chad told the Wall Street Journal,

“We weren’t theologians. We were children. But as children we had open hearts and minds to it and were very receptive.”

When I look at this new story I see it as hugely important, and for the following reason; It points out the fact that we are losing far too many evangelical young people as they reach older ages because they are simply not adequately grounded theologically in the Christian faith. They may go to vacation Bible school, they may go to Sunday school. But the question is, are they really grounded in the Christian faith? Are they well-grounded in the beauty of Scripture? Are they well-grounded in a knowledge of the deep theological convictions that define us as Christians. When these two boys, identical twins, were asking deep theological questions, who was there to help them? Who was there to guide them? Who was there as an evangelical thinker, apologist, theologian, friend, pastor, and guide to help them to understand these questions?

As I read this news article, it comes as judgment; judgment upon all those who missed the opportunity in failed in the responsibility to ground these young boys as they were then in the Christian faith, in the truth, and the beauty of evangelical Christian doctrine. In the theological principles that based upon long biblical consideration and the long argument of the church have met the differences between the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical Christianity. The differences between the understanding of a Scripture-centered Christianity and one that is centered in the sacraments (as is the Roman Catholic system and at least much of Anglicanism). This is a huge question. It’s a haunting question.

I raise this article simply because every single evangelical parent needs to take it as a serious challenge. Because every single evangelical church has to understand this story telling us in one sense what were up against, because the story of these two identical twins can be replicated thousands and thousands of times over, and surely will be if we fail now in the responsibility to raise up the next generation in the faith, to defend the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Now when you look at this news article, we come to understand that the shift of one of these twins to becoming an Anglican is quite a different shift than the one became a Roman Catholic. Because becoming an Anglican doesn’t necessarily mean, in any sense, the denial of the very essentials of the gospel that would be at stake in terms of the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, in terms of those Reformation principles that we believe to be in the very heart of the gospel. Of justification, by faith alone, by grace alone, by the work of Christ alone, knowable by the authority of Scripture alone, and ultimately to the glory of God alone.

We impoverish our children if we don’t ground them in the grandeur of Christian doctrine. And we also set them up for an enormous vulnerability to be led by their senses –  remember the exact tale told in the story – rather than by a theological understanding grounded in the explicit teachings of Scripture.

Thanks be to God, there are a very good many evangelical Anglicans, and we can only hope that this bishop in Atlanta is one of them. The ways described in this article makes me think that it may well be so. But when we’re looking at the other identical twin becoming a Roman Catholic priest we need to recognize that – well it go back to the theme of the story by changing religions. In terms of the faith and judgment of the Reformers, that’s exactly what they would say this one identical twin indeed did.

According to the Wall Street Journal report the parents of these two twins don’t seem to be very upset about the trajectories that their sons of chosen. Surely that must be part of the story as well, in terms of how their boys ended up as man where they are now. I know nothing in terms of direct knowledge of the Baptist Church in which these boys were participants when they were younger (especially back in those days I know of no specific failing). What I do know is this; this story appears as judgment and is challenged every single one of us –  as pastors, as parents, as youth leaders, as those who care about the perpetuation of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. If we do not ground our children in the faith, then they are going to find the answers to their questions elsewhere.

There may be indeed there will be some who were well taught who at some point later in life will depart from the faith. But for those who are not well taught, it’s not just a possibility, it’s a probability. And this article in the Wall Street Journal makes that point very, very clearly. Perhaps we should end on this note, our great hope and determination is churches should be to make certain that the young people and children who are sitting in our churches today will be featured in an article like this in a generation yet to come.

Thanks to listen to The Briefing. For more information to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For 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’m speaking to you from Los Angeles, California, and I’ll meet you again on Monday for The Briefing.

The Briefing 03-06-15

1) San Francisco archbishop criticized for having Catholic schools hold to Catholic beliefs 

Morals Clause in Catholic Schools Roils Bay Area, New York Times (Carol Pogash)

2) Story of priested twins points to importance of grounding our children in doctrine

When We Leave One Religion for Another, Wall Street Journal (Claire Ansberry)