R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 318

The Briefing 03-04-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Netanyahu’s Congress address exposes wide differences in view of challenge of Iran

Netanyahu, in Speech to Congress, Criticizes ‘Bad Deal’ on Iran Nuclear Program, New York Times (Peter Baker)

Obama lays out Iran nuclear deal conditions as Netanyahu visit begins, Los Angeles Times (David Lauter and Evan Halper)

2) Gay marriage plaintiffs claim the ‘right side of history’ before Supreme Court 

Gay marriage proponents claim ‘right side of history’, USA Today (Richard Wolf)

3) California GOP recognition of gay group too little, too late to get on ‘right side of history’

State GOP formally welcomes gays to the party, Los Angeles Times (Seema Mehta and Melanie Mason)

It was long past time for state GOP to recognize gay fundraising group, Los Angeles Times (Editorial Board)

 

 

 

From the Pulpit to the Culture

Originally preached at the 2015 Jacksonville Pastors’ Conference

Transcript: The Briefing 03-03-15

The Briefing

 

March 3, 2015

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

 

It’s Tuesday, March 3, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Decriminalization of adultery in South Korea reflects global trend of personal autonomy 

The headlines that came over the weekend from around the world tell us that a great deal is changing when it comes to family life – not just here in the United States, but globally. As the report came in from the New York Times and others, on Thursday of last week the constitutional court in South Korea struck down a law that was 62 years old and made adultery a criminal offense, an offense punishable by up to two years in prison. As the New York Times indicated, this represents,

“…the country’s changing sexual mores and a growing emphasis on individual rights.”

Five of the court’s nine justices issued a joint opinion, in which they stated,

“It has become difficult to say that there is a consensus on whether adultery should be punished as a criminal offense. It should be left to the free will and love of people to decide whether to maintain marriage, and the matter should not be externally forced through a criminal code.”

According to numerous media outlets there have been several constitutional challenges to South Korea’s adultery law, but these have been unsuccessful – even as recently as the year 2008 – until just this past week when the law was struck down. Again, according to the Times,

“The adultery law was adopted in 1953, with the stated purpose of protecting women who had little recourse against cheating husbands in a male-dominated society. But divorce rates and women’s economic and legal standing have soared in the decades since, leaving many to argue that the law outlived its usefulness.”

As the Wall Street Journal reported: as the chief judge was releasing opinion he stated,

“It’s realistically impossible that all unethical acts face criminal justice,”

Back in 2008 the same court had ruled that the law was constitutional and necessary by stating,

“…a legal perception that adultery is damaging to the social order and infringes on other’s rights.”

One of the most important things that Christians need to recognize is that when the court ruled,

“It’s realistically impossible that all unethical acts face criminal justice,”

that is certainly stating a fact, but the most important fact in this case is that in South Korea the issue of adultery is now considered to be something that falls beneath legal scrutiny – at least when it comes to the criminal law.

Christians understand that the law functions with several purposes. One of the purposes of the law is that it instructs those who are under the law about what is the vision of the moral life that is expected within a community. We understand that biblical law fulfils the function, by its teaching authority, to tell us what is right and good and leads not only to righteousness, but also to human flourishing. When it comes to the civic law, one of the things that Christians understand is that there are always limits to what can be criminalized. And yet, even as this court has decided that adultery now falls beneath that barrier of criminal justice, it also tells us that there has been a vast change in the morality of that nation. But before we pile on South Korea in terms of recognizing this moral shift, we need to recognize that that same kind of moral shift has happened elsewhere.

In both Europe and in North America, in both the United States and Canada, adultery has also in the past been considered a criminal offense. And for the very same reason that in 2008 this same South Korean Court upheld the law then, stating and again I read from the opinion back in 2008,

“…a legal perception that adultery is damaging to the social order and infringes on other’s rights.”

Long before the moral revolution was announced in these terms last week in South Korea, that same moral revolution had swept away our societal determination to make adultery a matter of public significance – at least when it comes to the law. And in the United States and in Europe, even as the legal restrictions on adultery by criminal offense were taken away (mitigated step-by-step), the understanding was that adultery itself was taken with far less significance.

In our own legal history and tradition, largely drawn upon English common law, the very same moral principle – the very same legal principle – had pertained: the understanding that marriage is not fundamentally just a private affair – it’s not a private relationship – it has a social function. And a social function that the entire society must recognize, and having recognized, protect. The issue of the criminalization of adultery was not merely to bring about the public shaming of someone caught in adultery, but to emphasize the importance and the sanctity of marriage.

One of the things we thus need to recognize is that when something changes, such as the determination of a society to recognize the importance of adultery in the criminal law, prior to that there has been a shift in the understanding of marriage. And as the New York Times reporter indicated very clearly, this can be traced to a priority on personal autonomy – something that we have noted in recent days and weeks on The Briefing as being behind the massive marginalization of marriage and family not only in Western societies but increasingly, as we even see today, around the world. And the marginalization of marriage leads to the idea that adultery is no longer a matter of great societal importance, and the protection of marriage and the sanctity of that marriage is no longer a clear social priority.

In South Korea this came long after the same kind of change had happened in the United States and Europe. But in Korea, it still came as something of a surprise given the fact that that same court had upheld the very same law less than a decade ago. It is also still rather surprising that the majority in South Korea’s constitutional court (that voted to strike down the law last week) did so while being so publicly explicit about the reasoning for the ruling. Let me repeat what they said,

“It should be left to the free will and love of people to decide whether to maintain marriage,”

Just stopping there; that represents a vast moral shift. A shift away from marriage being a matter of public significance to marriage being just a private contract to be held together so long as both parties, simultaneously, will for the contract to continue. They stated finally,

“…the matter should not be externally forced through a criminal code.”

At this point we simply have to note from a biblical perspective that the law will continue to make moral judgments, it just will make no moral judgment on the issue of adultery when it comes to the criminal code of South Korea. Every society is eventually understandable by its laws, and even as this change came just last week in South Korea in terms of its criminal code, according to its constitutional court we can be very certain that the moral change had already taken place amongst the South Korean people. And in this respect, they’re simply following the same kind of moral logic that has led to the breakdown of the family and the marginalization of marriage in the Western world long before South Korea’s court ruled last week on the matter.

A final very important observation for Christians must be this: even though legislatures, even though executive branches, even though courts may eventually rule on law indicating this kind of revolution and morality, the law of God does not change. Many people, looking at the church from outside, wonder why the church simply doesn’t revise its moral understanding on these issues in order to keep pace with the times. The reason for that is abundantly clear: we do not believe that the law of God is ours to change – it is not. South Korea may now state that the matter of adultery is not a matter of criminal law, but the law of God remains – as you know from the 10 Commandments – thou shalt not commit adultery.

2) Chinese wedding industry growth obscures underlying tragedy of one-child policy

Shifting from South Korea to the nation of China, the current edition of The Economist, a major newsmagazine from Great Britain, indicates that the wedding vows and the wedding ceremonies in communist China are now being transformed largely due to that nation’s notorious one-child only policy. The reporting in The Economist seems to celebrate this moral development. As the magazine reports, there is now a large industry when it comes to weddings – something the Communist Party had frowned upon and something that was not really a part of Chinese culture even in generations and centuries past. Based on a Confucian understanding of the family, the issue of marriage had largely been arranged by parents with the determination to continue, especially the groom’s family, in terms of heirs. But now the rise of a culture of personal autonomy has reached even communist China and the magazine reports that the reason for this is that Chinese families have fewer children and those children are receiving the doting and the very devoted attention of parents. These parents are now willing to spend an enormous amount of money on the weddings of their singular offspring. And furthermore, this rise of personal autonomy and the focus upon the individual means that there is a new ethic of romantic love when it comes to these attachments that lead to weddings even in China.

As the magazine reports,

“The change in wedding frippery also reflects a fundamental shift in society. For the first time in the history of Chinese family life, the child—rather than ancestors or parents—is regarded as the centre of the family,”

That is according to professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“Most newly-weds now are single children, born since the one-child policy was introduced more than 30 years ago. Parents have more to spend if they only have to fork out for one wedding (they usually share costs with the spouse-to-be’s family).”

As you look at news articles, one of the questions you always need to keep in mind is not only what’s present but what’s absent. And in this case, what’s absent is even more important than what’s present. Because what absent is the recognition that even as the magazine seems to be celebrating the effective westernization of weddings and marriage in communist China, what’s not recognized is the millions of young men in China who will never have wives because of this very one-child only policy. In the nation of China, the one-child only policy (which has used government coercion, sometimes even forced abortions and infanticide) has also lead to a vast gender imbalance because when parents in China can only have one child, and given the preference in China (and in India and in other nations as well) for boys rather than girls to perpetuate the family line, than what is happening is the selected abortion of girls in the womb. And as we now know is well documented, the selective infanticide, the killing, of many baby girls even after they are born.

So what’s present in this article is a seeming celebration of the westernization of the wedding and marriage picture in China. This is treated is something that is an unintended benefit of the one-child only policy, but what’s not even addressed in the article is the really murderous nature of this policy. And the fact that the real story in terms of weddings and marriages in China is not what’s taking place in the weddings that happen, but about the weddings that will never happen because so many millions of Chinese young men who will never know any wedding or any marriage. They are described by some demographers as the ‘broken branches.’ That is to say, the family tree ends with them because given the horrible nature the one-child only policy, given the fact that the Chinese Communist government – sometimes even driven by and encouraged by Western secular elites – has adopted this policy, the net result is the fact that what you have is government coercion that leads to abortion, forced abortion, infanticide, and a total breakdown and subversion not only of marriage and the family and of parenthood, but of the very nature of what it means to be human. The very definition of human dignity.

3) Failure to regard consequences of divorce in Ireland causes indifference towards gay marriage

The last article in this series comes not from Asia but from Europe. In particular, from Ireland where Carol Hunt writes in the Sunday Independent that the nation of Ireland should simply welcome the advent of gay marriage. She writes,

“Relax. Gay marriage won’t hurt straight marriage.”

And she writes this because she says even as the nation of Ireland now considers the potential legalization of same-sex marriage, they should understand that previous changes such as divorce really didn’t bring about any strong, any enduring, national trauma. As she writes, there were those who were suggesting that when Ireland finally changed its divorce law, making divorce easier to obtain, there are many people who argued that there would be a rampant run on divorce. And she said at least thus far in Ireland that hasn’t happened. Therefore, she says the Irish should learn from that circumstance and simply affirm that the legalization of same-sex marriage is not likely to bring about any tsunami in terms of morality.

She actually writes the what’s gay marriage is legal this “doesn’t mean everyone will have to get one.” That’s one of the sentences that hardly even makes sense, but if it does make sense it’s a very very troubling sense. It’s the sense that since marriage has changed already when it comes to divorce, same-sex marriage is no big deal.

But even as we know the moral illogic and the very dangerous reasoning of her argument, we need to recognize that it is simply true that long before same-sex marriage would’ve been imaginable marriage already had to be redefined. It had to be revised – it even had to be subverted by the easy access to divorce.

In the United States the same kind of pattern happened. It would be possible to think about something like same-sex marriage if the divorce revolution hadn’t taken place in a previous generation. Divorce was very difficult to obtain in the United States up until the late 1960s and the early 1970s when the first so-called no-fault divorce laws were put into effect. We need to note that in United States there has been since the arrival of no-fault divorce a veritable tsunami of divorce. The divorce rate has skyrocketed, making every marriage effectively a tentative marriage. Meaning that even as marital couples joined together in a wedding still tend to use the historic language from the Book of Common Prayer –  that is, ‘till death do we part,’ – there is no longer actually the affirmation that that’s the expectation.

One of the great betrayals in this is how many couples are now being advised to arrange prenuptial agreements (what would happen indeed if the divorce were to happen later) even as they are taking their marital vows using the language about the fact they’re going to be together until they’re parted by death. In reality we need to recognize that the moral revolution that we are now experiencing has only been made possible because of our complicity, our cooperation as a society with the breakdown of marriage, the redefinition of marriage long before same-sex couples arrived as a matter of public consequence.

And when you now have this argument coming from Ireland saying, ‘don’t worry about same-sex marriage – we didn’t have to worry about divorce,’ the reality is that divorce rates in Ireland are going up too. It was the novelist Pat Conroy who several years ago in one of his novels wrote that every single divorce is in his words “the collapse of a small civilization.” Indeed every single divorce is the collapse of a small civilization. And writ large the redefinition of marriage and the easy access to divorce has met also the breakdown of much of our civilization. But in an age this seems to be absolutely determined to make individual happiness at the expense of any covenants, any bonds, or any responsibilities our sole preoccupation, we’re all complicit in the breakdown of that civilization.

4) Rise of psychic demand reveals Christianity never replaced by pure secularism

Finally sometimes you come across a news article that just seems to affirm what Christians must always understand. Everybody has some basic beliefs, and in some way those beliefs inevitably turn out to be religious. The Wall Street Journal yesterday had a story entitled “There’s a Lot of Spirit At School for Psychics.” Matthew Dalton reports from Stansted, England;

“In a stately Victorian mansion, Julie Grist is teaching the psychics of tomorrow how to speak to today’s dead for a living.”

Christians looking at this article have all the evidence we need to be reminded all over again that when Christianity fades into the cultural background it’s not replaced by a true secularism –  it’s replaced by religious nuttiness and craziness. As Dalton reports, this is a school or the training of psychics and is meant to be taken seriously.

One of the very interesting things from this article by the way is that even as the psychics are being trained, they’re being trained in a way that is perhaps more honest than was intended to appear in a newspaper such as the Wall Street Journal.

It’s known as the Arthur Findlay College. According to the Wall Street Journal it’s been offering courses for practicing psychics and mediums – those who claim to communicate with spirits now for 50 years. But evidently there’s a renaissance of growing enrollment because in this supposedly secular age there is a whole new interest in psychics. The school was once known according to the Journal as Spook Hall at least according to locals.

The school is located in a rambling estate 40 miles from London. Its instructors, according to Dalton,

“believe the powers of a psychic aren’t just gifts from the gods.”

Instead, mediumship, according to Steve Upton (an instructor there) is a skill that can be acquired like many skills. As I said, the article is very honest. It tells us for example that when it comes to today’s, even tomorrow’s psychics are being trained in this school for psychics, they’re being told that even as they used the occultic arts in order to supposedly bring up voices from the past – these voices a better speaking very happy and encouraging terms, because the people who are paying for psychic readings aren’t paying for bad news.

Even the Wall Street Journal notes of that’s quite a shift from the Delphic Oracle in terms of the ancient world where the word that came supposedly from the dead was often a word of judgment or of warning. That’s not going to work, say the instructors in this school because people now want only an encouraging message. As the Journal reports.

“Psychics report demand for their services has grown as people turn away from established religions and psychologists for counsel.”

It really gets interesting when you find out that even in this therapeutic age there are people who think that psychologists simply aren’t encouraging enough. One of the things that is claimed in this article is that people grow frustrated with psychologists because they ask so many questions and don’t offer so many answers.

People want answers according to the instructors in the psychic college, and as they want answers they were only happy answers. Instructor Grist (quoted in the beginning of the article) tells young or at least future psychics and training that when they phrase advice supposedly being drawn up from a dead person they’re supposed to give advice in such a way that as she says,

“You know they support you, and whatever you decide to do they’ll be with you.”

Now the pathetic nature of this of course is that what we’re watching here are people who were claiming to be psychics indicating even as they’re training future psychics that they’ve got to be very careful in order to get people exactly what they want and exactly what they’re paying for; and that’s not judgment, and that’s not warning –  it is only encouragement. ‘You be you’ seems to be the message that people want from psychics. And as this college now says to future psychics, ‘you’d better give them what they want.’And how do you find out what they want? Well, here the article is amazingly honest. You have to ask them questions say the instructors in the school for psychics. You have to ask the people who come to you for answers to answer the questions in which they’ll give you the material you can then give back to them as if you are getting it from a psychic occultic source.

They’re saying this right out loud and they’re even telling it to the Wall Street Journal. Even one of the students in the class identified as a yoga teacher from the Netherlands asked the obvious question, “Is that cheating?”

Needless to say from a Christian worldview perspective, from the understanding of the Bible, there is no reality to this at all. And furthermore it is absolutely dangerous –  deadly dangerous – to fool around with the occult in any form. But in terms of what’s revealed in this article it simply affirms the people who are looking for occultic readings. And the people who are paying for them are people who expect exactly what they pay for -  they want to hear back to mirror image of themselves. And they’re even willing to tell the people who claim to be using occultic powers all the information that they’ll then receive back from the psychic.

It is incredibly revealing that people who claim to be too advanced, too educated, too sophisticated in this modern age to believe in God (the God of the Bible), they will actually pay people to pander to them with this kind of occultic nonsense. Oh, and by the way, the last sentence of the article is simply too good to miss. It’s stated by one of the people of the college who says,

“It’s nice to be with like-minded people. You don’t feel so odd.”

Well, perhaps someone needs to tell her that the only reason the story made the front page of yesterday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal is because the Wall Street Journal found her and her school very very odd.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler.

 

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

 

This week I’m joined by many others in a special Summit called by Dr. John MacArthur on the issue of the inerrancy of Scripture. It will be this week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I would encouraged you, if you are not at the something to watch the sessions which can be accessed at www.shepherdconference.org. I’m speaking to you from Los Angeles, California and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 03-03-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Decriminalization of adultery in South Korea reflects global trend of personal autonomy 

Adultery Is No Longer an Affair of the State in South Korea, New York Times (Choe Sang-Hun)

South Korea Legalizes Adultery, Wall Street Journal (Jeyup S. Kwaak)

2) Chinese wedding industry growth obscures underlying tragedy of one-child policy

Wedding wows, The Economist

3) Failure to regard consequences of divorce in Ireland causes indifference towards gay marriage

Is it going to be hello marriage equality, bye bye Mammy?, The Independent (Carol Hunt)

4) Rise of psychic demand reveals Christianity never replaced by pure secularism

There’s a Lot of Spirit At School for Psychics, Wall Street Journal (Matthew Dalton)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-02-15

The Briefing

 

March 2, 2015

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

 

It’s Monday, March 2, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Perennial conflict between evolution and Christian faith acknowledged by journalist

From time to time we need to step back and look at some stories that time did not allow us to attend to in recent days. One of those is an article that appeared last Sunday at Forbes.com; the headline is: Science and Religion: Surveying The Field Of Battle. The columnist for Forbes is John Farrell, who covers science and technology for the magazine and the website. He cites Kelly James Clark, who wrote,

“As the scientific evidence has accumulated in favor of Darwinism, many Christians have defensively retreated into unscientific, untenable biblical literalism. Conflict is an apt metaphor for the ongoing battle between Darwinian evolution and biblical literalism.”

Now whenever you see the word literalism here one of the things we need to ask is what in the world does that word mean in this context, what does the one who uses it mean? There’s a sense in which the word ‘literal’ is usually not the best word. As an English professor I had back in college said, whenever you are literally tempted to use the word literally, do everything literally possible to avoid it. But as we read this article by Farrell, citing this work by Kelly James Clark, what we come to understand is that literal in this sense means that the Bible is conveying historical space-time truth in especially the text of Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. Farrell goes on to explain that Clark has a PhD in philosophy; he conducts research at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University in Michigan. Christians may recognize his name because he formerly taught at Calvin College.

As Farrell writes, Clark has written several books on what’s described as the interface of science and religion. Farrell then writes,

“While an evangelical Christian, like some of his fellow authors Peter Enns and Karl Giberson, Clark is not satisfied with the way that evangelical theologians have dealt with the findings of modern science.”

Now in a very public sense, I have engaged both Peter Enns and Karl Giberson; one in person, the other merely in print and out there in the digital world. But nonetheless both have made very clear their own convictions on this issue, and I will grant to both of these men the intellectual honesty that they are doing their best, I think, to play out the inevitable intellectual results of their worldview.

Peter Enns and I have engaged one another in a recent book on inerrancy published by Zondervan and we also engaged one another in a massive session before the Evangelical Theological Society. And Peter Enns is very clear in rejecting inerrancy. He’s very clear on the consequences of what he believes the rejection of inerrancy must mean. And he is also very clear, especially in his recent writings and books, on how a non-inerrantist would approach Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

Karl Giberson’s not writing as a biblical scholar, but as rather one who was a science educator. He’s been involved with the group known as BioLogos, promoting a union or a peace between evangelical Christianity and an evolutionary worldview. Giberson’s a co-author of a recent book published by Oxford University Press in which he suggests that Christians who reject the current Darwinian synthesis are bringing intellectual disrepute upon the Christian faith. Giberson also understands that a claim of biblical inerrancy is very problematic in terms of his worldview when we encounter Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 and when those biblical texts encounter the claims being made by the modern scientific consensus.

But leaving Enns and Giberson, let me go back to Kelly James Clark and let me go back to John Farrell’s article at Forbes in which he discusses Clark’s proposal. Farrell writes,

“Starting with opening chapters laying out the terms and the sides in the often contentious debate between science and religion, Clark discusses the history of science in Europe, the founding fathers of the scientific revolution, their religious presuppositions and beliefs, and moves from there to the achievements of modern science–evolution and cosmology and quantum mechanics–most of whose leading lights have discarded the faith that inspired their scientific forebears.”

So while John Farrell is calling upon evangelical Christians to make peace with the world of modern science, he’s also acknowledging right up front that most of what he describes as the leading lights of that modern science have discarded Christianity. But Farrell’s point is not really about those who’ve abandon their faith in the face of modern science, but rather those who are holding on to their faith and are rejecting the demands being made by the modern scientific worldview – especially a modern worldview in science that is almost exclusively naturalistic and materialistic, cutting out any role for God whatsoever.

Farrell writes,

“[I]t’s the resistance to science on the part of his co-religionists that concerns Clark more. To use an analogy, if one believes in a god who inspired the Book of Scripture, one can’t avoid the implications of what’s written by the same author in the Book of Nature.”

Now that’s a very important point and it’s a point that I would also affirm, but I would have to affirm it in a way that clearly understands the importance of Scripture, the central role of Scripture, the authority of Scripture. Because it is true that God has revealed himself in the book of nature, but a theological worldview reminds us in Romans 1 that human beings, with our vision so much affected by sin, our intellectual apparatus so corrupted by sin, we are unable to see the book of nature, as it’s called here, for what it truly is. The apostle Paul makes the categorical statement in Romans 1 that the creature corrupts the knowledge of the creator; even that knowledge, he makes very clear, that is embedded within creation itself. That’s not to say that biblical Christians understand that the secular world can know nothing of the world around us, to the contrary we should be thankful that much is known and even more is becoming known, but it does tell us that at the most basic level of presuppositions and worldview there is no way that the book of nature can lead us appropriately to truth.

But suggesting that the mode of thinking that needs to rule in evangelical Christianity is one that makes peace with the secular reading of the book of nature, Farrell goes on to write – and at this point he gets rather personal –

“Now, there is little evidence of this happening at institutions like, say, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, whose president remains mired in anti-intellectualism. And I wonder how Clark’s book is being received there.”

Well, I would simply say, he could’ve asked.

But the reason I raise this article today, and I go back to this issue so often, is because this is one of those perennial issues that’s pressing on us in this particular moment and time. In this intellectual climate, evangelical Christians will face fewer intellectual and theological challenges more pressing and more urgent than this. And what is being required of us is a basic surrender to the modern scientific consensus, and we need at least understand what is then at stake. In this case John Farrell writes that I remain,

“…mired in anti-intellectualism,”

Now there are certain things that can hurt my feelings, indeed if that were made by an evangelical Christian – by an evangelical Christian scholar – who is also committed to the inerrancy of Scripture and to the worldview I share, I would find that a very troublesome statement. But when it’s made from someone who is writing about what is now required of evangelical Christianity and our understanding of Scripture, and what it turns out is required is abandoning what I believe to be the clear teachings of Scripture, at that point I simply have to affirm what by now we should know. And that is, all of us are going to have to be ready to run the risk of being called anti-intellectual if the only way to be considered not anti-intellectual is to buy into the current demands of a naturalistic and materialistic worldview. But to be honest, we would also have to understand there are those who are arguing that some peace can be made between the modern Darwinian synthesis and an evangelical understanding of Scripture and the gospel. But that’s where we also have to be very clear about what the gospel is, what the authorities of scripture requires, and what the modern Darwinian synthesis is.

By referring to the modern Darwinian synthesis I’m using the term that modern science uses about the understanding of evolution that now rules in the scientific mainstream. End even if at this point I bristle a little at the fact that John Farrell describes our worldview here, and my worldview in particular, as being “mired in anti-intellectualism,” I simply have to take some comfort in what he says in the next paragraph because he gives me a gift by making the point I make over and over again. He writes, and I cite these very words,

“But even evangelical science organizations like BioLogos, which like to promote harmony between science and faith, often blanch at the real challenges genetics and anthropology pose for the interpretation of scripture.”

Now why is that a gift? Because it makes the point we need to make over and over again. Those who claim that we need to make peace with evolution need to be very honest about what making peace would require; and BioLogos is one of those organizations that has promoted some form of theistic evolution, And yet you have John Farrell, who just criticized me and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, then criticizing BioLogos, who after all is not only open to theistic evolution but very much pushing that agenda, he now accuses BioLogos of failing to come to full theological terms with what the modern Darwinian synthesis would require of them. As he says, to use his words,

“They often blanch at the real challenges genetics and anthropology pose for the interpretation of scripture.”

Those are challenges John Farrell understands that will go far beyond the question of historicity in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. These are questions that will go right to the heart of the very storyline of Scripture. Was there a historical Adam and a historical Eve? Are all human beings descended from Adam and Eve? Now, theologically, I just want to point out that that is essential to the biblical storyline. It’s essential to the biblical storyline not just in terms of the doctrine of creation and even our understanding of what it means to be human, but it is essential in our understanding of what it means for every one of us to have a common ancestor and thus to share a real brotherhood and sisterhood. And furthermore, the apostle Paul does not hesitate at all, stating explicitly, that our understanding of the work of Christ as our federal head is entirely dependent upon the reality that as a second Adam he has done what the first Adam could not do; he indeed has undone with the first Adam did. The apostle Paul point is very clear: if there is no first Adam, we don’t understand what it means for Christ to be the second Adam.

And then John Farrell, with whom I’ve had at least a written engagement in times past goes, comes back to give me, in effect, another gift when he writes,

“As another author of evangelical background, Peter Enns, has written, the issue is not whether science and religion in general can be reconciled. ‘The issue before us is more pressing: can evolution and a biblically rooted Christian faith coexist?’”

And then John Farrell writes, and I quote his words exactly,

“Perhaps in the end, they can’t,”

He goes on to say that Clark’s proposal is at least interesting. And he says it shows an engaging interest in the need to study the question further, not simply retreat, he says, behind the walls of denial and wishful thinking. But what a concession he makes in his words. Perhaps in the end they can’t; which is, if you take the article seriously, him saying, ‘perhaps in the end, Mohler is right.’ Now he doesn’t really mean in any sense that I might be right (that is impossible, I think, according to his worldview). But it does affirm the fact that it is not irrational to believe that in the end the only answer that can be given to the question that Peter Enns asks –  and that is again the question before us as more pressing – he says, ‘can evolution and a biblically rooted Christian faith coexist?’-  is no.

And the issue there is twofold. How are you going to define evolution? Now if I can define evolution so that it has no conflict with everything I believe that Scripture reveals, then I’ll be glad to embrace evolution. But there is no mainstream understanding of evolution that would allow that. As a matter fact, the current Darwinian mainstream position is not only that there wasn’t a historical Adam and Eve, but that there wasn’t the possibility of having any design from outside and any designer who had any role whatsoever in the shape of the cosmos in any way shape or form. On the other side, you’d have to define what it means to know a biblically rooted Christian faith. And at that point I’d have to say, it would have to be a faith that would be understandable as the faith that Jesus gave to the apostles, the faith that the apostles preached to the church, the faith that the reformers and others throughout the history the church have affirmed have confessed and have taught. It would have to be the faith, as Jude says, ‘once for all delivered to the saints.’ It would have to be a faith that is faithful to the storyline of Scripture. It would have to be a faith that finds it’s rooting, in terms of everything we know, everything we know about Christ and everything we know about the cosmos in terms of its biblical significance in the text of Scripture itself.

As I have often pointed out on The Briefing, we are told routinely that there are those such as the Roman Catholic Church who have made peace with evolution, but as I pointed out, if you look at the actual Papal statements, you’ll discover that the evolution that in mind here is not an evolution that bears any significance whatsoever to the modern version of evolution being taught in universities and colleges. So what we’re looking at here is the reality that there are those who want to put us on the intellectual defensive and there are those out there in the culture who are sure we must be on the intellectual defensive. But I for one don’t believe that’s true. And we are hardly the first generation of Christians to confront this challenge. But it is a challenge we cannot avoid now, and when the question is asked of us, we better at least understand what is at stake and be ready, as Scripture commands, to give an answer – no matter what someone may call us once they hear our response.

2) Return of German edition of Mein Kampf reveals endurace of even wicked ideas

Next, on Wednesday of last week the Washington Post ran on its front page below the fold the headline; ‘My Struggle’ Provokes a New One For Germany. This is one of those headlines that understates the story. In this case, “My Struggle” is a title and it is a title of one of most infamous works of human history, one of most infamous and evil works of literature ever written. Most of you will know this book if you know it in its German title, “Mein Kampf,” – My Struggle – by Adolf Hitler.

As Anthony Faiola report from Munich,

“Old copies of the offending tome are kept in a secure ‘poison cabinet,’ [that’s the term used by the government] a literary danger zone in the dark recesses of the vast Bavarian State Library. A team of experts vets every request to see one, keeping the toxic text away from the prying eyes of the idly curious or those who might seek to exalt it.”

Literary historian Florian Sapp said,

“This book is too dangerous for the general public,”

He was speaking as he carefully laid out a first edition of “Mein Kampf,” Adolf Hitler’s autobiographical manifesto of hate, as it is described, on a table in a restricted reading room there at the Bavarian State Library. Nevertheless writes Faiola,

“…the book that once served as a kind of Nazi bible, banned from domestic reprints since the end of World War II, will soon be returning to German bookstores from the Alps to the Baltic Sea.”

The prohibition on the reissue of the book was upheld for years by the state of Bavaria, by which the state owns the German copyright and legally blocked attempt to republish it is going to expire in December of 2015. And according to the Washington Post, the first new print run of “Mein Kampf” since Hitler’s death is due early next year.

The book is going to be released even as a new tide of anti-Semitism is sweeping throughout much of Europe. And there are new moral complexities even involved in the republication of this book. For one thing, the Bavarian government that had been banning the book is now going to profit by its sales because it effectively owns the only legal edition that is going to be issued, at least at first.

“…opponents are aghast, in part because the book is coming out at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Europe and as the English and other foreign-language versions of ‘Mein Kampf’ — unhindered by the German copyrights — are in the midst of a global renaissance.”

As if that’s not scary enough. The book is going to come out in an academically annotated form that will have notes and historical comments made by those who do not share the worldview of the book but are rather commenting on it. But as the Post says,

“Regardless of the academic context provided by the new volume, critics say the new German edition will ultimately allow Hitler’s voice to rise from beyond the grave.”

One man quote was Levi Salomon, spokesman for the Berlin-based Jewish Forum for Democracy and Against Anti-Semitism who said,

“I am absolutely against the publication of ‘Mein Kampf,’ even with annotations. Can you annotate the Devil? This book is outside of human logic.”

That is a brilliantly stated position and a brilliantly stated question. Can you annotate the devil? The answer that is, morally speaking, no, there is no academic response to this kind of hatred that is in anyway morally adequate. And yet this raises the question, once a book like “Mein Kampf” is written, can it possibly be truly eradicated, band and controlled? The answer to that is no. Even as this news article in the Washington Post made clear, if it was banned in Germany, it wasn’t banned elsewhere. It’s being used by Hindu nationalists in India, it has been used by racist and hatemongers in the United States, it has never been unavailable worldwide in numerous languages ever since Adolf Hitler wrote it and ever since Adolf Hitler died at his own hand at the end of World War II.

From a Christian worldview perspective, the most important thing for us to think about here is the endurance of ideas, including deadly evil ideas. The Christian worldview understands that ideas have consequences and horrifying ideas have horrifying consequences. This is one of the things we need to note very carefully, there is no question that the Christian moral verdict on Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” must be one of unrestrained condemnation. It must be one of the horrified responses in the actual horrors of what Adolf Hitler has called for in this book – he called for the elimination of the Jewish people.

One of the scariest aspects of “Mein Kampf” is that we can now understand that the German people had no right not to know what Adolf Hitler would do if he gained power because he stated exactly what he would do if he gained power in this book that was written long before he came close in any sense to gaining power in Germany. But gain power he did, leading to one of the most horrifying events in human history, the most horrifying event that dominates the history the 20th century.

This front-page article in the Washington Post affirms what we must know at all times and that is that we are in a battle of ideas, a battle of good ideas versus horrible ideas; a battle of good against evil. While you can’t reduce every single issue and certainly you can’t reduce every debate or controversy to a simple matter of good versus evil, one of most interesting things to note in recent years is that the relativism that was put forth by the postmodern worldview has had to be in retreat in recent years simply because the headlines coming in terms of the horrifying events such as the executions by the Islamic state or any number of other evil event that simply can’t be called anything other than evil that have  erupted into our consciousness in recent years, even in recent days and weeks.

But we can’t leave this without recognizing that one of most chastening realizations that comes to us is that sometimes the most horrible and evil ideas seem to have the longest life in traction. They seem to have attraction, they seem to have attractiveness, and they seem to have a tenacity that goes beyond what our moral imagination can comprehend. The republication of “My Struggle” – that is “Mein Kampf” – by Adolf Hitler in Germany, in a German edition, is evidence aplenty that we are in a struggle for ideas and that is a struggle we simply cannot avoid.

 

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 boyecollege.com.

 

Remember we are collection 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 in California this week for a very important conference, a summit on biblical inerrancy which is the Shepherd Conference this year held by Grace Community Church in Sun Valley and led by Dr. John MacArthur, the church’s pastor. It’s going to be a very important conference, a lot will be happening. I’d encourage you to watch my twitter feed – especially this week – and you’ll want to be following everything you can from this very important, that I believe is, historic conference.

 

Last week I was pleased to be interviewed by Marvin Olasky, veteran journalist, in his program known as Newsmakers. We’ll put up a link to that video interview at albertmohler.com , along with today’s edition of The Briefing.

 

I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

Genesis 24:61-25:34

Genesis 24:1-61

Newsmakers Interview with Marvin Olavsky

The Briefing 03-02-15

Podcast Transcript

1) Perennial conflict between evolution and Christian faith acknowledged by journalist

Science And Religion: Surveying The Field Of Battle, Forbes (John Farrell)

2) Return of German edition of Mein Kampf reveals endurace of even wicked ideas

‘Mein Kampf’: A historical tool, or Hitler’s voice from beyond the grave?, Washington Post (Anthony Faiola)

The Table of the Nations, the Tower of Babel, and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Part 2

In part 1 of this series I set out an exposition of Genesis 10-11. In part 2, we will look at the question of ethnic and racial diversity through the lens of biblical theology.

Now let’s consider how the rest of Scripture develops the table of nations. The apostle Paul clearly indicates that the dispersion of the nations was God’s plan all along. “And he made from one man, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place” (Acts 17:26).

God’ sovereign plan from the beginning was to fill the earth with human creatures — image bearers who would obey him by multiplying and filling the earth and by following the creation mandate in order to reflect the creator’s glory. Even after the fall, his purpose was that human creatures spread all over the globe and glorify his name — but of course now that would have to come through the redemption provided by Christ, the one who fulfills God’s promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to all the nations (Genesis 12:3).

This is made plain in Matthew 28:18–20, “Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations. Baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” Go into all the nations. Scripture is abundantly clear on this:

Mark 16:15, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”

Luke 24:46, “Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.”

Acts 1:8, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in all Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

So this great story of Scripture — the story the Bible tells that no one else is going to — tells us that God’s plan from the beginning was the dispersion of peoples. His judgment sowed confusion among those peoples because of their sin. And yet, Christ’s response was to say to his own, you are to go to all the nations. Repentance and the forgiveness of sins are to be declared in his name to all the nations. That task is complexified by the confusion of languages. But in the gospel, while we may not have the same language or the same ethnic heritage but we will have the same Christ. This is the glory of the gospel. God dispersed the nations into confusion. But Christ dispersed his disciples to save the nations. Out of these many nations God is making one new humanity. The real issue is not how people look but what people believe or more appropriate, in who they believe. The Table and the Tower ultimately point us to the necessity of thecross and the power of the gospel.

But the Bible does not even end there. In Revelation 5 we find yet another Table of the Nations.

“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’ And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’” (Revelation 5:1-10).

Again in Revelation 21 the nations appear:

“And I saw no temple in the city for its temple was the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be shut by day and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and honor of the nations.”

Thus, we have two tables and a tower. That second table — the marriage supper of the Lamb — tells us the end of the story and the glory of the story. The narrative of the gospel upends and refutes the stories offered by the world. Diversity is not an accident; it is a divine purpose. Diversity is not a problem; it is a divine gift. It does not reflect evolutionary development and social evolution; it reflects the imago Dei and the Genesis mandate to fill the earth.

Sin explains confusion and difficulty in communication. Sin explains hatred and animosity, racism and ethnocentricity. Seen in the light of the gospel, racial and ethnic differences are not accidental. They reflect the perfect plan of a perfect God. And they are not overcome by the gospel — they are glorified by the gospel. The community of the New Covenant looks like this people preparing for this second table, the table of the Lamb. The New Covenant community lives not by avoiding diversity of ethnicities, but by embracing and celebrating it. The New Covenant community lives looking forward to the marriage supper of the Lamb when men and women from every tongue, tribe, people, and nation will gather around the table of the king.

Today there are issues of justice and systemic wrong. This is why the church has often been wrong on these issues. The gospel needs to be preached to the church even before the church preaches the gospel to the world. We are the stewards of the only story that saves, the only story that leads to the healing of the nations and the gathering of a new humanity in Christ. The gospel is the only story that offers real hope and the only story that celebrates what the world fears. Principalities and powers offer many plans but no real hope. The gospel offers a hope that celebrates the breaking down of ethnic barriers and celebrates the sound of the gospel in different languages and tongues.

We look forward to that day when the table of the Lord will be set and all the nations will live in light of the father and of the Lamb. We have come from a table of nations and a tower of Babel to a covenant with Abraham and a new covenant in blood to a table set in honor of a Lamb. Diversity is not an accident or a problem — it’s a sign of God’s providence and promise. If the church gets this wrong, it’s not just getting race and ethnic difference wrong. It’s getting the gospel wrong. We cannot obey the Great Commission without celebrating the glory of the new humanity that only Christ can create — a new humanity that takes us from the table of the nations to the table of the Lamb.

 

This is Part 2 of a two-part series based upon my Spring Convocation address at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, “The Table of Nations, the Tower of Babel, and the Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Ethnic Diversity and the Radical Vision of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” delivered Tuesday, February 3, 2015. http://www.albertmohler.com/2015/02/0...

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.

Illustration of The Tower of Babel from Bedford Hours c. 1430