R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 338

The Briefing 10-24-2014

Podcast Transcript

1) As Ebola persists in America, important to remember and pray for the many afflicted in Africa

Doctor with Ebola in Manhattan hospital after return from Guinea, Reuters (Ellen Wulfhorst and Sebastien Malo)

Craig Spencer, Doctor in New York City, Is Sick With Ebola, New York Times (Marc Santora)

NBC’s Snyderman faces credibility issues, AP (David Bauder)

Ethicist Calls CPR Too Risky in Ebola, New York Times (Lawrence K. Altman)

Documenting with dignity in the Ebola zone, Washington Post (Michel du Cille)

In Ebola-Afflicted Liberia, Orphanages Make a Tragic Comeback, Wall Street Journal (Patrick McGroarty)

2) Attacks in Canada expose the myth of inevitable human progress

Terror in Ottawa, Wall Street Journal (Editorial Board)

Canada Worries as Extremism Lures More Abroad, New York Times (Marc Santora)

3) ‘Ratings creep’ in movies reveal a progressing desensitization to sin

The violent ‘Taken’ movies are rated PG-13. Do ratings make sense anymore?, Washington Post (Cecilia Kang)

Transcript: The Briefing 10-23-14

The Briefing

 

October 23, 2014

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

 

It’s Thursday, October 23, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Ottawa shooting example of terrorism’s purpose; to undo civilization

Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, is generally both a placid and a peaceful city. But on yesterday on Wednesday it turned into a place of carnage, where apparently an assassin shot dead a Canadian soldier standing guard the nation’s National War Memorial. That assassin then ran into Canada’s Parliament building and then ensued a shootout, in which eventually the assassin was himself shot. Speaking to the nation last night, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said the incident in Ottawa was a terrorist act. He also said that even last night it still remains very unclear whether the man was shot dead on Parliament Hill acted alone.

One of Canada’s major most influential newspapers, the Globe and Mail, reported last night that the federal government there in Canada had identified the suspected shooter as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, a man described as being in his early 30’s who was known the Canadian authorities. He had already been placed by those authorities on a list of high-risk travelers, and the Canadian government suspected that the recent convert to Islam was trying to travel abroad in order to join the international jihad. It is very telling that this suspect already had a long list of arrest and criminal convictions. And of course, the attacks that shut down Parliament Hill yesterday were following close on the heels of an attack on Monday that took place in Quebec in which two soldiers were run over and one of them was killed – also by an Islamic terrorist.

According to a report in Reuters, Monday’s attack was the first fatal attack on Canadian soil involving suspected Islamic militant. And it was the first incident since Canada agreed to join the US-led airstrikes against the Islamic State fighters who’ve taken or parts of Iraq and Syria. Canada, according to Reuters, sent six fighter jets to take part in the operations in Iraq. The 25-year-old attacker in Monday’s incident had posted on a website a quote from an early Muslim caliph Umar Ibn Khattab, who said,

“I will not calm down until I will put one cheek of a tyrant on the ground and the other under my feet, and for the poor and weak I will put my cheek on the ground”

All this represents something of a significant challenge for Canada; a nation that had often considered the war on terrorism to be a basic American problem. One that involved Canada mostly as terrorists were trying to use Canada as a means of gaining entry to the United States. All that has clearly now changed. Canada is itself now a target of Islamic terrorism, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper said as much to the Canadian people last night.

One of the things we need to think about, certainly as Christians, in addressing this kind of attack is the recognition that what’s taking place here is a terrorism that is explainable only in theological terms. We’re looking at something that the world clearly recognizes as evil, but the source of that evil is something the secular worldview is a great deal of difficulty explaining. How in the world can it be that someone raised within the context of the modern enlightened West – how can someone who has taken advantage of all of the benefits of modernity – how can someone who grew up with us and is lived amongst us, then turn on the entire civilization and try to undo it, and use terrorism as that means, and to kill people in order to send that message? That’s a vexing question. It’s answerable ultimately only in terms of the evil that theologically alone can be explained. Of the evil that is rooted in human heart as the result of human sinfulness and the fact that that sinfulness, though often restrained, can be let loose. And when it is let loose it takes on a terrifying dimensionality. That’s what we’re looking at here.

But thoughtful Christians also need to think about a different dimension of this issue, and that is this: terroristic attacks of this kind of nature taken out in public and meant to send a public message are clearly intended to undo civilization. To subvert the very existence of a civilized society. To make it impossible for people to trust one another. The kind of trust that is necessary for civil society to survive and to thrive. When you think about the early verses of Genesis 1, we’re told that God’s creative activity is seen in the evidence of bringing order out of disorder, of creation out of chaos. Humanly speaking, we get to see that same kind of process by God’s grace, when we see disorder come to order in human society. When we come to see chaos leave and a civilization appear. This kind of terrorism, biblically understood is an effort to reverse that process, to undo civilization, so that now chaos reigns and to embrace disorder rather than order. that is the heart of terrorism and that’s what makes terrorism itself whether found in Canada, the United States or anywhere in the world, so inherently dangerous and so scary.

2) Death of Ben Bradlee reminder of influence of media editors in framing news and opinion

The power and influence of the media in America, especially the so-called ‘old-line media’ is perhaps nowhere better illustrated than all the attention given to the death of Benjamin Bradlee, who served for 26 years as the newsroom director, that is, as the chief editor of the Washington Post. Ben Bradlee was a venerable journalist, one of most important journalists of the 20th century, and perhaps one of the greatest journalists of all time. It was Ben Bradlee, who transformed the Washington Post from a sleepy little newspaper, a daily published in the nation’s capital, to one of the three or four most influential papers in the United States and one of the top 10 or 20 throughout the world. In terms of American journalism Ben Bradlee was a powerhouse and he was an institution of sorts. And of course, when you’re looking at the second half of the 20th century, you’re looking at the influence of the Washington Post, not just as a newspaper, but as a major force in America’s political system. Most particularly, you cannot talk about the resignation of Richard M. Nixon as President of the United States without talking about the role in that process played by the Washington Post as a newspaper and by Ben Bradlee as an editor. Richard Nixon himself saw Ben Bradley and the Washington Post largely responsible for his downfall, and without any doubt both the paper, and its reporters, and Ben Bradlee as editor played a major part.

Indeed, looking back at the Watergate scandal, it’s apparent that America might never have known of that scandal but for the reporting of Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, and for the editorial support they receive from Ben Bradlee at the Washington Post. One measure of Ben Bradlee’s stature in American media is seen in the fact that his obituary ran on the front page of the New York Times, his rival newspaper. Marilyn Berger, writing for the Times writes,

“Ben Bradlee, who presided over The Washington Post’s Watergate reporting that led to the fall of President Richard M. Nixon and that stamped him in American culture as the quintessential newspaper editor of his era — gruff, charming and tenacious — died on Tuesday…”

He was 93. Now, again, it’s important to note here that the New York Times on its front page designated Ben Bradlee as “the quintessential newspaper editor of his era.” They also credited Ben Bradlee with leading the Washington Post into the first rank of American newspapers. As they write, “courting controversy and giving it standing as a thorn in the side of Washington officials.”

But there are two other aspects of life the Ben Bradlee that deserve our attention. Intelligent Christians, thinking about the media should pay attention to these two dimensions as well. The first is the fact that when you’re looking at Ben Bradlee (and his wife Sally Quinn), you’re looking at people who were not just reporting on and interested in the political system, they were actually active participants in it as well. Ben Bradlee was a very close personal friend of President John F. Kennedy, both before and after Kennedy was elected president. Bradlee was actually so close to the Kennedys that he was asked to be a part of the group that received Jacqueline Kennedy when she returned from Dallas and the president’s assassination.

This points what is called the participant-observer dilemma. If you’re close friend of an individual – an officeholder in this case – if you’re involved in the political process, and if you advocate for particular position, it’s very difficult indeed often implausible, to step back and to say that your newspaper can be offering an objective and unbiased report. Christians need to keep this very much in mind when we consider the fact that the media, and the especially the leaders of the media, are so closely allied with one wing of America’s political system, and that is the left-wing. With one party, the Democratic Party. And with one ideological perspective, and that is, the more liberal perspective. That’s a very important issue for us to understand – Ben Bradlee is a symbol of that identification.

The second thing to keep in mind is this; when you look at Ben Bradlee, when you look at the Washington Post, when you consider Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, what you’re looking at here is an investigative mode of journalism that is now considered to be normal, perhaps even admirable. It’s that which every American reporter and newspaper editor seems to hold out as aspiration. They want to have the same kind of fame as Woodward and Bernstein gained in terms of the Watergate coverage. But this has led to what many people describe as an adversarial press culture, where when it comes to the government, or basic and venerable institutions in American life, the press often seem to believe that the major purpose of being a newspaper reporter or an editor or for that matter any major figure in the news media is to find some way to bring disrepute upon an institution, upon a political leader.

Now there are checks and balances in our society and a very alert press is one of those checks and balances. That’s why the framers of the United States Constitution considered freedom of the press to be so absolutely vital to democracy. But when the press is given over to a certain kind of institutional cynicism and when members of the press see themselves as proudly part of an adversarial culture, this can’t be healthy for democracy either.

Finally, thinking Christians want to ponder the actual influence of newspaper editors, and editors in the larger world of the media in terms of framing both news and opinion. We often think of a report coming merely from a reporter, but editors play a very essential role. Editors decide to assign the reporter. Editors decide to let the story be written. Editors edit the story, conforming it to their own views and their own understanding of journalism. And editors often decide on the placement and the visibility the story itself. In other words, when you’re looking at a newspaper or when you’re considering an article found in any other kind of media outlet, or for that matter, if you watching some kind of news report on television, recognize that is not just a reporter – it’s an editor whose hand you are seeing and whose views you have to take into consideration. The difference is, of course, you generally don’t know who many those editors are that was hardly the case of Ben Bradlee. In USA Today, the publisher the paper declared that Ben Bradlee was “the greatest newspaper editor in history.” There may well be some argument about that, but there will be no arguing the fact that editors are important, and among them Ben Bradley was very important.

It’s also important to recognize, we couldn’t talk about the America, especially the Washington we know now, without the role played by Ben Bradlee.

3) Washington Post recognizes foolishness of hasty marijuana legalization

Next, speaking of the Washington Post, that paper ran an editorial just two days ago entitled “On Marijuana Legalization Plans the District Should Slow Down.” That’s a very interesting editorial for the Washington Post to run. The paper has been generally very favorable of liberalizing marijuana laws. Furthermore, the paper is generally if not almost exclusively, offering a liberal perspective on so many these issues. Given the moral revolution on the issue of marijuana in our culture, the kind of ‘put on the brakes’ editorial that appeared in this leading newspaper, just two days ago, deserves our attention.

The timing of the editorial has to do with the fact that marijuana is going to be on the ballot in the District of Columbia on November 4. The editors write,

“Most votes have yet to be cast in the District’s referendum on legalizing marijuana, but the D.C. Council is already making plans on how to regulate sales. The premature move is in keeping with the heedless rush to put the city’s imprimatur on use of a drug whose impacts are still not fully known. It is not too late for more prudent judgment to prevail; voters on Nov. 4 could slow the push for legalization by voting no on Initiative 71.”

As the editors explain, that initiative would legalize a person 21 years of age or older to possess up to 2 ounces of marijuana for so-called personal use, to grow up to six marijuana plants at home, and the transfer without payment up to 1 ounce of marijuana to another citizen, also over age 21 of the District of Columbia. Now here’s an interesting sentence in the editorial;

“Because of the District’s restrictions on what is subject to ballot approval, the initiative would not allow for sale of marijuana, creating a situation where having marijuana would be legal but getting it might require illegal acts.”

Now it would seem obvious that that singular sentence would point to the fact that the district is indeed irresponsibly rushing headlong into the legalization of marijuana. It’s going to legalize possession, but it’s going to make it impossible legally to buy it. In other words, it’s going to make one act legal while leaving the other necessary act illegal. The District of Columbia has already decriminalized marijuana. That’s not legalizing it, but is removing it from being a criminal act to one that requires nothing more than the payment of a $25 fine. For that reason, the newspaper editor say all the racial disparity issues of basically disappeared. They then accuse the District of Columbia of rushing headlong and irresponsibly into trying actually to legalize marijuana and they describe marijuana in very honest terms. They say, the drug might have harmful effects;

“Its active ingredient has been linked to memory problems, impaired thinking and weakened immune systems. And we question [wrote the editors] whether it is possible to legalize the drug for adults without sending a message to youth that its use is risk-free.”

Finally, the editors wrote in “waiting, the District would benefit from ongoing scientific research as well as the experience of states that only recently have legalized marijuana.” They conclude with this sentence; It is easier to let a genie out of the bottle than to try to stuff one back in.”

Now that’s a sentence that would apply to a good many issues, and it’s the kind of logic that the Washington Post editors should think about and employ more often.

4) California requires churches to cover abortions in blatant disregard of religious liberty

Just a few weeks ago we discussed that in California, the Department of Managed Health Care has now ordered all insurance providers to immediately begin offering full coverage for elective abortion (by the way, not just for the employee covered by the insurance but for qualified dependents as well). When we discussed this development just a few days ago, it had reference to the fact that the insurance commissioner there in the state of California has sent such notification to two Roman Catholic institutions of higher learning, to colleges, requiring those colleges – through the only insurance plans they would be able to purchase for their employees – to pay directly for insurance coverage for elective abortions, including surgical abortions. Those are the abortions whereby a child is literally cut to pieces before being removed from the womb.

When we did discuss those Roman Catholic colleges having received that notification, I made reference to the fact that there is nothing in that policy that would seem in any way to preclude the same kind of letter arriving at the doors of California’s churches. And now that has happened.

Courtney Crandell, writing for World magazine, tells us of the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Life Legal Defense Foundation have filed a complaint with the federal Department of Health and Human Services on behalf of seven churches now compelled to provide insurance coverage for elective abortions. Crandell tells us that it was in August that Michelle Rouillard, who is director of California’s Department of Managed Health Care, sent a letter informing insurance companies that California’s constitution and a 1975 state law require them to cover elective abortions in group plans. She then writes,

“Forcing churches to cover elective abortions assaults a fundamental American freedom. [and she cites ADF senior counsel, Casey Mattox who said] California is flagrantly violating the federal law that protects employers from being forced into having abortion in their health insurance plans.”

This is one of the things we need to watch very carefully. The advocates of abortion, including many appointive bureaucratic and elected officials are now becoming more and more radicalized in terms of their absolute intentionality to make abortion available as often, to as many people, under as many circumstances, with as much taxpayer support as might be possible. And they’re pushing the limits and boundaries of that possibility with every chance they get.

This action within California also appears, as the ADF and other attorneys have pointed out, to be in direct violation of federal law and that’s why these attorneys have appealed for relief to the federal government, to Department of Health and Human Services. But wait just a minute. That department is part of the Obama Administration, and it was that very same department, the Department of Health and Human Services that was at the center of the controversy over the denial religious liberty to companies Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods, those companies that won a landmark victory at the Supreme Court over the policies of that very department.

In an article published at the Federalist Casey Mattox, the lead attorney from the ADF on this case, wrote,

“ This California mandate is in blatant violation of federal law that specifically prohibits California from discriminating against health care plans on the basis that they do not cover abortion. Alliance Defending Freedom and Life Legal Defense Foundation have filed administrative complaints with the HHS Office of Civil Rights (which oversees this federal law) on behalf of individual employees and seven California churches forced into abortion coverage in violation of their conscience.”

He then writes this very important paragraph,

“What will be the administration and the Left’s response to this unprecedented attack on religious liberty? If they couldn’t stand with Hobby Lobby because it was a for-profit business, not a church, and because they thought its conscience concern was misplaced on the abortifacient nature of Plan B, will they now demand religious liberty for churches forced to cover elective abortion? If not now for religious liberty, when?”

Sadly enough, Mr. Mattox, I fear the answer to that question is never. We are now so often seen erotic liberty triumph over religious liberty and in this case, we’re also seeing abortion rights triumph over religious liberty rights. That’s not a new pattern, but it is all the more ominous given this development in California, one that in the long term is not just about California. It’s not just about these churches. It’s about every single church in all 50 states and about the tightening of the noose of religious liberty.

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. I’m speaking to you from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 10-23-2014

Podcast Transcript

1) Ottawa shooting example of terrorism’s purpose; to undo civilization

Suspected killer in Ottawa shootings had a disturbing side, Toronto Globe and Mail (Colin Freeze and Les Perreaux)

Personal woes plagued Canadian who killed soldier: records, lawyer, Reuters (Allison Lampert)

2) Death of Ben Bradlee reminder of influence of media editors in framing news and opinion

Ben Bradlee, Washington Editor and Watergate Warrior, Dies at 93, New York Times (Marilyn Berger)

3) Washington Post recognizes foolishness of hasty marijuana legalization

On marijuana legalization plans, the District should slow down, Washington Post (Editorial Board)

4) California requires churches to cover abortions in blatant disregard of religious liberty

Churches sue California over abortion coverage mandate, World Magazine (Courtney Crandell)

California Orders Churches To Fund Abortions—Or Else, The Federalist (Casey Mattox)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 10-22-14

The Briefing

 

October 22, 2014

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

 

It’s Wednesday, October 22, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Pres. Obama’s public shifts on same-sex marriage reflect moral shifts in larger society

The moral revolution that is so reshaping our society seems to loom forward right in our eyes virtually every single day. Now, in the October 27 edition of The New Yorker, law analyst Jeffrey Toobin offers an interview with President Barack Obama about his nominees to the Supreme Court. And in the midst of this conversation with the president, Jeffrey Toobin asks him about his position on gay marriage. And as the New York Times now reports, the president’s response indicates his full evolution on the issue of same-sex marriage.

The word evolution was the president’s own, as he has spoken repeatedly of the fact that his views on the subject of same-sex marriage have evolved. But as we’re considering the process of moral change, when we’re looking at the political and legal realities that are now framing so many of our headlines, when we look to the question ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ the President of the United States now offers us a classic example of how moral change is taking place in the United States – or how moral change has taken place in a single individual, but not just a common citizen, but the one who has been elected as President of the United States.

Peter Baker’s very brief article in the New York Times on the interview is just a paragraph, but as he writes,

“President Obama says he now believes that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage in all 50 states but expressed support for the more incremental approach taken by the Supreme Court. [He went on to write] Mr. Obama opposed same-sex marriage until 2012, when he came out in favor of letting states decide the issue for themselves and urged them to embrace such unions. In an interview with Jeffrey Toobin of The New Yorker, posted online on Monday, he said same-sex marriage should be a right for all Americans regardless of where they lived. But he added that ‘given the direction of society, for the court to have allowed the process to play out the way it has may make the shift less controversial and more lasting.’

Baker then ends the article,

“The court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act last year and, in a separate ruling, effectively allowed same-sex marriage to proceed in California.”

That one paragraph news item in the New York Times simply fails the test of saying enough. Furthermore, there is a mistake – a very obvious mistake – imbedded in Baker’s report. The mistake is found in this sentence,

“Mr. Obama opposed same-sex marriage until 2012, when he came out in favor of letting states decide the issue for themselves and urged them to embrace such unions.”

The problem is, the President did not oppose same-sex marriage all the way until 2012; more about that in just a moment.

First, we need to look at the interview itself. Jeffrey Toobin is a legal analysis for CNN, he often writes for The New Yorker, he is one of the nation’s most influential journalists, and he scored a big coup with an interview with President of the United States. The major focus of the interview was a review of President Obama’s looming legacy in the federal courts. Toobin writes,

“Obama has had two hundred and eighty judges confirmed, which represents about a third of the federal judiciary. Two of his choices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, were nominated to the Supreme Court; fifty-three were named to the circuit courts of appeals, two hundred and twenty-three to the district courts, and two to the Court of International Trade. When Obama took office, Republican appointees controlled ten of the thirteen circuit courts of appeals; Democratic appointees now constitute a majority in nine circuits. Because federal judges have life tenure, nearly all of Obama’s judges will continue serving well after he leaves office.”

That is the major focus of the Toobin interview with the President, and it is a major focus of our concern as well. Time in again we are reminded that elections have consequences and the election of the President of the United States often has consequences – especially in terms of his ability to appoint federal judges – that last not only far beyond his electoral term, but often generations beyond. The same mistake made by Peter Baker shows up also in the interview by Jeffrey Toobin. He writes,

“Obama opposed marriage equality until May of 2012. He told me that he now believes the Constitution requires all states to allow same-sex marriage, an argument that his Administration has not yet made before the Supreme Court.”

That’s a very significant sentence because here the President of the United States shifts his position from that which he articulated in May of 2012 when he was running for re-election, at that point he did say his position on same-sex marriage had evolved to the point that he now affirmed it. But he also said that it should be left up to the states. In his interview just published with Jeffrey Toobin he says to the contrary, it should not be left up to the states but rather the federal courts, at whatever level, should force the states to endorse and legalize same-sex marriage. Toobin recognizes that this is a major issue and as many in the media have suggested, it is the final step in the evolution of Barack Obama’s position on same-sex marriage. But he also notes, and this is a matter of integrity and honest, that his administration (that is the President’s own administration) has not yet made the argument that the President just made before the Supreme Court – even when it had the opportunity.

This issue of evolving on the question of same-sex marriage is not unique to President Obama, but he certainly is the most influential political figure to have traced his own evolution on the issue or at least a good part of it. Similarly, former Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, also waited until after 2012 to endorse same-sex marriage – well in advance of an anticipated race for the democratic presidential nomination.  But looking at President Obama as a test case in terms of the moral and political change in America, it is important to consider the fact that here you have the New York Times and The New Yorker – two very influential media outlets – suggesting that the President’s evolution is basically one of three steps. According to this scenario, the President opposed same-sex marriage up until 2012, he certainly opposed it is 2008 when he was running for the office of President. And in 2008 he said that marriage was the union of a man and a woman, exclusively so, even though he was – as he described himself – a fierce opponent of civil unions or domestic partnerships. In 2012 he announced that he had evolved to the place where he now supported the legalization of same-sex marriage; leaving it up to the states. And in 2014, in this interview with Jeffrey Toobin, the third stage now appears when the President says, ‘no it shouldn’t be left up to the states, the courts should finally decide the issue.’

But this three stage scenario simply doesn’t fit the facts, and this makes the story not less interesting, but far more interesting. Back in 2012, shortly after the President announced his new support for same-sex marriage, Becky Bowers of Politifact.com wrote an article entitled, President Barack Obama’s shifting stance on gay marriage. But as she demonstrates, and is well attested and documented, the President’s evolution on the question of same-sex marriage is far more complicated than that three stage process between 2008 and 2014. Quite memorably, Bowers writes,

“Obama was in favor of same-sex marriage before he was against it — and before he was for it again.”

She goes back to 1996 when Barack Obama was then running for a state senate seat in the state of Illinois. He then told one of the gay newspapers in Chicago, a paper known as Outlines, that he supported same-sex marriage. That was in 1996, and in that year, on the forum granted to him by the newspaper, he wrote,

“I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”

Bowers then notes that when the questionnaire was sent by the same newspaper two years later, the future president wavered. He said that he was ‘undecided.’ In 2004, when he was running for the United States senate, the future President said,

“I am a fierce supporter of domestic-partnership and civil-union laws. I am not a supporter of gay marriage as it has been thrown about, primarily just as a strategic issue. I think that marriage, in the minds of a lot of voters, has a religious connotation. …”

In 2006 he defined marriage in his book The Audacity of Hope, defining it as between a man and a woman. In August 2008, just four years later when he was running first for President of the United States, he told California pastor Rick Warren,

“I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman. Now, for me as a Christian, it is also a sacred union. God’s in the mix.”

He then told Warren,

“I am not somebody who promotes same-sex marriage, but I do believe in civil unions.”

Just a few weeks later, still running for president the first time, he told MTV,

“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

But in 2010 he told a group of liberal bloggers,

“I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve, including mine.”

The President’s acknowledgment of what he termed an evolution in morality, referencing himself was a sign of things to come. And that evolution showed up in 2012 when running for re-election, he endorsed same-sex marriage and called for its legalization but not by the courts but rather by political action state-by-state. And then the evolution was complete just this week in that important interview published in The New Yorker when he tells Jeffrey Toobin, ‘Now’s the time for the courts to act.’ He believes there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage for all Americans, regardless of the state in which they live. Now here’s what we need to watch, the general pattern of President Obama’s evolution on the issue of same-sex marriage is described as him having been against it, then for it, now for it all the way to the courts; but in reality he was for it before he was against it. Or it actually follows this pattern: he was for it, then he was ambivalent, then he was ambivalently for it, than he was fully for it, now he’s fully for it all the way to encouraging the courts to act and to force the legalization of same-sex marriage coast to coast.

We do not have the ability to read another person’s mind or heart, but we do have the ability to read their words. And in this case President Obama’s words are quite clear about his evolution; up and down some kind of strange evolutionary trail. But the main purpose in pointing to this today, given the president’s most recent statements in his interview is that it’s not so much really about the president’s full evolution on this issue, but the larger society. Just about everyone close to President Obama concedes that they understand that he’s always been for same-sex marriage. But they have even acknowledged, rather openly, even within his campaign that the president as candidate was forced to speak against same-sex marriage, simply by political expediency. But the moral change that has taken place in this country has not only removed that expediency, it has actually shifted its direction. So the president who had to say he was against same-sex marriage in 2008 is now believed to have politically benefited – just four years later – by endorsing same-sex marriage. And now that the evolution is even further complete, the president appears to be positioning himself for a place in history on what so many call the ‘right side of history,’ believing that the legalization of same-sex marriage will in quite short order become something that is just seen as a necessary and natural outworking of America’s liberty motif; of its principle of freedom and of course of equality and inclusion.

But before we leave this we need to note something else; if President Obama, representing so many in his generation and cultural elite, actually supported same-sex marriage all the way back in 1996 (and the president clearly did in his own handwritten affirmation), then that tells us that the moral shift that is now taking place in the larger American culture first took place amongst the intellectual elites. They first took place amongst liberals and progressives who came to the understanding that marriage simply had to be revolutionized. And they have used all manner of means in order to accomplish that revolution. What we’re noticing in the political arena is simply the outworking of what had been happening at a much deeper level. At deeper levels of the culture, including not only the law but popular entertainment Hollywood and the entire cultural equation.

So perhaps the take-home of the interview in The New Yorker and the larger consideration of President Obama’s evolution on the question is this; once again, elections have consequences. And furthermore,  politics reveals the moral shift, it doesn’t so much cause it; it reflects it. That is reflected in the president’s changing positions on same-sex marriage; from 1996 to 1998 to 2004 to 2008 to 2012 to 2014. Perhaps only the president knows where he will land next.

2) Enormous demographic shifts in US present new Great Commission opportunities

USA Today in today’s edition tells us that we are in a massive period of demographic change that they are calling the ‘second great immigration wave in American history.’ But the USA Today cover story is not only dealing with the increasing diversity of the American culture – especially in terms of race and ethnicity, it’s also pointing to the fact that for the first time in American history this immigration wave is touching not just the coast and not just the major cities, but much smaller areas as well. As reporters Greg Toppo and Paul Overberg write,

“Cities and towns far removed from traditional urban gateways such as New York, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco are rapidly becoming some of the most diverse places in America…[they go on to write] Small metro areas such as Lumberton, N.C., and Yakima, Wash., and even remote towns and counties — such as Finney County, Kan., or Buena Vista County, Iowa— [they’ve seen a stunning new diversity in terms of waves of immigration].”

But then comes this stunning insight in the USA Today front-page story; this means, says the paper, that

“the next person you meet in this country — at work, in the library, at a coffee shop or a movie ticket line — will probably be of a different race or ethnic group than you.”

This is a bold assertion and documentation of the fact that the new immigration trend has brought demographic change to the extent that the white minority in America – that’s right minority – is now outnumbered by those of different races and ethnicities to the point that whatever one’s race or ethnicity, the person you are most likely to meet next in a random setting is someone of a different race or ethnicity, and that’s just now.

Discussing the new measure of the Diversity Index, the reporters write

“This is just the beginning. Barring catastrophe or a door-slam on immigration, the Diversity Index is on track to top 70 by 2060, [and that will mean that] there will be less than a 1-in-3 chance that the next person you meet will share your race or ethnicity, whatever it is: white, black, American Indian, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Hispanic.”

In one truly revealing anecdote, the reporters tell us that when health authorities went to the area – to the neighborhood – where the Ebola victim who died in Dallas had been resident, they discovered that even in that very small neighborhood in housing complex they had to translate their message about the urgent health considerations into eight different languages.

Commenting on the new report, William Frey, author of a new book entitled Diversity Explosion: How New Racial Demographics Are Remaking America, he said, ‘we should be really happy that we had this large minority growth in the United States.’ He went on to say that the new minorities of Hispanics, Asians, and multiracial Americans, are arriving at the very same time the white population is growing very slowly and soon is to be declining for the younger part of the population. As Frey points out, if we did not have these new waves of immigration coming (with the immigrants often having children a higher birth rates than the Americans they are joining) we would now face a net reduction in the American population and that would have all kinds of negative consequences for the country. And as USA Today says, William Frey puts it rather bluntly, noting that in about 10 years the USA’s white population will not only be crowded out; it will actually start to shrink.

Frey said,

“A lot of people don’t realize this…It’s the full-scale demographic scope of all this that’s really important for us to get our arms around because it’s really important for our future as a country.”

And undoubtedly, this massive change is very important for our country. But this is where Christians have to understand it’s even more important for the church. We are now looking at the reality that America is becoming a vast, fascinating, multiethnic and multiracial mission field. We are now becoming a nation where we can reach so many people groups, including previously unreached people groups, right here in our own nation. And often, as this remarkable story in USA Today today’s edition points out, right in our own neighborhoods – not only on the coasts, not only major cities, but often in smaller regional communities and even in the small and rural and agrarian communities that dot the map of the United States.

We will either look at this and see it merely is demographics, or we will see it as Christians must as a Great Commission opportunity. We will see that we face, and our churches face, the very real challenge of arranging our ministry and strategizing our missiology and directing our hearts and minds so that we are ready to be a Great Commission people with the new America very much in view. And as this article in USA Today – and again this is today’s edition you can go and read for yourself – is not just a matter of what America is about to be, it’s a matter of what America already is. In terms of the Great Commission, right here in our home, right here in the United States, right in our own towns, we’ve never faced such a Great Commission responsibility. We have never faced such a Great Commission opportunity.

3) Rise of divorce among those over 50 reveals depth of marriage crisis

Finally, while we’re thinking about demographics, we need to point to something that should concern us. Brigid Schulte, writing for Washington Post, tells us that there’s a new demographic trend we also ought to understand; and that is this there is a massive surge in divorce among older Americans.

She writes,

“Since 1990, the divorce rate for Americans over the age of 50 has doubled, and more than doubled for those over the age of 65. At a time when divorce rates for other age groups has stabilized or dropped, fully one out of every four people experiencing divorce in the United States is 50 or older, and nearly one in 10 is 65 or older, [this] according to a new report by Susan L. Brown and I-Fen Lin, sociologists at Bowling Green State University.”

This is devastating news. This is telling us that America’s divorce culture has now reached all the way from the most traditional age of divorce, and that is in the 40s and 50s, into the later period of adult life, after in many cases sustained decades of marriage. One out of 10 divorces now taking place for those 65 and older.

This is the kind of information that should shake us to the core in understanding the depth of our marriage crisis. Even as we understand that the headlines are so often on the issue of same-sex marriage (and that question simply cannot be avoided not even, it seems, for an hour), the larger issue of marriage is pointing to the reality that it’s crisis began long before same-sex marriage was ever imaginable. Long before someone like Barack Obama would even be asked the question. Long before same-sex marriage was on the horizon, it was divorce that was the fundamental reality, the subversion of marriage. And there can be virtually no question that over the long haul, it will be divorce it will cause far more damage to marriage than even the legalization of so-called same-sex marriage.

Interesting, one of the reasons some observers are suggesting that there is this rise – and that is an exponential rise – in the number divorces among older Americans is that Americans are living longer and marriage is just aren’t lasting that long. But this is where Christians had better get right; we are not making about the continuing marriage for a very long time. We’re making a vow to continue in marriage ‘till death do us part.’ That’s a fundamental difference, and we’d better get fundamentally right.

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. I’m speaking to you from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 10-22-2014

Podcast Transcript

1) Pres. Obama’s public shifts on same-sex marriage reflect moral shifts in larger society

The Obama Brief, New Yorker (Jeffrey Toobin)

Obama Broadens Support for Same-Sex Marriage, New York Times (Peter Baker)

President Barack Obama’s shifting stance on gay marriage, Politifact (Becky Bowers)

2) Enormous demographic shifts in US present new Great Commission opportunities

Second immigration wave lifts diversity to record high, USA Today (Greg Toppo and Paul Overberg)

3) Rise of divorce among those over 50 reveals depth of marriage crisis

Till Death Do Us Part? No way. Gray Divorce on the Rise, Washington Post (Brigid Schulte)

Transcript: The Briefing 10-21-14

The Briefing

 

October 21, 2014

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

 

It’s Tuesday, October 21, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Political shift on same sex marriage result of moral and underlying theological revolution

The cover story of The Economist this week simply tells the story of the gay rights evolution. And the article on the United States has a very simple and straight forward title – actually it’s just four words – “So far, so fast.” The editors then go back just 10 years, just a single decade, to the year 2004 when Massachusetts became the first state in the United States to legalize same-sex marriage. As the magazine acknowledges, most people back then, just in 2004, believed that Massachusetts was an outlier; that it would be unlikely that a good number of other states would follow. Meanwhile it certainly seemed that the cultural and moral momentum was with the defenders of marriage as the union exclusively of a man and a woman. But that was 10 years ago and reviewing that period (the last decade) from 2004 to 2014, the magazine writes,

“Marriage traditionalists crowed that the people would never accept a hare-brained idea foisted upon them by homosexual activists and their elitist friends. Rare and brave was the politician who supported gay marriage. Barack Obama opposed it in his 2008 presidential campaign, despite what he promised would be his ‘fierce advocacy’ of gay and lesbian equality. Yet today [writes the magazine] gay marriage enjoys solid majority support, a change in popular opinion unforeseen by equality supporters and opponents alike.”

The magazine then makes the acknowledgment that the United States of America is a country in which, traditionally and generally, major change on social and moral issues has come slowly. But the moral revolution in human sexuality, homosexuality in particular, has not come slowly. And as the editors of The Economist points out,

“…one is hard pressed to think [now] of any precedent.”

They also point out that public policy has swung very sharply. They write,

“In 2012, after Mr Obama renounced his own opposition, gay marriage was approved by plebiscite in three states, and the one attempt to ban it failed.”

They end that paragraph by writing,

“For homosexual Americans, it is not just a new era. It is a new country.”

The central importance of this cover story in The Economist is the fact that it serves as a milestone in the same moral revolution that it actually covers. And it’s not the first time that the magazine has done this. Back in 1995, almost two decades ago, The Economist ran one of the first cover stories advocating the legalization of same-sex marriage. The cover was a wedding cake that showed two men upon it with the words “Let them Wed.” But now the magazine serves another purpose; one of the most respected magazines in the world in terms of journalism and opinion, this is an Economist cover story that tells us that the moral revolution isn’t just now taking place, it is basically already accomplished. That is exactly the vantage point taken by the editors of the magazine. They ask the question, what happened? Then they write this,

“Social change so marked and rapid can come only from a confluence of causes, but the most important was probably a change in moral judgment.”

That’s profoundly important because here you have a secular authority, not someone writing from within the Christian worldview, but someone looking at it with some dispassionate secular interest, writing that the legalization of homosexual marriage, that the normalization of homosexual relationships, could only become possible because of an underlying – indeed a vast underlying – moral change. They then write,

“Moral disapproval underlay not just opposition to same-sex marriage, but also support for the whole panoply of laws and customs that have historically discriminated against gay people. As it waned, support for same-sex marriage waxed. By 2013, nearly 60% had no moral problem with same-sex relations. Given that America, like most places, has viewed homosexuality as wicked since more or less the beginning of time, approval by a wide majority represents a watershed not just in contemporary politics but also in cultural history. This reversal, even more than sentiment about marriage as such, was the seminal change in public opinion. No anti-gay policy is likely to withstand it.”

Of all the news coverage and analysis concerning the moral revolution on homosexuality, this may well be the most important single paragraph published as yet. Once again, the issue is the fact that The Economist, writing from a secular worldview, points to the fact that there has been a vast moral change. That’s a very significant insight because many people looking at the revolution of homosexuality want to suggest that it came about by merely legal or political means. But Christians understanding how worldviews operate and how cultures are formed understand that the politics and the courts are actually the product of a moral culture; it never works the other way around. The courts and the politics may influence the moral culture, but particularly in democratic governments eventually it is the morality that produces the politics. And in this case, that is exactly what has happened and importantly, The Economist recognizes it. After all, the magazine uses the straight forward language of morality; suggesting that the previous condemnation of same-sex marriage (even as a proposition) was due, in the magazines language, to moral disapproval of homosexuality itself. And thus, the affirmation of same-sex marriage requires the affirmation of homosexuality. And that is exactly the great moral revolution we have experienced in just the last several years – perhaps in just the last decade.

But Christians understand something even more fundamental; the morality itself is produced by a theology, even amongst those who do not believe themselves to be theological. It’s because basic judgments about reality before morality, basic judgments about the existence of God and the meaning of humanity are required for the formation of moral judgment.  And for that reason, when you have a revolution in morality, it also requires something that preceded it; and in this case, it is undoubtedly the pattern of the secularization of the culture. The secularization of American culture, falling rather fast on the heels of Europe, demonstrates the absolute loss of the binding authority of the Christian conscience, the Christian worldview, and most particularly of the Christian Scriptures; the Bible. The moral disapproval of homosexuality was rooted deeply in the Christian tradition and in the ongoing influence of Christian morality. And thus Christians understand the formula, taking it one step further than The Economist. The Economist points to the political and legal change and says ‘that required a prior moral change,’ but Christians say not only is it true that the political and legal revolution first required a moral revolution, we also understand that the moral revolution itself required a theological revolution – and that, at the very base – is the most important issue of all.

2) Supreme Court’s inaction on same-sex marriage fosters further legalization and confusion

As we have said, another one of the milestones in terms of the gay marriage revolution was what took place on October 6, 2014; and of course, as you will remember, what took place was something that didn’t happen. That was the Supreme Court of the United States declined (indeed refused) to grant an appeal to all of the states that had sought such an appeal after lower courts had struck down their state amendments or legalization defining marriage exclusively as a man and a woman.  But now, just two weeks later, it is very clear that the supreme courts inaction was just as momentous as it appeared at the time. It might have been a rather cowardly act, but it is one that will have momentous consequences. The editors of Businessweek, writing of the Supreme Court’s decision back on October 6 writes,

“By inaction it effectively legalizes gay marriage in most of the United States,”

Indeed, just over the last week several states have been listed now in the majority of states that have legal same-sex marriage. It now appears very likely that all 50 states will have legal same-sex marriage in fairly short order. As the editors of Businessweek summarizes,

“The tide of legalization will not be reversed.”

And in that statement the editors of Businessweek are likely to have stated the truth. But now, as we said, two weeks after that October 6 development, there are key questions about the constitutional health of the United States Supreme Court behaving in this way.

Richard Wolf writing over the weekend for USA Today writes,

“The Supreme Court opened its 2014 term this month with major actions on same-sex marriage, voting rights and abortion — all handled in private, without explanation or even a breakdown of how the various justices voted. No oral arguments were held. The two sides in each dispute submitted lengthy briefs summing up their arguments, but when it came time to rule, the justices did not return the favor. It took the court just 17 words Friday to clear the way for gays and lesbians in Alaska to get married. Nor [wrote Wolf] did the justices explain their actions or publicize their votes on the 11 new cases they decided to hear this winter, or the more than 1,900 they turned down. They simply issued lists of grants and denials, leaving it to the lawyers and journalists who follow the court to speculate as to the whys and wherefores.”

Richard Wolf is on to something of great importance here. It isn’t healthy, not in a democracy, for the nation’s highest court to operate on such monumental issues with no explanation of its decisions. Eric Segall, a law professor at Georgia State University, the author of a book soon to come out entitled Supreme Secrecy, he writes,

“All of America wants to know what they’re thinking, and they refuse to let us know,”

But as Wolf points out, there could even more severe consequences than curiosity because the lower courts, guided by the Supreme Court, are now left to wonder of the reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s decision – even when the decision is a non-decision, or when the action is a non-action; as it was with the case of same-sex marriage.

Meanwhile, before leaving this issue, I want to draw attention to an important article by Mona Charen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center that ran in several newspapers across the country, including the Sunday edition of the Birmingham News. Charen writes about the appearance on Fox News Sunday, back on October 12, of lawyer Ted Olson, one of the two lawyers in the appeal of the California Proposition 8 case.

Appearing there on Fox News Sunday, Ted Olson offered his argument for the legalization of same-sex marriage and his justification for the Supreme Court taking its action. But, as Charen notes, Ted Olson made a fundamentally contradictory argument. She writes,

“Appearing on set Fox News Sunday to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to let stand a number of judicial rulings overturning the acts of legislators and/or voters in 16 states, famed advocate Ted Olson offered the kind of reasoning that, in his former incarnation as a conservative, he would have scorned. ‘Over 59 percent of Americans now believe that marriage equality should be the law of the land,’ he proclaimed. Seconds later he seemed to contradict himself: “We have a Constitution and Bill of Rights precisely because we want protections from majority rule.”

Like Mona Charen, did you hear the contradiction?

Charen then writes,

“Which is it, a fundamental right that ought to be recognized without regard to majority views, or a popular view that deserves to be enshrined in the Constitution by the courts just because it’s polling well? [Charen then writes,] If it’s true that large majorities have changed their minds on same-sex marriage, why not leave the matter to state legislatures and voters rather than undemocratically taking the question out of their hands?”

Charen nails Ted Olson in his contradictory argument, and it’s something we ought to note quite carefully Because when we look at the arguments made by the advocates of same-sex marriage as to why it was so necessary for the courts to act on their behalf, they’ve made two arguments, but they’re absolutely contradictory. On the one hand, they say, ‘we need the courts to take action because we have to protect gays and lesbians from discrimination by the majority.’ But then they come back, just second later to say, ‘oh, but the majority is with us! The majority agrees with the legalization of same sex marriage!’

Well, in most realms of life, you can’t have it both ways. But, if you’re a lawyer making a case, as Ted Olson is so accustomed to making, you make whatever argument works. And in his case, both of these arguments together have served him well, even though few people seem to note they’re mutually contradictory. Either the people support same-sex marriage, or they don’t. If the people support same-sex marriage, if public support for same-sex marriage is as high as they claim, then you do not need the courts to act.

Charen also notes one very chilling aspect of Olson’s appearance on Fox News, and that is this; when he was pressed to define marriage and the purpose of marriage, he couldn’t come up with an answer. Pressed repeatedly, all he would do is change the subject. Again, to marriage as a fundamental right.

When it comes to the aims and purposes of marriage, he seems to be absolutely clueless. But that’s the kind of clueless that’s absolutely inexcusable.

3) Hillsong pastor’s vagueness on homosexuality points to value of Bible’s specificity on sin

Finally, shifting to New York City, Michael Paulson of the New York Times over the weekend reported,

“The pastor of one of the more influential global megachurches has declared that his church is in “an ongoing conversation” about same-sex marriage — saying that it is appropriate to consider the words of the Bible alongside the changing culture and the experience of people in the pews.”

As Paulson writes, the comments were made by Brian Houston, the senior pastor of Hillsong, and they immediately attracted concern from both the right and from the left. And as many denominations and congregations are struggling with how to respond to the rapid expansion of gay rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage, Paulson writes, Brian Houston found himself right in the midst of a controversy.

His church, based in Australia, now has a very prominent congregation in New York City, thus it drew the attention of the New York Times.

“The leaders of Hillsong [writes Paulson, have been avoiding confrontation on the issue of]homosexuality for some time, and the pastor of Hillsong’s New York City campus, Carl Lentz, has declined to take a public position on same-sex marriage.”

But at a news conference on Thursday in New York, Brian Houston (the senior pastor of the entire movement) said,

“The world we live in, whether we like it or not, is changing around and about us…The world’s changing, and we want to stay relevant as a church, so that’s a vexing thing.”

The very vexing thing was the fact that Mr Houston said he didn’t want to state what the position of his church was on the position of homosexuality, and on the issue of same-sex marriage. Later on Friday, the very next day, after a story ran in Religion News Service that caused a furor, a spokesman released a statement saying that Brian Houston lives by “what the Bible says.”

The statement also said,

“It’s very easy to reduce what you think about homosexuality to just a public statement, and that would keep a lot of people happy…but we feel at this point, that it is an ongoing conversation, that the real issues in people’s lives are too important for us just to reduce it down to a yes or no answer in [the media]. So we’re on the journey with it.”

In the written statement released to at least some in the media, Brian Houston said,

“My personal view on the subject of homosexuality would line up with most traditionally held Christian views. I believe the writings of Paul are clear on this subject.”

That’s an answer that isn’t an answer at all. Or, at least, it’s an answer that’s so sideways and vague that it’s hard to know exactly what Brian Houston means to communicate, if indeed he means to communicate anything clear at all. He well knows that there’s a great deal of controversy, given the fact that there are revisionist arguments about the apostle Paul. Is he talking about the traditional understanding of the apostle Paul? Or is he talking about embracing the arguments made by the revisionist, more liberal scholars who have turned Paul on his head? When he says that his personal view on the subject of homosexuality would line up with the most traditionally held Christian views, why didn’t he simply state what those views are?

This raises a huge question from the Christian worldview. A huge question that has everything to do with the gospel. Does the Bible’s very clear specificity on the issues of sin serve the purpose of helping sinners to understand their sin and thus their need for a Savior? That is what the Christian church has believed for two thousand years. The obvious alternative to that the Scripture’s specificity on sin is something of an embarrassment that we have to overcome.

This is a crucial issue, not just in terms of the question of the church’s position on homosexuality; it’s a crucial issue in terms of our understanding of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture, and our understanding of the gospel. What is it that persons must repent of in order to come to Christ and be saved? What are the sins that point out our need for a Savior?

One of the grave dangers in terms of the moral revisionism, is that when we say that sin is not sin, or even – not even going that far – if we mitigate sin or even euphemize it, we confuse sinners about their peril. We do not help them understand their need for a Savior, we cloud that very question.

A quick look at a list of sins such as that found in Romans 1 points out the fact that the specificity of the Bible’s indictment of our sin is not unique to the sins of homosexuality, of same sex acts. But rather, to the sins of every single human being. By the time Paul finishes his catalog of indicted sins in Romans 1, every single one of us, every single human being, is indicted as a sinner. A sinner desperately in need of a Savior.

There are two other points that must be asserted here. In the first place, any church that tries to dodge the question will find not only that that fails in terms of ethical and gospel principle, but it also fails in terms of practice; it fails pragmatically. Because the world is not going to wait and assume that a non-answer is a satisfactory dodge.

The second point is well made by Andrew Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Writing in response to Hillsong’s action, in terms of Hillsong’s statements, made in an article published in the Federalist, Andrew Walker points out the profoundly true point that a non-answer in a case like this is actually an answer.

A non-answer on a question of this volatility, of this contemporary relevance and pressure is indeed an answer. The non-answer means, ‘you know the answer we intend to give, or at least you know that the answer we will have to give is not one we’re comfortable giving.’ As always,  the fundamental issue here is the authority of Scripture, and of course the integrity of the gospel. But just consider the parallels in a couple of the stories we’ve considered today. When the Supreme Court decided to take no action, it was actually a profound action. And when a church says we’re not going to give an answer, in the end, they just gave an answer.

That’s true of course, not just for a congregation, but for every single believer, for every Christian. When asked a question of this importance, a non-answer is an answer.

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com you can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boyecollege.com. I’ll speaking to you from Raleigh, North Carolina and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

The Briefing 10-21-2014

Podcast Transcript

1) Political shift on same sex marriage result of moral and underlying theological revolution

So far, so fast, The Economist

2) Supreme Court’s inaction on same-sex marriage fosters further legalization and confusion

The Supreme Court’s Decisive Indecision, Bloomberg Businessweek (Editorial Board)

Supreme Court’s 2014 term off to a stealthy start, USA Today (Richard Wolf)

Answering Ted Olson, National Review Online (Mona Charen)

3) Hillsong pastor’s vagueness on homosexuality points to value of Bible’s specificity on sin

Megachurch Pastor Signals Shift in Tone on Gay Marriage, New York Times (Michael Paulson)

Statement from Brian Houston – Senior Pastor, Hillsong Church Re: recent media comments on homosexuality, Hillsong (Brian Houston)

A Church in Exile, First Things (Andrew Walker)

Transcript: The Briefing 10-20-14

The Briefing

 

October 20, 2014

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

 

It’s Monday, October 20, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Houston subpoena threat to religious liberty persists despite revision of subpoena language

Today may be very revealing in terms of the continuing controversy in Houston, Texas over the issuing of subpoenas for sermons and other materials from several Houston area pastors. All this comes in the hands of Houston’s Mayor Annise Parker and City Attorney David Feldman, who have defended the subpoenas even though on Friday they tried to remove some of the offense and some of the scandal by removing the word ‘sermon’ from the subpoena filing. As Mike Morris of the Houston Chronicle reported,

“Though the subpoena’s new wording removes any mention of ‘sermons’ [that is by use of the word] — a reference that created a firestorm.”

He goes on to say,

“The mayor acknowledged the new subpoenas do not explicitly preclude sermons from being produced.”

In other words, even though the word ‘sermon’ was removed from the subpoena, the subject matter covered by the subpoena continues absolutely intact – demanding that these pastors turn over any materials that would now, as the Mayor can concedes, includes sermons having to do with many things including homosexuality and gender identity.

In an article I posted on Friday entitled “Sermons Are “Fair Game” in Houston — The Real Warning in the Subpoena Scandal,” I point out that the scandal continues. The refiled subpoena is still a subpoena, still issued to Christian pastors, still demanding content that would include materials from their sermons – if not the sermons themselves. Removing the word ‘sermons’ from the subpoena is of absolute no consequence if the same material is being demanded on the same subject areas. And fundamentally the issue is still this: the city government has now issued subpoenas to pastors for their own pastoral materials – however they may be described in the subpoena. The original subpoena, you may remember, demanded,

“All speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO (an anti-discrimination ordinance), the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

That subpoena is nothing less than ruthless thuggery, exercised by an elected public servant and her city attorney. And that thuggery has been done [and now continues to be done] in the name of the people of Houston, Texas.

This is a breathtaking violation of religious liberty – its political thuggery at its worst. And make no mistake, a major American city has subpoena the sermons of Christian pastors and those sermons were to include anything that touched on homosexuality or gender identity. Now if the refiled subpoena avoids using the word sermons, it still demands the same material. And as Mike Morris of the Houston Chronicle made explicitly clear, when the Mayor was forced to answer the question, even on Friday, even with the refiled subpoena, she had to admit that sermons are not exempted from the materials now demanded.

Mayor Parker, you may recall, commonly referred to as the first openly gay mayor of a major American city, has said that the actions and the subpoena had been misinterpreted, indeed misrepresented. New York Magazine covering the mayor, covering the story, and covering the subpoenas, said that those who are complaining about the subpoenas were guilty of making “hysterical allegations.” But just consider the actual wording of the mayor. Just after midnight on October 15 she posted to Twitter,

“Always amazed at how little fact checking is done by folks who like to hit the retweet button”

However less than an hour later she posted

“If the five pastors use pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game”

The description of the sermons preached by Christian pastors as “fair game” is simple one of the most ominous statement imaginable in terms of American religious liberty. Adding his own voice to the controversy, the City Attorney David Feldman said

“If someone is speaking from the pulpit and it’s political speech, then it’s not going to be protected.”

Meaning, quite clearly, that the city attorney of Houston feels it is within his prerogative and his constitutional authority, to decide when and when not a pastor is speaking to political issues rather than preaching. We can count on the fact that this story will continue to develop over this week and yet we need to understand exactly what’s at stake; at this point it is five Houston pastors who are feeling the heat. But these subpoena stand as a direct warning to every pastor, rabbi, minister, priest, and imam in America; you or I could be next. This is how religious liberty dies. Liberties die by 1,000 cuts; an intimidating letter here, a subpoena there, a warning in yet another place, the message is simple and easily understood – be quiet or risks trouble. But the subpoenas in Houston alert us all of the fact that the trouble is now inescapable. The question is this: will the people of Houston, Texas stand idly by as this thuggery is done in their own name, when the Mayor of their own city refers to sermons as “fair game?” We will watch this story as it certainly develops over the next week, but keep this in mind: this is not just about the city of Houston, Texas it could all too quickly, almost immediately, be about your city and perhaps even about your pastor.

2) Dwindling of self-identified Southern evangelicals reveals evaporation of cultural Christianity

With the 2014 midterm elections in view and with control of the Senate very much in question, Robert P. Jones writes at The Atlantic that one of the issues to watch in the upcoming election coming on November 4 is what he describes as the dwindling numbers and influence of evangelicals in America – particularly southern evangelicals. As he begins his article,

“Midterm elections are all about turning out base constituencies. Over the last few decades, there have been few more reliable voters for Republicans than white evangelical Protestants. This year, however, GOP candidates may be getting less help from this group—not because white evangelical Protestants are becoming less supportive or less motivated, but simply because they are declining as a proportion of the population, even in Southern states.”

Later in his report in The Atlantic Jones writes,

“A look at generational differences demonstrates that this is only the beginnings of a major shift away from a robust white evangelical presence and influence in the country. While white evangelical Protestants constitute roughly three in 10 (29 percent) seniors (age 65 and older), they account for only one in 10 (10 percent) members of the Millennial generation (age 18-29). In the last few national elections, however, because of high levels of voter turnout, white evangelical Protestants have managed to maintain an outsized presence at the ballot box according to national exit polls, representing roughly one-quarter of voters”

He then writes this,

“[If you look at] five Southern states—Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina— [he goes on to say that] polling shows that the Senate race margins are less than five percentage points”

And this may become very important because, as he says, the underlying demographic trends may exert enough force to make themselves felt. And one of the underlying demographic trends to which he points is that of the declining numbers and percentage of the total population of southern evangelicals; even in some very crucial southern states.

From a Christian perspective, this is of great interest because what we’re looking at here is a documented shift not so much just in evangelical numbers and percentages, but rather in the religious composition of the American people – even to what has been historically classified as the “Bible Belt.” Jones’ concern is overtly political, but Christians looking at the same data will have missiological questions related to the changing religious landscape of America. Jones looks at several key southern states pointing out that Arkansas has seen its proportion of the total population held by white evangelical Protestants drop from 43% to 36%, that just in the last 10 years or so. In Georgia the proportion has fallen from 30 to 24%, in Kentucky from 43% to 32%, in the Louisiana from 24% to just 19% and in North Carolina from 37% to 30%. Jones does document a very important political dynamic to this because as it turns out the larger percentage of persons who were non-evangelical highly favors any Democratic candidate and the political fortunes of the Democratic Party. Jones, who is CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute – that’s a think tank looking at this kind of research – suggested that political shift is likely not so must be felt in this midterm election but in subsequent electoral contests.

But Christians will want to note the theological distinctive that are made in this research, indicating that the reason for the decreased proportion of evangelicals, even in the population the southern states, has to do with the fact that increasing numbers of millennials, that is younger Americans, are not identifying with any faith at all – whether it be evangelical Protestant or any other – they’re being added that category of none’s; that is those with no religious preference. The second thing has to do with a massive influx of persons who are likely to come with non-evangelical identification; primarily Hispanics and Latinos who overwhelmingly identify themselves as Roman Catholics.

Interestingly, just a day after that report ran in The Atlantic as I was preaching in Birmingham, Alabama the Birmingham News on Saturday ran a story indicating that the unaffiliated – that once again refers to the none’s, those with no religious preference –  now amount to the third largest group of those religiously identified in the state of Alabama. We’re talking about the state that metaphorically well might be described as the buckle of the Bible Belt, and yet the unaffiliated now amount to 14% of Alabama’s population. Now one of the truly interesting things found in this report by Carol McPhail in the Birmingham News is that the unaffiliated now ranked third and that means they rank ahead, in terms of number and percentage, of white mainline Protestant residents of Alabama. As she makes clear,

“The mainline Protestant category includes such denominations as the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the American Baptist Churches U.S.A., the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church.”

Now those denominations were in so many ways the official brand names of centrist American religious experience well into the second half of the 20th century. But now, Alabamians who are members of those traditionally liberal mainline Protestant denominations, amount to only 13% of Alabama’s population and that ranks fourth in terms of religious preference. Ranking first are white evangelical Protestants at 36%, next black Protestants at 18%, the unaffiliated 14%, and only after those three, the white mainline Protestants at 13%. Now from a missiological perspective concerned with the gospel, this means that in the state of Alabama, one of the most traditionally churched states in America, right in the very heart of the Bible Belt, the religiously unaffiliated with no affiliation whatsoever now rank number three and they are the fastest-growing group, even in a state like Alabama.

Also interesting is the fact that yesterday’s edition of the same newspaper, the Birmingham News, featured a column by Frances Coleman and she’s referring back to this data and to the article that appeared in her own newspaper the day before saying that even though these numbers look shocking, they shouldn’t imply that those who are religiously unaffiliated actually have no religious beliefs whatsoever. She says,

“What the report doesn’t conclude, however, is that the religiously unaffiliated have no religious beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it doesn’t claim that 14 percent of Alabamians are atheists or agnostics. It just points out that this statistically significant chunk doesn’t identify with specific denominations or categories.”

She then writes,

“In fact, a similar report from two years ago, conducted by the Pew Research Center, said two-thirds of religiously unaffiliated Americans believe in God or consider themselves ‘spiritual.’ So [she says] if you assume religiously unaffiliated Alabamians mirror that finding, then the Public Religion Research Institute’s report is perhaps less alarming.”

Well I’ll let her make that argument, but as a Christian theologian I have to come back and say there’s absolutely no theological reassurance in the fact that many of these unaffiliated may consider themselves spiritual. Even those most secular Americans increasingly identify themselves as having some kind of spiritual dimension, some kind of ad hoc spirituality; whether it’s a mixture of New Age beliefs or some form of superstition or just a vague belief in a higher power. But Christians cannot fool themselves, biblically and theologically speaking, into believing that this cohort of unaffiliated Americans represents anything other than a mission field and that’s true in Alabama as much as anywhere else. In the most interesting part of her essay Frances Coleman writes,

“Religious beliefs have infused Alabamians with shared values that include a generally positive outlook on life, respect and affection for their fellow men and women, a love of and willingness to serve their country, and an abiding concern for the less fortunate.”

Well that does describe what many people would think of as some description of spirituality. But it bears no resemblance to a gospel defined Christianity and that’s the real issue here; at least it should be the real issue for Christians looking at this data. The bottom line of the data being presented here is this: what we’re looking at is the rather rapid evacuation, indeed evaporation, of what has been well described as cultural Christianity. In a state like Alabama, cultural Christianity has been a part of the landscape for all of living memory and yet now it appears to be evaporating rather quickly and in two very distinct categories. First of all amongst younger residents and secondly amongst those who are newcomers to the state. But Frances Coleman makes a very interesting point and that is this: that cultural Christianity that is even now evaporating still has a very important hold on the culture, at least for now and at least in part of its affirmation in this culture is a distinctive affirmation of life and the meaningfulness of life.

3) Secularist identifies Christian influence on America as main inhibitor of assisted suicide 

And that leads to a very different story. Yesterday at Salon.com Joanna Rothkopf wrote her article entitled “Brittany Maynard’s brave choice: Why religious arguments against physician-assisted suicide fall flat.” Just a few days ago we discussed Brittany Maynard, the young woman in her 20s diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. She and her husband as you’ll remember moved to Oregon where she plans to take advantage of that state’s death with dignity law and choose to die by assisted suicide on November 1. Rothkopf then writes,

“Since releasing a video chronicling her diagnosis and decision with advocacy group Compassion & Choices, Maynard has become the face of physician-assisted suicide, and has reopened the debate regarding its legality.”

But Rothkopf’s real concern in her essay are those who are suggesting that in this case Brittany Maynard is doing what is not right by ending her life by assisted suicide and by determining that she will be the author of her own death; even as she is assuredly facing very ominous prospects having been diagnosed with stage four brain cancer. Maynard has indeed become the symbol of the assisted suicide movement, indeed the physician assisted suicide movement in America. In response to her declaration that she will commit suicide and end her own life on November 1, well-known evangelical figure Joni Eareckson Tada responded by writing,

“I believe Brittany is missing a critical factor in her formula for death: God. The journey Brittany — for that matter, all of us — will undertake on the other side of death is the most important venture on which we will ever embark… Unfortunately, three countries and five states have now determined that individuals can make these choices for themselves. This is what happens [said Joni Eareckson Tada] when God is removed: The moral consensus that has guided that society begins to unravel.”

Now we should simply interject at this point that Joni Eareckson Tada is uniquely qualified to speak to this issue, having lived for decades in a disabled condition and having herself battled cancer. But she writes, as a Christian, that it simply is not given to be the authors of our own death. Another response to Britney Maynard came from a woman named Kara Tippetts, she 38-year-old woman, she has metastasized breast cancer. She wrote an email saying,

“It was never intended for us to decide when that last breath is breathed.”

Rothkopf is outraged that Christians have responded with this kind of affirmation of life and its inherent value, and furthermore she’s quite upset that the Christian influence in the society at large has kept the assisted suicide from gaining more momentum. She writes,

“Today, only Washington, Oregon, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico allow physician-assisted suicide, although the organization with which Maynard is affiliated, Compassion & Choices, is campaigning to legalize the practice in other states as well. Far too often in individual state hearings has the idea of God been invoked to ban the practice, which is to be expected when the devoutness of a candidate is so important to voters. Still, such an invocation is fundamentally at odds [she writes] with a secular government and must not be considered in weighing the pros and cons of the issue,”

Rothkopf then writes these very important words that should have the attention of every Christian. She writes,

“My focus is solely on able-minded adults who, on their own, decide that the pain of living with a devastating illness is no longer feasible. The issue with outlawing assisted suicide for those certain, justifiable cases is that the law then assumes that life, by any means, is more important than personal philosophy and comfort. And that life-centric view is largely derived from our predominantly Western Christian society.”

That is a stunningly important statement. In this case, Rothkopf is arguing that the only reason America has not followed much of Europe in a headlong embrace of assisted suicide and eventually, we would suggest, euthanasia, is because, as she says, the law is still largely derived from –these are her words – “our predominantly Western Christian society.”

So when one considers even the cost of the decline of cultural Christianity, in moral terms in this country, we have to understand that it’s never about just one thing – such as sexuality or same-sex marriage – it also has a very direct bearing, as Rothkopf recognizes, when it comes to the sanctity of human life. And not just a life that is beginning with the issue of abortion, but life at is end, with the issue of assisted suicide. In this case, an enormous insight is brought to us by a rather antagonistic secular source when she says that the restraining power in America, when it comes to the issue of legalizing assisted suicide, is the continuing influence in America of its Christian heritage, of the Christian worldview, that continues at least in some way to shape the society. Even in an increasingly, even radically secularizing age, it is very important to recognize that there is still a restraining power of the Christian worldview in America when it comes to an issue such as the sanctity of human life; especially life at its end. Others have noted the same thing, arguing that the only reason that America has become a haven for assisted suicide, the only reason that it’s currently legal in only four states, is because there is still a great deal of the lingering remembrance of the Christian tradition to the extent that there is an instinct in the larger culture that we are not to be the authors of our own death and demise; rather that life itself, contrary to what Rothkopf wants to argue, is inherently good on its own terms, and that we are not the masters of either our fate at the beginning or at the end. It is rather chilling to recognize that those who are pushing for issues such as euthanasia and assisted suicide now recognize that it is even the lingering memory of the Christian moral tradition that is the great restraint and brake at this point on these groups reaching their aims. But of course from the Christian perspective, looking at the very same data we’ve been considering today, the big question is ‘For how long?’ The Christian moral tradition will not continue, not for very long, merely as a memory – it will only continue if it is held by, believed by, and advocated by those who believe, not just in the importance of the Christian moral tradition, but in the truth of the Christian faith. Christians above all must recognize this. And that’s why this article by Joanna Rothkopf about the sad case of Brittany Maynard comes as such a word of sad warning .

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. I’ll speaking to you from Birmingham, Alabama and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

 

The Briefing 10-20-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Houston subpoena threat to religious liberty persists despite revision of subpoena language

Mayor Parker revises, narrows sermon subpoena request, Houston Chronicle (Mike Morris)

Sermons Are “Fair Game” in Houston — The Real Warning in the Subpoena Scandal, AlbertMohler.com (Albert Mohler)

2) Dwindling of self-identified Southern evangelicals reveals evaporation of cultural Christianity

Southern Evangelicals: Dwindling—and Taking the GOP Edge With Them, The Atlantic (Robert P. Jones)

In Alabama, the religiously ‘unaffiliated’ now surpasses this major religious group, Birmingham News (Carol McPhail)

Are Alabamians losing their religion, or does it just look that way?, Birmingham News (Frances Coleman)

3) Secularist identifies Christian influence on America as main inhibitor of assisted suicide 

Brittany Maynard’s brave choice: Why religious arguments against physician-assisted suicide fall flat, Salon (Joanna Rothkopf)

 

Sermons Are “Fair Game” in Houston — The Real Warning in the Subpoena Scandal

The scandal over the subpoenas issued to several Houston-area Christian pastors continues, even after the city refiled legal documents, removing the word “sermons” from the demand. They have clearly not removed the scandal from their city, and from the administration of Mayor Annise Parker. As the mayor’s own comments make abundantly clear, she stands at the center of the scandal.

When news broke earlier this week that the attorneys working for the City of Houston had issued subpoenas to pastors for sermons, I was fairly certain that some mistake had been made. When the actual text of the subpoena came to me, I could hardly believe my eyes. Here was a legal demand, sent to Christian pastors in the name of one of America’s largest cities, to surrender “all speeches, presentations, or sermons related to HERO (an anti-discrimination ordinance), the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker, homosexuality, or gender identity prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession.”

That subpoena is nothing less than ruthless thuggery, exercised by an elected public servant and her city attorney. And that thuggery has been done in the name of the people of Houston, Texas.

The controversy started when Mayor Parker, often described as the first openly gay mayor of a major American city, led the effort to adopt an anti-discrimination law that, among other things, allows transgender persons to file a complaint and bring charges if they are denied access to a bathroom. Several Houston-area pastors were involved in an effort to rescind the ordinance. They participated in a petition drive that would have put the question before voters, mobilizing their congregations on the issue. They were able to get more than the required number of signatures on the petition, but the city attorney ruled many of the signatures invalid due to technicalities. The city attorney intervened after the appropriate city official had already certified the petitions as adequate. This set the stage for the lawsuit, and the lawsuit set the stage for the subpoenas.

The subpoenas set the stage for the current controversy. The very fact that the subpoenas were issued at all is scandal enough — none of the pastors is even party to the lawsuit. But the actual wording of the subpoenas is draconian — almost unbelievable. The attorneys working for the city demanded all sermons “prepared by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by you or in your possession” on matters that included, not only the mayor and the ordinance, but homosexuality and gender identity.

This is a breathtaking violation of religious liberty — and it is political thuggery at its worst. Make no mistake: A major American city has subpoenaed the sermons of Christian pastors. And those sermons were to include anything that touched on homosexuality or gender identity.

The scandal that erupted brought, as expected, efforts on the part of the mayor and the city attorney to dismiss and to distance themselves from the subpoenas. First, the mayor declared that the subpoenas had actually been prepared, not by the city attorney’s office, but by outside lawyers working pro bono for the city. That is a meaningless distinction, since the fact remains that the subpoenas were issued on behalf of the city. Next, the mayor acknowledged that the language of the subpoena was “overly broad.”

“There’s no question the wording was overly broad,” Mayor Parker said, “But I also think there was some deliberate misinterpretation on the other side.”

This led New York magazine reporter Katie Zavadaski to describe criticisms of the mayor as “hysterical allegations.” But it is the mayor and the city attorney who are confusing the facts here, and it is the same two leaders who cannot get their stories straight.

At 12:21 a.m. on October 15, Mayor Parker posted the following on Twitter: “Always amazed at how little fact checking is done by folks who like to hit the retweet button.”

But, less than an hour later, Mayor Parker posted this: “If the 5 pastors used pulpits for politics, their sermons are fair game.” Fair game? Do the residents of Houston, Texas have any idea what their mayor is doing in their name? Do chills not run down the spines of Houstonians when they are told that sermons deemed by their own mayor to be political are “fair game” and when the subpoenaed sermons included anything that touched on homosexuality and gender identity?

This is one of those situations that looks worse the more you look into it.

The city attorney, David Feldman, also sent very ominous signals. He seemed to agree that the language of the subpoenas had constituted an over-reach, but he had also defended the subpoenas as legitimate. On Tuesday he told reporters: “If someone is speaking from the pulpit and it’s political speech, then it’s not going to be protected.”

Thus speaketh the city attorney of Houston Texas. You have been warned.

Houston’s mayor and city attorney stalwartly defend their right to demand that pastors surrender their pulpit messages.

On Friday, city officials announced that papers had been refiled to avoid use of the word “sermon.” But the change in no way removes the offense, nor does it even exempt sermons from the subpoena. As Mike Morris of the Houston Chronicle reported earlier today: “Though the subpoena’s new wording removes any mention of ‘sermons’ — a reference that created a firestorm among Christian conservative groups and politicians, including Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, who accused Parker of trying ‘to silence the church’ — the mayor acknowledged the new subpoenas do not explicitly preclude sermons from being produced.”

Once again, you have been warned.

The debacle in Houston can indeed be a catalyst for “hysterical allegations.” No ministers are yet in jail. No pulpit has been silenced. No church doors have been bolted shut.

But the reality is hysterical enough. This is the kind of intimidation that would be expected somewhere in secular Europe or perhaps in the former Soviet Bloc. But we are talking here about Houston, Texas.

This is the kind of scandal that would lead most elected officials to backtrack like crazy, but Mayor Annise Parker is standing her ground, even as she tries to escape the heat by a mere change in the coercive language. What she is doing amounts to raw political intimidation.

At this point, it is five Houston pastors who are feeling the heat. But these subpoenas stand as a direct warning to every pastor, rabbi, minister, priest, and imam in America. You or I could be next.

This is how religious liberty dies. Liberties die by a thousand cuts.  An intimidating letter here, a subpoena there, a warning in yet another place. The message is simple and easily understood. Be quiet or risk trouble.

But the subpoenas in Houston now alert us all to the fact that trouble is now inescapable.

Will the people of Houston stand idly by as this thuggery is done in their own name? When the mayor of their city refers to sermons as “fair game?”

I am always glad to hear from readers. Just write me at mail@albertmohler.com. You can follow me 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.

Katherine Driessen, “City Officials Try to Distance Themselves from Sermon Subpoenas,” Houston Chronicle, Wednesday, October 15, 2014. http://www.chron.com/news/politics/ho...

Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Houston Subpoenas Pastors’ Sermons in Gay Rights Ordinance Case,” Religion News Service, Tuesday, October 14, 2014. http://www.religionnews.com/2014/10/1...

Mike Morris, “Mayor Parker Revises, Narrows, Sermon Subpoena Request,” Houston Chronicle, Friday, October 17, 2014. http://www.chron.com/news/houston-tex...