R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 339

The Briefing 11-10-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Nomination of Loretta Lynch as new Attorney General significant political decision 

Loretta Lynch, a Nominee for Attorney General, Is Praised for Substance, Not Flash, New York Times (Stephanie Clifford)

Obama seeks speedy confirmation for AG nominee Lynch, USA Today (David Jackson and Kevin Johnson)

2) Supreme Court takes new Obamacare case, a further referendum on execution of the law

Justices to Hear New Challenge to Health Law, New York Times (Adam Liptak)

3) Terrorists utilize major symbol of modern world for evil in Jerusalem car attacks

In Jerusalem Unrest, Signs of a ‘Run-Over Intifada’ for the 21st Century, New York Times (Jodi Rudoren)

4) North Korea releases Americans jailed for dangerous act of propagating Christian teaching

Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, Released by North Korea, Are Back on U.S. Soil, New York Times (David E. Sanger)

5) 25th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall points to the power of words

Germany marks anniversary of fall of the Berlin Wall, USA Today (Angela Waters)

Did Journalists’ Questions Topple the Berlin Wall?, Wall Street Journal (Marcus Walker)

JFK, Reagan words helped bring down Berlin Wall, USA Today (Rick Hampson)

The Sinews of Peace, WinstonChurchill.org (Winston Churchill)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 11-07-14

The Briefing

 

November 7, 2014

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

 

It’s Friday, November 7, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) 6th Circuit breaks trend of political usurpation by courts, upholds states’ gay marriage bans

As it turns out, this is going to be one of most consequential weeks in recent memory. Not only with the election taking place on Tuesday but with what happened yesterday – late yesterday –at the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals where a panel of three judges decisively upheld state bans on same-sex marriage in four states. The states are Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and the actual decision – the majority opinion – handed down by this panel is breathtaking in its confrontation with the general trajectory of recent years in the courts toward the legalization of same-sex marriage. The bottom line in terms of the decision handed down by this panel; in the first place this is an issue that should be decided by the people through the democratic process, not by the courts – that is explicitly not by judges – and secondly, if indeed the society says that it’s rational basis for defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman has to do with the stability of society, has to do with the venerable nature of marriage, it has to do with the importance of reproduction and procreation, then that is indeed a rational basis and the law should stand rather than to be struck down.

This very important decision handed down yesterday came from a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In this case the three judges split two to one; on one side you had Judges Jeffrey Sutton and Rebecca Cook and on the other side Judge Martha Craig. Both Judges Sutton and Cook upheld these states and their bans on same-sex marriage. Dissenting from the other two was Judge Martha Craig, she basically sided with the direction taken by other of the appellate courts in the nation that have struck down these bands on the legalization of same-sex marriage. The majority opinion in this case was written by Judge Sutton and he is known in legal circles for extremely elegant opinions and yesterday’s opinion is indeed eloquent. It’s eloquent and furthermore it’s really important.

In the first place his opinion includes a very rare statement of judicial humility. What is the role of the federal judge? In this case Judge Sutton says it is not to decide for the people what the people can will decide for themselves. In his opinion,

“Of all the ways to resolve this question, one option is not available: a poll of the three judges on this panel, or for that matter all federal judges, about whether gay marriage is a good idea,”

He went on to say,

“Our judicial commissions did not come with such a sweeping grant of authority, one that would allow just three of us—just two of us in truth—to make such a vital policy call for the thirty-two million citizens within the four States of the Sixth Circuit: Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee.”

He went on to say,

“What we have authority to decide instead is a legal question: Does the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibit a State from defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman?”

By the time you read very far into the opinion it is clear that this panel has decided that the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution does indeed not prohibit a state from defining marriage as the relationship, as exclusively the relationship, between a man and a woman. In his very careful argument Judge Sutton goes back to the year 1972 when the United States Supreme Court refused to take a same-sex marriage case. In that particular case in 1972 the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to take a case in which the Supreme Court of the state of Minnesota had ruled that there was no fundamental, there was no constitutional right, for a same-sex couple to be married. When the court decided not to take that case back in 1972, it did what it does not always do – it explained why it was not taking the case; that was back in 1972. Back in that statement the court said that the claim that was made by the same-sex couple did not raise “a substantial federal question.” In other words, back in 1972 the Supreme Court of the United States, faced with the very same kind of case that the Six Circuit was just now considering, said that the issues involved in that case did not raise “a substantial federal question” –in other words it was not the business of the federal courts.

But some will say the times have changed and Judge Sutton addresses that issue squarely. He writes,

“But that was then; this is now. And now, claimants insist, must account for United States v. Windsor,”

That was the 2013 case we note in which the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. Judge Sutton says,

“Yet Windsor does not answer today’s question. The decision never mentions Baker, much less overrules it. And the outcomes of the cases do not clash.”

Judge Sutton also took seriously the claim that was made by the plaintiffs in this case that there were so-called “doctrinal developments in the law” that would suggest that the six circuit would have to come to a similar conclusion as the Supreme Court did in the Windsor case. Judge Sutton said there were no such doctrinal developments that would necessitate such a pattern.

As Judge Sutton said in the beginning of his opinion, the key legal question, the central constitutional question before his court, was whether or not the 14th amendment to the United States Constitution would render restrictions on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional and thus unlawful. An answer to that, he points out, that the key issue here is how did the framers of that language in the Constitution actually mean for it to be interpreted. As he said, any faithful kind of interpreter of the document has to ask that question. And if you do asked the question, that is what did the framers of this language mean, as he writes,

“Nobody in this case, however, argues that the people who adopted the 14th Amendment understood it to require the states to change the definition of marriage.”

Furthermore, he points out that the Supreme Court of United States has been employing this very form of logic. He points to the decision handed down last term in the case town of Greece v. Galloway in which the Supreme Court majority ruled that the state of Greece, New York had the right to begin its town Council meetings with prayer because it is not constitutionally or logically sane to suggest that the framers of the U.S. Constitution – in this case its First Amendment – had in mind eliminating that very practice when they followed it themselves; that’s the kind of reasonable common sense that you’d expect not only a lawyer, not only a judge, but any intelligent person to follow.

And speaking of judicial humility, here’s one of the most important statements written by a federal judge I have seen in many, many years. Judge Sutton writes and I quote,

“A dose of humility makes us hesitant to condemn as unconstitutionally irrational a view of marriage shared not long ago by every society in the world, shared by most, if not all, of our ancestors, and shared still today by a significant number of the states.”

That’s an amazing sentence, it bears repeating. Here you have a federal judge writing of the humility that should mark the judiciary – certainly in dealing with something as fundamental as marriage. And as Judge Sutton does not explicitly state, recognizing that marriage is a pre-political institution; the responsibility of government is not to create marriage, it doesn’t have that authority, but rather to recognize what already exists. That’s what we mean when we state that marriage is a pre-political institution. He said again,

“A dose of humility makes us hesitant to condemn as unconstitutionally irrational…”

That’s the claim being made by those who are making the assertion that the U.S. Constitution would invalidate any law against same-sex marriage. He says a dose of humility would lead the court to be very, very reluctant to claim that all of our ancestors are irrational. And furthermore, that most of the people living on the planet defining marriage as exclusively the union of a man and a woman are operating out of an unconstitutionally irrational view. Brilliantly, Judge Sutton then turns the arguments of the plaintiffs on themselves when he writes, and I quote,

“If it is constitutionally irrational to stand by the man-woman definition of marriage, it must be constitutionally irrational to stand by the monogamous definition of marriage. Plaintiffs have no answer to the point. What they might say they cannot: They might say that tradition or community mores provide a rational basis for States to stand by the monogamy definition of marriage, but they cannot say that because that is exactly what they claim is illegitimate about the States’ male-female definition of marriage.”

“The predicament [writes Judge Sutton] does not end there. No State [he writes] is free of marriage policies that go too far in some directions and not far enough in others, making all of them vulnerable—if the claimants’ theory of rational basis review prevails.”

In other words, as he says, if those who are pushing for the legalization of same-sex marriage have their way with their own logic, there is no end to the dissolution of the institution of marriage that will in inevitably result.

From this point Judge Sutton’s opinion just grows even more significant, even more important, in the insights he makes very explicit in his eloquent prose. One of the arguments now being put forward for why same-sex marriage is both constitutional and inevitable is that there has been an evolution in the moral values of the society – by the way, no one can test the fact that that kind of moral evolution is taking place, indeed many would argue and I among them, that what we’re really looking at here is not just moral evolution but moral revolution – but when Judge Sutton takes on this question he understands that this argument actually is one that illustrates the very problem with the claims being made by the proponents of same-sex marriage. In particular he argues that if indeed society is even evolving in terms of its moral judgment on these questions, then way that leave it to the society to evolve. He points to the central predicament, the irrationality the contradiction of those who claim society is evolving and everybody wants the legalization of same-sex marriage therefore we must have the courts do it because the people won’t do it. In other words, you can’t argue it both ways; you can’t argue that this is what people want but we have to as the courts intervene because the people won’t vote for it.

In another absolutely stellar sentence Judge Sutton gets to this point. He writes,

“A principled jurisprudence of constitutional evolution turns on evolution in society’s values, not evolution in judges’ values.”

In other words, he turns it right on them saying if indeed society is evolving, then trust society to get there; but if society is not evolving, you can’t claim society is in order to argue for the righteousness and rightness of your claim. He follows that blockbuster of a sentence with another,

“The theory of the living constitution rests on the premise that every generation has the right to govern itself.  If that premise prevents judges from insisting on principles that society has moved past, so too should it prevent judges from anticipating principles that society has yet to embrace.”

The opinion from Judge Sutton is worth reading simply because of its breathtaking common sense, the exact kind of common sense that has been so absent from so many previous federal court decisions on one of the most basic institutions of human existence – that central molecular institution of human society, marriage.

Tying this right to marriage and bringing his legal argument to a conclusion, he writes,

“If, before a new consensus has emerged on a social issue, federal judges may decide when the time is ripe to recognize a new constitutional right [listen clearly to his next words, he writes], surely the people should receive some deference in deciding when the time is ripe to move from one picture of marriage to another.”

That statement is eloquent, it is brilliant, and it is basic. It’s absolutely basic not just to how you would think the federal court should operate but to how democracy should honor and respect, should give deference to the decisions made by citizens through the Democratic process. The judicial usurpation of the political project is exactly what’s been going on in the federal government for the last generation and more. The push to legalize same-sex marriage through the courts is an extension of that problem. Judge Sutton’s opinion arrived just in time to confront that very trend in terms of the federal courts that he exposes as being so weak in constitutional judgment.

So where do we go from here? Let’s just look at the picture as it now stands. The world has changed almost overnight. As of yesterday morning not one federal circuit appellate court had decided to uphold even one state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage – even one state law that upheld traditional marriage. But now, everything’s different. As of yesterday there is a split in the US circuits, that is in the appellate courts and what now happens is that the Supreme Court of the United States that decided early in October it wasn’t going to take this issue, it now faces a situation from which it has no retreat and no escape; it will either take on this issue, it can’t avoid it anymore, or on the other hand it will abdicate its constitutional and moral authority within our nation’s political order.

That’s something you cannot expect the Supreme Court will do. What you now must expect is that in fairly short order the Supreme Court is going to have to take at this question is going to have to schedule oral arguments and is going to have to race towards a decision. Given the highest court’s recent pattern and trend it’s very likely that will happen is that the Supreme Court of United States will rule that there is a right to same-sex marriage in all 50 states. But they’ll now have to reckon with an opinion that they didn’t see and hadn’t encountered before, and that is the eloquent, commonsensical, constitutional, respectful, humble opinion offered by this panel; the 6th circuit. Offered in particular by the judge you wrote the majority opinion, Judge Jeffrey Sutton.

2) Pervasive theological confusion found in study on the American people

Next one of the most important aspects of Judge Sutton’s decision is his respect for the institution of marriage. But even as we come to the end of the week we need to recognize that as important as marriage is – and as important as marriage must be understood to be by Christians – there are truths that are even prior to marriage.

That is why at the end of the week I want to look at a very important research report that was released just in recent days by Ligonier Ministries in partnership with Lifeway research. The major research project is entitled “The State of Theology,” the subtitle; “Theological awareness benchmark study.” The research report is thorough; it’s pervasive, it’s fascinating, it’s frightening. Because what we meet when we look at this particular massive research project is a theological composition of the American people. And what we see when we look at the composition is that if there’s anyone thing that marks the American people in terms of their theological awareness, that one word has to be ‘confusion.’

There’s good news and bad news in this report the good news is that Americans are not pervasively secular. That becomes very, very clear. The vast majority of Americans register some belief in God. Even though the Pew Research Center and so many other credible research organizations have been rightly pointing to the fact that the fastest-growing group in America are the religiously nonaffiliated, but as the theologically centered research now addressed by Ligonier ministries makes clear, when you look at the American people you’re not looking at the kind of secularization that one expects to find in northern Europe. Instead what you find is confusion. A syncretism. An amalgamation. A great deal of doctrinal fuzziness. But you do not find hard-core secularism. Not in the main amongst the American people.

The Ligonier Ministries report covers seven key doctrinal areas – as I said is not hard-core secularism –  just consider their summary statement under the heading ‘Beliefs about God.’

“The majority of Americans believe God is perfect. The deity, humanity, and resurrection of Jesus are espoused by many Americans. But almost one in five Americans deny that Jesus has always existed. The member of the Trinity that is the least understood in the United States is the Holy Spirit. Most acknowledge [the report says] the presence of the Holy Spirit in believers but they relegate him to a force.”

Now one of the questions that any intellectually curious person has to asking looking at this kind of research is, ‘is it credible?’ The answer that is yes, this research is extremely credible. The second question is, ‘is there anything here that is new? And looking at this kind of doctrinal confusion we might anticipate that if we gone back in history 20, 30, 40 years we would’ve found similar kinds of confusion on the same issues. But what this report is really demonstrating is how pervasive, how thoroughgoing the American people are in this confusion. That is more recent.

Confusion on any number of doctrinal issues has been a symptom of the Christian church for the last, well, two millennia. But this kind of confusion – this pervasive, this widespread – this is a fairly new development and it too is a part of the great challenge we now face in terms of thinking about the future of faithful biblical orthodox Christianity in this new late modern age.

Looking through the reporting looking at these other doctrinal issues, one other insight becomes abundantly clear. That is the fact that liberal theology has had a major impact on the American mind. There are several ways we can understand that; in the main, it is unlikely that hard-core Protestant liberalism has been embraced by the vast majority of Americans understanding that that’s what it was. No, far more likely is the fact that these Americans have been breathing the air of this liberal theology through more indirect means, such as the prosperity theology, through the embracing of the therapeutic mentality.

And that comes out very clearly in terms of the reports heading ‘Beliefs about Goodness and Sin.” As the report states, one the most difficult doctrines for Americans is regarding sin and the depravity of people.

“Actually, [the report writes] the majority of Americans perceive goodness to be a better description of people.”

So what we’re seeing here is that the sinfulness of humanity is simply being sidelined over against the profoundly unbiblical affirmation the human beings are, morally speaking, basically good and inclined to the good. 67% of respondents agreed with the statement; “everyone since at least a little but most people are by nature good.” Now that’s where I talk about how recent this is if you go back in terms of American Christianity, just about 40 or 50 years, you will be unlikely to find this kind of agreement on a statement that is so profoundly unbiblical.Even Karl Menninger writing the book Whatever Became of Sin? back in the early 1970’s pointed out that most Americans still thought of themselves as sinners – they just werent particularly clear about what sin was and they were fairly certain their neighbors were more sinful than they.

Under the heading “Beliefs about Salvation and Religious Texts” the report states,

“Orthodox Christians believe in the exclusivity belief in Jesus Christ for salvation. While the majority of Americans believe that salvation is in Christ alone many also nod to other sources of salvation or believe people can through their own effort contribute to salvation. Less than half of Americans [they say] agree with orthodox doctrines related to the Bible. While more than 4 in 10 agree the Bible is accurate and the written word of God, a similar number believe the Bible is not literally true and is open to each person’s own interpretation.”

On these topics there is less surprise perhaps then in some others because what we’ve been watching in terms of the trajectory of American popular theology over the last generation is the fact that there are two particular doctrines that have been particularly subverted by the modern age. One of them is exactly where the report points, and that is the exclusivity of the gospel. The very fact that there is one Savior and one gospel revealed in Scripture; this runs entirely against the grain of the modern mind. Writing a generation ago James Davison Hunter the University of Virginia pointed out that this was the doctrine, the first doctrine, now most commonly rejected by college students. And that was a generation ago. Imagine how that is continued even now.

The other major doctrine that is been so subverted so undermined in terms of modernity is the doctrine of revelation, and in particular the doctrine of Scripture. And so even as you have most Americans say they believe that Scripture was given to us by God, they do not believe – at least most Americans do not believe –  that the Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches, or that the Bible alone is the written word of God.

Something else to note in terms of the history of American theology is that Protestant liberalism showed up first on the shores on the issue of hell. And looking at that issue in this report we read two thirds of Americans believe heaven exists and almost as many agree hell is real but, only 55% agree to God shows his wrath, 62% of Americans they hell is a real place not just the concept. But one of the things is becoming increasingly clear in surveys like this is that Americans think that have hell exists they themselves are in very little risk of going there.

The final two headings in the Ligonier Ministries report are “Beliefs about the Church” and “Beliefs about Authority” and it would be my argument as a theologian that these two headings revealed the two most blockbuster discoveries in terms of this particular body of research. First of all under the heading “Beliefs about the Church” we read less than half of Americans see the church as a necessity. The majority of adults do not see authority in sermons, but do see value in studying creeds and catechisms. Well as it turns out not, that many Americans see the right kind of utility in terms of creeds and confessions, but that gets to the larger point. That larger point is this; what this report documents very convincingly is the eclipse of ecclesiology in American Christianity. This is one of those trends that has been noted before but I haven’t seen any research that so classically and clearly reduces the question in such a way that the respondents basically had to say, as 52% of those responding to the survey said, “worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement for regularly attending church.”

Well there you have it. Years ago the American historian Winthrop Hudson said that the ultimate end of the doctrine of what was called the priesthood of the believer means of there’s a church under every man’s hat. He was seeking to make a point of just how atomizing, just how fracturing, the doctrine can be if it is employed outside of its biblical understanding. But it’s clear that in America’s postmodern age this is exactly what Americans think  – if not under a hat than just under hair – under every head covering of one sort or another there is now the church. Again 52% of Americans agreed with the statement ‘worshiping alone or with one’s family is a valid replacement’ –  this is a bold statement – ‘for regularly attending church.’ 56% agree “My pastor’s sermons are not authoritative over my life.” Now looking at that we can certainly understand that the issue could be pastoral authority, but behind that if the sermon is indeed biblical it is biblical authority that is also being rejected.

That last heading was “Beliefs about authority.” The report states “Ethical issues such as sex outside of marriage being sinful tracks most closely with beliefs about the authority of the Bible. In addition more Americans believe God is authority over people. They also see God as attentive.” 70% of Americans disagree with “God is unconcerned with my day-to-day decisions.” In other words they see God as in some way concerned generally concerned certainly concerned with me but only 49% agreed with the statement ‘the Bible has the authority to tell us what we must do’ and only 48% agreed with the statement “sex outside of marriage is a sin.”

So this is research helps us to see that not only in this culture do we find the most Americans think there’s a church under every hat – evidently does a courtroom under every hat as well. And in that courtroom is a judge is going to say that our personal moral judgment matters more than anything else, including that which is revealed in God’s word in the Bible. Looking at a vast cross-section of Americans this report, “The state of theology” today released by Ligonier Ministries and in partnership with Lifeway Research tells us that what we’ve been seeing in recent years with diagnoses such as that was offered to us by Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame and his associates, suggesting that in looking at younger Americans what we see is moralistic therapeutic deism – that is not Christianity, but a faith it’s just moralistic, it’s therapeutic, and in some sense deistic – that’s reflected in the fact the most Americans don’t really understand or affirm a sovereign God. But the Ligonier Ministries report is important because it’s not focused just on younger Americans, but on a vast cross-section of the American people. And furthermore like that previous research this is going to be continued.

Ligonier ministries in its release on this research as indicated it intends to come back again and again asking the same questions. And is we look at those results again and again we’re likely to see a deepening of the very confusion that so marks the American people as is evident in this important research. In the final analysis what this research documents so clearly as the great challenge before us –the challenge of continuing, of teaching, of perpetuating the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This demonstrates the fact that we’ve lost a great deal of ground in terms of American culture – we knew that already now we know it was some helpful specificity. And on these particular questions we now know which questions are under the most sustained, particular, timely attack in the United States. We know where some of the issues in the larger culture are the particularly need some of our theological attention. But before we just leave the culture let’s remember this; a survey like this, a massive research project like this, points not only to confusion out there in the culture but the confusion in the church. And our first responsibility is to make sure that the word of God is rightly preached and the Christian faith is rightly taught, so that beginning with our church members and our own children at least they know what Christianity is. And then we turned address the culture and understand exactly the kind of challenge is been presented to the Christian church in this strategic

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 meet you again on Monday for The Briefing.

 

 

 

The Briefing 11-07-14

Podcast Transcript

1) 6th Circuit breaks trend of political usurpation by courts, upholds states’ gay marriage bans

DeBoer v. Snyder, UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

Gay marriage bans in four states upheld, Supreme Court review likely, USA Today (Richard Wolf)

Sixth Circuit Rules in Favor of State Marriage Laws–Updated, National Review Online (Ed Whelan)

2) Pervasive theological confusion found in study on the American people

The State of Theology, Ligonier Ministries

Transcript: The Briefing 11-06-14

The Briefing

 

November 6, 2014

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

 

It’s Thursday, November 6, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Political world re-calibrating from changes due to election

Sometimes just the passage of a brief amount of time seems to indicate that what was thought to be really big one day appears not so significant the next. A good many voters probably went to bed on Tuesday night wondering indeed if the election that day was as big a deal as it seemed when the reports started coming in on Tuesday evening and Tuesday night. And yet 24 or so hours later it’s very clear not only is this story as big is it seemed to be, in the long run it’s even bigger. A little bit of perspective is given the understanding that what happened on Tuesday, the so-called wave election that has put so many Republicans into office and has given Republicans control of the United States Senate, the what that really represented was something that’s going to take some time to figure out. What exactly was on the minds of the voters when they voted in their respective states and congressional districts with the elections of governors and so many others, with propositions of proposals on the ballot, what were they trying to say?

By any estimate it’s a mixed message; on the issue of abortion, the pro-life movement won big in Tennessee but lost in North Dakota and Colorado. What does that say? At the same time the Colorado voters turned down a personhood amendment they also elected to office a pro-life Republican senatorial candidate. Likewise in North Dakota – were they turning down the personhood amendment? Were they actually trying to defend abortion rights? Or were they lacking in understanding what the proposal was actually all about? In terms of marijuana it was pretty much a clean slate when it came to the legalization issues with the District of Columbia and Oregon both deciding, rather sizably indeed, to approve the legalization of that particular substance. When it came to medical marijuana the voters of Florida overwhelmingly said yes but not overwhelmingly enough. The 57% of voters in Florida who approved that measure were 3% short of the necessary 60% in order to put that measure into effect.

When it came to the partisan divide in America, as yesterday we discussed the fact that it reveals an even deeper worldview divide, still state-by-state, election by election, there are huge questions that remain to be answered. How do you explain the fact that in a state like Maryland, the state elected the second Republican governor since Spiro Agnew? How do you explain the fact that you have a Governor such as Andrew Cuomo in New York State – who ended up being rather unpopular – who was reelected by a much smaller margin than would’ve been expected a year ago and yet there’s actually no prospect of any Republican candidate coming very close in terms of that state’s gubernatorial election on at least the same terms.

When you look state-by-state and election by election there are very clear patterns. One of most important of those patterns was a repudiation of the leadership currently in Washington; most particularly as the New York Times put in its headlined yesterday, it put the President of the United States, Barack Obama, significantly on the defensive. That’s what made us so interested in what President Obama had to say in a very important press conference held yesterday at the White House. And it wasn’t just what the President said, it was the way he said it.

Now in looking at the leadership challenge the President faced yesterday, you can imagine that he had several different avenues he could’ve taken in terms of response. He could’ve come out being defiant, saying that he is absolutely not going to compromise in any way with the new Republican majority in both houses of Congress, or he could’ve come out in a much more conciliatory fashion speaking of the message that voters clearly set on Tuesday and making very clear how he intended to incorporate that message into his own presidential administration; now facing the last two years of his term in office. But President Obama actually took neither of those avenues; instead what he did yesterday appeared to be rather in keeping with his personality and his persona in the previous six years in office. Now one thing to note as Christians think about this is that the leadership challenge, as evidence now by President Obama, is one for which we all need to learn and this means that sometimes we also need to learn from people with whom he may be in deep political disagreement about any number of issues.

Yesterday as I was watching President Obama as I was standing in an airport waiting to board an airplane, what immediately came to my mind was the dramatic contrast between the way President Obama handled this situation and how former President Bill Clinton handled virtually the very same situation during his own administration. Bill Clinton came out and faced a similar set of political circumstances but he didn’t come out as did President Obama. President Clinton came out with a sober look on his face only to break out into a smile and make very clear that he had learned the message that the American people intended to send; and furthermore he intended, in the words that he often said during his administration, to do business – to do big business for the American people. In contrast yesterday President Obama never seemed actually to get to a smile. That too was a failure of leadership. He didn’t respond with any kind of warmth, not only to the new political situation but even to the American people. And when it came to what President Clinton would’ve called ‘big business’ – big business to be done in terms of the political system –  President Obama seemed intentionally to downplay the opportunity for some kind of combined and cooperative effort with the new Republican leadership in Congress.

This is going to put the President of the United States in a very lonely position because now he controls of course the executive branch of government – that’s massive – but he has lost his allies in terms of the leadership of Congress and especially now in the Senate. And given the power of the Senate to advise and consent, given the power the Senate to confirm presidential nominees, given especially the power of the Senate to deal with judicial nominees, and given the fact that Committee Chairman in the Senate can exert vast power over the political system – power with which even the executive branch has to deal – you can understand the President Obama found himself in a new political world when he woke up Wednesday morning. And yet when he spoke to the American people later in the day he seemed to be following the very same script as the previous six years; much is going to be riding on what happens in the next two years. America’s at a very crucial turning point in its own history, much is taking place, great challenges now lie before us – the challenges of Ebola and the Islamic State that were not even known to the voters or to the President in a matter of just a couple of years ago. And furthermore, issues that will certainly be on the nation’s agenda that we can’t even envision right now. But in the final analysis we should certainly understand that though it matters what both President Obama and the new congressional leaders will say, it matters far more – infinitely more – what they do.

2) Kansas and Missouri same-sex marriage bans struck down, furthering courts’ advocacy 

I spent the last three days in the states of Kansas and Missouri, and both of those states ended up in the headlines yesterday on the issue of same-sex marriage because in both of those states, neighboring states, judges struck down bans on same-sex marriage; first in Kansas then in Missouri. In Kansas the judicial action was taken by a federal judge, US District Judge Daniel Crabtree, who in a 38-page judgment ruled that the Kansas ban violated the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection. This federal judge cited the fact that the 10th US circuit Court of Appeals in Denver had similarly struck down measures in the states of Oklahoma and Utah – that is the same circuit covered by the state of Kansas. This judge then cited the precedent from the 10th circuit and simply struck down Kansas’s ban on same-sex marriage. In the state of Missouri it wasn’t a federal judge; it was a circuit court judge in St. Louis. In this case, St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Rex Burlison struck down that state’s ban on same-sex marriage declaring,

“The freedom to marry is a fundamental right and liberty deeply rooted in the history of the United States.”

Interestingly the Supreme Court in its decisions passed down on the issue of same-sex marriage last year, especially the Windsor decision, did not explicitly declare that the right of same-sex marriage is a fundamental right. It may yet do so, but in this case you have a circuit court judge in Missouri who went even beyond the legal reasoning of the United States Supreme Court when he struck down Missouri’s ban on same-sex marriage. We’re looking here at an avalanche of these cases, of these judicial decisions, and of these states.

When you’re looking at the number of states that now have legal same-sex marriage, we are now inching up towards 40 – and that means that in short order roughly four out of five states in the union will have legal same-sex marriage. Only two groupings of states remain, they’re states included within the 5th and 6th US Circuit Courts of appeal and those courts will also be ruling on this issue. That sets up a very interesting constitutional question: will either of those two courts, as many legal observers now expect, rule in favor of the constitutionality of some ban on same-sex marriage? If so, that will send the issue almost automatically right to the threshold of the United States Supreme Court. On October 6 of this year the Supreme Court punted on the issue, clearly wanting to avoid the issue if it possibly could. It now comes down to what these two US Circuit Courts of appeal will do – the 5th and the 6th. As for the rest of the country, the issue is for now – at least in terms of the courts – effectively settled.

3) Climate change ads present humans as the blight, not stewards, of nature

Next, it’s very interesting to note that the issue environmentalism, often packaged as issue of climate change, brings out sometimes the best but even more often the worst when it comes to worldview reasoning. What’s often exposed now in the public comments and the public arguments on this issue is a basic anti-humanism, an antipathy towards human beings; where it is suggested that human beings are themselves – the human species at large – a blight upon the planet and a danger to nature. Now a group known as Conservation International is coming out with a set of videos using Hollywood celebrities in order to express basically that very message; that human beings are the problem, that nature itself left alone is the answer.

As Brad Wieners reports, one of the voices in the voiceover on these videos representing Mother Nature is actress Julia Roberts who says,

“I’ve been here for eons. [She says, as Mother Nature,] I’ve fed species greater than you. And I’ve starved greater species than you. My oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests: They all can take you—or leave you… Your actions will determine your fate. Not mine.”

Now what is the worldview being expressed here? What are we really looking at in this kind of statement? Well we’re looking in the first place at that basic anti-humanism, we’re looking at the accusation that human beings are the problem. That human beings are not, as according to Scripture, the pinnacle of divine creation but a rather biological accident that are a threat to the rest of the cosmos, and in particular to the planet. According to Brad Wieners of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, this new effort includes a,

“…A-list of movie stars [who] donated their time and intonations to the project, which was produced by Washington, D.C.-based Conservation International and co-created with Lee Clow, the ad legend responsible for Apple’s Think Different campaign. In the segments [says Wiener], we hear from various natural elements and sentient beings questioning why humans pay so little attention to the hazards posed by overpopulation, an overheated climate, and other ecological pressures. Harrison Ford [he says] holds forth as a deeply exasperated ocean. Kevin Spacey is an unbearably smug rainforest.”

And Ed Norton appears as the voice of the soil, soil that according to Bloomberg Businessweek has anger issues. Wiener summarizes the project by writing,

“Longer than the typical 30- or 60-second broadcast commercial and with very limited branding (a title before and after), the ‘Nature Is Speaking’ [that’s what they are called] videos aren’t quite advertisements, but neither are they exactly public service announcements. No specific action is suggested, no instruction given. They add up to more of an existential wake-up call, like the one delivered to earthlings in [the movie] The Day the Earth Stood Still.”

So looking explicitly at the script given to Julia Roberts when she’s speaking on behalf of Mother Nature, I read again where she says,

“I’ve fed species greater than you. And I’ve starved greater species than you.”

So not only is there a deep, very apparent, anti-humanism in this effort but also in the script that I just read to you, there’s an explicit hostility coming from Mother Nature to the human beings who inhabit the planet. That hostility comes out in another paragraph in the script where Mother Nature, in the voice of Julia Roberts, says,

“How you choose to live each day – whether you regard or disregard me – it really doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Your actions will determine your fate, not mine.”

Well just one little footnote here. That messaging isn’t exactly what we’ve been hearing from the United Nations and from so many others who are telling us that actually what human beings are doing does matter to nature. The biblical worldview reminds us that we as human beings are given the responsibility of dominion, that’s found in Genesis 1:28. But that dominion does not take the shape of an exploitation of nature, a misuse of the created order, but rather the understanding that as creatures we are given the stewardship of the garden; that is the cosmos God has created, at least on this planet, and we are given a responsibility for which we will give an answer. And that’s why there is a proper environmentalism for every faithful Christian. That is the environmentalism of stewardship – that’s a doctrinal issue – that does not consist in treating the created order is an end unto itself but rather as an exercise in our discipleship. And furthermore the biblical worldview eliminates – eradicates – any possibility of speaking of human beings as a blight upon nature, as a blight upon the planet, because as the Bible makes clear, it was God’s final supreme act of creation in which he made the only creature made in his image and gave to those creatures, both male and female, this responsibility of stewardship and dominion.

Lee Clow, who was the director of media arts for the program, told the Guardian in London,

“We thought the idea of giving nature a voice … might make it clear to all of us that the planet will evolve with or without humans. It’s our choice,”

Now just note very carefully – that came by the way in the form of a prepared release that was given to the media – what Lee Clow is basically saying there is that nature is entirely an accident, it’s just a cosmic accident. Human beings are just one complicated accident within that larger accident and as it turns out human beings are really the problem, not the solution. Humans are not seen in this case as stewards, who have a divine mission and responsibility, but rather as a blight upon the planet – a planet according to this messaging that can very well do without us. Indeed the actual words found in these scripts suggest that planet would indeed be better off without us. There’s also an absolute affirmation of evolution here, to the point that we are told that the planet will continue to evolve without us. By the way, it’s insinuated that that just might be a rather good thing.

M. Sanjayan, who is Conservation International’s senior scientist, he said,

“With any campaign, even one as carefully planned as this one, you have no idea how it’s going to work,”

He went on to say,

“We are going to get some flak, without a doubt. Not everyone’s going to like this. It’s not happy talk. The ocean is angry, Edward Norton is edgy, [Kevin] Spacey drips with sarcasm. You can feel that.”

Indeed if you watch these videos you’ll see you can feel this hostility, you can sense this anger, but you also scene, you also come to understand something else, there may be no greater illustration of the basic worldview collision between the biblical worldview and the naturalistic materialistic worldview evolution than these short videos. And there is a further very important point to observe here, the list of voices employed in this program, they are from the A-list of actors and actresses in Hollywood. We’re talking about Harrison Ford, we are talking about Kevin Spacey, we’re talking about Julia Roberts, we’re talking about those who have won Academy Awards – some of them, multiple Academy Awards – and what does this tell us? It tells us that when we’re looking at this cause, when we’re looking at this message, you have a good number of people in Hollywood who say, ‘I’m evidently supposed to say this. I’m supposed to consider it an honor to take on this role.’ You have to wonder if they actually heard what they were saying. Do they not understand that the hostility they were voicing on behalf of nature is directed not just to humanity at large but to themselves?

Finally the worldview at work here is actually made very clear in a manifesto released by conservation international along with these videos. Avoiding the word manifesto, presumably because of its gender connotations, instead they call it a Humanifesto. It subtitled, ‘Nature doesn’t need people. People need nature.’ This document is important enough; you deserve to hear the statement as a whole. The document reads,

“Human beings are part of nature. Nature is not dependent on human beings to exist. Human beings, on the other hand, are totally dependent on nature to exist. The growing number of people on the planet and how we live here is going to determine the future of nature. And the future of us. Nature will go on, no matter what. It will evolve. The question is, will it be with us or without us? If nature could talk, it would probably say it doesn’t much matter either way. We must understand there are aspects of how our planet evolves that are totally out of our control.  But there are things that we can manage, control and do responsibly that will allow us and the planet to evolve together.”

Let me just stop here for a moment and say, there you have the worldview made very, very clear. It is the co-evolution of human beings and the planet that is called for as the only plan of action that is actually mentioned in any of the material released by this group thus far. The statement goes on to say,

“We are Conservation International and we need your help. Our movement is dedicated to managing those things we can control better. Country by country. Business by business. Human by human. We are not about us vs. them. It doesn’t matter if you’re an American, a Canadian or a Papua New Guinean. You don’t even have to be particularly fond of the ocean or have a soft spot for elephants. This is simply about all of us coming together to do what needs to be done. Because if we don’t, nature will continue to evolve. Without us. Here is to the future. With humans.

4) Flavor house boom displays society’s expectation of unlimited choice

Finally, sometimes you find issues of worldview significance in unexpected places – even on the business page with a story that has the headline, “The New Science of Taste: 1,000 Banana Flavors,” the article is written by Annie Gasparro and Jesse Newman of the Wall Street Journal and it begins with a rather astounding statement about how our world is so different than the world of just a generation or so ago. They write,

“In the first 90 years of making its signature product, Campbell Soup Co. developed just over 100 varieties. In the past 30 years, that number has quadrupled, and now includes soups as diverse as Thai Tomato Coconut Bisque, Philly-Style Cheesesteak and Spicy Chicken Quesadilla.”

They go on to say,

“The soup smorgasbord reflects Americans’ growing appetite for food with bold and exotic tastes and textures, which in recent decades has spurred companies to add thousands of new flavorings, spices, colorings, thickeners and preservatives to their recipes, shaking up the country’s menu.”

Just a few years ago some Americans began talking about the tyranny of choice – indicating that in our consumer society we’ve now reached the point that a certain kind of choice fatigue has set in. How do you choose between hundreds and hundreds of varieties of soup? That’s not a small question. Nowadays Americans expect to so customize our lives and so specialize our tastes that eventually every manufacturer, every supplier, every companies, is going to have to come to terms with exactly who I am and which kind of banana flavoring I want. Oh yes, banana flavoring. Just one company in the Chicago area known as Synergy has offered now more than 1,000 different varieties of banana flavoring. Oh and by the way, these companies are called ‘flavor houses.’ Most Americans probably didn’t even know there were such businesses but flavor houses are expected to do about $4 billion in business this year alone in the United States – that’s up from 2.5 billion in 2003. And that’s what’s got the attention of the business pages in the Wall Street Journal. H.J. Heinz company – well, for a 124 years it made just one kind of ketchup – just one flavor of ketchup – but in the last several years it had to diversify. It now makes eight of them, including jalapeño infused and balsamic vinegar ketchups.

In concerning these flavor houses they write,

“Synergy Flavors, an Illinois company that makes ingredients for ice cream, yogurt and other products, says its flavoring formulas number about 80,000.”

That’s 80,000 different flavors available from this flavor house, that’s up from 13,000 flavors in the year 2002. As I said, it has about 1,000 banana flavors alone – ranging from green banana to banana Foster. On a recent afternoon, said the reporters,

“…its employees wearing white lab coats were testing a French-toast flavoring for vanilla ice cream.”

So now you know you can prepare your taste buds. So what’s the worldview importance of this? Well it tells us just what kind of society we are now becoming. We’re becoming such a consumer society that we expect a multiplicity, we expect indeed such a rich diversity of flavors and options that somehow it makes sense that just one flavor house in Chicago, Illinois has 1,000 different varieties of banana flavor. And where the vanilla flavorings far outnumbering the banana flavorings, are now soon to include a French toast vanilla flavor – coming soon to a shopping cart near you.

Well in economic terms we talk about economic inequality and we talk about the vexing continuing problems of poverty, we are a nation that somehow involves such purchasing power and such consumer interest that flavoring houses – flavoring houses – are going to do $4 billion dollars of business in this year alone. So what we’re talking about where we stand economically let’s just pause for a moment and recognize we’re a nation that is going to spend billions and billions and billions of dollars developing new flavors for banana.

But this is report doesn’t just reflect upon the economy writ large, it reflects upon every single one of us and the fact that we do expect almost unlimited choice when it comes to having what we want – even down to our individual taste. And in this age of almost unlimited and radical choice, it seems absolutely un-American to tell people there’s only one way, there is only one variety, of anything. That’s one of the things the places orthodox biblical Christianity at such a disadvantage in terms of the contemporary culture because when we’re talking about the love of God and we’re talking about human problem and we’re talking about God’s answer to the human predicament of sin, we’re talking about one way of salvation – one way – we’re talking about one faith, one Lord, one baptism. We’re talking about one Scripture, we’re talking about one. And so the next time you get into a conversation with someone who seems absolutely puzzled that you really do believe that there’s only one Savior and only one way of salvation just recognize that runs directly against the grain in a society that has over 1,000 different forms of banana flavor from just one flavor house. Thoughts about theology then appear rather unexpectedly in an article in the Wall Street Journal about the explosion of flavor houses.

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 meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

 

Luke 10:25-37

The Briefing 11-06-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Political world re-calibrating from changes due to election

 President Obama Left Fighting for His Own Relevance, New York Times (Peter Baker)

Transcript: President Obama’s Nov. 5 news conference on midterm election results, Washington Post

2) Kansas and Missouri same-sex marriage bans struck down, furthering courts’ advocacy 

Federal judge declares the Kansas same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, Kansas City Star (Mark Morris)

, Reuters (Carey Gillam)

3) Climate change ads present humans as the blight, not stewards, of nature

‘Nature is speaking’: will consumers listen?, The Guardian, (Greg Harman)

Julia Roberts as Mother Nature: ‘I Don’t Really Need People’, Business Week, (Brad Wieners)

Our Humanifesto, Natureisspeaking,org

4) Flavor house boom displays society’s expectation of unlimited choice

The New Science of Taste: 1,000 Banana Flavors, Wall Street Journal (Annie Gasparro and Jesse Newman)

What the Election Reveals About Us, and Why We Vote as We Do

Campaigning over the weekend, President Obama said, “The American people are with us on all the big issues.” He continued, “You know it. I know it. The polls show it.”

Yet the midterm election yesterday did not affirm President Obama’s statement. In fact, yesterday’s election is what political scientists classify as a “wave election.” The “wave” became evident early on Tuesday evening and it continued throughout election night as Republicans won key seats in the Senate. Even as some elections are still yet to be called, it is clear that the Republican Party has gained control of the United States Senate and now holds control of both the House and the Senate for the first time in eight years .

Furthermore, the pickup in the Senate was even beyond what most Republican analysts had estimated. With Senatorial elections in the states of Louisiana and Alaska still pending, the Republican Party has already picked up seven seats. This is a massive change for America’s political system. Coming in the sixth year of President Obama’s administration, this midterm election is a massive check upon his presidential power and will inevitably be seen as a political judgment upon the President’s leadership. This is due to the fact that the President of the United States is also seen as the symbolic head of his political party – in this case the Democratic Party.

Key Senate elections were won by Republicans in the states of West Virginia, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and also in the state of North Carolina. The change of party control in the Senate will mean that the Republicans now hold key decision-making positions, especially in terms of the key committee chairmanships. Furthermore, the Senate’s very important constitutional role in the confirmation of presidential appointees will also be a major factor in the last two years of the Obama administration. In short, the next two years are going to be very politically interesting.

Claiming victory last night in his own Senatorial contest in Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell, who is also now the majority leader, pledged to work with President Obama in a bipartisan consensus where that is possible. Today President Obama is expected to address the nation with his response to the midterm elections. Americans are going to be watching in order to see if indeed the President of the United States and a Republican-controlled Congress can govern together on issues in which there might actually be common concern.

Yet yesterday’s election results also point to the continuing and deepening partisan divide in America. Christians watching this must understand that this partisan divide is not merely a political issue—it is a worldview issue. What divides these two parties is not primarily personalities or regionalism. Instead, what divides these two parties are their visions of political stability, morality, and even what it means to aim for human flourishing. Both parties represent competing worldviews and the most loyal members of each party recognize this reality. What separates these parties from one another are the answers they provide to such basic questions as the meaning of human life, our understanding of morality and even our understanding of marriage.

In last night’s wave election, several very strategic governorships were also on the line. Republicans won key contests in states including Florida, Iowa, Kansas, and even the state of Massachusetts—one of most deeply democratic states in the entire nation. Yet there were other very important issues faced by voters in respective states. In the state of Oregon, for example, voters supported a measure legalizing marijuana. This comes even after the Governor of Colorado warned other states that they should avoid the kind of reckless experimentation that he suggested his own state had engaged in by legalizing recreational marijuana two years ago. In Washington, D.C. voters approved an initiative legalizing recreational marijuana. Yet this vote will not affect the vast areas within the district that are controlled by the federal government. Further, since the D.C. government is ultimately under the control of Congress, Congress may also intervene in this situation. Voters in Alaska also passed a similar proposition known as Measure 2. Meanwhile, an effort to legalize so-called medical marijuana narrowly failed in the state of Florida. It gained more than 50% of the vote but that was short of the 60% that was necessary in order to affect the change.

On the issue of abortion, the states of Colorado and North Dakota turned back personhood amendments—amendments that would have criminalized any assault upon an unborn fetus. In the case of both states, this was a significant setback for the pro-life cause. But the pro-life cause won a huge victory in the state of Tennessee where voters approved Amendment 1—an amendment to that state’s constitution that would allow significant restrictions upon the availability of abortion. This is especially important since Tennessee had become a so-called ‘destination state’ for abortions in the American Mid-South.

The vote in Tennessee, however, was also was deeply revealing. The vote on Amendment 1 demonstrated a very significant moral divide, political divide, and thus a worldview divide between rural and urban voters in that state. Urban voters overwhelmingly voted against Amendment 1 and thus in favor of unrestricted abortion rights. On the other hand, voters in rural Tennessee overwhelmingly voted for Amendment 1. This simply affirms something that political scientists have known for a very long time—rural voters generally vote in a far more conservative pattern than urban or Metropolitan voters. This is in some respects due to the fact that cities tend to draw together persons with more liberal worldviews. At the same time, it also reflects the fact that cities have a liberalizing effect. Sociologists regularly indicate that persons who move from a rural to a more Metropolitan environment also shift their political opinions. This tells us that worldview is also at least partly dependent upon context.

In response to the election, Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban published a rather amazing article in the op-ed pages of the New York Times. They began that article stating,

“As America completes another costly, polarized and exhausting election cycle, it’s commonplace to characterize our society as being divided into warring tribes of liberals and conservatives. But this view oversimplifies the causes of our political differences.”

Their argument continues,

“Most people aren’t ideologically pure, and most don’t derive their opinions from abstract ideologies and principles. People are more strongly influenced by the effects of policies on themselves, their families and their wider social networks. Their views, in short, are often based on self-interest.”

What should Christians think about their argument? Should we accept the fact that self-interest actually guides political decisions? From a biblical perspective, Christians ought to recognize that this is indeed the case. We should expect that in a fallen world it would be nearly impossible for any of us to escape the type of moral calculus that includes our own self-interest. And as these researchers make very clear, self-interest is not limited to an individual perspective, but to our family, to our group, or to our community. Weeden and Kurzban continue:

“This point may seem obvious, but it is overlooked by many political scientists who focus on other explanations: parents and peers, schools and universities, political parties and leaders, and that abstract and nebulous catchall, ‘values.’ But the most straightforward explanation, demographics, is also the most persuasive.”

These observations should deeply interest Christians as we consider how political opinions and political decisions are formed. The authors further state,

“Self-interest is not limited to economics. People who want to have sex but don’t at the moment want babies are especially likely to support policies that ensure access to birth control and abortion. Immigrants favor generous immigration policies. Lesbians and gay men are far more likely to oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation. . . . Those who do best under meritocracy — people who have a lot of education and excel on tests — are far more likely to want to reduce group-based preferences, like affirmative action.”

Further:

“A focus on self-interest helps explain why three-quarters of people who went to church as children don’t attend church in their 20s. The young people most likely to abandon the church are those engaging in the kinds of lifestyles — involving alcohol, recreational drugs, premarital sex and nonmarital cohabitation — that religious conservatives condemn.”

Weeden and Kurzban are pointing to something that every Christian leader, parent, or pastor must understand. On the one hand, we recognize that worldview determines behavior—what we believe is inevitably played out in our lives. But we must also recognize, as Weeden and Kurzban point out, that not only does our worldview determine behavior but the contrary is also true – our behavior often affects our worldview.

The illustration used by Weeden and Kurzban is very instructive. Young people who are involved in premarital sex, non-marital cohabitation, and recreational drugs develop a worldview to justify their activities. Of course, this is what all sinners do. Sinners want to justify their sin and in order to accomplish this they try to realign their worldview in order to create moral justification for their behavior. Christians need to understand that Weeden and Kurzban are onto something real here; not only does worldview determine behavior but behavior can determine worldview.

These two researchers are primarily interested in how this plays out in the political sphere. But Christians looking at the same article need to understand that something deeply biblical is being affirmed here. As the researchers very specifically point out, when young people get involved in what the Bible identifies as sinful activities, their worldview often shifts in an attempt to justify their actions—thus leaving the worldview commitments they may have inherited from their church and from their parents and adopting a new set of worldview presuppositions that are at peace with their behavior. As Weeden and Kurzban write, “Despite their early socialization, as adults start making their own decisions, their religion and politics usually align with their interests.”

The results of this midterm election will give intelligent Christians a great deal to think about. But when it comes to the larger issues at stake, the midterm election is simply one episode in a very long story, a story of political engagement that should lead Christians to continue to think ever more seriously about the issues that are really at stake.

 

This essay is a an edited transcript from the Wednesday, November 5 episode of the The Briefing.

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.

Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban, “Election 2014: Your Very Predictable Vote,” New York Times, Monday, November 3, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/04/opi...

 

 

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 11-05-14

The Briefing

 

November 5, 2014

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

 

It’s Wednesday, November 5, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) ‘Wave election’ for Republicans points to deepening worldview divide between two major parties

Campaigning over the weekend, President Obama had said,

“The American people are with us on all the big issues. [He continued,] You know it. I know it. The polls show it.”

Well the voters didn’t show it yesterday and what happened in the midterm election held yesterday was what is classified by political scientists as a wave election. The wave actually became evident early on Tuesday evening and it continued throughout election night. By the end of the evening, even as some key elections are still yet to be called, it was clear that the Republican Party had gained control of the United States Senate. For the first time in eight years Republicans hold control of both the house and the Senate. And the pickup in the Senate was even beyond what most Republican analyst had estimated. With Senatorial elections in the states of Louisiana and Alaska still pending, the Republican Party had already picked up seven seats. This is a massive change in terms of America’s political system; this is not the same impact as is seen in a presidential election. But this midterm election, coming in the sixth year of President Obama’s administration, is a massive check upon his presidential power and inevitably it will be seen as a political judgment upon the President’s leadership; for he is not only President of the United States, he is also the effective and symbolic head of his own political party – in this case the Democratic Party.

Key Senate elections were won by Republicans in the states of West Virginia, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, and also in the state of North Carolina. The change of party control in the Senate will mean that the Republicans will now hold key decision-making positions, especially in terms of the key committee chairmanships; those are given to the party that has the majority of senators in power. Furthermore, the Senate’s very important constitutional role in the confirmation of presidential appointees also will be a major factor in the last two years of the Obama administration. This is going to be a very interesting two years ahead of us. We will have an incumbent Democratic president in the last two years of his second term; we will have Republican control in both the House of Representatives and in the United States Senate.

Claiming victory last night in his own Senatorial contest in Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell, who is also the Republican leader in the Senate, pledged to work with President Obama in a bipartisan consensus where that is possible. Later today President Obama is himself expected to address the nation with his response to the midterm elections. Americans are going to be watching – almost assuredly they are going to be watching somewhat warily – in order to see if indeed the President of the United States and a Republican-controlled Congress can govern together on issues in which there might actually be common concern and common action. But yesterday’s election results, especially as seen in the Senatorial races, also points to the continuing and deepening partisan divide in America.

Christians watching this have to come to the quick understanding that this partisan divide is not merely a political issue, it’s not merely an ideological issue, it is, in a very important way, a worldview issue; because what divides these two parties is not a matter primarily of personalities nor regionalism, what divides these two parties are their visions of political reality. And beyond that, their visions of morality – even what it means to aim for human flourishing. When you look at these two parties and you look at the ideological and worldview divide that now separates them, you also come to understand something of even greater importance and that is that the divide isn’t basically found between these two political parties, the parties actually represent the great worldview divide amongst the American people; amongst the electorate. When it comes to so many of the most controversial and pressing issues facing our country, the base – that is the most loyal voters for both of these parties – are actually deeply at odds with one another and the division is inescapably, inextricably, a worldview conflict. The basic definition of reality, the basic understanding of human life, the basic understanding of morality, something as deeply controversial as marriage, these issues now separates these two parties – especially among their most devoted adherents.In terms of looking at the Republican wave election last night it’s also important to recognize that several very strategic governorships were also on the line. Republicans won key contests in states including Florida, Iowa, Kansas, and even the state of Massachusetts – one most deeply blue, that is deeply democratic, states in the entire nation. There were other very important issues also faced by voters in respective states, in the state of Oregon voters supported what was known as Measure 91 – legalizing marijuana following the example of the state of Colorado. Even after we should note, the governor of Colorado warned other states that they should avoid the kind of reckless experimentation that he suggested his own state had engaged in by legalizing recreational marijuana two years ago. In Washington, DC – that is the District of Columbia – voters approved what is known as Initiative 71, likewise legalizing recreational marijuana. It is important to note however that this will have nothing to do with the vast areas within the district that are controlled by the federal government. And the since the DC government is eventually under the control of Congress, Congress may step in. Voters in Alaska faced a similar proposition known as Measure 2, but as of early this morning it is unclear if that measure passed. Meanwhile in the state of Florida an effort to legalize so-called medical marijuana narrowly failed. It gained more than 50% of the vote but that was short of the 60% that was necessary in order to effect the change.

On the issue of abortion the states of Colorado and North Dakota turned back so-called personhood amendments; those are amendments that would have criminalized any assault upon an unborn fetus. In the case of Colorado, it was the third time that state’s voters had turned back such a personhood amendment. In the case of both states, it was a significant setback for the pro-life cause. But the pro-life cause won a huge victory in the state of Tennessee; there voters approved what was known as Amendment One; an amendment to that state’s constitution that would allow significant restrictions upon the availability of abortion. This became especially important because Tennessee had become a so-called ‘destination state’ for abortions in terms of the American Mid-South. But the vote in Tennessee also was deeply revealing because in that state the vote on Amendment One demonstrated a very significant moral divide, political divide, and as we well know, thus a worldview divide between rural and urban voters in that state. Urban voters overwhelmingly voted against Amendment One and thus in favor of unrestricted abortion rights. On the other hand, voters in rural Tennessee overwhelmingly voted for Amendment One – this simply affirm something that political scientist have known for a very long time and that is that rural voters in general tend to vote in a far more conservative pattern than urban or metropolitan voters; having to do with the fact that the context of the city itself clearly has a liberalizing effect. It may be the effect of drawing together persons who have a more liberal worldview but sociologists also indicate that the process also works the other way around; that is that person who move from a rural to a more metropolitan environment actually tend also to shift politically in terms of that movement. That tells us something, it tells us that worldview is also at least partly dependent upon context. That context might determine what one hears, the arguments that are available and furthermore the kind of worldview that has simply taken as normative, taken as normal within that particular context.

2) Voting analysis reveals that behavior can sometimes shape worldview

While considering the meaning of the election, a rather amazing article appeared in the op-ed pages of the New York Times yesterday. It was written by Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban; Weeden is a lawyer and psychology researcher, Kurzban is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. They are the authors of the new book entitled The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind: How Self-Interest Shapes Our Opinions and Why We Won’t Admit It. From a Christian worldview perspective their argument is really fascinating. As they began,

“As America completes another costly, polarized and exhausting election cycle, it’s commonplace to characterize our society as being divided into warring tribes of liberals and conservatives. But [they say]this view oversimplifies the causes of our political differences.”

Their argument continues,

“Most people aren’t ideologically pure, and most don’t derive their opinions from abstract ideologies and principles. People are more strongly influenced by the effects of policies on themselves, their families and their wider social networks. Their views, in short, are often based on self-interest.”

Now just taking those two paragraphs at face value, why should Christians think about the argument? Should we accept the fact that self-interest actually guides political decisions? Well, from a Christian biblical perspective we should understand that this should be expected. We should expect that in a fallen world, in a world in which sin corrupts virtually everything and no one acts on purely objective terms, that it would be nearly impossible for all of us – or for that matter for any of us – to escape the moral calculation about our own self-interest. As these researchers make very clear, self-interest in this sense is not limited to an individual perspective but to our family, to our group, or to our community. In making their argument the researchers write,

“This point may seem obvious, but it is overlooked by many political scientists who focus on other explanations: parents and peers, schools and universities, political parties and leaders, and that abstract and nebulous catchall, ‘values.’ But the most straightforward explanation, demographics, is also the most persuasive.”

Now the authors are really onto something here that should interest Christians and interest us deeply because he’s writing that as we consider how political opinions and political decisions are formed, what they’re really writing about is how worldview is formed and this gets really interesting. Further in their article they write,

“Self-interest is not limited to economics. People who want to have sex but don’t at the moment want babies are especially likely to support policies that ensure access to birth control and abortion. Immigrants [they write,] favor generous immigration policies. Lesbians and gay men are far more likely to oppose discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those who aren’t Christian are far more likely to oppose discrimination based on religion. Those who do best under meritocracy — people who have a lot of education and excel on tests — are far more likely to want to reduce group-based preferences, like affirmative action.”

But then they go on and what they write is extremely interesting,

“A focus on self-interest helps explain why three-quarters of people who went to church as children don’t attend church in their 20s. The young people most likely [they say] to abandon the church are those engaging in the kinds of lifestyles — involving alcohol, recreational drugs, premarital sex and nonmarital cohabitation — that religious conservatives condemn.”

Now what are we to make of this? Well we should make a very great deal of it because it points to something that is deeply biblical and something that virtually every Christian leader, parent, or pastor has to come to understand. On the one hand we understand that worldview determines behavior, we understand exactly how that happens; what we believe becomes inevitably played out in our lives. But we also need to understand that these researchers are onto something of vital importance; not only does our worldview determines behavior but the contrary is also true – our behavior can and often does affect our worldview.

The illustration they give of young people is very instructive. Those young people who are involved in the kinds of behaviors they indicated: premarital sex, non-marital cohabitation, and recreational drugs – those are the kinds of things that the average sinner simply wants to try to justify. Being involved in sinful activities, the sinner wants to justify that sin and in order to accomplish this, in order to rest more comfortably with conscience; the sinner goes to the next step of trying to realign the worldview in order to arrange an ideological and moral justification for the behavior. So Christians need to understand, these researchers are onto something real here; not only does worldview determines behavior but behavior can determine worldview.

These two researchers are primarily interested in how this plays out in the political sphere in terms of political electoral decisions, but Christians looking at this same article need to understand that something deeply biblical is being affirmed here. As the researchers very specifically point out, when young people get involved in these activities their worldview often shifts because of these activities and the attempt to justify these activities, such that they leave the worldview commitments they may have gained from their church and from their parents and replace them with a new set of worldview presuppositions that are at peace with their behavior. Or as these two researchers write,

“Despite their early socialization, as adults start making their own decisions, their religion and politics usually align with their interests.”

The results of this midterm election will give intelligent Christians a great deal to think about. But when it comes to the larger issues at stake, the midterm election is simply one episode in a very long story, a story of political engagement that should lead Christians to continue to think ever more seriously about what’s really at stake.

3) Scope of moral revolution evident in two radically new perceptions of parenthood

Meanwhile as the moral revolution continues to swirl around us, evidence comes in the form of two articles that appeared in Sunday’s edition of the style section of the New York Times. The first article is written by Ilana Kramer, she is one individual in a couple, a lesbian partnership that involves a same-sex marriage. And she writes in this article of how she and the person identified as her wife ended up having a child. And the story is one of those that could only be told and can only be understood in the most recent of times. She writes,

“For us, as a same-sex couple, creating a family was exciting but complicated. We had spent more than a year deciding if a known or unknown donor was the right path. Ultimately we decided [she writes,]we preferred the challenge of our child grappling with too many people rather than with too few in the biological questions that were bound to arise. We also knew we wanted something that might be impossible: a donor whom we already valued as a familiar man in our lives whom our future child could have a nonparental relationship with.”

She goes on to describe how she and her partner eventually were able to have a child with the donor assistance of the husband of a heterosexual couple, in this case a married couple, who also at virtually the same time decided to have a child. One thing we simply need to note, we must note, is that a lesbian couple married or in this case unmarried simply cannot have a child – not in any normal sense. They cannot do it without some kind of external intervention and some kind of reproductive technology. Without going into biological detail, in this case the technology was rather uncomplicated and the donor was certainly someone who wasn’t anonymous; this wasn’t sperm obtained from a sperm bank but rather from a friend. The man in this case, named Wilson, is married to Angela. Ilana Kramer then writes,

“We all agreed that Angela and Wilson would be almost like aunt and uncle types, without Wilson in a paternal role, emotionally or financially.”

At the end of the article, with both couples having a new baby, they met up. Ilana Kramer then concludes her article,

“We laid our baby on the ground next to theirs, we four parents cooing more than the two of them. But one thing was clear: Angela and Wilson’s daughter was undeniably theirs, and our son was joyfully our creation.”

But wait just a minute, writing that it’s so doesn’t make it so. In this case, the son born to this lesbian couple is here claimed to be their creation, but the article itself makes very clear in its narrative that the baby was only born because of the contribution made by the man who was the husband in the other couple. Just a matter of a generation ago this kind of article would’ve been unthinkable in the pages of the New York Times. Furthermore in moral terms, it would’ve been unthinkable that such an act would’ve been celebrated, certainly not in one of the nation’s leading and most influential newspapers. But that’s how the world has changed and how the moral revolution has now progressed. We also need to note that what the moral revolution now has brought us to is the fact that when we talk about having a baby we are profoundly now talking about a process, at least in potential, that is radically different from what having a baby has ever meant in any previous human generation.

The second article I present as evidence was found in the same section of the same newspaper on the very same day. In this case, Bruce Feiler writes an article entitled “This Weekend, College Is for Everyone” and what he’s actually writing about is a parents’ weekend recently held at Wesleyan University; and the article is really interesting. Because he writes about the fact that in the transformation of the American college and university context, the parent’s weekend has now taken on an entire new meaning. Even just a few years ago most colleges and universities still had some remaining sense of what was called ‘in loco parentis’ – that is the legal principle that colleges were expected to act as parents in the place of parents in the college situation with young people. Now most colleges and universities have long forfeited that responsibility, and as Bruce Feiler’s article makes very clear, the moral revolution means that the entire context is utterly transformed. In times past a parents’ weekend at least involved parents and the opportunity to find out if their college and university age offspring were behaving. But now it’s the behavior of the parents that is often a concern for the same universities. What kinds of concerns about parents might colleges have? Feiler writes,

“Another problem is that parents may try to relive their bright college years. At the University of Arizona, the Campus Alcohol Coalition posted a four-point ‘Don’t embarrass us’ plan in advance of Family Weekend. Entries include: ‘Don’t play beer pong with our friends’ and ‘Don’t get drunk.’ Reports of parents fraternizing with students are also not unheard-of. One student posted on the website College Confidential, ‘During Family Weekend I slept with my roommate’s dad.’ She added, ‘I’m sorry Emily.’

Feiler goes on to write,

“On one hand, there’s something mildly amusing about the heated atmosphere at Family Weekend. Parents who once said, ‘Don’t trust anyone over 30’ are now trying to pretend they’re under 30 themselves, giving their children tips for opening the keg and briefing them on negotiating with pot dealers. But it also raises a deeper question: Are we seeing a fundamental change in the relationship between college-age children and their parents?”

You know, from time to time some event happens or some article appears that simply makes it impossible to ignore the scope of the moral revolution we are now experiencing; this is one of those articles – at least it was for me. Because here you have Bruce Feiler of the New York Times writing about the fact that colleges and universities are now having to be worried about the behavior of parents on family weekend. Furthermore he writes so explicitly about what some parents are doing and in one of the most ominous sections of this report he tells us that parents are now – on family weekends – giving advice to their college and university offspring about how to open a beer keg and how to negotiate with pot dealers. Thus when Bruce Feiler asked the question,

“Are we seeing a fundamental change in the relationship between college-age children and their parents?”

The bigger question is what kind of moral revolution could produce parents who have present this kind of problem, who would need this kind of warning, who would be this kind of worried to college and university administrators? Not only has there been most assuredly a fundamental shift in the relationship between college age students and their parents, there’s also an even larger issue and that is the moral shift that would make any of this makes sense as published in Sunday’s edition of the New York Times. This is the world we are living in, here is further proof.

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 Kansas City, Missouri and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

 

 

The Briefing 11-05-14

Podcast Transcript

1) ‘Wave election’ for Republicans points to deepening worldview divide between two major parties

A Most Pivotal Election, Wall Street Journal (Fred Barnes)

National election results 2014, Washington Post

Voters pass wage hikes, legal pot; divide on abortion, USA Today (Greg Toppo and Laura Mandaro)

2) Voting analysis reveals that behavior can sometimes shape worldview

Election 2014: Your Very Predictable Vote, New York Times (Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban)

3) Scope of moral revolution evident in two radically new perceptions of parenthood

It Was in Giving That They Received, New York Times (Ilana Kramer)

This Weekend, College Is for Everyone, New York Times (Bruce Feiler)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 11-04-14

The Briefing

 

November 4, 2014

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

 

It’s Tuesday, November 4, 2014.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Election Day looms large on America’s political, cultural and moral horizons 

Today is Election Day in America and the midterm elections for this year loom very large on America’s cultural, moral, and political horizon. This comes for good reason; this is the midterm that comes at the midpoint of President Obama second term. This is the election that will set the stage for the final two years of the Obama administration and given the stakes on so many issues, this will be the most expensive midterm election in American history. A little footnote to that by the way, it’s almost certain that every subsequent election is more expensive than the one that came before, but these midterm elections have now taken on an entirely new importance. The crucial issue in this election is not just who was elected to represent which state from which position, but which party will control both houses of Congress. Right now the Republicans control the House of Representatives; the Democrats have, for several cycles now, controlled the United States Senate. The Senate becomes especially crucial given that bodies responsibility for the confirmation of presidential appointments. Given the fact that there will be hundreds of such appointed positions even in the last two years of the Obama Administration, this points to the importance of the control of the Senate and it points to why Republicans have such high hopes and why President Obama and Democrats have invested so much in trying to retain control of the upper body in Congress.

Both parties are taking a particularly close look at 10 Senatorial elections. These 10 are expected to decide the control of the Senate. They include contests in Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, Kansas, New Hampshire, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Iowa, and Alaska. If you’re wondering about the order of those states, they’re not in alphabetical order, nor are they simply in order from East to West, but they are in order of the closing of polling times. In other words, as you look to that list of states – a list that begins with Kentucky and ends with Alaska – you’re looking at the likely indicators of which way this midterm election will go. It’s going to be a long night – of that you can be sure. But it may also be the fact that we do not know the conclusion of the election today. That has to do the fact that in at least two states, Louisiana and Georgia, there is not only the possibility but indeed the likelihood of a runoff election. Because given the fact that there are independence running in the race, it’s very likely that neither candidate of either the Republican or the Democratic Party will be able to gain the necessary 50% plus one to enable the election to be declared. In the case of Georgia, that state will not hold a runoff if a runoff is necessary until after the first of the year – which could raise some very interesting constitutional questions since the congressional term begins before that runoff election will even be held.

An interesting aspect in terms of the midterm elections is offered by veteran political writer Susan Page of USA Today. She writes,

“As Election Day nears, America is the Land of the Fearful.”

As she explains,

“Voters are rattled by the Ebola virus, braced for years of conflict against the terrorist group the Islamic State and still worried about jobs, [that according to a] USA TODAY Poll finds. [She said] Two-thirds say the nation faces more challenging problems than usual; one in four call them the biggest problems of their lifetimes.”

Many, she says, lack confidence in the ability of government to address these challenges. Susan Page then quoted Laurie DeShano, she’s an instructor at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, who said:

“There’s this cornucopia of icky that’s going on right now,”

That’s a very interesting way of describing the current political and global environment. There is indeed ‘a cornucopia of icky.’ Just about everywhere voters turn there are issues to be deeply concerned about and this leads many voters to a sense of confusion about what’s really important. But it also is deeply humbling when you recognize that the two issues there that frame the beginning of Susan Page’s analysis and that is the Ebola crisis and the rise of Islamic State; a year ago we would’ve been discussing neither of those two issues and yet Americans right now say that those are the two main issues of their immediate concern. And even though those issues are not going to be on the ballot, they are on the minds of voters and that is what’s important.

2) Partisan divide in America points to a demographic divide

In addition to all that, as election day arrives it becomes increasingly clear that the partisan divide in America is not only an ideological and moral divide, it’s not only in some cases a generational divide, it’s also a demographic divide. Jackie Calmes writing in Saturday’s edition of the New York Times points out that Democrats are basically betting the bank in this election on the votes of women; and not just on the votes of women, but on the votes of minority women and unmarried women. In the current political context, Calmes explains, minority women and unmarried women are actually the Democratic Party’s most loyal voters. Christians looking at this phenomenon would recognize the importance of family context in marriage because as virtually every political scientist now recognizes, if a woman is unmarried she is much more likely to vote Democratic. If she is married, she’s much more likely to vote Republican. If you add children to the mix, this becomes even more exaggerated. Single women with children tend to vote Democratic in even greater numbers than single women without children and married women with children tend overwhelmingly to vote Republican. So often the mainstream media refers to issues as ‘women’s issues’ especially when dealing with the targeted strategies of the Democratic Party. But that party is not actually trying to get the votes of all women, but is targeting in particular those minority women and single women who are their most loyal voters. Now does marital status influence the vote or does the vote just indicate the likelihood of voting pattern from someone that is married or unmarried? That’s an interesting question. But what Christians do understand is that marriage fundamentally matters; it changes the entire equation and that equation is not only personal, it’s also deeply political – as political scientist now well recognize.

The mirror image of that story appeared in last Friday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal in a front-page article by Kristina Peterson and Dante Chinni entitled “GOP Tightens Grip on White Working Class.” As the reporters indicate, there has been an almost turning upside down of the tables, politically speaking, in terms of the white working class. If you go back about 30 years, they are overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic but now they are almost by the same terms voting in a Republican pattern. And as this report makes very clear, it’s expected that this midterm election will simply drive that process even further. This explains why a state like West Virginia that had been overwhelmingly Democratic for most of the period since the end of World War II is now going to be almost entirely Republican. But in other states the reverse is actually the case; Republican states have turned Democratic, Democratic states have turned Republican. But there’s something else to watch here and that has to do with the fact that even as there are states making these kinds of partisan switches, the partisan divide in America is actually growing wider – it’s not just switching, it is a further exaggeration of the partisan distance between Americans. Studies again and again in recent years have indicated that the Republican Party has grown more conservative over the last 30 years and in a very market way, the Democratic Party is taking a significant turn to the left just in the last 5 to 10 years. So the distance between Republicans and Democrats is actually greater than it has been at any recent point in American history; certainly at any point in which this generation of Americans would remember.

Finally as we think about the election we need to remember that not only are there candidates on the ballot, there are huge questions as well. Voters in two states and the District of Columbia will face voting questions related to the legalization of marijuana. And as we’re looking at the issue of abortion, at least two states face very big questions. Perhaps most importantly the voters of Tennessee will face the question known as ‘Amendment One,’ voters in that state have the opportunity to amend their state constitution so that its current status, as offering more liberal protections for abortion than even the United States Constitution, can be amended to allow for commonsense restrictions on abortion. And in the state of Colorado, that state for the third time, now faces a so-called ‘personhood amendment,’ an amendment that would declare it a crime to commit any act of violence against the fetus. This has brought a lot of attention to the state of Colorado but it has also brought a lot of money. As Katie Zezima of the Washington Post reported yesterday, Planned Parenthood is very active in Colorado opposing the personhood amendment and investing between $15 and $20 million nationwide seeking to protect abortion rights in virtually any conceivable context. To all these must be added the fact that in at least 36 states there are gubernatorial elections also at stake underlining a new the importance of this Election Day. Elections have consequences and in an election of this importance will have massive consequences. So on this consequential day, we will all be watching to see just what Americans are saying with their vote. What will you be saying with yours?

3) Obama comments about stay-at-home moms reveals priority of professional over family life

Next there’s been an enormous amount of conversation about a statement made on the campaign trail by someone who isn’t on the ballot, not exactly. And that someone is President Barack Obama. Campaigning for Democratic candidates in Rhode Island in a speech given there, President Obama sought to address his party’s contention about the issues of importance to women. And then he said this,

“Sometimes, someone, usually Mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result. That’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”

That’s what the President said. At least to this point, the White House has offered no clarification of the President’s comments. Writing at The Federalist, Mollie Hemingway is almost certainly right to say that the President probably did not mean exactly what he said. But given the context of his remarks, what he almost surely didn’t mean is quite troubling enough. In the larger context of the President’s statement, he was actually first discussing the issue of day care. The President has been calling for an additional 6 million children in what the President defines as high-quality day care and preschool programs. So let’s look at the President’s larger quote. The President said,

“In many states, sending your child to daycare costs more than sending them to a public university.”

Someone from the audience cried out, “True!” The President responded,

“True. And too often, parents have no choice but to put their kids in cheaper daycare that maybe doesn’t have the kinds of programming that makes a big difference in a child’s development.  And sometimes there may just not be any slots, or the best programs may be too far away.  And sometimes, someone, usually mom, leaves the workplace to stay home with the kids, which then leaves her earning a lower wage for the rest of her life as a result.  And that’s not a choice we want Americans to make.”

Taken just at face value it appears that the President said that we don’t, as Americans, want American women to make the choice to stay home with their children. But even if that’s not exactly what the President meant to say, his comments in terms of the larger context are if anything equally distressing because the President here seems to hold out a norm for American women that involves them giving their primary attention at every point of their adult lives to their professional life. And furthermore to have the backdrop of a government support for preschool and day care programs so that they would not have to face any pressure to go home and stay with the children; thus exiting the workforce only later to reenter it with a harm to the wage curve. As Mollie Hemingway writes,

“Putting the absolute best construction on this statement, we might say President Obama misspoke. Perhaps he meant to say he doesn’t want mothers to have to choose between staying home and lower future wages. I mean, [she writes] he didn’t say ‘I don’t want mothers forced to make this decision,’ but we could imagine he might have wished he’d said it.”

But then she writes,

“When I had my first child, I traded the money of my newspaper job for the far-greater value (for me) of time spent with my totally awesome daughter. It would not make sense for me to be paid for newspaper work I didn’t produce. And had I wanted the income more than the time with my child, I could have made that decision as well. People are free, you see, to make the decision that works best.”

Mollie Hemingway went on to say that she traded income for time with her children and even as she has reentered the workforce, she still continues in one sense to pay for that decision. But she says it was the right decision and she should have been free to make that decision. But as she says, in the real economic world there’s no way to make that decision and still have no economic impact of leaving the workforce for those years.

Furthermore as Charles Murray of the American Enterprise Institute also makes very clear, the contributions of stay-at-home moms not only to their own children and to their own families but to the larger society, these contributions are actually incalculable. In the President’s worldview the norm should be that a woman would give her attention to her profession and in so far she has the kind of governmental support the President anticipates, she would never have to leave the workforce for any appreciable amount of time; thus she would never be in the position of leaving the workforce for a number of years only to reenter it at a significant income disadvantage to those who stayed on the job during those very same years. In the President’s understanding what we face is a problem of inequality and the only way to solve that problem of inequality is to create a government program of expanded preschool and day care so that women would choose that option and not have to leave the workforce – thus eliminating the inequality. But as Mollie Hemingway and many other writers have pointed out, this is an inequality that is actually factored in by these women in terms of their own calculation of what they want, of what they desire, of what they believe is their calling in life. And thus when these women leave their professions, at least for some time, in order to give primary attention to their children and families as stay-at-home moms and wives, they are making a decision that ought to be just as honored as any other. But that won’t play well in terms of today’s rather secular Democratic Party. It won’t play well in a party that is tilted its message decidedly toward gaining the votes of unmarried women.

Furthermore as both Charles Murray and Mollie Hemingway point out, the economic presuppositions are themselves very suspect. As Hemingway writes,

“I don’t want to give the impression that staying home with children is always a bad economic decision. Studies show that intact families end up having what some call marriage premiums — resulting in more money brought home. What this basically means, among other things, is that men with children in their home make more money — whether this is because they’re working and striving harder, taking on more responsibilities, signaling stability, or some other combination — that offsets losses women face because of labor and workforce disruptions affiliated with having children.”

Not every mother can stay at home with her children but as study after study has indicated there are enormous benefits from mothers who can; especially for the children raised in those homes. Furthermore, there are economic issues that simply do not pan out in terms of the moral analysis. There is no simple trade-off of the experience of a mom staying at home with their children by choice and the economic issues that are tied to the professional cycle. From a worldview perspective one of the things of greatest interest to note here is the fact that the elites in this country are increasingly confused and frustrated by women who don’t want what the elites want them to want. President Obama’s comments, even if we try to clean them up a bit, turn out to be very hostile to the idea that a woman would want to stay at home with her children and would willingly decide to leave the workforce for some time in order to make those children and that home her priority.

One final note of interesting analysis on this story, it turns out when you look at the media and the blogosphere that the people who seem to be most angry at President Obama for these comments are not men who are saying ‘we want our wives to stay at home,’ but rather women who say ‘the President has trampled on our own free moral choice, our own sense of calling.’ Speaking in Rhode Island, President Obama meant to rally the votes of women, he wanted to get the attention of America’s women with these comments, and it turns out that perhaps in a way he surely did not intend, he was wildly successful beyond anything he could’ve imagined. Beginning with my own dear wife, any numbers of women hearing the President’s comments were not encouraged to go out and vote for the candidate he was endorsing but rather to stand back in horror at what the President actually said. We all know that elections have consequences but so, as the President surely found out, do speeches; this speech in particular. Whether the President recognizes it or not, millions of American women believe that the decision to stay home with their children is a positive and in no way a negative choice.

4) Population control solution to climate change horrifying example of anti-natalism

Finally, we surely should’ve seen this one coming. Fast on the heels of that United Nations climate change report comes an article by Jason Plautz in The Atlantic arguing that one thing that needs to be taken into consideration as we seek to address the challenge of climate change is lowering the birth rate. As he writes,

“The equation seems fairly simple: The more the world’s population rises, the greater the strain on dwindling resources and the greater the impact on the environment. The solution? Well, [he writes] that’s a little trickier to talk about.”

At least Mr. Plautz recognizes something of what he’s up against. Later in the article he writes,

“Talking about population control requires walking a tightrope: There’s nuance between encouraging access to birth control and a China-style one-child policy, but that doesn’t always translate in the retelling, and it can all too easily sound like a developed world leader telling people in the developing world that they should stop having children—especially because much of the population boom is coming from regions like sub-Saharan Africa.”

 

Well Mr. Plautz is exactly right; this is the challenge he faces. Because inevitably, given the fact that in the developed world birthrates have been plummeting in recent decades, the only way this become the relevant issue is if people in the developed world tell people in the developing world they should stop having children. Now keep in mind the fact that most demographers point to the reality that a looming birth dearth – that is an absence of births – may well be the larger problem in terms of human flourishing in coming generations. It is expected that the human population on earth will continue to grow for some time, only to begin to decline at the midpoint of the second half of the 21st century. For the last 50 years or so there’s been a significant anti-natalist tendency among the intellectual elites. Anti-natalist simply means against births; which means in essence, against babies. Babies are seen as the problem, population is seen as the great blight on civilization, and there’s nothing like a climate change report such as that released on Sunday by the United Nations to fuel many people in the population control movement – which of course is often very closely allied with the abortion-rights movement – to say, ‘we offer the answer to your problem.’ No matter how the intellectual elites may try, they can’t remove the stain of racism from the population control movement. And there’s something deeply tragic and sad about a movement that says the way to address the problem of the environment is to reduce the number of babies born into it. For far too many millions of people on the secular left, they still believe salvation is found in a pill – most particularly in a birth control pill.

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 Kansas City, Missouri and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.