R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 353

The Briefing 06-25-14

1) United Methodist court reinstates defrocked minister in disregard of doctrinal fidelity

Methodist Panel Reinstates Defrocked Pastor, New York Times (Michael Paulson and Emmarie Huetteman)

The Mainline (Re)Forms Further To The Left, American Conservative (Rod Dreher)

2) Solution to PCUSA membership decline not more liberal theology

Why the PC(USA) can grow because of marriage equality, Christian Century (Carol Howard Merritt)

3) Legalized marijuana brings social disaster beyond what legislators anticipated

After 5 Months of Sales, Colorado Sees the Downside of a Legal High, New York Times (Jack Healy)

 Ganja Gets Warehouse Owners Buzzing as Pot Farms Thrive, Bloomberg (Heather Bloomberg)

Candy’s Dandy, but Pot’s Scary, New York Times (T.M. Luhrmann)

4) Precocious social behavior in young adolescents detrimental to healthy maturation

Cool at 13, Adrift at 23, New York Times (Jan Hoffman)

5) Social understanding of autism does not match actual scientific consensus 

Dr. Lorna Wing, Who Broadened Views of Autism, Dies at 85, New York Times (Paul Vitello)

Doctors under pressure to label bookish children as mentally ill, The Times (Chris Smyth)

Transcript: The Briefing 06-24-14

The Briefing

 

June 24, 2014

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

 

It’s Tuesday, June 24, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

 

The United States Supreme Court is set to ends its term this week and that means that in a flurry of decisions at least eight huge cases are going to be handed down by the court on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. That means we’re looking forward to two days in which many issues are going to be settled by the United States Supreme Court. Amongst those issues are big cases concerning presidential powers and the ability of this president, President Barack Obama, to make recess appointments to federal positions with the Senate declaring that it is not actually in recess. You also have big questions coming down concerning greenhouse gases, securities fraud, television broadcast rights, labor unions, and cell phone privacy. But the two biggest cases for our concern are going be cases having to do with abortion clinics and the Hobby Lobby case having to do with the contraceptive mandate of the Obama Administration.

 

In the case of the abortion clinics, this is a case that comes from Massachusetts and it challenges a Massachusetts law that restricted demonstrators outside abortion clinics and set up 35-foot buffer zones. The challenger in this case is arguing that that is an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech rights.

 

On the other hand, the Hobby Lobby case is likely to be the most long-lasting and long-remembered of the cases to be handed down precisely because it is at such a turning point in terms of our culture. Hobby Lobby’s a company that charges that it’s conscience is now violated by the fact that the Obama Administration requires it to not only provide, but to pay for contraceptive coverage through its insurance policies and, furthermore, to include in that coverage drugs that at least some of the time are believed to operate as abortifacients.

 

We’ll be watching all these cases very closely, but just keep in mind that the next two days are likely to bring a flurry of Supreme Court decisions as that court ends its current term, and that means that many of the most important issues of our current time are going to be handed down by the court in fast order.

 

Shifting to denominational news, we watched last week as the Presbyterian Church USA—that is the liberal mainline Protestant Presbyterian denomination—affirmed in a very imbalanced vote the approval of same-sex marriage and the rites and ceremonies to be recognized by the church for those same-sex marriages. The church also voted by the same margin to allow Presbyterian clergy, that is, PCUSA clergy, to perform same-sex unions in the states where such unions are legal. As I pointed out at the time, the PCUSA has been hemorrhaging members by the thousands, indeed now over a million, and, furthermore, the PCUSA has also been hemorrhaging congregations as conservative congregations have fled the denomination for refuge in more conservative and evangelical Presbyterian groups.

 

But now you have the news that came out at the very end of the week that the Presbyterian Church USA had voted by a vote of 310 to 303 to divest its holdings from three American corporations that have done business with Israel. This divestment is intended to send a very clear signal of the denomination’s displeasure with Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. As Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times reported:

 

After passionate debate over how best to help break the deadlock between Israel and the Palestinians, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted on Friday at its general convention to divest from three companies that it says supply Israel with equipment used in the occupation of Palestinian territory.

 

All of this means that the PCUSA has now placed itself very clearly against Israel as a state. Even though the denomination has tried to say the divestment was simply from three American corporations, the arguments used both in the conversation on the floor debate and in the larger media made very clear that it is displeasure with Israel that is at the center of this denominational action. And furthermore, it’s an extremely imbalanced action. It blames Israel for virtually all of the problem in the Middle East—in particular, the problem with the Palestinian territories—and it also puts this denomination in a very rare left-wing group that calls for what is known as BDS or Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions against Israel.

 

The Reverend Walt Davis of the Israel-Palestine Mission Network, a pro-divestment group within the PCUSA, told Religion News Service, “After a decade of corporate engagement with Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola Solutions, these companies have failed to modify their behavior and continue to profit from Israeli human rights abuses and non-peaceful pursuits.” Now let’s look at this just a little further. Caterpillar actually says it does not even sell any equipment to Israel, but it does sell equipment to the United States government and the United States government becomes the conduit for taking Caterpillar’s products, which after all are largely road building and construction equipment, to Israel. But Caterpillar now is on the bad list for the PCUSA and has been the subject of its divestment, along with the other two companies—Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions. Those companies are blamed for being involved in the information network that makes the management of the Palestinian territories by the Israelis possible.

 

There’s a great deal to be said about this. One of the things that needs to be said is that almost every one of these actions is ineffectual and that’s largely true whether it’s undertaken by a denominational on the left, such as the PCUSA, or, in the case of the Southern Baptist Convention, a denominational the right. Over a decade ago, the Southern Baptist Convention declared a boycott of the Disney Corporation based upon its displeasure with some of the Disney corporate policies. That basically was a very failed project and eventually it went away causing no apparent damage to Disney. But on the moral level, this is a particularly reprehensible decision because it singles out Israel, the only democracy in the entire region, the only clear friend of the United States on democratic terms in the region, and the country that has certainly the greatest record in terms of human rights of the entire region. That’s not to absolve Israel of its responsibility to be very humane in dealing, in so far as it is possible, with the Palestinian question. But it is the recognition that the existence of Israel is in itself a moral fact and that’s what makes the PCUSA’s position even more dangerous than many people now recognize. Writing in yesterday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, Jonathan Marks reports:

 

The church signaled its antipathy for Israel earlier this year by hawking a study guide called “Zionism Unsettled” in its online church store. In the 76-page pamphlet, Zionism—the movement to establish a Jewish homeland and nation-state in the historic land of Israel—is characterized as a “a struggle for colonial and racist supremacist privilege.”

 

So make no mistake in this case, the PCUSA is bearing its teeth at Israel, declaring that the very idea of Israel as a nation, as a Jewish state, is itself, to use their words, “a struggle for colonial and racist supremacist privilege.”

 

The culture war that divides Americans from each other on so many issues and the culture divide that separates so many American denominations is fully on view in this very issue here. Here the Presbyterian Church USA last Friday put itself very much on the side of those who are calling not only for the divestment of all holdings in Israel, but, as this report makes very clear, for the abolition of the Jewish state. Those words are not present in this report, but the accusation that Israel itself as a Jewish state in that part of the world represents “a struggle for colonial and racist supremacist privilege” is more than a clear signal; it’s an argument for the abolition of Israel.

 

Shifting to the issue of the disappearance of Christianity in Muslim-dominated lands, The New York Times deserves credit for one of the most important articles of our times. It ran in Sunday’s edition of the paper; Azem Ahmed reporting in an article that was entitled “A Christian on the Run in Afghanistan.” It tells us about a young Christian convert from Islam named Josef. And as Ahmed writes:

 

For Josef, 32, who asked to be identified only by his Christian name to protect his wife and young child, the path to Christianity was only one segment on a much longer journey, a year of wandering that took him through Turkey, Greece, Italy and Germany, seeking refuge from Afghanistan’s violence.

But at each stop he found misfortune. He was detained in Greece and deported from Germany, and he lived on the streets in Italy before he truly understood that there would be no happy ending in Europe, where his application for asylum has gone nowhere. He voluntarily left Italy for Pakistan to be with his wife and son, but that is no longer an option.

 

Neither is reverting to Islam. “I inherited my faith, but I saw so many things that made me discard my religious beliefs,” Josef said. “Even if I get killed, I won’t convert back.”

 

He converted to Christianity during his brief sojourn in Germany. In very moving words, he spoke of his conversion like this:

 

I think I was impressed by the personality of Jesus himself. The fact that he came here to take all of our sins, that moved me. I admired his character and personality long before I was baptized.

 

But the fact that he converted from Islam to Christianity made him a target of violence in his native land of Afghanistan where he has now returned. And as Ahmed reports, even though on paper, Afghan law protects freedom of religion, on the ground, it is virtually a guaranteed death sentence. Ahmed writes:

 

Josef’s brother-in-law Ibrahim arrived in Kabul recently, leaving behind his family and business in Pakistan, to hunt down the apostate and kill him. Reached by telephone—

 

—and this is very important. Here we’re being told by The New York Times that their reporter actually reached this brother-in-law with deadly intent, and he told them of his intent. Reached by telephone, Ibrahim, who uses only one name, offered a reporter for The New York Times $20,000 to tell him where Josef was hiding. “If I find him, once we are done with him, I will kill his son as well because his son is illegitimate. He is not from a Muslim father.”

 

The story makes clear that at one point Josef was taken into custody by his own father, knowing that other relatives sought to kill him. The father did not protect him, but rather imprisoned him within his own home, awaiting the decision to be made by the family as to whether he would be killed. In the midst of all this, Josef managed to escape, but now he finds himself and he finds his wife and, as this statement makes very clear, his son in mortal danger.

 

Repeated headlines and studies have made very clear that Christianity is virtually disappearing from the Middle East and Central Asia, virtually from all Muslim-dominated lands. In so many of those lands, conversion is actually even by law a capital offense and even where in Afghanistan, largely by American and British influence, there is at least on paper a guarantee of religious liberty, as it turns out, that is worth virtually nothing in a society in which your own father will imprison you to await other relatives to kill you and when you have relatives willing to tell The New York Times that they will offer $20,000 for the whereabouts of the Christian convert and then to say when they find him and kill him, they will kill his son as well.

 

If nothing else, this should remind Christians of the fact that we should be praying for those persecuted brothers and sisters wherever they are found in the world with their lies very much in jeopardy. But it also draws into very sharp relief the basic distinction between Islam and Christianity—and virtually in this case, Islam and the rest of the world—when it comes to the issue of religious liberty and human rights. Even as many people try to say that the current conflict is not between Islam, but only Islamic terrorists, you need to recognize that The New York Times has authoritatively told us here that on the ground in Afghanistan, virtually, in this sense, everyone is a terrorist if the victim is one who has converted to Christianity.

 

And that brings in to even sharper focus the decision just made last Friday by the Presbyterian Church USA. They voted to divest itself of holdings in three companies for doing business with Israel. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, a Christian is awaiting his execution as soon as his relatives can find him. At the very least, that seems to be a very unbalanced concern for a Christian denomination.

 

Last week, there was a really interesting article published in The New York Times opinion page by Peggy Orenstein. It was entitled “The Battle Over Dress Codes.” It’s one of those articles that isn’t at all clear in terms of its essential point. That’s a problem in one sense, but also in this case serves to prove the point that if you’re operating out of a very confused worldview, you have a very difficult time answering questions such as the question what should girls, adolescent girls, be allowed to wear to school? In this case, Peggy Orenstein appears to be arguing both sides of the case. She writes about her own daughter saying that she doesn’t want her daughter to be the subject of male gazing. She doesn’t want boys gazing at her daughter as a sex object and she doesn’t want her daughter to think that she has to dress that way in order to have self-esteem and the attention of other students in the class, particularly boys. Meanwhile, she also doesn’t want her daughter to miss out on what sexualization can promise in terms of popularity and asserting her own feminist identity by means of declaring herself to be female by wearing rather sexualized clothing.

 

How can a mom have it both ways in this kind of situation? She rails against the fact that many school policies are putting restrictions on what girls can wear, claiming that sexualized outfits on young girls will “distract boys.” She writes, “As if young men cannot control themselves in the presence of a spaghetti strap.” She seems to write with approval the new feminist mantra “Don’t tell us what to wear; teach the boys not to stare.” At one point what you have here is a defiance of human nature and also of an understanding of the fact that modesty is an essential requirement for civilization itself, not to mention for a social context as sensitive as schools for middle schoolers and high schoolers.

 

As she ends her article, she writes:

 

After a flurry of parental feedback, my daughter’s school is making two changes for next fall. First, the staff is developing lesson plans for students, faculty members and parents about the impact of sexualization on boys as well as girls. They are also revising the definition of “distracting” apparel. Clothing must allow students a full range of motion — sitting, bending, reaching, running — without requiring perpetual readjustment. It cannot, in other words, pose a “distraction.”

 

But Peggy Orenstein’s article is actually, as I said, more interesting for the confusion it represents than for the clarity. For one thing, it’s amazing in a secular culture that you have so many people who seem to believe that sexualizing children of either gender at any age is appropriate in any sense. Furthermore, what we have in this article is at least to some degree an affirmation of the feminist argument that the sexualization of young girls and of teenagers is actually a statement of their own self-esteem and their own understanding of themselves embracing the full power of femininity. As I said earlier, there’s also a basic denial of human nature here with the kind of statement that is affirmed here: “Don’t tell us what to wear; teach the boys not to stare.” This is not at all to absolve boys and men of their responsibility for lust and leering, but it is to recognize that something basic to human nature that has been respected by virtually all previous generations is being rejected here and dismissed out of hand.

 

But I bring up this article at least in part for the letters to the editor that appeared in subsequent editions of the paper that brought a great deal of clarity. For example, you have one writer, Kate Levine Markel, writing from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who points out that many of the moms arguing to have no rules over what their daughters wear to school, follow very careful rules when it comes to what they wear to work. In other words, she raises the obvious question of why would it be appropriate for a daughter to wear to school what a mother wouldn’t wear to work?

 

The controversy also brought forth a letter to the editor from Linda Slezak of Hampton Bays, New York, who said this is the best argument yet for school uniforms. She doesn’t exactly put it this way, but this is the point she makes. When parents can’t make commonsensical decisions, someone else has to make them and the easiest way to make them is to mandate a school uniform. And that little controversy tells us a very great deal about the moral confusions of our age and this is one of the situations in the culture were Christian parents simply have to press back and press back firmly. We cannot accept the wisdom of the age that even allows for a moment that modesty is something other than a moral mandate. This isn’t a call for cloaking our daughters from head to toe in a burka, such as the Islamic world, but it is a recognition that parents and daughters have a responsibility to dress in such a way that they are seen to be genuinely feminine and yet not sexually explicit.

 

And furthermore, of course, this comes down to boys and young men as well. Christian boys and young men—for that matter, men of all ages—have the responsibility to learn how to train their eyes, but this is a recognition that for all of us, male and female, modesty is not respected in the Scripture for no reason, but for the very important reason that in a fallen world, our Creator recognizes the need for modesty, even as He fashioned for Adam and Eve aprons to cover them after the fall. And it’s after the fall that we now live.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. Remember that right now we’re taking questions for Ask Anything: Weekend Edition’s new season to being in late summer. Just call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 06-24-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Significant Supreme Court decisions to be handed down this week

Eight big cases await Supreme Court rulings, USA Today (Richard Wolf)

2) PC(USA) takes clear stance against state of Israel

Presbyterians Vote to Divest Holdings to Pressure Israel, New York Times (Laurie Goodstein)

Presbyterians narrowly vote to divest from 3 companies involved in Israeli/Palestinian conflict, Religion News Service (Lauren Markoe)

Presbyterians Join the Anti-Israel Choir, Wall Street Journal (Jonathan Marks)

3) Story of Christian convert in Afghanistan reveals Islam’s divergent view of religious liberty

A Christian Convert, on the Run in Afghanistan, New York Times (Azem Ahmed)

4) Difficulty of dress codes evidences feminist confusion on modesty and sexuality

The Battle Over Dress Codes, New York Times (Peggy Orenstein)

You’re Not Really Wearing That to School?, New York Times (To the Editor)

Transcript: The Briefing 06-23-14

The Briefing

 

June 23, 2014

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

 

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

 

Big news out of the United Kingdom over the weekend where the British government has banned the teaching of creationism in all three schools and academies. As United Press International reports, the government has released a new set of funding agreements that includes clauses which specifically prohibit what is identified as pseudoscience; otherwise explicitly named as creationism. From the government’s statement:

 

The parties acknowledge that clauses 2.43 and 2.44 of the Funding Agreement [which preclude the teaching of pseudoscience and require the teaching of evolution] apply to all academies. They explicitly require that pupils are taught about the theory of evolution, and prevent academy trusts from teaching ‘creationism’ as scientific fact.

Later UPI reports:

 

The funding agreement defines creationism as “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth and therefore rejects the scientific theory of evolution,” and [the government statement] goes on to note that this idea [of creationism] is rejected not only by the scientific community but most mainstream churches as well.

This is obviously a story that bears some closer attention. One thing becomes immediately clear: what in the world are free schools and academies? Creationism has been banned for any number of years in the main government-funded schools, but in the United Kingdom, the schools are often sponsored by churches and by other groups. They would be known in this country as charter schools. Now any school that receives any government funding from the British government is now banned from teaching creationism and this includes schools that are identified with churches. Thus, the government says, “If you accept our funding, you’re also going to accept our curricular decisions. If you accept government funding, then you’re not going to be able to teach creationism.”

 

As a matter of fact, the second thing that requires our closer attention is the definition of creationism, and this is exceedingly important. Let me repeat the statement from the government. They identify creationism as “any doctrine or theory which holds that natural biological processes cannot account for the history, diversity, and complexity of life on earth.” This is a classic statement of materialism or naturalism. It is a worldview that is now being enforced upon all students and all schools receiving funding from the British government. The British government now mandates a naturalistic worldview as the only acceptable worldview and the only way that anything related to the existence of the cosmos can now be taught in terms of British school pupils.

 

In another interesting twist, UPI notes that the discussion of beliefs about the origin of the earth, including creationism, are permitted in religious education classes as long “as it is not presented as a valid alternative to established scientific theory.” Several other British media sources are getting to the point, and the point is this: creationism can be taught in some way in religious education classes so long as it is put alongside other “myths.” So long as it is presented in mythical form, claiming no form of factual knowledge, no form of the relation of factual truth, creationism can be taught, but it can emphatically not be taught as relating in any way to the way that the cosmos came about.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of this account is that the government statement says that any account of evolution must be one that would account for everything that now exists, the complexity and diversity of life, and that includes, as the statement makes abundantly clear, human life as well. The influential website Politics UK says that this is a secular triumph as the government bans creationism from free schools and academies, and, of course, it is exactly that. It is the triumph of a materialistic and naturalistic worldview now being forced upon all British schoolchildren, but wait just a minute. It’s actually upon all British schoolchildren who are studying in schools that receive, to one degree or another, government funding.

 

Finally, in this case, this is the last emphatic point. American Christians had better watch this very, very carefully because the same principle that applies now in the United Kingdom applies by extension here. Where there are schools that receive government funding, the government has at least some say in the curriculum. Eventually the government will have all the say the government wants, if the government sends funding to a school. The only way that we can maintain the actual integrity of teaching in Christian schools is if Christians are paying for the schools. The moment you accept any form of government aid, government loans, government financial support, you invite just this kind of mandate into your curriculum. This is fair warning. It happened over the weekend in United Kingdom; it could happen to a school near you in very short order.

 

Also over the weekend, USA Today ran a headline story that gender is losing its impact with the young. USA Today was reporting on research released by the group known as The Intelligence Group. As the headline in the news article by Sharon Jayson says, a new survey of those aged 14 to 34 finds that gender doesn’t define a person the way it once did. Sixty percent, says the research, think gender lines have blurred. Almost two-thirds say their generation is pushing boundaries. As Jayson writes:

 

They’re young. They like things their way. They don’t like stereotypes and steer clear of conformity. Because young people ages 34 and younger are legions larger than the dominant-until-now-Baby Boom generation, their likes and dislikes command lots of attention. High on their list is gender identity – a concept they’re increasingly resisting.

 

Jamie Gutfreund, who is the chief strategy officer of The Intelligence Group, said, “Gender stereotypes are conformity.” The survey, by the way, reveals that “gender is less of a definer of identity today than it was for prior generations. Rather than adhering to traditional gender roles, young people are interpreting what gender means to them personally.” Now as Sharon Jayson’s report in USA Today goes on, this front page article indicates that America’s millennial generation—and those who are now identified as ages 14 to 34—are bending the gender rules. As a matter of fact, many of them, according to this report, are rejecting the idea of gender altogether. The findings revealed that more than two-thirds agree that gender doesn’t define a person the way it once did. Sixty percent think the gender lines have been blurred; two-thirds say their generation is pushing the boundaries of what it means to be masculine and feminine; 42% say that gender roles today are confusing. Bruce Tulgan, the founder of a management research and training company in Connecticut, describes what he’s observed as fluidity: “They would say not just men and women; it’s everyone along the spectrum. Everybody has his or her own gender story.”

 

Now the article’s rather extensive and many young people are quoted within it. Those cited include a woman who is studying at the University of Maryland, College Park who has been competing with the school’s boxing club. Also in terms of bullet points in the article, it is noted that college campuses have been at the forefront of this revolution, creating gender-neutral bathrooms, gender-neutral housing, allowing students to live with any roommate, regardless of the roommate’s sex or gender or the sex or gender with which the person may identify. USA Today reports that this trend is accelerating on American college and university campuses, becoming not exceptions now, but increasingly the norm. Also, state governments are now moving towards gender-neutral language. According to Kay Warnock, a policy specialist of The National Conference of State Legislatures in Denver, 30 states out of the 50 have at least by now addressed the gender-neutral issue.

 

Then the research points to this generation not as children, but as parents. As the oldest American Millennials begin their early years as parents, USA Today reports, they are adopting this genderless approach. Gender neutrality is evident, from decorating baby’s rooms in neutral colors, rather than more traditional pink and blue, to selecting more gender-neutral toys, to baby names they’re choosing, which are largely gender unclear, including things like Peyton and Rowan.

 

The article also points to an award-winning 2013 novel known as Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. He won a major science fiction award. It got attention for its complete and extensive non-gendered language. The narrator of the story doesn’t use gender-specific pronouns to describe the characters, whether the character is biologically male or female.

 

There are several other bullet points as well, but at the end of the article, Sharon Jayson simply summarizes by saying that the Internet has been a major factor in leading to this revolution in gender identity among younger Americans. Well when you look at this article and you see its front page coverage in USA Today, we can certainly see that, to some extent, this is newsworthy. As a matter of fact, this is marketing news, and marketers need to get a handle on these things because their main purpose is knowing how young people think in order to sell things to them, in order to market everything from consumer goods to lifestyles. But there’s something else from this article that is also fundamentally important. One of the things that becomes clear in this kind of social science research is that increasingly people answer as they are supposed to answer, as they think they are supposed to answer. One of the things that becomes increasingly clear in this kind of analysis is that you have an enormous number of young people in this generation who feel the necessity of answering one way whether or not they actually feel that way or not.

 

Now just as a matter of anecdotal evidence, soon after I saw this news article, I was in two different social locations. One of them was a shopping mall and the other one was an evangelical church. Unsurprisingly, in a very large evangelical church, I had no problem whatsoever identifying the difference between boys and girls and young men and young women. They dressed according to their gender identity, which accorded with their biological birth. They seemed to be absolutely clear about who was a boy, was a girl, who was a young man, who was a young woman. But I also found myself in a major suburban shopping mall, and there I noted the same thing. Almost everyone I saw, even as I was alerted to it by this article, appeared to be wearing clothes that clearly intended to identify with one gender, not the other. Furthermore, even on college and university campuses, even on some of those liberal and progressive college and university campuses, the reality is the majority of students dress and present themselves exactly according to the gender in which they were born.

 

Taking all of this as a whole, I have no doubt whatsoever that America is undergoing a radical revolution on issues of sexuality and gender, but when it comes to these gender issues, even those who are pushing the periphery indicate that it is a very small percentage of Americans who are actually experimenting with this kind of gender bending as it has been called. So this makes front-page news in USA Today and it makes front-page news in the context of a marketing report, but you have to wonder when you look at this kind of research and you look at the media coverage about it, what’s actually being marketed. In this case, it’s probably the claims of a revolution.

 

Shifting to the issue of gambling, and, in particular, government-sponsored gambling, just a few days ago, we looked at the closing of a major casino in the state of Mississippi, an indication of the overbuilding of casino gambling facilities throughout the United States. Now Scott Calvert and Jon Kamp report:

 

Racetrack casinos used to contribute as much as $240 million a year to Delaware’s tax coffers. But as the Northeast becomes saturated with gambling venues, the state’s casino revenue has tumbled, prompting a new industry request—for a tax break.

 

Delaware’s Governor Jack Markell is quoted as saying, “It’s a different world for the Delaware casinos.” The journal reports that 26 casinos have opened in the area since 2004. That’s in Delaware, New Jersey, and West Virginia, fueling a 39% increase in total annual gambling revenue in the mid-Atlantic and in New England, according to a study by the University of Nevada in Las Vegas. Within 100 miles of Philadelphia, there are now 24 casinos, a big shift from the early 1990s, writes the journal, when Atlantic City, New Jersey, enjoyed an East Coast monopoly. At least a dozen more gambling spots are in the pipeline for Massachusetts to Maryland, raising fears in states such as Rhode Island that their casino tax windfall is at risk. Richard McGowan, who is a casino expert at Boston College, said. “The casino building boom is a direct declaration of war—indirect war—by the states. What they’re saying is, “I want the revenue. I want the revenue back.’” The state of Pennsylvania, for example, has rocketed, according to the journal, since 2006 to become the state with the second most gambling revenue, coming in second only behind the state of Nevada.

 

One very interesting aspect of this article is that the journal reports that the state of New Jersey, to take one example, takes a 9.25% cut of casino revenue. So the state of New Jersey has a very deep interest in inciting its own citizens to risk their money in gambling, and not only their own citizens, but the citizens of any state nearby where they can entice people to get on a bus or in a car to come to gamble away their income. Now recall that single paragraph in which we read that 26 casinos have opened there in the region since 2004, leading to—and this is a rather remarkable figure—a 39% increase in total annual gambling revenue. That article appeared on the front page of Friday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal.

 

Yesterday’s edition of The New York Times, in the op-ed section, included a very important article by the social scientist Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. She’s the director of The Civil Society Initiatives at the Institute for American Values. She writes:

 

In a referendum in November, voters approved as many as seven new casinos to join New York State’s existing nine gambling facilities. And New York is hardly alone. In recent years, 23 other states have legalized and licensed commercial (as opposed to Native American) gambling facilities. In the casino-dense Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions, where 26 casinos have opened since 2004, most adults now live within a short drive of [a casino].

 

And what becomes very clear is the point she makes in her article. The closer casinos come to where people live, the more likely people are to gamble at one. “As casinos have spread into de-industrialized cities,” she writes, “dying resorts and gritty urban areas, the rate of gambling participation has grown among lower income groups.” This comes back to a point we make over and over again. These two articles demand that we return to the issue. Gambling is attacks upon those who are willing to risk their money. And as it turns out, those who are most likely to risk their income in a vain hope of winnings are those who have the lowest income of all—the most impoverished Americans.

 

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead then writes:

 

In America’s increasingly two-tier economy, casino industry leaders realized that they didn’t have to cater exclusively to well-heeled consumers in order to rake in profits. Payday lending, rent-to-own stores, subprime credit cards, auto title loans and tax refund anticipation loans all evolved to extract high profits from low-income groups. And the newly established state-licensed casinos have their methods, too.

 

What makes his article by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead so important is that it tells us the insider information of how the gambling industry is enticing Americans of low income to continue to gamble, and not only that, but to gamble more and more. She cites research from the University of Buffalo in the State University of New York at Buffalo State. Those studies indicate that the exploitative effects of casino gambling on lower-income Americans are seen in the fact that the casino gambling participation and frequency of visits have increased among the lowest income Americans. “Easy access to casinos,” she writes, “is one key factor.”

 

Living within 10 miles of one or more casinos more than doubles the rate of problems from excessive gambling. Another factor is easy access to slot-machine gambling. Women and the elderly have become more likely to gamble in recent years, partly because of a preference for nonskill slot-machine gambling.

 

And the casino industry has perfected means of enticing people to gamble more and more. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead says that the slot machine has become the key to extracting money from people with lower income. She writes:

 

Most regional casinos are essentially slot parlors. Slot machines are nowadays sophisticated computerized devices engineered to produce continuous and repeat betting, and programmed by high-tech experts to encourage gamblers to make multiple bets simultaneously by tapping buttons on the console as fast as their fingers can fly.

 

The goal is not to clean out the gambler in a single visit; it’s to provide an experience that will induce the gambler to prolong the time spent on the device [and to come back again and again].

 

As she writes:

 

A second goal is to ensure that gamblers visit more often and continue to do so over time. Through player loyalty cards and other marketing programs.

 

But then there’s even more. It turns out that the casinos have a profile of gamblers in which they try to predict “predicted lifetime value.” In other words, how much they can get out of every gambler of every type. The addictive nature of these slot machines is not an accident. It’s the intention. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead writes, this is done by inducing the gambler to prolong the time at the device.

 

The slots achieve this by carefully regulating the rhythm, tempo and sound ambience of the play, while doling out occasional small wins even as the players’ losses slowly increase.

 

One way these computerized pickpockets milk their customers is by generating “near misses,” whereby the spinning symbols on the machine stop just above or below the winning payline. The feeling of having come oh so close to a win prompts further play.

 

 

But it’s not just the slots that have become the machinery for separating citizens from their money. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead writes:

 

Examining 15 types of legal gambling, the researchers came to a striking conclusion: Casino gambling had by far the most harmful effects on people at the lower end of the income ladder.

 

Some months ago I reported that statisticians indicated that one was more likely to die of the accident of having a coconut fall on his or her head than to win one of these Powerball lotteries. And lotteries and the slot machines and the casinos as a whole now represent what it means for our states, that is, our governments, to prey on their own citizens. It’s a very sad tale and the desperation of these states to have even more revenue from gambling is fueling them to do even more to entice their own citizens to lose their money so the state will gain.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. We’re taking questions right now for the new season of Ask Anything: Weekend Edition that will begin late summer. Just call us with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

Genesis 19:1-30

The Briefing 06-23-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Creationism banned from all government funded UK schools triumph of materialistic worldview

Teaching creationism as scientifically valid now banned in all UK public schools, United Press International (JC Sevcik)

Government extends requirement to teach evolution and banning of pseudoscience to future Academies, Politics (British Humanist Association)

Secular triumph as government bans creationism from free schools and academies, Politics (Ian Dunt)

2) Report of increased ‘gender-bending’ the claims of a revolution

Gender loses its impact with the young, USA Today (Sharon Jayson)

3) States competing for gambling revenue from low-income citizens

Casino Glut Pinches States, Wall Street Journal (Scott Calvert and Jon Kamp)

Gaming the Poor, New York Times (Barbara Dafoe Whitehead)

Transcript: The Briefing 06-20-14

The Briefing

 

June 20, 2014

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

 

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

 

1) PC(USA) affirms same-sex marriage, repudiating Scripture as membership declines

The big news in the Christian world took place yesterday in the city of Detroit where the Presbyterian Church USA decided to allow gay weddings within the church. As Lauren Markoe of Religion News Service reports, it makes it among the largest Christian denominations in the United States to take an embracing step toward same-sex marriage. The vote was decidedly lopsided: 76% to 24%. One of the reasons for that is of incredible interest. The main reason is that so many conservatives left. Over the last several years, there’s been a virtual exodus from the PCUSA, a denomination that was formed by the merger of southern and northern Presbyterian denominations in the 1980s, with the headquarters relocated to Louisville, Kentucky. But the denomination has been hemorrhaging members for the better part of the last three decades and that exodus of members has continued for the third straight year. It’s not only members, but congregations. The number of dismissed congregations increased in the past year, having been twenty-one in 2011, 110 in  2012, and 148 in 2013. In other words, approximately 300 churches have left the PCUSA just in the last three years. According to data compiled by the PCUSA’s Office of the General Assembly, by the end of 2013, membership was about 1.76 million—that’s compared to 1.84 million by the end of 2012. As the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly met in Detroit, just about everyone knew that the issue would be central to the denomination’s agenda, and as the question loomed, some of the convention, according to Niraj Warikoo of the Detroit Free Press, were very concerned that it would affect the perception of Presbyterian missionaries in more conservative parts of the world where the church works, such as in the Middle East. According to this report, there are 315 Presbyterian churches in Egypt alone. Conservative Presbyterians said they were concerned that approving same-sex marriages would further accelerate decline in the Presbyterian Church. Once again, it has seen a 37% decrease in membership since 1992, and that’s a drop of more than one million members. Going back to 1992, it had 2.78 million members. Now just 1.76 million, but the denomination forecasts further mentorship losses in this year.

 

Lauren Markoe’s report for Religion News Service described the debate as both emotional and polite. She said it was a “debate in which opponents of the motion said it conflicted with Scripture and would cause Presbyterian churches abroad to break relations with the PCUSA.” The new rule is very clear. Presbyterian ministers in states where same-sex marriage is legal—the count on that is now nineteen states—are now authorized to offer same-sex weddings. But no minister in the denomination is by this change compelled to participate in a same-sex wedding, but, as most observers have already indicated, the pastors who are least likely to perform same-sex marriages are the ones who are most likely already to have left the denomination.

 

According to media reports, the debate at the PCUSA General Assembly was not only emotional and polite; it also followed the same kind of logic and rhetoric that we’ve heard in so many debates like this before. For instance, Nathan Sobers, identified as a ruling elder with the Presbyterian Church in Seattle—he’s also identified as being married to a man he’s been with for 27 years—said, “The gospel is about fairness. Jesus, moreover, never said a word about loving same-sex couples. His message was about love, about celebrating God’s love for everybody, and not just for those who are like me, but for everybody.” That statement has everything going for it except the clear text of the New Testament. Nothing in the New Testament is more clear than when Jesus stated that God’s intention for marriage from the beginning is that it would be one man and one woman for a lifetime.

 

Responding to the decision, the conservative Presbyterian Lay Committee’s Board of Directors said:

 

In the name of 1.8 million Presbyterians nationwide, the General Assembly has committed an express repudiation of the Bible, the mutually agreed upon Confessions of the PCUSA, thousands of years of faithfulness to God’s clear commands and the denominational ordination vows of each concurring commissioner. This is an abomination.

 

That’s a very strong word, but it certainly is an appropriate word, and here you have the Presbyterian Lay Committee making very clear exactly what the PCUSA’s General Assembly has done. They have, to go back to this statement, repudiated the Scripture. They have repudiated the confessions of the church. They have turned their back on thousands of years of faithful Christian witness, and they have also violated the ordination vows of every commissioner that was there present at the General Assembly. Thus, they’re absolutely right: this is an abomination.

 

Perhaps more than anything else, this development helps to establish the clear divide now not only in American culture, but also in what is called American Christianity. That very clear divide puts on one side those who stand with 2,000 years of Christian witness and on the very clear statements of Scripture, and, on the other side, those who stand with the moral revolution of the era; stand with the culture and it’s now very increasingly absolute moral standards—moral standards that call for and demand the legalization of same-sex marriage and the celebration of same-sex behaviors and relationships.

 

Interestingly, on the very day before the PCUSA’s General Assembly took this decisive action, the Pew Research Center came out with a report entitled “Where Christian Churches and Other Religions Stand on Gay Marriage.” The interesting thing about the listing in this report from the Pew Research Center is the fact that still, on this date in 2014, the vast majority of Christians and Christian churches, not only around the world, but even in the United States, are still clearly and firmly opposed to same-sex marriage. The Pew Research Center divides the churches and religions into four different categories. On the left, those that sanction same-sex marriage. Included there is the movement known as Conservative Judaism, the Reformed Jewish Movement, the Society of Friends (otherwise known as Quakers), the Unitarian Universalist Association of Churches, the United Church of Christ, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church (that’s the ELCA, the more liberal mainline Lutheran denomination). The next category is denominations that sanction blessing at same-sex unions and there are only two Christian denominations listed: the Episcopal Church and, as of yesterday, the Presbyterian Church USA.

The third category of those churches that prohibit same-sex marriages (and that’s the long list): the American Baptist churches, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Islam, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, the Orthodox Jewish Movement, the Roman Catholic Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Southern Baptist Convention. The fourth category is those religions that have no clear position. Included there are both Hinduism and Buddhism.

 

But the interesting thing is still that third category: the religions and churches that still prohibit same-sex marriage. It’s the long list; it’s the big list. It’s where the vast majority of the human beings counted in any way in this chart are to be found, but you would not know that from the coverage in the mainstream media. Watch carefully; you’re going to see all kinds of news coverage of the PCUSA’s vote and it’s going to be trumpeted as a very major denominational development, and, in that sense, it is of course, and, just as clearly, it is the abomination as it is described by the Presbyterian Lay Committee. But what you will not see in the media is the fact that the vast majority of those who are religiously involved in any religion anywhere, and specifically in Christianity everywhere, are still very clearly opposed to same-sex marriages and they are involved in denominations that do not recognize in any way what is called same-sex marriage. That should tell you something, but you’re not going to hear it from the media.

 2) ‘Obvious Child’ abortion rom-com an effort to change American emotions on abortion

Next, we shift to Hollywood. If you’re concerned about worldview, as you are, then you’re concerned about how that worldview begins to work its way out into the most influential sectors of society. And the capital of the entertainment industry, Hollywood, is one of those places where you see the worldview wars meted out. And so when Hollywood takes up an issue such as abortion, it should have our attention, especially when it comes to new Gillian Robespierre movie entitled Obvious Child. This is obviously something we need to be talking about. It stars Saturday Night Live alumnus Jenny Slate, and it has to do with the fact that there is a young woman, who is a comedian, who finds herself pregnant after a one-night stand and in the end decides to have an abortion. But the film is described as a comedy, a romantic comedy, leading at least one observer to say, “Here’s a new oxymoron, even for the liberal media: abortion comedy.” Of course, there’s nothing at all funny about abortion, which makes this particular story very revealing to us because what’s taking place in Hollywood is not just the attempt to make a romantic comedy of which abortion is a part of the storyline, but it is straightforwardly an effort to try to use a movie to change the way Americans think and feel on the issue of abortion.

 

The importance of the movie is underlined by Dana Stevens, writing at Slate. As she says about the movie:

 

Whether you regard it as a social ill, a moral wrong, or a basic human right, the termination of unwanted pregnancies is a thing that happens—to around 1 in 3 American women…Yet this simple demographic reality is all but absent from mainstream popular culture, where abortion sometimes seems to have attained the status Hillary Clinton envisioned for it in the platform of her 2008 presidential campaign: “safe, legal, and rare” (emphasis on the rare part).

 

Stevens goes on to write, “Insofar as the possibility of abortion can be mentioned at all onscreen…it must be gingerly forestalled at the last minute,” as in recent movies such as Girls or Juno. “The degree to which the onscreen abortion taboo is stronger now than in the ’80s or ’90s,” she says, is also very clear. She describes it as “an index of how far we haven’t come as a nation on this enragingly intransigent topic.” What this article and so many others like it about this movie now make clear is the fact that the cultural left, those who are pushing a pro-abortion agenda, clearly see Hollywood as a necessary ally, an ally they clearly want on their side in terms of telling the abortion story, even in something that’s now called abortion comedy, so that Americans will change their mind on the basic morality of abortion.

 

There’s something else very interesting in that statement I just read from Dana Stevens at Slate magazine, and that’s this: those who are pushing the pro-abortion agenda think that, in terms of the larger culture, they haven’t been gaining ground in recent decades; they have been losing ground. If you listen carefully to what she said, she makes the interesting point that in recent years, Hollywood has been very hesitant to present abortion in any way, and when it has presented abortion, it has done so with the recognition that it is a very weighty and heavy moral issue. That’s exactly what they’re trying to get over with the very idea of an abortion comedy.

 

Director Gillian Robespierre told The Washington Post that when Hollywood generally addresses the issue of an unplanned pregnancy, the movie ends with either childbirth or adoption. “We hadn’t seen a feature film talk about it in a way that lifted the stigma and let it be complex and let it be difficult and let it be also safe and actually end with the abortion procedure,” in which, The Washington Post explains she said, “The main character is not filled with shame and regret.” Well there’s the agenda laid bare. The agenda is extremely clear. We don’t have to read the agenda onto what they’re doing here; they just told us what the agenda is. They’re looking to make a movie that will be watched by millions of Americans that will let abortion be “safe” and let it be “complex” and let it be “difficult,” but let it above all things end with an abortion.

 

Another revealing statement comes from Ann Hornaday’s review of the movie in The Washington Post. She writes:

 

Seen through another lens, [the characters in the movie], their swearing and nattering on about sex and other bodily functions resembles a group of little kids seeing just how much they can get away with before being sent to permanent timeout.

 

Let me just interject at this point: almost every reviewer has indicated that this is one of the most pornography-filled and sexually-explicit movies of recent years. But Hornaday continues:

 

That immaturity is at the core of “Obvious Child,” in which Donna gets dumped, loses her job and faces an unplanned pregnancy after a drunken one-night stand. The whole point of the film is that she’s unformed, using her 20s to experiment and make mistakes and, in the case of deciding whether to terminate her pregnancy, make the decisions that will ultimately create—[listen to this very carefully]—ultimately create a more experienced — maybe even wiser and more compassionate — adult human being.

 

In other words, this is a movie that is intended to show that the central character grows, develops, matures, and becomes a better human being by murdering the unborn child within her.

 

Chris Vogner, reviewing the movie for The Dallas Morning News, says, “Obvious Child smartly and economically presents comedy as a sacred act, a means to communicate what otherwise goes unsaid.”  Now just think about that for a moment. Here you have a human life being destroyed, murdered in the womb, and yet this reviewer says that what the movie really demonstrates is comedy as “a sacred act.” That tells us a great deal about the worldview of Hollywood and just how entertainment is understood to convey deep moral meaning, but a very subversive moral meaning as well.

 

Judy Berman, writing for Flavorwire, an observer of Hollywood, says that the purpose of this movie is actually to do for the issue of abortion what Hollywood has been so successful in doing in recent years on the issue homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Berman points to the obvious fact that Hollywood has been essential to the agenda to normalize homosexuality and same-sex marriage. Hollywood’s entertainment products have been incredibly influential, so much so that a recent edition of USA Today said that when most same-sex marriages are held, Hollywood ought to be the honorary best man. Getting right to the point, he writes quote:

 

I’m not sure I believe it’s possible for a single movie to effect large-scale political change, and even if it were, Obvious Child isn’t going to be that movie. But I think it has the potential to change individual minds, to make people understand that there are good women who have abortions for good reasons.

 

So there you have the agenda again: good women who have abortions for good reasons. In other words, to make abortion the obvious answer to what this woman believes is her problem: an unexpected and unwanted pregnancy.

 

Credit goes to Mother Jones magazine for the blockbuster reporting on this issue. Reporter Asawin Suebsaeng makes very clear that Planned Parenthood, that plays a part in the movie, also had basically had vetting rights on the script of the movie and is extremely pleased with the final result. She writes:

 

On the other side of the reproductive-rights debate, people are certainly enjoying, and endorsing, the film. “Honest portrayals about abortion in film and television are extremely rare, and that’s part of a much bigger lack of honest depictions of women’s lives, health, and sexuality,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. “This film is a major breakthrough—not just because it shows a woman deciding to have an abortion but because it shows her as a full and complete person making the serious decision to end a pregnancy and still having a full and fun life.”

 

So there you have it again: a woman who, in the words a Cecile Richards, decides to end a pregnancy, which means, of course, kill a child, and, as she says, “still have a full and fun life.”

 

The next statement by Asawin Suebsaeng is especially important. As she reports:

 

Planned Parenthood also consulted on the development and production of Obvious Child, vetting the script and allowing them to shoot in a clinic in New Rochelle, New York. “They were so supportive, a real friend of the film,” Robespierre says [that’s the director]. “They read a draft of the script, they loved it, and they were so enthusiastic that we were making a movie that sort of takes away the stigma of the choice. The character is not hard on herself, and she’s not ashamed, and not judgmental. And it’s a positive, safe procedure.” Planned Parenthood then offered a few notes on the screenplay (what a nurse at one of their clinics would say to a patient, for instance). A few Planned Parenthood employees can be seen in the film as extras.

 

Well that is blockbuster reporting. I’m not even sure the reporter understands exactly what she has reported. She has just told us that this is a movie that was basically made in cooperation with and with the approval of Planned Parenthood, with Planned Parenthood coming right out and saying that the agenda of the film was to present a character having an abortion who “is not hard on herself and she’s not ashamed, not judgmental. It’s a positive, safe procedure.” That’s an amazing statement when you think about it; when you consider the fact that that does not take into account at all, to any degree, not even to reference the fact, that one life in this picture is terminated; one is killed. For the baby, it certainly is not a positive and safe procedure; it is the engine of death.

 

Given the importance of the issue, the release of Obvious Child is quite obviously a very important issue; perhaps even a landmark development in terms of how worldviews are revealed in Hollywood’s entertainment culture. But, on another level, it’s even more important issue. Why? Because we have straightforward statements from those who are approving and producing and celebrating this film of exactly what the agenda is, and it is the culture of death presented in what is horrifyingly called an abortion comedy.

 

Finally, just consider what all this says about the opportunities for Christian parents, Christian families, and Christian churches to discuss the worldview that is revealed in various forms of the entertainment culture. Something that would greatly help young Christians think through these issues is if, for instance, their parents suggested a conversation about what’s just been watched on television or seen on the big screen or heard, for that matter, on the radio or the podcast. That’s a good way to help Christians think through these issues, understand the implications, and tie them to the totality of a biblical worldview. And a lot of this is best gained by means of conversation, the kind of conversation that you and your loved ones, your fellow church members, perhaps your parents and your children, can find time for this coming weekend. That, you can be sure, will be a conversation worth having.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. Remember that right now we’re taking questions for the upcoming new season of Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Just call us with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. I’ll meet you again on Monday for The Briefing.

The Briefing 06-20-14

1) PC(USA) affirms same-sex marriage, repudiating Scripture as membership declines

Presbyterians vote to allow gay marriage, Religion News Service (Lauren Markoe)

Presbyterian Church U.S.A. votes to allow gay marriage ceremonies, Detroit Free Press (Niraj Warikoo)

Presbyterian Lay Committee Board of Directors repudiates action of PCUSA General Assembly, The Layman (Carmen Folwer LaBerge)

Where Christian churches, other religions stand on gay marriage, Pew Research Center (David Masci)

2) ‘Obvious Child’ abortion rom-com an effort to change American emotions on abortion

Obvious Child, Slate (Dana Stevens)

Jenny Slate, Gillian Robespierre on ‘Obvious Child,’ their abortion movie — with jokes, Washington Post (Rachel Dry)

‘Obvious Child’ review, Washington Post (Ann Hornaday)

‘Obvious Child’ is remarkably frank in its handling of abortion, Dallas Morning News (Chris Vognar)

Are the Director and Star of “Obvious Child” Concerned About Anti-Abortion Backlash?, Mother Jones (Asawin Suebsaeng)

Will ‘Obvious Child’ Change Anyone’s Mind About Abortion?, Flavorwire (Judy Berman)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 06-19-14

The Briefing

 

June 19, 2014

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

 

It’s Thursday, June 19, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1)      World Cup popularity evidence of democratizing effect of soccer

2014 is hardly over (we’re at about the halfway mark), but already we know what the biggest event of 2014 will be—at least the biggest event in terms of being a spectator event. That event is the 2014 World Cup games currently being held in the nation of Brazil. Why do we already know that it’s the biggest event that will take place this year? It is because right now roughly one-half of all living human beings on the planet will watch at least part of the World Cup games.

 

What we’re looking at here is also an indication of why the United States and many other industrial nations are basically outliers in terms of the most democratic sport currently enjoyed by the world. Soccer is one of those sports that simply defies the kind of logic that has played out in America over the last century or century and a half. For many years now, Americans have been told that soccer is the next big thing in this country. We were told that in 1975 when the New York Cosmos signed the Brazilian star Pelé. We were told that again in 1994 when America itself hosted the World Cup—something that most Americans no longer even remember. We were told that again in 2002 when British star David Beckham signed with the Los Angeles Galaxy team. We’re being told that again, but we’re being told that in a very different way, and this time it’s almost surely true, but in a way most Americans don’t expect.

 

But, first of all, back to the World Cup and why it matters. Perhaps no one explains this better than Matthew Clark of the Christian Science Monitor. He explains:

 

Rich nations and poor compete on a level field in a simple, fluid team sport controlled by players, not coaches. No timeouts. No hands. Just 90 minutes of hustle, skill, strategy, and cooperation.

 

As he continues:

 

In soccer loving nations, people live for the World Cup. Kids skip school. Workplace productivity plummets. Populist presidents call national holidays. Then, clad in their nations’ colors, fans gather around giant screens in city parks, pack into small living rooms, or swarm fuzzy TV sets in slums. With faces painted, they bite nails, gnash teeth, scream at referees, and erupt into spasms of glee if their team wins.

 

That explains about half of all humanity as the World Cup games are currently going on in Brazil. In a very extensive background coverage of the World Cup games, The Economist of London explains:

 

An interest in getting a ball to some sort of goal, by one means or another, over the opposition of another team has been shown by all sorts of cultures throughout history. But the particular version codified in Britain in the 19th century, which ruled out moving the ball with hands or anything held in them, quickly won the hearts and feet of industrialising Europe and many of its colonies, current and former. Simple rules (offside provisions notwithstanding) and no need for equipment, apart from whatever might pass for a ball, have allowed the game to flourish in the favelas of Brazil, the shanty towns of South Africa and the jungles of Myanmar. The notorious corruption of the sport’s governing body, FIFA has not stopped it enrolling more members (209) than the United Nations (193). In 2006 FIFA estimated that the game’s players, both serious and casual, totaled 300m [in terms of the team’s sport].

 

Now from a historical perspective, here’s the incredible anomaly. Here’s what’s so surprising. When Britain codified this sport and named it as football, commonly known in the United States as soccer, it did so in a way that basically reflected its own imperialistic ambitions, and yet it has taken off in the very lands were British imperialism was overthrown. Even where the British influence no longer remains in virtually any other aspect of life, in soccer it remains in a big way. In one sense, soccer may well have been Britain’s long-term greatest and most enduring import to the rest of the world. And one of the reasons for that is exactly what The Economist describes: it is the world’s most democratic sport. All you need is a ball or, as National Geographic magazine made very clear in a famous set of photographs just a few years ago, all you need is what might pass for a ball.

 

The frenzy for soccer explains why people will cross swamps, jungles, mountain ranges, and just about anything else in order to play the game or to see their favorite team play it. In some parts of the world, fathers and mothers throw their sons into the game of soccer in hopes that they will become that breakout star who just might not only escape the poverty of a village, but might make it big on the world scene.

 

That points to another anomaly in terms of the world picture of soccer, or what the world calls football. The richest nations don’t do very well. Of the largest nations in the world, Brazil and the United States are the only two that actually have teams involved in the World Cup.

 

There are some incredible peculiarities to the way soccer plays out in the world today. For example, in the United States, soccer is played, but it’s not watched. In China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, it’s watched, but it’s not played. But as The Economist summarizes, “The world does not just play football—it watches it, bets on it, argues about it and spends money on it.” Two different books have been offered in the last several years trying to explain football, but, more importantly, trying to explain why the world is as it is, explained by football. Franklin Foer’s book, How Soccer Explains the World, and David Goldblatt’s book, Futebol Nation, both attempt to explain why the democratic power of soccer has such a hold on the peoples of the earth and why this week roughly half of all humans will drop just about everything else in order to watch the World Cup or at least part of it. It also explains the nationalist frenzy that often turned into the kind of competition that ought to be played out in terms of team sports rather than in military hostilities. There’s something healthy about that. For the same reason that it is healthy that young people be involved in this kind of athletic endeavor and, in this sense, avoiding some of the hostilities and energy that might be directed elsewhere in less productive ways, the same thing is true, as it turns out, among nations. That’s what makes the World Cup itself as an international event also so interesting because nations that wouldn’t talk to each other, nations that have no diplomatic relationship whatsoever, nations that haven’t had any kind of contact ever in some cases, will find themselves facing each other, in terms of their national teams, playing out on the field of the World Cup.

 

With the World Cup in view, a fundamental question needs to be answered. Why, from the Christian worldview perspective, is sport such a big event among human beings? Why is it such a preoccupation? Here’s a good answer for that: God, to His glory and for our flourishing, gave us the gift of sport, created us physically in such a way that gave us the ability to play such sports, and gave us the relational ability to come together and create team sports. Everywhere there’s evidence of human civilization, there is, in some way, evidence of athletic activity and of some kind of sport. This tells us something about who human beings are and why there is such delight in such things. And, in my case, admitting that I pay very little attention to soccer or any other sport most of the time, when something like the World Cup comes around, I want to know why so many people are so interested; why half of humanity will give this event so much attention during these days. It tells us something about humanity and something about why children all over the world find their way to a ball they kick around as a team in order to score.

2)     Heart, rather than parental pressure, foundation of successful athletes

And speaking of sports, there’s something that seems just to be true, and that is a ball on the ground appears to demand to be kicked and played with, done something with, not remaining on the ground stationary. There’s something about us that makes us want to do such things, and there’s something about children in particular that leads them almost immediately, when something like a ball appears, to be involved in very natural play. It’s the unnatural state of youth athletics in so many parts of America that has led David Epstein to write a very important article that appeared last week in The New York Times. As he writes in the headline, “Sports Should be Child’s Play.” He writes:

 

The national furor over concussions misses the primary scourge that is harming kids and damaging youth sports in America. The heightened pressure on child athletes to be, essentially, adult athletes has fostered an epidemic of hyperspecialization that is both dangerous and counterproductive.

 

He’s writing about the fact that many American parents now force their children into very specialized athletic activities, either individual or team sports, very early in life, and then they start to invest all kinds of money and all kinds of time and, thus, all kinds of expectation on the child involved in these athletic activities. One New York City soccer club proudly advertises its development pipeline, as it’s known, for kids under age six. They call it U6. The coach picks stars poised for an elite-level soccer, graduate to the U7 pre-travel program. “Parents, visions of scholarships dancing in their heads,” Epstein writes, “enable this by paying for private coaching and year-round travel.” And then he makes a central argument:

 

Children are playing sports in too structured a manner too early in life on adult-size fields — i.e., too large for optimal skill development — and spending too much time in one sport. It can lead to serious injuries and, a growing body of sports science shows, a lesser ultimate level of athletic success.

 

Epstein, who is the author of the book, The Sports Gene, makes very clear that the science is demonstrating that the parents who press their kids so hard, especially in elementary, middle school, and high school, actually produce the athletes that turn out in the middle tier, not the top-tier. The athletes that show up on the first team of the Olympics, the athletes at the very top of the game, are those who at some point in their childhood or adolescence adopted the game themselves or the sport and said, “This is mine,” and they gave themselves to it out of joy, not out of parental pressure. And furthermore, as Epstein writes, there is grave danger to children who are being forced into too much specialization, into too much athletic expectation to early, and brain concussions are just one part of the physical pathology that is now showing up in children who shouldn’t be showing up with the kinds of injuries and physical problems that they now have. There are those who are in their twenties who now, according to Epstein, are showing up needing serious orthopedic surgery and things such as hip replacement in their twenties. Epstein also explains that parents that force their children to choose one specialized attack sport, something that has a very clear offensive maneuver, often miss the point that the child can do far better in another sport if the child is allowed to experiment and to participate in a broader range of athletic activities.

 

The reason I draw attention to this article is not to give parental advice when it comes to athletic activities and children, but rather to point out the part that sport ought to play in an individual’s life. And the point that is made in this article is profoundly consistent with the Christian worldview: the player who adopts this sport for the sheer joy of it is going to do far better than the one who is simply forced and pressured to specialize and to excel. It turns out that success in sport requires not only the kind of athletic skills and abilities we associate with athletics, but also a deep investment of the heart and soul of the player in the game or the endeavor. And as David Epstein points out, with the World Cup in the background, that might go a long way into explaining why people from underdeveloped countries, with very little other than time and an open field and a ball, excel over industrialized nations pouring millions of dollars into organized soccer.

3) Report on stay-at-home fathers reveals resilience of God’s plan for human flourishing

Shifting from sport to the issue of family structure, just about a week ago we discussed the Pew Social Trends Research report that was released, indicating a doubling of the number of so-called stay-at-home dads between 1989 and 2012. Such stay-at-home dads are still a minority of American men, a very small minority, but there was a sizable increase, about 100%, between 1989 and 2012; jumping from 1.1 million stay-at-home dads to 2.0 million stay-at-home dads. Now there was a shortfall between the years of 2009 and 2012. The high watermark was about 2008, and that was also the high watermark of the recession that started in 2008, a recession that has been called by some economists a “man session” or a “he session” because of the inordinate impact of that recession upon male-dominated areas of employment.

 

But what I talked about when this story was first discussed was this: there was a tremendous amount of media spin on this as if this report indicates a massive shift in gender relations. The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN—you name it—just about every major news outlet was talking about this as if it is a major sign of change in gender relations. At the time, I warned that the data appeared to show no such thing. That, as a matter of fact, even though many of those fathers are at home and there was a vast increase, a doubling from one million to two million, of the fathers who were at home, this was not necessarily a sign that they were at home to take care of the kids, the customary use of the phrase stay-at-home dad. And now Pacific Standard magazine is out with a major analysis demonstrating that very point. As they write, “It is reasonable to call a father staying at home with his kids a stay-at-home father, regardless of his reason.” But when you look at the reason, it’s clear most of them, the vast majority of those who are counted a stay-at-home dads, aren’t there primarily to be dad. As a matter of fact, 21% of the stay-at-home fathers report that their reason for being out of the labor force was caring for their home and family. So that 21% of a very small percentage. That’s 21% of about 2 million. But 23% said they couldn’t find work; 35% said they were home because of health problems; and 22% were home because they are retired or in some form of workforce training or school. So when you look at this, about 80% of those who were counted as stay-at-home dads aren’t there to be dad. They’re there for some other reason, usually related to health or unemployment.

 

Now America is undergoing a very significant revolution in many moral and gender issues, but what we need to note here is that even as America is undergoing a vast moral revolution, a revolution that is indeed touching even the issues of gender and gender roles, there’s something that remains rather inflexible about the way people actually live. The vast majority of Americans, even when they say they agree with the simultaneous moral revolutions, still, in their own marriages and in their own families, in the workday decisions that they make and in the family structures they choose, basically choose a very traditional pattern. And even when you’re looking at a 100% increase in stay-at-home dads, even if every single one of them was choosing to stay at home as a dad, taking the place of what had previously been a stay-at-home mom, the reality is that that would be a very small percentage of American men and of American families. And then when you find out that the headlines, notwithstanding, about 80% of those who were counted in that number are there for some other reason than to be dad, you come to understand that this society seems to be, especially as driven by those who are its influencers, absolutely determined to declare that there’s a gender revolution in our midst.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of this is how the actual way most of us live demonstrates the reality of the Christian worldview. That biblical worldview tells us that God created the world and gave us the structures, even the structure of family and community and church, the structure of family, in particular, and the institution of marriage, for our good in such a way that every human society has found its way into a recognition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman and the family is the outworking of that marital bond. And, as it turns out, in most societies, even the most so-called progressive and liberal societies today, there is still a distinction between the roles of mothers and fathers and of men and women. There’s still a distinction between the husband and the wife. There is still a distinction in things such as the dominion of the home and housekeeping responsibilities. There is still a distinction when it comes to family and grocery shopping. There is still a distinction when it comes to child rearing and the different ways that customarily mothers and fathers are influencing their children, disciplining them, teaching them, playing with them, doing all the other things that parents do. In other words, there is a very important affirmation of the Christian worldview even in a report like this that is declared by the national and international media to be representative of a vast revolution in gender roles. It turns out that the big story isn’t a revolution. The big story is the continuity. The big story is the fact that the structures that God, in His sovereignty and in His mercy, gave us in creation still tend to be honored in life even by those who reject them in theory.

4) D-Day veteran escapes nursing home for 70th anniversary

Finally, my favorite story in the news of recent days: The Observer, a major newspaper in London, reports that one D-Day veteran was told by those who were tending to him in a nursing home in Britain that he could not attend the D-Day celebration in terms of the 70th anniversary. And so, Bernard Jordan, age 89, broke out of the nursing home, found his way to a fairy, crossed the English Channel, and attended, wearing all of his medals from D-Day. When Mr. Jordan escaped from the nursing home in Brighton and found his way upon a fairy, he charmed the crew into giving him a birth and a meal, and then he charmed the people on the other side of the English Channel as well. And there he stood with his fellow veterans, wearing his uniform and his medals, proof positive that when you have a veteran who stormed the beaches of Normandy in 1944, you have someone who is not going to be held down by authorities in a nursing home in 2014. God bless him.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. Remember that we’re taking questions right now for the upcoming new season of Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. That new season will begin in late summer. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 06-19-14

1) World Cup popularity evidence of democratizing effect of soccer

Why is the World Cup so popular?, Christian Science Monitor (Matthew Clark)

A game of two halves, The Economist

2) Heart, rather than parental pressure, foundation of successful athletes

Sports Should Be Child’s Play, New York Times (David Epstein)

3) Report on stay-at-home fathers reveals resilience of God’s plan for human flourishing

The Majority of Stay-at-Home Dads Aren’t Staying Home to Care for the Family, Pacific Standard Magazine (Phillip N. Cohen)

Growing Number of Dads Home with the Kids, Pew Research Forum (Gretchen Livingston)

4) D-Day veteran escapes nursing home for 70th anniversary

D-day veteran, 89, who ran off to France for anniversary: ‘I’d do it again’, The Observer (Tracy McVeigh)