R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 358

‘Get with the Program’ — The Church of England Votes to Ordain Women Bishops

Writing about the age of John Milton, the British author A. N. Wilson once tried to explain to modern secular readers that there had once been a time when bishops of the Church of England were titanic figures of conviction who were ready to stand against the culture. “It needs an act of supreme historical imagination to be able to recapture an atmosphere in which Anglican bishops might be taken seriously,” he wrote, “still more, one in which  they might be thought threatening.”

Keep that in mind as you read the news that the General Synod of the Church of England voted yesterday to approve the consecration of women as bishops of the church.

The votes came less than two years after a similar measure failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote before the same synod. The election of women as bishops had sailed through the bishops and the clergy, but opposition from lay members of the synod had blocked the measure late in 2012.

What few even in the British media are now mentioning is the massive pressure brought upon the church by the larger British culture and, most specifically, from the British government.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said yesterday was “a great day for the Church and for equality.” Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said that the vote was a “big moment” and Ed Miliband, leader of the opposition Labor Party said that the vote was “wonderful news.”

As for the Archbishop of Canterbury, the church’s chief cleric, Archbishop Justin Welby said that the measure adopted Monday would mark “the start of a great adventure of seeking mutual flourishing while still, in some cases, disagreeing. The challenge for us will be for the church to model good disagreement and to continue to demonstrate love for those who disagree on theological grounds.”

That “adventure” will leave conservative evangelicals in the Church of England increasingly out in the cold, despite all the talk of “mutual flourishing.” The measure approved by the synod means that women bishops will be bishops in full, with mandatory recognition of their episcopal status by all within the Church of England. This will leave conservative ministers under the authority of bishops they do not actually believe to be bishops in fact. It is hard to imagine “mutual flourishing” in that circumstance. The measure also called for the appointment of one conservative evangelical male bishop in coming months — which means that the church has just committed itself to appoint a bishop who does not believe that at least some of his colleague bishops will meet the biblical requirements.

This is the kind of “compromise” that pervades mainline liberal Protestantism. It shifts the church decisively to the left and calls for mutual respect. Conservatives are to be kindly shown the door. Ruth Gledhill of The Guardian [London], one of the most insightful observers of religion in Great Britain, recognized the plight of the evangelicals, though she celebrated the vote: “In the last 69 episcopal appointments, there have been evangelicals but not a single conservative one.” In this context, “conservative” means more concerned with doctrinal matters and opposed to a change in the church’s teachings on gender and human sexuality. But, as Gledhill recognized, “This wing of the church is where so much of the energy is, giving rise not just to growth, but also that necessary resource, cash.”

Yes, there is another pattern to recognize — evangelicals have the growth and the cash, just not the votes. The talk about mutual flourishing is really an argument to remain in the church and keep paying the bills.

Ruth Gledhill is profoundly right about another aspect of Monday’s vote as well. It won’t stop with women bishops. “Now the church can move into the 20th century, although perhaps not the 21st,” she wrote. “A change on gay marriage would be needed to do that.” Well, stay tuned, as they say. The same church now has bishops living and teaching in open defiance of the church’s law on sexuality as well.

There is a very real sense in which Monday’s vote was inevitable. Once the church had decided to ordain women as priests, the elevation of women to bishop was only a matter of time. But the Church of England explicitly claims apostolic succession back to the earliest years of the church, traced through bishops. That is why virtually every major media outlet in Britain acknowledged, at least, that the vote reversed 2,000 years of Christian tradition. They also tended to note that the vote came after 20 years of controversy.

Evidently, 2,000 of years of tradition was no match for 20 years of controversy.

And much of that controversy was driven by cultural and political forces. Back in November 2012, when laity in the General Synod defeated a similar measure, Britain’s head of government pitched a fit. Prime Minister Cameron told Parliament that the Church of England needed “to get with the program.” He added, “You have to respect the individual institutions and the way they work, while giving them a sharp prod.” A sharp prod, indeed.

Cameron told Parliament, “I think it’s important for the Church of England to be a modern church in touch with society as it is today and this was a key step it needed to take.” There is the modern secular imperative with its teeth bared: Be a modern church in touch with society as it is today, or look out.

Archbishop Rowan Williams, then the Archbishop of Canterbury, responded like a chastened child, acknowledging the Prime Minister’s point and stating that “it seems that we are willfully blind to some of the trends and priorities of that larger society.” There was no mention of obedience to Scripture.

Maria Miller, the British government’s minister for equalities openly threatened the church. In a rather contradictory statement, she provided a “prod” of her own: “Obviously, it’s for the Church of England to run its own procedures and processes, but I hope that they have heard, loud and clear, the strength of feeling on this, and that it acts quickly.”

Some members of Parliament threatened to disestablish the church and to remove its bishops from the House of Lords. There can be no doubt that the refusal to elect women as bishops put the church far out of line with Britain’s secular culture — now one of the most secular societies on the planet.

There are a great many issues of importance in this situation. These include the very idea of a state church (much less, a state church in a hyper-secular society), the definition and role of bishops, the role of women in the church, the importance of doctrinal tradition, and, most of all, the authority of Scripture and the integrity of the Christian Faith.

But the public conversation about Monday’s vote reveals issues of urgency and importance that go far beyond Britain and the Church of England. The Prime Minister’s command that the church “get with the program” and “be a modern church in touch with society as it is today” is a command that is now addressed in every modern culture to every church.

One key question is that raised by A. N. Wilson. Can we even envision a day when Christian leaders might be taken seriously as committed to biblical Christianity? Or, to use his very words, “still more, one in which they might be thought threatening?” If not, Christianity in the West will continue its slide into compromise and eventual surrender.

The Very Rev. William Ralph Inge, Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in the early 20th century, once famously remarked: “Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next.” Now, that is a word from an Anglican we all need to hear.

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

Ruth Gledhill, “Joy and Relief at Display of Unity for Vote on Ordination of Women Bishops,” The Guardian [London], Monday, July 14, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014...

Patrick Wintour and Lizzy Davis, “David Cameron: Church of England Should ‘Get on with it’ on Female Bishops,” The Guardian [London], Wednesday, November 21, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012...

Aida Edemariam and Lizzy Davis, “Pressure Piles on Church to Vote Again in Female Bishops,” The Guardian [London], Friday, November 23, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012...

 

 

KBC: Protecting Biblical Marriage

 

 

Panel Discussion: Theological Challenges Young People Experience

For more information about the Southern Baptist Convention’s Cooperative Program, please visit sbc.net/cp/

Transcript: The Briefing Special Edition: Supreme Court Ruling on Hobby Lobby Case

The Briefing

 

June 30, 2014

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

 

It’s Monday, June 30, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is a special edition of The Briefing, coming on the final day of the current US Supreme Court’s term. And a big day it was with the court handing down several decisions, two in particular, both of which will have long-lasting consequences. But the most important of them and the most awaited of all the court’s decisions of this term was the case known as Hobby Lobby. It has to do with three corporations: Hobby Lobby and Mardel’s and, the third corporation, Conestoga Wood Specialties. The Hobby Lobby Company and Mardel’s are owned by the Green family of Oklahoma. Conestoga Wood Specialties is owned by the Hahn family of Pennsylvania. Both families went to court, arguing that the contraception mandate handed down by the Obama Administration violated their Christian convictions. In particular, the contraception mandate, as it specified, required coverage of four specific products, and those products, at least at times, are suspected of being abortifacient in effect, that is, of causing early abortions, rather than preventing the fertilization of an egg. For that reason, these two families and their corporations headed to court and the case eventually arrived at US Supreme Court with the decision being handed down today.

 

And a big decision it was. Almost immediately some decisions handed down by the nation’s highest court are recognized as being landmarks. That’s for two reasons. In the first place, the landmark decision is one that is referenced going forward as being a decisive turning point in the jurisprudence of the nation’s highest court. But the second reason is also very important: landmark decisions send signals throughout the political system, such that even the other branches of government and the culture at large must take very careful note of a decision or a direction being very much indicated by the court’s action. Today’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case represents just that kind of landmark decision: a huge win for religious liberty and the 5-4 decision will now stand as one of those landmark cases that will reshape the religious liberty debate for generations yet to come.

 

But another very interesting aspect of this case was also very apparent. The 5-4 decision revealed not only a big win for religious liberty, but a very divided court over some the most basic freedoms enjoyed by Americans, recognized within the United States Constitution. The majority opinion was written by Justice Samuel Alito who declared that the Obama Administration had failed, and had profoundly failed, to meet the demands of the United States Constitution and of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed by Congress in 1993. That act, known as RFRA, established a new baseline for the understanding of religious liberty in the United States, and that act itself responded to a previous decision by the US Supreme Court. In Alito’s judgment, by mandating that the corporations provide all forms of contraception or birth control for all female employees at no cost, the government had burdened the consciences of the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby, Mardel, and Conestoga Woods—the three companies involved in the decision.

 

A couple of things to note about the decision immediately. One thing is that it applies only to closely-held corporations, to privately-held corporations. This isn’t a decision that has anything to do with General Motors, but it has everything to do with Hobby Lobby, Mardel, and Conestoga Wood Specialties. What’s the distinction? Those are not publicly-traded companies. They’re not massive companies that are traded on the stock market. There are no stockholders outside the two families involved who are actually a party to this issue. In other words, what you’re looking at here is a very closely-held corporation in both of these examples, and these closely-held corporations are closely held by families with very deep Christian convictions. Hobby Lobby is an interstate company with thousands of employees. Conestoga Wood Specialties has just under 1,000 employees, but the same principle pertains to both. In the court’s ruling today, the religious liberties of those corporations cannot be separated from the Christian convictions of their owning families.

 

And it’s also important to note that these companies—that is to say, these families—have made their Christian convictions evident in other aspects of their corporate life. Hobby Lobby closes on Sunday. Similarly, Conestoga Wood Specialties prioritizes its corporate calendar also to recognize Christian conviction. Other policies also are brought into alignment with their Christian convictions. Hobby Lobby advertises using references to the Christian gospel and Hobby Lobby is also well-known for paying more than twice the minimum wage in its home state of Oklahoma. In the case of Hobby Lobby, the family involved is the Green family of Oklahoma, headed by David and Barbara Green, who began the business in their own home. In their own home was also where Norman and Elizabeth Hahn began what became known as Conestoga Wood Specialties. These are family businesses that have grown large—one larger than the other, but the same principle applies to both. Both companies sued the Obama Administration under the contraception mandate authorized under the Affordable Care Act; otherwise known as ObamaCare. That mandate required them to provide and to pay for birth-control coverage that would have included those four specific forms of birth control that may cause early abortions. Neither company—it’s important to note—sought a complete escape from the contraception mandate.

 

As the majority opinion in the case made clear today, one of the biggest questions hanging over the entire decision and the entire controversy is this: why would the Obama Administration be so deliberate in attempting to violate the religious convictions of Americans on the contraception and birth-control issue? That’s a huge question for this reason: the administration, from the very beginning, could’ve accomplished what it wants to accomplish without this violation of Christian conviction, but it has chosen steadfastly and repeatedly not to do so. And in this case, it has now been rejected by the court and rebuked by the court for failing to recognize the importance of religious liberty. That raises this question over and over again: why does this administration persist in violating religious liberty when it is not even necessary for it to accomplish its own goals?

 

Today’s decision is also, we need to note, a further repudiation of the heavy-handed and blatantly unconstitutional overreach of President Barack Obama and his administration. The president could’ve covered contraception and birth-control under any number of other means, which would not have specifically targeted religious liberty. Instead, he and his administration appeared to take the route most likely to trample upon religious liberty and to offend Christian conscience. Today’s decision comes on the heels of other decisions, including several 9 to 0 decisions, in which the president’s arguments have been repudiated by the same court. Furthermore, the president faces a looming threat of even greater rebukes yet to come. His administration continues to violate the convictions of Christian nonprofit organizations and ministries on the same grounds. He faces lawsuits coming from a massive collection of religious nonprofit ministries, ranging from evangelical colleges and universities to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic charity. Today’s decision makes the victory of those groups all the more likely.

 

In looking at both the majority opinion and the dissenting opinions handed down just hours ago, this much is clear. First, the court’s decision affirms the central importance of RFRA, that is, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Responding to that decision back in 1990, in 1993, Congress passed RFRA, demanding that any law or policy of the federal government that would violate a citizen’s religious convictions, must pass two very key tests. In the first place, it must meet a compelling state interest and had to do so in the second case by the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling state interest. As Justice Alito noted, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood did not protest against the compelling state interest of the contraception coverage; only against the four specific birth-control products that were mandated. Justice Alito and the majority rightly concluded that the Obama Administration had utterly failed the second test. There were any number of alternatives the administration could’ve taken that would have accomplished its goals without burdening Christian conscience. What makes this especially important is the fact that RFRA, back in 1993, passed Congress without a single dissenting vote in the House of Representatives and by 97 votes for the act in the Senate. RFRA had massive support within Congress. Many people no longer remember that the co-sponsors of the legislation in the Senate were Senators Orrin Hatch and Edward Kennedy. Rarely did you see them as co-sponsors of any legislation, much less one of this importance. RFRA also had massive support within Congress and the public opinion at large, and yet, just 21 years later, it seems that many Americans would gladly violate the religious liberties of some in order to advance liberal social policies for others. Today’s decision underlines the importance of RFRA, but it also demonstrates the massive task of defending religious liberty that lies ahead.

 

Second Justice Alito reminded all Americans that the designation of any corporation, whether commercial or non-commercial, is vital to individual liberty. This is a very important point. So many Americans have been debating issues, such as the Citizens United case, in which you have many people on both the right and the left, but mostly on the left, saying that it’s insane that a corporation is legally recognized as a person. But what that misses is the very fact that, from a corporate law perspective, that’s the only reason a corporation takes any legal existence anyway is so that it can be legally defined a person, such that we recognize having certain rights, but also certain responsibilities. You can only sue a corporation because in court the corporation appears as a legal person. Many Americans seem to be deeply confused about this, but Justice Alito reminds us all—and here I’m quoting from his decision:

 

A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of people (including shareholders, officers, and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another. When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.

 

So American corporate law protects the rights and liberties of the people associated with the companies known as Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties, but also for the corporations known as Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace. The same rules apply to all. The court ruled today that there is no basic distinction between closely-held for-profit and then nonprofit corporations in this regard. As Justice Alito observed, the dissenting justices did not even really make any clear argument in defense of a distinction. The Hobby Lobby decision applies only to closely-held private corporations, not to publicly-traded corporations. The Green and Hahn families, the court ruled, did not surrender their religious liberties by establishing a for-profit corporation. The same is true for your local kosher deli. This is an important win for the religious liberties of all American citizens.

 

Third, the lead dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals a massive ideological divide on the Court that mirrors the divide within our country at large. Her dissent is very interesting; indeed, it’s even alarming. She leads with concerns about the needs for contraception and birth-control for women and proceeds to dismiss the Christian convictions of the Green and Hahn families as “too attenuated to rank as substantial.” It’s very interesting to note that many people in the media are immediately drawing attention to the fact that the three women justices on the court are all in the minority here. In other words, they all voted against Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods. There are many people trying to say this is thus a gender issue. Echoing this almost immediately, the public statement that came out of the White House said virtually the same thing: this is a huge blow to women. But what that misses is the profound point that the administration could’ve accomplished everything it wants to accomplish on behalf of women, making its own arguments according to its own worldview, without violating the religious consciences of these corporations and their families. But going back to the dissenting opinion handed down by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the things we need to note is that she claims that the religious convictions of the Hahn and Green families, in terms of the connection to the mandate, are “too attenuated to rank as substantial.” That’s an amazing, indeed, condescending statement. That is a very unveiled rejection of religious liberty by arguing that the Christian convictions of these two families, and thus of their corporations, can be absolutely disregarded by the court because in the court’s opinion they’re “too attenuated to rank as substantial.” But what Justice Ginsburg’s dissent completely ignored is the fact that the Obama Administration’s policy requires the Green and Hahn families, and any in a similar predicament, to facilitate what they deeply believed to be morally wrong when the government could’ve accomplished the same result without any such requirement. This led to what I believe in Justice Alito’s majority opinion may be one of the most enduring and important paragraphs. Responding to the lead dissent by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Alito wrote:

 

The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage. This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principle dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed.

 

That is a stunningly important paragraph for several reasons. First of all, here you have Justice Alito rightly recognizing that what you have in the dissenting opinion is a complete dismissal of the Christian convictions of these two families as being just irrelevant, not even important enough to be considered by the court.

 

The second issue made very clear in this regard by Justice Alito is this: when you have the government requiring someone to do something, which will facilitate another doing something the first person considers to be immoral—that is a violation of the first person’s religious liberty. And that’s exactly what the majority opinion recognizes in the case of Conestoga Wood and Hobby Lobby. What we had today was a vindication of the conscience of those who say, “I can’t participate in that without violating my conscience.” Something we need to recognize is that if you have any familiarity at all with the Second World War, one of the arguments used against the Germans who were being tried for war crimes is that they should have stood on conviction by not facilitating the immoral acts of others. Here you have the minority on the court, the dissenting opinions, saying that they would’ve effectively sided with those who said, “Those religious convictions aren’t important if I’m not involved in immoral activity myself.” That’s a very dangerous argument and one that isn’t even apparently recognized by the dissenting justices on this court. Justice Alito’s statement is a stunning rebuke and a much-needed clarification. He defended religious liberty and revealed the deep divide on the court and in the nation, a divide in which some Americans are willing to trample religious liberty under the boot of sexual liberty and to dismiss all arguments to the contrary as, to use Justice Ginsburg’s words, “too attenuated to rank as substantial.”

 

In the other major opinion handed down today, that’s the case known as Harris v. Quinn, the same voting breakdown on the court ruled that states could not require—state law could not require employees of companies to pay labor union fees if they are not members of the labor union. Already there are those who are suggesting this is a massive blow to the unions, but it’s another realignment, you could simply see, in terms of American law and culture, in terms of the balance between collective and individual liberties. And it’s one that is going to be debated, you can be sure, for many months and years to come.

 

Meanwhile, back to the big issue today, that most looked for of all the cases before the court this term, the Hobby Lobby case. We need to recognize, as I began, that some Supreme Court decisions are considered landmarks even on the very day they’re handed down. Today’s Hobby Lobby decision ranks among those. Just consider the fact that had the court ruled otherwise, religious liberty in America would’ve taken a very direct hit from which it may well have never recovered. The public debate revealed all over again the fact that we are in a great and enduring battle for religious liberty, for the sanctity of human life, and for an entire range of concerns that are central to biblical conviction. Today’s decision does not settle those issues, but it does represent a much-needed defense of our nation’s cherished first freedom. For that, at the very least, we should be very thankful.

 

Thanks for listening to this very special edition of The Briefing, timed for June 30, 2014, the last day of the Supreme Court’s term for this year. Remember that right now, as we enter the month of July, we’re in that one month when there are no daily editions of The Briefing. We’ll come back on the 4th of August with the daily edition and the new season of The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. Let me bring your attention to a major essay on the Hobby Lobby decision that I posted earlier today. Again, you’ll find that at albertmohler.com. For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. Remember you can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler. I wish for each of you very happy summer weeks ahead, and I’ll meet you on the 4th of August for The Briefing.

The Briefing Special Edition: Supreme Court Ruling on Hobby Lobby Case

This special edition of The Briefing is released in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case.

Today’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case represents a huge win for religious liberty in America, and the 5-4 decision will now stand as a landmark case that will reshape the religious liberty debate for generations to come. At the same time, the deeply divided court also revealed in startling clarity its own internal debates over religious liberty

The Hobby Lobby Decision: A Big Win for Religious Liberty — and a Very Revealing Divide on the Court, AlbertMohler.com (Albert Mohler)

BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, ET AL. v. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC., ET AL., Supreme Court of the United States

 

The Hobby Lobby Decision: A Big Win for Religious Liberty — and a Very Revealing Divide on the Court

Today’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case represents a huge win for religious liberty in America, and the 5-4 decision will now stand as a landmark case that will reshape the religious liberty debate for generations to come. At the same time, the deeply divided court also revealed in startling clarity its own internal debates over religious liberty — and that division of understanding at the nation’s highest court is very disturbing indeed.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito declared that the Obama Administration had profoundly failed to meet the demands of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act [RFRA] and, more importantly, the demands of the U. S. Constitution. By mandating that corporations provide all forms of contraception or birth control for all female employees at no cost, the government had burdened the consciences of the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby, Mardel, and Conestoga Wood, the three corporations involved in the decision.

The Court restricted its decision to “closely held” private corporations. Hobby Lobby and Mardel are owned and operated by the family of David Green, who with his wife Barbara, began the company in their own home. Though much smaller than Hobby Lobby, Conestoga Wood is also a privately held corporation. The Green family is a bulwark of evangelical Christian conviction and generosity. The company pays its employees about twice the minimum wage, closes on Sundays, and references the Christian gospel in advertising. All along the way, the Green family makes clear that they are driven by Christian convictions in their corporate policies.

Similarly, Conestoga Wood Specialties operates on the same convictions. The Pennsylvania company is known for its quality wood products. It was founded by a deeply committed Mennonite couple, Norman and Elizabeth Hahn, who continue to operate the business with their three sons.

Both companies sued the Obama Administration over the contraception mandate authorized under the Affordable Care Act — a mandate that required them to provide and pay for birth control coverage that would have included four specific forms of birth control that may cause early abortions. Neither company sought a complete escape from the contraception mandate.

As the majority opinion in the case made clear today, one of the largest questions hanging over the decision is this: Why is the Obama Administration so deliberate in attempting to violate the religious convictions of Americans on the contraception and birth control issue?

Today’s decision is yet another repudiation of the heavy-handed and blatantly unconstitutional overreach of President Barack Obama and his administration. The President could have covered contraception and birth control under any number of other means which would not have specifically targeted religious liberty. Instead, the Obama Administration appeared to take the route most likely to trample upon religious liberty and offend Christian conscience. Today’s decision is another rebuke of the President and his approach, coming just days after a set of cases in which his arguments were repudiated by the same court in 9-0 decisions.

Furthermore, the President faces the looming threat of even greater rebukes to come. His administration continues to violate the convictions of Christian non-profit organizations and ministries on the same grounds. He faces lawsuits coming from a massive collection of religious non-profit ministries, ranging from evangelical colleges and universities to the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Roman Catholic charity. Today’s decision makes the victory of those groups very likely.

The majority opinion handed down today makes several important points worthy of close attention.

First, the Court’s decision affirms the central importance of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 [RFRA]. Interestingly, that Act was made necessary by the Court’s own 1990 decision in Employment Division v. Smith, in which the majority opinion had been written by Justice Antonin Scalia, who joined with Justice Alito in the majority for Hobby Lobby. Responding to that decision, Congress passed RFRA, demanding that any law or policy of the federal government that would violate a citizen’s religious convictions must pass two key tests: It must meet a compelling state interest, and it must do so by “the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling state interest.” As Justice Alito stated, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood did not protest against the compelling state interest of the contraception coverage — only against the four specific birth control products that were mandated. Justice Alito and the majority rightly concluded that the Obama Administration had utterly failed the second test. There were any number of alternatives the administration could have taken that would have accomplished its goals without burdening conscience.

What makes this especially important is the fact that RFRA passed in Congress without a single dissenting vote in the House of Representatives and by a 97 vote majority in the Senate. RFRA had massive support within Congress and public opinion at large. And yet, just 21 years later, it seems that many Americans would gladly violate the religious liberties of some in order to advance liberal social policies for others. Today’s decision underlines the importance of RFRA, but it also demonstrates the massive task of defending religious liberty that lies ahead.

Second, Justice Alito reminded all Americans that the designation of any corporation, whether commercial or non-commercial, is vital to individual liberty. Many Americans seem deeply confused about this, but as Justice Alito reminds us all: “A corporation is simply a form of organization used by human beings to achieve desired ends. An established body of law specifies the rights and obligations of people (including shareholders, officers, and employees) who are associated with a corporation in one way or another. When rights, whether constitutional or statutory, are extended to corporations, the purpose is to protect the rights of these people.”

So American corporate law protects the rights and liberties of the people associated with Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood — but also for the corporations known as Planned Parenthood and Greenpeace. The Court rules today that there is no basic distinction between closely held for-profit and non-profit corporations in this regard. As Justice Alito observed, the dissenting justices did not even really make any clear argument in defense of such a distinction. The Hobby Lobby decision applies only to closely held private corporations, not to publicly traded companies. The Green and Hahn families, the Court ruled, did not surrender their religious liberties by establishing a for-profit corporation. The same is true for your local kosher deli. This is an important win for the religious liberties of all citizens.

Third, the lead dissent from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reveals a massive ideological divide on the Court that mirrors the divide within the nation at large. Her dissent leads with concerns about the need for contraception and birth control for women and proceeds to dismiss the Christian convictions of the Green and Hahn families as “too attenuated to rank as substantial.” She ignored the fact that the Obama Administration’s policy required the families to facilitate what they believed to be morally wrong, when the government could have accomplished the same result without this requirement.

In one of the most important passages in Justice Alito’s majority opinion, he sets the issue very well:

“The Hahns and Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulations is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage. This belief implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is wrong for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. Arrogating the authority to provide a binding national answer to this religious and philosophical question, HHS and the principle dissent in effect tell the plaintiffs that their beliefs are flawed.”

That is a stunning rebuke and a much-needed clarification. Justice Alito defended religious liberty and revealed the deep divide on the Court and in the nation — a divide in which some Americans are willing to trample religious liberty under the boot of sexual liberty, and to dismiss all arguments to the contrary as “too attenuated to rank as substantial.”

Some Supreme Court decisions are considered landmarks, even as they are handed down. Today’s Hobby Lobby decision ranks among those. Just consider the fact that had the Court ruled otherwise, religious liberty in America would have taken a very direct hit from which it may well have never recovered. The public debate revealed all over again the fact that we are in a great and enduring battle for religious liberty, for the sanctity of human life, and for an entire range of concerns that are central to biblical conviction. Today’s decision does not settle those issues, but it does represent a much-needed defense of our nation’s cherished “first freedom.”

For that, at the very least, we must be thankful.

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

 

Transcript: The Briefing 06-27-14

The Briefing

 

June 27, 2014

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

 

It’s Friday, June 27, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Abortion counseling buffer zone law struck down in defense of free speech

The end of June brings a flurry of decisions by the United States Supreme Court. It ends its term as the summer begins. And as the term ends, a series of decisions are handed down that are likely to be remembered as the most important of the court’s term. Why? It’s because the court takes this time, the distance between the oral arguments in a case until the decision is handed down, to make certain that it has said what it wants to say when the decision is released. And the last of those decisions will be handed down next Monday, the last day of June and the last day of the court’s term.

 

But yesterday, there were important decisions handed down before the court went into a three-day recess. And among those two decisions, the most important is the fact that the court unanimously struck down a so-called buffer zone when it has to do with abortion counseling in the city of Boston and, by extension, to the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The court’s ruling was 9 to 0 in terms of the fact that the buffer zone, which prevented any kind of counseling of a woman against having an abortion, as being a violation of the basic American right, a fundamental right of free speech. But even as the decision was handed down on a 9-0 vote, what was behind the decision was a disagreement on the court as to how far the decision should reach. For example, the majority opinion struck down the fact that there could be a buffer zone that would privilege certain kinds of speech over against other speech when it comes to that 35-foot space that would include public sidewalks and public streets in front of any abortion clinic. The court did not strike down a similar law that would have allowed for this kind of buffer zone in front of any kind of medical facility, and the court majority insisted that this decision actually has nothing at all whatsoever to do with abortion. So what we have here is the court unanimously saying that what the Massachusetts law stipulated was unconstitutional, an unconstitutional abridgment of that basic American constitutional right of free speech.

 

But you also had a basic division on the court that made something else evident. The only way the court got to a 9-0 vote on this issue was by agreeing that this was not an abortion case. Had it been an abortion case, the liberals on the court would’ve found themselves in a duty-bound position by their own logic to defend abortion over against any kind of infringement. One of the most concerning aspects of the contemporary composition of the US Supreme Court is that those on the left are adamantly determined to defend abortion under virtually any conceivable circumstance, including even so-called partial-birth abortions.

 

As the hometown newspaper there in Massachusetts, The Boston Globe, declared, the US Supreme Court had ruled that the state laws violated the First Amendment, restricting access to public ways and sidewalks—and the keywords are what follows—places that are traditionally open for free debate. But the disagreement on the court itself, even behind the 9-0 ruling, was made evident in the concurring opinion that was handed down by Justice Antonin Scalia, who was joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy and Justice Clarence Thomas. In his initial words in his concurring opinion, he said:

 

Today’s opinion carries forward this court’s practice of giving abortion-rights advocates a pass when it comes to suppressing the free-speech rights of their opponents. There is an entirely separate abridged version of the First Amendment applicable to speech against abortion.

 

Now I happen to believe that Justice Scalia is absolutely right in making this assertion. He’s right in suggesting that there’s something cowardly about a court that reaches the right decision by agreeing that the issue isn’t what the issue is actually about—in other words, abortion. Justice Scalia is counted in the unanimous vote—after all, it was 9-0—but he writes about the majority opinion, “This is an opinion that has something for everyone and the more significant portion continues the onward march of abortion speech only jurisprudence.”

 

Time will tell whether or not in this case, as in so many others, Justice Scalia’s proved to be prophetic. But, at the very least, anyone who is concerned for the sanctity of human life has to see this as a win. It may turn out to be a narrow win, but it’s a very significant win, and since it was a unanimous decision, in that sense, it is a very conclusive win. The opportunity is now before the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to try to come back and rewrite the law so that it does not conflict with the United States Constitution, but the majority opinion, even with the criticisms of Justice Scalia, will be a mighty powerful obstacle for the state of Massachusetts to overcome in trying to craft just such a law.

2) Separation of powers defended in court in America, not in battlefield

In a second major decision handed down by the court yesterday, the court rebuked the President of the United States. The court ruled that President Obama had overreached his constitutional authority by making certain so-called recess appointments when the Senate of the United States was not actually in recess. The court ruled unanimously that President Obama had innovated even over the practices of his predecessors by making appointments when the Senate actually wasn’t in recess, when it was just in something like a three-day holiday weekend. In other words, the president was acting over against the Constitution, was overreaching his constitutional authority in making certain appointments years ago to the National Labor Relations Board. And this is a far-reaching decision in this sense because this means that every one of the decisions made by that very important federal agency in the time since President Obama made those recess appointments is now in question because, as it turns out, those who were serving on the board were not qualified to do so. They had not been confirmed by the Senate.

 

By a narrower vote, in the second part of this decision, a 5-4 vote, a bare majority of the court decided not to virtually eliminate the president’s recess appointment power altogether. That’s also very telling. It tells us that there was only a one-vote margin separating those who were willing to say that in this age the president has no right of such recess appointments.

 

So it was a 9-0 decision on the big question and a 5-4 decision on the more narrow question, so what from the Christian worldview perspective is most important here? What’s important is the American genius of the constitutional separation of powers. We should stand back in a bit of wonder here and recognize that this is possible, this kind of decision, the framing of this kind of issue, only in the United States of America and only under the American Constitution. The United States Constitution that is to this day the longest-operating written Constitution in the history of humanity. And we need also to recognize that there was a deep Christian wisdom written into that separation of powers. That deep Christian wisdom is the understanding that evil tends to collect itself where power is unchecked, and it is the doctrine of sin that led the founders of this country to believe that every branch of government needed to be co-equal, able to check any overreach by another power. And in this case, it’s a very interesting three-part discussion because you had the Supreme Court of the United States, an equal branch of government with Congress and the president, instructing the President of the United States that he had acted unconstitutionally in not allowing the Congress of the United States the opportunity to review and to consent to his appointments.

 

Also making news in terms of the separation of powers, this week the Speaker the House of Representatives, John Boehner, announced that he will sue President Obama by the use of executive actions that go around the authority of Congress. And this will again demonstrate the separation of powers with the Speaker of the House suing the President of the United States before a federal court.

 

From a Christian worldview perspective, there’s something else that needs to be noted here. Many other nations would go to war over this. There would be an attempted coup or some kind of toppling of the power structure. In the United States of America, one of the wonders of our constitutional system and its longevity is the fact that even when the disagreements run this deep, people go court, not to war.

3) Edie Windsor celebrated by Bill Clinton, the president who signed DOMA

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the Windsor decision handed down by the United States Supreme Court. That was the decision that struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. I was asked by CNN to respond on that one-year anniversary. My article appeared today at CNN.com. But yesterday, on that one-year anniversary, there was a bizarre cover story, front-page story, at USA Today, and yet, very few people seemed to have noted just how bizarre it is. The article is by Richard Wolf, the lead reporter on this issue for USA Today. Here’s how he began the article:

 

Edie Windsor turned 85 last week, but she was too “overdone” for a party. The woman whose lawsuit forced the federal government to recognize same-sex marriage introduced President Obama at a Democratic National Committee event a few nights earlier. A few nights later, she was to be introduced by former president Bill Clinton at an MTV “Trailblazers” event.

 

Now as you heard her name, Edie Windsor is the reason why the Windsor decision has its name. It was she who sued against the federal government’s Defense of Marriage Act, and she won in court and it was thus struck down. That will stand as one of the most signal decisions of the United States Supreme Court, and to those who believe that marriage, by God’s intention, should be the union of a man and a woman, one of the most devastating judicial actions ever undertaken.

 

But what makes this story so interesting were those last words in that introductory paragraph. Let me read them again: “A few nights earlier, she was to be honored by former President Bill Clinton at an MTV “Trailblazers” event.” Where’s the irony there? Well Edie Windsor sued the government of the United States over the Defense of Marriage Act, claiming the Defense of Marriage Act was a basic denial of her basic human rights and winning her argument at the nation’s highest court, striking down a law that had been overwhelmingly passed by Congress and signed into law by the then president of the United States. That’s the irony. The President of the United States in 1996, the president who signed that bill into the law, was Bill Clinton, who was supposedly, according to USA Today, introducing her to be celebrated at a “Trailblazers” event on MTV. He was supposed to be celebrating her for having overturned the law that he signed into law in 1996. It takes someone like Bill Clinton to be able to pull that off; to be on both sides of the same issue on MTV.

4) 10th Circuit majority opinion views opposition to same-sex marriage as wholly illogical

On yesterday’s edition of The Briefing, we talked about another judicial decision. That was the decision at the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver that struck down Utah’s constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. We covered the issue then, but something of additional interest has come to light. We mentioned yesterday that that’s the first US Court of Appeals to come to this kind of decision and that sets up the likelihood that the issue will arrive at the US Supreme Court as early as this coming fall.

 

But what brings me back to the issue today is the subsequent coverage. In particular, an article that appeared from the Associated Press; an article the reveals far more than may have been intended. The Associated Press reports:

 

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that states must allow gay couples to marry, finding the Constitution protects same-sex relationships, and putting a remarkable legal winning streak across the country one step closer to the US Supreme Court.

 

The paper continued:

 

The three-judge panel in Denver ruled two to one that states cannot deprive people of the fundamental right to marry simply because they want to be wedded to someone of the same-sex.

 

But then note with great care the words that follow:

 

The judges added they don’t want to brand as intolerant those who oppose gay marriage, but they said there’s no reasonable objection to the practice.

 

So the summary here offered by the Associated Press comes down to the fact that the two winning judges on the three-judge panel deciding this issue decided that they didn’t want to call people who oppose same-sex marriage intolerant, but in the very next statement they say there’s no reasonable objection to the practice. In their opinion, the judges actually said:

 

It is wholly illogical to believe that state recognition of love and commitment of same-sex couples will alter the most intimate and personal decisions of opposite sex couples.

 

Now that’s an interesting statement in itself. It actually doesn’t even reach to the actual reason why those who oppose same-sex marriage are opposed to it, but what’s far more interesting is the reading of motivations behind it. That here you have the Associated Press, apparently objectively trying to tell us what’s happening in this story, explaining that the two judges on the winning side of this three-judge panel said that they didn’t want to brand those who oppose same-sex marriage as intolerant, so they came up with something else to say: we’re simply illogical, irrational, on the wrong side of history, on the wrong side of reason, on the wrong side of their two-judge majority.

5) State Department event honors woman who opposes existence of marriage

Next, as we go into the weekend, I must report on an event that recently took place at the United States State Department, presided over by the Secretary of State of the United States, John Kerry. We’re indebted to the reportorial website Breitbart for bringing to our attention the fact that this event was held. It was an event celebrating LGBT issues at the United States State Department and the elevation of those issues in American foreign policy under the administration of Barack Obama and under the leadership of Secretary John Kerry. But as Breitbart reports, one of the speakers was journalist and LGBT activist Masha Gessen, who has been an outspoken critic of the Russian government on LGBT issues. She’s written a book about Vladimir Putin, for a time she headed the Moscow office of US Radio Liberty, and she’s been a prolific commentator to the New York Times blogs. Secretary of State John Kerry introduced her by saying:

 

The government in Moscow may look at Masha as a troublemaker to contend with, but here in the United States, we know that she is a wonderful person, a mother, a journalist, an extraordinary human rights defender, and we’re honored by her presence here.

 

She was indeed lauded by the United States State Department at this public event as one who symbolizes the kinds of gains that the gay-rights movement has made, not only in the United States, but internationally in recent years. She has moved with her partner and their children to the United States.

 

But what the State Department did not draw attention to is something else for which Masha Gessen is known. She has not only called for the legalization of same-sex marriage; she has called for the end of marriage altogether. She has said:

 

I agree that we should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it is a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist. Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change and it should change, and, again, I don’t think it should exist.

 

So the United States State Department, at an event presided over by the United States Secretary of State, honored someone who has called for the legalization of same-sex marriage as a way of getting to the elimination of marriage altogether, and who makes the argument that it’s only honest for same-sex marriage advocates to make very clear that their position is calling for same-sex marriage only until they can destroy marriage altogether.

 

The state department also did not draw attention to what Masha Gessen has described in her own words as a complicated family structure: “We have three kids and five parents, more or less, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t have five parents legally.” It also notes that her own brother is the father of her second wife’s daughter. I will simply leave that statement where it is and make very clear that our State Department decided to honor this individual in this manner in our name.

6) Summer invaluable opportunity for teenagers to learn important life skills

Finally, as the summer season looms before us and the Fourth of July is coming quickly, two articles on teenagers and the summer that are truly important. The first of the articles is by Carey Restino of The Anchorage Daily News. She writes that the summer is too often lost time for families when it comes to their children and especially their teenagers, in terms of learning, and yet she says these children are really not learning things they definitely need to know. She writes:

 

It seems that in many families, the parents role as a teacher has dimmed somewhat. Sure we’re aware that our children learn a great deal from us, but more and more, our culture expects others to teach our children the basic skills they need for life.

 

That’s an amazingly profound statement, and I can’t think of many more paragraphs that would have greater importance to parents as we head, with our children and teenagers in tow, into the summer season. And this columnist, who is also a mom, points out that many of these lessons simply aren’t known by children by the time they reach what is supposedly an adulthood. For instance, do they know anything about how to cook? Do they know how to clean a kitchen? Do they know how to clean a bathroom? Do they know how to iron a shirt? Do they know how to do anything in terms of the basic issues of life that parents used to believe were the responsibility of parents to teach their children? She writes in her article about how she’s going to have her children deployed in learning these lessons and she says it’s not just about them learning how to do the work. She says:

 

If you think for a moment that this endeavor’s going to make my life easier this summer, you’re completely off-base. I know that each of these lessons is going to be as much work for me, if not more, than for them, but this summer is a great opportunity to focus on the job I signed up for—parenting. And hopefully, when they leave home, they won’t be as gobsmacked by the learning curve of life as I was. That’s a gift I’m willing to work hard to give them.

 

The second article appeared in the personal business column of The New York Times on June 14th. The headline: “If a Teenager Lands a Summer Job, the Value is Lasting.” Even as the jobs report indicates that fewer teenagers than in any recent decade are now employed gainfully this summer, the reality is that research is demonstrating over and over again the wisdom that a teenage summer job has lifelong consequences. Indeed, researchers have demonstrated that teenagers who had some form of gainful employment during the summers of their teenage years earned far more in adulthood than teenagers who did not. A study recently done by the Metropolitan Policy Program of the Brookings Institution said there are good reasons for understanding this. “Research shows those who work in high school have wages 10 to 15 percent higher when they graduate from college.” Note that that comparison is based on wages immediately after graduating from college, not to mention 20 or 30 years out.

 

One of the interesting insights in this article is that many other things that teenagers are doing, good in themselves, such as summer program, summer school, summer camp, summer learning opportunities, all of these can be important, but as the research makes clear, none of them can play quite as decisive a role in themselves as summer gainful employment. A part of the reason for this was explained by John Challenger, who is an executive officer with a search firm that deals with employment issues. He says:

 

Real work experience is being displaced by summer and travel programs. A lot of kids are missing out by not learning what working is. They’re also missing the process of job hunting. Part of the experience is developing persistence and the all-important skills of shaking hands, answering questions clearly, and looking someone in the eye.

 

But, beyond that, for many teenagers, jobs, as The New York Times notes, are much more important than an experience; they’re a necessity. But over the years, lower-level jobs that were once the entryway to teenage employment have been displaced in this economy. But one of the main points made by this New York Times article by Alina Tugend is the fact that if you have a teenager and a bucket of water, you’ve got a business, and if you have a teenager and a lawnmower, you’ve got an industry.

 

So taking these two articles together, perhaps one of the most important things that parents can do with teenage children this summer is to make sure they are teaching them things they know they need to know. And furthermore, teaching them how to work because they know they need to work, and if not able to find gainful employment, they understand that if you can’t find work, you make work.

 

And thus we come to the end of the week with a stack of articles and issues yet to be discussed, and that’s just the way it is because today we also come to the end of the 2013-2014 season of The Briefing. I’ll be taking the month of July off and we’ll return with the new season of The Briefing and its daily edition, every day of the work week, beginning on Monday, August 4 of this year.

 

I just want to tell you how much I appreciate the fact you listen to The Briefing, and I surely hope you find this helpful in terms of your own life, your own thinking, and your own family, your own church as well. But I also want to tell you that since the Hobby Lobby decision is going to be handed down by the Supreme Court on Monday, I anticipate a special edition of The Briefing to be released at some point during the day on Monday. I pray for you and yours a most blessed and God-honoring summer season.

 

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 with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. Remember the special edition of The Briefing to be released on Monday on the Hobby Lobby decision. And, beyond that, I’ll meet you on Monday, August 4, for The Briefing.

The Briefing 06-27-14

1) Abortion counseling buffer zone law struck down in defense of free speech

Mass. abortion clinic buffer zone law struck down, Boston Globe (Milton J. Valencia and Martin Finucane)

Court strikes down abortion clinic buffer zones, Washington Post (Robert Barnes)

MCCULLEN ET AL. v. COAKLEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS, ET AL., Supreme Court

2) Separation of powers defended in court in America, not in battlefield

Supreme Court strikes down Obama recess appointments, Politico (Josh Gerstein)

Boehner says to file lawsuit over Obama executive actions, Reuters (David Lawder)

3) Edie Windsor celebrated by Bill Clinton, the president who signed DOMA

For same-sex marriage pioneer Edie Windsor, a very busy year, Richard Wolf (USA Today)

4) 10th Circuit majority opinion views opposition to same-sex marriage as wholly illogical

Federal Appeals Court: Gays Have Right to Marry, Associated Press (Nicholas Riccardi and Brady McCombs)

5) State Department event honors woman who opposes existence of marriage

State Dept. Honors Advocate of Destruction of Marriage, Breitbart (Austin Ruse)

6) Summer invaluable opportunity for teenagers to learn important life skills

 Summer vacation offers 
opportunities to teach youth lifelong lessons, Anchorage Daily News (Carey Restino)

If a Teenager Lands a Summer Job, the Value Is Lasting, New York Times (Alina Tugend)

Transcript: The Briefing 06-26-14

The Briefing

 

June 26, 2014

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

 

It’s Thursday, June 26, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Supreme Court’s liberals and conservatives united on right to privacy

Many of the most famous decisions handed down by the United States Supreme Court have reflected a deeply divided court. Decisions handed down with a 7-2 decision or 6-3 or sometimes even 5-4. But yesterday something very interesting happened before the court and it’s not new. This year before the court approximately one-half of all the decisions the court has rendered have been unanimous: 9-0 decisions. So as many people talk about a deeply-divided nation, when it comes to at least some issues, we do not have a deeply-divided court or, in one sense, even a divided court at all.

 

In yesterday’s decisions, at least one was handed down that covered two cases: Riley v. California and U.S. v. Worley. And in this case, the nation’s highest court said that citizens of the United States have the right to expect privacy when it comes to their smart phones. Being arrested by the police does not give the police, without a search warrant, the right to search your smart phone. This was a 9-0 decision.

 

There’s something else that’s really important here. There have been, thus far, three huge cases about personal surveillance and personal privacy that have come before the United States Supreme Court and they have come in the last three years. And in every one of these decisions, the court has ruled unanimously. And if you’re taking count, that means 27 votes for personal privacy and not one Supreme Court justice voting even one time for the government’s claim that it has the right to violate your personal privacy for the cause of national security or law enforcement.

 

Now from a Christian worldview perspective, this is really interesting because one of the most basic human rights is the right to the integrity of your person and the integrity of your own personal privacy. There is, according to the Christian worldview, a zone of privacy that is covered at least by the biblical understanding of modesty and also by the right to private property, and the right, as British common law made very clear, to be left alone unless you’re doing something that damages the society or breaks the culture’s laws. And in this case, the federal government was exposed as having collected material—and not only the federal government, we should say, but also local and state law enforcement authorities—to which the government had no right of access without a search warrant. Many people see search warrants referenced on television or on the movies without understanding why they are so important. That means that law enforcement has to go before a judge and make the case for why personal privacy must be violated. There must be some do cause for the court to grant that permission. If that is not extended to the smart phone in your pocket or your purse, then there is access to the most intimate details of your lives that would then be available to anyone who might arrest you or detain you for any reason.

 

In this case, the court’s Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., wrote the decisive opinion. He said that when it comes to the cell phone, in terms of contemporary life, they are “such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude that they were an important feature of human anatomy.” That’s an interesting insight in itself, but the key insight by the United States Supreme Court in this unanimous decision, following two previous unanimous decisions, is that there is a basic human right to privacy, and the United States Constitution was intentionally written, as it was ratified in 1789, to reflect, to honor, and to protect that right. And when we see a case like this, we are reminded of the fact that government has the perpetual responsibility to balance, on the one hand, the right to personal privacy and, on the other hand, the responsibility of the government to protect the entire nation. And these sometimes come into conflict. But as the Supreme Court made very clear, if they are in conflict, some independent judge needs to give authorization for the government to violate your privacy.

 

If this seems like something that might apply to someone far away, not to yourself or to someone you know and love, just consider the fact that if personal privacy is violated for one, it can be very quickly violated for all. And in the context of such deep division in this country over moral and cultural issues, it tells us something very significant that on the issue personal privacy the liberals and the conservatives on the US Supreme Court stand together. That in itself is a very clear signal.

 

Meanwhile, of course, today we are expecting the United States Supreme Court to hand down the decision in the cases of Conestoga Woods and Hobby Lobby. Key cases that will determine, in large part, whether or not this government is going to respect the Christian consciences of those in the corporate world and, in particular, in privately held corporations when it comes to the violations of conscience required under present law and statutes by the Obama Administration’s contraception mandate. We’ll be watching today as the Supreme Court hands down that decision.

2) 10th Circuit Court upholds same-sex marriage, paves way for Supreme Court decision on issue

Meanwhile, we need to note that yesterday the Tenth US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Utah’s state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. This is the same US Circuit Court of Appeals that heard the case in Oklahoma and that decision is expected very quickly. In the case of the Tenth Circuit’s decision on the Utah constitutional amendment, it came down to a three-judge panel that devoted 2-1. But the most significant aspect of yesterday’s decision at the Tenth Circuit is this: this is the first US circuit Court of Appeals that has yet rendered a verdict on the question of a state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage since the United States Supreme Court handed down the Windsor decision exactly one year ago. And as we move to other pressing concerns, we simply note this: the decision handed down yesterday at the Tenth Circuit sets the stage for the United States Supreme Court to take up that question in its new term beginning as early as October.

3) VP Biden declares same-sex marriage should trump cultural values

Shifting now to observe, once again, the velocity of the moral revolution on the issue of same-sex marriage and homosexuality, we note that Tuesday night the Associated Press ran a story by Jim Coonan, indicating that Vice President Joe Biden had declared, on that day, that protecting gay rights is a defining mark of a civilized nation and must trump national cultures and social traditions. This is a very important story. What it tells us is that the Obama Administration is now sending a signal in terms of American foreign-policy. It doesn’t matter what your beliefs are. It doesn’t matter what your society demands. You’re going to have to affirm same-sex marriage and the full range of gay rights or you’re going to find yourself facing the active opposition of the United States government.

 

Speaking to about a hundred guests at the National Observatory’s vice presidential mansion, the Vice President said, “I don’t care what your culture is. Inhumanity is inhumanity is inhumanity. Prejudice is prejudice is prejudice.” And common sense is common sense is common sense. And this is exactly the way a moral revolution is driven, and is driven in this case by the executive authority of the Obama Administration with Vice President Joe Biden now serving as the point man for the argument that every nation in the world now has to get behind the United States in pressing this agenda. Of course, the great obstacle of this is the inviolate fact that most nations around the world are going to disregard, if not to reject entirely, the mandate of the vice president of the United States of America. Instead, what we need to understand is that the vice president was in part sending a signal in terms of foreign policy, but to a far greater extent, he was sending an internal signal to those within this country who are demanding that the administration do more by stating, “I don’t care what your culture is.” That’s an amazing statement to be made by anyone in any position of authority. It’s fairly astounding that a statement like that would be made by the sitting Vice President of the United States, and it’s even more interesting that this statement hasn’t elicited an international conversation. Either the Vice President wasn’t heard or, more likely, he was ignored.

4) Canadian party leader rules all members must vote pro-choice, regardless of conviction

Shifting to the larger international scene, many Americans understand that even as the United States is the dominant nation in North America, we’re not the sole nation. To our north is Canada and to the south Mexico. And when we think of North America, we often think of this continent in radical distinction in terms of cultural and moral issues with that of Europe, and yet when it comes to many issues, Canada is far more associated with Europe than it is with its North American neighbor, that is, the United States of America. And when it comes to the intersection of religion and politics, Canada is decidedly and increasingly European—that is to say, radically secular.

 

Evidence of that comes from one of the major Canadian newspapers, The National Post, in an article that ran last weekend. The article is by Rex Murphy and it has to do with the current leader of the Liberal party in Canada. He is the son of the former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The young man’s name is Justin Trudeau, and he reflects that kind of European secular agenda in a most quintessential and undeniable way. He has now informed his party members that, regardless of their own convictions—and specifically their Christian convictions—they have to vote to support abortion for any reason, for any cause, in any context, or resign from the party. As Rex Murphy writes:

 

Elected Liberal MPs are under Justin Trudeau’s direct order that, in any legislation that touches on the abortion issue, they must — mindless of their faith, their previous professions on the subject, or their conscience — vote the “pro-choice” dogma. Pro-abortion is the party line. And it is the only line allowed.

 

And in this case, the argument made by Justin Trudeau is an argument that mirrors similar kinds of arguments that are now commonplace in countries such as Belgium or France or Switzerland. But this is Canada—right across our northern border. And as Rex Murphy writes:

 

What kind of politics are they which require an MP to renounce his deepest moral commitments; indeed, to go beyond renunciation and declare himself positively in favour of ideas and actions that his faith condemns, his Church forbids, and his conscience cannot abide?

 

Murphy goes on to write:

 

Religion, under these conditions, cannot survive political engagement. An understanding of politics based on an exclusion of thoughtful and engaged religious people — on the rejection of ideas and understandings offered by the great religious teachers and the massive legacy of thought our churches have to offer — is radically incomplete.

 

He concludes:

 

As things now are, a truly religious person must actually stay out of politics — must forgo an active role in democratic government — because in our brazen and new age, he or she will be faced with irreconcilable moral choices. If elected, he or she will be required to betray their faith and themselves, and on those very issues that matter most: issues of life, family, autonomy and the dignity of persons.

 

That is a massively important argument and it’s a very important development coming right to our north because one of the things we need to note is that even as Canada is our neighbor, it also reflects a kind of cultural and social and even legal revolution that often migrates to the south much more quickly than we might imagine.

 

But if that article is interesting and important on its own, so are the letters that were elicited by the article that appeared in subsequent editions of The National Post. One writer, Kevin Bougher of Vancouver, wrote:

 

Religion should be respected for sure, but its role in our society should also be properly countered, so as not to allow it to determine government policy. A person’s religion should be something that is celebrated in their home and in their personal lives. It is not something to be forced upon others or lorded over them.

 

Now just consider the recent fracas within the United Kingdom over David Cameron simply saying that Britain is a Christian country with a Christian culture. You would’ve thought that David Cameron had decided that the Bible had to be substituted for the law of England, but, of course, he’s a very secular leader and Britain is a very secular nation. But Britain, after all, at least has a state church, so it’s rather nonsensical to argue that it’s a totally secular nation. But perhaps what Britain proves is that having a state church doesn’t prevent you from your worldview becoming pervasively secularized in almost every aspect of national life.

 

But in Canada, the situation reflected in this letter to the editor is very clear: religion is allowable in this secular age, so long as you keep it in your home and in your heart, so long as you never speak about it in public, so long as it never intrudes into the public square, so long as your Christian convictions stay, according the secular mind, where they belong—in your Christian closet. Let them out of the closet and you become a danger. Americans considering the rapid secularization of our own country don’t just need to look to Europe to see where that might be headed. All we have to do is look just to the north.

5) Hollywood “fever” over contagions reveals human fixation on end of the world

Shifting the issue to the intersection of worldview and our entertainment culture, something’s going on in terms of Hollywood, both in terms of television and the big screen, and it has to do with contagion or, more specifically, with fever. As many have noted, there seems to be a rash of summer movies and television series having to do with outbreaks of fever. They include programs such as “The Last Ship” on TNT, “The Strain” on FX, and “Helix” on Sci-Fi. And it’s not just that, several books related to young adult literature and others are coming out warning of a post-apocalyptic future in which humanity is threatened by a dread disease, the outbreak of a fever or of a virus. Alessandra Stanley, writing for The New York Times, writes about one of these television series, “The Last Ship.” She writes:

 

Premium cable hasn’t just influenced television, it has mated with it and spawned hybrids. “The Last Ship,” a maritime drama that begins on Sunday on TNT, is one of the better results of crossbreeding. It’s a dystopian thriller for optimists.

 

That’s an interesting statement in itself. It seems to be an absolute contradiction: “a dystopian thriller for optimism.” But Stanley goes on to write:

 

A virus has wiped out most of the world population, and civilization has collapsed. On the brighter side, a selection of good-looking peppy people are still alive. These men and women were in the Arctic aboard a Navy destroyer during the outbreak and avoided contagion.

 

“The Last Ship” has the fashionably post-apocalyptic framework of cable shows like that, but its characters and can-do spirit echo those of more conventional [television].

 

So there’s the union of dystopia, which is the opposite of utopia, and optimism. In other words, the world may be coming to an end because of fever, but we can still salvage human values and establish some kind of small civilization on this last ship.

 

But it’s not just the crew of those on a Navy ship. As Alexandra Alter writes for The Wall Street Journal, in terms of young adult literature, there are new similarities between books known as The Fever, a suspense novel from rising-crime fiction star Megan Abbott, and Conversion, a coming young adult novel from Katherine Howe. She writes:

 

In both books, a cluster of teenage girls develops mysterious symptoms, including uncontrollable facial tics, stuttering and seizures. The strange outbreak begins with a popular girl and spreads to her circle of friends, eventually drawing national media attention [as the symptom mutates].

 

USA Today simply declares that TV is going viral in a big way. Bill Keveney writes:

 

Viruses have long played a dramatic role in film, appearing in such movies as The Andromeda Strain (1971), Twelve Monkeys (1995), Outbreak (1995) and Contagion (2011), whose producers consulted with the Centers for Disease Control and shot part of the film at its offices.

 

He goes to Hank Steinberg, the executive producer of “The Last Ship,” who writes:

 

It’s an invisible monster that could run rampant and kill all of us. When we conceived of the show that’s what we thought could be a really interesting starting place for an end to the world.

 

So let’s ask from the perspective of a Christian worldview: why would there be such an interest in the end of civilization by means of some kind of radical contagion by virus as most Americans are thinking about summer vacation and heading for the lake or the beach? The reason for this is actually closer at hand than you might imagine. The reason why we find these stories entertaining is because we think about these things. It is because, as God made us, as the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes tells us, God but eternity into the hearts of every single human being, we cannot help but thinking about not only our own deaths, but the end of civilization. The reason why not only young adults, but older adults as well, and even younger children, think about the dystopian storyline is because we think about the end of the earth. There seems to be a meaning to history that cries out, “This will not long last. It will not forever endure. There’s going to be some kind of end.” And even the secular worldview has to ask the question, “How might it end?” And if you’re coming up with a secular answer, there’s perhaps no better answer or closer at hand than an end by means of the outbreak of a horrifying fever. As Nancy DeWolf Smith writes for The Wall Street Journal, one thing to note about these dystopian storylines is that, at least for some time, they tend to displace violence and sex from television. Meaning, perhaps, that at the very least when it comes to the end of the world that may be the one thing that puts violence and sex outside the entertainment imagination.

 

But Christians need to keep in mind that there’s another reason we find these storylines so captivating, and that is this: these viruses really do exist. This is not just something that might be relegated to science fiction. When it comes to these kinds of viral outbreaks, they are indeed possible. As a matter of fact, even as the mainstream media were giving more attention to the media’s depiction by means of entertainment of these viral outbreaks, there were two headlines that evidently escaped the attention of most Americans. For instance, last Friday’s edition of The New York Times included the headlines, “C.D.C. Details Anthrax Scare for Scientists at Facilities.” As reporter Sabrina Tavernise and Donald McNeil report:

 

As many as 75 scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [in Atlanta] may have been exposed to live anthrax bacteria after potentially infectious samples were sent to laboratories unequipped to handle dangerous pathogens, a spokesman for the federal health agency said Thursday.

 

Now get this; the next line is especially indicative of human fallibility: “The agency was testing a new way to kill anthrax, which it discovered did not work as well as expected.” The reporters tell us the lapse occurred sometime between June 6 to June 13. Workers in three labs, who were not wearing protective gear, moved and experimented with samples of the highly infectious bacteria that were supposed to have been deactivated, the agency said. They were supposed to have been deactivated, but they weren’t.

 

Meanwhile on June 24th—that’s just two days ago on Tuesday—The Times of India reported a headline, “West Africa’s Ebola Epidemic is ‘Out of Control,’ the Death Toll Now Rises to 337.” Datelined from Dakar, we read:

 

An epidemic of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa is now “out of control” with more than 60 outbreak hotspots, the medical charity Doctors without Borders (MSF) said.

“The scale of the current Ebola epidemic is unprecedented in terms of geographical distribution, people infected and deaths.”

 

The rapid spread of the disease, which is deadly in up to 90 per cent of cases, has overwhelmed aid agencies and health workers and terrified local communities.

 

Bart Janssens, the director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, said, “The epidemic is now out of control. With the appearance of new sites in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, there’s a real risk of it spreading to other areas.”

 

Christians reading headlines like these are reminded of what it means by the biblical worldview to keep ever in mind that we’re living in a Genesis 3 world; a world that is marked by human sinfulness and all the effects on the entire cosmos of human sin and God’s judgment upon it. We’re living in a fallen world in which there are not only termites and tumors, there are also very dangerous viruses. We should be very thankful that we live in a world in which we have at the very least a Center for Disease Control and Prevention and where we are protected by a modern civilization that has learned, at least in part, how to counter these viral dangers. But as headlines like these and entertainment phenomenon like what are now occurring this summer remind us, we have conquered these things in part and only in part, and so shall it be until Christ’s kingdom comes.

 

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 new season of Ask Anything: Weekend Edition that will begin 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.

Briefing 06-26-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Supreme Court’s liberals and conservatives united on right to privacy

Major Ruling Shields Privacy of Cellphones, New York Times (Adam Liptak)

2) 10th Circuit Court upholds same-sex marriage, paves way for Supreme Court decision on issue

10th Circuit Court upholds same-sex marriage, Salt Lake Tribune (Jessica Miller, Kirsten Stewart and Pamela Manson)

U.S. appeals court backs gay marriage in conservative Utah, Reuters (Daniel Wallis)

3) VP Biden declares same-sex marriage should trump cultural values

Joe Biden: U.S. backs gay rights, Politico (AP)

4) Canadian party leader rules all members must vote pro-choice, regardless of conviction

 In Justin Trudeau’s world, Christians need not apply, National Post (Rex Murphy)

 Religion and politics don’t mix, National Post (Letters to the Editor)

5) Hollywood “fever” over contagions reveals human fixation on end of the world

Staying Afloat in End Times, New York Times (Alessandra Stanley)

TV goes viral, in a big way, USA Today (Bill Keveney)

An Outbreak of Hysteria Novels, Wall Street Journal (Alexandra Alter)

Germs Warfare, Wall Street Journal (Nancy DeWolf Smith)

C.D.C. Details Anthrax Scare for Scientists at Facilities, New York Times (Sabrine Tavernise and Donald G. McNeil, Jr.)

West Africa’s ebola epidemic is ‘out of control’, death toll rises to 337, Times of India (AFP)