R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 370

The Briefing 03-28-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Despite Obama’s “retrenchment” the world is becoming a more dangerous place

Global Crises Put Obama’s Strategy of Caution to the Test, New York Times (David E Sanger)

Superpower Once Lived Here, The Weekly Standard (William Kristol)

Obama warns Europe of return to nationalist conflicts, Financial Times (Christian Oliver and James Fontanella-Khan)

Obama’s Uncertain Trumpet, Wall Street Journal (Editorial)

2)Economic incentives for doing business with Russia will not keep people from moral problems

Siemens Chief Meets Putin in Russia, Wall Street Journal (William Boston)

3) As Malaysian Airlines pilot is accused, we may never know the answer to “why”

Malaysia jet disappearance no accident, investigator says, USA Today (Mahi Ramakrishnan)

4) Noah: The Bible is infinitely better at telling it’s own story than anyone else

Russell Crowe Meets the Pope, but Will Religious Viewers See Noah? Bloomberg Businessweek (Bilge Ebiri)

Is ‘Noah’ film sacred enough?, CNN (Carol Costello)

 

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-27-14

The Briefing

 

 March 27, 2014

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

 

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

 

An historic and much welcomed announcement came from World Vision U.S. yesterday afternoon. The letter came from Richard Stearns, the President of the American division of World Vision. He wrote, “Today the World Vision U.S. board publicly reversed its recent decision to change our national employment conduct policy. The board acknowledged they made a mistake and chose to revert to our long-standing conduct policy requiring sexual abstinence for all single employees and faithfulness within the biblical covenant of marriage between a man and a woman.” He went on to say:

 

We are writing to you, our trusted partners and Christian leaders, who have come to us in the spirit of Matthew chapter 18 to express your concern in love and conviction. You share our desire to come together in the body of Christ around our mission to serve the poorest of the poor. We have listened to you and want to say thank you and to humbly ask for your forgiveness.

 

In the world today, there are countless surprises and many, many disappointments, and when you have a letter like this to arrive, it is a singularly happy event. What you have here is a major Christian organization correcting an error, doing so publicly, doing so very clearly. In this letter that comes from Richard Stearns, the World Vision U.S. board makes very clear that it is not just making an expedient effort to try to get back to the previous policy; it is acknowledging that it made a mistake. And the most important portion of this letter is where it acknowledges that the mistake was made. In the fourth paragraph of Richard Stearns’s letter, he writes:

 

We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we’ve caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to biblical authority. We ask that you understand that this was never the board’s intent. We are asking for your continued support. We commit to you that we will continue to listen to the wise counsel of Christian brothers and sisters, and we will reach out to key partners in the weeks ahead.

 

While World Vision U.S. stands firmly on the biblical view of marriage, we strongly affirm that all people, regardless of their sexual orientation, are created by God and are to be loved and treated with dignity and respect.

 

Well certainly that last statement is true. Every single human being, who is now alive and will ever live or who has ever lived, is made in the image of God and is to be loved and treated with dignity and respect. But the first portion of that paragraph is so very important where Richard Stearns writes that there were many people who saw the decision that they announced earlier this week as a reversal of “our strong commitment to biblical authority.” Well, indeed, that’s exactly not only what it was seen to be; that’s what it was. And even if that portion of this letter might not have been written as strongly, in terms of its wording, as it could have been, it does send the signal very clearly and it doesn’t attempt to evade the central issue, which is that the authority of Scripture was directly at stake.

 

And that next paragraph makes that point dramatically clear when Richard Stearns writes that World Vision U.S. stands firmly on the biblical view of marriage. That is a crucial phrasing, a crucial series of words because in the statement that World Vision released earlier this week announcing that they were changing their policy to allow for the employment of openly gay employees in legal same-sex marriages, the board had made the statement that the issue of marriage and sexuality, the homosexuality issue wasn’t clear in Scripture. Now they’re making a very clear statement that they see the issue clearly and that Scripture is clear on the issue. They refer to the biblical view of marriage.

 

That is a very significant statement and, as I said, this is a very happy development. We need to express appreciation to the board of World Vision and to Richard Stearns for making this statement so clearly and in such a timely manner. There are those who have immediately come back to say they must have been under intense pressure. Well, of course, they were, but it’s not enough just to say that they did this because of the pressure. The way they wrote the letter requires us to give not only the benefit of the doubt, but a sincere word of appreciation to World Vision U.S. for making this statement yesterday in such a clear and unequivocal manner and, indeed, a manner that demonstrated a great deal of grace as well, even thanking their critics in the spirit of Matthew chapter 18 for helping them to see the issue more correctly.

 

This statement made by world vision also immediately helps so many Christians around the United States and the world who are wondering what in the world to do in light of the earlier policy announcement; the policy change to accept the hiring of those who were openly gay, who were living in legal same-sex marriages. Now there were many Christians under that situation, under that policy who were asking the question, “Can we continue to fund World Vision?” and the immediate issue here was the tearing of the conscience between the knowledge there are so many people, including many children, who are in such dramatic need and the question as to whether or not you are actually doing what ought to be done, in terms of the responsibility of Christian stewardship and generosity, by giving to an organization that had adopted such an unbiblical policy. Now this statement coming yesterday from World Vision alleviates not only its donor base of that moral quandary, but also so many other Christians who can now support World Vision and support the children and others who were assisted by this ministry without the concern that they would’ve been required to violate their conscience on the authority of Scripture and on that the Bible teachings of sexuality in so doing.

 

Earlier this week I published an article at albertmohler.com very critical of World Vision for having taken that step announced earlier this week that would’ve violated the authority of Scripture and the Scripture’s teaching on marriage and sexuality. I now need to come back with equal clarity to what was demonstrated in this letter from World Vision and say that they have changed their position. They have gone back to affirm a biblical understanding and that is clearly good news, and I want to make my judgment on that fully clear.

 

The aftermath of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments held on Tuesday in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods cases—those are cases, of course, dealing with the ObamaCare mandate for contraception coverage. The reverberations continue to be very revealing; two in particular. The first is an article published in The Washington Examiner by Timothy P. Carney. Carney writes that there is the possibility of peace in this front-of-the-culture war if the left wants it and would have it. That has to do with the fact that there is a misconstrual of what’s actually a stake here. There are many on the left who are writing as if what’s at stake in this controversy is the access that women might have to contraception. As Timothy Carney argues very persuasively in this article, that’s hardly at stake. Contraception is available virtually everywhere. The only issue at stake before the Supreme Court in these two cases is whether the government can compel a company to pay for that contraception coverage in that health care coverage that is offered by the employer to the employees. Those are two very different questions, but you wouldn’t know that from much of the media coverage. But that’s where Timothy Carney gets to the issue at stake and he nails it. He absolutely gets to the heart of the issue. He says the problem is that the left doesn’t want to see this as anything other than a direct assault upon contraception access, and he says that’s so because if we think this is merely over the issue of birth control, we miss how the left has elevated that issue to an issue of its own religious commitment. He writes:

 

The Pill is not just a pill to them [speaking of the cultural left]. It has become something holy. And they won’t tolerate any burden between them and their Blessed Sacrament. The culture war isn’t religious versus secular. It’s a clash of two faiths.

 

At the level of worldview analysis, that is a powerful and perceptive statement. That is exactly what we’re looking at. The dimension of the culture war, as Timothy Carney gets exactly right, isn’t between a secular side and a religious side, but between two opposing sides, both of whom have essentially religious commitments. On the one side, you have Christians and other people with very clear religious convictions who are very troubled by not only birth control in general, but especially by the potential that any form of birth controls could function at least at some time as an abortifacient causing an abortion. On the other side, you have people for whom the birth control pill is now a symbol of an entire worldview of sexual liberation and they raise that to the level of an almost sacramental importance. As he writes, they won’t let anything get between them and their “Blessed Sacrament.” The issue isn’t religious versus secular. It’s a clash of two faiths.

 

Now, from time to time, we make this point by going back to Thomas Sowell, the Stanford Hoover Institution economist who makes this point in his book, The Conflict of Visions. As he says, every single individual, whether that individual regards himself or herself as religious or secular, liberal or conservative, operates on the basis, as he says, of a certain vision of life and that vision of life is what we would call a worldview. And he writes about the fact that it isn’t accidental that if you can predict someone’s position on issue A, you can probably at least anticipate their position on issue B, C, D, E, F, and so on. He asked the question, “Why is that so?” It’s because they don’t disagree on those issues alone; they disagree on a fundamental understanding of reality, and anyway you define that, it’s essentially theological. In this sense, even a secular worldview is far more theologically-oriented than those who hold it might want to think. And Timothy Carney’s exactly right: what we have here, in terms of this controversy, is something that reveals a very deep commitment that goes beyond what most cultural conservatives and Christians understand. As a matter fact, it points to a fundamental political reality. If the Obama Administration wanted to accomplish making certain that women through ObamaCare had unrestricted access to free contraceptive care, they could have done it without requiring employers to violate their convictions in so doing. In other words, that part of the law, that requirement seems, in essence, a premeditated assault upon religious conviction in order not only to get something accomplished, but to make a point in so doing. And that’s what explains why these cases were before the Supreme Court on Tuesday.

 

But I said there were two articles that are very revealing in this cultural conversation that continues to reveal so much. The other is an article by Tal Kopan, published at Politico, having to do with California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer. She asked a very interesting question in a television interview in which the Supreme Court debate and conversation and oral arguments became the topic of conversation. She was asked what she thought about the cases before the Supreme Court. She said:

 

I have never heard Hobby Lobby or any other corporation, I could be wrong, or any other boss complain that Viagra is covered in many insurance plans, particularly all of them, or other kinds of things, you know, for men, which I won’t go into.

 

A very revealing statement. Senator Boxer has been known for making some statements that have required a great deal of head scratching and consideration. Add this one to the list. She seems to lack any understanding whatsoever or at least she refuses to make any acknowledgment of the fact that there are serious moral issues held by many people, including the leaders of her own church, about birth control and about contraception and about a potential abortifacient effect. She doesn’t even deal with that. She simply says, “It’s a male-female issue. I don’t hear anyone complaining about paying for Viagra,” as if that’s somehow an equivalent issue. The question of whether or not Viagra should be included in government mandated healthcare is, so far as I see, a very legitimate question. It is just a question that has nothing to do with something that has the moral significance of birth control and especially any birth control that could be potentially abortifacient in effect. Senator Boxer proceeded to deal with the issue after the host of the program Chris Jansing pressed her on whether she could rightly compare Viagra and birth control. She said quote:

 

I’ve never heard them put any type of moral objection, remember, this is a moral objection to men getting Viagra, but they have a moral objection to women getting certain types of birth control. What’s their next moral objection? Do they objective to vaccinations? Where do you take it from here?

 

But it’s hard to know where to take the discussion from there because where it stands in terms of her comments is an abject refusal to understand even what’s at stake. Even the Obama Administration has at least responded to the issues, acknowledging that there could be serious moral issues at stake. The position of the Obama Administration, as put forward by the Solicitor General Donald Verilli before the Supreme Court on Tuesday, was that even though there are legitimate moral objections, these are trumped by the responsibility of the government, they claim, to make such services available to all women without cost. Indeed, it’s hard to know now how to talk about many of these issues in the public square where you have some people who won’t even accept the fact that there are serious moral issues at stake. As Tim Carney writes in his column, it’s as if many on the left think that religious people are making up these objections and concerns as we go along. All Barbara Boxer would have to do in order to settle that issue would be to talk to one of the bishops of her own church, but, then again, she would probably get quite an earful.

 

The intersection of our entertainment industry and morality is sometimes a very messy thing. That’s one of the reasons why I steadfastly try to give as little attention to Hollywood as possible in terms of the kinds of things that are likely to generate the scandal sheets. But every once in a while something happens in Hollywood that simply can’t be ignored because it points to something far more important and far more pervasive than anything Hollywood might even recognize.

 

The announcement came yesterday in USA Today and other major media announcements that actress Gwyneth Paltrow, age 41, is separating from her husband Chris Martin, the lead singer of Coldplay. As USA Today reports, they’ve had a troubled marriage ever since they were secretly married back in 2003, and now the announcement has come that they’re going to be breaking up. But that announcement taken alone wouldn’t explain why we’re talking about this issue today on The Briefing. No, what explains that is the fact that the announcement about this divorce was made on the website, that’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s personal website, along with an explanation that does demand our attention. The title of her article was “Conscious Uncoupling.” She writes

 

It is with hearts full of sadness that we’ve decided to separate. We’ve been working hard for well over a year, some of it together, some of it separated, to see what might have been possible between us, and we have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much, we will remain separate. We are, however, and will always be a family, and in many ways we are closer than we have ever been. We are parents first and foremost to two incredibly wonderful children, and we ask for their and our space and privacy to be respected at this difficult time. We’ve always conducted our relationship privately, and we hope that as we consciously uncouple and co-parent, will be able to continue in the same manner.

 

It was signed Gwyneth and Chris. Now just that one paragraph taken by itself is filled with all kinds of material of worldview significance. First of all, you have here the very use of the phrase “conscious uncoupling” to describe the divorce, that is, the breakup of the marriage that is here announced. Then you have the statement made in public, made right in this statement by these two people that “in many ways we are closer than we have ever been.” That’s the kind of almost postmodern nonsense that only makes sense if you consider the fact that it must’ve been at least assisted by some kind of public relations agent as a way to describe the breakup of this family. And then you have the fact that here’s a Hollywood couple claiming that they need private space to deal with their private lives, but the reality is that if they were merely private people, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. Those in the entertainment industry, whether it’s Hollywood or the music industry, live off of the fuel of publicity, and even as that certainly impinges upon their private lives in very dangerous and deleterious ways, they can’t simply turn off the faucet of public attention when they make an announcement such as this, and, furthermore, they did make an announcement. They intended for the announcement to get attention and now they say that don’t want any attention, which leads to the problem of Hollywood writ large.

 

But what’s really significant about this is the fact that that one paragraph statement by Gwyneth and Chris was followed by a rather long essay by Dr. Habib Sadeghi and Dr. Sherry Sami entitled “On Conscious Uncoupling.” They write this:

 

Divorce is a traumatic and difficult decision for all parties involved. And there’s arguably no salve besides time to take that pain away. However, when the whole concept of marriage and divorce is re-examined, there’s actually something far more powerful and positive at play.

 

Well, let your worldview alarm bells go off. When someone writes that there’s something positive about divorce, you better listen pretty carefully. They then launch into this:

 

The media likes to throw away the statistic that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. It turns out that’s accurate. Many people are concerned about the divorce rate and see it as an important problem that needs to be fixed, but what if divorce itself isn’t in the problem? What if it’s just a symptom of something deeper that needs our attention? The high divorce rate might actually be calling to learn a new way of being in relationships.

 

Well buckle your seat belts; these two doctors are going to tell us about this “new way of being in relationships.” Dr. Sadeghi and Dr. Sami write:

 

During the upper Paleolithic period of human history, the life expectancy for human beings at birth was 33. By 1900, it was only 46 for men and 48 for women. Today, it’s 76 for men and 81 for women. What does this have to do with the divorce rate? For the vast majority of history, humans lived relatively short lives and, accordingly, they weren’t in relationships with the same person for 25 to 50 years. Modern society adheres to the concept that marriage should be life-long, but when we’re living three lifetimes compared to early humans perhaps we need to redefine the construct. Social research suggests that because we’re living so long, most people will have two or three significant long-term relationships in their lifetime

 

As if we missed the point, they write:

 

To put it plainly, as divorce rates indicate, human beings haven’t been able fully to adapt to the skyrocketing life expectancy. Our biology and psychology aren’t set up to be with one person for four or five or six decades. This is not to suggest there aren’t couples who happily make those milestones. We hope that we’re one of them. Everyone enters into a marriage with a good intention to go all the way, but this sort of longevity is the exception rather than the rule.

 

Well rarely do you see such a straightforward suggestion that the entire understanding of marriage that is at the basis of Western civilization, indeed all human civilization, needs to be comprehensively rethought. An interesting angle on this is the fact that many who have been pressing for the legalization of same-sex marriage, especially from the side of the same-sex advocates, have been suggesting that one of the necessary impacts of legalizing same-sex marriage is that the entry of so many same-sex couples into the institution of marriage will redefine it, and one of the ways, at least some of them have suggested, that it will be redefined is by making it more of a term contract rather than a life-long commitment to a monogamous relationship.

 

Now you have these two people in the public eye, Gwenyth Paltrow and Chris Martin, saying, “We’re going through a conscious uncoupling. We’re closer than we’ve ever been in many ways and we’re simply going to announce that it’s time that we move on.” One of the interesting arguments made by these two supposedly doctors—identified in the media as New Age theorists—one of the interesting points they make is that we’re simply not programmed anymore for this kind of longevity in terms of marriage and we shouldn’t see it as a tragedy then when there is a conscious uncoupling. I guess the tragedy would be if there’s an unconscious uncoupling, but these two argue right out in public that the skyrocketing divorce rates simply aren’t a problem. Not if you understand that the problem is the fact that divorce is made necessary by those who suggest it, rather irrationally, evidently they think, that marriage should be the union of one man and one woman for one lifetime.

 

Later they write:

 

To change the concept of divorce, we need to release the belief structures we have around marriage, the great rigidity in our thought process. The belief structure is the all or nothing idea that when we marry it’s for life. The truth is the only thing any of us have is today; beyond that, there are no guarantees. The idea of being married to one person for life is too much pressure for anyone.

 

Well there you have it, but I’m back to Tim Carney’s point that what we have in the culture war is not two different positions, described one as religious on one side and the other as secular. What we have are two rival religions. And when it comes to this divorce story or this conscious uncoupling story, when it comes to this marriage article, what you really have, again, is the conflict of absolutes; as Thomas Sowell would say, the conflict of visions. You have the conflict of two different religions. One that says that God has ordained marriage as one thing for His glory and for human flourishing, and the other who says, you know, marriage is going to evolve along with the rest of human society. Our evolving longevity means we’re going to have to redefine marriage and if we do so, we won’t see divorce as a problem, much less as a sin. We won’t see skyrocketing divorce rates as something to be overcome. We’ll simply see them as a signal that the problem is we’ve been thinking wrongly about marriage. It needs not to be lifelong monogamy, no longer any of this “till death do we part,” no, let’s just make it some kind of term project. We’ll see how long it goes, and then afterwards, we’ll just consciously uncouple. Quite honestly, it’s hard to imagine anything more revealing coming out of Hollywood, and that’s really saying something.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. Remember Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. The phone number is 877-505-2058. Call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. 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. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 03-27-14

Podcast Transcript

1) World Vision’s historic and welcome statement acknowledges error

World Vision to reverse gay marriage decision, World Magazine (Jamie Dean)

World Vision Reverses Decision To Hire Christians in Same-Sex Marriages, Christianity Today (Jeremy Weber and Celeste Gracey)

2) Liberals elevate contraception to sacramental importance

Peace in the culture wars — if the Left wants it, Washington Examiner (Timothy P Carney)

Barbara Boxer: Why no Viagra complaints? Politico (Tal Kopan)

3) Marriage too rigid? Divorce too negative? Enter “conscious uncoupling”

‘Conscious uncoupling’: Gwyneth Paltrow explores spiritual side of divorce on Goop, New York Daily News (Tracy Miller)

Conscious Uncoupling, Goop.com

Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Conscious Uncoupling” From Chris Martin Sounds So Lovely. Can I Have One?, Slate (Jessica Grose)

Transcript: The Briefing 03-26-14

The Briefing

 

 March 26, 2014

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

 

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

 

Yesterday, the Supreme Court was ground zero for one of the most important debates in recent American history, and that debate took place, in terms of the oral arguments presented, in two cases, which were combined in a double session before the nation’s highest court. The two cases were Sebelius versus Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods versus Sebelius. Both of them on the same question of the constitutionality of the ObamaCare legislation’s contraception mandate and the Obama administration’s very clear determination that they were going to hold almost everyone to making the availability of birth control, including potential abortifacients, the rule of law for every corporation in America, including those that were headed by persons with very deep religious convictions and including corporations that were established around a deeply conviction Christian vision. That includes Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods, and those two corporations, represented by their attorneys, had the opportunity to make their case before the nation’s highest court yesterday.

 

Now before turning to what happened before the court, let’s consider what happened in the court of public opinion. The headlines around the country demonstrated the fact that there’s anxiety, especially on the part of the cultural left, about how this case could go if indeed the court finds for Conestoga Woods and Hobby Lobby. But the editorial boards of many of the nation’s leading newspapers left no doubt whatsoever about their determination to shame the court into finding against Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods. The editorial board of The New York Times on March 22 ran an editorial entitled “Crying Wolf on Religious Liberty,” suggesting that there were no real religious liberty issues at stake in the ObamaCare legislation’s contraception mandate. The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post both ran similar editorials with the editorial boards declaring that there is no real problem here and that there are ominous repercussions that will come if the court finds in favor of the religious liberty claims made by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods.

 

But when the oral arguments took place yesterday, it was apparent, as there was live blogging and live reporting out of the nation’s highest court, that the courts justices, at least many of them, were not accepting the arguments put forth by the Obama Administration. As a matter fact, David Savage of the LA Times reported it this way:

 

The Supreme Court’s conservative justices sharply criticized part of President Obama’s healthcare law Tuesday, suggesting they will rule later this year that requiring Christian-owned corporations to offer their employees contraceptives coverage violates the freedom of religion.

 

You find similar coverage at The Washington Post, similar coverage at The Wall Street Journal, and as a matter fact, when you start looking at other coverage around the web, you find similar analyses. For example, Ian Millhiser, writing for Think Progress, that is a liberal media outlet, says that it was apparent in the oral arguments that justice Anthony Kennedy, widely and commonly considered to be the swing vote on this case as in so many others, had defined the case before the court yesterday as an abortion case and, according to those who were hoping for a ruling against Conestoga Woods and Hobby Lobby, that was an ominous sign for their case. And that’s why The New York Times coverage by Adam Liptak gets very interesting because, as he says, the court “seemed ready to accept that at least some for-profit corporations may advance claims based on religious freedom.” But the justices, he said, appeared divided along ideological lines over whether the objections before it, based on a requirement in President Obama’s health care law, should succeed. As Liptak writes, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who probably holds the decisive vote, asked questions helpful to both sides. He appeared skeptical that the two family-controlled companies that objected to the contraception coverage requirement were burdened by the law as they could cease providing health insurance at all. He also expressed solicitude for what he called the rights of employees, but, says Liptak, he also had reservations about whether the government could require the companies in the case to provide coverage in light of the many exemptions and accommodations it has offered to other groups.

 

That’s where the coverage by David Savage in the LA Times gets right to the point. He writes that Justice Kennedy said in response to US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli—he was making the administration’s case. He was arguing on behalf of the Obama Administration and, thus, on behalf of the mandate. Kennedy said, “Your reasoning would permit requiring profit-making corporations to pay for abortions.” That was a devastating line. That was a very revealing statement coming from Justice Kennedy and that’s why there are now shockwaves spreading throughout the entire pro-choice and pro-ObamaCare legislation world about the statement made by Justice Kennedy in that context. Because Justice Kennedy made the point, in terms of his statement, to Solicitor General Verrilli, if your argument holds, if the argument made by the administration were to prevail, there is nothing that would prevent forcing a for-profit Christian Corporation to pay for abortions.

 

It’s clear that those on the cultural left fear the direction the court may take in this case. Walter Dellinger, a former acting United States solicitor general said, “If Hobby Lobby were to prevail, the consequences would extend far beyond the issue of contraception.” And there are others who are saying the same thing. Mr. Dellinger went on to say, “A win for Hobby Lobby could turn out to be a significant setback for gay rights.” Meanwhile, on the other side, you have similar understandings of what would be at stake if Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods lose the case. But here comes a very interesting question. Why would gay rights now be before the court in this case when there was nothing in the case that was apparently about gay rights? It’s because the religious liberty arguments that were put forth by the lawyers for Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods yesterday are almost exactly the kinds of arguments that will later be put forth in the arguments that are made on behalf of Christians as related to contested questions in the workplace and in the larger economy with the legalization of same-sex marriage. Both sides knew it yesterday, in terms of the oral arguments, and both sides are now waiting almost breathlessly to see what in the world the court will say about this issue because even as it will surely not be the last word, this is going to be a very important word. Both sides are basically in agreement that this is the most important religious liberty case to come before the nation’s highest court in almost a quarter of a century.

 

Next we turn to another story that is also very, very important. It’s headline news as well. It has to do with that massive mudslide that took place in Arlington, Washington, there in Snohomish County, where approximately one square mile of earth simply disappeared, apparently swallowing up over 100 people in terms of that awful and unexpected accident. The landslide took place on Saturday morning, wiped out about thirty houses in Snohomish County there in the state of Washington. What is so scary about this is that we take for granted the fact that the ground under our feet is stable, and those who were inhabiting this particular square-mile that virtually disappeared going down a hillside and surrendering into quicksand, they assumed—and had every right to assume—that the ground under their feet was firm. But it wasn’t. As we know now, it was actually taking the form of volcanic ash that had been saturated with water, and in retrospect it was an accident waiting to happen. But that accident waited many, many decades to happen. Indeed, it might have waited centuries to happen, and yet when it happened, it had vast devastation in its wake. At least fourteen people are known to have died and the number of people missing has now climbed to 176. We’re talking about a massive death toll in terms of this horrifying accident. Chief Travis Hots of the Snohomish County Fire District 21 said, “We’re still in a rescue mode at this time, but the situation is very grim. We’ve not found anybody still alive since Saturday.” How horrifying it would be to find out all the sudden that the ground began to swallow you up and to swallow up many other people as well, and to know that even as we do count on that ground under our feet being firm, we even sing about it and talk about it, “How Firm a Foundation,” we understand it’s not quite so firm as we might think it to be. In other words, in a Genesis 3 world, we take some things for granted that we have no right to take for granted. We assume a certain form of safety and security in that which sometimes will simply give way and swallow us up. There is a parable to be seen in what has happened at Snohomish County, Washington, and there’s also grave human injury and human pain. We need to pray for those in this area of Washington State who have lost so much. We need to pray that there could be some others who are survivors who still may be found. And we need to be reminded—every single one of us—that even the ground under our feet is not so firm and stable as it appears.

 

It was that great early American theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards in that most famous of his sermons, “Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God,” who made very clear that we as sinners are walking across what appears to be very firm ground, when actually it is a very thin net. And as he reminds sinners, “Sinners, you never know when your foot may fall.” How true that is and how horribly we are reminded of that when we see these headlines out of Washington State.

 

Another parable came alive before our eyes when earlier this week five colleagues of Ponzi-scheme-convicted criminal Bernard L. Madoff were also convicted of crimes, crimes of complicity with Bernie Madoff in what is now regarded as the largest Ponzi scheme or financial fraud in world history, involving billions of dollars—not just millions, but billions of dollars. Bernard Madoff will serve the rest of his time in prison. As a matter fact, in several lifetimes he could never serve all the time that he was sentenced to in terms of his criminal convictions. He admitted being the mastermind of this massive Ponzi scheme. That’s a scheme that is basically a form of financial fraud in which you invite persons to invest, but then you spend their money. You make them think they’ve actually gained by their investment by asking other people to invest, taking their new money and giving it to your old investor. Eventually, the whole house of cards falls, and as the Bible says, the fall of that house is very great. Now that was demonstrated to us on the convictions of these five people, but as we’re thinking of the moral and worldview importance of this, we need to recognize that the secular press is talking about this in terms we can understand. Christians can immediately understand.

 

The court that convicted these five persons who were accused of complicity with Bernie Madoff came to the conclusion that there was no way they could possibly not have known that this was a Ponzi scheme and a massive system of financial fraud. Even though Bernie Madoff said he was the only one who knew, even as these five defendants said they didn’t know what they were doing, they were just coming up with computer programs and keeping books and doing other things to assist Mr. Madoff, the court in rendering its judgment said it was impossible that they didn’t know that this was fraud. After all, the computer programs they were asked to devise, the double books they were asked to keep, the actions they were assigned to accomplish, would only make sense in terms of a massive fraud. And, furthermore, as the secular media, led by The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New York Times, has made clear, they benefited by means of this conspiracy. In other words, this tells us a great deal about human nature. Bernie Madoff got into this believing that he would somehow get out of it. He never expected to be caught. He didn’t do this expecting to spend the rest of his life in prison. What about those who invested with him? After all, they were investing with them in a frenzy because he was producing returns far and above what other similar investors were able to produce. Now why would he be able to bring those returns? Well there is no rational indication that he had access to any forms of investments that others didn’t have. He wasn’t that much wiser than anyone else. In other words, those investors, as courts have ruled, should have known that something was fishy, and yet they didn’t want to believe that. They hid it from their own eyes, as Bernie Madoff must’ve lied to himself about the inevitability of the fall of his fraud and the fact that he would be caught. And now these five employees—the court has rendered its verdict. They knew; they had to know. They could not, not know that what was going on before their eyes with their complicity was a massive financial fraud. And, yet, who knows the hearts of these individuals? Maybe they really did lie to themselves, and what does that tell us? It tells us that we as human beings, fallen, frail, fragile human beings, deceitful and sometimes dishonest human beings, will not only lie to others, we will lie to ourselves, and sometimes it takes a court and its criminal conviction verdict to make very clear these folks were lying to themselves.

 

Finally two rather incredible stories, both of these on marijuana, both of them very revealing, and I do mean very revealing. The first has to do with the report coming from the Times Washington Bureau that the pot industry now has new allies among political conservatives. Evan Halper writes:

 

Hoping to get pot legalized in Nevada, an investment firm specializing in the fast-growing marijuana industry invited the ballot initiative’s backers to pitch 150 financiers at a Las Vegas symposium. Within 10 minutes, they raised $150,000.

But what makes this story really interesting is that the person behind this is a conservative political activist or, at least, he’s defined as, identified as a conservative political activist. The man’s name is Michael Correia. He’s an advocate for the 300-member National Cannabis Industry Association. He’s a former Republican Party staffer, who for two years worked as a lobbyist for the American Legislative Exchange Council—that’s a very conservative advocacy group. And as Halper writes:

 

For him, the work is largely about the federal government unnecessarily stifling an industry’s growth. Any conservative, he said, should be troubled when companies can’t claim tax deductions or keep cash in banks or provide plants for federal medical research.

 

It’s an interesting statement; a very revealing statement. As the paper says, “For him, the work is largely about the federal government unnecessarily stifling a industries growth.” Well, what that states is the fact that at least for some who call themselves conservatives, any industry that grows is by its very nature of growth a good industry. In other words, there are some who would call themselves conservatives whose actual legacy and impact will be anything but conservative. They are not conserving those things that must be conserved; they’re simply making a radical argument for human liberty, a libertarian argument that says the government has no right to control me or to state that I can’t be involved in the marijuana business.

 

It’s an interesting argument, but it also shows us something else in a fallen world. When something like the marijuana business now comes up and when there are massive opportunities for millions and billions of dollars to be made, people are going to line up to get a part of that business. And some, who are arguing from what they claim will be a conservative pro-business worldview, will say it’s wrong for government to say that people can’t smoke marijuana, can’t produce marijuana, can’t sell marijuana, can’t transport marijuana, can’t keep money in bank accounts from selling marijuana, and can’t grow marijuana just about anywhere they want to grow it. That kind of libertarian argument is often described as conservative because many of the people making the arguments have worked in conservative organizations and advocacy groups. But make no mistake; from a worldview perspective, this isn’t conservative. The conservative worldview is based in the understanding that certain things must be conserved. Those include moral habits and institutions, such as marriage and family, and the conservative worldview understands that even though there is a tremendous danger from the growth of government, government does have legitimate purpose in maintaining moral restrictions upon some human behaviors. If you don’t believe that government should have any restrictions upon human behaviors, just consider what’s going to happen in terms of the outworking of the legalization of marijuana. Even those who’ve been pushing for it now recognize there are complexities they didn’t even see coming. As the governor of Colorado said to other governors, “You better watch out because we’re a living experiment about what the legalization of marijuana is going to look like,” and Governor Hickenlooper said to his own colleagues, “You better not jump in this pool too fast or you might drown.”

 

That leads to the second article. It appeared in yesterday’s edition of USA Today. The headline is misleading. The headline is this: “Veterinarians Ask Owners to Keep Their Dogs Off Grass.” Why is it misleading? Because they’re not talking about dogs walking on grass or doing what dogs do on grass, they’re talking about dogs eating grass; that is, ingesting marijuana. As Trevor Hughes writes:

 

Residents of Colorado and Washington state aren’t the only ones getting high on legal marijuana: So are their four-legged friends.

 

The states’ decision to legalize recreational pot is driving an increase in the number of dogs scarfing down marijuana-infused cookies, brownies and butters. Unlike humans who can metabolize marijuana in a few hours, dogs feel the effects far longer. The sight of a glassy-eyed dog sprawled on the floor or stumbling around frightens pet owners, veterinarians say.

 

One leading animal doctor in Colorado, that’s Tim Hackett, director of Colorado State University’s veterinary teaching Hospital, said. “We see dogs stoned out of their minds for days. They’re a mess. The pot goes in cookies and butters. Dogs love that stuff and they won’t eat just one.” Hughes writes:

 

The marijuana itself isn’t particularly harmful to dogs, but any dog that eats a pound of butter will get sick and could die. A stoned dog also can’t vomit or breathe well, he said. “The dogs are terrified.”

 

Well I guess so, but the really revealing part of this is the fact that, again, sin has consequences that sometimes go far beyond the direct sinner involved. Here you have pets who are showing the consequences, showing up in veterinary hospitals in Colorado, stoned out of their minds and in danger of their lives, because they’ve been ingesting marijuana brownies, cookies, and—what  I didn’t even know before existed—marijuana butters. And, as it turns out, even some who’ve been pushing for the legalization of marijuana are saying, “Wait just a minute. It’s hurting our pets.” And in response to that, I want to say, well, what about your kids? Your own health department is reporting that your own kids are far more likely to have a first cigarette that’s marijuana than tobacco. This is moral insanity, but it’s also a part of the outworking of those who are trying to push a merely libertarian worldview. Libertarians have something to add to our political conversation, but Christians have to recognize we can never embrace unreservedly that libertarian worldview because it denies some of the goodness of the moral restraints that God puts in His created order, in human society, including the proper role of government, as Paul makes very clear in Romans chapter 13. And, as oddly enough, comes in the form of testimony from a parable of glassy-eyed canines in Colorado, who wonder what in the world has just happened to them.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. Remember Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice at 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. 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. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 03-26-14

Podcast Transcript

1) One of the most important religious liberty cases in recent history now before Supreme Court

Crying Wolf on Religious Liberty, New York Times (Editorial Board)

Hobby Lobby case: Defenders of religious freedom should be careful what they pray for, Los Angeles Times (Editorial)

Justices sound ready to reject contraceptives mandate under Obamacare, Los Angeles Times (David G Savage)

Justices Seem Divided on Health Law’s Contraceptive Rule, New York Times (Adam Liptak)

The government’s ‘compelling’ interest in protecting contraceptive coverage, Washington Post (Editorial Board)

Justice Kennedy Thinks Hobby Lobby Is An Abortion Case — That’s Bad News For Birth Control, Think Progress (Ian Millhiser)

2) In a fallen world, we can’t even take the ground beneath our feet for granted

Official: Residents knew of ‘high risk’ of landslides, USA Today (Elizabeth Weise, Janet Kim and John Bacon)

3) Madoff’s associates convicted despite claims of ignorance – They had to know

Jury Says 5 Madoff Employees Knowingly Aided Swindle of Clients’ Billions, New York Times (Rachel B Abrams and Diana B Henriques)

4) “Conservatives” who support marijuana are not truly conservative

Marijuana industry finds unlikely new allies in conservatives, Los Angeles Times (Evan Halper)

5) Tragic rise in animals consuming marijuana

Puppies on pot a growing hazard, USA Today (Trevor Hughes)

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-25-14

The Briefing

 

 March 25, 2014

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

 

It’s Tuesday, March 25, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

 

Eventually, and quite quickly, every single Christian organization, every Christian church and congregation, every individual Christian will have to declare a position, a public position, on the issue of same-sex marriage and the larger context of the sexual revolution. And when it comes to at least one very large and influential Christian organization, the wait is no longer. Yesterday, World Vision announced in a statement coming from its leader of the United States branch that it will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman. The story was broken by Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber of Christianity Today. As they write, abstinence outside of marriage remains a rule for World Vision employees. The policy change announced yesterday will now permit gay Christians in legal same-sex marriages to be employed in one of the largest Christian charities in the United States. In an interview given to Christianity Today, World Vision U.S. president Richard Stearns explained the rationale behind what was identified as a condition of employment at World Vision. He said that it actually was a “very narrow policy change.” He said that it should be viewed by the evangelical community as “symbolic not of compromise, but of Christian unity.” According to Christianity Today, Stearns also said that he hoped the decision made by World Vision would “inspire unity elsewhere among Christians.” Stearns explained that the decision adopted by the board, not unanimously but overwhelmingly, was intended to avoid the division he saw as currently “tearing churches apart” over same-sex relationships. Christianity Today explained that his motivation was to attempt to solidify its long-held philosophy as a parachurch organization to defer to churches on theological issues so that it can focus on uniting Christians around serving the poor.

 

As Christianity Today rightly reports, there is a long list of issues that World Vision has been undeclared on, at least in terms of taking a position. That includes questions of divorce and remarriage, baptism, and female pastors, but what World Vision appears not to understand or perhaps disingenuously not to accept is that the adoption of this policy does not mean that the organization is not taking sides. It is now going to involve every single one of its donors in supporting the employment of those who are gay Christians in committed same-sex relationships so long as they are solemnized into legal marriages. Stearns said:

 

It’s easy to read a lot more into this decision than is really there. This is not an endorsement of same-sex marriage. We decided we’re not going to get into that debate. Nor is this a rejection of traditional marriage, which we affirm and support.

 

That language is not understandable. You can’t say that it is not an endorsement of same-sex marriage; you just decided to allow your employees to be involved in it. Indeed, you’ve gone on to state that you believe that this policy should be accepted and emulated by other Christian organizations. You can’t say that this is a rejection of traditional marriage which we affirm and support, if you affirm traditional marriage only as one choice of kinds of marriages among others. Defensively, Stearns said, “We’re not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us.” He then went on to say something that should have our attention in the most vocal way. He said:

 

This is not us compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church. We’re not a theological arm of the church.

 

That is a false dichotomy that is fatal to any Christian enterprise. There is no biblical distinction between the operational and theological dimensions of the Christian faith. As a matter fact, if the operational extension of the church’s mission is not based in the gospel and in a clearly and robustly theological understanding, then whatever’s operating isn’t Christian. It’s just an operation that may have Christians involved in it or may claim a Christian identity. He says, “This is simply a decision about whether or not you are eligible for employment at World Vision U.S. based on this single issue and nothing more.” Well he may hope that that’s true, but, of course, it will not be true because now World Vision becomes an employer that says we take no position whatsoever on whether you are involved in marriage as defined as between a man and a woman or between a woman and a woman or man and a man. And by saying that it is no longer an issue that applies in its employment policies, it is accepting the legalization of same-sex marriage, which is to say it is also accepting, in this context, the morality of same-sex marriage.

 

This is not something, we should note, that has been forced upon the board of World Vision. As a matter fact, their statement makes that statement emphatically. As Stearns said, “We’re not caving to some kind of pressure. We’re not of some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us.” In other words, the board came to this decision, and it came to this decision in such a way that it tries to say it’s not taking a position, but by not taking a position in this sense, they are taking a position. There is no way around the fact that they are now offering organizational endorsement to same-sex marriage. Furthermore, by allowing that they’re going to be setting a stage for churches and denominations to set their own policies, they will simply as an operational arm try to be inclusive of the entire church, well there we find the problem. If you’re going to define Christianity in such a way that it involves everyone that may call themselves a Christian church and denomination, if you’re going to extend your employment pool and your donor base to that kind of broad and comprehensive understanding and identity, then you’re going to be accepting many things that are theologically incompatible with the Christian faith. This is not the same kind of issue as talking about the debate between egalitarians and complementarians in the church. This is not the same kind of debate as the conversation about divorce and remarriage. Here we are talking about the radical redefinition of marriage in our time, which is all about the normalization of homosexuality as a sexual behavior.

 

One of the most interesting aspects of this World Vision decision is that it claims that single persons must remain abstinent, but now married persons may be involved in sex even when that marriage is of same-sex couples. In other words, openly homosexual persons will be accepted on the same basis as all others within World Vision and its employment scheme so long as they are legally married. This board and this president cannot possibly believe that that is not a major transformative moment for World Vision. Stearns told Christianity Today that World Vision has never asked employees about sexual orientation. It is simply held to its policy that single employees must remain sexually abstinent and committed to be so; married couples are treated as married couples. But, of course, that means that until yesterday those who are involved in any form of homosexual behavior could not be employees at World Vision; all that changes with the policy that was handed down yesterday. Now openly homosexual employees can be sexually active so long as they are legally married.

 

In terms of the comprehensiveness of World Vision, in terms of its donor base and its employees, CT remarks that World Vision has staff from more than 50 denominations and at least several of those have officially endorsed the legalization of same-sex marriage. They include the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Presbyterian Church USA. This kind of comprehensiveness may have worked in a previous age, in which the churches were basically united on at least some theological and moral essentials, but this is no longer the case and it has not been the case for a very long time. Stearns said that World Vision and its board have faced in recent years a difficult question, “What do we do about someone who applies for a job at World Vision who is in a legal same-sex marriage that may have been sanctioned and performed by their church? Do we deny them employment?” Well that raises a huge question: what then is the theological or confessional boundary for World Vision? It turns out that it is either the Apostles’ Creed or World Vision’s Trinitarian Statement of Faith. What becomes very evident from this news release and from the decision handed down yesterday is that nothing in those statements is read as precluding the acceptance and legalization of same-sex marriage and the acceptance of employees in those same-sex marriages. To make the situation clear, Stearns told Christianity Today, “Under our old conduct policy that would’ve been a violation. The new policy will not exclude someone from employment if they are in a legal same-sex marriage.” In another very revealing comment he made to Christianity Today, Stearns said:

 

Denominations disagree on many, many things—on divorce and remarriage, modes of baptism, women in leadership roles in the church, beliefs on evolution, etc.—so our practice has always been to defer to the authority and autonomy of local churches and denominational bodies on matters of doctrine that go beyond the Apostles’ Creed and our statement of faith. We unite around our Trinitarian beliefs and we have always deferred to the local church on these other matters.

 

Well raises a very core issue. The churches that are encompassed within the employment base of World Vision, including those denominations I mentioned—well they include the United Church of Christ and the Presbyterian Church USA and the Episcopal Church—those churches have routinely allow violations of the Apostles’ Creed and of the doctrine of the Trinity. In other words, this statement assumes a shared theological basis that is manifestly and obviously absent. Speaking about the issue of same-sex marriage and the larger issue of the morality of homosexuality within the churches, Stearns said:

 

It’s been heartbreaking to watch this issue rip through the church. It’s tearing churches apart, tearing denominations apart, tearing Christian colleges apart, and even tearing families apart. Our board felt we cannot jump into the fight on one side or another on this issue. We’ve got to focus on our mission. We are determined to find unity in our diversity.

 

In other words, they say they’re not taking a side on the issue, but they are going to accept the legalization of same-sex marriage and hire employees who may be in legal same-sex relationships. They say they don’t want to take a side, but, of course, they have taken a side and the entire watching world knows the side they’ve taken.

 

Shifting the scene to Great Britain, we turn first to the book of Leviticus 18:21: “You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the LORD.” Molech was a pagan deity in Canaan and according to the Canaanite religion, the way to appease the wrath of Molech was to give that pagan god children to be burned in the fire. And these were most often children under the age of two and they were burned in the fire in a human sacrifice to try to assuage the wrath of Molech. And here in the book of Leviticus and throughout the Old Testament there is the condemnation of this pagan deity and of his murderous worship, and there is the instruction to Israel that above all things it must never offer its own children to the fire.

Keep that in mind in this news story that comes from The Telegraph yesterday from London. According to The Telegraph, the remains of more than 15,000 babies in the United Kingdom were incinerated as clinical waste by hospitals in Britain; some of these babies used and burned as waste to energy in order to heat the hospitals. Sarah Knapton, writing as the science correspondent for The Telegraph, said, “The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals” (that according to a recent investigation in Britain). “Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning fetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.” On Sunday night, the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice. The health minister Dr. Dan Poulter branded the practice as “totally unacceptable”—one of the most significant moral understatements of modern history. The 15,000 fetuses that were incinerated by twenty-seven different health service trusts were over the last two years alone. The investigation does not reveal how far back in time this practice goes and how many thousands of fetuses were burned in order to heat British hospitals. According to The Telegraph, one of the country’s leading hospitals in Britain, that’s Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 16 weeks gestation in their own heating plant. The mothers were told the remains had been “cremated.” Another waste-to-energy facility at a hospital in Ipswich, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 fetuses between 2011 and 2013. Again the health minister said, “This practice is totally unacceptable.” He went on to say, “While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority now has been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay.”

 

So how do we see this? Well we have to see this going back to the fact that legal abortion leads to just this kind of consideration. I mean, after all, if the fetus is merely unwanted tissue, then why should it be treated in any sense as a human being, and that’s the affront to the moral understanding that is obvious in this story. We are all appalled by this, even those who claim to be pro-choice and pro-abortion appear to be appalled by this, but why are they appalled? If this is merely a so-called “product of conception,” then why is there the outcry? There’s the outcry because we know that is not the case. We know that these are human beings who were terminated before they could be gestated and born. These were human beings who were not treated as human beings, but were murdered (those at least who were aborted) and then were burned in order to provide energy to heat the hospital.

 

It is hard to imagine how we consider ourselves to be morally advanced over primitive peoples when we compare this practice with what was going on in Canaan in the sacrifices to Molech. These babies were sacrificed all right—these in the United Kingdom. These babies were not sacrifice to a pagan deity in order to assuage his wrath; they were sacrificed to a modern sexual lifestyle and to a modern understanding of personal autonomy that says that if this baby is not wanted, it will die, and they are sacrificed nonetheless. But the treatment of these babies after they were dead points back to the truth of the fact that they were not treated as babies until they were dead, and now, all the sudden, there is an outcry at the fact that these babies were burned. It’s hard to imagine which among these comments is more outrageous: the fact that the health minister said the practice is totally unacceptable—you might say that about the fact that the floors were waxed wrongly. We’re talking here about the killing of unborn babies and the incineration of their bodies to heat hospitals. Then, furthermore, he goes on to say while the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals. What’s the appropriate way? To kill the babies and then to dispose of their bodies in a more respectful sense. That’s hardly acceptable. That’s hardly the appropriate way. But we’re living in a time in which modern medical practice has been redefined against the sanctity of human life in such a way that you can use the words acceptable and appropriate meaning how to kill babies and then dispose of their remains.

 

This horror story was told last night on Britain’s television Channel 4, and the British people now have to face the reality that this was done in their nation. But before we smugly assume that this is something that happened in Britain and not here in the United States, we need to remember that the same destruction of human life, the same killing of unborn life, and the same kind of rationalization is taking place right here in the United States. The problem isn’t just how the remains are disposed of; it’s the fact that they were remains rather than babies, born and given the gift of life, respected as human, the human beings made in the image of God that they are. It’s a bit late to be outraged when you’re arguing over how to dispose of the remains.

 

Of course, here in the United States today is a big day. At ten o’clock this morning Eastern Time, the Supreme Court of the United States is going to hear oral arguments in the case of Sebelius versus Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods. These are very important cases being heard together at the Supreme Court. Religious liberty is on the line and we’ll be talking in coming days about how it is so and we’ll be listening intently to the oral arguments in order to hear the arguments as put forth by both sides in this case, and it will be very interesting to see how justices engage these questions in terms of the oral arguments. But this much is clear: it’s not just Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods, two corporations, who have their religious liberties riding upon these cases and the eventual decision of the US Supreme Court. We are all there. We are there along with these two corporations because whether we are corporations, congregations, Christian institutions, or individuals, the reality is that the state here is using its power, or has made clear its intention to use its power, to coerce acts against religious conscience. If that can be done at Hobby Lobby or Conestoga Woods, it can be done anywhere, and that’s the big issue now before the Supreme Court. The arguments being made by those who oppose Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods in this case are injurious to the very understanding of religious liberty that gave birth to this country. We’re going to be going through some very difficult days. Just how difficult they are remains to be seen, but if these decisions go the wrong way, these will be ominous days indeed. Much is at stake today at the US Supreme Court. So as you go through your day today, pray for the United States Supreme Court and pray for those lawyers who are going to be arguing on behalf of religious liberty. They’re not going to be arguing only for Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Woods; they’re going to be arguing for all of us.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. Remember Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice at 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. 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. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.

The Briefing 03-25-14

1) World Vision claims they haven’t taken a side on same-sex marriage, but they have

World Vision: Why We’re Hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages, Christianity Today (Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber)

2) Sacrificed to Molek: 15,000 aborted babies burned as fuel to heat UK hospitals

Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals, The Telegraph (Sarah Knapton)

3) Pray for today’s Supreme Court religious liberty case

Contraception Ruling Could Have Reach Far Beyond Women’s Rights, New York Times (Adam Liptak)

Pointing to Disaster — The Flawed Moral Vision of World Vision [Updated]

UPDATE [March 26, 2014] The President of World Vision U.S. announced today that the Board of Directors has reversed its decision and would return to its previous policy that affirms sexual abstinence for all unmarried employees and defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Additional comment will be posted as soon as possible.

Like all revolutions, moral revolutions are marked by events that signal major turning points in social transformation. Yesterday, March 24, 2014, will be remembered as one of those days. The headline in the news story by Christianity Today made the issue easy enough to understand — “World Vision: Why We’re Hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages.”

As the magazine reported, “World Vision’s American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman.”

World Vision U.S. President Richard Stearns announced the change in a letter to World Vision staff. The organization, one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world, “will continue to expect abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage for all staff,” Stearns said. He then added that “since World Vision is a multi-denominational organization that welcomes employees from more than 50 denominations, and since a number of these denominations in recent years have sanctioned same-sex marriage for Christians, the board—in keeping with our practice of deferring to church authority in the lives of our staff, and desiring to treat all of our employees equally—chose to adjust our policy.” That led to the key change Stearns was then to announce: “Thus, the board has modified our Employee Standards of Conduct to allow a Christian in a legal same-sex marriage to be employed at World Vision.”

Stearns went on to state that he wanted “to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue.” He said that the World Vision board had watched as several denominations had been “torn apart” by the issue and that he and the board “wanted to prevent this divisive issue from tearing  World Vision apart and potentially crippling our ability to accomplish our vital kingdom mission of loving and serving the poorest of the poor in the name of Christ.”

In an interview with Christianity Today, Stearns called the shift a “very narrow policy change” that he said was made in the name of Christian unity. “We are not caving to some kind of pressure, ” he insisted. “We are not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us.”

He claimed that the action was not made under political pressure. “This is not compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of local churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church, we’re not a theological arm of the church.”

Stearns also said that World Vision has never asked potential employees about their sexual orientation. They are asked to affirm the Apostles Creed or the organization’s own trinitarian statement of faith. Employees within the organization represent more than 50 denominations, including at least some that affirm homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and openly gay ministers. These include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ.

In that light, Stearns said that the World Vision U.S. board has had to confront a pressing question: “What do we do about someone who applies for a job at World Vision who is in a legal same-sex relationship that may have been sanctioned and performed by their church? Do we deny them employment?”

Continuing his list of what he insisted the policy shift is “not about,” Stearns said: “This is also not about compromising the authority of Scripture . . . . People can say, ‘Scripture is very clear on this issue,’ and my answer is, ‘Well ask all the theologians and denominations that disagree with that statement.’ The church is divided on this issue. And we are not the local church. We are am operational organization uniting Christians around a common mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ.”

Richard Stearns has every right to try to make his case, but these arguments are pathetically inadequate. Far more than that, his arguments reveal basic issues that every Christian ministry, organization, church, and denomination will have to face — and soon.

The distinction between an “operational arm” of the church and a “theological arm” is a fatal misreading of reality. World Vision claims a Christian identity, claims to serve the kingdom of Christ, and claims a theological rationale for its much-needed ministries to the poor and distressed. It cannot surrender theological responsibility when convenient and then claim a Christian identity and a theological mandate for ministry.

Add to this the fact that World Vision claims not to have compromised the authority of Scripture, even as its U.S. president basically throws the Bible into a pit of confusion by suggesting that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the question of the morality of same-sex sexuality. Stearns insists that he is not compromising biblical authority even as he undermines confidence that the church can understand and trust what the Bible reveals about same-sex sexuality.

The policy shift points back to a basic problem with World Vision’s understanding of the church. No organization can serve on behalf of churches across the vast theological and moral spectrum that would include clearly evangelical denominations, on the one hand, and liberal denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ, on the other. That might work if World Vision were selling church furniture, but not when the mission of the organization claims a biblical mandate.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to argue that World Vision is not taking sides on the issue. The objective fact is that World Vision will now employ openly-gay employees involved in openly homosexual relationships. There is no rational sense in claiming that this represents neutrality.

In his final comment included in Christianity Today‘s coverage of the issue, Richard Stearns stated: “I’m hoping this may inspire unity among others as well. To say how we come together across some differences and still join together as brothers and sisters in Christ in our common mission of building the kingdom.”

Note carefully that his language is deeply theological — not just “operational.” He speaks of being “brothers and sisters in Christ” and of “building the kingdom.” What kingdom? Whose kingdom?

Writing to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul stated: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” [1 Corinthians 6:9-10]

The leader of World Vision U.S. now claims that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the sinfulness of same-sex sexuality and relationships, but he also claims a “mission of building the kingdom.” The Apostle Paul makes homosexuality a kingdom issue, and he does so in the clearest of terms.

Of course, Paul’s point is not that homosexuals are uniquely sinful, but that all of us are sinners in need of the grace and mercy of God that come to us in the gift of salvation. Thanks be to God, Paul follows those words with these: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” [1 Corinthians 6:11]

The worst aspect of the World Vision U.S. policy shift is the fact that it will mislead the world about the reality of sin and the urgent need of salvation. Willingly recognizing same-sex marriage and validating openly homosexual employees in their homosexuality is a grave and tragic act that confirms sinners in their sin — and that is an act that violates the gospel of Christ.

World Vision has made a decisive difference in millions of lives around the world. Its humanitarian work is urgently important in a world of unspeakable need. Last year the organization had a total financial reach of almost $3 billion. Its scale and expertise are unprecedented in the Christian world. That is what makes this policy shift so ominous and threatening.

In 1974, the late Carl F. H. Henry, then the dean of evangelical theologians, became “lecturer-at-large” for World Vision. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Theologian (1986), Dr. Henry stated: “During the period from its early pastors’ conferences in the 1940s to the present time, World Vision has been an an incomparable partner in extending the compassionate outreach of Christians in ten Western nations to the less fortunate millions in eighty non-Western countries. Decades before Live-Aid and other secular programs, and even many denominational programs, awakened to the need, World Vision had pointed the way.”

The shift announced yesterday by World Vision points to disaster. We can only pray that there is yet time for World Vision to rethink this matter, correct their course, stand without compromise on the authority of Scripture, and point the way for evangelical Christians to follow once again.

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

Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber, “World Vision: Why We’re Hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages,” Christianity Today, Monday, March 24, 2014. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2...

“Change in Practice: How We Live Out Our Employee Conduct Policy,” World Vision, Monday, March 24, 2014. http://ogpdn1wn2d93vut8u40tokx1dl7.wp...

Carl F. H. Henry, Confessions of a Theologian (Waco: Word Books, 1986), p. 380.

 

Pointing to Disaster — The Flawed Moral Vision of World Vision

Like all revolutions, moral revolutions are marked by events that signal major turning points in social transformation. Yesterday, March 24, 2014, will be remembered as one of those days. The headline in the news story by Christianity Today made the issue easy enough to understand — “World Vision: Why We’re Hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages.”

As the magazine reported, “World Vision’s American branch will no longer require its more than 1,100 employees to restrict their sexual activity to marriage between one man and one woman.”

World Vision U.S. President Richard Stearns announced the change in a letter to World Vision staff. The organization, one of the largest humanitarian organizations in the world, “will continue to expect abstinence before marriage and fidelity within marriage for all staff,” Stearns said. He then added that “since World Vision is a multi-denominational organization that welcomes employees from more than 50 denominations, and since a number of these denominations in recent years have sanctioned same-sex marriage for Christians, the board—in keeping with our practice of deferring to church authority in the lives of our staff, and desiring to treat all of our employees equally—chose to adjust our policy.” That led to the key change Stearns was then to announce: “Thus, the board has modified our Employee Standards of Conduct to allow a Christian in a legal same-sex marriage to be employed at World Vision.”

Stearns went on to state that he wanted “to be clear that we have not endorsed same-sex marriage, but we have chosen to defer to the authority of local churches on this issue.” He said that the World Vision board had watched as several denominations had been “torn apart” by the issue and that he and the board “wanted to prevent this divisive issue from tearing  World Vision apart and potentially crippling our ability to accomplish our vital kingdom mission of loving and serving the poorest of the poor in the name of Christ.”

In an interview with Christianity Today, Stearns called the shift a “very narrow policy change” that he said was made in the name of Christian unity. “We are not caving to some kind of pressure, ” he insisted. “We are not on some slippery slope. There is no lawsuit threatening us. There is no employee group lobbying us.”

He claimed that the action was not made under political pressure. “This is not compromising. It is us deferring to the authority of local churches and denominations on theological issues. We’re an operational arm of the global church, we’re not a theological arm of the church.”

Stearns also said that World Vision has never asked potential employees about their sexual orientation. They are asked to affirm the Apostles Creed or the organization’s own trinitarian statement of faith. Employees within the organization represent more than 50 denominations, including at least some that affirm homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and openly gay ministers. These include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the United Church of Christ.

In that light, Stearns said that the World Vision U.S. board has had to confront a pressing question: “What do we do about someone who applies for a job at World Vision who is in a legal same-sex relationship that may have been sanctioned and performed by their church? Do we deny them employment?”

Continuing his list of what he insisted the policy shift is “not about,” Stearns said: “This is also not about compromising the authority of Scripture . . . . People can say, ‘Scripture is very clear on this issue,’ and my answer is, ‘Well ask all the theologians and denominations that disagree with that statement.’ The church is divided on this issue. And we are not the local church. We are am operational organization uniting Christians around a common mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ.”

Richard Stearns has every right to try to make his case, but these arguments are pathetically inadequate. Far more than that, his arguments reveal basic issues that every Christian ministry, organization, church, and denomination will have to face — and soon.

The distinction between an “operational arm” of the church and a “theological arm” is a fatal misreading of reality. World Vision claims a Christian identity, claims to serve the kingdom of Christ, and claims a theological rationale for its much-needed ministries to the poor and distressed. It cannot surrender theological responsibility when convenient and then claim a Christian identity and a theological mandate for ministry.

Add to this the fact that World Vision claims not to have compromised the authority of Scripture, even as its U.S. president basically throws the Bible into a pit of confusion by suggesting that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the question of the morality of same-sex sexuality. Stearns insists that he is not compromising biblical authority even as he undermines confidence that the church can understand and trust what the Bible reveals about same-sex sexuality.

The policy shift points back to a basic problem with World Vision’s understanding of the church. No organization can serve on behalf of churches across the vast theological and moral spectrum that would include clearly evangelical denominations, on the one hand, and liberal denominations such as the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, and the United Church of Christ, on the other. That might work if World Vision were selling church furniture, but not when the mission of the organization claims a biblical mandate.

Furthermore, it is ridiculous to argue that World Vision is not taking sides on the issue. The objective fact is that World Vision will now employ openly-gay employees involved in openly homosexual relationships. There is no rational sense in claiming that this represents neutrality.

In his final comment included in Christianity Today‘s coverage of the issue, Richard Stearns stated: “I’m hoping this may inspire unity among others as well. To say how we come together across some differences and still join together as brothers and sisters in Christ in our common mission of building the kingdom.”

Note carefully that his language is deeply theological — not just “operational.” He speaks of being “brothers and sisters in Christ” and of “building the kingdom.” What kingdom? Whose kingdom?

Writing to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul stated: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” [1 Corinthians 6:9-10]

The leader of World Vision U.S. now claims that the Bible is not sufficiently clear on the sinfulness of same-sex sexuality and relationships, but he also claims a “mission of building the kingdom.” The Apostle Paul makes homosexuality a kingdom issue, and he does so in the clearest of terms.

Of course, Paul’s point is not that homosexuals are uniquely sinful, but that all of us are sinners in need of the grace and mercy of God that come to us in the gift of salvation. Thanks be to God, Paul follows those words with these: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” [1 Corinthians 6:11]

The worst aspect of the World Vision U.S. policy shift is the fact that it will mislead the world about the reality of sin and the urgent need of salvation. Willingly recognizing same-sex marriage and validating openly homosexual employees in their homosexuality is a grave and tragic act that confirms sinners in their sin — and that is an act that violates the gospel of Christ.

World Vision has made a decisive difference in millions of lives around the world. Its humanitarian work is urgently important in a world of unspeakable need. Last year the organization had a total financial reach of almost $3 billion. Its scale and expertise are unprecedented in the Christian world. That is what makes this policy shift so ominous and threatening.

In 1974, the late Carl F. H. Henry, then the dean of evangelical theologians, became “lecturer-at-large” for World Vision. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Theologian (1986), Dr. Henry stated: “During the period from its early pastors’ conferences in the 1940s to the present time, World Vision has been an an incomparable partner in extending the compassionate outreach of Christians in ten Western nations to the less fortunate millions in eighty non-Western countries. Decades before Live-Aid and other secular programs, and even many denominational programs, awakened to the need, World Vision had pointed the way.”

The shift announced yesterday by World Vision points to disaster. We can only pray that there is yet time for World Vision to rethink this matter, correct their course, stand without compromise on the authority of Scripture, and point the way for evangelical Christians to follow once again.

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

Celeste Gracey and Jeremy Weber, “World Vision: Why We’re Hiring Gay Christians in Same-Sex Marriages,” Christianity Today, Monday, March 24, 2014. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2...

“Change in Practice: How We Live Out Our Employee Conduct Policy,” World Vision, Monday, March 24, 2014. http://ogpdn1wn2d93vut8u40tokx1dl7.wp...

Carl F. H. Henry, Confessions of a Theologian (Waco: Word Books, 1986), p. 380.

 

Transcript: The Briefing 03-24-14

The Briefing

 

 March 24, 2014

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

 

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

 

At present seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage, and since the US Supreme Court struck down the defense of marriage act in its decision known as the Windsor decision last summer, federal judges have struck down same-sex marriage bans in Utah, Ohio, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Virginia, Texas, Illinois, and Tennessee, and, as of Friday, add another state to the list. That state’s Michigan.

 

On Friday, a Michigan federal judge, Judge Bernard A. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Detroit, struck down Michigan’s same-sex marriage amendment and ruled that it was a violation of the constitutional rights of Michigan’s same-sex citizens not to have access to legal marriage. As Erick Eckholm reports, this is “the latest in a string of court decisions across the country to rule that denying marriage to gay and lesbian couples is a violation of the Constitution.” In his decision, Judge Freidman wrote, “The guarantee of equal protection must prevail.” But this judge also makes another point very clear. What is becoming more and more evident is the fact that the judges who are now ruling on these kinds of cases are ruling in a way that is inherently political. It is not an accusation of the fact that they’re acting in a political matter when they follow the actual decision handed down by the Supreme Court in the Windsor decision last summer. In other words, in so doing the courts at the lower-level are simply doing what the courts are supposed to do, and that is, to follow the lead set by the US Supreme Court in the actual decision that it hands down. That is, after all, a binding decision from the nation’s highest court. No, the political part comes in where you see these federal judges and some state judges as well trying to do their very best to figure out where the court is going, that is, where the Supreme Court is going to go in the future. Judges hate to be overruled and they also hate to be running the risk that future generations may see them as anything less than the enlightened creatures they think themselves to be. And in the case of Judge Friedman, he offers an opinion handed down on Friday that is dripping with sarcasm and outrage. It also is dripping with political intent. Erick Eckholm, writing in The New York Times about the trial that took place over the last several weeks, wrote this:

 

The two-week trial, which ended March 7, drew special attention because it was the first in several years to include testimony from social-science researchers on the potential impact of same-sex marriage on families and children. The state [that is the state of Michigan], arguing that it would be risky to change the definition of marriage, cited studies concluding that children raised by same-sex couples had worse outcomes in life.

 

This is where Eckholm’s report gets very interesting and the judge’s decision becomes even more clearly political.

 

Lawyers for the plaintiffs described the scholars who appeared for the state as religiously motivated and part of a “desperate fringe,” and subjected them to withering cross-examination. Judge Friedman agreed with the criticism, describing the state’s witnesses as “unbelievable” and calling their studies deeply flawed.

 

He wrote with particular animus about the best-known — and most widely discredited — of the researchers, Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas. Mr. Regnerus was the author of a 2012 report that, he said, raised questions about the prospects for children of same-sex parents.

 

Judge Friedman, citing evidence that the study had been commissioned and paid for by conservative opponents of same-sex marriage, wrote, “The funder clearly wanted a certain result, and Regnerus obliged.”

 

That is judicial slander pure and simple. I happen to know Mark Regnerus and I know the quality of his work, and I happen to know that this kind of accusation made in a judge’s opinion like this really isn’t a scientific statement about which, by the way, the judge is incompetent to rule. Rather it is a political statement and it is intended to be the kind of political statement that, as Eckholm recognizes, will reverberate in other court decisions as well. What we have here is a question that isn’t essentially an issue of social science. It is the other side that argued that social science research is what has to be brought into the equation and, yet, when it’s brought in, even by someone who is a scholar of the rank of Mark Regnerus, it is rejected and, in this case, because the research was at least partly funded by a conservative organization. That’s a fair accusation if indeed you then turn on the same fair basis and disregard and discount all the other research on the other side of the equation that is funded quite straightforwardly by liberal and progressive organizations. This is a case in which you have a judge slandering a researcher and doing so from the safe confines of his bench.

 

Another explicitly political angle, in terms of this judge’s decision, is made clear where he makes this statement:

 

“Many Michigan residents have religious convictions whose principles govern the conduct of their daily lives and inform their own viewpoints about marriage. Nonetheless, these views cannot strip other citizens of the guarantees of equal protection under the law.”

 

What’s the problem with that statement? Where’s the political intention? It’s this: what other citizens? The judge wasn’t ruling that Michigan will have no laws restricting marriage; that the state is going to allow marriage by any consenting adults under any considerable circumstances. No; the judge is very clearly saying this applies to same-sex couples. In other words, he continues to draw the line even as he says the line shouldn’t be drawn. An article that appeared on Sunday’s edition of The New York Times by John Eligon and Erick Eckholm records the first same-sex marriage that took place, one of those 300 that took place, between the time that the district court judge ruled and the appeals court put that ruling on hold. According to this, the judge in this case had a female couple before him—this is Judge Judith Ellen Levy of the Federal District Court for Eastern Michigan. She was wearing a black robe. She officiated at the couple’s wedding. As the two women exchange vows and rings, Judge Levy said at 9:26 a.m., “I now pronounce you legally married,” and the room erupted in cheers. What should we note there? “I now pronounce you legally married.” You’ll notice that there’s no reference to the two people. The historic legal reference, as well as the reference in traditional Christian marriage or Jewish marriage or any other form of conceivable marriage, is “husband and wife.” That’s missing here. And that demonstrates something of the transformation of marriage that is taking place with the legalization of same-sex marriage. You no longer have a husband and a wife; you simply have two people who are addressed simultaneously with the statement, “I now pronounce you legally married.”

 

In a news analysis that was published with this same article. Eckholm also makes a very important statement in this paragraph:

 

With a slew of cases barreling toward federal appeals courts, almost certainly including the decision Friday that overturned Michigan’s restrictive marriage amendment, the legal battle over same-sex marriage is entering a new and climactic phase. Decisions in the coming months will resonate beyond individual states across entire regions and may impel the Supreme Court to revisit the issue sooner than it wished.

 

That’s profoundly true at every conceivable point. His language there is interesting and it is certainly right. The battle over same-sex marriage is entering a new and climactic phase. What happens in the next several months, even in the next several weeks, even as we see what happened just over the last weeks behind us, is going to represent the crucial turning point in this battle for the legalization of same-sex marriage. We are now watching it. We’re witnessing it with our own eyes. Erick Eckholm’s analysis piece ends by citing Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry. He’s a longtime proponent of legalization of same-sex marriage. He said, “Our eyes are not only on this marriage spring; our eyes are on the marriage harvest.” That is the language of a man, indeed a moral revolutionary, who is at this point absolutely confident that he is winning and winning fast.

 

This week President Obama is slated to be in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom that is one of America’s key allies in the Persian Gulf, and, yet, in anticipation of that visit, Nina Shea writes for the Houses of Worship column in The Wall Street Journal:

 

When President Obama visits Saudi Arabia next week, he will have an opportunity to follow through on his inspiring words at the Feb. 6. National Prayer Breakfast. There, he told thousands of Christian leaders that “the right of every person to practice their faith how they choose” is central to “human dignity,” and so “promoting religious freedom is a key objective of U.S. foreign policy.”

 

We’re about to find out if it is. And, by the way, political fairness requires me to say that this is true in terms of the test that President Obama now faces, but previous presidents have faced the same test and most of them have failed. Political reality, including trying to hold together a coalition there in the Persian Gulf, has trumped religious liberty and in a horrifying way, in terms of the results of the impact upon Christian churches and individual Christians. Nina Shea writes:

 

The freedom so central to human dignity is denied by the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia]. The State Department has long ranked Saudi Arabia among the world’s most religiously repressive governments, designating it a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act. Yet the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has not pressed Riyadh to respect religious freedom.

 

That’s a very important statement. Every word of it’s important. The president has not pressed this case even after his own state department has made this very clear declaration, but neither did his predecessors. Nina Shea then writes:

 

Saudi Arabia is the only state in the world to ban all churches and any other non-Muslim houses of worship. While Saudi nationals are all “officially” Muslim, some two to three million foreign Christians live in the kingdom, many for decades. They have no rights to practice their faith. The Saudi government has ignored Vatican appeals for a church to serve this community…”

 

And on and on the denial of freedom to Christians in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia is documented.

 

Christian foreign workers in Saudi Arabia can only pray together clandestinely. Religious-police dragnets against scores of Ethiopian house-church Christians, mostly poor women working as maids, demonstrate the perils of worshiping: arrest, monthslong detention and abuse, and eventual deportation.

 

Shea points out that it is difficult to hide a worship service in the tightly controlled kingdom. There’s an official religious police known as the Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice. They’re looking for where they find people gathered together; especially women gathered together who aren’t wearing traditional Muslim garb. It is illegal in Saudi Arabia to distribute a Bible. Priests themselves have to go undercover and every other minister as well. They have to pretend to be cooks or mechanics. If they celebrate worship services, in this case for approximately 1.5 million Filipino, Indian, and other Catholics working and living there, she documents this, they have to do so clandestinely. They have to do so under fear of arrest. The same is true for evangelical Christians. And as she writes:

 

The fanatical intolerance of everything Christian extends to a crackdown on red roses on Valentine’s Day. Visiting European soccer teams with cross logos must blur the icon on team jerseys. At one holiday party in the American school in [the kingdom’s capitol], a Santa Claus had to jump through a window to escape religious police.

 

This illustrates a fanatical anti-Christian persecution that is almost impossible to take at face value, and yet the president of the United States is about to make a state visit to that kingdom this week.

 

We should note that other kingdoms and sheikdoms there within the Persian Gulf allow open Christian worship, even as they are explicitly and officially Muslim lands. Nina Shea gets it right when she writes:

 

President Obama on his visit could ask King Abdullah to allow churches in the Kingdom. As the president explained in February, the right to worship is an essential human right that “matters to our national security.” Allowing a church would help foreign Christian workers and instill in Saudi society a sense of peaceful coexistence with the religious “other.” That may help us all.

 

Well, she points out something very important here. When President Obama got all those headlines for speaking on behalf of religious liberty back in February at the National Prayer Breakfast, she’s exactly right when she says he was speaking to the choir. Now we’re going to find out what the president will say to America’s supposed friends when these friends are key military allies in one of the most tense portions of the world, and, at the same time, as the kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s identified as one of the most repressive states on the entire planet in the history of humanity when it comes to anti-Christian intolerance. It would not be fair to President Obama to hold him to a standard his predecessors were not also held to, and history will record they failed, and they failed miserably. We’ll see what the president is going to do in Saudi Arabia. He might complain that this is something he didn’t ask for in this job, but he did ask to be elected. The job is now his and now so is this responsibility. We’ll find out whether or not he really meant what he said when he said that religious freedom is a matter of our national security.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was flying from California to Florida in order to speak at the 2014 Ligonier Ministries National Conference, and the person sitting in the seat next to me was also headed to Orlando, quite obviously. He was not attending Ligonier Ministries National Conference; he was attending the Global Pet Expo, and he was a salesman for a pet company, and it was very interesting to have a conversation with them as we rode along in the air. He also, as it turned out, is a fellow believer, and we had a very interesting conversation about what was bringing the two of us respectively to Orlando. He was interested in the conference in which I was speaking; I was at least somewhat interested in the Global Pet Expo, and I got a lot more interested when there was a great deal of coverage of that expo over the weekend in The New York Times.

 

You see, it turns out this particular expo exposes a great deal about the contemporary worldview held by many Americans, and as Penelope Green, reporting for The New York Times, makes clear, there is a lot of interest in pets. The Global Pet Expo included 985 exhibitors of pet products. They were spread over thirteen football fields’ worth of real estate in the Orange County Convention Center there in Orlando. It turns out they love other kinds of animals, including cats and fish and other pets, but, as she says, this expo makes very clear that when you look at the spending and the consumer products, it is dogs that rule. Just in terms of the numbers revealed in terms of worldview significance, consider this: last year, Americans spent $55.7 billion on their pets. That’s $55.7 billion on pets; that according to the American Pet Products Association. That’s the group that sponsored the big expo there in Orlando a couple weeks ago. This year it is expected that the total will be above $58.5 billion. There were 3,000 new products just this year, the expo demonstrated there in Orlando, and even though the Pet Expo attempts, she says, be a big tent that includes all pets, it’s clear that most of these products are actually directed towards dogs. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this is that there is a huge growing category for dogs of what is referred to as “pet fashions.” As a matter fact, fashion designers for pets showed up. One of them talked about the fashion industry for pets and spoke of pets saying, “Imagine their embarrassment if they weren’t properly attired when you called to talk to them,” speaking of the dogs. And talked about going to the dogs, here you have an entire industry supposedly devoted to clothing dogs in fashion.

 

A big new area of products for dogs has to do with wireless products enabling dogs to call up their owners during the workday such that they can trigger some kind of interaction. I won’t call it a conversation between the dog and the dog’s owner, but in this point it’s hard to tell which is the pet and which is the owner. It’s hard to tell which is which in terms of this kind of engagement when the dog can call you up at work. Three generations of a family known as the Hamill family were presenting what is described as the adorable iFetch. It’s about a hundred dollars, by the way. It’s an on-demand, battery-operated ball launcher. It’s made for relentless fetch obsessed canines, you know who they are. Clever dogs, she writes, can learn to drop a small ball in the opening on top and then the iFetch, which has an appealing biomorphic design like a white plastic teakettle, shoots the ball out another opening. Judging by the video provided by the company, she says most dogs are driven to ecstasy by the device. Another product is the Brush Your Teeth Wipes. They’re about nine dollars from Pet Head, and also the nifty Slow Bowls, about $25 each, described as brightly colored, hard plastic food dishes shaped like mazes and labyrinths to stop dogs from inhaling their food. “Live fast, eat slow,” is the company’s slogan.

 

But last Thursday’s edition of The New York Times didn’t have just one article on the Global Pet Expo, there were actually two: one was in the home section; the other was in the business section. Now just in terms of how you read a major newspaper like this, you have two different editorial staffs making these assignments, looking at stories from two different angles. The home section is looking for interesting consumer-products angles; the business pages are looking for, well, you guessed it, business; and that is actually the article with the more revealing Christian worldview implications. Writing on the same Pet Expo, reporter Eilene Zimmerman writes that one of the things that this expo demonstrates is what she calls “evolving trends in the pet industry.” One, she says, is the extent of pet ownership. According to the American Pet Products Association, a trade group, there are now more than 80 million dogs owned in the United States. In an USA Today analysis of census data found more households with a dog than with a child. This is where the worldview significance gets really intense. Eilene Zimmerman then writes:

 

Perhaps more important, many pet owners are treating their dogs and cats as if they were children — quite a shift from the days when the dog slept in the garage, ate table scraps and “occasionally got their burrs taken out,” said Clay Mathile, who built the pet food company Iams and sold it to Procter & Gamble for $2.3 billion in 1999.

 

That changed mind-set is driving billions in spending — $55.8 billion last year, according to the American Pet Products Association — and has encouraged a wave of innovation, with many products and services incorporating sophisticated technologies.

 

The worldview significance embedded in this has to do with the fact that here you have a reporter for The New York Times saying that the really important angle in this is that many pet owners are treating their dogs and cats as if they were children. In other words, buying and equipping and now dressing their pets as if they were children. These pets are taking the place of children. Even years ago it was noted that some cities of great affluent, such as San Francisco, actually counted amongst the inhabitants of that city more dogs than children, but now you have the U.S. Census Bureau demonstrating that American households demonstrate that there are more households with dogs than households with children. And you have this article in The New York Times saying that the explanation for this explosion of consumer-products for animals and the explosion of the spending for animals has to do with the fact that for many people these dogs, not just animals in general, but in this case dogs, have replaced children as the focus of consumer attention. And, as that reveals, the focus of a great deal more as well.

 

Every dimension of this news story cries out for a worldview analysis. What worldview allows for this kind of spending on pets? What worldview allows for treating pets as children? What worldview allows for the development of relationships between human beings and, in this case, dogs that are replacing the relationships that previously existed between parents and children? Now they’re all kinds of things that go into this, including the fact that in our highly mobile society and in a society with there are many people living far beyond childbearing years, there’s a natural sense in which some of this is going to take place. But when it is becoming the rule rather than the exception, we face big trouble. I did a Thinking in Public conversation with Jonathan Last, and in that conversation last year, Mr. Last pointed out that in some suburban areas of cities like Washington, DC, stores selling products for children are disappearing and store selling products for pets are appearing in their place. That is more than parabolic; it’s frightening. It tells us not only where our priorities are becoming misplaced; it tells us that we entered some new phase in which the confusion of these things has grown to a deep and ominous level. I say that as one who dearly loves his dog, and Baxter the Wonder Beagle is home right now even as I’m speaking to you, but as someone who understands that we have to know continually the distinction between the pet and ourselves, between the animal kingdom and what it means to be human. One of us is made in the image of God and the other was also made for God’s glory, but in a different status altogether. It’s the other half of this equation that’s actually so ominous. When it’s pets that begin to take the place of children, not only in our spending, but in other great aspects of our lives, there we see the problem. And if we don’t see it, that’s a problem.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. Remember Ask Anything: Weekend Edition released every Saturday, and remember to call with your question. Just call 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. 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. I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.