R. Albert Mohler Jr.'s Blog, page 376

The Briefing 03-21-14

Podcast Transcript

1) Fred Phelps Sr’s life was one of the most bitter and harmful to gospel in modern history

Fred Phelps Sr., leader of Westboro Baptist Church, dies at 84, Washington Post (Adam Bernstein)

How Should Gays Eulogize Fred Phelps?, Slate (Tyler Lopez)

Fred Phelps’ hateful legacy may be the opposite of all he intended, Religion News Service (Cathy Lynn Grossman)

2) The tragic redefinition of contraception to implantation, not conception

Religious challenge to health care law hits high court, USA Today (Richard Wolf)

3) Obama has traded cheap publicity for the dignity of his office

Publicity is cheap but comedy could cost Obama dear, Financial Times (Christopher Caldwell)

 

The Briefing 03-20-14

1) Putin’s ruthless power grab re-writes modern international relations

If Not a Cold War, a Return to a Chilly Rivalry, New York Times (Peter Baker)

2) Obama rightly awards 24 Medals of Honor which had been denied – 21 posthumously

Medals of Honor Go to 24 Army Veterans Who Had Been Denied, New York Times (Jada F. Smith)

3) General asks not to be held accountable for sexual misconduct – for the sake of his family

Army Gen. Sinclair breaks down, asks judge to not punish family, Los Angeles Times (David Zucchino)

4) Ohio Lottery has given $20 billion to schools? Not exactly.

Ohio Lottery fund shifts siphon aid to schools, Columbus Dispatch (Alan Johnson)

God’s Lion in London: Charles Spurgeon and the Challenge of the Modern Age

This is the second annual Spurgeon Lecture delivered March 10, 2014 at The Nicole Institute of Baptist Studies at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando. For more information, please visit the RTS website

The Briefing 03-18-14

1) St. Patrick’s Day Parade: Homosexuals don’t just demand participation, but celebration

Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day Breakfast Breaks Barriers, but Its Parade Does Not, New York Times (Katharine Q. Seelye)

Guinness Withdraws Sponsorship of St. Patrick’s Day Parade, New York Times (Ashley Southall)

New York’s St. Patrick’s parade marches on amid gay rights controversy, Reuters (Victoria Cavaliere)

2) God-optional synagogue? Either religion is a human construct, or it is revealed truth

Synagogue, Rebooted, New York Times (John Leland)

3) Unitarian Universalists selling headquarters: “To be relevant, we have to move to innovation district”

Denominations Downsizing and Selling Assets in More Secular Era, New York Times (Michael Paulson)

The Briefing 03-17-14

1) Human intentionality behind Malaysian jet disappearance

Timing of Report by Flight’s Pilot Focuses Inquiry, New York Times (Chris Buckley and Keith Bradsher)

2) Putin has taken advantage of naivety of West

Crimea Votes to Secede From Ukraine as Russian Troops Keep Watch, New York Times (David M Herszenhorn)

U.S. warns Russia against annexing Crimea, Washington Post (Karen Deyoung)

3) Opportunists making millions off the legal marijuana moral revolution

Thank You for Smoking—Marijuana, Wall Street Journal (Bari Weiss)

In Denver, toke it easy on this pot-infused tour, USA Today (Jayne Clark)

 

Genesis 11:24-12:9

Ask Anything: Weekend Edition 03-15-14

1) Should Christians shelter young children from homosexual friends and relatives?

2) What are your thoughts about J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings and who is your favorite character?

3) Which preacher or theologian has had the most profound impact on your life?

The Briefing 03-14-14

1) Not Science Fiction: Malaysian airliner may have flown 4-5 hrs after losing contact

Missing Malaysian plane may have flown up to four hours, U.S. officials say, Washington Post (Ashley Halsey III, Scott Wilson and Chico Harlan)

Missing jet search widens far west to Indian Ocean, USA Today (Calum MacLeod and Kim Hjelmgaard)

2) New research reveals vast generational shift toward secularization

Losing Faith: 21 Percent Say Religion ‘Not That Important’ NBC News (Carrie Dann)

3) Crucial vote in passing Obamacare now feels “double-crossed” over contraception mandate

Contraception mandate doublecross, USA Today (Bart Stupak)

4) We are made for marriage: Increasing number of “angry young men” with no one to marry

Angry Young Men Are Making the World Less Stable, The Atlantic (Gwynn Guilford)

An Evangelical Theology of the Body: Biblical Theology and the Sexuality Crisis

An address given at the “9Marks at Southern” conference held February 28 – March 1, 2014 at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. For more information on 9 Marks Ministries and future conferences, please visit 9Marks.org

Transcript: The Briefing 03-13-14

The Briefing

 

 March 13, 2014

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

 

It’s Thursday, March 13, 2014. I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

 

One of the great dramatic political stories of our age is unfolding on the Crimean Peninsula and in the nation of Ukraine. But the major actor is Russia, and the Russian Bear continues to hold the nation of Ukraine in its teeth as he puts it in a vice grip in order to snatch the Crimean Peninsula away from the Ukrainian nation. The world is watching, and there’s very little that the world can do. The European Union and associated Allied Powers have been indicating their displeasure, their outrage, their indignation at the actions of Russia, but Russian President Vladimir Putin is absolutely unmoved and unintimidated.

 

Bret Stephens, writing the Global View Column of The Wall Street Journal, explains why. He suggests that what is revealed in the current Crimean crisis is not only the aggressiveness of Russia, but the naïveté of the West, in particular Western leaders such as US President Barack Obama. Last week, speaking as Russian troops were even then grabbing the Crimean Peninsula, President Obama said, “I actually think that this is not been a sign of strength.” Well what in the world did the president mean? And if this isn’t strength, what is it? As Bret Stephens says, “Is not been a sign of strength? Is not been a sign of grammar.” Stevens then went back to harken to one of George W. Bush’s neologisms, that is, one of the words the former president was characteristically fond of creating. That word was “misunderestimating,” and that’s exactly what President Obama has done with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has, to quote President Bush, “misunderestimated” President Putin, and the inevitable result of this is that the president’s foreign policy is directed at nothing that will now matter.

 

Writing from London, the editors of The Economist quoted President Obama as describing his foreign policy in the situation as “restrained and I think thoughtful.” What thoughts are behind that thoughtfulness, the president did not make abundantly clear. Then the editors of the economist wrote this:

 

Alas, Team Obama is surprisingly bad at alliances. In Ukraine, America largely outsourced policy to Europe for many months before deciding too late that it was going wrong. Forget criticism in Washington about how a stronger, Reaganesque president might intimidate foes. A larger problem is the White House’s resentful attitude towards America’s friends.

 

The editors agree with the critics of the White House who say the president’s foreign policy “dismays allies and emboldens foes.” The history of international foreign policy demonstrates the grave danger of naïveté. Just think of the threshold of World War II with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declaring that he had achieved peace in our time (those were his words) when he returned from meeting in Munich with Adolf Hitler. Neville Chamberlain then became known as the symbol of appeasement and, as Winston Churchill said, an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile believing and hoping that he will be eaten last. But eaten last means one is still eaten and that’s one of the sad lessons of international politics in a foreign world. Appeasement simply does not work.

 

It isn’t fair to accuse President Obama of appeasing Vladimir Putin, but what certainly is fair is suggesting that the American president, and many other Western leaders along with him, simply did not develop a comprehensive foreign policy that would’ve made it far more difficult for Vladimir Putin to have pulled this off or even to have planned to do so.

 

One of the most important insights of the Christian worldview is the recognition that human beings simply do not think alike. Human beings think according to their worldview, and when worldviews are different, inevitably patterns of thinking are different too. That means that goals and aspirations and definitions of success can be very different. That’s where Bret Stephens gets right to the point when he writes about Vladimir Putin, Russia, and compares it with the United States and Europe, and writes this:

 

Not all countries are blessed with oceans for borders. Not all leaders get to live in magic kingdoms where Nobel Peace Prizes are bestowed before they are earned. And not all leaders want to live in those magic kingdoms, either.

 

In other words, what Bret Stephens is arguing is that the Russian president really isn’t concerned about the things that the American president seems to be obsessed with. President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize soon after he went into office, before he had actually accomplished anything. Just by being elected to office, he was considered to be an ambassador of peace. But that is a haunting reflection, a haunting parallel, back to the opening of World War II, and it also is a sign of Western hope against reality, especially the Western hope that other peoples of the world will think as we think. In other words, there are many people around the world who simply can’t understand the way Vladimir Putin is acting. Doesn’t he want the Nobel Peace Prize? Clearly not; that’s not on his screen. That’s not what he wants. He might be glad to receive it, if indeed the world decided to give it to him, but on the other hand, his goals and aspirations, his definitions of success are very, very different.

 

In its editorial on Vladimir Putin, The Economist wrote this:

 

In the past week, Vladimir Putin has trampled over norms that buttress the international order and he has established dangerous precedents that go far beyond Ukraine. Giving into kidnappers is always dangerous. Those who failed to take a stand to start with often face graver trials later on.

 

Perhaps you remember the very argument that Vladimir Putin made when his troops—and make no mistake they are his troops—entered the Crimean Peninsula. He said that Russian military advisers and military forces were simply moving into place to be ready to protect ethnic Russians and, of course, he also extended that to say not only ethnic Russians, but those whose language, first language, is Russian, perhaps even second language is Russian. As many have pointed out, that would be a rationale for Vladimir Putin invading New York City. It’s not only a specious argument; it’s an obscene argument. But if you want to understand that argument, perhaps nothing encapsulates it so well as a cartoon that appeared within the pages of The Economist. It pictures a room in which talks on Crimea are taking place among world leaders. Vladimir Putin is sitting at the table in the shape of a bear and sticking out of his mouth is the fin of a fish. The aquarium in the room is empty, and when one of the other leaders asked what happened to the fish, Vladimir Putin responds, “They were under threat and needed my protection.” That’s the kind of cartoon that is hardly funny. It is, however, tremendously revealing.

 

One last thought in terms of foreign policy. We often do not recognize just how providentially situated the United States of America is. As Henry Adams said back at the dawn of the 20th century, America was gifted by God with oceans to the left and the right, and Canadians to the north and Mexicans to the south (rather friendly neighbors), and, of course, the great physical barrier of those two great oceans to any kind of invading force. Compare that to China. Writing in The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Andrew Browne, writing in the China’s World Column, points out that China is now beset by an enormous array of challenges. “They cover everything,” he says, “from domestic terrorism, ethnic and social unrest, to troublesome neighbors along the world’s longest land border.” He explains, these challenges “constitute an immensely complex set of security challenges that when added up suggest that China’s destiny is far less assured the its surface confidence might indicate.” At the end of the article, it is pointed out that China—that does have the world’s longest land border—shares that border with about twenty other nations; most of them either hostile or unsettled or failed states. My point here is not so much to consider China, but to consider the United States of America in contrast and to remember just how privileged we are as a nation that foreign policy for us can be something that is not so much close at hand, right on our border, but somewhere else in the world, as in the case of the Crimean Peninsula, very far away. Other nations of the world do not have that luxury, and every day they are reminded of it.

 

In an interesting parallel, yesterday, in an unrelated set of stories, both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal had major articles on the increased diagnosis of ADHD and the associated medical prescriptions that are going along with it. ADHD, of course, refers to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. As Stephen Hinshaw and Richard Scheffler point out—both of them, by the way, are professors at the University of California at Berkeley—there has been a 41% increase in the number of ADHD diagnoses in the United States just over the last decade. As they write:

 

Over two-thirds of kids with an ADHD diagnosis receive prescriptions for stimulants like Adderall or Ritalin. The data sparked a much-needed debate about whether American children were being overdiagnosed and overmedicated for ADHD.

 

Now they suggest that debate should go global. They write, “Consider what’s been going on in Israel. In 2010 alone the use of two medications, Ritalin and Concerta, skyrocketed by 76%.” Now, again, that was just in one year. The researchers go on to indicate that last year Israel’s Maccabi Healthcare Services “found that as many as one in five Israeli children were prescribed stimulants without at a proper ADHD diagnosis.” Now in Israel, let’s recall the number, that’s one out of 5 (20%). They go on to write, Israel and the United States are not alone. There is a growing awareness of ADHD, and that awareness is now combined with what they describe as “increasing pressure on children to achieve academically.”

 

This is a very interesting article. Not only do we now face the national phenomenon of many children, especially boys, being diagnosed with ADHD because they are not functioning well in institutional settings, especially such as school; you also have the fact that nations, the United States among them but especially nations in Asia, are panicking over academic performance and they’re putting pressure on children. And ADHD diagnoses and the associated prescription drugs that go with them—and remember those are drugs that affect the central nervous system—they’re all skyrocketing. The professors write:

 

The pressure to treat ADHD is growing particularly fast in countries like China and South Korea that are making a strong push to improve academic performance. Many elementary and secondary schools in China force children to sit for hours at length, attending lectures and cramming for tests. It is only natural that children in these circumstances need help to remain focused. More and more, that help is coming in a pill.

 

Now, once again, that article appeared in yesterday’s edition of The Wall Street Journal, but in yesterday’s edition of The New York Times, an article by Alan Schwarz reports:

 

The number of young American adults taking medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder nearly doubled from 2008 to 2012, according to a report to be released Wednesday by the nation’s largest prescription drug manager.

 

That drug manager, known as Express Scripts, processes prescriptions for about 90 million Americans—that’s almost one out of three Americans. They also found that one in ten adolescent boys was taking medications for the disorder, usually Adderall or Concerta. Now, again, just so we don’t miss that statistic: that’s one out of ten of all American adolescent boys. Dr. Brooke Molina, an associate professor of psychiatry at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, identified in the papers as one of the nation’s leading researchers into ADHD, said, “It’s hard to dismiss the data in this report. There are limitations with every study, but it’s hard to do anything here but conclude that we have a continually forward-marching increase.” Now that’s a very troubling statement: “a continually forward marching increase.” Forward-marching from one out of every ten American adolescent boys being diagnosed with ADHD and then medicated? What’s after one out of ten? One out of five? Well, come to think of it, that’s exactly where the children in Israel are right now according to the report in the same day’s Wall Street Journal. Where’s the forward march from there? One out of three? One out of four? One out of two? Though the issue is not addressed in this way, the bigger question behind all these reports and all of these concerns is whether or not we are medicating normality; taking normal behavior, especially behavior of young boys and adolescents and young men and instead medicating them in order that they will behave otherwise. Clearly, some of these young people have a real problem; it’s not just a misdiagnosis. But when you’re looking at the numbers that are at stake here, something is horribly amiss and the something that’s amiss is with the culture and not with these children and young people.

 

Furthermore, the other issue that is behind this is the question of enhancing human performance. That goes back to the references in The Wall Street Journal story to what’s going on in schools in China and Korea and elsewhere. But before we throw stones at China and Korea, we also need to recognize that the same kind of thing is taking place here in the United States. I was recently on one of the most prestigious state university campuses in this country. By any measure, this is one of the most respected institutions of higher learning in the United States, but even as I was on the campus, openly discussed among students was the fact that many of the best and brightest students were using these very same drugs in order to increase their academic performance.

 

They weren’t even suggesting that they had anything like ADHD or any other kind of diagnosis, merely that they did better with the drugs, and since this is a competitive environment and, furthermore, the competition with oneself is a very important part of the academic pressure as well, they want to give themselves the edge and are taking the drugs; sometimes buying them from classmates down the hall, sometimes buying them openly on the street. Oh, there’s something amiss alright; there’s something wrong, but the major diagnosis we need to understand is this: we want to find a problem in a diagnosis and we want to find salvation in a pill. These two major articles, appearing from two different sources in two the world’s leading newspapers on the very same day, indicate something of the scale of this problem and the fact that even the secular world is aware that something is horribly wrong.

 

Finally, speaking of something being horribly wrong, Hiriko Tabuchi, reporting for The New York Times, writes of the man who was considered to be the pride and joy of Japanese classical music. Writing from Tokyo, he reports:

 

A man once hailed as Japan’s deaf musical genius and likened to Beethoven faced the wrath of his nation, appearing in public for the first time since he was exposed as a fake.

 

With brows furrowed and lips clenched, the man, Mamoru Samuragochi described how his childhood love for music came to fuel an elaborate deception that ended when it was learned that someone else had written his celebrated compositions and that he was not deaf. “I thought the truth would come out some day. It all grew beyond my control, and filled me with terror. To everyone who was kind enough to buy my CDs, I have no words.”

 

He was credited with his Number 1 Symphony entitled “Hiroshima.” That symphony, based on the 1945 bombing of the city of that name, sold over 200,000 copies in terms of the recording. His musical compositions and his public appearances were some of the most popular points of culture in Japan, and one of Japan’s leading figure skaters even skated to one of his supposed compositions in the recent winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. But as Tabuchi reports:

 

That fairy tale came crashing down last month when an obscure part-time lecturer at a Tokyo music college revealed that he had been the ghostwriter for this man since the 1990s. Even more shocking, he claimed that Mr. Samuragochi was not really deaf. They had normal conversations together, spoke on the telephone, and even listened to music together, Mr. Niigaki said.

 

In other words, the man he who was the pride and joy in Japan for being a deaf composer of classical music turns out not to have been the composer and not to have been deaf. This is the kind of story that reminds us of the old adage that truth really is stranger than fiction. You couldn’t make this up, and yet it has led to a sense of national humiliation and outrage in Japan. But it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t because this is a basic human problem. There is a propensity to believe something that is unbelievable. We allow ourselves to be fooled even as we’re looking at something that is dubious on its face—a deaf composer of classical music, for example. We want to believe that a story is true and so we overcome our natural incredulity and suspicion to convince ourselves that it is true. Somehow, in our fallen state, human beings have the possibility—indeed the ability—to conform our intelligence and our reason to what we hope will be true, rather than to what is actually true and demonstrably true right before our eyes.

 

There’s another very interesting point in this article as well. It turns out that if you are claiming to be a deaf composer and you’re claiming that massively important and popular pieces of music are yours, it just might be that human pride will also enter in the other side of the equation, with the man who actually did write the music showing up and claiming credit and demonstrating that, after all, Japan’s deaf composer was neither a composer nor deaf. Therein, we might say, lies a parable.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. Remember Ask Anything: Weekend Edition. Call with your question in your voice to 877-505-2058. That’s 877-505-2058. Ask Anything: Weekend Edition is released every Saturday morning. 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’m speaking to you from Orlando, Florida, and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.