Gregory Koukl's Blog, page 58

How RFRA Works

Here’s a really helpful infographic from 1st Amendment Partnership explaining “How RFRA Works.” It clarifies why Religious Freedom Restoration Acts have never, nor will ever, create a Jim-Crow-type society:

(HT: @MZHemingway)

RFRA Reaction Is Driven by Agenda, Not Principle

On the show yesterday, nearly every single question Greg was asked had something to do with Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This is the law (modeled after* Chuck Schumer’s bipartisan 22-year-old federal law) which states that the government “may substantially burden a person's exercise of religion” only if doing so 1) “is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest” and 2) “is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”

Perhaps that sounds nothing like what you’ve heard.

Everything I posted about the Arizona RFRA last year (see “The Truth about Arizona’s Religious Freedom Bill”) applies today, including the same media hysteria and misinformation.

In Joe Carter’s explainer of RFRAs (see also his “7 (More) Essential Articles on Religious Freedom Restoration Acts”), he points out:

Currently, 19 states have a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (AL, CT, FL, ID, IN, IL, KS, KY, LA, MO, MS, NM, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, and VA). Ten other states have religious liberty protections that state courts have interpreted to provide a similar (strict scrutiny) level of protection (AK, MA, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, OH, WA, and WI). With some exceptions (such as Mississippi), the state versions are almost exactly the same as the federal version.

One federal law and 19 state laws exist** (note that the same Connecticut currently calling for a boycott of Indiana is included on that list), and yet no one can point to a single instance where a RFRA was misused to create any of the Jim-Crow-type scenarios the media are warning us about. As John McCormack wrote: 

[A] small number of conscientious objectors declining to participate commercially in same-sex weddings is quite different than the specter of Jim Crow for gay Americans—hotels and restaurants turning away gay people simply because they are gay.

The point of RFRA is not to discriminate against gay Americans. It is supposed to prevent the government from discriminating against religious Americans.

What’s happening now is hardly a reason for you to panic.

Unless you believe in freedom of religion.

Consider this comment by “Indrid Cold,” posted on a Wall Street Journal article:

The realities of being gay trump any "super friend man-in-the-sky" delusion. There is no circumstance of genuine damage that might occur were a business compelled to provide service to a gay customer. A business must, as a condition of being IN business, offer its product or service to all those willing to pay. If the proprietor refuses to do so, that business should be forced to close its doors. The space will be quickly filled by individuals who understand this simple business requirement.

Leaving aside this commenter’s misunderstanding of both the purpose of the law and the fact that the florists, photographers, and bakers have objected to participating in events they disagree with, not to serving people with a particular sexual orientation—leaving that aside, consider what this person is saying here: My religion (worldview) trumps all other religions. And because every other religion is a delusion, no harm comes to you when I make you go against your conscience and follow my religion…because I’m only making you do what the right religion says you should do. And obviously, since I’m right, making you do what I want you to do is right.

You know what that is? That’s the end of freedom of religion. Denny Burk writes:

In an essay posted this morning, [Rod Dreher] argues that the take-away from the Indiana RFRA is not the law itself, but the media “freak out” that happened in response. It reveals just how deep our nation’s indifference is to religious liberty and just how willing some of our elites are to stamp it out. And it won’t stop with RFRA’s. He says that churches that support traditional marriage will soon face attacks on their tax-exempt status. If you think this isn’t coming, you aren’t paying attention.

You’d think the following might occur to Indrid Cold: “Wait a minute…what if Christians forced my business to work on projects promoting Chrsitianity and man-woman-only marriage? What if saying no to them meant we’d be forced to close our doors? Maybe we should find a way to balance government coercion and sincerely-held convictions that will protect everybody.” 

Or perhaps the governor of Connecticut might think: “I’m really grateful I’m free to not participate in the economy of a state that’s promoting ideas contrary to my sincerely-held beliefs—thank goodness no one can force me to do otherwise. Wait a minute…isn’t that what that florist in Washington was asking for? Maybe there’s a way for both of us to have our freedom and still achieve the government’s interests.” 

I find the fact that this occurs to nobody on the other side to be more distressing than anything else because it indicates people are thinking according to agenda rather than principle. Principle-thinking says, “Since we don’t all have the same view, we should come up with a principle that balances government interest and freedom of religion—one we won’t mind living under if we find ourselves on the other side of the freedom dilemma someday.” Agenda-thinking says, “Let’s do whatever it takes to crush every viewpoint but ours (don’t worry—we’ll just stop them from doing the same to us if they ever try).”

It’s hard to imagine a society as large as ours remaining free for long without principled laws governing how to manage differences of deeply-held belief. Opponents of RFRAs seem shocked—shocked—by the fact that some citizens out there have beliefs different from their own. And in effect, they’re citing the very existence of these contrary beliefs as evidence RFRAs should be repealed. That is, “We know people exist who have the wrong beliefs, therefore we can’t have religious freedom laws because that might enable people to act on those beliefs.” 

If you only support freedom of religion until you come up against religion you disagree with, you don’t support freedom of religion. The differences of belief don’t prove we should get rid of religious freedom laws, they prove our need for them. Why would we ever have needed a guarantee of freedom of religion in the Constitution if it weren’t the case that A) significantly different views exist, and B) human nature leads people to try to stamp out opposing views? 

Here’s the bottom line: The kind of response we’re seeing from people who oppose Indiana’s RFRA proves just how much we need these laws if we’re to continue to function as a diverse society. 

_______________________

*A clarification from John McCormack: “Indiana's RFRA makes it explicit that the law applies to persons engaged in business as well as citizens in private lawsuits, but until quite recently it had always been understood that federal RFRA covered businesses and private lawsuits. (See this post by law professor Josh Blackman for more on these matters.)”

**Another bill in Arkansas is waiting to be signed.

Links Mentioned on the 3/31/15 Show

The following is a rundown of this week's podcast, annotated with links that were either mentioned on the show or inspired by it:

HOUR ONE

Commentary: Tribute to Trova, Paducah Trip (0:00)

Questions:

1. Indiana freedom of religion law (0:22)

Decision Making and the Will of God (CDs)

– Announcement by Greg (0:40)

The Bible: Fast Forward is now available for HD streaming and download

2. Goodness of God and evil (0:40)

3. Indiana freedom of religion law (0:45)

HOUR TWO

Commentary: Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (1:00)

The New Intolerance – Wall Street Journal
UVA Law Prof Who Supports Gay Marriage Explains Why He Supports Indiana's Religious Freedom Law – Email by Douglas Laycock
RFRA Is Driven by Agenda, Not Principle by Amy Hall
How RFRA Works – Infographic from 1st Amendment Partnership
Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Explained by John McCormack

Questions:

– Announcements by Greg (1:23)

See upcoming events with STR speakers
Apologetics conference in Pensacola, FL – April 10–11

4. Why do Christians only have conscience issues with same-sex marriage? (1:24)

5. Should Christians impose their views on culture? (1:41)

The Truth about Arizona's Religious Freedom Bill by Amy Hall

HOUR THREE

Commentary: Easter Bunny and Christians? (2:00)

Questions:

6. Indiana freedom of religion law and a Canadian law (2:06)

Preaching in Hitler's Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich by Dean G. Stroud
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

 7. Is morality objective or a construct? (2:29)

Summit Ministries student conferences
reTHINK student conferences

8. Are dreams in the mind or the brain? (2:44)

Listen to today's show or download any archived show for free. (Find links from past shows here.)

To take part in the Twitter conversation during the live show (Tuesdays 4:00–7:00 p.m. PT), follow @STRtweets and use the hashtag #STRtalk.

Premarital Counseling Needs to Include This

Before you tie the knot, pastors and counselors try to tell you what you need to know for a healthy and successful marriage. I remember being advised about communication styles, conflict resolution, birth control, personality, etc. It felt comprehensive.

There’s one thing, though, that needs to be added to the list of topics discussed before marriage: infertility counseling. I realize that subject sounds like a bummer to talk about just before a couple marries and goes off to be fruitful and multiply. Based on the situations couples face these days, however, waiting to talk about it until after a couple is facing infertility is far too late.

Here’s why. Once a husband and wife find out they can’t get pregnant, things change. They, understandably, get very emotional about the fact they can’t have children. People in their life stage are popping out kids left and right. Every friend’s pregnancy announcement is another bittersweet ordeal.

In an attempt to fix the problem, the couple pursues the help of fertility doctors. Sometimes they consider procedures that may be ethically questionable because they are passionately committed to the end result of having kids.

Not only have couples told me they felt this way, but I know firsthand as well. My wife and I also dealt with infertility. I remember how I felt, how my wife felt, and how hard we tried to get pregnant. We went through counseling. It was a long and tumultuous time. We met with infertility specialists, took numerous tests, and even had surgery in an attempt to increase our chances of getting pregnant. For a time, it felt like our decisions were largely driven by our emotions.

Thankfully, by God’s grace, we got pregnant naturally after four years of infertility. In retrospect, though, it seemed like we were willing to try anything to get pregnant. I’m not saying we would have done something medically unethical, but I was afraid we might.

I’ve now spoken with several couples who faced a similar situation. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to get pregnant naturally. Instead, they used fertility treatments that put them in a moral dilemma. For example, one couple I recently spoke with used in vitro fertilization. They had multiple eggs fertilized, and then the embryos were implanted in the wife’s womb. The problem was that the wife was now pregnant with five children. Their doctor advised them to abort three of them. He said to attempt to carry all five children would likely result in a premature delivery that would take the lives of all their kids. What should they do?

My advice is to never create more embryos than you’re willing to implant and never implant more embryos than you’re willing to carry. But it was too late for that advice.

Once you’re married and facing infertility, your judgment can become clouded. I’m not saying every couple loses all rationality. Many, though, act before they think or seek good advice because they’re desperate to have kids.

Couples need to be counseled about fertility treatments before they get married and find themselves deep in a moral dilemma where lives are at stake. That way they can reason through the decision-making process prior to an emotional ordeal that jeopardizes clear thinking.

Is It Possible That Mormonism Is True?

Brett discusses whether or not Mormonism could be true.

When the Real Jesus Is Preached

I argued against preaching a “life-improvement Jesus” earlier this week. Now here’s an excerpt from Michael Reeves’s book Rejoicing in Christ (as posted in Christianity Today) explaining what happens when the real Jesus is preached:

Life, righteousness, holiness, and redemption are found in Jesus, and found by those—and only those!—who look to him. Perhaps I should be clearer: It is not that we look, get some sense of what Christ is like, and then go away and strain to make ourselves similar; we become like him through the very looking. The very sight of him is a transforming thing. For now, contemplating him by faith, we begin to be transformed into his likeness (2 Cor. 3:18), but so potent is his glory that when we clap our eyes upon him physically at his second coming, then “when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). 

That full, unveiled, physical sight of the glorified Jesus will be so majestically effacing it will transform our very bodies around us. The sight of him now by the Spirit makes us more like him spiritually; the sight of him, then, face to face, will finally make us—body and soul—as he is....

The light of his perfection exposes our imperfection more than any wielding of the law ever could. It makes us see ourselves aright. As John Calvin put it, “man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face.” But it does more than expose: it overcomes our imperfection and so liberates us. And it cures us far more effectively than any effort at self-improvement….

[I]t is the very grace of God, appearing from heaven in Christ, that turns hearts from worldly passions to godly passions. Where self-dependent efforts at self-improvement must leave us self-obsessed and therefore fundamentally unloving, the kindness of God in Christ attracts our hearts away from ourselves and to him. Only the love of Christ has the power to uncoil a human heart. 

Read the rest of the excerpt in Christianity Today, or get the book.

Responding to Skepticism (And the Proper Use of Tactics)

Jonathan Morrow has a post on “How to Break Free from Skepticism with One Simple Question”:

Whether from a well meaning friend or an aggressive critic, the problem of skepticism can be hard to break free from. The unspoken assumption of skepticism is that if it’s possible you could be wrong about something, then you can’t know it. Usually this comes in the form a “How do you know that you’re not wrong?” (which could be repeated forever….)

This is mistaken. Here’s why. Just because it’s possible I could be wrong about a belief, it does not follow that I am wrong about that belief. 

In other words the mere possibility that I could be wrong doesn’t mean that I actually am wrong. I’m going to need some reasons to think my belief is mistaken before I should begin to doubt that particular belief.

Jonathan recommends asking skeptics to provide some of those reasons (see how he words the question he asks, along with conversational examples, here). He says:

Ask them this question and clarify what the real issue is and then have a productive spiritual conversation exploring the evidence together [all emphases in original].

Sometimes people misunderstand the use of tactics, and so, object to them (or worse, misuse them). The goal of tips like this one isn’t to shut down the unbeliever, it’s to open up the conversation by turning it away from speculation, vague opposition, and defensiveness, and drawing out the real, substantive objections so they can be openly discussed and considered.

In other words, when you’re having a personal conversation with anyone about spiritual things, the purpose of using questions like Jonathan’s is to increase your understanding of that person and his perspective so that you can personalize your response, treating him with dignity as a valuable, unique human being, and having his ultimate good as your goal.

After you’ve finished a conversation, assess how you’re doing at this by asking yourself: Do I know more about this person and his beliefs than I did before? Was I, as a result of understanding him better, able to better personalize my explanations in a way that made sense to him, in light of his background, beliefs, and level of understanding of Christianity? 

Everything we say and do when talking to others about Christianity teaches them about Christianity. Some people may find this counter-intuitive because the word “tactics” seems so impersonal, but the tactics are intended to help you move away from rote answers into the kind of meaningful interaction that communicates God’s view of the value and dignity of every human being.

Challenge Response: You Can't Trust the Christian Authors of the Gospels

Here's my response to this week's challenge:

Christians, You Will Suffer

I had a brief interaction with an atheist on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that unexpectedly turned to the issue of suffering when she said:

You clearly never had a time you were hurt. I don’t mean sick. I don’t mean heart broken. I mean literally a near death experience or rape or abusive relationship…. You can keep floating on a [expletive] cloud thinking Jesus will do everything for you but it’s a lie. What makes you so special?

That surprised me at first because it didn’t seem to have anything to do with the tweet she was responding to, and I was confused as to why she would assume I’d never been through anything traumatic. But then in subsequent tweets, when she revealed she had been raped, it became clear that her trauma had played a central role in her becoming an outspoken, obviously angry “antitheist.” She’s a self-described antitheist now because she thinks Christianity teaches Jesus “will do everything for you” to give you a perfect life, and now she knows that’s a lie. The rape proved her understanding of Christianity false.

So it made sense for her to reason that since I believe Christianity is true, I must still be under the delusion that Jesus is making my life special, which means I obviously never encountered any evil or suffering to shake that delusion.

Hear me, everyone: This is a failure of the church.

A friend of mine who was deeply suffering once said to me that many Christians are in for “an epic letdown” when they realize their preconceived notions about what God is expected to do for us are false. Pastors who preach a life-improvement Jesus are leading people down this precarious path to disillusionment.

If suffering disproves your Christianity, you’ve missed Christianity. The Bible is filled with the suffering of those whom God loves. The central event of the Bible is one of suffering. Love involves suffering. “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” That means suffering.

But Christianity also promises justice for evil. And grace. And life from death. Resurrection. New bodies. Hope. Jesus is the only hope for true pain. Without Him, there’s nothing left to do but rail against God with the most perverse insults imaginable.

The truth is that even if you’ve been taught these things, a time will come when an experience will make this real to you, and then you will struggle to learn how to entrust yourself to God when you can’t trust He’ll protect you from pain and tragedy, can’t trust that things will get better. The only thing you can trust is Him. That He is good. That He knows what suffering is. That if He was willing to give His son over to death for us “because of His great love with which He loved us,” then we know His love won’t stop there—He’ll withhold nothing else from us that we should have. The good He seeks for us is to reveal Himself and conform us to the image of His Son. We will suffer no pain without purpose.

Go to the Christians who learned this before you—Richard Wurmbrand, Elisabeth Elliot, Joni Eareckson Tada, Helen Roseveare, Corrie ten Boom, Kara Tippetts—Christians who learned through torture, death, disability, rape, terror, and terminal disease the truth of Paul’s “secret” to facing a life of pain: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I said to the atheist, “Those who suffer know Him better,” and I meant it. He is the God who knows suffering. He is the God who suffered. He is the God who works beauty through suffering. He is the God who resurrects.

No Broadcast Today

Greg's mother-in-law passed away last night so he's taking the day with his family.  

Trova was diagnosed with cancer late last year. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His godly ones" (Ps. 116:15). 

Trova Melberg 11/04/1915 - 3/23/2015