Transcript: The Briefing 03-05-15

The Briefing

 

March 4, 2015

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

 

It’s Wednesday, March 4, 2015.  I’m Albert Mohler and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.

1) Netanyahu’s Congress address exposes wide differences in view of challenge of Iran

Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of congress. Even though the event was boycotted by about 50 members of the Democratic Party, the chamber was well filled with both senators and members of congress. As Peter Baker of The New York Times reports, in an implicit challenge to President Obama, Mister Netanyahu told a joint meeting of congress that Iran’s “tentacles of terror” were already clutching Israel and that failing to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons could threaten the very survival of Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said,

“We must all stand together to stop Iran’s march of conquest, subjugation and terror,”

About two hours after the Israeli Prime Minister delivered his address to congress, President Obama responded at an appearance with his new Secretary of Defense, Ashton Carter. The President said,

“The prime minister didn’t offer any viable alternatives. The alternative that the prime minister offers is no deal, in which case Iran will immediately begin once again pursuing its nuclear program, accelerate its nuclear program, without us having any insight into what they’re doing, and without constraint.”

When you look at the speeches, or at least the statements made by the Israeli Prime Minister and the American President, you use there is a vast chasm in terms of their interpretation of the threat of Iran and the appropriate response. Peter Baker reported the situation well when he writes,

“At the heart of the dispute between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu is a debate over the best way to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The United States, along with European allies, Russia and China, has been negotiating a potential deal in which Iran for at least 10 years would restrict the number of centrifuges it has for enriching uranium and open its program to international inspection.

“The goal would be to limit Iran’s capacity so that it would take at least a year to build a nuclear weapon should it choose to violate or break the agreement. In theory, that would give the West enough time to respond. In exchange, international sanctions that have hampered Iran’s economy would be eased.”

Part of the problem here is that the United States and Israel do not look at this problem as being of the same stature. As the Israeli Prime Minister said the day before his address to congress, ‘For the United States the question of Iran is an issue of security. For Israel, it is an issue of survival.’

That’s indeed a dramatic different way of understanding the problem. If the Israeli Prime Minister is right, and for the United States the issue of Iran is a security problem, then the United States can respond on that very basis. It can enter into a rather long and complicated process of trying to figure out how to lessen or to mitigate the nature of that security risk. But if the Israeli Prime Minister is right, that for Israel Iran represents a question of survival, then that requires a very different level; a very different kind of response. And that indicates why the Israeli Prime Minister was willing, against the opposition of the White House, President Obama, and the Department of State, against the fact that at least 50 members of Congress refused to listen to the speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believed that he had a message that simply had to be conveyed.

As reporter David Lauter and Evan Halper reported yesterday for the Los Angeles Times, the day before the Israeli Prime Minister addressed Congress, he addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and there he made the terms of his understanding very apparent. He told that group,

“I have a moral obligation to speak up in the face of these dangers while there is still time to avert them,”

He explained that for thousands of years Jews have had no state to defend them and no voice on the international stage. He then said,

“Today, we have a voice. And tomorrow, as prime minister of the one and only Jewish state, I plan to use that voice”

The political stakes in this matter are very high. In the United States it is well-known that the relationship between Israel and the United States is now at a very low point, a low point rather unprecedented in terms of recent history between the two nations. The United States was one of the greatest allies of the Israeli state from the very beginning. It was President Harry Truman who recognized the state of Israel as a state, over against even some of the political advice given to him from within his own party and nation. And in that brave act, President Truman put the United States firmly on the side of the Jewish state.

And furthermore, many people today forget that it was the United Nations, by an official act, that authorized the establishment of Israel as a Jewish State. And they did so explicitly in the aftermath of the Nazi horrors of the Holocaust. Now we’re seeing not only the rise of anti-Semitism, we are seeing Israel increasingly marginalized and isolated on the world stage. And we are seeing many of the Western political elites turn openly hostile to Israel – especially as they claim a moral concern for the Palestinian people. That’s a very complicated issue and any Christian must be concerned with justice and freedom and protection, human flourishing for all people.

But when you consider the real challenge of Iran to the Israeli nation, when you’re looking at the fact that Iran has been one of the most dangerous nations on earth for decades now, when you consider the fact that not only prominent Iranians but the actual political leadership class of that nation, its own government, has pledged itself to extinguish Israel as the Jewish state, then you understand – to use the language of at least one member of the Obama administration – for Israel, Iran does represent an existential threat. And that is why the Israeli Prime Minister was willing to put virtually everything on the line, even as he faces upcoming elections. And even as he angered the Obama administration and the President of the United States by arriving before this joint session of Congress to deliver such an impassioned plea; such a very clear message, a message that was not well received by the White House.

There are many even within the United States and within the United States Congress who are very concerned that deal President Obama and some allies are trying to reach will not lead to success in terms of curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but will rather just give Iranian state further elasticity, further time in order to accomplish its aims. And let’s make no mistake; we know what those aims are – not only regional power and regional strength, but a worldwide influence through terrorism, and not only an open confrontation with the Israeli state, but a public pledge to wipe Israel off the map.

President Obama seems to be staking much of his political reputation on achieving some deal; perhaps some are now accusing any deal, with Iran. It’s probably unfair to the President to say that he would be satisfied with just any deal. But the Israeli Prime Minister is clearly not willing to trust the future of his country to the American President – even any American president, especially this American President with whom the relationship is now so weak. And what happened yesterday before a joint session of the United States Congress was the Prime Minister of Israel declaring that Israel sees the challenge of Iran as a matter not of security, but of survival. And in such light, everything he said makes sense. He really sees this as a matter of life and death for his nation.

The big question for America, for the American president and for all Americans, is exactly this: how do we see the threat and what, in the long run, the short run and even right now, are we willing to do about it? For the idea of the nation of Iran armed with nuclear weapons is unthinkable, but just because it’s unthinkable doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.

2) Gay marriage plaintiffs claim the ‘right side of history’ before Supreme Court 

Daily we note the progress of the moral revolution around us. At the end of last week the United States Supreme Court received briefs filed by lawyers for the plaintiffs from four states who are calling for the United States Supreme Court to legalize same-sex marriage coast-to-coast. As Richard Wolf of USA Today reports,

“Lawyers representing same-sex marriage plaintiffs from four Midwest states filed their initial briefs with the Supreme Court on Friday, claiming to be on ‘the right side of history.’”

As he explains, the lengthy document reiterated all the major arguments that had been made by gay and lesbian couples in dozens of mostly victorious cases since the High Court ruled in 2013 against the Federal Defense of Marriage Act. Wolf goes on to say,

“There were appeals based on the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection and due process, claims that marriage is a ‘fundamental right’ of all Americans, and contentions that bans in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee discriminate on the basis of both sex and sexual orientation.”

There’s a great deal in that paragraph. First of all, it points to the fact that those who are pressing for the legalization of same-sex marriage are using a hodgepodge of various legal arguments. They are arguing, as he said, that same-sex marriage must be legal under the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection or of due process. There are claims, as he says, that marriage itself is a fundamental right owed to all American citizen. That’s going to be a rather problematic exertion but it’s one of the arguments we can expect the court to consider. There are arguments on the other hand, and as he says, this was with explicit reference to Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, that the laws of those states against same-sex marriage – note these words very carefully –

“…discriminate on the basis of both sex and sexual orientation.”

That’s a very interesting phrase. That laws that regulate marriage, defining marriage as exclusively the union of a man and a woman, discriminate not only in the basis of sexual orientation, but also on the basis of sex. That’s a very interesting argument. It points to the fact that this moral revolution won’t stop with what is called same-sex marriage, it won’t even stop with other permutations or arrangements, redefinitions, of marriage. It won’t stop until the very distinction of sex, when it comes to biological gender identification, is simply eliminated as a matter of any stability in the society at all. According to Wolf the briefs also attempted to knock down arguments used by gay marriage opponents – that upholding bans will preserve state’s rights, centuries of tradition and optimal child rearing. The most important argument was articulated by one of the attorneys representing plaintiffs from the state of Kentucky. He said, as Wolf indicated in his very opening paragraph,

“These are the briefs that represent the right side of history,”

That’s an interesting argument – it’s one we’ve heard over and over again. There’s a sense in which every right minded person would want to be in terms of the general picture on the right side of history. None of us would want to be found morally deficient or morally wrong by our own children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren or –  you can imagine how many generations might one day have an opportunity look back and think about our own moral judgments. But the argument being made the you’re on the right side of history if you for same-sex marriage is an argument that’s had huge traction in the popular culture. Just look at how fast Hollywood tried to get on the so-called ‘right side of history.’ They want it known, they went documented that they were there on the right side of history, even as many of them were by their own measure on the wrong side of history even very recently.

President Obama following this logic got on the right side of history in 2012 after he was on the wrong side of history in 2008 when he oppose same-sex marriage, but he was only on the wrong side of history after he was on the right side of history back when he was running for the Illinois state legislature. If that sounds like nonsense it’s because the argument about being on the right side of history is one that has a lot of cultural traction, but what it lacks is any objective status and judgment. Virtually anyone who’s taken any position on a controversial issue at any time in history has believed that in so doing he or she was on the right side of history. No one intentionally takes a position that we expect to be revealed as wrong either in short order or in the long run.

But as President George W. Bush famously told journalist Bob Woodward years ago, the problem with trying to aim at history is we’ll be dead before the historians do their work. It’s ultimately futile to try to figure out how to be on the right side of history. We simply don’t know what kind of judgments future generations are going to make. And we also need to point out the obvious – we’re not at all certain we would agree with those judgments if we could see into the future and know what our own descendents are going to decide at least in terms of moral judgment.

The reality is that our Christian responsibility, our moral responsibility is to be found right. And our Christian understanding of history is simply this; we understand that our ultimate concern has to be that ultimate judgment that is to come. And we have no right as Christians to try to use a calculation about the direction of history to make sure that we’re on the right side of whatever that calculation would suggest. We instead have the responsibility, as the apostle Paul told Timothy, to preach the word in season and out of season. We also have a responsibility to stay on the right side of the truth regardless of what might happen in history.

The reason why the argument about being on the right side of history has so much power is because it plays right into our desire to be liked. In this case not only by our contemporaries in our own generation, but by those who were not even yet born. We want them to think well of us. But that’s not even something we could calculate if we were determined to do so. It may well be that in terms of history any number of issues that are true might be denied. That doesn’t make them any less true. It might be in the future direction of what’s called ‘history’ that many things that are untrue are affirmed as true. That doesn’t make them true.

The reality is we have to be found true in terms of the judgment of God. And if we are Christians who base our worldview upon the authority of Scripture, we don’t have any choice to try to reread Scripture in order to find ourselves on the right side of history. The bigger issue for Christians is being found on the right side of God’s judgment. And when it comes to decision such as this, the only safe place to be is where Scripture indicates we should stand. And on the question of marriage Scripture is absolutely clear. It’s not a matter of the Scripture being unclear or silent. We know exactly what God expects marriage to be because he’s told us.

Years ago someone noted that the churches and denominations that seem to be most determined to define themselves as relevant seem to be the least relevant. It just might well be, following that very same logic, that the churches and denominations (or for that matter the individuals) who are most determined to be on the right side of history may be in the end the least likely to be on the right side of the right side of history.

3) California GOP recognition of gay group too little, too late to get on ‘right side of history’

But before leaving this issue I need to point to an article the Monday edition of the Los Angeles Times reporters Seema Mehta and Melanie Mason writing from Sacramento tell us,

“In a historic break with its past, the California Republican Party voted overwhelmingly Sunday to formally recognize a gay GOP group.

“The move, which drew the condemnation of some socially conservative GOP members, grants a charter to the Log Cabin Republicans’ California chapter, making it an official volunteer arm of the state party. It is among [say the reporters] the first gay groups in the nation to be officially sanctioned by a state Republican party.”

It’s a very interesting article that appeared in Los Angeles Times – it tells us that the vote wasn’t close. It was an overwhelming vote; it was 861 to 293 at the California State Republican convention. And, according to the reporters, it showed how much the organization (meaning the Republican Party itself) has changed over the years.

The reporters cited a delegate to the convention on the winning side of this vote who said,

“It would have been the complete opposite 15 years ago. [He went on to say] the fringe does not control the party anymore. We truly are a big tent once again”

The big tent language is very similar to the language used about being on the right side of history, and in this case at least a majority of those who were voting in the California Republican Party convention decided they wanted to be a big tent on the right side of history.

But even as this vote took place at the end of last week there are still some pretty significant potholes on the way to this big change in the California Republican Party. For one thing the parties own platform states the opposite:

“We believe public policy and education should not be exploited to present or teach homosexuality as an acceptable ‘alternative’ lifestyle. We oppose same-sex partner benefits, child custody, and adoption.”

It goes on to state other things. Now what we have is a state Republican Party that decided in California that it’s going to include an openly gay group in order to say it’s a big tent headed to the right side of history, and the party is now open to the arguments coming from those who are pushing the normalization of homosexuality and the legalization of same-sex marriage (which by the way of course is already legal in the state of California). But the state party is not at all of one mind on this.

For instance, Andrew Levy a delegate from Sacramento who is an Orthodox Jew said,

“I have a hard time understanding how we’re going to charter an organization that’s in opposition to our platform.”

Now that would seem to be common sense. He went on to say,

“People supported the Republican Party because they’re strong on family values.”

The article goes on to end on the fact that there is no consensus in the Republican Party that there should be any change in that platform. But, the voters who were at least t that party convention decided to include the very group who is now going to argue against the platform the party is already committed to uphold. Try to make sense of that, and you understand the political quandary not only of the California Republican Party but of the national Republican Party, and of anyone in the political world is trying to be found on the right side of history and fast, according to the modern secular consensus.

But one of the things we need immediately to note is that trying to get on the right side of history never satisfies those who think they’re already on the right side of history. Evidence of that comes in yesterday’s edition of Los Angeles Times when the editors of the paper wrote an editorial saying  the state GOP is late to the party. The editors wrote,

“The biggest surprise from the California Republican convention Sunday was not the party’s decision to formally recognize the Log Cabin Republicans; it was that it hadn’t done so already.”

The editors of the paper say,

“Conservative stances on LGBT rights and gay marriage don’t resonate with most Californians, especially younger and moderate voters.”

The editors point to the fact that the California Republican Party hasn’t  run a successful statewide candidate since the year 2006. They conclud their editorial;

“The next logical step if the state GOP really wants to send a message of inclusion is to change its platform, which says homosexuality is unacceptable and opposes same-sex partner benefits, child custody and adoption.”

They go on to demand,

“This platform not only contradicts state law and court rulings, but it’s completely out of step with the growing acceptance and normalcy of LGBT families living in California.”

The final lines?

“It’s long past time for the California GOP to catch up with public sentiment. If it can, California might once again become a two-party state.”

So the editors of Los Angeles Times say to the California Republican Party just days after the party voted to include an openly gay group as an official part of the party, even as that openly gay group opposes the very platform of the party, that that’s not going to be enough. They haven’t done enough to get on the right side of history.

The principle again is this not only is it really impossible morally speaking to be certain you’re on the right side of history (instead we have to make certain were on the right side of truth), in reality those who are pressing on us to try to get on the right side of history – thinking themselves already of course to be on the right side of history – won’t be satisfied with anything but total capitulation. Just one day – count it – one day after the Los Angeles Times ran a front-page story announcing that the California Republican Party had moved toward what they consider the right side of history by acknowledging and approving this openly gay group –  just one day later the editors of the Los Angeles Times (the very same paper) came back on the editorial page to say,  ‘well, it’s not enough. Not close to enough.’

It turns out we should note that the action of the California Republican Party in the eyes of the editors of the Los Angeles Times didn’t even get them on the right side of history for 24 hours.

 

Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information go to my website at AlbertMohler.com. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/albertmohler.  For information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College just go to boycecollege.com.

 

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I’m in California for the Inerrancy Summit that’s a part of the Shepherds’ Conference at Grace Community Church. I would urge to look to the conference and look to the live streaming of the program. You can go to shepherdconference.org or  gracechurch.org/live.

I’m speaking to you from Los Angeles California, and I’ll meet you again tomorrow for The Briefing.