Biola UniversityThis week's topics:
- The Taliban imposes new, in Afghanistan, raising concerns about women's rights and human dignity.
- Some Christians in Oklahoma and other states in public schools, questioning its place in public education.
- Gen Z over the invention of social media, with many users experiencing negative impacts on mental health and social well-being.
- DNA and ancestry testing uncover about the prevalence of incest in modern society, sparking difficult ethical and emotional questions.
Episode Transcript
Scott: The Taliban has draconian new laws for women in Afghanistan. And some Christians don't want the Bible taught in their state's public schools. Gen Z has regrets about the widespread use of social media, and DNA and ancestry testing reveals new data on the prevalence of incest. We'll discuss these stories from this week and answer some of your questions that you've sent in. I'm your host Scott Rae, and filling in for Sean, who's traveling today, is my Talbot colleague Dr. Rick Langer, who's filled in several times before. This is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Rick, thanks so much for joining us from the mountains of Colorado. Glad to have you with us.
Rick: Thanks for having me, Scott. I always enjoy coming in to join you.
Scott: Well, here's story number one. The Taliban imposes new and harsh restrictions on women in public. This is from The Washington Post last Sunday, and they put it like this. “The new religious code issued late last month bans women from raising their voices, reciting the Quran in public, and looking at men other than their husbands or relatives. It requires women to cover the lower half of their faces in addition to donning a head covering that they were already expected to wear,†among other rules. The article points out that religious police officers are roaming places like bus stops and shopping centers, searching for dress code violations or any women who might laugh or raise their voices. And then they have comments from a handful of women, anonymously, of course, who put it like this. One of these is a Kabul resident in her 20s who runs secret classes for teenage girls. She said, "Three weeks ago, I was still hopeful that the Taliban may change and remove restrictions on girls' education. But since they published the vice and virtue laws, I've lost all hope." Another woman put it like this. She said, "The entire country has turned into a graveyard for women's dreams." This is also in the country where girls are prohibited from education after the sixth grade and are not allowed in the country's universities. And even women, Rick, are now part of the enforcement regime, and are often more aggressive toward women they perceive as violating these laws than the men who are in the enforcement business. So, Rick, give me your take on this. I'm interested to hear what you think about this.
Rick: Well, I guess there's a couple of different tracks that my mind goes on when I hear this. One is just, there's something that is profoundly shocking to me about this in terms of, just, what is the mental imagination that is going on when you think this is a proper thing to do for a woman, that this is a desirable vision for human flourishing for a woman? And it makes you wonder what assumptions are made about women and being human. Are they fully human? I mean, this kind of restriction really raises those issues to me at a pretty profound level. So that part is really disturbing. Another thing is, I wonder a little bit about this, and I’m going, where's the voice of protest? Where are the people breaking out their placards in public squares and particularly, obviously, given the last year, at our universities? Because I didn't really hear about this until I got a link from you to a news story. So I'm a little surprised at the severity of this. And I wonder about this relative to, what kind of concerns do we ignore, and why do we ignore them? I mean, this I find deeply puzzling. There's probably a few other things that I'll pick up, but we can pause there.
Scott: Let's just say I share your feeling of being perplexed about the lack of protest on the campuses. And I don't hear too many feminists speaking out on this. At least I haven't seen much in the news on this. And I'm wondering, where are the campus protesters on this? Because a couple of weeks ago, Sean and I talked about an article in The Atlantic that suggested we needed to be a little less selective in the things that we are expressing moral outrage about. And culturally, we seem to have become very selective on just a handful of things, and there's crickets on lots of other things that I think are at least as egregious, if not more so, than some of the things we see campus protests about. I'm wondering, where are the encampments? And where are the students who are taking over campus buildings? Where are the students who are demanding that we divest from investing in Afghanistan or other parts of the Middle East where these kind of restrictions are pretty profound? And, to be fair, we say this is not characteristic of the entire Middle East. There are places in the Muslim world where they do not have these kinds of draconian restrictions on women. But in the countries that do, where are the calls to divest from investing in some of those countries? It seems like our moral outrage in the last year has been pretty selective. And it makes me wonder if there's something akin to anti-Semitism that is at the basis of some of this. Your thoughts?
Rick: Yeah, I mean, I agree. And like I say, I'm very much puzzled by why this doesn't have a higher profile. There's a bit of sociology about that. I really do think an awful lot of the protest things that happen, not so much the moral reflection that you might find in philosophical or theological circles, but what you find on a college campus, is kind of faddish. There's some other dynamic rather than mere moral reasoning that goes into why people are out on campus with a placard. And I think it's good for us to remember that. And I think that happens probably for Christians as well. What we get worked up about isn't always good and systematically thought through. And so it's good to remember that part of it. But it is perplexing. And as you say, it seems like we have concerns in one area that we ignore in another. Moral consistency should, I guess, demand better of us.
Scott: Well, that's not to suggest that we have to be equally worked up about everything that we see as injustice around the world. But I think it does cause us to think hard about why we have, in some areas, a silence that's almost deafening about some of these issues. And yet we seem to be focused on others. Now, I'm not criticizing people who are focused on issues that they think are important to them. But I think at some point, we have to have some demand for consistency. And if we are concerned about injustice that is being perpetrated on a segment of the world's population, I think it calls for something a little bit more than what we've heard so far.
Rick: Agreed.
Scott: All right. Anything else on that? Let's keep our eyes open for when the first few weeks of school have…the dust is settled, and maybe we might see some people being exercised about some of this. At the least, you know, our role here, I think, is to make our listeners aware of this. And we would encourage our listeners to, you know, if this is something you want to write a letter to the editor of your newspaper about, or feature on some blog that you write or a podcast that you're on, we'd encourage you to do that. All right. Story number two. This one, I admit, Rick, caught me a little off guard. And the title of this is, “Some Christians Don't Want the Bible Taught in Their Public Schools.†Now, this story comes from The New York Times, specifically from the state of Oklahoma, as a result of their newly enacted law mandating the teaching of the Bible in their public schools. Now, they’re not the only ones who are involved in this. This is echoed in Texas, which has similar legislation that was passed some time ago, and in Louisiana, state law there now mandates the posting of the Ten Commandments in all public schools, including their universities. But there's unexpected pushback coming from evangelical Christians in some of these parts of the country. One superintendent in a public school region in Oklahoma said, “This is the one thing that has truly shocked me, how many have truly said, ‘That's why we have eight, nine, ten churches in town. They can do that,’†referring to teaching the Bible. And parents have told him, “That's my job.†And one teacher, who serves as a pastor, told him flat out, “No, we shouldn't do that.†Another superintendent says, “We educate everybody that shows up,†and he added that in-depth religious instruction should be up to the family, up to the parents, up to the church, whatever that looks like for them. “That's none of our business in the public schools.†But, Rick, other officials insist that the Bible is not only a religious text, but also a historical document with centuries of influence on American culture and society. For example, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas, who is a practicing Catholic, has said about their new state developed curriculum that it will help students, quote, “Better understand the connection of history, art, community, literature and religion on pivotal events like the Civil Rights Movement and the American Revolution. Now, keep in mind, one survey conducted last year by the Associated Press showed a significant divide over the intersection of religion and public education. Among U.S. adults who responded, 37% said religion has too little influence over what children are taught. 31% said it has too much, and 31% said it has just the right amount. So it sort of reminds me of the, you know, Goldilocks and the three bears, and the porridge dishes that are too hot, too cold, and one is just about right.
Rick: [laughs]
Scott: So, Rick, what's your take on this? Would you favor the teaching of the Bible in public schools like is mandated in Texas and Oklahoma?
Rick: Yeah, let me pick up on the Texas mandate. I haven't read them closely, so I don't know how different they are. But what came up in this article was a reference to a curriculum that helped put religion back in its proper place in the narrative that didn't shy away from religion, that told the religious side of our history, and presumably included with it things like the Ten Commandments and probably a whole host of other things. That, to me, sounds like a very prudent, good, valuable and, honestly, an honest way to teach, because to talk and act like religion has not been wildly influential in the shaping of the American Republic is just to get the history of the American Republic wrong. Whether you want to call us a Christian nation or not, there's all kinds of things to discuss about, you know, the role of Christianity. But the significance of it, I think, is beyond question, and you can't tell a good, honest story of our nation without including that in a meaningful way. So, I'm a fan of that. Now, the flip side of this with the teaching of the Bible a) being mandated and b) being done by a public school teacher, I'm probably one of those people. I kind of was surprised by the headline, too, but as I thought about it and read the article, I realized I have more sympathy with that than I thought I might. Because I'm leery to take…let's pause for a second on the Bible reading, but pick up the idea of prayer in the public schools. It is interesting, number one, to mandate it, and then number two, once you mandate prayer in the public schools, to stop and think, who will be leading those prayers? Will you have atheist teachers leading those prayers? How will those prayers be worded? If you're in Hawaii and the majority of the people in your school district are Buddhist, will they be Buddhist prayers? If you happen to be in Dearborn, Michigan, and the majority of the people there are Muslim, will they be Muslim prayers? These are relevant questions. And then the same thing happens when it comes time to teach the Bible. How will it be taught by people who have no faith in God? Are we going to have a religious test for school teachers? We don't have religious tests for our politicians. Do we establish them for our school teachers? If so, who's in control of those religious tests? So I think there's a lot of perplexity, and the article told one great story. This isn't actually about a public school, but about someone who went to a vacation Bible school, a backyard thing that we do in the summers. They were Lutheran background. Their kids went to the vacation Bible school, but the person who was teaching it was Baptist. They told the kid that they would be going to hell if they had only been baptized as an infant, and they needed to be re-baptized. They're talking to a 10-year-old. And you suddenly realize, yeah, that happens. And what do you want actually taught to your kids? And don't you want a lot of your religious instruction actually to be owned by the church, not a generic institution of the state? So I think there's some really good issues raised here, and I'm sympathetic to caution about how that kind of instruction goes.
Scott: Yeah, Rick, this story reminded me right off the bat of an incident that I had with my middle son when he was a sophomore in high school. He went to public schools. And in his literature class, they were reading Martin Luther King's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.†We were just talking about what he was doing for school, and he was telling me about that. And I said, you know, be sure to watch out for all of the biblical and theological allusions and references there are in King's letter, because it was shot through with the theological foundation for his view of human rights and his view of equality among all citizens. And my son, when he came back from reading it, he came back to me and said, "Dad, I don't know what you're talking about. There was no reference to anything about God or the Bible or theology in this ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail.’ And so I said, "That can't be right." And so we looked it up together on the web, and we read the entire “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.†And it turns out I was right. It is shot through with biblical allusions and things like that. And it turned out that he had been given an edited version of the letter, which had edited out all of the religious references to what King had written about.
Rick: Wow.
Scott: And I remember he was so annoyed with his teacher for just presenting a view of this that was misleading. And I think this was a good example of a teacher's bias coming through, that all of those were excerpted out. Now, I never talked to the teacher about it. He or she may have had good reasons for doing that. But I think at the least, it misrepresented the central place of religion, particularly Christian faith, in the Civil Rights Movement. You know, we don't hear about it all that much, but the Civil Rights Movement in the '60s was born and sort of weaned in a specifically religious framework. Had it not been for African-American churches, I think the Civil Rights Movement would have been much slower. I think it would have also been accomplished, of course, but it would have taken, I think, much more time. It was African-American churches that galvanized a lot of people to make sure that the civil rights legislation actually got passed. And so I think it was just a good example of how religion is at times marginalized and underappreciated in its contribution to social and cultural life or changes, or it’s not balanced. You know, we hear in some of the public schools a lot about the harm that comes from religion. But we don't hear much about the positive benefits. And I think, Rick, you're right that in America's founding, Protestantism was basically just the air that people breathed. It was just part of the landscape. And so to think that that had no impact on the way the Founding Fathers put the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, together—how they envision government—is just, you know, at the least, it lacks nuance. And I think at worst, it's designed to deliberately present an unbalanced view of this. So, you know, I think about Rodney Stark, the sociologist. Even the atheist Tom Holland, in his book Dominion, has written about the cultural contributions of Christianity. And not that long ago, Richard Dawkins claimed that he was not real thrilled about living in a country that didn't have Christian roots to govern the things that are of value to society. Now, of course, he doesn't believe any of it personally, but believes that Christian faith has utility for providing the kind of society that he would want to live in. So…and I admit I share your nervousness about people in Oklahoma, for example, teaching the Bible, who are not trained to do that. I'm not sure we're at a place where we're going to require some theological education for people who can teach the Bible. But in our churches, we certainly do. And I think where they're being trained, who writes the curriculum…I think those are all really good questions to raise. And at the end of the day, I think it's parents who are ultimately responsible for the religious upbringing of their children. I would not be relying on the public schools to do that. But I think you've got a great point of appreciating the general value of religion for social change, the way we view it, justice, things like that. I think we're just completing the picture. In fact, I think you can make a good argument that religion is not only a significant contributor, but the most significant contributor to a lot of a lot of the social movements and changes that we've seen not only in this country, but in others preceding it. Any other thoughts on this?
Rick: You know, the thing I would pick up, taking Tom Holland's Dominion as a great example—well, yeah, Rodney Stark, Tom Holland, and several others who've written these kinds of books—those are the things that I think absolutely need to be in the curriculum for our schools that give this kind of a story, because I think it's just accurate to history. Do I want Calvin's Institutes to be required? Well, how would a Lutheran feel about that? How would an Eastern Orthodox?
Scott: Or a Roman Catholic?
Rick: How would a Roman Catholic feel about that? And particularly with things from the Reformation, the battles within the Reformation that were sectarian…I mean, the things that were said by Luther about Catholics or Anabaptists are just shocking.
Scott: Not to mention Jewish students.
Rick: Correct. And I think this is where we need to get a clear vision of what we understand the role of government, the role of public institutions to be in the place of Christian institutions. And I think one of the greatest things America has ever done for the health of our religious practices is to have a meaningful separation between church and state, and not to simply have a state church. Because a state church has tended, historically, to be weak. It's tended to lose its prophetic voice. It tends to be non-vibrant. It's not demanded to lean on the Lord for its power and strength. It leans on a government, and it becomes eviscerated because of doing that.
Scott: I would suggest that most state churches I would qualify as, if not dead, on life support.
Rick: Yes, there you go.
Scott: Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for the way the founders set up basically a free market for religious ideas and influence. And that you could have as much influence over the broader culture as you could sustain. Which is why, for example, the Jewish community is a very small segment of the population. They have pretty significant influence over two significant institutions in our culture, the press and entertainment, and in the universities. And, likewise, I think the LGBTQ community is a very small percentage compared to the overall population. Yet they have an influence disproportionate to their size. Which I think is entirely appropriate in our system, for interest groups to be able to carry as much social and political influence as they can sustain.
Rick: Yeah.
Scott: All right. We good to go on to number three? All right. This is another one that caught me a little off guard. This is from The New York Times on Monday, and the title is, “Gen Z Has Regrets, Particularly about Social Media.†This is from the New York University prof and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who's one of one of our friends here. We've had him on campus several times. I think one of the most insightful people on the social scene today, and the author of a terrific book—which Sean and I talked about several weeks ago—called The Anxious Generation, which he wrote with his colleague, Will Johnson of The Harris Poll. And the question they were raising is, what does Gen Z, ages 18 to 27, think about social media? Was it a good invention, or is it one that they wish had never been invented? Interesting. The authors recently collaborated on a nationally representative survey of over a thousand Gen Z adults and asked them online about their own social media use, about their views on the effects of social media on themselves and on society, and what kind of reforms they would support. Now, here's what they found. First, the number of hours spent on social media every day is, in my view, astonishing. Over 60 percent of the respondents say they spend at least four hours a day on social media, with 23 percent, almost a quarter, saying they spend seven hours or more each day using social media. Second, the respondents recognized the harm social media causes society, with 60 percent saying it has a negative impact versus 30 percent who say it has a positive impact. And as they reflect on their own lives, just over half of the total sample say that social media has benefited their lives, and 29 percent—we're getting close to a third—say that it has hurt them personally. Here we're talking about, I think, Rick, a range of documented risks that affect heavy users of social media, things like sleep deprivation, body image distortion, depression, anxiety, exposure to content promoting suicide and eating disorders, sexual predation, what they call sextortion, and other problematic use, which is the term psychologists use to describe compulsive overuse that interferes with success in other areas of life. And now, here's the acid test that they point out: the test of gratitude over regret. They asked respondents to tell them, for various platforms and products, if they wished that it was never invented. Really, really interesting stuff. Five items produced relatively low levels of regret. YouTube, 15 percent. Netflix, 17 percent. The Internet itself, 17 percent. Messaging apps, 19 percent. The smartphone, 21 percent. But the responses were different for the main social media platforms that parents and Gen Z itself worried about the most. Many more respondents wish that these had never been invented. Instagram, 34 percent. Facebook, 37 percent. Snapchat, 43 percent. And the most regretted platforms of all: TikTok, 47 percent, and X, Twitter, 50 percent. Now, of course, these are young adults. Gen Z is the generation that has grown up with early smartphone use. And really, I think it's fair to say this generation is the first one that really doesn't know what life was like without smartphones. Right? So, Rick, I'm really curious to see your take on this, because, you know, I have a Gen Z kid. And, you know, we've had lots of Gen Z folks in our home with his friends. And they spend a lot of time looking at social media. So what's your take here? I'm very interested to hear what you think.
Rick: Yeah. So, I mean, you guys have talked about Haidt in the generation of anxiety, or the anxiety generation, whatever the title of the book is. And I completely agree with the profound impact that it has had. I was very much struck by what you mentioned, this sense of, do you wish this thing had never been invented? And Haidt includes a comparative example of, you know, if everyone said, “I wish walkie talkies had never been invented,†what would we do with them? And you can ask the same question about the telephone. You could ask that question about an automobile, because there's bad things about these things. Automobiles kill thousands of people. But do we turn around and say, “I wish they were never invented?†I think you get very low numbers of people who would say, “I wish it was never invented.†And it's stunning to me that you look at something like TikTok and Facebook and find these 50 percent of people sort of numbers wishing it had never been invented. And I'll point out, Scott, people wouldn't be saying that if they weren't people who are actually familiar with the platforms.
Scott: Correct.
Rick: Like, if you'd ask me, do I wish TikTok had never been invented? I’d go, I have no idea. I've never…literally, I don't have a TikTok account. I don't care. I don't pay attention to it. So it's hard for me to get worked up about it. So you have a sample bias in that number of people who are actual users of this thing. And given that they still have 50 percent wishing that that did not exist…that is stunning to me. So, that really struck me.
Scott: Let me point out here, too, just in the interest of full disclosure, my colleague here, Sean, has all of these, and is very active on all of these, and uses them very profitably for the gospel. So, I'm not sure he would be one of those, although he's not a Gen Z either. But I'm not sure he would be one of those respondents who would just give the same sort of blanket negative about the various social media platforms. So, Rick, here's my question for you. If so many people regret these things having been invented, why don't they give them up?
Rick: [laughs]
Scott: And why aren't these platforms struggling financially?
Rick: So that, to me, is the perfect question here, Scott. And that was the thing I really wanted to talk about as well. It is remarkable that people have disdain for these platforms, but yet, paradoxically, they're using them, quote, freely. No one's forcing them to use them. And then I would add the question, or are they? So this is very reminiscent of, for example, tobacco products that are intentionally made to be addictive. They measure the amounts of nicotine that maximize addiction. And they, you know, shop for that. And so, all of this stuff has come out in recent years. We have huge restrictions on tobacco. And it's interesting to ask the question, were tobacco users truly free not to use tobacco? And we commonly think, and in one sense, certainly the answer to that is yes. But I would point out—and Scott, I'm sure you're familiar with this literature—there's a huge amount of philosophical literature talking about free will and freedom of the will. And a big issue that people use for examples and discussion on this is the case of the addict, the alcoholic who hates his alcoholism and what it's done. He's lost his wife, he's lost his kids, he's tried quitting eight different times, including going through quitting things, and yet he can't quit. And do you want to say he's free to quit, or is there something going on that is beyond mere freedom? And it seems like our social media platforms have been orchestrated by those in charge of them exactly for this purpose, to create kind of an addictive attachment to them. And the way they give you news feeds, the way they control it, is just like controlling the amount of nicotine or alcohol or whatever it is that you might want to get the person addicted to. It has that same systematic approach. I don't believe it's because they want to destroy people. I believe it's because they are being good capitalists, as people might say. They're trying to make their platform profitable. That's what's going through their head. But they're abandoning a sense of responsibility for their fellow human beings. And I think it's good to realize this is built off a pretty similar structure of intentionally creating addictive type behaviors in the people who are using the platforms.
Scott: You know, my dad tried to quit smoking for years, and finally did. But it was a world class battle. And I think if he were here today and you asked him, I'm not sure he would say that he ever felt totally free to quit. It took an enormous amount of willpower for him to do that, and many, many false starts along the way. And I think some of that is certainly true with other addictions. And I think we've been reluctant so far to characterize social media use and overuse in some of the same terms that we use for other addictions. But the work that our friend Jonathan Haidt has done in his book The Anxious Generation…I'd really recommend our listeners, especially if you have middle school or teenage kids or high school age kids, to read his book The Anxious Generation, because he points out that this upswing in anxiety and depression and mental health issues for kids corresponds pretty nicely with the advent of social media platforms. Now, it's not to say there's a direct cause and effect relationship in every case, but there's a pretty significant correlation that I think is hard to ignore. Now, full disclosure also, I don't do a lot on social media. Sean and I are really different on that. And part of the reason I don't is because I just found the exposure to some of the political divisiveness just to be toxic to my own soul. And I felt like, just for my own well-being, I needed to distance myself from that. My wife, on the other hand, is an avid social media user. And I'm very grateful for that, because if anybody wants to find out what's going on in my life, just look at her social media posts.
Rick: [laughs]
Scott: And so, she chronicles my life really nicely in the things that we do together and as a family. Rick, one of the key observations here is that 45% of Gen Z folks surveyed here say that they won't let their kids have smartphones until high school.
Rick: Yeah.
Scott: And I know a handful of parents who have done that, but there is a tidal wave of pressure coming against parents who want to limit smartphone use for their kids. And I just think this is really…saying no to social media, I think especially for adolescents, is really challenging to do, and I don't want to understate the challenge of that. But I also want to be fair and recognize the correlation between some of the mental health issues that our social psychologists have found that I think is really important. Roughly half—this is really interesting, too—of Gen Z has regret about social media being invented, but still use it for five-plus hours a day.
Rick: Yeah.
Scott: Again, I'm reluctant to use the term addiction to describe social media, but I'm not sure I've got a better term for that. It's just really hard for people who have grown up with this to turn it off. And not to say there aren't people who use it very responsibly, use it in moderation. I think my wife's a good example of that. She's not tethered to her phone, but she uses it really well to keep people informed about some of the things we're doing. We don't express opinions on social media. We talk about events in our lives and our family. When somebody passes away…one of her favorite musicians just passed away the other day, J.D. Souther. And that dates us both, I know.
Rick: [laughs]
Scott: But she made a really nice post in his tribute. A lot of sadness for her. And I think all that is a very appropriate use. But I think it's different for others.
Rick: One thing that I would add…let me just pick up on something you were saying about the addictive, and whether you want to use that word. And I'm pretty much in agreement with you. I don't know what better word to use, though I'm happy to have a person push back and say, well, technically addiction means this, that, or the other thing. And it doesn't qualify by the definition. But I'm just saying the behavior of the phenomenon is that way. One of the things I think we fail to appreciate enough are the ways it comes to people socially. So back to the teenagers—can they just say no to their smartphone? Whatever role Facebook or Twitter or TikTok is using in creating addictive structures, the other thing that happens is it becomes a means of communication. So if my kid doesn't have a smartphone, and the way his eight friends communicate is by, you know, a text message thing, or Facebook or Instagram saying, hey, we'll meet at the mall at 10 o'clock, literally, he doesn't get that message. And so part of the pushback is probably going to have to go beyond just telling our children to be stronger in terms of their ability to resist these temptations, or individual parents, but having things where schools themselves push back and say, we're going to shut down smartphone usage all during school hours and things like that, because it forces students to then communicate in other ways, and it allows room for people who are willing to say we're not wanting to lean in to still have their kids included in all the things you'd want to have your kids included in. If I didn't have a telephone when I was growing up, Scott, it would have been really hard for me to have friends, because that's how we connected. There used to be a thing, it hung on your wall, and you kind of put it up your ear. I had one of those in my house, right? If I didn't, it would have been really hard for me socially. And if I was Amish and had that prevented from me, it would have been very difficult. So some of this is a broader social policy thing that I think really would be good to do with some of those kind of structures.
Scott: Yeah. And in some states, actually, like California, for example, has passed laws to limit cell phone use during school hours. And we'll see—that's not going to roll out for another few months—how that's enforced. And, you know, they've already gotten pretty significant pushback on it, but they seem committed to going forward with that.
Rick: Yeah. My hope is that we will do that and do that well.
Scott: Yeah. All right. Story number four. And Rick, I have to admit here, there aren't that many stories we cover that turn my stomach, but this was one of them. This is the prevalence of incest that is established by DNA and ancestry testing. This is one of those unintended consequences that I'm not sure anybody really saw coming with the ancestry.com and the 23andMe and these different ways to trace your ancestry. This comes from The Atlantic magazine on Wednesday of this week. And as it turns out, as people are discovering more and more about their ancestry, they are finding that incest is more common than we might think. The article begins, interestingly, with the story of a man born to and abandoned by a 14 year old mom, put in foster care, and later adopted by his foster family. He started searching for his birth mom in his early 20s. Gave up because it was one dead end after another. Gave it one last try at age 40. Ancestry.com had just come along selling mail-in kits, which he bought and sent back and got connected to a genealogist, which helped him narrow his search down to two women who were cousins. It turned out, they discovered together, his birth mom was actually the second woman of these cousins. But the genealogist had another piece of news, too. She had unexpectedly figured out something about this person’s biological father. And she put it like this, “It looks like your parents are related.†And this young man didn't know what to say at first. And she said, “Do you understand what I mean?†He said he thought so. And then she spelled it out. She said, “Either your mom's father or your mom's brother is your father.†He describes a sea of emotions that rose to a boil inside of him. Anger, hurt, worthlessness, disgust, shame and devastation, all at the same time. In years of wondering about his birth, he had never, ever considered the possibility of incest. And here's the big idea in this. “Widespread genetic testing is uncovering case after secret case of children born to close biological relatives, providing an unprecedented accounting of incest in our modern society.†Now, he finally wrote a letter to his bio mom, to which she did not respond. As of the writing of the article, she had not responded as of that time. So, Rick, I'm not quite sure what to make of this. Does this one sort of grab you in the gut like it did for me?
Rick: Well, yeah, you put it really well about kind of the unintended side effects of something. People begin doing something that, you know, may or may not be a good thing. I don't know. I haven't thought that much about genetic testing. But suddenly you not only have suspicion, but you have objective proof. That was one of the things that came up in the article, is that you make these discoveries, and then you almost have a responsibility to talk to her. Or do you? The person you're talking to can't really deny it, because here's the test. So that, to me, was one of those things that you're like, wow, that opens a whole new door. As I recall, the article included a note that someone had earlier estimated maybe one in a million pregnancies are a result of incest. This was an article back in the, I think, 60s or 70s. The most recent person said, look, the numbers are like one in seven thousand, and that was based on some hard evidence. The person clearly did not include all the people who were, you know, born of incest. They were just saying, look, we've got proof for this many. Do you want to speculate how many more there are? And that, to me, really is shocking, Scott. And I'm not sure what to say about it apart from just the shock. And it is weird to know in the article…I would encourage our listeners to take a look at the article, because it did a really good job unpacking the difficulty then of, how do you deal with that bit of knowledge that you have? And there's some wonderful things that came out of that in terms of people creating a support group so they feel like they're not the only person, because that's one of the things that becomes doubly hard. But then the flip side dynamic is, do you come back to a person who says, hey, I know that my uncle is actually my father, too? Those sorts of things become really, really, really hard and problematic.
Scott: You know, the first thing that struck me on this, Rick, is that this experience of kids looking for their bio parents in adoption is just the opposite of kids who are looking for their bio parents in cases of incest. Because most kids who are adopted have a bit of a hole in their heart, looking for their bio parent to fill that. And in many cases, they want a relationship with…this is also true of kids who have been conceived via sperm or egg donors. They want a relationship with that person who's made that biological contribution to them. It's just the opposite in these cases of kids who find out that their bio parent was a relative of their bio mom. And so this reaction on the part of the person who was featured in this article of revulsion and disgust and shame and all these things, wanting to distance himself from his bio family, you know, that's quite a different response than most kids who are in adoptive families who desperately want to connect with their bio parent. And I love that…yeah, go ahead. You want to comment on that?
Rick: Well, I just want to make the comment that both sides of this, both the positive and negative response to that information, reinforce one thing that's the same, and that is the importance of our actual biological parentage. The idea that a parent is just a significant other, a mentor, a person who fills some role like that…I don't want to diminish the role of mentors or teachers, or these other people who may be significant others for a child. But there is something profound and kind of unalterable about that sense of, this person is my biological parent. We have kind of moved into an era where we tend to diminish that. Families can mean anything. You define your own family, all those sorts of things. And I'm like, that isn't really the way it seems to work in a person's heart and soul. We have a need for that. And when it works right, it's wonderful. When it works bad, it's really difficult. And you have a lot of things that kind of happen in between.
Scott: Let me go back and cite the stat that you mentioned, one in seven thousand is what we have documented evidence for. This comes from a geneticist in the UK at the University of Edinburgh. And here's the way he put this. That's way, way more than many people would imagine. And the number, that one in seven thousand, is way more than people would imagine. But that number is actually just the floor, the minimum.
Rick: Right.
Scott: Because it only reflects on the cases that result in pregnancy that did not end in miscarriage or abortion, and that led to the birth of the child who grew into an adult who volunteered for a research study.
[laughter]
Rick: That's a tiny pool.
Scott: That's a very small minority. And so, I think the number, I'm sure, is much more significant than this. And how we'll ever get accurate data on this, I'm not sure, because this is still…even if the person, you know, becomes aware that they have a bio parent that's the result of incest, that's still going to be, I think, a well-kept secret. Here's the question. Final question for you, Rick, on this. You know, it occurred to me, maybe if we discover that there are a whole slew of kids being produced by these incestuous relationships, I wonder if this might lead to some sort of social acceptance or some sort of normalization of incest, much like it's done, I think, for sperm and egg donation. I'm optimistic that we can distinguish between—now, we won't stigmatize the person born of incest, but we can still stigmatize the incest itself. What do you think of that? Do you think we might be headed down a path where this is becoming more normalized?
Rick: I think not and I hope not, but I don't know if my thinking is determined by my hoping. [laughs] Well, there you go. I do think we have deep revulsions towards incest that are kind of hardwired into us. This is one of those things where, you know, the prohibitions, the three kind of classic universals in human cultures: a prohibition against murder, a prohibition against incest, and a prohibition—I can't even remember what the third thing is, but anyhow, there's three of these things that seem to come up again. Incest is one of those things that is just very strongly viewed negatively. And I think that will make it feel different than all these other ones. It's interesting…for all of the change in our sexuality, and sexual freedoms, and you do whatever you want, I am amazed at how, in fact, our attitude towards sexual molestation of children has actually almost amplified, how wrong it is. And you get all these weird things where, oh, this person was 17 years old for 348 days. So, therefore, they're a minor, and therefore this person goes to prison. Five days, 10 days, 15 days later, it would have been all different. We have really strong protections about our sense of child abuse, and I think that would go with incest.
Scott: It's interesting to note, too—just the last comment on this—I suspect that most of the women who are giving birth by incestuous relationships are underage. I don't get a sense that we got women in their 30s who are giving birth through incestuous relationships. So I think your point is well taken. All right. We need to answer some questions here before we run out of time.
Rick: Let’s do it.
Scott: All right. Here's the first one. I have a moral and biblical question about sports betting. “My son just turned 18 a week ago, and he's placed bets on various sports almost every day since his birthday. Relatively small amounts, and he's won most of the bets. So, financially, his experience is positive, but we're having a hard time helping him see the lack of biblical wisdom in gambling and the moral problems with gambling, not to mention the fact that he seems to have moved from no gambling to hard addiction in the course of one week. How would you advise someone biblically and morally on sports betting?†Rick, take it away.
Rick: [laughs] Oh, thank you for that opportunity. So, a couple of quick comments on this. Gambling is like many other things that I think Christians have a strong aversion to, but when you're suddenly called on to give chapter and verse, you're like, where's gambling mentioned in the Bible? It becomes a very difficult question to answer. And I would point out there's lots of things that are like that. Piracy on the high seas, cannibalism, things like that that aren't mentioned in the Bible. A lot of drugs like marijuana, heroin and things like that. But we draw firm moral convictions. The one thing I do want to say is that then you are obliged to actually show your work, because I think we think that there ought to be a good clear Bible verse, but often there isn't. I think with gambling, that would be true. So let me make a couple of quick comments on this in terms of showing your work. One thing I'd point out, right at the beginning where the person who brought the question up said, hey, my son's doing fine, so he's gaining money. There's no, you know, no losses to that. I'm just like, yeah, well, that will be self-correcting. Gambling is entirely predicated upon everyone who participates having a net loss. There may be a handful of people who learn to do this professionally, learn their cautions or whatever. I haven't dug into that. But the bottom line is, it is entirely geared so that you're losing money. And that is a key thing in terms of the biblical thinking about this. It becomes, simply, bad stewardship of your resources that you have been given. You are squandering resources that God has given you, not investing them. If you think about the parable of the talents, you're on the wrong end of that. If only you were hiding it under a bushel, or, you know, putting a handkerchief and burying it in the ground. You're going beyond that and actively losing money for no gain, and probably giving that money to people who will use it badly. So that's an issue. Another thing with gambling is, it's a way you get money for doing nothing constructive. There's a greed element to gambling that is a motivator, and it’s oftentimes led by covetousness as well. You want something, and gambling is a quick and easy way to get it. And it's a thing that avoids, with that, the work ethic and delayed gratification that is so prevalent in the book of Proverbs, where you have people, you know, they learn from the ant, you store up for the future, you work hard so one day you will have it, all of those sorts of things. Gambling is the inference, try and get it now without doing anything. So, those would be some of the reasons I would push back on gambling biblically. But it is right to say there's a bit of work that has to be done to show that. And I'm happy to let you fill in all the blanks of what I didn't cover.
Scott: I think you covered that pretty well. I will say that, you know, my niece, who we love and adore, married a guy who's a professional poker player. And he's made a very good living at it. He's mature, solid, stable. They have a child, and he's fulfilling all his responsibilities and supporting his family. And he seems to be just fine, and, you know, not having succumbed to any addiction to gambling. I think he's probably an exception to the general rule. But there's a whole, you know…it's not uncommon for people to make a living doing this. And I think if you are responsible and a good steward of your income, I think that this can be a responsible way of making a living. I don't think that's, you know…that's probably not for the average person. But I think that the cautions are well taken about stewardship and vulnerability to addiction. I think both those are the case. All right. Second one, I love the part of this that this person starts with. They say, “I love your podcast and listen every week.†Let's close in prayer and go home.
Rick: [laughs]
Scott: “I have a lovely friend who I would describe as a progressive Christian. She and I meet regularly to share our perspectives on areas in which we disagree. It's not a debate. Our goal is not to change each other's minds, but to hear and understand each other's perspective. So far, we've talked about truth, sharing our faith with our kids, the most recent role of women in the church, and the gendering of God. For our next topic, we hope to discuss transgenderism. What are some good questions to ask on this topic?†Rick, I'll let you start, and then I've got a couple of questions, too.
Rick: Yeah. And I always wonder with this what people's personal backstory with this is. In other words, if people are worked up about transgenders and being an ally or advocate for transgenderism, I would often invite them to tell the backstory. Why is this so important to you? Tell me the story about that. Because you find interesting things, and it also creates an opportunity for bridge building and conversation that just, strategically, is really good for having a more healthy and a less combative conversation. So I'd encourage you to include that kind of a question at the outset, just to see where the person's at. Regarding some of the moral and theological side, one of the things I would ask a person is, well, how do you understand the biological aspects of sex? Are they things that are trivial? Are they simply a cultural concept? How do you understand those things in your transgender kind of vision of this? And then, how significant are those aspects compared to the psychological and sociological aspects of sex? In other words, does biology matter at all, or is the only thing that matters the psychology or perhaps the sociology of our sexuality? If so, I'd like to know why. Why do you think that? And another question I'd ask is, do you think all of our desires and feelings are self-validated?
Scott: That’s a great question.
Rick: In other words, because I desire it, because I'm feeling it, it must be true. I would like to argue that, biblically, we're very suspicious about our natural desires. We have natural desires because of a fallen nature for sin and covetousness. Almost all the Ten Commandments are attached to things we naturally feel a desire for, right?
Scott: That's why we have ethics.
Rick: You got it. It's all about these sorts of misplaced, misshapen desires, distorted affections, disordered loves is a language that an Augustine might use. And why is it you would think that some of the desires and feelings of a transgender person wouldn't fit within that? And that doesn't mean, therefore, this is a terrible human being. They're like all of us. We are victims of the Fall. We are harmed by the Fall. And, therefore, it's natural to think we have disordered desires. The danger is to think because you desire it, it must be proper and should therefore be rewarded and incentivized. So that, to me, would be a thing I'd talk about. And one other thing I've had come up a lot in my classes at Biola talking to students, and particularly female student athletes, if biology isn't the foundation of sexuality, then why do we have men's and women's sports? Shouldn't they just be abolished? Aren't we reinforcing our cultural differences? And if you ask—and I have done this. I have asked my female students who are athletes, would you like to have that boundary abolished so you could compete in men's sports, and men can compete in women's sports? Let’s do away with it all, so you all compete against each other. And they basically look at me like I'm nuts. Because breaking down that line would actually dismantle the reality of women's sports. And many of us, and I would include myself here, are excited about the fact that we've had women's sports grow dramatically in the last 30 or 40 years. I think that's been a great thing. And I think breaking down that barrier, in most cases, would actually almost abolish that. If you suddenly say, yeah, it's only one thing, free for all, so women go ahead and play football, or whatever it might be…
Scott: That's a great question. I'd be sure and ask that one. I'd want to know if this person thinks gender dysphoria is something natural, or is it the result of the general entrance of sin? And, therefore, is it something to be dealt with, or something to be celebrated? That's another question that I would add to this. All right. We've got time for one more. This is from a listener who is commenting on our discussion of designer babies a week ago. “You said children are a gift from God that we should receive without specifications, because specifications undermine both the gift and the giver. God, the ultimate gift giver, knows what we parents need better than we do. I agree with all of this, which makes me think, well, maybe we can just stop there. But my question is how to reconcile it with the idea that birth control is permissible. It seems to me that declining birth rates we see around the world are showing this to be untrue. Would you please help me reconcile the advice against designer babies with the allowance of birth control for procreation?†And, in my view, these are two different questions entirely. In my view, the mandate to multiply and fill the earth has been fulfilled many times over. Although I think he's right that the declining birth rates is something I think that is concerning. But I don't think that by itself creates an obligation for every married couple to have children. I think there can be good kingdom reasons—Sean and I have talked about this before—for not wanting to have children. There can also be lots of not so good reasons for not wanting to have children. But birth control, I think, is something entirely different. Just because we see children as a gift doesn't mean that we are obligated to receive as many as we are humanly capable of procreating. And there are other principles that govern that. There are principles of stewardship and responsible parenting for the number of children that you actually have. So, quick comment on this, Rick?
Rick: Yeah. So one thing I'd point out is the difference between simply not having a baby because of birth control and the designer babies. The designer baby takes this playing the role of God to a higher level. It commoditizes a baby. The baby becomes made to order. So here's a good thought question to get you thinking about that. If you order and pay money for a baby who should have an IQ of 120, and the baby you actually get only has an IQ of 100, do you get your money back? Can you return the baby for a refund? Can you sue the person who advertised the 120 IQ? And how would your kid feel about you suing the person that you got them from? This whole area gets really weird, really destructive, really harmful. And so, the commoditizing is a very, very different thing than just, do you have a baby or do you not? The second thing I would point out, just really quickly, on this issue of the obligation to multiply and fill. So, this is an interesting question, Scott, and I might see this a little differently. We haven't talked about this. But I think multiplying and filling is a mandate for every generation. It isn't that you get to do it once and for all, because you can have a generation that did it, and then when you don't, that's no longer fulfilled. So I do think this is a responsibility for every generation. And I would point out, probably for cultures within a given generation…in other words, I worry that many European countries, Western countries, are almost outsourcing the population growth to the Third World or to immigrants who might come into them. In the absence of that, they would have declining birth rates that would be equivalent of what the Black Plague did to Europe when it killed a third of the population. The reason that the population of many Western countries hasn't dropped dramatically is because we've outsourced having our children. I think that's a sign of an unhealthy culture. That said, therefore, the multiplying and filling should have a shalomic vision to it. It's a way to create flourishing human community. So it's a stewardship task. And that doesn't mean you have an unbounded excess, but rather a wise stewardship relative to this. You figure out, what can a community sustain? What can a culture sustain? So when you have radical changes in infant mortality, you do have different issues about, should everyone have as many babies as possible? Because now you don't have one baby in five living to maturity, but rather, you have five babies in five.
Scott: That's a big difference.
Rick: And it's a big difference. So these are all stewardship questions. And I do think these pertain significantly, and differentiate between, do we just maximize the number of babies, and is this the same as design?
Scott: And if we weren't out of time, we would pick up this conversation in much more detail. But I appreciate you raising really good insights in answer to this particular question. So, Rick, I'm so glad you could be with us today. And thank you for taking time out of your vacation to join us. This has been super fun, super helpful and insightful. And I appreciate you coming on with us.
Rick: So glad to be able to join you, Scott.
Scott: Thanks. This has been the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, offering all sorts of programs, masters and bachelors, in Southern California and online. Visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more. To submit comments, ask questions, make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, you can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. Join us on Tuesday for our conversation with Mark Matlock on engaging the spiritually open and curious. Thanks for listening. And in the meantime, think biblically about everything.
