Biola UniversityThis week:
- Are conservative in America?
- The growing trend of children struggling to make friends raises alarming health concerns.
- Gen Z women are —what's behind this shift?
- A Missouri man’s sparks questions about the fairness of the death penalty.
- Is working from home a moral issue, as Elon Musk claims?
- Listener questions on the return of Christ and how to approach political news from a biblical perspective.
Episode Transcript
Scott: Are conservative Christians standing alone in this upcoming election? Why do kids tend to have no friends? Will young Gen Z men take over American Christianity? And a death penalty case in Missouri where a man was executed over the objections not of his defense attorney, but over the objections of his prosecutors. We'll discuss those stories and answer some of your questions. I'm your host, Scott Rae.
Sean: And I'm your co-host, Sean McDowell.
Scott: And this is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update from Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Sean, good to have you back after a week on the road.
Sean: Looking forward to this conversation.
Scott: Yeah, got some really good stories today. Here's the first one. “Will Conservative Christians Stand Alone in This Election?” And yes, we're gonna take up a story about the election, but we're gonna do our best to remain non-partisan in this. This is from The New York Times earlier this week. The authors are both believers and New York Times editorials. They point out that for many years, lots of evangelical Christians and conservative Catholics operated with a sense that they were a silent majority. That's been the term that I think has been used, Sean, for most of my adult life. And the reasoning was, if they could simply motivate enough of their fellow believers to vote, they believed they could win. And often they did. But now the reality has changed. Many of our views are not widely held, and some conservative Christians actually feel that their beliefs are now seen as political liabilities. For example, the pro-life position is increasingly unpopular post Roe v. Wade, as is opposition to IVF, which again is not universally shared, but it has caused, I think, significant consternation among folks in the general public. And opposition to same-sex marriage I think is widely viewed as a ship that has already sailed, and why are we even concerned about that? Sean, the way I'd put it is that conservative Christians and Catholics feel more like exiles in their own land at present than ever before, I think, in my adult lifetime. So I'm really interested to hear how you take this, and what insights do you have on this?
Sean: Yeah, so when I read it, an example that was given here was referring to former governor of Kansas, Sam Brownback. And he's speaking to a group of evangelicals who are discouraged about their voting prospects, and people increasingly feeling like their values are suffocated, so to speak. And he recounts the biblical story of Gideon, who triumphed in battle over a vast army of 300 men by his side. And he says, quote, "God never needs a majority. All he needs is a faithful remnant." Well, that on its surface is completely true. Now, I just get a little nervous since we're thinking biblically. When somebody shifts to voting a certain way in America at a certain time, and pulls an Old Testament biblical story to refer to that…Now, if he's making a point to Christians saying, no matter where culture goes, it doesn't matter for God's sovereignty about whether we have a majority or a minority, God's kingdom is going to win, I'd say amen. And I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure, but just a caution, we have to be careful how we use biblical examples to make our point. So that's just one thing that jumped out to me. Now, here's the larger issue that I think is going on, is they point out that conservative Christians are poised to vote again overwhelmingly for former president Donald J. Trump. Well, of evangelicals who voted, about 80% voted for Trump in the last election, and evangelicals got criticism for that. Well, Ryan Burge points out that 80% of evangelicals voted for Romney, roughly, and about the same for McCain. So there wasn't a huge shift if you go back a few elections and put it into context. Maybe it was 77 or 78, so there's really not a big shift. But what this election represents is Trump as a candidate now for the third time. Last time he ran, he was very pro-Christian on some of the larger moral issues that evangelicals tend to care about. Religious liberty, pro-life, marriage. Now it's shifted. Now, when you said the values have shifted, it's not so much economic values culturally, it's moral values, and really tied to issues of sexuality. And that's where the article says the upcoming election, or the current election, feels like a referendum on the role of conservative Christianity in American public life. I think, whether you like Trump or not, he clearly has pretty savvy political instincts. And I think he shifted from realizing, I've got to court to evangelicals, to now I don't. Whether he just thinks he can take our vote for granted, or culture has shifted and it doesn't matter anymore, I think we're gonna look back on this election and realize that this was a radical shift where politicians no longer need, Republicans in particular, to appeal to their evangelical base to win. Either they think they don't need them, or they can take it for granted. And so I think the metric has changed. Here's how I see it. Tell me if you disagree with this. For evangelicals who tend to have cared about religious liberty, marriage, and abortion on, say, moral issues, if that's the lens through which you vote, it seemed pretty black and white in the last election, because Trump said he was gonna support those things. And by all measures it seems that he did, at least on those issues. But now he's pulling away from it, so what does that mean for evangelicals that care about those issues? Now, obviously the Harris campaign and the Waltz campaign has come out far more to the left on those issues than any other candidacy has that I'm aware of in a long time, if ever, at least in the States. So it went in the past if he cared about these issues, somebody who was for it and somebody who's against it, now to somebody who's more firmly for it, to now somebody who's going to just not defend it in the way that conservative evangelicals would want someone to. Now, how do evangelicals vote? So I just think there's a lot of Christians having conversations they didn't have before saying, wait a minute, do I want—if they're part of the 80% of evangelicals who vote Republican—my vote taken for granted? Or is now the time to step back and say, you will not take my vote for granted, you're gonna need to reform the Republican party if you want it. That's what the article goes on to say at the end, that many people are disappointed in it. So I think this is a shift we're gonna look back at as a big cultural moment. And I think conservative evangelicals feel themselves more in a bind on this—again, if these are the key issues that they approach politics through—then they did in the past. What do you think?
Scott: I think the interesting part of the article is that it's almost entirely focused on the political power and influence that's being lost, particularly on these issues. But I wanna suggest that the prosperity of the kingdom of God doesn't depend on the church having direct political influence.
Sean: Amen.
Scott: It never has. In fact, I'd say the early church rocked the first couple of centuries of church history without any discernible political influence. And it seems to me that exile has been the norm for the people of God from the earliest days of church history. And I think even when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, people who wanted to stay faithful to the gospel, I think, have always found themselves as a part of a remnant. And so I think Brownback's reference to the remnant there probably is significant in terms of encouraging the people of God to recognize that what they stand for, and the cultural impact of that, and the progress of the kingdom of God are not at the end of the day dependent on having political influence to pull that off. The church has flourished during the times when it was in exile. And I think, Sean, it's a reminder that our primary allegiance is to God's kingdom, then to country, then to our political positions. And I think it also reminds us of something that we've said repeatedly here, that no country's faithfulness or prosperity is critical to the advance of God's kingdom. No country has that special covenant relationship with God like Old Testament Israel did. And so, that's the part that I think we just have to recognize, that culturally, conservative Christians and Catholics, we're not the home team anymore. And we've been losing that home field advantage, I'd say, probably for at least for the last 20, 25 years. And having direct political influence…I mean, if the law ends up supporting the moral convictions that we hold dear, then so much the better. But our faithfulness to those moral convictions and the cultural influence of those does not depend on the state of the law or having direct political influence. In fact, we've known for a long time, the pro-life movement flourished during the time prior to the Dobbs decision, when they were dependent upon, basically, grassroots movements that I think were very, very significant in limiting the access to abortion services throughout the country. That was all done before the law changed. And I think the way that the issue is now perceived post-Dobbs indicates that we have a lot more work culturally and morally to do before our political positions can make sense to the majority of people.
Sean: That's fair. The only thing I would throw in there is that what I don't think you're saying is that that doesn't mean the political process and Christians being engaged is unimportant.
Scott: Of course not.
Sean: It matters deeply, if Christianity is true, that we bring to bear Christian principles about human dignity and human rights and equality to the political process, because that is good for the flourishing of society. But my ultimate hope is not in a political process. And I think some of the response from the overturning of Roe v. Wade has kind of revealed that we thought more people in our culture and the Church were pro-life, but when it gets down to it, they were pro-life in name only, and didn't have deep pro-life convictions. We've got to start with that level, and not abandon the political process, but then hopefully see it reflected in politics if we're able to win hearts and minds.
Scott: Yeah, my sense is maybe a little bit different from that. It’s that people with, I think, pro-life intuitions, maybe not the same kind of strong convictions that folks like you and I have, but with pro-life intuitions that they're really uncomfortable with abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy, for example. And they're really uncomfortable with abortion for sex selection, or for genetic abnormality, or things like that. But when it comes to the law enforcing those things, that's when people I think have started to get a little more squeamish about it. And we've seen, I think, some of the convictions be exposed for what they are. So some of that distancing has more to do with the law being involved with this as opposed to being strictly a moral issue. Now, I think it's appropriate because it's fundamentally a civil rights issue, of course. If the unborn are full human persons, then we have a civil rights obligation to protect their right to life. So I think it's entirely appropriate for the political arena to be involved. But I do think the way it has been involved in some places…maybe the best way to put this would be, some of the overreaching of the law in this has made some people uncomfortable with what the pro-life movement's gonna look like post-Dobbs.
Sean: So, I don't disagree with that. The other thing I'll throw in there is, I don't think we can underestimate how deeply a lot of secular ideas have shaped the way Christians view these kinds of issues. So take pornography, for example. In this new massive study by Barna, roughly half of practicing Christians would say you can look at pornography and still live a sexually healthy life. I don't even know…I don't wanna talk about that right now 'cause that's such another issue, but that's a jarring sense of, wait a minute, how can half of practicing Christians come to that conclusion when Scripture's so clear? I think the same thing has happened with abortion, that we say it, we kinda believe it, but the convictions are not as deep as we think they are.
Scott: I think that's fair. And to be clear, I was not suggesting that that squeamishness with how the law is being applied is always justifiable.
Sean: Fair enough.
Scott: All right, moving on?
Sean: Yep.
Scott: All right, story number two. This headline really caught my attention. It says, “A Shocking Number of Parents Say Their Kids Have No Friends.” This is research out of the University of Michigan Health Center, particularly their children's hospital, that has uncovered an often overlooked aspect of childhood development, finding that a surprising number of children struggle to make friends. The poll cites that one in five parents fear their children currently have no friends at all. I mean, that's just like, zip, zero, nothing. Interestingly, parents of older children were more likely to mention that existing friend groups or limited places to socialize made it harder for their kids to make new friends, which suggests that as children grow, the social landscape becomes a little bit more complex, making it a bit more challenging to forge new friendships and new connections. As children get older, too, parents are more likely to allow social media use and other strategies to help their kids fit in that come with their own set of perhaps unintended consequences that we may not be aware of. One unexpected finding from this study was that two thirds of parents preferred their child’s friends to come from similar families, which means primarily parenting styles, but also, a good number of parents indicated a preference toward families that share political and religious affiliations. So, Sean, I just found this really alarming and arresting, that this higher percentage of parents are convinced that their kids actually have no friends. And I don't have any reason to think that the parents are misperceiving this, because my guess is that a lot of the parents' perception comes from what their kids are telling them, and what they're observing from their kids. So, I'm curious to hear your take on this. I suspect your kids were similar to mine. That was never really an issue for our kids. We worked hard at doing some of the things that this article suggests, like play dates when they were younger, things like that. There were only a handful of times when I felt discouraged about the way our kids were interacting socially with their friends. How about you?
Sean: So, my first thought was, why is the University of Michigan concerned with elementary kids' friends? Like, you think about all the issues they could talk about. The opioid crisis, they could talk about cancer that's going on with students. Why friends? And the answer is—I mean, and this is from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan—they realize the lack of friends has deep, significant health consequences for this generation and beyond. And that, in a sense, is a biblical idea. So, I actually think this article somewhat understates, it says, “Friendships can play a significant role in children's overall health and development, emotional well-being, self-esteem, and social skills.” I'd say it's not that they can; it must, and it does. And if it's lacking, kids are going to suffer emotionally, and then we're gonna see a lot of the other health issues downstream from this. So one of the reasons I sent this to you is, I was like, I'm encouraged that the University of Michigan is concerned about relationships with this generation. I mean, we've seen the UK, they have the Minister of Loneliness and Relationships. You and I talked about the surgeon general who's been talking about this and prioritizing this. So I think this is a positive trend that you and I wanna highlight every chance we get. Now, they ask, why is this happening? And they cite things about shyness and unkind behavior from other students, medical conditions. None of that is new. The obvious new thing, the elephant in the room, is social media. I mean, that is the key, more than anything obvious, whether it's YouTube, whether it's smartphones, parents giving their kids [social media] early and not teaching them how to have healthy, non-screen relationships. I think that's the root of it. Now, of course, COVID exacerbated this. And I think some of this damage is the amount of time of kids in so many states that were kept away from relationships, they're staring at Zoom. I think some of this is downstream from just not learning how to have those non-screen time relationships that are healthy. So I think that's, in part, what's going on. I mean, we're seeing others wake up to this. There's a movement for schools to get rid of smartphones. My kid's school—where I used to teach full-time or part-time, 21 years this fall—at least in the high school, and I think even lower, there's no smartphones at all. If they see them, they're gone. So, fortunately, we're seeing a positive swing back on this that parents recognize. And I love that the article says that parents aren't sitting by. They're trying to make a difference here. Last thing that jumped out in this article to me, it said, “Two thirds of parents prefer their children to commit to have friends from similar families.” I totally understand that, how influential kids' beliefs are, and other families’ are to my son's beliefs. They're as influential, arguably, as anybody, as peers. But there's a balance there, because I don't think our kids are missionaries. Obviously, that's one concern I have with public schools, send your kids to be missionaries in junior high. My first job is to protect my kids, but also for my son to realize there's people who see the world differently, and we can be friends with them, and they should be friends with them. As Christians, we shouldn't be afraid of people who see the world differently. We should invite it, but we should only show concern at the point where it's also, like, wait a minute, this is affecting my kid's worldview, this is affecting my kid's behavior. That's where I have to step in. And frankly, if it was a family of a kid who said he's a Christian, and it's negatively affecting my kid's behavior at this age, I should step in there too. So overall, positive trend, and it's just kind of amazing that the University of Michigan, of all things they could focus on, is that kids are not having the kind of relationships they need. This means it's all hands on deck.
Scott: Yeah, and I think the role of friendships for long-term physical and emotional health is not just crucial for kids. What we discovered is that it's crucial for adults, especially adults as they get into retirement years. And especially having meaningful relationships with people outside your immediate family is really important for long-term flourishing at every age, particularly important for kids. But I think it's true at every age. We did a lot of things that tried to help our kids make friends, but at some point we recognized we had to stand back and sort of let them do this on their own. We would step in if we needed to protect them from certain things. And one of the things we did is, we moved from a larger house, we gave up space for a neighborhood. We moved to a smaller house that had a neighborhood that was full of kids. And then about 10, 15 years later, it became something akin to a used car lot, as all our teenagers had cars.
Sean: [laughs]
Scott: So they could have a neighborhood like the one I had growing up, and I suspect like you did too. But I did feel, I felt the pressure to keep them engaged. And there were lots of things about doing this for our kids that was really exhausting. And I know you've seen this with your kids playing sports. We've come across all kinds of people who are different than us. Most of the people…I've coached club hoops like you've done for a long time. Most of the people we were involved with with these families did not share our faith. They were rich friendships for a time, but what we discovered is that they went away once the sports went away. In fact, I only have really one meaningful relationship with anybody that we had access to for all of those years that our kids were playing sports. So I think this is really important. Sean, let me mention really briefly one article that ties into this, again from The New York Times. And the article, the title of it was what caught my attention. It’s by a clinical psychologist, and says “Parents Should Ignore Their Children More Often.” And it talks about how they observed in much of the developing world, kids spend a lot of time with their parents. They tag along with them throughout the day and often help them with the basic tasks that they're involved in, but are rarely the main objects of their parents' attention. And they point out that in industrialized societies like the West, we take the opposite approach. When we're not working, our children are at the center of our attention. We're constantly engaging and entertaining them. We drive them around, we feel guilty when we have to drag our kids along to take care of boring, sort of adult types of things. And this psychologist who wrote the piece calls her recommendation “mindful underparenting,” that leaves kids sort of on their own to form some of these friendships and relationships without excessive helicopter parenting or excessive supervision. What she discovered is that from the neurosciences, a resting brain tells us that when the mind gets busy the most, it’s when it's left alone to do its own thing. That is, if you wanna raise empathetic, imaginative, and creative kids who can figure out how to entertain themselves, don't keep their brains too occupied. And they said there's benefit to kids for times when they are bored, when they are restless. And when you just bring them along on things and allow them to observe adults doing adult types of things, it's really very provocative. Now, I think it can be a masquerade for neglect at times. That's not really the point at all. Like, I've seen parents with their kids in the park, for example, where they're on their screens and the kids are playing by themselves on the various apparatuses in the park. In fact, I saw one dad who was hitting tennis balls with his daughter while he was talking on his phone. And not just for a quick call. I watched to see how long he was gonna stay on his phone, and it was for an extended amount of time. So I think there's a balance here between parents allowing kids to form their own friendships, facilitating those when they can. But I think just allowing kids to be bored from time to time, allowing kids to be unengaged, to allow their minds to be at rest, to do the things that allow them to observe adults doing adult things, I think is also beneficial for kids. One last take on that?
Sean: Yeah, I think that article is helpfully pushing back on helicopter parenting, in which parents are just not gonna allow kids to fail, controlling everything in their life, too involved. But there's a difference between not being a helicopter parent and building real, close relationships with your kids. The most significant factor in faith transmission is a, quote, “warm relationship with your kids.” Now, I was on a flight yesterday coming home, and I saw a mom probably in her mid or upper 20s. Adorable two year old kid sitting next to her. And she was on her phone the entire time. It's about a three hour flight to Dallas. And he just sat there with nothing to do. And she scolded him when he would just kind of cry or need attention, which two year olds roughly need. It took everything within me to not just say, ma'am, it's gonna happen fast. What's more important, being on your screen, or having face to face time—draw, talk, read, engage your two year old? I didn't say anything. She probably wouldn't have listened anyways. Maybe I should have given it a risk, I have no idea about that. But if we want our kids to build relationships, we've got to have good friendships ourselves that we value and we model, and show them how to do that. We also have to relate to them as human beings so they know how to relate to other people. Starts with us, that's the last thing I would say.
Scott: Yeah, they learn this not only by watching, but by being engaged themselves. I might have been tempted to engage the two year old myself.
Sean: [laughs] I know, it's a cute kid.
Scott: 'Cause that's very sad, and I think you're absolutely right. I'm not suggesting…the article I don't think suggests gross underparenting.
Sean: Of course, of course.
Scott: But I think, just, times where you don't always have to keep your kids engaged and entertained. I think that was the point of it, and I think there's some merit to that.
Sean: Agreed.
Scott: All right, story number three. This is another provocative thing. This is from New York Magazine this week. All this stuff's coming from the East Coast. I wonder, where's the West Coast weighing in on some of this stuff? Well, “Young Men Take Over American Christianity. For a long time in American Christianity, women were the ones who were more religiously observant than men, sparking a long time concern about the feminization of Christianity. But a 2016 study from the Pew Research Institute showed that, worldwide, about 53% of Christians who regard themselves as religiously affiliated are women, and 47% are men. This religious gender gap has long been true of the religiously observant in most democracies in the West. An even larger percentage of U.S. women as opposed to men pray daily and regard religion as very important in their lives. But with Gen Z, that pattern has changed. Within Gen Z, almost 40% of women now describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated compared with a smaller percentage of men, 34%. According to a survey last year of more than 5,000 Americans by the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, in every other age group, men were more likely to be unaffiliated. And this tracks with research that shows consistently over time that women have been more consistently religious than men, a finding that is so reliable, some scholars have characterized it as something like a universal truth.” Now, I realize neither of us are Gen Z folks, although you're a little closer to it than I am, I will freely admit. But the explanation for this change is what I think is so striking in this. The author's explanation is that this new gender gap among women is because “they are rapidly becoming more liberal and feminist, while young men seem to be attracted to the belief systems that reinforce traditional families and gender roles.” For example, women that came of age in the Me Too movement, they're very sensitive to episodes of church sexual abuse, they're paying much closer attention to reproductive rights than men, and three in 10 Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ. So the author surmises that men place a higher value on more traditional family life, and she also suggests—this was sort of the dark side of this—that young men are attracted to Christianity precisely because it gives them divine sanction for their lust for power and status within their own homes, and in society in general. Now I'm really curious, Sean…you pay a lot of attention to these different demographic trends and demographic categories. There seems to be a pretty significant shift among Gen Z folks that has sort of reversed the religiously affiliated and religiously serious gender gap that has been historically the case for most of my adult life. Like, I'm curious specifically, what other explanations do you think could explain this shift in the religious gender gap among Gen Z folks?
Sean: Well, so, that's a great question. There's two things at play here. One is, is their narrative correct? If not, what theory is correct? I have less confidence in what explains it than I do confidence that their narrative is not actually supported by the data, at least the data that I have seen. So this week, Ryan Burge, who's a sociologist demographer—we've had him on the show a few times—studies these trends carefully, released an article on his Substack which shows that a lot of people are talking about this. And he basically said, "There's no gender gap on the importance of religion on Gen Z men and women." He says, "I don't see a gender gap among Gen Z men and women on the question of religious importance." Now, that's important, we'll come back to that. Now, I just want the data on the narrative that's put forth by this author. It feels like it's in a left-leaning publication. The author's a mainline Protestant, and I think their biases and assumptions clearly come through in this article. It doesn't mean they're wrong, but they're seeing it through a certain lens. So part of the article says…here's what I just can't quite make sense of. It said, "Young women, those 18 to 29, favored Vice President Kamala Harris for president by 38 points." So, let me say it again, “Young women, 18 to 29—these are basically Gen Zers into younger millennials—favor Kamala Harris. Men the same age favor President Donald Trump by 13 points.” That is a 51% gap difference. And yet both would say the divide and importance of a religion is the same. So within this generation, there's massive political differences, and yet they both say, you know, men and women say religion is equally the same. So the gap is not within Gen Z, the gap is across generations and earlier generations. What accounts for that shift? Now, the narrative here is, at the very end, it says, “It may be secular ideology that is driving the religious gender gap as much as anything else.” And I appreciate that the author says it “may be.” There's a lot of “possibles” and “maybes” in this, which means we're putting forth an idea that we suspect, but we don't really have the data to back it up, which is fair. I appreciate that they qualify it that way. And here's what the writer says, "If church is regarded by one and all as a bastion of conservative culture where men can mock the woke, scorn feminists and their God to find reproductive rights, and try to instill the fear of God in their unruly kids, the religious gender gap can and will begin to perpetuate itself. Even the Sabbath will provide no respite from culture wars." I think that's a pretty strong overstatement not supported by the evidence. I mean, you and I talked about here, again, the doubt from Ryan Burge—I don't remember the numbers—that actually, most churches, evangelical churches, don't talk about politics, right or wrong.
Scott: Hardly at all.
Sean: Most don't. And when they do, it's not the fire-brimmed, MAGA type that's being portrayed in this article. So, since this article is just guessing, if I had to suspect—and I'd like to see a study done on this of asking these very people—I think there is a sense for power, but it's not because they're like, I want power to control and force and dominate. I think a lot of young men are just tired of being beaten down by our culture. They're tired of critical theory that says, just because you're a man, you are an oppressor. And they're just looking for something to empower them, to live a meaningful life. I think that's why a lot of people respond to Jordan Peterson’s stuff. It's like, he's telling me to be a man, and Jordan Peterson has a lot of biblical principles wedded in it. So I think that's more of it than it is the negative characterization, the fire-breathing political right that's portrayed in this article. Agree or disagree?
Scott: Agree, basically. Sean, in my experience, and this is with our college students, and young adults, women want stable family life as much as men do. In fact, maybe even more so. I don't see that born out by the data. And I think part of it, too, is this notion that they are attracted to Christian faith because it gives them sanction for their craving for power and status within their own homes and society, if that's true, then these people have not read Ephesians 5 very carefully, which is to say, “Love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” And that was a notion about sort of marriage and patriarchy and sexuality that turned the ancient world on its head. The idea that husbands in the ancient world would love their wives to the point that they would give themselves up for their wives, who they consider property, was unthinkable in the ancient world. Yet within a couple of generations, that had completely shifted in the ancient world. So, I'm very skeptical of the explanations that are offered. I do think that it may be that some of the LGBTQ stuff has had an impact on that. But what we've discovered from our friend Preston Sprinkle is that most of the LGBTQ folks that he's aware of and who have been disaffiliated from their churches, do so not because of the position the church takes, but because of the way they've been treated. And those are two vastly different things. In fact, it's not uncommon for people who have LGBTQ leanings to want to go to churches that have stated convictions about traditional marriage and sexuality. That's not that unusual. So I think there's a lot of room for speculation here, and I think you're right to be skeptical and ask for data to support some of the speculations that are being made in this piece. The article ends, I think, with a cautionary note that if Gen Z adopts the kind of uncivil and high rhetoric sort of Christian faith that wraps the cross in the flag, and where the cross tends to get lost, then I think they end the article with a “God help us” benediction in that sense. But I think I'd wanna see, going forward, that one's faith will be more weighty than one's politics, and that our political involvement won't reflect the kind of cultural incivility that is rending us as a country at present. Those, I think, are reasonable changes that I think we can hope for. And I think for most people, if they're honest about it, they will say that their faith is more important than their political convictions. In fact, they see their political convictions as entailments of their faith. Now, whether they always are, and can be supported biblically, is another matter. But to say that the coming generation is going to have their politics sort of automatically and uncritically be weighted more heavily than their faith, I don't think bears out the data that Ryan Burge has brought to us.
Sean: I think that's right. I think, look, a fair criticism can be made of certain evangelical Christians that they just watch and take their cues from Fox News. Fine. But criticism can also be made of some people who just watch MSNBC and a characterization of the right that equally misses the mark. And so that's why it's important to watch both sides, which we'll get to. There's a question on that.
Scott: That's actually a very good question here. All right, final story on this.
Sean: One last point, since this is on men and women, we've got to remember that in the early church in Acts 17, when Paul preaches, he goes to Thessalonica. Women believe. He goes to Borea. It tells us, women believe. Goes to Athens. It says that women believe. At its core, the true Christian message is good for women. And Jesus, of all religious figures, treated women with dignity and with respect. As our culture moves further to a secular slide, being able to highlight and emphasize what a biblical view of women really is I think is something we should lean into, not lean away from. That's it.
Scott: Okay, yeah, okay, very good. Consistent with the Old Testament as well. Our Old Testament scholar, Sandy Richter, has said there are more protections for women from sexual assault under Old Testament law than there are in most major metropolitan areas of the world today. All right, story number four. This was a Missouri man who was executed over the objections not of his defense attorneys, but over the objections of the men who prosecuted him. “Marcellus Williams was executed this week despite his 20-year insistence of innocence and over the objections of his prosecutors. In a statement after the high court's decision, an attorney for Williams listed the people who had opposed his execution and fought for his removal from death row, including the county prosecutors who now admitted they were wrong and zealously fought to undo the conviction and save Mr. Williams' life. His current attorney said his conviction was based on testimony from two unreliable witnesses who had incentives to point the finger at him, both reward money and a bargain for shorter sentences in their own cases. The Innocence Project, which took up his case, said that the incentives of the witnesses in his case were particularly problematic. It was reinvestigated, but the board investigating was disbanded before issuing its report, and most recently, the U.S. Supreme Court denied to issue a stay of execution, which was the last resort for Williams.” Now, Sean, I realize we've only got one side of this story, but in my view, this is a pretty compelling side that we're getting, because the prosecutors themselves who were involved in his prosecution had now admitted that they were wrong and had been the ones who were at the forefront of fighting to save this particular man's life. So, thoughts on this?
Sean: Yeah, one. If this fellow, Marcellus Williams, was on death row for two decades, whether he's guilty or not, that's an injustice within itself. He's still made in the image of God, and that's just ridiculous for somebody to spend two decades of their life there.
Scott: Although, that's the average stay on death row.
Sean: I mean, that means there's serious reform that needs to take place. And I realize the tension is, you've gotta get the story right. There's no redo on this, for someone who's been in prison 20 years, to try to give him money or some way to make up for it. So there's the balance between getting this issue right, but not dragging it out too long. And in this case, as far as we know, they got both wrong. Maybe they dragged it out too long and potentially executed an innocent man. Now, I don't know the details of this, Scott. So you're right, we're getting one side. But for the prosecutor to shift, and the DNA evidence, is telling. I don't know why the Supreme Court just decided not to, if it was on purely legal grounds, or if they looked at the evidence? I think now that this is done, someone needs to do an unbiased, careful report of exactly what happened, what potentially failed in this case, so we learn from it and, just, never do this again.
Scott: Yeah, to think biblically about this, Sean, the Old Testament law allows for the death penalty. Genesis 9:6 talks about that when innocent life is taken, life for life is either required or allowed. And so there's nothing intrinsically problematic, theologically, about requiring life for life under the right condition. And the Mosaic Law narrows it to cases which we would call first degree murder, premeditated murder. But the key criteria is the certainty of guilt. And in Old Testament law, it required the testimony of two eyewitnesses in order to establish the certainty of guilt. And I think it's the certainty of guilt that seems to be missing here. And, you know, I realize that today eyewitnesses can be unreliable, but in the ancient world, you know, they didn't have any of the sophisticated forensics that we do today. All they had was eyewitness testimony, and they required that it be corroborated so that self-interest could not rule the day. And perjury in a capital case was itself a capital crime, I think for understandable reasons. So it's things like this that raise, I think, a really interesting question, Sean. We were talking about this with our philosophy students in class several years ago. And one of the students raised this question. He said, what do we gain from the death penalty that we don't get with a life term without the possibility of parole? And it really took me aback, 'cause I'd never thought about that before. And I said, you know, in certain cases, a life term might not be considered just. Say, for example, you know, mass terrorism. You know, Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building a couple of decades ago, where that could feel not quite justice. But then he sharpened the question. He said, what does the death penalty give us that offsets the cost of innocent men or women being executed? And there, I think that the cost of that is so high. And I realized, you know, we're gonna make mistakes. And since DNA evidence came into use in forensics, dozens and dozens of cases of people on death row have been overturned because they were exonerated by DNA evidence. And we’ve got fallible human beings. They're going to make mistakes. And you're right, until we can raise the dead, there's no reparations that are possible for a mistake that's made when somebody is mistakenly executed. And this is a good example of what some folks would call a procedural abolitionist view of the death penalty. They're not against it in principle, but they have so many reservations about how it's conducted and the possibility of mistakes being made that they, for all practical purposes, on procedural grounds, not principle grounds, are abolitionists when it comes to the death penalty. And cases like this, I think they really give me pause about, what can we depend on for the certainty of guilt in cases where we are looking at capital offenses? Now, in some cases, obviously, guilt is certain. And, you know, I think there'll be no problem in principle with going along with the allowance for the death penalty under the right conditions. But this one, I think, raises big questions, and you're right that some sort of post-mortem on this—no pun intended on that—would be appropriate, to see what went wrong and how this can be fixed.
Sean: Those are great questions to ask. You know, I have not done a show on in-depth analysis of the death penalty in a while. This maybe invites such a conversation. Just one question for you. You said the Old Testament allows the death penalty. Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." For me, I would say it allows it, but it seems to also be more strongly than just saying this is an option. It seems to imply to me that this is what we should do, of course, barring some injustice of how it's actually carried out.
Scott: Hebrew for that term can either be permission or obligation.
Sean: In Genesis 9?
Scott: Mm-hmm.
Sean: Okay, fair enough.
Scott: So it can be translated as “may.” It's also legitimate to translate it as “must.”
Sean: Interesting. I've not done a deep dive on that one, which is favorable historically, but that's great, that's a fair point, good stuff.
Scott: Fair enough. Ready to take some questions?
Sean: Yep.
Scott: All right, first one. This is, I think, very perceptive, but also has some self-interest involved. It says, “Recently, Elon Musk expressed the idea that working from home is a moral issue. I think he basically said it was immoral. Specifically, he criticized those who demand to work from home because the same people expect others, like factory workers, home improvement, repair, food service, and so on, to work outside their homes. Musk pointedly said that the laptop class is ‘living in la la land.’ I work from home one day a week, don't see any problems with it, never heard of this opinion that working from home is morally questionable. I’m wondering how I could think biblically about it. What are your thoughts?” I'll weigh in first here on this. I don't think working from home is necessarily immoral. I think it can be, if working from home essentially comes to working part-time, or having a half day of paid time off every day. But I think if people are working from home doing the job that their employer has contracted them to do, if they are, with integrity, earning the pay that they are being paid and doing the job that they have been tasked to do, whether they do it in an office or not—or, rather, the location where they do that at—if the employer says it's okay, it is morally neutral. I don't see any problem with that. I think you probably need to be aware that the temptation to take more time off at home than you would take at the office is a real one. And if that's being abused, then that needs to be addressed, 'cause that is a moral concern. If you are essentially stealing time from your employer, especially if you're working hourly, that's especially true. But if you are contracted to do a specific job and salary for that and not specifically on the clock, then what matters is not the time you put in, but how you get the job done. So, I'd wanna be careful that it's not being abused, but I don't think that working from home is inherently morally problematic.
Sean: I agree. I think that's well said. In some ways, this concern is only a modern issue in light of modern technology. No one throughout the history of the world when they're working on the farm had to deal with this question. So, of course the Bible's not gonna directly address it. I think it is more a question of the effects of working at home that we could talk about. Does it…like, in Southern California, there's people who can work at home, so now they've moved to certain areas by the beach, and completely jacked up some of the home prices and priced people out. Like, okay, that's interesting, we could talk about that. There's issues—
Scott: Or they've left the area in search of lower home prices.
Sean: Yes, for a different reason, fair enough. Questions of loneliness. If I'm in my office all day working on…like, these are questions of the effects of it that are downstream, so to speak, from whether or not it's moral or immoral in itself. That's all I would say.
Scott: Fair enough, all right. Question number two. “I have questions regarding the book of Revelation. Revelation 2:25 and 3:10-11 tell the churches to hold onto their faith because Jesus is returning soon. These local churches no longer exist today and are located in majority Islamic countries.” That's all true. Here's the question, “If Jesus did not know when He would return, as He plainly states in Matthew 24:36, how could He even make statements like this to these churches in Revelation? All this is causing me to doubt the book of Revelation. Please help.”
Sean: Great question. So, the question of how Jesus could be divine and hence know all things and not know the time of his return is a different question here that relates to the incarnation and how Jesus can know in one sense, but maybe not another, and humbled himself to become human. So I have to bracket that, because that's kind of lurking behind this. We could come back to that. Now, Jesus did say He doesn't know the time of His return, but He knows that He will return. That's definitive. So, His return is not in question, although the timing for Jesus, humanly speaking, and for the rest of us, is. So, does this call the book of Revelation into question? I don't think the statements in Revelation are bound just to the particular churches at the beginning of Revelation that John is talking about Jesus speaking to. How do I know this? Go to the end of the book of Revelation. I gave a whole sermon on this, interestingly enough. Someone could find it just on YouTube. It's on the last words of Jesus. If you search it…I've only preached twice on Revelation, and this is one of the passages: how Jesus can say, "I'm coming soon," and yet it's been 2,000 years. Part of the answer to that is, there was always a tension in the Old Testament that the day of the Lord could be tomorrow. Live with the sense of urgency that Jesus is coming back. And, of course, in the Old Testament, that's not how they understood it. The judgment of God is coming, but it also could be 800 years. That's the tension, between it could be immediate, or it could be a long way into the future. So, that's nothing new with the words of Jesus. But if you read the very last words of Jesus in the book of Revelation, here's the last three verses. It says, and this is John, it says, "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll." Now, who's he speaking to? Not just the churches in Revelation. He's speaking to anyone who reads this, anytime, anywhere, presumably. “If anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the place described in this scroll. God will take away from the person that's sharing the tree of life in the Holy City, which is described in this scroll.” And then it says, "He who testifies to these things,” Jesus, says, 'Yes, I am coming soon.'" So, Jesus spoke that to the particular churches, but He also speaks it to all people, and all Christians, all time. So it is not time bound by the particular churches He spoke to, whether they exist today or not.
Scott: Yeah, I think that's basically right. What the Bible suggests…especially the New Testament is clear that the return of Jesus is imminent, which means it could happen at any time. And, therefore, be prepared. Be ready for when the Lord returns. And that's, you know…in Matthew 25, it talks about the parables that talk about how people who were not ready ended up regretting it. And so, it's to live as though the Lord's returning very soon. And to live with that sense of urgency to accomplish what is on your bucket list for God's purposes. So I think there's a point at which you can say, you know, "I'm resting, and I'm resting, and I'm confident that the Lord's coming back, and that we know how the last chapter of the book ends. And we know that God's kingdom wins." And so I think there's a restfulness about that and a confidence in that. But at the same time, recognizing that, you know, God has invested in the church the opportunity to participate in the advance and the coming of His kingdom. Now, ultimately, of course, Jesus brings it in in its fullness. But what we're doing in this life is in continuity with what Jesus will finish at His return. And so we are to be about, as Louis Talbot put it, we are to be “about the King's business while we have the opportunity.” And recognizing that the coming of Christ is imminent makes it timeless and not specifically time-bound, like you mentioned.
Sean: Good stuff.
Scott: All right, here's the third one. And I really appreciate this one, too. “I've heard you say more than once that you listen to both sides of various arguments by listening to podcasts. Could you please name some of the podcasts you listen to for gaining multiple perspectives?” Let me just say, first of all, we also gain multiple perspectives intentionally by the newspapers that we read. You and I read The Atlantic and The New York Times and The Washington Post regularly. I mean, I read it every day. We read The Guardian from the UK. And we also, we specifically seek out books. And sometimes we've had guests on the podcast with whom we fundamentally disagree. And we talk about books whose theses we fundamentally disagree with. So it's not just podcasts, but it's all the forms of media that we're consuming. We try to get that view that gives arguments for both sides. I know you've got some specific podcasts in mind, too, that you listen to that I think can particularly help this listener.
Sean: Yeah, my concern is not so much that you have to have 50/50 podcasts and 50/50 news. It's just that you hear both sides. And so, the news channels that I read almost every day are, like you said, The New York Times, USA Today, The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal. So, three out of four are far more left leaning. And I read, I follow news on Twitter sometimes, and other publications, but those are ones I try to consistently go to. And I think three of the four are definitely more left leaning. I enjoy Al Mohler's daily podcast, in which he talks about news stories through a biblical perspective. But as far as podcasts, I also listen to, pretty consistently, The New York Times daily podcast, which—not always—tends to be definitely more left leaning in its perspective. More of my podcasts are conservative theologically and ideologically than on the left. But I try to balance that out as well and listen to both sides. I would say on YouTube, 'cause some people call YouTube podcasts, I don't get my news there. I follow more cultural engagement and apologetics. Of course, Greg Koukl, our friend William Lane Craig. But I think Alex O'Connor, The Cosmic Skeptic, is one of the most influential, thoughtful, balanced atheists today who gives a good perspective on issues that somebody who wants a smart person pushing back on the Christian faith should consider listening to. You mentioned Preston Sprinkle. I listen to his podcast, and he'll have some people on that you and I would take serious issue with. He had someone on recently who is a panentheist who I think…seriously, that raises big questions of theological orthodoxy. But I wanna hear how a range of people view and look at issues. He's had people on favorable on Israel. He's had people very critical on Israel, and oftentimes gives both sides a fair listen. So, I listen to his podcast, and enjoy that as well. There's others, but that's a few.
Scott: All right, good suggestion, Sean. I hope our listener finds that helpful to us. So, good stuff today, Sean. Glad to have you back. And it's always good to be together on this.
Sean: Agreed.
Scott: This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically, the weekly Cultural Update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, offering more degree programs than we can possibly name here in the next 30 seconds in Southern California and online from Old Testament, New Testament, philosophy, apologetics, theology, spiritual formation. I think I just tried to name most of them. But visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn more. If you'd like to submit comments, ask questions, or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover, or a guest you'd like us to consider, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, give us a rating on your podcast app. Please share it with a friend. And join us on Tuesday for our discussion with our colleague, Dr. Thad Williams, around his new book Revering God. Thanks so much for listening. And remember, in the meantime, think biblically about everything.
