Posts filed under ‘Current Trends’
Mike Pence and Dining with Your Spouse
It can be fascinating to watch which stories bubble to the top of our cultural conversation. In a news cycle where the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, a battle royal over a Supreme Court nominee, questions about the surveillance of political actors, terrible chemical attacks against Syrian civilians by a feral Assad regime, and ominous sabre rattling from the North Koreans have dominated the headlines, a heated debate has arisen over a profile piece in The Washington Post on Karen Pence, wife of Vice President Mike Pence, which cited an interview with The Hill from 2002, where the vice president, following the lead of the vaunted evangelist and pastor Billy Graham, explained that he would never eat alone with a woman who was not his wife or one of his close relatives. Writing in a separate article for The Washington Post, Laura Turner warned:
It will be difficult for women to flourish in the White House if the vice president will not meet with them. Women cannot flourish in the church if their pastors consistently treat them as sexual objects to be avoided. The Billy Graham Rule locates the fault of male infidelity in the bodies of women, but “flee from temptation” does not mean “flee from women.”
I agree with Ms. Turner that it is important not to confuse fleeing from temptation with fleeing from women. Sin is what is to be feared. Not women. Nevertheless, because of my vocation as a husband and because of my position as a pastor, I have chosen a practice that echoes that of the vice president. I will not dine alone with a woman who is not my wife or close family member. I will also not meet alone with women after hours at the congregation where I serve.
Why do I maintain such a practice?
It is not primarily because I am terrified that if I were ever to be alone with a woman, I would not be able to restrain myself from sexual immorality, though I am not nearly so naïve as to believe that I could never fall prey to a compromising situation. I know far too well from Scripture that my heart is woefully depraved and deceitful and I have seen far too many marriages and ministries wrecked by sexual immorality to believe that I am somehow so spiritually privileged to be above certain kinds of sin. I also know that merely jettisoning private dining appointments will not expunge me of my sinful nature. No pious-looking constraint, no matter how carefully contrived, can regenerate a sinful heart. Only Jesus can do that. Sin avoidance is not the primary reason I have the practice I do.
I have the practice I do primarily because I respect women, most especially my wife. I know that if another woman were to invite me to dinner, one on one, that would make my wife – as well as me – uncomfortable. I also know the people with whom I work well enough to know that if I were to invite a female staff member at our church to dinner one on one, that would more than likely make her feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. I do occasionally meet privately with women in my office when personal pastoral care needs call for such meetings. But even then, there are other staff members right outside my office door working through the daily flurry of church activities. And I have never had any trouble meeting with everyone I need to meet with on campus with others around rather than off campus in one on one settings.
I also I maintain the practice I do because I do want to do my best to remain “above reproach,” as Scripture asks men in my vocation to be. An unfounded accusation of immoral behavior with another person would not only compromise the credibility of my ministry, it would compromise that other person’s credibility as well. As much as I desire to protect the integrity of my ministry, I also have a deep desire to protect the reputations of those I know and care about. Protecting others’ reputations is simply part and parcel of being not only a colleague and a pastor, but a friend.
Ms. Turner appeals to Jesus in support of the stance she takes in her Washington Post piece:
Jesus consistently elevated the dignity of women and met with them regularly, including His meeting with a Samaritan woman in the middle of the day. Scholars suggest that the woman would have gone to the well in the noon heat to avoid interacting with her fellow townspeople, who would have gone at a cooler time of day. Samaritans and Jews were not particularly fond of each other. Yet this Jewish man met this Samaritan woman in broad daylight, asked her for water from the well, and in turn offered her eternal life. The woman, widely thought to be an adulteress, had been married five times and had no husband when she met Jesus. Yet He didn’t flinch from meeting with her. He didn’t suggest that His reputation was more important than her eternal soul. As a result, she lives on as one of the heroes of the faith, a woman who evangelized to her entire city.
All of this is completely true. But evangelizing someone in broad daylight when Your disciples do not seem to be far away is a far cry from having dinner alone, away and apart from any accountability. The latter can be a coup de grâce to one’s integrity. The former is just a coup of grace for a weary soul.
There may indeed be times, as the case of Jesus and the Samaritan woman illustrates, when it is necessary to spend time with someone of the opposite gender privately, especially for the sake of the gospel. But there are also many more times when it is good not to, especially if a task at work can be accomplished just as well with others around.
May we have the wisdom to discern which times are which.
A Tenuous Time
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. As Christianity faded from prominence in the West, a secularized culture was supposed to emerge to take its place that was more tolerant, more enlightened, more harmonious, and less politically polarized than any other society in the history of the world. But as Peter Beinart explains in an excellent article for The Atlantic, what has emerged as Christianity’s western influence has waned is nothing of the sort:
As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between “us” and “them.” Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.[1]
Beinart goes on to explain how the traditional battle lines between conservatives and liberals have shifted in the wake of this irreligious surge. Specifically, with regard to the spiritually skeptical alt-right, Beinart notes:
They tend to redraw the boundaries of identity, de-emphasizing morality and religion and emphasizing race and nation…
The alt-right is ultra-conservatism for a more secular age. Its leaders like Christendom, an old-fashioned word for the West. But they’re suspicious of Christianity itself, because it crosses boundaries of blood and soil. As a college student, the alt-right leader Richard Spencer was deeply influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche, who famously hated Christianity. Radix, the journal Spencer founded, publishes articles with titles like “Why I Am a Pagan.” One essay notes that “critics of Christianity on the Alternative Right usually blame it for its universalism.”
It turns out that as faith allegiances have crumbled, a universal concern for others in the spirit of the Good Samaritan has too. Christianity’s cross-ethnic, cross-cultural, and international appeal has proven too much for the self-interested – or, perhaps more accurately, self-obsessed – spirit of our age.
As Christians, we must think through this irreligious political surge and provide a faithful witness in the midst of it. We also must be prepared to live in a very tricky tension because of this surge. As Rod Dreher explains in his newly released book, The Benedict Option:
Faithful Christians may have to choose between being a good American and being a good Christian. In a nation where “God and country” are so entwined, the idea that one’s citizenship might be at radical odds with one’s faith is a new one.[2]
Dreher’s analysis of the tension between being a citizen of a nation and being a child of God is true, but it is also somewhat amnesic. He is right that there is indeed an increasing tension. But he is wrong that this tension is anything new. Tensions between God and government have been longstanding, even in our society. And these tensions should not surprise us. It was a Roman governmental official, after all, who approved the request for Jesus’ crucifixion. Government has, for a great portion of history, had a problem with God, especially when people put Him before it.
The New Testament understands that this tension between God and government will never be fully resolved, at least on this side of the Last Day. While we may give to Caesar what is his, God also demands what is His, and when what Caesar wants contradicts what God wants, conflict ensues. Just ask Daniel, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or the apostles. Our calling, as Christians, is to resist the urge to comfortably resolve this tension, whether that be by condemning this world and cloistering ourselves off from it or by compromising our faith for the lucrative perks of political power. Our calling is to live in this tension both faithfully and evangelically – holding fast to what we confess while lovingly sharing with others what we believe.
Beinart concludes his article:
For years, political commentators dreamed that the culture war over religious morality that began in the 1960s and ’70s would fade. It has. And the more secular, more ferociously national and racial culture war that has followed is worse.
Yes, indeed, it is worse – which is why we, as the Church, need to offer something better. We need to offer something loving. We need to over something hopeful. We need to offer something reconciling. We need to offer something that continually and conscientiously questions our nation’s nearsighted political orthodoxies for the sake of a time-tested theological orthodoxy. We need to offer Jesus, unabashedly and unashamedly. This is our mission. I pray we are up to it.
______________________________________
[1] Peter Beinart, “Breaking Faith,” The Atlantic (April 2017).
[2] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 89.
Safety in a World Full of Terror
Credit: Time Magazine
First came a ban on most electronic devices – including laptops and tablets – on flights into the United States and United Kingdom from certain Muslim-majority countries. Then, last Wednesday, terror struck London as Khalid Masood, a British-born citizen apparently inspired by online terrorist propaganda, drove an SUV into pedestrians on the Westminster Bridge, leaving four dead and forty injured. After crashing his vehicle outside Parliament, he ran, fatally stabbing a police officer before he himself was fatally shot by law enforcement.
Certainly, weeks like these remind us of the fearful reality of the world in which we live. With the continuous news of terror attacks and warnings, it is no surprise that when Chapman University surveyed Americans concerning their fears, 41% said they were afraid of terror attacks while another 38.5% admitted they were worried about being the victim of a terror attack.
It can be frustrating that, despite our best efforts, we cannot seem to make this world as safe as we might like it to be. In a day and age that seems and feels scary, here are a few reminders for Christians about safety.
Safety is important.
Mosaic law set up what were known as “cities of refuge” for ancient Israelites who stood accused of manslaughter. The goal of these cities was “safety” for these accidental killers (Deuteronomy 19:4), because, if a man killed another man – even if unintentionally – the victim’s relatives might seek the killer’s life in revenge without due process. Keeping people safe from those who would seek to unjustly harm them, then, was a priority in Israel. It should be the same with us.
Whether it be the security of our homeland, or the plight of refugees halfway across the world, tending to the safety of others is part and parcel of having compassion on others. Thus, we can be thankful for the intelligence agencies who seek to keep our nation safe along with the relief agencies who tend to the safety and even the basic survival needs of endangered peoples throughout our world.
We should pray for safety.
The biblical authors have no qualms with praying for their safety and for the safety of others. The apostle Paul, for instance, knowing that he might encounter some opposition to his ministry in Judea, writes to the Romans, asking them to “pray that I may be kept safe from the unbelievers in Judea” (Romans 15:31).
Martin Luther, in his morning prayer, thanked God that He had kept him “this night from all harm and danger” and, in his evening prayer, thanked God that He had “graciously kept [him] this day.” In the same vein, an alternate version of the famous children’s bedtime prayer reads:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Guide me safely through the night,
Wake me with the morning light.
Prayers for safety abound. Praying for our safety, the safety of our families, the safety of our nation, and safety across the world is, at its root, a holy and righteous prayer for peace. It ought to be a regular part of any Christian’s prayer life.
Safety cannot be our only concern.
As blessed a gift as safety may be, it cannot be our only concern. Sometimes, we are called to surrender our own safety for the sake of the gospel. This is why Paul and Barnabas, in a letter to the Christian church at Antioch, honor those “who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 15:26). This is why each of the Twelve disciples, save one, was martyred for what he believed. A concern for safety that refuses to take a risk for the sake of the gospel does not treat safety as a gift from God to be celebrated, but as an idol that needs to be repented of. The concern for our own safety must never become greater than our commitment to Christ.
Perfect safety is found only in Christ.
As each terror attack reminds us, we cannot ultimately ensure our own safety. Only God can. The Psalmist wisely prays, “You alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8). Paul similarly declares, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:18). The Greek word for “safely” in this verse is sozo, the word for “salvation.” As concerned as we might be with safety in this life, Christ is finally concerned with bringing us safely into the eternal life of salvation. Thus, we should never become so concerned with temporary safety now that we forget about the perfect safety of salvation, won for us in Christ and given to us by the grace of Christ. In the words of John Newton’s great hymn:
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The safety our eternal home is the safety we finally seek, for it is the only safety that can never be shattered.
Power, Knowledge, and the C.I.A.
Credit: BBC
When news broke this past Tuesday that WikiLeaks had released thousands of pages of C.I.A. intelligence documents, government officials scurried anxiously to analyze what kind of danger these leaks would present. The New York Times outlined the contents of the leaked documents, which revealed that the CIA had developed extraordinarily advanced methods of spying on even state-of-the-art encrypted electronic communication:
Sophisticated software tools and techniques used by the agency [can] break into smartphones, computers and even Internet-connected televisions…
In one revelation that may especially trouble the tech world if confirmed, WikiLeaks said that the C.I.A. and allied intelligence services have managed to compromise both Apple and Android smartphones, allowing their officers to bypass the encryption on popular services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate smartphones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”
The New York Times also noted that the C.I.A. had tools at its disposal to spy on “Skype; Wi-Fi networks; documents in PDF format; and even commercial antivirus programs of the kind used by millions of people to protect their computers.” In other words, if a person is connected in some way to the Internet, the C.I.A. can see.
Of course, the C.I.A. maintains that it uses such tools not to spy on Americans, but to gather much needed information about communications between suspected terrorists. C.I.A. spokesman Ryan Tripani explains that the intelligence agency:
…is legally prohibited from conducting electronic surveillance targeting individuals here at home, including our fellow Americans, and C.I.A. does not do so…C.I.A.’s job to be innovative, cutting-edge, and the first line of defense in protecting this country from enemies abroad.
The ethics of intelligence gathering have always been complex. On the one hand, the benefits of discovering terrorist plots before they are launched cannot be overstated. Saving lives is always preferable to responding to carnage. On the other hand, when imperfect people – even when they are in government and are constricted by the regulations of government – get a hold of great power, the possibility always exists for corruption. These leaks have brought this tension, once again, to the forefront of our public conversation.
For all the power C.I.A. officials have to hack into people’s communications and for all the information they are able to garner from these communications, the C.I.A. is still limited in its power and in its knowledge. It cannot do everything or know everything. This is why Christians can be thankful that we serve a God who has not only great power, but all power. He is omnipotent. And He has not only much knowledge, but all knowledge. He is omniscient. But frankly, all this would be cold comfort if God was as we are. If He was imperfect, the specter of what He could – and probably would – do with His total power and knowledge would only terrify us. Thankfully, God has not only all power and all knowledge, but all goodness as well. He is omnibenevolent. Thus, His power and knowledge do not come with the same concerns the C.I.A.’s do, for His power and knowledge will never be misused or abused.
The moral ineptitude that would lead WikiLeaks to fecklessly release documents that would compromise our national security should be forcefully denounced. We did not need these illegally obtained documents to know that there are ethical concerns and quandaries when it comes to intelligence gathering. But at the same time these ethical concerns and quandaries endure, we can be thankful that we have a God who uses both His power and knowledge perfectly. His wise knowledge is unmatched by any nation’s intelligence. And His protective power is better than any nation’s security. So why we might be thankful for the generally good work of the C.I.A., we can wholly trust in a God who knows exactly what He’s doing – for us and for our world.
Flowers, Same-Sex Marriage, and Responding with Grace
Barronelle Stutzman enjoyed catching up with her friend, Rob Ingersoll. He would stop by regularly to order custom bouquets from the mom-and-pop flower shop she operated, Arlene’s Flowers, and the two would talk about what was going on in their respective lives. Everything was coming up, excuse the pun, roses, until one day when Rob stopped by Arlene’s Flowers to ask Barronelle to provide custom flower arrangements for his upcoming wedding to his partner, Curt. According to a deposition by Ms. Stutzman, she responded by putting her hands on Mr. Ingersoll and saying, “Because of my relationship with Jesus Christ, I can’t do that.” Understandably, he walked away feeling deeply hurt and rejected. After that, it didn’t take long for a legal firestorm to explode.
The two men sued Arlene’s Flowers for $7.91, the price it cost to drive to another florist. Then, on February 16, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled that Ms. Stutzman was in violation of state law, claiming that Ms. Stutzman’s actions constituted “socially harmful conduct” and that the “government views acts of discrimination,” which is how they regarded Ms. Stutzman’s refusal of service, “as independent social evils.”
In a situation like this, it can be difficult for a Christian to figure out how to respond. Indeed, there has been a fair amount of debate among Christians over whether or not it is biblically-appropriate to provide certain services, as Barronelle Stutzman refused to do, for a same-sex wedding.
Regardless of what an individual Christian may or may not be willing to accommodate in a situation like this, Ms. Stutzman’s overall response to this controversy has been charitable and exemplary. Shortly after the controversy erupted, she penned an opinion piece for The Seattle Times. She opened:
Rob Ingersoll will always be my friend. Recent events have complicated – but not changed – that fact for me.
Ms. Stutzman began with a statement of love for Mr. Ingersoll. Even if he sues her, she will not disown him. She will always be a friend to him, even after she felt she had to have a conversation with him that was, in her words, “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life.”
She continued by explaining her desire to balance her moral convictions with her Christian love:
I knew he was in a relationship with a man and he knew I was a Christian. But that never clouded the friendship for either of us or threatened our shared creativity – until he asked me to design something special to celebrate his upcoming wedding.
If all he’d asked for were prearranged flowers, I’d gladly have provided them. If the celebration were for his partner’s birthday, I’d have been delighted to pour my best into the challenge. But as a Christian, weddings have a particular significance…
I’ve never questioned Rob’s and Curt Freed’s right to live out their beliefs. And I wouldn’t have done anything to keep them from getting married, or even getting flowers. Even setting aside my warm feelings for them, I wouldn’t have deliberately taken actions that would mean the end of being able to do the work I love or risk my family’s home and savings.
I just couldn’t see a way clear in my heart to honor God with the talents He has given me by going against the word He has given us.
Whatever decision another Christian would have made if faced with a situation like this, it is difficult to disparage Ms. Stutzman’s desire to be both faithful to her moral convictions and loving toward her friend.
In the news, much has been made about what this story and the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling mean for religious freedom. The questions this controversy raises about religious freedom are indeed monumental. And the court’s ruling a couple of weeks ago is certainly open to vigorous questioning. But in the midst of all the thorny Constitutional and legal quandaries, let’s not miss the simple story of a woman trying to live out her faith in Jesus in front of others and for the sake of others. For this is how each of us are called to live – loving even those with whom we deeply disagree us and seeking to winsomely hold forth to the world the use of God’s gifts – like the gift of marriage – according to God’s intentions.
Whatever ultimately comes of this case, this call will not change.
Michael Flynn, Intelligence Leaks, and Ethical Questions
Credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP
When Michael Flynn tendered his resignation as National Security Advisor last week after only 24 days on the job, it marked the predictable outcome of what had become deepening concerns over some dishonest statements he made to the vice-president about the nature of a December conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the potential his conversation created for his blackmail by Russian authorities. In a political climate where dishonesty is often dismissed out-of-hand as part of the job, Mr. Flynn’s forced resignation is a sobering reminder that character still counts.
Of course, in this story, there are not only ethical questions raised by Mr. Flynn’s clandestine conversation, there are also critical ethical questions that must be asked about the leaking of his conversation by shadowy intelligence officials to the news media. After all, unethically leaking the fact the National Security Advisor unethically lied to vice-president seems, well, just all-around unethical.
Sadly, in our hyper-politicized climate, it is difficult not to filter this story through anything other than a political lens. President Trump certainly filtered it this way, at least in part, when he complained on Twitter:
The real scandal here is that classified information is illegally given out by “intelligence” like candy. Very un-American!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 15, 2017
Yes, intelligence leaks are indeed scandalous – and dangerously so. But dishonesty by the National Security Advisor with the vice-president is also scandalous. Both sides of this scandal need to be addressed. Sadly, most politicians only see fit to address whichever side furthers their own political purposes.
The problem with politicizing scandals like these is that we often overlook the sins of one side conveniently while decrying the sins of the other side forcefully. Our argument becomes not that one side is truly good, but that the other side is really bad. In this way, we justify one side’s sins by the sins the other side. But when we address ethical scandals like this, we only wind up creating a circular firing squad, with everyone squarely aiming their barrels at everyone else. We settle for hurting whoever happens to be our political enemy rather than holding onto what is actually right.
Jonathan Bethune, in an article for The Federalist, captures and summarizes our political zeitgeist well when he explains:
There can be no meaningful dialogue premised upon shared values if both sides only apply those values when it lets them score points. The class of moderately intelligent politically aware people are those most affected by this trend. They have become partisan ideologues.
An ideologue is at least consistent in his belief in specific policies. A partisan openly supports his gang above all else. But a partisan ideologue is worse than both. He is a Machiavellian creature: a supporter of “ends justify the means” approaches to pushing an agenda. The gang must be defended that the agenda might be defended, even when the gang violates core tenets of the agenda. Partisan ideologues are dishonest by nature. Worse still, they often cannot even tell when they are being dishonest.
Mr. Bethune is onto something here. He understands that a politics that is more partisan than it is principled can only become pathological. And when this happens, politics becomes a sinister force for moral decay rather than what Aristotle envisioned politics at its best to be – a guardian of societal good. Such pathology in our politics not only points to a problem with Mr. Flynn and with dangerous intelligence leaks, it points to a problem with us.
Perhaps it is time, then, to look not only at the news, but in the mirror.
Abortion as Big Business
Whenever the curtains are pulled back on Planned Parenthood clinics, the results never seem to turn out well. Through an interview with two former Planned Parenthood employees, it was discovered a clinic in Storm Lake, Iowa had abortion quotas. Sue Thayer, a former manager at Planned Parenthood, revealed:
Every center had a goal for how many abortions were done. And centers that didn’t do abortions like mine that were family planning clinics had a goal for the number of abortion referrals. And it was on this big grid, and if we hit our goal, our line was green. If we were 5 percent under, it was yellow. If we were 10 percent under, it was red. That’s when we needed to have a corrective action plan – why we didn’t hit the goal, what we’re going to do differently next time.
Planned Parenthood, for all the assertions it makes about helping people with family planning, seems to be primarily interested in selling one service – abortions. Mrs. Thayer went on to disclose some of the techniques her clinic would use to sell abortions:
I trained my staff the way that I was trained, which was to really encourage women to choose abortion, to have it at Planned Parenthood, because that counts as, you know, towards our goal. We would try to get the appointment scheduled for the abortion before they left our clinic. We would say things like, “Your pregnancy test, your visit today is X number of dollars. How much are you going to be able to pay towards that?” If they’d say, “I’m not able to pay today,” then we would say something like, “Well, if you can’t pay ten dollars today, how are you going to take care of a baby? Have you priced diapers? Do you know how much it costs to buy a car seat? … So really, don’t you think your smartest choice is termination?”
Honestly, this kind of sales pitch and posturing is difficult for me to process. Planned Parenthood workers freely admitted in their conversations that a life in a womb is – or, at the very least, will be – a baby who will need to be cared for and fed and protected, and yet, because of the expenses involved in raising a child, there is a cold calculation at work that says it is better to abort a child than to financially invest in one. I’m honestly not sure how else I’m supposed to interpret a calculation like this than this: for Planned Parenthood, financial burden trumps human life.
But it goes beyond that. For Planned Parenthood, financial gain also trumps human life. For those clinics that reached their abortion quotas, Mrs. Thayer explained:
We would have things like pizza parties. Occasionally, they would say, “You can two hours of paid time off.” If your center consistently hit goal and you were green all the time, you know, like, three months in a row, you might be center manager of the month and go to Des Moines and have lunch, you know, with the upper management, or something … It sounds kind of crazy, but pizza is a motivator.
Planned Parenthood is so devoted to selling abortions that they offer pizza parties as an incentive to their clinics to sell a lot of them. It turns out that they also hand out awards to clinics that increase the number of abortions they perform year over year.
The moral questions such practices raise are inescapable. Are the lives of babies who are born into lower financial means more disposable than the lives of babies who are born into more affluent families? Should the future of a life be subject to a financial litmus test – if a life can be afforded, it should be nurtured, and if it cannot, it should be ended? Should expectant mothers, who often have nagging doubts and deep moral misgivings about whether or not they should have an abortion, be pressured into a procedure to add to a company’s bottom line?
Peter Singer, the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics chair at Princeton, has been widely decried, and rightly so, for his crassly utilitarian view of human life. He has claimed, for instance, “that a human’s life is not necessarily more sacred than a dog’s, and that it might be more compassionate to carry out medical experiments on hopelessly disabled, unconscious orphans than on perfectly healthy rats.” For Singer, the worth of a life can be coolly calculated by a set of criteria. If a life meets the criteria, it should be nurtured and protected. If it does not, it can be ended, even if it is a human life. It is difficult to see how Planned Parenthood’s financial criteria to determine a human life’s value differs all that much from Professor Singer’s method.
It must be said that a Christian cannot endorse or endure such a view of human life. Human life is not valuable because it meets certain criteria. It is valuable, according to Scripture, because of its origin and its unique reflection of its Creator. Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee for Supreme Court Justice, echoes this sentiment using a Constitutional lens when he writes:
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws to all persons; this guarantee is replicated in Article 14 of the European Convention and in the constitutions and declarations of rights of many other countries. This profound social and political commitment to human equality is grounded on, and an expression of, the belief that all persons innately have dignity and are worthy of respect without regard to their perceived value based on some instrumental scale of usefulness or merit. We treat people as worthy of equal respect because of their status as human beings and without regard to their looks, gender, race, creed, or any other incidental trait – because, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, we hold it as ‘self-evident’ that ‘all men (and women) are created equal’ and enjoy ‘certain unalienable Rights,’ and ‘that among these are Life.’
What is “self-evident” to the framers of the Declaration of Independence is apparently not so self-evident to Planned Parenthood. May we never allow the inherent value of human life to be anything less than self-evident to us.
An Executive Order and an Immigration Debate
When President Trump issued an executive order two Saturdays ago putting a 90-day moratorium on all foreigners entering the United States from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen and a 120-day ban on all refugee admissions, the reaction was swift and splenetic. Protests erupted at airports across the country. Democratic politicians decried – and, quite literally, cried at – Mr. Trump’s executive order. And now, a federal judge in Washington has temporarily blocked enforcement of the president’s immigration stay.
Though much could be said – and has been said – from a policy standpoint about the president’s executive order and the heated debates that have ensued, it is worth it for us, as Christians, to use this moment as an opportunity step back and consider how Scripture frames the broader issues involved. After all, long after the embers of the fight over this particular executive order have cooled, the contentious disagreements that have bubbled to the top in this debate will remain. So here are a few things to keep in mind.
Safety and Sojourners
One of the roles of any government is to protect its people by punishing wrong and standing up for what is right. This is part of the reason Joshua led a conquest through the land of Canaan. This is also why the apostle Paul writes:
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. (Romans 3:4)
The preamble to our Constitution echoes this sentiment when it explains the very need for such a document thusly:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Likewise, President Trump, when his executive order was met with fiery backlash, defended it by saying that his order was about “terror and keeping our country safe.”
Safety is indeed a noble goal. But Scripture also has much to say about welcoming and helping sojourners. God commands the Israelites:
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 19:33-34)
One of Jesus’ most famous stories – the Parable of the Good Samaritan – has as its centerpiece a call to be kind to foreigners. In this day, for a Jew to talk about a “good Samaritan” would have sounded oxymoronic. The Samaritans, after all, were the ones who broke into the Jewish temple during Passover and desecrated it by scattering human bones through it. Jews did not consider Samaritans “safe.” But in Jesus’ story, a Samaritan ends up saving the life of a Jew.
As Christians, then, we are called to be concerned both with the safety and security of our families and nation as well as with the plights of others, such as Syrian refugees, doing whatever we can to welcome and care for those who need our help. A concern for safety and a love for sojourners are to go hand in hand.
Local and Global
Donald Trump’s short tenure as president has been marked by the theme of putting America first. In what was perhaps the most memorable line of his inauguration address, the president declared, “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first, America first.”
Addressing concerns and challenges close to home is important. Charity, the old saw says, begins at home. Scripture echoes this theme when the apostle Paul encourages believers to take care of those closest to them: “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever” (1 Timothy 5:8). In this same letter, Paul also wonders out loud how a pastor who “does not know how to manage his own family…can…take care of God’s church” (1 Timothy 3:5). At issue here is a principle of subsidiarity, which encourages a focus on local affairs first.
But once again, as important as local affairs are, they are not the only concerns we should have. President Trump’s call of “America first” must never become that of “America only.”
Rodney Stark, in his seminal work The Triumph of Christianity, notes that Christianity is unique not only because it is:
…the largest religion in the world, [but because] it also is the least regionalized. There are only trivial numbers of Muslims in the Western Hemisphere and in Eastern Asia, but there is no region without significant numbers of Christians – even in the Arab region of North Africa.[1]
Christianity is decentralized because the faith’s founder gave His disciples a global mission: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). In the book of Acts, Christ encourages the Church to have both a local and a global vision for mission: “You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
As Christians, then, though we are to tend to the affairs of our families, communities, and country, these cannot be our sole concerns. A world that is hurting is a world that needs our compassion, interest, and engagement. We are called to have eyes for both that which is local and for things which are global.
Government and Church
As Christians, we must remember that the affairs of the government are not always coterminous with the mission of the Church. Governments have a specific role to play. They are God’s servants, on a civic level, to promote and defend that which is right and to dissuade and punish that which is wrong. Likewise, the Church has a specific mission to carry out – to reach the world, in both word and deed, with the gospel on a personal level. Thus, while a government may seek to protect a nation, the Church continues to go forth to reach the nations.
As Christians, then, we live in two worlds. We are both members of Christ’s body, the Church, and citizens of an earthly nation. In such a politically-heated environment, however, it can be tempting to exalt the partisanship of politics over the community of the congregation. Indeed, one of the saddest aspects of our current crisis is that the millions of Syrian refugees who have been displaced from their homes and families have become, in the words of Pete Spiliakos:
…footballs in our partisan scrimmages. We insist on certain standards of hospitality to refugees, making those standards a test of “who we are,” opportunistically – when it is useful to our side.
In other words, we do not charitably welcome refugees while carefully stewarding our own national interests because it is right thing to do, we pick either the reasonable concerns of our nation or the sad plight of international refugees and turn one into a cause célèbre at the expense of the other because it is politically expedient. This is wrong both civically and ecclesiologically because it reduces people to pawns in a game of thrones. We are less concerned with doing justice and more concerned with wielding power.
In a debate that has become increasingly either/or, we, as Christians, have a message that is both/and. We can both seek the safety of our nation and be hospitable to sojourners. We can both address our local contexts and keep an eye on global crises. We can both live as responsible citizens and work as members of Christ’s body. One thing does not need to trump the other thing because, ultimately, over everything is Christ. He is the One who ultimately both keeps us safe and welcomes us into His kingdom as sojourners from this corrupt age. He is the One who both loves each of us locally and dies for the world globally. He is the One who both rules all rulers and is the head of His body, the Church. He is the One in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).
As we seek to process today’s troubles, then, let us never forget who we are. We are not merely useful political plodders. We are the children of God in Christ, which means that we trust in Him, live with Him, and love like Him – both those who are near and those who are halfway across the world.
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[1] Rodney Stark, The Triumph of Christianity (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011), 392.
Marching for Life
This past Friday, hundreds of thousands of people descended on Washington D.C. for the 43rd annual March for Life. The march finds its origin in a decision handed down by the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973, which legalized abortion in all 50 states. From its outset, the ruling was controversial, as can be seen in a dissenting opinion from one of the justices on the Court at the time, Justice Byron White:
With all due respect, I dissent. I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand.
Justice White frames his dissent in a couple of ways. First, he frames it in terms of states’ rights. At the time of Roe v. Wade, four states had legalized abortion on demand while thirteen states had legalized abortion in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to a woman’s health. Justice White is concerned that the high court’s federal ruling runs roughshod over decisions that rightly belong to the states. But that’s not all he’s concerned about. He also frames his dissent around the morality of deciding “the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand.” This moral quandary is the one that remains and rages to this day. The question is this: is the fetus important? Should a fetus be protected in some way, shape, form, or fashion because of what the fetus is – a baby in utero?
The answer from those who participate in the March to Life each year to these moral questions has been a resounding “yes.” And Christianity’s answer to these questions has been a resounding “yes” as well. Indeed, the story of Christianity can be summed up quite accurately as a war on death. Ever since Adam’s fall into sin brought death into the world, God has been working to undo death’s grimly efficient accomplishments. God’s war on death, of course, finds its climax and consummation in Easter, but all throughout Scripture we see that death gets cheated as a warning to death that it will ultimately be defeated. Death gets cheated when God leads the children of Israel through the Red Sea, rescuing them from Pharaoh’s sword. Death gets cheated when the prophet Elijah raises a widow’s son back to life. Death gets cheated when a king of Israel, Hezekiah, falls ill, but God adds fifteen years to his life. And death gets cheated all throughout Jesus’ ministry, where the terminal are treated, the reposed are raised, and the graves are gutted. Yes, the Scriptures tell the story of God’s war on death.
Of course, we know that, in a pluralistic democracy, Scriptural theology doesn’t always translate into broad public policy. Nevertheless, even from the vantage point of a pluralistic democracy, concerns about life must be addressed. Questions of anthropology, such as whether life matters and whose life matters, demand our time and attention if we are to have any sort of a functioning and orderly society. The March for Life dares to raise these questions. And for that, it should be commended.
One of the criticisms I have heard of the pro-life movement is that though it seeks to defend the lives of the unborn, if often turns a deaf ear to the lives of the already born – the economically oppressed, minorities, and the socially marginalized. I agree. I agree that it is hypocritical to defend some life while turning a blind eye to other life. But I also believe it is tragic to privilege the desires of one life at the expense of another life. Yet, this is precisely the argument abortion proponents regularly make. One abortion proponent explained it like this:
Here’s the complicated reality in which we live: All life is not equal…A fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always…
I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time – even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.
This is a chilling – and, dare I say, downright evil – rationalization for abortion.
To speak out against abortion is to understand that it is awfully difficult to defend the lives of the economically oppressed, minorities, and the socially marginalized if those lives are never allowed to leave the womb alive because they are aborted. And studies have shown they are aborted – again and again. It is because of that reality that I am thankful for the March for Life.
Life matters – whether it is in the womb, on this earth, or with Jesus in eternity. And that’s something worth marching for.
The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump
Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images
It’s official. As of last Friday, just after noon Eastern Standard Time, Donald J. Trump became the 45th President of the United States.
Though our nation has a new president, old partisan divides and rancor remain. Representative John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, questioned the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s election and promised to boycott his inauguration, which prompted a fiery response from the president via his Twitter account. Project Veritas uncovered the aspirations of a radical protest organization to detonate a butyric acid bomb at the inaugural ball. And then there were the protests just blocks away from the inauguration parade that erupted into riots. Indeed, there is no shortage of division in our society.
At this watershed moment in American history, it is worth it to take a moment and remind ourselves how we, as Christians, are to conduct ourselves in a world full of violence, threats, political infighting, and social media rants. So, as a new man settles into the world’s most powerful position, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Rulers come and rulers go.
Last week, a friend sent me a picture of the “Donald Trump Out of Office Countdown Wall Calendar.” It extends to 2021. Apparently, the calendar is not only counting down Mr. Trump’s term in office, but making a prediction about the next presidential election. Whatever you may think of the new president, and regardless of whether or not you hope he is elected to another term, this wall calendar provides an important reminder: Mr. Trump’s presidency will not last forever, just like all the presidencies before his did not last forever. Indeed, it is always interesting to hear discussions of how “history is being made” every time a new president is elected and inaugurated. We seem to know, even if only intuitively, that the present is only the present for a split second. It quickly becomes history – a past that is no longer pressing.
If you are concerned about Mr. Trump’s presidency, then, remember: it will not last forever. And if you are ecstatic about Mr. Trump’s presidency, remember: it will not last forever. This is why the Psalmist instructs us not to put our “trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing” (Psalm 146:3-4). The reign of any earthly ruler never lasts. Every reign ends; every ruler dies – that is, except for One.
Rulers have limited authority.
No matter who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue, a contingent of the electorate is always apoplectic, convinced that whoever happens to be president at the time will surely spell the end of American democracy, if not world order, as we know it. The reality of a president’s – or any ruler’s – authority is much less impressive. Scripture reminds us that every human authority is under God’s authority. The prophet Daniel declares that God “deposes kings and raises up others” (Daniel 2:21). The apostle Paul tells masters of slaves in the ancient world that One “who is both [your slave’s] Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with Him” (Ephesians 6:9). No matter how much authority one person may have, no human authority can match God’s ultimate authority.
This should bring us peace and give us perspective. Leaders, ultimately, do not control the world. Instead, they simply steward, whether faithfully or poorly, whatever little corner of the world God has happened to give to them for a brief moment in time. It is never wise, therefore, to put too much faith in leaders we like or to have too much fear of leaders we don’t. Their power is not ultimate power.
Rulers need our prayers.
When we no longer put too much faith in our leaders or have too much fear of them, this frees us up to pray for them according to Scripture’s admonition: “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). I find it especially striking that making it a common practice to pray for our leaders – no matter who they might be – is commanded by Paul not only because of the effects these prayers have on our leaders, but because of the effects these prayers have on us! When we pray for our leaders, Paul says, this leads us to peaceful and quiet lives even when the world around us feels troubled, and godly and holy lives even when the world around us seems to be careening into moral rot. When we pray for others, God strengthens us.
As Donald Trump assumes the responsibilities of the President of the United States, he needs our prayers. So keep President Trump and his family in your prayers. And while you’re at it, keep other leaders, be they on the national, statewide, or local levels, in your prayers as well. As a practical admonition, perhaps consider writing a note to one of your public servants asking how you can pray for them. Your note just might be a big blessing to them and encourage them to become a better leader. And that’s something our nation can always use.
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