Weekly Cultural Update: French Riots, Michel Foucault's Centennial, Texas Higher Ed, and UK Porn Laws

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Rioting erupts and continues in France and spreads to other parts of Europe.
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The influential French philosopher Michel Foucault would have turned 100 this week.
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Texas puts limits on what professors can and cannot teach, and Britain revises its laws on pornography.
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These are the stories we'll cover today, and we'll answer some of your questions.
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Excellent questions, as usual.
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I'm your host, Scott Ray, and setting in for Sean this week is my colleague in theology, Dr.
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Thad Williams.
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This is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update, coming to you from Tablet School of Theology, Biola University.
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Thad, welcome.
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Great to have you with us.
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I don't think I've had you as a partner on this yet, but uh I think we're a little overdue to uh to weigh in together on this.
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We are indeed.
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It's a joy to be with you, brother.
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All right, here's the first story.
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Last weekend, riots, protests, and looting took place in Paris, France, and spread to other parts of the country, including the cities of Lyon, Limoges, where a historic city can city building was destroyed, Marseille and Bordeaux, and then spread to other parts of Europe, including Spain, Portugal, Albania, and Italy.
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It began in late September with protests from students, mainly high school and college students, about school conditions and teacher shortages, and I think probably part of it too, the lack of employment opportunities for them after their education was finished.
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It spread to general protests about the high cost of living, especially housing costs, what they considered inadequate government services.
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It ended last Saturday around the country with roughly 500,000 protesters, mainly in Paris, and then degenerated into looting of stores and shops.
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3,000 businesses around the country were damaged or looted.
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8,000 people were arrested.
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That though began with students, it didn't end with them.
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Sure.
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As best I can tell, a coalition of radical Islamists, far left, what call what the government called antifascist instigators, radical environmentalists, and pro-Palestinian groups, uh, called sort of the quote red-green coalition, apparently have been planning this and at least co-opted the students' protest movement.
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Further demonstrations are planned for this weekend.
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Uh French law enforcement was overwhelmed by the number of rioters and provided little support to besieged store owners that their shops were looted and their property destroyed.
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Kerfus were instituted last week throughout the country, and law enforcement vowed to be better prepared for this coming weekend.
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The government blamed what they called opportunistic criminals and ultra-left activists, denying that immigrants were actually part of the problem.
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All right.
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So, Thad, I'm interested to hear your take on this.
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Uh, there's a lot to this, I think a lot to talk about on this, but uh give me give me your take on this.
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Yeah, so so many angles that that we could take here.
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I was reading uh what the Atlantic had to say about it, and there was one phrase that just jumped out of the article.
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Uh, the Atlantic described this as a case of what they called nihilistic resentment.
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Nihilistic resentment.
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And the thing that jumps out at me about that is like this isn't our first rodeo, like if we were in Paris, our first rodeo of widespread demonstrations, this kind of thing.
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Let me frame it this way: if we hopped in a time machine and we went back to the year 1792, in Paris, you had a young actress 14 years old named Mademoiselle Candet, and uh the Parisians dressed this teenage actress up as the goddess of reason and marched her down Parvista Notre Dame along the Seine River there and into Notre Dame Cathedral, and they installed her at a high point and they actually began singing hymns to this 14-year-old girl as a symbolic act that this is our new religion.
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Reason is our new religion.
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Now, Scott, if we were to walk down those same streets in September of that same year, we would have been ankle deep in the blood of the French Revolution.
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How quickly the age of reason devolved into the reign of terror?
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And so Paris has a long history of these sort of tumultuous worldview shifts, and I think we're just seeing history repeat itself.
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And so maybe it's not an attempt to install the goddess of reason.
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Maybe now it's an attempt to install, you know, the goddess of equal outcomes.
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Maybe it's a an attempt to install the goddess of social justice um, or some kind of neo-Marxist ideology.
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And I think what we're seeing is what we've seen again and again through the history of revolutions, uh I think it was John Stone Street who said uh ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims.
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And so that's my question is what what is the idea beyond just the looting part?
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I get a lot of free stuff real fast.
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Is there any kind of cohesive, compelling, uh beautiful story uniting the protesters?
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And I think that's that's the key problem is that they're falling for different uh ideologies that don't uh paint a particularly bright picture of the future.
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I think just closing thought on this, and I'll kick it to you.
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Uh in 1968, uh the streets of Paris were also full of student protesters.
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And uh one of the most prophetic voices in the evangelical world at the time was the late great Francis Schaefer.
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And so Schaefer, in his uh brilliant book, I would I would heartily recommend to our listenership.
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It's called The Church at the End of the Twentieth Century.
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Church at the end of the 20th century.
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And so this is Schaefer writing to similar riots in Paris, but decades ago.
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He says, here then is the context in which the student revolt can be understood.
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This is how we came to be where we are.
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And he goes on to say, society has reaped the rewards of its escape from reason, from modern science to modern, modern science that denies God, from denying that man is made in the image of God.
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So now man is a machine, from freedom within form to determinism, autonomous freedom.
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And it goes on.
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The the point of it, Scott, is he's diagnosing the issues underneath the issues and saying behind the riots, there are fundamental worldview questions that at the end of the day, Christianity gives the best answer to.
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And so he goes on and says, instead of just a flat out critique of the rioters, he says, you know, these whether the free speech people or the hippies, their sentence was we live in a plastic culture.
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And so recognizing that a lot of the concerns of people, you know, burning and um pillaging their way, along with other protesters who are not resorting to violence, we need to recognize that they're trying to scratch a deeper itch than in the final analysis, only the gospel, only Christianity can can scratch.
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So thank you.
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That's a great take on this.
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I so appreciate the going straight to the worldview that underlies this.
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Now, I think there are there are probably several different worldviews under underlying these different groups of protesters, but I think what they have in common, I think, is a rebellion and a disillusionment with the overwhelmingly secular state that was that was founded when the goddess of reason was enthroned.
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Yep.
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And I think that to be fair, I think you know France, uh the issues they face don't have easy solutions.
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Uh as the the piece in the Wall Street Journal that talked about this pointed out, uh, you know, policies have consequences, not just ideas, but policies have consequences.
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And I think this, and I'm quoting the article here, ridiculously high levels of public spending and heavy market regulation, labor market regulation that made it nearly impossible for the French economy to grow.
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At least not at the rate necessary to guarantee the students the futures that they want.
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The French habit of cramming immigrants into ghettos has created a time bomb of social unrest.
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And so I think there's you know, the the the the idea would be to, you know, you to gr grow your way to prosperity out of this.
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But the you know, the the French government has a huge debt.
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Uh over 50 percent of their GDP goes to government spending in one way or another.
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Uh so I think you could probably make an argument that how how that's distributed uh maybe inadequate for things like education that will prepare students for the future, things like that.
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Yeah.
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What's fascinating to interject real quick is I was doing some homework on this.
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Um, you know, France ranks very low on the free market index.
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Um, as you said, over 50% of their GDP goes to uh social spending.
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The whole catalyst for this, at least the story goes, is education and underfunded education.
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And I did the homework on it.
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It's$223 billion with a B dollars that the government already spends on education.
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And so that's part of the problem, is it's like, well, what more, you know, if our new goddess is, say, equal outcomes, it it exposes that problem that you have a false idol at the center that can never ultimately satisfy.
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Yeah.
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Well, I think there is there's probably some debate then over the degree to which immigration has played a role in this.
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Sure.
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Uh the the government, the French government denies that uh immigrants had m much role in this.
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I think the reality on the ground, I think, is it's hard to that's hard to deny uh that immigrants had a had a significant role in this.
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Now, I think they've, you know, the the writers came, I think, mostly from uh a group of radic radical environmentalists, uh ultra-left, anti-fascist activists, uh pro-Palestinian supporters, that sort of that red-green coalition.
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Uh the the you know, the the green part refers to, I think, the pro-Palestinian uh faction of that, which is largely, I think, fueled by immigrants who have come to France from North Africa and the Middle East.
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And so what I'd want to point out, I think, is that immigration is really different in Europe than it is in the in the U.S.
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And it goes back to the worldview that you're that you're referring to.
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I think with with most immigrants to Europe who come from the Middle East and North Africa, they have a largely Islamic worldview, whether it's fundamentalist or more moderate, that uh at least on on the on the more radical side, I think it's fair to say that the radical Islamist worldview is incompatible with most democratic institutions, which fuses nicely with the radical left and the radical environmentalist groups that we basically want to tear down the structures of democracy and uh other democratic institutions like our market-based systems.
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That's different.
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That's markedly different than immigrants coming to the United States, mostly from Latin America, from at least if not Catholic, they they were raised with a more Catholic worldview that is, I think, is much more compatible with democracy and market capitalism.
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And so the estimate in France from one of these articles I read pointed out is that 13 percent of the population are foreign-born.
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I think most of that would be born in the Middle East and North Africa.
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And another 12 percent are second generation of foreign-born parents.
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So a quarter, 25 percent of French society, let's just say, with that at the at the least, a a deep ambivalence about living in the kind of colorblind secular republic that France has been committed to, as you point out, since you know the late 1700s.
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Yeah.
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Uh and I think the you know, de definitely that 25 percent would want to dethrone the goddess of reason and replace her with something else.
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Exactly.
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Uh I think a worldview that I think is considerably less compatible than what we than what we see in most of the rest of the West.
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Yep.
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Well said.
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So anything else you want to add to this?
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No.
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That's great.
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I think you nailed it.
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Now the the second story I think has a really interesting connection to the riots in France.
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But this is from our friend Carl Truman in First Things.
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And he's he's describing perhaps the most influential thinker that you've never heard of, who would have turned 100 years old this week.
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Uh Michel Foucault, the French philosopher, who passed away some 40 years ago.
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And though his contemporaries, I think, at the time have faded from relevance, he remains highly influential in the academy, and I think by extension in the culture at large.
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Now, on the positive side of his contribution, we are much more aware of how cultural factors shape what constitutes knowledge.
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We're more sensitive to how histories of the past serve and are shaped by political purposes in the present.
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We're more suspicious of how power is pervasive and sometimes invisible, and why challenging power uh to resist that in any final decisive way is really difficult to do.
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Now, he also, on a not so positive note, he also paved the way for the LGBTQ movement with its denial, denial of sort of the essential uh biologi what we call biological essentialism, that uh there is such a thing as an intrinsic biological sex uh just just to male and female.
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Uh he is considered one of the f fathers of postmodernism and its assault on objective truth and morality, uh, all in the service he alleged of main people maintaining power.
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Now, to be fair, he also had a dark side.
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And his personal life reflected the nihilism that his philosophy led him to, mainly a deep skepticism of truth and moral values.
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He immersed himself in the sexual excesses available to him back in the 1970s and 80s, uh sadomasochistic sex, the gay bathhouse scene, allegations that he knowingly infect others with AIDS.
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He had uh a handful of suicide attempts, uh, some mental breakdowns as well.
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Uh so he was definitely a very mixed bag here.
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Uh as we would say he's, you know, he created an image of God, but deeply fallen and broken, uh, and I'd say a product of his philosophy.
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He was not uh, as the article puts it, he was not a particleist who engaged in some of these sexual excesses on the side.
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Uh the the things that he took to excess, I think were were direct outgrowth of his philosophy, his nihilism and his philosophy of life.
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So uh so why don't you, you know, Thad sort of summarize his contribution to where we are today culturally.
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You've made reference to the the nihil nihilism that uh has come out already in these in these riots.
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I think they have our friend Michel Foucault and maybe earlier Friedrich Nietzsche uh to thank for those.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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It's it's really difficult, Scott, to to underestimate Foucault's impact on the Western world.
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I mean, you think of uh I've read some studies that he is the most cited scholar in in the humanities, uh uh second only to uh Richard Posner, the the judge and and philosopher.
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And I th I think the order is um Foucault number one, Richard Posner number two, and uh Richard Dworkin uh number three.
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So so it's hard to um overestimate his impact.
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And when you dive into his work, he is very much, as you nodded to, uh Nietzschean in his orientation.
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And for Nietzsche, reality is a zero-sum power game.
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Nietzsche uh in his transcendence of right and wrong in uh thus spake the Arathustra, in many of his works, he describes reality as think of it this way if if reality is a thousand power units, if I want more than like three, the only way to gain power in a Nietzschean uh worldview is to take it from somebody else.
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And so Foucault comes around and and builds on that and begins uh Foucault's term is unmasking, unmasking.
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So you take uh he he his original book that sort of put him on the map was about uh the healthcare industry and hospitals and stuff like that.
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And he argued that what we call disease and how we treat it is not as objective as it seems, like here's a disease, here's a medication, here's a treatment.
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No, what we define as disease itself is a power play.
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And that it becomes almost a universal acid that eats away any discipline because it can be deconstructed or unmasked for what it really is, just the blind pursuit of power.
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Now, the one of the problems here, and you'll hear that in your English departments, you'll hear that in your social sciences departments, it's crept into some theology departments.
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And what it leads to at the end of the day, because it's a universal asset, there's nothing to keep that style of deconstruction from deconstructing itself.
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In other words, if everything's about power, so is my contention that everything's about power.
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And so now I can break the whole world down into identity groups and say it's this tribe versus that tribe.
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And that leads to now the only way to change a system or bring about policy change, it has to be the raw expression of power.
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So the echoes of Foucault and his philosophy are making their way through the streets of Lyon and Paris and cities around Europe these days.
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So there's something deeply nihilistic and sad about everything's power at the end of the day, and honestly, a prime opportunity for Christians to step in and say, now there's more than power.
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There's something like saving grace, there's something like the goodness of God, there's something like objective meaning that's more than a power play that comes from on high.
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So there's actually things like, you know, loving your neighbor.
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Yeah.
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That uh, you know, that people can actually do from the heart.
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Now, well, I think it's fair, it's fair to suggest that there's probably some aspect of self-interest that tends to pollute some of our altruistic aims.
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Um and we're not we're probably not as 100% altruistic as we think we are.
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But it but this that that can that confuses a a byproduct with a motive.
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Sure.
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And the you know, the motive and the byproduct are not necessarily the same thing and certainly don't deserve to be equated.
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Yeah.
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Uh so that's I think that's that's part of the part of my assessment of his work.
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I think his main contribution was to show how concepts of truth and morality are socially constructed, and they they are not objective in in any real sense.
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Although it's not as clear to me that uh he denied, and I think this is true of some of the other postmodernists, that he denied objective reality ontologically.
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He more, I think, denied that it how how how it's knowable in terms of its epistemology, I think is what he questioned, uh, and how we how how we actually know that is so uh is so clouded that uh and so clouded by our desire for power that uh for all practical purposes the concept doesn't exist.
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Is that a fair way of viewing that?
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I think so.
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Um I I wouldn't see his view that all you know, unmasking, his project of unmasking is to take any objective claim and peel away the exterior to show what's really lurking, what's hiding beneath is a power play.
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And I think neither of us would want to reduce, you know, all morality to to a power play.
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Um but but to me, Scott, I want to look at, and this is a point Truman draws out in the article.
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How did that work out for you is a good question with any worldview.
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How'd that really work out for you?
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Uh reducing everything to power dynamics and power differentials, and and then later building on Foucault, let's break everybody into oppressor and press groups, like uh critical theory owes a lot of its legacy to Foucault and and Derrida and Sartre and a lot of these other Parisians, a lot of these other Frenchmen, that French philosophy really began sweeping through American universities in the 60s and into the 70s.
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And I want to look at uh how livable was it at the end of the day?
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And you look at some.
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Sort of the big names in postmodernity, Derrida described himself as a miserable Mediterranean macho man and had uh completely alienated from his kids, just a lonely, sad, sad soul.
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You look at uh Michel Foucault, and as you pointed out, and as Truman draws attention to in the article, he was suicidal throughout his life, throughout his adult life, a miserable human being knowingly infected people with HIV.
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There's a nihilism in the pit of the soul of a lot of these guys.
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Jean-Paul Sartre described himself as gaga, uh, that he's he's not stupid, but he's miserable.
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And so I want to look at that and say, well, how many of the young rioters and how many of the young folks out there are feeling that nihilism because they take these guys seriously?
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Like 52% of Gen Z, Sean and I talked about this last time I was on the show.
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52% of Gen Z describes themselves as experiencing, quote, an existential crisis of meaning.
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Now, as Christians, we can, you know, clutch our pearls and throw our hands in the air and say all is lost.
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Or, Scott, we could say, what a beautiful moment, what a providential moment to be on planet Earth with all this Foucault style nihilism permeating the culture.
00:23:28.640 --> 00:23:37.039
What a beautiful moment to be able to be alive, to love Jesus and point people to the ultimate meaning found in Christ.
00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:38.400
Yeah, here, here.
00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:48.960
And I think the the I love the way Truman puts this at the end of the article that uh I think what Foucault is maybe most known for is he said he's making an idol out of nothingness.
00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:49.759
Yeah.
00:23:50.079 --> 00:24:01.839
And at the at the end of the day, that that sense of despair comes from the eradication of objective truth, morality, beauty, and goodness.
00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:10.160
Uh and I think this is one, this is where I think uh, you know, our colleague Greg Gansell is right, that uh the gospel meets our deepest desires.
00:24:10.319 --> 00:24:14.160
Our deepest desires are for truth and goodness and beauty.
00:24:14.400 --> 00:24:16.880
And the gospel is what satisfies that.
00:24:17.119 --> 00:24:37.119
And the you know, the things that are erupting in in France and other parts of Europe today, I think are are an outworking of that nihilistic philosophy that if people if people have you know don't feel like they have anything valuable to live for, that that's what I mean, that's what that's what an existential crisis of meaning is.
00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:37.680
Yeah.
00:24:37.839 --> 00:24:41.920
Uh, then they resort to all sorts of things to try and fill that void.
00:24:42.160 --> 00:24:43.519
Yeah, really quickly.
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:46.079
Yeah, the void will not remain unfilled.
00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:47.200
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:47.519 --> 00:24:51.839
The human heart abhors a vacuum every bit as much as nature abhors a vacuum.
00:24:51.920 --> 00:24:56.160
We'll find something, some small god to put on the pedestal of our soul.
00:24:56.240 --> 00:25:08.319
Uh, but real quick, not to give a shameless plug for Biology University and Talbot School of Theology, um, but at the same time, to give a plug for Biol University and that's that's not shameless, so it's okay.
00:25:08.880 --> 00:25:13.119
Just yesterday, uh I was on campus, beautiful day on campus.
00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:19.279
It was raining, which was a much welcome change from the blazing heat we've been through the last couple months.
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:27.359
Um, and I was teaching one of my classes and laying out here's different schools of apologetic thought.
00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:40.079
So here's the evidential and classical school with luminaries like JP Moreland and and John uh Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell and Kyle Strobel happened to be walking down the hall.
00:25:40.240 --> 00:25:41.920
So I brought him into the classroom.
00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:45.599
And hey, didn't your dad write a book about evidential apologetics?
00:25:45.839 --> 00:25:47.119
Anybody ever heard of it?
00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:52.480
And and uh, you know, here's presuppositional apologetics, and here's this way of approaching it.
00:25:52.720 --> 00:26:06.640
But I I was lecturing yesterday and saying, you know, I think there's there's another form aside from the presuppositional evidential school that I really see having a bright future, particularly in this Foucault-inspired day and age.
00:26:06.799 --> 00:26:08.720
Like what you were talking about with Gansel.
00:26:08.960 --> 00:26:09.119
Dr.
00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:15.200
Gansel, you know, his book, Our Deepest Desires, is more of what we could call an existential apologetic.
00:26:15.359 --> 00:26:39.599
That this isn't so much let's talk about cosmology and the origin of the universe, or even fine-tuning, or or even um what are the requirements for rationality or a transcendental argument, but just pointing people to the fact that all of those soul deep itches that no political ideology can reach, the infinite God can.
00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:48.640
God can scratch your existential itch for meaning, for justification, for hope, for purpose, for community, for creativity, and all the rest.
00:26:49.359 --> 00:26:50.480
That's a good word.
00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:51.519
I appreciate that.
00:26:51.599 --> 00:26:54.480
Uh that's sort of that's a drop the mic moment here.
00:26:54.640 --> 00:26:56.000
Uh but but don't but don't drop the.
00:26:58.880 --> 00:26:59.119
All right.
00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:08.000
Here's a here's a third story we want to look at this week is that the state of Texas has put limits on what can be taught in colleges and universities.
00:27:08.319 --> 00:27:11.119
This this fall semester and started last spring.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:40.799
Public universities in Texas, including uh University of Texas at Austin, Texas Tech, and Texas AM, those are the three largest ones, uh, asked faculty to submit their syllabi and course material to a portal for assessment at Texas Tech is known as the course content review process to make sure that they are compliant with new laws in Texas that recognize only two sexes, and the resulting prohibition on advocacy or promotion of race or sex-based prejudice.
00:27:41.200 --> 00:27:47.519
At Texas Tech, the assessment was actually performed by AI, which raised other issues.
00:27:47.759 --> 00:27:54.640
But some examples of what got eliminated is that medical students no longer learn about race-based inequalities in healthcare.
00:27:55.119 --> 00:28:07.279
One course had the removal of Plato's Republic from the reading list for Plato's views on gender roles and homosexuality, uh, readings from LGBTQ advocates in a political history course.
00:28:07.519 --> 00:28:20.079
And at the University of Texas at Austin, more than a hundred courses had been flagged for removal from the core curriculum, primarily ones relating to slavery, race, gender, sexuality, and the environment.
00:28:20.319 --> 00:28:29.759
They also removed or shut down majors in Africana studies, Mexican American and Latino studies, women and gender studies, and race and migration studies.
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:54.880
Now, this is consistent with past move in Texas in the last probably five, six years to limit the teaching of critical race theory, limit teaching of LGBTQ themes, closed diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI offices, and to limit shared governance in universities that would have given faculty the right to have a say in what's included in the general overall curriculum.
00:28:55.119 --> 00:29:12.799
So those, you know, granted, faculty still have a lot of freedom to teach what they, you know, what they feel is appropriate, but there are there are definitely limits being put by the by the president and provost of the universities following guidance from the state of Texas from the governor's office.
00:29:12.960 --> 00:29:16.880
So uh I'm really curious to see, Thad, what you think of this.
00:29:17.200 --> 00:29:19.359
I know you're a big fan of academic freedom.
00:29:19.440 --> 00:29:26.160
And here at Biola we have academic freedom, but we also have a doctrinal statement, a confession, which being a confessional school.
00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:32.960
So we have we have limits within the perimeters of our doctrinal statement about what faculty can and cannot teach about.
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:49.839
Like you you and I, you and I would be uh asked to pursue employment elsewhere if in our classes we denied the resurrection of Christ or the authority of Scripture or any of the foundational doctrines that are in our articles of faith and statement of biblical principles.
00:29:50.400 --> 00:29:50.799
Yeah.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:56.880
Uh there's there's a lot here, but let me try to keep it short and sweet.
00:29:57.119 --> 00:30:01.759
I'm a uh let me approach it sort of out of left field.
00:30:02.319 --> 00:30:06.160
Uh take evolution, which had nothing to do with the story you just read.
00:30:06.319 --> 00:30:11.599
That was about critical theories and so-called quote unquote woke ideology.
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:15.680
But yeah, actually, some of the things that are the legacy of Michel Foucault.
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:16.880
Yeah, exactly.
00:30:17.039 --> 00:30:17.759
Exactly.
00:30:17.920 --> 00:30:21.279
Um, see, there's a there's a through line, there's a common thread, man.
00:30:21.440 --> 00:30:25.759
We put some time into this, we make sure that all this stuff uh fits.
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:28.160
Uh so evolution.
00:30:28.400 --> 00:31:02.559
You know, America famously went through the Scopes Monkey trial, and um it's a live question here of what can the government dictate is teachable in the classroom in a way that um I spent a lot of time uh during my PhD work and over the years in Europe, and and the same kind of uh political sort of culture war battles that we have over curriculum don't exist uh in many European contexts.
00:31:02.640 --> 00:31:11.119
And one of the reasons I'm a big fan, Scott, of Abraham Kuyper's concept of what he calls sphere sovereignty.
00:31:11.359 --> 00:31:21.359
And for listeners out there who aren't familiar with sphere sovereignty, uh Kuyper, he was the prime minister of the Netherlands around the turn of the 19th, turning into the 20th century.
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:36.160
Um, brilliant theologian, um, just a polymath, a renaissance man, and has one of the most well thought through Christian political philosophies of anyone in modern times.
00:31:36.240 --> 00:32:04.880
And and so he articulates sphere sovereignty, and the basic concept is something like this that God, in his supreme sovereignty, has designed society as such that you have these independent spheres, and each sphere has its own telos, its own reason for being, and you don't want one sphere interfering with or um encroaching on what God designed a different sphere to do.
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:13.279
So, for example, Kuiper started uh the university where I got my my PhD years ago, the free university.
00:32:13.519 --> 00:32:16.160
And people think, well, free from from what?
00:32:16.559 --> 00:32:19.680
It's it's not free from tuition, unfortunately.
00:32:20.079 --> 00:32:28.319
Um but but the free in free university was something revolutionary in its day, free from state control.
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:38.559
Most of the universities were under church or state control, and he wanted to start a genuinely free university that was its own independent sphere.
00:32:38.720 --> 00:33:02.640
And so in sphere sovereignty, business has its sovereign sphere, the arts have their sovereign sphere, education has its sovereign sphere, and politics, a government has its sovereign sphere, and where we run into problems is when that sphere of sovereignty breaks down, and all of a sudden the government steps in and is like, okay, here's how you're going to do uh education, here's what you can and can't teach.
00:33:02.799 --> 00:33:20.640
And so that that was one of the red flags that went up for me reading through that article was, man, I just don't know because now we're opening Pandora's box to whoever defines you know falsehood or dangerous idea given their worldview presuppositions.
00:33:20.799 --> 00:33:28.559
Are we opening up a door here to now a form of government indoctrination that I don't think anybody wants?
00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:35.680
Yeah, because you know the next the next governor might actually be the atheist.
00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:36.160
Yeah.
00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:42.720
Who says Christianity is bigotry and hateful and unacceptable in any classroom.
00:33:42.880 --> 00:33:45.039
It's just uh I think a door we don't want to open.
00:33:45.440 --> 00:33:46.079
I hear I think that's a good thing.
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:57.759
Or to be fair, to be fair to this, I think the diagnosis of essentially leftist indoctrination at state universities, yeah, I think it's essentially on target.
00:33:58.880 --> 00:34:18.000
And I think anybody who's been in in those environments in the last 20 years, uh I I I suspect would say uh an amen to that, especially if you've been studying in the humanities or the social sciences, maybe less so in the in the hard sciences or in business or tech or things like that.
00:34:18.079 --> 00:34:22.159
But Jonathan Haidt documented a 14 to 1 ratio.
00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:29.519
14 to 1 liberal professors versus conservative professors in fields like psychology and the social sciences.
00:34:29.679 --> 00:34:35.679
So yeah, I get where the law is coming from, trying to remediate a problem that does exist, no doubt.
00:34:36.000 --> 00:34:36.159
Yeah.
00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:41.360
And I think the the, you know, the cure I think raises the questions that you've suggested already.
00:34:41.519 --> 00:34:54.480
Uh and I think you know, where where we are today is the result of a long-term trend that I think began probably in the 60s of secular colleges and universities moving progressively more to the left.
00:34:54.639 --> 00:34:58.800
And with some faculty and and some majors, I'd say to the far left.
00:34:59.039 --> 00:34:59.199
Yeah.
00:34:59.440 --> 00:35:02.559
Uh and I think it seems to me, I'd be interested to hear what you think of this.
00:35:02.639 --> 00:35:05.199
I think the answer is genuine full-on diversity.
00:35:05.440 --> 00:35:05.840
Yeah.
00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:08.880
Not just of race and sex, but of viewpoint diversity as well.
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:10.239
Viewpoint diversity, yes.
00:35:10.559 --> 00:35:17.280
And I think this is one thing I so appreciate about the statement on uh free expression and diversity of thought we have at Biola.
00:35:17.840 --> 00:35:36.400
Because we recognize that within we though we have theological parameters that define our institutional identity, uh, our students' faith is best equipped for the for the long term if they are exposed to some of the ideas in the in the that are rampant in the culture under faculty critique and supervision.
00:35:36.639 --> 00:35:36.880
Yeah.
00:35:37.119 --> 00:35:48.079
Uh and I think the I in addition, I think you would appreciate this too, given your emphasis on general revelation and common grace, I think that means that no nobody is wrong about everything.
00:35:48.400 --> 00:35:48.880
Yeah, exactly.
00:35:49.119 --> 00:35:51.519
And nobody's 100% right about everything, too.
00:35:51.679 --> 00:35:55.440
You know, Marx was Marx was not wrong about everything.
00:35:55.599 --> 00:35:55.760
Yeah.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:56.559
Uh just most.
00:35:57.679 --> 00:36:01.599
I think most well, I think and I think he was wrong about the really important things.
00:36:02.159 --> 00:36:05.119
Um, Sigmund Freud was not wrong about everything.
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:08.880
Now, again, I think he was wrong about some really important things, too.
00:36:09.039 --> 00:36:18.559
Um but I think our our view of general revelation means that we have things to learn from lots of folks who don't name the name of Jesus.
00:36:18.800 --> 00:36:18.960
Yeah.
00:36:19.199 --> 00:36:24.639
And here's I I would say, you know, this viewpoint diversity is the kind of diversity that really matters.
00:36:24.880 --> 00:36:25.199
Yeah.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:32.480
And I would suggest here's the the measure, one of the measuring sticks I would use is how many theists do you have in your philosophy department?
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:33.280
Yeah.
00:36:33.920 --> 00:36:39.599
How many theologically conservative faculty are in your religion department?
00:36:39.760 --> 00:36:40.400
Yep.
00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:42.480
Probably probably not very many.
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:46.800
How many political conservatives do you have in sociology department?
00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:47.360
Yeah.
00:36:47.519 --> 00:36:50.960
How many women faculty do you have who are pro-life?
00:36:51.360 --> 00:36:51.920
Yeah.
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:57.920
How many African American faculty do you have who think affirmative action was a bad idea?
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:03.280
One of the things I was going to suggest, you get faculty who are have diverted views of marriage and sexuality.
00:37:03.440 --> 00:37:07.920
That may be, that may be a bridge too far for some folks in the secular university.
00:37:08.079 --> 00:37:16.559
But I'm wondering, you know, how how many medical school faculty do you have who think that gender-affirming treatments for minors was premature?
00:37:16.800 --> 00:37:17.039
Yeah.
00:37:17.280 --> 00:37:23.840
And or or who are who are skeptical of people that change one's gender identity simply by proclamation.
00:37:24.079 --> 00:37:24.400
Yeah.
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:29.679
So I think that's what that's in my view, that's more the answer to that.
00:37:29.920 --> 00:37:34.000
And part of the part of the, you know, you know this because you were a graduate of our philosophy program.
00:37:34.159 --> 00:37:42.400
One of the goals of our philosophy program was as JP Moreland put it, to reclaim lost intellectual real estate in the university.
00:37:42.639 --> 00:37:42.880
Yeah.
00:37:43.599 --> 00:37:50.639
And we've we've probably we've sent over 200 of our graduates onto PhD programs at places like the one where you studied.
00:37:52.079 --> 00:38:02.800
And my guess is we're probably getting close to a hundred of our facult of our gr of our philosophy grads who are in secular teaching positions.
00:38:03.280 --> 00:38:06.719
Uh and some in some pretty notable ones, too.
00:38:07.280 --> 00:38:20.639
So I think though, you know, it's it's encouraging it's it's it's rough sledding, I think, for those who are, you know, who are trying to follow Jesus and be faithful to Scripture and to do it with academic integrity in some of these settings.
00:38:20.719 --> 00:38:25.360
Uh to say that the road is challenging for them, I think is probably an understatement.
00:38:25.840 --> 00:38:28.000
Um But we have good we have good examples.
00:38:28.159 --> 00:38:35.519
You know, our friend Robert George, uh who's a you know, a Catholic philosopher who's been at Princeton for many, many years.
00:38:35.599 --> 00:38:52.400
Uh and then I think there are you know there are lots of others who are, I think, uh, you know, holding holding the cause of Christ but doing it with with grace and with conviction uh and with with gentleness and respect, uh, like the Bible calls us to do.
00:38:52.719 --> 00:38:53.760
Yeah, well said.
00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:56.239
Just fast Robbie George anecdote.
00:38:56.400 --> 00:39:07.920
So Sean and I were uh recording a little while back, and I was trying to reference Robert George of Princeton, and instead I said Robbie Prince of Georgetown.
00:39:08.480 --> 00:39:13.119
And and we just we it was it was probably the hardest I've ever seen him laugh.
00:39:13.280 --> 00:39:17.760
We read a lot, we had to cut, had to take five minutes to to regain ourselves.
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:21.360
But but I will say, um Hopefully, hopefully you told Robbie about that.
00:39:21.679 --> 00:39:24.880
I haven't had the chance yet, but I will.
00:39:25.039 --> 00:39:40.400
Um but one of the things I loved about uh again, not trying to turn this into a commercial, but studying at Talbot and Biola was I remember taking uh some of your ethics classes, uh, you know, bioethics and stuff like that.
00:39:40.559 --> 00:39:45.280
And I I'm sitting in a room right now surrounded by some of the textbooks you assigned in.
00:39:45.440 --> 00:39:55.199
And it was things like uh The Soul of Politics by Jim Wallace, who I think is much further left than either of us would be uh on board with.
00:39:55.519 --> 00:40:04.000
Um I remember taking JP's philosophy of mind class where I'm reading uh Yeguan Kim and I'm reading Paul and Patricia Churchland.
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:18.880
And there's some like I would have been at a huge loss if California stepped in and said, Nope, you can't assign anything by by Yeguan Kim or Paul Churchland because they disagree with a certain worldview presupposition.
00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:35.760
That was the best one of the best parts of my education was being exposed to this stuff and then learning as the moniker of the show is how do I think biblically about these ideas that are occasionally compatible with the Christ Center worldview and often incompatible.
00:40:35.840 --> 00:40:39.199
But if I'm banned from them, man, that's gonna backfire.
00:40:39.440 --> 00:40:39.679
Right.
00:40:39.760 --> 00:40:43.519
So I suspect you probably have volumes written by Peter Singer as well.
00:40:43.760 --> 00:40:44.079
I do.
00:40:44.480 --> 00:40:47.840
Who I assign, who I still assign for our students.
00:40:48.079 --> 00:40:48.239
All right.
00:40:48.559 --> 00:40:49.599
Two feet away from me.
00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.960
Here's the last story is uh I uh uh disclaimer here at the beginning.
00:40:55.119 --> 00:41:01.760
Uh this may this may not be for kids who might in fact I'm pretty sure it's not for kids who might be listening in.
00:41:01.920 --> 00:41:10.800
And so, parents, if you have kids listening with you, uh I would encourage you to either skip over this story or listen to it at a time when the kids are not around.
00:41:11.119 --> 00:41:22.079
Uh this week uh the UK revised its laws on pornography, applicable in England and Wales, and in effect, taking effect in early November of 2026.
00:41:24.000 --> 00:41:39.679
And the the law has been changed to prohibit the possession or publication of pornography that features choking or incest, essentially normalizing all other types of pornography, and child pornography is already illegal in the UK.
00:41:40.000 --> 00:42:00.079
The rationale goes something like this, and I'm quoting from the article here that that uh described is a quote from one of the government officials who was involved in the law, and it says, quote, viewing or producing pornographic materials is not in itself a problem as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult.
00:42:00.320 --> 00:42:10.480
But particular types of pornography are liable to form vicious habits in people, encouraged them to act badly toward others in the real world, and so these must be restricted.
00:42:11.039 --> 00:42:22.079
Now, they they did not want to criminalize what one government official called harmless sexual preferences, but thankfully did want to normalize sexual violence against women.
00:42:22.400 --> 00:42:30.960
Now, of course, I think the notion that, quote, normal porn is porn is harmless is open to significant debate to say the least.
00:42:32.159 --> 00:42:34.880
So give give me a give me your quick take on this.
00:42:35.440 --> 00:42:43.119
Yeah, just to set it in a context, um, this is some research I did for for a book a little while back.
00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:48.400
Uh pornography is a$97 billion industry.
00:42:48.719 --> 00:42:58.559
Uh there was a study in 2018 that more than 5.5 billion with a B hours of pornography were consumed on just one porn site.
00:42:58.719 --> 00:43:04.320
5.5 billion hours, 33.5 billion visits just on that one site.
00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:17.360
Uh Internet Watch Foundation found that recorded child sexual exploitation, which is um otherwise known as child porn, is one of the fastest growing online businesses.
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:27.840
And just I know the story's set in Britain, but in the US, uh 624,000 uh child porn traders have been discovered.
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:31.039
That's just the ones who who we know about 624,000.
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:40.000
And then they looked at 50 most popular pornographic videos, uh, an analysis found that 88% of scenes contain physical violence.
00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:48.079
Uh and so you have just the scope, the size, the magnitude of this problem.
00:43:48.400 --> 00:44:07.519
Uh, but then to to your point, Scott, this law, as much as we can applaud, you know, cracking down on choking and incest videos, there is Is the naivety underneath it that, like, let's draw an arbitrary line between the harmful kinds and the unharmful kinds?
00:44:07.760 --> 00:44:13.360
What's what studies show is that there are clear links between pornography and human trafficking.
00:44:13.519 --> 00:44:21.679
Uh, between pornography uh tends to correspond to higher rates of rape in the culture, higher rates of domestic violence.
00:44:21.840 --> 00:44:30.400
Uh, and there's a lot of there's a mountain of research on impaired brain function, uh, broken relationships, and depression.
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:50.320
And so I think that the use of the harm principle in this law, while I'm happy that uh there's a crackdown on porn, I think we need to follow the logic further and recognize the harm that it's doing, even in what the power brokers of this particular um policy are pretending is harmless.
00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:51.840
It's anything but harmless.
00:44:52.159 --> 00:44:57.599
Yeah, the the the side the side effect effect of this law is to normalize the rest of it.
00:44:57.760 --> 00:44:58.159
Yeah.
00:44:58.480 --> 00:45:01.760
And treat it, treat it as as morally neutral.
00:45:02.000 --> 00:45:02.159
Yeah.
00:45:02.400 --> 00:45:04.800
Uh and as long as long as everybody's consenting.
00:45:04.880 --> 00:45:08.639
And as Sean and I pointed out last week, we were commenting on the Cornell rape case.
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:09.119
Yeah.
00:45:09.280 --> 00:45:15.199
That uh consent, uh, we we've both agreed is a very low bar for a sex for a sexual ethic.
00:45:15.440 --> 00:45:15.679
Yep.
00:45:15.760 --> 00:45:25.199
Uh and it's it's porn, I think, that it's conditioned young men and by extension the young women who want to be accepted by them of sexual extremes becoming more acceptable.
00:45:25.280 --> 00:45:26.960
And your statistics bear that out.
00:45:27.199 --> 00:45:27.440
Yeah.
00:45:27.679 --> 00:45:40.000
Um and I think as the Cornell case has has exposed for us that when drugs and alcohol are involved, recognizing consent becomes much more challenging and can easily be misread.
00:45:40.159 --> 00:45:48.159
In fact, the studies have shown that men who are under the influence of alcohol routinely misread a woman's friendliness for a sexual interest.
00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:48.800
Yeah.
00:45:49.119 --> 00:46:06.079
And in addition, I think what's what's so what's so striking about this is the admission that women sometimes what I would say sometimes sort of consent when they realize that saying no could actually could maybe not actually, but possibly lead to violence against them at the hands of their partner.
00:46:06.320 --> 00:46:06.639
Yeah.
00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:13.840
So in my view, this is a uh a part of the fallout of a sexual revolution that's personal autonomy driven.
00:46:14.159 --> 00:46:14.480
Yeah.
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:15.199
Exactly.
00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:20.159
How limiting limiting the excesses, I think, is really challenging.
00:46:20.320 --> 00:46:28.639
Uh and managing the excesses, I think when sex has been declared in effect as meaningless, yeah, I think is really difficult to do.
00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:46.559
And of course, I think a sexual ethic that limits sex to committed partners in marriage takes account of what the notion of consent plus, which is not just saying yes to sex, but considering the the emotional and well-being and flourishing of your partner is trying to do.
00:46:46.800 --> 00:46:53.280
It's precisely what uh loving your wife as Christ loved the church is exactly trying to do.
00:46:53.599 --> 00:46:54.639
Yeah, exactly.
00:46:54.960 --> 00:47:04.800
So anyway, there's I think a lot to talk about about this, and we'll see it, we'll see if the UK give brings any further limits on pornography.
00:47:05.119 --> 00:47:05.280
Yeah.
00:47:05.360 --> 00:47:17.920
I I really hope our listeners out there pick up on a on the through line and all this, a common thread, which is can be still be distilled down to just Christianity just tells such a better story.
00:47:18.159 --> 00:47:24.559
That when it comes, I mean, you look at some of the work of uh Glenn Scrivener, who wrote a brilliant book, The Air We Breathe.
00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:46.559
Uh, the atheist historian Tom Holland has done a lot of work in his Dominion to show that Christianity started the original sexual revolution in the first and second century, which dignified women and elevated them and protected children from the rampant pedophilia that was normalized in the Roman Empire.
00:47:46.719 --> 00:48:00.480
And man, we need to get back to the original Christian-inspired sexual revolution because, as many of the stories today have shown, the other sexual revolution that Foucault help inspired has uh we're inheriting the wind with that.
00:48:01.039 --> 00:48:14.000
We've run the experiment time and time again from all these statistics and all the all the heartbreaking headlines we're learning between the two sexual revolutions, we should go back to the Christian sexual revolution.
00:48:14.320 --> 00:48:25.280
Yeah, this is this is why the atheist, well-known atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins, has been well known to say he doesn't believe any of it to be true, but does not want to live in any any other kind of culture.
00:48:25.519 --> 00:48:25.920
Exactly.
00:48:26.239 --> 00:48:28.239
Other than it has Christianity at its roots.
00:48:28.880 --> 00:48:29.199
All right.
00:48:29.360 --> 00:48:30.880
Let's uh let's answer some questions.
00:48:31.119 --> 00:48:38.000
Before we do, we want to give you all some encouragement to come study with us at Talbot, both at the graduate and undergraduate level.
00:48:38.159 --> 00:48:40.800
We got programs in in Bible and theology.
00:48:40.960 --> 00:48:43.920
Uh, if you're at the undergrad program, you get to study with prophets like Dr.
00:48:44.000 --> 00:48:44.960
Williams here.
00:48:45.280 --> 00:48:56.079
Um, and grad programs in in Old Testament, New Testament, spiritual formation, marriage and family therapy, philosophy, apologetics, science and religion, pastoral ministry.
00:48:56.159 --> 00:49:03.679
And we and we have campuses now in La Marata and in Phoenix, as well as cohorts that are are getting started in other cities around the country.
00:49:03.760 --> 00:49:09.599
Uh, if you want to hear a little bit more, visit biola.edu slash talbot if you want to find out a little bit more.
00:49:09.840 --> 00:49:10.159
All right.
00:49:10.400 --> 00:49:12.239
Guys, we have some great questions today.
00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:16.239
Uh, and we're gonna have to, I think we're gonna have to keep our answers short and sweet on this.
00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:16.639
Sure.
00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:28.400
But uh just a couple questions on the on what Sean and I talked about a week ago in the the public live streaming of the execution of uh Nadell Hassan, uh, who convicted of the shooting of soldiers at Fort Hood.
00:49:28.480 --> 00:49:40.239
Uh let's just say we're not gonna address this any further, just to say that uh we we are heartened by the decision to cancel the the live streaming.
00:49:40.480 --> 00:49:57.039
Uh in our view, the the the death penalty I think is deserved here, but the turning turning uh something as somber a moment as the taking of life into a public spectacle that's live streamed is in our view a bridge too far.
00:49:57.360 --> 00:50:13.920
Um so in any case, and uh you know, in terms of, you know, there were some examples from the Old Testament where executions were public, but I think just because something was done in the Bible doesn't make it a norm necessarily or a requirement for today.
00:50:14.239 --> 00:50:14.639
All right.
00:50:14.800 --> 00:50:16.880
Here's us uh we got a really good question.
00:50:16.960 --> 00:50:17.599
I love this.
00:50:17.679 --> 00:50:21.280
Uh, this is from a listener who's 10 years old, about to turn 11.
00:50:21.440 --> 00:50:22.559
Now I love this part.
00:50:22.719 --> 00:50:27.679
It says, my dad helped me learn about your podcast and how you help people think about their faith.
00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:30.320
How here's what he wants to know.
00:50:30.639 --> 00:50:34.719
How old were you when you became a Christian or when your faith started to become your own?
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:36.800
What's your favorite Bible verse?
00:50:36.880 --> 00:50:41.039
Uh, and what advice would you give somebody his age who wants to go closer to Jesus?
00:50:41.199 --> 00:50:44.559
So probably just maybe a phrase or a sentence on each one of those.
00:50:44.639 --> 00:50:44.800
Yeah.
00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:50.320
Uh, and we'll we'll help this young man so encouraged that uh he's listening and is asking us questions.
00:50:50.559 --> 00:50:51.039
I love that.
00:50:51.119 --> 00:50:52.400
Yeah, 10, 11 years old.
00:50:52.480 --> 00:50:53.519
That's a beautiful thing.
00:50:53.679 --> 00:50:56.320
Uh I got saved when I was 14 years old.
00:50:56.480 --> 00:51:00.800
I was really, really sad and realized life is meaningless without Jesus.
00:51:01.039 --> 00:51:06.480
And then Jesus saved me at an altar call uh in 1993.
00:51:07.280 --> 00:51:23.280
Uh favorite Bible verse, and one I would want to pass on to this listener is in John 17, where Jesus says, he's talking to God the Father within the Trinity, and he says, Father, you loved them even as you loved me.
00:51:23.679 --> 00:51:27.039
And I think I want all listeners out there to ponder that.
00:51:27.199 --> 00:51:29.840
How does the Father love the Son within the Trinity?
00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:48.880
He loves the Son infinitely, irreversibly, irrevocably, unapologetically with the full weight of his divine perfections, and said to our young listener out there, uh, take that passage in John 17 to heart, that you are loved even as the Father loves the Son.
00:51:49.119 --> 00:51:58.559
So you, young man, are loved infinitely, irreversibly, unapologetically with the full weight of divine perfections.
00:51:58.880 --> 00:51:59.840
Scott, what do you got?
00:52:00.239 --> 00:52:00.719
Good stuff.
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:04.800
So much for a phrase or two on that, but that was well worth that was well worth the extra.
00:52:05.039 --> 00:52:14.400
And uh I I came to faith when I was 16 in the ministry of young life, uh, because I was looking for some place to base my security.
00:52:14.719 --> 00:52:19.519
And Jesus was the answer for that, and it has satisfied my deepest longings.
00:52:19.760 --> 00:52:26.559
My favorite Bible verse is one you may not have read before, but it's in the book of Zephaniah, uh, chapter 3, verse 17.
00:52:26.800 --> 00:52:30.400
It says, The Lord your God is with you, the mighty warrior who saves.
00:52:30.480 --> 00:52:32.800
He will take great delight in you.
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:38.559
In his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.
00:52:39.280 --> 00:52:43.360
That's a that's a vivid imagery of our relationship to God.
00:52:44.159 --> 00:52:52.239
Uh that one short brief bit of advice you would give to this young man who wants to grow closer to Jesus.
00:52:52.559 --> 00:52:58.880
Ask ask the Holy Spirit to fill you up with the fruit of the Spirit every single day.
00:52:59.280 --> 00:53:00.400
Because he's strong enough.
00:53:00.559 --> 00:53:06.719
Say, Spirit, fill me up with love, enjoy, peace, patience, and kindness, because he will answer that prayer.
00:53:07.360 --> 00:53:12.000
And he also he also has a question how should I handle a question about Jesus when I don't know the answer yet?
00:53:12.239 --> 00:53:20.480
Let me suggest to have some humility and admit it, but promise the person who asked the question that you'll dig deep and find the answer for them.
00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:21.840
Well said.
00:53:22.559 --> 00:53:22.960
All right.
00:53:23.119 --> 00:53:24.400
Here's a second one.
00:53:24.639 --> 00:53:36.960
Uh if we set aside the scientific discussion of creation, isn't the evolutionary model a theological problem, even if God initiated it or involved involved was involved in it?
00:53:37.519 --> 00:53:37.840
Okay.
00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:42.960
What do you what do you make of what do you make essentially of theistic evolution?
00:53:43.360 --> 00:53:47.119
Uh since you want me to keep it short, I don't buy it.
00:53:47.599 --> 00:53:52.800
I think it just runs into way too many problems, not only theologically.
00:53:53.039 --> 00:54:02.159
Um I I think there's just a deep tension between uh natural selection and mutation.
00:54:02.719 --> 00:54:11.440
Uh I I find that difficult, if not impossible, to square with what we know about how a diversity of species emerge from the scripture.
00:54:11.519 --> 00:54:12.960
There's my my short take.
00:54:13.360 --> 00:54:13.760
Very good.
00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:18.719
I think there is a major theological problem because sin and death entered at the fall.
00:54:19.039 --> 00:54:19.440
Exactly.
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:27.199
And the whole the whole history of evolution is the is the death of all kinds of species through natural selection.
00:54:27.519 --> 00:54:27.760
Yep.
00:54:28.320 --> 00:54:28.559
Exactly.
00:54:28.880 --> 00:54:31.679
So I do I do think there's a reasonable theological argument.
00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:45.679
I also think there's there's there are good scientific grounds on which to raise questions about the validity of sort of the standard evolutionary model, particularly the one that doesn't include any kind of designer in the process.
00:54:46.800 --> 00:54:47.199
All right.
00:54:47.360 --> 00:54:49.840
Here's one that I I think you'll appreciate.
00:54:50.000 --> 00:54:57.840
Um what is the one area of theology you think is most neglected, misunderstood, or misrepresented?
00:54:58.320 --> 00:55:06.480
An area and and I and I also want to know what's an area that you are particularly passionate about that you think more people need to study and appreciate?
00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:08.719
Oh man, there's no way.
00:55:08.880 --> 00:55:12.480
There's no way I can give a short answer to that, but but I will do my best.
00:55:12.639 --> 00:55:17.519
If if the producer needs to, you know, cut my mic, I I would understand.
00:55:17.679 --> 00:55:19.840
But for me, it's it's the triune God.
00:55:19.920 --> 00:55:21.840
He's He's the center of everything.
00:55:22.079 --> 00:55:26.719
Um all of life, uh God is way bigger than we can imagine.
00:55:26.960 --> 00:55:33.920
I I would say 99.9% of the church's problems can be traced back to a small view of God.
00:55:34.000 --> 00:55:42.559
Um, so that's why I'm deeply passionate about how do we recover the most frequent command in scripture, which is to fear the Lord, reverence.
00:55:42.719 --> 00:55:44.480
How do we have a reverence for God?
00:55:44.639 --> 00:55:53.920
Because if we fear him, if we revere him more than the spirit of the age or what people might think of us, uh, you solve a lot of problems right there in one swoop.
00:55:54.079 --> 00:56:02.079
Um, if we have a high view of Jesus and we're really worshiping him, we should expect to become like him as we worship him.
00:56:02.239 --> 00:56:08.000
And that's gonna impact our intellect and our emotions and our imaginations and our relationships and everything else.
00:56:08.159 --> 00:56:21.920
And if we have a high view of the Holy Spirit, we're gonna rely on him to kill the sins in ourselves rather than resorting to some kind of self-powered spirituality that's doomed from the outset.
00:56:22.079 --> 00:56:24.480
Um, so spirit-powered sin killing.
00:56:24.639 --> 00:56:34.480
So, yeah, that's what I'm passionate about is how do we return the church in the 21st century to the Father, the Son, Spirit, one God, and three persons.
00:56:35.199 --> 00:56:36.400
That's great stuff.
00:56:36.559 --> 00:56:40.719
I I'm most passionate about the area of what I would call moral theology.
00:56:41.360 --> 00:56:48.320
And I think the the that that's an area that I think is is still widely misunderstood and misapplied.
00:56:48.800 --> 00:56:54.639
Um so that's an area that I I I would like more people to study about and to appreciate.
00:56:54.960 --> 00:57:02.719
And you know, uh I've actually published some things in this area, so that that will that constitutes, I think, a shameless self-promotion.
00:57:03.039 --> 00:57:05.760
Uh but uh and I know you've been shameful.
00:57:06.079 --> 00:57:11.440
Well, I know you and you've published stuff on more on moral theology as well, as well as things on the Trinity.
00:57:11.679 --> 00:57:11.920
Yeah.
00:57:12.079 --> 00:57:34.079
Um let me ask you real quick, I I know we're coming up against uh hard out, but as a you you won't toot your own horn, but as it's safe to say, one of the leading moral theologians of our age with um a long list of books and academic work behind you, what do you see as the connection between what I'm passionate about and what you're passionate about?
00:57:34.159 --> 00:57:40.400
How does the Trinity factor into your moral theology in a way that would cast a vision for our listeners?
00:57:41.280 --> 00:57:48.880
Yeah, I think for for one, I think that the the the Trinity is a fun is fundamentally a relational view of God.
00:57:49.360 --> 00:57:53.119
And that uh there there are a number of things that fall out of that.
00:57:53.360 --> 00:58:10.719
Uh one is that uh that we were we were created by a relational God for a for in real life community, uh as opposed to the digital or chatbot community that uh sometimes I think functions as a substitute for that.
00:58:10.960 --> 00:58:32.639
The other thing I think is to recognize, and this is this helps us appreciate the that God's love for us and our desire to follow Him, is that because God was self-contained in the Trinity relationally, he didn't need to create human beings to satisfy his uh penchant for relationship.
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:33.039
Yep.
00:58:33.199 --> 00:58:41.760
And realizing that he didn't he didn't have to create us out of any necessary reason, but he chose to do so out of out of love for us.
00:58:42.000 --> 00:58:58.320
Um and I think that that's a different view, I think, of sort of the foundation of our moral theology that we obey God, not because he's commanding us, not because uh not because we fear judgment, but ultimately because we don't want to hurt somebody who has loved us like this.
00:58:58.639 --> 00:58:59.119
I love that.
00:58:59.199 --> 00:58:59.599
I love that.
00:58:59.760 --> 00:59:06.239
So the chorus line of our whole conversation for the last hour is Christianity tells the better story, right?
00:59:06.400 --> 00:59:11.599
With all this all these depressing headlines that we cover on Culture Update, I hope the listeners take that away.
00:59:11.679 --> 00:59:19.519
That there's really something true, good, and beautiful about good old-fashioned Christianity that that we certainly need in a world of bad headlines.
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:22.159
That's a great, great, great way to end this off.
00:59:22.320 --> 00:59:24.320
So, Dad, thanks so much for being with me today.
00:59:24.559 --> 00:59:28.639
Great having you, great having you with me and uh really good stuff.
00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:29.760
Thanks, my friend.
00:59:29.920 --> 00:59:40.159
This has been the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update, coming to you from Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, offering lots of programs in in Southern California, in Phoenix, and online.
00:59:40.559 --> 00:59:44.400
Visit biola.edu slash Talbot in order to learn more.
00:59:44.559 --> 00:59:51.199
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00:59:51.360 --> 00:59:57.440
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00:59:57.599 --> 01:00:02.320
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