Season of the Wolf

Netflix disgraced itself during the first two weeks of July by streaming and then refusing to apologize for Episode 7 (July 8) of The Break with Michelle Wolf, with its 33-year-old “comedian” host. Among her jokes: Abortion “should be on the dollar menu at McDonald’s.” (Shot of a fake dollar menu listing menu choices: Burger, Abortion, Cheeseburger, Fries.) Another: Abortion “doesn’t have to be a big deal. It’s actually a great deal. It’s about $300. That’s like six movie tickets. … God bless abortion.”

Wolf’s arithmetic isn’t great—movie tickets aren’t that much, even in New York City—but she can count to seven, which is the number of Supremes who voted for abortion in Roe v. Wade (1973). During oral arguments that led to the decision, young lawyer Sarah Weddington told the court she was “not here to advocate abortion” or to ask for a ruling that “abortion is good or desirable in any particular situation.” She made a legal and economic case for abortion, but at least she referred to the unborn baby as a “who,” not a “that.” Weddington displayed a lack of faith in God and no interest in the rights of that child, but she recognized the gravity of the matter.

What’s happened in America that Netflix and other media giants can be so cavalier about killing babies? I should note that not everyone was enamored with Wolf: Some viewers commented, “I would rather snort fire ants than listen to another second of this harpy’s shrill voice. … Just a bunch of bullying comments. … Impossibly unfunny.” And one complainant, noting that 11 comedy writers worked on the show, asked the key question: “How on earth did this come about and be so bad with 11 writers?”

The most heartwarming story of the fortnight came out of northern Thailand, where brave rescuers risked their own lives—one did die—to save the lives of children trapped in flooded caves. That’s compassion, so it was appropriate that one of the rescuers, 18-year-old Surayut Puengpadung, was a beneficiary of Compassion International, the Christian child-sponsoring ministry, as was one of the rescued, Adul Sam-on. But the question still nags: What kind of culture in America breeds 11 comedy writers who will produce something so unfunny?

Two expressions that theologian Francis Schaeffer used a generation ago are helpful here. One is “the line of despair.” When we believe in capital-G God and capital-T truth, we have strength for today and hope for tomorrow. When we don’t, we sink beneath the line and have no real purpose except that which we manufacture for ourselves. Sooner or later it does not satisfy, and as we age we have nothing to look forward to except oblivion—and that leaves us in despair.

Schaeffer knew that cultures where most people are in despair can go on for a while without collapsing by “living off the interest,” being good neighbors by maintaining habits their parents modeled for them. The cultural capital deposited by those parents, like principal in a bank, provides sufficient interest to keep going.

Schaeffer thought America dipped under the line of despair in about 1935, and, as he taught from the 1950s until the 1980s, we were dipping into our principal. By now, it has almost run out. Many of our leading writers, actors, and directors drink 100-proof materialism and are blatantly pro-abortion. (Lena Dunham said two years ago, “I still haven’t had an abortion, but I wish I had.”) Bitter comedians often produce mean screeches.

Today, beneath the line of despair, we self-medicate by “amusing ourselves to death” (to use Neil Postman’s expression), and neither Michelle Wolf nor her writers know where to stop. That’s the significance of the series we’re starting this issue about marijuana legalization. Advocates of medical marijuana make a good case, and others who look at pot jail time see how it hurts poor communities, but treating marijuana like beer and selling it in supermarkets will escalate our societal ooze toward bedlam.

The first-half-of-July news offered some ground for optimism. Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is clearly an upgrade over Anthony Kennedy, although the result might not be a Roe v. Wade reversal. When Kavanaugh uses his season ticket at Washington Nationals ballgames, he’ll be jubilantly reminded that our flag still waves. The five regional winners in our 2018 Hope Awards for Effective Compassion competition all present the great good news of Christ to those in need.

But the bad news ooze supports what Schaeffer wrote in A Christian Manifesto: “Our view of final reality—whether it is material-energy, shaped by impersonal chance, or the living God and Creator—will determine our position on every crucial issue we face today. It will determine our views on the value and dignity of people”—including tiny ones.