Culture Friday: Boldly countercultural

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 17th of May, 2024.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

It’s time for Culture Friday, and joining us now is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast.

John, good morning!

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: Well, John, it's commencement season and of course, that means commencement addresses and only a few of them really stood out, I think, for a couple of different reasons. The first one I would mention today comes from comedian Jerry Seinfeld at Duke University.

Now, I'm a Seinfeld fan. So of course, I thought it was great, but more than just the humor, the Seinfeld address was about something. And fans of the show, Seinfeld, of course will catch my meaning.

But his three keys to life he said, pretty standard: work hard, pay attention, fall in love. But the big takeaway, he made a plea to his listeners to learn to laugh and not be so easily offended. Let's have a listen.

SEINFELD: I think it is also wonderful that you care so much about not hurting other people’s feelings in the million and one ways we all do that, every second of every day. It’s lovely to want to fix those things, BUT—all caps—BUT, what I need to tell you as a comedian: do not lose your sense of humor. You can have no idea at this point in your life how much you are going to need it to get through.

Okay, now in the serious category, three times Super Bowl champion place kicker Harrison Butker gave a stoutly Catholic commencement address at stoutly Catholic Benedictine College in Kansas, and he stepped on some toes in this one. He blasted President Biden, he said flatly, you cannot be Catholic and pro-choice. He criticized what he called “the church of nice,” saying we should speak and act with charity. But charity should never become cowardice, and do not be afraid to be countercultural. And then the kicker as it were—you saw what I did there—was this:

HARRISON BUTKER: … But it cannot be overstated, that all of my success is made possible, because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.

He got blasted in the press for that one, particularly the sports press. So John, any of these threads you want to pick up on?

STONESTREET: Just that it's always surprising how everyone's surprised when a Catholic is, in fact, Catholic, by any, you know, kind of a basic definition. And, of course, part of that is the problem of, you know, German Bishops, and, dare I say, the pope himself who doesn't always sound as Catholic as faithful lay Catholics do, particularly in the United States right now, that are doubling down on this vision of life and the world that's built around the human person, and the sacredness of being made in God's image, male and female, and all that that entails. To show gratitude like this publicly for a pretty successful life, and to do that, in front of students who need to hear it, who need to actually have a better explanation for what long-term success looks like, which is the beauty and the goodness of lifelong married love. You know that it's not just about emotion. It's not just about feeling. It's not just about, you know, falling in love in your college years. But it's about the work that goes into building a life, building a family, and that this is part of the human vocation. And college has become so locked on the idea of occupation, getting a job, making money, so that you can retire after you buy a bunch of stuff. And then, you know, have something to hand on. And this is just a different vision of life that you can see from this particular talk. And that's what the students need to hear is eternal truths. And unfortunately, at college, it's pretty rare. I don't know enough about this particular school, but if they invited this particular kicker to this particular school, bets are they're pretty Catholic as well.

BROWN: Unlike Nick, I never watched Seinfeld. Nick says I should say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with it” …

EICHER: Not at all.

BROWN: I just never watched it.

What I am not a fan of is the ABC show The Bachelor/Bachelorette. Did you see The New York Times article on why the reality TV show, those two shows, have not been able to make good on its promise of true love?

You know, apparently fans have fallen out of love with the shows—and for good reason. Reportedly out of a combined 40 seasons, only eight couples have stayed together. Now, I think you alluded to this in your earlier question about, you know, your response about lifelong love. What do we know about true love that they need to know?

STONESTREET: Well, that really whatever premises this particular show, or shows—and all the spin offs, and the various versions of it, you know, are built upon—it isn't true love. And let's just say, you know, probably half the reason why people are getting weary with it isn't just, you know, its failure rate of producing lifelong married love, because I doubt that the American public has that long of an attention span to really follow these people once they're no longer on camera. I think it probably has more to do with the just lack of creativity that reality TV is based on. So anyway, I think there's some of that here.

But that wasn't your question. Your question was about the definition of love. And I think it's such an important question for Christians, because the greatest commandment is to love. This is not a matter of trivial concern. The greatest commandment, Jesus said is not to believe or to trust or even to obey, although I think all that's wrapped up in it, it's to love. It's to love God and to love others. And I think probably because that's how we're made, we're made to love and to give love, that we try to get at these themes in so many ways in the arts, in the novels we write, the poems we write, the stories we tell, the movies we make. But you have to know what love is. And across the board, most of the time the word "love" is portrayed, it's not love. It's certainly not love according to the brilliant book by C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, which articulates kind of four different things that we call love. They're not four loves, really, because they're four different things, but we use the word love. And none of those things are what's portrayed in shows like this. Almost all the time we talk about love or use the word love, when popular musicians sing about love—and, um, yes, I'm including Taylor Swift into this group, we're gonna get lots of emails about that one—I would just say most of the time, we're talking about sentimentality or sexuality, in which love is this journey inside one's own heart rather than giving for the good of another. And so, you know, look, I fault The Bachelor and The Bachelorette less for getting this wrong, and more for just being silly. And good heavens, it's time to put this dog out of its misery. I'm not trying to make a Kristi Noem joke right here. 

You know, we need more creativity, and we need a better understanding of what it means to love. And look, Scripture is super clear. This is how we know what love is. He loved us first. And anything else just kind of fall short, doesn't it?

BROWN: It does. Some culture-bending going on in North Carolina. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees voted this week to defund its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs to invest instead in campus security.

Seems like times are changing, doesn’t it?

STONESTREET: I think so. This is an interesting story, isn't it? Because you know, when you think about culture, one of the ways to think about it is in terms of the seven spheres, some people use the seven mountains language or whatever, these different pillars of culture: education and business and the arts and religion and education and the state, for example, and we've seen a backpedaling in the business community, on DEI things for a lot of folks. I mean, you basically have Disney now tripping over itself to un-wokeify you know, if I'm to make up a word, you know, any of its new projects in the Marvel franchise, and so on. And you have some big corporations letting go senior management that were hired to do DEI. And of course on the college campus, this has gotten so much out of hand. I mean, we heard a story what last year about University of Michigan having something like 250 employees in this department of DEI or whatever it is, and it's just an unsustainable model. It actually doesn't make campus life better and tends to create more friction than it solves, which means you need more campus security. So my guess is this is just an idea meeting reality and needing to change because of it.

EICHER: A very good point. Well, John, I read this week—this will be our last question—a pretty long New York Times interview with Hillary Cass. She is the UK doctor who dared to question youth gender medicine. And here she was at the end of her career, really, headed for a quiet retirement, when she decided to pick a fight. And she really blew the whistle on the weakness of the science that drives doctors to prescribe medications or approved surgeries. And she's made a big difference in the UK.

But here in the U.S., they are just trying to ignore her. In the Times interview, Dr. Cass said, what some organizations are doing, and she's talking about American organizations, what some organizations are doing is doubling down on saying the evidence is good. And I think that's where you're misleading the public. You need to be honest about the strength of the evidence and say what you're going to do to improve it.

Is that not an example John, of how one strategically placed person can speak up and make a difference?

STONESTREET: I think this is making an enormous difference. This Cass Review is so important in terms of around the world, and that it is going to put a lot of pressure, I think, on American, counterfeit medical organizations like WPATH. We have so much of this science that people just started to look and go, “Wait, you're just saying this out loud as if it's true, and you have nothing to back it up.” I mean, it's kind of really been the way the sexual revolution has proceeded throughout all the history, you know. Oh the kids will be fine, you know, with no-fault divorce or, you know, with intentionally marriageless homes or something like that. And we just said it out loud as if we had any data and we didn't, as if the science was settled, and it wasn't. And now, you know, everything points in the opposite direction. And the aggressiveness. It's interesting to I mean, Hillary Cass has been very clear that she's not ready to completely pull the plug on this. She thinks some kids still need this kind of help towards “transitioning,” you know, socially, and maybe there's room at some degree for surgical and chemical interventions. And in that, I think she's wrong, because I think there's never a case for it. But the fact that she's looking around going, “Listen, you guys are saying that this is the recommended treatment, and you're railroading people down this path, especially young kids, and not taking into consideration all the obvious things that a lot of us have been pointing to.” And for Cass to do all the research and all the data, and then what do you have? You have these people just saying, “No, it's settled. It's settled” as if it is. I think this is so absolutely important. I've told everybody I can, read the Cass Review, know about the Cass Review. 

What a remarkable story this will be. This will be one of the central stories of 2024 when we get to December and do the year-end review. And look, she's done this at great personal cost–she doesn't feel safe she said, going out in public, she now has protection when she goes. And all she has done is said you guys need to pump the brakes on this. You're moving too fast. And all the evidence points to that. So good for her. And I hope she gets the support and protection she needs. But this New York Times piece is basically asking—and rightfully so—why are these medical organizations in the U.S. just ignoring this? And it's a very, very important question.

EICHER: And in need of an answer. John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thank you, John. We'll see you next time.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

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