Culture Friday: Forgiveness and awakening

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Friday, September 26th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. It’s Culture Friday! Joining us is John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center and Host of the Breakpoint Podcast. Good Morning John.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

BROWN: John, I want to talk about the late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, because I think there's an interesting point I'd like for you to engage with, and it's this. Right after Kimmel was reinstated after a brief suspension and some clearly threatening comments from the chairman of the FCC. I got the chance to talk with the general counsel of National Religious Broadcasters, Mike Farris. I asked him about whether it was proper—from a constitutional perspective—for the government to be pressuring a TV network about a comedian's freedom of speech, however repulsive. And I'd like for you to hear what Farris had to say.

FARRIS: The Supreme Court took up a case in the last cycle about this very issue. It arose from the Biden administration's meetings it had with Facebook, Twitter, other social media organizations where the Biden administration regularly said, silence this voice. Let this voice be heard. Silence this message. They were clearly pressuring the social media agencies to stop people from speaking. Now, I filed an amicus brief for National Religious Broadcasters, taking the position that it is improper for the government to ever when we're talking about protective speech, to ever say, silence this voice. Now Supreme Court didn't agree with me. They took the position that the Biden White House had, in a few instances, violated the First Amendment, but in the majority of instances, they were simply pressuring them, perhaps, but not coercing them. And so what the president did and what Brendan Carr did seems to me to be in line with what the Supreme Court approved. I take a more rigid stand than that, the government shouldn't do this at all, but the Supreme Court let them get away with it, and the Biden administration, I don't see any material difference in this circumstance.

Isn’t Michael Farris right? Shouldn’t Christians be free-speech people all the time?

STONESTREET: Well, we should, but we need to be really clear on what that is. The problem is, when the federal government starts pressuring this way, this is, I think, where the lines are being crossed.

And so it’s interesting now that Jimmy Kimmel has been put back on the air by ABC. There’s an awful lot of affiliates who have decided not to platform him, despite the fact that ABC has decided to do that.

So some of this really has to be kind of wrestled through. No freedom that we have is limitless. There are limits that have to be understood—what you can say and what you can’t say—but then also that you have to, even if you have the freedom to say it, you don’t have the freedom then to not deal with the consequences of what you have said.

What we don’t want—and I think this is what’s clear—is getting into a place where one particular viewpoint is privileged and the other one actively silenced, like what we see in the UK right now, like what we see in Canada right now, like what we see in a lot of European nations, where certain criticisms aren’t allowed.

And I think a lot of Americans feel like we went through that during the COVID era, during the former administrations. But look, I mean, this is also the danger of expecting politics to solve your problems. Because if you win by politics, you lose by politics, and it becomes a very fickle thing from one administration to the other. And that’s just the reality of it as well.

EICHER: John, let me stay with Jimmy Kimmel for a moment. In his monologue he seemed genuinely struck by what Erica Kirk said at the memorial service for her husband. I thought it was worth hearing. Let’s play that.

KIMMEL: A moment over the weekend, a very beautiful moment. I don't know if you saw this. On Sunday, Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband. She forgave him. That is an example we should follow. [Applause] If you believe in the teachings of Jesus, as I do, there it was. That’s it. A selfless act of grace—forgiveness from a grieving widow. It touched me deeply, and [Applause] I hope it touches many. And if there's anything we should take from this tragedy to carry forward, I hope it can be that, not this.

So, John, when you think about what Erika Kirk said—how she said it, and where she said it—wasn’t that the very definition of a public Christian witness?

STONESTREET: Yeah, well, it was. And what made it even more brilliant, and what made it stand out even more, was how sharply it contrasted with the president’s comments right after her.

You have to take that seriously. When you see faith in action, it is something that stands out, even from moral outrage or anything else like that inaction.

Listen—what happened Sunday, which is remarkable, is the largest evangelistic event in human history. There’s never been anything like this. And now, if you’re talking about percentages of the population, you might want to look at Jonah and Nineveh, but if you’re looking at just sheer numbers, it’s absolutely incredible.

And then you think about the voices and what they said. I mean, Marco Rubio with a full summary of the gospel in under two minutes. Frank Turek with such a powerful, profound way of articulating gospel truth: that Charlie Kirk is not in heaven because he sacrificed himself for Jesus, but because Jesus sacrificed himself for Charlie Kirk.

I mean, think about the power of that message—that this is in the end all about Jesus. This is in the end all about what Jesus did on the cross, and that in and of itself is the reality that grounds what Erika was able to do in offering forgiveness.

It’s another example in a line now that continues to get longer, going back to the Amish mothers of the school girls, the Mother Emanuel church members, and now Erika Kirk offering forgiveness.

And that stands in such sharp contrast with a critical theory-driven culture like ours, where people are morally guilty and without hope.

I think that forgiveness is something right now—I mean, you think about the worldviews that are at work in our society, and I don’t know that there are any other worldviews that are grounding the reality of forgiveness in something substantial and something true.

And that Christians offering forgiveness is going to be one of the most significant and unanswerable aspects of Christian witness in the culture today. And I think what Erika did is a great example of that.

EICHER: John, a lot of people are asking whether what we’re seeing right now might be the beginning of a genuine revival in America. Not because of a television event, but because there seem to be real signs—young people coming to faith, churches filling up, a cultural hunger for something more. Not to mention, public officials so open about their faith in Christ. The vice president was impressive. The secretary of war. The secretary of state. Like virtually the entire leadership of the executive branch. That is a serious topic of conversation.

STONESTREET: It is, and it’s not just because of what we saw on Sunday—as remarkable as that was in terms of the size and the scope.

I mean, think about it. It wasn’t that long ago on this program we were talking about the rise of the nones, who had all this church baggage, and people were not willing to be religiously affiliated or anything like that.

And we were talking about these intellectuals who were telling everyone that God is a delusion and religion poisons everything and things like that. And then we’re starting to see signs of record numbers of young people getting baptized and young men in particular showing interest in spirituality and being willing to go back to church.

I think it should at least drive us to be hopeful that ultimately this is something that God does. This is something that God brings. And that’s something that’s really a part of American history.

You can go back, and there was an expectation within the American form of Protestant religion that had this expectation of frequent awakenings. It started—you know, we talk about the First Great Awakening, the Second Great Awakening—and there were many ways in which those two things were quite different.

But there was an expectation: the Businessmen’s Revival that took place at the turn of the 20th century, the Jesus People Movement, where you just have these kinds of aspects of American culture in which there’s an awakening to things of the Lord.

What’s interesting is that Jonathan Edwards wrote about this, and he talked about signs of revival. And, you know, for him it was: Jesus is exalted—that’s a key thing. Sin is abhorred and repented of—that was another aspect of this.

And Edwards also talks about the unique sign of it being among young people. Edwards talks that it was primarily happening among churches with highly doctrinal preaching—in other words, not squishy churches but real, theologically sincere churches.

I mean, you add all that stuff up together, and it sounds awful familiar to today, doesn’t it? That the churches that are filling up are those that seem to be more serious about things like truth and doctrine and things like that.

The squishy mainline denominations are the ones that aren’t seeing the same sort of growth.

There’s an increased awareness of sin and the impact of sin, a fear that God has, you know, withdrawn from the land, and an exaltation of Jesus.

I mean, those are the things to look for. We could see signs of that, I think, over the last several years—praise God.

And ultimately we need to remember that if God brings that sort of awakening, it’s out of his kindness. And we want to join it.

And I think right now there’s a lot of Christian voices that are really quick to condemn it in various ways and for various reasons.

I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be that guy that jumps on the bandwagon of a revival and an awakening in whatever form that it is, trusting that the Lord’s bringing what the Lord’s bringing.

BROWN: Well John, at the risk of making you that guy, there’s talk of revival on the one hand, but then the new State of Theology survey from Ligonier Ministries shows a lot of confusion about core gospel truths. More than 600 self-identified evangelicals were questioned, and the results are striking to me: six in ten said everyone is born innocent before God, half said people are basically good, and almost half said God accepts the worship of all religions. So I wonder what’s driving this kind of theological instability. You know, by some accounts, it's the church prioritizing unity over sound doctrine. But I want to key in on something I’ve heard you say again and again: Is this what you mean when you say the church needs to be the church?

STONESTREET: Yeah, it is. And I would say it’s not even prioritizing unity over doctrine, as much as it’s prioritizing comfort and marketing over doctrine.

Listen, it was 20 years ago that Christian Smith looked at the religious and spiritual beliefs of young people—he’s looking at 13- to 18-year-olds at the time—and this is where he coined the phrase “moralistic therapeutic deism.”

In other words, these folks had an understanding that religion was about being good and about feeling good about yourself, and God really wasn’t imposing anything on us, but he was always there as a kind of phone-a-friend—that was back in the days of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

And that’s kind of the way we were seeing God—as kind of this Santa Clausian game-show-host sort of resource that’s available to bless us when we need to be blessed.

And that’s primarily the form of Christianity that many people received—one really low on catechism, really low on formation.

And what it ended up producing was a worldview that was not big enough for the actual challenges of the world—the challenges of radical Islam, the challenges of radical secularism, the challenges of woke anger, the challenges of even understanding oneself in a society in which our resources of establishing identity were becoming more greatly reduced.

So you might say that if he was onto something back then, what Ligonier is onto something is what moralistic therapeutic deists become when they grow up, which is kind of what we’re dealing with right now.

But I do think that there’s a sense—it’s one thing to have a worldview that’s too small. It’s another thing to realize you have a worldview that’s too small and want to do something about it.

And maybe that’s where I would stand, if you really ask the revival question. I’m hopeful, and I think that there are some signs of self-awareness that perhaps can bring the church to prioritize formation, catechesis, and not just believing the right things but articulating the call of God to be courageous, to tell the truth, to stand on the truth in a culture like ours.

EICHER: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thank you, John.

STONESTREET: Thank you, both.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.