Culture Friday: Moral clarity matters

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 6th of June.

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 Culture Friday.

John Stonestreet joins us now. John, of course, is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Good morning to you.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning!

EICHER: John, I’d like to begin with some deeply troubling news. In just the past couple of weeks, two Israeli embassy staffers were shot and killed outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. Then, in Colorado, a man attacked a peaceful demonstration to remember the Israelis and Americans held by Hamas. The suspect allegedly using Molotov cocktails and a makeshift flamethrower—all while shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. We need to add the disclaimer: allegedly.

Regardless, without pronouncing guilt on the alleged attackers, these are horrifying acts of anti-Semitic violence. What’s also concerning, though, is how anti-Semitic rhetoric is tolerated and even justified in certain corners of the culture. What do you think is going on here and how should Christians think clearly about it?

STONESTREET: There is an absolute rise of anti-Semitism in America. And we are in a cultural moment where, for 18 months, explicit acts of violence against the Jews have been called for and have been tolerated and even encouraged in the name of free speech and “protest.” And here you have a man who, having now been caught who committed these heinous attacks in Boulder had been planning this for a year, wanted to wait until his daughter graduated from high school, attempted to buy a gun, but couldn't, broke immigration law, and said he would do it again if he could, after he was caught after studying how To make these fire bombs on the internet. What this reveals is just how deep the critical theory mood has gotten in America, and the number one message we've heard is that the big fear here is that there will be reprisals against Muslims. Now I don't think there should be any reprisals against everyday Muslims. People are responsible for their own actions.

But you know, who should actually be fearful right now are Jews in America, and many of them are, and many of them have taken extended steps. For example, the Jewish students at Columbia. Look, ideas have consequences and bad ideas have victims, I think we should be absolutely alarmed, not just by these events, which are alarming enough, but at the reaction that we're seeing by so many people that have so much power and over media, For example, over universities, over political jurisdictions, municipalities, I'm grateful that even though the Boulder authorities were really hesitant to call this terrorism, that the Trump administration was really quick to call it terrorism, and it is a big deal

EICHER: John, N.T. Wright is one of the world’s most well-known New Testament scholars. He has a long record of teaching and writing in the church. But in a recent episode of his “Ask Anything” podcast, a listener sent in a question, and Wright’s response... well, let’s just have a listen to about a minute of his discussion on the issue of abortion.

WRIGHT: It's very difficult, it's very hard for a man to talk about this, and indeed one of the problems has been, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, when women particularly say a girl who's been raped or who's had incest committed on her, then discovering that unmarried men from the Catholic hierarchy are telling her what she can and can't do. You know, that's, As people now say, the optics of that are pretty bad. That's part of the same system of male bullying, which we have to avoid like the plague. However, having said that, I do think that that sense of respect for God's creation in all its rich variety is the primary starting point, even if we then have to say with sorrow and the sense of, ‘this is the least worst option in this situation,’ that there may be some cases of exceptions.

The entirety of his answer was about seven minutes, and the host who read the question and framed it up really muddled the whole thing. But I’m putting up a link to the YouTube version, so anyone can go listen for himself. I know you heard the whole thing, John, what kind of confusion does this sort of thing cause among Christian pro-lifers?

STONESTREET: Yeah, I think what N.T. Wright said about abortion was dramatically wrong, and that is coming from someone who has found him incredibly helpful. But what is it that we can learn from this? I think really a couple things. Number one, we may be tired of hearing about the abortion issue, and we may find it really repetitive, because we're in this over and over again. What is clear is that we need to continue to say this over and over and over again, because not only was N.T. Wright's answer just wrong about abortion, and not reflective of the historic Christian position, or what the contemporary Christian position should be, but it was also full of all the kind of tropes. You know, “As a man, I can't really speak about this,” and you know, “If the baby's gonna really suffer, then it's better to kill it.” And, “If someone feels really strongly and hurt and harmed by this, then we should be really quiet on this.” And none of it gets to the heart of the issue. It was really clear that he's either unfamiliar with the basic case against abortion or he doesn't care about them and he thinks he can ignore them.

The second thing that I think is a real problem, and it's a problem, I guess, because of our social media age. You know, James talks really clearly about a teacher is held to a higher standard if you're constantly teaching and never stopping because of the social media aspect of this, I think we need to rethink this. It is really, really hard for someone to talk about everything in the social media influencer age and not end up wrong about a lot and narcissistic. On the other hand, we aren't experts on everything, but that medium, that platforming, that podcast, makes us have to speak about everything, and we don't have to speak about everything. We shouldn't speak about everything

EICHER: Yeah, so I was going to ask you if you had some advice for me, there’s this thing my car does, and I wonder if you could advise me on that.

STONESTREET: The Christian worldview of how to fix a Honda Accord, yeah, you know!

EICHER: But I was edging toward a serious point are we making too much of this? It did get a lot of traction on social media, but is this just a tempest in a teapot?

STONESTREET: Well, you know, that's a great question. I think his podcast is well respected and rightly so. And just because someone was a reliable teacher doesn't mean that they always are. But also, if somebody's wrong on something doesn't mean they're wrong on everything in the past that was clearly right. I mean, I think about, for example, the New Testament scholar Richard Hayes - most articulate, clear understanding of New Testament ethics having to do with sexuality, and then near the end of his life, here changes his mind. I think of somebody like Stanley Hauerwas - brilliant and helpful in so many areas, but not always right on everything. Eugene Peterson. So in one sense, it is a big deal because N.T. Wright is a prominent, probably the most prominent theologian on the planet right now. But I think you take the expertise of theologian and then add in the social media component, and you know, things get inconsistent at the very least, I guess.

BROWN: We’re one week into June, and at least in a few places, it seems like something’s changing. “Fidelity Month” seems to be gaining traction. Some big retailers have scaled back their pride-month displays. And there’s encouraging clarity coming from places like the Identity Project, which I know the Colson Center is heavily involved in.

So, John—it does seem the tide may be turning, but there are contrary signs, too. What do you say: Do you think we’re seeing early signs of a cultural course correction?

STONESTREET: Well, I guess maybe I'm a little more optimistic. I'm not sure that we're not seeing a momentum in the other direction. I think we absolutely are. It's going to take more than just seeing the lasting and permanent harm that the “T” part of the acronym of Pride Month has brought, for example, same sex marriage is still highly embedded, and homosexuality has been normalized at a level that's still bad for children and bad for people, and is infiltrated in the conservative and even Christian movements, and that's going to have to be uprooted and cast out, and it's going to be hard and painful, and people are going to be really mad, and that sort of thing. So that's what the next couple years look like for us.

But I do really appreciate the fact that we have resources now that can help us be articulate, that can help us champion things that are better. And you mentioned two resources, I think The Identity Project is a great one.

And I also want to give a shout out to Fidelity Month. I am all in on fidelity month. I mean, think about it, instead of celebrating a vice, and even instead of condemning the celebration of a vice like pride, let's hold up the virtue of fidelity. Let's hold up the beauty of living in faithfulness to others instead of just being selfish and narcissistic, right? I mean you literally and pride are celebrating narcissism. You're celebrating basically expecting the entire world to revolve around whatever you want, as opposed to taking the things that matter the most, that are outside of you, that you owe an allegiance to, and standing strong on what those responsibilities are. I'm really bullish on Fidelity Month, and I'd say, go to fidelitymonth.com, and join in. Put that on your social media. In other words, don't just not participate in ‘pride.’ Let's promote something good

BROWN: All right! John Stonestreet is the president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thank you John.

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