Culture Friday: Who raises the children?

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: It’s Friday the 25th of April.

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.

Joining us now is John Stonestreet. He’s president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Good morning.

JOHN STONESTREET: Good morning.

EICHER: The death of a pope is always a major story. And with the funeral of Pope Francis set for early tomorrow morning, there’s a lot to talk about—his legacy, and what may come next.

I thought the media coverage followed a predictable script: portraying Francis as a groundbreaking figure—marked by humility, compassion for the poor, and progressive political stances. He was often described as a reformer, someone who tried to rebrand Roman Catholicism for the modern age.

But some argue that his most famous line was this—“Who am I to judge?” Those words fairly summing up a papacy more characterized by equivocation than clarity.

So John, how would you summarize the legacy of Pope Francis? And how should we, as non-Catholics, think about it both as a cautionary tale and a wake-up call?

STONESTREET: I think it’s going to be left to time to see what the legacy of Pope Francis is. What I mean by that is, Who comes next?

If Pope Francis has successfully stacked the college of cardinals, the conclave then emerges with another more progressive figure than he was—then it will be a groundbreaking papacy. In my view, not in a good way. But it will be something distinctly in a new direction, and that’s because the two popes that preceded him were strong on both truth and love.

I think that’s really the question about Francis: He was crystal clear on things like helping the poor. I’m not sure he was always humble about it—there is a way of being proud of your humility, and sometimes he kind of struck me that way. He was portraying that righteousness in public.

But it was a distinctly different direction in terms of doctrinal clarity on some of the important cultural issues than the two that came before him—Pope John Paul II and Benedict who followed him. I don’t think either of them should ever be accused of not helping the poor. I mean, the social services, the Catholic juggernaut was already well in place. So Francis’s reputation for being known by that has to do with the fact that he was willing, “to get his hands dirty.”

He had some remarkable moments early on. In one of his first public worship experiences was a young man with significant disability. The pope reached out and cared for him. There’s a wonderful image of a young girl with Down Syndrome wandering to the front as he is offering a homily—and he allowed her to sit with him and holding her hand.

These are beautiful images, but he majored in a lack of clarity on issues of doctrine, ethics and sexuality. I mean, just the question, “Who am I to judge?” You’re a pope! This is literally your job description, you know? I don’t even agree that there should be that position within the church hierarchy. But if you accept it, it literally is a position of judging between right and wrong and clarity for the cultural moment.

He refused to do that. So it created a lot of confusion—that confusion’s been evident.

I mean, his cracking down on American bishops who tried to offer some ethical clarity on sexual issues; his refusal to, for example, rein in the German bishops, and they’ve already gone further, by mandating same-sex blessings, even in the days after Francis passed away.

So I think it’s that lack of clarity. That in and of itself is the wake-up call. Carl Trueman’s take in First Things was that essentially Francis led a papacy of of modern Protestant liberalism.

I think there’s a lot to say, disconnecting yourself from the hierarchy, acting kind of in an air of moral superiority on a personal level while untethering from the sources of authority that you claim to represent. It’s inconsistent.

And the question is, was he an anomaly or is this a new direction?

BROWN: Now, when we talk about papal legacy, it’s hard not to think back to Pope John Paul II. He had enormous influence—not just within the Catholic Church, but far beyond it. His courage in confronting communism, his clarity on moral issues like abortion, his unapologetic stand for truth—even many evangelicals who obviously disagreed with Catholic doctrine still admired him.

So John, talk about what made John Paul II so respected, again, even among non-Catholics.

STONESTREET: Well, you listed the issues: Doing all of those and not choosing between truth and love.

That’s the lie of our age: If you’re truthful, you’re not loving; if you’re loving, you’re not truthful. The only way to hold those two together is to be a person under authority and to respect that authority.

There’s also something of the cultural moment—about being called to a cultural moment and rising to that calling. So you would not have, I don’t think, the legacy of Pope John Paul II had we not been dealing with the global conflict over communism and the West. Seeing that as an area of moral clarity and stepping into that and saying what was true—at least in terms of totalitarianism and the role of the church and being able to make some of those distinctions.

Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II were both men of their times and I think it shows in their times and places. The Argentinian Marxist influence on Francis is clear. That has, I think, marked his legacy. For John Paul II, in the context of Poland under the thumb of the Soviet Union coming out of the Second World War, there’s something about that historical context that’s really important.

Of course, as Christians, what we believe is that God is precise about those times and places—both in our lives and as he’s orchestrating redemptive history. Those things really matter. Rising to that occasion or becoming overwhelmed by the cultural forces makes a big difference and tells the story between these two popes.

EICHER: This week, the Supreme Court took up a case out of Maryland that will resolve a really important question: Can the government force elementary-age kids to read LGBT-themed storybooks in public school ... despite the religious beliefs of their parents? This was a religiously diverse group ... including Muslims, Roman Catholics, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Protestants. They’ve been fighting a policy in Montgomery County, Maryland, that requires children as young as 3 and 4 to sit through lessons on gender identity and same-sex relationships. The school district used to allow parents to opt out—but not anymore. John, some say this is just about being exposed to ideas. But that can’t be all this is. What do you see at stake in this case—and how should Christian parents think about their responsibility when it comes to public education?

STONESTREET: The most fascinating part of these hearings was basically how broadly and how many different questions were covered by so many different justices. I found all of the exchanges absolutely fascinating from Katanji Brown Jackson to Elena Kagan to Neal Gorsich to Brett Kavanaugh. You listen and you think—wow—there really is about as big of a divide here as you can possibly imagine.

In other words, questions like what is sex? What is a child? Who does a child belong to? Who has rights here? What is the relationship between discrimination and freedom? Just fascinating.

You’re like, put it out in front for everyone. What’s going to happen is going to be a walloping of the Montgomery County School district. I hope so.

Every once in a while, a state official says the quiet part out loud—and this attorney was forced to do that. Four or five times.

What’s at stake? I think it’s this: Will the court at least finally rule or at least be definitive on who children belong to?

It’s clear that state authorities consider parents obstacles to bringing children up in the way the state thinks they should go—that children ultimately belong to the state, not to parents. No parent can tolerate that, no parent can accept that, because that is a door that when cracked will go wide open. The number of demons and devils that will come through that door, we just can’t even imagine.

If children aren’t worth fighting for, good heavens, what on earth would be?

I think that’s what’s absolutely at stake here.

The state is not good at raising kids. The state does not have the kids’ best interests in mind. The state has the state’s best interests in mind.

Parents have the kids’ best interests in mind, and that needs to be determined.

How should Christian parents think about their responsibility when it comes to public education? I’ll just tell you that their kids belong to them. They are the ones that have been tasked with stewarding lives. What is most important is what’s best for the kids—and it is impossible for me to think that Christian parents who have the option should continue to put up with this nonsense.

There’s a reason there’s been an incredible exodus, even from non-Christian parents. You have to say, look, if they can see it, why can’t we see it? Stop thinking about your kids as being “missionaries” when they’re 5, 6, and 7, when they’re being put under forces of indoctrination, and you are being removed from the process.

There’s no way on earth that this is the way forward.

So, look, I think every Christian parent should take time to listen to these oral arguments. Listen to the questions, listen to the answers, and it could not have been any more obvious as far as I’m concerned.

BROWN: John Stonestreet is president of the Colson Center and host of the Breakpoint podcast. Thanks, John. See you next time.

STONESTREET: Thank you both.

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