The Archbishop and the Embryo

Posted: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 4:24 am ET

Archbishop Rowan Williams, Primate of the Church of England and leader of the Anglican Communion was once a human embryo. So was I. So were you. So also were those who would now reduce human embryos to the status of a commodity to be used and destroyed in the name of medical progress.

This archbishop is known for taking tepid and confusing positions on any number of issues. But in response to a proposal to create human-animal hybrid embryos in Great Britain, Rowan Williams has staked out a position that at least protests the subversion of human dignity.

Writing in The Daily Mail [London], Archbishop Williams set out his case:

So where is the big question for consciences? In most people's understanding of what counts as moral behaviour, it's taken for granted that you don't use anyone else just for your own purposes – or even for other people's purposes.

A human person, an individual body with feelings and thoughts, needs to be treated, as we sometimes say, as an end in itself, not a tool for someone else's agenda.

So we condemn rape, torture and blackmail. We don't allow experiments on people's bodies or minds without their consent. And we don't breed human individuals to create a pool of organs that could be transplanted to save the lives of others.

Here is where the problems begin. If a human embryo is produced by non-reproductive cloning, created as a research tool as proposed in the Bill, and then destroyed, is this in the same category as using someone's body as an instrument for your purposes?

Williams answers this question with a qualified "no." I think he is wrong in this answer, and he never really defends that position. Nevertheless, after conceding too much at that question, he recovers to make an argument that disrespect for any human embryo (whether defined as reproductive or non-reproductive) will lead to a disrespect for all embryos -- and eventually disrespect for all human beings.

He writes:

But if you put it another way and talk about creating an embryo that could in principle become a distinctive person – because it is already a distinctive organic unity – could this, in the long run, encourage a drift towards a new attitude to human life, an attitude that is more and more fuzzy about the absolute right of an individual not to be used for the purposes of another?

The archbishop's distinction between reproductive and non-reproductive human embryos is unhelpful in this context, I believe, but he does at least understand and state that the issue of using any human individual "for the purposes of another" is categorically wrong.

Williams also expressed concern about the human-animal hybrids under consideration in Britain, but he came to no clear position.

In the current context of controversy in Britain, Williams risks being called a crackpot. Figures like Baroness Warnock have dismissed all those who oppose human embryo research to be ideologically-driven enemies of progress. In the face of this, Archbishop Williams insists that "more is at stake than just a set of irrational prejudices."

Yet, the archbishop's hesitation to speak against the destruction of any human embryo for any reason as a categorical argument will eventually undermine his case. His argument is a strategy for buying time . . . not for gaining ground.

"An Evangelical Manifesto" -- Continuing the Conversation

Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 5:26 am ET

The release of "An Evangelical Manifesto" represents an opportunity to revisit the continuing issue of Evangelical identity and to continue a conversation. I was very pleased to welcome author and social critic Os Guinness, one of the Manifesto's authors, to Monday's edition of The Albert Mohler Program [listen here].

Os Guinness is a major intellect in the Evangelical world, and a perceptive critic of the anti-intellectualism and cultural captivity that marks so much of the Evangelical movement. In our conversation, Os clarified several issues. He said that the statement in the Manifesto concerning believers who represent "caricatures of the false hostility between science and faith" did not specifically refer to young earth creationists. He did, however, criticize those behind at least some efforts to include Intelligent Design in public school curricula.  In any event, the statement is likely to be perceived by the public as a strong criticism of any young earth position.

He also explicitly affirmed his own belief in the exclusivity of the Gospel, making very clear his own conviction that salvation comes only to those who come to Christ by faith. Beyond this, he expanded upon his call for a "civil public square."

I greatly appreciated Os Guinness' comments, his response to my analysis, and the opportunity for the conversation. Nevertheless, I retain my main concerns about the Manifesto and its public effect.  I do admire and respect many friends involved in the project. At the same time, I remain unconvinced that all involved in the project would interpret these issues in the same way. Public statements and published works would seem to indicate otherwise.  I wish that all of those involved in the project would share in Os Guinness's firm statement of the exclusivity of the Gospel.  I know several who most certainly would, but others who I am confident could not.  Thus, my concern about the Manifesto remains.

Evangelicalism is an on-going project and a movement marked by a seemingly permanent identity crisis. We should be thankful for any opportunity to clarify the issues at stake -- especially when we agree that Evangelicals should be defined theologically, above all.

___________________

See my analysis of "An Evangelical Manifesto" here.

An Evangelical Response to "An Evangelical Manifesto"

Posted: Monday, May 12, 2008 at 6:35 am ET

Who are the Evangelicals? The issue of Evangelical identity and definition has been central to the Evangelical project from its very beginning in America. Given the nature of the movement, definition is elusive and constantly contested.

The release of "An Evangelical Manifesto" on May 7 caught the attention of the national media, and thus it represents yet another opportunity for evangelical definition. The document, released May 7, also represents a challenge, for its framers hope to redefine the movement in the context of our unsettled times.

The Manifesto, released at a press conference at the National Press Club, represents an agenda. The press release offered by the organizers makes that clear:

Such dynamics prompted a group of theologians and Christian leaders of considerable academic wisdom to carefully draft 'An Evangelical Manifesto.' This three-year effort has sought to reclaim the definition of what it means to be an Evangelical – a term that, in recent years, has often been used politically, culturally, socially – and even as a marketing demographic. 

Recognizing that many people outside the movement now doubt that Evangelical is ever positive, and many inside now wonder whether the term any longer serves a useful purpose, they organized a core committee to draft a document that reclaims the term and the calling for both the culture and community of faith. The theological root traces back to the Greek word "euangelion" for 'good news or Gospel.'

An identity crisis is the diagnosis, and the framers intend to "reclaim the definition" even as many "now wonder whether the term any longer serves a useful purpose." The framers of "An Evangelical Manifesto" clearly believe that the term remains useful. Redefining its use is their aim.

I did not sign the Manifesto, though I find many elements of the document to be very appealing and elegantly composed. I have friends among those who signed the Manifesto, and friends among those who will not sign. In the end, I cannot sign the document for several reasons. These reasons are rooted in my own concern for Evangelical identity, and my belief that this document says far too much on the one hand, and far too little on the other.

The authors of the document include Timothy F. George of Beeson Divinity School and author Os Guinness.  They certainly make their case in lamenting the subversion of the term "Evangelical." I join them in concern that "the confusions and corruptions surrounding the term Evangelical have grown so deep that the character of what it means has been obscured and its importance lost."

The document says a great deal about this confusion, and much of it is helpful and prophetic. I am in total agreement with the argument that Evangelicals "should be defined theologically, and not politically, socially, or culturally."

But when the Manifesto presents a theological definition of Evangelicals, it turns out to be a rather minimal definition. Evangelicals, the document asserts, "are Christians who define themselves, their faith, and their lives according to the Good News of Jesus of Nazareth."

Those are wonderful words filled with Christian content, but they are also words that would be claimed by many who would never claim to be Evangelicals.  The definition is just not sufficient.  The document proceeds to identify several defining beliefs of Evangelicals.  Among these convictions is the belief that "the only ground for our acceptance by God is what Jesus Christ did on the cross and what he is now doing through his risen life, whereby he exposed and reversed the course of human sin and violence, bore the penalty for our sins, credited us with his righteousness, redeemed us from the power of evil, reconciled us to God, and empowers us with his life 'from above.'"

That is a substantial statement of the Gospel, but it leaves out the question of the exclusivity of salvation to those who have come to Christ by faith.  The use of the phrase "for us" in strategic sentences makes one wonder if room is left for some manner of inclusivism or universalism?  The door is certainly not adequately closed.  Do all of the signatories announced on May 7 affirm that sinners must come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved?  This is one of the most crucial questions for Evangelical identity.

The framers make clear their concern to define Evangelical over against Fundamentalism and Protestant Liberalism.  Would they include inclusivists as Evangelicals? 

Another complication on this score comes from the fact that Evangelicals are identified as "one of the great traditions that have developed within the Christian Church over the centuries."  There is a sense in which this is true, of course, but relegating the Evangelical understanding of the Gospel to just one among many Christian traditions undercuts our witness and sows seeds of confusion.

"An Evangelical Manifesto" is, at least to a major extent, an exercise in public relations.  The document was released at the National Press Club -- not a usual venue for theological discussion.  The stated aims of the document are also directed to public relations.  The sense of attempting to convince the public that Evangelicals are not what many think them (us) to be pervades the Manifesto.

Evangelicals sometimes have to make strong judgments, the authors assert, but only after clarifying that the "Good News" of the Gospel "is overwhelmingly positive, and is always positive before it is negative."  Further:  "Evangelicals are for Someone and for something rather than against anyone or anything."

This is a wonderful statement, and entirely true.  Nevertheless, as a statement of public relations it will not get very far -- not if any honest discussion or disclosure follows.  As the authors recognize, to be for one principle is to oppose its opposite.  Those holding to contrary principles will not be persuaded to cease stating that we are against their principles and aims.

Indeed, one of the greatest strengths of the document is its recognition that differences of conviction reach to the most fundamental questions of life.  These differences "are not just between personal worldviews but between entire ways of life co-existing in the same society."  These differences "are decisive not only for individuals but for societies and entire civilizations."

Another great strength of the document is its profound analysis of the cultural crisis and its challenge to Christians and the integrity of Christian faith.  The Manifesto is prophetic in indicting Evangelicalism for its many sins, including:

"It Feels as if the Soul of Britain is Dying"

Posted: Friday, May 09, 2008 at 2:31 am ET

"It took several centuries to convert Britain to Christianity, but it has taken less than forty years for the country to forsake it." That was the judgment of historian Callum G. Brown in his book, The Death of Christian Britain, released in 2001.

Brown argued that, since the 1960s, British society was reshaped, "sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significance."

As he explains:

In unprecedented numbers, the British people since the 1960s have stopped going to church, have allowed their church membership to lapse, have stopped marrying in church and have neglected to baptize their children. Meanwhile, their children, the two generations who grew to maturity in the last thirty years of the twentieth century, stopped going to Sunday school, stopped entering confirmation or communicant classes, and rarely, if ever, stepped inside a church to worship in their entire lives. The cycle of inter-generational renewal of Christian affiliation, a cycle which had for so many centuries tied the people however closely or loosely to the churches and to Christian moral benchmarks, was permanently disrupted in the 'swinging sixties.' Since then, a formerly religious people have entirely forsaken organized Christianity in a sudden plunge into a truly secular condition.

Just this week, new research validates Callum Brown's analysis. Christian Research released data on trends in British churchgoing that will reveal a very desperate portrait of Christianity in Great Britain.

As reported by Ruth Gledhill in The Times [London]:

Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests.

The fall - from the four million people who attend church at least once a month today - means that the Church of England, Catholicism and other denominations will become financially unviable. A lack of funds from the collection plate to support the Christian infrastructure, including church upkeep and ministers' pay and pensions, will force church closures as ageing congregations die.

In contrast, the number of actively religious Muslims will have increased from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.

By these projections, attendance in Christian churches will drop to just 350,000 by the year 2030. They will be spread among 10,000 churches, each with an average worship attendance of 35. As Ruth Gledhill explains, the Church of England will then lose all institutional viability.

By then, Christianity will have become a minority religion in the United Kingdom, with Muslims far outnumbering active Christians. The same projections indicate that even Hindus will come close to outnumbering active Christians.

England is fast transforming itself into a secular state, even as it holds onto its established church, the Church of England. In a separate editorial, Gledhill expressed her lament, noting that "there is something unbearably sad about the plight of Christianity in this country."

"It feels as if the soul of Britain is dying," she wrote.

Britain's loss of faith is not a new phenomenon, but it is now reaching its terminal stages. The secularization of British society will bring a radical transformation of the culture. The nation will be fundamentally redefined when Muslims outnumber practicing Christians by three to one.

As Callum Brown made clear, the death of Christian Britain does not mean that religion is dying. Indeed, various forms of free-style "spirituality" now proliferate. Britain is experiencing the explicit rejection of Christianity -- a belief system fundamental to the nation's history, culture, and laws. Those achievements cannot long survive the death of Christian Britain.

British Christianity was for centuries a spiritual force that changed the world. The modern missionary movement began with William Carey, who left England for India in order to share the Gospel of Christ. The movement to end the slave trade can be traced to William Wilberforce and his successful pleas to Britain's Parliament. The Methodists, the Baptists, and any number of other denominational groups emerged out of British Christianity. The Church of England gave birth to a worldwide communion of Anglican churches.

Quite soon, all that may be just a series of footnotes in British history books. The secularization of Britain is not something forced upon the nation, but something the nation has done to itself.

As Ruth Gledhill expressed in her words of mourning: "It feels as if the soul of Britain is dying."

_________________

Photo:  London's Westminster Abbey

"The Land of Disappearing Children" -- Japan's Population Crisis

Posted: Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 4:56 am ET

The nation of Japan faces a devastating population crisis. The crisis, however, is not a problem of too many people living in Japan, but too few. Japan, with several other nations close behind, faces what we might call a population implosion.

Indeed, Japan has experienced 27 consecutive years of declining birth rates. Within just a few short years the nation will experience massive social problems and a complete breakdown of economic activity.

In previous eras, this kind of population loss would be explained by war or some natural catastrophe such as famine or the plague. None of these explanations is relevant to Japan's experience, however. As a matter of fact, the population of Japan actually grew during World War II, only to start falling in the early 1980s.

As The Washington Post reports:

The number of children has declined for 27 consecutive years, a government report said over the weekend. Japan now has fewer children who are 14 or younger than at any time since 1908.

The proportion of children in the population fell to an all-time low of 13.5 percent. That number has been falling for 34 straight years and is the lowest among 31 major countries, according to the report. In the United States, children account for about 20 percent of the population.

Japan also has a surfeit of the elderly. About 22 percent of the population is 65 or older, the highest proportion in the world. And that number is on the rise. By 2020, the elderly will outnumber children by nearly 3 to 1, the government report predicted. By 2040, they will outnumber them by nearly 4 to 1.

The numbers tell the story. Almost a quarter of Japan's population is 65 and older; only 13.5 percent are children. The inescapable conclusion is that there will soon not be enough Japanese to keep Japan functioning as a nation, society, and culture.

The paper calls the reality "a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world." Looking ahead, the paper assured its readers that it was not overstating the case. Indeed, "The economic and social consequences of these trends are difficult to overstate."

The Japan Center for Economic Research predicts that Japan will lose 70 percent of its workers by mid-century. Japan may now be the world's second-largest economy, but it cannot retain that status with a population in severe decline.

A society that stops having children is like a healthy person who simply decides to starve himself.  This is an act of the human will, not a natural calamity.

The population explosion prophets are still warning of a population crisis to come, but they got the story almost perfectly backward when it comes to nations like Japan.  Russia and several other European nations face similar crises.

Babies are a clear sign of cultural confidence and cultural health.  The Washington Post describes this crisis as "Japan's disappearing children."  Those words do describe Japan's predicament -- and this crisis will not disappear.

Welcome to the World, Trig Paxson Van Palin

Posted: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 1:49 am ET

A little boy with an extra chromosome was born on April 18. His name is Trig Paxson Van Palin and his new home is the Alaska Governor's Mansion in Juneau. His mom is Governor Sarah Palin, who along with her husband Todd, has welcomed Trig as their second son and fifth child.

Governor Palin has already made a mark on the political scene. A high school basketball star and beauty queen, she was elected Alaska's governor in 2006. She is often mentioned as a potential running mate for Sen. John McCain. The Palins' other children include Track, their oldest son, who now serves in the U.S. Army. They also have three daughters, Bristol, Willow, and Piper.

Trig made news long before he was born, as Alaska's citizens learned that their governor was pregnant. Then, for the Palins, the story got more complicated.

This past December, Sarah Palin was told that her baby was likely to have Down syndrome -- just one extra chromosome.

As the Associated Press reports:

The doctor's announcement in December, when Palin was four months pregnant, presented her with a possible life- and career-changing development.

"I've never had problems with my other pregnancies, so I was shocked," said Palin.

"It took a while to open up the book that the doctor gave me about children with Down syndrome, and a while to log on to the Web site and start reading facts about the situation."

When he was told, Todd Palin quickly said, "We shouldn't be asking, 'Why us?' We should be saying, 'Well, why not us?'"

The Palins never considered aborting the baby. That means that Trig Palin is now is a very rare group of very special children, because it is now believed that the vast majority of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are being aborted.

Modern diagnostic tests are driving a "search and destroy mission" to eliminate babies judged to be inferior, disabled, or deformed. Some experts now believe that up to 90 percent of all pregnancies diagnosed as having a likelihood of Down syndrome end in abortion.

Back in 2005, ethicist George Neumayr commented: "Each year in America fewer and fewer disabled infants are born. The reason is eugenic abortion. Doctors and their patients use prenatal technology to screen unborn children for disabilities, then they use that information to abort a high percentage of them. Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace."

The Palins would not even consider aborting their baby. "We've both been very vocal about being pro-life," Governor Palin said. "We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential."

She loves her baby boy and is proud of him. "I'm looking at him right now, and I see perfection," Palin told the Associated Press. "Yeah, he has an extra chromosome. I keep thinking, in our world, what is normal and what is perfect?"

Some ethicists now go so far as to argue for a "duty" to abort a baby with a Down diagnosis. This is an assault upon the dignity of every human being. The fact that so few Down syndrome babies now make it to birth is a sign that America is making its own pact with the Culture of Death.

Trig Paxson Van Palin has an extra chromosome, two proud and loving parents, four very happy siblings, and he will bring his own joy to untold numbers of lives.

He will face some unique challenges, but he has a loving family who will face those with him. They will learn together the wonder and beauty of a Down syndrome child and will learn to see the glory of God in his trusting face.

Mothers Day 2008 is certain to be a special day in the Alaska Governor's Mansion. What an unspeakable tragedy that so many other homes will have aborted that joy.

Welcome to the world, Trig Paxson Van Palin. Your very existence defies the Culture of Death and gives us all hope.

_____________________

See photos of Trig Palin and his proud parents here [from The Juneau Empire].

Plant Rights, Screaming Vegetation, and a "Biocentric" Worldview

Posted: Monday, May 05, 2008 at 3:59 am ET

Several years ago now, I was appearing on a national network interview program and found myself discussing capital punishment with a woman who, during a commercial break, indicated that she had recently seen a combine going through a wheat field. She was horrified. The wheat was being cut down by thousands of stalks a second. She felt grief for the wheat, she revealed.

No one person on the panel knew what to do with that off-hand statement. I think it is safe to say that none of us had ever grieved over the intentional harvesting of vegetation.

Now, ethicist Wesley J. Smith indicates that an ethics panel in Switzerland has decided that "the arbitrary killing of flora is morally wrong." Writing in the current edition of The Weekly Standard, Smith explains that the idea of "plant rights" is now a matter of serious consideration among the Swiss.

The background to the current panel is a constitutional clause adopted years ago in Switzerland that demands Swiss citizens to recognize "the dignity of creation when handling animals, plants and other organisms." Until just recently, no one seems to have expected that this would lead to a plants rights movement.

As Smith explains, the Swiss panel came up with a radical conclusion based in a radical worldview:

A "clear majority" of the panel adopted what it called a "biocentric" moral view, meaning that "living organisms should be considered morally for their own sake because they are alive." Thus, the panel determined that we cannot claim "absolute ownership" over plants and, moreover, that "individual plants have an inherent worth." This means that "we may not use them just as we please, even if the plant community is not in danger, or if our actions do not endanger the species, or if we are not acting arbitrarily."

Smith rightly points to this kind of logic as "a symptom of a cultural disease that has infected Western civilization, causing us to lose the ability to think critically and distinguish serious from frivolous ethical concerns."

The very idea of "plants rights" indicates a loss of cultural sanity. Until now, this cultural confusion has been most evident in the animal rights movement -- a movement that presents some legitimate ethical concerns but pushes its ideology beyond sanity. The failure to distinguish between human beings and the larger animal world is a hallmark of a post-Christian culture. The extension of this ideology to vegetation is a frightening sign of mass delusion.

Wesley Smith gets it just right:

Why is this happening? Our accelerating rejection of the Judeo-Christian world view, which upholds the unique dignity and moral worth of human beings, is driving us crazy. Once we knocked our species off its pedestal, it was only logical that we would come to see fauna and flora as entitled to rights.

So, now Swiss ethicists are working up protocols on "plant dignity" and determining scenarios that might qualify as a violation of "plant rights." The Swiss panel's report, "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants," is a wake-up call. The adoption of a "biocentric" worldview is a leap into irrationality. Good arguments can be made for responsible agricultural practices that honor God by demonstrating care for creation. But the ideology of "plant rights" and the suggestion of something like an inherent "right to life" for vegetation is beyond all reason.

The most tragic dimension of all this is that a culture increasingly ready to euthanize the old, infanticize the young, and adamant about a "right" to abort unborn human beings, will now contend for the inherent dignity of plants. Can any culture recover from this?

United Methodists Maintain Standards

Posted: Friday, May 02, 2008 at 4:03 am ET

The United Methodist Church voted this week to maintain its official policy that homosexual activity is "incompatible with Christian teaching." The policy of the church also prohibits the recognition or celebration of same-sex relationships.

Meeting for its General Conference in Ft. Worth, Texas, the Methodists voted 517 to 416 to keep the current policy and language in its Book of Discipline. The denomination voted down a proposal to replace the "incompatible with Christian teaching" language with a statement that the church should "refrain from judgment regarding homosexual persons and practices as the Spirit leads us to new insight."

As Religion News Service and Christianity Today reported:

Many Methodists rose to speak in favor of a clear continuation of traditional teachings, especially for the purpose of evangelizing to a world that they said is beset by moral confusion.

"Friends, this is serious business," said the Rev. H. Eddie Fox, director of evangelism for the World Methodist Council. "It is an urgent matter for our church. It matters what we believe and what we practice and we do not meet here in isolation."

A group of 300 delegates protested the decision and blamed it, at least in part, on delegates from Africa. As The Dallas Morning News reported:

"It was a terrible day," said the Rev. Eric Folkerth, pastor of Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas. . . .

Mr. Folkerth said, "American Methodists are ready for change." But he and others said change was thwarted this time by international delegates, particularly delegates from Africa, whose numbers and influence have grown because the denomination is growing there.

Dogo Jean Yoou, a lay delegate from Ivory Coast, agreed that the African delegates oppose relaxing the UMC's stands on homosexuality. "We are still very conservative on this issue," he said.

The United Methodist Church has been debating issues of human sexuality for four decades. The controversy is hardly unique to that denomination. The liberal churches often identified as "mainline Protestantism" have been torn asunder by these debates, with the Episcopal Church breaking up in some regions and other denominations attempting to avert immediate disaster by avoiding a decision for as long as possible. The sand in that hourglass is running out. As one United Methodist leader commented, a decision to approve homosexuality and same-sex relationships would signal "the death knell for the church."

As some of those pressing for the normalization of homosexuality made clear, they believe that time is on their side. The fact that the most important vote was separated by only 101 votes may indicate that they are right. The next General Conference in 2012 is certain to confront similar efforts.

Nevertheless, the denomination's decision to retain its teaching that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" should encourage all those working within other denominations and churches to maintain biblical standards. A narrow victory is still a victory.

____________________

Art depicts the historic sanctuary of First United Methodist Church of Huntington, West Virginia.

Grand Theft Decency

Posted: Thursday, May 01, 2008 at 3:39 am ET

The release this week of the video game Grand Theft Auto IV is predicted to be the biggest event in the entertainment industry this year, with some authorities predicting more than $400 million in sales over the next few weeks.

While other sectors of the entertainment industry are struggling, video games have seen a 57 percent jump in sales since last March, according to The Washington Post. Forbes reports that the video game market in the U.S. alone is worth $18.8 billion a year.

Even in the midst of economic pressures, fans of the Grand Theft Auto series say they will sacrifice other purchases in order to buy the new game -- billed as the most sophisticated video game yet invented.  Reviewers praise the game's graphics and technological advances.

Ryan Holt, a 21-year-old student at the University of Northern Colorado told The New York Times that he was willing to adjust his lifestyle in order to purchase the game and accessories: "I'd probably give up my cell phone. Probably not food. I like food."

The big problem with Grand Theft Auto IV is not its marketing, but its message. The game carries the "M" rating for "Mature" and is to be sold only to customers 17 and older. The label warns of "blood," "intense violence," "partial nudity," "strong language," "strong sexual content," and "use of drugs and alcohol."

As one young man told Reuters, "This game has everything -- sex, drugs, cars, money ... anything you want." As Reuters explains:

"Grand Theft Auto 4" casts players as an Eastern European immigrant who runs drugs, shoots cops and beats up prostitutes after falling in with a crime syndicate -- stuff that has drawn fire from family groups and politicians.

Avid fans like Lorenzo seemed drawn to the excitement -- but only in game play. "Violence is like sex. It sells," Alba said outside the GameStop shop. "I like violence in games, it's cool. Not in real life."

Or, as Chris Baker writes at Slate.com:

As you'd probably expect from the reputation of the series, "Grand Theft Auto IV" includes--let's quickly consult the label--blood, intense violence, partial nudity, strong language, strong sexual content, and use of drugs and alcohol. Yes, concerned teenage boys of America, if your parents are irresponsible enough to let you get your hands on this, you can still kill and maim and plunder and [deleted] until your heart is full. But there's a difference this time: The violence is no longer cartoonish. Shoot an innocent bystander, and you see his face contort in agony. He'll clutch at the wound and begin to stagger away, desperately seeking safety. After just scratching the surface of the game--I played for part of a day; it could take 60 hours to complete the whole thing--I felt unnerved. What makes "Grand Theft Auto IV" so compelling is that, unlike so many video games, it made me reflect on all of the disturbing things I had done.

The release of this latest product in the Grand Theft Auto series is a reminder that games and entertainment products constitute a significant moral challenge -- and a potential minefield for parents.

In some sense, we are what we play. This is not to say that every young male playing "Grand Theft Auto" is now or will become a violent sexual predator who steals cars. That is clearly not the case.  But it is to say that these players are filling their minds with these images and narratives and they are feeling the competitive exhilaration of engaging in immoral acts as players in a game that engages multiple senses and sensations.  This is dangerous stuff for the soul. 

As Mike Musgrove reports in The Washington Post:

I've never found it likely that bloody video games cause bad behavior in kids, but then again, I'd also never pass any of my old copies of the games to a child. So I'm a little unsure about how to react to a recent study showing that the game is more popular than any other among 12- to 14-year-old boys.

That's right -- this is the most popular game among 12- to 14 year-old boys.  This shocks even one of the game's creators, Lazlo Jones, who told the Post, "If you let your child play this game, you're a bad parent."

This game is a signal of where the culture is headed.  There is a moral minefield at every turn and no sector of the entertainment industry is safe -- and certainly not the world of video games.

Parents have to make hard calls on entertainment options and they have to make their decisions stick.  Christian young adults are negotiating a world of seemingly infinite choices -- and every choice is laden with moral significance.  The release of Grand Theft Auto IV presents parents with a great teaching opportunity and young adults with a moral choice.

This new release reminds us all that a game is often never just a game.

_____________________

We discussed this issue on Tuesday's edition of The Albert Mohler Program [listen here].

A Tale of Two Nations -- Getting Honest about Sex Selection Abortions

Posted: Wednesday, April 30, 2008 at 4:59 am ET

The Prime Minister of India delivered a brave and important speech on Monday of this week. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared his nation's practice of sex-selection abortions to be a "national shame" and called for increased enforcement of laws that would prevent the practice.

Sex selection by abortion is widespread in both India and China, although it is practiced in many other nations as well. In both nations efforts to limit the size of families is part of the equation. In China, the nation's draconian "one child only" policy has led to a dramatic imbalance of males to females. In India, only 927 baby girls are born for every 1,000 baby boys.

Throughout India, ultrasound technologies and other diagnostic procedures are used to identify the sex of the unborn baby. Close nearby are abortionists ready to terminate a pregnancy of the unwanted gender -- almost always baby girls.

As The New York Times reported:

Over past three decades, the increasing availability of ultrasound equipment has assisted India's cultural preference for sons and distorted the sex ratio across the nation. As the equipment has become more affordable, special ultrasound clinics have opened even in the most impoverished parts of the country.

Before undergoing an ultrasound test in India, pregnant women must sign a form agreeing not to seek to know the sex of the fetus. Doctors who disclose the sex during an examination can be imprisoned for up to five years. But the law is widely flouted. Studies suggest that doctors often give coded hints, by remarking for example, "Your child will be a fighter," or by offering pink or blue sweets, as appropriate, on the way out. Successful prosecutions are rare.

The Prime Minister's speech was amazingly candid and clear. He referred to sex selection abortions as "inhuman, uncivilized and reprehensible." He also argued that the practice was not justified by poverty or other considerations. He put the blame directly on those who demand and those who provide the sex selection abortion services, speaking of "unethical conduct" on the part of medical personnel and of "unscrupulous parents" who seek out those willing to perform the procedure.

In the most important sentence of his speech, the Prime Minister put it all on the line:

"No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice of discriminating against one half of humanity represented by women."

Time alone will reveal if the Prime Minister's bold words are backed up by real action. Getting local authorities to prosecute these cases may be difficult. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister fired a significant shot in defense of human life and human dignity. The great tragedy is that he did not extend his moral argument to the "national shame" of elective abortion for any reason.

No doubt, many Americans will read of the Indian Prime Minister's speech with a degree of appreciation. Feminists find themselves in an excruciating moral bind on this question, because they have argued so assiduously for a woman's "right" to an abortion for any reason or for no stated reason at all. They are now on shaky ground to suggest that sex selection abortions (in particular, the elimination of female fetuses) are morally wrong and should be legally impermissible.

In a larger sense, however, Americans should recognize that sex selection abortion is practiced here as well. There is no law that would prevent a woman to abort her baby for this (or any) reason. While Americans recoil in horror at the widespread scope of the problem in India, the fact is that Americans are guilty of the same practice, only on a smaller scale.

Prime Minister Singh delivered an honest message to his nation on Monday. We can only hope that Americans will face this tragedy with equal honesty.

Consider this recasting and extension of the Prime Ministers comments:

No nation, no society, no community can hold its head high and claim to be part of the civilized world if it condones the practice abortion on demand -- for any reason.

Those are the words we should all pray to hear.

______________________

The full text of the Prime Minister's speech is found here.

Pagan Quakers -- A Sign of the Times?

Posted: Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 4:09 am ET

Like Israel in the Old Testament, the Church has had constantly to guard against its own paganization. The threat of a pagan invasion has always been real and present, and the paganisms can take the form of any number of ideologies, idolatries, and belief systems.

A warning about the danger of paganization in our own times comes in the form of a news story from Religion News Service and Christianity Today. It seems that a significant branch of the Quaker movement is intentionally mixing Quaker thought with explicit nature-based paganism.

As reporter Matthew Streib explains:

"It seems that now, in most liberal meetings at least, you can always find a few members that identify as pagan," says Stasa Morgan-Appel of Ann Arbor, Mich., who has facilitated a Quaker pagan interest group since 2002.

Quakers -- officially the Religious Society of Friends -- are divided into four main branches, three of which are explicitly Christian. Pagans have been generally joining the liberal fourth branch, the Friends General Conference, which counts 30,000 members in North America, including Morgan-Appel.

The Quakers (or the Society of Friends) have been historically averse to creeds and confessions. George Fox, the group's founder, believed that all doctrines were mere "notions" and that the most important source of authority for the believer was an "inner light" of revelation.

Clearly, this leaves the door wide open for subjective reinterpretations of theology and doctrine and eliminates any possibility of a normative (orthodox) definition of the faith. By the end of the twentieth century, Quakerism included everything from non-theists and atheists to those whose beliefs were at least similar to those of evangelical Christians.

The paganization of the liberal Quakers is the inevitable result of this absence of doctrinal and theological standards.

As Streib reports:

Across the board, the number of Quakers is dwindling, to roughly 100,000 in the U.S. But if Quakerism continues to catch on among the estimated half million pagans in the U.S., those who embrace both traditions predict that could reverse the Quakers' downward trend. Still, some Quakers worry about losing their own traditions through the process of accepting new ones.

In the last decade, this dual faith has sprung up around the country, including Quaker-pagan gatherings, seminars, an extensive presence on the Internet, and even explicitly Quaker-pagan congregations. There may be only several hundred Quaker pagans, but among American Quakers, their presence can be distinctly felt.

"It seems that now, in most liberal meetings at least, you can always find a few members that identify as pagan," says Stasa Morgan-Appel of Ann Arbor, Mich., who has facilitated a Quaker pagan interest group since 2002.

The key insight in Streib's article comes in the words of Marshall Massey of Nebraska, a more conservative Quaker who is concerned about the loss of the group's historic identity:

"We are an easily acculturated movement," he says, explaining that Quakers' egalitarian, non-creedal tradition makes it very susceptible to outside influences. "But Quakerism has become, on the liberal end, an indefinable refuge for people who regard themselves as mystics or experientially religious and have problems with sources of authority."

This single paragraph is a parable of American religion. The Quakers' egalitarian structure and rejection of creeds leaves it susceptible to any theological or ideological influence. Thus it is just natural that the group would attract and harbor those who "have problems with sources of authority."

Yet, not even Marshall Massey is ready to call for an end to the group's paganization, arguing that such an effort would be "un-Quakerly."

The emergence of pagan Quakers is a reminder that paganism is always close at hand. In this weird postmodern age, the old paganisms are back even as newer forms emerge. The pagan Quakers also serve as an example of what happens when the authority of the Bible is replaced with the authority of the "inner light," and of what happens when no creed or confession defines the boundaries of belief.

What is to prevent your church from being next in line to be paganized?

The New Face of Gay Marriage

Posted: Monday, April 28, 2008 at 2:45 am ET

"Honey, we may be married, but we still know how to have a good time, don't we?" That statement was made by Joshua Janson, age 25, to his husband, Benjamin McGuire, also 25. The reality of young homosexual men getting married in Massachusetts caught the attention of The New York Times Magazine and writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis.

The magazine's April 27, 2008 cover article, "Young Gay Rites," offers a fascinating glimpse into the lives of these young men -- and into their understandings of marriage and its place in American life. Reporter Benoit Denizet-Lewis is interested in the story as a journalist who is himself homosexual, but the article deserves attention by a far larger readership. In their own way, these young men are demonstrating something important about marriage in America.

Denizet-Lewis discovered that more than 700 gay men 29 or younger had married in Massachusetts through June 2007, the last date for which data is available.

This confounds the conventional wisdom about same-sex marriage -- that young male homosexuals would not be interested in marrying.

The numbers do tell a story. Lesbian couples are still far more likely to marry than homosexual male couples. Furthermore, the early trend among male homosexuals was older male couples getting married. As Denizet-Lewis explains, they had been together longer and were ready for same-sex marriage when it was legalized.

He cites Dan Savage, a sex-advice columnist, who explained, "Women -- straight or gay -- tend to want to settle down years before men do." Another observer remarked that "lesbians are more likely to be partnered than gay men, tend to cohabitate quicker and are more likely to have children -- which is a motivator to get married."

The stereotypes are made clear in this couplet of jokes cited in the article:  "What does a lesbian bring on a second date?  A U-Haul.  What does a gay man bring on a second date?  What second date?"

In other words, younger homosexual men are more likely to engage in sex with more partners and to resist long-term relationships.  The men Denizet-Lewis considers were or are resisting those trends -- at least up to a point.

Denizet-Lewis goes into great detail about the lives, loves, and expectations of some of these male couples.  Some readers will want to look at the romantic details and see the similarities with heterosexual romance and marriage.  The mothers of some of these young men wanted to know the details of how the engagement came about.  None of the parents seemed to have much of a problem with the fact that their son was marrying another man, but some of the couples chose to marry rather quietly.

One facet of this story is how "normal" some of these couples want to appear. Some of these couples choose the trappings of traditional marriage -- rings and all.  Others resist anything that appears "heteronormative."  But the very fact that both individuals in the couple are men, the "normal" appearance breaks down in some of the questions these couples face.  Will one partner be more stereotypically "male?"  Will the marriage be egalitarian?  Will one partner be a "gay housewife?" 

Monogamy is another interesting aspect of the story.  Denizet-Lewis cites Frederick Hertz, author of A Legal Guide for Lesbian and Gay Couples, who explains that many older homosexual male couples "make a distinction between emotional fidelity and sexual fidelity."  Denizet-Lewis suggested that some of these younger male couples were far more committed to true monogamy. 

On the other hand, a couple -- both men named Brandon -- took a different approach:

But the Brandons suspected they were untraditional when it came to their thinking about monogamy. As they saw it, one enduring lesson of heterosexual marriage is that lifelong monogamy is unrealistic for most people -- especially men. "Most straight people like to talk a great game about monogamy," Brandon A. said. "But what are they actually doing? Many of them have affairs at some point or break up because they want to sleep with somebody else. We're two guys, we're in our 20s, we haven't been sexual with that many people, and to pretend like we're never going to want to experience sex with another person until the day we die doesn't make sense to us. We're open to exploring our sexuality together in a way that makes us both comfortable."

"Young Gay Rites" is itself a noteworthy signal about the future of marriage.  If Denizet-Lewis is right, the legalization of same-sex marriage is changing the ways some homosexuals are living their lives.  In other words, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts is changing homosexual culture in some unexpected ways.

The Christian concern about marriage is rooted in the picture that marriage provides.  Marriage is a covenant and the central institution for human society.  The picture of marriage is the bringing together of those who are alike (both made in the image of God) and different (male and female).  Out of this picture of difference brought together within covenant comes the gifts that flow from marriage.

The tragedy of same-sex marriage is not the awkwardness and strangeness revealed in this article, but the repudiation of that picture.  That repudiation represents a great loss and confusion -- but it also represents a violation of God's command concerning marriage.

Denizet-Lewis's article raises at least one final thought.  If the legalization of same-sex marriage is changing homosexual culture, is it also changing heterosexual marriage?  We can only wonder how long it will take for some heterosexual couples to decide that "emotional fidelity" and "sexual fidelity" can be separated.

We are living in the midst of vast cultural change.  It is almost as if an entire civilization is being transformed before our eyes.  Reading "Young Gay Rites" should be sufficient to make that realization hard to miss. 

The Politics of Religion -- A Secularist Attempt

Posted: Friday, April 25, 2008 at 5:58 am ET

Mary Warnock, formally known as Baroness Warnock of Weeke, is one of the most influential figures in the field of biomedical ethics and ethical philosophy. She emerged in the international limelight in 1984 when she headed the committee that brought the so-called "Warnock Report" that legalized IVF procedures in Great Britain.

In recent years, Baroness Warnock has become a major proponent of a secularized vision of ethics -- ranging across the field of ethical concerns. The limitation of her secularized approach is that it so often comes down to little more than what she believes is ethical and right.

In the current issue of The New Statesman, a prominent intellectual journal in Great Britain, she argues again that political policies must be free from religious influence. The background is a new controversy there over the potential creation of human-animal hybrid embryos.

As Baroness Warnock writes:

A few years ago, Lord Justice Bingham observed that judges increasingly had to pronounce moral judgements in court. It no longer makes sense to say, "This is not a court of morals." Of course it never did make much sense; murder was always morally as well as legally foul. The criminal law reflected more or less shared moral beliefs; if it ceased to do so, it would become unenforceable.

However, the comfortable assumption of coincidence between moral beliefs and the criminal law is no longer justifiable. Though much of the law remains squarely in accord with what society believes to be right, we are more conscious than ever before of sometimes irreconcilable differences. As private individuals, we may be content to advocate a practice of tolerance, a kind of moral relativism, but in public life, in legislation and the enforcement of law, there is no room for relativism. Society survives only if it is subject to the rule of law, and the law must be unequivocal, and must be seen to apply to everyone alike.

Put into plain language, Warnock believes that society is now so divided over basic moral questions that no moral consensus now exists. Thus, the law must choose sides and "must be unequivocal." In other words, one side wins a total policy victory.

She continues:

If we consider the passage of a new law, the problem becomes obvious. For example, with the Embryology Bill, to be debated in the House of Commons in May, there is profound moral disagreement between those who would permit the creation, for research, of admixed human embryos (the nucleus of a human cell, encased in the emptied outer coating of the egg of another animal) and those who regard this as a moral outrage. How can this moral dispute be settled?

To her credit, Baroness Warnock sees the irreconcilable nature of the differences between the two understandings of the human embryo. The law will either protect the life and dignity of human embryos or it will allow them to be used in experimentation and destroyed. We are talking about embryonic human beings here -- or about morally insignificant collections of human cells. Where you come down on this question is essentially a matter of your worldview.

Baroness Warnock wants to make certain that religious and theological objections are not allowed to impede what she sees as scientific and medical advances. The actual shape of her argument, however, demonstrates the inherent limitations of a truly secularized worldview.

In the first place, Warnock just assumes that her rendering of a secularized ethic is free of worldview implications. Religious people have prejudices -- she seems to think that secular folk do not. Secularism is just normal, theological concerns are eccentric.

More:

Society is not a religious organisation like a church. Laws must as far as possible be made in the interests, far wider than matters of faith, of all members of society, whether or not they hold any religious views. As legislators, MPs and governments must consider the consequences of the measures before them, how they will probably affect society and whether they will do more good than harm. It is the role of legislators to be consequentialists. They must not ask, "What does my religion teach about this measure?" but "Will society benefit from it in the empirical world?"

This is a very important statement, for in it Warnock argues for a "consequentialist" model of ethical reasoning -- an approach that limits the moral question to the expected consequences of an act.  As she sees the current issue, the medical treatments that might come from this form of embryo simply outweigh any other consideration (and this includes concern about the moral status of the human embryo itself).

Her consequentialist approach allows her to ignore the question of the embryo and moral concern about human experimentation and the destruction of human life.  The limitation of her approach becomes very apparent when the human subject is no longer an embryo but a human being beyond gestation.  International laws and protocols governing human medical experimentation are not consequentialist arguments.  Instead, they are based on arguments about the inherent dignity of every single human life.  Baroness Warnock can avoid this question with regard to the embryo only by employing a mode of ethical theory she could not apply to other human beings.  In other words, she simply decided that the embryo is not a consideration in itself.

Furthermore, she says that the crucial issue is answered by this question:  "Will society benefit from it in the empirical world?"  While Baroness Warnock clearly believes that a potential benefit of the embryo research "in the empirical world" might well include medical treatments, she completely ignores the fact that the consequences of a devaluation of human life and human dignity -- also "in the empirical world" -- would be devastating.

We can thank Baroness Warnock of Weeke for reminding us all that everyone operates out of a basic worldview and that all worldviews involve ideological and philosophical assumptions -- including the secularist worldview.  There is no neutrality. 

A Church for Atheists?

Posted: Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 1:45 am ET

"The last thing atheists want to see is their rational set of ideas yoked up with the trappings of a religion," says Daniel Dennett of Tufts University. "We think we can do without that."

Oddly enough, Dennett was responding to the proposal that atheists should form something like their own church -- a church of unbelief. It seems that at least some atheists miss what Dennett calls "the trappings of religion." They want a church for nonbelievers.

Writing in the April 21, 2008 edition of New York magazine, Sean McManus tells of a resurgent atheism. Encouraged by the literary success and media profile of the so-called "four horsemen" of the New Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris), the atheists want to institutionalize their worldview.

McManus takes his readers back to the 1877 founding of the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City -- an organization that in 1910 built a "secular cathedral" on Central Park. As McManus explains, the organization's patrons did not believe in God, but they were worried "that society might fall apart if it didn't have a church."

McManus describes the group's "secular cathedral:"

Founded by Felix Adler, the son of a rabbi, to drive social-justice initiatives and promote good without God, Ethical Culture walks like a church and talks like a church--congregants sit in pews, rise to sing hymns, and pass around a collection plate. But at one of their Sunday-morning meetings in January, their Senior Leader, in a very unchurchlike fashion, cited agnosticism as the only intellectually defensible religious position. More to the point, Epstein is eyeing the group's building as a prototype for the church of New Humanism. Modeled on a Greco-Roman coliseum, Ethical Culture has semi-circular pews to promote conversation and a low stage designed to minimize the distance between leader and congregation.

Now, with the numbers of unbelievers rising in surveys, some atheists believe it is about time to mainstream atheism -- and that just might require looking more like a church, while others want nothing at all to do with anything that looks like a church . . . even one without God.

As McManus explains:

So some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all--Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.--all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument--they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. "Science and reason are important," says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. "But science and reason won't visit you in the hospital."

Many atheist sects are experimenting with building new, human-centered quasi-religious organizations, much like Ethical Culture. They aim to remove God from the church, while leaving the church, at least large parts of it, standing. But this impulse is fueling a growing schism among atheists. Many of them see churches as part of the problem. They want to throw out the baby and the bathwater--or at least they don't see the need for the bathwater once the baby is gone.

Well it is certainly true that science and reason do not make hospital visits, but it is difficult to see how a church of unbelievers would offer much comfort.  McManus' article begins with Richard Dawkins poking fun at the idea that belief in God offers solace.  "Isn't that a little childish?" he asked.  Atheism just doesn't have much to offer when it comes to spiritual assurance.  How could it?

Even as some atheists want a church, and others have called for atheist Sunday Schools for children, other atheists see this as heresy and an abandonment of the true unfaith.  As Ellen Johnson, president of American Atheists, stated:  "Our members have left religion and don't want any part of that."

The New Atheists apparently agree.  As Richard Dawkins says, "In the larger war against supernaturalism, frankly, it doesn't help to fraternize with the enemy."

Or, as Daniel Dennett more calmly retorted, "We think we can do without that."  He probably can "do without that."  After all, no one is fooled by a secular cathedral.

______________________

Photo:  New York Society for Ethical Culture auditorium, looking from the stage.