Why should Christians care about euthanasia and physician assisted suicide? And how did we get to the place we are today in which "death with dignity" is considered increasingly acceptable? In this episode, Sean interviews historian Richard Weikart on these questions and more. Professor Weikart describes some of they key ideas that gave rise to the euthanasia movement and explains how the debate about euthanasia is part of a larger conflict between competing ideas.



More About Our Guest

Dr. Richard Weikart is professor of modern European history at California State University, Stanislaus, and author of The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life (Regnery Faith, April 2016), a book which examines and critiques many secular ideologies that have contributed to the decline of the Judeo-Christian sanctity-of-life ethic since the Enlightenment.


Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: Welcome to the podcast, Think Biblically. I'm your host, Sean McDowell, Professor of Apologetics at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Today we're here with a guest that our regular listeners will recognize because we've had him on the show before, Dr. Richard Weikart. You came on, you talked about your book, The Death of Humanity, and we interacted with that a while back. But today, we want to talk about a subject you have been researching a ton, and because you're a historian of European history at California State University Stanislaus and the author of a number of books, I think you bring a really interesting perspective to this issue, and it's really the question of euthanasia.

Sean McDowell: Now, before we get into some of the particulars, how this has changed and why this movement is so significant today, can you just give us a definition, what is euthanasia, so we're on the same page? First off, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.

Richard Weikart: Yeah, thanks for having me here. Euthanasia, the word itself comes from the Greek roots that mean a good death. Actually, the meaning of the word changed in the course of the 19th century, and today it means the killing of people who deem their lives to be over or for one reason or other consider themselves, their lives to no longer have value. It's very often closely associated with assisted suicide, which is a closely related theme in which I'm also working on as well.

Sean McDowell: What's the difference between assisted suicide and euthanasia?

Richard Weikart: Usually the way it's distinguished today is that assisted suicide is when a physician gives a person something with which to kill themselves, but that person takes it themself. Euthanasia is when the physician actually injects them with a drug to kill them.

Sean McDowell: Gotcha. In some ways, this might be obvious, but tell us why is this issue so important for people as a whole and in particular, Christians to think carefully about?

Richard Weikart: Well, of course, the whole issue of assisted suicide and euthanasia gets at the very heart of what it means to be a human and what kind of value human life has. In Genesis, it tells us that humans were created in the image of God, and that has some important repercussions in how we view whether or not suicide is legitimate or whether one should commit it.

Richard Weikart: Of course, we're seeing now today in many of the American states, legalization of assisted suicide. California, where I am at right now, it has legalized assisted suicide as do eight other States, plus the District of Columbia. There are European countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, which also have assisted suicide. There's been attempts made in many other states in the United States, as well as other European constituencies. I think Spain, Portugal are now debating assisted suicide. It's a huge issue being debated in many countries today.

Sean McDowell: As charitably as you can, make a case or a defense for euthanasia. As Christians, you and I look at this and right away we go, "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! We are taking a valuable human life away." How could somebody defend this? Give that case so we understand where somebody is coming from. Who's in favor of either physician assisted suicide or euthanasia?

Richard Weikart: Okay and by the way, I should say that most of the people who are pushing for euthanasia today are pushing for voluntary euthanasia. Now, of course, there's also involuntary euthanasia, which would be killing people against their will. Also, well, actually, there's also a third kind, non-voluntary which would be killing people who are comatose or don't have an ability to say one way or the other what their will would be. But the involuntary euthanasia of course has taken place, for instance, under the Nazi regime and in the eugenics movement in the early 19th, excuse me, early 20th century, there were people pushing for involuntary euthanasia of people with disabilities and such.

Richard Weikart: Let's set that aside though. Listen, we're not going to be talking about involuntary euthanasia. Let's talk about voluntary euthanasia. The arguments that people usually make for voluntary euthanasia or assisted suicide would be that it's a way to get rid of people who are undergoing various suffering. We know that suffering is a bad thing, and as Christians, we agree with that. Suffering is a bad thing. As Christians, we'd agree with them that suffering is something that we should try to avoid and that suffering is negative, so we could agree with them on that.

Richard Weikart: But then the idea that we should have the autonomy, and that's one of the keywords that's used in these arguments for assisted suicide and euthanasia, is that we should have autonomy to make our decisions about what happens to our own bodies. That autonomy then would be the choice to make an end of our life in order to avoid further suffering.

Sean McDowell: Okay. Now, as Christians, we realize we don't have ultimate autonomy, have responsibility to God and other people. How could somebody, or could somebody even make a secular critique of that view without appealing to the scriptures?

Richard Weikart: A secular critique of autonomy, you mean? Of autonomy or yes-

Sean McDowell: A secular critique of that defense for euthanasia.

Richard Weikart: Oh, yes. Yes. Yes. I think they could make a number of seculars. In fact, in the book I'm working on relating to euthanasia, I'm going to have a whole chapter on autonomy argument and one of the things I'm going to point out is that we aren't really autonomous, even in the broader sense that we think of having the right to make our own choices.

Richard Weikart: We are ultimately social creatures. We're not just by ourselves and so there's a number of ways that this plays itself out. We have our family. We have friends, we have other people that were related to, and the relationships with those people affect how we think about suicide.

Richard Weikart: In fact, very interestingly, if you look at Oregon, which was the first of the states in the United States to have assisted suicide, they passed their law in the mid-1990s. People who have been surveyed, who have chosen to get the drugs for assisted suicide have very often claimed that if they had or put it the other way, those that had more support from their family, for more interaction with people, they tended not to be as interested in assisted suicide as people who have less social relationships and people that are connected. We're not just autonomous. We're not just making the decisions in a void socially.

Richard Weikart: Also, even if you look at the government too, I mean, the government certainly doesn't think we're autonomous in a lot of other things. I mean, think about various things like, well, seatbelt laws. The government doesn't give us the choice, whether you can wear a seatbelt or not. You can't say, "Well, so what if I get injured on this thing". No, the government takes an interest in protecting people from themselves in many kinds of ways. I think many people in the secular world will even realize that, yeah, the government should be protecting people against themselves in some context.

Sean McDowell: No, that makes sense that we were told that whatever you feel is right for you and your autonomous your life. But we can't separate our choices from affecting one another and being dependent. I think that's a good route to go in a wider secular culture, so to speak. That makes sense.

Richard Weikart: There's also the issue too, of abuse. Now, of course, they claim that they try to make all these safeguards in the laws, that there can't be abused, that there has to be usually they will have in the law, that the person has to make the request for the drug to kill them or euthanasia multiple times. There's different things built in to try to safeguard, but still there is the element of pressure that comes from society as well that also, I think strikes against the autonomy argument.

Richard Weikart: That is family can be pressuring you to die. You're a burden on us, or the person might just feel like I'm a burden on my family and such. Again, it's not just, I'm making this decision in a vacuum socially. There can be pressure. Sometimes even physicians and they're examples of this, where physicians have themselves tried to pressure people to get assisted suicide and such. Those are issues, I think too which make clear that we're not really as autonomous as sometimes we think we are.

Sean McDowell: This question is somewhat unfair because you are a historian and you have spent hours and hours researching all the ideas that have led into this euthanasia movement. But if you were going to give us a History of Euthanasia 101, maybe it started in areas of Europe, how it seeped to America, what are some of the key people or movements that have led us to where we are today?

Richard Weikart: Well, if we go back into the ancient world, Christianity, when it came on the scene, militated against infanticide, suicide, and so led to a period of centuries where suicide was even illegal in many states. In fact, they would actually punish the families of people-

Sean McDowell: Really?

Richard Weikart: ... who commit suicide. Yes.

Sean McDowell: Oh, my goodness.

Richard Weikart: In European states. Yeah.

Sean McDowell: Wow.

Richard Weikart: By the 18th century in the Enlightenment, as people began to reject Christianity and some elements of Christianity, in any case, a debate about suicide did then emerge at that point. David Hume, who actually made a very interesting comment once about how human life has no more value than that of an oyster, opened up a debate about suicide, as well as other enlightenment thinkers in the 18th century. That's when really when ideas about suicide came to be more intellectually acceptable, not that the vast majority people embraced it, but then intellectuals began debating it and such.

Richard Weikart: By the middle of the 19th century, especially as secularization was increasing, there was more people who were beginning to embrace the idea of suicide and that assisted suicide should be a possibility. The euthanasia movement really begins somewhere around 1870. That's a rough date, but right about there, there's some interesting publications that came out in 1870 beginning to promote the idea of euthanasia. By the way, at that time, it was sometimes involuntary euthanasia. It was killing of people with mental illnesses and other things like that to promote eugenics. That is the attempt to breed better humans to improve human heredity. That's really where it starts really taking off.

Richard Weikart: Then as our society has become more secularized in the United States and in Europe also, it has simply gained ground over that time. It first became organized in organizations in the 1930s. It was at a Euthanasia Society of America that formed in 1938, for example, it's in the 1930s. It starts organizing itself and then is going to become more prominent specially in the 1960s and thereafter.

Richard Weikart: The first legislation wasn't going to come about until mid-1990s-

Sean McDowell: In the States?

Richard Weikart: In the United States and Oregon was the first. Correct, but the Netherlands and Belgium were pioneering in Europe, even though technically Netherlands, didn't actually fully legalize until 2002. They had been practicing it though for a couple decades before that, based on just they weren't going to prosecute. They gave guidelines under which they would not prosecute the thing. Theoretically it was still illegal, but really it was being allowed for a couple of decades so really 1980s or so in the Netherlands. It was-

Sean McDowell: Okay.

Richard Weikart: ... being legalized.

Sean McDowell: I have a couple of more questions for you about ideas that affected this, but you teach at a public university. I'm assuming you interact with students from a range of worldviews in this issue. Can you describe where most students are at, or is that too much of a generalization? Would most say, "Yeah, I'm in favor of euthanasia. It's your body, your choice," or is there more of a debate? How do a lot of students respond today in public universities when this topic comes up?

Richard Weikart: You know, interestingly, I think a lot of people don't really think a whole lot about the issue to be honest. When I talk with some people about this issue, it's like, they hadn't really thought about it a whole lot. I'm not sure a lot of them have really carefully thought out ideas, but I think we've got pretty wide range.

Richard Weikart: Actually I teach in the Central Valley, California is not as liberal as the coastal regions. I get a lot more conservative students, but there's pretty wide range of views on it I think in my students-

Sean McDowell: They come across.

Richard Weikart: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: Now you've spent some time talking about Darwin and his ideas and made the argument that even some of the euthanasia movement today can trace back to some of his ideas. I appreciate that you say it's important we don't just demonize and blame Darwin, but it's also important that we don't fail to make connections to some of his ideas as well. What's the connection there in your mind between him and between some of this euthanasia movement today?

Richard Weikart: Yeah and I should say this too, because it's not that because I've written so extensively on Darwinism some might think that, okay, you know that I've got this hobby horse, but actually if you look at the literature on the history of euthanasia, the most important book that has come out about the euthanasia in the United States is written by Ian Dowbiggin and the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada. He says point blank that the coming of Darwinism to America was the most important ideological factor in setting the euthanasia movement off in the 1870s. He's basically skeptical toward euthanasia. I'm not sure if he would totally want to ban it, but he seems to be on a skeptical side toward euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Richard Weikart: In the British scene, Nick Kemp published a book in the early 2000s on the British euthanasia movement. His is the best book on the British euthanasia movement that has come out so far. This is with Manchester University Press. He is very sympathetic with euthanasia and assisted suicide, but he also admits that Darwinism was an extremely important ideological factor within it. We got people involved from different sides of that.

Richard Weikart: If you look at the German euthanasia literature, also Hans-Walter Schmuhl is one of the more prominent German historians who's written about the German euthanasia movement. He also mentions that Darwinism brought about a view of humans that ... he didn't use the word devalue, but that's the idea that he puts there that it strips away the sanctity of human life and such. That's the point I've made myself in my earlier book from Darwin to Hitler, which has a section on euthanasia and how Darwinism in Germany contributed to the euthanasia.

Richard Weikart: In fact, the first person in Germany who very prominently began pressing for ... maybe pressing isn't the right word. It's about a paragraph in his larger book, but for killing of people with disabilities was Ernst Haeckel, who was the leading Darwinian biologist in Germany in the late 19th century. If you look at the people in Germany after that point who were promoting euthanasia, and again, at this point, we're talking largely about killing people with disabilities, not just voluntary, many of them were very forthrightly, relying upon Darwin as an ideological foundation.

Sean McDowell: Basically this survival of the fittest we see in nature, we now should apply this in a social Darwinism. Is that the direct connection?

Richard Weikart: Yeah, well the idea is this that because that civilization has set aside the struggle for existence by helping the weak and the sick and the poor who otherwise would have died in the nature. Under the state of nature, they would have died out. They wouldn't have been able to survive and reproduce. We're helping them to survive and reproduce. Now we need to offset that one way or another. That's what the eugenics movement was all about in the late 19th and early 20th century. It was a very powerful movement.

Richard Weikart: Now, many people in the eugenics movement wanting to promote human heredity did not think that you had to kill people to do that. They opted for other things like marriage restrictions. Compulsory sterilization was a big push in the early 20th century. The United States had over half the states in the US had compulsory sterilization laws to try to do that. We didn't kill people like the Nazis did, but we had compulsory sterilization to try to do it. But yeah, it was based on the idea that we need to get rid of these people that were identified as unfit, inferior. There's lots of negative words used. Ballast, weeds.

Sean McDowell: Wow.

Richard Weikart: I've seen all of that in the eugenics literature.

Sean McDowell: Do you see that ... or let me ask you this way is maybe better. How do you see that idea that has its roots in Nazi-ism has its roots in eugenics of weeding out certain genes or creating a good death? In particular, how do we see that being argued out practically today? What does that look like how it's being advanced society, maybe in subtle ways that people don't even pick up on and realize these are the underlying roots behind these kind of movements?

Richard Weikart: Well, it's interesting because I think our society has become schizophrenic on this issue because on the one hand, we want to do everything we can to help people with disabilities. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act and we try to help do all these things to try to benefit the lives of people with disabilities. But on the other hand, we don't really think that their lives are of equal value because if we come across someone in utero who has those things, so we use amnio amniocentesis to try to find out before they're born, whether or not they have Down Syndrome. Iceland has now boasted that they have 100% success rate in eliminating Down Syndrome. Well, they do it by aborting the fetuses that have Down Syndrome. The United States, it's about 90%, by the way. In much of Europe, it's 90% of Down Syndrome babies are aborted before they were born. We have ways of trying to quote "screen out" some of the people with disabilities as well. We have in fact, devalued the lives of those people.

Sean McDowell: You made a distinction earlier between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia. One of the arguments that I've heard over the years is people say, "If we allow voluntary, it's going to lead to involuntary." The pushback is, "Oh, that's a slippery slope. That's not true." Is that a good argument? What do you make of that point?

Richard Weikart: Yeah, the slippery slope argument. Again, I have a whole chapter in my book on the slippery slope argument, the book I'm working on currently. In that slippery slope chapter, I note that there are ways in which the slippery slope argument is not logically rigorous in the sense that okay, yeah. If you agree with voluntary euthanasia, which would be because of the autonomy argument that wouldn't necessarily slip into involuntary because that would violate the autonomy of that person. There's certain ways in which that may not slip.

Richard Weikart: But on the other hand, once you have eliminated the notion that all humans have value, that humans have equal value, okay? The notion that's enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal, that they're endowed by their creator with inalienable rights. Once you get rid of that idea, that then I think does contribute to a mentality that opens itself up to greater killing of others.

Richard Weikart: I think we've seen that in places where it has become legal. In the Netherlands and in Belgium, it does seem to be widening out to include more and more people. There is evidence that some physicians are killing people involuntarily. Of course, they're doing this secretly. They're not doing this publicly, because then they'll get prosecuted for it. But it does seem to be broadening out to broader, broader categories too.

Richard Weikart: One of the big issues that is being faced right now by Netherlands, Belgium, Canada, Canada also has assisted suicide is what about the mentally ill? Can we allow person who's mentally ill to have euthanasia? In Canada, a court just made a decision within the last few months, but actually it was late last year where they stipulated that a person did not have to have death in their foreseeable future. It was kind of a weird way that the Canadian law was framed. Claimed that his death had to be in the foreseeable future.

Richard Weikart: Oregon said it had to be within six months.

Sean McDowell: Interesting.

Richard Weikart: Although the way Oregon's law read and most of the laws in the United States have been patterned on Oregon's. It says that their death has to be foreseeable within six months. Now, some people in Oregon have had their assisted suicide medications longer than six months. You can't tell it's very slippery.

Richard Weikart: But Canada said foreseeable future. A court just struck that down and said that no, that discriminates against people who aren't at point of death.

Sean McDowell: Discriminates. Wow.

Richard Weikart: Yeah. It discriminates against people who don't have death in the foreseeable future. Now as long as they just have unendurable suffering, then they should still be allowed to do it. There's debates now on whether mentally ill should be included in that as well.

Richard Weikart: In the Netherlands and Belgium, they're already euthanizing people who have mental illnesses. In fact, there's been some really remarkable cases in the Netherlands. One that I mentioned in my book Death of Humanity, was a lady who had been sexually abused by her psychiatrist and who was so distraught over that, that she was enduring what she saw as unbearable suffering, which allows her under the law then to seek euthanasia, which she did. Then she had another psychiatrist write up a thing for her to be killed. You get this horrible situations where one psychiatrist abuses a person, and the next psychiatrist signs a writ to put her to death.

Sean McDowell: How does the medical community respond to this? The doctors I talked to say, "We signed up to save life, not take life." They're doctors all over the map. Is there resistance? How do they respond to this?

Richard Weikart: Yeah. Physicians have been pretty resistant on the whole. Although, their resistance is lessening. The World Medical Association still opposes euthanasia and assisted suicide. The American Medical Association still opposes it, but the California Medical Association has become neutral. They did that just before the law passed in California. It does make a difference. I think the stance they take and many States have resisted it, but the medical community is becoming more sympathetic.

Richard Weikart: Now, one of the problems in the medical community is facing of course too, is that some people are feeling that they are being pressured now to comply and to participate in this, even if they aren't, even if they have a conscience against doing that. There is pressure in that sense. Canada has pressured physicians in at least one of the provinces I know about. There was a court case where a physician was told that basically they had to either refer someone or do the physician assisted suicide.

Sean McDowell: So two-part question, what's the connection between the abortion movement and the euthanasia movement and how is this a part of a larger worldview struggle that's taking place before us?

Richard Weikart: Yeah, it does seem that people that support one tend to support the other people then tend to reject one, tend to reject the other. There is I think, a close linkage. I think that the linkage is that people who view humans as created in the image of God have reason to want to protect that life at whatever stage. But people who believe that humans are the product of a cosmic accident, that we're just a product of time and chance and natural processes don't necessarily believe that there's reason to save all human lives and that all human life is valuable either. That I think is really the key issue. I mean, it's really gets down to how people view the value of human life and human equality too. I mean, the issue of human equality is very important.

Sean McDowell: You say a couple of things in some online articles you have in your books about how we can respond to some of this and you say it's important to restore the traditional belief in body-soul dualism. Now describe for listeners what you mean by that and why that is important as it ties to the issue of euthanasia.

Richard Weikart: Okay. I need to start off by defining what I mean by dualism too, because Robert George at Princeton University, he was a very prominent person who's pushing pro-life positions has come out very strongly against dualism. Nancy Pearcey in her book Love Thy Body talks extensively about the way that we've created this false kind of dualism. I need to be upfront that there are some people who are trying to minimize the importance of dualism, but the kind of dualism they're trying to minimize is not the kind of dualism that I'm talking about you here.

Richard Weikart: There's different kinds of dualism. In fact, there's a number of different kinds of dualism. When I talked to Robert George, I actually talked to Robert George one time at a conference and I asked him some questions, which made it clear to me that in one sense, he is a dualist. He does believe that the body and soul can exist separately. He just doesn't believe that that is the permanent way that God has created us to exist and I agree with that. I agree with that.

Richard Weikart: JP Moreland and Scott Rae in their book, Body and Soul, I think lay out a pretty compelling case. I was already convinced before I read their book, but it just made me more convinced of it that the notion that humans have a separate soul or spirit, whichever you want to call it is vitally important. If you see humans as only material, only physical, then there is no ultimate after life. There's no ultimate point of purpose in life beyond just fulfilling the physical, doing whatever's material and such.

Richard Weikart: I do believe that as we understand that humans are more than just our material makeup that that's an important thing that contributes to our notion that we are valuable. If we're just a bunch of atoms that have been thrown together in a chaotic, cosmic accident, then we don't have any more significance than the animals out there, the birds out there, the trees out there, or even just a piece of rock.

Sean McDowell: One other point that you make that I thought was really interesting, you said, "We need to stress the limits of science." Why is this important and what are the limits of science and how does that relate to again, questions of euthanasia and the value of life?

Richard Weikart: Yeah. A lot of people who've been pushing for the euthanasia movement, again, especially in the secularization of the 19th century that I mentioned earlier, even on the 20th century have tried to portray their viewpoint as being in line with science or that science supports their position, their whole worldview. Very often what they're doing is they're smuggling in different kinds of moralities that they are claiming is based on their science, but it really doesn't follow from their science.

Richard Weikart: I mean, the science doesn't really show that there's a disconnect between the science and the morality there and the science can't tell us whether we should kill an infant in utero. Science can't tell us whether we should allow assisted suicide or not. Science can't tell us whether we have a spirit or soul. Science can't explain consciousness and there's all sorts of philosophers and scientists that are trying to explain consciousness, but none of them have been able to do it yet. We can't explain consciousness.

Richard Weikart: Science can't study God because there's no world in which there's no God that they could compare it to, or that they could say, "Here's a world with God. Here's a world without God." Well, you can't have those two things. The only science could investigate that would be to have a world with God and the world without God. Then we could see what they look like-

Sean McDowell: No, comparison.

Richard Weikart: It looks like. Science and also one of the points I make in my article, if I recall correctly, is that science itself or the claim that science is the only path to knowledge, which is what a lot of these people are making is it self self-refuting? That statement itself is not scientific. There's nothing in the empirical world that I can point to and say, "Here's the empirical proof that science is the only path to knowledge."

Sean McDowell: Gotcha. That makes sense because especially today, people tend to think that science is the means to knowledge because of the wonder science has brought us. When it comes to ethics and values, it's limited if not totally incapable of addressing those questions.

Sean McDowell: Let me ask you one last one that I realize is a little bit out of your lane, you're a historian trained in philosophy and history. The purpose of this podcast is to really unpack some of the ideas behind euthanasia. I also know that there's probably a lot of people listening that have loved ones, parents, spouses, friends, that are dying and maybe going through this, what encouragement would you give to them to keep these ideas in mind and how you bring up these ideas and address them when you're dealing with somebody going through just suffering that could end up taking their life?

Richard Weikart: Yeah, that's a great question because again, one of the big things that people who are pushing for assisted suicide really focus on is suffering and they're right to do that. I mean they're right to vote to say that suffering is something that is, as it should not be and we as Christians understand that, that that is not as it should be. We, as Christians, need to be doing whatever we can to try to minimize the suffering of the people around us, to also provide support, companionship.

Richard Weikart: One of the things by the way, that many people in the Oregon have, when they've talked about why they commit assisted suicide, loneliness is a big issue. People that are committing assisted suicide, they're lonely. They don't have people supporting them, visiting them. They're living maybe off in a nursing home or whatever, and they don't have contact or the only contact they have is with the people that are around them who may not even be mentally there.

Richard Weikart: We, as Christians need to be doing whatever we can to show the love and compassion of Christ to these people and to encourage them that their life does have value and meaning and significance still until the Lord decides to take us home with him. The decision is his, not ours. I mean, the scripture says that your body is not your own, your body belongs to the Lord. It's up to him to decide when we're going to go to be with him.

Richard Weikart: But until that time, we need to show love and compassion to people and try to spend time with them and to show them that they they have rather value and significance. I think that'll solve a lot of the problem with people.

Richard Weikart: Suffering, yeah, physicians need to try to palliative care is important. That's another thing that a lot of physicians have done and are working on to try to deal with the issues of end of life issues. I think that's important too to make sure we try to provide with our palliative care we can to people. I think the biggest issue is just relationship.

Sean McDowell: Amen to that. Well, I really appreciate just the excellent scholarship research that you do, your willingness to come on and talk about these difficult thorny issues. I would commend to our listeners again, the book, The Death of Humanity, an excellent book that ties together some of the very things we've been talking about historically, philosophically and culturally. But even as important, if not more is thanks for your focus on just loving people and caring for people. That's what we want to do here at Biola and on the podcast.

Sean McDowell: Dr. Richard Weikart, thanks for coming on the show.

Richard Weikart: Thanks for having me, Sean. T.

Sean McDowell: his has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on faith and culture. To learn more about us and today's guest, Dr. Richard Weikart, and to find more episodes, go to biola.edu/thinkbiblically. That's biola.edu/thinkbiblically.

Sean McDowell: If you enjoyed today's conversation, give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. Thanks for listening and remember, think biblically about everything.