Biola UniversityThis week, Scott & Sean discuss:
- Biblical Perspective on Southern California Fires
Exploring the theological implications of natural disasters, addressing questions about God's sovereignty and goodness amidst tragedy. - Rising Global Anti-Semitism
Report showing an alarming increase in anti-Semitic sentiments worldwide, especially among younger generations, and highlights the role of social media in spreading these views. - Pharmacists Prescribing Abortion Pills
Examines the new policy in Washington State and its broader implications, including ethical, medical, and biblical perspectives. - Listener Questions
On human rights, biblical definitions of flourishing, and the church's responsibility to address poverty and inequality.
Episode Transcript
Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] How do we make biblical sense of the devastating fires that have rocked Southern California? According to the Anti-Defamation League, the level of anti-Semitic views in the global adult population has doubled since 2014. Alarmingly, young people report even higher levels of anti-Semitic sentiments. And states are beginning to allow pharmacists to prescribe abortion pills, not just dispensing them, in an effort by pro-choicers to expand abortion access. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we'll address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.
Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.
Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. Scott, last week we made some comments about the fires when it was just fresh and still just burning like crazy, that we would come back to it this week. And our initial response was to say, "Let's show compassion to people. Let's help people." But you and I have both gotten a lot of questions about how do we think biblically, how do we make sense of this? Some people have asked me, especially as an apologist, how do we think about this biblically? Now, you just did a chapel at Biola, which I love, that we're not afraid to talk about this at Biola, and we invite conversation into it. Start with some reflections that you made in chapel for us here, if you will.
Scott Rae: Well, yeah, it was a great opportunity, Sean, to think biblically about what has devastated Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles. What we, what we, what we recognized is that the amount of damage done is equivalent to the acreage of the island of Manhattan-
Sean McDowell: [exhales] Oh, my goodness
Scott Rae: ... In New York. And I suspect that many of these communities will never be the same again. They vow to rebuild, and I think that's admirable, but th- we're... This is a long, hard slog that it's gonna be for many of these communities, and some of them might never come back. And I remember thinking, "Where is God in all of this?" Because when things like this happen, it raises questions about both the goodness and the sovereignty of God. And from what I've been able to pick up, you know, culturally and in the, in the broader culture, folks are questioning both of those things, the good- both the goodness and the sovereignty of God. Now, clearly, when evil is the result of human beings, I think resolve... You know, resolving this theologically is not all that hard- ... Because God gives human beings free will, but He doesn't give us the freedom to ignore the consequences of our actions. And I think whether the degree to which this is a total natural disaster without any human involvement, I think is, at the least, unclear at this point. And, you know, you gave... You cited to me an article in the, in The New York Times that was published, you know, right on day one or two of the fires last week, that said, basically, you know, natural disasters of this magnitude always have some sort of human component to them. And it looks like that there is, not arson, but there is some human element to some of these fires. So I think this may not be quite the same thing as a, what we would say, like a tsunami or a, you know, a completely, you know, what we used to call an act of God. But sometimes our decisions do make these natural disasters worse, right? We build homes along, close to earthquake faults. You know, hello, Southern California. [lips smack] you know, we build, we build homes in flood zones on the Mississippi River, and we build homes in places that are under sea level, like- ... New Orleans. We build homes in tornado alleys and places that are high risk for fires. And I think, you know, some human decisions, I think, are behind climate change, which has exacerbated some of these, you know, really wild weather events. But, you know, s- the same things that can go askew also give us the things that we need. You know, you pointed out to me, you know, fire is something intrinsically good, but it can be misused, and human beings can get hurt. Basically, I think what we say here is natural disasters are s- are, for the most part, the result of living in a fallen, broken world that's that way because of sin. And the earth groans. Paul tells us in Romans 8, "The, the creation is groaning for its redemption," which will come eventually when the Lord returns. So I think the why, that why God question, I think, you know, not only occurs with these fires, but it hangs over all of us. I think we all have questions about why God has allowed the things that He's allowed in our lives that we just can't make sense out of. And Solomon in Ecclesiastes, I think, addresses some of this. And to actually think biblically about this, I'm actually gonna quote the scripture today, which, I think is very appropriate here. Because Solomon tells us essentially that there are certain things this side of eternity that we will never understand and never be able to fit together, and how God works in some of these things is unknown and will be unknown because God hasn't, this side of eternity, given us the capacity to completely understand those. Here, this is for one example. Paul- Solomon puts it like this in Ecclesiastes 3: "I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." And I think that setting eternity in our hearts means that He has set in our hearts the things, the desire to know the things that we will know when we meet the Lord in eternity.... Which essentially is how all the puzzle pieces of our lives fit together into a coherent whole under God's sovereignty. Solomon says the same thing at the end of chapter, the end of chapter eight in Ecclesiastes: "When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that's done on Earth, people getting no sleep day or night, then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning." I think what he, what he's, what he's suggesting there is that all of us, believer or not, are under the sun, which means this side of eternity. We all suffer from being human this side of eternity, and we have limited understanding about how all the puzzle pieces of our lives will fit together. It's like a jigsaw puzzle. I tell, I tell my students sometimes, you know, that you have to have the- you have to have the box top, the picture, to be able to assemble a jigsaw puzzle correctly. But this side of eternity, God has not given us the box top. We see faintly, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, like the underside of an Oriental rug that's got lots of holes and knots, but once you get on top of the Oriental rug, you see this beautiful, intricate design that makes sense. And this, I think, is just so- is something that we have to live with this side of eternity. Your, your thoughts?
Sean McDowell: That's really well said. I'm glad my son got to hear you express those ideas in chapel. [chuckles] just a few things that come to me. You know, I teach the class at Talbot on why does God allow evil? In fact, it just started this Monday, believe it or not. There were a lot of comments from our students-
Scott Rae: Yeah, I bet
Sean McDowell: ... About this very thing. And here's just a few quick points I make, is I say, natural evil, and we can question if we should call it natural evil, 'cause there's not a mind behind it like other kind, but natural suffering. But that's a problem for every worldview. It's not just Christians. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists have to make sense of this and why we are so bothered by it, and we cry out for a sense of justice. Now, when we do this, it's not just like we look at this fire and say, "Well, where is God?" And that's all the evidence we look at. We have to look at the evidence in its totality. So I've heard people say on one side of the scale is the problem of evil, which is some would consider the evidence for atheism, that God doesn't exist. On the other side of the scale is the origin of the universe, the fine-tuning, the origin of consciousness, the existence of objective morality, the Cambrian explosion, near-death experiences, miracles, the resurrection, which to me, when it's taken as a whole, points towards God, even if we can't fully make sense of why there's suffering and evil at this moment. So I tell my students, I say, "Look, if you wanna know exactly why God allowed this fire to happen, we won't know this side of heaven." But if we say, "How do we make sense of this from a Christian worldview and compare it with other worldviews?" Then I think we look at it a little bit differently. Now, when we talk about what's called the problem of evil, we have to say, what kind of problem of evil? So one is the emotional problem of evil, which is just helping somebody who's hurting and broken. There's the philosophical problem of evil: how do we make sense of this intellectually? And then there's natural evil, and the challenge with natural evil is there's an emotional component and a philosophical component, but it's important to kind of separate those. And I think your point is really well taken, that fire itself is not bad. Fire is a part of God's good creation. It's not like fire came into the world when Adam and Eve sinned. We need fire for heat, for cooking, for light. It's also beautiful, but it's not punting when Christians say, like from Romans 8, that the Earth groans from creation. Somehow, not only sin affects our minds, but it affects our bodies, and it affects the natural world. Now, how much it affects the natural world, I have no idea how to cipher that out. I mean, for example, we need fires. We learn about this in many ways. With fire regulation, they used to try to stop all fires that happened, and then they learned, "Wait a minute, we need some controlled burn for the betterment of the environment." So did sin... I mean, how exactly did the world get affected by sin? I can't answer that, but it's not punting for Christians to just point towards sin and the Earth groaning and the world itself being affected. That's been a part of Christian theology, Judeo-Christian theology, since the beginning. Now, one thing... Two, I guess two more points I wanna make. A question I get a lot, Scott, is, you know, are natural disasters the judgment of God? Is God judging these areas, whether it's Pacific Palisades or other parts of LA? These conversations come up with basically every disaster, when there were fires in Australia, when there were the floods in New Orleans. And I do think we tend to side with those who favor judgment when it fits our political and moral, you know, inclination.
Scott Rae: [chuckles]
Sean McDowell: So I just remember years ago, one political party calling out the New Orleans fire, at least a member of that party. "This is a judgment of God on the evil of New Orleans." And if I remember correctly, shortly thereafter, that political party's convention was ran out of town from some hurricane, and I don't remember them making the same kind of assessment. [chuckles] So this goes both ways, and I think it just makes us pause. If somebody wants to go further on this, Scott, my favorite book is by Sharon Dircks, D-I-R-C-K-S.... And Sharon is brilliant in this. In fact, I endorsed the book. The front literally says, from me, "My go-to book on [chuckles] the natural problem of evil." I use part of it in my class. And she says, "Natural disasters are not God's judgment on a particular community, city, or nation. They are the result of living in a complex and broken world." I think she's right about that. She says, "A judgment claim is tantamount to saying that one particular place or origin was more deserving of disaster than another. But is this really the case? And how would we really know that?", is a fair question. Now, some people might say, "Well, what about Noah?" You know, the example where God sends a flood. What about Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament? God has done this. But she points out that pastor and author Erwin Lutzer draws the distinction between Old Testament times, when God made himself known mainly through a specific people group, the Israelites, living in a particular place, the land of Israel, and our current era. The physical land was paramount in some of the ways in which God interacted with his people by means of their locality and geography. So there's been a shift. We gotta be careful reading instances of judgment from the Old Testament, when God is working with his [chuckles] chosen people, to instances today, reading into it. Now, could God still choose to do this? Yeah, God can do whatever he wants to, but I think we have to err on the side of not claiming to know the mind of God, unless God makes it really clear to us. I found this story in the New Testament where a hurricanes and storms, such as the Apostle Paul, causes him to be shipwrecked. That wasn't a judgment of God, that was a natural disaster, you might say, and Paul just deals with it. Now, there is a pass- a passage I gotta read by Jesus, and the one you read by Ecclesiastes is really helpful, where during... This is in, only in the Gospel of Luke, I believe. I don't think it's elsewhere. I think this is only in Luke. And, and what happens is, Galileans, at the hands of their Roman oppressors, discuss the collapse of a tower in Siloam. And it says this: "Now, there were some present at the time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices." So this is an example of moral evil, 'cause Pilate is doing this. Jesus answered, "Do you think that those Galileans were worse sinners than all the Galileans because they suffered this way?" He says, "I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or there's 18 who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them. You think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish." Now, we don't know why the tower of Siloam fell, but it could be that Jesus is saying, "Here's moral evil from Pilate, but then here's something that was maybe driven by a natural disaster." It- this doesn't mean these people are more deserving and more evil. The time is to repent. So the last thing I would say is when people are hurting, the last thing I wanna say is, "Repent! Turn to Jesus." But, but I do just wanna throw out there this idea that God doesn't cause it, but God has allowed this to happen, and it's a reminder to all of us, no matter how much money you have, no matter how much success you have, we cannot control our lives. We can't control the outcome. Disaster can hit at any point and any time. So I just wanna pause and say: Where are we putting our confidence? Where are we placing, you know, our faith, so to speak? And ultimately, disasters can hit all of us in different ways. The only real trust we can place is in Jesus. Now, last thing, Scott, I've said a lot here. I mean, I think about this all the time, but my church this week, it was really cool. I go to church in San Clemente in Southern Orange County, and my pastor said... He put an email on the screen, and he said, "Here's someone in our church. If you, our church members, specifically know someone affected by this, please email us. We wanna raise funds. We wanna find places to stay. We wanna bring clothes. Our church is going to go help them." And I sat there, Scott, and got, like, a tear in my eye. I was like: Yes, this is the church in action, saying, "We're gonna reach out and love our neighbors." So despite what Christopher Hitchen said, you know, "Religion poisons everything," that's nonsense. This is an opportunity. I pray that Christians will just lean in like that, and we will pray, and we will help, and we will just show that we really do love our neighbors and will care for people when they're hurting.
Scott Rae: Sean, just one thing to add to that. The interesting thing about this is that the churches in the Palisades and in the Altadena area that were either damaged or destroyed, and their, and s- their members who have lost everything and lost their homes- ... Those are some of the folks who are on the front lines volunteering-
Sean McDowell: Oh, my goodness
Scott Rae: ... To help others who have lost everything.
Sean McDowell: Oh.
Scott Rae: And it's just, it's just this level of sacrifice and level of concern for the common good, you know, when, you know, when their lives have been k- turned completely upside down, I think is a, is a testament to how we see the Kingdom of God in action through mercy, compassion, kindness, and caring for our neighbors. So very encouraging to see.
Sean McDowell: I- that's such a good point, and I sit there... Honestly, in their example, I feel so inadequate compared to that. I'm like: God, would I have that faith? Would I respond that way? And all I can say is, it's natural to be devastated, of course, to grieve this.... But what I see is an opportunity, like those folks at the church in Pacific Palisades. Man, they are ministering to-
Scott Rae: Mm-hmm
Sean McDowell: ... All of us in such moving, powerful ways. That's a great, that's a great point, Scott. Anything else on that?
Scott Rae: No, that's good. That's good stuff. Your students are very fortunate to have you and to get- have you be able to speak into this with such depth and biblical conviction on this.
Sean McDowell: Well, Scott, this next story, in some ways, is also indicative of the larger problem of evil, interestingly enough, but in a different way. I saw this in the Wall Street Journal and instantly thought, "You and I have to talk about this." And the title was, "Nearly Half of Adults Worldwide Hold Antisemitic Views, According to a Survey". Now, here's what they say. They say, around the world, people either... They deny the historic facts of the Holocaust, according to the latest edition of the largest global study of anti-Jewish attitudes by the Anti-Defamation League. They surveyed 58,000 adults from 103 countries, and here's a few things that they found. A fifth of respondents hadn't heard of the Holocaust, which frankly, I don't get surprised a lot, I just, I c- [chuckles] I don't even know what to make of that. A fifth of them hadn't heard of it, which of course, six million Jews were killed. 21% believe it has either been exaggerated or it never happened. According to this survey, the level of antisemitism in the global adult population has more than doubled since it was launched in 2014. Now, they say here that this is the latest among a number of surveys charting a steep rise in antisemitism across the globe, so across the globe. So this is not a sole study. And we've seen cases of this, such as Israeli soccer fans chased and beaten by crowds in the Netherlands. What they write here, which got my attention, 'cause I've done a lot of study on Gen Z and have two [chuckles] Gen Z-ers of my own, is they call the most alarming findings, is that young people are increasingly reporting higher levels of antisemitic sentiments. 50% of respondents younger than 35, so this is basically younger millennials and Gen Z-ers. 50%,
Sean McDowell: hold antisemitic views, and only 39% recognize the Holocaust as historically accurate. 39%. They say, of course, this is a huge piece, that antisemitism reaches young people across social media, is a huge piece of this. Now, what's interesting is globally, this doesn't surprise me at all, Scott, that some of the lower nations with less antisemitism was like Sweden and the Netherlands. Three-quarters of response, though, in the Middle East and North Africa agreed with most of the listed anti-Semiti- I'm sorry, antisemitic tropes, and of course, these nations are dominated by Muslims and Islam. They said Jewish groups in Europe, as well as official statistics, indicate that violent antisemitism is prevalent in the West. It also... And they say, in part, due to large Muslim immigrant communities, more so than in the East. This is what the Wall Street Journal article says. 57% of respondents recognized that hate against Jews is a serious problem, so at least 57% recognized it's a problem. But these stats were sobering, they were bothering, especially the ones on young people, really shocked me. What's your take on this?
Scott Rae: Well, here's... Let me just comment on your Gen Z comment right at the, right at the beginning here, because what got my attention was not the Gen Z folks. It says 39% recognize the Holocaust as historically accurate. My takeaway was, compared with 48% among all respondents.
Sean McDowell: [chuckles] Sure.
Scott Rae: [chuckles] I thought-
Sean McDowell: Gosh
Scott Rae: ... Less than half-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Scott Rae: ... Of the people in this is, and Sean, this was a global survey, over 50,000 participants from over 100 countries, and less than half around the world believe that the his- the Holocaust, as reported by historians, is historically accurate. I found that absolutely staggering. But if this were just among folks in the West, I might, I might be really surprised. But I'm less surprised because it's a global survey, and I think it is skewed a bit by the really low figures for, Holocaust acceptance, and the high figures for antisemitism among the folks in the Middle East and Sub-Sahara Africa and North Africa. So that's, that's my, the initial thing that got my attention. Here's the other thing that struck me, [lips smack] is that we're gonna lose something really significant when we lose the last Holocaust survivor.
Sean McDowell: That's right.
Scott Rae: Because we won't have anybody left who was an eyewitness to it- ... And who can tell the world, whose has doubts about, you know, the historical veracity or even the existence of the Holocaust, they can show them their, concentration camp number that's tattooed on their arm- ... As sort of undeniable evidence that this really did happen. And we're, we're also gonna lose the soldiers who fought in World War II. We're, we're losing most of those already. But we will, we will lose those soldiers who liberated the camps-... And who saw, e- to their, to their shock and their horror, the things that they saw when they liberated Auschwitz, and Birkenau, and Dachau, and these other camps throughout Poland and Germany. [lip smack] here's- let me shift gears a little bit here. There are a couple things I'd like to point out with the study. It's, it's really important, I think, that the study distinguished between criticism of Israel and antisemitism, and often those two are viewed as inseparable. That you can't... I mean, on both sides, that you can't be critical of Israel without appe- without appearing to be antisemitic, and others will say, "No, those are two separate things." And the study, in the way the questions were designed, was designed to separate those two, and I think that was a, that's a good, a good thing. Because antisemitism is, you know, it, I think is pervasive, whether you, believe that what Israel is doing politically is correct or not. And even the protests, Sean, that came this, you know, in the last year, on major college campuses in the aftermath of Israel responding to Hamas's attack on their citizens, was critical of Israel, but there was also this huge undercurrent of antisemitic thought. Now, one other thing to help us think theologically about this, I think we have to admit that historically, the church's legacy of antisemitism is not always very pretty. The church has not always stood up for Jews, even though Christianity has clear, unambiguous Jewish roots. Now, here's what we have to remember, Sean, even the fir- all the great majority of the first Christians were all Jews. But once they came to faith, they remained ethnic Jews with promises from God that were not done away with. And this is where our theology, particularly our eschatology, our doctrine of the end times, matters. Because at Talbot, and I agree, there's, there's different views on this across evangelical circles, so not everybody holds to this, and our listeners should be aware of that. But at Talbot, we do not hold to what is called a replacement theology, where the promises God made to Israel t- in the Old Testament were transferred over to the Church because of their rejection of Jesus. We hold that those promises made to Israel were unconditional promises that are yet to be fulfilled, and both the return to the land and the return to the Lord are both elements in those promises, and those were originally promises made to Abraham and renewed to David, and through the rest of the prophets when they prophesied about the kingdom coming in its fullness. Now, those are still yet to be fulfilled, and in our view, Israel still has a place in that theologically.
Sean McDowell: That's really helpful to clarify that for people. It, it especially grieves me when we see Christians mistreat and contribute to antisemitism in the past or in the present. Now, you and I at the Evangelical Theological Society interviewed Mitch Glaser, and I don't think we've posted that one yet, as I think about it. Correct me if I'm wrong. And we asked him, "You know, what holds back many Jews from considering Jesus?" And he works with Jews. In his assessment, he says two things: that they would lose their Jewishness, and second, he would put up there antisemitism, especially throughout history. So this has huge impact on the way Jews are treated today and our proclamation of the gospel. Now, it raises an interesting question: Why is there so much hatred against the Jews? I mean, for hundreds, thousands of years. Now, I'm not an expert on this, Scott. I really [chuckles] try to stay in my lane, and I hope I do that. But I was recently hearing a Jew who's not a Messianic Jew, and he is in charge of, runs a synagogue in LA talking about this, and he gave a fascinating comparison that I wanna draw out. He talked about going all the way back to the beginning. In Genesis chapter 26, you have God renewing the Abrahamic covenant with Isaac, that he would multiply his descendants, that he would bless nations in the world through him. Now, Isaac, shortly after that, settles in the land of the Philistines, and he starts to flourish. His flocks grow, he gets more servants, he gets more money, like, he is flourishing in the land. Now, at this point, according to this rabbi, he said, "The Philistines have one of two options. Either they can say, 'Hey, how did you flourish and find a well? Will you teach us how to flourish as well?'" Option A, or option B, become envious. And the very next thing in the passage, it says, is, "The Philistines envied him. They fill his water well and run him out." So Isaac then moves. He departs to the valley of Gerar, digs another well, they quarrel over that, and he's ran out. Moves again, digs another well, and each time he's finding water and flourishing. According to this rabbi, he said, "Instead of the people around him saying, 'Wait a minute, how do you know how to dig and find water?'" Which is like gold in that time and that place, and of course, it still is today. "Instead of saying, 'Help us succeed, too,' they run him out. They show envy-"... And they try to punish him until he finally finds a place he can settle in. And this rabbi said that's the spirit of what Jews have encountered in the world since the beginning. The, the amount that the Jewish people have flourished against all odds, including the Holocaust and the present conflict, is remarkable. It's incredible. You could make the case that it's a kind of fulfilled biblical prophecy. Like, you could make that kind of case, that you have this people group with the same language, same identity, remaining the same over time for, you know, four thousand years, maybe three thousand years, when the Mesopotamians, the Babylonians, and all the Philistines, all these other groups fade out. They not only survive, but they flourish against all odds, and I mean flourish technologically. Even today in Israel, how much they found water in other places. You just compare, it's fascinating to do a search on the number of Nobel Prizes. In particular, you compare Muslims and other groups with Jews, and Jews, for only being somewhere around fourteen million last I checked, they are dominating that. So education, there's something about them flourishing, and at least one piece of that hatred and antisemitism comes from envy, which is a big sin, rather than people saying, "Wait a minute, how have you succeeded so much in business and in all these other areas?" So there is a book on this, and I, you know, it's, if somebody wants to check it out further, Dennis Prager, who's a Jew, he wrote a book and updated it in two thousand and three called Why the Jews: The Reason for Antisemitism. Now, I haven't read all of it, and I can't give an assessment of that, but that would be probably the first book I would turn to if I wanted to understand deeper roots of what's going on and how to think biblically about it, at least in terms of an Old Testament perspective. What do you make of that perspective, Scott? Tell me your honest thoughts.
Scott Rae: Well, I wanna be fair in this, too, because, you know, the Jewish communities and the nation of Israel, they're not perfect either. Uh-
Sean McDowell: Totally agree
Scott Rae: ... Israel, I think there is, there's legitimate things to be critical of the nation of Israel for. You know, in its, you know, in its geopolitical policies, the settlements that have been, that have made consistent incursions on the, on Muslim lands in the West Bank and in Gaza and in the Golan Heights. Some of that I think is understandable for security reasons, but the way in which it's been done, And I think, too, I think they deserve some criticism for the way that, you know, the Gaza, war has been handled. Now, thankfully, the good news that we saw yesterday in the news, that a ceasefire has been reached, and an agreement has been reached. Now, I will see about whether it's a long-term agreement, but for now, a ceasefire has been reached, and that's really good news. But I think they, you know, they have been largely criticized for a disproportionate response to what they suffered, in the, in the invasion by Hamas. Now, there, this is complicated, I get it, but my, but my longer, my larger point is that, [lips smack] it, you know, let's, let's don't pretend that Israel is perfect and above criticism. And the Jewish community is not perfect nor above criticism either for places where they have fallen down, too. But I do think the influence and the achievement of the Jewish community around the world, given its p- the relative po- paucity percentage of the world's population, and particularly in the Western countries, is actually remarkable, and I think you're, you're absolutely right about that, and there probably is some envy that has to do with antisemitism today. So, you know, we have one of, one of our philosophy grads is doing her PhD in Holocaust studies. It'd be really, it'd be really interesting to have her on and to talk a little bit more about why some of these attitudes toward, about Holocaust denial have been so persa- pervasive in some parts of the world.
Sean McDowell: Interesting. Now, by the way, it's not antisemitic for you to point out criticism of Israel. That's a piece that this study draws out. And I would say, I don't... I mean, even the most staunch pro-Zionist person in favor of Israel that I know, I don't think they'd say Israel's been, like, perfect. I mean, in part, this narrative from Genesis twenty-six, just read the Old Testament. [chuckles] God is flourishing the people. They flourish in Egypt, they flourish in Babylon, they flourish when Persia takes over, and they get judged by God for their faults. So it's not one or the other. There's a sense where it's both. So-
Scott Rae: Yeah, which suggests that, you know, God's covenant is unconditional and actually not dependent upon their continued obedience to Him. Now, that, if anything, that's one of the big storylines of the life of Israel in the Old Testament.
Sean McDowell: This is a really interesting topic. I think you and I should probe into this a little bit and talk with someone of what the roots of some of these antisemitic views are and help us think more biblically about it. I would love to know more. I think that's great. All right, my friend, let's move into another third story, which interestingly enough, is also tied in some ways to the problem of evil and suffering. We can make that connection. Different from natural evil, but nonetheless, it's connected to it. You sent me this one, although I saw it in The New York Times, and it's about how the bort- abortion pill is being prescribed by pharmacists now. And they consider this, since it's in The New York Times, an effort to fight abortion, re-... Provision, so to speak. Now, it's happening in Washington, it's the first state, but other states are expected to follow suit. It's small so far, but it seems it might be the beginning of a new strategy to make abortion more accessible. This interested me, I wasn't aware of this, Scott. Nearly 40 states now allow pharmacists to prescribe at least some medications, as they are trained to do. So it's not new for pharmacists to be able to, prescribe medications. It'd be new for them to prescribe the abortion pills, so to speak. Now, this was fascinating, too, is pharmacists are regulated by states, so their ability to prescribe specific medications cannot be blocked by the federal government as it currently is. But the New York Times article says, "If the incoming Trump administration wanted to stop pharmacists from prescribing abortion pills, it could try to reinstate Food and Drug Administration regulations that required that only doctors prescribe mifepristone, the first pill in the two-drug medication abortion regime." Now, given that the Trump administration [chuckles] is nominating Kennedy for this position, and he's pro-choice, that political issue aside, I'm not super confident that that's going to happen. But let's keep going with this article. The criticism, according to Dr. Ingrid Skop, is that these are dangerous drugs, and they should not be distributed. She said, "By pushing these medically unsupervised abortions, the FDA and the abortion advocates continue down the slippery slope of chipping away at medical standards for women seeking abortion." Then very quickly after this, the New York Times tells us that they're very safe and serious complications are rare. And of course, they're not talking about the unborn, they're talking about the mother.
Scott Rae: Right.
Sean McDowell: I guess in-- I don't guess, the article says, "In the pilot program, between October 31 and November 26, the end of 2024, 10 pharmacists across Washington State prescribed abortion pills to 43 patients." Now, when I read that, when you give the specific number 43, that really personalizes it. These are 43 women and unborn human beings, presumably, that they all took it. Maybe some didn't, maybe took the abortion reversal pill, but most of them did. This is, it-- I felt the weight of that. Now, last thing I'll say, Scott, and I'm really curious your take, is the prescribing was done via telehealth screening. Patients completed forms asking about their pregnancy and medical history. They had to be Washington residents and could be up to 10 weeks pregnant. They paid $40, significantly less than many services. I mean, getting an abortion can cost hundreds of dollars. They were transmitted, by Honeybee Health, which is interestingly enough, a California-based mail-order pharmacy that ships the pills to patients. Tell me what you think, Scott.
Scott Rae: Well, the first thing, Sean, that struck me is right from Psalm 1:39, which talks about the unborn child in the womb being fearfully and wonderfully made- ... Being knit together and woven together intricately in his mother's womb. And now we have two-thirds of abortions today across the country are the handiwork of God in the womb being stopped chemically in the privacy of someone's home. And these unborn children, you know, made in the image of God from conception forward, are really considered almost nothing more than collateral damage, and are rarely considered. And women, I think, are also being harmed. Women made in the image of God, too, are being harmed by this. Now, just a couple of things. This is simply a pilot program. You're right-
Sean McDowell: Okay
Scott Rae: ... Other states, other states are expected to follow. I think we'll, you know, we'll see what happens, in two weeks when, there's a new administration. But I think the, you know, the Supreme Court last year had the opportunity to restrict, the distribution of these abortion-inducing pills, and they refused to do so. So we'll-- I think we'll do, we'll-- that remains to be seen. What, what is clear, I think, is the abortion pill is not as private or as safe as it's made out to be. Roughly one in five women who take it require some sort of medical, and sometimes a surgical follow-up. And the-- here's the thing about pharmacists prescribing this, is that the dosage of this first pill, mifepristone, is dependent upon how far along, and sort of an exact, idea of how far along the pregnancy is. Because you get different dosages at different stages. And sometimes that's really hard to tell how far along a woman is just by hearing from the woman herself. Those take, those take lab work, takes ultrasound in order to determine that specifically, and that's-- it's really important that that be determined right on the money, or else the potential for harm to the woman increases significantly. Now, here's... The, the other thing that I think that pharmacists, I, s- are being asked to do is according to the, according to the current risk protocols for pr- for, both prescribing, yeah, prescribing and eventually, distributing the abortion pill, prescribers specifically must have the ability to assess the duration of the pregnancy. They have to be able to diagnose ectopic pregnancies.... They have to be able to provide surgical intervention if an abortion is incomplete. Because if the abortion's incomplete and there's still part of the unborn child left in the womb, that poses a really significant risk for infection. And some women who don't, who don't have that taken care of promptly actually can go into septic shock- ... From this. So it seems to me pharmacists are not qualified to meet those, basic risk protocols for how to determine those things. In fact, I'm not even sure they're qualified to do, even do the triage of patients to get them to determine how urgent it is and to get them to the proper, degree of care. So I think we're, we're asking pharmacists to do things that they are not trained to do, and this is different, I think, than prescribing birth control pills or a morning-after pill or a flu vaccine, or some of the things, basic stuff that they prescribe because doctors were so overwhelmed during COVID. I get all of that. This, it seems to me, is in a, is in a quite a different category.
Sean McDowell: Oh, boy. It-- let me jump in here with one thought. I, it just, I was trying to think about this biblically, and I can't believe it's been two and a half years since the Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization SCOTUS ruling, six-three, that basically ended fifty years of constitutional protection for abortion. Understandably, pro-lifers were encouraged and positive, things are moving in our direction. Well, now what's happened is somewhere between half and two-thirds of what I hear, abortions are now performed by the pill. And so what's happened is people no longer as frequently have to go publicly and see other people, spend more money and go, you know, see a doctor in person and make this decision. It's so much easier to do it, less money in the privacy of their home. Now, pro-choicers say, "Yay, this is good!" You and I would pause, and we would say, "No." Given how fallen we are as human beings, when we make doing something wrong more accessible and more easy, it's not human nature to resist it and do what is right, and that's true for all of us. And of course, I only have huge compassion for the women that are in this bind. That's a separate conversation. But a verse that came to mind for me, eh, is, you know, if we were tempted to think that the SCOTUS ruling kind of ended this debate over abortion is not going anywhere. It dominated the last election. It's gonna continue to dominate for a long time. Christians cannot, and other pro-lifers cannot get discouraged. We cannot stop the fight. And I thought of Romans 12:21 that says: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." Keep pressing on, keep doing what's right, keep advancing the case for life. That's what our task is moving forward. Anything else about this story you wanted to, you wanted to get out there?
Scott Rae: Well, I think, you know, in light of the Dobbs decision, too, there's just a, there's such an opportunity for the church to be-- to come alongside women who have these unwanted pregnancies- ... And to make the case for life, to make the case for adoption, and to encourage them to continue their pregnancies, and e- and even to keep the children that they have, they have conceived. Because there's, there's just something about the opportunity that's before us that I don't think we've done a great job with so far, in serving women who are in states that have increasingly, restrictive abortion laws. The desperation that they feel, I think is real and understandable, and it-- and we have a golden opportunity to come alongside them, to serve them, and to make the case for life at the same time.
Sean McDowell: Well said. N- before we come to questions, let me drop one more point that I hope our audience is getting. I hope we're encouraging people to, when they read an article, when they watch a YouTube video, when they read a book, asking, "What are the assumptions and worldview beliefs beneath this, and do they line up or conflict with a biblical worldview?" And even in this article, ha- there's a phrase they refer to, "reproductive healthcare." That's a quote that's here. That term is framing the way people think about abortion. Now, very quickly, I don't wanna spend too much time on this, but what is healthcare? Healthcare is caring for the health of a patient. Well, when a woman is pregnant, what is any, you know, doctor going to tell you? That there are two patients, especially OBGYNs. So how is it reproductive healthcare when you're helping giving medication to end the life of one of the two patients? That's my challenge to this language. So language matters, and I just want to encourage our audience to keep reading and thinking and asking, "What are the assumptions beneath" anything they hear, and I hope we are helping folks do that a little bit.
Scott Rae: All right, let's take some questions, shall we?
Sean McDowell: Let's do it. Lead us.
Scott Rae: All right.... During the December 20th discussion of child labor in Africa, I stated, "These children should not be working at all, at these ages at all, if- especially if it undermines their right to an education." My question is this: if rights come from God, how do we infer what those rights are? We can reason from scripture that life is a human right to property, and so on, but where do we conclude that education is a right? If it cannot be reasoned from the pages of scripture, how can we say definitively that rights come from God? Well, here's what I would, I would suggest. You know, I think I probably... I might have re- in retrospect, might have reworded this, as maybe to say, [lips smack] we w- every child has the opportunity for an education- ... Which is crucial to their flourishing, instead of a right. But, but even let's, let's take, let's take the r- the term "rights" and leave it in there for the moment. I'd wanna be clear, scripture doesn't exhaust the rights that we have, nor the rights that come from God. You know, natural law enable us to discover them as well, and I think we've, I think repeatedly, Sean, made the distinction between things that are consistent with scripture and things that are explicitly derived from scripture. And I think there, we have, we have rights that I think are consistent with a Christian worldview that are n- that may not be explicitly derived from scripture. We, I say, the, you know, the right to a jury trial, for example, the right of free expression, the freedom of the press, things like that. Those, I think, those are rights that are consistent with our worldview, but not explicitly derived from scripture. I w- I think my point still holds, that I think what we've shown over the years is that what's crucial for, families and for children to escape generational poverty, one of those key things is an education. And so I would say, having an education is crucial to someone's flourishing in the long run, and it is crucial to their escaping the kind of grinding poverty that, s- you know, a good bit of the world still is in. So your thoughts on that?
Sean McDowell: Yeah, here's my current thinking in this, and I am happy to amend this if somebody who's thought about this more says, "Sean, you're missing it." I totally agree that there's certain biblical rights that are spelled out, but there's also certain natural rights we can know from natural law. I tend to think that we have negative rights in terms of society, like freedom of speech. You can't take away my freedom of speech. Freedom of religion, you can't take away my ability to decide what I believe and live it out, all things considered. Those are negative rights, but I'm not sure that I'm convinced somebody, for example, has the positive right to healthcare. Why? Because that requires other people to then positively contribute towards me. I'm not sure if I'm quite willing to take that step. I'm not... And education would be that. If you said a kid has a right to public education, I would say, "Okay, wait a minute. Now you're requiring that other people contribute to this." It's not a negative right, it's a positive right. I think biblically, parents have the responsibility to train up and educate their kids. It falls on the parents, and so you might say kids deserve and have the right from their parents to be trained and to be educated. I think that's how I would probably frame it. Do you agree with that nuance, or would you go a different direction?
Scott Rae: I, well, it's both at the same time.
Sean McDowell: [chuckles] Okay.
Scott Rae: So I would- I think the distinction-
Sean McDowell: Yeah
Scott Rae: ... Between positive and negative rights is really helpful, and a positive right is one that obligates someone else to provide it, and in most cases, to pay for it. And so it is true, our Constitution recog- most of those rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights, which are r- basically rights to be left alone. But I think the scripture does recognize some positive rights. The scripture recognize, I th- recognize, I think, a right for the poor to have their basic needs met. The, the right in the Old Testament recognized through, sa- a couple different mechanisms, the right of the poor to have their basic needs met through the generosity and the contributions of the community. The law, Old Testament law about gleaning in the fields, farmers were prohibited from harvesting all of their fields. They were to leave some of it for the poor to come and to take advantage of. So that the s- the safety net for the poor is a positive right that I think does obligate the community to provide and to pay for. Now, the extent of that, I think, is up for debate, but I do think there are some positive rights that are indicated in the scripture.
Sean McDowell: That, that's a good clarification. One might say, "Well, this is the Old Testament, doesn't apply," but it's interesting that nations outside of Israel were judged for a lot of immoral behavior, including the way they would treat the poor, which I think is a point in your favor if you were gonna defend that argument. But nonetheless- ... Helpful distinction. I appreciate that.
Scott Rae: Yeah, and well, and the New Testament talks about that safety net as well. You know, the church had an obligation to provide a safety net for the poor among them. And I think that even in New Testament era, when we didn't have a, you know, we didn't have nations like we have today or states like we have today, it was still the oblig- it w- I would say, the obligation of the community to provide that safety net. So-
Sean McDowell: And by the way, you and I are not promoting any particular welfare program here.
Scott Rae: Nowhere enough.
Sean McDowell: How this plays out is a matter of wisdom, and what works, and how long-
Scott Rae: Right
Sean McDowell: ... And how we define poor. All those are secondary questions we're not weighing into.
Scott Rae: ... Here, Sean, here's one more-
Sean McDowell: Okay.
Scott Rae: -that, I wanna get to. More and more I hear, more and more I hear Christian thinkers and leaders talk about human flourishing as a good thing or a goal that God has for us. Can you please give a definition biblically of human flourishing, and how should we hold the goal of human flourishing in relationship to goals like our sanctification and to grow in Christlikeness? Hey, what would you... W- give me your first take on that.
Sean McDowell: Well, I think of Luke 2:52, where Jesus grew in wisdom and his stature, favor with God, and favor with man. He grew in wisdom intellectually, stature physically, favor with God spiritually, favor with man relationally. We are whole beings, and we flourish when, as a whole, physically, spiritually, relationally, emotionally, et cetera, we are living according to God's design for us. So flourishing implies there's some built-in purpose to the world, to humans, to the family, and that as we grow more Christ-like, so to speak, we are flourishing more. That's what we need. Now, I think the concern here is that there's this American or Western sense of blessing that gets merged with kind of human flourishing, and we assume flourishing means making money, being famous, you know, having a perfect job. That is not what it means to flourish according to God's design. Now, God can give and take away, and we thank Him for that, but that's the difference where we have to be careful and resist it, ideas coming from our culture. But basically, somebody's flourishing if they're in good relationships with God and others, and they're loving God, and they're loving other people, and are healthy physically, spiritually, and emotionally, the way God has designed us to operate. That's my quickest sense. What do you think?
Scott Rae: Yeah, I think this, the... I think our listeners' question, I wanna be careful that we're not assuming that we're simply souls on a stick- ... That we, that we are the, a complex interaction of body and soul. And I see the concept of flourishing, I think, comes from the Old Testament concept of shalom- ... Which is a much broader concept than peace. It refers to wholeness, and I think it ha- it has a spiritual and emotional and relational prosperity attached to it. And it's not, it's not the prosperity gospel, because we have lots of people who are in poverty who I would say are flourishing. But I don't necessarily see this as an incursion of prosperity theology. Although I'd wanna say that the body matters, and having enough, having sufficient goods to take care of our bodies as well as our souls is an element of h- of shalom and human flourishing.
Sean McDowell: Excellent. I love it.
Scott Rae: Anything else, anything else you wanna add to that?
Sean McDowell: No, I just say I don't even know how secular people make sense of flourishing. What does that mean?
Scott Rae: Yeah.
Sean McDowell: Aristotle would talk about flourishing 'cause he believed there was teleology and purpose built in. He just didn't have the Judeo-Christian God behind it.
Scott Rae: Yeah.
Sean McDowell: So if there's a designer who's made us to function a certain way, we only flourish when we live according to that design. That's it. That's the key for me-
Scott Rae: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... But good discussion.
Scott Rae: Yeah.
Sean McDowell: This is-
Scott Rae: Yeah
Sean McDowell: ... This is helpful.
Scott Rae: Good, yeah. And Sean, this has been, I think, really helpful on the fires, on antisemitism, and on pharmacists prescribing abortion pills. I wanna encourage our listeners to sort of keep your eyes open for, further court cases that come down on abortion, on the abortion pill. That's, that's gonna be an issue for, I think, for a long time to come. And as we've said historically, I'm not encouraged that antisemitism is going anywhere anytime soon. That's something that, I think we need to take seriously. All right, this has been an episode of the weekly cultural update from the Think Biblically podcast, conversations on faith and culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, offering programs in Southern California and online, including specifically our Master's in Christian Apologetics, now offered fully online, but courses from our Institute for Spiritual Formation, Bachelor's in Bible Theology and Apologetics, and Master's programs at the seminary level in Old Testament, New Testament, Marriage and Family Therapy, Theology, Philosophy, Pastoral Ministry, and probably some other ones that I'm, that I'm not, remembering. [upbeat music] So if you'd like to submit comments or ask questions or make suggestions on issues you'd like us to cover or guests you'd like us to consider, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation between Sean and me, give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. And join us on Tuesday when we discuss how to think biblically about the TV and film industry with Biola dean and former Hollywood executive, Tom Halie. [upbeat music]
