Topics this week:

  • An Atlantic article on Elaine Pagels' new book, "Miracles and Wonder." Is she downplaying the supernatural? This episode dives into her controversial take on New Testament miracles.
  • Florida teacher fired for using a student's preferred name without parental consent. Where do parental rights collide with student support?
  • Scientists have brought back the dire wolf. Is this a cool breakthrough or a recipe for disaster? We debate the ethics of de-extinction.
  • Are embryos property? Are they human life? The Alabama court ruling ignited a firestorm, and we're tackling the tough questions.
  • Listener Question: Martin Luther King Jr.: Hero or flawed figure? We address a listener's challenge and discuss how to reconcile King's legacy with his imperfections.
  • Listener Questions: Psychedelics: Are they safe? We pump the brakes on the hype, exploring potential harms and the principle of double effect.




Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] Given our Easter season, should Christians rethink how we view the miraculous? One popular author says we should. A high school teacher will not have her contract renewed for using a student's preferred pronouns in Florida. An extinct wolf brought back to life through genetic technology, and part three of the New York Times' deep dive on the technology and ethics of embryo selection and IVF. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we will also 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, some weeks we're kind of scraping to find good, relevant stories. [chuckles] This week, we had too many, and we might be trying to do too much, but each of these stories is so significant, we gotta dive in and talk about them.

Scott Rae: I can't wait. This is good stuff, and, you know, I have, I have a list of all the stories that we said no to [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: Exactly

Scott Rae: ... That we just, that we just don't have time for.

Sean McDowell: Well, this first one makes perfect sense because it's in the Easter season. It's a piece in The Atlantic, and the title is "What to Make of Miracles." And it's about a new book by the 82-year-old influential historical Jesus scholar, Elaine Pagels. Now, the article starts by saying: "How should we understand miracles?" Great question. "Many people in the past, in the near distant future, believed them. Many still do." And the author rightly notes that at the heart of Judaism, Christianity, lies the belief that God has actually supernaturally entered into history. In this new book, which I have not read, it's called Miracles and Wonders, so this is a review of the book. Elaine Pagels asks a different question about New Testament miracles. She's apparently less interested in whether Jesus performed them, rather than what accounts for their power, and this is not the supernatural power. It's the power through history, power of the narrative, power of personal effect in our lives, seems to be the case. Now, Elaine Pagels is 82 years old, a historian of early Christianity, and she's written also fascinatingly from her own extreme loss. It's amazing how many times people that are critical of the Christian story have pain in their past. This was pretty harrowing. Her first son died at six of a rare disease, and then her husband shortly thereafter of an accident. So if someone's critical of miracles and has gone through that pain, you know, there obviously might be a connection there. She wrote a book in 1979 that a Harvard scientist cited to me recently, interestingly enough, very influential, 30 printings. And basically, she's trying to look for kind of theological diversity in the early church and bringing some of the Gnostic Gospels, which are minimally second century, third and fourth century, back into the discussion about who the historical Jesus was. She's really popularized that. Now, in this book, she's taken a little bit of a different approach. So the question is, what is the purpose of miracles? And this article... That Jesus apparently did. And the article says, "Among their uses, miracles help the evangelists overcome challenges to the authority of the Christ story." In other words, they're pieces of evidence of why this crucified Messiah should actually be worshipped. Fair enough. Some of the points made here is, like, you know, if the virgin birth is such a big deal, why is it only in two Gospels? There's nothing new with that. I'm reading the article, thing is pretty fascinating, until I hit this one point, I was like, "Oh, this is the piece I was waiting for."

Scott Rae: [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: This always happens around Easter and Christmas. And the article says: "Why didn't Matthew and Luke add all this other material, say, Matthew and Mark? Among possible answers is the likelihood that after Jesus's death, talk began to circulate that he was the illegitimate son of an unwed mother, the second-century Greek philosopher Celsus, used to charge the charge to discredit the Gospels." And so, you know, he writes: "Is it not true that you fabricated the story of your birth from a virgin to quiet rumors about the true and unsavory circumstances of your origins?" By the way, we don't have Celsus' writings. We have it in Origin, roughly a century later, but reason to trust that nonetheless. She raises questions about how we could trust kind of the Gospel accounts of how Pilate is portrayed, which we could come back to. I don't think that's really complete. And then at the end, kind of says: "What do miracles do for believers today?" So it's kind of this existential, personal approach. "Well, they're indispensable fiction, tales to live by," she says. "They're useful insofar as we take their poetry seriously." So bottom line, they have an existential and narrative purpose, but are not real events in history we should take seriously. What was your take on this piece?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I had several reactions to this. What I found most interesting was her comment. I don't think she intended it as a throwaway comment, but it was... It didn't give, it didn't want all that much attention. And it's the idea that the Gospel of Mark was original in that Mark actually, in her words, "invented the Gospel genre."

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: That it was something brand new that nobody ever seen before. And I think rather, the Gospels were consistent with ancient forms of biography in which the readers expected that the accounting events were the truthful one and not a work of fiction. And, you know, not several months ago, we had our friend Craig Keener on a Tuesday podcast with his book entitled Historiography.... Which is a tech, very big-

Sean McDowell: You mean Christo biography, right?

Scott Rae: Christo biography.

Sean McDowell: Christ, yeah.

Scott Rae: That's right. Thank you. But it's a big technical work, but he did a great job of putting the cookies on the lower shelf for those of us that are not technical New Testament scholars. And w- in our interview, we'll, we'll put the link to that interview in the transcr- in the, in the intro to this episode, so our leader- our re- our listeners can reference it if they wish. But Craig's point was that, the way biographies were done, the way history was done in the ancient world, is not anything like what it's been portrayed as. That it's, it's, it's reliable, and that the readers expected that the account that they were reading or the account that they was gi- were given orally was a generally reliable one of the events that took place. So the idea that Mark invented the gospel genre, I don't think is consistent with more, with some of the more recent scholarship in this area. The other thing that I, that I reacted to was a statement that she made, or that Pagels made in her book: "What I find most astonishing about the gospel stories," she writes, "is that Jesus' followers managed to take what their critics saw as the most damning evidence against their Messiah, his crucifixion, and transform it into evidence of his divine mission." there are a couple of significant omissions in that line of argument there. One is, the obvious one is the re- the resurrection is omitted. The central... I would say the central event in the life of Christ is the crucifixion and resurrection together, because that's what sealed it for the disciples, that the crucifixion was actually the mission. The other thing that's left out is that the disciples had obviously read passages in the Old Testament that predicted a suffering Messiah. You know, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 50 and 53 were well known to the disciples, and they saw event- I think they came to see that the mission of Jesus was not only, predicted in the Old Testament, but predicted quite precisely, in terms of what they could expect. So I think those two things were, I think, significant omissions that take away from the case that the, that the, that the gospel writers and the later followers of Jesus sort of trans- they morphed the crucifixion from a failure into a success.

Sean McDowell: That's a great take. I- one of the things that came to my mind when I read this is what our friend J. Warner Wallace, cold case detective, often says. I've had conversations with him, where I've said, "Well, you know, this is possible," and he'll [chuckles] stop me and be like, "Sean, possibility is irrelevant in a court of law. Anything is possible. We have to ask what's most probable." So is it possible this whole thing is a conspiracy, and Jesus was born illegitimately, and the Gospels are covering up? Yeah, I gotta say it's possible, but there's so much this doesn't explain that certainly doesn't make it probable. So I want Christians, when they hear this, to not freak out and go, "Wow, a legitimate scholar. This is in The Atlantic. Maybe this happened." I go, "Okay, maybe." They even concede in this article that it's a mere possibility. But having done my doctoral work on a historical question, the death of the apostles, we have to deal in the realm of probability, not in the realm of possibility. So that's one thing. You know, another thing that according to this article says, "Pagels portrays the evangelists as people of creative genius, using their defense of Jesus as an occasion to draft the outlines of a new world religion." So, quote, "What I find most astonishing about the gospel story," says Pagels, "is that Jesus' followers managed to take what their critics saw as the most damning evidence against their Messiah, his crucifixion, and form it- transform it into evidence of his divine mission." So she's looking at the gospel saying, "Well, we take that he was crucified, and we come up with this creative portrayal to spin this positively." Well, this doesn't remotely explain why they would do that in the first place. What was the origin of their [chuckles] beliefs? Are they inventing this? Now it's all a conspiracy, and they're lying, so to speak. The problem with that is outside of the apostles, how do you get James to convert, the brother of Jesus? How do you get Paul to convert, who said they had seen the risen Jesus? So she's reading into this a supposed motivation by the apostles without taking seriously what the apostles themselves say, "We've seen the risen Jesus," and then they're willing to suffer and die for what they had seen. W-

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: One other thing, John... Oh, go ahead.

Scott Rae: Well, the, I think this is one. Let me just comment on this before you move on, 'cause it relates to this. And I th- actually, I think the his- the historical data and the sociology of the times actually suggest that the gospel writers were... Those forces worked to provide veracity, not conspiracy, on the part of the gospel writers. Because, you know, their persecutors were looking for every opportunity to poke holes in the story of Jesus. And-

Sean McDowell: That's right

Scott Rae: ... You know, and the, you know, and, you know, all of, all of the early Christians came under intense persecution. And, you know, how many people w- how many people do we know who would, you know, who would suffer that kind of persecution for something that they knew was false? If they w- if they were inventing this, even if they, you know, had good motives for doing so, they had all sorts of reasons-... You know, every time they ended up in prison or ended up on the, on the bad side of a beating, to just re- to rethink their recollection and to reexamine what they were, what they were trying to communicate.

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm.

Scott Rae: So anyway, do-- you've got-

Sean McDowell: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Another observ- you got another observation to make, too.

Sean McDowell: Yeah, it, I do. So and one, just one quick point, in here, the author says, "The leader of a notoriously cruel occupying power," this Pilate, "that this idea would've shown such compassion for a militant rebel, namely Jesus, strains credibility and defies the historical record." So it's just defies history that Pilate would be kind of this neutral figure that has some favor for Jesus. Well, that's actually not the case. I found this fascinating article online from a, I believe it's a professor at Notre Dame, called "The Figure of Pontius Pilate in Josephus Compared with Philo and the Gospel of John." And it's not that these have competing narratives with one each other about Pilate, it's that at different stages in his political life, the way he treated religion varied and is depicted differently. So Pilate's a complex figure, not a contradictory figure, is his point. So the article says, "From the accounts of Philo, Josephus, and John, the portrait of Pilate emerges as a loyal and dutiful Roman governor, whose main aim is to protect the interests of the emperor in his own province by ensuring, for example, peace and loyalty. Therefore, his flexibility towards Jewish interests seems primarily due to his duties as a Roman official." So this author's way too quickly written off the depiction in the Gospels, rather than seeing him as a more complex figure, that Josephus actually supports at times the narrative we have in the Bible. My last thoughts is that this is classic liberal theology that wants to take the positive message that we find in the Gospels [chuckles] and divorce it from its historicity. That's what liberalism is, and I think the scriptures are clear in 1 Corinthians 15, if Jesus has not risen supernaturally, our faith is in vain, we're to be pitied, he's a fraud, and we're lying. So we cannot take away the supernatural element from the teachings of Jesus, or we're left with an entirely different religion, as people have noted for centuries. So in some ways, this is nothing new in this article. It's the same [chuckles] old liberalism in a new book, popping up this season when everyone's talking about Jesus.

Scott Rae: Hear, hear.

Sean McDowell: All right.

Scott Rae: All right, Sean, this, the second story-

Sean McDowell: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... You sent, you sent to me.

Sean McDowell: Yep.

Scott Rae: And this was about a Florida teacher whose contract was not renewed after using a student's preferred name without securing parental permission. So this is from Wednesday, from the USA Today. "A Florida school district is not renewing the contract of a teacher by the name of Melissa Calhoun, who used a transgender student's preferred name without parental consent. The decision was made not to renew after an investigation was conducted and found that her actions violated state law, and her teaching certification will be reviewed as well." District maintained that, quote, "Our focus is on education. Teachers are here to teach and support students academically. Our job is to work in partnership with parents and guardians to ensure student success." The decision by the school district brought out some, very emotional support of the teacher. A student petition garnered more than 3,000 signatures that same day. Now, under Florida law, using a student's preferred name, if an alternative, as an alternative to his or her legal name, parents must sign an authorization for that. It's called the Parental Authorization for Deviation from Student's Legal Name form. Calhoun admitted that she knowingly did not comply with the state law that was passed in 2023. Opponents of her firing maintain that this is a case of sort of no harm, no foul, and a well-meaning and diligent teacher trying to connect with a student. This is the first reported job loss attributed to Florida's name and pronoun policy. The district maintains that teachers should not discourage parental notification of decisions related to a student's mental, emotional, or physical well-being. There's still, I think, lots of fallout to come from this, lots of, lots of emotion on both sides of this. So, Sean, I'm curious, you've done a lot of thinking about, preferred pronouns, preferred names for transgender students. What's your take on this situation with this Florida teacher?

Sean McDowell: [lips smack] Well, this felt like a watershed moment to me because you go back two or three years, I don't recall when it started, this teacher in Virginia was fired for not using preferred pronouns. So now that there's been some backlash, in the past six months to a year, I was like, "Oh, wait a minute, are we seeing a shift?" Now, I would've been completely shocked if this was in [chuckles] California as opposed to Florida, but nonetheless, this is the first time I've seen this pop up, and it makes me wonder, is this a trend of more to come? Now, a few things that jumped out. The teacher admitted she knowingly did not comply with the state statute. So it's one thing if a teacher was unaware and did it accidentally, and was like, "I'm just trying to help." That is not the case. This teacher was aware of it and knowingly chose not to follow the state statute. Now, one of the people who speaks for the government here, said, "Support... This supports parents' rights to be the primary decision-maker in their children's lives, and Florida law affirms their right to be informed." That's kind of what's at stake here. Who has the authority and responsibility in a kid's life? And quite literally, biblically, parents are the first and basic institution.... Raising up kids. It's where kids at home learn to have respect for authority and character that then translates to the workplace and the school and beyond. That's why in the Ten Commandments, the first four are vertical with God, but the first one with human beings, Commandment five, is honor your parents. And you don't really need the Bible to tell us this, 'cause we come from mom [chuckles] and a dad, and every single society, for the most part, is in some way recognize the natural family. But we've also seen authoritarian movements try to limit parental authority and silence parents. We've seen this in Marxist movements. The state becomes the authority. We saw this in the Nazi regime, and I'm not saying this in California exactly like that, but it's, or in- we've seen in the States recently. But there's this sense of like, "We know what's best for your kids, and we'll subvert the family." That's where I take serious issue with this. Now, the article says, quote, "There was no harm, no threat to safety, no malicious intent, just a teacher trying to connect with a student, and for that, her contract was not renewed." How do they know that no harm was done? They don't know this. A lot of the Cass report you and I have talked about in depth, Scott, points out that there's actually not positive benefits even to social conversion for a child, which often leads then to the more medical intervention. So they can't prove that there was no harm that was done here at all. They really don't know that. Maybe no apparent harm- ... But I think you could make the case that larger harm was arguably done. Now, the 2023 rule dictates that this violated, that Florida districts must develop a form for parents, like you said, to sign indicating they consent to the use of an alternative name for their child. And just a couple things about this is number one, I mean, I have to get permiss- I have to give permission if my son wants a Tylenol at his school, [chuckles] they have to check with my permission on it. Well, what's more consequential, a teacher affirming a child's gender transition against the knowledge and potentially will of the parents, or getting a Tylenol? I think the answer to that question is obvious. There's just a deep contradiction that is here, and frankly, if I was that parent, and this teacher chose to do this, good intent or not, I would be ticked, Scott. I would be really upset that an agent of the state teaching would push a worldview different than my own, intentionally subverting the law. I'd be really upset about this, and by the way, they're not disallowing it. The teacher in Virginia was fired for not using it. You- they're allowed to use a preferred pronoun. The parents just have to sign off on it.

Scott Rae: Correct.

Sean McDowell: So it's not the opposite of the Virginia case. Now, I guess the last thing I'll say is I understand a school system, we have people of different worldviews and different belief systems, and we're all trying to get along. I don't think most people want a place where a teacher's fired because they refuse to use pronoun. Is this the best medium where parents sign off and then it's allowed to use? I'm open if somebody has a better idea how to regulate this, but I'm glad at least this is coming up, and we're seeing some pushback, and now having the conversation about what does it look like to respect parents' rights. Now that we have the science that this affirming ch- you know, gender-affirming care is not helping kids the way we thought, we better rethink this. Do you have any take on this?

Scott Rae: Just a couple things. That's, that's those are really good insights on that, and I think the importance of, you know, respecting parental authority over, minor children is a significant one. And, you know, California law, you pointed out, is just the opposite of the way it is in Florida, where teachers are actually prohibited from notifying parents of these- ... Changes that they see in their students. Now, I would, I would suggest they're... I wouldn't say parental authority is an absolute.

Sean McDowell: Agreed.

Scott Rae: However, I mean, I think you would agree that there are times when it's okay to usurp parental authority-

Sean McDowell: Yep

Scott Rae: ... When parents are clearly not acting in the best interest of their children. And I think part of the, part of the trans argument has been that, denying the use of these preferred pronouns or preferred names or, you know, informing parents who will- who would prohibit any kind of gender-affirming treatments is not, is parents not acting in the best interest of their children. This is where your point, I think, about the data that's coming out, in the last two years or so, starting with the Cass Report in England and other scan- other countries in Europe, that are backing away from some of this. I think the data is coming out to say that, you know, there's just, there's a lot more to this than we thought, and that maybe parents are not being quite as irresponsible as they're being made out to be, culturally. But I re- I remember a case where I was consulting in a hospital setting where we had to usurp a parental authority over-

Sean McDowell: Oh

Scott Rae: ... Over a child, and I think we did the right thing, but it had an unintended consequence that came back to bite us in the rear end that we weren't expecting. This was a six-year-old child who had a heart condition who, and who needed blood transfusions regularly to keep the condition at bay, and his parents were Jehovah's Witnesses, who prohibited the transfusions- ... From the child, and the child was gonna die without this. And so we went to court, which we were required to. We couldn't just do this on our own. We had to go to, we had to get a court order to do that, which we did, and the court order was granted, and over the parents' objections, the child was transfused.... And then upon discharge, what we discovered later was that the parents had actually put the child up for adoption- ... At age six, because that, because as a result of, in their view, in their Jehovah's Witness view, as a result of their actions, they would've been exiled from their Jehovah's Witness community. They would've been considered pariahs, and their life in that community would've been over. So I still think we did the right thing because the child lived, and he would not have-

Sean McDowell: Wow

Scott Rae: ... Would not have apart from that. But it does, I think the lesson from this is that we should tread really carefully when we are overriding parental authority.

Sean McDowell: That's really well said, and I think that's the root of it, is that the argument has been parents not affirming their kids is damaging and hurting their kids, and they might commit suicide, we often hear. The problem is, for that view, is that the data does not show that that's actually the case. And so you and I did, I don't know, maybe four, six weeks ago, I don't recall, we did a deep dive on the study that was from the Journal of Sexual Medicine in 2025. It was titled "Examining Gender-Specific Mental Health Risks for Gender-Affirming Surgery," a national database peer-reviewed study. And they said, "Both male and female patients with gender dysphoria who undergo gender-affirming surgery are at significantly higher risk for adverse mental health outcomes: depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, et cetera." And they said, in part, it suggests that there's some underlying issues here that the surgery is not addressing. While I realize that this was about pronoun use, not surgery, but it's in the step, this teacher did, in the step of affirming this identity, which opens up the door for it, that's where parents absolutely have a right to know and not have a teacher affirm this, and that's where I think there's serious culpability on the part of this teacher, as well-meaning as it may be. All right, man, this next story [chuckles] is crazy.

Scott Rae: [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: I did not see this one coming, and I'm kind of dying, I guess, pun intended, to know what you think about this one. This released earlier in the week, so some folks have thought about it, but your focus on ethics, I think, could really give us some insights here. And this is in USA Today, it was in CNN, it's all over the place, about how a dire wolf returns from extinction. Colossal Biosciences, a genetic engineering company that's been working to bring back the woolly mammoth and the saber-toothed tiger and the dodo, has actually brought back one of its extinct Ice Age cohabitants, the dire wolf. It's a Texas-based company, and, they call it de-extinction technologies, and it's the first successful de-extincted animal that's allegedly brought back. I say allegedly because the question is, how much really is it a dire wolf? They said, quote, "Our team took DNA from a 13,000-year-old tooth and a allegedly 72,000-year-old skull and made healthy dire wolf puppies." By the way, the videos of these things are so incredibly cute. You just wanna hold them.

Scott Rae: [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: They look like stuffed animals. I mean, they're just... They're beautiful animals. And so the dire wolf was a real-world predator that went extinct, they say, about 13,000 years ago, but it roamed North America for thousands of years alongside the saber-toothed tiger and mastodons. It's about 25% larger than modern-day gray wolves. They had thicker, more muscular legs. They're just bigger, better predators, I think you could say, up to, like, three and a half feet tall and weigh up to 150 pounds. I don't totally understand the technology, but basically, they're taking DNA, inserting it, somehow manipulating these embryos, and then they're carried by a dog or a wolf. So there's a certain technology that is somewhat beyond me, but they say the newcomers are not 100% exactly like the ancient wolf. How much they are is not clear, but they're manipulating modern-day wolves with the DNA of ancient dire wolves, is really what's taking place. There's a few other components to this I'll let go. The-- so they raise at the very end, they say, you know, people are bringing back concerns about Jurassic Park, and I saw on the tweet for the Jurassic World, the X, they tagged this article, and all they said was, "We can't imagine how this could possibly go wrong." [laughing]

Scott Rae: [laughing]

Sean McDowell: That's all they wrote. So this raises theological, biblical, ethical questions, but Scott, give me your take on this.

Scott Rae: Well, this is... I think for one, maybe, Game of Thrones is one of the things that has generated this- ... To come back. But I think there's a place where r- I don't see any place where we're reviving species sort of intrinsically can be problematic. Although, I admit, the first thought that came to my mind was, as long as we're not doing something that makes Jur- you know, Jur- something like Jurassic Park a reality. Now, I, and I think with some of the article cites, some Native American, folks who, mentioned that the dire wolf is part of a long, sort of long-standing Native American tradition. Um-... And I think, I think readu- reintroducing them into the wild, they're not currently in the wild, and I don't think, I don't think there are any plans to do that. And there, the article says there are no plans to have them mate and to multiply. But reintroducing them into the wild, I think could, especially given that it's, it's a significant predator like the dire wolf is, could upset... You know, we know, it's a very delicate ecosystem. Our, our ecosystem is pr- it doesn't take much to throw a wrench into it, and this could easily do that. But I, Sean, for me, this raises the, a deeper question about species going extinct in the first place. Now, from a, from an evolutionary worldview, it's, it's, a non-issue because that, species going extinct is just part of the package.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: It's just part of the worldview. That's, that's, you know, adaptability is how, you know, is how we develop according to that worldview. But I think from what I would call more a theocentric view of the environment, where God is, God is the one, the environment has value because it's God's special creation, is extinction, particularly when there are clear human causes for that, is that a violation of our environmental stewardship? And I think in some cases, the answer to that, I think, would be yes. That I don't th- I don't think that God ever intended, species to, species to go extinct from creation forward. Now, with the result of the Fall, I think that's gonna br- that's, that becomes an inevitable part of the environmental package. And I think there are, there are some species going extinct, that have been, they've been extinct for thousands of years that we've never known the difference. And I think a lot, in a lot of cases, we, you wouldn't even recognize it. But that's not really the point. The point is there something about species going extinct through specific human causes that violates a s- an environmental stewardship obligation? And I think you can make an argument that it i- that it does. Now, sometimes we have to, we have to make a choice between, the wellbeing of the environment and human development, and we should, we should point out that the ultimate picture of development occurs it- when the kingdom comes in its fullness and is the doorstep to eternity, which is called the city of God, not the, not the wilderness of God, not the, you know, not the forest of God. So I think what that suggests is that there's nothing intrinsically problematic about development, but there are times when those two things conflict, and that's where the ethical issues come up. And I think in most cases, if the extinction of a species can be prevented, we're under obligation to do that. Now, at times, it can't be without crippling things that are crucial for human- the wellbeing of human beings. And I think when they conflict, there's nothing intrinsically problematic with, privileging the wellbeing of human beings over the responsibility to take care of the environment when those two things conflict. And I think that those are, I think, some of the most challenging ethical issues we face, when human wellbeing conflicts with environmental stewardship.

Sean McDowell: That's a great way to look at it. I was really curious where you would go, Scott, 'cause I was torn between, is this a question of wisdom or is it a question of morality? And wisdom, you could say, the money spent on this, the hundreds of millions of dollars this company has raised. You know, the warning in Jurassic Park, basically the theme of Jurassic Park and every science fiction film is unfettered technology will turn and destroy you. You think you can keep the genie in the bottle, you won't be able to. And I think we're just fooling ourselves if we think we can keep the genie in the bottle on this technology. I mean, you and I did a story like, I don't know, a couple of months ago, about this man in Montana who clones these big sheep-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Sean McDowell: ... Just to go out and hunt them. Like, how does this happen? Some guy in Montana. Well, this technology is inevitably going to get out as well, and so, you know, it's just foolish to say, "Well, we're, we're not planning on expanding this, and we're keeping it in a park." I'm like, "Yeah, right." I just don't buy that. Now, I, maybe I'm too cynical here, and this is the wrong place, Scott, but I read this when they talked about, you know, Colossal, the science behind this, the organization behind it, says, "We could do something that could bring awareness from pop culture to science. We could bring technology to help wolves, which we did in the process, and do something that the indigenous people were really excited about." Am I supposed to think that this company really cares about indigenous people? Is that what motivates them? I don't know that it does. I wonder if they're being used because they're a protected group that could possibly be like, people would get on board with supporting this if indigenous people are supportive of it. I can't prove that, but that's kind of a red flag that came up to me, 'cause whenever we have new technology and money is at play, people are gonna make the best argument that they think they can to try to convince people to get on board with this. So I, you know-

Scott Rae: Yeah, you-

Sean McDowell: Go ahead.

Scott Rae: Yeah, you might, you might be a little cynical on that.

Sean McDowell: Okay, [chuckles] fair enough.

Scott Rae: Which... But, so yeah, but, you know, it wouldn't be the first time that, money was the s- the sole motivation for something, and we used other things to justify that. And I think this could be, actually could be good marketing for the company, too, that this is supported by lots of Native American communities. I just wonder, you know, if the in- if the intent ever is to turn these loose in the wild-... That would make me a little more nervous, because- ... Our ecosystems are so fragile, and it just doesn't take much to, you know, turn them upside down. So, and this is where I think the environmentalists are onto something, to continue to point that out to us. I'm not, I'm not wild about unleashing the saber-toothed tiger back into the wild. That's a predator like we've- I don't think we've seen much before.

Sean McDowell: Yeah. [chuckles]

Scott Rae: That would be terrifying to think about that. So anyway, that's, that's my take.

Sean McDowell: Yeah.

Scott Rae: But I think it just raises some deeper questions about how we view extinction from a Christian worldview. And, we may get some pushback from listeners on that claim extinction in a, you know, in a, in environmental stewardship is a case of no harm, no foul. I'm not so sure about that. But I think that's, you know, that's, I think, the framework within which we need to look at this.

Sean McDowell: It really is an interesting theological question, 'cause if you say God designed things to go extinct, then you can allow them to. If He designed things not to, and it's the result of the Fall, then we should try to reverse it, and it'd be a good to, you know, do this kind of technology, potentially, barring there's not other unintended consequences-

Scott Rae: Yeah

Sean McDowell: ... Which, by the way, is a big if. That's really the issue at play here, is there's going to be some unintended consequences that we just can't anticipate, 'cause this is the first time we've de-extincted something, and if it's not with a wolf, you know, it's gonna be with something else. I mean, with that said, there's such a cool factor. I was talking to my son this morning about it, who's 12, and he's like: "Wow, like, a woolly mammoth could come back? A saber-toothed tiger?" Like, I would pay a lot of money to see-

Scott Rae: [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: ... A saber-toothed tiger in a zoo. Oh, my goodness, that is about as interesting as it could be. But we've gotta slow down and think this through and be wise before we just jump on the technology, and unfortunately, ethical thinking often comes afterwards, as you know. All right, good stuff, Scott. This last piece is a long piece, in The New York Times. This lady, this journalist, has had three big, stories, opinion pieces, about how the abortion debate has shifted to embryos. And gosh, I'll try to sum this up as best as I can, but in December 2020, you remember this story. Five- about five years ago, a hospital patient wandered into an unsecured room where the couple's embryos sat in storage, drops it, destroys the embryos, and then four years later, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that those lost embryos were extrauterine children and allowed the families that owned them, so to speak, to proceed with lawsuits against the fertility clinic. And so this created a kind of uproar amongst people, like, are embryos humans, or are they just property? Now, as they point out in the article, they say, "Less than three weeks after the court ruling, Alabama's legislature passed a law protecting IVF providers from civil and criminal liability," which they say is a kind of contradiction, at least raises that. If IVF was to be protected, did that mean embryos didn't really have full personhood? Because in the way IVF is practiced, they're destroyed, and they're discarded in a different sense of fashion. So she writes, "The uncertain moral status of these clusters of cells," which is a, let's just say, ontologically laden statement, "burst into view, undermining any attempt to put them into a neat legal category." Now, the article goes through all of these different kinds of court cases that have been raised between couples who a man and a woman have embryos together, one gets sick, and they can no longer put the embryos inside of her. What do they do with the embryos? Man and a woman who agree to have embryos together, and the man keeps the male one, the woman keeps the female one. They create embryos, one of... Like, all of these kind of unintended, disastrous decisions that have raised moral questions. How do we view the embryo, and especially couples that, for example, created embryos and then got divorced? Who has the right to own them, so to speak? There's these embryo custody cases just emerging everywhere. I thought it was super fascinating, in this article, they cite the Stregeys, which is really interesting.

Scott Rae: Very cool.

Sean McDowell: Super cool. Hannah Stregey was in my class, as you know, here at Biola, and they're two Christians who really, in the late '90s... They might be listening to this. Shout out if they do. [chuckles] Friends of ours, friends of Biola, who really kinda sparked w- you know, the embryo donation, if that's exactly what it's referred to, kind of the mo- embryo adoption kind of movement, to adopt embryos 'cause they're full human beings. And John Stregey says, "These are lives created at conception. You donate money, food, clothing, time, but you don't donate life." Brilliantly said. And then, you know, there's some critique in here. I found it fascinating. For example, I'll just make one point here. "After the Alabama courts' decision came down, several people in the embryo adoption," so now they're giving somebody on the opposite side of the Stregeys, "told me that personhood for embryos would make their work harder, not easier." I kind of find that hard to believe, but nonetheless, they cite someone in particular, a Christian fertility doctor, who oversees the nation's largest embryo adoption program, and he said the ruling denied basic biology and reality. Quote, "The majority of embryos, even embryos created through natural intercourse, do not go on to form babies," he told me. "To say that they are all children is incorrect." Now, on one hand, he's correct that they're not children, but I'm also not a child, and I'm human.... So every human being is not a child, right? But every child is a human being. It has nothing to do with whether the embryos are human or not. There's so much here. I might be spending too much time on this, but basically, the debate has shifted towards what is the unborn? How do we navigate this? There's so many legal and ethical challenges. I'm sorry, embryos, not just the unborn in particular. One academic says maybe we shouldn't even consider the embryos human, in the sense that maybe it's sui generis, where it's a category of its own. It's not property-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... It's also not a person. And when I read that, I thought, "It takes an academic to come up with that- [chuckles]

Scott Rae: ... Kind of category." [chuckles]

Sean McDowell: And sadly, it's the kind of conversations that we had about African Americans in our country as well. Do you get to vote? Are you a full personhood? There's just an eerie similarity that's here. Scott, so much more could be said. I appreciate the writer diving into this. I appreciate The New York Times publishing it, but I still have a lot of unease about the conclusions that are drawn here.

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I've-- when I read this, I s- I, my first thought was, finally, in part three of the series, we're getting to the heart of the issue.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: What kind of a thing is a human embryo?

Sean McDowell: Exactly.

Scott Rae: What exactly is it? And, you know, the Alabama Supreme Court decision that you referenced, they did pass a law following that, protecting clinics from liability, but nobody ever addressed the question of the status of embryos outside the womb. Now, here, the way the article puts it, this is titled, "Embryos: Property or Human Life?"

Scott Rae: Is, is not quite the right question, because it's clearly human and it's alive, so it it is clearly human life. The, the right question is it, is it property or persons? And it, and we've already said in the last two weeks when we've talked about this, that the, that the notion of a potential person, which frankly is where I th- I think the consensus is gonna end up, is an incoherent concept philosophically. Rather, we should say it's a person with potential to actualise all of his or her capacities. Now, you know, I think the consensus that's developing is that an embryo is something in between persons and property, but nobody's quite sure exactly what that is. In my view, this is not, this is not gray. This is pretty straightforward. An embryo is a person with the potential to mature into what it already is.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: It, so embryos don't, they don't become something different. They don't develop into something different. They mature into what they already are. So let me, let me comment just briefly on a, one of these cases because it, I think it outlines where I think this is gonna end up. The, the Davis case, the Tennessee case that's mentioned in the article, the Davis couple, is sort of the landmark case that set the, set the precedent for this. There was a couple, they did IVF, and then they divorced. The court first ruled that this was a custody decision about the embryos, which I took as really good news, but then on appeal, that was reversed, and it was ruled that they were property. And the wording of the decision captured some of the, what I would consider or what they considered, an ambiguous quality, concluding that, quote, "Embryos are not, strictly speaking, either persons or property, but occupy an interim category that entitles them to special respect because of their potential for human life." Now, here's wh- the tension comes with the alternatives for how we deal with this potential life when those embryos are no longer wanted. And, you know, I don't... I'm, I'm still not quite sure how you can have special respect for something th- with which you authorise their destruction or their destruction after they are a research subject. Those, those seem contradictory to me.

Scott Rae: So anyway, the reason the court ruled like they did is not because they decided what an embryo is, but they decided that the hu- the husband who wanted them destroyed and the wife who wanted to carry them, they ruled in favour of the husband because they ruled, and I think in some respects, correctly so, that the husband had a right not to become a parent against his will. So but they did so without really defining what kind of a thing an embryo actually is. And that's, I think, still, in my view, it's a big problem calling them property. And here's-- this is maybe for the Christian couple. I think the good news in this is that I don't think you actually have to resolve this in order to protect embryos in their very early stage of maturity. You know, Psalm 139 talks about how God is at work, forming and knitting together the unborn as in the womb. It's a, it's-- the unborn is a product of his gracious and compassionate and loving care. And Psalm 139 talks about that God saw our unformed body in the womb, which some lexicons- ... Actually translate as embryo. And that I think the i- the idea w- going with that, the idea that location has no ontological significance. So an embryo in the womb and an embryo in the lab are ontologically the same thing, because you put, you put you and me in a different location, and it doesn't change the essence of who we are.... And the same thing is true for embryos. And here's, I think, the author, I think, is so insightful at the end of this, and I'm, I'm not sure she should have been all that surprised at her sadness at destroying their embryos. Because the article shows her, interestingly, holding her IVF- [chuckles] produced daughter.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: Now, the author saw that continuity. And I lo- I love how she puts this. I'm sorry, there was a, there was a pre- it was not the author who destroyed the embryos, it was somebody that she had cited in there.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: She's talking about her sadness at doing that. The author describes it like this: "Nothing more has-- nothing has done more to unsettle my feelings about them than watching the ongoing development of my own embryo, who is now two years old." And I would say, after all, we were all once embryos, [chuckles] and, thankfully, nobody considered us non-persons at that particular stage. So, Sean, there is so much to say about this. I think we've said a lot of this already in the last two weeks, so I'm not gonna repeat any of that. But, I would encourage our listeners to look at s- look at... These articles are really interesting reading, and I think deserve, I think deserve a good hearing. And I'm, I'm encouraged that The New York Times published them-

Sean McDowell: Yeah, me too

Scott Rae: ... 'cause it's got a lot of, lot of stuff that, the pro-choice movement is not gonna like in there.

Sean McDowell: I agree. A couple quick things. It's interesting, in these embryo custody cases, part of the take is that people should not be forced to be parents, and part of me says, "Once you choose to do IVF, you already are." Now, you're not functioning in the way we typically associate-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... With parents, but that is a full human being, and the science is not ambiguous here. It's a living human organism that is a distinct organism from the mother. So all of those embryos, you-- we functionally are a parent, whether you're practicing that way or not, if you've chosen to do IVF. You know, the Texas legislator defines an unborn child as an individual living member of the Homo sapien species from fertilization until birth, including the entire embryonic and fetal stages of development. That's incontestable. Now, we don't necessarily have to call it an unborn child. We, we could debate on the term, but it's an individual living member of the Homo sapien species, which means it's distinct from the mother. The Texas legislator got it right in terms of their definition. So this article, it's just, it's this personal journey of the journalist, and I appreciate she's listening to both sides and, you know, at the end says, "We just kind of have to live in the gray at times," is one thing she describes here. She says, "I would encourage us all to do the same, think about embryos with a little more humility and a lot less certainty, and above all, in the company of others." Like, humility is a Christian virtue, but there's also truth. There's nothing [chuckles] that is in these articles at all that overturns the known and established scientific principle that at conception, you have a living human organism distinct from the mother. So yeah, she says, "Lean into the gray." I'd say, yeah, it's difficult what this means to live it out, but we have to start with what we know crystal clear, and I think that's in part why some of the stories she, you know, talks about compassionate transfer, which is when these embryos are not gonna have a chance to survive, are kind of placed inside a mother to then just die, and it's compassionate transfer. And as I understand it, there's a quote that says, "They weren't dead. There was still life in them, and when they were deemed successful or not, I didn't want to push them into a trash can. I feel at ease knowing that they went into a warm body that was prepared for them and that loved them. I got to love them for two weeks, and then I got to pass them back to God." Well, compassionate transfer is not for the unborn. It's for the conscience-

Scott Rae: That's correct

Sean McDowell: ... Of the person who has-

Scott Rae: Exactly right

Sean McDowell: ... Practiced this and feels bad. And you know what? I understand it, because there's something in our hearts that just says, "This is a human being, and this isn't just a clump of cells." And I think she goes a long way towards recognizing this article. I wanna say, just keep following your reasoning-

Scott Rae: That's right

Sean McDowell: ... To its logical conclusion, and you'll end up in the pro-life camp, is how I see it. But-

Scott Rae: Yeah, that-

Sean McDowell: If-

Scott Rae: ... That com- that compassionate transfer just changes the trash can from a trash can to the woman's body.

Sean McDowell: That's exactly right. I mean, it's just-

Scott Rae: Yeah

Sean McDowell: ... To make us feel better, but does-

Scott Rae: Yeah

Sean McDowell: ... Nothing in terms of caring for this organism based on the kind of thing that it is, this human being.

Scott Rae: And that's, and that's a great, that's a great point, that, you know, these couples who are divorcing and have embryos in storage, they're parents already, and we should recognize that. That's, and that's where I think the court made a mistake.

Sean McDowell: I think that's right. But I'm encouraged by this, that things are moving-

Scott Rae: Yeah

Sean McDowell: ... In the right direction as a whole. We've just gotta keep plugging away. We got some good questions, Scott. This person wrote in and, says, "I am a Black Christian female, and while listening to the legacy of Martin Luther King," which, I could not help but wonder why, Scott, "you and Tim Muehlhoff were either unaware or unwilling to address the increasing evidence that points towards Martin Luther King Jr.'s heterodox theology, hedonistic lifestyle choices, and communist ideology. Taken holistically, though he did some good, is not someone with the moral pedigree or embodied ethic," quotes, "alluded to throughout the episode."... Tim seemed to agree with guest Chris Brooks that he is the greatest moral philosopher our country has ever produced. My question is, why isn't there any scrutiny of all the evidence that points towards MLK's heterodox and hedonism views and actions?

Scott Rae: Well, I'll- since I was, since I was on scene here when [chuckles] that took place. I think the reason for that had really nothing to do with the point that this listener is making, which I think is a fair and valid point. That there were things about his theology, about, and about his moral life that, you know, are tough to stand up to scrutiny. But we were, we were doing this on ML King Day. The point was to honor King and his contribution, and this wasn't the place to bring out some of, some of the dark side of King's life. That can be for another time and another occasion.

Sean McDowell: Sure.

Scott Rae: So that's the reason we didn't-- we were both aware of it. But that's, that's the reason why we didn't bring that out. And I've sent the question to Chris, and if he wants to respond, he can, and we'll read it. We'll read his response next week or the week after if he chooses to respond.

Sean McDowell: Yeah, I'd just say, you know, you can only say so much in an episode. I get that. His positive contribution can never be taken away, but we also don't have to hide that he was a profoundly flawed human being. Cheating on his wife, claims are that he cheated on his doctoral dissertation. These are just... These are facts, or at least claims about him, and I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I mean, a lot of the characters in the Bible are profoundly fallen and flawed as well, and God uses them. So I think it's a mistake to just completely write him off and recognize his positive contributions, but it's also a mistake to not recognize that he was human and had some serious moral flaws in his life. Appreciate this writer, this person writing in and offering that. This one is related to some comments we've had about psychedelics. You and I, a few weeks ago, did an episode on the New York Times post about how they're used in more kind of health circumstances for veterans. This person says, "Considering that psilocybin has a remarkably good safety profile, wouldn't that then diminish the significance of the principle of double effect?" I'm really shortening the question here. "If we find that psychedelics do have these benefits for PTSD, anxiety, end-of-life depression, and with low and decreased side effects, what difference is there in using psychedelics for the above conditions versus antibiotics or pneumonia?" Let me just say, we cannot deny that there's some positive effects spiritually towards addictions and towards, for example, what we talked about with, say, veterans. But I just did a deep dive, not here, but on my YouTube channel, with Joe Welker, who has been a whistleblower on a lot of the false claims that have been made by the powers that be, you might call evangelists for kind of the psychedelic movement, saying there's a lot more harms and damage that is not taken into consideration, and very different kind of harms than antibiotics cause. People literally losing their minds, I think spiritual damage. So I think, yes, there's positives, but there's far more negatives than is often shared, for example, in Michael Pollan's book, Change Your Mind, which is a mega-selling book trying to advance the positive case. So at least go hear the other side of this. It's on YouTube. We can link to it. If you go back, it's one of my recent videos, and we spent an hour walking this through, and I think there's more concern than we often hear. You wanna add anything to that, Scott?

Scott Rae: No, that's a good, that's a good take on that, I think, an appropriate caution.

Sean McDowell: All right, Scott, this was fun.

Scott Rae: Good stuff.

Sean McDowell: Really good stuff. This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. We have master's programs, in-person and online, theology, Bible, apologetics, spiritual formation, and more. We'd love to have you in class. To submit comments or ask questions, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Please take the time to give us a rating on your podcast app. Seriously, every rating, if it takes you 90 seconds, really helps us in the analytics to help more people think biblically. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you Tuesday when I have an in-depth discussion with Old Testament professor Charlie Trim about Michael Heiser's book, The Unseen Realm. There's a 10-year update. Even though he passed away, there's a 10-year update, a lot of his notes put in this book, and it's been one of the more influential books in the Christian world over the past decade. We're gonna take a deep dive in this. We'll see you then. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]