Cultural Update: Rethinking Just War; Screen-Free Summer; Separation of Church and State

Episode Transcript

Scott Rae: [upbeat music] The pope weighs in on the just war concept. A new study on the connection between young men flourishing and having marriage on their horizon. Correcting misunderstandings on the separation of church and state, and the prescription for a screen-free summer for families. These are the stories we'll discuss, and we'll take some of your, as usual, really excellent questions. I'm your host, Scott Rae, and sitting in for Sean, who is on his way to Africa for speaking engagements, is my Talbot colleague, Dr. Rick Langer. This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update coming to you from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Rick, thanks so much for joining us and filling in for Sean. You and Erik did a great job two weeks ago when you filled in for both of us, so really glad to have you back.

Rick Langer: Yeah, it's fun to be back. Thanks for having me.

Scott Rae: The story number one is the pope weighs in on the just war concept. And Rick, sort of hidden within the pope's landmark encyclical last week on artificial intelligence, which Sean and I discussed at length a week ago, were some interesting and controversial comments on the just war tradition. This was highlighted in the National Catholic Register this week, and is relevant given the pope's view on the war in Iran and the response, responses that came back from the White House. Put simply, the pope views the just war theory, which has been the standard non-pacifist view of the morality of war for centuries, is now out of date. Here's how the pope puts it in the encyclical, and I'm quoting here. Quote, "Without prejudice to the right of self-defense in the strictest sense, it's important to reaffirm that the just war theory, which has all too often been used to justify any kind of war, is now outdated." The commentary on the pope's statement contains a good summary of the just war theory, and I'm quoting from the article here. "At its best, just war teaching sought to restrain violence. It asked whether a war had a just cause, whether legitimate authority had declared it, whether it was truly a last resort, whether civilians would be protected, whether the harm inflicted would be proportionate to the good sought, and whether there was a reasonable hope of success." But, you might see the but coming here.

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: And to go on with the article's description here, "The wars known to Augustine and Aquinas bear little resemblance to the wars of the 21st century. The battlefield is no longer confined. Hospitals, schools, apartment buildings, power grids, water systems, food supplies, and communication networks are routinely drawn into the logic of war. Civilian life is no longer collatical- collateral to war, it is the terrain of war." Now, the article goes on and ultimately it cites the example of Jesus as the standard for nonviolence and pacifism, which I'm still thinking about this, Rick, but that may take it a little bit farther than the pope intended in his comments. So let me hear... I know you've get... Done a lot of thinking about the just war idea like I have. So give me your take on the pope's view that the whole, the whole notion is outdated.

Rick Langer: So I... You made the comment that this was, you know, the section on just war is kind of hidden within the encyclical, and I'm like, it kind of is in the sense that there was... I didn't realize 250 pages, but I knew it was long.

Scott Rae: You didn't read it all?

Rick Langer: I, well-

Scott Rae: I'm shocked

Rick Langer: ... I've read a good, I've read a good chunk of it. But the entire, you know, I think the fifth chapter, whichever, it's all about just war. I mean, it's a fairly lengthy excursus in that, in the encyclical, which, I think should be noted. He isn't just... It isn't a drive-by shooting.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Rick Langer: It's an an engagement with it.

Scott Rae: Maybe I, maybe I should have said hidden in the commentary on the pope's-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Encyclical.

Rick Langer: Well-

Scott Rae: That'd be a better way to state it

Rick Langer: ... Well, and I think the point I wanna make with it is that I don't think he's as much dismissing or saying it's outdated so let's get rid of it, but rather saying it's outdated so we need to update it. And I don't have a sense from what I read that he's just saying, "Oh yeah, the whole just war enterprise doesn't work anymore because our wars are so different." And I'm not sure... Well, the one comment about this that that comes to my mind is that the, partly wars are really different, but partly wars are kind of similar. You know, the whole idea of wars involving all these people, you know, the civilians, everybody in the town and everything, and I'm like, good grief. Read Jeremiah. And, you know, Nebuchadnezzar comes in and besieges Jerusalem, and you have, you know, women boiling their babies and eating them. I think that war affected the civilians, right? [laughs] And and those kinds of sieges have always been part of... Well, I was gonna say modern warfare. That's not the right word. For warfare in the history of modern civilization, so to speak. And I I think it is a little different in terms of how it impacts us today, but there's a fair bit of similarity on some of the things that I think were identified. So I would kind of highlight some things I do think are kind of different. And one of them, there's a couple phrases that the pope had in the encyclical. One of them was talking about the rise of a culture of power, and I think he's contrasting that to the phrase that one of the earlier popes, maybe, Paul VI or somebody had made about a, creating a civilization of love, I think. And so he has contrasting these two kinds of visions for society. And I have to admit, I do feel like in recent years we have drifted towards this culture of power. I do worry that we have sort of normalized war-Because we're happy to create a bunch of what we call little wars because they happen in somebody else's country. But a little war is like a minor surgery. The definition of minor surgery is a surgery that somebody else has.

Scott Rae: That's right.

Rick Langer: And minor wars aren't minor to the people who are living in Beirut or the people who are living in all, you know, all these other places where this is going on. So I think, I think he's right to point that out. Our interests extend across the globe, but our pain does not. So when we wage war in all these other places, it always used to have a visceral sense of cost to us. I think that has increasingly not been the case because of a lot of rising technologies. And I think he does finger a couple of things that do make the AI version of that worse, and that is the potential for decision-making, you know, mortal decision-making being done by machines, not human beings, and being done at a crazy distance, not simply a drone distance, let me put it that way, 'cause we're already into a lot of this from drone warfare and things like that. You could talk like this is, you know, again, something brand new, and I'm like, "Eh, we've been dealing with this for a while." But the AI thing with the decision-making and the autonomy, those really do concern me. And I do think it does make you stop and say, "How does that fit with just war?" And I wouldn't oppose to saying, "We need to do some updating with this."

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think the notion that the just war idea needed updating, I think first came into, you know, popular discussion after World War II when nuclear bombs were launched

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Japan, and those were intentionally targeting civilians. And I think regardless of the justification for it, that those were a violation of the just war tradition. And I think, tar- you know, targeting civilians is different than collateral damage, which is incidental-

Rick Langer: Yes

Scott Rae: ... To, the waging of war. However, I think in some of the recent conflicts, like in Gaza, for example, there's an awful lot of collateral damage there that, is not, is not clear that, you know, how incidental that actually is. Now, I would say targeting civilians is a violation of the just war idea, as is embedding military equipment and personnel in civilian neighborhoods, because you know that your enemy takes the just war notion seriously. Now I think the the Pope is right that to underscore a right of self-defense. Now I'm not exactly sure what he means by that and how narrowly subscribed that is, but it seems to me the Bible supports self-defense in at least three places. In the Book of Nehemiah, where Nehemiah had the men who were rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, half of them were in construction and half of them were in security.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Armed security. And then in the Book of Esther, where, the King, Darius could not rescind the order to commit genocide against the Jews, so he gave the Jews the right to arm themselves and protect themselves and to actually to take plunder from those who were attacking them. And then I think Augustine, I think got it, got it right when he said one of the, one of the entailments of loving your neighbor is when you see... If you see your neighbor being attacked and you do, you stand by and do nothing, you have violated the mandate to love your neighbor appropriately. So I think there's... And to the idea of loving your neighbor as yourself, I think implies also a right of personal self-defense. Now it seems to me war can have a just cause without becoming the norm, although I think the number of wars that I would put in the just cause category since 1900 is pretty few and far between. I think World War II clearly fits in there. That's the, that's the only one that I think is probably, undebatable, though the rest of them I think serious debate. So I think the Pope-

Rick Langer: Right

Scott Rae: ... I would say the, I say sort of, you know, basically two and a half cheers-

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... For for what the Pope has said. Because I think there are things that need to be updated in the just war notion. And I do think there is a, there is a general right of self-defense that the, that the Bible supports.

Rick Langer: Yeah. And I would... So I agree. And I appreciate your, you making that comment about the nature of warfare since 1900, how many have been just wars. I'm kind of with you in terms of saying, okay, I do feel like World War II met that criteria. Unfortunately, World War I was almost comically bad on that criteria. Yeah, I mean, it was one of those things that a bunch of weird treaty things and stuff like that kind of got everyone going on an, on an issue that was simmering but suddenly became just this crazy... I mean, the war to end all wars. It obviously didn't end the wars, but it was, it was way out of proportion, 'cause that's another part of just war theory is proportionality, and relative to the offenses included, it was just wildly disproportionate. With Hitler and what was going on in Nazi Germany, that was a different thing, and clearly there was an aggressor, the magnitude of the harms being caused and all those things were very different. Another thing I would underscore is this, the, that issue of kind of Augustine's vision of just war in a lot of his writing is really justifying it not as a necessary evil or even as self-defense, but rather as an act of love.He's assuming that those who go off to war are probably not the ones who are actually being directly threatened, but rather soldiers who are defending civilians of their particular country who will be doing these battles. And these... In a sense, you look at that as saying, "No, I'm... These people are going off to try and protect innocent, defenseless people, who need to be protected from some sort of, an aggressor."

Scott Rae: Yeah. And

Rick Langer: I think that's a legitimate argument to make. I mean, I understand pacifists would push back against that notion, but I do think it's good to realize when you think of just war, don't confine it to just, oh, necessary evil sorts of things or self-defense, but rather saying there's a part of this that really is about preventing harms to others. And it is also, at the same time, therefore excludes war for, motivations like, financial gain, let's get the oil from, you know, Kuwait or Venezuela or wherever you might be getting your oil from. Those are the sorts of things that just war has always drawn a line against, and I think that's continues to be super important, so I wouldn't want to update that part.

Scott Rae: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I think, you're right, I think, to suggest that the original framers of the just war tradition did not see war as intrinsically evil. They saw it as the, as the possibility of a moral good if the conditions laid down in the just war criteria were followed. And so I think that's a, that's a shift in the way the just war idea has been... Is viewed today-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... As a, as a justifiable evil, where the framers did not really see it that way.

Rick Langer: Yes. Agreed.

Scott Rae: All right. Anything else on this?

Rick Langer: I don't think so. One quick comment. [laughs] I can't remember who it was that said this, one of our politicians, but, you know, "This isn't the pope's business," was the thing he... When... As he was criticizing both the war in Iran and then AI and then the just war part of this encyclical. And I would want to say, no, this is the pope's business. I mean, I... And I think every church leader should care about these things, you know, pope included, but I think pastors and others should be caring about these things as well.

Scott Rae: Hear Yeah, we... It is, it is about the morality of war.

Rick Langer: Correct.

Scott Rae: And so that is, that is the pope's and religious leaders' business. All right. Here's story number two, Rick. It's a very interesting study from the Institute for Family Studies [clears throat] that basically says that the... That having a, quote, "marital horizon" is good for young men's maturing and flourishing. Here, the article is entitled Marital Horizons: The Motivating Power of Marriage for Young Men. Not just being married, but having marriage on the horizon. Here, the... Now, the conventional wisdom in this area has been something like this, that, when the topic of marriage is discussed in relationship to men's sort of general life trajectories, the focus is typically, I think, on the lack of, quote, "marriageable men" in our society and how this trend is contributing to a retreat from marriage by women. But here's the interesting part, Rick. The studies show that the reverse is also true, that the retreat from marriage is contributing to the decline of men. Now, the article points out that there's a compelling body of research that shows that marriage has traditionally been and continues to be one of the primary motivators of adult development in young men. Now, this, it, this happens to also be true of young women, and here's the big idea, and I'll quote from the article here. "The research also shows that this development begins years before marriage if the prospect of marriage is clearly on the horizon in a young man's plans. Young adults' perceptions of marriage, its importance, its timing, and the needed preparations for it do not merely reflect their developmental age," and here's the point, "they actively shape it in three specific ways. One is the motivation to work," which, the idea there is that marriage gives men something to work for. "Motivation to engage in less risky behavior and the motivation to minimize casual sex and approach dating with more commitment." So I found this really fascinating and, you know, having, you know, having three young men in my family, and a, and a wedding coming up in a few months, I found this really helpful and very interesting. Rick, your take on this, 'cause I know you've got all your kids are married, right?

Rick Langer: Yep. Yeah.

Scott Rae: That true? So give me your take on this.

Rick Langer: Yeah. It's sort of comically relevant as I read this from my conversations with my son, as... Because he was dating a girl in college, and he graduated from college and I remember chatting with him about the fact, saying, "Okay, so Mark, you know that you're not gonna see Nicolette again unless you make a plan about this, and you need to think about this." And he was thinking about, "What am I gonna do when I graduate?" And I think in the course of events, it wasn't so much what I said, but he had this crystallizing moment where he said, "I really wanna be married. I wanna be married to her. If I'm gonna do that, chasing down some cool internships or other things like that isn't gonna cut the mustard. I need to be able to actually provide or share in providing for a family and a household." And you could almost see the wheels turning in terms of this is a grow-up moment. And Mark ended up getting married fairly early just because... I mean, he absolutely found a wonderful person. Couldn't recommend that choice more. But, it was one of those things that came up at a point in life that was early. He probably, I can't remember exactly, 22, I think 23 when he got married. Anyhow, whatever it was. And it was motivated by a lot of the factors that came out in the article. So I was just kind of like, "Huh, that's pretty good description of a lot of things that were going on in his mind," and I thought they were very legitimate at the time, and reading this, I think that all the more. So yeah, that was great. One of the things that I do wanna kinda highlight isUm, kind of the socializing power of culture and the toxicity that has had towards marriage and marriage practices in recent years. So we have a knack for thinking, well, hey, you know, people who like traditional marriage can just go ahead and do it. No one's keeping them from doing it. But those who want other kinds of marriage or do other sort of thing, they can do that. And what they're saying is everybody makes their choices by their individual preferences, and so social pressures really aren't that important. And I would argue that this article demonstrates [chuckles] that that is simply not true, that the social pressures have a huge implication for behavior, and they are formative of behavior. One of the interesting things in the article is that they were talking about the marriage expectations for a man, and part of what they... A a man wants to do is successfully fulfill the, What was the phrase they used? The social role, that a, that a man is to have. And, you know, this idea of being a provider and marrying, having a family, being a part of that kind of package has historically been very much of a expected social role, reinforced social role that now I think has been thrown out with just a whole bunch of other options. Kind of do whatever you want with your life. There's nothing intrinsically valuable about marriage. Nothing wrong with it, but nothing that we should be seeing 95% of people go get married. You know, I... That kind of a ethos has changed. That part, number one. Number two, what's changed is the idea what counts as marriage. And obviously with gay marriage that's different, because you don't have the family intrinsically connected. You can adopt, you can do all kinds of surrogacy and other things like that, but it is not organically related to the marriage, you know, married couple. But also just a family can be anything. It can be an individual person who adopts another kid. It could be whatever you want it to be. It just be... You know, it's totally fluid. And my one observation about this is that anything that can mean everything is beginning rapidly to mean nothing. And so when marriage can be defined as anything, the the social role of a man can be anything you want, whatever, you're drifting to directions where you have no social role and marriage really means nothing at all. There was a lot of things, I think the gay community wanted marriage for the sake of full acceptance and validation in society, and the weird side effect is what has happened is that marriage has become much less respected and validating in society. It's been doubted, it's been criticized. And I think what happened is this kind of, this collapsing of the meaning and significance of a term because you can apply it to almost anything. So this article to me, was kind of a good sociological work of reminding us about how important our cultural expectations of marriage are and how formative they are for the individuals who go off and particularly the men in this article. Probably it affects women too.

Scott Rae: Yeah, that... Rick, that's a great take on this, and app-re- especially appreciate the example of your son on this, who seems to have followed the script of this article quite precisely.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: He's gotta love that.

Rick Langer: I mean, it wasn't even written yet, but he got it tuned in, baby.

Scott Rae: That's right. I would add one other thing to the culture of marriage, and that is the ease with which you can, you can enter and exit marriages-

Rick Langer: Oh, yeah

Scott Rae: ... Also has something to do with this. That I think has deeply shaped our level of commitment that we view toward marriage. Though I think most people come into this, you know, not planning for divorce, but planning to be, you know, to be together. But, I think, I think people are less... They are less caught off guard and less surprised today when their marriage unravels. And they take that... They may, they may take that more as, you know, this is just... This is something that happens. It is what it is. It's part of life, and you move on. And that I think is... That's a troubling part of the culture that you, that I think that you describe.

Rick Langer: Yeah. And I would add... So that's a great point, Scott, and I think part of the social pressure now is the social pressure to be happy and to be who you like you should truly feel you are. And if marriage impedes that, then there's als- a social pressure to break the marriage vows, and that has not been historically the case. You know, the social pressure has been to sustain marriage. And now I think there's a pretty significant, pressure that says only sustain marriage if you're happy in it. And that means a lot of people don't work through five years of really dark times in a marriage to end up with 55 years of a wonderful marriage.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Well, here, it seems to me, Rick, if The big idea of this piece, I think, is so helpful, that if marriage is part of the plan for someone, and it doesn't matter that you don't know who that person is or when that's gonna be, but that's I think, so helpful to phrase them. If it's on the marital horizon, that shapes how you order your life in terms of careers, relationships, leisure time. And I think what maybe what behi- what's behind that is the more fundamental recognition that life is not all about me.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: That's I think that's a big part of the growing up moment. And I say, if anything, you know, marriage and family is, maybe the best way to put this, is a crucible for putting your self-interest in its proper place. 'Cause what I discovered is that, you know, having a good marriage, if it's all about me and my needs-... We're in deep trouble. And with every successive child we had, my self-interest sort of dropped fur- [laughs]

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... Further down the priority list, and I think, and rightly so.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Now, I think, I think it's possible that getting a head start on some of these things, sort of recognizing your life is not all about you, sort of comes with general spiritual maturity. You know, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6 that you are not your own. You've been bought with a price. Jesus said, you know, to deny yourself, deny ownership of yourself, I think was what he means by that, and take up our cross and follow him. But that, I think, I would say that is one of the key indicators of relational success that is, I think, a little bit deeper than what the article points out here. I also found some encouraging stats in this. You know, Sean's more the data nerd among us, but, you know, seven in 10 between ages 18 to 34 want to get married. I think that's a good sign. They see it on their horizon. Now, whether they're actually... Well, you know, the degree to which that is shaping their choices, I think, is up for grabs. But that also means that three in 10 either don't want to get married or are not sure if they want to get married, and that's, I think, a substantial increase over the last, you know, 30, 40 years.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: So I think, I'm encouraged that, you know, the the number that want to get married hasn't fallen off a cliff and is still a sizable number. But I, sort of wonder about the, that three in 10 that either don't see marriage on the horizon or are not sure about it.

Rick Langer: Yeah, I... When I began teaching my Money, Sex, and Power class at Biola, I think it was 2006, I remember, you know, going through a bunch of statistics and things on marriage. I think the num- percentage of people who wanted or were planning to be married, I think is usually what they ask, I think it was, like, 93%. And so I don't want to be a wet blanket here, but 70 is... When I saw that statistic here, that was the first thing I thought of, and I knew these numbers had gone down. I'm somewhat relieved, just like you said, that they have remained as high as they have under the assault that we've gone through, but nonetheless, that's a pretty big difference. And again, I would point to some of these socializing factors that we should never trivialize. They have a much bigger impact than we think.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Appreciate that sober reminder of where we, where we once were, compared to today.

Rick Langer: Good. And thanks for not just calling me a party pooper.

Scott Rae: No.

Rick Langer: Yeah. Good.

Scott Rae: I did sort of think buzzkill, but-

Rick Langer: [laughs] Okay

Scott Rae: ... You know, that's okay. Yeah, you know, one other thing on this, Rick. I wanna be careful that we think biblically about singleness as well, because singleness is not disparaged in the scripture.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: It is, it's also, it's... Both singleness and marriage are held in high esteem, and I think part of the reason for that is that the scripture does not view marriage as completing you. Paul's very clear in Colossians 2 that we are complete in Christ, and end of story. And you don't need a partner to complete you, and I would argue that the best candidates for marriage are those who are whole human beings

Rick Langer: Mm-hmm

Scott Rae: ... And of themselves-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... And not looking for somebody to complete them. And I think the reason that, marriage, of course, is held in high esteem is it's the one relationship that best illustrates the relationship between Christ and the church. But I know lots of single adults who are very mature, and, you know, and they, you know, they've, some have adopted kids on their own, from overseas. But I also know some single adults who are not. You know, they've missed some of these developmental stages. And so I think at the end of the day, I wanna, I don't wanna disparage singleness, 'cause I know a lot, I know a handful of women who I would say, as my seminary mentor put it, who are monuments to the, to the stupidity of men.

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: And, but I wanna, I wanna affirm that the Bible values singleness and, while at the same time it holds marriage in high esteem.

Rick Langer: Yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's a good word, Scott. And whenever you quote statistics, 'cause there's a ton of them, about the goodness of marriage, one of the worst things that can happen is that you think people hear you as quoting statistics about the badness of singlehood, and that is not, that is not true. But I I think there is a sense of the... I don't know if I can call it the normalcy or the need. There's a need for marriage [laughs] because there's a need to produce the next generation. And we talk sometimes like, "Hey, dude, wake up and smell the coffee. The world's been populated. We have filled the world." And I'm just like, "Guys, we are busy unfilling it right now." I've been saying this for 20 years as I've talked to people, and it's only been the last five years that people believe me anymore. It's not like I had info that anybody else didn't know and paid attention to declining birth rates and that curve, and now we have, I think the projection for the population of China in 2090 or sometime like that is 600 million people. So that is almost, that's more than cutting the population of China in half. That's courtesy of, courtesy of their one child policy.

Scott Rae: Yeah, and how many of those people are gonna be over the age of 60?

Rick Langer: Oh, it... I mean, it's a demographic bomb. People use that language a lot for describing this.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Rick Langer: And it's true. I mean, it really is a-... Catastrophic danger. And people say, "Well, you can have... You can do marriage. You don't need marriage, you can do surrogacy, you can do all these things." And at some point I just wanna say, look, as a brute fact, there is only one engine that has ever produced population growth for civilization at civilization level, and that is marriage and family. It is... So there's that essential function that has to be done by some. That's always different saying it has to be done by everyone no matter what.

Scott Rae: Right. That, that's good distinction. That's really helpful. All right, here's story number three, I think deals with some confusion about the separation of church and state. Rick, this is from the editorial pages of the Los Angeles Times this past Sunday. It's entitled Americans Want To Rebuild The Wall of Separation Between Church and State. Now, this is mostly a reaction to some of the religious components of the 250th anniversary of the country celebration in Washington, DC most recently, particularly the event called Rededicate 250, held on the Washington Mall, a movement to remind people of the Christian roots of America's founding and to foster a renewal of commitment to those principles, rededicating the country as one nation under God. It was intended by... It was attended by a whole host of people, most notably, several cabinet members, Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and several others. Now, to put this in context, the author of the piece is a religious, I'm not exactly sure what.

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: She des-

Rick Langer: Not very much. [laughs]

Scott Rae: She describes herself as... I mean, she's pretty clear about what, you know, about labeling herself. She describes her family as all over the place religiously. She was raised in a Unitarian Universalist church, and lived by the religious dictum that all religions are equal and spiritual paths all lead to the same place. Now, what that place is is not specifically spelled out, and I think maybe the best term I would use for her is I would call her a none, N-O-N-E.

Rick Langer: Yes.

Scott Rae: I think she sort of fits that

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Religious affiliation. Now, she cites recent Pew Research that indicates, quote, that, "More than half of those surveyed, 52%, agreed that conservative Christians have gone too far in trying to push their religious values in the government and public schools." Now, to be fair, she points out nearly half, 48%, said that liberals who are not religious have gone too far in trying to keep religious values out of government and public schools. Now she concludes that the, quote, "One thing large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats agree on is that churches and other houses of worship should butt out of politics." Now, she describes Christian nationalism briefly as an American identity that is inextricable from Christianity, and concludes the article with a plea for church and state separation. She says, "Americans don't need to rededicate themselves to the idea that we are one nation under God. We need to rededicate ourselves to the importance of keeping that big, beautiful wall between church and state, one of the very best things about this 250-year-old experiment." Now, Rick, I know you've done a lot of thinking about the First Amendment, and about religious freedom and what that entails, and what the separation of church and state actually is about. So what do you make of this, particular editorial?

Rick Langer: Yeah. So I appreciate you pointing out at the outset kind of her bent in this phrase, "All spiritual paths lead to the same place." I'm like [laughs] I never understand when people say that. I climb too many mountains, so people love this metaphor, "Well, you know, all the paths lead to the top." And I'm saying, okay. So I have a vivid memory of being on top of a mountain one time, and it was, there was a brewing thunderstorm, and the clouds were rolling in. The mountain was 14,000 feet high. The clouds were about 13 eight. So we were just in the clouds. And we were probably stupid, but we really wanted to get to the top, so we got to the top. And then we turned around in a hurry to get back down, and I started heading down the mountain, and, I noticed my buddies are getting further and further behind me. And I turned around and said, "Come on, guys, we need to keep moving." He says, I don't think this is the right way, Rick." And I'm like, "Oh, all paths lead to home," you know?

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Rick Langer: And so we keep going down the mountain, behind my wonderful leadership, and suddenly the clouds break, and I look down, and here's this gorgeous valley, sparkling water, and a river, and a lake, and the sun is shining, and I have never seen it before in my life. And I suddenly realize, this path doesn't lead home.

Scott Rae: Yeah

Rick Langer: So maybe some path leads all to some other... I don't know what you're talking about, but man, you can get a right path and a wrong path. And if you want a spiritual path that leads you home, don't buy stuff like this. Okay, I got that off my chest. [laughs]

Scott Rae: Appreciate that.

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: Now,

Rick Langer: Oh

Scott Rae: ... On to the subject at hand.

Rick Langer: Yeah, that's right. So one of the things that, A couple of comments on this. One thing she mentioned that I think is interesting that I believe is true. Our current moment, whatever you wanna say about Christian nationalism, I think there's this perception that Christians are under relentless attack in the United States. And I think... I'm not sure that's a good way to categorize where we are. We've had a fair bit of support from the Supreme Court, and not just from conservative justices. There's been a pretty good amount of people trying to preserve what you would call the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, that the, religion should have the freedom to have their exercise. Now, that is not to say that no one has been pushed back on the other side, but I don't see this cascade, this waterfall of throw religion out kind of thing as actually coming down the pipe. And I do think right now we are getting frothed up with a bunch of things that may not have as much support and sober reflection as we think they would.

Scott Rae: Yeah. My, wife works for an organization that serves the persecuted church around the world.

Rick Langer: Yeah.Bingo. I'm just like, "Guys, come on." And so yeah, there's uncomfortable moments. There's times that our faith isn't welcome, absolutely, but I'm like, boy, if we can't handle that, let's compare ourselves to 90% of the Christian population around the world and we will realize, oh yeah, it isn't that we are being massively assaulted the way we're making it out to be. Second thing that was in here was a quote,

Rick Langer: from, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who decried the separation of church as the biggest of church and state as the biggest lie that's been told in America. Now, I found that interesting 'cause... And she goes on and she talks about the separation of church and state, and like most people, she pins that to Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptists. But that phrase, a wall of separation, Roger Williams came up with that one, and he talked about a wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of this world. And you can feel his motivation in that of saying, "I want a wall of separation to protect the church from being corrupted by the wilderness of this world." And I worry that Roger Williams has been blazingly right about that. We need that, not for the way that we are commonly thinking of it, protect the state from this terrible church that's gonna conquer it and stomp it into oblivion, but rather the opposite, of that the church, the more it gets intermingled with aspiring to power and political power and things like that, we corrupt ourselves, and we need this wall of separation for that purpose. So I'm not a fan of the language of it's the biggest lie that was ever told. I'm like, number one, it's got a super long history at the very least in our country, 'cause Danbury Baptist letter was written in 1802, but it really has roots that go back to Roger Williams in the 18, 1630s, and it goes back to Christians. By the way, Roger William, key Baptist. Ironic, you know, 400 years later as we're talking about this to say, "Guys, your Baptist forefather was the guy who launched this." The Baptists who received this letter from Jefferson were probably willing to welcome it. So I think we have a, we've lost our historical bearings as we think of this issue, and it would be good to take a deep breath and think about that as we react to these things.

Scott Rae: Yeah, that's a great observation about Roger Williams because he coined that term, the wall of separation, as you pointed out, more than 100 years before the Constitution ensri- it was enshrined in the Constitution.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And I think the... You are, you are absolutely right. And to put it in the language of the editorial, the point was not that churches should butt out of politics, but that the state should butt out of the church.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: That was the point. And the reason for that was that the founders, they were good students of European history, and they knew that the wars of religion and things like that resulted when the state became the arbiter of religious belief. Now, the the other side to that I, that we, I don't wanna miss, is the founders were not hopeful about the future of democracy in the absence of morality.

Rick Langer: Yes.

Scott Rae: They-

Rick Langer: And religious morality in particular

Scott Rae: ... Right, and they, and they were not optimistic about morality in the absence of religion.

Rick Langer: Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

Scott Rae: And I, it seems to me that the article, I think, is reflecting a pretty fundamental misunderstanding, that the view of the First Amendment being expressed here is a freedom from religion-

Rick Langer: Yes

Scott Rae: ... Rather than a freedom of religion. And the difficulty with that is that it turns Christian faith and other religious faiths, not to mention Judaism and Islam and others, into a private faith, what Os Guinness described as privately engaging but socially irrelevant, which I would suggest is a truncated view of Christian faith and a truncated view of religious freedom. Now, the counter to that, I think, or to balance that, I would... In my view, the church's fundamental role is to stand above the political arena and above the partisanship with a prophetic stance that is has the freedom to say, "A pox on both your houses." And when the church bec- This is the in my view, the major issue when the church becomes intertwined with one political party or platform, either on the right or the left, it loses that, the ability to play that prophetic role.

Rick Langer: Yep.

Scott Rae: And that, I think, is a, that's a dangerous compromise in my view.

Rick Langer: Yes. And I love your use of that phrase, the prophetic role, because I do... Say, let's just take a look at the Old Testament and say, was the role of the prophet to say, "Yay, Israel," right or wrong? And I'm like, I mean, I've read-

Scott Rae: Yeah. Not exactly

Rick Langer: ... All the Old Testament prophets. I don't know how many times... I don't know that I've ever seen a phrase that looks like that. I mean, they are the first to point out when things are going wrong with the political powers of their nation, of God's nation, of of Israel. And for the church to not have a voice of criticizing our government when things are going wrong, I think we are catastrophically failing in our prophetic role.

Scott Rae: All right. Enough on that.

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: I I think we've made our point. Go for... You got one more, one more point?

Rick Langer: One last... I,

Scott Rae: No, go for it

Rick Langer: ... I love that quote, and I don't think the author took it to heart, about 50 per- 2% felt that conservative Christians have gone too far, and 48% felt that liberals have gone too far in pushing back on you know, intruding into religious values in public schools and government. And I actually, if I was filling out a form, I would've agreed to both of those questions.

Scott Rae: Yes.

Rick Langer: I don't think the 52/48 is a thing where you're saying these are completely different people. I'm saying roughly equally, I think we've had problematic things going on both ways, and I would love for us to see some clearer thinking. But anyhow-

Scott Rae: Hear

Rick Langer: ... Barry, go back to you.

Scott Rae: All right. Here's... Our last story is one for families, and particularly timely with summer starting, and that is how to give your family a screen-free summer. This is from The Free Press from psychologist Michaeleen Doucleff, the author of a book called Dopamine Kids-

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... Which is a study of how screens affect the brains of kids. And she begins the article, it's a really interesting story, over the battle she has with screen time with her own kids, which I thought was so enlightening, and I'll just, I'll just quote a part of it. She says, "Two years ago, I arrived at the end of my rope with my eight-year-old daughter's screen time. My husband and I closely followed our pediatrician's advice around screens. We allowed our daughter to watch Netflix or YouTube for about an hour a day. We rarely let her go beyond two hours. Several years later, I found I was struggling harder and harder to pull her away from devices. She would beg for screen time all day. When the timer went off, our thoughtful and helpful daughter suddenly began acting like a rude toddler. She yelled and fought with me. Sometimes she would run around the house at 9:00 PM crying or begging for one more episode. One night she curled up in a fetal position and hid under the desk whimpering. Said, 'This is so ridiculous,' I thought. 'Why do we go through this horrible ritual every single night?' So two years ago, I made a resolution for the entire summer our family would go screen-free. No iPad for my daughter, no social media for me, no video games for my husband, no streaming for any of us. We could text and call friends as much as we wanted, but outside of work we would use no screens." She comments, "I initially worried that we would fail miserably or that we would succeed, yet feel miserable, but I could not have been more wrong. After a week, my daughter started to do things that I never expected. In the afternoons, she played outside voluntarily until dinner. One morning I walked into her room, found her still in her pajamas reading a book and wanting to keep reading. Getting rid of screens wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. In fact, it was fun. Why? Because I had the tools and strategies to impose the policy successfully and overcome the pool of products intentionally engineered to addict children and captivate them for as long as possible, and you can too."

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: Right? Now, Rick, she concludes this, the article like this. I This is, this is such a, such a good ending. She says, "What does our daughter, who's now 10, think about our summer policy? 'It just feels like a normal summer,' she told me, shrugging her shoulders, 'but I don't wanna sit around all day. I want to find a job.'"

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: I thought, "What more could you ask for with that?" So Rick, I'm wondering your take on this. You know-

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Just-

Rick Langer: So, I... This is a fun article. There's not so many of these that put a smile on my face, and this was, pretty much one of those. So let me just highlight a couple of things. I... This is a pretty big thing for us and our family growing up, which, you know, my kids obviously are a lot older than the kids that she's referring to, but we were concerned about what was on TV, what was movies and so, we made a choice not to have a TV at all. And so I got a commu- computer monitor after a while and hooked it up to a VHS machine so I could play, we could play movies and have a movie night with the kids. Then later I got a big screen TV at Best Buy, and I stopped at the computer repair store or a TV repair place on the way home from Best Buy and said, "Could you remove the channel changer so we can't watch any television?" And the guy looked at me like I was crazy.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Rick Langer: And I said, "No, I just wanna hook it up, you know, I want the video feed and audio feed from my VHS to work, but nothing else." So he did that. That was way cheaper than getting a big monitor, I would point out. So this was a big thing in our family growing up, and one of the things that she did that I just wanted to highlight was I think the reason it worked was because this applied to Shari and I as much as it applied to our kids. So it's not like we were watching movies and they weren't able to. It's not like we were watching TV and they couldn't. It's not like we were using, to put it in modern language, our phones and they couldn't. This was very much this applies to both of us, and I love that thing she said at the beginning. "So two years ago, I made a resolution for the entire summer our family would go screen-free." And I tell you, a kid, by the time they're 8 or 10 years old, they know what the word hypocrisy means, even if they don't use the word hypocrisy. And I think one of the biggest powerful things about this story was just saying, "This is gonna be a family enterprise. We're all going to change," and the kids tend to go along with that. So anyhow, that was one of the things that really hit me as I looked at it.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it strikes me she had... I would say she had an extreme problem with her kids.

Rick Langer: She did. She did.

Scott Rae: That it required an extreme solution.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And I'm not convinced that this extreme solution is required across the board, though I commend you know, you and your family for making the decision that you, that you did. And I think it's so good for kids to discover playing outside, reading, doing things with their parents. I think kids being a bit more free range.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Sean and I have talked about that with some folks. Those are probably a good thing, and having kids get back to what I call the IRL community, the in real life community-... Rather than the digital one, which is the kind of community that we were created for.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Now, in my view, watching movies as a family, I think you're right. That's, a good thing, especially being able to talk about themes and conflicts. And so I'm not convinced that this complete cold turkey approach is necessary. But I think in a lot of ways, we could, we could do... Our kids, I think, could do a lot, a lot better with less screen time, and I know this is a frustration for lots of parents.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: So the article describing... We'll have the article, the link to the article posted for you so you can reference it, but, they give some keys to how to, how to do this. One of the things that they recommend is removing from vision the cues that trigger the desire for screens and devices.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: So put... She you know, the the mom put her, put her iPad in the drawer in the summer. You know, laptop goes in the closet when they're not working. And

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Things like that that don't trigger those kinds of things.

Rick Langer: One other thing they had in there, which I thought was great, was she made this comment about, yeah, there's people who say, "Yeah, kids should be bored. That makes them be creative," or whatever. And she kind of argued that roughly speaking, boredom is actually not a gateway drug to creativity.

Scott Rae: Yes

Rick Langer: ... It doesn't make a kid creative. And I, and I... That got me thinking. Let me just make a couple of thoughts that I've seen. I do a lot of projects and activities with my kids, and now with my grandkids, and it got me thinking that we need to kind of develop the skills of what you might call successful creativity. And I think a big part of that is just saying, okay, we need to scaffold creativity. So do things with the kids to help them succeed in making... My wife does mosaic art, so she will do mosaic with seven-year-old, nine-year-old kids, but they can, they can do that. I've been working in the woodshop with my kids, and again, they don't run my table saw, but they can do things successfully. And so we scaffold, we work with them to enable to do that, and then we also celebrate it. You know, we get it done. It's like-

Scott Rae: Yeah

Rick Langer: ... Okay, we gotta send a picture to your mom and dad, 'cause we'll do a lot of these things for like a weekend when we're watching the kids and the parents are off doing something else. So there's this process of kind of celebrating those sorts of things.

Scott Rae: Yeah, that's great.

Rick Langer: And the other thing is rewarding, and I wanna put that in quotes, where I'm a huge fan of rewarding by the goods internal to the practice. So that doesn't mean giving them an ice cream cone or giving them money or things like that, but you do things so they make something that they enjoy. The celebration, and it doesn't... The reward mechanism doesn't have to be external, but things that make them appreciate their product even more. They show it to someone, they're praised for the quality of their work-

Scott Rae: That's great

Rick Langer: ... Whatever it might be. And so I love this string. You know, don't think boredom leads to creativity, and also don't think creativity grows automatically. It it needs a good environment. It's like any plant. It needs the right kind of soil, the right kind of sunlight, the right kind of watering to flourish into a tree.

Scott Rae: That's great stuff. Thanks, Rick. Now, before we get to questions, say we'd love to have you come study with us at Talbot. We've got mas- bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in a variety of fields, Old Testament, New Testament, theology, marriage and, marriage and family, pastoral ministry, philosophy, apologetics. If you want to, if you wanna learn more, visit biola.edu/talbot. It also became public this week that Talbot has acquired Phoenix Seminary, which will become the Phoenix campus of Talbot, which will expand our impact, keep theological education vibrant in the Phoenix area. On last week's episode, while discussing the Pope's encyclical, you mentioned Anthropic story about AI agent blackmailing an executive. My concern is that without proper context, people will hear you framing and fearing AI even more, which the story, it was not a true story about real people, but it was a test that AI, that Anthropic did. If we perpetuate the fear of AI, many Christians will stay away from it, allowing others to dictate how AI is used. Fear is not what Christians should be promoting with AI. Instead, they should welcome it in the same way we welcome all of God's creation and seek to align it in the way of Christ. I'd appreciate hearing your thought, further thoughts on this. Rick, briefly, what's your take on that?

Rick Langer: Can I give a brief yes and no? [laughs]

Scott Rae: Yes.

Rick Langer: 'Cause I I do think, there's, It, it's important to get clear on stories like this. This happens all the time with AI, is you realize, oh, this thing happened, but it wasn't in the context you think it was. So I appreciate the reader or the listener pointing this out, and I you know, I think that's great. But I would underscore the fact that I think the thing that is concerning about it is the fact that you do realize AI can generate that. I don't care if it's a test or not, my point is, oh my gosh, this is what it can do. And so I suddenly don't relax when I read that as much as I think our listeners seem to be doing there.

Scott Rae: Understood.

Rick Langer: And then one other thought I'd say, I... You know, fear is not what Christians should be promoting with AI. Instead, they should welcome it in the same way we welcome all of God's creation. Well, I would make a note, I tend to distinguish between creation and culture, where creation is roughly speaking what God has made, and then culture is what human beings make of what God has made, what they make with it. And I think culture making is a, is part of how we manifest the image of God, and so I think it's a good thing. I'm not a guy who just said, "Ooh, culture always bad," but I just wanna say culture's never a thing you take for granted to be good.And I would say this with AI, with industrial technology, with all these other things, I'd be real careful about saying, "Oh, this is just God's good creation." I'm like, no, this is actually culture. It's what creatures have done with creation. It may be good, it may be bad, it may be in the middle. Usually it has a

Scott Rae: That's-

Rick Langer: ... Fair bit of in the middleness to it.

Scott Rae: That's a good word. Yeah, I say technology is God's good gift, but it's a mixed bag in a fallen world.

Rick Langer: You got it.

Scott Rae: All right. Here's the second one. This is another really good question. In my church, a heterosexual worship leader publicly supported LGBTQ-affirming ideology on social media. The leadership confronted him, and he agreed not to publicly promote those views anymore. That said, he believes homosexuality is an agree to disagree issue and refuses to discuss this further with leadership. Leadership believes that since he is no longer publicly promoting the view, the matter should be dropped. In doing so, is the leadership inadvertently treating this as an agree to disagree issue? Is it a legitimate distinction to say homosexual practice is not an agree to disagree issue, and at the same time say whether Christians may hold the mistaken belief that homosexual practice is an agree to disagree issue is itself something we to disagree... Can agree to disagree about, as long as they don't practice the act themselves?

Rick Langer: I'm waiting for you to give me an easier question, Scott.

Scott Rae: Can you make sense out of that?

Rick Langer: [laughs] So, yeah, I there are couple-

Scott Rae: Basically it's about, you know, the degree to which sexuality is an agree to disagree about issue.

Rick Langer: Yeah, no, I, it's actually nicely worded, nicely framed question. And, so I would, I would definitely for my money, I would say that the permissibility of LGBTQ lifestyles is not an agree to disagree issue. And so I think that is a concern. And he makes a good observation here, he or she, I don't even know. Oh, it's he, I think, yeah. And he says, in doing so, is the leadership inadvertently treating this as an agree to disagree issue? I think that's actually a really good question to ask, and to an extent it seems like they kind of are. Though I am not in a great position to judge it, 'cause I don't know how much was said or how the whole situation was handled. I am also concerned if it's a person who's in pastoral leadership, I think it would be hard in a church today to have, not have people who would share the view, the kind of side B view, side B view that's represented in this, you know, just a agree to disagree and it's okay, for those who are meant that way, so to speak. I think that you tend to have people running around in almost every church who do think that, and we don't automatically just kick them out of the church. But I think there's lots of things like that where you say, look, there's qualifications for leadership that are different than qualifications for just being a church member, and we have more diversity in one group than the other. And so I think this is one of those issues that is going to be thorny and probably increasingly so. But I am very reluctant. I've written a lot about doing things about saying, "Hey, look, we have room for disagreement about many issues." And so I've written a lot, Romans 14, a bunch of areas-

Scott Rae: Mm-hmm

Rick Langer: ... Where I say it's important, and these aren't just trivial issues. That said, it's equally clear that there are areas that are just kind of black and white. And I would point out with Romans 14, Romans 13 came right before that, where Paul says, "Let the time that's past be sufficient for a whole collection of things," and he lists, includes in the list sexual immorality and orgies. Which the sexual immorality umbrella would explicitly cover LGBTQ, and orgies-

Scott Rae: Right

Rick Langer: ... Are also things that you just don't get to do. So that's on the, yeah, that's not an agree to disagree. That's just not- ... Faithful Christian practice.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I would suggest that, Eph- Paul's teaching in Ephesians 5 suggests that if marriage and sexuality are not agree to disagree areas, because marriage and sexuality model the connection between Christ and the church.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: That seems to me something fundamental that's rooted in a profound, timeless theological truth. All right, Rick, good stuff today. Man, thanks so much for being with us, and, look forward to having you come on with us again at another point. Always good, insightful stuff to hear from you, and appreciate the depth and the nuance with which you bring to the issues of the day and to these questions.

Rick Langer: Well, thanks again. It's always fun to be with you, Scott.

Scott Rae: All right. This has been the Weekly Cultural Update from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. If you'd like to submit comments, ask questions, make suggestions, we'd love to hear from you. Please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please take a few, a minute and give us a rating on your podcast app and share it with a friend. And join us on Tuesday for our conversation with Dr. Carl Truman on his new book called The Desecration of Man. It's a super interesting conversation, and we look forward to that being posted. In the meantime, thanks for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]