Cultural Update: What Americans Think When No One Is Watching; Gen Z and Risk-Taking; High Schoolers and Turning Point USA; Hidden Awareness in Vegetative States

Episode Transcript

Scott Rae: [upbeat music] What Americans think when no one is watching. Gen Z's great retreat from risk, teenagers and Christian nationalism, and what if people in comas are somewhat conscious? These are the stories we'll cover today, and we'll also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Scott Rae, and sitting in for Sean, who's back in the country but on the road speaking, is my Talbot colleague and frequent guest co-host, Dr. Rick Langer. This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update coming to you from Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. Rick, thanks for being with us. I will say I'm on the road, too, but that doesn't keep me from my appointed rounds. So, thank you for filling in for Sean today. I think he's on an airplane as we speak, so.

Rick Langer: It is harder when you're on an airplane.

Scott Rae: It is.

Rick Langer: I will give him credit for that.

Scott Rae: Almost impossible. So anyway, thanks for joining me. We got four great stories here and some really good questions from our listeners. So here's the first one. It's what Americans really think about today's controversial issues. This is, this is the result of a study that's done by the Free Press called the Honesty Project. Now, it's not quite what the title implies because it's not really about the subject of honesty per se, but a survey to get at honest opinions of Americans on some of the hottest issues of today. It's an ongoing project between now and November, with results published periodically. Now, the authors of the piece, the, and the purveyors of the project, are skeptical of traditional surveys because, as they put it, quote, "The typical methods of finding out, polls, surveys, focus groups, all have a serious flaw. They tend to elicit less than honest answers. Regardless of whether the designers intend it, participants feel like they're taking a test, and they adjust their feelings to give the, quote, 'right answer.' Thus, they miss the full picture." So to counter this, they've partnered with a group of neuroscientists who have developed a method to ascertain what people think more accurately than some of the traditional polls, or so they claim. Now, what they found was surprising, to say the least, and they indicate that in some areas, the polarization of the culture may be worse than we think, but in some, in some cases, may be a little bit more encouraging. Now, the first study had five main questions that they asked, and what they do, Rick, is they put in the most controversial questions sort of hidden in the ones that are more obvious so that people will will answer more what they really think when they think they're doing this in private. So here's what they found. 62% of Americans privately believe that the greatest threat to the country is other Americans, some 20 points higher than what they are saying publicly. Here's the one that really got my attention. 39% of Gen Z privately believe that violence may be necessary to save the country, about a 15-point difference from what they say publicly. Here's another one that got my attention, too. Only 40% of Republicans say, publicly say that elections are fair, but 61% say so in private, a significant increase, but still, I think, a significant number, almost over a third, that believe that elections are not fair. Now, and on the positive side, Americans are privately more patriotic than they suggest in public, by a significant amount, actually. But they are more skeptical privately about America being a force for good in the world than they admit publicly. So those are the they were, there were, there were those five, those five questions they asked. Those, that's what they found in the first segment. Succeeding installments will have other questions and I, suppose equally surprising findings. So Rick, I'm really curious on your take on this. You are a part of Biola University's Winsome Convictions project. This does not say really encouraging things about our winsomeness, among other things. But, I'm curious to hear your take on this and then I've got, I've got some comments as well.

Rick Langer: Sure. You know, one of the things that this whole project reinforces is the problematic nature of survey data. Obviously, people misquote surveys, they take things out of context, things like that, and that, those are the things that, you know, bad on them for doing that. But surveys are harder to do well than we think they are. And probably the only thing I'd add to that is that this is represented as what people think privately or secretly in their own heart versus what they would say publicly. But that isn't really, as near as I can tell, that's probably misrepresenting a little bit about what the difference between this survey is and other kinds of surveys. So I'm intrigued to see how this plays out. I think it's a noble cause. I am appreciative of it. I'm not sure... I I need more details to know if I really am convinced that this is a good way to assess private thought and public thought.

Scott Rae: Yeah, now just let me jump in here for our, so our listeners will know. Within the article, there's a embedded in there is a short four-minute video that explains more the research methodology of the purveyors of the study. So if you wanna hear a little bit more, I mean, Rick and I, we both, we both watched that. But if you wanna hear a little bit more just than you can get from reading the article, I'd encourage you to look up, look up that.

Rick Langer: Yeah. And it like I say, totally noble cause. I'm a huge fan of doing it. I just wanna say it's still a survey data, so keep your same antennas up for how good the survey data really is. And we'll see, and I hope that they learn by doing this, and they can get better and better at doing it. So I'm, like I said, I'm a fan. I just don't wanna go leaping off and saying-

Scott Rae: I understand

Rick Langer: ... "Oh, now we've got it all figured out."

Scott Rae: Yeah

Rick Langer: ... Couple of things that I found really intriguing, and you already mentioned one of these, the issue of prevalence of resorting to violence as, let me just call it, legitimate political discourse, a legitimate way to work your political ends, so to speak. And Gen Z was, well, they were high to begin with on this, but they were higher yet in terms of what they were thinking in private You know, they they feel constrained not to overexpress it, and they are, you know, very much 39%, I believe was the number you quoted, and that's disturbing. But let me add an interesting other statistic to this. When you look at this, conservatives and liberals violence in, civil discourse, and interestingly enough, the liberals, 15% of liberals said that they would, resort to, you know, it would be legitimate to resort to political violence. 28% of conservatives said that in private. And as a guy who kind of lives in the conservative camp, let me just acknowledge I found that disturbing in a analogous way to the way I found Gen Z disturbing. I just don't think that that's a legitimate thing, and I understand there's times and places it can be, you know, revolutions over tyrants. I mean, I understand there's big, complex things. I'm really asking that question about what I see the political life of America being today and going, do we say, "Hey, it's cool to resort to political violence or not?" So I'm kind of disturbed on both ends of that thing. I'm disturbed for Gen Z. I'm deserved, disturbed for my political tribe, so to speak.

Scott Rae: Let me ask you a question just about that subject of political violence, Rick, and see what you think. Do you think, are there any instances in which you believe political violence would be justified from a, from a biblical worldview?

Rick Langer: Like the American Revolution or something like that?

Rick Langer: Yeah. So, you know, I can see political violence being justified potentially in a Let me take Nazi Germany, make it a little bit more third party. I feel like whatever I say about the American Revolution is gonna run afoul with 70% of us who are really patriotic and wanna celebrate the Fourth of July in a couple of days, so.

Scott Rae: Especially on our, the 250th anniversary-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... Of the country.

Rick Langer: It's all right. You know what? I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna burn all my bridges here. But when you see certain things going on, at some point you say something has to be done. I think Dietrich Bonhoeffer was confronted with this exact sort of a problem, where he by you know, general disposition was not merely what you might call a person who would advocate for traditional liberal democracies. And by that I don't mean liberalism, but just the kind of democracy that America has always been, that Germany was its aspiring to be, in the Weimar Republic but didn't really work out. But, Bonhoeffer was a pacifist, but at some point he saw what was happening in Nazi Germany and just said, "Wow, this can't, this can't stand." And so he had, he had an interesting ethical, processing of that wasn't so much generating a general ethical principle about this, but almost more of a personal call of God that he felt that he needed to be engaged in a certain way. So I'm open to that as being a thing that can happen, but boy, I would really like to keep that very limited in terms of the times and places that you play that card.

Scott Rae: Yeah. I would say very rare exceptions to this, and I think that the general rule is that political violence is almost never justified.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: I think today, especially in a, in a, in a a vibrant democracy like we have in the US, where you can, you can state your opinion, you can protest, you can do other... There's all sorts of non-violent ways to try to, try to e-engineer change. I'd be, I'd be very reluctant to give anybody the green light on that.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: I think, you know, part of, part of the way I reacted to this, Rick, was I do think we tend to say what we think our tribe believes when speaking publicly.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And when... But maybe less so privately. And I think it's, you know, some studies have shown that, when you, when you are around more and more people of your tribe, you tend to, you tend toward the extremes because you don't have people in your tribe to counterbalance some of that movement toward extremes. And I think, you know, lots of us, I think, believe things that we may not be willing to say out loud but would say to a close friend or somebody who we're sure is not gonna judge us. But given our state of polarization, I think the idea that there's a, there is a distinction between what we might be willing to say out loud and what we would say privately, I think is a valid and fair distinction. And to be honest, I'm a bit discouraged about, what the study shows about who the greatest threat to the country is, being our fellow citizens. And I'm, and I'm discouraged about the the skepticism about the United States being a force for good in the world. Now, to be honest, the survey was done probably in the, in the, shortly in the aftermath of the Iran war starting, which I think can raise some skepticism about, the US at present being a force for good. But I think historically, that it's almost, I think it's almost unarguable that America has been, on balance, a force for good in the world, and we lead the world by far in the amount of charitable giving we give to, you know, not just to government foreign aid, but individuals involved in charitable giving. We outrank the rest of the world by a long shot, in terms of charitable giving. That's not the only measure of that, and you know, not everything the US does in the world is good. We obviously have our flaws and shortcomings. But to, I think to think biblically about this, you know, yeah, I think every country's gonna be a, whether they're a force for good or not in the world, is gonna be a mixed bag because of the general inclination to sin. And we tend to be, we tend to be actually pretty skilled at self-deception about the amount of good [laughs] that we're doing. So I wouldn't wanna, I wouldn't wanna buy into that. But I think, those are just a couple things that caught my attention on this.

Rick Langer: Yeah. It... One other one that I'd love to talk about was the issue about, one of the questions they asked was, I believe elections in America today are free and fair. And as you already mentioned, there's a tendency, one of the things that was came up in this was a tendency for things, for us to drift towards a perception of our subculture, in terms of what we say-

Scott Rae: That's a good way to put it

Rick Langer: ... Publicly. So this was one of the ones I found quite distressing was, again, this is about my tribe, the conservative world. They go in that movement from being the people who are most inclined to believe American elections are fair, that's what we think in private as conservatives, and we are the ones who are least likely to say they're fair in terms of our public discourse. So if you look at that chart, you'll find the two foremost extremes are both held by conservatives, and one is what we think in private, one is what we think in public. And here's what I'd like to say to our listeners, Scott, as a, as a word of exhortation. If you believe American elections are by and large free and fair, as, you know, as good as you can reasonably expect in a fallen world, I would encourage you to find your voice on that. Because our tendency to be the ones who are the ones who are most inflammatory about elections, I think is one of the things that degrades our understanding of America. I think it is a thing that dismantles one of the things that has been one of the most significant contributions I think American has made to, America has made to kind of human politics in the last 200 years. We've got a good track record of honoring the rule of law and having, as I say, elections that are within the realm of what you can count as fair. And for us to never speak up for that because our tribe has decided we're going to say the other thing, I would encourage all those who do feel the opposite way to just put the brakes a little bit on your companions in your, in your subculture. Because if you believe it, this is a moment that I think it'd be good to speak up for.

Scott Rae: Hear That's a good, that's a drop the mic moment that we'll leave it there. Here's... Second story is about Gen Z and risk-taking. This is from our friend Arthur Brooks, also in the Free Press, and citing a report from a research organization that goes by the name of Monitoring the Future. Brooks starts out the piece with this arresting statement. He said, "Young Americans are drinking a lot less than they used to. That bodes ill for America." [laughs] I just, I definitely am gonna read the rest of the piece. Now he explains it like this is in part good news, but the new finding also indicates a trend that is distinctly less cheery, an unwillingness to take risks associated with adult behaviors. Among adolescents and young adults, all manner of risk-taking, from having sex to driving a car, has tanked in recent years. For example, their investing habits are notably more conservative than previous generations. Gen Z is even more resistant to high-stakes investment in other people. For example, in 1980, 90% of 35-year-old men were married. Today, the rate is 60% and falling fast. In 1993, 83% of 12th grade girls said they hoped to marry at some point. By 2023, only 61% say the same, said the same. Similar results on having children. The average number of children that young adults planned to have fell from 2.3 in 2012 to 1.8 in 2023. And that year, only 51% of those ages 18 to 34 without kids said they planned to ever have any." Further results indicate that nearly three-quarters of Gen Zs say that you can't be too careful in dealing with people, far and away the highest of any age cohort. And depressingly, only 13% of Gen Z'ers say that most people can be trusted. Now, the result that, Brooks concludes is that in the pursuit of avoiding risk, Gen Z is actually avoiding people. Now, to be clear, it's not just the riskiness of life that's increasing, but it's aversion to risk. Drinking, as Brooks points out, is really not any more risky today than it was in the past, though perhaps binge drinking may be a little bit more popular than in years past. Driving is safer than ever. Investing is safer. Marriage is safer. Divorce rates peaked in the 1980s and have been falling ever since. Unemployment rates have been low for most of the current century, and on and on. And here's the big idea that Brooks is trying to get across: A growing culture of risk aversion is a harbinger of all manner of bad civilizational choices, ballooning welfare programs, punitive taxes, disappearing economic vitality, class-based activism on the right and left, and demographic collapse. All right. Your thoughts?

Rick Langer: So I thought this was actually, a very interesting article. And there's been a lot of talk about risk aversion, helicopter moms, bubble-wrapped kids, that kind of thing. So

Scott Rae: Coddling of the American mind

Rick Langer: ... Coddling of the American mind, exactly. And so this is not a newsflash But it's one more reminder of the prevalence of this. And one of the things I liked about Brooks' article, he made, as you already pointed out, this really clear distinction between an increase in risk, which could legitimately lead to fear and concern and all that kind of thing, versus an increase in risk aversion. And he said, "Look, guys, we really just have the increase in risk aversion. We don't want to take chances." He pointed out that there's a tendency to look towards others to solve your problem or towards the government or things like that, rather than having what we might call a robust version of personal autonomy and personal responsibility that says, "Look, I'm the first person who needs to take responsibility for my own life." And that isn't a thing that has to be grounded in rugged American individualism. That can just be grounded in stewardship. As a Christian, I am a steward of the gift of life, and do I want to be the guy who takes my 10 talents, wraps them up in a handkerchief, and buries them in the ground? That guy was risk-averse. And I think it's clear that God wants us to invest our, you know, our talents, our time, our treasure in things that will advance his kingdom, and oftentimes those can be risky things. And so I appreciate Brooks making that point. One of the other things I appreciated too is he said, "So what do we do about all this?" And he made an interesting suggestion. You know, role models, adult role models kind of need to stick up, step up to the plate. And he said some of that is leaders, and he quoted, John F. Kennedy talking about, you know, going to the moon and things like that and saying, "We don't need to do these things." we need to do these things exactly because they are hard things. And the value as human beings of doing hard things well, doing good things that demand the very best of us and have great risk if we fail, those are some of the best moments of human life. And risk aversion pulls the plug on that. And so I appreciate that. And I don't want to go back to my little rant at the end of our last one.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Rick Langer: But I do want to say, when it comes down to being role models, you don't have to think of things that John F. Kennedy was doing, but even these little things where you say, "You know, let me be brave enough to speak up for things that I believe when my tribe is going the other way just to help moderate our tribe," because we know the dynamics of polarization tend to go worse and worse. Let me be the guy who models saying, "Well, you know what? I can speak for myself on this. I can speak for a different viewpoint." And I think that would be another way to pick up on Brooks' theme of providing role models of a different and better way to live.

Scott Rae: Yeah, no, I agree that, Brooks was pretty light on possible solutions, though I think his point that being more optimistic about the future from older generations might be pretty helpful.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And I don't, I don't know about your kids, Rick, but I don't see this in my own kids. And I'm not sure I can explain why, because they're all artists of one sort or another. Our oldest is a freelance producer of commercials. Our middle one uprooted life a couple years ago and moved to the Midwest to take a job. Our youngest is pursuing acting in New York City. You know, two of them are thr- you know, three time zones away from here. And two of them I think are clearly headed toward marriage. And I don't think they have characterized the risk averso- averseness that the article points out, but neither are they of Gen Z age either, since all of them are in their 30s.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And I think what this may reflect is that the launch ramp to adulthood is maybe a bit longer today than it was in previous generations, where you were forced to grow up more quickly. You know, like the World War II generation. I mean, my dad was in the Navy at 17, and he was... He had to grow up in a hurry.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: Now, I think within a Christian worldview, I think the article points out that, this is, this is the anxious generation. And I think anxiety, the debilitating anxiety, I think can be, you know, and there are ways to treat that medically, of course, but they can also be at odds with trust in a sovereign God that frees us up to take risks, but to not be foolish about them. And it strikes me that, you know, that following Jesus is, Paul describes that as fundamentally walking by faith, not by sight. And walking by faith seems to me to be something that is fundamentally not risk-averse. You recognize, you recognize the risk, but you go ahead and step out in faith and trust God. And, you know, Jesus tells us to seek first his kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you. And I I'd want to point out that God doesn't always bail us out from our foolishness if we take risks that are ill-advised, but he does work all things together for our good. Though to be fair, his good for us and our vision for our good may be two somewhat different things. But I, you know, I just, I wonder just sort of the impact of this on the average person in their spiritual life who is... Who we are called fundamentally to deny ourselves, take up our cross, follow Jesus, walk by faith and not by sight. Those are, you know, the being risk-averse tends to undercut all of those kind of important things.

Rick Langer: Yeah, I, you know, we... The blood of the martyrs flows in our veins, right? I mean, the blood of the martyrs is seed of the church. I I want to think of Christian heritage, and by the way, I'm not talking necessarily only historically. I'm talking at this moment around the world, there are countless people who are suffering and dying for their Christian faith, and I think we've got kind of a comfortable Christian faith here, and that that makes us sort of doubly risk-averse. You know, there's a natural fear of these things, but it seems like we can be Christian without making- Fear-inducing decisions. And I would point out the promise of the gospel, and you've already said this, but I'll just underscore it, is not that if you take a risky decision, everything will work out great. The testimony of reading scripture and church history would both agree that sometimes you do the right thing and it ends very badly, in the here and now. And you definitely wanna believe that that is not the whole story. But I worry that we kinda lose the heavenly values. We lose the sense of saying there's a crown awaiting you in heaven for some of these decisions that ought to be a sense that moves us to say, "You know, I'm willing to take risks, even risks that may seem really big risks that are beyond my control, that could fail, but let me, let me do this." So I I'd like to see us, you know, be more known as people who are willing to be taking risks.

Scott Rae: Well, and if, doing the right thing always worked out well for us, we'd always do it.

Rick Langer: That's right.

Scott Rae: Which is [chuckles] which sort of explains, you know, why we don't. Because it doesn't always work in the short term. Now, I think in the long term there's a better argument to be made for that. But Rick, as I think back even in the early church, this just the statement, "Jesus is Lord," was highly risky in the first century.

Rick Langer: That's correct.

Scott Rae: And could easily have cost someone their life or their freedom. And, you know, thankfully we don't live in a world, in a part of the world where that's true, but it is still true in lots of parts of the world today and, you know, in lots of the Middle East and in North Korea and others, you know, just acknowledging publicly a faith in Jesus is very risky. ...

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: All right, anything else on this one?

Rick Langer: No, I think we've got it.

Scott Rae: Yeah. I appreciate our friend Arthur Brooks on a pretty insightful story. Here's a third one on the connection between teenagers, high school students primarily, and Christian nationalism. This is from The New Yorker magazine and aimed at the followers of Charlie Kirk, the Turning Point chapters. It's, there's, they're actually, they're still called Turning Point chapters on college campuses. They're now called Club America chapters at the high school level. And those have exploded in the, you know, in the roughly year since Charlie Kirk was killed. They said there are roughly 3,600 of these campuses in high schools alone across the country. There's also a group called Turning Point Faith, which is aimed more at Christian colleges and at churches around the country. And it brings, I think, Rick, an interesting mix of Christian faith and patriotism and love for your country. And they, one of the, one of the purveyors described it like this, quote, "We love the greatness of America. We believe in the exceptionalism of this country and the providence of God having His hand on this country. Faith was integrated into every aspect of Turning Point." Now, it's described by others, who are maybe a little more critical, as something like this. The movement is both, quote "political and religious."

Scott Rae: Matthew Brody, a professor of English at North Georgia and the author of a book about the Seven Mountains, as he explained it, its leaders, "urge believers to take control of the seven spheres of influence in the country, education, entertainment, media, religion, family, business, and government." Another critic puts it like this, "Seven Mountains isn't just charismatic theology. This is a vision for a total takeover of society." Now, it's, to be clear, Christian faith is a critical part of the movement. It's intertwined with a political vision, I think, that is closely tied to conservative politics, seeing those as entailments of Christian faith. All right, so I ... This was, this was a long article. There's a lot here to comment on. That's just the basic ... I try, I gave, this, that's a thumbnail sketch of what we have here. So, Rick, why don't you start us off with, the stuff that caught your attention with this?

Rick Langer: Yeah. So one of the things, as you noted, this is a long article, and so it's hard to know where exactly to dive in. Let me pick up one theme that, I found striking, was the language of is someone a good Christian and is America a Christian nation? That, you know, that discussion,

Rick Langer: came up in a bunch of places over the course of the article. And it's interesting to think, so how do we define ... I remember teaching a class at Biola on, faith and film, and we had a long discussion about what makes something a Christian film. And I'm, I would be the first one to acknowledge that there's lots of ways to use a phrase like that. And so it's a very legitimate thing to say, "Okay, we need to define what we mean by this term, and then answer the question." And oftentimes the discussion can be really interesting. You learn things by having that kind of a discussion about what the definitions are. And so it, there's things in here about was Charlie Kirk a good Christian, and there's certain parts from it where then you're qui- having quotes from Charlie that seem, you know, clearly very, on the appearance and surface, seem very racist or very, problematic in terms of how Christian that they sound.

Rick Langer: I think the same thing happens a lot when we talk about Chris- well, and same thing happened with Erika Kirk in this context, Trump, Tucker Carlson. There's a bunch of people who have this Christian label slapped on and off them, and that's part of the question of, you know, does it really apply? And I simply wanna underscore that's a good conversation to have. We need to think about what we mean by that, and we need to often define our terms when we're having that conversation. I've noticed that a lot of Christians, and this comes up in the article as well, are very testy about having the phrase Christian nationalism applied to them. And yet they're often very willing to adopt the phrase Christian nation to describe America. And I just wanna say there's something pretty parallel about those two things that both need some definition. And I think the idea of us being a Christian nation, I'd say, "Well, let's talk about what you mean by that, and then we can decide if we agree we are or aren't a Christian nation." I think there's no quest- and you read some of these things about the roots of the Christian faith and the founding of our country that are clearly there, but are we a nation that by governmental law favors Christianity as opposed to other religions? Is that core to our constitution and national identity? Are we a nation that rewards or only gives public office to people who are Christians? Are we kind of a Christian analogy to Suria- Sharia law? We would really would say that have Sharia law are Muslim countries. You know, this is their identity. Are we saying a parallel thing about the Christianity in America? And I don't think our founder... To put, you know, I'll put my cards on the table on this, and that is that I don't believe our founders had envisioned something that is analogous to that kind of a Christian nation where Christianity is favored, Christianity is the only ones who can serve, that it should be a test for holding office or things like that. I don't think that was ever there, and I think it's right for people to push back on certain notions of Christian nation and then ask the question, how does the Seven Mountains theology map onto that distinction? Because there's a version of Christian nation I think is legitimate. There's a version I don't think is legitimate. And where does Seven Mountains lie? My... I have limited experience with people who talk Seven Mountains, and all I can say is that, it seems to depend upon who you're talking to about the Seven Mountains. 'Cause for some people, they're simply saying, "Hey, these are seven areas of influence. Christians should exert their influence. We should seek to, enthrone Christ as king in any aspect of created order, every sphere of endeavor over, in which we're engaged." So of course, that's our goal. And I, to that, I kind of shrug my shoulder and say, "Sure." others, even in this article, the phrasing of this seventh thing, take over the country, and you can almost hear marching boots in the background. And I'm like, "Well, I don't think I... For my money, I don't think that's what Seven Mountains theology was intended to be," but I do worry that some people pick it up and actually run with it that way. And it's like whatever works for us to advance the cause, let's advance the cause. I don't care how it's done. I don't care who does it, as long as we end up getting, you know, our agenda pressed forward. That's all a great thing. So I found myself very conflicted as I was reading through this article about what I was hearing, what I was feeling at different times.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Now, Rick, I think you'd agree with me on this. There's nothing wrong with any interest group, religious or otherwise, exercising as much cultural influence as they can.

Rick Langer: Yeah. Absolutely.

Scott Rae: And we, and we, you know, we've pointed out that there are, you know, there are very influential interest groups that are a minuscule part of the population. The Jewish community, for example, very influential. LGBTQ caucus, very influential, even though they're... Both of those are very small parts of the population. And it seems to me that the founders intentionally set the Constitution up to promote a marketplace of ideas, both in the religious and the political arena, and that the best ideas that generated the most support were the ones that carried the day. Now, the other thing that I think just struck me on this, I think, I think it is right to recognize the Christian origins of the Founding, and I think that, I think that's accurate. Although I would say it's more based on natural law and a general view of God's providence as opposed to anything that was explicitly chapter and verse in the scriptures. And I think, you know, recognizing the biblical origins, for example, of the separation of powers based on the... It was clearly based on the doctrine of the total depravity of human beings.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And the idea that you don't wanna concentrate power in totally, in any totally depraved individual or body, I think is a, I think was a valid and fair application of the idea that we're all, at our core, miserable, wretched, depraved, hopeless, self-centered sinners, thankfully redeemed by the blood of Christ.

Scott Rae: And I would, I think that the other thing that they, I think the founders were clear about, and it was based more on providence, I think, than anything else, was they were, it was, it was somewhat of a theologically based exceptionalism for the American experiment, and that's the part that I think is is troubling to me, because I don't think that... I think we just need to be really careful about describing any country as theologically exceptional. What I mean by that is theologically sort of God's chosen people and a a substitute, a contemporary substitute for Old Testament Israel as God's chosen people. God... There is no chosen people today that's analogous to the way God dealt with the nation of Israel. Now, I think there are a lot of things exceptional about America. It's just I don't see any of them as being explicitly theologically grounded, and I think that's a point that I think we need to make. And I say God's kingdom is on schedule, regardless of the national fortunes of any particular country today, and God does not need any country to flourish, though he clearly prefers that they would, in order to see his kingdom eventually come. Now I would, what I'm seeing with some of the Christian nationalist tendencies is something I think we need to be careful of, and that is what I would call the post-millennial temptation. To think that our, that our righteousness, our being spiritually and culturally with the program and influential can somehow usher in the Kingdom of God. And I think that's, in my view, that's not the biblical vision of eschatology. Jesus brings the fullness of the kingdom when he returns, and I'm not convinced that the activity of human beings has much to do with when that will actually occur. Because Jesus himself claimed that he didn't know the time, of his return. So I just, I I wanna be careful. In fact, I I challenge our listeners, watch how your church celebrates the 4th of July, if they do.

Rick Langer: Yeah.

Scott Rae: And watch for what the mix of faith and patriotism actually looks like. I think my experience is a little bit like yours, that when the cross gets wrapped up in the flag, the cross has a way of disappearing.

Rick Langer: Yep.

Scott Rae: And, you know, Sean and I have mentioned this before, that in order for the church to remain its prophetic stance, it has to stand above political partisanship in order to be able to critique both sides of the aisle when it's called for.

Scott Rae: Now, I think one of the reasons that we are so divided and become so passionate about the political arena is that we believe that that these positions are entailed by our faith, which is why we take them seriously. It's why we're passionate about them, but it's also why we have to have the humility to admit that we might be wrong and that we might be applying scripture incorrectly. We're asking scripture to speak to things that it's actually silent about. And as we've said numerous times before, no political platform is completely biblically faithful, 'cause that wasn't the point of it. And the Bible doesn't generally give us specific policy prescriptions, but general moral and theological principles which then we then have to apply to current issues and where there's, I think, lots of room to agree to disagree about how those principles actually apply. Anything else you wanna add to this?

Rick Langer: Well, so I would underscore that I think you've hit the nail on the head with this issue, and there's a sense of,

Rick Langer: Yeah. So let me just put it this way. In ancient Israel, you really did have a political entity that could legitimately be called God's people at that time, and it was a national entity. And let me just give everyone a reminder. If you, if you don't like what Scott just said, and you say, "No America is exceptional. We are the Christian nation today," let me just point out, if you read the prophets in the Old Testament, ask yourself, do those prophets just say, "Hey, you're doing great, right or wrong, you're on God's side, and it's all wonderful"? Are the prophets constantly calling the political leadership of Israel in the Old Testament times back to covenant faithfulness because they're always finding them running amok? And so I would say whatever your viewpoint is, no matter how much you're committed to the flag, let me just say that you're not gonna find it any more of a Christian or a you know, God's people sort of nation than Old Testament Israel was. And in that context, the role of prophetic faithfulness was, well, I don't know, you tell me, Scott, is it 90%? You're the Hebrew scholar.

Scott Rae: Oh, yeah. [laughs] Yeah.

Rick Langer: 90, 95% of the time you find the prophets flamingly pushing back against the injustices, the it's falsely going to war, false... And the failing to care for widows and the needy. It's all kinds of things they're doing wrong that the prophets find a voice to speak up about and say, "This is not right."

Scott Rae: Yeah. And they also said it to the surrounding pagan nations, too.

Rick Langer: Yes. Rarely. I mean, if you look at the percent, they spent more time talking about Israel-

Scott Rae: Mostly Israel. That's true

Rick Langer: ... But they had no problem having, taking a trip up to, you know, check out and see how things are going in Nineveh or Edom or whoever it may be. But yeah. The, so they're, they have zero expectation that they're gonna look at their political structure and say, "Hey, everything's cool. These guys are on our side. Let's cheer for them right or wrong."

Scott Rae: Yeah. No, well, and I would... My hope is that the church will not be compromising its prophetic role by being too tied to a specific partisan agenda, either on the left or the right. And I think both, this is sort of a pox on both your houses, on this. And the Church has got to stand above the, above partisanship in order to retain its prophetic stance.

Rick Langer: Yes. Amen.

Scott Rae: All right. Here's story number four. I did not see this one coming. And it's a really interesting article. It comes from the publication Science and Culture Today, citing a recent study from Harvard Medicine on the brain activity of those in comas and vegetative states. Now, Rick, to be clear, the most common test to determine brain activity is what's called the fMRI, the blood flow MRI. It's that registers the amount of blood flow to the brain. And studies have shown that sometimes patients who don't respond to bedside commands, like to you know, "Do you understand? If so, squeeze my hand," do show evidence of blood flow to the brain and vice versa. That is, some who could follow bedside commands actually fail the blood flow MRI. Now, it's, the the cool thing the article points out is it's possible that new technology such as Neuralink could actually help us communicate with these patients in ways that we haven't been able to previously. And I think it raises a really interesting question, which doesn't really answer, is that how does that change the way we treat- ... In turn medically treat these particular patients who are in comas or in vegetative states, which are they're slightly different things, but they are in both cases severely neurologically compromised individuals. So you've, I mean, you've thought a bit about end of life types of issues. What do, what do you make of this?

Rick Langer: So yeah, I was intrigued by it. And,

Rick Langer: so here's one thought about this, Scott, and it applies to science in general. Science is always rendering provisional judgments. Here's what we just discovered, and they put it out there, and the reason science does that isn't to bludgeon every other viewpoint, it's to say, "Here's what we just discovered. Let's everybody check it out." And when science is working well, you put things out, and then you check it out. And I would just say this article was kind of nicely written in that point because at the end of the time, at the end of the article, they had a great statement. First one, it was, "A great deal of work is needed in clinical studies to provide large enough database to help guide treatment decisions." So they said, "It's kinda like we've seen this phenomenon where people who are unresponsive, actually have things going on in their brain, and then they'll come up, you know, two weeks later, and they remember this whole thing." And then they also had a wonderful cautionary statement about saying, "So be really careful what you're saying when you're sitting in the room with a person who's comatose and you say things that may be really traumatizing to them, describing their own condition or whatever it might be." They said, "You might be surprised what they're actually hearing and processing and what they will remember two weeks later when they actually wake up." So I thought that was a great insight to share. I also thought it was great to say, "We don't know what we know from this." In other words, what this has done is woken us up to some things that I think many of us often felt like, man, we talk sometimes like brain dead is like this super clear category, and once we know this, and you and I are both old enough to remember when brain death first became a thing we commonly talked about. And it was like, yeah, this is the final word on things. Well, the more we go on with brain death, the more you're like, "Oh, well, that's not nearly as simple as I thought it was," and this article is a great example of that complication. And the reaction to point is to just say, let's not do all brain death like it's the final thing. Let's not do brain death means nothing. Let's develop a bit of a sense of nuance about it." And the nice thing is we might be able to actually do some research that would help us not just wave our hands in some middle ground, but actually have something meaningful to say, that these indicators often show that a person might recover from their persistent vegetative state, their coma, and I don't even know how this maps directly onto brain death. I haven't studied this in any great depth. But there's a lot of complexity, and I appreciate the article. I always worry once the headline gets out there that the headline will travel far beyond the article will-

Scott Rae: Yeah. No, that's right

Rick Langer: ... And people will start saying really stupid things. But, anyhow, this was interesting, and I thought it was a good article.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Now, Rick, I mean, we've been curious about the mental status of people in these states you know, for a while. I remember, you know, years ago, some people responding to Peter Singer's suggestions about, and others in the bioethics community, about, performing euthanasia without consent for those in a vegetative state or in irreversible comas. And, you know, they're asking the question, you know, "What if something's going on in there?"

Rick Langer: [laughs]

Scott Rae: You know, what if... How do we know? And I think the traditional means of measuring brain activity may not record that there is what the article calls hidden awareness, which I think is a good term for that. Now, we have one of our philosophy grads who's a professor of, medical ethics at Baylor Med School in Houston. They've been doing a lot of really groundbreaking work on the notion of brain death and how it, how it relates to some of these particular patients as well. And I guess my answer to the question, what does this change about how we treat these patients medically speaking? I think in my view, actually not very much because regardless of whether there's anything, cognitively going on with these patients, these are still, these are seriously neurologically compromised patients, from which they will likely never recover or never improve. And I think we can make a... We, you know, and there are... I mean, to be fair, there are some miracle accounts, like the article points out one of these where, you know, a year later, the guy's living a normal life. But, you know, who, nobody saw that coming. And I think, maybe at best, these patients, if we can communicate with them, they might be able to give more, or a better consent to continuing or withdrawing treatments from them, than we previously thought if they, you know, if they can respond to questions. We might get a little bit more clearer notion of what they, what, of what they want, assuming that they have not put their wishes in writing. So anyway, I think more to come on this, and I think you're absolutely right about the way sci- the science will work on this is we'll see lots of other folks try to replicate these studies and see what happens. And we, I, suspect the point being made here will sharpen, and become clearer, but who knows how long, that time period's gonna be involved.

Rick Langer: Yeah. These are always really problematic cases. I was thinking about this this morning and, Ecclesiastes 12:7 and 18, let me just read this phrase you know, Solomon's talking about, well, images of death, and he says, "Before the silver cord is snapped, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it." So he's giving this description of a whole bunch of death things, clearly imaging them, and then he concludes by saying this interesting statement about the body returns to the dust, and the spirit returns back to God who gave it. And I think in our traditional thinking, that is a nice way to summarize things, 'cause we do view our body going back to dust, even though it awaits the resurrection body. That isn't the final and ultimate world, but nonetheless, that's our human experience of death in the here and now. And to have that image of, you know, the spirit goes to God who gave it. And one of the tensions I think we feel is that just as the analogies that Solomon gave there, notice how all of them are really sudden. The silver cord snaps. The pitcher's broken. The golden bowl is shattered. You know, all of these things are like boom boom, and that's how death often meets us, just all at once. Even if a person dies over a period of time, there's kind of this really vivid sense that this is their moment of death. And then you have these weird moments that just don't fit into that, and I think that makes all this stuff, A, [laughs] probably a place we need to extend some grace and sympathy to people who have different viewpoints, but B, an area that we really should be concerned about ethically, 'cause we're saying the easy ones kinda take care of themselves. These hard ones are the ones that we really wanna give our full attention to say, "What can we do to best manage them?" And if we can find resources like this that help you detect covert consciousness, well, I'd say, well, that's a good thing. I I'd like to know that if I'm making that ethical decision.

Scott Rae: No, I would too. And I think theologically we need to, we need to also say that, you know, as you mentioned, death is a conquered enemy, and therefore it need not always be resisted-

Rick Langer: Yeah

Scott Rae: ... In, on this side of eternity. And I wanna make sure we understand the sanctity of life correctly. The sanctity of life does not mean that we are obligated to keep everyone alive at all times at all costs no matter what, because that makes earthly life the highest good, which in the scripture it clearly is not. And Augustine was right when he said our highest good is our eternal fellowship with God. So all right. Hey, before we get to questions, for our listeners, we would love to have you come study with us at Talbot if you like having these kinds of conversations. And we've got programs at the master's and bachelor's level in apologetics and philosophy, but also in spiritual formation and pastoral ministry and Old and New Testament and theology, and marriage and family therapy. We just got a lot to offer. So if you want, if you want more information, visit biola.edu/talbot in order to learn a little bit more. And also a reminder, this is the last cultural update that we will have before Sean and I take a break for the month of July. So we'll be off from the Friday cultural update in July. We'll resume these on August the 7th, but we will have bonus episodes each Friday in July in addition to our regular Tuesday episode. Here's the first question. "I've seen the survey data suggesting that millennials and Gen Z are disillusioned by the performance culture of the modern church and are therefore attending more traditional and liturgical worship services. Why do you think there's been this shift, and how do you think more contemporary churches should respond to this? Also, do you think that this trend is indicative that some churches have gone too contemporary?" Rick, you spent 20 years as a pastor. What's your thought?

Rick Langer: Yeah, so, they ask an interesting question, "Why do you think there's been this shift?" And let me just pick up on that thread and then make a comment on a couple of the other things. So I think, a big part of why this trend has taken place is kind of a search for roots in a rootless age, in an age that has dismantled our rootedness in everything. It's questioned everything. It's uprooted us. We no longer know what's true. We no longer know what's right. I mean, it just... There's a sense of chaos, and I would argue a lot of, liturgical churches, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, there's certain branches of Protestantism that are deeply invested in a, in a far more liturgical tradition. I find it a little unsurprising that people drift back. When everything is shaking, let me find some kind of firmer ground I can stand on. And there's something nice about going to a place that is like in an Eastern Orthodox church where they're using a liturgy that was developed by John Chrysostom 1,600 years ago, 1,700, whatever it's been. I mean, that's got a little staying power, right? And so there's a value of that that I think is good, and I kind of think it's unsurprising and in many ways unproblematic to see people doing that, depending upon what kind of faith experience they have in that tradition. But I would... I point out at some point, I'm like, "Look, I come from an evangelical free church. I I like my tradition, but the bottom line is I don't wanna say we're perfect or any evangelical free church you go to is perfect, or that everyone in a free church is actually being the kind of person that they should be." So I'll give that... And let me just apply that to everybody, right?

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Rick Langer: And so I care a lot about the rootedness, and I'm a fan of us reciting creeds and things like that, the Apostles' Creed, and just reminding ourselves that we have not invented the Christian faith. We don't say, "I wanna get rid of this piece. I wanna get rid of that piece." we don't come up with our own, creeds the way people come up with their own wedding vows or something. I would like us to look at these things and say, "I am carrying forward an inheritance passed on to me by a great cloud of witnesses, a faith once for all delivered to the saints, and I am not here to reinvent it. I am here to faithfully carry the torch that those who have gone before have handed to me." And I do think there's a lot of traditional and more liturgical churches that convey that sense of the Christian faith better than some of the more, you know, churches that you know, they're planted in a storefront and have a sense that church history for them is back in 2014 when our pastor John Jones planted the church. And I'm like, "Okay, well, there's a little more history you might wanna take into view."

Scott Rae: Yeah, fair enough

Rick Langer: ... That'd be my first thought on this issue.

Scott Rae: Yeah. Good, answer. I appreciate that. All right, here's a second one. Proverbs 3:27 says, "Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it's in your power to help them." Other translations say, "To the, those to whom it is due." However we translate that phrase, how are we to decide when we should do good to someone? Some Christians act like there are certain people who are disqualified or undeserving of our doing this good to them, and this proverb could support that idea. But Paul says in Galatians 6:10, "Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone," which seems to remove all conditions on whom we should help. Please help me think biblically about the proper recipients of our attempts to do good. I would say everyone is, everyone is due our doing good to them when it's in our power to do so. And I think that's what the proverb, that's what the proverb is referring to. Now I think the... Let's just say there are a lot more people in your orbit, who you could do good to than who, than any criteria might exclude. So I think this was intended to be exclusive, or intended to be inclusive, in the idea is that virtually everyone is due our doing good to them. Got a brief response to that?

Rick Langer: Yeah. The only thing I'd add is that I think sometimes the idea of doing good gets morphed in our minds into doing what the person wants me to do for them. And never confuse goodness with what a person wants at any given moment in time.

Scott Rae: Good point.

Rick Langer: The alcoholic wants another drink. Are you doing good to him to give him that other drink? No. So just realize doing good to the person never equates to simply doing what that person wants at any given moment.

Scott Rae: Great. Good insight. All right. Rick, thanks so much for hanging with us today. This has been great stuff, good stories, and so appreciate your insights as always. [upbeat music]

Rick Langer: Well, thanks for having me on, Scott.

Scott Rae: Hey. This has been the Think Biblically weekly cultural update coming to you from Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. If you would like to submit comments or ask questions or make suggestions for us, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. If you enjoyed today's conversation, please give us a rating on your podcast app, share it with a friend, and join us on Tuesday for Sean's conversation with Shane Idleman on the subject of how we lovingly confront silence and arrogance in our cultural moment. Thanks for listening, and remember, think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]