91Topics this week:
- Scott & Sean dive into genetic discrimination, exploring gaps in U.S. laws that leave people vulnerable to genetic privacy violations by insurers.
- Australia plans to ban social media for minors under 16, sparking debate on mental health vs. freedom and enforcement challenges.
- Justin Welby resigns as Archbishop of Canterbury amid allegations he mishandled abuse reports, raising questions of accountability in church leadership.
- Listener questions on vasectomies, moral obligation to fight terminal disease, and if Presidents are placed by God.
Episode Transcript
Sean: Is genetic discrimination coming for us all? Australia will soon ban social media for all minors 16 and under. Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England and the leader of the global Anglican Communion, resigns after an investigation finds he failed to inform police of serial and physical abuse at a Christian summer camp. These are the stories we will discuss and we will also address some of your questions. I'm your host Sean McDowell.
Scott: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.
Sean: This is the Think Biblically Weekly Cultural Update brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, 91. Scott, before we jump into the stories, we are one week out of the election, after the election of course. And I was at a church this past Sunday and I said now that the election is over we can move on and like people just kind of cheered regardless of where they stood. But this week politics has continued to dominate the conversation. And I think with Trump, whether you like him or not, that's going to be the case. So one of my encouragements to our viewers, and this is something I keep telling myself to our listeners, is to not let politics dominate our lives and move us apart from what it means to make disciples and not to fall for that bait so to speak, as important as politics is. Any quick thought on that before we jump in the stories?
Scott: I think it's you know it's sort of what we mentioned last week that politics is not ultimate. It's important. It's fundamentally a moral enterprise because it's how we order our lives together. But it's not the ultimate thing. And I think we treat it as ultimate to our peril. And I think to some who treat it as a savior, it runs the risk of idolatry. And so I want to stay away from that. But I want to stay away from the fear and anxiety that so often comes when we treat politics as ultimate. Kingdom of God is ultimate. That's our highest allegiance. And that is going to keep moving forward regardless of how the political winds may shift or change.
Sean: Amen. Well said. With that, let's try to think biblically about an issue that's coming up that is actually personal to me in some fashion. I know many of our listeners. This is from the Atlantic and the title was "Genetic Discrimination is Coming for Us All." The story is about a man by the name of Bill whose his father and his grandfather both had ALS. So he ordered a DNA test and found out that he tested positively for the mutation and shared the news with his insurance agent who dealt him another blow saying, "I don't expect you to be approved." Bill doesn't have ALS. He's a healthy 60-year-old man who spends his weekends building his home by hand, but this mutation suggests he has a 25% chance on average of developing it. Now what happened to Bill is happening to dozens of other people whose experience have been documented by diseases advocates on social media. But this is totally legal right now. There's apparently gaps in the US genetic non-discrimination law mean that life long-term care and disability insurers can obligate their customers to disclose certain genetic risk factors for disease and deny them coverage or hike prices based on the resulting information. Now as more people get their genomes sequenced, a growing number of people are finding themselves targeted and in this dilemma. So the article walks you the details how there was this genetic information non-discrimination act that was signed into law to protect people, but lawmakers are finding a host of exceptions and ways of working around this so to speak. One of the things the article says it means people now as a result of this kind of dilemma might avoid seeking out life-saving health information and research has found that concerns about discrimination are one of the top reasons people will now not get DNA tests because it could be held against them. Now interesting in this, I'm not a medical doctor obviously Scott, but they said some genetically linked diseases like ALS and Huntington's disease, there's apparently nothing you can do about it to prevent onset. But there's a range of other conditions they list that you can do certain things to reduce its onset. Now employers which must adhere to some of these rules apparently might be able to hire and fire some people based on certain genetic risk factors. That's where this gets concerning to people. And at the end of the article one of the things they pointed out, I mean this is crazy, they said, “If consumer-facing DNA testing companies such as 23andMe change their long-standing privacy policies or go bankrupt or are sold to somebody else, more companies could have access to these genetic risk profiles.” So people who think that these things are private could soon be made public. And they actually in the article they said a person they talked with an expert said they can imagine scammers targeting people at risk for conditions like Alzheimer's just as they target other people who may fall for a ploy out of confusion. There's a ton of angles in this Scott, but I'm really curious your takeaway of this given kind of your expertise in ethics and bioethics.
Scott: When the Human Genome Project was completed that was the effort to map the entire human genetic code which was a huge success and not surprisingly out of that emerged a handful of diagnostic tests to determine whether you had the genetic link for certain diseases. And most of these I want I'd want to add are not are not certain links where you will automatically get the disease. Most of the genetic links just raise your risk of contracting a specific disease. So one of the first ones that was developed was what's called the BRCA1 and 2 which was the test for the genetic glitch that made a woman 85% likelihood of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. And now my my wife I may have mentioned this to our listeners before us but my wife had a huge history of breast cancer in her family. In fact her oncologist said her family was the largest extended family he had ever treated in his 40-year career.
Sean: Holy cow.
Scott: Almost I mean almost every woman in her family except for her sister has either had breast cancer and some have died from it. So this was really personal and so when the diagnostic test came out I said I just you know not one of my better bits of advice to her but I just suggested you know why don't you just not even bother with the test and just assume that you're positive. Which understandably did not go over real well. But what's significant about this is that her physician at the time this was probably in 2002 or 2003 strongly suggested that she do the test anonymously. So there was no way that the information could get back to anybody who might do her harm as a result of that. Now concerns about genetic privacy have always been morally non-negotiable. From the very start of the human genome probably it was just assumed that the law was going to protect genetic privacy but it wasn't until 2008 when the law you described the genetic non-determination act was passed. And at the time it only applied to employers and health insurance companies which were obviously at the time the two most pressing needs to be protected. It did not apply to as you mentioned to long-term care insurance to life insurance and to disability insurance. You know and all of those could be potentially relevant for that. So this is an area where genetics could be taken into account and I've always wondered you know how how is this genetic privacy always going to be enforced. That was always seemed a little sketchy to me and it was just it would have been very challenging to do. But one of the ways it's being enforced is is these insurance companies are requiring disclosure of genetic information for patients in order to be considered for whatever insurance policy you are trying to get passed. The thing that I think is so significant about this is that one of the promises of the human genome project was that someday everybody will have their entire genetic profile in your primary physician's medical chart on you. And the benefit of that I think is it should be pretty obvious because with your genetic profile your docs say you have the genetic predisposition for heart disease. Now your doctor could tell you you know Sean you know it's bad for most people to eat a lot of red meat but you shouldn't even come close to sniffing it. It'd be so harmful to you. You know or fried foods you should never be eating fried foods or somebody who's got a predisposition to lung cancer should never even probably be in the room of secondhand smoke much less take up smoking themselves. So you're able to say these things are bad for the average person but with your genetic profile they are really really bad for you. And the downside of this and which was really problematic is that if people are concerned about their genetic privacy they're not going to undergo some of these genetic tests that are going to be essential for them to manage their health in the future. You know if I've got it I mean and we all to be fair we all are at risk of something genetic and nobody nobody out there genetically perfect. But knowing what you are at risk of and what the degree of risk is that's really important to managing your health in the long-term future. So that's the part I think that really is troubling to me about this trend toward not respecting genetic privacy.
Sean: That's really helpful. I haven't walked through this. Let me ask you just kind of some practical questions. As far as you know can people get a lot of these tests anonymously? Was that unique for breast cancer? What's the possibility of even doing this without the information getting out there further? And besides if I got information I'd need an expert to break it down and explain it to me because I couldn't understand some of the information as it is.
Scott: Yeah most people will need some sort of genetic counselor unless you are doing something very specific like my wife's test was specifically for this one genetic link and so her physician could tell her whether she had it or not. And by the way it just you know it took her almost three years to decide whether to get the test and another three years to decide what to do with the result of it. And it raised the question is this you know do we really want to know all this about ourselves? And a lot of people are saying no we don't. You know Sean you may or may not be aware the vast majority of people who are at risk genetically have history of Huntington's disease choose not to get tested because they don't want to have the knowledge that they're walking around with this genetic ticking time bomb. So a lot of people just don't want to know and this is certainly exacerbating that trend and that's bad news for for public health.
Sean: Do you have any sense like just biblically how we think about the fact that we can have information that the biblical authors obviously could not have known and the wisdom in that? I mean is it a question of just personal preference whether you get that test or not? Because I could understand someone saying I don't want to know and I just go I completely respect that. I can also respect somebody saying I want to know this information. It helps me plan, helps me navigate this. It feels like it's personal. I don't want to make it all subjective.
Scott:It's not all subjective. Here's a good guiding principle on this. When the welfare of others is significantly affected by your choice on this then the default position I would say ought to be to get tested. So for example say a couple has a this is a couple I sat across the table with not too long ago who they have a history of Huntington's disease. A terrible degenerative disease where onset's usually in the 30s which is about where he was at this time when they got the word on this. They were just thinking about starting a family and he didn't want to get tested and I told him you know for your wife's benefit you need to get tested so she can have the assurance that it's okay for you all to try to have children naturally or whether you should opt for adoption because she had said pointedly she said I don't want to get to age 50 and find out that you're not going to have Huntington's disease and realize that we we had foregone the chance to have children naturally. So I said you I think you're under an obligation to do this not for your benefit but for hers and if there are other people who would be significantly impacted by having this information I think we're obligated to do that for the benefit of our loved ones.
Sean: That's a good principle it's not always black and white because how much will it affect our loved ones in what way will it affect them that's where we just have to have a principle and make some wise prayerful decisions. My suspicion Scott and this is really just a suspicion that some of these loopholes are not going to be able to remain and that the law will move towards not giving this power to employers and others. Would you agree with that or do you see that?
Scott: You know I think that's right although it may be challenging to put the genie back in the bottle on some of these things but I think employers are already covered under the the 2008 law and the employees have actually been sued for genetic discrimination and the plaintiffs have won those cases so I think I think the law is the law protects people from being fired from their jobs. What it doesn't protect them against is having their insurance rates affected being denied long-term care things like that they could give them care they say we're not discriminating against you but in order to cover the cost of this we are raising your premiums that may end up being dramatic. I think there's a principle of fairness too I think for the insurance companies that they need to be able to fairly establish the risks that they are taking in the risk pool of their customers but there's something other than your soul your genetic code is probably as basic to your biological identity as anything else and so I think there's something I wouldn't say sacred but something pretty close to that about your genetic code that feels like it ought to be inviolable.
Sean: So last question on this obviously the tension is between these companies have to stay afloat and certain individuals would just add a massive amount economically to the payout which I understand from an economic perspective but then of course there's a Christian perspective that's like wait a minute these are individuals and we can't be cut throat towards individuals just because of something completely through no fault of their own seems like we should take a corporate perspective on this. How do we balance that tension? Well somebody's going to pay for it you know we're not going to throw these people to the wolves and deny them care so if the insurance companies aren't going to cover these long-term care plans then you know Medicaid, Medicare, the state will end up paying for it one way or another and then I think you can ask about the fairness of that but I think we are obligated as part of being members of of a society a civil society we're obligated to do what we can to provide a safety net for those who can't provide it for themselves. So biblically speaking I think we are obligated as a culture to care for the most vulnerable among us and certainly the people who contract these horrible genetic diseases go pretty much to the top of the list of people who are the most vulnerable among us.
Sean: I seriously have like a dozen more questions for you on this but let's track this story and maybe if this keeps popping up and things move forward we'll do a full episode really unpacking this and personalizing it for for people. You sent me this next story to kind of shift gears here as I looked it up it's been talked about all over the place this week that Australian kids under 16 will soon be banned from social media. So this pop I did not see this one coming. Prime Minister Anthony Alvarez announced this week that the age limit for his government's controversial social media ban is kids under 16. Now this will be the highest age limit set by any country no exemption for parental consent and no exemption for pre-existing accounts. This would include things like Instagram, TikTok, etc. Now tech companies will be responsible for enforcing the ban. So this will not fall on kids this will not fall on parents. Tech companies already use new technology to at least keep kids off or reasonably show that they've done all efforts to do so. Of course the government is arguing that the ban is necessary because social media is harming young people's mental health. What's interesting is there's no debate about that. The debate is about whether or not this is too draconian or going too far. Now it was interesting to look a little further into this. France last year passed a law requiring parental consent for social media users under 15. In the U.S. I didn't know this Scott. Texas requires all social media users under 18 to first obtain parental consent. That's fascinating. Now they give a couple arguments here in this article that I'm referring to that I thought were kind of weak. They said social media positively enables young people to engage with educational institutions, potential employers, and health services. I mean my response is figure that out another way. That's kind of a weak argument to me. It said kids may be grappling with issues such as sexuality and they need access to appropriate communities to help them. That's actually reason to enforce the ban. That's the very thing. I don't want kids getting these other voices weighing into their lives leading them astray as we've seen frequently in rapid onset gender dysphoria for example. But this would include Twitter, again Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, some gaming platforms with the social media element. One of the other arguments put forward here they said, I mean this argument this article you and I are referring to on Mercator was trying to defend it and they said, I'm sorry they're critiquing the ban and they said young people learn about the news through TikTok. You know 40% of those under 30 get it from there and I'm thinking this is not a good news source that we want. That you're gonna have to come up with a better argument than that. Now I think the real challenging is that enforcing this ban itself is going to be challenging. How on earth do they do this? One thing in this article that did get my attention, this seems to be the tension, is it says many parents have expressed concern via talk radio and through social media about government intervention in the way they raise their kids. So my quick sense of this Scott and I want your take is that more and more we're seeing bubbling to the surface. The evidence on the effects of social media is clear and people are feeling like they need to do something. Whether or not this is the right move I'm not convinced but I think we're going to see in real time Australia trying this experiment and they'll probably have to walk back a few things and adjust maybe parental consent etc. But I think it's becoming more and more clear the negative effects of social media not just on individuals but on the public as a whole and Australia thinks it's leading the way so to speak in how they're addressing it. Your thoughts on this on this article?
Scott: Well the first I confess the first thing that came to mind is Sean, how many parents are going to have the backbone to enforce this in their own home? Or will they be complicit in helping their kids get around the law? Now think about how you I think you're right this is going to be really tough to enforce and it's going to force the tech companies to engage in age verification for all their users not just for kids because now they're going to have to verify this for everybody at least they're Australian users they will but you know kids can use their parents social media accounts you can create ghost social media account I mean there are a lot of different ways to get around this that I think are going to be really challenging to enforce and at the end of the day I think it will rest primarily with parents to be the ones who enforce this and I have serious doubts that most parents will have the backbone to do this. Now you may see that you may see that a little differently but you know you think about it technology companies they have no incentive to enforce this you know other than maybe the public shaming they would come from a tech company that flouts the law they're going to lose customers this is going to hurt them financially and so I you know I'm not I'm not holding my breath that this is going to be all that helpful honestly I would love to be shown to be wrong but I think to think biblically about this the bible is really clear that especially for kids we're to manage our intake of imagery information the things that we focus our minds and attentions on affect the output in our lives. Jesus was very clear that you know out of the mouth speaks that which fills the heart. If social media is what's filling the heart and it's not a big surprise that we have some of the mental health issues that we do. Now here I'm here's what I wonder and I'm sort of I'm curious to get your take on this I would agree that people getting their news from TikTok is utterly terrifying to me surely we can do better than that and I wonder have we gone so far down the road with social media that it's that's basically a bell that we can't unring and we're just going to have to manage this the best we can or maybe something this draconian might work I'm not holding my breath on this but I do think we have an obligation and it's a parental obligation primarily but also for individuals for teenagers for young adults to manage the input that you are taking into your life and whatever you take in from sources outside of God's word be sure and balance that at the least balance that with a regular intake of the scriptures so you can have a filter to assess what you're taking in on social media and don't be naive to think that what you take in doesn't affect you because there's too much empirical evidence out there to dispute that it seems to me so I'm curious one of the things that did strike me I know a lot of your ministry is through social media and you're trying to impact kids you know for all for the good this could put a serious crimp in the kind of impact that you have on teenagers that you're trying to impact for the gospel and you know and for morality so I'm really curious you know how how does this sit with you and is our commitment is our the way we view social media is that the genie that we just can't put back in the bottle and the law shouldn't try to do that?
Sean: Well I think you're right that Romans 12 talks about do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that's a biblical principle we need to bring and that responsibility is on the church and that responsibility is on the family I was speaking to 100 youth pastors earlier today before we recruited this and I said on social media through both the medium and the message I use this word intentional I said our young people are being discipled they're being discipled.
Scott:That’s absolutely right.
Sean: Such a negative effect on society. I want to now I think the data is pretty clear it's out there the negative effects but what move them to take what I consider such almost draconian strong measures that surprise we would go this far I want to know if they know something else that we don't know. As far as social media the cat being out of the bag so to speak I don't know that we could go back I mean students will find a way around it they'll find other means I don't know with the availability of technology and how much of it is just social media versus just staring at our phones and not engaging people individually that is at the root of it so some of the articles here cited concern with the boys about kind of the negative images of masculinity that speak into them and girls it was body image issues that's what they argued that's not all it is but that can be some of it those issues are going to be at play through modern technology we have whether it's social media or some other medium so I don't know that that's gonna fix it and have things go back to where they were before now you had one other question for me and my mind just went blank you were asking me…
Scott: What about what about the impact of your ministry?
Sean: Oh gosh so I hadn't even thought about that Scott it's funny until you asked me that because partly I'm an evangelical and what that means for better or worse is we use technology to reach people evangelicals are often the first and so if this medium doesn't work my team and I and they shut it down we will work to find another medium to reach this generation and there will be some medium to do so so I guess for me that's somewhat downstream from saying you know what is best for kids in terms of their mental health that's the primary question for me and so yeah I mean I still quick youth leaders if I had to focus on 16 and up I mean the amount of my ministry that's 13 to 15 some read my book some I speak to that's probably a smaller percentage that really follow what I'm doing I just focus on 16 and up and find other mediums to try to reach this generation so my first concern is what's best for them so I guess to sum up the story I'm somewhat encouraged that governments are taking this seriously and that they're recognizing how much damage this causes I mean even my kids private school where I used to teach they have this year for the first time a no cell phone policy at all if it's seen it's supposed to be taken the front desk parents have to come pick it up and kids were not happy at the beginning but then they've kind of adjusted to it settled in and I completely support that so I like to see this pushback of people saying we need to see face to face we need to have community we get our faces off our phones but there's going to be times where we go too far and maybe have to pull back we're kind of an a societal experiment right now trying to figure out what will work and what won't so I applaud on one level Australia trying to address this seriously I just suspect maybe they're going too far and this is going to be too hard to manage that's my suspicion but it's really hard to know because there are certain elements on Australian culture that I just don't know as an outsider looking in.
Scott: Yeah fair enough.
Sean: All right good stuff like let's move to this last story this one is a little bit more harrowing and uh no other way to describe it but this is about the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby head of the Church of England and the spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion of over 85 million members in 165 countries he resigned Tuesday after an independent investigation found that he failed to tell police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at a Christian camp that went back by the way to the early 80s pressure was building on him initially he refused to accept responsibility for his failure to report abuse in England and in Africa in 2013 uh obviously that kindled some anger and by Tuesday he acknowledged the mistake and he said which I appreciate it's very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and traumatizing period between 2013 which is when he took that leadership position and 2024 so just on Thursday last week they released the results of an independent investigation into someone by the name of John Smyth I think is how you say it he was a prominent attorney who the report said sexually and psychologically and physically abused about 30 boys and young men in the UK 85 in Africa oh I I mistakenly said early 80s they said from the 70s until his death in 2018 so that's like 50 years or so this went on it was a 251 page report and the conclusion was that Welby failed to report Smyth to authorities when he was informed of the abuse in 2013 shortly after he took the leadership position what's interesting about this Scott is Welby said he didn't inform law enforcement agencies about the abuse because he was wrongly told that police were already investigating this so no one that I could find is charging him with abuse nobody's saying he intentionally saw it and just ignored it they're saying he was aware of it and didn't pursue it enough and that could have stopped it so he took responsibility for the allegations that were not because he didn't pursue him as energetically as they should have been pursued some of the outcry which broke my heart that he wasn't going to step down until one of the victims spoke up and really just pushed back and then eventually he stepped down made this announcement now the other piece of the story Scott which is just heroin is church officials were first made aware of the abuse in 1982 which makes me wonder if this is just the tip of the iceberg and there's going to be further accountability they were there was an internal investigation going way back and a report that there was an active cover-up to prevent findings from coming to light in this review which is just terrible stories like this they just keep coming Scott we've seen this in the southern baptist convention we've seen it in the catholic church and every time it's just a gut punch and it's heartbreaking i'm curious your take on this one.
Scott: Well here Sean maybe what struck me it might be a little different than what struck the average person. Obviously the abuse that Mr. Smyth had perpetrated on these boys is horrendous and it wasn't just sexual abuse i mean he was i mean he as the article described delivered savage beatings physically to these boys as well but what struck me on this was that the person at the top resigned for failing to oversee and investigate abuse claims. I think he could easily have covered this up and escaped accountability for it because this went on long before he ever became the archbishop of Canterbury that happened in 2013 he did become aware of it at that point and did not investigate it as aggressively as he should have and then in 2017 he admitted he did not meet as promptly or quickly with some of the victims who had come forward but it wasn't until basically this was made public on the bbc earlier this year that the pressure mounted for him to step down now again i think the sense i got from reading a number of different news sources on that this was this was largely voluntary though there was some pressure applied to him but I think the notion that the person at the top would take responsibility for the failure for you know for years and years of failures before he got into the position and take responsibility for the failures of some of his underlings that struck me as remarkable. So I did a little digging on this and I tried to to see you know of all the denominations that have been involved and had allegations against them where where were for example for roman catholics where were cardinals or archbishops who stepped down from their positions and they only found a handful you know the one of and these were people who were not accused of sexual abuse themselves but of covering it up and not reporting it at least not reporting it timely one was a french archbishop the other one was cardinal bernard law who was the archbishop of boston who was the basically the film spotlight is what highlighted that coming to light in in his archdiocese and there were so there were a handful of cardinals and archbishops and and more more but not a lot but some you know you know several bishops who were over local dioceses who stepped down for failure to oversee but the person at the top you know the cardinals the archbishops the one who and even the pope was ultimate responsibility most of the time they're the ones that stayed in place uh now the southern baptists they're you know they don't have a similar hierarchy the way that you know anglicans and the catholic church does so you that's sort of that's different you wouldn't be expecting some of that from them and a number of pastors where this went on in their churches did resign. I didn't see all that many where the youth pastor for example was the perpetrator the senior pastor did not step down so I just I in my view this was you know and I may be i'm open to the fact that i'm being overly charitable to archbishop wellby but it seems to me that this is a bit unusual that the person at the very top is the one who takes the responsibility and is in his in his holds himself personally accountable for these i found that to be a somewhat encouraging thing.
Sean: I did not probe the way that you did scott but that would have been my sense and i actually was somewhat encouraged by that as well because this is not the normal pattern of what happens when these investigative reports come out there's often blaming other people excuses are giving some kind of adjustments are made but not really digging in saying we're going to take full transparent accountability for this i hope this is just the beginning i have no idea i haven't read the 251 page report how many other people knew and did not do something about it going back to the 70s but what to add to your case if the top guy who at least according to what i saw knew about this but was told people were investigating it still says you know what i'm at fault i should have done more i'm the top so i take responsibility it makes me hope that even more people will say you know what I knew something and so I think based on what i know so far this is a positive step and it also helps the victims to move forward as well.
Scott: Absolutely. And you know Sean, this is the person that says this happened on my watch and i'm accountable for it and you know often it gets covered up because people want to protect the church's reputation or even the reputation of the gospel but invariably when it comes out both of those things take a huge hit and hopefully some of that's forestalled here.
Sean: I hope this is an example that others will follow when these kind of abuse cases come forward where people say "I'm going to restore the victims and do what's right.” So the anglican church they need to just say we're going to open up our books we're going to do an exhaustive study on this further I love that they brought in an outside independent investigation this cannot be handled internally with integrity…
Scott: Correct.
Sean: …and then just follows the advice of these experts and says we're going to cross every t we're going to dot every I we're going to favor healing and restoration for the victims and there may be more who knows what alpha spin and i i'm not saying there is i'm just saying in a denomination this size there could be more are they going to go find that and root that out i think that's what christ would would call us to do so we'll be tracking the story and see if they do that do that further but you know honestly scott like when some of that stuff first came out about RZIM I mean I was not inside the organization but I dismissed it I didn't believe it I was like i'm not going to look into it there's no way it's Ravi and I look back and i'm like wow I wish I had been more curious how did I miss that why didn't I lean in I never want to make that mistake again and so I appreciate that he steps down takes personal and institutional responsibility and I just hope and pray these victims will get the care that they need. You'll never forget what happened, but doing the best they can to restore them and hear them out so further victims don't have to be the ones to say hey you should step down they shouldn't be the ones that have to do that.
Scott: Well let's answer some questions. Let's answer some questions shall we?
Sean: All right so let's jump in. We've got as always some great questions here. This first one says uh “Thanks for your open and honest discussion about sexuality gender birth control abortion and IVF,” this person says he is unashamedly pro-life from womb to tomb but apparently we've opened his eyes on IVF in that conversation we had Scott. He says, “It's caused me to think about ethical spiritual and moral implications of having a vasectomy my wife and I have three children all six and under and i'm currently at home on disability with an autoimmune condition that has significantly changed the dynamic of our family my wife and I stay at home while I worked and now that has flipped we've considered whether I should get a vasectomy because the difficulties that more children would add to our family. I'd appreciate any input you have in this matter.”
Scott: Well we may see this differently but I think this would be a case where this kind of birth control will be justifiable I think this is a wise choice I don't see any problem intrinsically with more permanent birth control measures if your quiver is full and having more children would put others at risk or it would threaten your ability to care for them adequately so I don't have a problem with this obviously if you are opposed to birth control in the first place you'll have a big problem with this but I think as long as this is done with wisdom and with the recognition that reversing this is not a sure thing by any stretch then that you have the full consent of your spouse I don't see any problem with this in this case.
Sean: I actually tend to see it in this case I think similarly to you here now I maybe i'm wrong about this but I would venture to say even many catholics that have in principle problems with it just theologically would say there may be some exceptions for your health and for your family that can override that hence exceptions now exactly what those are I don't know I don't know the nature of the autoimmune disease if it's temporary it's permanent like there's just factors I don't know so i always hesitate to speak too much into this but this certainly sounds like a lot closer to the kind of exception that somebody has thought through there's real physical limitations, health concerns at play not getting a vasectomy for the reason why many people do I would think this is an exception. Now am I mistaken or would probably many catholics agree with that here given the circumstances. Do you have a sense of that Scott?
Scott: Well I think in in general they would see this as justifiable but if it's the woman's health that's threatened by bearing more children not so much for the family dynamic…
Sean: Oh, okay.
Scott: …though I think that's a reasonable extension it's a reasonable extension to make. When I was consulting for a catholic hospitals here in LA we did you know we performed tubal ligations in our hospitals but only if the physician determined that the mother's health would be would be threatened by an additional pregnancy so I think that's justifiable and I suspect there might be some catholics who would say yeah this is a valid extension of that but some might not.
Sean: That's helpful. I just hesitate to say much more without knowing a lot about it. This is not the case of many people who get vasectomies who just say i'm done want to focus on other things and then later look back and many regret it that is clearly not the motivation that's here, um so maybe we'll leave it at that. Let's go to the third question here that we have we got it's actually a second one but we got more than we can take every week here's what the person writes he says “If a christian is diagnosed with a life-threatening disease such as cancer for example, what moral obligation do they have to fight the disease as opposed to not fighting the disease?” What do you think Scott?
Sean: Yeah um I think as a general rule um I don't think people are obligated to undertake treatments that would increase the net level of suffering in their lives if the costs to the visit the physical and emotional costs of the treatments outweigh the benefits then or and leave the person with a severely compromised quality of life just for the sake of fighting the disease. I think that's a condition if that condition is met… then I think it's okay to say stop to medicine. I mean some of this you know there there's a lot of questions we need to ask this person so you know they mentioned that they're single with no kids or dependents that makes it different so it's just all about the individual and what's in his or her best interests, but I don't think we are obligated if we're obligated to keep everybody alive at all times and all costs then we're saying in effect that earthly life is the highest good which it's not. Our eternal fellowship with God is the highest good now earthly life matters it's a penultimate good but because death is a conquered enemy it need not always be resisted i think that those are the biblical sort of principles that i would take with that that under the right conditions if treatment's futile if it's more burdensome than beneficial if it gives you such a depleted quality of life simply for the sake of fighting the disease and I think it's okay to say enough to medicine and I think in doing so what we're essentially doing is we are entrusting ourselves back to the Lord for Him to give us the days the number of days that he sees fit for us but without the interventions of medicine to delay an inevitable dying process. I think if the cancer can be cured then I think that's different then I don't it's harder to say that you know god really has me at the end here if that's not the case and I think some people who have had serious heart problems have opted not to have open heart surgery. The columnist art buckwald of the boston globe famously refused all treatments to deal with his congenital heart disease because he's seen what other friends went through and how it left them. I remember going to see my dad for the last time when he was dying of cancer and he had had a huge 12-hour surgery at age 81 trying kind of one last stop to arrest the cancer and it came back with a vengeance and I think he would have been okay to say you know that's enough he tried experimental treatments that just wiped out his quality of life I think he would have been okay to refuse those as well after a good faith effort to try and get on top of it and I remember saying to my wife I went before I went to visit him for the last time I said I sure hope I don't have to give up my principle of opposition to assisted suicide based on what I see and it turned out I didn't and I think you know if he's really at the end and the burdens clearly outweigh the benefits then going into hospice or some sort of palliative care I think would be the appropriate next step.
Sean: That's good stuff. Very pastoral and philosophically makes sense. Before we wrap up one quick comment we got a multi-layered question on our discussion on politics and kind of faith last week and someone pushed back on those who say I think president trump was chosen by God to fight this fight for us but romans 13 says, “All those in authority have been placed there by God is there a contradiction?” And i'll just quickly say there's a difference between saying God is sovereign over the direction of history and allows any king or ruler to be on the throne, versus God has supernaturally in a different way selected this candidate and we see miraculous signs of it therefore you should get behind this candidate and what this candidate is fighting for. That's a different point regardless of what that candidate is fighting for. So difference between saying God is sovereign and moving history where he's taken it as we see clearly in the book of daniel versus God has selected this unique ruler and we know it here's the signs if that's the case I think God's going to make that need to make that very very clear and we often see that in the scripture so a ton more can be said but just one clarification that might help on that one. All right Scott, great conversation as always my friend…
Scott: Always good.
Sean: …already looking forward to next week. This has been an episode of podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, 91, where Scott and I both teach. We've got master's programs in theology, apologetics, marriage and family, spiritual formation, Old Testament, and more online and in person. Please keep your comments and questions coming; you can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Please consider giving us a rating on your podcast app; each one helps, and we hope you'll consider sharing this episode with a friend. Thanks so much for listening and we'll see you Tuesday when a regular podcast airs in which we have an interview with Katy Faust who's written a book called Them Before Us, that talks about putting kids before adults that I would describe as a game changing insight to me and she has a new book about what this looks like as it applies to policies. We unpack it. You won't want to miss that Tuesday. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything.
