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This week, Scott & Sean discuss:

• Discussion on potential radical changes in AI, with OpenAI and Apple possibly announcing a partnership to integrate advanced virtual companions into devices.
• Examination of the impact of legalized sports betting on the integrity of professional sports and the pressures it places on athletes.
• Introduced by Professor Robert George, the concept encourages a renewal of commitment to faith, family, and community values.
• A story about a Black woman facing discrimination when attempting to purchase a condo, highlighting ongoing racial bias in housing.
• Questions from Listeners: Answers to listener questions about managing relationships with people practicing polyamory, navigating workplace diversity groups, and the appropriateness of praying to saints in Christian practice.

Episode Transcript

Sean: Is the revolution in AI-fueled virtual companions coming soon, or is it already here? Is pro sports gambling compromising sports and putting athletes in impossible situations? Should Christians celebrate what is called Fidelity Month? And a New York Times story of a woman denied purchase of a home because she was black. These are the stories we'll discuss today, 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, ��ݮ��Ƶ. Now, Scott, this first story we're gonna talk about came to me kind of at the last minute. It's something we've discussed, but our viewers need to realize that some radical changes may be coming this week in terms of AI-fueled virtual companions. So I follow this weekly update called New World, Same Humans. It's a newsletter on trends and technology by David Mattin. And he says, "This week, there's fresh news that we're close to a mega partnership between OpenAI and Apple. According to Bloomberg, who were the first to break the story last month, the partnership will be announced this week at Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference." This week, coming up. He says, "If the demonstrations are anything to go by, users can hold a fluent and natural conversation with the new version of GPT-4. This model will also be able to understand video input in real time, meaning it can, for example, take a look at the room you're sitting in through your camera and use that as context against which it will frame its responses. In other words, it looks as though you're in a science lab. What are we working on?" Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sent out a tweet a few weeks ago, and all he wrote were the letters "her," which is a reference to the 2013 science fiction movie with Scarlett Johansson and Joaquin Phoenix, in which he gets an AI-generated virtual companion he falls in love with, and actually dates this companion. Of course, 11 years ago, it was completely science fiction, but we are getting closer and closer to that reality right now. The article says it's a reference, of course, to the AI-fueled virtual companion in the 2013 film "Her." Altman, again, the CEO of OpenAI, is making a play for that kind of product, and he wants to be the one companion to rule them all. Now, here's the takeaway from this news update that I listened to. A few years ago, it was easy to dismiss the whole idea of virtual companions as nothing more than a curiosity fueled by, maybe, some teenagers. I talked to leaders inside large organizations and said, people will develop a new kind of relationship with these AI entities, and some people would literally laugh. It's always hard to believe that a behavior on the fringe that seems weird can become mainstream. He says, but remember 20 years ago, the early social media platforms were seen as little more than toys for college students. Now, they're daily life for billions. And I think of even Uber, the idea of getting in a car with a stranger was totally weird. Now, it's been completely accepted. He says, we don't know what form the coming partnership between Apple and OpenAI will take, but it might be announced this week in which Apple's gonna start integrating this and really seriously updating Siri. So we'll see a radical shift there. That means OpenAI has near instant access to 1.5 billion pockets around the globe, and it will shove virtual companions into the mainstream. So, in other words, people won't just go choosing and finding virtual companions. If you have an iPhone, one will be embedded into it, and you'll naturally start using it, so to speak. He says, again…and then I wanna get your thoughts on this. Across the coming years, these companions will become an all-purpose mediation layer between you and the world around you. Your virtual companion will gather information, interpret the world for you, help you manage your health, personal finances, and more. Soon enough, you'll be outsourcing daily lifestyle tasks to your personal AI. Order my groceries, book me that city break we talked about, manage my investments. He says, ultimately, millions will come to feel they're in some kind of relationship with their virtual companion. That is as an authentic form of intelligence in its own right with its own way of seeing the world. In short, things are about to get really weird. Now, as you see this coming transformation—again, he's projecting, he's telling us what he thinks is gonna happen—what's your initial takeaway when you hear about this?

Scott: Well, I think initially what we need to realize is that Scarlett Johansson is also suing OpenAI for illegitimate use of her image without her permission and without compensating her in any way. So the legal system may end up having the last word on this depending on how that lawsuit comes out. I encourage all listeners to keep your eyes open for that, because as soon as she found out that her image was being used in this way, and it was a direct…I mean, the OpenAI folks could not have been more direct about where they got the image from, although they've denied it publicly. It'd be interesting to see where that comes out, 'cause that may end up stopping some of this in its tracks. Assuming it doesn't, and assuming that it continues to go on—we talked about this, I think, a couple of weeks ago on the Cultural Update—some forms of AI are undermining our ability to do some of the basic things that constitute a part of us, what it means to be a human being, like forming relationships, learning, just some of the management tasks of life that AI is doing for us now. And if people really think they are in a real relationship with a virtual companion, then I think this runs the risk of undermining our ability to form meaningful relationships with real flesh and blood people. I see AI substituting for that, not enhancing it.

Sean: That's a really helpful way to look at it. Now, I did some additional research, and I came across all of these companies that are writing articles trying to get you and me and everybody else to sign up already for these virtual companions. And some of the things that they promise are an appealing alternative to human interaction due to the convenience and tailored experiences that they offer. They offer a dynamic and evolving kind of relationship. They will enhance communication skills. They provide a solution by offering companionship and emotional support for people to feel less isolated. Now, these are not necessarily exactly the same chatbots that OpenAI might potentially use. But what this will do is potentially start to shape the way we as a culture view not only virtual assistants, but virtual companions. It's on the fringe right now, but will it become normalized? So there are some online, and they talk about AI generated female companions. And these are, again, promoted on Facebook, and Reddit, and other areas. And you just do one click and you realize the images are very, very sexual within themselves. And the idea is that somebody can completely tailor this person, their personality, their looks, everything about them to be the personal assistant for that person that's just perfect. And that raises a bunch of questions like, wait a minute, part of loving somebody is not tailoring them exactly to how I want them to be to me, but tailoring myself to love somebody else who's different with their imperfections. Now there's a million kinds of questions this raises, but that's one of them that jumps into me. Now, one difference between the movie "Her" if I remember it correctly, is that it was the voice for Scarlett Johansson. And it was kind of an audio-only digital kind of assistant. Some of these now online have video that can be embedded in them as well, which is a completely different kind of revolution that is taking place. And so one of these that I looked up says, many AI generators allow you to adjust traits such as humor, intelligence, and emotional responsiveness tailored just for you to experience emotional fulfillment and companionship. So I think there's…with every technology, there's positive and there's negative. If this on our smartphones enables me to just say, hey, what's the Lakers schedule, Siri, and throw it into my calendar more effectively than it can now, awesome, that's great. But it raises ethical questions and concerns that we cannot put a blind eye to as well. So you and I will follow this. It seems that this week could potentially be the beginning of a normalization of this, but we'll see. We just want Christians to go in with their eyes wide open, thinking biblically about this and realizing that technology is not just a tool we use, but technology also shapes us.

Scott: Will it enhance or substitute for some of those basic abilities that it claims to enhance? I think that's the million dollar question on this. And I think from a biblical worldview, life is not tailored just for me. That's not the way life is. I mean, I am supposed to tailor myself to be more conformed to the image of Christ in me. I think this has the possibility, it seems to me, of sort of putting the narcissism that's a part of the culture, putting that on steroids and having people feel like they can go through life feeling like they can tailor every aspect of life just for them. And I say, if you're gonna live in the digital world, more power to you. But if you're gonna live in the world of real life with real relationships that are messy, that are not tailored for you specifically…I remember my mentor when I was in grad school, he would sort of chide these folks who had, sort of, all these checklists of qualities that they were looking for in a mate. And he would look at them right in the eye and say, now tell me, how many of these character traits are true of you? And it was sort of a drop the mic moment when people realized that this ultimately is not about me. It's about my tailoring myself to have a relationship with another person that is sometimes messy. But our growth comes out of the messiness, not specifically how we tailor it for ourselves.

Sean: That's well said. I think the root of the question is, will this technology enable people to maybe share with a virtual assistant things that they wouldn't share with a human being and thus open up the door to better healing that comes from a human being?

Scott: Or feel like that's sufficient?

Sean: Exactly, or replace it and not encourage the kind of human face-to-face interaction we need. That's some of the stuff that will play out. But we'll track that, we'll see what happens here and we will keep revisiting this because that revolution is coming. There's no question about it.

Scott: Sounds like it'll be here next week.

Sean: It just—it might be. Let's see how that plays out. Now this next story is one that just hit me. We haven't talked about gambling here on the Cultural Update at all, let alone sports gambling. So The New York Times had an article, and this was by Lee Steinberg, who's represented athletes such as Troy Aikman in football, Manny Ramirez in baseball, Patrick Mahomes, I think in football…just kidding. Chargers fan speaking here. Obviously great football quarterback, for five decades. And [Steinberg’s] talking about some of the sports gambling. He says this, he says, "Some of the biggest scandals in sports history have revolved around players and gambling." We think of Pete Rose being barred for life from baseball, the Black Sox scandal about a thrown World Series. And yet Lee raises some cautions. He says, "Yet in a rush to embrace the potential profits," money is behind this, "provided by new forms of legalized sports gambling, the professional sports leagues have put players and the people close to them under untenable pressure. I've represented professional athletes 50 years, and I've never seen a situation that's more perilous to them and the integrity of the sports." That sounds pretty jarring. Now he gives examples I won't go into from baseball and from basketball, just from the past few weeks of people, including of course, the major league baseball story of Mr. Ohtani's former teammate tied to allegations and the loss of money that was used on betting—that's been high profile. But just in the past few weeks, in baseball and in basketball, athletes involved in gambling—barred for life. Now I didn't realize this, but this started to change on May 14th, 2018, so six years ago. There was a case of Murphy v. NCAA that the Supreme Court struck down. It was a decades-old federal law that banned sports betting outside of Nevada. So within weeks, New Jersey had established legitimate sports betting at its casinos and racetracks. 37 states quickly followed suit. Now, casinos and betting companies are advertising in stadiums and arenas. Many sports venues permit gambling outside, either inside, or next door. Two owners of NFL teams, Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones, bought a small piece of the gambling site, DraftKings. Vegas is now home to an NFL team, the Raiders, and hosted the Super Bowl. In fact, in many ways, I took, kind of, hosting the Super Bowl as saying that the NFL and sports is all in on gambling, and things have completely changed. Leagues and franchises, says Lee, are so in bed with gambling and so enamored of the revenues these ties produce, that it's unthinkable to reverse course. Now, he gives a few examples of players who've gotten verbal abuse from fans because they messed up their bets, which is obviously unfortunate. There's temptation to use inside information that somebody might know on a player's health to shape your betting. And he gives a really interesting example, this agent did, where a quarterback from the San Francisco's at the time, Steve Young, [the agent] knew was injured and others didn't. And he could have used that information for gambling as a, kind of, insider kind of information, but he didn't. So here's the bottom line of what he said. There's traditionally been an impregnable wall between professional sports and the world of gambling, but that wall is not just crumbling, it's evaporating. Now, my one big takeaway here is that we've seen a larger liberalization in our culture. Of marijuana, which we talked about last week, same-sex marriage…this is a part of a larger kind of liberalizing and accepting of certain behavior that decades ago was largely considered not something we would praise and make normal. Now it seems to be completely normalized. Your takeaway on this.

Scott: Well, I think that the troubling part of this is how the sports betting has changed even before it was legalized. I mean, the illegal betting was done mostly on the outcomes of games. Point spread, things like that. But now you are betting on the individual performance of specific players. And how many points they'll score, how many rebounds, things like that, or what's the over-under for those. And I think this puts individual players at risk in ways that they weren't before. And I think, not only the risk of verbal abuse, but I could see players being at risk of some sort of violence. If I'm betting on your performance in a game, and I lost thousands and thousands of dollars, I might be tempted to give you a little bit more than just verbal abuse. Now I think this also puts players at risk for shading their performances or throwing them. Steinberg—that temptation to use insider information. I think that's gonna be virtually irresistible, in the same way that it's been irresistible for people to use insider information in the stock market. One constituency that he left out, which is really surprising to me, although in part because he didn't represent them, is he left out referees in this. And with the well-publicized scandal 10 years or so ago of the basketball NBA official, Tim Donaghy, who was betting on games that he was refereeing and he ended up going to prison. I think that was a serious blow, just to the integrity of the game. And had he not been dealt with very severely by the league…I think they feel like they nipped it in the bud. But as long as the league, I think, gives harsh punishment for people who engage in betting on themselves, on their own teams, on their own sport, then they may be able to stay ahead of this. But it has come on so fast that I don't think it's possible for the leagues to entirely stay ahead of all the potential problems. And I think Steinberg is right. The integrity of the game, being in question, is so critical for fan support. And I suggest that fan support will be gone if they believe the games are rigged. If they don't believe that they are genuine contests where transparency is the order of the day, I think fan support will evaporate for that. And that is the real danger in this. Now, you've got, also, the addiction part of gambling. And I think that the organized crime element with gambling that's historically been the case, I think that's a concern too. So I guess the jury's still out on some of these things, of what will happen, but I think you're right—the genie is out of the bottle. And there's no, to mix my metaphors, there's no shoving the toothpaste back in the tube here. And the leagues have to figure out ways to stay ahead of what the potential problems might be.

Sean: I've seen some people raise some questions and say it's interesting that NBA players like Porter for gambling and, kind of, faking an injury are banned for life because of this. But other actions that people in professional sports have done, like abuse for example, have not been permanently banned. Those are fair questions that probably in some way tie to the financial stakes that professional sports have tied here. I think those are at least fair questions to ask. Now, of course, Christians are gonna say, all right, is it ever okay to gamble? And I'd be curious what you think about this, but in some ways we have to make some distinctions, right? Like, not all gambling is the same. Like the lottery, buying a lottery ticket, when we know the lottery has certain effects on an individual population, might be different than just spending $20 on a game now and then to heighten the excitement of it. Is it ever okay? Like, what biblical principles should we apply, just, kind of, broadly speaking, to the question of gambling that might help us think about sports gambling?

Scott: Well, I think like any other potential addiction, you have to be aware of what happens if you sort of fall off the cliff and get to a place where you can't control it. We have a family member, extended family member who makes his living as a professional poker player. He's very good at it, and he's made a very good living at it, but he knows when it might become a problem and when to back off, when to walk away. Others who get involved in some of this as more neophytes I think don't always know that. And there's incentive, I think, for the casinos, for the sports betting houses to get you hooked on it. Now, they'll never say that publicly, and they all have the disclaimers about if you have a gambling problem, call so and so. But the way they make money is by people coming back again and again and again. And so I'd wanna be really careful that I am not under the influence of gambling. Ephesians 5 talks about, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. Don't be under the influence of alcohol because it undermines our ability to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Gambling, I think, is the same way. Drugs are the same way. Anything that you can be addictively under the influence of, I think undermines our ability as believers to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. That's where I think gambling is an issue. I don't have a problem with people doing this sort of recreationally. As long as you realize that everything you bet needs to be money that you can afford to lose. If it's money you can't afford to lose, then you better be walking away quickly.

Sean: Yeah, that's helpful. So there's questions of wisdom. There's questions of stewardship. And I would also say, one of the shifts that I've seen is it felt like if people were gonna gamble as a whole, you could maybe gamble with some friends or go somewhere Vegas to do so. Now it's accessible through a phone. Now I can't watch an NBA finals game without it popping up by somebody who I know telling me I should do this. So in some ways, like other issues like pornography, it's so much more accessible. It's so much more in our face that it makes it that much harder to resist. So fair—

Scott: Yeah, the gambling sites are sponsoring the NBA finals.

Sean: Right. That's a good way to think about it. So, all right, good words. Now this next one I think is interesting. I'm really curious about your take on this, but tell us about what's been called Fidelity Month in the backstory here, Scott.

Scott: This is really interesting. It was put forth by our friend, Professor Robert George, who's a long time Princeton professor of law and jurisprudence. He's a devout Catholic. We've had him on several times on the podcast. He's a great brother in Christ. I got to know him initially through our common friendship with the late Chuck Colson. And he started this, they actually started this last year, and it was based on a poll that came out in March of 2023 in the Wall Street Journal. It basically said that belief in the values that used to unite us as a country are eroding. Things like faith in God, fidelity to spouses and families, love of country and community. And it was an emphasis to rebuild the values that used to unite us. Here's what the survey says, really interesting stuff. Now, just 38% of Americans say patriotism is very important to them, down from 70% who say the same thing in 1998. Slightly more Americans place the same importance on religion, 39%, but it's down from 62%. We've talked about that, they said faith was very important to them 25 years ago. Here's one that might surprise you. The percentage of Americans that said raising children is very important fell to 30%, down from 59% in 1998. Patriotism, religion, community involvement are in retreat all across the country. And here's one other one. The share of Americans who value involvement in their community as very important fell to 27%, down from a high of 62% in 2019. Five years ago. That's a precipitous drop. And here's one that really surprised me. A belief in tolerance for others is now deemed important by just over half of Americans, 58%, down from 80% four years ago. So here's—and I love the way Robbie puts this, 'cause he's our friend—he was talking to an interviewer on this and he said, by the power invested in me by absolutely no one, I designate June to be Fidelity Month. And what he wants to see us do is to renew our commitment to faithfulness to God, to fidelity to spouses and to country and community. It's not sectarian. It's a clear call to Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike to be a more faithful person to their God, to their family and to their community. And he said, it's not just a commitment that we make, but it's tangible things that you do. You pray more, you attend services more, you play a role in your community. You become a great spouse or a parent, beyond just being technically sexually faithful, but you serve your spouse, not expecting them to do things for us, but to say, how can I serve my spouse? And he says—this is a part that I really liked on this. He said, be there for your kids. Don't let devices babysit your kids. Make sure that you're parenting your children and not the devices. I can't tell you how many times I walked through my neighborhood and see parents with their kids at the park, or at the pool, or on a tennis court or a basketball court where the kids are playing, but the parents are off to the side looking at their phone, as opposed to being engaged with their kids. It's as though they just sort of turn the kid loose in the park and expect them to entertain themselves without any engagement from the parents. And the parent is sitting on the sidelines, checking their phone, checking their email, looking at their newsfeed, things like that. He also said, be a better citizen. You vote, be involved in civic affairs, be involved with candidates that you may believe in, and be committed to the life of your community. And so it had real tangible things that were attached to it, not just this, sort of, emotional commitment like, yeah, I'm gonna do better at this. What's your take on this?

Sean: Well, I've got a lot of thoughts. I love a ton about it. Huge fan of George's work, especially on marriage. His book that he co-wrote with others, "What is Marriage?" is one of the best cases from natural law for marriage. I guess one question I would have is, there's 12 months in the year and he chose June, which is also Pride Month. So clearly there's some comparison and contrast that's being played here. Now, it seems like this is a little bit of a different campaign. Pride Month seems to be about people in the LGBTQ community and those who are supportive to, kind of, proclaim their beliefs and lifestyles to the world. It's kind of a marketing campaign to sometimes shame and call out those who are not on board with what's often considered inclusion. This sounds to me more like he's saying, we're not trying to necessarily change the wider culture. This is a call to Christians, Jews and Muslims to be reminded to just live out their fidelity, faithfulness to their neighbor, to their scriptures, to love people. My take is that it's more of an in-house reminder to be faithful. And if so, I guess my question would be, why do this in June? That would be a question that I would have. But any call for Christians and other religious folks to be faithful to what they believe and a reminder of the things that we know are good is great in my book.

Scott: I think, Sean, it may be that one of the reasons that he's addressing religious people in particular is because he's seeing how much of the division in the culture is emanating from religious people, or people who have really strong religious convictions. And the divisiveness he's seen in his own Catholic circles, in evangelical circles, and you can see it now beginning to be apparent in the Jewish community as well with the debate and discussion over the war in Gaza. I think the difference between more moderate and more fundamentalist Muslims has been a point of division culturally as well. So that may be one of the reasons why he's addressing religious people here in and of themselves. I agree with you. Any admonition to be more faithful to the core commitments that I have as a believer is more than welcome. But I think he's also reaching beyond that to…he's just recognizing these are values that used to unite us as a country, and they're no longer doing that. Some of those, in fact, some of these values are dividing us as opposed to uniting us as they've done in the past. Why the month of June? I'm not exactly sure. He doesn't address any kind of hint that that might be something to say to people, be faithful to your values as opposed to being overly influenced by the trends and things that are going on in the culture at large. So that may be part of it, but that's only speculation 'cause he doesn't really say.

Sean: I mean, if I had one small humble piece of advice, it’d be like, let's do this in July 'cause you've got July 4th—it's right after Pride Month rather than during Pride Month. And it's not an in-your-face kind of response, like you have Pride, we have this. It's kind of just saying, here's a call to get back to what we collectively believe in the religious community and find some common ground. As far as he's calling people that, I think it’s great. Now, I don't know that the word fidelity is gonna have the same ring as pride, because clearly pride has been used in the LGBTQ community. And of course, pride is the deadly sin, but we also talk about, have pride in your work, take pride in the way you dress, et cetera. So I think the word fidelity might not capture people. I think a lot of people go, remind me what fidelity means? It's kind of like using the word—

Scott: Fidelity to what?

Sean: Yeah, exactly. Like, it's kind of like the word chastity. Some people go, I'm not sure I understand it. So from a marketing standpoint, I don't know if it's gonna take in the same way, but if we shift it to July and a lot of people get behind it, and it's a reminder to be faithful to things that matter, yeah, it's a great way of talking about some of the threads that are just unraveling in our country. We hardly have common things that we shared in the past. Are we still the United States of America? This is a helpful way of responding to that.

Scott: Yeah, and we'll give our listeners access to the website for Fidelity Month. So you can check this out for yourself. You can hear a little bit more about it and hear from some of the folks who are involved.

Sean: And look, here's maybe a great talking point with a coworker, with a friend, with a family member, say, hey, this guy, Robbie George, Catholic thinker, has given this idea of Fidelity Month, what do you think about it? With somebody who has a different worldview. It's just a great starting point to get into conversation with somebody, religious or not, who shares your beliefs, a non-threatening way of just building a relationship and engaging somebody. So minimally, that's a great opportunity. All right, this last story that we wanna look at, I saw this also in The New York Times. We've got a few New York Times articles this week. And one of the reasons I wanna look at this is, I sense that there's some exhaustion about the race conversation right now. There's some people who feel like we've already done this, and we've moved on, and there's no more racial issues. And then there's some people who maybe feel like, hey, we haven't really addressed the root of the issue. And there's lingering racial injustice and stereotyping and discrimination going on. And so, hopefully, we're using our voice to just remind people as Christians to keep moving the ball forward, and let's keep working towards racial justice insofar as we can. So this story was earlier in the week, and the title was "She Made an Offer on a Condo, Then the Seller Learned that She was Black." Here's the backstory. It says a black woman claims a white homeowner tried to pull out of a sale because of her race. This is dealing with a condo in Virginia Beach, and the black lady offered asking price, which was accepted, sent a down payment. And then, all of a sudden, the seller wants out of the deal. The broker contacted the lady. Again, this is the black lady who wants to buy it. Her name is Dr. Baxter. She's a molecular biologist and a science communicator and said, "I don't know how to tell you this, but she," meaning the seller, "doesn't want to sell the home to you and it's because you're black." Now the seller—The New York Times gives her name specifically and says, her name is Jane Walker, and she's 84 years old. Now, according to this article, Ms. Walker did not respond to requests for comments. Now, two laws—this is in the Article II Federal Laws, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and then the Older Civil Rights Act of 1866, make it illegal for both home sellers and their real estate agents to discriminate during a home sale. Now, one study found that 87% of real estate agents participated in racial steering, opting to show their clients’ homes only in neighborhoods where most of their neighbors were of the same race. Now, we can come back to this. I don't fully understand the ethics of this. If somebody's of a particular race and they say, "We're looking for a home with this amount of money and we're looking for people that share the same race that we are," is it necessarily racist for a real estate agent to say, "Okay, that's what you're looking for. I'll take you to those communities?" That's different than an agent assuming that's what the person wants and only taking them to a place that matches their race. That seems to me to be different things. We can come back to that. I’d love your thoughts on that. Dr. Baxter has a huge social media following. She didn't know what to do, so she posted online and a lot of people said, "File a complaint with the discrimination with the Virginia Fair Housing Office." And she also reached out to a civil rights attorney. Now, when this shifted, is she, I guess, apparently, she got from a distance kind of a virtual tour of the home, but her camera was off. So the seller couldn't see her race. And then later when she showed up to meet her, the person realized, "Oh my goodness, this person is black," two weeks later, and then decided to pull out of the sale. That's the way it went down. Now, what followed according to Dr. Baxter is that in the written timeline of the story, there was a frantic reaction by some of these real estate agents trying to salvage the deal, not let this go under, and respond accordingly. And so what she writes is, "I kind of fell back in my chair. I could not believe what I was hearing. Well, after the civil rights movement, after COVID, after George Floyd, you would think society isn't still thinking this way, but in 2024, they still are." Now, hours later…we're almost done with the story. It's important that people get the backstory. An email was sent to Dr. Baxter that said, "It was unfortunate the seller took a position to bring race into the process. Sounds like the seller's kids were able to turn her around. Well, it was unfortunate, but hopefully your purchase is back on track." And then the real estate agency, when they found out about this, was quick to publicize and make a statement that they don't allow this. In fact, the chief executive of the Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty said, "In light of the actions of our horribly misguided seller, I feel compelled to send you this email. Please be assured that the attitude of this individual is not something tolerated here or by anyone within our organization." And the home was supposed to close later this month. Now, I do have some thoughts on this, but when you see a story like this covered in The New York Times…give me your takeaway.

Scott: Well, Sean, this is not the only story on this this week, and much more public than the one in The New York Times. The well-known actor, Wendell Pierce, was renting an apartment for a family member who had just recently graduated college. And he was basically backstopping this person and offering to, you know—if his family member didn't pay the rent, he'd be good for it. And Pierce, he's been a well-known actor in a number of different series, but he was denied. And ironically, they were trying to rent an apartment in Harlem, of all places, but he was denied because he could not present proof of regular employment, which was not uncommon for actors. I mean, he's been a fully employed actor for the last 30 years. He offered to pay a year's rent in advance and still was denied. And Pierce claims he was denied because he was black. And so he went public with it, and has garnered a lot of support. I don't know what actually came of it, but it does, I think, beg the question of what is meant by fair housing. Because the more overt forms of discrimination, I think, are a thing of the past, until we hear about things like this Virginia Beach condo, which is old school racial discrimination in housing. But it's more subtle today. Racial steering, I think, could be perceived in some charitable ways, but I’d really watch that paternalistic assumption that the agent knows what they think is best for the particular client that they're dealing with. And I think knowing that agents are culpable, along with sellers and landlords, in that they can't take any protected class into account in a real estate decision to sell or rent property. That's the heart of what it means, I think, by fair housing, is that you can't be discriminated against because you are a member of a particular protected class. And I think these stories illustrate that we still have a ways to go in some areas and some segments of the culture at large.

Sean: You know, you'll get the story of Dr. Baxter. There could be more to the backstory, I don't know, but it doesn't look like she's suing, not trying to make money off this. She just was shocked that this is still happening today, and wants to let other people know about it to move the ball forward. So I just put myself in her shoes and I thought, wow, if it came back that someone doesn't want me to buy a house because of my race, that would be painful. And that would hurt. That's the kind of thing that can really scar somebody. So I just, I feel for her. I know she'll never forget this. And so I think we’ve got to pause when this happens to somebody like Wendell Pierce. And I haven't had this happen to me, but as best we can, just try to empathize and understand and then make these stories known. Now on the flip side, the fact that The New York Times is covering this and they're drawing attention to it, and the company behind it was so quick to distance themselves from the seller and make an example out of this, to me is positive, because we're hitting a cultural point where we're saying, we don't want to tolerate this anymore. We want to move beyond this. So it's painful for this individual, and I'm sure other people involved, and I appreciate their courage to speak up. But as I look at this from the outside, I'm like, good. The New York Times covers a story of one individual denied buying a home. Let's draw attention to these kinds of stories and just keep moving forward towards racial justice. Biblically, that's what we're called to do. Any other takes on this one, Scott?

Scott: No, just one final comment. I appreciate the buyer of this Virginia Beach condo. She did get her dander up a bit where, after she heard about the racial part of this, she told her agent to say to the seller, I'm either gonna buy this condo or I'm gonna buy your whole block.

Sean: [laughs] Right.

Scott: So, yeah, I think the sale went through and she did not—it's gonna go through. She did not sue or anything like that. But she did still file complaints, and I think justifiably, so.

Sean: You know, we haven't heard from the woman who's 84, the white woman, but I can tell you, if somebody mentioned my name specifically in a case like this and it wasn't true, I would speak up so fast and clear the air. And that hasn't happened. It sounds like her family talked her into it, which is good, that you have people around you pointing out this isn't right, let's do the right thing. So as painful as it is, seems like some positive has maybe come out of this.

Scott: Let's answer some questions.

Sean: We got some good ones, and I wanna know how you make sense of this one. So this person writes in and says, I watched your video on polyamory a few weeks ago—you and I had a whole discussion about problems tied to polyamory socially, relationally—and would like to share my experience and ask a question. I'm male and one of my closest female friends, who has three children, has an extramarital partner. Her husband is aware of this and approves. They do not consider this cheating or sinful. I'm heartbroken over this. I'm a relatively new Christian and here I see a, she put in quotes, “Christian” couple engaged in something which is not compatible with Christian teaching. Makes me feel like I've lost my closest friends and an ally in the faith. At the end of the video, you encourage people to not abandon those who choose polyamory, to stay at the table. What advice do you have for doing that when emotionally heartbroken? Now Scott, three times in this question, the person references being emotionally heartbroken. So clearly, it's tearing this person up. I would say a couple of things. I'd say if you're emotionally heartbroken, we will try to help here, but make sure you surround yourself with others near you that can give you that emotional support and strength. Don't try to do this alone. That's step number one that I would encourage you to. And especially if you're a new Christian, it's important that you have others around you walking you through this, 'cause this might be a long-term ongoing conversation. Now, there may be a time where you do break off relationship with somebody at some point. So we were giving a principle about staying in contact. I have a few other principles, but what other advice would you give for this individual who reached out?

Scott: Well, my heart goes out to this person. And I understand a little bit about what's involved in losing somebody who's very close to you over a moral issue. Now, our advice to stay in contact with the person, I think is right, as best we can. If the person doesn't want anything to do with you anymore because of your stand that you've taken, I'm not sure there's much you can do about that other than grieve it in the context of other people who can support you and care about you. But it sounds like what he would really like to see is for this person to change and to stop the polyamorous relationship, or at least to assess it correctly from a moral perspective. The fact that it's consensual doesn't disqualify it from being cheating, because that's only one of the two conditions necessary for something to be adultery. And the other one is that you have a one-flesh relationship with someone else beside your spouse. So whether that is consensual or not, whether your partner agrees with that or not, is really irrelevant to whether it constitutes what the Bible is referring to as adultery. I guess my advice would be, you know, let's maybe take a break from trying to be involved relationally with the person, and just take a season where you commit this to prayer. And commit this to prayer, not only for the people involved, but also just for wisdom and for insight about what your response should be at this point. I'm not sure we have obligations to continue talking to people about areas of sin in their life when they have already rejected it. And I think, you know, Jesus warns against confronting people with things when they are ill inclined to hear it. I think that's what Jesus means when he said, "Don't cast your pearls before swine." And the reason for that is because if they are not in a place where they can hear it or are not inclined to hear it, they often will turn on you and become destructive. And so that's…I would say, take a season, commit this to prayer, continue to be committed to the person, but maybe have a little relational distance until you get some more clarity about how best to proceed.

Sean: Especially 'cause this person is a new Christian. I think that's helpful advice. I would also encourage you towards reading Matthew 18. If this person is a fellow Christian, we may or may not know, based on this email, if the person [in a polyamorous relationship] is yet completely closed to speaking to them about the truth. And so make sure you go to a pastor, process this, get good pastoral advice. One who knows you, who knows the circumstances. And then at some point, I think you want to lovingly confront this person. This is what Matthew 18 says. Now, I don't know if this person is in the same exact church, or how you know this person. There's a lot of dynamics that we don't have, but at some point, the loving thing to do is to just graciously reach out and say, this behavior does not line up with Scripture. I love you. And be the person who speaks truth to them. So I think that's where you want to get with the right pastoral support, and just taking that time so you're emotionally ready. Anything else on that one, Scott?

Scott: Nope, I think that covers it.

Sean: All right, so this next one says, I work for a large Department of Defense contractor who is heavily in favor of diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI initiatives, and has been networking groups of people. I agree with some of them, veterans and disabled people, for example, but there's, of course, an LGBT+ group that seems to be celebrated the most. My questions are, how can I think biblically about these groups in order to be a good gospel witness? How do I address these group members appropriately around coworkers who agree with them, but who are not Christian? There are other groups based on race and groups for women. Should I start a group solely for men, and should I even try? Now, I'll defer to you again on this one to give us your thoughts. I definitely have some reactions, but what advice do you have for this person?

Scott: Yeah, this is a tricky one because what he's talking about here is a workplace, not a church. And the Department of Defense, the defense contractor that this person works for, can't have the same kinds of doctrinal commitments or ideological commitments that a church does. And since it's a Department of Defense contractor, I would say, it's not really a public institution, but it's not entirely private either since they contract with the Department of Defense. So it's, I'd say, sort of in between those two. And so they can't entirely set their own rules. So I guess I just have to, you know—this is who I'm working for, and some of these things I just have to accept as givens. So the question, though, is how can I be a good gospel witness around these groups? And I think the first thing I would say to that is to show respect and kindness toward the LGBT folks that you relate to, treat them with dignity and respect, and let them know that you care for them. My guess is that if they know he's a Christian, they probably already know what he thinks about some of their lifestyle choices. I think I would also suggest, recognize that, just more broadly, that DEI initiatives are on the decline across the corporate world.

Sean: That's right.

Scott: Because there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest that they just don't work when they are mandated from the top down. And they get a lot of resistance, a lot of people digging in their heels, and it's created quite a cottage industry that I think is on the decline today. So I'm not sure if this particular company is heavily in favor of diversity, equity, inclusion, because the military is requiring them to be, or if that's something that's intrinsic to the company, that's less clear to me. And I think that networking groups for various groups of people, I think is fine. I agree with veterans and disabled folks, those are good ones. But I think it's okay for people to have enclaves in their company that have people who are like them. I don't have a problem with that per se. Anyway, and then on the creating a group for men, I'd probably take a hard pass on that one.

Sean: [laughs] I was wondering your thoughts. I would definitely not create a group for men. I'd encourage this individual to start a faith group, a Christian group. I mean, Jack Hollis, who's one of the key leaders in Toyota in North America, heads up a Christian group, and it's voluntary for people to go, and they pray together, they study the Bible together, they encourage each other. In the name of diversity, start a Christian group. And then maybe once you get that group going, reach out to other groups and just say, can we have a conversation? We wanna listen, we wanna find common ground, and just start building relationships with people is what I would encourage. Scott, one more question for you. In this one, we got a bunch of questions on Catholicism. Don't have time to go into all of them, maybe we'll do a whole show on this at some point. But one question was, is it okay to pray to saints? Your thoughts.

Scott: I think, when the Bible talks about praying, they say a couple specific things. One is that there's one mediator between God and human beings. That's the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us at times when we are incapable of expressing verbally what's in our heart to God. And when reference is made to the saints praying for us, that's referring…the way the New Testament uses the word saint is for the people of God in general, not for people who have been canonized by any particular church or denomination. But it refers to the general people of God, the holy ones—that's shorthand for the people of God in general. And they are the living people of God, who we are asking to pray for us. That's the point, I think, of the passage that's cited in Revelation 8:4, where it talks about the saints, the saints praying for us in times of tribulation. Is it wrong or dangerous? I think it's…I don't think there's any point to it. And I think it's possible that we could be putting individuals in the place of a mediator. Asking saints to pray for us, the people of God to pray for us, is different than praying to a canonized saint. That, I think, runs the risk of putting someone else in the place of that mediator role that the Bible is very clear is only fulfilled by the Lord Jesus.

Sean: As always, very, very helpful. Maybe we'll come back to that topic of Catholicism, 'cause we get questions now and then. We didn't get to all the questions, but they were wonderful. Please keep them coming. As always, Scott, enjoyed this, learned something myself.

Scott: Lots of fun.

Sean: I'm looking forward to next week. I'll give listeners a heads up right now that we're gonna go through July, I'm sorry, through June, and then we're gonna take July off and then hit the ground running early in August with this Cultural Update. But through July, we'll keep our regular episodes going on Tuesday. So this has taken more work than I imagined, but I love it, and people have been telling us that it's helpful. So we're gonna keep it up through June, and then we'll pick it up early in August. All right, this has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically, Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, ��ݮ��Ƶ, where Scott and I both teach. We have master's programs in theology, Bible, apologetics, marriage and family, spiritual formation, and more, many in person and many fully online. Please keep your questions and comments coming. You can email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Please give us a rating on your podcast app. Every single rating helps, even if it's quick. And consider sharing this episode with a friend. We appreciate you listening, and we will see you Tuesday when our regular podcast episode airs, which is titled Who is an Evangelical? With one of the experts on this, church historian Thomas Kitt. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything.