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This week, Scott & Sean discuss:

• The rising celebration of as a social good reflects a dangerous shift in societal values
• Concerns grow over and the ethical implications of gene editing
• Listener question: Mixed-faith marriages
• Listener question: Navigating difficult family situations

Episode Transcript

Sean: If Western civilization is going to survive, here's why it needs Christianity. A new study reveals that Christians form the largest group of global migrants. The new glee and exultant nature of abortion advocacy. And designer babies are here, but why is no one talking about it? These are the stories we will discuss today. And we'll also take 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. Scott, this is an interesting article we're gonna start with. It's a conversation we've had, and it's been popping up in the news recently. But this brings the story home about the so-called crumbling of Western civilization through the lens of what's taking place in the UK right now. And this article is by Laura Hall. She says, "There's no Western civilization without Christianity." And she's referring to unrest that's taken place recently in the UK in light of the stabbing to death of three little girls at a Taylor Swift dance party in England, July 29th. And the suspect is a British citizen, but he emigrated to the UK from Rwanda. And there's been a massive amount of immigration concern that's been allowed. And that's kind of the root of the discussion right now, are these concerns being paid attention to. Now, newly elected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the protests “far-right thuggery,” and virtually every single media outlet, according to this article, has smeared all protesters as far-right bigots and racists. And, according to Hollis, this ignores the legitimate concerns of native British population. Now, she pointed out—I wasn't aware of this—that 40% of London's population was not even born in Great Britain. 40%. 63% of immigrants to Great Britain now come from non-EU countries, and many arrive from countries with religious beliefs and cultural practices—she didn't say most, but many that are not only different from those of Great Britain, but actively hostile to those beliefs. Now, she cites Douglas Murray, who is—last I heard, unless he shifted—a gay atheist writer and speaker, who kind of today is on a huge speaking tour. He was interviewed by Jordan Peterson recently, kind of acting like a prophet to Western culture. And he's told—he didn't tell me recently, but I heard him say recently—that he hopes he's wrong in his prognosis, but fears that he's right. And here's something that he wrote. So he refers to the Scottish First Minister, Yousaf. And here's what Murray says, "Yousuf had himself photographed on his first day in office with a group of other Muslims doing the Islamic prayers in the First Minister's office, bending to Mecca.” According to Murray, “If Kate Forbes, who was the opponent, had become leader and promptly posted a photograph of her and some others taking Holy Communion, there would have been an uproar. So why would that have been the case, but no uproar for Yousuf doing the Islamic prayers in the office?” Again, this is Murray, “Because we want everybody to have religious freedom except ourselves. We want to praise every tradition apart from our own. And we want to promote every belief system other than the one that got us here. That is madness.” Now, in some sense, he sounds a lot like Richard Dawkins, who's not a Christian, but what we might call a historical Christian—or maybe really more of a cultural Christian is a better moniker—that values what Christianity has brought to the West. Free speech, human rights, et cetera. And he's decrying that that's being lost. Now, the author of this article says, “This is societal suicide. There's no Western civilization without Christianity.” And the argument is that there's been a number of voices that are disdainful of our Christian roots in the name of science. And yet, she argues here—we won't go into depth, but I completely agree—that Christianity has been responsible for the creation and expansion of Western civilization. Its artistic, literary, architectural, educational, political, social, cultural, technological achievements, she says, even amidst the flaws, excesses or abuses in the name of Christianity haven't been remedied by getting rid of Christianity, but by appeal to its fundamental principles, like what Martin Luther King Jr. did when he's citing the prophets, calling us back to deeper biblical roots that were not being practiced. And so, here's the conclusion of the article. She writes, "Those pushing to further reduce Christianity's influence on Western civilization will soon find that what takes place is not a secular utopia of multicultural respect and scientific rationality, but a bloody morass of sectarian conflict, widespread ignorance, routine violence, and subjugation of the weak by those in power." In other words, the status quo before Christianity. Is she right?

Scott: Well, I think she is right. And the first question I wanna raise is for the Prime Minister of the UK, who accused the people who were protesting about the immigration issues of “right-wing thuggery.” I would say, what do you say to the thuggery against these girls who were stabbed, for one? And then, Sean, I think the article is so right. And not too long ago, we had our Australian friend, Glenn Scrivener, on with his book called The Air We Breathe. And what he argued, very compellingly, is those Judeo-Christian values that were fundamental to Western civilization are not just foundational to our civilization, they are part of the air we breathe culturally. Values like freedom, consent to sex, husbands loving their wives, equality, all of those things came into widespread acceptance only with the coming of Christianity, and were very, very countercultural at the time. Take a passage, for example, like Paul's teaching in Galatians 3. I'll just cite this specifically. Galatians 3:28 is a well-known text where it talks about, “there is neither Jew nor Gentile,” which is racial equality, “neither slave nor free,” which is class equality, and “neither male nor female,” which is gender equality, “for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That idea was absolutely revolutionary across the Greco-Roman world in the first century. And now the idea, at least in the West, of individual freedom, the freedom to live your life according to the values that you hold dear, that's become like an article of faith. It's just part of the air we breathe as part of our culture. Consent to sexuality was the same way. The idea that husbands would actually love their wives instead of treating them like property, and that consent was required for sexual relations, was nowhere to be found in the Greco-Roman world of the first century. And the Christian teaching on sexuality turned the culture upside down and established rights over their own body for women, for slaves, and for children that they didn't have previously. So I think you're right about Douglas Murray. He is an atheist. And even atheists like Tom Holland—who wrote this landmark book called Dominion, which all of our listeners should read—recognized the cultural contributions of Christianity. Now, one other comment on this, Sean, and that is, Friedrich Nietzche described the West a long time ago as a “cut-flower civilization.” And our friend Oz Guinness has long held that one of the main questions facing us is whether or not the West will recover those roots or further distance ourselves from them. But that “cut-flower civilization,” I think, is an apt term, where we expect the benefits of the roots while being cut off from them. We expect the benefits of the culture of Christianity while essentially rejecting most of the principal doctrines and teachings of the Christian faith. Other thoughts from you on this?

Sean: If you had told me 14 years ago in 2010—I wrote a book with another Biola grad responding to the new atheists—that some of the most vocal spokespeople speaking out against secularism and the loss of Christian cultural influence would be people like Richard Dawkins, I probably would have laughed and said, "You're nuts." But we're seeing that take place today, more and more voices—acting like biblical prophets, interestingly enough—calling people to wake up, taking the heat from culture, saying, "Time out." And in the case of Dawkins’ saying, I was—I mean, somewhat—I was wrong about this in terms of his critique. He doesn't use those words, but he is kind of conceding that his blistering tack upon Christianity was misguided. Now, he used to just…what the new atheists did is they threw all religion in together and just critiqued it. One of our responses was, I'm not interested in defending religion as a whole, whether Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam. There's differences that are there. I'm interested in defending Christianity, and specifically the ethic of Jesus. And although I don't think Holland and Murray and Dawkins are any closer to believing that this is true…

Scott: No, that's right.

Sean: This is an amazing point of connection with people that…when people talk about equality and consent and human rights, I often ask the question, where do you think those ideas come from? It's an amazing evangelistic opportunity just to have conversations with people. And so, I don't wanna miss the opportunity that people are waking up to the positive influence of Christianity when new atheism was rooted. I mean, it was hitched and subtitled to his book, How Religion Poisons Everything. New York Times bestselling book. And now we're seeing people go, "Actually, if we get rid of cultural Christianity, it's not gonna be this tolerant, secular, scientifically advanced, human rights-based society. It's gonna be the opposite." So this doesn't surprise me, because I think Christianity's true, and the Bible lays out the prescription for how we're supposed to live and flourish. But I guess the bottom line is, I've mixed feelings. It's terrible that culture's moving this direction, and it should concern us. But in some ways, backhandedly, it's a confirmation to me that Christianity got it right about human nature and about the world, and an opportunity to engage those around us. Any other thoughts on this one?

Scott: I do, a couple of them. I do think that our folks in the UK and in Europe are seeing this phenomenon a little differently than we see this in the United States. And the differences between migration to Europe and migration to the U.S. is the cultural baggage that many migrants bring. Many of the European migrants come from the Middle East, from Muslim communities, and bring a worldview that is at odds, if not hostile, to many of the values of the West. This is precisely the author and Douglas Murray's point. The difference is, migrants coming to the U.S. come largely from Latin America, steeped in a Catholic culture. That Catholic culture is more the air they breathe that is, I think, much more friendly to the values of the West than we find in some other religious traditions. And one other comment. The author makes the statement that for a long time, one of the things that has been problematic for Christian faith is the perception that science and Christianity are at odds. I wanna be clear with our listeners about this, that science itself and Christian faith are not at odds. It's scientism that's at odds with Christianity. What I mean by that is, it's the worldview of science or the philosophy of science, of philosophical naturalism, that the only thing that's real, the only thing that counts, is matter itself that we can perceive with our five senses. That is clearly at odds with a Christian worldview. But science itself was born and bred in a deeply Christian cradle in the Middle Ages and during the Enlightenment. And I don't think we would have had science be born as robustly as it was had the early scientists not been thorough believers in Jesus.

Sean: That's why Pascal and Newton and Boyle and, down the line, Galileo, Kepler, and even modern day scientists, many of them not only were Christians, but operated out of a Christian worldview. Now, your comments about some of the difference in migration brings us very naturally to this next story. And this one came out of Vatican News. And the title said, "Study reveals Christians form largest group among global migrants." Now, some of the stories we talk about, Scott, shock me. This one did not, because Christians are the largest group of people in the world, so it makes sense that we'd be the largest group of migrants. But we miss this and forget this sometimes. So, according to a recent Pew Report, Christians are the largest group on the move. Roughly 40%, almost half of those who are migrating around the world, are identified as Christians. And that includes from Latin America, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa. And they say economic factors, political instabilities, and conflict have driven many millions of Christians to relocate. Now, Muslims are the second largest religious group among global migrants, accounting for 29 million, which also makes sense 'cause they're the second largest self-identifying religious group in the world. One that jumped out to me though is Jews. Although a smaller group in absolute numbers, they have the highest likelihood of migrating, with around 20% of the global Jewish population living outside of their country of birth. I have a lot of thoughts on this. We might come back to it, but I think a lot of it is just the amount of anti-semitism around the world we've seen emerge recently, even in the States. That has to be one considerable factor behind that. Now, they point something out that's interesting at the end. They said, "Many migrants have moved to escape religious persecution or to live among people who hold similar religious beliefs. Often people move and take their religion with them, contributing to gradual changes in their new country's religious makeup," the study said. But then this article says, "Sometimes though, migrants shed the religion they grew up with and adopt their new host country's major religion, majority religion, some other religion, or no religion at all." Now, you sent me this one, Scott, so I'm really curious, what's your take on it?

Scott: Well, I'm a little surprised that more people actually don't talk about this as much as we do. We hear a lot about migration coming from the Middle East, from where they come from, parts of Asia, Latin America, but not as much about who is actually coming to predominantly the Western countries. And the article…the Pew study mentions the primary factors that contribute to migration are things like economics, political instability, war and conflict, but they don't specifically mention religious persecution, per se. And I think, in my view, we ought to call this for what it is. I think it is largely, not entirely, but largely the result of people being persecuted for their faith, because those economic dislocations and economic difficulties most often come as a result of people being persecuted for their faith. And I agree, I was alarmed too by the number of Jews. One in five Jews live outside the country of their birth. That's unprecedented today. And I think to keep in mind the number of communities, number of countries in the Middle East where not only Jewish populations, but Christian populations, have largely disappeared are from places like the West Bank, from Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, that for centuries had thriving Christian communities—that lived as minorities, but there were thriving, flourishing communities—that in the last 20 years have all but disappeared. There are virtually no Christian communities left in Iraq and Syria and the West Bank, for example. So, I think persecution for their faith is being understated here. The other interesting part of this to me is that migrants to the U.S. are more likely to have a religious identity than their American-born population and be more committed to their faith. Now, we welcome migrants with values that are compatible with our own, but I think we have to realize also that they bring a religious vitality to the country that may not be the norm here. Now, this is not quite so much the case in Europe, where what they bring religiously is quite different, but I think this is sort of a wake-up call for people who view migrants as largely negative and largely costly to the countries that they come into, because in many cases, they bring a degree of religious commitment that I think can serve as a wake-up call to those of us who have been born here in the U.S.

Sean: So, to add to some of the countries you mentioned, where Christians are just dwindling and being persecuted…we see some in Africa, like in Nigeria. We see dwindling in places like Turkey and pressure in Egypt, so it's not just the extreme countries in which there's almost no Christians left. There's others, that there's just pressure and religious persecution that makes it really hard to live that didn't happen in the past. That's a really helpful, interesting take here, and it's somewhat surprising that this article in the Vatican didn't bring it out for whatever reason. I'm glad you brought this up. My take was just a little bit different. I saw—I don't know if it's still online—-Keller, Timothy Keller, Pastor Keller wrote an article, I don't know, maybe a decade or two ago, about five big challenges confronting the church in the 20th century. And one of them is, he said, and this caught my attention, ”We need more apologetics and worldview training than ever.” And he said, “Because what we're gonna see in the 21st century is mass migration of people with very different worldviews moving places they couldn't before. And some of this is just simply because of digital technology, where we can have funds stored in places we couldn't in the past. Some of this is our ability to travel in ways we couldn't in the past and communicate.” And he said, “As a result, we don't have to just think of missions as going out to other countries. We have people coming right to us in our neighborhoods. We all need to think about ourselves as missionaries.” And I haven't forgot that, Scott. I was preaching recently on Acts chapter 17, and it talks about how Paul goes on a, quote, “mission trip to Berea,” a, quote, “mission trip to Thessalonica,” and then he's in Athens kind of as a holdover, but then he still ministers to people at the synagogue in the marketplace, because missions wasn't something he did. It's a part of who he was. Everybody listening to this, if you are a Christian, you are a missionary. You might not get paid for it, but you're a missionary. And there's people in our neighborhoods we can reach out to. Now, obviously when it comes to immigration, there's all things we could talk about related to policy and how we vote and protect the country. That's a separate conversation. But immigrants are here. And as Christians, we ought to view them as neighbors amongst us and reach out and love them and try to reach them with the gospel. If you move into a new country, it's disorienting. You're trying to make sense of who you are and where you are. What an opportunity to love people in our midst. And so, I recently went to a mosque. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go talk to an imam. Brought my 11-year-old son and got a tour of a mosque, asked him some questions. Made a documentary about it. It got a ton of views. Like, it did well. And then now I invited the imam and said, hey, will you come into my class on apologetics and just talk with my students? All I'm saying is, there's people around us from very different backgrounds because migration is shifting like crazy. Let's love our neighbors and use this as an opportunity to care for the people in our midst.

Scott: One final note, the apologetic part I think is so right. And particularly what we hear from folks who are serving in the developing world, particularly south of the equator where Christian faith is exploding, what they need more than anything else is specifically apologetics to Islam. Because Islam and the prosperity gospel, those are the two things they said are the biggest threats to biblical faithfulness and to church growth in the developing world. So that apologetic emphasis, I think is so right. But I think specifically for those who are in the developing world still, that apologetic to Islam is a very important part of what's needed around the world.

Sean: Oh man, I could preach on that one for a long time, but I will let that mic drop. I agree 100%. Well said. This next article, Scott, this was an instance where you sent it to me and said, let's talk about this one, and I had already read it and was meaning to send it to you. This one isn't shocking, like it doesn't surprise me. I've seen this trend happening, but it's really sobering to me. And I read it and it's heartbreaking. It's by Carl Truman, who's written The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which I would consider one of the most important books to read in the past five years. I've read it twice. And he's just, again, he has a prophetic voice. And the title is "The Exultant Nature of Today's Abortion Advocacy." Now he starts by talking about how there's a Planned Parenthood mobile clinic offering free abortions just a few blocks from the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Now his point is not to make a political…he's not trying to make a political point here, but he's talking about how even within political circles and publicly, the way those who support abortion do so has completely shifted. It's shifted. And so he writes this, he says, "There's a deeper issue with the grandstand of abortion that goes beyond the problem of showcasing moronic entertainers at a political convention." So he also critiqued the Republican National Convention and hosting people like Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan. So he speaks truth about what he sees politically. Nonetheless, he says, "But the move from abortion being sold to the public as safe, legal, and rare," which was a line from Clinton, "to being celebrated as a necessary social good is revealing." Now, some of this is the result of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, he goes, “But it goes deeper than this.” And this is where I think he's right on. He says, "In a disenchanted world…" Now, what he means by disenchanted world is just a naturalistic, physical, material universe where there's no spirits, there's no objective beauty and morality, God doesn't exist, angels and demons, what you see is what you get. "In a disenchanted world, one can imagine abortion being seen as a necessary evil that demands the workplace, the economy, and society at large might make itself. In a world where rape and incest exists, sometimes the options for addressing such evil might make themselves involve a degree of evil.” I disagree with that logic, but it seems consistent with the regretful moral resignation that disenchantment might involve. He says, "We all know, however, that abortion advocates invoke exceptional cases of rape and incest as a rhetorical ploy to win the public through emotion and not argument." He's exactly right about that. "Otherwise they would argue that abortion should be restricted to such cases, or that in a world without rape and incest, abortion would no longer be necessary." Well said. He goes, "The abortion debate is not driven by mere disenchantment, the notion that the baby in the womb is just a clump of cells and nothing more." And here's the line, "It is driven by desecration, to destroy what is sacred." That's a powerful line. “We live in a world where we are taught to prize our individual autonomy and to throw off everything that might curtail or impinge upon it. That makes us all feel like gods,” lowercase g. Now he says, "Crossing lines that are sacred has always been exhilarating." He takes the Protestant Reformation. He says, "But even in the Protestant Reformation, they were bound by a book, namely the Bible, so it was a form of creative destruction of things that were deemed out of line biblically, spiritually, et cetera." He says, "Today's progressivism recognizes no such things, no boundaries. Nothing is sacred but the godlike power of the autonomous self-creator, defined by the repudiation of whatever previous generations have considered sacrosanct." By the way, I wish I could write like Truman does, just a side note here.

Scott: Me too, me too.

Sean: He says, "And the slaying of a human being is surely the most dramatic demonstration of this autonomy. This is why abortion is now not merely regarded as a necessary evil, but as something exhilarating, something to be proud of and rejoice over. It may be an individual tragedy for many of those who seek one, but ideologically, it has become the poster child of a world marked by desecration, a symbol, even a rite of passage, exhilarating liberation." And his point is, he says this at the end, "Abortion advocates dehumanize the baby in the womb. It also turns and dehumanizes us." So, you and I could talk about how social media dehumanizes us. We could talk about how pornography dehumanizes us. But he's saying this is the ultimate act of, just, sacrosanct desecration. This is the ultimate act of the will of the self and autonomy, to end a human life simply because I want to. That's a powerful shift that we've seen. Now, are you in line here with Truman? Tell me where you're at, Scott.

Scott: Well, this is, Sean…I concur. This is incredibly insightful, as we would expect from Truman. And I would really encourage our listeners to click on the link for this article. This article is worth a subscription to First Things, where it was published. And this, you're right, this is a major change from the Clinton administration when abortion was supposed to be safe, legal and rare. The rare part, I'd say not so much anymore. And in part, that's a reaction to the overturning of Roe that happened two years ago. But here's…what I don't see is something that was becoming more popular among pro-choice advocates. And that is, he makes reference to abortion sometimes almost being a necessary evil that sometimes had to be done. And that set up a new category of abortion advocates, those who would concede the personhood of the unborn, but hold that women still have the right to end the lives of their full-person, unborn children. And the reason people like Naomi Wolf, for example, championed that position was almost chiding her pro-choice colleagues that they were ignoring the insights of technology such as ultrasound, especially 4D ultrasound that we have today, making it harder and harder to hold the position that the fetus, the unborn child is nothing more than a clump of cells or something analogous to a piece of tissue. And I don't see that stance at all since the Dobbs decision of two years ago. And that…I mean, abortion was often seen in some feminist circles as a rite of passage for women. To be a genuine feminist, that was a hoop you had to jump through. And this is becoming a huge concern to me, is the notion that abortion would be a morally serious decision seems to be waning as a result. And instead, I think as Truman points out, it's being celebrated as a statement of, it's the ultimate. My body, my choice, and to heck with anything else that might be a consideration in this. Here's how Wolf describes this, just from her own experience. “It was when I was four months pregnant, sick as a dog in the middle of an argument, that I realized I could no longer tolerate the fetus-is-nothing paradigm of the pro-choice movement. I was being interrogated and the subject of abortion came up. ‘You're four months pregnant,’ the person said. ‘Are you going to tell me that's not a baby you're carrying?’ The accepted pro-choice response at this moment was to evade, to move to something else. Had I not been so nauseated and cranky and so weighed down with the physical gravity of what was going inside of me, I might not have told what was the truth. ‘Of course it's a baby,’ I snapped. And if I found myself in circumstances in which I had to make the terrible decision to end this life, then that would be between myself and my God.” And she invokes the imagery of sin and redemption to help make sense of this idea, harmonizing the personhood of the unborn and the right of women over their own bodies. And I think, Sean, what I see Truman pointing out is that moral seriousness about the choice to end a pregnancy has disappeared. And not only have we lost a view of the sacred, not only lost the view that human beings are made in the image of God, but it's all about rights, and the unborn are not even a consideration in today's discussion about abortion. And in my view, that sets up…we have to make a new apologetic for abortion. We can't assume that our arguments about the personhood of the unborn are gonna carry weight like they did not that long ago. And I think the pro-life movement has to change some of their apologetic in this area.

Sean: Now, this is a big conversation, but I'd love to know what you think that apologetic would and should look like. Because for years, it's been making the case that the unborn is a human being, and there's no such thing as a human non-person. You know, a person's like angels, or Jesus who's a person and also became human. But an angel is not human, but is a person. And so we make the case that if it's human, then clearly people should give it the right to life. Now there's a sense that I hear often, people just saying, yeah, whether it's human or not, whether it's a person or not doesn't matter. My autonomy is over everything else I wanna do with my life and with my body. That's…in some ways I've seen that shift. Go ahead.

Scott: Well, and the result of that is that any discussion of the fetus is no longer a consideration. I think that's what Truman is pointing out. It's become so calloused and so much of a celebration of abortion rights that what kind of a thing the unborn child is is almost irrelevant to the discussion today. And that's the troubling part. What I think the apologetic ought to look more like is stories of women who decided to keep their pregnancies and have no regrets about doing that. And who found that they found great joy in raising the kids, they overcame hardships, they saw how God provided for them, things like that. Because the story about abortion today is based on the stories of women who have had a bad experience in states where abortion rights are being restricted today. And we need a countering narrative that the abortion decision is not always in the best interest for women, not even ever in the best interest for women, not to mention the unborn child. But it can also be harmful to women as well. So we need, I think, a counternarrative based on some of those stories, like our friend Sarah Zagorski who we had on not long ago, whose mother literally got off the table in a Planned Parenthood clinic when she was pregnant with Sarah. Got off the table and walked out of the abortion clinic, never to return again. And Sarah, she tells a story of how grateful she is that her mom had the courage to literally get off the table when she was about to have the abortion procedure done and walk out of the clinic.

Sean: I think you're right about that. There was a piece you and I were going to discuss that I sent to you about kind of the new pro-choice spokespeople. And all this article did is tell stories about people who were denied rights in certain states and abortion helped them. So I think moving forward, stories are persuasive. Jesus told stories. But we also have to show this is a true story. I know you agree with this.

Scott: Right.

Sean: And the science backs it up. I think the two of those have to be done together. Here's the scientific facts, here's the philosophical case, and then, emotively, the stories help bring that home. I wonder if in a matter of time, we're gonna have more and more stories of kids saying, hey, were it not for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I'd be dead. I wouldn't be here.

Scott: Exactly, exactly.

Sean: In 10, 15, 20 years. Now, chemical abortions have increased, right? But there's arguably—I don't even know the numbers—there's arguments about this, but some thousands of babies were not aborted, at least in certain states, that arguably would have been. I wanna hear their stories. And I hope they'll have the courage and fortitude to speak up.

Scott: Well, in Texas, for example, the abortion rate dropped by 50% when some of those laws were passed. So I think to say that the law doesn't make a difference, not so much.

Sean: Good call. All right, this last story, Scott, is right in your lane. I'm really curious about your take on this. And this one is from Inverse.com. It says, "Designer babies are here. So why aren't we talking about it?" Now, they say in this article that in 2015, three years after scientists discovered how to permanently edit the human genome—which means 12 years ago in 2012, they learned how to do this—-scientists released a statement to “stop the application of germline genome editing. And let's have conversations about this.” But they didn't happen. In 2018, at least two babies had been born from germline editing with embryos that had been genetically modified in China. That's 2018. In 2020, there was an international commission that brought together expert views resounding the same call for societal discussion about germline editing, but things continued on. The author of this piece says, "I'm a medical anthropologist and bioethicist who studies the values and experiences driving prenatal gene therapy developments, including genome editing." Now, human prenatal genome editing has not yet happened. Prenatal genome editing isn't the same as editing ex vivo embryos. Now, we'll come back to this. Part of the debate is, is there a kind of gene editing in the womb that just helps that particular baby? And is there a kind of gene editing that will be passed on to further generations and permanently or long-term shift the genes? That's, in part, where the debate is coming to place. Now, some of the feedback on this in the U.S. More recently, the National Council on Disability published a report with their concerns about embryo and prenatal editing. And I thought this was a valid concern, the potential for more discrimination against people with disabilities. And of course, we've seen this with Down syndrome, when we can identify these kinds of conditions in the womb. Down syndrome has basically been eradicated from Iceland. And there's pressure on people in the States to not have babies who are Down syndrome. So that's a concern that's raised. What they say at the end of the article is, there's still small potential for accidental germline editing. So here's what they say…maybe you can clarify this for us, Scott. They said, "Prenatal genome editing sits within the broader spectrum of human genome editing, which ranges from germline, where the changes are heritable, to somatic cell, where the patient's descendants won't inherit the changes." But then they say in the article, "There's still a small chance that accidental germline editing could take place." In other words, the only way to stop this is to do this editing on a bunch of babies, and then study them years later and see if it affected them or not, which is obviously not the kind of experiment that one can do. And then the other wrinkle in this, is that if they're gonna treat a 12-year-old with sickle cell disease—which, you know, another wrinkle, is that that tends to affect the black community more than other communities. Costs gene editing $3.1 million. So we have this storm right now, Scott, where this editing is becoming more available and possible. There's belief that there'll be some success, but we don't know how it'll affect future generations. The cost is exorbitant. How on earth do we move forward, given the fact that China and other countries almost certainly are going to do so anyways?

Scott: You know, Sean, I remember saying to my classes, as far back as when you were a student, that designer babies were not likely in our lifetime.

Sean: I remember that.

Scott: In the last three or four years, I've stopped saying that, and I've admitted that I was wrong about that. Because the potential for designer babies is about to be realized. Now, this article didn't really talk about designer babies, per se, because the article talked about using gene editing to correct or to cure genetic disease. And the germline and somatic cell distinction, I think, is a helpful one. And the germline aspect of this is all that we've been able to do technologically so far, because it's working on embryos, sex cells and embryos, that are outside the womb. That's what ex vivo means. You know, outside of life, outside the womb. And so what that means is that the germline alteration is possible, that it can be inherited by succeeding generations. So, for example, you mentioned sickle cell anemia, which I think disproportionately affects the black community. What they discovered in early gene therapy, which is different than gene editing…in early attempts to correct that gene, what they discovered is that by turning on the gene that would provide resistance to sickle cell anemia, one of the side effects of that was to turn off the gene that has charge of the body's resistance to malaria. And so you sort of, I mean, you're robbing Peter to pay Paul here in one sense. You're solving one thing, but you're creating another really damaging prospect for the person that is heritable now in succeeding generations. And nobody saw that coming. And there's still so much that we don't know about the genetic code that people are, I think, justifiably fearful of the law of unintended consequences coming back to bite us in the scientific rear end. So here's what they describe as prenatal gene editing. And gene editing is nothing more than a technological pair of genetic scissors that allows us to snip out a defective gene and replace it with one that's functioning properly. It's an incredible technology that has tons of potential for curing all sorts of genetic diseases. And that normally takes place in embryos that are created in the lab. And so, those changes can be made in embryos, very early stage embryos, but it does mean that they are heritable in succeeding generations. What they call prenatal gene editing occurs inside the womb and does not get passed on. So it's a surgical technique that goes on inside the womb that has to have the mother's consent too. Downside to that, as far as the article is concerned, is it tends to see the fetus as a patient. That's what this prenatal surgery has done for us. I think that's a good thing, that we see the fetus as a patient. And I think the inconsistency is becoming evident of seeing fetuses as patients but not persons. So one of the things we can do in the womb is we can correct the defect known as spina bifida, which is a place where the sac that protects the spinal cord doesn't close all the way due to a genetic malformation. What doctors can do now is go into the womb and close that opening so that the spinal cord is not being subjected to all kinds of detrimental environmental influences. And that's a wonderful thing. Now, at present, all the discussion is about preventing disease. In the future, it's gonna be about choosing traits that are desired. And I think it's entirely appropriate theologically to use medicine, to use medical technology, to reverse the effects of the general entrance of sin. Which disease, especially genetic disease, is one of the major ones of those. But choosing the traits of a child is what most people mean when they talk about designer babies. And that is a totally different story. Because if we're gonna take the biblical teaching seriously that children are a gift, from Psalm 127, we receive them gratefully, open-handedly, and to be sure, we receive them without specifications. Because putting specifications on a gift undermines the notion of the gift itself. Because gifts are something that are received just for what they are, and received gratefully and open-handedly. And I know that sometimes our kids give us Christmas lists, and there's wedding registries, and things like that. But the reason they have those things is because the people who want the gifts don't have confidence that the givers know exactly what they need. But God's not like that. God knows exactly what we need. And He knows exactly what we need in our children, and what traits we need in our children, not to mention what our children need. So I think the idea of…I think this prenatal gene editing is still a ways off. Because doing gene editing in a way that only affects the individual himself or herself is a much trickier thing to do technologically than working on sex cells or early stage embryos outside the womb. Does that make sense?

Sean: Yeah, it does. One thing I wanna draw back to is our concern earlier on the shift in abortion is that it's moving towards autonomy and ends up profoundly dehumanizing the unborn. It dehumanizes. Well, if we get to the stage in our lifetime or beyond where we have designer babies, it's the same thing. It turns the unborn into a product that we tailor for our wants and desires and use them. Whether it's hair color, height, intelligence, eye color, whatever kind of thing we can potentially manipulate, it's not as obvious as killing the unborn, but it's the same spirit that can sneak into it. I think I've shared this before. I told my kids, I said, "I chose your mom, but I didn't choose you." [laughs] I told them, I said, "We wanted to have kids, and I love you 'cause you're my son and my daughter. Nothing will change that. But I didn't get to choose what you were like and your characteristics. It's a surprise.” In fact, that's part of the fun, is learning to love children that come to you in a way that maybe as parents, if we were God, we would have written the script differently. And a part of that is to humble us and teach us lessons we need to learn about to better love people. And so, giving us more of this power robs that lesson I think God wants to teach us as parents through our kids.

Scott: Well, and with trait selection comes expectations. We've seen that already with the technological ability to greatly increase the odds that you can select the sex of your child. And normally, there are huge expectations that go with a strong desire for one sex over the other. I think we need to submit those expectations to the worship of Christ. And I think one of the things that is good for children is allowing the things that God has embedded in our kids, allowing those things the freedom to emerge. My youngest son—we tried the sports thing with him—we didn't know that he had this thing that he was wired for acting and for stage and theater. And thank God that my wife had the insight and the foresight to do the things necessary for this to emerge. And so, it's a big part of who he is as a child. Had we had expectations about something different, who knows if that would have been allowed to have emerged or not. And so, I think to be able to respect what philosophers sometimes call a child's right to an open future, without foreclosing things that might really contribute to their flourishing in the long run, is part of what makes parenting so challenging, but also I think calls for parenting to be thoughtful and insightful for some of those things as well.

Sean: Good word, Scott. You wanna take some questions?

Scott: I would. We got tough questions today, Sean, I gotta tell you.

Sean: Every week we do, but I love it. Now this one, well, I'll just jump right in. Sometimes we shorten these if people send them in just for the sake of time, but this individual says, “I was born and raised a fourth generation Christian scientist. While a Christian scientist, I married a Mormon. I came to saving faith in Jesus two and a half years into my marriage. For the past 24 years, I've tried to win my husband to Christ, put my children to the truth of the Bible, nourish them with love for God. Our children attended church with me while growing up, but since then, two have walked away. My husband remains Mormon. This past Saturday, my daughter just told me she's having struggles with her marriage. She admitted that she has been pansexual since 15. She and her husband have been trying polyamory, but she caught him breaking again the boundaries they had set for this polyamorous relationship. She's seriously contemplating divorce. I'm at a complete loss as to how to proceed. I don't see God answering my prayers for my family, and it's frustrating. Any thoughts you have on my situation would be greatly appreciated.” First off, thanks for trusting enough to even care what we have to say about this.

Scott: Hear, hear.

Sean: I'm super honored at that, and I just have a few humble thoughts. One encouragement is please, please don't do it alone. You might not be able to find a fellow fourth generation Christian scientist who married a Mormon and had a daughter go through the drama that she went through. You're not gonna find someone exactly like that, but you'll find people married to non-believing spouses. You'll find people whose kids aren't following the Lord. You're not alone. I hear stories like this all the time, and there's some in your church just for support and prayer. That's biblical and will help you emotionally. Second is, you expressed concern God's not answering your prayers. Maybe God is answering our prayers, your prayer, in the sense that it often takes brokenness and awareness of sin and hurt to draw our attention to the Lord. I'm not gonna presume to know what He's doing in your daughter's life, but I know the time that I've asked God to work in my kids, it never comes the way I want it to.

Scott: [laughs]

Sean: And when I see repentance, it's always more painful than I ever imagined. I'm like, "Okay, God, I get it." So, maybe this is an opportunity where she's realizing this life she's been living since 15 doesn't work. And if she's been to church with you, she knows God's design for marriage and sexuality, knows forgiveness. It's awesome she came and talked to you of all people. So I would just lean in. This is an opportunity to show grace and love and care. And so just, maybe God is answering your prayers, but whether He does or not, your job and my job is to be faithful. Faithful to a spouse, whether they're believing or not, faithfully love our kids. And above all, I just wanna encourage you to not give up. You've been doing this for a long time. Keep going forward. God's probably using you in ways you can't even begin to see right now.

Scott: Just a couple of things. That's really insightful. I appreciate that. And I too am honored that she would trust us with this kind of a scenario. This is a lot more complicated than most of the questions that we get, I admit. And I would just say a couple of things to add. I think your daughter who is in this polyamorous relationship, I suspect, is in a pretty significant amount of pain as a result of this. And I think what she needs, more than boundaries, more than advice, is she just needs to know that you love her and care for her and wanna see her thrive and flourish. And I think once she knows that, she might be open to listening. I suspect that until she knows that, she won't be open to listening. A second thing is, you have a lot of really complicated dynamics here that are well beyond the expertise Sean and I have to help you sort those out. It may be that somebody who is trained, a good Christian therapist who's trained in marriage and family to deal with dynamics like this, might be really helpful to you. I suspect you might've tried that already. You don't make reference to this here. But if you haven't tried that, I think that may be one of the somebodies that's out there that Sean mentioned for you to connect with.

Sean: Good word, Scott. We have two more questions, and both of these are deep and sensitive, and we're probably gonna have to give a little quicker answers than they deserve. But let's give it a shot. This says, "We are older Christians and for 20 years have been unable to find a church where we feel comfortable, welcome, and at home. We have visited over 40 churches and seen the same ministry style, shallow sermons, technologically driven for maximum stream potential, loud, casual, redundant music.” It goes on and on. “Some places have better preaching, but poor music, et cetera. Everything is geared towards people under 45 and hyper-focused on millennials and Gen Z. Here's my question. How are we older followers of Jesus supposed to find a church where we can thrive and serve?” First off, the fact that you’ve visited 40 churches and done this for so long, you've lasted way more than most people who would have given up a long time ago. So kudos to you for that. All I can suggest are probably things you've thought about. One option I think at times to consider is to start a home church. Now there's ups to that and there's downs to that, but that's one consideration at times. It's been done well if it can be cross-generational, just a thought to throw out there. The other one is to just try to choose a church—none is perfect—and say, you know what? I'm just gonna go to the least negative one from my perspective and faithfully be present and try to build relationships and minister to people from within. That's what my encouragement would be. I think if your analysis is right, there's a lot of churches that need people like you to build relationships with leadership, with the right attitude, and just tell your story to them. Here's where we're at. If you were in our shoes, what would you do? So I know the Bible wants us to be engaged in church, and I mourn that you're not finding the one that fits, but maybe God's call for you is to be kind of a missionary type voice to a church that needs to hear older, seasoned experience and have them see things that you have that maybe they don't. That's the best I can do. Anything you wanna throw in there, Scott?

Scott: Yeah, a couple of things. One is it may be that you've been looking in one particular style of church and worship and it may be that something that may, for example, be a little more liturgical. Churches that are a little bit smaller that have a more liturgical tradition that celebrate communion every week might be something that might resonate with you. I suspect you might've tried one of those. If you tried 40, you probably tried one of those too, but my wife and I have found that tradition to be very helpful for ourselves. The liturgical tradition, I think, is designed to appeal to everyone, but is not geared to any particular age group. And then I think, Sean, your advice, too, essentially echoes what my mentor said a long time ago. He said, "Stop looking for a perfect church, and if you find one, don't join it."

Sean: [laughs]

Scott: Because you will surely ruin it.

Sean: [laughs]

Scott: And I think that's right. Nothing's gonna be perfect. For example, you and I have more theological education than we know what to do with. We both have seminary degrees, we both have PhDs. I've realized some time ago that the preaching in most churches is not gonna be geared at someone like you and me. 'Cause most people who are in our churches are not in the same kind of educational place that we are. Not that there's anything superior about that. It's just different. And so I have, I've sort of come to a resolution that the preaching in most churches is not gonna be aimed at where I am. So I go to church for a different reason. I go to church for the worship, for the community, to connect with people who are important to me, who share my same faith values. But I don't particularly…I mean, I love the preaching in the church we go to, but that's not why we're there. We're there for other reasons. And I realized that some time ago, that you and I are outliers among most of the people that we go to church with in that regard.

Sean: Good stuff, I like that. That's really helpful, Scott. Last one, I'll give you just some quick thoughts on this, 'cause we're pushing our wrap-up time here. This comes from a practicing therapist who just watched our episode with Chris Adams on a Biblical View of Mental Health. That's one of our normal Tuesday episodes. Said, "I found it helpful. My question is, can mental illness impact people's salvation?" And so he recognized that some people in therapy, some of his clients with certain psychotic and mood disorders, there's a difficulty for them to engage with their faith. What I would make is a distinction when we talk about salvation. It says, “is this something that can affect their salvation?” Well, salvation has a past, present, and future component to it. So Ephesians 2 says, "For by grace you have been saved." And Ephesians talks about being sealed by the Holy Spirit. If someone has been saved—that's justification from the past—then mental illness and disorders are not going to dislodge the root of that faith. I find no reason to believe that. Now, salvation is also present, where, for example, Acts 2:47 says, "The Lord added to their number day by day by those who were being saved." That's sanctification, how somebody grows in their faith. Now, could a psychotic disorder affect somebody's sanctification? Yeah, it can. And I think these are examples of ways they can do this. Not the only way, but one way that could affect somebody's ability to connect with God and to grow spiritually. The other kind is in the future, where we will be saved from sin, so to speak, and glorified. So I don't think mental illness can affect somebody's glorification in the future, their justification in the past, but can affect their salvation, so to speak, in the present. So you might say, we were saved from the penalty of sin, we are being saved from the power of sin, and we will be saved from the presence of sin. So could somebody with a mental disorder be affected differently by the power of sin 'cause of our fallen bodies? Yeah, and I grieve that. Again, that's not the only way, but that seems very possible to me. But it doesn't affect justification. And it might be that that individual, when they get to glorification, because of what they went through, will have a deeper well to enjoy and appreciate being freed from a sinful body than you and I if we don't experience those kinds of mental illnesses.

Scott: Well said.

Sean: All right.

Scott: Close in prayer.

Sean: I'll take it, Scott. Good word, my friend. Hey, as always, this is a joy. I'm already looking forward to next week. But for those of you watching, keep in mind, this has been an episode of the podcast, Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by where Scott and I both work, Talbot School of Theology, ��ݮ��Ƶ. We've got master's programs. We would love to come alongside you in theology, apologetics, marriage and family, Bible, spiritual formation, online and in person. Please keep submitting comments and questions. Our email is thinkbiblically@biola.edu. Every rating on our podcast app helps. If you've thought, I wonder how I can give back to Scott and Sean for their work on this, a rating goes a long way, and it might take you two to three minutes. We appreciate you listening and we'll see you Tuesday when we have back a favorite guest we've had on multiple times. Richard Weikart, professor, has a new book that's so interesting on the history of euthanasia. In the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything.