What is the meaning of Yes? California Colleges May Have to Decide.

California is now debating a law which requires its universities to come up with an "affirmative consent standard" that could be used in investigating and adjudicating sexual assault allegations. The standard would be defined as "an affirmative, unambiguous and conscious decision" by each party to engage in sexual activity.

What would prompt such action?  University campuses are not merely awash with sexual activity.  The assumption going in is not whether students will engage in sexual activity but how to make sure sexual activity doesn’t get out of control.  Particularly, and specifically, the concern is that some students (read: males) will have sex with other students (read: females) who have not truly consented to have sex.  One problem that has arisen during this time of all out sexual liberation is that, allegedly, one out of every five young women on college campuses have been sexually assaulted.  I don’t know the basis for this statistic except that it comes from a White House task force.  I do know the Department of Education released the names of numerous (many “top flight”) educational institutions that had problems in this area. 

Ironically, though,  any effort to restrain sexual conduct is deemed offensive.  The Los Angeles Times editorialized that “It seems extremely difficult and extraordinarily intrusive to micromanage sex so closely.”

So the tension is that libertines want unbridled sexual freedom but only when it’s absolutely clear that it’s unbridled, “consensual” sexual freedom.  Never mind that college campuses are

bastions of alcohol and drug induced sexual activity in which the participants may not always be in control of their senses and, thus, unable to ascertain with complete clarity whether the person with whom they are engaged in sex is, in fact, consenting.  Does consent have to be verbal or is a nod or some other physical action sufficient?  Must the parties enter a written agreement before having sex?  What happens when consent occurs while the parties are both intoxicated?  This is not an excuse for rape or any other kind of sexual assault.  However, what happens when Jane Doe wakes up the next morning and is half naked lying next to a guy whose name she may or may not know for sure?  Was there consent?  Was there not?  Who truly knows? 

These are the very kinds of laws that MUST exist when we untether ourselves from more fundamental moral restraints.  When, as a society, we decided we wanted unbridled sexual freedom, we failed to acknowledge the consequences.  One of those consequences is that the idea of consent inevitably becomes much more fluid.  In the not so distance past in the United States the anticipated norm for sex was that a man and a woman would be married before having sex.  Now there is no anticipated norm for sex, except that most of us still (thank God) see pedophilia as wrong.  When the guidelines for sexual activity become amorphous, consent, like other facets of sexual activity, loses its distinguishing characteristics – it’s just part of the morass.

So, now, ironically, the state of California is debating actually passing a law that requires colleges receiving public funds to specify what consent looks like.  After Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003), one wonders if such a law can pass constitutional muster.  After all, wasn’t the premise underlying Lawrence that intimate sexual conduct was protected by the 14^th Amendment?  If the state can’t regulate with whom one can have sex, might there be a problem trying to legislate what consent means?  Doesn’t this also mean these universities will be in the business of defining what sex is, as well?  Is kissing alone sex or do you need something else?  What else?  I won’t get any more graphic  but you get the point.

So California colleges may now have to come up with a definition of consent.  Ironically, this means that colleges will have less flexibility to deal with sexual assaults and, I predict, will actually lower the reporting.  People aren’t stupid.  Guys will now simply pull out their phone and video a young woman agreeing to sex so they have proof of consent and post it to Facebook or Instagram before they do anything and then what?  Now the whole world knows she said yes.  Moreover, this will mean, by definition, there will come a point during the sexual encounter where the consent cannot be withdrawn.  Otherwise, yes doesn’t really mean yes, leading to legal rape.  She no longer wants to, but said yes . . . so she’s stuck.  Is this what we’re after?  Really?

Yet, this is what happens when we untether ourselves from moral norms.  The inevitable result is that life must be regulated in every detail because people cannot be allowed to govern themselves.  Moral norms serve that purpose but in a pluralistic and predominantly secular society, moral norms no longer mean anything and are often seen as retrograde and anachronistic.  Ironically, though, leaving moral norms behind leads not to more freedom but less.  So now already confused and discombobulated 18 year olds arriving on California college campuses will find themselves dealing with an arcane code of sexual conduct which will likely require an entire course to understand.  Maybe we'll get lucky and students will decide it's too complicated to have sex and opt out until they get married.  I'm not counting on it, but one can hope.

Osteenized by Happiness: The Non-Theology of Joel and Victoria Osteen

"So, I want you to know this morning: Just do good for your own self. Do good because God wants you to be happy.  When you come to church, when you worship Him, you're not doing it for God really. You're doing it for yourself, because that's what makes God happy. Amen?"

Victoria Osteen

Just for kicks and giggles, let’s assume Victoria Osteen has, in fact, read at least parts of the Bible.  At exactly what point in the Bible does God ever say that worship is for us because that’s what makes Him happy? 

This is the problem with Ms. Osteen and her husband, Joel.  They never really quite say anything that is absolutely heretical; they just mosey right up to the edge of heresy, throw a rock over and watch it fall into the abyss, smiling white-toothed smiles all the while and following it with a hearty Amen!  I won't make the strange argument that maybe Victoria was actually channeling her inner John Piper and is really just talking about being a Christian hedonist here.  I wish.

The Osteens are practically off limits to criticism because since they’re just so gosh darn happy, they must be doing something right.  This fundamental assumption underlies their entire theology – what little theology they actually practice.  God loves you.  People who love you want you to be happy.  Therefore, God must want you to be happy.  Rinse, repeat.  Rinse, repeat.  Rinse, repeat.

But, golly gee whiz, there’s just one small bump in their road, one small fly in their ointment, one tiny chink in their armor – shhhhhhhh – no one’s listening, right?  Their theology isn’t (hem, haw) in the Bible.

I mean if it weren’t for that tiny little flaw, their theology would be fantastic, sensational, magnificent, spectacular.  For crying out loud, it’d almost be Oprah-worthy. 

So let’s imagine Joel and Victoria actually reading the Bible, trying to find the “happiness” verses.  They try Philippians 2:13 where Paul writes “for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”  Whoops, looks like God is in it for His pleasure, not mine.  But that’s probably just Paul – he was kind of a killjoy, anyway, right – I mean he hates women and homosexuals, so he probably didn’t want anyone to be happy.  Let’s try Peter – yeah, certainly Peter will give us something, he was like Jesus’ right hand man, right?  Well, not so much.  1 Peter 1:6 tells us we should rejoice in our inheritance from God “though for now for a little while you may have to suffer various trials.”  Doggone it – Peter actually says we might suffer.  What happened to happiness?  Let’s try James.  He was Jesus’ half-brother – surely he’ll give us some happiness.  James 1:12 says “Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him.”  Oh, come on.  “Wait,” Joel says, “I know that Luke will give us something good – he was a doctor, I think.”  But then they get to Luke 14:27 where Jesus says “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  Not Jesus, noooooooo.  Joel stops smiling.  Both he and Victoria have a tear roll down their cheek.  This cross thing is too much – we saw “The Passion of the Christ” by Mel Gibson – that wasn’t a happy movie. 

What happens if Joel or Victoria gets cancer and dies?  What if one of their children is struck with an incurable disease?  How do Joel and Victoria then explain their theology?  No one is happy when such things come their way.  Somehow flashing the pearly whites while chanting “every day’s a Friday” doesn’t seem likely to handle such a storm.

Of course, that’s why actually studying the Bible is so important.  The Bible has much to say about human suffering and how to endure.  In Mark 4, Jesus and the disciples encounter a storm as they are crossing the Sea of Galilee.  Jesus is sleeping in the stern of one of the boats.  The disciples are bailing water out, but eventually it looks like the boats might get swamped.  They’re scared.  These are fisherman familiar with these waters – they recognize the intensity of the storm and know this might be the end.  Finally, when they feel they can’t hang on any longer, they awaken Jesus, asking him if he cares.  Jesus calms the storm with a word, then asks them if they have any faith. 

Joel and Victoria:  the point isn’t that the disciples were happily singing “row, row, row your boat” while the storm raged around them.  Jesus didn’t put some sort of cone of calmness around them, so they didn’t experience the storm.  The disciples were decidedly unhappy as they faced the water sloshing over the bows of the boat.  They were wet, tired, probably hungry and cold.  They were (gasp) sort of irritated with Jesus for not waking up and doing something.  Jesus, however, is sufficient to bring them through the storm -  when they were utterly miserable!  Notice Jesus didn't ask "aren't you happy?"  He asked the disciples if they had any faith.  

Being happy because God wants us to be happy misses so much of the Gospel message it’s not merely stupid, it’s false.  The Gospel teaches that humans have sinned, that it’s in our DNA, that we must pay for our sins and that there is only one way to receive a full pardon – repent and believe that Jesus lived a perfect life, died in your place on the cross, and arose from the grave after three days.  What makes us happy isn’t that our best life is now, but that God saw fit to forgive us, despite our sins.  We now get to glorify God and enjoy him forever. 

So Victoria was almost right.  God does want us to be happy, but not in ourselves, in Him!  But being almost right is like being almost happy.  It's not.

Janet Harris in Washington Post: Abortion is Not a Moral Issue - You Read that Right

“A Guttmacher Institute survey of women in the United States seeking abortions found that 3 percent said the main reason was a fetal health problem, and 4 percent cited a problem with their own health. The percentage of women seeking an abortion because they were victims of rape or incest was less than 1.5 percent.”

No, the above statistics were not cited by some pro-life “whacko” trying to undermine the oft made abortion argument about the woman’s health, rape, and fetal problems.  Let’s note that what these statistics tell us, assuming their accuracy, is that over 90% of all abortions take place because the woman prefers not to have the baby. Rather, the author of the above quote is a woman named Janet Harris, writing in the Washington Post on August 15, 2014.  Her reasoning in citing these statistics: “By implying that terminating a pregnancy is a moral issue, pro-choice advocates forfeit control of the discussion to anti-choice conservatives.”

In fact, Ms. Harris goes further.  She says, “To say that deciding to have an abortion is a “hard choice” implies a debate about whether the fetus should live, thereby endowing it with a status of being. It puts the focus on the fetus rather than the woman. As a result, the question “What kind of future would the woman have as a result of an unwanted pregnancy?” gets sacrificed.”

Wow.  At least she’s being honest.  I have long believed that the pro-choice crowd ought to stop nonsensical arguments like it’s a woman’s body, or a fetus isn’t really a human being, or it’s between a woman and her doctor.  Ms. Harris just says it: for her abortion isn’t a moral issue, it’s a simple cost/benefit determination.  Does it make sense based on whatever reasons the woman might determine to have the baby?  It’s like following a flow chart with yes/no answers which direct you towards the relevant action.  Ms. Harris explained her own decision to have an abortion this way “An unwanted pregnancy would have derailed my future, making it difficult for me to finish college and have the independent, productive life that I’d envisioned.”  She weighed what she wanted and perceived, rightly or wrongly, that having a child wouldn’t allow her to do what she wanted, when she wanted, under the circumstances she wanted.

It is common coin in the abortion debate (true or not – I don’t know) that one of the reasons for shifting public sentiment against abortion is the availability of pre-natal technology, particularly in-utero pictures of the baby, that has led to a more common understanding of the fetus as a human being, not just some kind of lump of tissue.  In other words, the debate has shifted to the determination of what exactly does it mean to be human.  Ms. Harris acknowledges this in saying talking about abortion as a difficult choice gives the baby a status – something the pro-choice crowd has long found one of the most perplexing and persistent problems with their position.  We all know that when a woman has a fetus developing in her uterus there is only one possible outcome if she carries the child to term and has the child – it will come out a human being.  When we couldn’t see those little rascals wiggling around in utero it was easy to calm ourselves into calling it a fetus and pretending that meant nothing morally.  Now, not so much.

The fundamental problem here, though, isn’t simply about abortion.  It’s more about what does it mean to be human.  Ms. Harris is, whether she acknowledges it or not, claiming that our determination of whether someone is or isn’t a human being is not a moral issue.  While Ms. Harris seems to be arguing for some sort of cost/benefit measurement, how can one do so when the costs and benefits are unknown?  She cannot possibly be claiming that she had full information about what kind of person her child would have become had she chosen life rather than abortion.  Ironically, she argues that having a child would have derailed the independent and productive life she envisioned.  How could Ms. Harris know she would actually have an independent, productive life?  By what standard, moreover, is she measuring independent and productive?  She doesn’t say.  Perhaps some might argue Ms. Harris is not actually living an independent and productive life, despite her own self-analysis.

My argument about information cuts both ways, of course  – her child could have been the next Albert Einstein or the next Jeffrey Dahmer.  Nonetheless, in order to reasonably argue the decision is purely a cost/benefit analysis implies sufficient, if not full, information to make the most rational choice.  Would she, had she known her child would invent a cure for breast cancer or a new type of vehicle that runs on air, have decided otherwise?  Therein lies the fundamentally interesting reality about being human: we simply don’t know the future sufficiently to come to rational conclusions about such details.

 

As if her argument were not ominous enough in the abortion debate, what about end of life decisions?  Are older, but practically non-functioning adults no longer human?  Do we define human being simply based on our economic or practical viability?  What about people with Down’s Syndrome who are functioning reasonably well, but will never be completely independent?  Are they human, or not, Ms. Harris?  What about a baby who is born with a debilitating disease but the parents decide to take care of her and love her until she dies at say, age 5, from Tay-Sachs disease?  Was that child a human being, Ms. Harris?  Upon what basis do you make your decision?  What about artists – are they really necessary, Ms. Harris?  I mean, cost/benefit wise do we really need art or music?  It’s nice, but maybe not sufficiently beneficial.  Why would you choose to treat artists as humans, versus accountants or truck drivers or fast food workers?

Who gets to tell us if we’re human or not?  Ms. Harris, are you prepared to make the definitions?  More to the point, are you prepared to live with your own definitions when you no longer meet them and have to be terminated for being non-human?  Really?

Finally, is Ms. Harris arguing morals don't exist at all or that only abortion isn't a moral issue?  Wonder if Ms. Harris has children?  How would she feel if a drunk driver killed one?  Not a moral issue then?  Bet she'd be pretty angry.  In my experience, even many atheists want to claim they're moral people (for reasons that continue to confound me, but the atheists I've come across assure me it's because I'm blinded by my theism or I'm just stupid).  You see, there's a reason even the pro-abortion crowd believes abortion is a moral issue - because it's about human life.  And only the most crass, cold-hearted, corrupted souls will argue that whether to take human life or not is anything less than a moral issue.  It could be more than a moral issue, but it's never less.  Even abortion advocates get this, Ms. Harris, why don't you?

Let She Who Understands the Great Commission NOT Cast Any Stones

Ann Coulter has responded to all the criticism she received for her column about Dr. Kent Brantly.  She starts with the following:

“There was some hubbub about my column last week, where I complained about Christians, like Dr. Kent Brantly, who abandon America to do much-praised work in Third World countries.”  You can read her column at Let He is without Ebola cast the first stone.   

Much like her absurd columns about soccer during the World Cup, instead of actually, possibly, remotely, thinking that maybe, just maybe, there is some remote chance that, well, golly, maybe she deserved the criticism, she just heaps more nonsense on about not doing enough in America.  She again misunderstands the “ends of the earth” message Jesus gave to his disciples, and by extension, to all Christians, just before he left for heaven.

Ann is a lawyer.  As such, she knows that last words matter.  Wills are important because they tell us what someone’s last thoughts were about who should get their stuff.  The law of evidence permits dying declarations as an exception to the rule that hearsay normally doesn’t get into evidence because we accept the idea that it would be peculiar for people to lie on their deathbed or as they lay dying after a shooting or accident.  If we sinful dopes can figure out that last words matter, then what about the last words of Jesus?  Matthew 28:19 – 20 says: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age. (RSV).  Do these words matter?

I am not a Greek scholar, but I took a quick look at the Greek rendering of all in this passage.  My understanding is because there is no article here, the Greek word  for "all" means all in the highest degree.  All nations (which probably is better rendered all “people groups”) means literally all of them.

Ann asks for logical argumentation about what she said.  I know Ann Coulter will never read my blog, nor will anyone ever mention it to her, but I offer the following arguments anyway.

1.         Did Jesus actually say the words from Matthew 28:19 – 20?  If he did, then they matter.  If he didn’t then we get to make up our own Christianity and it can be Americhristianity if you want.  But, if words don’t matter, then why should I take any of your words seriously, Ann?  You seem to think words matter.  I believe you think they do.  Thus, what Jesus said matters.

2.         If the words matter, then we have to understand what they mean.  All means all here.  It doesn’t mean some, it doesn’t mean most, it doesn’t mean 99%.  All actually requires that people go to all peoples and spread the gospel.  That means, Ann, that some people will actually have to go to places outside America.  I agree with you America is in desperate need, but America has enormous wealth and ability to act here and elsewhere as well.  We have the capacity to do both, and, therefore, a responsibility to do both.  Some people are going to go outside the states and that’s not only okay, it’s biblical.

3.         How does it make someone a narcissist to do something that Christ has ordained?  I had never heard of Dr. Kent Brantly until this incident.  I suspect if he hadn’t gotten Ebola none of us would have heard of him, including you.  He would have done what many such people have done – gone to Africa (or wherever), done his thing, come back home, no one the wiser.  Maybe a handful of people would know.  Few if any missionaries get accolades when they come back.  There are no parades for them.  Narcissists?  Kim Kardashian is a narcissist.  These folks are just Christians trying to follow the Great Commission the best they can and know how.  Just because you have a different opinion or don't understand their motivation doesn’t make you right, Ann. 

4.         Since it would appear we have a Jesus mandated duty to go to all nations, and Kent Brantly was doing just that, how exactly was he not following the words of Christ?  What biblical commandment did he fail to follow by not staying in America?  Where is the “thou shalt stay in America and evangelize there and only there” in the Bible?  I haven’t seen that one, but maybe it’s in my favorite book: First Hezekiah.

You see, Ann, there are some fundamental, biblical problems with what you are saying.  So, stop trying to justify yourself and apologize.  Show a little humility.  Fess up and admit you done wrong.  You know what?  Many of us will forgive and forget.  I’ll be Kent Brantly will be the first in line.