Dr. Linda Mintle and Carmen explore the findings of the CDC that nearly a quarter of young people in the United States have contemplated suicide during the last few months. The pandemic is exacerbating mental health issues through prolonged isolation and limited access to mental health resources.

In the second half, Carmen talks with David Aikman across a range of international headlines including the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE brokered by the United States and the devolving situation in Belarus.

 

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Carmen opened with condolences to President Trump whose younger brother, Robert, whom the President acknowledged was his best friend, died this weekend.  Carmen reminded us that we grieve with those who grieve and that we grieve differently than those who have no hope.  

Carmen talks in this episode with Dr. Zach Jenkins in the weekly COVID19 round up and then with cultural commentator, Joe Battaglia about his new book: Make America Good Again.

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With a history as a public school teacher, private educator, and tutor, Erin Paske is uniquely qualified to help families succeed in this very strange back-to-school without actually going back-to-school year. Erin offers practical advice on a range of topics and you’ll want to take notes!

In the second half, author Ariel Sabar joins Carmen for a conversation about his new book, VERITAS: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. Excellent end-of-summer true crime thriller!

 

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Carmen’s talks in this episode with Matthew Hawkins who was the policy director for the ERLC during the Obama/Biden administration. His reflections serve as fodder for exploring where Biden might be on a range of concerns Christians have about protections of religious liberty.

In the second half, Chris Martin returns from LifeWay Social Voices with tips for surviving election season social media.

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Carmen’s opening commentary:

I recall the conversation I had in 2017 with my publisher about what letters we were going to include in what was then a growing list of letters describing our nation’s sexual revolutionaries. People understand the L and G but I would have to explain the B. So I told them about the woman who is a pastor and identifies as bisexual and denies the patriarchal constraints of monogamous marriage. I could not have predicted then that a mere 3 years later polygmous marriage would be affirmed in an American city.

The conversation we had about the T in LGBTQ led to a story about Katie who became over time Alex. Alex is now a fully transitioned trans man, married to a woman, ordained as a pastor and publicly recognized and quoted as a man – by people I can assume never knew him as Katie and, would never know today that he is a person with XX chromosomes. 

But when we arrived at the Q I recall resistance. “What value is there in adding that confusion?”, I was asked. I was also asked if Queer wasn’t still an offensive term. 

“Well,” I recall saying, “let me tell you about John.” 

John is a tall Texan who is also an ordained minister. He doesn’t identify as gay or bi or trans. He identifies as gender fluid and queer. He doesn’t want to be constrained by labels and yet, he is probably asked more often than the others to explain his preferred label because you have to ask every time you see John what his preferred pronouns are today. 

Complicated and burdensome? Yes. But I think it’s fair to say, that’s part of the point.

The reason I bring this up is that if I were writing Speak the Truth today, I would have to address the letter P. We talked two weeks ago with Peter Kapsner about a city in Massachusetts which included the affirmation of polyamorous relationships in a city code – today we’re looking at a development in so called reproductive technologies that would allow for multiple people, absent a person of the opposite sex if that’s preferred, to “parent” children. 

Carmen then talks with Peter Kapsner about the NYTimes article, The Poly-Parent Households are Coming by Debora L. Spar – a professor and senior associate dean at Harvard Business School, and the former president of Barnard College. She is the author of the forthcoming “Work Mate Marry Love: How Machines Shape Our Human Destiny,” from which this essay is excerpted.

Spar opens with this no longer hypothetical scenario:

Anna and Nicole, 36 and 39 years old, have been close friends since college. They each dated various men throughout their 20s and 30s, and had a smattering of romantic relationships that didn’t quite work out. But now, as they approach midlife, both women have grown weary of the merry-go-round of online dating and of searching for men who might — or might not — make appropriate fathers for the babies they don’t yet have. Both Anna and Nicole want children. They want to raise those children in a stable, nurturing environment, and to continue the legacy of their own parents and grandparents. And so they decide to have a baby — a baby that is genetically their own — together.

Later she acknowledges:

For most of human history, after all, families across the Western world were defined in largely biblical terms: one man, one woman, with children conceived through sex and sanctified by marriage. Everyone else was just a bastard.

After walking through the technological and social severing of children from parents who have to have sex in order to procreate, Spar says:

The most recent shift — and arguably the most crucial — occurred in 2015, when the U.S. Supreme Court famously extended the right of marriage to same-sex couples. The implications of this decision are well known,

Carmen’s opening commentary:

What is this era about? 

There’s a scene in season 1 of the West Wing which aired in the fall of 1999 where one of the President’s advisors makes an observation about the appointment of a Justice to the Supreme Court. Sam Seaborn says, “It’s not just about abortion, it’s about the next 20 years. In the ’20s and ’30s it was the role of government. ’50s and ’60s it was civil rights. The next two decades are going to be privacy. I’m talking about the Internet. I’m talking about cell phones. I’m talking about health records and who’s gay and who’s not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?”

There are many things that would surprise the characters of the political drama which, although only 2 decades old, seems quaint if you watch it today. But the question about the fundamentals for a country born on the will to be free is a good conversation to till over and over again. 

We are still litigating the role of government as we face riots in some of America’s largest cities, face teachers unions holding students hostage to public forms of education that are proving themselves to be outmoded, and we are facing a whole new generation of questions about civil rights. And Sam was right, we also face critical questions about privacy – and government intrusion and data-mining and issues screen writers could not have dreamed of in 1999. But isn’t it curious that the issue Sam first mentioned, the issue of abortion, still looms so large? Why is that? It’s because if you’re wrong there you can’t be right on a number of other fronts. If you imagine that another person’s life and right to live is within YOUR personal power to control then you not only imagine yourself to be autonomous but you hold other people as things and life as utilitarian. 

Sam Seaborn was both right and wrong in 1999. Twenty years in and privacy is a huge issue for us but so too are civil rights and the role of government and religious liberty. But over them all remains one critical concern that influences every other conversation about who we elect and that concern is the concern for life: who ordains it, who creates it, who has the authority to end it, and who governs it each breath along the way. 

If you’re trying to articulate to your friends and neighbors why every election is a one issue election for you as a Christian, you can start and end with the conversation about the right to life because without life conversations about liberty and the pursuit of happiness grow cold. 

Ben Johnson from Acton.org is back. He and Carmen discuss:

* the “Make the Billionaires Pay Act”

* What we can expect from Biden based on his history on Religious Liberty concerns

* The 2nd Amendment, the NRA and the rule of the law

In the second half, Carmen talks with pastor and social scientist Ryan Burge about research confirming the statistically rapid shift among Americans who identify as religious. They talk about how legality drives morality, and vice versa.

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Downsizing and reorganizations are increasingly commonplace in COVID-world. That means many of us have lost our jobs, will lose our jobs or almost certainly work with someone who has. As Christians, how do we respond when our colleagues lose their jobs? I asked Bill English and he gave some great counsel.  We also talked about how the church can function as an incubator for Christians who want to start businesses.

In the second half, I talk with Dr. Craig Blomberg from Denver Seminary about the book and the question, Can we still believe in God?

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The presumptive Democratic candidate for the office of President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced yesterday that his running mate will be California Senator Kamala Harris. 

Three things about that – she is a competent and accomplished 55 year old and she made her own run for the Democratic nomination. Much is being made in the media about the fact that she is female and she is black. But from a Christian worldview, those are not particularly relevant attributes to consider in terms of whether or not we might trust her to serve as the President of this great nation should the person at the top of the ticket not be able to do so as early as day one. So, what do we know about Kamala Harris in terms of her faith commitments and practices?

I write about her spiritual mother here.

But the whole thing got me thinking about the question of a running mate in the Christian life.

* Peter and John’s race to the tomb after the women reported the resurrection,  John 20:1-18

The two disciples who RAN back to Jerusalem from Emmaus after their encounter with the risen Lord, Luke 24:13-35

Philip ran to keep pace with the chariot carrying the eunuch from Ethiopia, Acts 8:29-39

Hebrews 12:1since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

Galatians 5:7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth?

Isaiah 40:31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Do you even know you’re in a race? Are you running to win? Who’s your running mate?

Two great conversations today with Bruce Ashford on How to Survive an Election Season and Ruth Kramer from Mission Network News.

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Justin Giboney is back to share his views on the DNC’s proposed platform and to celebrate Tim Keller’s approach to the conversation about social justice and critical theory. 

In the second half, Carmen talks with David Schmus from the Christian Educators Association International about how their members are coping during COVID and the various concerns they have about going back to school.   

 

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This is one of those hour’s that has it ALL: chaos on the streets in Chicago, a dead French philosopher, the Attorney General of the United States, the Democrat’s Party platform, and the hilarity of Margot Starbuck as a 40-something back in the dating pool and learning how to swim!

Jump in! This is a great episode.

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