Today on the Evangelist Podcast, we're looking at how to handle ethical hot potatoes.
SPEAKER_00The Evangelist Podcast from Revival. Find out what's new in telling people the good news about God, the world, and you. With Andy Brinkley and Glenn Scrivener.
SPEAKER_02You're listening to the Evangelist Podcast. This is the show where we encourage you in your witness to your friends, your family, and even complete strangers. I'm Andy Brinkley, and with me is Glenn Scrivener. Hello, everybody. How are you, Glenn?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, really good. Really good. We just went out onto the seafront to film a little video. Yeah. It was a bit of fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, sort of a promo for uh a course that you're doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so 321 Go is an evangelism training course that I've been uh developing for a couple of years now, and uh we're gonna run it in Eastbourne, if you're anywhere near Eastbourne, so uh beginning on the 9th of October, six Thursdays, and uh yeah, we're gonna think about how the goodness of the good news, as explained by 321 itself, sends us out. So 321 go into the world.
SPEAKER_02So we're gonna video it, hopefully. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it will be online. Yeah, so get in get in touch if you if you're anywhere around Eastbourne, and if you're not, stay tuned and hopefully you can watch the videos.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. And you've also nearly completed uh or the publisher's nearly finished the uh the 321 book.
SPEAKER_01321 book is yeah, it's quite exciting. So the editor uh sent me back a document with um the final, final, final changes to have a look at. And it was funny because I I I looked at it and um I was really chuffed because in the margin at at several points she wrote the word outstanding, like in in capital letters. And I thought that's oh, isn't that isn't that really encouraging? And then I realized that what she meant was there are a whole bunch of corrections that I need to make. I haven't made them yet. They are still outstanding. Oh. Taken down a paper too.
SPEAKER_02So when will it actually come out?
SPEAKER_01Uh we're hoping October. Um but yeah, sometime this this autumn.
SPEAKER_02Right, next month.
SPEAKER_01Is that right? Yeah, yeah, I suppose it is. I suppose it is. So we've got like the cover and uh Jeremy Poyner, who did the video, the the the orange uh animated video, he uh has done some great uh diagrams and drawings on the inside. He's also done a cover. Uh the manuscript's pretty much done. And uh yeah, it's uh watch out world, here it comes.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and uh we've had a reasonably large event in the last uh couple of weeks. Yes. Then uh our boss has retired.
SPEAKER_01That's true. Ian Milmine. The office will not be the same again without his uh yes, his relentless uh gospel enthusiasm and uh bad jokes. Careful, careful. Careful, he's he's probably a listener.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good. So we're look we're looking forward to uh what's coming up in the next uh months, years even.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I think officially, am I in charge officially? I don't know. Like everyone else stepped back and uh so I think we we have survived almost four days um under my leadership. So like I think we should toast uh each and every one of them. Um so lots of exciting things coming up uh at revival, lots of opportunities to develop proclamation and so going and and uh doing evangelism around the place, lots of uh ways of promoting uh the training of evangelists like with 321 Go and things like that, lots of ways of uh getting involved in the media, videoing stuff and getting online with uh various things. And do yeah, stay tuned for some really uh interesting online developments, yeah, evangelistic websites and that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_02But uh we'd like to keep you informed if you would like to keep up with with the details and and that, keep listening to this podcast. But also uh why not sign up via email? You can do that at uh revivalmedia.org. I've got a mailing list there and uh hopefully we'll integrate that a bit more uh centrally and um keep everyone up to date. Okay, so today, Glenn, we're we're looking at uh ethical hot potatoes. Yes. Um you quite like hot potatoes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you you said that I used the term a lot. I didn't know that I did, but uh everyone likes a hot potato.
SPEAKER_02We did a series, didn't we, on hot potatoes. Yeah. We did one on hot topics before. Is that right? So Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So a moral hot potato. Moral hot potato. The the sort of the thinking behind this was uh Richard Dawkins very famously tweeted, I forget how long ago. Oh, look, I'm looking at it on my iPad. It was on the twentieth of August. Okay. He was talking about various issues to do with abortion and disability. Um one person wrote to him uh who said 994 human beings with Down syndrome uh deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in twenty twelve. Is that civilized? Richard Dawkins responded, yes, it is very civilized. These are fetuses diagnosed before they have human feelings. Which uh, you know, if you hold that view consistently, then you you must support infanticide. You just must. Uh b yeah. Uh human feelings don't develop till much later in in uh in human development. And and so, yes, if that's if that's the argument, if that's all that protects you uh from being cut up, um, then it's not just uh those in the womb that are in danger, but but anyone who actually can't uh have human feelings as Richard Dawkins wants to define them. So that's a very scary state of affairs. And then someone else on the same thread uh tweeted, I honestly and and uh I I I'm pretty sure this woman is uh an atheist herself, she said, I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down syndrome. Uh it's a real ethical dilemma. Richard Dawkins then replied, abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice. Boom and then the the whole Twitter sphere exploded. Um and then in his apology later, and I and and I'm doing the air quotes thing, just so you know, in his Apology later, he um He said that he didn't realise that if you respond to somebody on Twitter that it's not, you know, private and that it that other people can read it. He's got a million uh followers and he doesn't really understand Twitter. You know, that that doesn't stop him, you know. He wrote The God Delusion without having the first clue about what Christianity says, so like he's he doesn't mind blundering into things without uh without knowing about them. But uh but that was sort of the really contentious one. Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring a Down syndrome baby into the world if you have the choice. Um so much is just like horrific about that. But perhaps the most horrific thing is saying it's it's it's positively immoral to have a Down syndrome baby. And at that stage, the rest of the Twitter sphere usually the response was something like Um, Down syndromes babies can be really, really happy and they can live really fulfilled lives. And that's really true. And if Dawkins had, you know, wanted to do any good science on it, he could have looked at the studies and seen that 99% of all Down syndrome people uh describe themselves as ha as happy. 96% of them like say they are very happy with their appearance, uh and things like that. You ask the general population those questions. And so, like, on the on the face of it, it looks like Down syndrome's um the sufferers are the happiest people on the face of the planet, and and Richard Dawkins wants to wants to kill them, and and he wants to say that it it's it's so that we can uh maximize the happiness of the human race. Um but here here are some of the happiest people in the world, and he wants to kill them. But to respond to Richard Dawkins in that way, it it has a limited value to simply say, oh no, no, you know, Down syndrome babies are really, really happy, so let's not kill them. If you make that argument, then you're basically saying, Oh, but if someone's born depressed, we can kill them, is that you know um if we want to play his utilitarian game, we get ourselves into a into a real mess. Really, what's objectionable is is that anyone that the the the strong stand over the weak and say, these are the criteria by which you must justify your own existence. You've got to do this, you've got you know you've got to have human emotions as I define them. You've got to be this amount of happy, this amount of independent, this amount of this, and this amount of that. And as as soon as you make that the qualification for true humanity, not only have you excluded those in the womb, you've excluded the mentally handicapped, the physically handicapped, you've excluded those with senility and and at the end of their lives. Um and it's it's just a horrendous tyrannical vision uh for humanity that you've got. And and so, you know, I I I got involved in some, you know, Twitter back back and forths um with people, and you know, on the show notes you can sort of have a look at a a conversation I had with with one guy who had been approvingly retweeted by Richard Dawkins and and sort of got into got into a conversation uh about it. And it was fascinating. He was he was really um fighting against the eugenics label and like didn't want it at all. Um which is interesting because a hundred years ago people were happy with the label eugenics. It was a it was a perfectly respectable part of the whole Darwinian thing. You know, if the if the fittest do survive, well, it's a hop, skip, and a jump to saying the fittest should survive, right? And let's let's give evolution a helping hand and all those sorts of things. And that that used to be uh a a you know, a minority, but still a respected view, and and it seems to lurk at the heart of of of some of these arguments. But the whole thing just got me thinking, how do we how do we speak as Christians on on this issue? Um and I don't really know the answer to that. How do you how do you go from protecting life in the womb to proclaiming Christ? And some of the the the beginnings of thoughts that I that I've had, and uh as I had this back and forth with um this sort of Dawkins eight, it sort of became very clear to me that that the Christian story is just diametrically opposed to the Darwinian story. The Darwinian story is the survival of the fittest. We believe actually in the sacrifice of the fittest. You know, Jesus Christ the fittest comes down to be sacrificed so that he can give survival to the feeblest. You know, so we believe in in survival of the feeblest and the sacrifice of the fittest. The Darwinian story believes in the sacrifice of the feeblest and the survival of the fittest. And uh it just is there a way of in conversations just being able to to step back from these moral issues and just saying there's a story that's going on. Um I was involved in a conversation with uh uh an atheist a couple of weeks ago, and um uh he worked for Eastbourne Borough Council, and um he is a mental health nurse, helping people with all sorts of illnesses, and uh and giving of himself in in wonderful ways. And yeah, it was interesting, he was he was sort of talking to me about, you know, why are you a Christian? You can't be a Christian. You know, we live we live in a world that is just survival of the fittest, and it's just dog eat dog, and it's and you guys are just living in cloud cuckoo land. And I said, Well that well, that's interesting your line of work, then, because like you you you're involved in giving of yourself. I think that's a really noble thing to do, don't you? He said, Oh yeah, I find it really fulfilling. I said, Well, that's exactly what Jesus said. He said, When you give away your life, you find your life. That actually through sacrifice you actually find true fulfillment. But that's that's not the Darwinian story. The Darwinian story is grab, claw, climb, scratch, kill, get to the top of the heap, and then die, you know. Surely that that intuition you have about what the good life looks like, surely that intuition works a whole lot better on the Christian story and doesn't work so well on your story, don't you see that? And and as I started to have that conversation, that that started to be a way in to gospel conversations that what you want to talk about is the stories that we're in. On your story, we are ascendant chimps. On our story, on the Christian story, we are fallen children. And those two different stories will unfold in two radically different ways. If we're ascendant chimps, then gouge, scratch, kill, climb to the top, and you know, it's a dog eat dog out world out there, and you you gotta be on top. If we are fallen children, then surely that that's very chastening. And and and we have a God who comes after the fallen children to save us, rather than we climb ourselves up by our boot by our bootstraps and all that all that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_02It's kind of going back to roots, isn't it? Because I mean, I've heard Dawkins say that you know there is no there is no law to live by, you know, it's only what we discuss and what we agree on that we get to the result of our morals.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there's kind of there's no there's no basis. Yeah. You've got to kind of make it up, and uh sort of the naturalist idea that everything will sort itself out, you know, the weakest will die off. You know, and if they don't we'll kill them. We'll make sure. Yeah. Finish the job. I guess you know what you're getting at is that it's the the starting point of where you've got to go back to. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that's kind of gives you a completely different starting point to to take it forward.
SPEAKER_01I think so, and and I think that's that's kind of my model of evangelism as well, that whatever the topic, whether you're talking about ethical hot potatoes or whatever you're talking about, that at some stage it's about, oh hang on, let's step back. Here's the Christian story. Don't you see how that issue fits into the Christian story? Rather than you know fitting it into the Darwinian story or whatever other story that people want to tell. Um and it that that came home to me with um Giles Fraser quite recently. He's um uh Anglican, quite liberal vicar in um in London. He writes for The Guardian. And um, like I say, you know, he he he writes, you know, typical liberal Anglican stuff most of the time, but he wrote brilliantly on euthanasia back in July. Um and I think what it what he did so beautifully, and I'll I'll read some extracts from it, what he did so beautifully is take the the moral ethical issue and say, let's step back, let me tell you the Christian story, now let me s show you how the ethical dilemma fits into the Christian story, and now let me paint a picture where you want it to be true. Um and I I think that's kind of how we need to do evangelism. He uh he wrote this on the 18th of July uh in The Guardian. He said, uh one of the main things that many atheists and some believers for that matter fail to register about Christianity is that it's not so much a metaphysical account of the nature of the universe, nor a codification of ancient moral principles, but primarily a romance, a sort of love story. Okay, great. We're off and running. Um third paragraph he says, If I had to sum up the nature of this love story, I would say that it is about someone coming to find you, someone seeking you out, and at their initiative, without you having had to dance or impress for it, they tell you that you are loved and cared for in ways that you do not actually believe to be true. Later on he says, Why am I telling you this? Because I think it helps locate some of the emotion behind a great deal of Christian resistance to the assisted dying bill, so speaking about euthanasia. In particular, the principle of personal autonomy that uh that often accompanies uh these arguments my life, my choice, etc. I guess the idea here is that the individual can be relied upon to act in his or her own best interests, and if they don't, well, then at least they have no one to blame for that except themselves. And that sounds a bit like hand washing to me. With the Christian romance, however, autonomy is precisely the problem and not the solution. Here, Christianity is at its most countercultural. So what he's done there is he's he's zoomed back from the issue, told something of the Christian story, he's gone across to the secular story, and he's just shown he's shown the foundations there about choice, and he's just putting the putting the question mark in our heads. Is that really what we want to say? Do we really want to say that that our autonomy is the the bottom line and it's me and my life and my choices? Is that what we really want to say? So he's doing the compare and contrast between the Christian story and the secular story. And then he concludes his um article by saying this if I ever got so low as to be close to suicide, I don't want anyone respecting my choice. I want them to come looking for me, and to try and love or bully me out of it, even if I'm lost to a settled decision for self destruction. I would be secretly very unhappy if my children did not attempt every trick in the book to overrule me. The thought that they would go, okay, Dad, it's your choice, feels like a terrifying form of abandonment. Boom! You know, that that's how you do it. That's how you do it, and you do it by zooming back, telling the s the love story, going over to to the other view and saying, Oh, that's that's your foundation, choice. And and and even if I'm stuck in a stupid and self-destructive choice, really, you're just gonna let me do that? Oh, and and that's what the moral decision is? And he's like, No, love requires that you overrule choice at times. And I I think that just that's just beautifully out outmaneuvers the the the arguments for for euthanasia, but more than that actually presents the gospel. Yeah, presents, you know, here is Jesus who's come to to find us and save us. And he acknowledges, look, it's it's a really countercultural story. It sounds like nuts to you. I know it does, but wouldn't it be great if it were true actually? So I I think that's I I don't know how to do it myself, but I think Giles Fraser in that article, we can we can link to this in the show notes, I think that gives a a hint at the sort of ways in which we should engage in the in these debates, not simply so that we win the debate, but so that in the midst of it we actually proclaim Christ. And but but if you if you centre the whole discussion on on choice as the as the centre of all things, it it just buys into this sort of mythical view of the self as this like strong, almighty, independent being, and and no one can trespass on my you know sovereignty.
SPEAKER_02I guess we've we've made gods of ourselves, you know.
SPEAKER_01We've made gods of ourselves. We are our our own gods and uh And no one can come in and tell me what's for me to uh tell me what's yeah exactly. But where's the love in that? And I think that's what the Giles Fraser article is so beautiful at saying. Okay, okay, you you got your choice thing, and it sounds it sounds really liberating and empowering to talk about choice, choice, choice, choice, choice. And it's really in tune with you know the cultural zeitgeist to talk about choice. What about love? Um because there there come points where love means giving over choice to others and letting others into our sphere of personal autonomy and and being dependent and not independent, and all these other things. And I think we just need to uncover the sinking sand of some of the the the secular arguments and just show that actually choice, do you really do you really want to build your house on that? Yeah. Um and just to show the the beauty of oh, here's a love story. Um this will make sense not only of the ethical issues, but it but it will it will proclaim Christ to you and show how he is at the centre of all things.
SPEAKER_02Okay, Glenn, well uh that's uh gives us a start to uh navigate the moral uh Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how to do it, but I think yeah, that's it's gotta be more than just debate, hasn't it, basically?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's gotta be more than just yelling, pro life you know, um pro life because the strongest in the universe made himself weakest, for us the weakest, that we might be strengthened. And therefore life and the good life is all about protecting the weakest and the least. And what a beautiful vision for life that is. Not the strong making choices and trying to remain strong for all their lives. Um and and just just yeah, seeing things for what what they really are and and therefore seeing the beauty of of Jesus the romance story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay, well, uh if you have any comments about today's show, you can go to the web address for this episode, which is revivalmedia.org slash TEP607. So next week, Lynn uh what what are we hoping to do?
SPEAKER_01We uh have got lined up a whole bunch of uh interviews with people, uh with some uh evangelists and some authors, and uh so really looking forward to uh talking to some uh people like Roger Carswell, like uh Mike Reeves, like Andrew Wilson, uh Carl Laffert, and a few others, um about uh books that they've got coming out and just uh more generally about how to share the good news.
SPEAKER_02Okay, well we look forward to that uh next time. So again, uh the web address for this episode where you can share the podcast is just revivalmedia.org slash tep67. And uh there's a link there that you could give us a rating and review. Be very grateful if you could do that. It helps us to get seen by more people within uh within iTunes. Thanks very much for listening and see you next time.
SPEAKER_01See ya.