Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Truth Exchange podcast. This is a weekly program with Dr. Jeffrey J. Ventrella where he answers questions from subscribers around the globe, answering questions about worldview, cultural apologetics and other miscellaneous items. I'm your host, Joshua Gilo, and this is another edition of the Director's Bag. Alina writes she didn't say where she was from, but Alina says my son Jeremy is studying British history and is currently reading about the Covenanters and King Charles the First.
He asked if I could pop over this question. Dear Geoff, I'm learning a bit about our world government at school recently we learned about the Scots who resisted King Charles I.
They were called the Covenanters. One of the things they did was draw up a treaty for the nation to covenant with God. It reminded me of one of your episodes where you talked about how the government is God's servant.
I wondered if this was even truly necessary. Why should a nation have to make a covenant with God in the first place if all the rulers are God's servants? P.S. thanks for the show. I listen to them while I do my after school chores on Fridays.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Wow, that's really encouraging. And that really encourages us to keep being regular of providing content that's usable and really moves the needle in Christ's kingdom, in God's church. So a couple of things. Your instinct is right.
I think that the better understanding of the nature of nations in relation to God is that they are to kiss the Son. They are to apply what we call the moral law of God. But the idea of a formal covenant in terms of a biblical covenant, I don't think is necessary because Christ is Lord of all, having subdued all other powers and authorities that will ultimately bow their knee to him. The Solemn League in Covenant was a very interesting historical situation. Essentially this was against the royalists in we just call it Britain. And so England needed military support and they wanted the Scots to supply that support. And so they proposed a Civil league. That's where we get the word, a civil league, an understanding so that they would be helpful against the Royalists. Well, the Scots were hardcore Presbyterians. I said, oh no, no, no, we need a covenant as well, a covenant unto God. And so they called upon, I believe it was Alexander Harrison to basically draft this thing in 1643. And so the Presbyterians were like, okay, we're, you know, in league with God and with Britain and England was like an idea was to create a uniform practice of church governance and bring Ireland, Scotland and England together with respect to how they practice church. Now England looked at it as More of a military treaty and less as a uniformity kind of thing with the Scots. But ultimately you had the Westminster assembly a few years later and there weren't that many Scots or Presbyterians there, but they had an oversized influence with respect to that. And of course Westminster was designed to kind of navigate this idea of got this Church of England, you've got these separatists and you've got the Scots and try to figure out the governance of the church and how they could be unified doctrinally, so on and so forth. So it was really one of those born out of the, the various wars that happened over religiosity kinds of things. Of course, Charles I, I think was regicide. He was ultimately tried, convicted and killed. And with respect to that, there's a great book on that called the Tyrannicide Brief that tells the story of the lawyers who represented him and opposed him when they had this great battle of, you know, supremacy of Parliament or the supremacy of the monarch kind of stuff.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, is that it on that one?
[00:04:29] Speaker B: Well, I mean we could, we could go on and on but you know it's, it's. There are people who have preferences for that. There's. The Covenanters of today have particularized ideas concerning the worship of God and some of those kinds of issues that people could agreeably disagree. Yeah, I think of the great Presbyterian John Murray who taught at Westminster, not the assembly, he taught the seminary.
But you know, Murray, Murray was convinced that you should only sing versified psalms in worship. And yet he was a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and you know, did not create a problem with respect to that. Yeah, those kinds of things. A so called regular principle of worship.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Dear Dr. Ventrella, I appreciate your podcast very much and it has helped me think through categories and paradigms regarding culture and society. I am a PCA pastor in Iowa.
I have some questions regarding your remarks about the abolition of abortion. In your podcast episode entitled the Rule of Law, you said regarding abolitionists. Excuse me, that stupid for Jesus is still stupid. How familiar are you with abolitionists and their arguments? What do you think about or what do you. Excuse me, what do you think abolitionists get right and what do they get wrong? What critiques do you have of the pro life or if any, what critiques do you have of the pro life movement?
Do you believe that mothers who kill their pre born babies are victims? What pro life anti abortionist group best represent your approach? So let's dissect it. Let's start with the first question regarding abolitionists. Stupid For Jesus is still stupid. How familiar are you with abolitionists and their arguments?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say I have a working knowledge of that. I've worked with a number of pro life advocates for years and of course, having been on the inside of the strategy that ultimately led to the Dobbs decision in getting rid of Roe vs Wade, we encountered a lot of abolitionists who, if they had their way, Roe would still be unfortunately the law of the land. Because they are not strategic thinkers.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Do you think? What do they get right and what do they get wrong?
[00:06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, what they get right. What they get right is they have a normative, Correct normative understanding that abortion is taking of innocent human life and is contrary to the law of God. I think that every pro life person has that conviction as well. But I think that's exactly the right approach. Normatively, I don't think it can be argued against with respect to that.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And wrong. What issues do they get wrong? And I think one we talked about is the just weights passage of scripture that is used often. Well, if it's not full hog on something, it's an imbalanced weight and it's not true justice.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, that's certainly true from a normative perspective. The question then becomes what are the means to achieve that normative idea? So if you can legislate or impose law, enact law that lessens evil, that reduces abortions, that's actually a good thing. So for example, is abortion due to rape or incest any less the taking of innocent life? The answer is no. But the fact of the matter is, if you were to be able to ban all abortions except for rape and incest, the amount of life saves would just be astronomical. Because the number of abortions or the number of pregnancies occurring because of rape and incest is infinitesimally small compared with the number of pregnancies in general. So what they're saying is that if you've got a starving person, well, you know, if it's not filet mignon, you can't have it. You have to, you know, you can't give them a piece of bread, they've got to have filet mignon because that's going to provide them the most nutrition. Yeah, well, no, I mean the half a loaf of bread is going to advance the ball with respect to that. We've also got to understand, just like the conquest of of Canaan, that it needed to be little by little. We can't handle the huge paradigm shift. And even though God ordained the promised land to his people, he told them they need to take it and he was going to wipe them out little by little. So incrementalism is the way to do that. Now what happens is a lot of abolitionists say, oh, if you're banning only one form of abortion, you're actually legislating to be pro abortion. That's just not true at all. We're looking at eliminating, reducing evil. It is always a righteous position to oppose evil and to cabin evil and to limit evil. With respect to that, I've also, I've.
[00:09:49] Speaker A: Heard an abolitionist say that the pro life movement doesn't really want to end abortion because if they ended abortion, the pro life movement would be out of a job.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I've heard those kinds of things as well. And you know, there's like leaked tapes and all this sorts of stuff. Now, I do think it is the case that no doubt because organizations at some level are influenced by the sinfulness of mankind, there may well be some organizations that are seeing, seeing their advocacy to be able to raise money. They're nonprofit organizations, predicate upon the existence of abortion. It's kind of like CS Lewis said that an atheist has a vested interest in losing the debate because if he loses the debate, he always gets to rail against God. But if he wins the debate, his reason for being evaporates. So is that true? You know, I don't know. I do know I can give you a concrete example. The National Right to Life during the Dobbs litigation took the position that Roe should not be overruled. They had us, they had a tactic that said, that's asking too much.
We don't want to ask too much. I was on the other side of that, and the people that I was with, we made the decision to swing for the fences. We're not going to get a better chance to do it. We've set it up legally in a way that made sense now, and we did, and we got done what we need to get done.
So I think that's demonstrate the proofs in the pudding with respect to that. The trouble with the abolitionists, they go to some state that has a lot of populist agitation and they pass some bill, they get some legislature that's in a red state to pass a bill. So we're going to ban all abortions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They pat themselves on the back and look at we did and what happens, it's immediately enjoined the day after. In other words, the bad guys go to court and stop it and get adjusted and the judge has to Stop it, given the precedent at the time. So the judge stops it, it gets appealed and the appellate court affirms because they have to follow the precedent and that just reinforces Roe vs. Wade and puts up yet another block and another hurdle for the pro life cause. And so what they're, you know, I would say that the abolitionists are actually perhaps guilty of this idea of well, we just continue to do this and they raise money off that very issue. We're the only pure people. Well, how many babies have you saved in that strategy? And how has the legal or the legislative needle moved? The answer is none.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Last two questions is, do you believe that mothers who kill their pre born babies are victims?
And what pro life anti abortion group best represents your approach?
[00:12:56] Speaker B: So I think that from a normative perspective, you know, a mother is certainly complicit. But having talked to a number of post abortive women, I can tell you that many of them had no idea.
They had no idea about the biology, the DNA, the chromosomal makeups of the small child in their womb. They believe the propaganda and the lies of the pro abortion crowd. And that's tragic. So I think some of those people are in fact victims. They are victims of the abortion regime. They're victims of ungodly sexual partners that pressure them into these kinds of issues. Sometimes they are victims of their own parents that don't want the scandal to become public, quote, unquote. And so there are a lot of factors there, very few, although there are some that say, yeah, I don't like this thing in my womb, I'm going to kill it kind of a deal.
That's just evil wickedness right there. And I don't think, and let me be clear, I don't think because women are overborne or perhaps are victims that they have an excuse. But I do think that calls us to understand when we're talking to them. And I guarantee you a lot of these women, you call them a murderer out of the box.
That just polarizes them. That is not a way to make knowledge acceptable as proverbs I think 17 tells us to do. So I think our heart should go out in no way diminishing the great moral evil that's occurred. But by the same token, it is a forgivable sin and we ought to have the posture of redemption even while we're speaking the truth. We speak that truth in love. Some women though have been overborne and have been victimized again by the players, the actors in the pro abortion regime. But not all of them so in terms of represents, I would say Life Issues Institute, founded and led by Scott Klusendorp, is one of the best pro life advocates around. Very articulate. He frankly has encountered and dismantled the abolitionist arguments over and over again. His revised book, the Case for Life, is outstanding. With respect to that, I would also say that O period. Carter Sneed, Orlando Carter Snead, but he goes by Carter's middle name. His book on, what's it called? Embodiment in Bioethics is an outstanding book. Carter is one of my means. A lot younger than I am, but he's a great teacher on this issue. He's just an expert in bioethics. Really helps us understand the nature of the human person as an embodied creature and why the body matters in all those kinds of situations. So those are just a few that I think are very valuable resources with respect to that. Now, when I testified before legislators and I had a choice and there was a bill that totally banned abortion, I supported it, but I also knew they couldn't pass out of committee and it would be vetoed if it did. But I also knew that there was something that had exceptions for rape, incest, and the actual physical life of the mother. I would support that too, because I knew it would pass and I knew it would keep the dialogue going even if the governor did not sign it. So we've got to understand the hats we're wearing from a normative perspective. And my testimony was, I think all abortion takes an innocent life and should be banned. However, given the political exigencies, we can support things that are less than perfect.
It's interesting. The abolitionists are essentially embracing utopianism.
They think there's only one action to take, and all of a sudden you've got nirvana with respect to that public policy. And that's just not the world in which we live.
[00:16:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I think in one of those episodes where we've talked about the abolitionist movement, we made mention or was mentioned about in the New Testament, when the apostle Paul is writing to the various churches and he's talking about officers in the church, he's writing to churches that are. That embrace things like polygamy. And he says that the officers of the church should be the husband of one wife. And the idea behind that is that eventually that kind of culture is to be rooted out. But Paul is not calling for the immediate divorce of those kind of those families, as it were, but for the work of God's spirit to move through them and to that eventually they grow out of that kind of lifestyle.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: That's exactly right. And so the husband of one wife, of an elder, a presbyter, is to be an example to others.
And that exemplary life comes in part from how they conduct themselves in the marital bed and that sort of thing, which is to be holy, says Hebrews. So I think that's exactly right. There is this incrementalism, there's a strategy involved with respect to this. I mean, you could even make the argument, because I think that this is the argument that was made, that the framers and the founding fathers understood you would not have a union if you got rid of slavery, even though they despised it as a vile practice. But they structured both in the Declaration and in the Constitution, essentially a sun setting of chattel slavery and the slave trade in the United States. That was their design. They spoke about it. That was their aspiration. Some of them lived inconsistently with that. But they said, look, this is what we, what we have here. No evil is necessary, but it is extant. The fact is there is chattel slavery. And the fact is, if we were to not countenance that for a period of time, we would, we would be under the crown. We would be retaken over.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: So good.
All right, last portion.
Help me understand where you draw the line regarding the application of God's law in society. It seems that you are speaking out of both sides of your mouth when it comes to the rule of law. On the one hand, you readily acknowledge that the law comes from outside or from God, and that conflicts or that conflicts are fundamentally a battle of the gods. But then you say that when a lawyer argues a case, he must appeal to what is plausible. Since our court systems have been stripped of the substantively Christian foundations, isn't this approach to privately hold Christian beliefs, but then publicly act and argue as a secularist, what has led to the cultural deterring of what we see all around us today?
[00:20:03] Speaker B: Well, I think that what you're describing there is a phenomenon, but that's not what I was arguing. My argument was that we need to be sensitive to the vocabulary. And what are those things that persuade, as a lawyer, as an advocate, your job is to represent zealously the client's interest by making the best arguments available. So, for example, if one of my sons who's a Marine is in the battlefield and his weapon jams, or he's out of ammunition and he comes across an enemy's weapon which is functioning, he doesn't say, oh, the United states doesn't issue AK47s, I would never use an AK47 because it's a communist produced gun. No, he would take up that weapon and use it to ventilate the enemy because it's a less than optimal means, but it helps move the goal. So the Apostle Paul, when he was in court, talks about using true and rational words. He's making knowledge acceptable with respect to that. So the idea would be that you nudge people and you're not denying or saying or embracing the secularism a lawyer can drop in a footnote. He can use additional arguments to set forth those transcendent issues. For example, when we were dealing, we're dealing with, there's a case that's going to be argued, it's called Skirmhetti out of Tennessee. And the idea here is Tennessee banned the use of medicine for puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for those who are experiencing gender dysphoria, if they are minors. Well, some of the analysis there goes to, of course, police power and the ability to control medicine within the state, blah, blah, blah. But some of the other briefing that's in there deals with human anthropology, the metaphysical kinds of issues. So what we're doing is we're taking that Christian worldview and putting it in a proper dosage so that you don't alienate the person who's going to make decisions. But by the same token, you're putting those arguments out there. I don't think you should rely upon perfectly secular arguments, so to speak, but you should always package them and then think about what are the arguments I can make that then ring the bell and move the needle. So, for example, I wish the Supreme Court would have taken the additional step to address the metaphysical issue in Dobbs case, which overruled Roe versus Wade and say, look, the nature of the human person does not change just because during gestation the nature is the same. They grow up just like any other person. They grow, they age, they develop. And if they would have done that, and they could have put that in, perhaps the 14th Amendment saying that this is the person that is entitled to the privileges or immunities of all the United States, etc. Etc. Well, they did not do that. Why did not they do that? Well, they probably could not get five votes to get it done. Consequently, there's your choice. Keep Roe vs Wade or get rid of Roe vs Wade and allow the political discussion to occur at the level of the States. Now I think the Constitution, properly construed eventually will protect all life. And I think that's not a matter for the states. It's a matter of metaphysical reality. But that's not where we are. And so you've got to make a choice. Politics are part of that, and so is the law. It's part of it. So.
But we should always, let me just say in encouragement, we should always be speaking, not necessarily in court, but in general, to the culture, the normative position taking innocent life is wrong. The unborn is an innocent life. We should not have abortion. This is the nature of the human person. We should always be chiming that. We should always be talking about that culturally. But it's a different question when we're getting into particularized, litigated matters or matters of policy. The aspirational policy should ban all abortions, but if you can't get that done, you're doing no one any favors by reinforcing bad law that takes innocent lives.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Yeah, the last portion of his question was are we simply to individually hold to a biblical standard but not argue for or from it in society?
[00:24:37] Speaker B: I think the answer is no. Pretty affirmative no. Jesus says in a Sermon on the Mount, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Next phrase. Do not think I've come to abolish the law and the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them or confirm them. And then he goes on to say, he who disobeys and teach others to disobey the law of God will be the least in the kingdom of God. And so our aspiration should. You know, Jesus never condemns ambition to be great in the kingdom. He just condemns bad avenues for greatness, being prideful, not serving people, and of course, abandoning the law of God. And so we should not be wearing two hats or two faces. We should be advocating for Christ's lordship in every square inch. Which reminds us that we're going to be putting out soon the dates and the topics for our next Every Square Inch symposium in Southern California. And I think it's going to be really great again to see what we're going to be able to do, what God will allow us to do. If you can help us do that, we would appreciate your prayers and we'd appreciate your financial support as well.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: This concludes the recording of the Director's Bag. For more resources from Truth Exchange, please visit us online at www.
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