Hello friends, welcome to the Case for Life podcast. Special thanks again to our prime sponsor, Life Training Institute. Hope you will visit that site and get resources there to help better equip yourself for engaging people who disagree with you. Got some mailbag questions today. I thought I’d go over them. The first is really interesting and one that’s going to come up a lot. if you ever discuss abortion with people, and that is this. How do I explain to a friend that species membership matters, that humans are something more than just mere animals, especially if the friend is not a Christian and rejects the idea of the Imago Dei. How do I explain to that friend that human beings are substantially different than animals? Great question. Let me jump on that and then we’ll go to the second one. Here’s the thing, you don’t have to use scripture to demonstrate that human beings are exceptional. Even secular people have intuitions that indicate to them that humans are different in kind from animals. Let me give you a couple examples. A few years ago, actually, it’s more like 8 to ten years ago, I think it is, Michael Vick, a former NFL quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons. had a side hobby, if you want to call it that, of dog fighting. He would gather dogs. and dog owners together and they would bet on which dog would succeed in tearing the other one up. They were doing a dog fighting ring and they would gamble over it. And these dogs were treated horribly. They were set on fire if they lost a fight. or they would simply be killed if they lost a fight. But it was animal cruelty at its extreme limits. And Michael Vick went to prison for this, and rightfully so. But we need to ask the question, Why did we prosecute Michael Vick, but not the dogs who were tearing each other up? And there is a very clear answer for this. Everyone understood whether they were Christian or not, whether they accepted the idea that we’re made in the image of God or not. They understood that Michael Vick as a man ought to know better. The dogs are doing just what comes naturally. They don’t have a moral compass. They don’t have a conscience. Michael Vick does. He knows better. We know that human beings ought to be able to adjudicate between activities that are inherently wrong, like torturing animals for fun, and activities that are mere preferences like deciding I like chocolate ice cream over vanilla. We expect better of Michael Vick as a man, but that only makes sense if you assume and recognize that humans are exceptional. We expect something of them we don’t expect of animals. For example, we don’t think we need to go into the ocean and prosecute killer orca whales because they destroy other fish in the sea. They kill dolphins. Do we think we need to then go jail whales for what they’re doing? No. We understand it’s not in their nature to function with a moral sense. We do know it’s in the nature of human beings to function that way. Another thing I can point out is this. Even our secular understanding of pathology says makes a distinction between humans and animals. For example, a dog that can’t read is not a tragedy. A sixteen-year-old young woman who can’t read is one precisely because she’s failing to flourish according to her nature. The dog is not failing to flourish if it can’t read. It can still flourish according to its nature. Humans have it in their nature to be able to read. Dogs do not. Or as my colleague Stephanie Gray likes to point out, amoebas are not self-aware and are not cognitively advanced. because it’s not in their nature to be so. An amoeba will never become a rational being But a human embryo is one by nature, even if it doesn’t currently function that way. The amoeba doesn’t have a rational sense because it’s not able to do it in its nature. The unborn have a rational nature requiring no external action on them to become rational. They just need to grow a little bit older. The amoeba won’t be rational because of its nature. The embryo is not rational because it simply needs to be older. It needs to age. That’s the difference between the 2. We recognize these things. We think a hit and run with a squirrel is not a big deal. But a hit and run with a newborn, even if it’s cognitively disabled, is a crime. And we would prosecute people who did it. Or as Chris Kayser likes to point out, there is a difference between eating a hamburger and eating a Harold Burger. There is a world of difference between the two, and we understand that at an intuitive level. I think you can point this out to people and address the question that they’re asking about why we would consider humans exceptional. Now, the second question is really comical to me, quite frankly. almost embarrassing that people are falling for this, but they are. Here’s the question. Circulating on the internet right now is a story from Numbers 8, that in the Bible, specifically the Old Testament, blood on the ear is a sign of consecration, that God has consecrated someone for a very specific mission or purpose. Given Donald Trump was shot in the ear and had blood on the ear, Isn’t that a sign that he too is consecrated? Absolutely not. This is stupidity at the I mean, I don’t even know what to do. I spit my coffee the first time I saw this online and I thought, are people really that theologically illiterate that they’ll fall for something like this. The idea that blood on the ear consecrates you is silly on the face of it, outside of twisting Scripture, but Here’s the thing. Would these same people say, God forbid it had been Biden that was shot that day? and he had blood on the ear, would they say he was consecrated before God for a specific purpose? No way! So they’re just selectively applying Old Testament verses. Let me give you a little hermeneutical rule here. or exegetical rule about biblical interpretation. A text can never mean to us today what it never could have meant to the original authors or their audience, okay? No one in the Old Testament would have said that this text applies to future political leaders outside the nation of Israel. This was a sign for priests that were being set aside and consecrated, and they didn’t get blood on the ear through an injury, They had blood applied to their ear as a sign of them being consecrated. They were in a priestly ministerial role. Donald Trump is not a priest. He’s not a pastor. He is not in any way associated Even if you accept that we can just take things from the Old Testament and apply them today, which is a very foolish way to interpret the Scripture, But even if you do that, you have to admit there’s a substantial difference between a secular presidential candidate and a priest who has been set aside by the community of God’s people for the purpose of leading them in worship— There is no parallel here whatsoever. By the way, if a wound to the head is a sign that you’ve been consecrated, then I guess we’d have to say that the Antichrist has consecration because he’s going to have a wound to the head. We’re told in Revelation and in the book of Daniel, we get this information. But let’s go a step further. Remember the story of when Jesus was arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter pulls out his sword and lops off the high priest’s servant’s ear? And Jesus tells him to put the sword away. Well, if an ear wound means you’re consecrated, that means the priest’s servant was consecrated. You can see how silly this becomes, and yet there are people who fall for this today. Now, there’s another extreme that comes into play here, and I want to go ahead and address it since it’s related to the question. And that is this. On the right, people are pulling scriptures out of context to try to baptize Trump as this great spiritual consecrated leader. which he is not. Let’s be honest, this is a terribly flawed man, as is Joe Biden. Here’s your choice in this election. It’s not between a consecrated man and a bad demonic man. It’s a choice between 2 men with very flawed personal character, one of which also has very flawed policies, that will harm 1000000. So let’s not overstate what’s going on here. I can make the case, and indeed have made the case, that it’s always good for a Christian to vote to lessen evil. If you’re supporting a candidate who’s flawed because the alternate choice is going to result in a worse situation for innocent human beings and human flourishing, I can understand you voting and saying, listen, I’m going to vote to lessen evil by throwing my support behind a guy who is far from perfect. Okay, I get that. That’s a sound argument. In fact, it’s the position I hold. But It is absolutely silly to baptize that flawed individual as some kind of messianic savior who’s got God’s special anointing on his life. This is silly. But on the left, there’s another view that comes into play, and it goes like this. Well, those of you that are supporting a fellow like Donald Trump are simply doing it to advance your own political agenda. you are selfish and you are putting your own political desires above what you ought to, you need to be a good witness for Christ and not put your own agenda ahead of your Christian witness. This is an equally stupid argument, and let me explain why. When you vote to limit evil, Especially when you’re voting to protect vulnerable human beings like the unborn, It’s not my political agenda that’s in there. I don’t benefit financially by protecting the unborn. I don’t benefit economically or even sociologically. It’s not going to do anything for my status to speak up for the unborn. If anything, it’s going to hurt my status. But we vote to limit evil and save babies from the dumpster. That’s why we would throw our support behind a flawed candidate who will at least at some level lessen the evil. It’s not about my personal agenda. It’s not that at all. Some things disqualify a candidate and saying it’s OK to intentionally kill innocent human beings is one of them. Imagine this. We have a leader who has a great economic policy. He has a great health care plan. He has a great plan for education. But he thinks it ought to be legal for you to beat your spouse. And he will promote that wholesale. not only here but overseas with U.S. tax dollars. That candidate would be disqualified even if he does other good things because there are certain intrinsic evils we must never tolerate. Now, in this case, we’ve got a situation where you have a presidential candidate who is far from perfect who is going to limit some of the evil that’s done in the intrinsic category I just mentioned. He’s not perfect on abortion, but he will limit some of it versus another candidate that’s going to promote it wholesale. Just because you vote to lessen the evil done does not mean you are worshipping the candidate or that you are advancing your own political agenda. No, it just means you’re trying to lessen evil and protect others who have no voice to speak for themselves. If you were a slave on a slave ship outside Charleston Harbor in eighteen sixty and you’re sweltering away there in misery and disease, Would you hope your fellow Christians would vote to lessen the evil of slavery? Or would you say, hey, no, just leave me on this ship because you know what? I don’t want to be seen as worshiping a political candidate that’s flawed. We’re not worshiping anybody. We’re simply making a prudential decision that it is better to lessen evil than to let it be promoted wholesale by backing a candidate that will do that or by sitting an election out where we don’t exercise our option of lessening evil. So Christians are not worshiping Trump. Now, some do, and I think they’re wrong, and I just explained why with the previous question, but The thing is, it’s simply an unfair charge to say that pro-life Christians who back somebody like Trump simply want to advance their own political selfish agenda. Selfish for whom? Us? How does backing the unborn help us? It doesn’t help us economically. It doesn’t help us sociologically. We’re trying to save innocent human beings from being butchered from a culture that is hell-bent on butchering them. That’s not a selfish political drive. That’s acting altruistically for those who have no voice for themselves. So don’t let people bully you into thinking you’re just being a selfish political nerd wanting to advance your own agenda, when in reality, what you’re trying to do as a pro-life Christian is lessen evil as much as you can. Well, I want to thank those who submitted these questions. I hope that these brief overviews have been helpful on those questions. Look forward to seeing your questions come to us. And I want to make another point here. first of all, Everything we discuss today is covered in this book, The Case for Life, especially the section on animals. I encourage you to get a copy of this from scottklusendorf.com. And then secondly, I think you ought to consider and hope you will consider registering for our course, the Case for Life course. We cover why humans are intrinsically valuable. We cover why they’re different than animals. and why they ought to be respected and valued regardless their level of development or cognitive ability. We give you the tools you need to engage people on questions like what we answered here today. Please go to scottklusendorf.com and register for that course. We’re offering a discount for it right now. Use the code SILLOGISM and you can get that course at a discounted rate of 30 percent off. That’ll be helpful to you, especially in the crazy times we’re in, where on one hand, we got people who want to deify flawed candidates. On the other hand, we’ve got people that want to say anytime you vote to lessen evil, if you back a flawed candidate, you’re just idolizing them and you’re putting your own political agenda first. No, that’s not what’s going on. And we want to help you be articulate defenders of the unborn even in the crazy times we live in right now. Thanks for joining us today. Again, special thanks to Life Training Institute for its sponsorship of this podcast. Please hit the like button and share these videos with friends. Help us get the word out. Look forward to seeing you on our next episode.