Will Smith has apologized to Chris Rock for slapping him at last Sunday night’s Academy Awards after the comedian made a comment about Smith’s wife. The Academy announced a formal investigation and condemned Smith’s actions. (For more on our response as Christians, read Mark Legg’s “Should we forgive Will Smith?”)

The story dominated social media, eclipsing even the war in Ukraine. However, another story from the Oscars has received less coverage: the hosts took numerous opportunities to castigate Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill.

The legislation has been dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” by its critics and the mainstream press. Wanda Sykes slammed the bill in her opening monologue; she and fellow hosts Amy Schumer and Regina Hall repeated the word gay multiple times as the crowd applauded.

Florida’s governor nonetheless signed the bill into law the next day. So, let’s discuss what the legislation does and doesn’t do, identify the larger cultural narrative this controversy represents, and conclude with two biblical principles that apply to us all.

What does the bill actually say?

Ironically, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill never uses the word gay and does not prohibit its use. Rather, the measure bars classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade (from about ages five to nine) in Florida public schools. The law takes effect on July 1 and allows parents to sue school districts they believe to be in violation. 

Republicans argue that parents should discuss these subjects with children. Democrats claim that the law demonizes LGBTQ people by excluding them from classroom lessons.

Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters when he signed the bill, “We will continue to recognize that in the state of Florida, parents have a fundamental role in the education, healthcare, and wellbeing of their children.” He added, “I don’t care what the big corporations say, here I stand. I’m not backing down.”

“Big corporations” have indeed said much about the law. For example, a Walt Disney Company spokesperson claimed that the bill “should never have passed and should never have been signed into law” and added, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”

Why LGBTQ activists are focusing on children

My purpose in today’s Daily Article is not to provide a comprehensive discussion of the legislation. Rather, as a cultural philosopher, I want to focus on the worldview issues it represents since they are relevant to each of us, whether we live in Florida and have young children or not.

Nathanael Blake is a postdoctoral fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of a perceptive article on our subject in Public Discourse. He notes that many in our culture now believe the LGBTQ activist narrative that humans are “born this way.” Blake explains the argument: “Each of us is born with an immutable sexual orientation and gender identity,” which would mean that some children are born LGBTQ. As a result, they should learn about their sexual orientation and gender identity as soon as possible so they can discover their authentic sexual selves, or so the argument runs.

In this view, teachers of elementary-age children are on the front lines helping their students “discover” and embrace their sexual identities. Parents and the rest of us should be affirming of such “discoveries” as well. Anyone who rejects LGBTQ ideology is by definition suspect and dangerous to children. This ideology can even lead to “non-affirming” parents losing custody of their children.

Blake reminds us that the search for a “gay gene” ended in failure three years ago. Nonetheless, he warns that LGBTQ activists are “pressuring our culture, curricula, and even churches to affirm the ostensibly intrinsic rainbow identities of children.”

Practical responses for parents

In response to this rising threat to our children, two biblical conclusions are vital.

One: It is urgent that you and I understand, embrace, proclaim, and defend biblical sexual morality in all its holistic relevance and beauty.

God’s word clearly teaches that:

• Humans are created in his image as male and female (Genesis 1:27). 
• Sex is intended only for a husband and wife within the covenant of marriage (Genesis 1:28; 2:24; 1 Corinthians 7:2–5).
• And homosexual relationships are outside his design for us and thus forbidden (cf. Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10).

For more, see my How to Defend Biblical Marriage.

Two: Parents are responsible for every dimension of their children’s lives.

One way I am asking God to redeem the frightening rise of LGBTQ activism with children is by using it to empower godly parents to become engaged in the entirety of their children’s experiences. They cannot “subcontract” their children’s education to schools, trust their private use of technology, or assume their friends share their biblical values.

God calls parents to teach his word “diligently to your children . . . when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Every part of their lives and yours should be informed and lived biblically.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track”?

Here’s the bottom line: Children need the spiritual and cultural protection of their families and churches more today than ever before in American history.

Pastor Paul Powell explained, “As a train was made to run on a track, so we were made to run on God’s law. A train runs most effectively when it stays on the track.”

Accordingly, the greatest gift we can give our children (and everyone we know) is to help them love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). When they know and live by his word, they live their best and most blessed lives.

Is your “train” running on God’s “track” today?

Is your family’s?

If not, why not?

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According to CNN, “Florida’s got yet another spring breaker in town: Scot, a massive great white shark, has been recorded swimming off the Gulf Coast.” The shark measures over twelve feet long and weighs sixteen hundred pounds.

A “massive great white shark” swimming just offshore feels like a metaphor for much that is happening in our culture, from rising inflation to a more contagious version of COVID-19 to deepening partisan divisions. But, of course, the “shark” that dominates the news each day and has captured so many of our hearts is the horrific invasion of Ukraine and the untold suffering that it is producing. 

As face-to-face talks between Ukraine and Russia continue this week, many analysts are asking how Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will end (assuming it does). In this context, three recent articles have greatly illuminated Vladimir Putin’s thinking and are therefore relevant to us today.

A “personalist regime” 

In a New Yorker article titled “What is Putin Thinking?,” David Remnick points back to the failure of democracy in Russia after the 1991 fall of the USSR. Oligarchs bought up the country’s most valuable state enterprises and made their fortunes while the people struggled. One historian said at the time, “These last four or five years in Russia have produced little besides pure hysteria.” 

In response, when Putin came to power in 1999, he set up what Remnick calls “a personalist regime built around his patronage and absolute authority.” Remnick explains that the national identity Putin created in opposition to the West “has played an essential role in his brutal invasion of Ukraine.” 

He also cites thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin who believed in the exalted destiny of Russia and the artificiality of Ukraine, both of whom were extremely influential for Putin.

A “civilization-state” 

Cultural commentator Andrew Sullivan takes us further back into history in “The Strange Rebirth Of Imperial Russia.” He cites Russian intellectuals who claimed after the fall of the Soviet Union that Russia is not just a nation-state but a “civilization-state.” 

Sullivan explains that this is “a whole way of being, straddling half the globe and wrapping countless other nations and cultures into Mother Russia’s spiritual bosom.” This worldview claims that Russia has always had such a civilizational destiny and mission which the West has countered and sought to undermine. Aleksandr Dugin popularized such theories in The Foundations of Geopolitics, which Sullivan calls “perhaps the best guide to understanding where Putin is coming from, and what Russia is now.” 

In light of this worldview, Putin proposed in 2011 a “Eurasian Union” to counter the European Union, reject the strategic control of the US, and resist Western liberal values. His invasion of Ukraine is but the next step in his passion to rebuild Imperial Russia.

An occupying force 

Journalist Jonathan Tepperman conducted a very illuminating interview with Alexander Gabuev, a former diplomatic correspondent and Russian newspaper editor who is now a scholar on Russia at the Carnegie Moscow Center. 

Gabuev explains that Putin thought his invasion would demoralize the Ukrainian army and that “part of the country would greet Russia with flowers and the other part would not resist.” He was clearly wrong. 

When Tepperman asked Gabuev if he can imagine a deal that could end the war, he replied that Ukraine would not “accept a peace settlement that makes them semi-dependent on the aggressor, even if it saves their cities.” To achieve Putin’s imperialistic agenda, Gabuev predicts that the Russian leader will seek to “occupy Ukraine, and there will be an Iraq-type insurgency, and ultimately this will end badly, because there is no way that Russia can occupy Ukraine forever.”

“An evil person will not go unpunished” 

In Romans 1 we read that God “gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done” (Romans 1:28). This is the permissive judgment of God whereby he allows us the consequences of our misused freedom. Tragically, the innocent are often harmed by these consequences as well. 

If nations and people do not repent, God then moves to his punitive judgment whereby he works directly to punish sin and lead sinners to repentance. We see this with the plagues of Egypt, divine judgment against King Herod (Acts 12:23), and the cataclysmic judgments depicted in the book of Revelation. 

Since we know that God judges nations (Psalm 110:6), it is plausible that Russia is experiencing God’s permissive judgment on its immoral invasion. If Putin persists, he and his people could see God’s punitive judgment. 

Here is what we can know without question: “An evil person will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 11:21) because “vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). Whether in this world or in the next (cf. Luke 16:19–31), God’s judgment on sin is sure (Hebrews 9:27).

A missionary prayer I have not forgotten 

How does the thought of God’s judgment on Vladimir Putin resonate with you?  

Your first thought might be, “The sooner the better.” Obviously, the fewer Ukrainians who suffer or die at his immoral hands, the better. 

But we must not forget that God loves Russians as much as he loves Ukrainians. He loves North Koreans as much as he loves Americans and Iranians as much as he loves Israelis (cf. Galatians 3:28). He loves each of us as if there were only one of us because he is love (1 John 4:8). 

If we loved the Russians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their nation and leaders to repent of this sinful invasion. If we love Ukrainians as God does, we would be praying fervently for their protection and future. If we loved all nations as God does, we would be praying fervently for every person on earth to know Jesus as Savior and Lord. 

I will long remember the time I heard a missionary pray, “Lord, break my heart for what breaks your heart.” 

What breaks your heart today? 

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CODA made history last night as the first film distributed by a streaming service to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Jessica Chastain won her first Oscar when she was named Best Actress for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Will Smith received his first Academy Award when he won for Best Actor in King Richard.

But the headline story is that after comedian Chris Rock made a joke about actor Smith’s wife during the evening, Smith ran up on stage and struck Rock in the face. He later apologized “to the Academy and to all my fellow nominees” during his acceptance speech.

Of course, the conflict on everyone’s mind and heart is the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. Several attendees at the Oscars paid tribute to Ukraine in various ways. Actress Mila Kunis, who was born in Ukraine, has partnered with her husband Ashton Kutcher to raise more than $35 million in humanitarian aid for the Ukrainian people. “Recent global events have left many of us feeling gutted,” she said last night. “Yet when you witness the strength and dignity of those facing such devastation, it’s impossible to not be moved by their resilience. One cannot help but be in awe of those who find strength to keep fighting through unimaginable darkness.”

Russian Nobel Prize winner will donate his medal for Ukraine relief

Kunis’ moving statement is not the only positive story amidst the horrific war in Ukraine. Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov has announced he will auction off the Nobel Peace Prize he won last year to raise money for Ukrainian refugees. He also called on Russia to stop combat fire, exchange prisoners, provide humanitarian assistance and corridors, release the bodies of the dead, and support refugees.

The Academy Awards and Vladimir Putin’s immoral invasion of Ukraine have this in common: they illustrate the brevity and fragility of life.

Who won last year’s Best Actor award? Anthony Hopkins. Best Actress? Frances McDormand. Best Picture? Nomadland. (I had to look up each answer).

Here’s an illustration of human frailty and fallenness from the Ukraine invasion: radioactive materials are reportedly missing from the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Experts warn that they could be combined with conventional explosives to create a “dirty bomb” that would spread contamination over a wide area.

The weekend news brought more examples of life’s fragility:

• A Colorado wildfire forced the evacuation of nineteen thousand people.
• Country music singer Jeff Carson died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-eight.
• Phil Collins, who has been dealing with health concerns for years, held his last concert ever in London.
• A man who fell to his death from a Dallas rooftop had planned to propose to his longtime girlfriend.
• A fourteen-year-old boy fell to his death from an Orlando amusement ride.
• A mother was shot and killed while visiting her late son’s grave on his birthday.
• A Montana hiker and father of four was killed when he was apparently attacked by a grizzly bear outside Yellowstone National Park.
• Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins died at the age of fifty.
• A police officer was gunned down in a Starbucks parking lot north of Seattle.

Prayer as a spiritual weapon

Last week, we discussed ways God uses his people to advance his kingdom and change their culture. Today, in the midst of our crises and challenges, as we face daily the brevity and fragility of life, let’s focus on ways our Father can change us.

In a Public Discourse article, philosopher Joshua Hochschild brilliantly describes the ways digital technology and social media are changing not just our world but also our minds. He explains that artificial intelligence is now using algorithms that predict our patterns of behavior, present us with customized digital stimuli, and thus shape what we think and do.

How should we defend ourselves? Professor Hochschild points us to “the power of prayer, sometimes described as a spiritual weapon.” He notes, “More than any other deliberate activity, prayer activates and directs the soul’s various modes of cognition, disciplining them and orienting them to deeper understanding of self and union with God.”

He recommends the prayer cycle in St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises as a model:

• Composition: Exercise your imagination and memory to recall sins and visualize yourself in the presence of God. 
• Analysis: Use your intellect to conceive, understand, and assent to truths (especially from Scripture, I would add), reasoning about their implications and contemplating their connections to your life. 
• Colloquy: Reflect on what you have learned and resolve to make good decisions, “exerting the will in acts of humility and love.”

“So shall my courage be firm”

Jesus promised us, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit” (John 15:5a). But he warned that the converse is also true: “for apart from me you can do nothing” (v. 5b). 

Charles Spurgeon was right: “The stream must flow constantly from the fountainhead, or else the brook will soon be dry.” To this end, let’s make Scottish minister John Baillie’s prayer ours:

“By your grace, O God, I will go nowhere today where you cannot come, nor seek anyone’s presence that would rob me of yours. By your grace I will let no thought enter my heart that might hinder my closeness with you, nor let any word come from my mouth that is not meant for your ear. So shall my courage be firm and my heart be at peace.”

Is your heart at peace today?

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