The Eric Metaxas Show - Hadley Arkes

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Socrates in the studio conversation with Hadley Arkes 

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Ladies and gentlemen, we ask you now to count down from 10, silently, if you don't mind. And when you get to one, you'll hear one of the greatest voices on this or any other planet. Three, two, one, Eric Mattaxas. Folks, you're listening to a special edition of the show. These are the audio versions of amazing conversations I had. Socrates in the studio. These have not aired yet.

The videos are not out yet. we want to encourage you to go to Socrates in the cityplus.com. Socrates in the city plus.com. Sign up. This goes live January 4th. You can see the videos. It's amazing. I also want to encourage you. If you haven't yet, go to metaxus talk.com and give to CSI. One of the greatest things you could conceivably do around the Christmas season. An amazing gift for anyone you can think of. Go to metaxis talk.com. Click on the CSI banner. Be generous. It's a beautiful thing. Metaxus talk.com. And don't forget, Socrates in the cityplus.com. Incidentally, today's conversation is with the great Hadley Arcus at Socrates in the studio.

Here it is. Thank you, Hadley, for agreeing to participate in this. It's going to be a hard-hitting journalistic interview. Are you ready? I just came in to read the meter. They asked me to stay around for program. Look, that's good enough. Okay.

Okay, go ahead. As we will talk about in your book, in discussing your book, Mere Natural Law, originalism and the anchoring truths of the Constitution. And in this book, oddly enough, when you talk about coming in to read the meter, because since you're a joker, nonetheless, there's something to that.

Because in the book, part of the thesis of the book is the idea that people who come in to read the meter, you say the plowman. Oh, that's so great. That is so good. That quote unquote, normal, you know, unlettered people nonetheless have enough common sense to make moral decisions. And it's an extraordinary thesis. So why don't we start there with my asking you to lay out briefly the thesis of the book Mere Natural Law and why it's titled Mere Natural Law?

Well, we drew on the allusion to C.S. Lewis, the way he'd notice that in the conversation among children, you'd see there's an argument about not likes and dislikes, but matters of right and wrong. And the assumption seems to be in play that there must be standards of judgment to tell the difference between right or wrong answers, and each one assumes the other one knows it. So children assume this. This is innate. Yeah, no, this is. So that's Lewis's point. What I wanted to do was take it to a dear friend of mine, late friend, Daniel Robinson, a lecture at Oxford, said he wandered on his tombstone. He died without a theory.

And he was appealing to Thomas Reed, the great Scott philosopher, who's read by James Wilson and American founders, who is repeating those precepts of common sense that the ordinary person has to grab, the plowman, and the man who reads the meter. The ordinary man has to grasp before he starts trafficking with, theories. And so the sense would be that before the ordinary man would start bantering with David

Yume about the meaning of causation, he knew his own active powers to cause his own acts to happen. Now, the American founders understood those things. They began with these precepts of common sense. There were the principles that were there and the truths that were there before the Constitution. And because they were there before the Constitution, they also realized they did. They be there even if there were no constitution. As John Quincy Adams said, that right to petition the government, they'll be there even

if it hadn't been mentioned in the First Amendment. It'd be there even if there were no First Amendment. Okay, so to bring it down... Even if there were no constitution, it would be there. To make sure that I'm getting it, the idea of natural law is that,

as you just said, whether there's a constitution or isn't a constitution, there is nonetheless this thing called natural law, there is right and wrong. There are rights given to us by God, whether we know it or not, whether our leaders acknowledge it or not, these things exist apart from this piece of paper called the Constitution. And that, to me, having read almost the whole book, that's your fundamental thesis, that you're, the gravamen, I've always wanted to use that word publicly. The gravamen of your thesis is the idea that those legal scholars who talk about

originalism, that they're not going far enough. In other words, that they're talking about the Constitution and you're saying there's something, even if the Constitution didn't, exist, there are these truths that are implied in the Constitution, that are referred to in the Constitution. I mean, that's basically what you mean by natural law. Right. Well, okay. James Wilson, after we named this instance of ours, one of the premier minds among the founders said, we didn't bring forth this Constitution or this government for the sake of inventing new rights, but to secure and enlarge those rights who already had by nature. So yes, The problem with originalism, as we see it now, is that these people detach the American founding from those anchoring principles that were there before the Constitution, the principles to which these people were persistently appealing as they sought to trace their judgments back to the anchoring ground of their judgments.

Okay, you taught law at Amherst for 50 years. Well, not all the 50 years, but yeah. Roughly speaking. We have staff that will look into the details. But for roughly 50 years, fact checker. For five decades, you were at Amherst teaching this stuff. And in the course of your lifetime, which extends obviously beyond the time you're at Amherst, we've been living with this really very bad idea of a living constitution.

In other words, we have Supreme Courts in the past that have effectively said, we can read into the Constitution almost whatever we like. In reaction to that, I'm guessing, correct me from wrong, in reaction to that fast and loose and sloppy and harmful view of the Constitution as whatever we want to read into it, there developed a school of thought called originalism where people said, no, no, no, no, no, we've got to stick to the text as the founders meant it. In other words, if we're going to, the title of your book is mere natural law, originalism and the anchoring truth of the Constitution, I want to be clear on what originalism is before we get into how that's not quite enough. So is it safe to say that the living

Constitution idea, I don't know if it's the Burger Court or whoever started effectively saying that, you know, we're the Supreme Court and we can kind of, pull whatever we want out of it, that's what led to this idea of originalism? Yes, the Warren Court and the Berger Court. And the conservatives recalled, say, to the articulation of a right to abortion,

they thought the vice was that there was something wrong with not sustaining laws that restrained abortion, but that there was something wrong with the judges making up a new right. But the point was, if you think there was something specious about what they're saying, then the cure for that, the remedy, was to show what is spacious about it. But rather what they did is take the line that it's dangerous whenever you move outside the strict text of the Constitution.

My right to be presumed innocent to proven guilt, that's not in the Constitution. The founders didn't put in the Constitution everything they knew, and they're persistently appealing outside the text. in making their own decisions, those anchoring truths that were there before the Constitution. So we have this curious situation, which some cultivated men are telling us that there are no moral truths apart from what's in the text of the Constitution. Folks, right now in other parts of the world, people's lives are being threatened simply for believing in Jesus.

People have been enslaved for their faith. So listeners to this show know that I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their Christian faith. So as we near the end of this year, can I ask you to give once again your gift of just $250 will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years? You can buy a believer's freedom and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Just $250. Maybe you can give more and free more people. Call 888-253-3522 or go to metaxistalk.com.

Metaxistalk.com. Let's go back just to set this up to the Warren and Berger courts and to the issue of the concept of the penumbra. Explain, if you would, to the plowmen who will be listening. What is, you know, the penumbra? Talk about that, because that's what, obviously, some of these legal voices we're saying. As President Nixon used to say, I'm glad you asked that question. What do we think the ordinary man would say if he were told that Jones, accused of a serious crime, was undergoing surgery at the time of the crime was committed?

Would anyone really doubt that any ordinary person not burdened with theory would say, why was he being prosecuted? The ordinary man would understand what Thomas Reed, Kant, Aquinas understood as the very first principle of all moral reasoning is that moral judgment began. begins in the world of freedom where people have the freedom to choose one course of action over another. We don't hold people blameworthy for acts. They were powerless to affect. That is an anchoring axiom. Okay, so everybody knows if the guy is under surgery, he doesn't even have the ability to commit a crime. Right, right. Okay. And the ordinary man, I think, grasped that without the need for tutoring. And from that simple point, we can extract many other things that run through our law. Now, of course, we have to deliberate at times on whether was Jones really incapacitated, was he under hypnosis?

But those things are kind of contingent and variable. But the one thing that will never be contingent is the principle itself, that if Jones was incapable of affecting the outcome, he cannot be held blameworthy. Now, let's take just a second one, going back to Lewis, the conversation of children. I offer this example. Let's imagine a seven-year-old

who's set upon by roughnecks in schools and they steal his lunch money. Now we ask, which of these two reactions you think would be the, quote, natural reaction? One, he feels set upon, unjustly hurt and harmed. or two, the other side must have been right because they succeeded. I don't think anyone would credit the second one.

The first one is the most natural one. But if that's the case, what the seven-year-old understands is what alluded Justice Holmes. They don't understand what Rousseau said. The mere capacity to seize and hold power over others cannot itself establish the rightness of that rule. Justice Holmes was asked, on what ground does the majority rule the minority? And the answer was, because the majority can

overpower the minority, which is to say the rule of the strong. What I'm saying is, in these seven-year-old reacting to the stealing money, grasp that point right away. So getting back to your point, and you took as the point of entry, Eric, the plowman and the professor,

what the ordinary person readily grasped. And sometimes what you find among lawyers is that they need a good deal of legal training to be tutored out of the things that the ordinary person readily grasped. Who said there's something so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them? I think it was Orwell. You think it was Orwell? Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it was me. Actually, I got to correct myself. I think Orwell got it to figure. No, I correct myself. It was I. No, but I mean, that's at the heart of this book. and I want people to understand that, that what you're saying is that

just as C.S. Lewis's book, mere Christianity, mere natural law, you're talking about what is the heart of the concept of our law as enshrined in our Constitution and our rights and that there's something that precedes the words on the page.

There's this fundamental thing. Right. But I still, in order to set up this conversation, I still want to go back, to what led to this. In other words, we had in the 20th century, let's call them liberal justices in the Supreme Court, who thought it was all right to play fast and loose with the Constitution, and in effect, to ignore the actual words, and to say, well, we think that somewhere, in the words of the Constitution, there's the suggestion of a woman's right to an abortion.

And when pressed on that, they would say it's in the penumbra. And as though the words are casting a shadow, and in that shadow someplace, we find the right to an abortion, which is not in the actual text. So is my understanding of that part of it roughly correct so we can move forward? Right, but what they thought they were doing is they probably didn't think they were inventing something. They thought they're probably drawing the implications that are already embedded there. Right. But what we'd say is that they've just, they've drawn them incorrectly.

They've drawn them wrongly. Okay. So that is, it's hard to see how you get from the equal. protection clause or any liberty clause in the Constitution to the right to kill an innocent human being. If you're clear, that it is a human being that you're dealing with. Or how do you get from the liberty clause to the autonomy and same-sex marriage? How do you find that implicit in that? It's going to take some work.

It should take some work to give us the steps of reasoning that possibly lead out from autonomy to the notion that there's no ground of judgment for the way which people act out their sexuality. Well, it's a little bit like reading the Bible, right? Like there are people who can read anything into the Bible. And we would say, you're wrong. That's a misreading of the scripture. But they act like, no, no, no, I can read it the way I want. I have this right to my subjective interpretation.

And that's in effect what happens in the middle of 20th century. You have a bunch of justices in the Supreme Court who somehow decide that I think abortion is a good thing. So I'm going to somehow, and we don't need to talk about abortion, but the point is it's the most dramatic example of what we're talking about, is that they look at this document of the Constitution. They say, someplace in here, even though it's not in the actual words, we're kind of finding what we want to find. And they rule, and Roe v. Wade becomes the law of the land.

And in reaction to that, I would say a proper reaction, you have a number of legal minds that say, excuse me, that's out of bounds. what you're finding in this document isn't actually there. And so we need to go back to what's actually there. So that's called originalism. Yes? Yeah, but their point is if it's not in the Constitution, it's not mentioned,

say the Constitution does not mention the word abortion. Therefore, a federal judge is not in a position to proclaim any rights springing from the Constitution. But of course, marriage wasn't in the Constitution. when they struck down the laws that forbade marriage across racial lines. See, they sought a shorthand formula that if it's not in the text, then they can't reach it. Look, I think everyone seems to agree on both sides today. Remember that classic decision of sterilization in Virginia,

Buck v. Bell, a woman thought to be slow, was sterilized, and Justice Holmes said in that magic phrase, three generations of imbils are now. Everyone takes that to be wrong. Let's say we did take that to be wrong. What right would you be invoking to protect Kerry Buck? Is there some right not to be sterilized? There's nothing in the Constitution about that.

What you'd have to do is go back to the Due Process Clause, which is really carry of all those principles that the founders didn't think to write down. in the text. The due process clause was the character. Look, George Sutherland, the great, from whom I wrote, I wrote a book. He was a judge on this famous Scotsboro case of these

black kids who, in the 30s, hopped the railroad car, and they were in with some white girls. There's an accusation of rape. You had a trial in a hostile town. The kids were cut off from any source of support. They didn't know

how to arrange a lawyer. Here's George Soutland, looking at this case. they say, look, the casual way in which they went about this thing, it just doesn't satisfy the rudiments of what we call the rule of law. He strikes it down, but he did not, as they say today, incorporate in the Constitution, the Sixth Amendment, incorporate again, say, ah, the Sixth Amendment with a right to a lawyer, I now are going to apply to the state. No, what he's telling us is this would be.

be wrong even if there were no Sixth Amendment. And it would be wrong even if there were no Constitution. See, what I'm pointing to is, this is what's missing here, Eric. The shorthand is, if it's not in the text, we have no ground to speak about it.

But that can't make sense of some of the other things we do and have done. Well, you're, I mean, obviously that's the point of the book, which is a remarkably readable book because, you know, most of us who aren't legal theorists or were never law students,

nonetheless, we care about these things, which kind of makes the larger point, that we all care about these things, whether we know the terminology. Folks, you're listening to a special edition of the show. These are the audio versions of amazing conversations I had. Socrates in the studio. These have not aired yet.

The videos are not out yet. We want to encourage you to go to Socrates in the cityplus.com. Socrates in the city plus.com. Sign up. This goes live January 4th. You can see the videos. It's amazing. I also want to encourage you.

If you haven't yet, go to metaxis talk.com and give to CSI. One of the greatest things you could conceivably do around the Christmas season. An amazing gift for anyone you can think of. Go to metaxis talk.com. Click on the CSI banner. Be generous. It's a beautiful thing. Metaxistalk.com.

And don't forget, Socrates in the city plus.com. And now here's my conversation. from Socrates in the studio, just for you. I still want to establish just for people who are listening to this conversation, that so there was a time when most people, you know, read the plain reading of the Constitution. Then you get, in the mid-20th century, you get these folks that play fast and loose with it and make some rulings, Roe v. Wade and others, that really almost seem to find what they want to find in the Constitution.

And then there arises a school of thought which we now call originalism where you had a number of people, many of whom I know are your friends or were your friends who said, who said, wait a minute, you're playing fast and loose with the Constitution.

There is no actual right to abortion or whatever in the Constitution. You are, you're looking for it, you're finding what you want, that's not okay. So we now say, we believe in this idea of originalism. And as we were saying, as I said a moment ago, a lot of these people would be your friends. These are the people that would be called, you know, conservatives, roughly speaking. Right. But the point you're making in this book, which is a radical point, and that's why I'm belaboring it to some extent, I want people to understand, you're saying that the originalist,

that school of thought, legal thought, they are making a fundamental mistake. And in some ways, ironically, it's similar to the mistake of the Warren and Burger courts on some level. No, it's kind of a, you know, it's like saying, you people are using moral reasoning

not contained in the text. We'll show you. We'll foregoal more reasoning altogether. Okay. That's our correct. to the problem. That's our corrective to the problem. That's, okay. That's what I meant to say, is that, in other words, they overreacted to the error. That's right. And they said, you're finding things that ain't there. And so now we will only talk about what is clearly there. And what you're saying in this book is that once you do that, you've been lured into a trap.

because now you're unable to do the moral reasoning that's necessary because you're so focused on the text that you're forgetting that the founders assumed many things that they didn't put in the text, which is what you've said. But take it one step further. They think it's wrong to appeal outside the text to objective truths that are in escape. Take, for example, the decision on transgenderism

where Anthony Stevens says if he claims to be a woman, the rest of us should be obliged to respect that judgment or else put ourselves and our employers in trouble. And how does Neil Gorsuch get to this? He's trying to reason within the text of the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, barring discrimination of the base of sex, and now it's going to broaden it. But what he doesn't do is say, well, quite apart from what the dictionary said

about sex in 1964, there is just the objective truth of what sex is, of why, in fact, we are constituted as males and females. I think the congregation for the doctrine of the faith once said, there has not always been a hungry or in Italy, but as long

as there are human beings, there must be males and females. That is the telos, the very purpose of sexuality. Now, the first thing is why, in fact, even though the kids on the Dobbs case on abortion. We have six conservative judges

who would not say that that small being in the womb is a human being, or the standing of a human being. We've had well, those judges in Texas, in Roe v. Wade

made the case to defend those laws on Texas. They draw the most updated embryology, woven with principle reasoning, to show that that unborn child has never been anything less than human from its very first moments and never barely a part of the mother. The curious thing is why six conservatives will not make the same appeal.

Recently in the Dobbs decision that overturned Roeby Wade, they were being, and again, this is to me the key to this whole thing, they felt somehow like handcuffed, like they could not go a millimeter beyond quote unquote the text, and it puts them in an odd position. So they can rule, they can effectively overturn Roe v. Wade, but they feel because the Constitution doesn't say that this is the killing of a human being, we can't mention that. You're saying they ought to have mentioned it.

Why ought they to have mentioned it? Because it's the anchoring truth of the matter. What are we dealing with? It's, look, James Wilson, the founder again, said, if we have natural rights, when do they begin? The answer was, as soon as we begin to be, which is why he said the common law casts its protection on the child from the first stirring in the womb.

There's nothing inscrutable about this. There's nothing we can. If we ask it, what is abortion? It's a taking of a human life. Now, why can't you address the subject that's right, before you hear. Yet they feel they can't, to move outside, someone they think, to move

outside to the objective truth that stands at the core of the matter, Samo moves outside their theory. Because again the theory, a theory they have of judging, you see. Legalistic in the worst sense to me, in other words, it's like

when Jesus talks about the Pharisees straining at a gnat to swallow a camel. Like they seem to feel they've backed themselves into this preposterous corner where they feel like, well, we can't unless it's, and now is that roughly all of the quote-unquote conservative justices on the court? I mean, because what you're saying, you know,

you've been at the forefront of this for decades, and you're putting forth what ought not to be a particularly novel idea. That's right. That's right. But it is a very novel idea given. the how do I put it, that people have sort of run

to this idea of originalism as the only solution to the fast and loose lunacy of judicial activism, I guess. Right. Well, of course, Justice Holmes said, he was the voice of the modern prattune.

They said it would be a benefit if we could purge from all worlds of moral significance for the law altogether. Purge all words of, of all significance and reduce us to pure law, a law that never gets involved in these vexing judgments about rights and laws. And we find that generations tutored in that scheme. So that, no, look, I've had, I have four friends in the Supreme Court.

Scalia was very close to Nino Scalia and everything. But they do think along these lines. I think I put my hope in Justice Alito, who showed in his argument, there's no principal ground on which to regard that infant in the womb is anything less than a human being, but he was reluctant to draw the conclusion that springs from that argument. He thinks he has to hand it off to people in the political arena. But we know the people in the pro-lucrine are befuddled, diffident.

You can hand it over to perhaps another federal judge will say someone will come in with a guardian of him to protect the child and another federal judges that might say, well they've established it must be a human being. Now we take the next step.

But the curious thing is what is it that constrains them to think that they can't read? 50 years ago all they had to do was say the state of Texas. has made a compelling case. We know it's a small human being. We think that the justifications you need

to take that small life must be as compelling as the justifications you need to take any other human life and therefore we simply sustain the laws of Texas. It's as simple as that. They sustain laws all the time. Those laws were justified. And yet we'd be, but the dissenters in row,

Rehnquist and White, did not bring into the decision, into the dissent, all the rich material that the lawyers for Texas presented. And the tragedies that now, 50 years later, six conservative judges would not do it either. They would not present the

substance of the case. Okay, so we're talking about a couple things here. First of all, it seems to me that there are two things at play in this almost fetishization of the text, which we call originalism, right? That you can go too far with it. And that part of the reason for that, I guess it's related, but it's fear of the critics. In other words, that they feel that, well, if we do this, they can't criticize us because we're sticking to these rules. No, they're fear of the abuse.

They think if we do this, we're going to open ourselves to more of the same things. Well, that's what I mean. Even more inventive. And we've seen it all have to take place with the invention leading to same-sex marriage. So they're playing it safe to a fault. In other words, they think that if we stick to this, then these are the rules we've set up and we're following the rules we've set up. And what you're saying is that there seems at least to be some cowardice in

involved in this? Well, I think it's more of a fear that if we go, we have this little set we're using it. If we go beyond that, we're going to supply tools to the other side. That could be the source of great mischief. Right, but this is what I love, and I know that you're Catholic. Okay. To my mind, this is, I would take fault with many evangelicals who say, well, if there's it's not in the Bible, then God has no position on it, right?

Right. So the Bible doesn't say anything about wife beating. It doesn't say anything about dinosaurs or UFOs or it doesn't say anything about that. Therefore, you can't have any opinion. That would be a biblical opinion on any of this stuff because I can't find the text. And most people, you know, the proverbial plowmen, would say, well, what are you talking about. It follows from these 2000 pages, even though I can't find a proof text. It follows. And Catholics have led the charge in this on the positive side of saying we can draw natural law. We can say things and we can

deduce things, even if we can't find one or two scripture verses, it comes from the assumptions that are in the Bible. We don't need to find that actual text, and to do so, it becomes silly. If you ask the average man, why is it, in the age of animal rights, we're still not signing labor contracts with our horses and cows, or seeking the informed consent of our household pets? and the ordinary man

would find that puzzling because what does he grasp? He grasps, you can't make Chesson used to complain animals have no religious sense when was the last time you heard of a cow giving up grass on Fridays

you know but they know that you cannot make a contract with this kind of only one kind of creature can reckon his interest make a promise and the expectation

to be held to that commitment, even when it runs counter to his interest. We're dealing with one kind of creature, the only kind of creature who becomes them the bear of rights. As Leo the 13th said, you and beings are the only beings who can deliberate over the question of whether they are directing their liberty to rightful and wrongful ends. Cows cannot impart any moral purpose to property. Only one kind of creature can do that, which is why That is the creature who's the bear of those rights, which is say rights that flow to certain beings by nature. Remember, so the scheme begins with what do all man created equal mean? No man is by nature the rule of other men, and the way that God is by nature of the rule of men,

and men are by nature the rule of dogs and horses. Folks, you're listening to a special edition of the show. These are the audio versions of amazing conversations I had. Socrates in the studio. These have not aired yet. The videos are not out yet. We want to encourage you to go to Socrates in the city plus.com. Socrates in the city plus.com.

Sign up. This goes live January 4th. You can see the videos. It's amazing. Incidentally, today's conversation is with the great Hadley Arcus at Socrates in the studio. Here it is. You know, Aquinas said the divine law, we know through revelation. But natural law, we know that reasoning that is accessible to human beings as human beings.

And as John Paul too said, when St. Paul went out to the Athenians, he couldn't cite Moses, he was dealing with the Epicureans, he had to use a language as accessible to these. In all my teaching, the one example of this reasoning that when heard is what instantly understood is that fragment that Lincoln wrote for himself, where he imagined himself engaged in a conversation with an owner of slaves, putting the question, why just am I making a slave of the black men? You're more intelligent than he is? Ah, beware. You may be rightfully enslaved by the next white man who comes along, more than chose than you. Because he's darker than you, ah, beware again. You may be enslaved by the next one man who comes along

with a complexion even lighter than yours. So the upshot was there's nothing you could cite to disqualify the black men, that were not applied to many whites as well. And of course, we use the same principle, just principle reasoning for abortion. We'd say, why is that offspring in the womb,

anything less than human, doesn't speak yet? Well, neither do deaf mutes. Doesn't have arms or legs? Other people lose arms or legs in the course of their lives without losing anything necessary to their standing as human beings.

Now, the critical point here is there's no appeal to faith or revelation here. And it could be understood not only across the religious division. It could be understood by Catholics, Baptists, atheists, Chicago Cup fans,

just anybody's capable of understanding this, and you don't need a college education to grasp this. I mean, Lincoln spoke to the audiences, people without formal education. People were able to grasp these things. And what we're saying, when we find this when you alert people to what these things are,

what you get is the sense that, yes, I've known that all my life. I've known that all my life. It's sort of like Plato's Mino. He feeds the questions to this slave boy, and pretty soon that slave boy step by step is doing geometry. And so the line is, it's all tucked away within you already. So what we find here is this, feed people to write questions on this matter of natural law. And as though they've noted all the law.

They're simply, it may be remembering what they've known already. So what is the pushback that you're getting. on this. In other words, there has developed over the decades this I don't know what you call it a school of originalists. It's this it's the thing. In other words, if you're not

in the Sotomayor camp, you're originalist. Why haven't others before you or why aren't more people saying what you're saying now? What do you... Well, the dubious are

moral reasoning. I mean, dear friend, Schuille, would say, probably with natural law, we can't get a consensus on it. Folks, right now in other parts of the world, people's lives are being threatened simply for believing in Jesus. People have been enslaved for their faith. So listeners to this show know that I'm passionate about the work of Christian Solidarity International because they protect and free those who are being persecuted and enslaved for their Christian faith. I've got to thank you for your life. generosity for years now. If you've given a CSI through this program, you have played a role in freeing

literally thousands of captives. So as we near the end of this year, can I ask you to give once again your gift of just $250 will free a woman in Sudan who has been enslaved for years? You can buy a believer's freedom and provide her with food and other supplies necessary to start her new life. Just $250. Maybe you can give more and free more people. Call 888-253-3522. 888-253-3522. Or go to metaxustalk.com. Please do it metaxistalk.com.