BreakPoint: Recent Episodes
Colson Center
Join John Stonestreet for a daily dose of sanity—applying a Christian worldview to culture, politics, movies, and more. And be a part of God's work restoring all things.
It’s time to retire the myth that humans are 99% the same as chimps.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Are Humans and Chimpanzees Basically the Same?
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Prison ministry and the embodiment of Christ.
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Register for the Colson Educators course Navigating Cancel Culture: Holding Fast to Truth and Love in a Hostile World at colsoneducators.org.
Why we’re not satisfied, even if we should be.
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Launch Christians into Kingdom work today at colsoncenter.org/june.
State and federal cases are challenging the relationship between home and government.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Do Children’s Rights Override Parental Rights?
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Dads who throw their kids in the air are onto something.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Modern Family: Are the Kids Really Fine?
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John and Maria discuss news of the week including Israel’s attack on Iran and the LA Riots. The men in women’s sportsdebate heats up with two celebrated female athletes taking opposing sides. Plus, a new study shows working class men are shying away from marriage.
Recommendations
The Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf
Segment 1 - Israel Attacks Iran
NYT: Live Updates: Iran Reels From Israeli Strikes on Nuclear Sites and Top Officials
ADF: Police arrest ADF International team member and Canadian child protection advocate Billboard Chris for their signs, while ignoring violent counter-protestors
Segment 2 - Riley Gaines and Simone Biles Fight Over Gender
FOX: Greta Thunberg deported from Israel after Gaza-bound 'selfie yacht' was seized
Breakpoint: Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Be Pop Stars
AP: Simone Biles apologizes for heated exchange with Riley Gaines over trans athlete participation
Stephen A. Smith: An interview with Riley Gaines to talk Simone Biles drama
Segment 3 - Working Class Men Bypass Marriage
IFS: Good Jobs, Strong Families: How the Character of Men's Work is Linked to Their Family Status
WORLD: Study shows working-class men aren’t getting married
NYT: No Home, No Retirement, No Kids: How Gen Z-ers See Their Future
Segment 4 - Listener Questions
Breakpoint: No, the Children of Divorce Are Not ‘Fine’
Breakpoint: N.T. Wright Shows Why We Still Need the Case for Life
The Case for Life
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
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The passing of two great missionaries.
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Cornerstone Partners receive special resources, discounts, and other gifts from the Colson Center. To learn more, visit colsoncenter.org/cornerstone.
Pro-life apologetics is crucial, even for Christians who should know better.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: “Abortion is Healthcare.”
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The enslaving reality of, “My body, my choice!”
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Is Pornography Victimless?
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No matter the label, it’s all His.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: How to Have a Conversation: Basic Principles
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Fixing the right thing that’s broken for an educational system in crisis.
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Critical theory was on display in the media’s reaction to last week’s terror attack in Colorado. The Colson Center wrapped up its national conference on Being the Church. And John and Maria reflect on N. T. Wright’s controversial thoughts on abortion.
Recommendations
Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship by Paul Vitz
Register for the Great Lakes Symposium
Register for Rooted Educator Worldview Summit
Segment 1 - Antisemitic Attack in Colorado
AP: What we know about the Colorado attack on demonstrators for the release of Israeli hostages
Breakpoint: A Double Standard on Terrorism
Breakpoint: "Stochastic Terror”: Truth Is Not Violence
Segment 2 - Colson Center National Conference and Concerns for Nigeria
NYT: Phil Robertson, ‘Duck Dynasty’ Patriarch, Dies at 79
Peggy Powell's story
Segment 3 - NT Wright on Abortion
Ask NT Wright Anything: Is abortion ever justified?
Segment 3 - Listener Questions
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
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Join the Cornerstone Monthly Partners at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
What the Boulder attack and the rise of antisemitic violence in the U.S. says about society’s critical mood.
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The largest ever of its kind study reveals the truth about kids and divorce.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Happily Divorced vs. Unhappily Married - Which is Better for Kids?
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Spirituality-seekers are trending, but what they’re looking for is easily found.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Was Jesus’ Resurrection Based on Pagan Myths?
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Register today for the ACSI Rooted Conference at acsi.org/rooted.
Tech gurus are monetizing the epidemic of loneliness, and there are victims.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Does Technology Make Religion Obsolete?
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John Stonestreet spoke with Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University to discuss Fidelity Month, an alternative to the “Pride Month” celebrations that have marked this month for so long.
Additional Resources
Fidelity Month
America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds
Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth: Law and Morality in Our Cultural Moment by Robert P. George
Truth Matters: A Dialogue on Fruitful Disagreement in an Age of Division by Robert P. George and Cornel West
As so-called “Pride Month” begins, Christians must recommit to our most important relationships.
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Register for the 2025 Great Lakes Symposium, “Truth, Love, and Humor: Faith Without Fear” at colsoncenter.org/truth.
Learn more about Fidelity Month at fidelitymonth.com.
A Christian camp is challenging a Colorado law that forces them to adopt gender ideology. The Supreme Court refuses to hear the case of a Massachusetts student who was sent home for wearing a t-shirt with a traditional message. And what should you watch and what should you avoid?
Recommendations
Fidelity Month
Sara Groves
Art House North
Segment 1 - Christian Camp Sues Colorado
ADF: Camp IdRaHaJe Association v. Roy
ADF: XX-XY Athletics sues Colorado for violating right to speak truth that men and women are different
ADF: US Supreme Court declines to hear ‘There are only two genders’ T-shirt case
ADF: School Settles Lawsuit After Forcing Third-Grader to Remove ‘Jesus Loves Me’ Mask
Segment 2 - Boundaries in Entertainment
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
Segment 3 - Recommendations
Fidelity Month
Sara Groves
Art House North
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
__________
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Attend a Colson Fellows Informational Webinar at colsonfellows.org/webinar.
It’s all level at the foot of the Cross.
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Register for the Great Lakes Symposium: Truth, Love, and Humor and colsoncenter.org/truth.
The Ascension wasn’t merely Jesus leaving the Earth, but the God-man sitting in authority and power on His eternal throne.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Did Jesus Really Rise From the Dead?
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Who is Jesus?
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Was Jesus God?
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What to do with a culture whose reality is memes and fake imagery.
Related Resource
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
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Thanking those who serve and remembering Whom you serve.
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A young Israeli couple are murdered in Washington D.C. The Council of Nicaea was 1700 years ago but is just as relevant today. And is AI capable of ending humanity?
Recommendations
Ozempic’s gnostic temptations by Maria Baer
Register for the Great Lakes Symposium: Truth, Love, and Humor!
Segment 1 - News of the Week
AP: Court papers say suspect in embassy killings declared, ‘I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza’
FOX: Pope Leo says family based on ‘union between a man and a woman,’ defends dignity of unborn
WORLD: Women’s college gives transgender Biden official a degree
Register for the Great Lakes Symposium: Truth, Love, and Humor!
Segment 2 - 1700th Anniversary of Council of Nicaea
Lifeway Research: American Views on Who Jesus Was and Why He Came
Segment 3 - Worldview Implications of AI
NYT: An Interview With the Herald of the Apocalypse
Breakpoint: Lying Robots on the Internet
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Segment 4 - Listener Questions
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
Breakpoint: Trust the Science on Life
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If your day of choosing between your faith and your job hasn’t come yet, it may be just around the corner.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Is Religious Freedom an Excuse for Discrimination?
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Register for the 2025 Great Lakes Symposium: Truth, Love, and Humor: Faith Without Fear at colsoncenter.org/truth.
Who (or what) are you arguing with online?
Related Resource
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
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The cultural shift toward the Church needs to be cultivated, not neglected.
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In the face of lies, equip yourself with the truth. Access the “Why Life?” video series today at colsoncenter.org/whylife.
Despite conventional wisdom, young, married couples have the best odds.
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What’s really being preached from the pulpit, and what does it say about the public perception of the Church’s role?
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Churches Shouldn't Get Involved with Political Issues
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political?
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Another study finds the abortion pill is causing more harm than the drug companies claim. News reports are finding a rise in spirituality in America; we’ll look closely at that claim. And we take questions and comments from listeners.
Recommendations
Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City by Katy Faust
Strong Women: Raising Conservative Kids in a Woke City With Katy Faust
The World and Everything in It: April 16, 2025
Segment 1 - News of the Week
EPPC: New Study of Abortion Pill Reveals Startling Failure Rate
What Would You Say?: Is the abortion pill as safe as Tylenol?
ADF: Colorado court fully protects Christian academy’s ability to receive funding for preschool
Breakpoint: A Win for Dr. Allan Josephson, ADF, and for Children
Segment 2 - A Return to Spirituality?
PEW: Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off
Ryan Burge: The Religion of America's Young Adults
Institute for Family Studies
The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God by Justin Brierly
Revering God: How to Marvel at Your Maker by Thaddeus Williams
Segment 3 - Refugee Resettlement
Culture Friday: Resettling South African refugees
Segment 4 - Listener Questions
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
Summit Ministries
Impact 360 Institute
Worldview Academy
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Register for the Rooted Educator Worldview Summit at acsi.org/rooted.
The scientific consensus is that life begins at conception, so what’s the problem with banning abortion?
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Are Science and Religion Compatible?
What Would You Say?: When Does Life Begin?
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The biblical account is the account of the world, and Hollywood is catching on. ___________
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When forgiveness makes the news, God’s desire for His image bearers speaks for itself.
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The social media app that’s convincing youth that babies are boring, and other such lies.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Identifying Misinformation
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Get access to the free e-book: Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/beingthechurch.
Christians should get there first.
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Robert Prevost has been elected Pope Leo XIV. What should we be looking for in the new leader? A new law in Washington calls religious freedom into question in cases of reporting abuse. AI-fueled spiritual fantasies and psychosis are destroying families and lives. John and Maria offer a framework on discerning truth from heresy in different religions and denominations.
Recommendations
TIME: How Hard is Chess?
What Would You Say? Video Series
Segment 1 - New Pope Elected and State Shenanigans
CNN: May 8, 2025 Leo XIV elected as first American pope
CBS News: Feds call child abuse confession law for priests "anti-Catholic" as church vows to excommunicate those who comply
WORLD: Maine court removes mother’s right to bring child to church
Segment 2 - AI-Fueled Psychosis
Rolling Stone: People are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies
Breakpoint: Richard Dawkins, a “Cultural Christian”
Resources from Sherry Turkle
Breakpoint: Leave Loud, Blaming Churches
TIME: How Hard is Chess?
Segment 3 - Mormonism and Denominational Differences
Colorado's fourth Latter-day Saints temple to reflect new mountain home in Colorado Springs
Segment 4 - Listener Questions
Submit a question to Breakpoint here!
60 Minutes: Egg freezing popularity increasing among young women to preserve their fertility
Breakpoint: Messing with Imago Dei
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Is “baby optimization” unscientific and immoral?
Related Resource
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
___________
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Does Hollywood usually know the answer to “What could possibly go wrong?”
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Why all Christians should care who the next pope is.
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Physician Professor who questioned transgender treatments for kids wins big in court.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Is Sex Assigned at Birth?
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“Hard” is not hell; it leads to treasures in heaven.
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Colorado and Oklahoma are two states debating the place of religion in public schools. A new study finds the risks of taking the abortion pill are drastically greater than we’ve been told. And new research debunks the supposed perils of marrying early.
Recommendations
IFS: Marry Early And Flourish Together
The Austin Institute: The Economics of Sex
How to Think Like Socrates by Donald J. Robertson
Socrates Meets Jesus by Peter Kreeft
The Colson Fellows Program
Segment 1 - Public Education and Religion
FOX: Colorado parents unload on liberal lawmakers, prompting changes to controversial gender bill
Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond Oral Argument
Clergy in the Classroom by David Noebel, J.F. Baldwin, and Kevin Bywater
Segment 2 - Bombshell Abortion Pill Study
The Abortion Pill Harms Women: Insurance Data Reveals One in Ten Patients Experiences a Serious Adverse Event
Breakpoint: New Report: The Abortion Pill Harms Women
What Would You Say?: Is the ‘Abortion Pill’ as Safe as Tylenol?
Segment 3 - The Benefits of Marrying Early
IFS: Marry Early And Flourish Together
The Metropolitan Review: Would You Rather Have Married Young?
The Colson Fellows Program
Segment 4 - Listener Questions
Send in a question for Breakpoint at Breakpoint.org
American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Christian Dental Association
The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity
National Review: HHS Report Exposes the Risks of Gender Experimentation on Children
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Join the Colson Center as a Cornerstone Monthly Partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
“You’ll do for now” cohabitation isn’t making couples happier.
Related Resource
WWYS: Is Cohabitation Good for Relationships?
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What if marching for women’s rights meant for the persecuted instead of for abortion?
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Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program by registering for one of our upcoming webinars at colsonfellows.org/webinar.
Christians should not get lost in cultural cynicism but instead be a Church wrapped in truth and discernment.
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Get your access the “Why Life?” video series at colsoncenter.org/whylife.
New data findings should call for a reexamination of the nearly unrestricted distribution of chemical abortion pills.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Is the ‘Abortion Pill’ as Safe as Tylenol?
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Download the free e-book: Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
The Church must have a theology of the body, or “disturbing” science will fill in the blanks.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: What is IVF, and is it ethical?
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A meeting at the White House this week looked at several examples of anti-Christian bias in bureaucracy and beyond. The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case originating in Maryland that puts school officials over parents. And John and Maria discuss the legacy of Pope Francis.
Segment 1 - Anti Christian Bias, SCOTUS Hearing on Parental Rights
Attorney General Pamela Bondi Hosts First Task Force Meeting to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the Federal Government
CSPAN: Mahmoud v. Taylor Oral Argument
Segment 2 - Death and Legacy of the Pope
Breakpoint: The Passing of Pope Francis and the Future of the Roman Church
First Things: Pope Francis, My Worst Protestant Nightmare by Carl Trueman
Segment 3 - Falling Birth Rate
New York Times: Birthrates Languish in Record Lows, C.D.C. Reports
CNN: US fertility rate hovers near record low as Trump administration pushes for a baby boom
Emma Waters on Falling Birth Rates
In Pursuit Conference: What do Marriage and Motherhood have to do with the Happiness of Women
Segment 4 - Answering Listener Questions
Breakpoint: The Cornerstone of a Legacy
The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright
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Download the free e-book: Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
Get access to the free video series: “Why Life? Courageous Faith in a Culture of Death” at colsoncenter.org/whylife.
Taking the eye off the prize.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Doesn't Religious Liberty Protect Extremists?
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Radical gender ideologues, not physicians, lead the medical movement to trans American children.
Related Resource
Breakpoint Forum: The Real Facts About Gender Ideology
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God’s divinity, humanity’s frailty, and the way forward for America.
___________
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The impact of the Pope’s legacy.
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Register for the upcoming Identity Project Webinar: Saying 'I Do' is Good for You at colsoncenter.org/marriage.
Chuck Colson and his passion for worldview training.
Learn more about becoming a Cornerstone Monthly Partner at colsoncenter.org/cornerstone.
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Access the free video series “Why Life? Courageous Faith in a Culture of Death” at colsoncenter.org/whylife.
John and Maria look ahead to Easter Sunday and remember the anniversary of the passing of Charles Colson. The highest court in the UK rules there are only two genders. And are there biblical guidelines for when we should we help the poor?
Recommendations
Death on a Friday Afternoon by Richard John Neuhaus
The Biggest Story Bible Storybook By Kevin DeYoung
Segment 1 - Holy Week and Remembering Chuck Colson
Breakpoint: Jesus, the Last Adam
Breakpoint: “I Thirst” Points Us to God’s Scars
There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Anthony Flew
Breakpoint: How Johnny Hart Pointed to the Cross and Empty Tomb in the Funny Papers
Johnny Hart's Good Friday Comic Strip
Segment 2 - UK Supreme Court on Gender
BBC: Supreme Court backs 'biological' definition of woman
J.K. Rowling on X
Segment 3 - Helping the Poor
The World and Everything in It: April 15, 2025
National Review: The War on Poverty at 50
Recovery Ministries Try to Help Portland Get Clean by Maria Baer
When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor . . . and Yourself by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert
Poverty Cure | Session 1 | Michael Matheson Miller
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Learn more about how ADF helps the Church be the Church at adflegal.org.
Register for the upcoming Identity Project webinar: Saying 'I Do' is Good for You at colsoncenter.org/marriage.
Good Friday—Jesus’ last words on the cross fulfill Scripture.
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What does it look like for the Church to be the Church in a post-Christian world? Download the free e-book: Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
Maundy Thursday—Jesus' Last Supper and His new command to “love one another.”
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Learn more about how ADF helps the Church be the Church at adflegal.org.
When four Jewish girls needed to be protected from the Nazis, Fritz Niermann leaned into his faith.
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Join the Colson Center as a Cornerstone Partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
The ADF’s argument against taxpayer cash for abortion.
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Learn more about how ADF advances every person’s God-given right to live and speak the truth at adflegal.org.
Try though they may, biblical doubters can’t beat the truth.
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Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: The Christian’s Guide to this 'Civilizational Moment’ at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
It’s been a decade since the Supreme Court decision that legalized so-called same-sex marriage. The ruling has left many victims. And Colorado continues its desire to be the nation’s most liberal state.
Recommendations
Breakpoint: How Johnny Hart Pointed to the Cross and Empty Tomb in the Funny Papers
Learn more and apply for the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Segment 1 - Ten Years after Obergefell
Breakpoint: Obergefell After 10 Years
Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
Breakpoint This Week: Defunding Planned Parenthood and the Ethics of “Bodyoids"
The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig Gay
Segment 2 - Colorado's Radical Laws
Colorado SB 25-183: COVERAGE FOR PREGNANCY-RELATED SERVICES
AP: Judge finds frozen embryos are not divisible property in cancer survivor’s case against ex-husband
Colorado bill could strip parents of custody for misgendering their children
__________
Register for the upcoming Identity Project webinar: Saying 'I Do' is Good for You at colsoncenter.org/marriage.
Learn to manage your money with a team that takes good stewardship to heart with Sovereign Private Wealth at sovereignpw.com.
Katy Faust on the legacy of the most disruptive law on marriage.
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Become a Cornerstone Partner with the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
We’re certainly in a moment, and the faithful should be the guiding lights.
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: The Christian’s Guide to this 'Civilizational Moment’ at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
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Learn more about Sovereign Private Wealth and how to manage your money with a team that takes good stewardship to heart at sovereignpw.com.
Like many faith giants, God calls us to embrace this time and place while yet imperfect.
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Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: The Christian’s Guide to this 'Civilizational Moment’ at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The addiction of gambling hits not just in dollars, but in human lives.
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Learn more about Sovereign Private Wealth and how to manage your money with a team that takes good stewardship to heart at sovereignpw.com.
A Lighthouse Voices story from Dr. Jeff Myers.
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Download your copy of the free e-book: Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday on South Carolina’s attempt to stop Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood. Geneticists are promoting frightening plans to create babies to specifications. And gambling on sports continues to grow, leaving problems in its wake.
Recommendations
NYT: This baby was carefully selected as an embryo.
ADF: Supreme Court to Hear Case About States’ Funding of Abortion Facilities
Segment 1 - States Try to Stop Medicaid Payments for Abortion
FOX: Who is Stephanie Turner? Women's fencer who knelt to protest trans opponent and ignited global awareness
ADF: Planned Parenthood Does Not Deserve Your Tax Dollars
Segment 2 - Designer Babies
NYT: This baby was carefully selected as an embryo.
CBS: "What kind of society do you want to live in?": Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing
First Things: Who Owns the Embryos?
CNN: Gosnell horror fuels fight for abortion laws
Breakpoint: Inventors of CRISPR Win Nobel Prize, but Should We “Rewrite the Code of Life?”
Segment 3 - The Sports Gambling Crisis
WORLD: Gambling scandals hover over college and pro basketball
__________
Restore hope and make communities safer by partnering with Prison Fellowship at prisonfellowship.org/colsoncenter.
Register for the next Lighthouse Voices: The Christian’s Guide to this 'Civilizational Moment’ at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The little-known mentor who helped Lewis become one of the greatest Christian thinkers of our time.
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Download your free copy of the e-book Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
The time has never been better to help people consume the Word, not just have it on their shelves.
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Sign up for the self-paced Colson Educators course, Worldview Formation, at colsoneducators.org.
It’s good to want babies.
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Should We Panic About Overpopulation?
___________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
No matter the label, it’s all His, and that’s the view by which to navigate life.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: How to Have a Conversation: Basic Principles
___________
For more information or to apply for the Colson Fellows Program visit colsonfellows.org.
Young men are searching for meaning and looking to the Church.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Do I Really Need to Go to Church?
____________
Register for the next Breakpoint Forum on A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
President Trump threatens to defund Planned Parenthood. Will it happen? And scientists suggest growing human bodies to be used for body parts.
Recommendations
Become a Cornerstone Monthly Partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly
The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett
Segment 1 - Defunding Planned Parenthood
WSJ: Trump Administration Plans to Freeze Family-Planning Grants
Sean McDowell: Heating up! The Current Debate Over Abortion Rights (w/ Lila Rose)
Lila Rose: Best Arguments for Christianity w/Dr Sean McDowell | The Lila Rose Show E195
Breakpoint: David Daleiden’s Courage, Planned Parenthood’s Deceit
Planned Parenthood admits staffer 'inadvertently' gave kids graphic coloring books in Louisville
Segment 2 - Ethics of “Bodyoids"
MIT Tech Review: Ethically sourced “spare” human bodies could revolutionize medicine
Breakpoint: The Late, Great Stem-Cell Debate
__________
Register for the next Breakpoint Forum on A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
Restore hope and make communities safer by partnering with Prison Fellowship at prisonfellowship.org/colsoncenter.
Loose laws for in vitro fertilization have allowed for appalling assaults on human rights.
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Restore hope and make communities safer by partnering with Prison Fellowship at prisonfellowship.org/colsoncenter.
Disciplining with a Christian worldview makes all the difference.
Related Resource
Learn more about the Colson Educators program at colsoneducators.org.
__________
Get your copy of Being the Church in a Post-Christian Culture by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/church.
Cultural fads are flashes in the pan because the future belongs to Christ alone.
__________
Restore hope and make communities safer by partnering with Prison Fellowship at prisonfellowship.org/colsoncenter.
If everybody’s religion is right, then no one can be wrong ... right?
______________
Sign up for free access to 200+ expert-led videos addressing topics like gender, identity, and purpose at identityproject.tv.
Believe it or not, the social media-sphere will live another day without our every opinion.
__________
Register your student for Summit Ministries with a special discount code at summit.org/breakpoint.
President Trump moves forward with his plans to scrap the Department of Education. John and Maria discuss the ethics of immigration and deportation. And the Department of Justice ends its investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Recommendations
Colson Fellows Program
Progressives are starting to come around on the importance of marriage and fatherhood
Segment 1 - Dismantling the Department of Education
Executive Order: Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities
ABC: Illinois bill aims to add more oversight of homeschooling, not all want it
Segment 2 - The Ethics of Immigration Policy
AP: Detained Columbia University student activist Mahmoud Khalil appears in immigration case
Segment 3 - Investigation of the SBC Concludes
Christianity Today: Southern Baptists Say DOJ Investigation Concludes Without Further Charges
__________
Use code BREAKPOINT25 at checkout for a discount on registration for Summit Ministries worldview training camp at summit.org/breakpoint.
Register for the next Breakpoint Forum on A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
Without God, opposing cultural forces look awfully alike.
___________
Register your student for a 12-day worldview conference with Summit Ministries at colsoncenter.org/breakpoint.
Tens of thousands are responding to the Gospel message of salvation at campuses nationwide.
__________
Sign up for the Colson Educators course Navigating Cancel Culture: Holding Fast to Truth and Love in a Hostile World at colsoneducators.org.
Executive orders lose weight when worldviews are at war.
__________
Get access to over 200 expert-led videos on topics like identity, culture, and theology at identityproject.tv.
Empty libraries and human-less humans.
Related Resources
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
What Would You Say?: Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Replace Humans?
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices with Dr. Jeff Myers at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The Bible’s “policy” on disability is dignity, inclusion, and care.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at breakpoint.org/greenville.
A Facebook whistleblower makes a strange claim about social media. And the role of the intellect in forming a Christian worldview.
Recommendations
Lighthouse Voices with Dr. Jeff Myers
Segment 1 - Is Social Media Good?
Turner's Creed - by Steve Turner
BBC: Facebook moderator: ‘Every day was a nightmare’
When Prayer Requests Become Viral Hashtags by Maria Baer
Segment 2 - In Defense of Thinking
Sam Seder on Jubilee Debate
Why You Think the Way You Do by Dr. Glenn Sunshine
Colson Fellows Program
__________
Use code BREAKPOINT25 at checkout for a discount on registration for Summit Ministries worldview training camp at summit.org/breakpoint.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Obeying the call of God even when the fruits are far out of sight.
___________
Can We Help the Next Generation Find True Happiness? Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices event featuring Dr. Jeff Myers at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
There are no borders when it comes to attacks on the Church and the call to pray and help.
___________
Register your student for a Summit Minstires worldview conference and recieve a special discount at summit.org/breakpoint.
We need heroes to be viewed through a lens of true good and evil.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
Why some are more vulnerable to AI ‘relationships’ than others.
Related Resource
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
____________
Sign up for a free account with the Identity Project at identityproject.tv.
When it comes to finding true happiness, do the opposite of what culture says.
__________
Register for the Identity Project websinar on Tuesday, March 11 featuring Dr. Kathy Koch at colsoncenter.org/identity.
John and Maria discuss DJ Daniel, Disability Awareness Month, and Christian history. Also, the idea that being “unencumbered" by responsibilities and dependents is the way to happiness is just wrong. And a new study puts another nail in the coffin of those pushing surgical mutilation for gender confusion.
Recommendations
Strong Women Lent 2025: The Songs of Lent
Would You Rather Have Married Young? by Lillian Fishman
Segment 1 - Disability Awareness Month
FOX: Boy honored by Trump says cancer won't slow him down until 'God calls' him home
AP: Transcript of President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress
Breakpoint: Chris Nikic (who has Down Syndrome) Completes Ironman
Joni & Friends
Dancing with Max: A Mother and Son Who Broke Free by Emily Colson
Lighthouse Voices with Joni Eareckson Tada
Segment 2 - The Key to Happiness
Institute for Family Studies: Ladies, Miranda July Is Not Your Friend
ET: Kieran Culkin SHOCKS Wife With 'Fourth Kid' Reminder During Oscars Speech
Oscars: Mikey Madison Wins Best Actress for 'Anora' | 97th Oscars Speech (2025)
Segment 3 - New Study on Trans Surgery
Oxford Academic: Examining gender-specific mental health risks after gender-affirming surgery: a national database study
FOX: Trans surgeries increase risk of mental health conditions, suicidal ideations: study
__________
Use code BREAKPOINT25 at checkout for a discount on registration for Summit Ministries worldview training camp at summit.org/breakpoint.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Babies are on the brain for a generation raised in an anti-kid culture.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Save the Planet. Don't Have Kids.
___________
Sign up for the Hope Always course at colsoneducators.org.
The Trump administration is arming parents to take back rights, but it can’t start and stop at the Oval.\
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Churches Shouldn't Get Involved with Political Issues
___________
Register for the upcoming Identity Project webinar with Dr. Kathy Koch: How is Identity Formed and What Makes it Healthy at colsoncenter.org/identity.
It turns out wealth isn’t the key to wellness.
__________
Register for the next Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual revolution at colsoncenter.org/greenville.
Get your copy of Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/february.
The gods of technology, demons and all.
__________
Sign up for a free account with the Identity Porject at identityproject.tv.
Examining the philosophical and worldview relationship, past and present.
___________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: Can We Help the Next Generation Find True Happiness? with Dr. Jeff Myers at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Big changes are being proposed to how we do education in America. The Phoenix Declaration offers a helpful framework for what education should look like. And increasingly parents are being encouraged to abort based on prenatal diagnoses that are often wrong.
Recommendations
Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution
The Identity Project
Bari Weiss: How to Find Love in 2025
Segment 1 - Phoenix Declaration on Education
The Free Press: Betsy DeVos: Shut Down the Department of Education
Breakpoint: How to Fix Education
The Phoenix Declaration: An American Vision for Education
The Protestant Family Ethic Report
Clergy in the Classroom: The Religion of Secular Humanism by David Nobel
The Identity Project
Chasing Love by Sean McDowell
Segment 2 - Prenatal Diagnoses
Breakpoint: How in-Utero Diagnosis Is Being Used to Push Abortion
Breakpoint: The Latest Executive Order about IVF: Calling It Pro-life Does Not Make It So
NBC: Prenatal Tests Have High Failure Rate, Triggering Abortions
New York Times: When They Warn of Rare Disorders, These Prenatal Tests Are Usually Wrong
__________
Get your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/february.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
The Phoenix Declaration offers a roadmap for a system that has gone off the rails.
__________
Get a copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/february.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Christians should look at work as part of our created purpose, not just as toil.
_____________
Get your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/february.
Sign up for a free account with the Identity Project at identityproject.tv.
John Stonestreet has a conversation with the Dean of the Colson Fellows Program, Michael Craven, on being the Church in a time of chaos, creating culture, and the power of a Christian worldview. Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Why apologetics is important to the skeptical mind.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
IVF practices need far more regulations, not less.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Take heart parents. You have the right to give your baby a full life in all circumstances.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program and apply at colsonfellows.org.
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss the new Executive Order on IVF and why it’s neither pro-life nor “pro-fertility”. Conserving true family values means holding everyone accountable, without hypocrisy. The collapse of the family structure has a devastating impact on a local and national scale.
Recommendations
Communio
The cost of conservative hypocrisy by Katy Faust
Segment 1 - Executive Order on IVF
Executive Order: EXPANDING ACCESS TO IN VITRO FERTILIZATION
Segment 2 - Conserving Family Values without Hypocrisy
WORLD - The cost of conservative hypocrisy by Katy Faust
Institute for Family Studies: The Family Structure Index 2025
Segment 3 - The National Impact of the Collapse of Family Structure
Center for Christian Value: How the Collapse of Family is Stunting the Nation’s Growth
TIME: Is There Hope for the American Marriage? by Caitlyn Flanagan
J.P. DeGance, Founder and President of Communio, at Lighthouse Voices
__________
Get your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/february.
Sign up for the free course from The Colson Educators, Hope Always: How to Be a Force for Life in a Culture of Suicide at educators.colsoncenter.org.
Why some find it hard to admit this world is perfectly designed by a Creator.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Does Technology Make Religion Obsolete?
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program and apply at colsonfellows.org.
Society would do good with a Genesis reboot.
_____________
Claim your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with a gift of any amount this month at colsoncenter.org/february.
Christianity is the most accurate account of reality and therefore worthy of our saying so.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
The counter-cultural truth about the afterlife.
___________
Sign up for a FREE Identity Project account at identityproject.tv.
The story of St. Valentinus reminds us how to celebrate love.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Who Was Saint Valentine?
___________
Learn more and register for the Colson Educators program at educators.colsoncenter.org.
Sports gambling is growing at an alarming rate with the expected carnage left in its wake. And John talks to David Bahnsen about retirement and the value of work.
Recommendations
The 21 Film
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Segment 1 - Sports Betting
Breakpoint: The Super Bowl and Sports Gambling: America’s Newest Addiction
WORLD: Culture Friday: Faith, forgiveness, and football
What Would You Say?: Who Was Saint Valentine?
Breakpoint: The 21: Telling the Story of the Men Martyred on a Libyan Beach a Decade Ago
The 21 Film
Segment 2 - The Value of Work with David Bahnsen
Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen
BONUS Breakpoint: Christian Hope in Economic Uncertainty with David Bahnsen
The World and Everything in It podcast
2025 Colson Center National Conference
__________
Get your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/february.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program and apply at colsonfellows.org.
A new short film revisits the 21 men beheaded on camera for refusing to deny Christ.
___________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Where’s the virtue of truth in the truth-telling industry?
Related Resource:
What Would You Say?: Identifying Misinformation
____________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Young adults aren’t having sex, but God has a better plan for them in marriage.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: What Does the Bible Say About Sex?
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
What happens when a society loses its Godly call to work?
__________
Get your copy Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/February.
The rise in Bible sales and God talk will hopefully go deeper than seeking “useful” help.
What Would You Say?: Is the Bible Still Relevant?
____________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Another presidential executive order puts an end to men in women’s sports in America, at least for now. And John and Maria discuss the search for meaning and self-esteem.
Recommendations
Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen
C.S. Lewis Song by Brooke Fraser
Segment 1 - Men in Women's Sports
Executive Order: KEEPING MEN OUT OF WOMEN’S SPORTS
XX-XY Athletics Clothing
Segment 2 - The Search for Meaning
NYT: 'The Interview': Digital Drugs Have Us Hooked. Dr. Anna Lembke Sees a Way Out.
First Things: How Happiness Studies Lets Us Down by J. Budziszewski
Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship by Paul C. Vitz
Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen
10 Books that Screwed Up the World: And 5 Others That Didn't Help by Benjamin Wiker
__________
Get your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/february.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program and apply at colsonfellows.org.
For the sake of human flourishing, it’s time to ask where tech is taking us and why.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Another battle won, many more to go in the fight for the preborn.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
What if our work, in and outside of our job, is what we were made for?
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Is Capitalism All About Greed?
John Stonestreet and David Bahnsen: A Christian’s Guide to Economic Uncertainty
______________
Get a copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen this month with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center. Just visit colsoncenter.org/february.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit breakpoint.org.
Gutenberg changed the literary world, but are we messing it up?
__________
Claim your copy of Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David L. Bahnsen with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center in the month of February at colsoncenter.org/february.
John and Maria discuss the tragic midair collision in the nation’s capital. Also, a dispute erupted this week on social media about the true meaning of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the latest Executive Order either harms children or protects them, depending on who you ask.
Recommendations
afutureforthefamily.org
A Future for the Family: A New Technology Agenda for the Right
Stop Hacking Humans by Brad Littlejohn and Clare Morell
Segment 1 - The D.C. Aviation Disaster and What the Good Samaritan Means
NBC: D.C. plane crash live updates: Families mourn 67 victims after American Eagle jet and Army helicopter collide
JD Vance discusses Trump's immigration crackdown
Breakpoint Forum:Unmasking Christian Nationalism
Segment 2 - Executive Order Protects Children
Executive Order: PROTECTING CHILDREN FROM CHEMICAL AND SURGICAL MUTILATION
The World and Everything in It: January 31, 2025
Breakpoint: Upselling Death
Segment 3 - The Nation's Report Card
The Nation's Report Card
Psychology as Religion by Paul Vitz
__________
Become a monthly partner for the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
A U.K. ad campaign tries to convince citizens death-by-choice is the future.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Assisted Suicide is Compassionate
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
IVF is numbing society’s compassion for fatherless children.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: What is IVF, and is it ethical?
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Young Christian men need strong role models. They should turn Tate off.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Want to improve your life? Open the Bible at least four times a week.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
For the disbelieving youth, remembrance is more important than ever.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
The national champion in college football has been crowned. Players from both Ohio State and Notre Dame make news during the week for their outspoken faith. An inauguration, controversial sermons, and a host of executive orders made Washington D.C. a very lively place last week. And former Planned Parenthood head Cecile Richards passed away.
Recommendations
Breakpoint: Everybody Was Talking About Jesus Monday Night, even Scott Van Pelt
WORLD: Ohio State’s season of purpose
WORLD: Dystopia on a New York subway
Segment 1 - Faith and Football
Breakpoint: Everybody Was Talking About Jesus Monday Night, even Scott Van Pelt
FOX: Riley Leonard on Ohio State and Notre Dame's faith
Segment 2 - Wild Week in Washington
TIME: ‘I Am Not Going to Apologize’: The Bishop Who Confronted Trump Speaks Out
AP: Everything Trump did in the first executive orders and actions of his presidency
Segment 3 - Former Planned Parenthood Leader Dies
Washington Post: Former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards dies at 67
__________
Become a monthly partner for the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
We are all theologians. The church needs good ones.
___________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
But does God really care who wins the Super Bowl?
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Ancient finding may mean Christianity spread wider and faster than once thought.
____________
For more resoruces to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
When it comes to marriage, the GOP looks bluer than ever.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: Is Cohabitation Good for Relationships?
___________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/phoenix.
Chuck Colson on the uniqueness of this day.
Related Resources:
What Would You Say?: Should Christians Vote?
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political?
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
This is the final week of the Biden administration. John and Maria look back at the political landscape. Professional and college athletes are getting more comfortable talking about their faith. What’s driving the trend? And the Andrew Tate debate has many asking, “What is Masculinity?”
Segment 1 - Political Transition
CNN: Key lines from President Joe Biden’s farewell address
CBS: Meta ends diversity programs, joining McDonald's, Walmart and other major companies to back off DEI
How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society by C. John Sommerville
Segment 2 - Faith in Sports
John Stonestreet on Culture Friday: Faith, forgiveness, and football
Christian Post: Hundreds gather, dozens baptized at revival event on Ohio State University campus
Sports Spectrum: Notre Dame QB Riley Leonard believes 'this team trusts in Jesus' ahead of title game
Athletes in Action
Breakpoint: OU Softball Team and the Culture of Joy
ACSI Rooted Conference
Segment 3 - Christian Masculinity
Breakpoint: Using Fathers to Close Prisons - Dr. Anthony Bradley
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/phoenix.
Become a monthly partner for the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
The freak-out for “rights” is about image bearers at war with themselves. Christians can help.
What Would You Say?: I Don’t Like Abortion, but Should it be Illegal?
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
One act of faith is using finances well.
Learn more about Compass and the resources they have for various demographics at compassfinancialministry.org.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly donor at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Making home ownership a Christian cause.
___________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Aggressive sex identity messaging may be in retreat in 2025.
___________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/phoenix.
The virtual sexual revolution and a new kind of tyranny.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss the devastating fires ravaging Southern California, a new report identifying Christians as the most persecuted religious group in the world, and Facebook does away with its fact checkers.
Recommendations
Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship by Paul Vitz
Faith of the Fatherless: The Psychology of Atheism by Paul Vitz
The Church Before the Watching World : A Practical Ecclesiology by Francis Schaeffer
Segment 1 - LA Fires and Global Persecution of Christians
CNN: Los Angeles wildfires live updates
2025 Global Persecution Index
FOX: Christians increasingly persecuted worldwide as 'modern and historical factors converge'
Open Doors World Watch List
US Dept. of State: Countries of Particular Concern, Special Watch List Countries, Entities of Particular Concern
Breakpoint: No, Religious Freedom is Not “Safer Than Ever”
2025 Colson Center National Conference
Segment 2 - Facebook Exiles Fact Checkers
Meta: More Speech and Fewer Mistakes
The Free Press: How ‘The Babylon Bee’ Predicted the Vibe Shift
Babylon Bee: Guy Who Said Facebook Was Not Suppressing Free Speech Announces Facebook Will Stop Suppressing Free Speech
Segment 3 - Pixar Drops Gay Character
WORLD: Federal court strikes down Biden’s Title IX revisions
NBC: Disney removes transgender storyline from upcoming Pixar streaming series
__________
Become a monthly partner for the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
How intentional laws can value life.
What Would You Say?: Assisted Suicide is Compassionate
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Cultural narrative bends toward catastrophizing life, but Christians are anchored to something better.
__________
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political?
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: A New Sexual Revolution at colsoncenter.org/phoenix.
Is the growing belief in the supernatural an a la carte counterfeit?
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Islamism in the Muslim and Christian world.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
The littlest known Christian holiday with major significance.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans has us taking a closer look at Jihad and Islam. And there’s been a spike in Bible sales this year. John and Maria look for reasons why. They also discuss the life and faith of former President Jimmy Carter.
__________
Recommendation
Tom Holland on How Christianity Remade the World by Bari Weiss
Segment 1 - New Year's Day Terrorism
CNN: New Orleans attack news
AP: Cybertruck exploded outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order by Samuel Huntington
What ISIS Really Wants by Graeme Wood
Open Doors Report
NYT Matter of Opinion Podcast: An Atheist's Case for More Christianity in Politics
BBC: Badenoch calls for national inquiry into 'rape gangs'
Segment 2 - Bible Sales Up Dramatically
FOX: Bible sales are booming, despite a decline in religiosity
Niall Ferguson on becoming a Christian
Atheism Without Reason by Sarah Haider
Tom Holland on How Christianity Remade the World by Bari Weiss
Segment 3 - Remembering Jimmy Carter
__________
Become a monthly partner for the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The simple act of speaking up can change a culture.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit breakpoint.org.
Even our spare time should glorify God.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
How the hymn “Amazing Grace” can set right our hearts for the New Year.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Breakpoint.org.
Voting is a “good” Christians should do.
____________
We’re almost to our year-end goal, and our challenge grant has not only been met, but it’s been extended by another $100,000. You can help us get there by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
Even atheists recognize it’s better to live around Christians.
__________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
John and Maria discuss the top six stories of the year, from AI to transgender politics.
Recommendations
Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Church in Society by Francis Shaeffer
Being the Body by Chuck Colson
Segment 1 - The Rise of AI
Colson Fellows Program
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The Church in an AI Future
Honestly podcast with Bari Weiss
2084: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity by John Lennox
Resources from Sherry Turkle
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Segment 2 - Shifts in the Transgender and Pro-life Movements
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The Shifting Ground of “Gender-Affirming Care”
Breakpoint Forum: The Real Facts About Gender Ideology
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The State of the Pro-Life Movement
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: Christianity is a Cultural Good
Segment 3 - The Presidential Election and the Rise of Antisemitism
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: Elections and the Kingdom of God
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The Resurgence of Antisemitism
__________
Learn more about donating your stocks to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/faq.
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/december.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
A massive body of research proves the danger and deception of transition interventions for gender dysphoria.
___________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
Christians must know their purpose to steer a world dominated by AI.
_____________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
How an often-overlooked detail in the Gospel of Luke reveals the value God places on preborn life.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint at colsoncenter.org/december.
Adding sacred text to original work to reveal a deep love for God.
__________
Learn more about gifting your stocks to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/faq.
With more millennials choosing no kids, would-be grandparents mourn the end of their family line.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The shooting at a Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin has reignited the discussion about how to stop the violence. A new study shows that those with a college education are increasingly believing in the supernatural. And John and Maria make some suggestions to enliven your Christmas.
Christmas Season Recommendations
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
New York Times: A Cathedral of Sound
This Little Babe - Benjamin Britten
Segment 1 - What Should We Do about School Shootings?
AP: Official says Wisconsin shooter was new student at Christian school where her victims had deep ties
Breakpoint: Why We Shouldn’t Just ‘Do Something’
Steven Curtis Chapman: "Heaven In The Real World"
Segment 2 - Belief in Miracles on the Rise
Ryan Burge on belief in miracles
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: Christianity is a Cultural Good
The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig M. Gay
Breakpoint: The Restlessness of the “Spiritual but Not Religious”
Living in Wonder by Rod Dreher
Making Sense of Your World by W. Gary Phillips, William E. Brown, and John Stonestreet
__________
Learn more about donating your stocks to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/faq.
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/december.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The fight to protect the innocent saw many changes this year.
___________
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center through December at colsoncenter.org/december.
The cry to act for its own sake isn’t helpful in troubling times.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Learn more about donating your stocks to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/faq.
The case for Just War.
__________
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/december.
To learn more about making a stock donation visit colsoncenter.org/faq.
Remembering the Tsunami of 2004
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
The power of small, faithful acts in dark times.
Related Resource:
WWYS: Does Advocating for Religious Liberty Hurt Our Christian Witness?
__________
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/december.
Daniel Penny, Luigi Mangione, and the importance of worldviews in discerning right from wrong. A new study finds 1 in 4 young adults believes AI partners could replace real-life romance. And John and Maria discuss their favorite Advent traditions.
Recommendations
Joy of Every Longing Heart by Sara Groves
The Advent of Christmas by Matt Maher
Handel's Messiah
The Promise by Michael Card
Segment 1 - Defining Good and Evil
CBS News: Daniel Penny speaks out after being found not guilty in NYC subway chokehold death
Scott Jennings on X
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
Reuters: Luigi Mangione was charged with murder - then donations started pouring in
Segment 2 - AI Relationships
Artificial Intelligence And Relationships: 1 In 4 Young Adults Believe AI Partners Could Replace Real-Life Romance
Sherry Turkle on impact of technology
Sherry Turkle TED Talks
Bioethics: A Primer for Christians by Gilbert Meilaender
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak
__________
Double the impact of your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/december.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The last year revealed deep antisemitism.
__________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
AI’s anti-human rants, and why users should proceed with caution.
Related Resource:
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
___________
For more resoures on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Even medical marvels should be grounded in a proper understanding of human value.
Related Resource
WWYS - Does Technology Make Religion Obsolete?
__________
Help us equip and strengthen the Church in 2025 by making your best gift at colsoncenter.org/December.
Studies show that family mealtimes are a key component to health and happiness.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The natural world is so well designed, math can prove it.
__________
Register for the upcoming Understanding our Identity: A Theology of the Body webinar featuring Dr. Christopher West, Founder and President of Theology of the Body Institute at colsoncenter.org/identity.
The Supreme Court heard attorneys debate a Tennessee law that prohibits puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for children. Notre Dame is reopening after being heavily damaged by a fire in 2019. And the UK House of Commons votes to legalize doctor assisted suicide.
__________
Recommendations
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
Understanding our Identity: A Theology of the Body webinar
The Identity Project
Segment 1 - Transgender Arguments at Supreme Court
United States v. Skrmetti
Breakpoint: Why We Need to Read the Cass Report on Gender Ideology
Segment 2 - The Rebuilding of Notre Dame
CNN: Notre Dame will soon reopen. Here’s what you need to know
Breakpoint: The Meaning of the Cathedral
Colson Fellows Program
Segment 3 - Euthanasia in the UK
New York Times: British Lawmakers Voted to Legalize Assisted Dying
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Register for the upcoming free webinar Understanding our Identity: A Theology of the Body featuring Dr. Christopher West, Founder and President of Theology of the Body Institute at colsoncenter.org/identity.
Voting is a “good” Christians should do.
__________
Help us equip and strengthen the Church in 2025 by making your best gift at colsoncenter.org/December.
Why Jesus taking on flesh matters.
Don’t miss the upcoming webinar, “Understanding Our Identity: A Theology of the Body” featuring theologian and author Christopher West. The webinar will take place on December 10 at 7PM. You can save your seat by signing up at colsoncenter.org/identity.
__________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/december.
Why it matters that the mind and soul are more than mere products of the brain.
__________
Register for the upcoming Identity Project webinar featuring Dr. Christopher West at colsoncenter.org/identity.
The motley crew assembled at the nativity reminds us that Jesus came for everyone.
___________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at breakpoint.org.
Even atheists recognize it’s better to live around Christians.
__________
Help us equip and strengthen the Church in 2025 by making your best gift at colsoncenter.org/December.
The DEI fad is fading among corporations, two recent commercials for car companies display very divergent worldviews and allowing public school students to leave class for religious instruction is getting pushback in some states.
Recommendations
Recovery Ministries Try to Help Portland Get Clean: Maria Baer in Portland
Attend Advent Lessons and Carols service
Segment 1 - Companies Backtracking on DEI
Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies
Walmart Abandons Trans Products For Kids, DEI Policies
1792 Exchange
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The Shifting Ground of “Gender-Affirming Care”
CNN panel blows up after commentator argues X is balanced platform: ‘You cannot say that’
Segment 2 - Worldviews in Car Commercials
Volvo Commercial: Meet the new Volvo EX90
Jaguar Commercial: Copy Nothing
Mass advertising campaigns on assisted dying spark anger among MPs
The Good Life by Chuck Colson
Segment 3 - Release Time in Public Schools
LifeWise Academy
Public school religious instruction release bill gets support, opposition in Ohio Senate committee
WORLD Opinions: The myth of the “secular” classroom
Prison Fellowship
Clergy in the Classroom by David Noebel
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Double your gift to the Colson Center before December 31 at colsoncenter.org/november.
A way to pray and sing with deeper intention this Christmas.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit breakpoint.org.
A “special instrument sent of God.”
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
A roadmap to avoid political food fights around the holiday table.
__________
Register for the upcoming Colson Center National Conference at colsonconfernce.org.
Ethics should also be a knowable truth.
__________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/november.
The Christian knows about brokenness and the Healer.
__________
Strengthen the Church to move the world in 2025 by giving today at colsoncenter.org/november.
The debate over whether men should be allowed in women’s restrooms moves to Capitol Hill, but is corrupted by our confusion over marriage. RFK Jr. has sparked a national conversation about food, which is really a conversation about what it means to be human. Also, how Thanksgiving points us outward and upward in a culture that constantly directs us inward.
Recommendations
Bonhoeffer Abridged by: Eric Metaxas
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.
Segment 1 - Capitol Hill Bathrooms
CNN: Republican’s effort to block first transgender House member from using women’s bathrooms brings campaign issue to the Capitol
Breakpoint: Six Key Worldview Stories of 2024: The Shifting Ground of “Gender-Affirming Care”
Pascal's Pensées; or, Thoughts on religion
Club Q shooting lawsuits claim owner negligence, officials ignored red flag law
Segment 2 - The Politics of Food
First Things: This is a Dangerous Moment for the U.S. Pro-life Movement
The Rest is History podcast
Good Energy by Dr. Casey Means
Dr. Casey Means on Real Time with Bill Maher
2025 Colson Center National Conference
Segment 3 - Thanksgiving Conversations
Breakpoint: Make June Fidelity Month
Overflowing with Thankfulness by Alistair Begg
Chuck Colson on A Crisis of Ethics: Doing the Right Thing
__________
Double your gift to the Colson Center before December 31 at colsoncenter.org/november.
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
A massive body of research proves the danger and deception of transition interventions for gender dysphoria.
__________
Every dollar given to the Colson Center by December 31 will be doubled thanks to a $350,000 challenge provided by generous supporters. Make your gift today at colsoncenter.org/November.
Tim Goeglein on finding a way out of the bad ideas of the 1960s.
___________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference before November 30th for special early pricing at colsonconference.org.
The poet of our day is wrong about women.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner of the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
The Creation and the uselessness of man.
Related Resources
What Would You Say? How to Talk About Climate Change - Part 1
What Would You Say? How to Talk About Climate Change - Part 2
__________
Give your best gift toward our $350k match now at colsoncenter.org/November.
Belief in Self unsettles the soul.
___________
Give your best gift toward our $350k match now at colsoncenter.org/November.
Some taboo topics among pundits on mainstream media are beginning to show signs of breaking down. The recent presidential campaign exposed a new reality; celebrities don’t hold as much influence over voters as many thought. And a new trend is emerging in the family, would-be grandparents who aren’t sure how to raise the topic with their adult children.
Recommendations
Where The Winter Was by Skye Peterson
Machine Antihumanism and the Inversion of Family Law by Jeff Shafer
Segment 1 - Spiral of Silence
CNN panelist draws immediate ire for saying Democrats are losing male voters because too focused on trans issues
CNN host Abby Phillip explains why Muslim victim of beeper ‘joke’ didn’t return after commercial break
The World and Everything in It: November 15, 2024
Victims of Communism Museum
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Why I Am Now a Christian
Segment 2 - Celebritism in Politics
WSJ: Inside Harris’s and Trump’s Campaign Spending
Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses by Theodore Dalrymple
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman
Segment 3 - Grandparents
NYT: The Unspoken Grief of Never Becoming a Grandparent
Ruth 4
Proverbs 17:6
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Christians must know their purpose to steer a world dominated by AI.
__________
Give your best gift towards our 350k match now at colsoncenter.org/November.
We should wrestle with the past, but ultimately our allegiance is with Christ our King.
__________
Register for the 2025 ACSI Rooted Educator Worldview Summit at acsi.org/rooted. Use code ROOTED80 through December 31 for $80 off registration.
Are digital natives going to raise their children screen-free?
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center Nation Conference in Louisville, Kentucky at colsonconference.org.
Yes, with the right criteria of eternal truths.
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: What is the True Meaning of Love? with Dr. Os Guiness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
If cloning farm animals is illegal, should society clone children?
__________
Register for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar on November 14 at colsoncenter.org/church.
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer break down the results of this week’s election from the presidential race to state ballot initiatives.
Recommendations
Pray for our officials through the Psalms
Hillsdale College and Liberty University
Segment 1 - 2024 Election
How to Live as Christians After the Election | John Stonestreet at Liberty University
Colson Fellows Program
WORLD: We’re faced with a crisis by John Stonestreet
Segment 2 - State Initiatives
Live Action: Abortion on the ballot: Where voters protected preborn children, and where they didn’t
Breakpoint: Voting: Lesser of Two Evils vs. Lessening Evil
First Things: The Way Forward After Dobbs by Ryan T. Anderson
Segment 3 - Impact of the Election and More State Initiatives
CNN: Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans bring shame on Amsterdam, mayor says
NYT: Marijuana and Drug Policy on the Ballot
California Approves Tough-on-Crime Initiative
Anthony Bradley on X
West Virginia voters approve constitutional ban on physician-assisted suicide
__________
Reserve your spot for the next Lighthouse Voices event: A New Sexual Revolution with Os Guinness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Register for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar on November 14 at colsoncenter.org/church.
Our Savior was hung on a cross to rescue us ... do we need to complain?
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: What is the True Meaning of Love? with Dr. Os Guiness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner of the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Our culture is primed for a life-giving change that only Christianity offers.
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: What is the True Meaning of Love? with Dr. Os Guinness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
__________
Register for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
How Christianity invented the conflict between church and state.
__________
Register for the ACSI Rooted Conference at acsi.org/rooted. Use code ROOTED80 at checkout for $80 off registration through December 31.
Christian discipleship should offer the way forward.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference: Be the Church at colsonconference.org.
When the left mixes religion with politics, liberal journalists call it "inspiring".
__________
Register for Lighthouse Voices: What is the True Meaning of Love? with Os Guinness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
John Stonestreet explains why Tuesday’s election is being called “the most consequential election in our lifetime.” A researcher is blocking the release of a study on puberty blockers because she doesn’t like the findings. And we discovered this week another danger from artificial intelligence.
Recommendations
John Stonestreet at Liberty University on Nov. 6
Lighthouse Voices: A New Sexual Revolution with Os Guinness on Nov. 12
Redeeming Warriors by Joshua Holler
Segment 1 - Tuesday's Election
WORLD: We’re faced with a crisis by John Stonestreet
What Would You Say?: Is This the Most Important Election of Our Lifetime?
Segment 2 - Buried Study on Puberty Blockers
NYT: U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says
Breakpoint: Why We Need to Read the Cass Report on Gender Ideology
Segment 3 - Grieving Mom Sues an AI Chat Bot Company
USA Today: Mother sues tech company after 'Game of Thrones' AI chatbot allegedly drove son to suicide
Pro-Child Politics by Katy Faust
The Death of the Grown-Up by Diana West
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference: Be the Church at colsonconference.org.
Reserve your spot for the next Lighthouse Voices event: A New Sexual Revolution with Os Guinness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The addiction of gambling hits not just in dollars, but in human lives.
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Paul’s instructions to think on truth, loveliness, and purity can guide us through the holiday.
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices: What is the True Meaning of Love? featuring Dr. Os Guinness at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Choice, faith, and parental sway are returning to the educational system.
__________
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Wins in court say more about the nation’s founding documents than about its appetite for religious tolerance.
___________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
John Stonestreet spoke with Tim Goeglein, Vice President of External and Government Relations for Focus on the Family, to discuss the impact of the cultural worldview shifts of the 1960s in America.
Additional Resources
Focus on the Family
Stumbling Toward Utopia: How the 1960s Turned Into a National Nightmare and How We Can Revive the American Dream
Pulling kids from public school might be necessary, but speaking up is too.
Receive your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/october.
__________
Register for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
A new study is out showing where people find their spouse, and the change over time is fascinating. The Biden administration is doubling down on its all-out support for abortion with a plan to make contraceptives free. And churchgoers overwhelmingly want their pastors to talk about politics.
Recommendations
The Church Before the Watching World by Francis Shaeffer
The Pioneers by David McCullough
Segment 1 - Where to Find a Spouse
How couples met (1930-2024)
Breakpoint: The Decline of Dating Apps
2025 Colson Center National Conference: Be the Church
Segment 2 - Biden Wants Free Over-the-Counter Birth Control
Biden administration proposes a rule to make over-the-counter birth control free
Segment 3 - Politics from the Pulpit
Toxic Empathy by Allie Beth Stuckey
The Church Before the Watching World by Francis Shaeffer
Churchgoers Want to Hear Pastors Address Current Issues
__________
Receive a copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/october.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference: Be the Church at colsonconference.org.
Support for religious liberty is in decline.
What Would You Say?: Is Religious Freedom Just a Way to Protect Privilege?
____________
Support the ongoing production of the Breakpoint podcast by becoming a monthly partner at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
In the few days before the election, Christians should speak truth about extreme ballot measures.
__________
Register for the ACSI Rooted Conference by December 31 to save $80 with the promo code ROOTED80 at acsi.org/rooted.
If marijuana definitively destroys lives, should we be free to smoke?
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
It turns out, love isn’t a product.
__________
Register for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
The abortion colossus is now the leading provider of hormone treatments for teens.
__________
Get your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/october.
If you’re a parent, you know a time is coming when your child will ask uncomfortable questions about the culturally confused time in which we live. John and Sarah Stonestreet talk to Andrew and Christian Walker about what to say when those questions come your way.
Resources and Recommendations
Get your copy of What Do I Say When...? with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/october.
Dr. Andrew Walker on WORLD
AndrewTWalker.com
__________
Register for the ACSI's Rooted Conference at acsi.org/rooted, using code ROOTED80 to save $80 before December 31.
“Third spaces” connect people. Go find them!
__________
Register for ACSI's Rooted Educator Worldview Summit in Dallas at acsi.org/rooted and use code ROOTED80 to save $80 on your registration.
Epidemics demand explanation, and so does the rapid rise of gender confusion.
_________
Reserve your spot for the Colson Fellows Program Church Affiliate Informational Webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
...and spread the word.
___________
Get your tickets for the 2025 Colson National Conference at a discounted rate at colsonceonference.org.
Sexual purity requires a full story of how God designed and destined His image bearers.
__________
Get your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/october.
We now have numbers for the push to transgender a generation.
__________
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A second week of hurricanes has added fuel to conspiracy theories about the weather. Jack Phillips wins at the Colorado Supreme Court. And a new report shows just how many children have been harmed by gender confusion.
Recommendations
Case for Faith for Kids by Lee Strobel
Cold Case Christianity for Kids by J. Warner Wallace and Susie Wallace
October 2024 Lighthouse Voices with Joni Eareckson Tada
Sign up for the next Lighthouse Voices with Dr. Os Guinness!
Segment 1 - Climate Change
Case for Faith for Kids by Lee Strobel
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig Gay
Evil and the Cross: An Analytical Look at the Problem of Pain by Henri Blocher
October 2024 Lighthouse Voices with Joni Eareckson Tada
Segment 2 - Jack Phillips
ADF: Colorado Supreme Court dismisses lawsuit harassing cake artist Jack Phillips
National Review: Jack Phillips Wins the ‘Cake-Baking’ Case . . . but Not on the Merits
Masterpiece Cakeshop: Great Cakes Since 1993
The World and Everything in It: October 10, 2024
Holy Post: Religious Liberty is NOT in Danger
Segment 3 - Children Harmed by Trans Ideology
Stop the Harm Database
Breakpoint Forum: The Real Facts About Gender Ideology with Dr. Miriam Grossman and Dr. Stephen Grcevich
Breakpoint Forum: Following the Science on Transgender Ideology
2002 Study: Outcomes Following Gender Affirming Phalloplasty
__________
Reserve your place in the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate Informational Webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference: Be the Church at colsonconference.org.
More victories in the fight for truth about gender.
Related Resources
Breakpoint Forum: Following the Science on Transgender Ideology
WWYS - Most People DON'T Agree with Trans Ideology
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
Why Christians need to be the smartest about news.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint with a monthly partnership at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
Broadcasting with a trumpet and the Good News, missionary brought evangelism to Taiwan.
__________
Give today at colsoncenter.org/october to receive your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project.
Title IX case decides that students attending religious schools can seek federal financial aid.
__________
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A critical look at the mood of the West after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
__________
Reserve your spot for the Colson Fellows Church Affiliate program webinar at colsoncenter.org/church.
Hurricane Helene and the devastating damage in the Carolinas and other parts of the southeast. Also, this week marks the anniversaries of the Hamas attack on Israel and the signing of the Manhattan Declaration. And what the cloning of a giant sheep for hunting has to do with the world’s shrinking population.
Recommendations
The Editors Podcast
Douglas Murray: A Time of War on Honestly
Segment 1 - Helene Disaster
The World and Everything in It: October 4, 2024
Asheville Christian Academy: Help us Recover from Helene
Excel College Helene Disaster Relief
Segment 2 - Two Anniversaries
Breakpoint This Week: Suicide Pods, Israel’s Beeper Attack on Hezbollah, and Sex Selective IVF
Breakpoint: Just War Doctrine, Israel, and Hamas
Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience
Segment 3 - Giant Hybrid Sheep
US Man, 81, sentenced to six months for creating giant hybrid sheep for hunting
Latest birth rate data
__________
Give today at colsoncenter.org/october to receive your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project.
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by becoming a monthly partner of the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
The exodus from blue to red states shows parents care about more than free lunches and healthcare.
What Would You Say? - Do Children's Rights Override Parental Rights?
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
89-year-old death camp survivor faces prison time under DOJ’s criminalization of pro-life advocates.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Breakpoint.org.
Confidence in the Lord should give Christians the right balance of political engagement.
What Would You Say? - Churches Shouldn't Get Involved with Political Issues
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political?
__________
Become a monthly partner for Breakpoint at colsoncenter.org/monthly.
No law denies care to women, so why the deception post-Roe?
__________
Get your copy of What Do I Say When...? by Andrew and Christian Walker and a year-long subscription to the Identity Project with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/october.
A prayer from Dr. Glenn Sunshine.
__________
For more resoruces to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
The first person ever to die using the so-called suicide pod happened this month in Switzerland. Will it start a new trend in assisted suicide? Israel’s ingenious exploding beepers targeting Hezbollah leaders is raising questions about what should be allowed in warfare. And a new and unusual trend is coming to IVF, preferring girls over boys.
__________
Recommendations
Keeping (or Making) Catholic Education Great Again by George Weigel
More Christians Are Watching Porn, But Fewer Think It’s a Problem by Maria Baer
Segment 1 - Suicide Pods
Swiss police detain several people in connection with suspected death in a ‘suicide capsule’
Breakpoint: West Virginians Can Outlaw Euthanasia This November
Segment 2 - Israel's Beeper attack
Israel concealed explosives inside batteries of pagers sold to Hezbollah, Lebanese officials say
Colson Fellows Program
Segment 3 - Sex Selective IVF
Breakpoint: The IVF Gendercide The Parents Who Want Daughters- and Daughters Only: Sex selection with IVF is banned in much of the world. Not in the U.S. __________
Give today at colsoncenter.org/september to receive your copy of After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New Worldby Carl Trueman, along with exclusive accompanying digital content.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference May 30 - June 1 in Louisville, Kentucky at colsonconference.org.
The call to remember our Christian heritage.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
How Scripture speaks of what makes a family.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Suffering in Christ is different.
Related Resource
WWYS - A Good God Wouldn't Allow the Coronavirus
__________
Give today at colsoncenter.org/september to receive your copy of After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New World by Carl Trueman, along with exclusive accompanying digital content.
Amendment 1 focuses on medically assisted suicide.
Related Resources
WWYS - Assisted Suicide is Compassionate
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference May 30 - June 1 in Louisville, KY at colsonconference.org.
Two bills should help parents with teens and their screens.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Matt Walsh's new film “Am I A Racist” has sparked a controversy about if and when it is ok to deceive. Mainstream media outlets continue to use a tragic death in Georgia to claim pro-life laws are causing women to die. John and Maria discuss why this story is actually about the harms of chemical abortion. And the Emmys send us back to the 90’s and a debate between a sitting Vice President and tv actress.
Recommendations
Stay tuned for the latest Breakpoint Forum recordings.
Pro-Child Politics: Why Every Cultural, Economic, and National Issue Is a Matter of Justice for Children by Katy Faust
Segment 1 - Is Deception Ever Ok?
Am I Racist? movie
What Is a Woman? movie
Breakpoint: David Daleiden’s Courage, Planned Parenthood’s Deceit
Segment 2 - Are Pro Life Laws Hurting Women?
Media Mislead on Tragic Death of Amber Thurman
What Would You Say? website
Breakpoint: New York AG Wrong About Abortion Pill Reversal
Segment 3 - Murphy Brown Returns
Candice Bergen Calls Out JD Vance at the Emmys
Brookings: Twenty Years Later, It Turns Out Dan Quayle Was Right About Murphy Brown and Unmarried Moms
TIME: Is There Hope for the American Marriage?
Do Fathers Matter? by Paul Raeburn
John Stonestreet on Culture Friday: Family as the foundation
__________
Give today at colsoncenter.org/september to receive your copy of After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New Worldby Carl Trueman, along with exclusive accompanying digital content.
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference May 30 - June 1 in Louisville, Kentucky at colsonconference.org.
The growing U.S. trend to select girls over boys.
__________
Receive one of two of our most popular resources over the last few years: After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New World by Carl Trueman with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/september.
What’s in a name?
__________
Register for the 2025 Colson Center National Conference May 30- June 1 in Louisville, KY at colsonconference.org.
Abortion is front and center this election, and Christians should be the truth-tellers.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Should there be more get-togethers for parents with no one watching the kids?
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment go to Breakpoint.org.
When the Church shows up to say, “I’m here with you.”
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum at colsoncenter.org/forum.
John Stonestreet and Maria Bear discuss the memorial services for 9/11 and how younger generations make light of historical tragedies. Also, an evaluation of the recent reports from Aurora, CO and Springfield, OH, and the implications of large-scale immigration in a weakening culture. Finally, they correct the falsehoods about abortion stated by both candidates during this week’s Presidential debate.
Recommendations
The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff
Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel James
Everyone is Numbing Out by Catherine Shannon
Segment 1 - Remembering 9/11
How 9/11 Became One of the Internet’s Most Popular Memes
Shows about Nothing: Nihilism in Popular Culture by Thomas S. Hibbs
Everyone is Numbing Out by Catherine Shannon
Segment 2 - The Impact of Immigration
Concepts of a Plan - Nellie Bowles on The Free Press
Springfield, Ohio, resident details 'dystopian nightmare' as Haitian migrants overrun town: 'Breaks my heart'
Reports of Missing Pets True or Not, Ohio City Suffers From Huge Haitian Migrant Influx
My Village Ministries
Segment 3 - Abortion Distortions from the Presidential Debate
Tim Walz Removed Requirement to Try to Save Babies Born Alive After Abortion
Live Action: Why would a state with dozens of abortion survivors in recent years stop reporting them?
Live Action: Fact checker fails to tell the truth on abortion survivors and infanticide
Virginia governor faces backlash over comments supporting late-term abortion bill
Hidden Epidemic: Nearly 70% of Abortions Are Coerced, Unwanted or Inconsistent With Women’s Preferences
Segment 4 - Christian Kids in Public School
Christianity Today: Public School Can be a Training Ground for Faith
LifeWise Academy
Michigan school district treats girl as boy behind parents' backs
Gateways to Better Education
ADF Legal
First Liberty
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Following the Science on Transgender Ideology at colsoncenter.org/forum.
Give today at colsoncenter.org/september to receive your copy of After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New Worldby Carl Trueman, along with exclusive accompanying digital content.
The ideology is an insatiable and merciless “religion” without a savior.
Related Resource
What Would You Say? - Is America a Racist Country?
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Anymore, it’s not as much about convincing abortion advocates to switch sides, but getting pro-lifers to speak up.
Related Resource
What Would You Say?: When Does Life Begin?
___________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Following the Science on Transgender Ideology at colsoncenter.org/forum.
The Widening of God’s Mercy describes a different God.
Related Resource
WWYS - God Didn't Punish Sodom and Gomorrah for Homosexuality
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Reason one million why America needs Christian educators.
__________
Claim your copy of After Humanity by Michael Ward or Strange New World by Carl Trueman, along with exclusive accompanying digital content for each, with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/september.
Deconstructing everything leads to false history.
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel James, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age,at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
A well-respected theologian has a new book on God’s mercy that has many questioning his conclusions. Is free speech in jeopardy, not just overseas but here in America? John and Maria will look at the latest developments on our constitutional rights.
Recommendations
Our Bodies Tell God's Story by Christopher West
Event in Cleveland, OH: United Voices Against Antisemitism
Segment 1 - Richard Hays on God's Mercy
These were the 6 Israeli hostages taken by Hamas found dead in Gaza on Sunday
The latest on the Georgia high school shooting
The Widening of God's Mercy: Sexuality Within the Biblical Story by Christopher and Richard Hays
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage by Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet
Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context by David Gushee and Glen Stassen
Breakpoint: 45 Years of Theology of the Body
Segment 2 - Is Free Speech in Danger?
Telegram’s Founder, in First Comments Since Arrest, Defends the App
Why Brazil’s Supreme Court Took On Elon Musk
Nicaragua Shutters 1,500 Nonprofit Groups, Many of Them Churches
NYT Opinion: The Constitution Is Broken and Should Not Be Reclaimed
Silence by Shūsaku Endō
Segment 3 - State Abortion Initiatives
Trump comes out against Florida's abortion rights ballot measure after conservative backlash
Trump says he wants to make IVF treatments paid for by government or insurance companies if elected
Breakpoint: IVF and Infertility: Good Ends Do Not Justify All Means
Life Training Institute and Apologetics, Inc. Video resources on Florida's Amendment 4 abortion proposal
Strong Women podcast
Segment 4 - Churchill was not the villain of WWII
Tucker Carlson interview with Darryl Cooper
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D. Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Following the Science on Transgender Ideology at colsoncenter.org/forum.
What’s in a name?
Related Resources
WWYS - Do I Really Need to Go to Church?
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D. Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Pope John Paul II on what the body is for.
Related Resources
WWYS - What Does the Bible Say About Sex?
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Do we belong here, and in such high numbers?
Related Resources
WWYS - Save the Planet. Dont Have Kids.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Digital technology has changed the world, and that’s good for spreading the Gospel.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The marketplace is fertile soil for Christians to excel for the Kingdom.
Related Resouce
BONUS Breakpoint: Christian Hope in Economic Uncertainty with David Bahnsen
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Laws affecting abortion are changing both in good and bad ways. And we’ll talk about the shocking details looking into violence against women around the world.
Recommendations
Tom Lake by Anne Patchett
Upcoming Lighthouse Voices with Samuel D. James
Segment 1 - Where Are We on Abortion?
BBC: Abortion clinic payout woman shocked at prayer arrest
7 activists convicted of FACE Act violations by blockading Michigan abortion clinic
Trump says he opposes six-week abortion ban adopted by his home state of Florida
Segment 2 - Violence Against Women
WORLD: Open Doors discusses religious persecution with UN
Taliban vice and virtue laws provide ‘distressing vision’ for Afghanistan, warns UN envoy
Open Doors: World Watch List 2024
Breakpoint: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution
Segment 3 - Loss of Institutional Trust for Information
Mark Zuckerberg Says White House Was ‘Wrong’ to Pressure Facebook on Covid
__________
Get access to recordings from the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/august.
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D. Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The pain of infertility does not justify procreation by all means necessary.
Related Resouce
What Would You Say?: Are Reproductive Technologies a Good Way for People to Have Babies?
What Would You Say?: Is IVF Ethical?
__________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
“The Talk” just doesn’t cut it anymore.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
From disbeliever to the most important Church influencer.
__________
Get digital access to the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/august.
Don’t believe your lying eyes.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
From “safe, legal, and rare” to openly celebrating evil.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
One author has poignantly written “we're not in an age of change, but a change of age.” John and Maria discuss that idea as it relates to culture, the church, and ideology in general.
Recommendations
Add to the Beauty by Sara Groves
The Confessions of Saint Augustine
Segment 1 - Shifts in Culture
A Change of Age
A Practical Guide to Culture: Helping the Next Generation Navigate Today's World by John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle
A Free People's Suicide: Sustainable Freedom and the American Future by Os Guinness
Segment 2 - Shifts in the Church
The Strong Women podcast
The World and Everything in It podcast
Segment 3 - Shifts in Ideology
__________
Get access to recordings from the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/august.
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D. Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Christ reminds us to not be alarmed, but to stay steadfast in Him.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A talk from Dr. Kathy Koch
__________
Get digital access to the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/august.
We weren’t made to live in a marriage-arid society.
__________
Get digital access to the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/august.
It’s all a show in the city of man.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Wagering on God without hesitation.
___________
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices featuring Samuel D Jones, author of Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Access to abortion does free men, but not in a good way.
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Make the Pro-Life Case in 60 Seconds
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Regulations refusing Christian care in the foster and adoption systems is a bad idea.
__________
Support the Colson Center to get your on-demand access to this year's national conference library at colsoncenter.org/august.
Children belong to God, entrusted to parents.
__________
Reserve your spot for the Lighthouse Voices event with Samuel James at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
John Stonestreet spoke with David Bahnsen of the Bahnsen Group to discuss the importance of having Christian hope in times of economic instability.
Additional Resources
What’s behind the big stock market plunge? by David Bahnsen
Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen
Breakpoint This Week: A Volatile Stock Market Leads to Fears and the Democrats Pick Their Candidate for Vice President
The landscape of unbelief in America.
__________
Claim your free access to the video series Why Vote? at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
Tolkien is more than a right-wing prophet.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? on August 13 at 7PM ET at breakpoint.org/forum.
A lot of panic made its way through the news on Monday as the stock market fell by a thousand points. And John and Maria look at the record of Vice-Presidential candidate Tim Walz.
Recommendations
Pro-Child Politics by Katy Faust
Stay tuned for next week's bonus podcast featuring David Bahnsen!
Segment 1 - Stock Market Downturn
What’s behind the big stock market plunge? by David Bahnsen
Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen
Segment 2 - VP Candidate Tim Walz
Breakpoint: The GOP Caves on Life and Marriage
Them Before Us with Katy Faust
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
Breakpoint: Voting: Lesser of Two Evils vs. Lessening Evil
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? on August 13 at 7PM ET at breakpoint.org/forum.
Get access to the free video series Why Vote? at colosoncenter.org/whyvote.
Businesses are backtracking on DEI, and consumers are to thank.
Related Resources
What Would You Say? Should We Try to Erase Economic Inequality?
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit breakpoint.org.
Excessive mental health therapy may do more harm than good.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Fourm: Should Christians Get Political? at Breakpoint.org/forum.
How should Christians think about their vote?
Related Resources
What Would You Say: How Do I Vote When I Don’t Like either Candidate?
__________
Claim your access to the video series Why Vote? with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
The person and work of Jesus is still Good News, even in era like ours.
__________
Get digital acces to the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/august.
Non-believing influencers are sounding a lot like believers.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Some have called the opening ceremony at the 2024 Paris Olympics decadent, offensive, and even satanic. And in the games, themselves, more controversy as a boxer with xy chromosomes takes out a female boxer in less than a minute.
Recommendations
Jonathan Pageau on Symbolism Explained: The Olympics Opening Ceremony is Worse than You Thought
Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution by Michelle Moran
Village Creek Bible Camp
Segment 1 - Paris Opening Ceremonies
Turkish Olympic pistol shooter goes viral after nonchalant composure leads to silver medal
Breakpoint: The Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics
Opening Ceremony Beijing 2008: The sound of 2008 people drumming to the same beat
Jonathan Pageau on Symbolism Explained: The Olympics Opening Ceremony is Worse than You Thought
New York Times: The Age of Decadence
Segment 2 - How Christians Should Respond to Mocking and Olympic Boxing Controversy
Acts 17
John Stott Commentary on Acts
Wall Street Journal: The Olympic Boxing Match That Ignited a Gender Controversy
__________
Get digital access to CCNC 2024 with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/august.
Get access to the free video series Why Vote? at colosoncenter.org/whyvote.
Christians must tell the truth, no matter the party.
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Churches Shouldn't Get Involved with Political Issues
__________
Claim your free access to the Why Vote? video series at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
No number of laws will mitigate a lack of virtuous living.
Additional Resources:
Colson Educators “Hope Always” Course
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? at breakpoint.org/forum.
States are helping families limit smartphones for kids.
Related Resources
What Would You Say?: Identitfying Misinformation
__________
Claim your free access to the Why Vote? video series at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
A truncated history of France gives a warped view of freedom.
__________
Get access to virtual sessions from the 2024 Colson Center National Conference with your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/august.
Christians don’t worship Zeus.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? at breakpoint.org/fourm.
Violent protests against Israel descended on the nation's capital as Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress. Party leaders move their support to Vice President Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential campaign. And chaos results after a CrowdStrike software upgrade goes wrong.
Recommendations
The Colson Center on YouTube
Morning After the Revolution by Nellie Bowles
Segment 1 - The Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump
TIME: Pro-Palestinian Protesters Burn American Flags and Deface Monuments Amid Clashes With Police in D.C.
FOX: Maggots, crickets released in Watergate Hotel in protest of Netanyahu's visit
Segment 2 - Candidate Kamala Harris
Breakpoint: David Daleiden’s Courage, Planned Parenthood’s Deceit
First Things: Is the Republican Party Becoming Pro-Choice?
Breakpoint: Preach Christianity’s Weird Stuff
Segment 3 - Crowdstrike's Fiasco
WSJ: CrowdStrike Explains What Went Wrong Days After Global Tech Outage
WORLD: System failure
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? at breakpoint.org/forum.
Get access to the free video series Why Vote? at colosoncenter.org/whyvote.
The Chariots of Fire runner’s faith and its impact on today’s Olympians.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Obsession with social media fame is not the typical ‘rite of passage’ we’ve seen throughout history.
Student protests and trusting the “cult of youth.”
__________
Get access to CCNC 2024 online with your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/august.
Does this matter without an understanding of what sex is for and where it belongs?
Related resouces
WWYS: Is Pornography Victimless?
__________
To register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political?, visit breakpoint.org/forum.
A stunning turn from Truth.
__________
Register for the upcoming Great Lakes Symposium at greatlakessymposium.org.
Three cases that will be consequential for years to come.
__________
Claim your free access to the Why Vote? video series at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump raises questions about the providence of God. And at the Republican convention this week, party leaders appeared to be putting as much distance between themselves and evangelicals as possible.
Recommendations
Crossroads: God, Providence and the Trump bullet
Is the Republican Party Becoming Pro-choice?
The Briefing Special Edition
The Colson Fellows Program
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus by Nabeel Qureshi
Segment 1 - The Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump
Breakpoint: The Attempted Assassination of a President
The Briefing Special Edition: God’s Sovereignty, Moral Evil, and the Attempted Assassination of Former President Trump: The Theological, Historical, and Political Issues
Acts 17
Segment 2 - The Republican National Convention and Evangelicals
First Things: The Republican Party Sidelines the Pro-life Cause
California bans rules requiring schools to notify parents of child's pronoun change
Ryan Anderson on Breakpoint: A “You Are Here” Moment for the Pro-Life Movement
__________
Get access to the free video series Why Vote? at colosoncenter.org/whyvote.
Claim your access to the Colson Center National Conference 2024 with your gift to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/august.
Westernization without Christianity doesn’t work.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Lessons from Nero and the Great Fire of Rome.
___________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
How new language is obscuring the debate about life.
Related Resources
Breakpoint Forum: Understanding Critical Theory
What Would You Say?: Is Critical Theory Biblical?
__________
Register for the upcoming Great Lakes Sympsium at greatlakessymposium.org.
The roles of divine providence and the human condition.
__________
Get free access to the Why Vote video series at colsoncenter.org/whyvote.
Women are leaning left and bucking mediating institutions.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment go to Breakpoint.org.
The GOP’s new platform takes a noticeable turn on abortion. Public educators are growing increasingly comfortable discussing therapy with students. And two states are looking to increase the visibility of the Ten Commandments in public schools.
Recommendations
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
What Would You Say?: What is Abortion Pill Reversal, and is it Safe?
Segment 1 - Shift in GOP Platform
Trump says abortion legislation should be left to states
Breakpoint: A “You Are Here” Moment for the Pro-Life Movement with Ryan Anderson
Breakpoint: The War on Pregnancy Resource Centers
The Point: New York AG Wrong About Abortion Pill Reversal
Segment 2 - Therapy in Public Schools
Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
The Point: Liam’s Dangerous T-Shirt
Parable Of The Madman
Shane Morris on X
Breakpoint: Why “Identity in Christ” Isn’t Enough
Big Picture Bible
Segment 3 - Ten Commandments in Public Schools
New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments
Oklahoma state superintendent announces all schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in curriculums
Gateways to Better Education
LifeWise Academy
The Point: The Ten Commandments Provide a Moral Code
__________
Register for The Great Lakes Symposium to attend in person or online at greatlakessymposium.org.
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Get Political? at breakpoint.org/forum.
Senate committee proposal will require the registration of women 18 and older for military service.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
As the RNC changes its stance on abortion, defenders of life must engage the small battles to win the war.
__________
Register for the Great Lakes Symposium at greatlakessymposium.org.
What faithfulness to Christ under a totalitarian government can do.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Activists are working hard to convince that abortion makes everyone safer, including babies.
Emily Colson looks back on her father’s public fall from glory and redemption in Christ.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment go to Breakpoint.org.
The lifelong power of lasting connections.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment go to Breakpoint.org.
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss celebrating America’s independence in a time of political uncertainty and the decline of companies celebrating pride month. Also, what does it mean to be a “Christian nation”?
Recommendations
Bad Therapy by Abigail Shrier
Great Lakes Symposium: Truth and its Counterfeits
Segment 1 - What does it mean to be proud to be an American?
Read the full Supreme Court decision on Trump and presidential immunity
Segment 2 - The Fall of Pride Month
Breakpoint: Support Drops for Same-Sex ‘Marriage’
Tractor Supply Co. backtracks on DEI roles and goals
Breakpoint: Is It the End of the Line for Mainlines?
First Things: The Fall of Pride
First Things: Pride Month
Segment 3 - What is a Christian Nation?
New law requires all Louisiana public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments
Oklahoma state superintendent announces all schools must incorporate the Bible and the Ten Commandments in curriculums
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint at breakpoint.org/give.
Register for The Great Lakes Symposium to attend in person or online at greatlakessymposium.org.
The world offers detachment and indulgence; Christ offers forgiveness and freedom.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
Turning to God and His eternal truths will heal our nation.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
The reliability of the Word of God is continuously confirmed with tangible, touchable discoveries.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
The decision will have implications across the U.S. on the legality of “transition care” for minors.
It may be easier to just bake the cake, but Christians have a higher calling.
___________
Reserve your place at the Great Lakes Symposium at greatlakessymposium.org.
How do we answer this cultural moment?
Related resources: How to Have a Conversation: Difficult Circumstances
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
The presidential debate left more questions than answers. John and Maria discuss the implications. Proponents of using chemicals and surgery on gender-confused kids are changing their terminology. And we look at how different denominations are handling the question of women in the pulpit.
Recommendations
Great Lakes Symposium (join in person or online!)
Segment 1 - Presidential Debate
Watch the first 2024 presidential debate between Biden and Trump
Breakpoint: Trump Announces His Position on Life Post-Roe
Breakpoint: The War on Pregnancy Resource Centers
The Good Life by Chuck Colson
Segment 2 - The Language of Transgender Politics
The gaslighting has begun by Maria Baer on WORLD
Segment 3 - Women's Ordination
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program and apply for the upcoming class at colsonfellows.org.
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint at colsoncenter.org/june.
As the West loses touch with its Creator, by what authority do we agree on inalienable rights?
Related Resources: Do Children's Rights Override Parental Rights
_______
To apply for the Colson Fellows program, visit colsonfellows.org.
What about the training and formation of teachers?
Related resources:
https://youtu.be/3kvutPrwYCo?si=7S06hBtyKrdNkt8A __________
Apply for the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org/apply.
Employee religious conviction rights a new battleground as more drugstore chains offer the abortion pill.
Are Americans dropping their rainbow zeal because of a zealot takeover?
__________
To apply for the Colson Fellows program, visit colsonfellows.org.
The federal government pushes harder on gender transition interventions as other nations pull back.
Ramped up legislation throughout the U.S. seeks to attack pro-life care.
__________
To make a gift to the Colson Center, visit colsoncenter.org/june.
Christianity is to be lived courageously outward facing for this time and place.
__________
Apply for the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org/apply.
The harassment of cake artist Jack Phillips continues as he finds himself back in court. The Surgeon General is recommending social media sites post a health hazard warning. And once again the church is forced to deal with questions of a failed leader and what restoration looks like.
Recommendations
Colson Fellows Program
Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview
Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado
Segment 1 - Jack is Back in Court
Why Jack Still Won’t Bake the Cake
Justice for Jack with ADF
303 Creative v. Elenis
Breakpoint: The Courage to Change One’s Mind
Segment 2 - Social Media Warning
Surgeon General Calls for Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms
Segment 3 - Another Celebrity Pastor Falls
Texas megachurch pastor resigns amid allegations he sexually abused a minor
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program and apply for the upcoming class at colsonfellows.org.
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint at colsoncenter.org/june.
The famous artist revealed his hope in Christ in his many sonnets.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
Restoring our impersonal bodies to God’s original intention.
__________
Register for the upcoming Great Lakes Symposium at greatlakessymposium.org.
New resolution formally opposes the use of IVF in defense of embryonic life.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Understanding the embryo is crucial in an age of unfettered reproductive technology.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A hopeful court case for those mentally and physically harmed by progressive treatment plans.
Stats show fathers play the most critical role in the health of families and society.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The Supreme Court allows a lower court ruling to stand, keeping the abortion pill accessible despite health risks. And John and Maria talk about the conflicting worldviews of Christianity and Islam.
Recommendations
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Support Israel?
Support Jack Phillips on June 18
Segment 1 - FDA Wins at Supreme Court
Supreme Court rules in abortion medication case, finds group lacked standing to challenge FDA approval
What Would You Say?: What is Abortion Pill Reversal, and is it Safe?
American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists
NYT Matter of Opinion Podcast: The 'Disdain' of Justice Alito and the Supreme Court
Care Net
Heartbeat International
Breakpoint: Supreme Court Dismisses Case About Chemical Abortion Drug Access
Segment 2 - Worldviews in Conflict (Islam and Christianity)
Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Support Israel?
The Subversion of the West
Breakpoint: Is It the End of the Line for Mainlines?
A Wind in the House of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ by David Garrison
__________
Register for the Great Lakes Symposium at greatlakessymposium.org.
Pharmacy chains to start selling the chemical abortion pill mifepristone in several states this month.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Colorado baker who already won a Supreme Court case for his religious rights is being sued again.
Choosing culture over Christ, Mainline Protestantism is in its last days.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
How we give reflects the heart of God and His Son.
__________
To make a gift to the Colson Center, visit colsoncenter.org/june.
Remembering essential allegiances this month instead of depraved ones.
__________
To learn more about Fidelity Month, visit fidelitymonth.com.
Counter to a self-first culture, Christians must hold fast to creational realities found in Holy Scripture.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
A group of high school students were asked “what are the 8 biggest lies about sex?” John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell provide answers and context to their list.
Resources
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage by John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell
The Identity Project
Sean McDowell on YouTube
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization by Brad Wilcox
Breakpoint: Seven Big Lies About Sex
Breakpoint: Tom Holland on What Christianity Gave the World
Breakpoint: The Case Against the Sexual Revolution
__________
Apply for the upcoming class of the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Register for the 2024 Great Lakes Symposium featuring Alisa Childers and Ryan Bomberger at greatlakessymposim.org.
Science Can and Does Point to God
___________
For mor resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment go to Breakpoint.org.
God placed us in this cultural moment. Let’s be equipped.
__________
Support the ongoing production Breakpoint at colsoncenter.org/give.
Gay couple sues NY for infertility eligibility; ignores the role of women (mothers) needed to create life.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian today visit Breakpoint.org.
A discussion between John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell.
_______
Learn more about the Identity Project at identityproject.tv.
How Just War can help us think through the conflict in Gaza.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: Should Christians Support Israel? at breakpoint.org/forum.
Two young missionaries were killed in Haiti last week. John and Maria talk about the courage needed to be a witness for Christ around the world. And the ongoing debate on how and should the church platform celebrities who convert to Christianity.
Recommendations
Disciple Nations Podcast
DISCIPLING NATIONS: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures By Darrow L. Miller
Music of Bethany Barnard
Segment 1 - Missionaries Killed in Haiti
Bodies of missionaries killed by gang returned from Haiti
Segment 2 - Celebrity Conversions
Russell Brand on his recent conversion to Christianity
Breakpoint: Mommas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up (and certainly don’t force them) to Be Pop Stars
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by giving at colsoncenter.org/may.
Download your copy of The Christian Mind at colsoncenter.org/book.
Remembering a simple confession of faith in a dangerous time to be faithful.
__________
Support the next year of Breakpoint production by giving at colsoncenter.org/may.
Scientists are starting to speak out about the simple realities of “male” and “female.”
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian today visit Breakpoint.org.
The 2024 Summer Olympics will be the 100th anniversary of the incredible performance by Eric Liddell, whose story was immortalized in the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire.
A devout Christian and son of Scottish missionaries to China, Liddell was committed to never race on Sundays. However, at those Olympics, his best race—100 meters—was scheduled for a Sunday. He withdrew, to the derision of many Brits. Nonetheless, he quickly pivoted to two other races, taking third in the 200-meter and claiming the gold in the 400-meter.
Despite his athletic success, Liddell returned to China the following year. During World War II, the Japanese placed him in an internment camp, where he faithfully served Christ and others before dying of a brain tumor in 1945.
Liddell’s Olympic-time decision and post-Olympic hardship were consistent for a man whose life was lived in faithful service to Christ. God, after all, “made [him] for China,” but also “made [him] fast.” He ran every race, including the race of life, to “feel God’s pleasure.”
This Point was revised from one released on 7.12.22.
What’s the push behind delaying menopause?
__________
Download your free copy of The Christian Mind at colsoncenter.org/book.
The publisher of America’s first spelling guide since its independence from Britian understood that words are worth fighting for.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
House resolution hopes to put the most martyred country back on the radar for protection against persecution.
We cannot reflect enough on our armed service members who have made the ultimate sacrifice.
__________
Support the next year of Breakpoint production by giving at colsoncenter.org/may.
Let’s honor those who sacrificed so we can live in a flourishing society and then live to keep it from decline.
Two pro-life Republicans in Washington have introduced a bill to protect IVF, but is it really a pro-life proposal? CBS interviewed Pope Francis and it raised so many questions. And John Stonestreet and Katy Faust discuss a recent op-ed in the Washington Post that denies the unique roles of moms and dads.
Recommendations
Them Before Us
What Would You Say?: Do Children’s Rights Override Parental Rights?
Can This Man PROVE That God Exists? Piers Morgan vs Stephen Meyer
Segment 1 - Sen. Cruz Introduces Bill to Protect IVF Nationwide
U.S. SENATORS KATIE BRITT, TED CRUZ INTRODUCE IVF PROTECTION ACT
Cruz Introduces Bill Protecting IVF Nationwide
Why the IVF Industry Must Be Regulated by Emma Waters
Promise to America’s Children
Them Before Us
Segment 2 - CBS Interviews the Pope
In '60 Minutes' interview, pope clarifies blessings, speaks out against war, abuse
In '60 Minutes' interview, pope clarifies same-sex blessings, speaks out against war, says clergy abuse can 'not be tolerated'
Segment 3 - Our Daughter Wanted a Mommy
Our daughter wanted a mommy, so she picked one of her dads
Do Fathers Matter?: What Science Is Telling Us About the Parent We've Overlooked
Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint by giving at colsoncenter.org/may.
Claim your free copy of The Christian Mind by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/book.
A small but ambitious group of activists committed to the “long game” changed the landscape of marriage.
__________
To join the Colson Fellows program, visit colsonfellows.org.
Single-sex spaces aren’t outdated and may be needed more than ever.
__________
Help support another year of Breakpoint production at colsoncenter.org/may.
A friendship to bless the world.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian today visit Breakpoint.org.
What parents? Colorado thinks kids are the property of the state.
__________
Claim your free copy of The Christian Mind at colsoncenter.org/book.
A look into the Colson Fellows program and how it helps churches in this cultural moment.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program by going to colsonfellows.org.
John and Maria look at two commencement speeches that drew criticism this week, perhaps the greatest commencement speech in Harvard’s history, and something called “metamodernism." Recommendations
When We Can’t Remember Why Wrong is Wrong by Maria Baer
The Exodus Project: A Jewish Answer to the University Crisis
Segment 1 - Graduation Speeches
Full Text: Harrison Butker of Kansas City Chiefs Graduation Speech
Three of the Greatest Commencement Speeches of All Time
Breakpoint: Solzhenitsyn at Harvard: A Graduation Speech to Remember
Jerry Seinfeld’s Commencement Speech at Duke 2024
Segment 2 - Metamodernism
Goodbye Postmodernism, Hello Metamodernism
__________
Learn more about the Alliance Defending Freedom at JoinADF.com/colson.
Soviet dissident Nobel Prize winner had prophetic words for America.
__________
To learn more about Alliance Defending Freedom, visit joinadf.com/colson.
Christians know that babies are blessings, not burdens.
__________
To learn more about Colson Fellows, go to colsonfellows.org.
How one of the greatest modern prophets left a legacy of compassion tethered to truth.
__________
Get your free copy of The Christian Mind by going to colsoncenter.org/book.
New book explores God’s intimate and active role in sustaining His creation.
__________
To receive your copy of The Begining and End of All Things, visit colsoncenter.org/april.
Take heart, mothers; keep praying for your children.
__________
Support the ongoing production of Breakpoint at breakpoint.org/give.
Boys get left behind as what was once known as the Boy Scouts of America is now Scouting America. John and Maria will discuss Rosaria Butterfield’s powerful essay on the gay rights movement. And Apple’s ad for the new iPad draws criticism.
Recommendations
Lighthouse Voices: The Deconstruction of Christianity with Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett
Breakpoint: Why “Deconstruction” Isn’t the Right Word
Segment 1 - The Boy Scouts Rebrand (Again)
Boy Scouts of America to Change its Name to Scouting America
Trail Life USA
American Heritage Girls
Lighthouse Voices with Dr. Anthony Bradley
Dr. Anthony Bradley Video Series with Focus on the Family
Segment 2 - Rosaria Butterfield on Same-Sex "Marriage"
The Long Game: Twenty years of same-sex marriage and the moral revolution that made it possible
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage by Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet
Segment 3 - Apple’s New iPad Ad
Apple Crushes Reality
The Strong Women podcast
__________
Register for the upcoming event Lighthouse Voices: The Deconstruction of Christianity, featuring guest speakers Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
To support the ongoing production of Breakpoint, visit breakpoint.org/give.
Putting the right perspective on the trending term.
__________
To sign up for the Lighthouse Voices livestream, go to colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Overpopulation and climate change are leading the drive to remain childless.
__________
Grab your free copy of The Christian Mind at colsoncenter.org/book.
With links to increased mental health and societal disruption, we should question the reclassification of pot as a safe drug.
As social pressures to comply increase, Christians can be courageous.
__________
To support the ongoing production of Breakpoint visit breakpoint.org/give.
Misusing Tech to Become Superhuman
__________
Download your free copy of The Christian Mind by S. Michael Craven at colsoncenter.org/book.
Learning from our Christian ancestors how to order sex, marriage, and family for a better society.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss the ongoing anti-Israel student protests on college campuses across the country. Colorado has passed a bill forcing teachers to refer to students by any of their chosen pronouns and the Biden administration pushes to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug.
Recommendations
All Creatures Great and Small
We Were the Lucky Ones
Segment 1 - The protests on college campuses continue
The Contradiction of “Queers for Palestine”
What the Pro-Palestinian Protests are Really About
Antisemitism Awareness Act
Segment 2 - Colorado’s Chosen Name proposal
Colorado bill would require schools to use students’ chosen names
HOUSE BILL 24-1039
The Department of Education’s Title IX Regulations
Segment 3 - The Biden Admin to Reclassify Marijuana
Biden admin will move to reclassify marijuana as ‘less dangerous drug’ in historic shift
Breakpoint: Marijuana And Psychosis In Teens
Breakpoint: Marijuana And Teen Suicide
Breakpoint: More Studies Show The Harm Of Recreational Marijuana Use
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/april.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
Scripture points to friendship as an important and different type of wellbeing for the soul.
__________
To RSVP for Lighthouse Voices with Alisa Childers and Tim Barnett go to colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
God isn’t a happy pill; He is the one who makes us holy.
__________
To support the ongoing production of Breakpoint, visit breakpoint.org/give.
Trusting truth, not just science, will go a long way in saving children from “gender-affirming” care.
Student protests and trusting the “cult of youth.”
__________
Download your free copy of The Christian Mind at colsoncenter.org/book.
Ignorance on college campuses is on full display with protesters admitting they don’t know what they’re protesting.
The report should be used at all levels to counter the pseudoscience of altering kids’ bodies in the name of mental healthcare.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
The opposing theories that point to the existence of God.
__________
Get your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/april.
College campuses across the US saw protests and clashes with police by pro-Palestine demonstrators. Oral arguments at the Supreme Court on a Biden administration policy that requires emergency abortion care in states where abortion has been heavily restricted. And a new report urges extreme caution in treating children with gender dysphoria.
Recommendations
The Cass Report
The World and Everything in It: April 25, 2024
Segment 1 - Campus Unrest Over Gaza
Encampments continue at Columbia as police descend on protestors at University of Texas at Austin
Segment 2 - Emergency Abortion Care at SCOTUS
Conservative justices appear skeptical federal law requires emergency abortion care
Breakpoint: Bill Maher Says it Out Loud
Segment 3 - Extreme Caution Urged in Treating Gender Dysphoria
The Cass Report is out – an early analysis of findings and recommendations
__________
Get your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/april.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
New book on creation theology orients readers beautifully to who God is and why we are his image bearers.
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things at colsoncenter.org/april.
Our cultural attention is on girls, but we can’t neglect the proper self-confidence building of boys.
It turns out, the human condition requires accountability, not absolution, from the state.
__________
Learm more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Preventative care is down; taxpayer-funded abortions and “gender-affirming” care is way up.
Collective action is what we sometimes need to save our children.
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/april.
The declaration explains why image bearers should reject all attempts to obscure sexual differences.
__________
Find more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
New rules will strip rights from parents, children, and women.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
The Biden administration makes sweeping changes to gender identity and sexual orientation in Title IX. In Belgium, a mayor shuts down a conference that backs free speech. And we’ll look at the implications of Iran’s attack on Israel.
Recommendations
Manhunt
Surrogacy Makes More Babies. Pro-Lifers Should Still Oppose It. by Katy Faust
Segment 1 - Title IX
Biden Admin Adds ‘Gender Identity’ as Protected Class in New Title IX Rules, but Sidesteps Trans-Athlete Policy
Breakpoint: Trump’s Statement on Abortion and IVF and Vatican Statement on Human Dignity
Jennifer Sey on Title IX
West Virginia Girls 'Step-Out' Of Track & Field Meet To Protest Transgender Competitor
Segment 2 - Belgian Mayor Shuts Down Conservative Convention
Farage and Orban’s Brussels Jamboree Descends into mayhem amid police seige
Free Speech Prevails for “NatCon:” Belgian court strikes down order shuttering conservative conference
Belgian police shut down a far-right conference as it rallies ahead of Europe’s June elections
NPR boss once called the First Amendment a 'challenge' and 'reverence for the truth' a distraction
Segment 3 - Iran Attacks Israel
Netanyahu says Israel will decide how to respond as Iran warns against retaliation
What we know about Iran’s Attack on Israel and what happens Next
Wave of Pro-Palestinian Protests closes bridges, major roads across the U.S.
Hamas rejects Israel’s ceasefire response as Iran sends drones to Israel
____________
Get your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/april.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
A swelling cultural shift bent on censorship could be what kills democracy.
__________
Learn more about the COlson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
God’s goal has always been to be in unbroken fellowship with us and with His creation.
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things at colsoncenter.org/april.
How C.S. Lewis has helped this world of believers and skeptics alike understand Christian hope for the past 80 years.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at colsonfellows.org.
Enduring years of legal battles and media vilification, pro-life activist faithfully exposes Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of baby body parts.
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount this month at colsoncenter.org/april.
Bill intends to help residents report “hate crimes” and “bias” against fellow citizens.
Commitment to a gospel faith is going to cost us something; let’s prepare.
__________
Reserve your spot for the Lighthouse Voices event with Brad Wilcox at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
A so-called step forward in “gender affirming care” uses babies as props in yet another social experiment for narcissists.
Former President Donald Trump tells voters how he’ll treat the abortion issue if he wins in November. And the Vatican releases a far-reaching statement on human dignity.
Recommendations
Lighthouse Voices with Brad Wilcox
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Segment 1 - Trump on Abortion
Read Trump abortion statement
Breakpoint: Trump Announces His Position on Life Post-Roe
Don't Follow Your Heart by Thaddeus Williams
The World and Everything in It: April 10, 2024
Segment 2 - The Vatican’s Statement on Human Dignity
Declaration “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity
__________
Get your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things at colsoncenter.org/april.
Register for the upcoming Lighthouse Voices, How Faith Matters For American Families, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
The time is now to start asking real questions about the unregulated industry of child manufacturing.
__________
For more resourcs to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Tammy Peterson’s conversion to Christianity highlights how faith in Christ reveals true self.
The catch-all statement exemplifies greater worldview falsehoods when it comes to protecting the preborn.
__________
Reserve your spot for the upcomign Lighthouse Voices event at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Statistics back up God’s good plan for humanity and for His creation.
Reserve your spot for the next Lighthouse Voices event at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
__________
Get your tickets for the Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
You can’t have Christianity’s fruit without its root.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
Other states are following the lead to pass age verification laws while content distributors fight for the right of “artistic freedom.”
__________
Reserve your free place at the next Lighthouse Voices event at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
In the age of remarkable technological feats, we must check our hubris from time to time.
Recommendations
The Rest is History Podcast
Carl Truman on First Things
Carl Truman on Breakpoint
Just Brierly's podcasts
Segment 1 - Desecration vs. Disenchantment
Breakpoint: The Desecration of Easter
Biden Proclaims Easter Sunday “Trans Day of Visibility”
LGBT "holidays"
Trumpet Evangelicalism or Bidenist Catholicism? by Carl Truman
Segment 2 - Is a Christian revival coming?
Breakpoint: God at March Madness
Richard Dawkins warming up to Christianity
Abigail Shrier on Easter
Jordan Peterson’s wife, Tammy, converts to Catholicism
A Christian Revival is Underway in Britain
Segment 3 - The Total Eclipse
Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World by Tom Holland
__________
Claim your copy of The Beginning and End of All Things with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/april.
Secure your place at the Colson Center National Conference at colsonconference.org.
The good (and legal) news about Bible-based classes in local schools.
__________
Reserve your free spot for the next Lighthouse Voices event, How Faith Matters for American Families, at colsoncenter.org/lighthouse.
Anyone found guilty of hurtful content under the new law could face up to seven years in jail.
Escaping the nunnery to follow Christ led to a life full of service alongside one of the most seminal figures in Christianity.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
A 1 Corinthians look at the fullness of love in the age of identity culture.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Woman who underwent transgender surgeries shares how God restored her life as an image bearer.
Our culture is shifting from denying reality to attempting to usurp God’s authority over reality altogether.
__________
For more resources on living like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Breakpoint.org.
John and Maria share thoughts on this most holy of weeks in the Christian faith. It’s the most dangerous of seasons for Christians in Nigeria. And the abortion pill goes on trial at the Supreme Court.
Holy Week Recommendations
Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell
Lent for Everyone by N.T. Wright
Death On A Friday Afternoon by Richard John Neuhaus
The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible
Segment 1 - SCOTUS Oral Arguments on Abortion Pill
Supreme Court appears likely to allow abortion drug to remain available
Abortion access again before Supreme Court
Erin Hawley: The Woman Arguing Against the Abortion Pill
The Strong Women Podcast
Segment 2 - Persecution of Nigerian Christians
In Nigeria, parents finally able to see children who were abducted from school in early March
As Easter approaches, Christian persecution is on the rise
Hold Nigeria accountable for its failure to stop internal religious violence
ICON: International Committee on Nigeria
Segment 3 - Holy Week
Truth, Love, and Maundy Thursday
__________
Claim your copy of Deconstruction of Christianity with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/march.
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
For Christians, despair is a sin because hope is not a feeling, it’s a reality made alive in the resurrection of Christ.
Secure your spot for the 2024 Colson Center National Conference today, go to colsonconference.org.
After a little withdrawal, banning the wildly popular social media platform will only lead to good for teens addicted to screens.
The reality of sin and why Good Friday is good news.
To secure your spot for the 2024 Colson Center National Conference, visit colsonconference.org.
Vermont school officials agree to pay damages to snowboard coach who stated boys have a physical advantage in sports.
How the creator of the Wizard of Id and B.C. taught millions about the resurrection of Christ.
__________
Learn more about Summit Ministries at summit.org/breakpoint. Don't forget to use code BREAKPOINT24 for a special discount at checkout.
Detransitioner tells why the Source of all reality is Jesus Christ.
__________
Get your copy of Deconstruction of Christianity with your gift of any amount at colsoncenter.org/March.
A ban and then a swift unban by Veterans Affairs over a famous photo shows the vulnerability of truth on the internet.
It's time for a revival of Christian imagination inspired by God instead of self and online likes.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
John discusses this week’s Light House Voices event featuring Laura Perry Smaltz. A new book from Abigail Shrier takes a hard look at therapy: the new theory of everything. And the Supreme Court will hear arguments this week on a challenge to the FDA’s continued lax rules for the abortion pill.
Recommendations
Lighthouse Voices with Laura Perry Smalts
The Alisa Childers Podcast: Is a Hyper-focus on Trauma Actually Hurting Us? with Maria Baer
Masters of the Air
Segment 1 - Laura Perry Smalts Tells Her Story
Lighthouse Voices with Laura Perry Smalts
Transgender To Transformed
As Kids, They Thought They Were Trans. They No Longer Do.
Breakpoint Forum: The Real Facts About Gender Ideology
Segment 2 - Therapy: The New Theory of Everything
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up by Abigail Shrier
Breakpoint: When “Helping” Kids Hurts Them
Honestly with Bari Weiss: Why the Kids Aren't Alright
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self by Carl R. Trueman
The Death of the Grown-Up by Diana West
Is a Hyper-focus on Trauma Actually Hurting Us? with Maria Baer
Segment 3 - SCOTUS Hears Arguments on Relaxed Abortion Pill Rules
FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine
Despite Bans, Number of Abortions in the United States Increased in 2023
__________
Get your copy of The Deconstruction of Christianity with your gift of any amount this month at colsoncenter.org/march.
Learn more about the ACSI Rooted Conference at acsi.org.
The White House flips the script on morality in its public support of killing babies as “healthcare” and its labeling of pro-lifers as “extremists.”
_____________
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit breakpoint.org
The NHS announced the decision after a years-long study found no significant change in the mental health of children treated for gender dysphoria.
A U.K. pastor wins legal battle to keep preaching after police told him he could not discuss other religions.
How courts and culture have redefined marriage to point to self instead of Christ.
__________
To counter the lies about love, marriage, and sex so prevalent in our culture, check out identityproject.tv. For a special discount this month, go to identityproject.tv and enter BREAKPOINT at checkout.
Receive your copy of The Deconstruction of Christianity: What It Is, Why It’s Destructive, and How to Respond with your gift of any amount this month at colsoncenter.org/march.
Kidnappings add to the tens of thousands in recent years while the Nigerian government and the global community remains silent.
Why the generation accessing the most mental therapy is the most mentally unhealthy.
__________
Learn more about Summit Ministries at summit.org/breakpoint. Use code BREAKPOINT24 at checkout for $200 off registration.
Pharmacy chains to start selling the chemical abortion pill mifepristone in several states this month.
__________
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural momevent visit Breakpoint.org.
Christian educators can be the antidote to the murky educational system of the moment.
___________
To learn more about the Rooted Educator Worldview Summit, visit acsi.org.
Recommendations
Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution by Dr. Carl Trueman
NIHILISM—IN NAZI GERMANY AND TODAY by Carl Trueman
Resources
Carl R. Trueman Interview with Kevin DeYoung | Faithful Conference 2023
Knowing God by J.I. Packer
The Colson Fellows Program
Carl Trueman on First Things
“Parable of the Madman” by Friedrich Nietzsche
How Now Shall We Live? by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey
The Last Christian on Earth by Os Guinness
_________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program at ColsonFellows.org.
Request your copy of The Deconstruction of Christianity with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center at colsoncenter.org/march.
Of the thousands of green revelers, few know about the slave and evangelist for whom St. Patrick’s Day is named.
To learn more about this man of faith and his consequential life, check out this Breakpoint interview between Shane Morris and T.M. Moore, a former colleague of Chuck’s and the author of Celtic Flame: The Burden of St. Patrick.
__________
Get your copy of The Deconstruction of Christianitywith your gift of any amount this month at colsoncenter.org/march.
The Christian alternative to doom-and-gloom environmentalism.
__________
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment got to Breakpoint.org.
A Kentucky region riddled with the opioid epidemic is fighting for sobriety and finding motivation in business ownership.
New book helps us understand and respond to the phenomenon seeping into the Church.
Claim a copy of The Deconstruction of Christianity for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center. To make your gift, go to colsoncenter.org/march.
__________
Register for the ACSI Rooted Educator Worldview Summit at ACSI.org/rooted.
Despite what oracles of a post-Christian society promised, the kids are far from happier and free.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at colsonfellows.org.
Christians burned at the stake for refusing to deny Christ is in no way the same as self-immolation to protest Israel.
It’s about honoring God no matter what for Hobby Lobby owners David and Barbara Green.
____________
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
Recommendations
Michael Shellenberger's website
The Picture Bible
Segment 1: WPATH Scandal
The WPATH Files
Secret Files Show how international group pushes shocking experimental gender surgery for minors
Segment 2: Planned Parenthood Profiting from Fetal Body Parts
Center for Medical Progress
Documents show Planned Parenthood Exchanges Baby Body Parts for Intellectual Property Rights
Segment 3: Investigating Debanking
Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
De-Banking: Cancel Culture’s Newest Threat
__________
Get your copy of Deconstruction of Christianity with your gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/march.
It turns out the science isn’t settled and suffering families have been lied to all along.
__________
Register for the ACSI Rooted Educator Worldview Summit at ACSI.org/rooted.
Referendum seeks to eliminate the word “mother” and reference to marriage from the Irish constitution.
__________
Find more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment at Breakpoint.org.
The increasing trend of believers attending same-sex “weddings” belies a bigger problem with our Christian worldview.
Scientists who mimic creation’s design unknowingly glorify the Creator.
__________
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment visit Breakpoint.org.
In a prolife world, recent reports about rape rates would be a shocking story about crime and not about access to abortion.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows program at ColsonFellows.org.
Appellate court to decide on the “harm” a shirt stating traditional genders had on a school that encouraged students to wear Pride apparel.
Another case of a teen taken from home over pronoun usage.
__________
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss two issues that dominated the news last week, the biased replies from Google Gemini and a new study that finds married couples are the happiest.
Recommendations
Abigail Shrier on Freedom in an Age of Fear
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren't Growing Up by Abigail Shrier
The Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf
Segment 1: Has AI Gone Woke?
Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence
Google hopeful of fix for Gemini’s historical-image diversity issue within weeks
Google Gemini Controversy Explained: AI Model Criticized by Musk and Others Over Alleged Bias
The Technological Society by Jacques Ellul
The Way of the (Modern) World by Craig Gay
The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind by Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean
Segment 2: Polls Show Married People Are Happiest
Why you should get married
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization by Brad Wilcox
The hidden social justice issue
Wedded Bliss is True, not Trendy
Brad Wilcox on X
__________
Subscribe to get the latest What Would You Say? videos at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe.
Progressive ideology, not the Right-wing patriarchy, is denying women at the federal level their privacy, scholarships, and equity in sports.
Now that abortion rights are left to the states, it’s more important than ever we tell the truth about preborn life.
__________
To get your copy of the second edition of The Case for Life, go to colsoncenter.org/February.
In contrast to what the government keeps telling us, Americans want religious freedom and support with their kids’ educations.
Thinking about our relationship to time from a Judeo-Christian understanding.
__________
Request your copy of Case for Life by Scott Klusendorf with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month at colsoncenter.org/february.
Attacks on churches and pro-Christian causes are not met with the same outcry as other hate crimes.
Some moral clarity for an industry that has been an ethical Wild West.
__________
Learn more about the Identity Project at identityproject.tv. For a special discount this month enter the code BREAKPOINT at checkout.
There's something missing from the cost-benefit analysis.
__________
Learn more about the Colson Fellows Program and apply for the next class at colsonfellows.org.
We don’t need to justify the beautiful invitation God has given us in taking a day of rest.
__________
Register for the upcoming Breakpoint Forum: The Perils and Promise of Artificial Intelligence at breakpoint.org/forum.
John and Maria discuss the implications for IVF of an Alabama court ruling. And what a recent funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral means for Western culture and the church.
Recommendations
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Mrs. Grossman's Stickers
Southern Champion Tray
The Refuge
Segment 1: Alabama Judge Rules in Favor of Embryos
Frozen embryos are ‘children,’ Alabama supreme court rules in couples’ wrongful death suits
Three Alabama clinics pause IVF services after court rules that embryos are children
Segment 2: A Funeral “Desecrates" St. Patrick's Cathedral
Desecration at St. Patrick’s Cathedral
The Colson Fellows program
__________
Get your copy of Case for Life with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center in the month of February at colsoncenter.org/february.
For a lot of people, writes Angela Chen in The Atlantic, “[s]ibling bonds are the longest relationships of our lives. We know siblings before we meet our partners (and before we have our own kids), and we’ll know them after our parents die.”
Some research even suggests that siblings have a higher impact than parents on whether teens do drugs and alcohol. Another study found that “subjects who had conflict or distance in their relationships with siblings before age 20 were more likely to be depressed at age 50.”
What G.K. Chesterton once wrote about neighbors describes siblings even better,
We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbor. Hence, he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain.
The fewer children that Western couples have, the fewer siblings there will be in the world. And that will be a poorer world indeed.
According to the Associated Press, nearly 50,000 people committed suicide last year, an absolute record in terms of raw numbers and the highest rate in nearly a century. Though, as one scholar noted, there’s always the chance that the numbers are up on account of better reporting, that doesn’t explain the consistent increase in these numbers over the last two decades. Something is broken in the United States, and it’s us.
Why, in the most prosperous time to be alive in human history, do so many think that they would be better off dead? Nor do these numbers about suicide tell the complete story. Along with the dramatic increase in substance-abuse-related deaths, particularly opioids, deaths related to alcohol abuse and other addictions, and the suicide-by-slaughter of mass shootings, we face an outbreak of what is being called “deaths of despair.”
Some of this could be the result of an increasingly vitriolic cultural environment. After all, it is hard to be hopeful when everyone is yelling at everyone else. Students in particular are victims of the ubiquity of smartphones and their amoral algorithms. And although the economy has, over the same period, seen incredible expansion overall, places like the Rust Belt now mirror the frustrations of inner cities as industries disappear along with opportunities for meaningful labor.
In addition to these structural concerns, we’re also living downstream from particularly destructive ideas. For decades, American society has been steadily stripped of those meaning-making stories that made it, specifically the religious framing that placed our lives as part of something bigger. For even longer, we’ve been telling ourselves that transcendent things like truth, beauty, and goodness are imaginary, and that we are nothing more than matter in motion on a “pale blue dot” adrift in the heavens.
The more recent orthodoxies of Critical Theory preach self-loathing as the only means of salvation, while at the tail end of the sexual revolution, our identities have been uprooted, tethered only to what we feel and are willing to self-determine. In the process, we’ve created a culture of victimhood, much of it fabricated, and have positioned it as the goal of life.
All of this is a powerful recipe for social and individual instability, but that’s not all. Voices of the state and media have, in the last several years, marketed suicide as a positive choice, the final solution to life’s problems, and the final expression of autonomy and, thus, dignity. A growing number of U.S. states and the nation of Canada have embraced and now sell suicide to its citizens, using the language of “medical assistance.” Though what they provide is neither. Argued with language of autonomy and avoiding suffering, the end result is always more death. By making it an option, we’ve made suicide more likely.
All this weighs most of all upon our neighbors and friends struggling with mental illnesses. In a culture broken and enmeshed by meaninglessness, double damage is done to these hurting souls. If we hope to prevent our neighbors from dying too soon, we’ll first have to help them answer the question: “What is there to live for?”. A life without meaning will remain empty, no matter how much we try to fill it with prosperity, status, technological gadgets, “autonomy,” infinite choice, and distraction.
To borrow from Thomas Aquinas, an increasingly secular culture removes any real conviction we have that it’s even possible to “share in the goodness of God.” Thus, it’ll take the Church, both as an institution and as individuals, to reach those who are hurting. Remaining open to our own pains and struggles, we can place them within a larger framework of meaning and hope. Christians, too, battle with despair but while knowing it will not have the final word. Christ does, so hope does.
To better prepare to offer this hope in this fragile moment, please consider our “Hope Always” course featuring Dr. Matthew Sleeth. This course is available online, can be accessed anytime, and can be studied alone or as part of a community committed to providing healing to hurting neighbors. Go to educators.colsoncenter.org for more information.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
According to the editors at The Economist, “Republicans used to extol the benefits of free trade and free markets,” but now, many support barriers to international trade, generous government spending, and condemn corporate America. At least part of the shift is corporate America’s leftward lurch, especially the trend to enlist the marketplace in woke causes while threatening the freedom of speech.
Still, the urge to paint capitalism as the root of all evil is misguided. As civic education in the U.S. declines, fewer Americans on the left and the right understand how much better free markets are than every other alternative. Capitalism aligns better with the human condition than other systems, especially in seeing people as not only “consumers” but also “producers.” Not merely as problems to be solved but as the best potential to solve the problems.
That’s why the market has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system in history. Throwing that away would be a serious mistake.
On September 26, the Colson Center is launching Breakpoint Forums, digital discussions about topics that matter. The first Breakpoint Forum will deal with this contentious idea of Christian nationalism. Joining me for this online discussion will be R.R. Reno, the editor-in-chief of First Things, an important journal of Christian thought, and Hunter Baker, professor of political science and dean at Union University. This online event will be September 26 at 8 p.m., ET. Registration is free, but you must sign up at breakpoint.org/forum.
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Päivi Räsänen, a member of the Finnish Parliament, is currently on trial, charged with hate crimes against a minority group. To be specific, Räsänen is being accused of violating a Finnish law that prohibits “War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.” According to state prosecutors, Räsänen committed the crime by quoting the Bible in support of traditional understandings of human nature and sexuality.
While prosecutors claim that they’re not attempting to restrict religion per se, only certain public expressions, they are attempting to decide what can and cannot be said and done in the name of religion. In fact, the prosecution openly admitted that “[t]he point” of their case “isn’t whether [what Räsänen said] is true or not but that it is insulting” (emphasis added).
This important case will carry dangerous precedent for just how free the Free World remains. Christians and others concerned with liberty of conscience should support Räsänen and ADF International as they champion the first freedom in what is ostensibly a Christian nation. While everyone in Finland “technically” enjoys full religious freedom, it is only in the sense that no one is required to be a part of the state church. Both the dominant Lutheranism and the minority Eastern Orthodoxy there are privileged and receive tax funds from their members. However, this official faith has not kept Finns from drifting further into atheism and relativism, nor has it prevented the open hostility to religion evidenced in this egregious court case. As Dr. Andrew Walker tweeted about the trial, “The Christian Nationalist regime of Finland is currently persecuting and prosecuting a Christian Member of Parliament for daring to quote the Bible.”
Such is the problem when Christian is “in-name-only,” whether nations or individuals. Being “officially” Christian, in other words, isn’t the same as actually being one. And this goes for “nationalism,” too.
We may appreciate a royal event that showcases the beauty of a deeply Christian liturgy to rest of the world and consider that a type of Christian nationalism, but other types are far more unsettling. For example, a Russian Orthodox priest recently blessed an image of notorious dictator and persecutor Joseph Stalin, saying that Christians should be grateful that Stalin “created” so many martyrs.
Whether we’re talking about the Finns, the English, the Russians, or the Americans, the claim to be a Christian nation does not a Christian nation make. Even more important is defining the idea and determining if the idea of a Christian nation is even biblical, and in what sense. More than a few European nations remain Christian on paper, with laws that enshrine the Christian faith in a privileged position. However, many of these nations are among the most secular in the world, with church attendance falling consistently for the past few decades. At the same time, those voices that praise the demise of “Christendom” will soon realize just what the cultural rejection of Christianity entails.
The relationship between Church and state and culture is and has always been contentious. The recent cultural debate about the term “Christian nationalism” is confusing because participants in the debate tend to use mutually exclusive definitions of the term. For some, it’s idolatry and a confusion of Gospel mission. For others, it’s faithfulness– and the only thing remaining to prevent our children’s co-option into an increasingly immoral culture. There are many questions that must be answered, for example:
With the culture and state so hostile to the Church, isn’t it time to stand up for ourselves? Will nations exist in heaven? If God made the nations, then why have some disappeared? Even if Christian nationalism has its issues, is it the lesser of two evils? Why do critics of Christian nationalism only complain about partisanship when it’s conservatives getting political? Is there a way we can be faithful in the public square without getting labeled “Christian nationalist”? Is longing for our nation to become more Christian the same as being a Christian nationalist? Weren’t all Christians Christian nationalists until the American Revolution?
On September 26, the Colson Center is launching Breakpoint Forums, digital discussions about topics that matter. The first Breakpoint Forum will deal with this contentious idea of Christian nationalism. Joining me for this online discussion will be R.R. Reno, the editor-in-chief of First Things, an important journal of Christian thought, and Hunter Baker, professor of political science and dean at Union University. This online event will be September 26 at 8 p.m., ET. Registration is free, but you must sign up at breakpoint.org/forum.
All who register will receive a link to the recording of the forum after it’s over.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Ever since the COVID-19 lockdowns, there’s been an increase in disruptive behavior at public events and spaces. Concert attendees have disrupted performances. One fan threw water on rapper Cardi B, and a couple of fans distracted country singer Miranda Lambert with selfies. Movie theaters are increasingly lit by those scrolling through TikTok and Instagram, and ignoring or yelling at anyone who protests.
These incidents are the latest examples of how our private digital lives shape how we live publicly and in person. The habits of thought and action that are cultivated by, say, tweeting immediate reactions, doom scrolling, posting hot takes, or constantly sharing pictures, follow us off the screen.
Digital existence teaches us to think of ourselves as the center of the universe, making it easy to disregard how we treat others or behave in public. As Daniel Boorstin said, “We risk being the first people in history to have been able to make their illusions so vivid, so persuasive, so ‘realistic’ that they can live in them.”
A year ago, The Economist urged readers not to bring their “whole selves” to work. While some corporate gurus suggest that we make work feel more like home, the authors beg to differ.
Your professional self displays commitment to the job and eats lunch at a desk. Your whole self is planning the next holiday and binges ice cream on the sofa. Your professional self makes presentations to the board and says things like: “Let’s get the analytics team to kick the t[i]res on this.” Your whole self cannot operate a toaster and says things like: “Has anyone seen my socks?” Pretending to be someone you are not is not a problem; it’s essential.
That description speaks to what lies at the heart of the modern re-definition of “authenticity.” From counselors pushing transgender ideology on kids, to Christians deconstructing faith, to the recent trend of “quiet quitting,” many people today think that true authenticity is the only means to real happiness. It means always expressing our feelings, always feeling completely supported in whatever we say or do, and rejecting any relationship that asks us to do otherwise.
The problem, as the late Tim Keller once illustrated, is that this understanding of authenticity is based on a faulty premise.
Imagine an Anglo-Saxon warrior in Britain in AD 800. He has two very strong inner impulses and feelings. One is aggression. He loves to smash and kill people when they show him disrespect. Living in a shame-and-honour culture with its warrior ethic, he will identify with that feeling. He will say to himself, That’s me! That’s who I am! I will express that. The other feeling he senses is same-sex attraction. To that he will say, That’s not me. I will control and suppress that impulse.
Now imagine a young man walking around Manhattan today. He has the same two inward impulses, both equally strong, both difficult to control. What will he say? He will look at the aggression and think, This is not who I want to be, and will seek deliverance in therapy and anger-management programmes. He will look at his sexual desire, however, and conclude, That is who I am.
As Keller concluded, none of us simply choose to “be ourselves” in a vacuum. We constantly sift through contradictory feelings and evaluate them in the light of our values, which are often absorbed from our cultural setting.
The modern vision of “authenticity” is not born merely from an alternative understanding of morality, but from an alternative understanding of anthropology. In a world that has largely rejected God and objective truth as external realities, people increasingly turn inwards in deciding who they are and what they should do.
Any true understanding of self must begin by looking outward and upward, not inward. In the end, we may find conflict between what is true and how we feel. We must choose what is true. As Biola professor Erik Thoennes put it,
There’s this idea that to live out of conformity with how I feel is hypocrisy; but that’s a wrong definition of hypocrisy. … To live out of conformity to what I believe is hypocrisy. To live in conformity with what I believe, in spite of what I feel, isn’t hypocrisy; it’s integrity.
In her latest book Live Your Truth and Other Lies, author and apologist Alisa Childers points out another problem with a feelings-first version of authenticity: I can’t love myself if I’m fooling myself about who I actually am. If I deny that there is something wrong with humanity (and thus, myself), the kind of love I will offer myself will be the opposite of authentic. It will be artificial authenticity.
While it is completely out of step to think this, Scripture is clear that “the heart is deceitful above all things.” Today’s worship of authenticity requires that we lie to ourselves about this difficult reality. If we do, however, we will never truly know who we are and how we should live.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. If you enjoy Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss the new relaxed prostitution laws in California. As Tolkien’s appeal continues to grow, we discuss the biblical roots of his writings. And trying to reign in a culture that seems to be accepting and promoting suicide.
— Recommendations —
Tactics by Gregory Koukl
Street Smarts by Gregory Koukl
Section 1 - California’s Relaxed Prostitution Laws
"Pimps and Traffickers Get a free pass under new California law protecting 'sex work'"
"New California Law Decriminalizing Loitering Led to ‘Explosion’ in Prostitution"
"Empty Canadian Graves"
Section 2 - Tolkein’s Biblical Epic
"Tolkein’s Biblical Epic"
"Remembering J.R.R. Tolkein"
Section 3 - Stories of the Week
"Rich Men North of Richmond"
"When is a Question Better than an Answer?"
Last month, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that the FDA wrongfully removed critical restrictions around access to chemical abortion. In 2021, the Biden administration decided to make mifepristone, the first of two drugs used to terminate pregnancies, permanently available via mail. Moreover, it eliminated the requirement for a doctor’s visit.
According to the 5th Circuit, the FDA policy violates longstanding federal law, and the FDA must discontinue mail-order abortion.
Even more shocking, the FDA removed these restrictions in spite of serious concerns about the drug’s adverse effects. Such effects have been well known since before the drug’s approval in 2000. Yet the FDA, rather than creating more safeguards around the drug, decided to make it widely available without requiring so much as one in-person doctor’s visit.
The court’s ruling is a victory for human rights and upholds what Christians have long preached: that the lives of both unborn children and women have irrevocable, God-given value.
The most recent installment in the What Would You Say? video series looks at an idea that is increasingly popular, often repeated, and surprisingly believable: that sex is “assigned” at birth. Most of us have or will encounter this phrase, which no one would have uttered throughout most of human history. But not all of us know how to respond. After all, the idea that sex is something merely “assigned” at birth is taken as truth by college professors, media pundits, and medical professionals. We even hear that on this issue “the science is settled.”
So, what would you say?
As the video helpfully explains, we should not be afraid to note what is an obvious truth.
First: A person’s sex is acknowledged, not assigned. There are many things that doctors learn about a baby when it’s born, like height, weight, and blood type. Those things aren’t assigned. They’re acknowledged.
Other things are assigned at birth, like a name. Babies are assigned names exclusively on the preferences of their parents. Changing a name before, during, or even after birth has no real impact on the person because it’s not a biological part of their identity.
So, if some things are acknowledged and other things are assigned, which category does a baby’s sex fall into? Is it more like being given a name by parents, or is it more like learning the blood type from the doctor?
It is helpful to acknowledge that some things about us as human beings are assigned and others are not, and that the kinds of things that fit into these respective categories are radically different kinds of things.
Sex is determined by our reproductive system. In most cases, humans are born with two sex chromosomes, either x/x or x/y. …
For human reproduction to happen, contributions from both kinds of reproductive systems are required. The differences between males and females go beyond our reproductive systems. Men and women differ in how their brains operate, how they solve problems, what diseases they are susceptible to, and so much more.
At this point in the conversation, an objection sometimes crops up: “What about intersex people?” The third truth to remember is that disorders of sexual development don’t create new categories of sex.
The disorder that occurs when a person’s reproductive system doesn’t develop neatly along a male or female path is called “intersex.” If a person is intersex that does not mean that he or she is not male or female. Nor does it mean that there are additional categories of sex other than male and female. Some people are born without limbs. Others are born blind. Disorders of sexual development are not evidence of a new category of sex any more than disorders of the cardiac or respiratory systems are evidence of new kinds of hearts or lungs.
In fact, as [Abigail] Favale points out, “In 99.98% of these cases, sex is readily recognizable as unambiguously male or female.”
The watershed issues of our day are anthropological. The greatest deceptions of our day, the ones to which we’ll need to know how to reply, have to do with what it means to be human. Typically, when these issues come up, temperatures rise. Christians need to be able to speak the truth, but also employ the Proverbial wisdom that “a soft answer turns away wrath.”
It is possible to engage tough questions with gentleness, humility, and a sound knowledge of the facts. Every What Would You Say? video is based in sound and solid reasoning and can be used to consider these questions with family and friends. To watch the whole video, go to whatwouldyousay.org.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Christians in Pakistan face increased threats to their lives and livelihoods. The most recent round of persecution started a few weeks ago when two Christian youths were accused of damaging a Koran. In response, mobs descended upon churches and the homes of Christians, destroying buildings and forcing thousands of believers to flee. This has continued for weeks.
In Pakistan, Christianity predates Islam by centuries, but the Muslim majority has long oppressed the Church with overly broad and draconian restrictions such as blasphemy laws. Even insulting associates of Islam’s founder can carry the death penalty. “Only” a few have been executed by the state under these statutes, but the fact that they’re even on the books enables those willing to take the law into their own hands.
Pray for our brothers and sisters in Pakistan, who are among the many Christians around the world facing persecution, and call on the government to protest these violations of human dignity.
Back in 2021, news outlets around the world announced a scandal involving Canadian government schools and missing indigenous children. Starting in the 1800s, Canada built and opened a series of boarding schools where children from local native people could be educated or, more accurately, assimilated into modern Western culture. A majority of these institutions were operated by the Roman Catholic church and, before they were shut down toward the end of the twentieth century, tens of thousands of children were taken from their families, compelled to speak English or French, taught Christianity, and required to dress according to European styles.
Even if those involved had the best of motives, families and students were harmed by these institutions. A number of former students have even reported being subject to physical and sexual abuse. The scandal of 2021, however, was a matter of missing bodies.
Over the century or so that the schools were in operation, around 4,000 students died of tuberculosis and similar diseases. Reports claimed that ground-penetrating radar had shown that hundreds, if not thousands of children, were simply and unceremoniously dumped in mass graves, some perhaps the victims of murder.
Papers across the English-speaking world reported on these mass graves. The Canadian government issued a spate of apologies. Since the majority of these schools were run by the Roman Catholic Church, the pope was urged to apologize. The backlash became violent. In retaliation against the priests and nuns who purportedly had performed this evil, dozens of churches across Canada were desecrated or burned. As one civil rights activist said of the churches, “Burn it all down.” The arson even spread beyond any connection to white, Catholic churches. Many buildings burnt belonged to immigrant Christian communities. Others weren’t Roman Catholic churches at all.
Today however, at several of the sites where the burials were confidently asserted to have taken place, no physical evidence of human remains has been found. An excavation at the site of Pine Creek Indian Reservation School turned up nothing. When academics began to point out the lack of evidence before the new information was released to the public, they were shouted down with accusations of “denialism.”
In other words, the immediate assumption of guilt had far more to do with the power of ideology than a preponderance of evidence. The realities of this collision of cultures were far less important than the pre-determined narrative about these cultures, which included presumptions of guilt and innocence. Indeed, over several decades, it is likely that 4,000 children could have died of diseases such as tuberculosis, but that doesn’t mean others were murdered, or that any of the bodies had been dumped in mass graves.
This is not to say that no evils occurred in these schools, nor that Christians have not been guilty of various forms of racism and bias throughout history. In fact, it may be that physical evidence will be found of mass graves at the sites of these institutions. So far, however, none has been found, and yet the whole world immediately assumed to have known what had taken place.
If none of this is true, this certainly would not be the only time that a supposed hate crime grips the imagination of the world, only to be revealed later as a ploy to grab attention or “raise awareness” about a cause. Historical accuracy, like in the case of the statue topplers of 2020 who wanted to rid the world of “fascists” like Winston Churchill, bows to a kind of chronological snobbery, where right and wrong can be determined solely by who’s old and dead as opposed to who’s young and alive.
The same mood that drives the arsonists, hoaxers, and statue topplers also drives our social media interactions. Statements are not evaluated on whether they are good, beautiful, or true, but whether they affirm or oppose our own preconceptions. Some folks on the left talk about being “morally true” even if factually wrong, while some on the right suggest there may be such a thing as “alternative facts.”
The truth about the world and each other matters far too much for that. Those indigenous school children deserved better than religious good intentions, and churches burned to the ground deserved better than presumptuous wrath. A just world requires a “true truth,” and that can only come from the Christianity that gave the West its sense of justice in the first place.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, author Christopher Rufo tweeted an excerpt from a 2018 publication of the American Psychological Association citing a litany of outlandish terms, including “gender smoothies,” “gender prius,” “gender minotaur,” and more.
In its typical cyber-censorship fashion, Twitter quickly attached a “fact-check” note that states these labels are only a list of “descriptions”
offered by young patients, not actual diagnoses. However, the social media giant wrongly obscured Rufo’s legitimate concern, which is that the APA’s publication supports unquestioningly submitting to a child’s self-diagnosis and description. The authors write, “children will lead the way in carving out their own self-descriptions, categorizations, and assignations of gender.”
Of course, anyone struggling with any mental health issue needs the space to describe his or her experiences and feelings. However, the goal of therapy is to bring their understanding of the world in line with reality. On no other issue are patients–especially children–allowed to self-diagnose. Twitter should have noted this. Denying reality is wrong and dangerous.
When I was a college student in eastern Tennessee, classmates who felt called to teach in inner-city schools would take on student teaching practicums in the small town of Graysville. On the surface, a big city like Detroit could not seem more different than the tiny mountain town that was racially not diverse and overwhelmingly white. However, the issues that afflicted both were largely the same: a lack of upward mobility, extraordinary rates of fatherless homes, poorly performing schools, high rates of addiction, health problems, and an outsized dependence on welfare.
These issues, as conservative pundits are often quick to note when talking about inner cities, are a culture-wide problem. It’s not just the economics and politics that keep people down. Individual choices matter, as does the way people perceive their situation. Social scientists have long noted how what they call a strong “locus of control,” or the view that your choices have a real impact on your life, tends to predict socioeconomic success. The opposite is also true: When someone views themselves as mainly a victim of things beyond their control, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
All of this came to mind last month when a country-folk song from out of nowhere became an anthem for populist outrage. In “Rich Men North of Richmond,” previously obscure Virginia songwriter Oliver Anthony rails against Washington elites for creating a world in which hardworking Americans can barely make ends meet and are dying of despair.
The song really struck a chord online, particularly with listeners on the political right, and shot to number one on the Billboard Singles chart. Days later, it was used as an opener at the first Republican presidential debate—a move Anthony himself slammed, saying “I wrote this song about those people.” For many listeners, the song’s message reinforced the belief held by many: that elites of both parties have ruined America and are keeping ordinary working people down, and outrage is an appropriate response.
Because of Anthony’s roots and the song’s lyrics, listeners linked it with the plight of rural Appalachian communities, places like Graysville. In these mostly white regions, poverty, drug use, and dependence on welfare have become the subject of documentaries and books like J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. However, as Mark Antonio Wright pointed out at National Review, Hillbilly Elegy also identified and addressed subtler, cultural factors at work in the Coal Belt, such as opioid abuse, “young men immune to hard work,” and “a lack of agency—a feeling that you have little control over your life and a willingness to blame everyone but yourself.”
While “Rich Men North of Richmond” laments real problems that can rightly be laid at the feet of corrupt politicians and government overreach, such as inflation, unemployment, and “deaths of despair,” fans of the song seem determined to blame these problems only on outsiders. There are, as Wright points out, reasons to doubt that framing. For instance, there are millions more job openings in the U.S. right now than there are unemployed workers, though the same opportunities are not available everywhere. And many of those jobs, contrary to the song, are well-paid blue-collar positions. Yet labor force participation is low even after Covid. When you consider also the personal agency involved in drug addiction and obesity—two scourges on rural America—the simple victim narrative gets even more complicated.
Wright’s National Review article provoked quite a social media backlash. That’s because a lot of Americans are angry. “Rich Men North of Richmond” gave them an outlet to express that anger. However, outrage anthems can only express so much and often obscure complex truths, including some that conservatives are happy to point out. Perhaps the most important of those complex truths is that cultures themselves can become toxic when built upon bad ideas and thus can create victims. In many cases, the problem is not as much the “rich men” in a faraway town but the lack of dads in ours. As Wright suggests, “We the People” have adopted plenty of self-destructive beliefs and habits.
None of this absolves politicians of what’s been done to make Americans’ lives worse. Ronald Reagan’s adage that government is usually the problem rather than the solution is even more true than when he said it. However, I also believe that outrage is not a strategy, nor are outrage anthems.
Blaming our country’s issues on shadowy oppressors “out there,” which political parties do whenever they assure their voters that they are victims, encourages the mindset that only perpetuates poverty, relational brokenness, and addictions. It’s based on an impoverished worldview that replaces agency with anger and treats people as less than fully human, refusing them the dignity of being responsible moral actors whose fate and whose communities are at least partially within their purview and control. In fact, the victim worldview is the thing most likely to empower those “rich men north of Richmond” at the expense of everyone else.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
According to pro-life group Live Action, British authorities have arrested a Canadian man for selling hundreds of “suicide kits” online. Kenneth Law was implicated in the deaths of at least 88 people, one only 17 years old. When interviewed, Law explained, “I need a source of income—I hope you can understand that—I need to feed myself.”
It’s horrifying enough that this happened at all, but thinking that helping people end their lives is a way to make a living should shock us all. Something like this is only imaginable when we see life as a commodity to be bought and sold. Anytime a price tag is put on something priceless, it is cheapened.
This is true when done by a person, like this Canadian, or by the state, like how Canada now does by pushing so-called “Medical Assistance in Dying” on their sick and vulnerable.
Loving our neighbor today means not only saving souls, but also saving lives.
As a thank-you for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month, we’ll send you a copy of Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges. The book is a guide through the hot-button issues with wise responses to arguments against Christianity. Give today at colsoncenter.org/September.
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It can be intimidating to engage our neighbors on cultural issues these days. It seems that every conversation is a potential minefield where
the slightest wrong word can get you banished from polite society as a bigot or “hater.” This is where we can take a lesson from two of the greatest teachers of all time, Jesus and Socrates. Both were masters of their craft, and both used questions to lead their listeners to the answers they sought.
Here are six questions I’ve found extremely helpful to create the sort of dialogue we should desire about issues of faith and culture.
First: What do you mean by that? The battle of ideas is always tied up in the battle over the definition of words. Thus, it’s vital in any conversation to clarify the terms being used. For example, the most important thing to clarify about “same-sex marriage” is the definition of marriage. When the topic comes up, it’s best to say, “Hold on, before we go too far into what kind of unions should be considered marriage, what do you mean by marriage?” Often, when it comes to these crucial issues, we’re all using the same vocabulary, but rarely the same dictionary.
Here’s a second question: How do you know that is true? Too often, assertions are mistaken for arguments, and there’s a vast difference between the two. An assertion is a definitive statement made about the nature of reality. An argument is presented to back up an assertion. By asking “how do you know that’s true?” we’ll move the conversation beyond dueling assertions to why those assertions should be taken seriously.
For example, it’s a common assertion that the Church has always been an obstacle to education and science, but this is just a legend. In reality, not only did schools pop up everywhere churches went, but a host of scientists, past and present, have been devout believers.
Here’s a third question: Where did you get this information? Once arguments are offered, it’s important to ensure the arguments are valid. For example, news reports love to shout headlines about some study that shows same-sex couples are better parents than straight couples.
However, this quickly repeated talking point is based on limited studies that are flawed. More and broader-based studies suggest the exact opposite.
The fourth question: How did you come to this conclusion? Behind the individuals you are talking with and their convictions, is a story...a personal story. If you know that story, it may make more sense why they don’t find your views plausible. Plus, it will help you remember that the person you’re talking with is a real, image-of-God bearing person.
The final two questions: What if you’re wrong? and What if you’re right? It’s easy to sit back and make claims about the world, but what happens when those claims get out into that world? Ideas have consequences that are always worth considering. For example, what happens if marijuana isn’t as harmless as people say it is, or what if we tell kids that they’re born in the wrong body? That’s a big risk to play with the next generation.
A new book by Greg Koukl was written to equip Christians to dialogue from a confident and informed faith. As a thank-you for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month, we’ll send you a copy of Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges. The book is a guide through the hot-button issues with wise responses to arguments against Christianity. Give today at colsoncenter.org/September.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This Breakpoint was revised from one originally published on May 17, 2016.
Before you fire up the grill one last time for the summer on this Labor Day, here is Chuck Colson describing the dignity of work.
Work embraced as a calling expresses the glory of God, and it’s part of—very literally—following Jesus. Through our work God provides for us and for our families, contributes to the common good, and also gives us a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. He has given us work as the way to fulfill His mandate to us … to take dominion over the world he has created.
Chuck also went on to point out that in the pagan world, manual labor was seen as just for the lower classes. But Christianity saw it differently—work was understood to be edifying, part of being made in God’s image, something we could and should do to God’s glory.
So please, have a good day off. And then head back to the construction site, to the office, to school, wherever, refreshed and ready to work as unto the Lord.
This commentary first aired on September 4, 2017.
Physical labor was devalued in the ancient world. The exception, in classical Greece and the early days of the Roman republic, was farming, which was considered the proper pursuit of citizens. All other labor was viewed as demeaning. In the later days of the republic, as plantation agriculture replaced small farms, the work of farming was also seen as demeaning and relegated to slaves.
By the time of the Roman Empire, all physical labor was only thought proper for slaves and lower classes. Though the foundation of the empire’s wealth, the upper classes believed that production was beneath them. Their attention, or so they thought, belonged in the more “refined” areas of life, such as the arts and philosophy.
Of course, the biblical view of work is completely different. Scripture frames work as a good thing, an essential part of what it means to be human. Because God created us to work, at least in part, it’s inherently connected to our worship and dignity.
Put differently, work is not the result of the fall. It was, however, tainted by Adam’s sin. God’s created purposes for humanity, to fill and form His world through work, would now feature pain and frustration. Aspects of human work were twisted from dignity to drudgery. Human efforts to cultivate the earth, designed by God to be part of the joy of imaging Him, became sources of frustration, pain, sweat, and sorrow.
Because of the uniqueness of the biblical framework, even the early Christians approached work with a very different view than their pagan neighbors did. They thought of work as good but marred by sin. So, for example, in monastic communities, monks were expected to do physical labor, if for no other reason than to grow their food. In his Rule for Monastic Life, St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) insisted that monks should work both to fulfill the biblical mandate that God gave Adam, and to encourage humility in a world that thought of work as demeaning.
Within a full understanding of the biblical story, from creation to new creation, Christians came to understand the Gospel as Christ redeeming us of sin as well as all its effects. In addition to forgiveness of
sin and security of eternity, salvation also included the redemption of anything infected by sin. This included work, which led Christians to attempt to restore work away from “toil” and back to the kind of meaningful labor God intended.
So, in the Middle Ages, many monasteries became centers of technological innovation, focused on making work more significant. A prime example is the waterwheel. Although the Romans knew about waterwheels, they rarely made use of them. After all, why invest in an expensive machine when you have unlimited slave labor? The monks had a different view of human value and the value of work, which inspired them to develop ways of using the waterwheel to mechanize production.
Initially, waterwheels were likely used for grinding grain. This required converting the vertical rotation of the wheel into horizontal rotation for the millstones, which the monks accomplished through a system of wooden gears and wheels. Later, the waterwheel was adapted for a wide range of other applications including powering bellows in forges, operating trip hammers in smithies, sawing lumber, and fulling cloth.
Soon, even secular communities began to invest in building mills. While some might say secular communities adopted water wheels for economic impact, the economy in Rome was very specialized. Therefore, the Romans did not deploy waterwheels. What made communities adopt these and other technologies was likely the influence of the Christian idea of work, as it moved out from the monasteries to penetrate and shape the culture.
Many more inventions were developed during the Roman and Middle Ages, stimulating economic activity and making work more efficient and meaningful. These developments were inspired by the idea that Jesus’ work in redemption meant restoration was possible in all areas of life, including reversing the curse of the Garden.
Though other countries had innovative technologies, some far more advanced than the West, the West’s use and employment of technology was unique. According to Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi, the West used technologies to make the work of the common person easier and to aid in production, rather than to cater to the elites.
In our current cultural moment, many see work as frustrating, unrewarding, and not worth it (that is, as toil). Christians have an incredible, better vision of work to offer the larger world. We’ve also got a history to tell, of how a vision of human dignity and innovation became a blessing across economic and class lines. Just as in the past, the Christian view can move our imaginations about work beyond drudgery to a renewed and redeemed way of thinking and living.
This vision shaped the work of men like Johannes Gutenberg, whose motive for inventing printing with moveable metal type was to produce Bibles that were “no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine.” The same vision can find traction today, in a culture that doesn’t know what work is for and needs an example of redeemed human labor, production, and meaning.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This Breakpoint originally aired October 27, 2021.
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer remember the lives and legacies of two remarkable people of faith. They also discuss new information regarding the alleged mass graves at Canadian boarding schools and how the Church should view singlehood.
— Recommendations —
"Fresh off a Supreme Court Win, the Praying Coach Takes the Field"
Lighthouse Voices Event: Dr. Matthew Sleeth
Section 1 - Remembering the Legacies of People of Faith
"Former Minnesota Gov. Al Quie Dies at 99"
Alice K. Noebel Obituary
Section 2 - The The "Mass Graves" Hoax in Canada
"No Human Remains Found Two Years After Claims of ‘Mass Graves’ in Canada"
"Colorado Student Can Keep “Don’t Tread on Me” Flag"
Section 3 - Stories of the Week
"The Church, Singles, and Calling"
"Don’t Blame Your Sins on Montana"
"Jane Goodall, Avengers-Level Threat"
According to an article in The Daily Chatter, government officials decided to alter academic standards to be more in line with “decolonization” to offer a more favorable view of leftist ideas, and to fit better with the latest sexual ideologies. In response, conservative parents in southern states took the government to court and destroyed some of the proposed new schoolbooks.
Politicians then claimed it was all about partisanship.
But this wasn’t America: It was Mexico. The parents protesting were indigenous people out of the state of Chiapas, whose traditional culture and centuries-old Christian heritage drove them to protect their children and protest the ivory tower fads that threaten them.
The most obvious form of colonization today is ideological colonization, and it is being conducted, not by Christians or traditional religious institutions, but by Western progressives who are committed to sexual values and lifestyles found only in the modern West. If parents from Chiapas can resist, so can we.
Fifty years ago on September 2, one of the most important authors of the twentieth century passed away. While most today know his amazing works of fantasy and fiction, J.R.R. Tolkien was long recognized in academic circles as a brilliant philologist and scholar of medieval literature. For example, his essay on Beowulf, written in 1936, reshaped scholarship around the poem and remains highly influential today.
It was in the following year that the world was first introduced to Middle Earth. The Hobbit was quickly recognized as a wonderful children’s book. But The Lord of the Rings series that followed initially earned a mixed reception. C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden, among others, quickly saw its genius, but many critics dismissed it as an overblown fairy tale, a contribution to a literary genre out of favor among modernist critics who favored “realistic” literature that dealt with the angst of the mid-twentieth century. Tolkien, however, believed that the world, and Britain in particular, needed something else.
Over the last few decades, Tolkien studies have blossomed into an important field. His popularity soared with Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and more significantly, people have been exploring the philosophical ideas behind Tolkien’s legendarium. The full scope of Tolkien’s vision has been made available thanks to the indefatigable work of his son Christopher, who analyzed and edited the many manuscripts Tolkien left behind. We now have a fuller picture of his writing process and the creative vision behind Middle Earth, as well as the intellectual influences that informed Tolkien.
Some of these influences are well known, including Beowulf and Norse and Germanic mythology. A linguist, Tolkien invented entire languages based on Finnish and Welsh, as well as several writing systems to go along with them. A philologist, he studied language as a window into culture, which led him to develop both history and culture to go with his newly invented languages. From this effort came the amazing world of Middle Earth.
Tolkien also drew on his own life story in crafting his stories. His description of the Dead Marshes and Mordor were inspired by his experience in the trenches in World War I. Also, Sam and Frodo’s relationship was based on Tolkien’s experience as an officer with his batman, an enlisted man who served as a personal assistant.
As a boy, Tolkien spent several years in the Birmingham area where he grew to love the English countryside and to hate industrialization. This obviously shaped his descriptions of the Shire and the ecological concerns in the legendarium. On a literary level, this connected him with British romanticism, a movement that emphasized beauty, imagination, and God. In fact, as Austin Freeman pointed out in a recent interview on the Upstream podcast, Tolkien explained that to understand his writing, one had to remember he was a British romantic and a Christian.
The significance of Christianity to Middle Earth is a matter of some controversy. Tolkien himself wrote, “‘The Lord of the Rings’ is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” Critics have scoffed at this, pointing out that there is little hint of religious practice in The Lord of the Rings nor any of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. In some Tolkien fandoms, discussion of Tolkien’s faith is forbidden, as if his work can be understood apart from the author.
However, there are clear Christian influences on the story, even if not intentional. When someone pointed out that the three offices of Christ—prophet, priest, and king—were embodied by Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, Tolkien responded that though it was not intentional, his Christian beliefs would inevitably come out in his writing.
More recent scholarship, such as Bradley Birzer’s J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth, has revealed the profound Christian ideas at the root of Tolkien’s work. Jonathan McIntosh’s The Flame Imperishable argues that Tolkien’s creation myth was shaped by the metaphysical ideas of Thomas Aquinas. Austin Freeman’s Tolkien Dogmatics looks at Middle Earth through the lens of systematic theology and identifies important elements of Christian belief embodied there.
Tolkien, of course, was never preachy, which is why his Christianity is so easily and often missed. However, as he explained in a letter, “[The] religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism.” Still, Tolkien’s stories speak to profound truths about the world, and thus, can, in C.S. Lewis’s words, “steal past those watchful dragons” of modernity.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
How many faces do you have?
Atheist comedian Stephen Fry once said (quite ironically) that you are who you are when nobody’s watching. When social restraints are removed, when the cameras aren’t rolling, what sort of person are you? What sort of choices do you make?
All of us—especially men—need to ask these questions of ourselves in the wake of the daily flurry of scandals from Hollywood and Washington. This isn’t a problem “out there” in someone else’s sound studio, office, or home. It’s a problem “in here,” at the depths of the sinful human heart.
Is the person we portray to others the same person we are when we’re by ourselves—or more importantly—when we believe there’ll be no consequences for our actions?
This is sometimes called “living on your face,” in other words, making sure that what you present in public is the character you demonstrate in private. Only as Christians, we know that there’s nowhere we can flee from the presence of God, who sees all, and who’s always with us, and who promises that “our sins will find us out.”
This Point was originally published on January 1, 2018.
Americans today are getting married later in life than their parents or grandparents. As of 2022, the average age at which Americans get married is 28 for women and 30 for men. This is eight years later in life than the average bride and groom of the 1960s.
As many have noted, today’s spike in singleness and single-person households is, in part, the result of a widespread cultural erosion of marriage, both inside and outside of the Church. Over the past 60 years, marriage has taken a social and cultural beating thanks to the legalization of no-fault divorce and abortion, the widespread use of birth control, the proliferation of easily accessible hook-up apps, and the casual dominance of pornography. These realities undermine the maturity, self-control, and responsibility required for stable and successful marriages. Whether or not an individual chooses to engage in these practices, they decrease everyone’s chances of finding a partner interested in or ready for marriage.
In the wake of this cultural erosion, the Church has had to make necessary and prudential efforts to reinforce marriage and family life as
the God-given norm, reaffirming the goodness of marriage and family life in its teaching, serving as a space for Christians who desire marriage to find a spouse, and offering support and recovery for those fighting the temptations of “free love.” However, in these efforts, the Church has often struggled in its approach to singles. While not intentionally excluding singles, the Church has often failed to intentionally include singles—whether young or old, never married or widows/widowers—and create space for them to participate and serve in the life of the Church apart from the pursuit of marriage. In the process, some churches have even given the impression that singleness is only a problem to be fixed, rather than a calling that some have for part or all of their lives.
Though unusual as a long-term vocation, singleness is a biblical, God-ordained calling within which individuals show God’s image and serve Him and His Church with single-minded, self-sacrificial devotion. Scripture presents single people as whole persons who bear the image of God. Unlike other creation stories (like Plato’s Timaeus), Genesis 2 does
not present Adam and Eve as half persons made whole by joining in marriage. Rather, Adam was created a complete person who, in his singleness, reveals God’s image. When God declares that Adam’s aloneness is “not good,” He does not thereby imply that Adam was half of a person. Marriage unites the man and the woman as “one flesh” precisely because both are full persons who bear the image of God. Because singles bear God’s image, they are capable of revealing His image in their singleness.
Additionally, through Christ’s redemption, singles have a means to devote themselves to Christ and His Kingdom in a way that married people, on account of simple logistics, cannot. Through faithfulness and chastity, Christian singleness—whether temporary or lifelong—also points to the mystical union believers have with Christ. Because of this union, those who are single can be free from the anxieties of this present,
passing age and can focus on the work of God’s Kingdom (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). Their joyful, single-minded devotion paints a picture of life in the age to come, an age where we “neither marry nor are given in marriage.”
In affirming the biblical legitimacy of singleness, the Church must avoid swinging too far in the other direction by elevating singleness over and against marriage. Just as being less common doesn’t make singleness
abnormal or aberrant, neither does its extraordinariness make it intrinsically holier than marriage. Like the widow and her mite, the married couple with young children honors God. A husband and wife are not more mature by virtue of their marital status. Both singleness and marriage are ways for humans to bear God’s image and glorify Him. Both singleness and marriage can be distorted by sin and selfishness.
For a number of reasons, extended singleness is a reality that many, young and old, face today. God is not surprised by this. Rather, He has called his people to live in “such a time as this.” In such a time, the Church has a responsibility not only to recover and uphold the institution of marriage but to graciously help people live out their singleness in self-sacrificial faithfulness. Pitting marriage and singleness against one another, as if one were better or holier than the other, will only lead to incomplete ministry that abandons believers to the strong undertow of cultural brokenness.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Primatologist Jane Goodall, who has dedicated her life to studying chimpanzees, recently made what some have jokingly called “an Avengers level threat.” If she had magical powers, Goodall said, “I would like to, without causing any pain or suffering, reduce the number of people on the planet, because there’s too many of us. It’s a planet of finite resources, and we’re using them up.”
Not only did the statement echo Thanos, it’s fundamentally mistaken. As a tweet from the CATO Institute put it,
You cannot massively reduce the population and retain the benefits of our civilization. When you destroy people, you also destroy knowledge. Even if you could painlessly wish 95% of humanity out of existence, as Goodall suggests, it would be catastrophic for those left alive.
There’s a big difference between a worldview that sees human beings as a plague on nature and one that sees humans as caretakers of creation.
In the meantime, let’s be glad Goodall doesn’t have the infinity stones.
At least since the movie Inherit the Wind butchered the history of the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial,” many Americans—especially those on the left side of the political spectrum—have cherished a kind of myth about national debates being settled in dramatic courtroom clashes. In reality, they seldom are. However, that doesn’t stop idealistic plaintiffs from trying.
The most recent controversy dragged before a judge was whether the state of Montana could be held responsible for climate change. Earlier this month, Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that the state’s failure to take climate change into account when greenlighting new oil and coal projects was unconstitutional. The plaintiffs were a group of young people called Our Children’s Trust. They sued the state over fossil fuel production, claiming that Montana violated a section of its constitution that guarantees citizens “the right to a clean and healthful environment.”
Climate activists have hailed the decision as a significant victory and model for the nation but have not been clear on what exactly has been accomplished. As The New York Times put it, unless a higher court overturns the ruling, Montana must now “consider climate change when deciding whether to approve or renew fossil fuel projects.” That’s all. They must “consider.”
Ed Whelan at National Review concluded that the impact of this “Children’s Crusade to defeat climate change” on actual energy production and carbon emissions “might well be zero.” Perhaps future projects will involve a symbolic gesture, akin to the so-called “land acknowledgments” commonly seen in academia and on recent episodes of Alone Australia. These rituals involve a speaker beginning by naming the Native American tribes on whose ancestral land they’re standing. Of course, such acknowledgments, as Princeton’s Robert George recently remarked, “do no one any good.” No one gets land back. No de-colonization takes place. There aren’t any reparations. It’s “just a cost-free form of moral preening.”
Few issues are more consistently plagued by this kind of cost-free preening than the debate over climate change, and not only in America. Last month, Spanish Climate Minister Teresa Ribera dramatically arrived at a European Union climate conference by bicycle. Photographers and reporters weren’t supposed to find out that that she took a limo for most of the trip and only pedaled the last couple of blocks. But I’m sure Mother Earth was grateful.
Almost everything about the Montana case was similarly theatrical, from the 16 children recruited and presumed to have standing to sue the state, to its arbitrary nature. Why Montana, which produces a lot of oil and gas but has only about a million residents, rather than, say, California, which has about 40 times the population, creates a significant demand for that fuel, and emits vastly more CO2?
Answering that question requires speculation about people’s motives. All of it certainly looks as if the primary goals of so much climate activism isn’t to cool the planet, but to display superior virtue. At heart, it is not so different than the Pharisee from Jesus’ parable, who loudly thanked God that he was not like other men.
It’s true that we have a responsibility to leave our children a healthy planet, but the work required to do that won’t be done in the courtroom of sparsely populated states or by bicycle photo ops. It will take place in the workshops and imaginations of engineers who come up with better and cleaner energy sources. It will take place in legislatures that have the will and the ability to lift restrictions on existing alternatives like nuclear energy. It will take place when those who say they care about the planet stop trying to locate the problem with someone else “out there” (usually in red, flyover states) and start recognizing their personal responsibility for both the problem and the solutions.
Most of all (and here we move beyond just the climate change debate), we need to recognize how unhealthy our addiction to “cost-free moral preening” is. It’s a habit at the heart of so much we fight over, from mommy blogs and those annoying “we believe in” yard signs to pandemic posturing and presidential elections. The constant need to be better than “those people”—and to be seen being better—betrays a deep spiritual anxiety that no amount of political posturing can cure.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Kids born in our morally turbulent age, and the parents committed to guiding them through it, have precious few resources that can help them sift through the chaos. A few years ago, WORLD Magazine, a longtime Christian worldview partner of the Colson Center, added a daily news program for kids to their already impressive lineup of print and digital resources. The tagline for WORLD Watch with host Brian Basham reads: “We can’t keep your kids from growing up too quickly, but we can help them grow into humans equipped with news literacy and Biblical discernment. And make it fun, too.”
It’s tempting and often appropriate to shield our kids from what’s going on. But even if that were possible all the time, we need to help them face now what they will face when they are no longer in our homes. Rather than hide them, let’s guide our children to think well in this time and place where God has called them to serve Him.
A few weeks ago, voters in Ohio rejected a ballot measure that would have made it harder to amend the state’s constitution. As it stands, to amend Ohio’s constitution only requires 50% of the vote plus one. Issue 1 would have raised that threshold to 60%.
The turnout for this vote was unexpectedly high for what appeared to be a procedural change. It was the only issue on the ballot. However, this vote was not merely about a procedure. It was also about abortion.
In November, abortion advocates will put forth a proposal to enshrine the “right” to an abortion in Ohio’s constitution, with no restrictions on the age of the baby or the mother. Had Issue 1 succeeded in Ohio, this new amendment would have been much more difficult to pass. In other words, Issue 1 was the latest chapter in the story of abortion in post-Dobbs America.
Last year, within six months of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, voters in three states, Vermont, California, and Michigan, added a right to abortion to their constitutions. Kentucky voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited almost all abortions. And, in Montana, voters rejected a measure to mandate that doctors care for babies born alive after botched abortions.
The Ohio amendment was not technically an abortion vote, and it strained under additional political realities. Still, we have enough data at this point to assume how state-level politics on abortion are trending.
For decades, under the judicial tyranny of Roe v. Wade, pro-life activism aimed to make abortion unthinkable. The primary strategy was to show that the preborn in question are, indeed, babies by, among other means, making the philosophical arguments in defense of life, offering empirical evidence through funding ultrasound machines and distributing tiny life-size models of preborn babies. This was done in the context of a growing and constantly improving network of care centers offered to women facing unexpected pregnancies. All of this work made a significant difference and saved an incalculable number of lives.
However, it is important to note that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dobbs case was not a popular vote. It was a welcome gift of God to the cause, and a world without Roe is better than a world with Roe. However, it is best to remember that it was a court case and should not be viewed as a cultural bellwether.
While it may be the case that at least some of these state level ballot initiatives may have fared better had they been more clearly worded, the most obvious takeaway is that all our thinking about abortion is happening in the context of a culture steeped in relativism. People are increasingly willing to grant that the preborn is a baby (or at least increasingly unable to pretend it isn’t), but they also tend to have a follow-up question many pro-life activists didn’t anticipate: “So what?”
For many, perhaps the vast majority of people, the highest moral good is individual autonomy, and the default position on abortion is permissiveness. Even those who say they’d “never have an abortion” repeatedly tell pollsters they aren’t comfortable taking away that option for somebody else. In that context, making rules that curb autonomy or being a tiny person who interferes with that autonomy are cardinal sins.
Relativism and the related commitment to personal autonomy are evils built on the false premise that we are the creator and not creatures. In this worldview framework, the only real moral errors are not having the world I desire, being made to do something I don’t want to do, or being prevented from some life I imagine will make me happy.
Any meaningful pro-life agenda must account for this situation on the grounds that we are defending life in a cultural moment in which many are willing to sacrifice everything, even what is acknowledged as a child, to pursue these ends. Ultimately, we’ll need to demonstrate, in both word, and deed, that this premise is false, untenable, and enables great evil. For example, abortion does not free and empower women, despite what has been claimed for decades. We now know that 7 out of every 10 women seeking an abortion feel pressured or coerced. Of course, these women still have a choice, but this is anything but “autonomy” and freedom.
Christians know what happens when “everyone does what is right in their own eyes.” Cultures that worship personal autonomy inevitably violate human dignity. Within a Christian worldview, the dignity of every human person as image bearers supersedes their potential to infringe on someone’s perceived autonomy. We were made for higher and deeper things than feeling comfortable and happy from one moment to the next.
All we have learned about where we really are in this post-Roe moment points to the fact that there will be no shortcuts, legal or otherwise, in our ongoing efforts to protect preborn life. We cannot stop stressing the fact that every preborn child is a unique, valuable, and fully human image bearer of God. We’ll need to champion the very strange idea that marriage, sex, and babies go together and, when they do, they bring strength and flourishing to society. We’ll need to stop enabling and rewarding men who pressure, coerce, or abandon pregnant women, while helping women deal with crisis pregnancies. Let’s get to work.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Stories that depict parenting as the end of happiness are a cottage industry these days, but a story told recently in People magazine was different. Arkansas teachers Tasia and Drew Taylor are, at just 23 and 25, raising two teenagers, with a baby on the way.
First, the Taylors took in Tasia’s cousin Tamiray. Then they adopted Rory, a 13-year-old student at the school where Tasia taught, when they learned she was being placed in foster care. When asked why, the Taylors said, “We felt God was calling us.”
Tasia described their decisions to provide a home for these teenagers in this way:
"People try to make us out as martyrs a lot of the time, and that’s not what we are. There’s no way that in our heart we could turn these kids away knowing that we had the space for them, and we were willing to provide for them."
Sixty years ago today, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” Speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington D.C.
The most well-known line of King’s speech is this one: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” That vision has never been fully realized, and its greatest threat today is a set of ideas that purport to advance racial justice but instead oppose it. Critical Race Theory and the critical theory mood that infects so many areas of our culture, especially education and media, are all about issuing judgments about the character of entire groups of people based solely upon the color of skin.
Twenty years ago, in a commentary about this historic speech, Chuck Colson articulated why only the Christian vision of the human person can ground an understanding of human rights, universal human dignity, and value that extend to everyone. Recently, the world has learned disturbing details about King’s character and moral failures. Colson’s analysis of King’s ideas, and his call to Christians to live out of a Christian worldview, remain true and relevant today.
More than forty years ago, on August 28, 1963, a quarter million people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. They marched here for the cause of civil rights. And that day they heard Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, a speech in which he challenged America to fulfill her promise.
“I have a dream,” he said, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’”
While we know of the speech, most people are unaware that King also penned one of the most eloquent defenses of the moral law: the law that formed the basis for his speech, for the civil rights movement, and for all of the law, for that matter.
In the spring of 1963, King was arrested for leading a series of massive non-violent protests against the segregated lunch counters and discriminatory hiring practices rampant in Birmingham, Alabama. While in jail, King received a letter from eight Alabama ministers. They agreed with his goals, but they thought that he should call off the demonstrations and obey the law.
King explained why he disagreed in his famous “Letter From a Birmingham Jail:” “One might well ask,” he wrote, “how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer “is found in the fact that there are two kinds of laws: just laws … and unjust laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws,” King said, “but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”
How does one determine whether the law is just or unjust? A just law, King wrote, “squares with the moral law of the law of God. An unjust law … is out of harmony with the moral law.”
Then King quoted Saint Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.” He quoted Thomas Aquinas: “An unjust law is a human law not rooted in eternal or natural law.”
This is the great issue today in the public square: Is the law rooted in truth? Is it transcendent, immutable, and morally binding? Or is it, as liberal interpreters argue, simply whatever courts say it is? Do we discover the law, or do we create it?
Many think of King as a liberal firebrand, waging war on traditional values. Nothing could be further from the truth. King was a great conservative on this central issue, and he stood on the shoulders of Augustine and Aquinas, striving to restore our heritage of justice rooted in the law of God.
Were he alive today, I believe he’d be in the vanguard of the pro-life movement. I also believe that he would be horrified at the way in which out-of-control courts have trampled down the moral truths he advocated.
From the time of Emperor Nero, who declared Christianity illegal, to the days of the American slave trade, from the civil rights struggle of the sixties to our current battles against abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and same-sex “marriage,” Christians have always maintained exactly what King maintained.
That was Chuck Colson, reflecting on the ideas that shaped Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, given 60 years ago in Washington D.C.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss the high and low points in the GOP presidential debate. A growing number of states are telling Christians they can’t be foster parents and reaction to the song "Rich Men North of Richmond."
— Recommendations —
The Making of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks
Get your copy of Live Your Truth & Other Lies
Section 1 - Worldview takeaways from the GOP Debate
"Mike Pence, Nikki Haley Spar Over Federal Abortion Ban at RNC Debate"
"GOP Candidates Clash Over National Abortion Ban"
"Conservatives Praise Ramaswamy’s Mention of Fatherless Epidemic"
"Trump-Less Debate Draws Better-than-Expected 12.8 Million Viewers"
"People forgot how to act in public"
Section 2 - The War on Christians
"Denver Archdiocese sues Colorado over right to deny preschool to LGBTQ families"
"California Public Library Silences Female Athlete"
"Librarian shuts down event after speaker refers to ‘transgender’ athletes as male"
"Christian mother sues state for denying adoption over her gender beliefs"
"Federal lawsuit alleges religious exemption denial for Buena Vista preschool unconstitutional"
Section 3 - Rich Men North of Richmond
"It’s Not Condescending to Speak the Truth"
"The rise of Oliver Anthony and ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’"
According to The Daily Mail, the Biden administration’s health secretary recently endorsed a gender clinic in Alaska. The secretary is a man who identifies as a woman. The clinic advocates for replacing the term “mother” with “egg producer.”
Somehow “Happy Egg Producer Day!” doesn’t have the same ring to it as “Mother’s Day.” As a colleague of mine noted when she heard the story, “That really is The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Language matters. Especially from people who occupy positions of cultural power, from the media who call this man a “she,” to politicians who claim he is a powerful woman, to a clinic obscuring reality. When they detach from reality, incoherent and dangerous ideas like this are the result.
Reality, however, has hard edges, and neither our bad ideas nor our bad language can change that. The farther afield from reason and science our cultural elites wander, the more revolutionary it will be to say what is true.
Last month, an article published on NBC described “[p]ractitioners of ‘race change to another,’ or RCTA,” which refers to people who “purport to be able to manifest physical changes in their appearance and even their genetics to truly become a different race.” Interviewed for the article were teenagers who are enamored with Japanese and Korean cultures and who have become convinced that, by listening to subliminal messages while they sleep, they will eventually wake up with Asian characteristics, such as eyes with an epicanthic fold.
Even more unbelievable than the idea that subliminal messaging can alter a person’s genetics was the attempt at ethical analysis by journalist Emi Tuyetnhi Tran. According to Tran, RCTA is wrong, but not because those with the delusion entertain desires that will never become reality. Instead, RCTA is wrong because of inequality:
Experts agree race is not genetic. But they contend that even though race is a cultural construct, it is impossible to change your race because of the systemic inequalities inherent to being born into a certain race.
In other words, young people with this particular identity crisis should not be told what they desire is impossible due to the constraints of physical reality, but that they are violating certain social theories. What Tran fails to explain is that if race is merely a social construct as gender is now understood to be, why is appropriating a different gender identity acceptable but not a different racial identity? On what grounds should we, for example, oppose the actions of someone like Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who became leader of a local NAACP chapter?
In fact, though there are physical distinctions between races, the physical differences between the sexes are far more profound. Nineteenth century ideas of divinely ordained, distinct races that ought not be “mixed” was rooted in dangerous, racist nonsense that can neither be supported biblically or biologically. The differences that are emphasized are typical generalizations more closely related to cultural differences than anything essential. However, people have tended to tie these assumptions to racial categories.
The biblical account, in contrast, describes a single human race that was created by God to bear His image before the rest of His creation. The different “tongues, tribes, nations, and languages” arose when God dispersed Noah’s descendants, spreading humans across the Earth to fulfill their purpose. Thus, the biblical narrative grounds and explains both the universal dignity and value that all humans possess, as well as their physical, cultural, and genetic differences. Race is too narrow a concept to explain these differences. It is best understood, as apologists Neil Shenvi and Pat Sawyer explain in their forthcoming book Critical Dilemma, as a social construct (though not all differences can be attributed to social construction).
Genetic variances among people are significant enough to produce observable physical differences. For example, different races demonstrate specific predilections towards different kinds of cancer. Even if a few confused teenagers believe that epicanthic folds are only a social construct and not genetic, that doesn’t change reality. What becomes obvious in Tran’s article is that acknowledging these realities without violating our society’s “new rules” requires quite a bit of intellectual gymnastics. For example, one article cited by Tran suggests that genetic variation among humans should be understood wholly differently than the concept of race. A Ph.D. candidate at Harvard Medical School suggests the use of “ancestry” language instead of “race” language. This quickly feels like a word game, especially when the only ones allowed to use the word “race” are those who lob accusations of racial supremacy.
The more fundamental problem–the one at the root of this and every one of the many identity crises infecting our cultural moment–is that so many young people have absorbed a way of thinking about themselves and reality best identified as “expressive individualism.” For years, they’ve heard that the world is whatever they decide and make of it, that their bodies are plastic and do not govern who or what they are, and that what is most true about themselves and the world is how they feel on the inside. Why wouldn’t they assume that one day they could wake up with the eyelids they really, really want?
An overwhelming identity crisis among young people is also a clear indicator of what the Church is being called to in this time and this place. Testifying to the work of Christ in the world, which is always the calling of the Christ-follower, must include testifying to the work of Christ in creation. John 1 and Colossians 1 are clear: Christ was present and at work in the creation chapter of God’s story. Proclaiming the Good News today must involve pointing to God’s good design of human beings, how He created them in His image. That must include theological instruction about the human body, especially in the wake of a dramatic increase in depression and anxiety among teens and of a growing number “detransitioners” dealing with regret and facing the long-term harm of our culture’s worst ideas.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Heather Peterson. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Sixteenth century French theologians do not usually make an appearance in twenty first century political press conferences. But earlier this August, Governor Ron DeSantis introduced Andrew Bain as a new Florida state attorney. After briefly thanking the governor and those who’d helped him get to this point, Bain said, “For me, this is the place where John Calvin’s second purpose of the law came to life.” He then summarized Calvin’s idea, that the law is a restraint on evil. Though it cannot, in and of itself, change people’s hearts, it can protect the righteous from the unjust.
T.S. Eliot noted that our theories of education say something about our views about culture and humanity. So do our ideas about the law. Too many politicians act as if passing a law will remake the human condition. It won’t, which is why it’s refreshing to see a public servant grounded in better ideas.
A recent article in The Atlantic by Helen Lewis made the bold claim that “The Gender War Is Over in Britain.” An overstatement, to be sure, but not entirely unwarranted. Keir Starmer, head of the Labour Party, recently led his party away from full support of radical gender ideology. This was a notable shift for the United Kingdom’s largest left-wing party, which had previously encouraged radical elements of trans activism and stood aside as feminists were canceled for resisting the new orthodoxy. The shift, which was quietly announced to the public, made “three big declarations.”
One was that “sex and gender are different.” Another was that, although Labour continues to believe in the right to change one’s legal gender, safeguards are needed to “protect women and girls from predators who might abuse the system.” Finally, Labour was therefore dropping its commitment to self-ID—the idea that a simple online declaration is enough to change someone’s legal gender for all purposes—and would retain the current requirement of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
The author of the Atlantic piece equated Starmer’s muted approach to “a man who had chucked a hand grenade over his shoulder and walked away, whistling,” though it likely had more to do with strategy than anything else. Although it may be the cause du jour of ivory tower activists, the past few years of policies and platforms at odds with common sense and basic biology have left affirming politicians high and dry when it comes to public support.
Some have already paid the price by losing their respective offices. Recently, the head of the Scottish Nationalist Party was toppled, in part, for her attempted defense of placing so-called transgender men in women’s prisons. And it’s not just politicians who are getting the boot. Last year, the Tavistock Clinic near London shut down operations on account of lawsuits against its “gender-affirming” practices. In fact, the greater trend across Europe seems to be a growing skepticism, which stands in stark contrast to the mood in North America.
At the same time, the protest in the U.S. seems to be growing. More stage time and prominence are being given to “de-transitioners” like Chloe Cole, who, as young people, bought the lies and did irreparable damage to their bodies through amputation and chemicals. More female athletes are following the lead of Riley Gaines and the Connecticut high school sprinters, standing up to intimidation and threats and insisting on the “crazy” idea that only women should be in women’s sports. As more people refuse to be muzzled by societal pressure, others will speak out, too. Only in this way will what is true about reality reassert itself.
All these things should give us hope that societal decline is not inevitable. But we must also remember that social media isn’t real. Most of the controversies that monopolize the time and attention of pundits around the world are just “sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Most people around the country and the world are more firmly rooted in reality than the folks writing headlines, pushing progressive policies, and posting TikTok videos.
One complicating factor here is that American politics is uniquely polarized. For example, in post Roe v. Wade America, the American left has elevated abortion to the point that no compromise is tolerated. So, even though many European nations have far stricter laws regarding abortion than even conservative American states, it will take significant effort to further move the needle here in the U.S. The same reality is at play in our efforts to protect children who are already born.
What can and should continue to encourage us is that reality will always strike back. Dangerous ideas, even when mandated by cultural gatekeepers, cannot change reality. When Christians and other likeminded people stand up against dangerous ideas, we’re not pleading for our own narrow, partisan claims. We’re standing for the reality of the world as it truly is. We’re standing for science and fact, for basic biology and common sense. No matter the folly of human pretensions against reality, this is still our Father’s world. Its boundaries can only be pushed so far.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A recent tweet featured a clip of a sermon on Psalm 139. In that Psalm, David famously declares, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” The preacher applied the passage to the place of abortion in our culture, noting that abortion is a subject that makes people feel uncomfortable and has been politicized to the detriment of society.
So far, so good.
Then the pastor, wearing vestments emblazoned with Planned Parenthood’s insignia, went on to celebrate abortion, complaining about harmful messaging from pro-lifers and the Church’s “failure” to uphold Roe v. Wade’s abortion regime.
She then claimed that she felt “no guilt, no shame, no sin” for her own two abortions.
A seared conscience is far worse than a guilty one. The Church has failed on the issue of abortion, but the failure is that anyone could enter a pew, much less the pulpit, and still think that God considers abortion anything less than an abomination.
In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche tells the “The Parable of the Madman.” In it, a madman lights a lantern in the early morning, runs to the marketplace, and declares, “God is dead.” Nietzsche’s point was that though Enlightenment philosophers had embraced atheism, they had not yet realized the huge implications. So, Nietzsche told them, via a rant from the Madman, which ends when he bursts into church buildings and asks, “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”
In 2023 in America, that last question feels uncomfortably relevant, even for those of us who know God is alive and well. U.S. church membership, as a percentage of the population, is now at a record low—down more than 20 points in the twenty-first century.
For years, this statistic could be attributed mostly to the decline of mainline Protestantism, a once dominant force in American life that is now a kind of hospice for graying liberal theology. However, recent news that the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, lost half a million members last year makes clear that decline is no longer just a mainline problem.
Evangelicals, as a share of the population, have sunk to pre-1980s levels while the religiously unaffiliated have swelled to nearly a third of the population. Ryan Burge, a statistician and co-author of a forthcoming book entitled The Great Dechurching, calls the emptying of pews and the rise of the unaffiliated “the most significant shift in American society over the last thirty years.”
It is significant for reasons most Americans probably don’t yet realize. Like the people in Nietzsche’s parable, secular observers may shrug off or even celebrate America’s “great dechurching.” But a less religiously observant society is, statistically, a much worse place to live. As Jake Meador wrote in his review of The Great Dechurching at The Atlantic, this change is “bad news” for America as a whole, because,
Participation in a religious community generally correlates with better health outcomes and longer life, higher financial generosity, and more stable families—all of which are desperately needed in a nation with rising rates of loneliness, mental illness, and alcohol and drug dependency.
Faith, particularly Christian faith, is an irreplaceable force for good in society. Its decline will leave America less healthy, less charitable, less connected, and less capable of dealing with major social ills without government intervention. Evidence suggests it already has.
At the same time, it is essential to remember that these benefits are byproducts of faith, not the main point. Anyone who hopes to halt and reverse church decline must remember what that main point is.
It’s not to entertain people, as Carl Trueman reminded us recently in WORLD. For example, services with a Toy Story or Star Wars theme (I wish I were making these examples up) neither attract serious seekers nor make true disciples. Therapeutic appeals about how Christian principles can supplement or enrich otherwise complete lives also miss the point. Counterintuitively, part of the trend of decline may be churches that ask too little of those who darken their doors.
The authors of The Great Dechurching suggest that low expectations of those in the pews and widely embraced individualist assumptions have led to fewer and fewer Americans finding time for church. If Christianity is merely a kind of hobby or weekly pep talk designed to enhance psychological wellbeing or career success, then we can find better stuff on YouTube or Spotify. Why make time for this type of church every week?
But what if Christianity is a way of life, the thing it’s all about. What if it demands our allegiance? What if following Christ restructures our priorities and pursuits, our beliefs and our behavior—including career, family, and even personal identity?
Everything else in our society directs our gaze inward, to ourselves, our feelings, our priorities, and our problems—as if every individual is the center of his or her own universe. Churches that accept and even participate in this idolatry may be leading millions away from Christianity, not by demanding everything of them but by demanding nothing.
Those who are happy or indifferent about the decline of American churches are beginning to get glimpses of what an America without Christian influence will look like. It can and will get worse. For 2,000 years, the knowledge and fear of a transcendent God, not helpful social programs, has built and filled churches. If the magnitude of that claim is forgotten or even obscured, our churches will indeed become sepulchers—but not for God, who lives and reigns forever and ever. They will become memorials of the squandered heritage of a once deeply, but no longer, Christian nation.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A recent BBC article questioned what last year’s Dobbs decision could mean for in vitro fertilization. The owner of a self-described “boutique fertility clinic” in Austin, Texas, told reporters that she’s worried abortion restrictions will be bad for business: “If you say life begins at fertili[z]ation, then how can I grow an embryo in a lab, or biopsy it for genetic testing, or freeze it or thaw it, or implant it in somebody, or leave it frozen?”
These questions should have been asked before IVF became big business. In most fertility clinics today, human lives are put in real danger, especially those embryos designated “extra.” These are either aborted, left indefinitely on ice, discarded, or donated for medical experimentation.
The few clinics committed to a more (though not completely) ethical IVF, by creating a single embryo at a time or requiring that every embryo is implanted, won’t be affected by abortion restrictions, but most of them will. And they should be.
Are bodies something we merely “have,” or are our bodies essential to who we are?
In an advertising video for a local fertility clinic, a doctor asks, “Are you ready to have children, but your body is not?” And then he goes on to describe the services on offer.
The question is an odd one. Even more, it’s downright misleading. Of course, the desire to have a child and not being able to conceive is a terrible experience. Still, the assumptions in that question—that we are somehow disconnected from our bodies, and that what we feel or want is superior to our physical realities—are dangerous indeed.
Versions of these same assumptions have permeated Western culture since its alignment with the ideas of the sexual revolution. For example, think of the man who after an affair says to his wife, “It just happened. She meant nothing to me.” As if his body’s desire, which meant everything during the act of adultery, wasn’t really his desire and was therefore not important. Or think of the young gender-confused Christian who says, “I prayed that God would make me feel like a boy, but he didn’t. Therefore, I must be a girl.” While God may not have changed the young man’s feelings, it’s important to note He also didn’t change the young man’s genitalia. So, why should a change of feelings be relevant to his identity but not a change of biological reality?
Or consider this example from an article authored by my Colson Center colleague Shane Morris of the Christian who justifies watching smutty movies or movie series with sex and nudity by saying, “They’re just actors” or “It advances the story.” Even a ridiculous amount of makeup cannot change the fact that a real body is on display and therefore a real person is being exposed.
These examples are just new expressions of an age-old heresy—one of the first heresies, in fact, dealt with and condemned as such in the early Church: gnosticism. Gnosticism divides reality between the physical and the spiritual. The spiritual is labeled good, while physical matter is labeled bad, or at least irrelevant. Gnostics within the Church taught that Jesus could not have really taken on physical flesh because the physical is bad. He only appeared to be a man.
But the Church fathers saw this for the heresy that it was. If Jesus did not really have a body, who was crucified? And who rose from the dead? And how could He really be one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin as Scripture says? Didn’t Paul say if Christ has not risen from the dead, our faith is pointless, and we’re without hope?
Contrary to gnosticism, Christianity does not teach that reality is divided between physical and spiritual. Christianity divides reality between Creator and creation. Think of the creation of Adam. God forms man out of the dust of the ground—that’s physical—breathes into him the breath of life—that’s spiritual. And man becomes a living soul. We don’t have souls: We are souls. And to be a human soul is to be embodied. Our bodies are essential, not incidental, to our humanness.
For many of the ancient pagans, the most scandalous of Christian teachings was the resurrection of the body. Just as God raised Jesus’ body from the dead, He will someday raise our bodies, too. When Jesus says in John 6 that He will raise believers “up on the last day,” He’s talking about our bodies. How our glorified, resurrected bodies will resemble our current bodies is a mystery. But we do know the disciples recognized Jesus after the resurrection because of His body, including the wounds of His crucifixion. As Paul says, our bodies will be sown as perishable, but raised imperishable.
Or, to quote the late R.C. Sproul, “For the Christian, redemption is of the body, not from the body.”
It’s odd that after years of being accused by atheists and materialists of being trapped in our spiritual fantasies and ignoring the real world, Christians now find themselves as the ones saying that the physical world—especially the human body—matters, is real, and is of utmost significance. But here we are. If Christ came in the likeness of men, if He promised to redeem humanity, and if our humanity includes the body, then our bodies really do matter.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
(This commentary originally aired February 22, 2017.)
Recently, ADF International’s Lois McLatchie Miller tweeted out her “radical takes” for 2023: “1. Biological men shouldn’t compete in women’s sports. 2. Silent prayer is not a crime. 3. Ending the lives of babies in the womb is wrong.”
She then offered this conclusion: “Radicals of the past got to say things that were groundbreaking. We’re stuck with defending the obvious.”
She’s right. We ought not underestimate, at least if we take seriously Paul’s description from the first chapter of Romans, how prone fallen humans are to deny what is obviously true and embrace what is obviously false. That’s why, in this cultural moment, stating the obvious is so “radical.”
Still, reality eventually wins. For example, many Western nations are backing away from trans-extremism. Tragically, until they do, many lives will be ruined. Ideas have consequences; bad ideas have victims. Thus “radical” Christians must be ready to combat bad ideas and care for their victims.
A few years ago, a Philadelphia area Apple store featured a display in which a vibrant rainbow of the latest iPhones broke through a greyscale crowd of people. What was particularly striking about the advertisement wasn’t the use of contrast nor that this was not some thinly veiled “Pride” month display. The multi-colored iPhones were positioned like veils, so that no face, or even part of a face, could be seen.
If Apple hoped the display would inspire new eagerness to join the technicolor life awaiting customers behind their screens instead, by veiling human faces, the campaign unveiled the depersonalizing effects of our most ubiquitous technologies, especially smartphones, social media, and the internet. This combination–which makes up our brave new world of new media–regularly functions as barriers to other people and to the outside world, behind which we hide. Think of the socially anxious teen whose face is “glued” to the screen or think of the man who surfs for sexually explicit content online. New media offers them and others a place of anonymity, where they can live and move and have their being, unencumbered by others.
Our “digital veils” also function as a source of power and control, in a way depicted long ago in C.S. Lewis’s classic, Till We Have Faces. The main character and narrator in the story is Orual, the unattractive and tomboyish older sister of the goddess Psyche. Orual convinces Psyche to disobey her husband, the god Cupid, who then banishes Psyche and ends their marriage. As a result, Orual decides to live out the rest of her days wearing a black veil.
The veil, which starts off as “a sort of treaty made with [her] ugliness,” quickly becomes a form of power and control. Whereas her ugliness and mannishness caused others to disregard her, the veil gives her a kind of power over others. Her father, the king, takes her seriously, suitors flock to her, and enemies respect her. By shrouding her face in mystery, the veil even led some to imagine she was a dazzling beauty or even a spirit.
Like Orual’s veil, new media can become a kind of digital veil offered that enables us to hide from others, influence their perceptions of us, and control our personal images. Social media especially functions in this way. We build profiles of perfectly lighted and cropped snapshots, snippets of the latest vacation, nights out with friends, and personal projects. Through this, we shape others’ perceptions of us, giving them the impression that our lives are constantly happy, fun, and productive. Through the process, some even become online “influencers,” influencing what others post, buy, or do.
Ultimately, the veil’s power and control are short lived. Despite their apparent advantages, digital veils leave us anxious and unknown. As one popular YouTuber, Samuel Bosch, shared in a video earlier this year:
I sometimes think that many of you have this very wrong impression that I’m always happy, traveling and productive, that I can buy anything I want to, get any job I desire, or date whoever I want to.
Yet, for all his success as an online influencer, MIT Ph.D. student, and tech entrepreneur, Bosch is, admittedly, unhappy.
This is because we were made by God to be known. It is, in fact, a central conclusion of the psalmist David that, wherever we go, we are known.
Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
The psalm begins with the definitive statement that God has indeed searched and known him and ends with an invitation to God to search and know him. That’s the tension, isn’t it? Years ago, as I wrestled through Psalm 139 with a group of college students facing graduation, they articulated that tension, of both comfort and fear, that they are always known and always seen.
Ultimately, all veils are an illusion. They may hide us from others, but they cannot hide us from God, who not only sees us and knows us, but created us to be seen and known both by and for others.
Toward the end of Lewis’ masterpiece, Orual visits the widow of her beloved servant Bardia. Upset that the widow might be jealous of the time Bardia spent with her, Orual jumps up in a burst of rage and lifts her veil to show the widow that she had nothing of which to be jealous. However, rather than being met with fear or hatred or disregard, Orual is met with the widow’s compassion and kindness. Orual finds herself no longer alone, no longer unknown, no longer unloved.
Like Orual, we can lay down our digital veils. When we do, we will find that we are already truly seen, truly known, and truly loved by God, and we can be truly seen, known, and loved by others.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Last month, the Colson Center hosted a conference from Bay Harbor, Michigan on our changing culture. John Stonestreet was joined by Kristin Waggoner from Alliance Defending Freedom and Jim Daly with Focus on the Family to discuss how Christians should respond to everything from critical theory to the Barbie movie.
Find more information on the event and watch the full recording at greatlakessymposium.org.
According to an article in Vancouver’s Globe and Mail, after years of struggle and a recent traumatic event, Kathrin Mentler sought medical care at a local hospital for her suicidal ideation. Like America, Canada has spent millions on public service campaigns encouraging those contemplating suicide to seek professional help.
Katherine, however, was not offered help. Instead, she was offered death. The hospital staff told Katherine that it would take a long time to see a psychiatrist and suggested she consider Canada’s Medical Aid in Dying program instead.
A story like this might be funny if the consequences weren’t so severe, but they are. In this brave new world, killing is called “medical aid,” harm passes for help, and healthcare professionals recommend suicide to deal with suicidal ideation. The so-called “right to die” becomes an “option to die,” then an “expectation to die,” and eventually the “duty to die.”
And people like Kathrin Mentler are in grave danger exactly where they should be able to find help.
On August 19, 1662, French philosopher, mathematician, and apologist Blaise Pascal died at just 39 years old. Pascal, despite his shortened life, is renowned for pioneering work in geometry, physics, and probability theory. His most powerful legacy, however, involves the ways he engaged with life’s biggest questions.
Pascal’s intellect garnered attention at an early age. At 16, he produced an essay on the geometry of cones so impressive that René Descartes initially refused to believe it could possibly be attributed to a “sixteen-year-old child.” Later, Pascal advanced the study of vacuums in the face of a prevailing (and misplaced) belief that nature is completely filled with matter, and thus “abhors a vacuum.”
In 1654, his work on probability took a new turn when he was sent a brainteaser by a friend. Applying mathematics to the problem, Pascal laid out rows of numbers in a triangle formation, a formation that now bears his name. As author John F. Ross described,
Here was the very idea of probability: establishing the numerical odds of a future event with mathematical precision. Remarkably, no one else had cracked the puzzle of probability before, although the Greeks and Romans had come close.
In 1646, Blaise Pascal encountered the kindness of two Jansenist Christians caring for his injured father. Their love in action earned Pascal’s admiration. Then, on the evening of November 23, 1654, Pascal experienced God’s presence in a new and personal way, which he described on a scrap of parchment that he sewed into his jacket and carried with him for the rest of his life:
FIRE—God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and scholars. Certitude, certitude. Heartfelt joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. My God and thy God. Thy God shall be my God.
In his writing, Pascal’s notions of probability met his faith in God. A compilation of his collected manuscripts was published after his death in a volume entitled, Pensées, or “Thoughts.” Best known is his famous “wager” that, facing uncertainty and in a game with such high stakes, it makes far more sense for fallen human beings to believe in God’s existence than doubt it. “If you gain,” he wrote, “you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
Pascal also offered among the keenest diagnoses of humanity:
The human being is only a reed, the most feeble in nature; but this is a thinking reed. It isn't necessary for the entire universe to arm itself in order to crush him; a whiff of vapor, a taste of water, suffices to kill him. But when the universe crushes him, the human being becomes still more noble than that which kills him, because he knows that he is dying, and the advantage that the universe has over him. The universe, it does not have a clue.
Or, even better:
What a Chimera is man! What a novelty, a monster, a chaos, a contradiction, a prodigy! Judge of all things, an imbecile worm; depository of truth, and sewer of error and doubt; the glory and refuse of the universe.
He also described our moral conditions as human beings, “[W]e hate truth and those who tell it [to] us, and … we like them to be deceived in our favour” (Pensées 100).
Apart from God, Pascal observed, people distract themselves from the reality of death. But the diversions run out, and then mankind
feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair. (Pensées 131)
“Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world” (Pensées 213 ).
With a poetic nod to his work on vacuums, Pascal concluded:
What is it then that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace …? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself.
A generation later, as waves of the Enlightenment swept over Europe, the continent’s most prominent thinkers could not escape Pascal’s brilliance. According to philosopher Dr. Patrick Riley,
Holbach, as late as the 1770s, still found it necessary to quarrel with the author of the Pensées, Condorcet, when editing Pascal's works, renewed the old debate; Voltaire throughout his life, and even in his last year, launched sally after sally at the writer who frightened him every time he—a hypochondriac—felt ill.
On the human condition in particular, the French Revolution would prove Pascal right and Voltaire wrong. Divorced from God and instead committed to the worship of “pure reason,” France devolved into a violent, anarchic wasteland.
Even today, Blaise Pascal’s intellect, passion, and eloquence have lost none of their fire, dedicated as they were to the God who claimed his total devotion. As he wrote on the parchment sewn into his jacket,
Jesus Christ.
I have fallen away: I have fled from Him,
denied Him, crucified him.
May I not fall away forever.
We keep hold of him only by the ways taught in the Gospel.
Renunciation, total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in joy for a day’s exercise on earth.
I will not forget Thy word. Amen.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. If you enjoy Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
We often hear of folks forced to endure “sensitivity training” for holding opinions everyone did five years ago. But, in an unusual turn of events, a U.S. District court judge has ordered corporate lawyers for Southwest Airlines to undergo training with the Alliance Defending Freedom about the nature and importance of religious liberty.
On August 7, a U.S. District Court ruled that Southwest Airlines violated Charlene Carter’s rights when they fired her for posting pro-life opinions on her personal social media. The ruling also declared that Southwest notify their flight attendants about protections for their religious views. Southwest did not follow through, and instead notified their flight attendants that the company policy did not violate their religious freedom. To say the least, the judge wasn’t happy, ruling that more training was in order and that ADF was the group to provide it.
Not surprisingly, Southwest appealed the decision while media outlets feigned disbelief and expressed outrage. Hopefully the inconsistency will be obvious to everyone.
In her book Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions That Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed, apologist Alisa Childers breaks down widespread mantras of culture and their consequences. One of these is a misunderstanding of Jesus’ words so common that, for many, it may be the eleventh commandment that supplants the other ten: “You shouldn’t judge.”
Over the last 60 years, studies have confirmed that Americans have become more tolerant of alternative sexual lifestyles, non-traditional beliefs about God, and certain political identifications, such as Communism. According to the most recent State of Theology report from Ligonier Ministries and LifeWay Research, some 56% of self-described evangelicals believe that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.” Upon closer examination, this shift has far more to do with losing convictions in these areas than about gaining tolerance.
In fact, accepting the “do not judge ethos” has been a primary corrosive agent to those convictions, and this is what Childers addresses in her new book. In addition to identifying the obvious contradiction in saying “it is wrong to judge,” which is itself a judgment, she reminds Christians what Jesus’ words mean in context.
[J]ust after saying, “Judge not,” Jesus lets his audience know that when they judge, they should be very careful to make sure their judgment isn’t hypocritical. “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,” Jesus instructs in verse 5. In other words, don’t point out a sin in your brother’s or sister’s life before you confront the bigger sin in your own. But the whole point is to help your brother or sister take the speck out of their own eye, which requires you to judge that it’s there. … If there is still any confusion, just a few verses later, Jesus tells us to recognize wolves, or false teachers, by their fruit (verses 15-16). Again, this requires us to judge whether these teachers are speaking truth or deception. Then, in John 7:24, Jesus couldn’t say it more plainly. He directs his listeners to “not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
The point of these verses, she concludes, is not to prevent moral discernment, but to help believers instead judge “carefully, rightly, humbly, and without hypocrisy.” Childers then offers a powerful illustration from her time with ZOEgirl, when her struggle with body image eventually led to a secret eating disorder of binging and purging.
On some tour in some town somewhere, I shared a hotel room with one of my bandmates. She is a sweetheart—gentle, deeply intelligent, and thoughtful. … She was also a natural peacemaker, and confrontation did not come easily to her. So when she worked up every last bit of courage to ask me what I was doing in the bathroom, it surprised me. And it also made me angry. To put it lightly, the conversation didn’t go well. I not so politely invited her to stop “judging” me and back all the way off. That didn’t stop her. …
Looking back, am I thankful that my bandmate “judged” me? That she dared confront me about the self-harm I was guilty of? Absolutely! She was the catalyst that first brought the darkness into the light. To this day my eyes mist with tears when I think about how much she loved me to do such a difficult thing.
Childers’ example not only calls Christians to do similarly difficult but right things, it reveals the consequences of relativism when lived in the real world. What begins as a desire to not judge others turns into the narcissistic demand that no one, under any circumstances, judge us. But that also renders healing and forgiveness impossible. After all, with no way to say that we’ve been wronged, neither is there means or reason to forgive those who harm us. Any culture that rejects objective morality lacks any way to counter evil.
Alisa Childers’ book reclaims truth from the empty slogans that dominate our culture and our thinking. This August, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we’ll send you a copy of Live Your Truth and Other Lies. Just go to breakpoint.org/give to learn more.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A feature of life in Colorado is the prevalence of pot. There are dispensaries on virtually every corner, and everywhere I travel I hear a pot joke. Something else my adopted state is becoming known for is the harmful aftereffects of legalized marijuana. According to state statistics, the drug was found in the system of some 42% of teen suicides, a rate nearly twice as much as with alcohol and four times of any other substances.
Of course, correlation doesn’t mean causation, but it can mean connection. If nearly half of stroke victims were taking the same medicine, would we wonder if there was a link? Why the reluctance to connect the dots here?
Marijuana might not cause suicide, but numbers don’t lie. It encourages or exacerbates problems that lead down that deadly road, especially for a group at high risk. The link is there for those willing to see it. Since suicide rates have risen every year that it has been legal, we’re far past giving the benefit of the doubt.
Few voluntary associations in American history have had as deep and wide an influence as the Boy Scouts of America. The training ground of soldiers and senators, pastors and presidents, the organization effectively instilled values like trustworthiness, loyalty, courteousness, thrift, bravery, and reverence in many of the over 100 million young men who joined in its over 100-year history. In fact, for much of the 20th century at least, “Scout’s honor” was among the highest assurances one could give of their honesty and integrity.
However, if the only evidence considered was the Boy Scouts of 2023, it would be hard to imagine that this long and storied history ever took place and that the organization ever helped boys mature into virtuous manhood. Ten years ago, the Boy Scouts of America allowed openly gay members for the first time. Soon thereafter, an avalanche of sexual abuse allegations, many of them decades old, forced the Scouts into bankruptcy and a 2.5-billion-dollar settlement. Since then, the organization has been in membership free fall.
This year, for the first time since 2017, the Scouts held their National Jamboree in the hills of West Virginia. Reporter Mike De Socio attended and, writing in The Washington Post, described the shell of an organization he encountered. This year’s Jamboree drew only 15,000 scouts compared to 40,000 at the previous Jamboree in 2017. Between 2019 and 2021, the Boy Scouts lost 62% of its membership, and there’s no sign of a post-COVID recovery. As Carnegie Mellon’s student newspaper put it, the Boy Scouts “is a dying institution.”
Despite this, De Socio, who identifies himself as gay, praised the progressive palooza the Jamboree has become. Specifically, he touted the pride tent, complete with “LGBTQ Pride flags and a string of multicolored lights…tables covered with bowls of rainbow bracelets, pronoun stickers and diversity patches” and that a diversity merit badge is now required to become an Eagle Scout.
According to De Socio, the blame for the organization’s near collapse should fall on the abuse scandal and the pandemic. Certainly, these factors hastened the demise we now witness, but it’s as if the author cannot imagine how the Scouts’ enthusiastic embrace of LGBT ideology over the last 10 years sealed its fate. In the same period, a Christian organization for boys called Trail Life USA saw a 70% increase in membership.
In fact, the pattern matches the long-term dwindling of mainline Protestant denominations. When an organization, whether a church or a youth association like the Boy Scouts, forgets or rejects why it exists in the first place, it soon stops existing. Once liberal mainline churches stopped offering anything distinctly Christian and offered the same progressive, all-accepting, therapeutic talking points as Oprah and NPR, why go to church?
Much the same can now be said for the once venerable organization we call the Boy Scouts. The sexual abuse scandal may have fatally undercut the group’s claim to trustworthiness and integrity, as well as the perception that they provide a safe and wholesome place for boys to grow into men. However, throwing open the doors to LGBT ideology changed the very nature of the organization.
Not only did the Scouts begin (ironically) promoting sterile lifestyles that would deprive the organization of future members, it also became a place where evil is called good and children are herded into life-destroying behavior and beliefs. This not behind closed doors as with the scandals, but proudly in the open, on charter documents, and at Jamborees. By the time the Boy Scouts decided to undermine their name by admitting girls, I imagine most families had already asked themselves, “What’s the point?”
To be clear, the loss of the Boy Scouts, despite its flaws, is huge. What other institution shepherded generations of boys toward responsibility, self-mastery, and moral living? Our whole society would be a poorer and less trustworthy place had it never existed. I hope that churches and Christian programs like AWANA and groups like Trail Life USA seize the moment and make up for this profound loss.
I also hope all organizations learn that they only remain good as long as they remember their purpose. When they succumb to trendy ideologies and the spirit of the age, they not only lead their members astray, they also make themselves unnecessary and, in this case, leave their very necessary work to someone with conviction.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, NBC news shared an article entitled, “Pope says church is open to everyone, including gay people, but has rules.” Asked if it was inconsistent for him to say that Christianity was open to “everyone” when some, including gay people, were apparently excluded, Pope Francis replied, “The church is open to everyone but there are laws that regulate life inside the church.”
To anyone even vaguely familiar with the Roman Catholic Church or Christian teaching throughout history, the only newsworthy item here is that reporters thought it was newsworthy.
The rest of us may not have been sure that the Pope would be as forthright as he was. What he said was not an innovation.
St. Paul was pretty clear when he described Christians and their sin, “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
As if the last few years were not strange enough, the United States Congress recently held hearings on the subject of UFOs. As NBC News reported, numerous claims were made by those called before the subcommittee, including by former military or intelligence personnel. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of this otherwise earth-shattering story was how it has largely been greeted, at least on social media, with a collective “meh.” If so much information was kept hush-hush for so many years, why the sudden transparency now? Isn’t this just another chapter in red herrings tossed out to distract us from what’s “really” going on?
As tempting as it is to think of these hearings as an unaired episode of The X-Files, the virtue of stories like this, and of the whole genre of sci-fi, is that they bring up questions about the deeper things of life. Who are we? Are we alone in the universe? What would it mean if we weren’t? What makes us special as human beings?
Noted sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” Religious people are less likely than others to believe that aliens exist. Or, if they think something is “out there,” they are less likely to think of extra terrestrials as E.T. as they are to think of them as demons trying to deceive us for one reason or another. On the other hand, those with a materialist outlook tend to see the world as just a “pale blue dot” in the heavens and humanity as nothing more than the consequence of chance and chaos. In fact, it’s become almost an article of materialist faith that if we are here, someone else must be too.
All of which suggests that there’s more to how we view these matters than what we have seen or not seen. For instance, despite being supposedly a planet-wide concern, nearly all UFOs sighted tend to show up in the English-speaking world. Or, as someone on Reddit noted, “they sure love the US.”
A similar phenomenon can be seen in the variations of “bigfoot” stories, depending on from what region they are. The stories out of the Pacific Northwest tend to resemble a Harry and the Hendersons vibe. Sure, the creature might seem a bit scary but, in the end, they are one with nature, like a kind of extra furry Bill Walton. The stories out of Texas are all about these super aggressive creatures that are ready to fight and kill and steal your children. Tennessee bigfoots, on the other hand, are just downright neighborly, knocking on doors to ask for some garlic. These together suggest it’s clear that, even when it comes to urban legends and outer space, the stories we tell ourselves make a big difference in what we see in the world.
Anyone who has read C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy can tell you that the great apologist used his own imagination to tell wonderful stories where very plausible aliens lived and interacted with his human heroes. The inhabitants of Mars and Venus, or as Lewis named them, “Malacandra” and “Perelandra,” were fellow creatures born of the artistry and care of the same God we encounter in the Bible. Yet, in one of his last books, he noted the subjective element in people’s belief in the extraordinary. Right at the end of his study of the medieval worldview, he wrote:
"Fifty years ago, if you had asked an astronomer about “life on other worlds,” he was apt to be totally agnostic about it or even stress its improbability. We are now told that in so vast a universe stars that have planets and planets that have inhabitants must occur times without number. Yet no compulsive evidence is to hand. But is it irrelevant that in between the old opinion and the new we have had the vast proliferation of “science fiction” and the beginnings of space-travel in real life?"
What we believe about alien life and other mysteries says more about our beliefs, or what Charles Taylor called our “social imaginaries,” than it does about their existence. The culture around us affects our view of the world in profound ways. Our worldview is a pair of belief “glasses” that help us understand the nature of reality, but it can also be a kind of blinder, too.
This doesn’t mean we are completely lost in the fog of our own precognitive assumptions, only that we should follow Francis Schaeffer’s advice about checking our presuppositions “after a careful consideration of which worldview is true.”
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Massachusetts is rejecting would-be adoptive parents if those parents are Christian and thus denying a home to children in need, according to a new lawsuit. Mike and Kitty Burke went through all the classes, background checks, and home assessments required to become adoptive parents, and scored highly. Yet, they were rejected because, as state officials wrote in their report, the couple’s Christian faith meant they are “not supportive” of kids who identify as LGBTQ.
Right now, in Massachusetts more than 1,500 kids are in need of a foster home. Not only do advocates deny biology and sexualize children by suggesting their sexual preferences are their identity, but they also deny kids loving parents as if it is better to not have a home than to be in a home with a religious mom and dad.
This is not an isolated incident. A mom in Oregon was also rejected from fostering kids for the same reason. Again, it’s the children who are harmed.
By contract, surrogacy sets children up as commodities to be bought, sold, or eliminated for convenience, which is a bad start for image bearers.
Millions of Americans have stopped going to church creating the biggest social shift in our lifetime. We’ll look at the reasons Ohio’s Issue 1 failed giving pro-life voters another defeat. And suicide rates in America are at levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Distressed by the onset of puberty, California teenager Chloe Cole was fast-tracked to a double mastectomy at age 15. Recently, on her 19th birthday, Chloe appeared before Congress, passionately describing the harm of so-called “trans-affirming” medicine, which is anything but.
After Chloe’s remarks, a mother who had transitioned her 18-year-old daughter told her story. Given a chance to respond, tears filled Chloe’s eyes, and she replied to the committee chairman:
I just want to set the record straight that I don’t hate her. … In fact, I see my own mother and my own father in her. … That being said, I don’t wish for a child to have the same result as I did. … It comes with its own difficulties, and it’s not easy. And I hope that her child gets to have a happy and fulfilling adulthood.
Without sacrificing truth, Chloe offered love, as well as a reminder to all of us that it is possible to speak the truth in love.
Fifty years ago this week, Charles W. Colson became a follower of Jesus Christ. Chuck would subsequently become one of the most respected evangelical leaders of the 20th and early 21st centuries, founding both Prison Fellowship Ministries and the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and authoring bestselling books such as Born Again, How Now Shall We Live, and Loving God.
Chuck Colson’s influence came about because of how deeply and thoroughly Jesus Christ changed his life. Certainly, he was an incredibly gifted person (after all, not everyone lands in a White House office as special counsel to the President of the United States in their thirties!). Yet, Chuck’s giftedness before he found faith was corrupted by pride, which led to an incredible public fall.
On the thirtieth anniversary of his conversion, Chuck Colson described it in detail. Here, in his own voice, is Chuck Colson:
Thirty years ago today, I visited Tom Phillips, president of the Raytheon Company, at his home outside of Boston. I had represented Raytheon before going to the White House, and I was about to start again.
But I visited him for another reason as well. I knew Tom had become a Christian, and he seemed so different. I wanted to ask him what had happened.
That night, he read to me from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, particularly a chapter about the great sin that is pride. A proud man is always walking through life looking down on other people and other things, said Lewis. As a result, he cannot see something above himself immeasurably superior—God.
Tom, that night, told me about encountering Christ in his own life. He didn’t realize it, but I was in the depths of deep despair over Watergate, watching the President I had helped for four years flounder in office. I had also heard that I might become a target of the investigation as well. In short, my world was collapsing.
That night, as Tom was telling me about Jesus, I listened attentively but didn’t let on about my need. When he offered to pray, I thanked him but said, no, I would see him sometime after I had read C.S. Lewis’s book. But when I got in the car that night, I couldn’t drive it out of the driveway. Ex-Marine captain, White House tough guy, I was crying too hard, calling out to God. I didn’t know what to say: I just knew I needed Jesus, and He came into my life.
That was thirty years ago.
I’ve been reflecting of late on the things God has done over that time. As I think about my life, the beginning of the prison ministry, our work in the justice area, our international ministry that reaches one hundred countries, and the work of the Wilberforce Forum and Breakpoint, I have come to appreciate the doctrine of providence. It’s not the world’s idea of fate or luck, but the reality of God’s divine intervention. He orchestrates the lives of His children to accomplish His good purposes.
God has certainly ordered my steps. I couldn’t have imagined when I was in prison that I would someday go back to the White House with ex-offenders as I did on June 18—or that we would be running prisons that have an 8% recidivism rate—or that Breakpoint would be heard daily on a thousand radio outlets across the United States and on the internet.
The truth that is uppermost in my mind today is that God isn’t finished. As long as we’re alive, He’s at work in our lives. We can live lives of obedience in any field because God providentially arranges the circumstances of our lives to achieve His objectives.
And that leads to the greatest joy I’ve found in life. As I look back on my life, it’s not having been to Buckingham Palace to receive the Templeton Prize or getting honorary degrees or writing books. The greatest joy is to see how God has used my life to touch the lives of others, people hurting and in need.
It has been a long time since the dark days of Watergate. I’m still astounded that God would take someone who was infamous in the Watergate scandal, and soon to be a convicted felon, and take him into His family and then order his steps in the way He has with me. God touched me at that moment in Tom Phillip’s driveway, and thirty years later, His love and kindness touch and astound me still.
Chuck Colson’s life and legacy continues to be a testimony to God’s amazing grace.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
It’s an experience that drives many young mothers crazy. After carrying a child for months, enduring labor and childbirth, nursing through many sleepless nights, what are the first words she hears from the kid? “Dada!”
It isn’t always the case, but across time and cultures, babies are more likely to name their father before their mother. However, rather than a preference for dad or a slight to mom, according to a tweet by Dr. Dan Wuori, it more likely reinforces how important mom is. At that young age, the mother/child bond is so tight that babies simply can’t see her as “other.” She is the world, with Dad more of a visitor.
This is a reminder of what Ryan T. Anderson has said. Kids don’t need just “parents.” They need a mom and a dad, and each provides unique and distinct gifts by their presence to children.
In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.” Almost 50 years later, an increasing number of scientists are asking whether evolution makes any sense in light of what we now know from biology.
A recent long-form essay in The Guardian signals just how urgent the problem has become for the most dominant theory in the history of the sciences. In it, author Stephen Buranyi gives voice to a growing number of scientists who think it’s time for a “new theory of evolution.”
For a long time, descent with slight modifications and natural selection have been “the basic” (and I’d add, unchallengeable) “story of evolution.” Organisms change, and those that survive pass on traits. Though massaged a bit to incorporate the discovery of DNA, the theory of evolution by natural selection has dominated for 150 years, especially in biology. The “drive to survive” is credited as the creative force behind all the artistry and engineering we see in nature.
“The problem,” writes Buranyi, is that “according to a growing number of scientists,” this basic story is “absurdly crude and misleading.” For one thing, Darwinian evolution assumes much of what it needs to be explained. For instance, consider the origin of light-sensitive cells that rearranged to become the first eye, or the blood vessels that became the first placenta. How did these things originate? According to one University of Indiana biologist, “we still do not have a good answer. The classic idea of gradual change, one happy accident at a time,” he says, “has so far fallen flat.”
This scientific doubt about Darwin has been simmering for a while. In 2014, an article in the journal Nature, jointly authored by eight scientists from diverse fields, argued that evolutionary theory was in need of a serious rethink. They called their proposed rethink the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” and a year later, the Royal Society in London held a conference to discuss it.
Along with Darwinian blind spots like the origin of the eye, the Extended Synthesis seeks to deal with the discovery of epigenetics, an emerging field that studies inherited traits not mediated by DNA. Then there are the rapid mutations that evade natural selection, a fossil record that appears to move in “short, concentrated bursts” (or “explosions”), and something called “plasticity,” which is the ability we now know living things have to adapt physically to their environments in a single generation without genetically evolving.
These discoveries—some recent, others long ignored by mainstream biology—challenge natural selection as the “grand theory” of life. All of them hint that living things are greater marvels and mysteries than we ever imagined. And, unsurprisingly, all of these discoveries have been controversial.
The Guardian article describes how Royal Society scientists and Nobel laureates alike boycotted the conference, attacking the extended synthesis as “irritating” and “disgraceful,” and its proponents as “revolutionaries.” As Gerd Müller, head of the department of theoretical biology at the University of Vienna helpfully explained, “Parts of the modern synthesis are deeply ingrained in the whole scientific community, in funding networks, positions, professorships. It’s a whole industry.”
Such resistance isn’t too surprising for anyone who’s been paying attention. Any challenges to the established theory of life’s origins, whether from Bible-believing scientists or intelligent design theorists, have long been dismissed as religion in a lab coat.
The habit of fixing upon a dogma and calling it “settled science” is just bad science that stunts our understanding of the world. It is a kind of idolatry that places “science” in the seat of God, appoints certain scientists as priests capable of giving answers no fallible human can offer, and feigns certainty where real questions remain. The great irony is that this image of scientist-as-infallible-priest makes them seem like the caricature of medieval monks charging their hero Galileo with heresy for his dissent from the consensus.
As challenges to Darwin mount, we should be able to articulate why “settled science” makes such a poor god. And we should encourage the science and the scientists challenging this old theory-turned-dogma and holding it to its own standards. After all, if Darwinian evolution is as unfit as it now seems, it shouldn’t survive.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This Breakpoint was originally published on August 3, 2022.
The award for the weirdest and most misleading headline of the year goes to a recent article in the Washington Post that announced, “An abortion ban made them teen parents.”
The article tells the story of Billy and Brooke High and describes her pregnancy at age 18 as something that just “happened” because they were hanging out after meeting at a skate park. Brooke gave birth to twins soon after the Dobbs decision. She wanted an abortion but would have had to drive 13 hours to get one. Instead, she kept the babies and married their father.
Because all of this is hard, the Washington Post implies, neither the children nor the marriage should have ever happened. Billy’s and Brook’s perspective on the other hand is that day-to-day life is really hard. And being parents is growing them up, though they didn’t have great examples.
What we can learn from the Post article is not where babies come from, but what young families need.
This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, request a copy of Live Your Truth and Other Lies by Alisa Childers. Visit colsoncenter.org/august to learn more.
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In her new book, author and apologist Alisa Childers targets the lies that often masquerade as cultural proverbs today. In Live Your Truth and Other Lies: Exposing Popular Deceptions That Make Us Anxious, Exhausted, and Self-Obsessed, Childers offers just what the title promises. She exposes the bad ideas at the center of slogans we hear all the time. You can receive a copy of the book with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month. Just go to colsoncenter.org/august.
Though the mantras that dominate our world can seem harmless, they are not. “Our culture,” Childers writes,
is brimming with slogans that promise peace, fulfillment, freedom, empowerment, and hope. These messages have become such an integral component of our American consciousness that many people don’t even think to question them. … The problem? They are lies.
In fact, Childers argues, slogans like “You are enough,” “authenticity is everything,” “Put yourself first,” “It’s all about love,” or “God just wants you to be happy,” commonly redefine words like love and hate and happy. What’s left is a modern-day “tower of Babel” (or “Babble”) situation where those with the most social media followers are granted authority and assumed to have expertise on life and how to live it.
At the root of these destructive slogans is a view of the self. For example, Childers cites Glennon Doyle, whose New York Times No. 1 best seller Untamed centers around her decision to leave her husband for a woman she saw at a local zoo, all while quoting Carl Jung: “There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.”
Alisa compares Doyle’s story with that of Elisabeth Elliot, the missionary famous for bringing the Gospel back to the same Waodani people who killed her husband, Jim. With a toddler in tow, Elliot lived in the Waodani village for two years before returning to the United States to speak, write, and appear publicly with some of her husband’s killers who had become dedicated followers of Jesus:
Elisabeth Elliot laid hold of deeper strength. … She rejected the urge to defy God’s Word or redefine his holiness. … How did she do it? She once wrote, “The secret is Christ in me, not me in a different set of circumstances.”
Childers openly admits to struggling with these ideas, including what it means to be truly authentic, during her time as a popular and successful Christian musician:
[A] therapist I began seeing toward the end of ZOEgirl’s run (who had the wisdom of Solomon and the patience of Job) looked at me intently and gently asked, “What if you got throat cancer and could never sing again?” I was dumbstruck. She had stumped me. After all, I was made to sing, and if I couldn’t sing, who was I?
That question pushed Alisa away from the shallow definition of authenticity that is widely embraced today, and toward a deeper grounding in the truth of who we are made in the image of God, and yet fallen. This makes all the difference in how we think about ourselves and how we choose to live life:
Today I write. Maybe tomorrow I will wash feet, clean toilets, or start a food blog. God knows. He is trustworthy. My identity is grounded in him. True biblical authenticity is glorifying Christ with whatever gifts and talents he has given me. As my friend Teasi says, this is my calling whether I find myself in a palace or in a prison.
Another commonly repeated, highly consequential lie is that there’s such a thing as “your truth” and “my truth”:
Christian, your truth doesn’t exist. Your truth won’t bring hope or save anyone... The Cross is the answer to every lie that tells me I can find everything I need inside myself. … The Cross is not just a symbol of salvation. It’s a place of rest.
This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, request a copy of Live Your Truth and Other Lies by Alisa Childers. Visit colsoncenter.org/august to learn more.
Since it was legalized in 2016, Canada has increased pressure on doctors and hospitals to offer assisted suicide. Recently, an article in WORLD Magazine reported that Canadian authorities kicked a nonprofit called the Delta Hospice Society out of its rented building because they refused to kill their patients.
Before they closed, executives with the hospice said they had briefly considered registering as a “faith-based organization” to qualify for a religious exemption under Canadian law.
This is a cautionary tale that while religious exemptions are important, they do not offer protection from immoral laws. This is especially the case when the state dramatically limits who should be considered “religious” enough for an exemption. Faith cannot be reduced to names or titles or just evangelistic work. More importantly, a religious exemption cannot make an unjust law just.
So-called “Medical Aid in Dying” is exactly not aid in dying: It is aid to die, and that means it’s not medical. Instead, it is harmful.
Recently, Chloe Cole, a 19-year-old young woman who was pressured to undergo transgender surgeries, challenged a social media video by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the populist astronomer and science personality. Although a legitimate astrophysicist, Dr. Tyson’s public proclamations and videos are not always from his area of scientific expertise. In fact, they aren’t always scientific.
In this particular video, Tyson asserted, in favor of gender ideology, that “no matter my chromosomes today, I feel 80% female, 20% male. I’m going to put on makeup. I’m gonna do it. Tomorrow, I might feel 80% male.” Seemingly to Dr. Tyson, the ability of people of any gender to feel a particular way and then to put on makeup accordingly, proves that “the XX/XY chromosomes are insufficient because when we wake up in the morning, we exaggerate whatever feature we want to portray the gender of our choice.” Dr. Tyson continued in a blatantly non-scientific statement, “What business is it of yours to require that I fulfill your inability to think of gender on a spectrum?”
In her reply, Chloe Cole interspersed video of herself confronting his bizarre claims.
How about we stop confusing basic human biology with cosmetics? Like, what a weird jump. … I don’t wear makeup most days. If I leave the house without makeup on, does that make me like 70% [m]ale?... If it was only truly about aesthetics, nobody would care. It’s my business because you’re using 1950s gender stereotypes to justify an ideology that leads to the sterilization and mastectomies of 15-year-old girls who just don’t fit in, girls like me.
Cole ends her video with,
The idea that people can be percentages of either male or female just further reinforces the fact that biological sex is a binary. There’s only two. There may only be two sexes, but there are an infinite number of personalities. I mean, it really doesn’t take a degree in astrophysics to understand that.
Watching Dr. Tyson’s video and Cole’s response, I was reminded of something from my childhood. Due to the popularity of Superman in the late 1970s, Mr. Rogers dedicated a week of his daily TV show to helping kids distinguish between what was real and what was make-believe. He was concerned by the reports of children who put on capes and thought they could fly, leaping from staircases or top bunks or balconies and causing serious injuries. He even took his viewers onto the set of the show The Incredible Hulk to show them that the actors involved were indeed only actors.
In other words, he understood that children struggled to distinguish between make-believe and reality. This is exactly what Chloe Cole did earlier this week, only she was instructing an astrophysicist about the harm done to children in the name of “science,” while Mr. Rogers was confronting the harm done to children by cartoons. Cole knows that putting on makeup, a dress, or a muscle shirt cannot transform a man into a woman or a woman into a man. Even worse, she knows that neither did the testosterone she received at age 13 nor the double mastectomy at age 15 make her a boy.
According to Mr. Rogers’ biographer Max King in the documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Rogers was “angry that it was his medium that was doing this,” i.e., deluding and harming children. What began with his concern about children being misled prompted a new weekly theme for the show Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood that dealt with tough issues such as death and divorce.
Like Cole, Rogers wasn’t a scientist. But he was committed to helping children discern truth from error, the difference between make-believe and reality, between the cosmetic and one’s identity. He even famously sang a song that clarified that kids could not become whatever or whoever they wanted, that only boys could be daddies, and only girls could be mommies. In fact, he once said, “I’ll tell you what children really need. They need adults who will protect them from the ever-ready molders of their world.”
Those are the kind of adults who children still need. What we all need less of is the sort of thinly disguised, condescending, and anti-scientific rhetoric that molds their identities.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Heather Peterson. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently on NPR, reporter Rachel Martin interviewed Dr. Lisa Miller, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, about her controversial claim that spirituality is good for mental health.
According to Miller, those who say spirituality is “very important” show an 80% decreased risk for addiction to drugs and alcohol and are 82% less likely to die by suicide. “[T]he more high risk we are,” Miller said, "the more that there’s stress in our lives, … the greater the impact of spirituality as a source of resilience.”
“Here is published, peer reviewed science for skeptical audiences,” the interviewer concluded, which runs contrary to what we so often hear. Though a particular kind of religion is not specified by Dr. Miller, apparently turning our focus outward and even upward is better for us than just “looking inside” or “following our hearts.”
That makes sense if we are indeed creatures and not just self-creations, made for relationship with the One who gave us life in the first place.
As unexpected as it was that the Barbie movie would spark such a widespread and intense cultural conversation, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, a film about the brilliant and broken man who became the father of the atomic bomb, has too. The film tells the story of the man who gave the world the power to destroy itself, or as Oppenheimer famously put it, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Atomic weapons have been a constant source of debate since their initial use to end the war against Japan in 1945. At the time, Christians had a dual reaction. On one hand, many breathed a sigh of relief that the long war was over, that the boys would come home, and that there would be no further repeats of the devastation seen at places like Iwo Jima and Okinawa, where Japanese resistance was so fanatical that they fought almost to the last man. On the other hand, Christians shared the widespread sense that a deadly Pandora’s Box had been opened and that there was no way to go back to a world before “the Bomb.”
Certainly, the sheer destruction and the immense casualties leveled on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are difficult to justify. America has also been accused of racist motivations in dropping the bomb, and in overlooking the significance of the August 8 Soviet invasion of Manchuria and the weakened state of the Japanese military that late into the war.
The fact remains, numerous factors must be considered in light of some ethical framework. By far the best framework for considering war comes from the Christian contribution of the just war doctrine. Specifically, in what is known as jus in bello, just war doctrine says that for a war, or even part of a war, to be considered moral, it must only be done for the right reasons and in the right ways.
For example, while civilian deaths are inevitable, particularly in modern war, noncombatants must never be targeted. This was recently argued again by Adam Mount in Foreign Policy magazine. He wrote that in dropping the bomb, Japanese civilians weren’t merely collateral damage but intentionally killed as an act of terror to scare Tokyo into surrendering. In response, Marc LiVecche wrote in Providence magazine that the attacks were indeed a demonstration to the Japanese government, but the target of destruction were the cities, not the people within them.
It’s also significant to keep in mind the pressures of the cultural moment. President Truman faced the brutal question of how to end the immense suffering of a war that had gone on so long, when great suffering would follow no matter what he did. As such, doing nothing would not have been a preferrable moral option. The Japanese empire had for years been perpetuating great evil upon its neighbors, leaving millions dead and millions more enslaved.
Had the Americans gone ahead with the planned “Downfall” invasions of Japan, the death toll might have made the atomic attacks pale in comparison. Simply blockading Japan without direct attacks of any sort would have left millions of Japanese people to slowly starve before the military caved, something they’d already demonstrated an intense unwillingness to do.
From the comfort and safety of distance and time, it is much easier to issue simple proclamation. Reality on the ground at the time is not so simple, and theological reflection, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, must be done in the “tempest of the living.” Centuries ago, when asked by a Roman officer if he could, in good Christian conscience, continue his work as a soldier, St. Augustine replied, “Therefore, even in waging war, cherish the spirit of a peacemaker, that, by conquering those whom you attack, you may lead them back to the advantages of peace.” Just war doctrine warns us that any and all actions in a war must not be seen as their own end but only as the means toward a greater end.
War is always awful and sometimes necessary. The great virtue found in just war doctrine is not that it allows for a clean war, free from doubt about our actions. There’s no such thing. However, it can help guide those forced to do terrible things in the face of horrible options. To learn more about just war theory, see Just War and Christian Traditions, edited by Eric Patterson and Daryl Charles.
Today’s Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The Oppenheimer movie has Christians revisiting the morality of warfare. An extra warm summer in some parts of the U.S. raises climate fears again. John and Maria discuss ways to slow down the growth of assisted suicide.
— Recommendations —
Summit Ministries
Latigo Ranch
Section 1 - Just War and the Bomb
Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition by J. Daryl Charles
Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Let’s Talk About Just War" by Nathaniel Peters
"Canadian hospice forced to close after refusing to offer assisted dying" CNA
Section 2 - Climate Change
The Editors podcast
Section 3 - Assisted Suicide
"States remove protections from assisted suicide" WORLD
"Canada’s Suicidal Slide" Breakpoint
The number of teens experiencing symptoms of depression are higher than ever. According to research from psychologist Jean Twenge, 49.5% of teens report that they feel they “can’t do anything right,” 44.2% report that they feel their “life is not useful,” and 48.9% say they “do not enjoy life.”
Each of these findings is roughly double what they were in 2009.
These stats are the latest in a growing body of research that demonstrates a significant link between teens’ mental health and their usage of new media. The combination of smartphones, internet, and social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter is dramatically harmful especially when contrasted with those who spend time participating in in-person activities like sports and religious services.
For families who hope to help their teens avoid or overcome depression, the best starting place is to restrict usage of smartphones and social media. All families should proactively cultivate healthy disciplines with devices, as well as habits and choices that promote real-time, in-person relationships.
Recently, British author and journalist Helen Joyce offered a hard-to-hear but reasonable explanation for why transgender ideology continues to endure, despite its inherent contradictions, its obvious falsehoods, and the harm that has been inflicted on children. Her words are worth quoting at length:
There’s a lot of people who can’t move on [from] this and that’s the people who’ve transitioned their own children. Those people are going to be like the Japanese soldiers who were on Pacific Islands and didn’t know the war was over. They’ve got to fight forever. This is another reason why this is the worst social contagion that we’ll ever have experienced. A lot of people have done the worst thing that you could do, which is to harm their children irrevocably, because of it. Those people will have to believe that they did the right thing for the rest of their lives for their own sanity and for their own self-respect. So, they’ll still be fighting.
I’ve lost count of the number of times that somebody has said to me of a specific organization that has got turned upside down on this, “Oh, the deputy director has a trans child,” or “the journalist on that paper who does special investigations has a trans child.” The entire organization gets paralyzed by that one person … And now you can’t talk truth in front of that person because what you’re saying is, you as a parent have done a truly—like a human rights abuse level—awful thing to your child that cannot be fixed.
In other words, according to Joyce, the real breakthrough of the current gender ideology movement has only come through the co-opting of parents, whose instincts to protect their children tragically became a threat to them and their wellbeing. This was accomplished, in large part, because Western medical authorities ultimately betrayed parents.
Dr. Miriam Grossman, a clinical psychologist, has described this phenomenon in her new book Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness:
The entire mental health profession—psychology, social work, counseling—was captured by radical ideologues years ago, and you and your families are paying the price. The doctors are wrong, your gut is right. Your son will always be your son. Your daughter will always be your daughter. To say differently is inane. And to place blame on you, parents who represent reality, is shameful.
Dr. Grossman’s best advice for parents is to “[t]rust your parental instincts. The entire world is telling you to put your gender-questioning child in the driver’s seat, but you will learn they’re wrong.”
The story of 19-year-old Chloe Cole, “perhaps the most well-known detransitioner in America,” is a case in point: “They coerced my parents into allowing me to do this. And while my parents were required to sign off on everything, they were also putting it on me, because I desired to do this.”
In fact, most parents who deny their children’s wishes and instead try to do the right thing will often find entire communities opposed to them. Friends, counselors, teachers, and medical professionals—not to mention their own children—will condemn them as hateful and bigoted, and even accuse them of choosing a “dead daughter over a live son,” or vice-versa. After all, it is the children, these new experts insist, who are the inexhaustible source of truth about who they are, and their desires should always be respected.
All of which means that, if Christians do not come to the support of parents walking this incredibly difficult road, no one else will. Pastors, youth pastors, Christian friends, neighbors, and family members simply must show up here. And parent, if you are in the middle of a child’s gender crisis, remember that you can walk with them in truth and in love. Or, as Dr. Grossman has said, “It’s possible to survive, albeit with scars.”
Erin Friday, a California mom described her journey this way:
Your love for your child has to be strong enough to take their vitriol. And it’s very, very hard. I spent many nights crying myself to sleep. Some days, I didn’t get out of bed. But you still have to do it, because now there’s not a day that doesn’t go by that my daughter doesn’t say that she loves me … even if my daughter didn’t come back to have a relationship with me … I saved her from being a lifelong medical patient, so I would do it again.
Tragically, there are many parents whose children chose differently. Even more tragically, there are many parents who fit the description offered by Helen Joyce. Coming to terms with what they have done to their children seems impossible. So, Christians must run toward this brokenness with the Gospel, especially its offer of forgiveness and promise of restoration.
Many men and women have faced the reality of choosing to have an abortion and, in the process, were found by Jesus Christ. Their lives prove again that no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace, that as Paul wrote to the Romans, “by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
In this cultural moment, the Church must help parents know and choose what is true and find hope when their children choose otherwise.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
If all we had to go on was Salon, Slate, or The Atlantic magazines, we’d be forced to conclude that becoming a parent is a life sentence of loneliness. Though studies do demonstrate a loss in certain forms of happiness for parents, according to Brad Wilcox of the Institute for Family Studies, that conclusion “no longer fits the data.”
Nearly 60% of childless men and women say they are lonely some, most, or all the time while only 45% of those with children report the same. Likewise, “82% of parents say they are ‘very happy’ or ‘pretty happy’ compared to just 68% of the childless.”
Some of the shift likely has to do with how the pandemic disrupted social life, which families were partially insulated against. Another factor is likely America’s improved work-life balance.
More important is how happiness is defined. Kids can create stress like nothing else, but they are also a source of joy and meaning.
Recently Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, proposed The National Strategy for Social Connection Act. The bill has three parts. Part one would create a White House Office of Social Connection Policy to advise the president on the epidemic of loneliness and develop strategies to improve social connection. Part two would mandate the federal government to develop an official, national Anti-Loneliness strategy across all federal agencies. Part three would send more funding to the CDC for the study of the mental and physical effects of loneliness.
The bill itself exemplifies the clunkiness and inefficiency that characterizes the work of the government: a new office will be formed, then an office will be placed inside that office, and that office will advise and send money to yet another office.
To be fair to Senator Murphy, America is facing a very dangerous loneliness epidemic that is quickly becoming a public health crisis. Rates of suicide, homicide, depression, self-harm, crime, and social isolation are at all-time highs. These trends are correlated with loneliness, which researchers have found can be twice as detrimental to our physical health as obesity.
Even if well-intentioned, there are two fundamental problems with Senator Murphy’s legislation. First, no program, government or otherwise, that does not first understand what it means to be human can hope to combat the growing pandemic of loneliness. Second, there are some problems that the government with its clunkiness simply cannot address.
It is a very modern belief, as Jacques Ellul so clearly described in his writing on the rise of “technocratism,” that all problems can be solved through the proper application of technique and the effective use of technology. This illusion only contributes to the expansion of state power. After all, who else can be trusted to properly apply the technologies that promise to solve our problems?
Under this illusion, there is less and less room to look to God for help. Consequently, there is less and less concern for how He created the universe, including human beings, to function in the first place. If there’s no real motivation to seek out our intended design, there’s even less reason to seek out the Designer, and on and on it goes.
This same faulty assumption is at the root of Senator Murphy’s proposal. Like a lot of political solutions, creating a government office to combat loneliness assumes human beings are less like God and more like problems to be solved. If we can just get the technique right, by setting up the right system at scale, we can “reboot” all these lonely humans back to their factory settings so they’ll stop making so much trouble.
Of course, because that’s not what humans are, no government program will ever be able regenerate the fallen human heart.
Though the state cannot solve all problems, it can incentivize and disincentivize certain behaviors. For example, many social welfare programs disincentivize marriage. No-fault divorce policies disincentivize long-lasting marriages. Legalized abortion incentivizes (or at least de-stigmatizes) risky sexual behavior. Calling same-sex relationships legal “marriage” reduces marriage from being the basic unit of social society and the source of healthy population growth into little more than “two people who like each other. . . at least for now.”
The reality is that healthy, intact families are the single most effective tool to combat loneliness. Yet with every one of these policies, the government has weakened family stability. Any proposed legislation to “fight loneliness” that doesn’t mention the cancer of fatherlessness in this country just isn’t serious.
Senator Murphy has written elsewhere about the connection between loneliness and the breakdown of institutions like the family, churches, sports clubs, and civic clubs. But the physical act of walking through the doors of a church or civic center or YMCA will not magically relieve loneliness. Institutions foster deep relationships because they call people to devote themselves to things outside themselves. People form deep bonds with others when they are devoted to something bigger together, and that devotion also gives them a reason to put up with each other. This is an important but overlooked factor in a cultural moment in which we’re often encouraged to “get rid of toxic people” in our lives, as if human relationships should never experience conflict or tension.
Loneliness is a public crisis because people are lonely. People are lonely because their hearts were made for relationships with others and with God. If the government really wants to “solve loneliness,” its money would be better spent hiring whomever it planned to lead the Department of Social Whatever and telling them to instead pick up the phone, start dialing, and tell the person who answers to get married, have kids, go to church, and call their mom.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Disney has decided, again, to reimagine a classic. Instead of the traditional seven dwarves, the new Snow White will be accompanied by seven “magical creatures” of all ages, sizes, and genders. Of course, Disney has always been rather liberal with source material. Few Disney movies follow the original plots of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen.
Even so, a recent Tweet thread highlighted how this kind of ideological editing can move from a quirk to a crisis. Its author noted the passion with which progressive commenters reject anyone saying anything nice about the Middle Ages. More than poking holes in romantic views of the past, everything must be all filth, all sickness, all the time.
This is more than bad history: It’s willfully bad history. Progressivism is built on a wholesale rejection of older ways of doing things, especially anything reflecting a Christian worldview. A better take is one that allows for real progress, while never assuming that the newer is always going to be better.
In its most recent term, the United States Supreme Court strengthened free speech by ruling that business owners cannot be punished for expression consistent with their deeply held beliefs and by ruling that affirmative action practices in college admissions violates the constitutional prohibition of racial discrimination. All this on the heels of the landmark decision in the Dobbs case, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the issue of abortion law to the states. Again, unsurprisingly, the Court is being accused of replacing justice and the Constitution with partisan politics by pundits who decry the Court’s conservative bias.
However, contrary to the critics, the Supreme Court’s record reflects more of a broad consensus than partisan politics. Despite the dramatic ideological diversion of the administrations that appointed the Justices, almost half of the cases decided by the Court each term are unanimous. Though there are certainly outlier years, this was not one of them, and the trend lines have been fairly consistent since the 1950s.
Many critics argue that last year marked the end of the Supreme Court’s “consensus,” pointing to the strong ideological divides on decisions like Dobbs, Carson v. Makin, and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. After all, just 29% of the rulings were unanimous for the 2021-2022 term. 46% of the decisions, however, were ones in which at least eight of the nine justices ruled in agreement. That can hardly be considered a divided court.
During the 2022-2023 term, only six of the 57 cases considered were decided along ideological lines. Twenty-seven of the rulings, about 47%, were unanimous, and over half, 56%, were decided with eight of the nine members again in agreement. Even the New York Times didn’t totally misrepresent the reality of these numbers. Of the 12 cases featured in an article summarizing the most recent Supreme Court term, only a third were decided along ideological lines.
This year, in fact, a number of rulings featured unexpected alliances and disagreements. In one majority opinion and three concurring opinions, Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch and Biden-appointed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson were in agreement, favoring limits on government power. In a recent case regarding the artwork of Andy Warhol, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—appointed by the same administration and both considered progressive—were in strong disagreement with one another.
The willingness of Justices to work together often extends beyond the courtroom and can even result in cultivated friendships. The conservative iconic justice Antonin Scalia famously shared a friendship (and even vacationed) with progressive iconic justice Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. On the current court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Clarence Thomas have cultivated a beautiful friendship despite their significant ideological differences. In her own words, Justice Sotomayor has “probably disagreed with [Justice Thomas] more than any other justice” but maintains a friendship with him because she considers him a “man who cares deeply about the court as an institution—about the people who work here.”
The current Court consists of justices appointed by four different administrations, two progressive and two conservative. Still, a general consensus remains. Whatever ideological fault lines exist within the Court are not always determinative of its rulings, as evidenced even in its past two terms. In other words, members of the Court have deep disagreements, but it should not be considered irredeemably partisan.
Often, those who bemoan the current state of the Court, consider it illegitimate, and call it a failed institution, only betray their own philosophical commitments. Namely, they have embraced a postmodern view of law and of the courts, which assumes that “to judge is an exercise of power,” not an exercise in the interpretation and application of the law. Thus, they cannot imagine that a ruling they do not like could be legitimate.
In contrast, we can be assured by the relevant facts that the recent legal victories for life and liberty are not the products of the Court’s corruption but a genuine realization of justice for the nation.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. If you enjoy Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Russell Brand’s “brand” is crass British actor, comedian, and freethinker. However, he recently offered a profound take on the Ten Commandments, human nature, and contemporary culture:
"When it says in the Old Testament, ‘Worship no other gods than me,’ the implication ... is that we are a species that worships, and if you do not access the Divine, ... you will worship the profane. You will worship your own identity. You will worship your belongings. You will worship the template lai[d] before you by a culture that wants you ... relatively dumb."
Wow. John Calvin called the human heart a “perpetual factory of idols.” St. Augustine wrote that the heart remains restless “until it finds rest in” the One Who made us. Pascal talked about the God-shaped hole in the human heart we are always trying to fill.
I did not expect Russell Brand to join that esteemed list of keen observers of human nature ... but let’s hope God grabs a hold of his heart.
If it is true, as Richard Weaver famously put it, that “ideas have consequences,” it is also true that bad ideas have victims. On no other contemporary issue today is the connection between a bad idea and its victims clearer than assisted suicide. In no other nation today are the bad ideas and their victims more aggressively embraced than in Canada.
In a lengthy and powerful essay at The Atlantic this month, David Brooks exposed just how monstrous Canada’s so-called “medical aid in dying” regime has become since it was enacted in 2016. Originally, Canada only permitted the request for medical aid in dying to those with serious illness, in advanced or irreversible decline, unbearable physical or mental suffering, or whose death was “reasonably foreseeable.” The criteria are vague enough. Since the law went into effect, however, the number of Canadians killed annually has gone from 1,000 to over 10,000. In 2021, one in thirty Canadian deaths was by assisted suicide, and only 4% of those who applied to die were turned down.
Were all these people terminally ill or suffering from serious and irreversible conditions? Hardly. In fact, Brooks tells the story of a man whose only physical condition was hearing loss yet who was “put to death” over the objections of his family. Another patient had fibromyalgia and leukemia yet wrote that “the suffering I experience is mental suffering, not physical. I think if more people cared about me, I might be able to handle the suffering caused by my physical illnesses alone.” One otherwise healthy 37-year-old who suffers from schizoaffective disorder and is unemployed said, “logistically, I really don’t have a future. … I’m not going anywhere.” As of Brooks’ writing, that man was awaiting approval for assisted suicide.
Simply put, Canadians who need help are instead being helped to kill themselves because they’re depressed, lonely, or mentally ill. And the slope keeps getting slipperier. Brooks described patients who have been pressured by doctors and hospital staff into killing themselves to avoid medical bills. Earlier this year, the Canadian Parliament’s Special Committee on Medical Assistance in Death recommended extending the program to “mature minors” as young as twelve.
Brooks observed, this is what happens “when a society takes individualism to its logical conclusion.” The core question “is no longer, ‘Should the state help those who are suffering at the end of life die?’” It is now whether any degree of suffering is worth living with. He concludes, “The lines between assisted suicide for medical reasons … and straight-up suicide are blurring.”
Brooks clearly identified the bad idea behind these victims: what he calls “autonomy-based liberalism.” In its place, he proposed something called “gifts-based liberalism,” which acknowledges that each of us is a “receiver of gifts … including the gift of life itself.” That life, Brooks insists, is “sacred” because each of us is endowed with “dignity,” and society has a duty to say, “No, suicide is out of bounds. … You don’t have the right to make a choice you will never be able to revisit. … We are responsible for one another.” At least, that is, in most cases, according to Brooks.
He is so close to getting this one right and articulating the sanctity of life in the way Christianity does. That’s why it’s frustrating that Brooks seems to think it’s possible to climb back up the slippery slope and re-establish assisted suicide only for “extreme” cases. He writes, “I don’t have great moral qualms about assisted suicide for people who are suffering intensely in the face of imminent death.”
But, David, the moment you begin setting criteria for when a life is no longer worth living, no longer sacred, and a person no longer deserving of love instead of lethal injection, you let the bad idea that led to all those victims right back in the cultural door! For all his admirable reporting on how bad it has gotten in Canada, Brooks never gets around to answering his core question: Why did Canada’s “medical aid in dying” law–which supposedly limited victims to only those he agrees should have the right to die–become government-sponsored mass suicide in just seven years?
The answer is simple: because the value of human life is not based on any extrinsic quality. Period. It’s instead based on the fact that humans are made in God’s image. We belong to Him, not to ourselves. This is ultimately why the slope from accepting some suicides to all suicides is so slippery. It’s also why “gifts-based liberalism,” until it acknowledges the one who gave us life, will never be able to keep its footing or help those intent on throwing away the very gift.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Local authorities in a coastal English town are dropping the threat of legal charges against Adam Smith-Connor for praying silently outside of an abortion clinic.
In a video of the incident, a police officer, obviously uncomfortable, asked Smith-Connor to describe the “nature of [his] prayer,” adding that she doesn’t “want to probe.” She suggested Smith-Connor might be violating the town’s “buffer zone” rule, which outlaws “acts of disapproval” outside of the clinic. Ultimately, the officers say they believe he is allowed to pray silently, but they still fined him. Smith-Conner refused to pay it.
People have to stand up to government overreach. It’s much easier to be a council member and pass an ordinance like this from safely inside City Hall than to be the police officer charged with enforcing it while their gut says, “No, this isn’t right.”
And Christians, who are called to “live not by lies,” as Alexendr Solzhenitsyn put it, may have to make tough choices about what or Whom they must serve.
Despite having three daughters, I can’t say I ever expected to discuss the theological implications of a movie based on Barbie dolls. And yet, Barbie is dominating headlines, not only for bringing in a whopping 155 million dollars on its opening weekend, but also for garnering thought-pieces on the deeper meaning of its plot and for its cultural implications about the identity and value of women. A Vox article, for example, compared its plot to the biblical account of the Garden of Eden, with a primal couple living in a paradise before newly discovered knowledge about good and evil taints the world with corruption.
Whether or not director Greta Gerwig intended that particular angle, her “Barbie” not only engages with contemporary discussions about feminism but also the biggest of worldview questions, such as “What’s the meaning of life?” “What has gone wrong with the world?” and, “What will fix the world?” In the process, Barbie tells a story of the world that, beneath its shiny colors and self-aware snark, more closely reflects the tenets of postmodernism than the truths of Scripture.
In Barbieland, the meaning and purpose of life is to be happy, and happiness means a woman-run society of libertine freedom and unhindered expression. Lines repeated throughout the film include “Barbie is every woman, and every woman is Barbie,” and “Barbies can be anything, so women can be anything.” In this view, to be empowered is to be free of restraint and responsibility. Something that is also communicated in its view of motherhood.
Both Christian reflection and common sense betray what’s wrong with this subjective view of happiness. If happiness is what life is all about, and our experiences of happiness swing on such an extreme pendulum of circumstance, freedom, and expression, how can anyone be happy for long? True happiness, as C.S. Lewis taught, is a byproduct of a life well lived, rather than the goal. Happiness requires that we are connected to something larger than ourselves, ultimately God. We belong to the One who made us for Himself, and, in Him, we find true joy.
Barbie’s answer to the question, “What’s wrong with the world?” is, well, men. When she is cast into the “real world,” she discovers that its brokenness is due to the actions and attitudes of men, primarily against women. As one character proclaims, “We can only agree on one thing. We all hate women. Men hate women, and women hate women.”
This is both an astute observation and an odd complaint in a society unable or, more accurately, unwilling, to say what a woman is (other than as a “non-man”). In the world of this movie, every man is both oppressive and oblivious. Barbie can outsmart them all while Ken only “slows her down” and “gets into trouble.” Rather than accept the female-ruling class of Barbieland, Ken longs to emulate the powers of middle-aged white men in the “real world.” So, he introduces his own brave new world, “Kendom.”
But in the world of Kendom, the ultimate obstacle to happiness and freedom is men. They are not good. Women are. This is, of course, the same framing of reality that shaped second- and third- wave feminism.
In the biblical account, sin is disobedience and the longing for autonomy. What’s wrong with the world is the conflict, pain, and death that resulted. Sin has infected the world ever since and has turned the sexes against one another. Men have screwed up the world. So have women. Both were created good by God. Both are not good because of sin.
In the film, Barbieland is fixed by expelling the patriarchy. Barbie calls on one of the “real” women from the “real” world to preach the gospel of oppression to brainwashed Barbies. The unthinking Kens turn against themselves. The Barbies are given a Barbie-fied version of Betty Freidan’s Feminine Mystique: Women are victims of oppression and can never win. They are even victims of their own bodies, shaped as they are by the design of motherhood. On this point, the movie is not subtle. In a scene from the film’s first two minutes, young girls, bored with their baby dolls, smash them on the ground until their heads explode. A pregnant Barbie is also hinted at as being “creepy” and is discontinued.
In the end, Barbieland is made new, restored to the paradisical, women-run society it once was. The Kens “find themselves” too, but apart from Barbie. In other words, men and women were not made for each other.
Or were they? Much of the film’s discussion has to do with the final scene, in which Barbie chooses to not live in the restored Barbieland utopia, but in the real world of humanity instead. As such, there’s a not-so-subtle acknowledgement of the reality of human bodies, especially the female body. It’s not clear if Gerwig intended this final scene as a sort of undermining of the subjective portrayal of Barbieland. What is clear, whether she intended it or not, is that this is a world of objective realities, and the answers to life’s biggest questions can only be found by first acknowledging that.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Michaela Estruth. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The Barbie Movie is setting attendance records. What messages is it sending? LGTBQ+ students are flocking to Ivy League universities. What’s driving the trend? And Russell Brand shares some insightful views about God and worship.
— Recommendations —
Focus on the Family's Radio Theatre
How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk: The Foolproof Way to Follow Your Heart Without Losing Your Mind by John Van App
Section 1 - Barbie
Check Breakpoint.org on Monday, July 31, for our official Barbie review.
"'Barbie' Box Office to the World: The Pandemic is Officially Over"
The New York Times
"Mattel Needs Barbie's Movie Magic to Lift Toy Sales"
The Wall Street Journal
‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer’ Set Post-Pandemic Box Office High - The New York Times
Section 2 - Ivy League Students Leaning LGBTQ
"Ivy League LGBTQ+ numbers soar and students point to identity politics"
New York Post
"U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%"
Gallup
Section 3 - Russell Brand on Worship
Russell Brand on Worship
"Jesus's plea to Russell Brand"
Christianity Today
"‘I Need God’: Actor Russell Brand Delivers Candid Admission About the Lord, ‘Spirituality’"
Faithwire
Despite cultural propaganda that sells marijuana as “harmless,” increasingly research finds that regular cannabis use is just the opposite. Not only have recent studies found that marijuana use is a leading indicator of workplace accidents and leads to schizophrenia among young men, but a new, peer-reviewed study tracking almost 30 years of medical records for over 6.5 million Danish citizens has found that marijuana use is closely associated with increased risks for depression and bipolar disorder.
Those previously diagnosed with cannabis addiction were almost twice as likely to develop clinical depression and up to four times as likely to be diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The increased risk for psychosis is more likely for men than for women, and the chances go up with use.
As U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse deputy director Dr. Wilson Compton noted, studies like these are rapidly exposing that “cannabis may not be the innocent and risk-free substance that so many people believe.”
190 years ago today, the great British parliamentarian and abolitionist William Wilberforce died at the home of his cousin near Westminster, London. Three days earlier, Parliament had passed the Slavery Abolition Act, which "abolished slavery in most British colonies, freeing more than 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa as well as a small number in Canada” on condition that the Crown compensated slave owners. When his friend Thomas Babington Macaulay delivered the news, Wilberforce allegedly responded, “Thank God that I should have lived to witness the day in which England is willing to give 20 million sterling for the abolition of slavery.”
Upon the news of his death, newspapers around the world proclaimed Wilberforce “as pure and virtuous a man as ever lived.”
During his life, however, he endured incredible opposition and even hostility. England benefited both economically and militarily from the transatlantic slave trade. Some 46,000 British families owned slaves, and during war with France, abolitionists were accused of being unpatriotic. In a private letter, legendary naval hero Lord Horatio Nelson wrote that he would never surrender Britain’s “West India possessions … whilst I have an arm to fight in their defen[s]e, or a tongue to launch my voice against the damnable and cursed doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.” One of Wilberforce’s most vocal opponents, a slave trader named George Hibbert, was a fellow congregant at his church, Holy Trinity Clapham.
Many years ago, Chuck Colson described Wilberforce as “biblical worldview in action”:
When Wilberforce came to Christ early in his political career, he thought about leaving Parliament and public life altogether. Thankfully, William Pitt—who went on to become Great Britain’s youngest prime minister—convinced him otherwise. Pitt wrote to Wilberforce: “Surely the principles as well as the practice of Christianity are simple and lead not to meditation only, but to action.”
And for the rest of his life, Wilberforce’s Christianity meant action. His fiercely unpopular crusade against the slave trade consumed his health and cost him politically—but he could not stand idly by and see the imago Dei, the image of God, enslaved and abused in the holds of ships. He endured verbal assaults and was even challenged to a duel by an angry slave-ship captain.
When the French Revolution began, what had been merely an unpopular position became a dangerous one in Britain. Wilberforce’s detractors charged that the humanist revolution would sweep England, and Wilberforce, with his passion for the slaves, was made suspect.
Nonetheless, Wilberforce persevered. Writing about political expediency and whether to give up the fight, Wilberforce notes, “a man who fears God is not at liberty” to give up.
But Wilberforce’s worldview led him to engage in more than just the issue of slavery. He sold his home and dismissed servants to have more money to give to the needy. He fought for prison reform. He founded or participated in sixty charities. He convinced King George III to reissue a proclamation encouraging virtue and reinstated the Proclamation Society to help see such virtue encouraged. He cared for God’s creation, founding the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; and he championed missionary efforts, like the founding of the British and Foreign Bible Society.
All of us would do well to take Pitt’s words to Wilberforce to heart: Surely the principles and practice of Christianity lead not just to meditation, but to action.
Chuck penned these words around the 2006 biographic film of Wilberforce’s life, Amazing Grace. Last week, one of our nation’s greatest leaders revealed that she watches this film at least once a year.
The life of William Wilberforce is a direct rebuke to a privatized faith. Having had a very personal experience with God through Jesus Christ, for Wilberforce, Real Christianity (which was also the title of his book) requires living out the full implications of the Gospel. For him that meant embracing conflicts with his culture, challenges to his reputation, and doing hard things if they were the right things to do. As he put it, “If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures … is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”
Thank God that he was.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
On this day 75 years ago, an elderly German couple living in the shattered remains of Berlin turned on the radio. This was Klaus and Paula Bonhoeffer, the parents of pastor, theologian, and resistance leader Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Because lines of communication had been devastated by the war, the first Klaus and Paula heard of their son’s death was his memorial service in London, organized by his good friend Bishop George Bell and broadcast over the BBC.
In the words of my former colleague Eric Metaxas,
As the couple took in the hard news that the good man who was their son was now dead, so too, many English took in the hard news that the dead man who was a German was good.
Bonhoeffer’s faithfulness was a reminder to the world that, even in the face of radical evil, faithfulness to Christ is possible. As Bishop Bell would put it, “He represents both the resistance of the believing soul, in the name of God, to the assault of evil, and also the moral and political revolt of the human conscience against injustice and cruelty.”
For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet.
To see Dr. Kristin Collier’s speech at this year’s Colson Center National Conference, go to colsonconference.org. To hear more about how her faith shapes her medical practice, check out her interview on the Strong Women podcast.
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Perhaps the most helpful framework for wrestling with moral issues comes from T.S. Eliot. To paraphrase, we can only know what we should and should not do with something if we first know what that something is for. For example, before we decide what we should do with human life (whether we should take it, make it, or remake it), we should know what human life is for.
Recently, Dr. Kristin Collier, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Michigan and a speaker at this year’s Colson Center National Conference, published an important essay in the healthcare journal BMJ Leader. In it, she called doctors and the medical profession in general to return to this essential question. In fact, Dr. Collier entitled the piece, “What is Marriage For?”
Today, medical leaders are participating in an industry dominated by the production of science and technology. But what is scientifically possible for the body and what is humane for the person are different questions which medicine must answer together.
In other words, Dr. Collier says, doctors shouldn’t only ask what medicine can do. They must first ask what medicine is for. This is even more important in an age of increasingly complex ethical dilemmas in medicine.
For example, consider the abortion pill reversal regimen which, according to estimates, has led to the saving of more than 4,000 lives. Medication abortions consist of two pills, the first of which starves the baby by cutting off the mother’s production of progesterone. The abortion pill reversal is essentially a blast of progesterone, something commonly administered to women in fertility treatments. Abortion advocates in medicine and public policy oppose allowing women to even consider this option, even falsely claiming that supplemental progesterone is, or at least might be, unsafe.
So, is supplemental progesterone “good” or “bad”? On the one hand, it can be administered to save a child’s life. On the other hand, it can be used in a process that leads to the creation of an excessive number of embryos, many of which will be abandoned, discarded, or subjected to medical experimentation.
This is where Dr. Collier’s question is critically important. What is medicine for? Is the telos (or intended goal) of medicine to give us what we want, or to serve healing? And is health merely the “absence of disease or pain,” or something else?
Dr. Collier rightly points out that to answer these questions, we must first answer another, deeper one: What does it mean to be human? A holistic view, which integrates biomedical science with theological and philosophical realities, understands health as rightly ordered relationships with our bodies, with the world around us, with others, and with the God who made us.
Medicine has made many things possible. But it’s a profound and consequential mistake to assume that because we can, we therefore should. We can cut off or carve up healthy body parts in a misguided attempt to relieve the psychological pain of gender dysphoria. We can use surgical instruments or chemical drugs to kill babies in their mothers’ womb or to create babies in laboratories to be sold to adults who will have no biological connection to them. We can even prescribe lethal drugs to patients who say they want to die. But to use medicine like this violates the moral boundaries of our relationships to our own bodies, our relationships with each other, and our relationship to God, who made our bodies, who Has a specific design for marriage and family, and who forbids the taking of human life.
A biblical view of health and healing presumes a few things: first, that the absence of disease and suffering is not the full biblical picture of living well; second, that while physical death is a reality for each of us, it has not rendered living meaningless, so we shouldn’t fight the end of life as if it has; third, that our obligations to God, to the world around us, to ourselves, and to each other may come into conflict with our desire to not be in pain—physical or mental—and when they do, we ought to prioritize those relationships.
The Christian witness in the next 20 years is going to not only involve Christian doctors practicing medicine well. It will also involve Christian patients suffering well, dying well, and helping others die well as human beings made in the image of God, whose ultimate hope is in His salvation, not medical technology.
To see Dr. Kristin Collier’s speech at this year’s Colson Center National Conference, go to colsonconference.org. To hear more about how her faith shapes her medical practice, check out her interview on the Strong Women podcast.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Ground-breaking medical technologies such as immunotherapy and targeted chemotherapy have changed the game when it comes to fighting cancers, with new treatments seemingly on the horizon. Praise God.
At the same time, one non-medical factor has long been known to significantly improve the odds of someone surviving cancer. According to one 2013 study of over 700,000 cancer patients, those who were married were less likely to die of cancer than those who were not. In fact, at least according to this study, marriage was a more decisive factor for a patient’s survival than even chemotherapy.
This points to the reality that relationships are central to who we are as human beings and points to the kindness of God for creating and designing the institution of marriage the way He did. It also supports the idea that marriage is a created part of reality, and not merely a social construct. And that, whenever our single friends suffer with cancer, they need the support of God’s family.
In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of faithful men and women, most of whom are unknown today, whose lives were used by God in extraordinary ways. To receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, give a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July).
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Ho Feng Shan (pronounced fung-shen) was born in Yiyang (yee-yahng), Hunan province, in China. Orphaned at age seven, he was taken in and educated by Lutheran missionaries. A lifelong Lutheran, he eventually immigrated to San Francisco and became a founding member of the Chinese Lutheran Church there.
In 1935, after earning a doctorate from the University of Munich three years earlier, Ho joined the diplomatic corps of the Republic of China. Two years later, thanks in part to his fluency in both English and German, he was appointed First Secretary to the Chinese legation in Vienna. In 1938, when Austria disappeared into the Third Reich, all foreign embassies were downgraded to consulates. Ho was appointed Consul General in Vienna, answering to the ambassador in Berlin. As he would later recall,
“Since the annexation of Austria by Germany, the persecution of the Jews by Hitler’s ‘devils’ became increasingly fierce. There were American religious and charitable organizations which were urgently trying to save the Jews. I secretly kept in close contact with these organizations. I spared no effort in using any means possible. Innumerable Jews were thus saved.”
Among the “any means possible” at his disposal were visas. At that time, the Nazis permitted Jews to leave Austria, even from concentration camps, if they had a visa to another country. China’s Nationalist government had instructed Ho to be “liberal” with visas, so he began issuing them to Jewish families for travel to Shanghai. Shanghai was an open city, and no visa was required to go there. However, Ho used the ruse to help Jews escape Austria.
Keeping the secret was not easy. Ho and his family were at risk of the Nazis ignoring his diplomatic immunity if they decided he was too much trouble. On at least one occasion, Ho faced down an armed Gestapo officer to protect a Jewish family.
When the Chinese ambassador ordered Ho to stop giving Jews visas, Ho replied that the Foreign Ministry had told him to be liberal with vias. The ambassador could not figure out what Ho was getting out of the visas and sent an inspector to Vienna to investigate. Finding no evidence of wrongdoing, the inspector returned to Berlin and placed a negative report into Ho’s record for insubordination.
No one knows just how many visas Ho issued during this time. A conservative estimate is around 4,000. How many were used is also unknown. What is known is that Ho’s courage saved thousands of lives.
After the war, when the Communists won the Chinese civil war and the Nationalists withdrew to Taiwan, Ho remained loyal to the Nationalist cause. He served in numerous diplomatic posts until a subordinate, whom Ho had turned down for a promotion, accused him of misappropriating $300 of embassy funds. Though innocent, Ho was pushed out of his job and denied his pension despite 40 years of service.
Ho retired to San Francisco, where he dedicated himself to his church and to community service. When he died in September 1997, Ho’s daughter brought his ashes to China and buried them in his hometown of Yiyang. Ironically, the Communists government sent a wreath while the Nationalist government ignored his passing. Finally, in 2015, Taiwan recognized his work and posthumously awarded him the President’s Citation Award.
When asked why he worked so hard at such great personal risk to save Jews when other diplomats did not, he explained, “I thought it only natural to feel compassion and to want to help. From the standpoint of humanity, that is the way it should be.” Shaped especially by a character formed by his Christian faith and a Western liberal education rooted in Christianity, Ho was providentially prepared to save lives in Vienna even at great risk to himself and his family.
His life is an example of how, through history and across diverse eras, Christians courageously lived lives of restoration in incredibly difficult cultural moments. In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Colson Center Senior Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of faithful men and women, most of whom are unknown today, whose lives were used by God in extraordinary ways. To receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, give a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July).
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
It’s not unusual for family photos to include the family dog, but as families in the photo have become less traditional, the dog has taken on new significance. A recent poll by Pew Research found that about half of U.S. pet owners consider their pets “as much a part of their family as a human member.”
Those living with a partner but not married were the most likely to say this, at 65%, followed by those never married, non-parents, and then those divorced or separated. Those married and those with children were the least likely to place pets on par with people.
Pets can be awesome. However, putting them on par with humans not only humanizes pets, but de-humanizes people. It’s notable how the presence and committed family love between real human beings corrects that bad idea for people. It’s also notable that as much as we appreciate the affection of Fido, when we need to be cared for, only a person and not a pet will do.
In the parable of the sower, Jesus illustrated how the seed of God’s Word flourishes or perishes depending on the kind of ground it falls on. Some seeds fell on a path, and birds ate them. Some fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the seedlings. “Other seeds,” said Jesus, “fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away.”
That rocky soil group aptly describes the rapid rise and decline of evangelicals in America in recent decades. Recently, political scientist Ryan Burge, co-author of The Great Dechurching, explained how, between 1983 and 1993, the share of Americans who identified as evangelicals exploded. In fact, at their height in the early ’90s, nearly a third of Americans called themselves evangelical.
This growth overlapped with the sharpest period of decline for mainline Protestants which, between 1975 and 1988, fell from one in three Americans to less than one in five. As Burge points out, this coincide-ence was no coincidence. Evangelical gains resulted partly from “cannibalizing” the mainline denominations. By 2018, however, those gains had withered. Evangelicals returned to their pre-1980s percentage of the population, and by all indications, are still declining today, though more slowly.
Part of the story of what happened is the rise of the “nones,” those who claim no religious affiliation. Between 1991 and today, the percentage of Americans who identify as “nones” skyrocketed from 6% to 29%. Burge calls this “the most significant shift in American society over the last thirty years.”
Of course, pointing to the rise of the “nones” is basically a way of restating the problem. The evangelical bubble of the ’80s and ’90s, as well as the longer-term decline of American Christianity, requires a fuller explanation.
Perhaps, given how quickly the evangelical bubble burst, part of the problem was that it was filled with shallow belief. Or to switch back to Jesus’ metaphor, perhaps some of the seeds that came up so quickly in the final decades of the 20th century—amid chart-topping Christian albums, huge music festivals, and sprouting non-denominational megachurches—lacked deep roots.
Of course, there is nothing wrong per se with creative outreach strategies, but Jesus never told us that the goal was to get bodies through the doors or bottoms in the chairs. It was to make disciples committed to Christ and His Kingdom—disciples who would in turn “bear much fruit.”
Given the rapid rise and fall of the evangelical crop, we might safely conclude that many of those who joined and helped it spring up so quickly had shallow roots. Overall, Christians were not cultivated with deep roots in the truth God has revealed about Himself, His world, human beings, and His plan to make all things new.
Much of that is the Holy Spirit’s work through families and the church, of course. He prepares the soil, and He gives the growth. He also gives many commands in Scripture that indicate the part we play and the responsibility we have.
One of the most important ways to ensure deep roots is through the cultivating of a worldview informed by Christian truth, something in stark contrast from sprinkling Christian encouragements on top of the world’s view. This means teaching the Bible as if it is the true account of reality, contrasting a Biblical understanding of things with those widely accepted, meeting challenges from the wider culture head-on, answering tough questions about the faith, teaching Christians to take seriously Christ’s sovereignty over all of life, belonging and not merely attending church, and teaching worship as everything we do, not just when we sing.
It also means recognizing the role cultural currents play in eroding faith—especially those undermining marriage and the family. As Mary Eberstadt wrote almost 10 years ago in How the West Really Lost God, one of the most powerful forces behind secularization and the rise of the “nones” is the decline of the family. Subsequent research has only proven how right she was. If evangelicals or members of any Christian tradition want to have a future, we’re going to have to prioritize intact, stable families. After all, families not only make new people, they teach them the language and categories God uses to describe His new family—the Church.
Despite the numbers, we should always maintain hope and expect a harvest. Those who’ve turned in the last few decades from Christian belief to no belief aren’t doing well. We’re in the midst of a historic mental health crisis, and people raised without faith in God are suffering the worst of it. Religious observance, by contrast, is strongly correlated with better mental health. As helpful as therapy can be, the greatest longings of the human heart and the greatest problems of human relationships are only redeemed in Christ.
That’s why, despite evangelical decline in America, we continue to till the soil and trust the Sower, fully believing He can produce deeper roots than before and fully expecting the hundredfold harvest He described.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. To help us share Breakpoint with others, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recent research from political scientist Ryan Burge indicates that, at least in the United States, the Christian faith is found primarily among the educated and wealthy. Americans most likely to regularly attend church hold graduate degrees and have an average annual income of $60,000-$100,000.
Does this mean Christianity is a “luxury religion?”
Not exactly. According to marriage experts John Van Epp and J.P. DeGance, “one’s economic future is greatly impacted by the relationship choices one makes, specifically in the areas of marriage and parenting.” So, for example, for people whose values include having children after marriage (and not before), the likeliness of being in the “middle- or top-income tier” brackets more than doubles despite their background.
This reinforces, again, that God’s design of marriage and family is built into the created order and, when followed, leads to economic, social, and spiritual flourishing.
In John 16:33, Jesus said that “[i]n the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” In the 20 centuries since our Lord spoke these haunting yet hopeful words, they’ve proven true. In fact, in terms of absolute numbers, we live in the worst period of persecution against Christians in history. More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than the previous 19 combined, and the 21st century is shaping up to be at least as deadly, but likely more.
According to Open Doors International’s latest World Watch List, 312 million Christians face “extreme” or “very high” levels of persecution—1 in 5 in Africa; 2 in 5 in Asia. Last year was the worst year on record for persecution, with 5,500 Christians killed for reasons related to their faith, more than 2,000 churches attacked, and over 4,500 Christians detained or imprisoned. For the most part, each year of the past decade has been worse than the previous year.
Writing of the persecutions that plagued God’s people in the early days of Christianity, Tertullian claimed that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Though particularly intense persecution has, at times, led to a decrease in overall Church numbers, the Church has grown far beyond the wildest imagination of Jesus’ first followers. Stories of the faithful who endured persecution and faced martyrdom have been a catalyst for that growth.
In 1563, historian John Foxe told many of the earliest stories in a book that would become one of the most widely read works in the English language. Foxe’s Book of Martyrs chronicles hundreds of Christians who gave their lives or were persecuted for their faith from the New Testament all the way to his day. Through generations of expansions and editions, it became an indispensable classic.
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs was written from a Protestant perspective and, almost 50 years older than the King James Bible, is a challenging read. Recently, a pair of daring authors took up Foxe’s mantle to tell the stories of the martyrs afresh for modern readers. In The New Book of Christian Martyrs, Johnnie Moore and Dr. Jerry Pattengale of Indiana Wesleyan University offer accounts of heroes of the faith from the first to the 21st centuries.
Written in a fast-paced and richly informative style, with reference to important historical sources, Moore and Pattengale make cultural connections and frequently quote Foxe’s best “vintage” passages about the martyrs. Throughout, they seem constantly aware that they are writing to a Christian Church vastly larger, more global, and by some measures more persecuted than it was in Foxe’s day.
Dr. Pattengale joined Shane Morris on a recent Upstream podcast to talk about The New Book of Christian Martyrs. He covered a number of stories from the book in the episode and connected the ancient martyrs to modern victims of persecution.
Perpetua and Felicita were two newly converted and young Christian mothers who were killed in the arena at Carthage in 203. At the time, Perpetua, a noblewoman, was nursing her newborn. Despite entreaties by her friends and family, Perpetua and Felicita refused to denounce Christ or worship the emperor.
Perpetua’s diary was likely preserved by Tertullian, who tells how, on the day of her execution, she and her companions faced leopards, wild boars, and a raging bull. Perpetua was eventually gored and tossed across the arena but took the time to fix her hair before soldiers finished her off. As Tertullian reports, she did so because “it was not becoming for a martyr to suffer with disheveled hair, lest she should appear to be mourning in her glory.”
Eighteen centuries later, in February 2015, 21 Coptic Christians displayed a similar dignity as they prepared to meet Christ from a beach in Syria. Pattengale and Moore compare their orange jumpsuits to the jerseys of a sports team, ready to leave it all on the field for their Captain. In the moment before their masked executioners beheaded them, the Coptic 21 sang a line from the hymn, “Ya Rabbi Yassu,”—“my Lord Jesus.”
Thanks to an Islamic State propaganda video, millions witnessed their martyrdom. As the book notes, ISIS’s objective “backfired” when the video galvanized the world against their cause and became a source of pride and celebration for Coptic Christians. In the words of Revelation, the world saw 21 young men conquer “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.”
In a time when our brothers and sisters face more persecution than ever, the stories from across times and cultures told in The New Book of Christian Martyrs will inform your faith and your prayers. As Tertullian and Foxe believed, such stories can fuel the growth of a Church whose Lord overcame the world and will ultimately grant rest from all persecution.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss the importance of biblical literacy as well as how a worldview of the human condition can impact the function of government.
— Recommendations —
Free Livestream: Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview
Meghan Daum & Sarah Haider on Child Activists
Section 1 - Tucker Carlson and Biblical Literacy
Tucker Carlson on spiritual warfare
Section 2 - Bureaucracy and Human Nature
If you haven’t heard, the state of Texas is under invasion from small creatures who are, according to breathless media reports, popping up everywhere. “Nearly 10,000 more babies born in nine months under Texas’ restrictive abortion law,” read The Texas Tribune.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School arrived at the number by comparing Texas births after Senate Bill 8 took effect, which prohibits abortion after conception, to the number of births in the same period the year before.
One of the study’s co-authors told CNN that 10,000 new babies mean women were “denied a needed abortion.” Referring to the moms, she warned ominously, “It’s hard to imagine the short- and long-term implications of a personal trajectory that may have been rerouted.”
Of course, it’s harder to imagine the implications for a child denied the right to have a personal trajectory. Ultimately, interpreting the Texas baby boom depends on worldview. It’s either a tragedy or 10,000 inherently valuable, unique, and beautiful reasons to celebrate ... thanks to Texas’ pro-life lawmakers.
A few months ago, kidney specialist Dr. Stanley Goldfarb was fired from UpToDate, a digital research tool for physicians. Last year, the president of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where Dr. Goldfarb served as an associate dean, wrote a public letter accusing him of racism while students and colleagues circulated a petition calling for his title as professor emeritus to be stripped.
Dr. Goldfarb’s purported crimes had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with his public opposition to DEI (“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”) in medicine. For example, last year, he wrote,
The campaign for diversity is long running and has some value, yet the ideological extremism of the past two years has led medical schools to adopt dangerous strategies. To fight supposed “systemic racism,” at least 40 institutions have dropped the requirement that all applicants take the MCAT, the gold-standard test that measures students’ grasp of this life-saving profession.
More recently, he added this observation,
It quickly became apparent that my beloved medical profession, to which I had devoted more than 50 years, was spiraling downward even faster than I had realized. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decline, as did the death of George Floyd in 2020. Suddenly, medical schools were loudly proclaiming that health care is “systemically racist,” that “medical reparations” are urgently needed, and that medical education and practice must fundamentally change. Whereas DEI and social justice were frequently discussed in 2018, by the end of 2020 they were the central facets of medical education, where they remain to this day.
Other examples of Dr. Goldfarb’s concerns include the supposed systemic racism of being seen by a physician of a different race and pledges made by medical students to fight the gender binary and “honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine.”
Near the end of the 20th century, it was common to dismiss and deny the possibility of objective truth claims in the liberal arts and social sciences, such as literature, art, and politics. But the “hard” sciences remained untouched until recently. It is now common for the same kind of deconstructions to be applied in math, medicine, or the other biological sciences. As it turns out, the first chapter of Romans accurately describes the very real potential of fallen humanity to deny what is observably true in the world God made.
Contemporary ideas of DEI prove a maxim of G.K. Chesterton, that “(t)he modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad.” The impulse for justice and equality, birthed within the Western world from Christian ideas about morality and the human condition, draws more from the philosophy of Michel Foucault than the Bible. Built instead on a standpoint epistemology rather than eternal categories of right and wrong and human dignity, an individual who belongs to what is understood as a traditionally marginalized group is granted moral status and authority over and above those from groups not assumed to be marginalized. Functionally, objective reality is denied.
As Shane Morris and I recently described, students taught that successfully solving algebra problems will depend more on the color of their skin than knowing algebra, or that their calculus professors are oppressors if they are white, will not only not unlock the mysteries of the universe, they will believe lies about who they are. Even worse, lowering standards for certain students only dehumanizes them, suggesting they cannot reach the standards in the first place.
In the 1990s, renowned economist Thomas Sowell wrote the following about lowering SAT scores:
The Educational Testing Service is adopting minority students as mascots by turning the SAT exams into race-normed instruments to circumvent the growing number of prohibitions against group preferences. The primary purpose of mascots is to symbolize something that makes others feel good. The well-being of the mascot himself is seldom a major consideration.
Sowell understood–even firsthand–racial injustice and the uphill climb that minority students can face to reach success. Yet for Sowell, ditching objective measurements was not the answer:
People of every race and background are fully capable of becoming world-class physicians. Medical schools should seek out the best candidates who are most likely to provide the best care for patients, regardless of what they look like or where they come from. Anything less jeopardizes the very purpose of these institutions.
Critical Theory in all of its forms only critiques, never constructs. Applied, it will only tear down, never build up. Advocates of this ideology should consider that their proposed solutions may be fueling the problems they claim to address.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Rather than celebrating their differences and strengths, women are increasingly being told that the only way to true equality and freedom is by rejecting who they are, especially their God-given capacity for procreation. This message is clearly reaching teenage girls, who today make up the majority of those identifying as transgender or non-binary.
In recent years, a group of “reactionary feminists” have pushed back on the attempts to erase women. Unlike their progressive counterparts, reactionary feminists reject the transgender trend and the destruction it wreaks on women and their bodies. For them, the chemical and surgical erasure of female bodies is a means of oppression, not freedom.
Ironically, “reactionary feminists” are doing what too many Christians are unwilling to do: defend the reality and beauty of God’s creation and the dignity men and women possess as image bearers.
Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes.
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When I was growing up, Christians had to wrestle with whether or not our convictions could withstand the threat of ridicule. We’d be asked, “Are you willing to be mocked and made fun of by a professor who doesn’t believe in God or a friend trying to tempt you into doing something you know is wrong?” About the worst thing to expect from this was what a friend has called “cocktail party pressure” or getting kicked out of the cool kids’ clique.
To be clear, cocktail party pressure was quite effective, though those days seem quaintly in the past. Increasingly, Christians are hated, fired, or otherwise harassed on account of their principles. Particularly bewildering is that the loudest complaints against believers today are for things considered mainstream until just a few years ago.
Just this week, the Alliance Defending Freedom came to the defense of a man in Vermont who was fired after 10 years as a successful snowboarding coach. His crime, as one of ADF’s lawyers put it, was “merely expressing his views that males and females are biologically different and questioning the appropriateness of a teenage male competing against teenage females in an athletic competition.” For that, “school district officials unconstitutionally fired him.”
Clearly, the district violated coach David Bloch’s First Amendment rights and likely, given the legal track record of the Alliance Defending Freedom, he will be vindicated in the end. Still, this is another example of what feels like a new cultural moment in which the question of Christian courage is in the context of even more tangible pressures.
This context is at the center of a conversation I will be hosting Thursday, July 27 at the fourth annual Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview in Bay Harbor, Michigan. If you happen to be in the area, there’s limited space available to join us in person, or you can sign up to join us via livestream. Either way, there is no charge for this conversation featuring two Christians leading the way into this brave new moment: Kristen Waggoner is CEO, president, and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Jim Daly is president and CEO of Focus on the Family. Both are witness to these increased pressures.
For years, Kristen has successfully advanced legal protections and religious liberty by representing courageous Christians such as Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman. Most recently, she represented Lorie Smith of 303 Creative in a landmark victory for free speech at the Supreme Court. However, for her efforts, Kristen has been unfairly attacked and lied about by media outlets, fellow lawyers, and even the Attorney General of Colorado.
Last fall, Focus on the Family’s grounds were vandalized by activists. Though not the first time, there was something different about this attack. The perpetrators falsely and unfairly blamed Focus for the then-recent murders at a local Colorado Springs gay club. These accusations have been repeated by media outlets and critics as recently as last week.
This brave new world of hostility is familiar for our brothers and sisters elsewhere, in places like Nigeria, India, and China. Ours are more experiences of a series of horrible moments, such as earlier this year in Nashville. Christians in the West do not fear for their lives. Even so, something has clearly shifted. Calls to tolerate the views of others are about as 1990s these days as talking about abortion being “safe, legal, and rare.” As we’ve seen in Nashville, it’s a perilously small step from the rhetorical games of wanting to punch “literal Nazis” to literally punching those who dare stray from the cultural narrative.
The only way forward for the Christ follower is to commit again to knowing what is true, to commit again to saying and living what is true even if there is a cost, and to say and live what is true in a way that is pleasing to Christ. In other words, faithfulness will involve both the what we believe and the how we’ll live it out.
I don’t know anyone I’d rather have in this conversation than Kristin Waggoner and Jim Daly. Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
On this day, in the year 64, the Great Fire of Rome broke out, for which Emperor Nero would blame a new religious sect, the Christians. The first Epistle of the Apostle Peter was written to those who experienced the persecution unleashed by Nero.
I Peter is best summarized as “the Book of Hope,” but the hope he described is counter cultural. It does not anticipate a “good outcome,” at least not in the here and now. Instead, Peter understands true hope as rooted in the certainty of something that has already happened: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which defines all of history.
Christ, the risen, sovereign ruler of the world, promises to make all things new (Revelation 21:5), and He is working in every time and place through His people. He has placed us in this cultural moment according to His redemptive plan.
So, as Peter encouraged the first Christians who faced cultural hostility, take hope in the risen Lord Jesus.
Throughout history, across diverse societies, nations, and eras, Christians who carried the Gospel into pagan cultures defended and protected abandoned and abused children. In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Senior Colson Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of Christian heroes, most of whom are unknown today, whose courage and faithfulness changed the way children are seen and treated. You can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World with a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July).
For example, 19th-century India was a particularly brutal place for girls. Women were considered inferior to men and were not allowed to be educated or employed. Child marriage was a fairly common practice. Though the practice of sati (burning widows on their husband’s funeral pyres) had been abolished, the treatment of widows remained harsh. They were considered cursed and often subjected to terrible abuse at the hands of their husband’s family.
The family of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) was different. As Dr. Sunshine explains, Pandita’s father, a member of the priestly caste known as Brahmins, encouraged her to read the Hindu scriptures. Not only did she learn to read, her skills and mastery of the text earned her acclaim. Her study also led to growing doubts about the truth of Hinduism.
After she was married, Pandita found a copy of the Gospel of Luke in her husband’s library. Drawn to Christianity, she invited a missionary to their home to explain the Gospel to her and her husband. Tragically, not long after hearing the Gospel, her husband passed away.
Shortly thereafter, Pandita was visited by a child widow looking for charity. Pandita not only took her in as if she were her own daughter but, moved by the situation, started an organization called Arya Mahila Samaj to educate girls and advocate for the abolition of child-marriage.
It was while traveling to England that Pandita Ramabai formally converted to Christianity. Returning to India, she set up a school for girls and widows in what is now called Mumbai. At first, to avoid offending Hindus, she agreed not to promote Christianity and to follow the rules of the Brahmin caste. However, these concessions were not enough. Within a year, the school was under attack, and local financial support dried up. Pandita moved the school to Pune, about 90 miles away.
In 1897, when a famine and plague struck the area, Pandita established a second school about 30 miles away. Among the subjects taught in her schools were literature (for moral instruction), physiology (to teach them about their bodies), and industrial arts such as printing, carpentry, tailoring, masonry, wood-cutting, weaving, needlework, farming, and gardening.
At first, because Pandita had only two assistants, she developed a system to care for and educate the girls, first teaching the older ones who would then take care of and help teach the younger. This allowed for a growing number of girls to be taken in and cared for. In fact, by 1900, 2,000 girls lived at Pandita’s schools.
In 1919, the British king awarded Pandita Ramabai the Kaiser-i-Hind award, the highest honor an Indian could receive during the colonial period. Her life is an example that living in a pagan society means confronting bad ideas and caring for their victims. In her culture, like in ours, these victims are very often children.
To decide, as many have, that speaking up on controversial cultural issues is “too political” is to leave these victims without care and protection. It is out of step with Christian history. It also is an embrace of an anemic, truncated Gospel.
This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, you can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. Just visit colsoncenter.org/July.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This Breakpoint was revised from one originally published on March 30, 2021.
According to NBC, Jesus has returned in an online incarnation. Yes, you too can log on and talk to a cyber savior, a disembodied vision of a white man who offers counsel on things ranging from the serious to the silly. Setting aside how this likely violates the Second Commandment, this stunt typifies a central problem with contemporary religious thinking: recreating Jesus in our image.
A programmed Christ built of nothing but the disparate thoughts of what we’d like him to be is literally an idol. If “god” is just our understanding of Him, there is not really a “Him” at all, but only our own projections. It’s kind of like the old SNL skit of Stuart Smalley affirming himself in the mirror.
Seeking salvation from an AI chatbot is only a more technologically advanced version of picking and choosing the parts of the Bible we want to believe.
But salvation can never be found within.
Register to attend live or join the livestream for the Great Lakes Symposium at colsoncenter.org/greatlakes.
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In response to a Breakpoint commentary about the murders in Nashville in March, the Colson Center was identified by a critic as being “proudly, if quietly, Dominionist.” To be clear, we aren’t, but he was particularly troubled by how the commentary described Christians as victims which, of course, they were.
In that commentary, we wondered aloud whether in fact we have entered a new cultural moment, characterized by an increased hostility toward Christians and others who are, shall we say, culturally non-conforming. The strange and shameful reversal of who is victim and who is guilty in the reporting on the Nashville incident has only continued since, and now there are additional incidents to consider as well.
On March 29, while speaking on abortion at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kristan Hawkins and a group from Students for Life were confronted, threatened, and assaulted by an obscenity-crying crowd who failed to notice the irony of suppressing free speech by screaming “fascists!” Rather than remove those disrupting the presentation, the campus police removed the pro-lifers.
Two days later, on March 31, authorities in Colorado arrested 19-year-old William Whitworth for two counts of attempted murder, in addition to other charges. Whitworth, who goes by the name Lily and was in the process of “transitioning,” was planning a series of bomb and gun attacks on several sites in Colorado Springs, including schools and churches. As with the Nashville shooter who identified as transgender, police have not revealed the “manifesto” that would reveal Whitworth’s specific motives. However, there is ample evidence that rhetoric about the so-called “trans genocide” is leading advocates to increasingly violent means to make their point.
Then, on April 6, college swimmer Riley Gaines was physically assaulted while giving a speech at San Francisco State University. As she argued against the inclusion of men in women’s sports, she was berated, threatened, and blockaded in a room until she paid a ransom. Media accounts employed terms like “allegedly” to cast doubt about what happened, but audio and video recordings were plain. Afterward, rather than condemn the violent and threatening acts, the vice president of student affairs praised activists for “defending diversity and free speech.”
Three incidents in nine days are notable, but when placed alongside a host of others in the last few years, a disturbing trend begins to emerge. After examining the data, The Family Research Council concluded that over 400 “acts of hostility” have been committed against churches in the last five years including “vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more.” Of these incidents, 137 occurred between January and September of last year.
The headline is not that there are suddenly those who disagree with Christian conviction or similar beliefs. That has always been the case. And frankly, the Christian view of the world hasn’t held the dominant cultural position for some time. However, the old-school atheists and secular humanists of yesterday were content enough to let Christians have their say, if for no other reason than to ridicule and deride. To think of something as “outdated,” or “silly,” or “non-scientific” is one thing. To think of it and the one who advances it as “evil,” “oppressive,” and “fascist” is something else.
Whereas an older secularist thought of truth as something “out there” to be discovered through study, discussion, and even debate, truth in the contemporary critical mood isn’t about what is said but who is saying it. More specifically, it’s about where everyone is pre-ranked in an ever-shifting, intersectional hierarchy.
Anyone who insists that there are truths of a higher order, particularly truths that establish sexual morality and identity, will become a target of those who are blinded by today’s ideologies. Fifty years ago, Francis Schaeffer explained, “No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions.” The refusal to live by lies subverts the required certainty in the new orthodoxy.
For the sake of our neighbors, all who believe in the importance of truth must continue to say so. We cannot beat ideological opponents into conformity, and it is sinful to try. We’ll have to say what is true, even when there is a cost. We’ll have to remind the world of the beautiful legacy of the Judeo-Christian view of humanity and the world. We’ll have to hold together truth with love.
This is why I’ve invited Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel of ADF, and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, to join me for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on July 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Go to colsoncenter.org/greatlakes to attend live or join the livestream.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to colsoncenter.org.
Revised from a Breakpoint released on 4.14.23.
Recently in The New York Times, Catherine Pearson noted how the growing cultural stigma against boredom burdens parents. Research shows that parents across cultural and economic lines believe it’s their job to fend off their kids’ boredom with activities.
Doing so implicitly teaches kids that boredom is bad for them, and entertainment a right. This plays well in an age that treats any discomfort as dangerous, and that having fun, or at least avoiding suffering, is the meaning of life.
This understanding of life robs kids of finding the joy, the meaning, and the truth of self-sacrifice, service to others, and devotion to things bigger than self. It’s also cruel to teach kids who live in a fallen world that suffering and discomfort can be avoided and that you can’t truly be happy if you fail to avoid it.
Allowing kids to be bored and uncomfortable, on the other hand, teaches them that they actually can handle tough things.
In 303 Creative vs. Elenis, the Supreme Court upheld Lorie Smith’s free speech rights, deciding that the state of Colorado could not force her to produce websites for so-called same-sex weddings. Ever since, media pundits and public officials have distorted the ruling, claiming that it will allow people to refuse service to LGBT individuals. However, even the state of Colorado acknowledged that Smith serves all people with her business, but she would not provide services that meant expressing a view that violates her faith. The state made clear its intent was to suppress Smith’s ideas about marriage. By a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court found this a clear violation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression.
The dissent in the case was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. It featured a rambling history of civil rights and public accommodation law, law that prevents discrimination of the public in services. Sotomayor argued that the decision violated the trajectory of the expansion of civil rights to more and more marginalized groups in society. She claimed that creating a website was a matter of providing a service and had nothing to do with expression, implausibly arguing that creating a website for a so-called same-sex wedding would not compel Smith’s speech.
Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch dismantled the dissent, noting that the history of public accommodations and civil rights had no bearing on the matter, and that Sotomayor’s argument that the question involved service rather than expression was contradicted by both the state of Colorado and the Tenth Circuit Court. He also noted how the dissent contradicted itself.
Still, the problems with Sotomayor’s dissent extend beyond the issues identified by Gorsuch. When Sotomayor appealed to the murder of Matthew Shepard and the mass shooting in Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub as examples of the dangers LGBT people face in the country, she was appealing to a revisionist history. The motive for Matthew Shepard’s murder is at best unsettled and likely had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. The shooter at the Pulse nightclub had pledged allegiance to ISIS and apparently targeted Pulse because of its lax security.
While Sotomayor may simply have been sloppy–relying on popular rhetoric without investigating further–it is more likely that these are examples of her worldview commitments. Specifically, she employed standpoint epistemology and intersectionality, the idea that truth is ultimately unknowable so we can only rely on identity markers like race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation to determine what is right and wrong.
In standpoint epistemology, minorities have greater insights about the world because they know how to operate both in their own setting and in the dominant culture. This is the reasoning behind Sotomayor’s infamous statement given at the University of California, Berkley before her nomination: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
However, though Sotomayor may assume her lived experience offers a fuller view of reality, her perceptions become more authoritative to her than the facts of reality. Rather than committing to an objectivity, she can determine via cultural narratives of oppression what happened regarding Shepard’s murder or the Pulse shooting, or the conflict between Lorie Smith and the state of Colorado. Even worse, the objective facts (at least those that counter the accepted narratives) in these cases can be ignored, neglected, or revised.
Since objective truth doesn’t exist, justice is left to the eye of the beholder. Once, in a presentation to congressional staffers, Sotomayor was asked about the foundation of justice in our country. She replied by admitting that she had never considered the question “in that form before.” And then after a long pause said something like, “I suppose for me, it would be the inherent dignity of all people. But I don’t know what it should be for anyone else” (emphasis added).
While it may be surprising that a sitting Supreme Court justice had never considered the question of justice, her response is fully consistent with her previous speech delivered at Berkley. In it, she claimed that “[t]o judge is an exercise of power,” not a matter of interpreting law. In her dissent to the majority opinion that ended affirmative action in college admissions, she accused the majority decision of “an unjustified exercise of power.” In other words, if judging is only a matter of power, no amount of facts could ever justify a decision she did not agree with.
This pair of dissents should not be viewed in a vacuum. Rather, they are based on a worldview rooted in Neo-Marxist ideas of oppression and class struggle and on postmodern ideas about knowledge and power. This is why it is important that a biblical vision of truth, justice, government, and the human person guide our thinking, not only so we can counter the false ideas shaping so much of our culture but so that we can offer a better way.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
A lot of disinformation has been spread about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case defending a Colorado graphic designer’s free speech rights. John and Maria discuss some new thoughts surrounding the ethics of medicine.
— Recommendations —
Further Up & Further In
The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession by Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen
Section 1 - Correcting Misinformation on 303 Creative v. Elenis
"The Smearing of Lorie Smith"
The Wall Street Journal
"Correcting the Record on 303 Creative"
Breakpoint
Section 2 - What is medicine for?
"What is medicine for?"
Kristin M Collier Kristin Collier at the Colson Center National Conference Section 3 - Further Up and Further In
Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview
Further Up & Further In
The cases involving affirmative action and Lorie Smith and 303 Creative have received the most attention from the recent Supreme Court term, but another ruling has important implications for religious liberty. The Court ruled that U.S. Post Office employee Gerald Groff could not be forced to work on Sundays.
Thanks are due to Groff and his lawyers at The First Liberty Institute. In the past, employers could get away with merely offering lip service to religious exemptions for workers because any vaguely defined “undue hardship” for the bosses overrode their faith concerns. Now, employers must demonstrate that accommodating an employee’s faith would entail a “substantial increased cost” before demanding their conformity.
The ruling is a final blow to the “now abrogated” Lemon Test that hampered religious liberty for a half-century. It also provides legal standing for challenging other impositions on religious liberty at work—such as being forced to use “preferred pronouns,” or post rainbow flags, or join “pride” marches.
A recent CBS News article claims, in its very title in fact, to separate “medical facts from misinformation” around so-called “gender-affirming care.” However, rather than separate the facts from the falsehoods, the article peddles lies and half-truths, assuming the conclusions it claims to prove in a thinly veiled piece of progressive propaganda. And that’s about the nicest thing that can be said about it.
The first dead giveaway about the piece is how it smuggles transgender ideology into its chosen language and terminology. Rather than refer to boys and girls, or young males and females, the author refers to “kids with testes” and “those with ovaries.”
The piece then claims to set the record straight about what is involved in diagnosing gender dysphoria and administering “gender-affirming care.” Here, too, its claims could not be further from the truth. According to the author, “the process informing these treatments is a long and intensive one.” This directly conflicts with an increasing number of testimonies from whistleblowers and de-transitioners who sought out this kind of care, not to mention the information given by providers like Planned Parenthood.
According to a whistleblower and former case manager at Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, “[T]he majority” of young people who came to them “received hormone prescriptions.” Likewise, Helena Kirschner, a young woman who detransitioned, received testosterone as a teenager after her very first visit to Planned Parenthood.
It’s notable that Planned Parenthood doesn’t even cover up this information. On some office webpages, the abortion giant happily promotes that “[i]n most cases your clinician will be able to prescribe hormones the same day as your first visit. No letter from a mental health provider is required.” Getting high-powered, life-altering drugs on your first visit hardly involves a “long and intensive” diagnosis process.
The piece also falsely presents the effects of chemical “transition” interventions as reversible and harmless, peddling the lie that puberty blockers are like a “pause button” for puberty, which can be stopped and restarted with no long-term effect. Contrary to this claim, recent studies have found that the lasting adverse effects of the puberty-blocking drug Lupron, which is used to halt puberty primarily in young girls, include brittle bones and faulty joints. The piece also tries to soften the truth about cross-sex hormones by saying that some of their effects are reversible. However, changes caused in secondary sexual characteristics, such as deepened voices, facial hair, breast growth, and infertility are not reversible in the least.
At the heart of most transgender propaganda is the claim that transitioning children has mental health benefits and can save them from suicide. Unsurprisingly, this piece repeats that claim while ignoring the facts that do not line up. The piece cites a popular but deeply flawed study among trans-advocates that those who received cross-sex hormones as minors had better mental health outcomes than those who received them as adults.
However, the study’s flawed design makes it impossible to sufficiently isolate cross-sex hormones, or lack thereof, as the determining factor of mental health outcomes. In fact, better research shows the opposite conclusion. For example, in states where youth were able to access chemical “transition” interventions without parental consent, youth suicide rates were higher than those who required parental consent. Additionally, the longest-term study on the effects of transitioning has found that those who transition are over 19 times more likely to commit suicide than the general population.
Far from causing harm, denying irreversible and sterilizing chemical and surgical interventions actually helps children who are distressed by their bodies. Granted time and space, many learn to accept their bodies and God-given identities. However, propaganda pieces like this one published by CBS confuse those called to care for children and only contributes to their harm. If journalists and media outlets really want to dispel misinformation and help vulnerable children, they should stop blindly repeating the lies of gender ideologues.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This week in 1924, Eric Liddell (1902-1945) won an Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter race. As a devout Christian, Liddell decided to never race on Sundays. Imagine his dismay when he realized that his best race—the 100-meter—was scheduled for a Sunday.
Liddell withdrew, to the derision of many Britons who thought he was being disloyal to his nation. He quickly pivoted for the 200-meter and 400-meter races, taking third in the 200-meter and claiming the gold in the 400-meter.
Liddell was the son of Scottish missionaries to China, and his story was memorialized in the film Chariots of Fire, which won the Oscar in 1982 for Best Picture. Despite athletic success, Liddell returned to China the following year. During World War II, the Japanese took over his mission station and placed him in an internment camp, where he faithfully served Christ and others before dying of a brain tumor in 1945.
Liddell’s Olympic-time decision was consistent with the life he lived in faithful service to Christ, who “made [him] for China,” but who also “made [him] fast.” He ran every race, including the race of life, to “feel God’s pleasure.”
This Point was originally published 6.12.22.
Recently, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s important decision in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a lie has been propagated about the case, a lie that purportedly implicates plaintiff Lorie Smith and the Alliance Defending Freedom. Thanks to the willingness of media outlets, public officials, and pundits to repeat these accusations and misrepresent what they mean, this lie has the potential to poison the cultural memory about this critically important case. The accusation is that 303 Creative, the graphic design company at the center of the lawsuit, and ADF invented a fake customer request for a same-sex wedding website and that, because of this deceit, the Court should have never heard the case in the first place.
It’s important to correct the record. Many Christians joined with other champions of free speech to celebrate the Supreme Court’s decision in the 303 case. However, Christians do not believe that the “ends justify the means.” A win derived out of false witness and deception cannot be celebrated. That’s the kind of win that headline after headline has proclaimed. However, that’s not what happened here, as Kristen Waggoner, president and general counsel of ADF, and Erin Hawley, senior counsel of ADF, explained this week in The Wall Street Journal.
The origin of the 303 Creative case dates to 2016, when Lorie Smith, who founded the creative design company four years earlier, wanted to include a disclaimer on her website. Hoping to add custom website design for weddings to her menu of services, she wanted to clarify that, as a Christian believer, she could not create custom wedding websites for “same-sex weddings.” Given the hostility the state of Colorado had leveled at cake baker Jack Phillips, Lorie knew that she’d likely be considered in violation of the state’s broad anti-discrimination law.
With the help of the Alliance Defending Freedom, Lorie and 303 Creative filed a pre-enforcement challenge, a common legal procedure that allows people to challenge a law before they are penalized under it. This procedure recognizes what should be obvious, that free citizens should not have to first be punished under an unconstitutional law before they are able to challenge its constitutionality.
The day after ADF first filed Lorie’s case, Lorie received a request to create a custom wedding website for someone named Stewart, who said he was marrying someone named Mike. ADF included this request as an addendum to 303 Creative’s lawsuit, not as the basis for it, in order to demonstrate that Lorie was under real pressure to violate her beliefs.
From the very beginning of Lorie’s case—from the federal district court in Colorado where ADF first filed the lawsuit, through the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, all the way to the Supreme Court—each judge acknowledged that Lorie had both the right and the standing to bring her case as a pre-enforcement challenge. As Waggoner and Hawley wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Every one of the 12 appellate judges who heard the case agreed that Ms. Smith had standing, and none of their opinions even considered whether she received a request for a same-sex wedding website.” However, just days after the Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects Lorie from state coercion and that she cannot be forced to say something that violates her beliefs, a news outlet alleged that the website request Lorie Smith had received was fake. According to the report, a man claiming to be Stewart, whose address and contact information matched what had been submitted in the 2016 request, denied ever making it.
Immediately, the false memory machine was in motion. Multiple news outlets seized on the accusation, suggesting the case was illegitimate. Even being accused of faking anti-Christian discrimination is often functionally sufficient to be convicted in the court of cultural memory.
The most likely scenario, of course, is that the request was made by an activist who either hoped that it would undermine the 303 Creative case or could be held (as it was) and brought out in case of an unfavorable decision. Still, whether the request came from a legitimate customer, an activist, or ChatGPT is irrelevant because the case was always a pre-enforcement challenge. Critics are free to dislike the ruling, in which case they should take it up with the U.S. Constitution. But they can’t change the facts. In fact, they are also free to express a lie about the case if they choose, though ironically, that’s at least partly due to what the Court ruled that in this case they are committed to undermining.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
It is typically entertaining when two popular intellectuals get into a public spat. Recently, Canadian psychologist and YouTube star Jordan Peterson called out the famous British biologist Richard Dawkins with an “I told you so!”
After Dawkins complained on Twitter about New Zealand elevating traditional Maori stories to the same level as Western science, Peterson retorted, “Welcome to the world of post-humanism, sir. A world which you sadly helped birth. … [I]t wouldn’t surprise me at all if the woke polytheistic neopaganists destroy science faster than they destroy Christianity.”
On one hand, Dawkins is right that the whole genius of “Western” science is that it isn’t just Western. But, as Peterson not so gently noted, Dawkins has spent his career tearing down the religious foundations upon which Western science is built. Without God and all that His existence implies, there is no solid ground for saying that any knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is true for everyone.
Jessica Bates lost her husband a few years ago in a car wreck. This would be devastating for anyone, but through her grief over her loss, she’s decided to open her heart and home to others. As she lacks a husband, she’s now reaching out to those who have no parents, trying to adopt children in her home state of Oregon. Mind you, this is in addition to the five children left fatherless by her husband’s death. It takes a special love to take in those who need a home. It takes a strong love and a strong heart to do so while raising little ones alone.
You can imagine Jessica’s surprise when the state turned her down on ideological grounds. To warrant the state’s approval to care for parentless children, she had to sign off on “affirming” any potential adopted child’s desire for transgender pronouns, chemical sterilization, and other practices that would have been rightly seen as child abuse just a few years ago.
As the Alliance Defending Freedom said of her case,
Oregon officials are preventing Jessica from adopting a child because of her Christian beliefs—despite the fact that they otherwise accommodate people of different religious and cultural backgrounds and try to pair children with families who are well suited to each other. It’s a blatant act of religious discrimination, and it must end.
This ideological enforcement is not an isolated thing. Last year, the governor of Michigan used her veto power to cut from the state budget millions of dollars allocated to help pro-life groups and Christian adoption agencies. It’s not enough, apparently, that these groups work to help “the least of these.” To get state funds, they also must toe the party line when it comes to supporting abortion.
In America today, there are nearly 400,000 children in the foster care system and over 100,000 waiting to be adopted. Adoption is a beautiful gift that’s close to the heart of Christianity, a legacy of the Church’s earliest days when unwanted kids, mostly girls, were left on the trash heap by Roman parents. Christians responded by taking these little ones into their homes.
There’s hardly a better picture of who we are in Christ than adoption. As sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, lost through their Fall, we have been brought into the household of God. The Apostle Paul notes in Galatians,
...born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So, you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Drawing on this same beautiful theme, few acts live out this love that God has shown for us than this unique way of loving our neighbor. What better way to reflect the love poured out on us and to realize the restoring work to which our adoptive heavenly Father has called us than to fix what’s broken in these little lives?
This is an opportunity to move from outrage to a constructive strategy. If you are in a state that is holding back this Christian love from showing forth in children’s hearts, call on your representatives to tell them that this is not the way. Or, wherever you live, think of supporting adoption agencies and awaiting parents with funds and goods to help them bring the homeless into their families. Or, if God calls you in this way, prayerfully consider opening your home and heart to those either in temporary foster care or permanently orphaned.
As Chuck Colson said almost 30 years ago now,
More than ever, we need to work to promote alternatives to abortion, especially adoption. Couples who take in needy infants and selflessly care for them should not be penalized by policies motivated by political correctness.
Working to free potential parents from unwarranted state restrictions and to support them in these adoptions is a clear case where Christian love meets civic duty.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
One of the most important and effective pro-life leaders is Kristan Hawkins, founder and president of Students for Life of America. Kristan became a pro-life advocate in her early teens when she began serving at a pregnancy care center. Her goal is to make abortion “unthinkable and unavailable across the US.”
For years she rallied and mobilized young Americans by calling them the “post-Roe generation.” Though the Dobbs decision last June in a sense fulfilled that rallying cry, the real vision of Students for Life of America has always been the end of all abortions, and the protection of life beginning at conception.
Recently, the headline of a BBC article on Kristan ominously said, “She Helped Kill Roe v Wade - now she wants to end all abortion,” as if that wasn’t always the goal. For Kristan, the end of Roe is a partial win on the way to building a culture of life. As she put it to the BBC, “I always tell our team: winners envision the win.”
Several years ago, Max McLean and the Fellowship for Performing Arts staged The Most Reluctant Convert, a play about the life of C.S. Lewis up to his conversion. During the Covid shutdowns, that production was made into a film that received strong reviews. Now, McLean and FPA are offering a follow-up stage production dealing with Lewis’s life post-conversion.
Although Further Up and Further In includes some biographical information, such as the writing of The Problem of Pain and the recording of the BBC talks that were later published in Mere Christianity, this new production takes the much more challenging route of exploring the different aspects of Lewis’s ministry. Not surprisingly, much of the production is focused on his apologetics.
In his day, the great challenge to Christianity was materialism, the idea that everything is just matter and energy. Lewis responded to this by tracing out the implications of that view and showing its utter implausibility. He notes that scientists “observe the behavior of things within the universe. They cannot make statements about things beyond the universe.” Any time a scientist does that, for example by proclaiming that matter and energy are all that exist, he is no longer doing science.
Even more, Lewis says, if materialism is true, there is no reason to trust the scientist doing science. After all, he rightly observed,
If the materialist view is true, our minds must in reality be merely chance arrangements of atoms in skulls. We never think a thought because it is true, only because blind Nature forces us to think it. We never do an act because it is right, only because blind Nature forces us to do it.
This argument, which can also be found in slightly different form in the work of Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, is a powerful response to atheism. If atheism is true, any foundation for trusting science or human reason is undermined.
Rather than defend a particular denomination of Christianity, Lewis believed that “the only service [he] could do for [his] unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians and at all times.” This led him to write The Problem of Pain and from there to do his broadcast talks for the BBC. As a result, he began receiving massive numbers of letters. Though he dismissed some, he felt obligated to respond to any serious inquiries received. Some evenings after work, Lewis wrote up to 35 letters.
Much of Further Up and Further In is adapted from volume two of Lewis’ collected letters, a 1,152-page tome. Through an adaptation of some of these letters, we see his work as an evangelist. For example, in the play, a young atheist contacts Lewis with questions, and Lewis responds. After a series of exchanges, the young atheist decides to take the step of committing himself to Christ. Lewis responds with advice on how to grow in faith and hang on to it through doubts. In the end, Lewis argues, “It all hinges on Jesus. If His statements are false, Christianity is of no importance. If true, it is of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
As a literary scholar, Lewis anticipated the argument that the Gospels cannot be trusted, pointing out that the Gospels include statements that would hardly be expected if they were made up by people trying to prove the divinity of Jesus. Rather, the difficulties that they pose are solid evidence for the truthfulness of the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’s teaching.
Toward the end of Further Up and Further In, the character of Lewis turns his focus to Christians, offering advice on temptation (something he had discussed in The Screwtape Letters), the crucial importance of prayer, the Second Coming and the end of the world, and heaven. Much of this advice remains as helpful today as when he first offered it.
Once again, Max McLean and the Fellowship for Performing Arts shows why Lewis’s popularity and value have endured. Further Up and Further In is currently on tour. How Lewis engaged the materialists of his time is a model for engaging people today who, though coming from a different worldview, seem just as unable to acknowledge the reality that God has made known in His world.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, the FDA approved a brain-implanted computer chip, developed by Elon Musk’s company Neuralink, for human trials.
Holocaust-era movie eerily resembles the expansive loosening of euthanasia laws in the name of human dignity.
John and Maria look at several recent Supreme Court decisions that move the court to the right and what is driving the recent claims that adults have a right to have children?
While some 74% of Americans believe race and ethnicity should not be considered in college admissions, others are lamenting the Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action as an inevitable catastrophe. In the words of one headline in The Atlantic, “Elite Multiculturalism Is Over.”
However, the question so rarely asked is, “Did affirmative action even work in the first place?” Back in 2004, renowned economist Thomas Sowell—a 1958 Harvard grad—set out to answer that question, surveying educational systems around the world. Sowell not only concluded that affirmative action was ineffective, he likened it to a wrong medical diagnosis and prescription:
"False beliefs are not small things, because they lead to false solutions. In the field of medicine, it has long been recognized that even a false cure that is wholly harmless in itself can be catastrophic in its consequences if it substitutes for a real cure for a deadly disease."
In other words, good intentions aren’t enough.
New from the Colson Center! Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! ____
Following the lead of the province of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick became the second jurisdiction in Canada to adopt a policy of “presumed consent” for organ and tissue donation. Instead of willingly opting in to be an organ donor, residents 19 years and older, with limited exceptions, will be opted in by default.
While many see this as a solution to the perpetual demand for transplant organs, laws like these treat the ethics of organ donation as a settled matter while treating humans and their bodies as means to other ends. Even more, considering Canada’s policy of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), this step will corrode the already thin ideas of “autonomy” and “consent” while incentivizing a utilitarian view of human nature.
For context, Canada has already experienced a dramatic expansion of MAID toward not only those facing a terminal medical diagnosis but also for those suffering from mental illness deemed “grievous and irremediable” (those who suffer solely from mental illness will not be eligible until 2024). In 2021, assisted deaths rose by 35%, reaching over 10,000, or 3% of all deaths in the country. Opponents of MAID, including virtually every disability rights group in Canada, continued to warn that a so-called “right” to die will inevitably devolve into a duty to die. People are seen, both by themselves and by others, as burdens using precious resources better spent on those with better prospects for a “better” life.
These warnings were, to put it mildly, ignored. As numbers climb, so do stories of pressure and coercion. Consider the Canadian veteran suffering from PTSD who was offered MAID instead of treatment last year.
The presumed consent of the New Brunswick law adds a perverse incentive: the immense value of organs for transplant. The mismatch between supply and demand, not to mention what balancing that mismatch would mean, has always dominated the ethical conversation about organ donation. Currently, over 4,300 Canadians are waiting for an organ transplant, and as a government website states, hundreds “will die waiting...”
Canada’s end-of-life policies already incentivize death. If donors request death, not only is the difficulty of obtaining consent more easily settled, so is the issue of preserving organs. Law professor F.H. Buckley explained in the Wall Street Journal,
Last year … two Canadian medical researchers and a Harvard bioethicist argued that [waiting until the patient is declared dead] could reduce the quality of donated organs. A superior model, they suggest, could be to kill the patient by removing his organs. After all, the best organs come from live people, like those who donate one of their kidneys...
[B]y linking assisted suicide and organ harvesting, it ratifies the premise that euthanasia can help create a more efficient organ supply chain. … Where euthanasia is legal, the temptation to link the time of death and the demand for organs may similarly become too strong to resist. On a slow day there’s no hurry, but when a patient [who] is waiting for a heart is in the next hospital room, you’d expect greater pressure to euthanize a patient...
Medical professionals should not be given the incentive to see their patients as sacks of valuable organs rather than as human beings.
The farther the medical world moves from its founding principle of “Do no harm,” the more harm is done. Take for instance China, where one top transplant doctor admitted that “effectively 95% of all organ transplants were from prisoners.” As unthinkable as it sounds, experts warned that these prisoners were likely executed by the means of “organ removal.”
Dame Cicely Saunders, founder of the modern hospice movement and vocal opponent of euthanasia, was deeply influenced by Christianity. She once wrote, “The question of how one feels about so-called ‘rational suicide’ is, I believe, ultimately governed by the question of how much faith one has in human nature.” Powerful market incentives will only worsen an already epidemic disregard for human life. For Canadians, “presumed consent” is another stage in the downward spiral of a culture of death. If it continues to spread, there will be no opting out.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
One of the great and mostly unsung heroes of medicine was Cicely Saunders, the British nurse and social worker who effectively invented palliative care as we know it. A fierce opponent of euthanasia, she was convinced that easing suffering encompassed looking after the physical, spiritual, and emotional needs of a patient.
She worked tirelessly against outdated methods of pain management, including the idea that existing pain medication should wear off before more is administered. For her efforts, she was made a Dame of the British Empire, and of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II.
Recently in the New Atlantis, physician Matthew Loftus argued that the modern approach to the end of life is “ending the suffering by eliminating the sufferer.” Cicely lived by a different creed: “[W]e will do all we can to help you not only to die peacefully, but also to live until you die.”
Increasingly, how Christians deal with dying will reveal what we really believe about life.
New from the Colson Center! Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! ___
Dr. Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley released a book earlier this year with a bombshell piece of advice: Go outside!
Recently, Dr. Keltner spoke to The New York Times about the book, entitled Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it can Transform Your Life. He recommended “awe walks,” intentional time spent outside and focused on nature. This, Keltner says, can inspire awe, “that complex emotion we experience when encountering something so vast that our sense of self recedes.” Awe has measurable psychological and even physical benefits, including reducing anxiety, depression, and even inflammation.
So, go outside and think of something other than yourself. Not exactly rocket science, or anything new for that matter, but great advice, nonetheless.
In Keltner’s words the goal of making our “sense of self recede” is quite counter-cultural. For decades, the dominant ideas in psychology and most of the social sciences have been that the self is the highest priority and that self-expression, self-discovery, and self-actualization (or “living authentically”) are the keys to the meaning of life and the only ways to be happy. The fruit of this poisonous tree is the rigid dogma of the late sexual revolution: our “self-expression” is our true self, and all of reality must bend to accommodate it.
This makes this “new” science, that true satisfaction comes when our “sense of self recedes,” so shocking to read in print. It’s in turning outward and upward, not inward, that we find the most joy, contentment, and meaning.
For evidence that Dr. Keltner is really on to something here, we only need look at the University of Oklahoma women’s softball team who just won their third consecutive collegiate World Series title. Throughout their impressive winning streak, they were often criticized for excessive celebration. These celebrations of great plays or big wins are in stark contrast to the trash-talking and chest-thumping endemic in high level sports, including this year’s women’s collegiate Final Four.
When an ESPN reporter asked the OU players how they maintained their joy amid fierce competition, team captain Grace Lyons replied: “Well, the only way that you can have a joy that doesn’t fade away is from the Lord. And any other type of joy is actually happiness that comes from circumstances and outcomes.”
Her teammate, Jayda Coleman, said: “[W]e want to win. But it’s not the end of the world [if we lose] because our life is in Christ. And that’s all that matters.”
Joy, in other words, comes from looking outward and upward, not inward. The beautiful world God created is a source of joy because it draws us outward. To paraphrase something John Piper once said, most people don’t stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon and think, “Wow, I am awesome.” Ultimately, starry nights, clever animals, and beautiful sunsets direct our thoughts upward.
It’s an incredible gift of God that His handiwork points us to Him.
After all, beautiful things mean more when we know and love the person who made them. Something store-bought cannot compare to something made by someone who had us in mind while making it.
In the same way, the creation reveals that God loves us and that He made the world with humans in mind. “Awe walks” are therapeutically helpful because of what is true about the world, about the God who made it, and about ourselves. In contrast, the inward turn that has marked our culture and is largely taken for granted these days as the key to our identity and the meaning of life has only left us more lost, confused, and depressed.
In other words, go outside.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
On this special edition of Breakpoint, John Stonestreet interviews Paul Fitzpatrick, President of 1792 Exchange. They discuss freedom of religion and enterprise and moving "woke" corporations back to neutral.
For more resources on how to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit https://breakpoint.org/.
_
1792 Exchange is a non-profit organization whose mission is to develop policy and resources to protect and equip non-profits, small businesses and philanthropy from “woke” corporations to educate Congress and stakeholder organizations about the dangers of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies, and to help steer public companies in the United States back to neutral on ideological issues so they can best serve their shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity.
Learn more at https://1792exchange.com/about/.
A Harvard Business Review article once advised: “Forget PowerPoint and statistics, to involve people at the deepest level you need to tell stories.” Those hoping to defend innocent life should take note.
A few weeks ago, a powerful story went viral on social media. A young father holding his infant daughter posted a confession, “God please forgive me: see the beautiful soul I wanted to abort.”
Of course, there are millions who have gone forward with that terrible choice and who know the full regret of abortion. The Silent No More Awareness Campaign is the place where these stories are told. “I didn’t defend the life of my own daughter based on misinformation, selfishness, fear, and shame,” one man admitted, “I let her die to an abortionist knife, and I died the same day.”
These stories are hard to hear and harder to tell, but they need to be told. When hidden, people are enslaved to guilt and shame. As Jesus said, “the truth sets us free.”
New from the Colson Center! Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! __ In 1792, a group of New York bankers gathered by a famous tree on Wall Street and signed the landmark “Buttonwood Agreement.” Against a backdrop of speculation and deceit, the document signaled a return to openness, fair dealing, and integrity among New York’s financial sector. Eventually, the Buttonwood Agreement became the basis for the New York Stock Exchange.
Today, corporate America faces a different crisis of values. Spurred on by the push for so-called “environmental, social, and governance principles” (ESG) a decade ago, a huge percentage of top corporations are now committed to an increasingly radical progressive agenda. This agenda is forced on employees and customers and anyone whom these corporations do business with, from vendors to HR firms to investment portfolios to every small business along the supply chain. The “Pride Month” fiascos of Bud Light and Target exemplify just how allegiant some corporations are to this agenda, completely misunderstanding their consumer base.
Recently, I spoke with Paul Fitzpatrick, president of the 1792 Exchange. Their vision is to steer public companies back toward a commonsense vision of the workplace. In our conversation, which airs as a special bonus episode of the Breakpoint podcast, Paul and I discussed how ideas long entrenched in the university and in the arts reached corporate America and have disenfranchised people of faith and moral conviction.
Corporations impact what we see, how we entertain ourselves, how we feed ourselves, how we clothe ourselves, and how we fund our businesses. And so, they can either put gas on the fire of something good or put gas on the fire of something bad.
Part of the issue, Paul explains, is how progressive groups targeted corporations after the financial crisis of 2008-09.
Remember how unpopular they were after the ’08-’09 crisis? And taxpayers bailed them out, and everybody on the right and the left were mad at corporations. … So, here they are, Wall Street is very unpopular … and they’re looking for a way to cozy up and get basically the Occupy Wall Street folks and Congress off their backs, and to some extent conservatives. But at the same time, the left is looking for a way to leverage corporations. You had said they already captured academia. We already talked about the media. But they were moving to capture corporate America.
Activists pushed corporations to get on the so-called “right side” of certain social issues.
You’ve got the Human Rights Campaign coming in saying, hey, you know, you got 100% last year. We want you to get 100% this year. So, what you need to do is … have a DEI curriculum—diversity, equity, and inclusion training for all your employees, whether you have 100 or 100,000 employees.
In the end, freedom of expression has been stifled in the workplace. Even small businesses face enormous pressure to comply with the demands of a few powerful entities.
If you have a business and you are a supplier to a major company that has signed on to the progressive agenda and all those areas we discussed, they could demand that you have certain hiring practices, which many do if you’re going to get a 100% score on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which 842 companies did by the way recently, you have to mandate in your supply chain that the LGBTQ agenda and hiring is adhered to. As far as internal corporations, there’s no question we’ve seen examples of employees being fired for taking political or ideological positions outside of work.
The 1792 Exchange is working to shift the conversation by educating consumers and stockholders, supporting private businesses and business leaders, and exposing the coercive tactics of these few powerful groups. Their Corporate Bias Ratings tool reviews over 1,500 different companies, scoring them on how well they respect viewpoint diversity. Learn more about their work at 1792exchange.com, and listen to a special Breakpoint bonus episode with Paul Fitzpatrick at breakpoint.org or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Safeguarding and advancing freedom of conscience in the workplace benefits everyone.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Can a Christian be patriotic?
Years ago on Breakpoint, Chuck Colson pointed out how Americans used to openly embrace the Christian traditions and values that shaped our Republic. In that culture, it was easy for a Christian to be a patriot. Perhaps too easy. Vibrant, biblical faith could degenerate into a civil religion where the country’s wellbeing and the expansion of God’s Kingdom were synonymous.
But today, many Americans have rejected the religious values that informed our society.
Where along this range of attitudes is true Christian patriotism?
Well, first, we mustn’t deify our country. We don’t wrap the flag around the cross. Our citizenship is in heaven, and that’s where our ultimate allegiance is.
But as Chuck said, we can’t love mankind in the abstract. We can only really love people in the particular, concrete relationships God has placed us in—our family, our church, our community, and our nation.
So, celebrate this July Fourth by thanking God for calling us into His Kingdom and allowing us to live in—and yes, love—this land of liberty.
This Point was last published on July 3, 2020.
New from the Colson Center! Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! -- The year before he died, Chuck Colson delivered a Breakpoint commentary on the July Fourth holiday in which he reflected on our national identity. Specifically, he recognized that the only way to ground the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal” and possess “certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is if we are indeed “endowed by their Creator.”
The stunning clarity of the Declaration of Independence in stating that our rights are ultimately granted by God and not the state is something too often forgotten today, if not entirely dismissed. Here’s Chuck Colson reflecting on this important truth:
The great British intellectual G.K. Chesterton wrote that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed.”
Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands—and the peasants who inhabited those lands.
But America was—and is to this day—different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.
And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I’ll never forget when I graduated from Brown University during the Korean War. I couldn’t wait to become a Marine officer, to give my life, if necessary, to defend that creed. To defend the idea that our rights come from God Himself and are not subject to whims of governments or tyrants. That humans ought to be free to pursue their most treasured hopes and aspirations.
Perhaps some 230 years later, we take these words for granted. But in 1776, they were earth-shaking, indeed, revolutionary.
Yet today, they are in danger of being forgotten altogether. According to Gallup, 66% of American adults have no idea that the words, “we hold these truths,” come from the Declaration of Independence. Even worse, only 45% of college seniors know that the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are proclaimed in the Declaration.
As America grows more and more diverse culturally, religiously, ethnically, it is critical that we embrace the American creed. Yes, America has always been a “melting pot.” But what is the pot that holds our multicultural stew together? Chesterton said the pot’s “original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy.” A democracy founded on those self-evident truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And as Chesterton remarked, “The pot must not melt.”
Abraham Lincoln understood this so well. For him, the notion that all men are created equal was “the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”
So go to the Fourth of July parade. Go to the neighborhood barbecue and enjoy the hot dogs and apple pie.
But here’s an idea for you. Why not take time out at the picnic to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your friends and neighbors.
Listen—and thrill—to those words that bind us together as a nation of freedom-loving people: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
These are the words that Americans live for—and if necessary, die for.
Chuck Colson’s words are just as true and relevant today as when he said them, and perhaps even more important for us to understand.
From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Fourth!
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This June, the 2023 Special Olympics World Games were held in Berlin, Germany. Some 7,000 athletes from 170 countries took part in the annual celebration of people with disabilities, people often dehumanized and marginalized.
The Special Olympics were founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. She was inspired by her sister Rosemary, who lived with intellectual disabilities her entire life. Shriver started the first special Olympics in 1962 as a summer camp in her backyard. The competition grew, and her efforts earned her admiration and the honor of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Some years ago, New York Times opinion writer Ross Douthat described Shriver as a “different kind of liberal,” who “saw a continuity, rather than a contradiction, between championing the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed and protecting unborn human life.” That consistency, he thought, was in large part due to her upbringing in the Church, specifically what she learned there: that all people are made by God in His image.
New from the Colson Center! Interested in the What Would You Say? video project? Subscribe to be notified when new videos are released at whatwouldyousay.org/subscribe. Watch the latest release and explore the full on-demand library! _ On Friday, the Supreme Court delivered a smashing victory for free speech. Lorie Smith is the founder of 303 Creative, a graphic design company that, among other services, creates custom websites for weddings. Concerned that a Colorado law would force her to design websites for same-sex weddings or take on other projects that would violate her deeply held religious beliefs, Smith filed a pre-enforcement challenge, asking the court to weigh in on whether the law violated her freedom of speech and conscience.
The state decided that Lorie did not have the right to choose which messages she uses her talents to express. It even forbade her, for example, from posting a notice on her website stating she is unable to create websites that express messages contrary to her Christian beliefs, including websites that promote abortion services, celebrate same-sex marriages, or advance a transgender ideology. In July 2021, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Smith and for the state of Colorado.
Friday, on the last day of the 2023 docket, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision and ruled in favor of Lorie Smith. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch, explained:
The First Amendment’s protections belong to all, not just to speakers whose motives the government finds worthy. In this case, Colorado seeks to force an individual to speak in ways that align with its views but defy her conscience about a matter of major significance…. Consistent with the First Amendment, the Nation’s answer is tolerance, not coercion. The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands. Colorado cannot deny that promise consistent with the First Amendment.
Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case before the Court, described the win in a press release:
This is a win for all Americans. . . . The government should no more censor Lorie for speaking consistent with her beliefs about marriage than it should punish an LGBT graphic designer for declining to criticize same-sex marriage. If we desire freedom for ourselves, we must defend it for others.
It’s not yet clear what implications this decision will hold for others, such as Colorado cake artist Jack Phillips, who are being forced to choose between their businesses and their deeply held religious beliefs. However, unlike the 2018 Masterpiece Cakeshop case, this decision was far broader and clearly dealt with questions of speech, conscience, and government coercion. In the Masterpiece case, the Supreme Court smacked down the state of Colorado for showing clear and extensive animus toward Jack’s faith. The state civil rights commission responded by not only showing similar animus again, but by also allowing and enabling another citizen to harass Jack Phillips, beginning on the same day that Jack’s first case was approved to be heard by the Supreme Court, and continuing today.
Already, voices as significant as dissenting Supreme Court justices and major media outlets have reported that, in the 303 Creative decision, the Court has allowed business owners to refuse service for LGBTQ people. That is simply not true. In fact, Justice Gorsuch specifically said as much in his majority opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, however, repeated that falsehood anyway before articulating a revisionist history of LGBTQ rights. For example, she repeated falsehoods about the murder of Matthew Shepard, wrongly claimed that the Colorado law did not affect Lorie Smith’s rights “in any meaningful sense,” and neglected the condition established by Smith that she would not refuse service to anyone because of their sexual orientation.
To the dissent, Justice Gorsuch retorted in the majority opinion, “It is difficult to read the dissent and conclude we are looking at the same case.”
Lorie Smith never asked for the right to refuse service to a particular group of people. She asked not to be forced to produce speech that she did not agree with. That’s what the Court affirmed on Friday. It is important that, whenever possible, all Americans who are concerned about the rights of conscience, including the freedom of speech, correct the falsehoods about this decision.
As Lorie Smith said in ADF’s press release,
This is a victory not just for me but for all Americans across our great country—for those who share my beliefs and for those who hold different beliefs. Whether you’re an LGBT graphic designer, a Jewish calligrapher, an Atheist speechwriter, or a pro-life photographer, the government shouldn’t force any of us to say something we don’t believe. I love people and work with everyone, including those who identify as LGBT. For me, it’s always about what message is requested, never the person requesting. I hope that, regardless of what people think of me or my beliefs, everyone will celebrate that the court upheld the right for each of us to speak freely.
Congratulations to ADF and to Lorie Smith.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Heather Peterson. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John Stonestreet takes a first look at the new decision from the U.S. Supreme Court siding with 303 Creative in Colorado. The mainstream media says Christians and Muslims are competing for followers in Africa.
— Recommendations —
What Would You Say?: Is the Bible Still Relevant?
To Be a Woman: The Confusion Over Female Identity and How Christians Can Respond by Dr. Katie J McCoy
Section 1 - 303 Creative SCOTUS Ruling
303 Creative v. Elenis
Section 2 - The Competition for Believers in Africa is Transforming Christianity and Islam
The Wall Street Journal
Section 3 - College Loan Forgiveness SCOTUS Ruling
Section 4 - US Companies are Talking Less about Pride Month
"In landmark case, Supreme Court rules LGBTQ workers are protected from job discrimination"
NBC News
For a moment last week, Russia seemed headed for a coup or even civil war. After months of complaining about mistreatment by Moscow, the Wagner mercenary group marched on the capital. Then came dueling speeches by Wagner’s leader and Russia’s president, elites fleeing en masse, and an armored column outside the city.
Then suddenly, it stopped. Each side stood down. Even now, days later, it is not clear what exactly happened or what will happen next.
The whole bizarre scene offers important lessons about the human condition, and especially politics. We may think that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but, as in this case, sometimes he’s still an enemy. Just because a guy is on our side doesn’t mean he’s good, or that we are and aren’t bad guys too.
What happened in Russia is an extreme example to be sure, but we should be careful to see our political leaders through a biblical lens, not political pragmatism.
Recently, a school district near Salt Lake City, Utah removed the Bible from elementary and middle school libraries. Though it quickly reversed course and returned it to the library shelves, the original decision was made in response to a complaint that the Bible contains pornographic content, and that certain parts are too “violent or vulgar” for young children. Meanwhile, school districts across the country require LGBT content, much of it grossly explicit, in elementary school classrooms as well as libraries. Some even refuse to allow parents to excuse their children from such content.
It is, to put it mildly, upside down to silence the Bible in order to “protect” children while forcing radical ideas about identity and sexuality on them. Though the Bible speaks plainly about the violence and barbarity of fallen humanity (see the final three chapters of the book of Judges, for example), it is not gratuitous. More importantly, the Bible portrays evil as evil, rather than celebrating the brokenness under the guise of “authenticity,” “autonomy,” and “diversity.”
Eliminating the Bible from education also ignores the crucial impact the Bible has had on the world, especially in shaping Western culture. On one hand, this is simply part of the wholesale condemnation of Western culture so common today. However, even if the Western heritage in the sciences, technology, human rights, freedom, and the arts are downplayed or ignored, at least some knowledge of the Bible is basic to knowing human history at all. Put differently, to assume that the Bible is no longer relevant to the modern world is to misunderstand both the Bible and the modern world.
The latest episode of the Colson Center’s What Would You Say? video series offers a response to the claim that “the modern world has moved beyond the Bible.” Here’s a sample:
The Bible’s positive influence on the world as we know it has been so profound and so thorough that it’s easy to forget just how much it has shaped our understanding of science, morality, politics, literature, music, language and so many other aspects of life and culture.
Every video in the What Would You Say? series offers thoughtful, reasoned, and reliable answers to common cultural questions. This video explains how the Bible shaped Western culture, how the Bible’s description of reality provided the grounding for modern science, and why there will be a growing demand for the Bible as more and more people come to faith around the world.
For example, there is a reason that the scientific revolution did not emerge out of other cultures. Despite the common narrative that Christianity is anti-science, science requires a consistent natural order, something described from the very beginning of the Bible:
The Bible describes a world that was made by God to be intelligible and orderly. Philosopher of science Stephen Meyer says, “Because we have an intelligence that has, as its source, the intelligence that built the world, we can understand the world….”
This is why we expect consistency and order in nature. And why we expect, as humans, to be able to study and comprehend that consistency and order.
In fact, the biblical description of reality provided the impetus for most arenas of learning and academic study, including history, medicine, math, and sociology. After all, learning requires that humans are knowers, that they are able to learn, and that the world is knowable. Most worldviews simply cannot ground these assumptions.
Other videos in the What Would You Say? video series, which has now garnered over two million views, address questions about science, apologetics, sexuality, race, politics, and more. These videos are for parents to watch with their kids, teachers to use in class with students, and in small groups and Sunday School classes, too. New videos, each addressing a different question, will be added every couple of weeks. Please visit whatwouldyousay.org, or search for and subscribe to the What Would You Say? channel on YouTube. And please share these videos with friends, family, and on social media.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Michaela Estruth. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This week is the anniversary of two dark and pivotal cases in U.S. Supreme Court history. In June 2013, the high court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 violated Due Process. This essentially made the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges judgment, which redefined millennia of law on marriage, inevitable.
Justice Anthony Kennedy unwittingly defined our chaotic age in the majority opinion for Obergefell when he declared, “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity.”
This idea—that people can freely craft their identity independent from nature, science, and reality—is behind so much of the moral confusion of the last few years. But it has certainly not led to the “liberty” that Justice Kennedy promised. This is the opportunity for Christians to point not only to an abstract moral position, but to reality itself and to the God who made it.
Few subjects seem less political than math. There is little room for subjective judgment because its truths are universal. No matter what you look like or where you’re from or how you feel about it, two plus two will always equal four, and the area of a circle will always be π r². Math is so objective, in fact, some scientists have theorized that prime numbers could offer the basis of communication with supposed intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos.
However, even if aliens know that math has no racial or gender bias, some educators on Earth seem to think otherwise. Even amid plummeting math scores in the latest Nation’s Report Card data, a growing chorus of progressive voices insists that racism and sexism are the biggest problems we face in how to teach math.
A couple years ago, in an article in the Scientific American, Rachel Crowell complained about the racial and gender disparities among those who make a career out of mathematics. She pointed out, for instance, that “fewer than 1 percent of doctorates in math are awarded to African Americans” and that only 29.1 percent “were awarded to women.” More mathematicians, she writes, have been pushing to discuss these issues and “force the field to confront the racism, sexism and other harmful bias it sometimes harbors.”
Though, undoubtedly, examples of identity-group bias in all fields exist, Crowell chose to root her complaint in intangibles: Math doctorates are not “earned” or “received” or “completed;” they are “awarded,” a word choice that not so subtly reinforces her conclusion that something about math education is racist.
Writing at Newsweek, Jason Rantz cited examples of public schools teaching students that math itself, and the way it has always been taught, is oppressive. In Seattle, recently introduced guidelines for K-12 math teachers in several pilot schools claim that “mathematical knowledge has been appropriated by Western culture” and that “math has been and continues to be used to oppress and marginalize people and communities of color.”
In 2021, Oregon’s Department of Education introduced a new toolkit called A Pathway to Equitable Math Instruction, created by what Rantz calls “a coalition of left-wing educators.” The toolkit promises “an integrated approach to mathematics that centers Black, Latinx, and [m]ultilingual students in grades 6-8.” It also warns teachers that “[t]he concept of mathematics being purely objective is unequivocally false,” and that “[u]pholding the idea that there are always right and wrong answers perpetuates objectivity as well as fear of open conflict.”
This ideological trend in which everything is read through lenses of oppression and victimhood is not isolated in extreme, left-wing enclaves but has become widespread in education. Given the “Critical Theory mood” inflicting Western culture today, it is only likely to grow in the coming years.
One of the many problems with this obsession with racism and oppression in math is that it inevitably leaves students worse at math. In the case of the Seattle pilot schools, for example, performance among black students in the state math exam plummeted after implementing the woke curriculum. Bad ideas with good intentions are still bad ideas. In an effort to empower students, they are instead radically disempowered.
The wonder of mathematics lies precisely in its objectivity, as Melissa Cain Travis describes in Thinking God’s Thoughts, in the miraculous way that math corresponds to and describes the world around us. In her book, Travis chronicles how the beauty and objectivity of numbers led 16th-century German astronomer Johannes Kepler to discover the three laws of planetary motion and to correctly describe the structure of our solar system. Kepler, as much a student of God as he was a scientist, believed that the truths of numbers were eternal, existing eternally in the mind of God and structuring all of reality. Our minds—as beings made in God’s image—are uniquely suited to unlock those mysteries.
Students who are taught that answers to algebra problems depend on the color of their skin and that calculus professors are oppressors are not only not going to unlock the mysteries of the universe, but they will also believe what is not true about who they are and the world in which they live. Woke educators may hope to liberate students. But by depriving them of objective truths they are subjugating them to bad ideas. It’s a tragically ironic and disastrous miscalculation.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Earlier this week, the pro-abortion group NARAL tweeted in tribute of the Supreme Court decision that mandated “same-sex marriage” on all of America:
“Eight years ago, Obergefell v. Hodges recognized the right to same-sex marriage. But the fight to start or grow our families—however and whenever we want—continues.”
“Same-sex marriage” was sold with the claim that with birth control and abortion, modern marriage had been divorced from procreation in any meaningful sense. “Love is love,” the line went, though even if morality is left out of the discussion and only male-female relationships produce children.
So, the word “spouse” was redefined in law. Now, according to NARAL, true equality requires that inherently sterile relationships be able to have children “however and whenever [they] want.”
Science is busy making it easier to access this want, and if California lawmakers get their way, insurers will have to cover pregnancy treatments for same-sex couples.
Redefining words has consequences. Redefining “spouse” meant redefining “parent,” and redefining a child as a “right.”
Recently, the East African nation of Uganda passed a law that will increase criminal punishments for homosexual acts. Same-sex activity was already illegal in Uganda, as it is in several other African nations, and Ugandans convicted under the law already faced life in prison. Under this new law, people convicted of attempting to engage in homosexual behavior could face 10 years behind bars. Those convicted of “aggravated homosexuality,” defined as sexual abuse of a child or knowingly spreading HIV, could face the death penalty. Anyone convicted of “promoting homosexuality” could be imprisoned up to 20 years.
Reaction in the West was quick and fierce. President Biden immediately denounced the law, threatening to withhold humanitarian aid from Uganda. United Nations officials claimed that the law would criminalize Ugandans for “being who they are.” An early draft of the legislation did include a provision criminalizing merely identifying as LGBT, but that didn’t make it into the final bill.
There is plenty wrong with this new Ugandan law, including the severity of punishment and the unrealistic level of police activity that would be required to ever enforce it. A pioneer and strong advocate for criminal justice reform, Chuck Colson believed that the goal of criminal law and enforcement should be rehabilitation and restoration whenever possible, not punishment for punishment’s sake. Unfortunately, in Uganda, as in many nations both Western and developing, the criminal justice process is more punitive than restorative.
Of course, the specifics of the Ugandan law and its prescribed punishments didn’t drive the reaction from Western media and government officials. Instead, the very idea of regulating sexual activity at all is now largely unthinkable, at least in those places in which it has taken decades to normalize, de-stigmatize, and now celebrate sexual deviation in the name of “pride.”
(To be sure, the West also claims to celebrate things like “cultural diversity” and indigenous values and claims to oppose things like “cultural imperialism” and colonialism. So, shouldn’t we respect a country that will not be overrun by our modern Western ideals? Shouldn’t we resist the urge to impose our culture on theirs, as if ours is somehow better? Yet that’s not the way it went.)
Largely overlooked is that most Western nations have never experienced the level of devastation from the continuing AIDS crisis like nations such as Uganda have. According to the UN, 1.4 million Ugandans have HIV/AIDS, including roughly 5.4% of the country’s entire adult population. An estimated 800,000 Ugandan children are orphans of the AIDS crisis there. Meanwhile, in the U.S., only 0.3% of adults live with HIV or AIDS and, because of technology and wealth, most are able to manage the condition.
Up until quite recently, most nations had laws intended to restrain certain kinds of sexual activity. In fact, nearly all of them still do. For example, nearly every nation restricts and punishes relationships with animals or incest. Though many primitive and pagan societies did not regulate sexual behaviors, as the world became more civilized, governments across time and cultures found compelling reasons to regulate some sexual behaviors because of wide implications for public life, public health, population growth, women’s rights, and the safety and wellbeing of children. Historically speaking, nations in decline were the ones that deregulated sexual behaviors. Progressing nations understood why certain legal restrictions are necessary.
Governments have the right and the responsibility to exercise authority over private acts that carry significant public consequences. That does not mean that all laws are feasible in all societies. A law to restrict sexual behavior, even one nothing like Uganda’s, would be a political nonstarter in the United States. Uganda, however, has not weathered a decades-long, extremist sexual revolution. In fact, it is entirely possible that the Ugandan law is the result of the dominance of LGBT lobby groups over every area of Western culture including education, the harm done to the minds and bodies of children, and government leaders realizing, “we don’t want that here.” Or perhaps, “we could never survive that here.” In other words, the fact that Uganda’s law could never pass in the U.S. says as much about the extremism of our culture as it does theirs.
It is not clear how or if this law will be implemented in Uganda in any meaningful sense. It is not, in my view, a good law. It is over-punitive and would, if enforced, punish victims as well as perpetrators of the ideas it hopes to eliminate. At the same time, a society that truly understands and promotes human flourishing would, in fact, have laws aimed at restricting and eliminating harmful ideas and behaviors, and at protecting those who would be victimized by them.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, Illinois lawmakers voted to withhold funding from public libraries if they removed sexually explicit books, and officials in Virginia voted to withhold funding for libraries until they dealt with the sexually explicit books in the kids’ and teens’ sections. Amid the library wars, new graduate of the Colson Fellows program Ashley Borrego decided to give her neighborhood a better kind of library. This fall, the Cornerstone Living Library will open inside Cornerstone Bible Church in Lilburn, Georgia. Ashley is filling the shelves with donated books—from Christian authors to homeschooling resources to Nancy Drew mysteries—that respect kids as kids. Parents will soon be able to take their kids to a library without having to screen everything for obscenity and lies.
What if all churches served their communities by providing libraries? Colson Fellows like Ashley are agents of restoration wherever God has placed them. Join the class of 2024 by applying before June 30 at colsonfellows.org/apply.
What does music mean? Most people today, without realizing it or giving much of a second thought, think of music and art along the lines of 18th-century philosopher David Hume, who wrote:
Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty.
Beauty, in other words, is in the eye of the beholder, and nothing more. Therefore, Hume continued in words that resemble a teenager telling mom and dad to get off his back: “Every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others.”
Rejecting notions of objective truth and universal morality, many in the modern world assume that beauty is not a category of reality that exists outside of the human mind but is entirely a subject of individual taste. Music can be fun, edgy, or distracting. It might even carry therapeutic benefits. But it isn’t rooted in anything transcendent, eternal, or objective.
Recently on the Upstream podcast, my colleague Shane Morris discussed music and meaning with Dr. Jeremy Begbie, a theologian at Duke Divinity School and the University of Cambridge. Dr. Begbie, whose work centers on the intersection of music and theology, argued that music is in fact not neutral. Rather, it is a function of the way we are made by God and ultimately points to deep truths about God and about ourselves.
Here’s Dr. Begbie:
I was speaking to an atheist musicologist, a very distinguished musicologist not so long ago. And he said that music, he believes, ultimately, is about tuning us in to each other and to the physical world at large. It’s about belonging, you see. ‘Oh, how interesting,’ I said. It’s interesting that Christianity has a little bit to say about that. It’s not primarily our job in the world ... to be individuals who simply express themselves or simply get things off their chest, so to speak.
God has made us for each other and has made us to live in harmony with this physical world in which we’re set. And for me, therefore, it makes wonderful sense to say that this is what music is about. Indeed, it’s what language is about. It’s what hundreds of things are about—just this kind of worldview.
Historically, many philosophers—from Plato to Aristotle to St. Augustine—reflected on the “three transcendentals”: goodness, truth, and beauty. Christian thinkers argued that these are attributes of God and therefore clues to the meaning of life. In this view, beauty is an objective reality, grounded in the nature and work of God Himself. This explains why beauty can make such a meaningful impact on human beings. Even those who reject the idea of universal truths and are cynical about our ability to truly know anything cannot help but wrestle with the pull of beauty.
Joseph Pearce explained it this way in a recent article in The Imaginative Conservative, “What … is the role of good art? … The answer is to be found in the power of beauty to touch heads that have forgotten how to think and hearts that have forgotten how to love.”
Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky famously suggested that “Beauty will save the world.” Dostoevsky’s friend, 19th-century philosopher Vladimir Soloviev, explained why he believed this:
In his convictions he never separated truth from good and beauty; in his artistic creativity he never placed beauty apart from the good and the true. And he was right, because these three live only in their unity. The good, taken separately from truth and beauty, is only an indistinct feeling, a powerless upwelling; truth taken abstractly is an empty word; and beauty without truth and the good is an idol. For Dostoevsky, these were three inseparable forms of one absolute Idea.
This is not to suggest that there is no room for subjective experience and interpretation of beauty. Expressions of art, including music, must be perceived by those with tastes and preferences shaped by experiences, culture, knowledge, and various degrees of virtue. We might disagree on whether a Bach concerto carries more or less aesthetic value and technical excellence than a modern rock ballad. Still, that both can be distinguished from meaningless chaos, says something about order and design in the world.
As does the fact that music is more than mere stimulus-response. Even if we don’t know why, musical beauty points us beyond ourselves and offers a clue about the meaning of the universe and the God who made it and us.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
In a fumbled attempt to be more “inclusive” during “pride month,” Johns Hopkins University announced updates to its glossary of LGBT terms. Particularly controversial was a new definition of “lesbian,” as a “non-man attracted to non-men.” The definition, avoiding the term “woman” altogether and centering on “men,” appalled even members of the queer community. One lesbian called it “progressive misogyny.”
It’s another example of transgender ideology leading to the erasure of women. However, L, G, and B critics of this terminology miss how their own body-denying views contributed to this. Homosexual practice is just as much a rejection of the body as transgender ideology is.
For that matter, the hook-up culture, digital technology, abortion, and plenty of other things common in the modern world, have also eroded our collective understanding of the human body and its unique value. The only way forward is to recover the God-given meaning of the human body, who and how God created us to be.
According to political scientist Ryan Burge, the group of people in American society most likely to be highly engaged in political action are not evangelicals, as we’ve been led to believe. They are in fact atheists. “Let me put it plainly,” Burge wrote, “atheists are the most politically active group in American politics today, and the Democrats (and some Republicans) ignore them at their own peril.”
In a slew of indicators—from actions as simple as putting up a yard sign, to the more proactive of attending a protest march—atheists not only outdid their evangelical neighbors but, in most cases, were the most likely group to put money and time toward partisan activities.
Given the common perception that the religiously minded are most prone to political action, we’d be justified to ask just how this false narrative came to be taken for granted. However, an even more interesting question is why so many atheists live ultra concerned about truth and justice in political matters, given that their worldview commits them to a world without ultimate grounding for either? If the world is nothing more than ever-shifting arrangements of atoms, quarks, and leptons, why would we direct any passion toward the political realm?
At least part of the answer is what might be called “the Ricky Gervais solution.” Gervais is the acerbic British comedian known for both skewering Hollywood elites and insisting on atheism in film, television, and real life. In a scene from one of his shows, his character is accosted by a stereotypically dim-witted believer who cannot fathom that someone would not believe in an afterlife. Why even bother to care about things, she asks, if this life is all there is? Gervais retorts that it’s precisely because this life is all we have that we should live what little we get to the fullest.
Historian Tom Holland argues that this is how modern atheism preaches a version of the “good news” about overthrowing idols and leading others to a better life. In this sense, Holland writes, “Atheism in the contemporary West is less a repudiation of Christianity than a logical endpoint of one of its key trends.”
The great passion of modern atheists to make things right in the world comes not so much from rejection of God’s existence but from an anger against Him for the way He made it. The French philosopher Albert Camus argued that the atheist, as a metaphysical rebel,
defies more than he denies. Originally, at least, he does not suppress God; he merely talks to Him as an equal. But it is not a polite dialogue. It is a polemic animated by the desire to conquer. The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.
Or, as C.S. Lewis put it when describing his atheist days,
I was at this time living, like so many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions. I maintained that God did not exist. I was also very angry with God for not existing. I was equally angry with Him for creating a world.
This era of atheist activism presents Christians with a unique opportunity. (Two, in fact.) First, there is opportunity for co-belligerency. Even if ultimately unwarranted, by expressing a great passion for justice and truth in our world, atheists often reach a point of common ground with Christians, namely the rising power and intolerance of “wokeism” and our culture’s critical theory mood.
According to Evan Griggs, an agnostic writing in The European Conservative,
Those of us committed to fighting back against the “woke” must come to terms with the fact that only Christianity is potent enough to defeat the cult of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Non-believers need not convert, but it is time for us to get out of the way.
The other opportunity is the ever-present potential for loving our unbelieving neighbors. Whenever an atheist expresses a passion for justice, they are making a tacit admission that there must be more to life than what their worldview allows. We can remind them that the human dignity upon which they insist is rooted in Christian convictions about the imago Dei. We can offer an explanation for the presence of evil in the world, not as an illusion or fabrication or mere inconvenience, but as a real aspect of life after the fall.
We as Christians also have reason for hope that goes beyond mere wishful thinking for circumstances to change and for good to triumph over evil. We look for the restoration of all good things by the work of Jesus Christ, according to the will of the loving God Who created atheists, yet Whom they deny.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The Colson Fellows program is a lasting legacy of Chuck Colson following God’s voice. It’s been one year since the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v Wade. What’s the result?
— Recommendations —
Colson Center National Conference Online
Megan Phelps-Roper on Armchair Expert
Section 1 - Chuck Colson's Legacy
“Christianity Does Not Stop With Salvation: That’s Only the Beginning …”
Breakpoint
Section 2 - The One-Year Anniversary of Dobbs
"Fewer Abortions Post-Dobbs"
Breakpoint
Section 3 - Archeological Findings in the Middle East
"Archeology Continues to Confirm Biblical Record"
Breakpoint
According to the British paper The Guardian, a U.K. woman recently pled guilty to taking an abortion pill later than the 10-week limit allowed by law. She lied to online doctors, claiming to be less than 10 weeks along when she really thought she was more like 28 weeks. It turns out she was wrong about that too. In fact, she was close to 32 weeks pregnant, nearly full term, and had searched online for the legal consequences of seeking late-term abortion.
As we approach the first anniversary of the end of Roe v. Wade, this case from the U.K. shows just how radical states like Colorado, New York, California, and Michigan are by allowing abortions up to birth, no questions asked. Most European countries restrict late-term abortions. It also demonstrates just how much mail-order abortion pills have changed what it means to protect and defend life. Yes, we need more laws that restrict this evil practice, but we hope for the day when all kinds of abortion are unthinkable.
A year ago, after 49 years of Roe v. Wade straitjacketing legislatures and courts into a draconian pro-abortion regime, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the infamous 1973 ruling. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health the court returned power to the states to determine abortion policy. Pro-life groups have rightly celebrated this fruit of decades of labor, encouraged that their efforts were not in vain. They can also be confident that their work to serve mothers and children will no longer be hamstrung by the miscarriage of justice embodied by Roe.
At the same time, it was not clear a year ago what the end of Roe would mean state by state. How divided is our country over this issue? What would the future of defending pre-born lives entail? Would the Dobbs decision take us closer to the ultimate goal: that abortion would not be merely illegal in some places but unthinkable everywhere? Or would the demon of Roe be replaced by seven more, even worse?
Recently, an article in National Review summarized what can be discerned from the annual Gallup Values and Beliefs poll. The number of Americans who identify as pro-life has grown in the past year by four points, to now 41% of the population. Similar numbers of those polled believe that abortion is a moral wrong. A majority of Americans think that abortion should be illegal in the second trimester, and a strong majority believe it should be illegal in the third trimester.
Not only has public opinion shifted in the wake of the Dobbs decision, but lives have been saved: over 24,000 of them, in fact, according to the statistics organization FiveThirtyEight. Though an additional 69,000 abortions were performed in pro-abortion states compared to the same time period a year before, that was more than offset by the over 93,000 fewer abortions performed in pro-life regions.
The dramatic difference between pro-abortion and pro-life states is an indication of the ongoing radicalization of the pro-abortion movement. States such as New York and California long ago replaced the pretense of “safe, legal, and rare” for macabre celebrations and blatant attempts to silence all pro-life dissent. More recently, and in reaction to Dobbs, my own state of Colorado has passed legislation that will make it among the most radical pro-abortion places in the Western world. There has also been an uptick in vandalism and flagrant violence hurled at pro-life agencies and activists.
The most difficult obstacle to the prospect of building a pro-life culture, even in otherwise pro-life states, is the increasing popularity and availability of mail-order abortion pills. These dangerous chemicals, which kill the children and risk the lives and health of their mothers, can be secured at home, often without a doctor’s visit. According to most estimates, chemical abortions, which are notoriously difficult to track, now account for over 50% of all abortions.
Another development over the last year has been the failure of pro-life legislation in otherwise ostensibly conservative places, states such as Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky. Even in states where laws were passed, as in Indiana, pro-life lawmakers had a tougher-than-expected struggle. Thankfully, there were courageous and committed lawmakers who pushed through. In states with so-called “trigger laws”, laws already on the books in the case of Roe’s demise, abortion clinics have been closed and restrictions on abortion have been added, leaving whole regions increasingly abortion-free.
The Dobbs decision has also had unexpected implications for other at-risk children. A few years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Hannah Strege and her family. Hannah was the very first so-called “snowflake baby,” meaning she’d spent the first two years of life as a frozen embryo conceived via in-vitro fertilization, before being adopted and given a chance at life. Hanna and her parents presented an amicus brief for the Dobbs case, arguing that her life shows that viability begins at fertilization due to modern technology. Now, post-Dobbs, the Streges continue to advocate for the protection of embryos as distinct, valuable human beings as more and more states take up the question of when life begins.
The rest of us must continue to advocate for the protection of pre-born life, knowing it will take years of political campaigning, legal maneuvering, crisis pregnancy intervention, and care for at-risk moms and babies. For a free resource on how you can work toward creating a culture of life, go breakpoint.org/abortion.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. To help us share Breakpoint with others, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, a high school graduate from South Carolina, Lydia Owens, shared her testimony in her graduation speech. She encouraged her classmates that no matter their accomplishments or failures, their value comes from being made in the image of God.
Lydia described losing her mom, who had been her greatest inspiration, just two years earlier. “When everything else in my life felt uncertain, the only person that I could depend on to stay the same was Jesus,” Lydia said.
Lydia told her classmates they need not worry about success “because God promises that His grace is sufficient for us, and that His power is made perfect in our weaknesses.” The crowd’s reaction demonstrated that they had been deeply touched by Lydia’s faith and courage. Her speech has now gone viral.
Lydia’s faith makes it clear that students should never be forced to leave their faith out of the classroom.
Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter written in 1675 to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Chuck Colson was one of those giants for many of us, and it is our privilege to steward his legacy at the Colson Center.
In fact, Chuck believed that his most important legacy, more than any of the organizations he founded or the many books he authored, would be people. That’s why he started what he called the Centurions Program, something that continues today under a different name, the Colson Fellows program. Here’s Chuck Colson on the important vision he had for this program:
"I have a burning passion—it’s the first item on my prayer list every day—and that’s to see a movement of Christians raised up from the churches to defend truth in the marketplace of ideas and to live out the Gospel. Nothing less than this kind of an awakening can possibly save our quickly deteriorating culture. That’s why I’m now spending all of my time working at Breakpoint and the Colson Center. One of my major projects is developing Christian leaders who can understand and defend a biblical view of all of life. We call this the Centurions Program.
For the past six years we have brought 100 of the best and brightest into this year-long teaching effort, to study under some of the best minds in the Christian world. It’s demanding: We read books together, view movies and critique them, do a lot of teaching online, and have three residencies during the year in Lansdowne, Virginia, near our offices.
Our Centurion graduates are like the Marines or the Navy Seals who are on the front lines of the next wave of leaders. Can this work?
Just two weeks ago I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a rally on behalf of the Manhattan Declaration. It was organized by the Catholic Archbishop of New Mexico, Michael Sheehan, and a former congressman named Bill Redmond, who is a Centurion graduate. You can imagine my thrill when I walked into the convention center to see 1,600 participants. And they were on fire!
They were there to learn biblical worldview, to learn how to defend the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty, to learn how to become activists! There were representatives from across the denominational spectrum: Southern Baptists, Nazarenes, Assemblies of God, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics. The Church had come together. And all of this was organized by one gutsy archbishop and one Centurion graduate. They in fact have built a powerful network across the state of New Mexico. So yes, it can be done.
And our Centurions are doing a whole variety of important tasks across the spectrum. Like Jon Blankmeyer, who founded a safe home for girls rescued from forced prostitution. Josue Delgado, a hospital chaplain who teaches emergency medical technicians on how to build stronger marriages. Kathy Peele, who founded a group to help mothers under distress, and so many more. By the time they are certified, Centurions know how to write, discuss, and teach Christian worldview in all sorts of settings.
They know how to create God-honoring culture through the arts, media, literature, and business. They’re able to debate ethical challenges with medical professionals, advocate human rights, and develop tomorrow’s leaders by raising children grounded in biblical values. In short, they learn to defend truth in an age in which many believe such a thing does not exist.
Look, folks, the reason the Church today is having so little impact is too many Christians view their faith only in terms of a personal relationship with Jesus. But Christianity does not stop with salvation: That’s only the beginning. We’ve got to learn how to present our worldview in a winsome way. And if we don’t do this, it simply dooms our churches to isolation and irrelevance—just when our culture desperately needs the hope of the Gospel more than ever."
After Chuck’s death in 2012, the program he started as the Centurions Program was renamed the Colson Fellows program. I think Chuck would be ecstatic to know that this past year, over 1,300 Christians from across the country and around the world studied worldview, theology, and culture as part of the Colson Fellows program. He’d be even more excited to know all the ways the fellows are currently planning to apply what they’ve learned in the time and place God has called them.
If you desire to make a similar impact in your community for Christ, consider studying with the Colson Fellows program next year. With over 60 regional cohorts around the country, there is likely a cohort in your region. If not, there are online cohorts offered as well. Either way, you’ll find a deeper understanding of truth and be better equipped to live out your faith in this cultural moment in whatever calling and vocation God has put before you. For more information, visit www.colsonfellows.org.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This Breakpoint was revised from one aired March 16, 2022.
Just in time for “pride” month, the Associated Press (AP) joined the ranks of activist organizations telling Americans to embrace transgenderism. Recent updates to AP’s style guide insist that reporters use individuals’ “preferred” pronouns, avoid terms like “biological sex” and “both sexes,” call sex “assigned at birth,” and refer to controversial surgical and chemical “transition” interventions as “gender-affirming care.”
The AP justifies the new rules, claiming to follow the science. However, “the science” is far from settled on the subject. Declaring that puberty blockers are “fully reversible” or that chemical and surgical “transition” interventions are backed by evidence betrays actual truth-seeking. More and more studies indicate that these controversial interventions are detrimental to the physical health and mental wellbeing of children.
Peddling ideas that are basically dangerous pseudoscience in order to get some cultural brownie points is cowardly. The AP should stick to journalism that seeks the truth, rather than promotes harm.
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While activists in the U.S. seek to eliminate any restrictions to so-called “gender-affirming” interventions for minors, a number of European countries are adding safeguards around or backing off altogether from these controversial procedures. Following European neighbors Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, the Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board announced that it will revise its recommended standards of care for minors struggling with gender dysphoria. The proposed revisions would no longer allow the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and transition surgery for minors.
As NHIB rightfully points out, the science surrounding “gender-affirming care” is far from settled. In fact, the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or transition surgeries to treat gender dysphoria lacks adequate research. There is hardly any substantial research on the long-term effects of these treatments on minors, and what we do know about them is disregarded by ideologically driven proponents. Puberty blockers, for example, have been known to plague patients with loss of bone density. Cross-sex hormones lead to sterilization. Transition surgeries are rife with serious complications. In the name of a dubious ideology, we’re experimenting on children.
Additionally, most of the long-term studies that proponents cite to support current “gendering-affirming” protocols are poorly designed. As the report summarized: “As a rule, there is no control group in the studies.” This means that any effects are “often assessed at group level and not at individual level, so that unwanted effects for some patients can be masked by improvement in the rest of the group.” The results are also skewed by factors such as patient dropout and a failure to make contact for follow-ups. In other words, the numbers are played with to get the desired result.
At the heart of the case for so-called “gender-affirming care” is the claim that transition prevents suicide. Research, however, shows the opposite. In a summary of recent research, Ben Johnson described how life satisfaction among those who undergo “transition” surgeries decreases rather than increases. Another study published last month found that self-identifying transgender individuals—not necessarily those who have had transition surgery—have high levels of loneliness. These studies confirm the findings of one of the best studies on the effect that transitioning has on the mental health of patients, which finds that those who undergo gender transition are over 19 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers.
Given the clear dearth of quality research on the long-term effects of chemical and surgical “transition” interventions, any promotion of such controversial medicine is motivated not by science but by ideology.
At the heart of transgender ideology is a belief that the physical, human body, specifically our God-given biological sex, does not constitute what it means to be a person. Rather the person is an intangible self, separate from the body, that can only be defined by one’s own inner sense of self. Motivated by this central belief, activists tailor their views on health and wellness to match. Health, for them, is ultimately defined by the satisfaction of the immaterial self, not one’s physical wellbeing. So the harms to one’s body found in transitioning are worth the actualization of the inner self’s true gender.
Like every false ideology, transgender ideology is at odds with reality. As much as transgender activists want to say “gender-affirming care” will bring people satisfaction, our experience of God’s creation finds just the opposite. While more research may be necessary, studies indicate that gender transition surgery, on the whole, exacerbates patients’ unhappiness. This tells us that, as much as we’d like to disregard and deny the reality of our God-given bodies, they are a vital part of us that should not be discarded for the sake of our own sinful designs.
Rather than trying to destroy the body, care that truly affirms gender would seek to reconcile people with their God-given bodies, helping them simultaneously accept the gift of the body and lament its brokenness.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Last year, after a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, killing five and injuring 19, vandals graffitied the property of Focus on the Family, accusing them of being responsible for the horrific crime. The shooting was actually carried out by someone who identified as LGBT and had visited the nightclub with his mom.
A few days later, on the steps of the Supreme Court, members of the Christian legal advocacy group, Alliance Defending Freedom, were met by protestors who called them a “hate group” for defending the constitutionally protected religious freedom of a Christian graphic designer.
To follow Christ today invites false accusations and waves of hostility. That’s why I’ve invited Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel of ADF, and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, to join me for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on July 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Go to colsoncenter.org/greatlakes to attend live or join the livestream.
New evidence reports Nathan Steinmeyer of the Biblical Archaeology Society is confirming the biblical description of the kingdom of Judah as it existed in King David’s time. This is significant, according to Steinmeyer, because “[d]espite King David’s prominence in the Hebrew Bible, little archaeological evidence has been directly linked to the early years of the Kingdom of Judah.” Because of this apparent discrepancy between the archeological record and the biblical description of the region during the 10th-century B.C., “some scholars have argued that Judah only became a developed polity in the ninth or even eighth century B.C.E.”
Recently, however, an article published in the Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology by renowned Hebrew University archeologist Yosef Garfinkel, whose team has been digging four major sites in the Judean foothills since 2007, makes claims that “completely transforms the state of research.” Newly exposed settlement layers reveal a number of population centers with writing, housing, and casemate [or double] city walls, which form the kind of fortified cities described in 1 and 2 Samuel. These cities, at Khirbet Qeiyafa, Khirbet el-Ra‘i, Socoh, and Lachish may have been the nucleus of the kingdom of Judah. Furthermore, Garfinkel notes, the ancient city of Hebron makes an ideal center point for this kingdom and matches the biblical record, which states that David was crowned in Hebron and only later moved to Jerusalem seven years into his reign.
A number of other findings from these sites also confirm the biblical narrative. Rectangular beams in groups of three match descriptions of Solomon’s palace and temple and indicate that the pattern was used at the time of King Solomon’s reign. Tenth-century fortifications in the city of Lachish correspond to the biblical account of King Rehoboam. The Judean city of Khirbet Qeiyafa sits across the Elah Valley from the major Philistine city of Gath—matching descriptions of conflict between the House of David and these neighbors.
Contra the widely accepted scholarly claims of the 1990s, which argued that Judea was “empty of population” in the time described by the Bible, Garfinkel’s findings suggest that 10th-century Judea was a young, expanding kingdom.
Archaeological work is complicated and often incomplete. Still, it is remarkable how often the evidence, even as it piles up, confirms biblical accounts of history. According to Jewish archeologist Nelson Gluek, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference.” This, even as, “[s]cores of archaeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible.”
The reason archeological confirmation matters is because Christianity is uniquely grounded in history as it actually happened. Some religions, like Buddhism or Hinduism, are insulated from verifiable tests of logic, reason, or human history, claiming to reveal only spiritual truths. Other religions, such as Islam, ground some traditions in history while making its central claims, such as the inspiration of the Qur’an, an article of pure faith. (For the record, the claim the Qur’an has been perfectly preserved, fails even basic challenges of historical and textual criticism.)
While these other belief systems are “non-falsifiable,” meaning they are so far removed from the world of evidence it is impossible to show whether they’re true or false, Christianity claims that its most important events, particularly the events of Israel and the life of Jesus Christ, actually happened. The events of the Bible occurred in actual history and are open to historical scrutiny—most notably the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Otherwise, the apostles Peter and Paul made clear, we are left with only cleverly devised myths and faith that is futile. Christians need not fear rigorous scholarship, especially not the booming world of ancient archeology. The more we dig into the dirt of history, the more we are reminded that God has always been, and remains today, active in the world He made.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
According to a recent report on the online source FiveThirtyEight, the Dobbs decision has made a big difference.
“There were almost 94,000 fewer abortions in states that implemented bans post-Dobbs, just between July and March,” author Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux summarized in a Twitter thread. “Almost 100k affected and that’s not even the full year.” And, in states without bans, “Abortions rose by ~70,000.” In other words, the Dobbs decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion decision back to the states has meant a net decrease of 24,000 abortions nationwide.
Some bans have had a more significant impact than others. For example, abortion in states that “have banned abortion after six weeks ... [abortions] tend to drop by 50-60%. If that happened in FL, where a six-week ban is pending, we could be talking about 4k fewer abortions MONTHLY.”
To be clear, Thomson-DeVeaux is alarmed by these numbers.
At the same time, data points to huge shifts in how abortion is attained in America, most notably abortion tourism and an uptick in chemical abortions. So, the work continues. And yet, it is safe to say that elections matter.
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, written over 4,000 years ago, Enkidu, the great friend of the demigod Gilgamesh, dies. Afraid of death, Gilgamesh asks the sage Utnapishtim, the only survivor of the Great Flood, about the secret to immortality. Utnapishtim gives Gilgamesh a number of tasks, all of which he fails. But that was the point. Gilgamesh learned that immortality is beyond his grasp and returns to Uruk to live out the rest of his life as king.
The first emperor of China was Shi Huang Di. Buried in a tomb decorated with the famous terracotta soldiers, he also feared death and called on Chinese alchemists to create an elixir that would allow him to live forever. The alchemists believed they could make immortality possible through a perfect balance of the five elements: water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Unfortunately for the emperor, the elixir contained mercury (because it is both a liquid and a metal), which likely contributed to the emperor’s death.
Attempts to achieve immortality have continued (and continued to fail) right up to our own time. Medieval European alchemists believed they could produce “the philosopher’s stone,” which would perfect the imperfect, turning lead into gold and making mortal life immortal. Enlightenment thinkers of the late 18th century rejected the mysticism of alchemy but continued to speculate about the means to attain physical immortality. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was written as a cautionary tale about scientific hubris, in response to the more modern attempts of medicine and biology to preserve, extend, and improve life.
Today, the quest for immortality continues. Through cryogenics, freshly deceased persons or animals are frozen, their blood replaced with “medical-grade antifreeze” to prevent ice crystals from destroying cells. So, the idea goes, once medical technology is able to heal whatever caused their deaths, these creatures can be thawed, healed, and restored to life, possibly with additional enhancements. This approach assumes, among other things, that life and memory can be repaired if the body is repaired and the heart restarted.
In other words, life is seen in purely mechanical terms. This is an equal and opposite error to those pursuing immortality through cybertechnologies, believing that if our consciousness can be downloaded into computers, we can continue to exist as a sort of ghost in a machine. In this techno-gnosticism, our bodies are optional and not a necessary part of life. In this way of thinking, we are our minds, and our minds are nothing more than sophisticated software that can be downloaded into a computer, machine, or perhaps a new robotic body.
Other modern attempts at the Fountain of Youth—such as nutritional strategies, supplements, alternative medical practices, and gene-editing technologies like CRISPR—do not seek as much to avoid death as to extend life. These range from becoming more serious about healthy living to more extreme alternatives. A number of billionaires have been investing in research into life extension, including Sam Altman of OpenAI, Jeff Bezos, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Brian Armstrong of Coinbase. Some believe that our medical technologies will eventually reach a state of “Longevity Escape Velocity,” in which advances are increasing lifespans faster than the years go by, therefore bringing us to the point of immortality.
Despite our long history of failed attempts to live forever, many of which caused more harm than good, scientific hubris remains a temptation almost impossible to avoid. But we should take Mary Shelly’s warnings seriously. Some of these longevity experiments will be interesting and ultimately harmless. Some may even help. Others, such as those involving gene-editing technology, will leave their own monsters waiting in the shadows, and it is unlikely, if history is any indication, that we will be able to see them coming.
A more basic problem is trying to defeat death while thinking it is only a material problem to be solved. No latter-day elixir can satisfy our fear of death, which is a physical consequence of metaphysical realities. What ancient emperors and modern tech barons so desperately seek is exactly what’s offered in Christ: His eternal life exchanged for our mortal, sinful life. This exchange does not come from a laboratory bottle filled with who knows what, but from an empty tomb. Ultimately, because He defeated death, our bodies will be perfected beyond what even the most optimistic biohacker could dream.
Yes, death remains an enemy. But it is a defeated foe, and all who are in Christ will ultimately see its defeat when we are resurrected to life eternal. This is the truth behind what are reported to have been Tim Keller’s final words: “There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.” And Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, as well: “This is the end—for me, the beginning of life.”
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria discuss the new documentary on the Duggar family, Oklahoma approves a Catholic charter school, and a Jeopardy! panel shows its ignorance of the Bible.
— Recommendations —
Dad, How Do I? YouTube channel
The River by Peter Heller
Several years ago, a New York Times headline read, “Is Your Child Lying to You? That’s Good.” Parents, the author said, shouldn’t be upset about their young fibbers because studies show that kids who lie are more intelligent and “socially adept” than those who don’t.
And for children who aren’t quite so good at lying, parents can “speed up the process” through training exercises. If, as the author claims, lying is good for your brain, then the sooner kids start lying, the better.
I wish I were making that up, but I’m not. The author’s argument is fully consistent with a worldview that sees cognitive ability as the highest quality we should value and cultivate in children.
But cognitive intelligence isn’t the only kind. There’s also moral intelligence—knowing the right thing to do in a morally charged universe. And there’s relational intelligence—knowing how best to live in relationship with others, for their good, not just our own.
And never forget, “studies” and “research” are never neutral . . . .
This Point was originally published on January 19, 2018.
On December 6, 1907, a massive explosion decimated a coal mine in Monongah, West Virginia. Three hundred and sixty-two miners were killed, making this the worst mining disaster in U.S. history. The tragedy devastated the small town and led eventually to the establishment of the U.S. Bureau of Mines.
The Monongah mine disaster also marked another beginning. Several months after the explosion, a local church held a special service in honor of the 362 miners, most of whom had left behind wives and children. This is the first event on record in the United States set aside specifically to honor dads.
Two years later, a woman from Spokane who, along with her five siblings, was raised by her widowed father, began a public campaign to establish a national Father’s Day. A day for mothers was already in the works and, according to historical accounts, was a much easier sell to the public. By 1916, President Woodrow Wilson had officially recognized Father’s Day, though it would not be recognized as a national holiday until 1972.
A little over a hundred years after the mining disaster that birthed Father’s Day, the United States is now suffering a crisis of fatherlessness. One in four American kids are, like so many in that West Virginia town, growing up without their father at home. That amounts to 18.5 million kids.
If statistics hold, this means that 18.5 million children are three times more likely to engage in criminal activity than those who have dads at home. Those 18.5 million kids are more likely to engage in sexual activity earlier, are less likely to go to college, more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems, more likely to struggle academically, are twice as likely to commit suicide, and much more likely to commit violence. The vast majority of mass shooters in the past 20 years were young men who were, in some way, estranged from their fathers.
Almost any social good that can be named is dependent on dads who commit to their families and is at risk when they don’t. This does not mean that every child who grows up without dad in the home will not succeed. Thank God for the millions of grandparents, relatives, friends, neighbors, and especially single moms who heroically raise children in difficult circumstances. Nor does it mean that a faithful dad at home guarantees success for children. Many people squander the amazing inheritance with which they are blessed. Put differently, statistics do not determine the destiny of individuals.
At the same time, statistics predict the future of societies. Though fatherlessness is correlated with almost every major cultural crisis of the 21st century, the importance of dads remains consistently underestimated and is even undermined. So-called “same-sex marriage” and adoption by same-sex couples suggest that either moms or dads really aren’t that important when it comes to raising children. Legalized abortion has effectively catechized generations of men into believing they are not obligated to take responsibility for children that result from their sexual activity and catechized generations of women into believing they’ve no right to expect that commitment from men. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly half of all women who seek abortions do so because they’ve been abandoned by their baby’s father.
I’m especially grateful for the Institute for Family Studies, which continues to research and report the statistical importance of dads. Just as God designed procreation to require one man and one woman, He meant for that man and that woman to raise their child. Fathers love, teach, provide for, and nurture both sons and daughters in ways moms can’t. The same goes for moms.
We also know the importance of fathers because God has revealed Himself as a Father. This striking designation should cause every earthly father to tremble. We have an awesome responsibility, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Finally, every person ever created knows in their bones the irreplaceable importance of fathers, either because of the comfort, steadiness, and love we received from an attentive dad, or because of the pain of his absence. Committed dads are essential ingredients for healthy kids, healthy families, and healthy societies (and specifically for more healthy men).
Showing up, sticking around, and discipling kids as only a father can is a powerful witness to the beautiful design and the steadfast love of our own heavenly Father. Every kid needs and deserves one.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Statistical data from the General Social Survey shows that, contrary to what many think, the overwhelming majority of Americans—a whopping 86%—believe in God at some level. For every American that doesn’t believe in God, there are seven who do.
Of course, just because 4 out of 5 Americans think God exists doesn’t mean they believe in the same God or, for that matter, in the God that actually exists. What we believe about God is a defining aspect of our lives. As A.W. Tozer wrote, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
What we believe about God shapes what we believe about the rest of life, including those ultimate, worldview-shaping questions of origin, identity, meaning, morality, and destiny. And the more a group of people is unmoored from the truth about these things together, the more disconnected they are from those essentials of a healthy and functioning society, such as justice, human dignity, and the care and protection of children.
An argument commonly used to justify radical ideologies about gender and sexuality is the existence of so-called “third” genders in various cultures throughout history. For example, gender “workbooks” that are often promoted in schools, counseling offices, and online, aimed at children and their parents, suggest that “third” genders prove that transgender identities have historical precedent and are therefore not just products of a modern fad.
Among the most cited examples are the Native American “Two-spirit,” Thailand’s “Kathoey” (regularly translated as “Ladyboy”), Ancient Middle East’s “Sal-zikrum,” the “Fa’afafine” of Samoa, the “Hijra” of India, and the “Muxe” of Southern Mexico. This long list of those who didn’t conform to male and female norms of their cultures may seem to be a compelling argument. However, a quick look at so-called “third” gender people reveals that they are not based on the same presuppositions as modern transgender ideology.
At the heart of contemporary gender ideology is a rejection of the so-called “gender binary,” that only two genders exist, as well as any essential link between biological sex and gender. The contention is that biological sex is itself “assigned” and therefore not determinative of one’s gender identity, which is, after all, nothing more than a social construct.
In most cases, labeling non-conforming individuals as “third genders” is an anachronism forced upon people who presumed the reality of biological sex, gender roles, and the so-called “gender binary.” For example, the word Fa’afafine, literally translated, means “in the manner of a woman.” The name refers to Samoan men who act like, live as, and associate with women. Historically, a Fa’afafine is a boy chosen by his family at a young age to help the mother with household tasks, often because there was no daughter born to the family. In other words, the Fa’afafine are not those “born into the wrong body” who express “their true selves.” Nor is the choice based on the boy being a homosexual or even noticeably feminine. Rather, the choice is made for them by a father in a culture committed to distinct gender roles.
It’s also notable that, in this context, those who are identified as Fa’afafine are not considered to be female, nor are they considered a wife or a mother. They are recognized as men who act like women. This is not a culture that denies sexual difference.
The Native American “two-spirit” is a neologism created in 1990 to refer to so-called “third” genders in those cultures. However, “two-spirit” is not monolithic. Each Native American tribe had different ways of describing gender-bending individuals, and most refer to a member of one sex who acts stereotypically like the opposite sex. For example, the Lakota “Winkte,” which has been categorized under “two-spirit,” refers to a man who is “like a woman.” Such identification relies on the fact of binary gender roles. It is not a “third” gender.
Of course, modern transgender ideology also relies on the gender binary that it rejects. Rigid masculine or feminine stereotypes determine whether someone’s “true identity” is at odds with their bodies. A boy is considered a girl if he likes pink or plays house or even occasionally enjoys stereotypical “feminine” habits or games. In the same way, a girl who likes trucks or playing in the dirt isn’t just a tomboy but an actual boy. Amidst all the talk about fluidity and gender spectrums, and sexual identity being a social construct, transgender ideology relies on the grossest, rigid stereotypes.
Thus, transgender ideology not only contradicts itself, it also perpetuates the very problem it claims to solve. In the second half of the last century, a cacophony of voices denounced rigid stereotypes as harmful and restrictive, especially for children. The social contagion of those who struggle with the identities today do so because of narrow stereotypes that are treated as absolute and definitive. Girls are no longer allowed to behave “like boys.” Rather, they must be boys. And if a boy wants to be a girl, that means embracing the most frilly, suggestive, stereotypes thinkable. All of this ignores the perfectly normal and natural variety found among men and women, long before novel sexual ideologies became new articles of faith for America’s cultural priests.
(It’s also worth mentioning that pointing to other cultures to justify a modern ideology commits the “noble savage” mistake. Just because some other culture did it does not make it right. Imagine suggesting that because ancient cultures practiced cannibalism or slavery, then we should too.)
To be made in the image of God is to be male or female. The solution for today’s poor thinking is not to default to some shallow stereotype, any more than it is to embrace some harmful practice of some ancient culture. Rather, it is to affirm, at the deepest level, informed by Scripture and biology, the reality and beauty of complementary sexual difference.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Apparently, Josh Timonen, once a right-hand man of New Atheist author Richard Dawkins, has converted to Christianity. Timonen began working with Dawkins back in 2006, just before the publication of Dawkins’ bestseller, The God Delusion, helping with Dawkins’ website, some documentaries, as well as his foundation and merchandise. The two parted ways due to a legal dispute.
Later, Timonen relocated his family during the pandemic, and they started attending a church so that his young daughter could make friends. At that church, Timonen and his wife began to reconsider Christianity and, after reading Lee Strobel’s The Case for Christ, Timonen was confronted with the historical fact of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection, all of which he had dismissed early on in his atheism. Within the year, Josh and his wife placed their faith in Christ.
Timonen’s story is a reminder that God is at work and that through Christ, can reconcile us to Himself, even “while we were enemies” (Romans 5:10).
In sports news, the Denver Nuggets have won their first NBA Championship, in their 47th year in the league. That was this week. Last week, it was the Oklahoma Sooners women’s softball team that dominated headlines, winning their third straight and seventh overall NCAA championship.
For those of us who don’t typically follow this particular sport, the OU team was as well known for their celebrations and press conferences as for their dominant play. The word that comes to mind, partly because it was repeated over and over by those in the program and those watching, is joy. To be clear, for these Sooners, joy is not a consequence of winning. It’s the other way around. When asked about their joy, during a press conference a few days before winning the national title, team captain Grace Lyons said this:
Well, the only way that you can have a joy that doesn’t fade away is from the Lord. And any other type of joy is actually happiness that comes from circumstances and outcomes. I think Coach has said this before, but joy from the Lord is really the only thing that can keep you motivated, just in a good mindset, no matter the outcomes. Thankfully, we’ve had a lot of success this year. But if it was the other way around, joy from the Lord is the only thing that can keep you embracing those memories, moments, friendships, and all that.
Following Lyons, her teammate Jayda Coleman discussed her own journey of learning the proper order of winning and joy:
1,000% agree with Grace Lyons. I went through that my freshman year, I was so happy to win the [College World Series]. I’ve talked about this before, but I was just so happy that we won the College World Series, but I didn’t feel joy . . . . I didn’t know what to do the next day. I didn’t know what to do for that following week. I didn’t feel filled. And I had to find Christ in that. And I think that is what makes our team so strong is that we’re not afraid to lose, because it’s not the end of the world. If we do lose, yes, obviously, we worked our butts off to be here and we want to win. But it’s not the end of the world because our life is in Christ. And that’s all that matters.
It’s not unusual at a press conference for an athlete or two to express thankfulness to God. What is unusual is for three in a row to do so, while also expressing how their faith in Christ has completely changed their perspective on sports and life. Sophomore Alyssa Brito then iced the press conference (that’s a sports metaphor for an athlete who finishes out a game and secures the win), describing how the game is not life, only part of a life that’s completely reoriented by focusing on Christ and not self:
I think a huge thing that we’ve really just latched on to is eyes up. And you guys see us doing this and pointing up, but we’re really like fixing our eyes on Christ. And that’s something we’re, like they we’re saying, you can’t find a fulfillment in an outcome, whether it’s good or bad. And I think that’s why we’re so steady in what we do and in our love for each other and our love for the game, because we know this game is giving us the opportunity to glorify God. And I just think once we figured that out, and that was our purpose, and everyone was all in with that, it’s really changed so much for us. And I mean, I know myself, I’ve seen so much of a growth in myself . . . . once I turned to Jesus, and I realized how He had changed my outlook on life, not just softball, but understanding how much I have to live for. And that’s living to exemplify the Kingdom. And I think that brings so much freedom. And I’m sure everyone’s story is similar, but we all have those great testimonies that have really, like, shown how awesome it is to play for something bigger.
To be clear, this is a talented team, but there is also a culture in place at OU that just looks different. In another press conference, Coach Patty Gasso attributed their success to knowing “they are defined not by softball . . . . . They never play tight, they never play afraid . . . . because . . . . they’ve really found their freedom … through their faith.”
In a “Dear Softball” letter, senior captain Grace Lyons echoed her coach when she said her perspective changed “when I realized you were just something I did, not who I was.”
The expectation is to idolize you. And the promise is that true joy comes from reaching a goal that you have put all of your effort into. Yes, we as Christians are expected to work hard at all that we do for Christ. But the real victory has already been won on the cross: Jesus dying for my sin and saving me. Because of this, I have an eternal hope that allows me to play your game free with fullness of joy that comes only from the Lord. With this mindset, I have played the most joyful softball the last five years.
And that joy has pointed millions to the One who is the Giver of all good gifts. Congrats Grace and OU softball, and thank you for sharing this gift with us.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
According to the BBC, for the first time in the U.K., a baby has been born with DNA from not only mom and dad, but also another woman. About 0.1% of the baby’s DNA came from the third party, through a mitochondrial donation. The idea of the procedure is to produce a baby without any of the diseases that result from unhealthy mitochondria inherited from the parents.
Though hailed as “the only option for (parents with defective mitochondria) to have a healthy child of their own,” it’s not certain the procedure will work, nor whether a child born from the process will develop problems later in life. More troubling is that children are treated as a product that is owed to anyone who wants them, through an experiment conducted without a child’s knowledge or consent.
And, no matter how noble the motives are, once this method enters medical toolkits, it will be used in other ways just like other medical procedures have been. As “throuples” and other relationships are increasingly recognized legally, this technology will be applied for different purposes, sooner not later.
Eleven years ago, Colorado and Washington became the first U.S. states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Passed by ballot initiatives put to voters, the legalization of recreational marijuana was due in large part to promise of financial windfalls for schools. But, a shift in public opinion regarding the drug’s health risks was required. So, advocates proposed that, when compared to other legal substances like alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana use was less destructive, less addictive, and less fatal.
Today, after more than a decade of legal recreational marijuana, we now have significantly more data. Far from being safe, recreational pot is clearly a net loss for public health. More and more studies, in fact, are showing that marijuana poses a number of serious health risks, in particular to pregnant moms, to men, and to people in the workforce.
Expectant mothers are especially at risk from marijuana use. According to a Canadian study published last month, the number of hospital visits for pregnant women in Ontario has nearly doubled since Canada legalized recreational marijuana use in 2018. Of those visits that were marijuana related, the majority were emergency room visits. Although, as lead researcher Dr. Daniel Myran observed, marijuana-related incidents made up only a fraction of total visits, almost all of them were serious. Other research has found that babies born to marijuana-using mothers are more likely to be premature and underweight, and more likely to be admitted to neonatal care units. While more research is needed to determine the exact role marijuana plays in harming children in-utero, the correlations are enough to recommend against pregnant moms using marijuana altogether.
Marijuana use is also closely linked with spiking rates of mental illness among young men. A new National Institutes of Health study, which looked at more than 6 million subjects across five decades, discovered that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among men aged 21-30 are related to heavy marijuana use. Men who used cannabis were three times more likely to develop schizophrenia than their female counterparts. As U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse deputy director Dr. Wilson Compton said, “The clear message is that cannabis may not be the innocent and risk-free substance that so many people believe.”
Marijuana use also poses serious threats for those in the workplace. According to yet another new report, marijuana positivity rates have been steadily climbing across a variety of industries in the past decade, especially in service, retail, and finance or insurance jobs. These increased positivity rates correlate with an increased number of workplace accidents that, afterwards, revealed cannabis use. Despite a decline in these types of accidents between 2002 and 2008, the number of such accidents has increased by over 200% in the past decade. As of 2022, cannabis-related accidents are now at an all-time high in the U.S.
For the past two decades, we have been told, as more and more states legalized recreational marijuana use, that cannabis is a harmless substance. However, given the growing body of evidence showing otherwise, the legalization and promotion of pot use should not be allowed to hide, obscure, or deny what we now know. Currently a $32 billion industry, the legalization and promotion of recreational pot is only about profit. Like all industries that prey upon vices, such as gambling or pornography, pot is less about actually helping people and more about keeping them hooked and paying.
Though at this point it seems almost impossible to put this destructive genie back in the bottle, any state, company, or person truly interested in helping others will work to reign in the reckless peddling of recreational marijuana use.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Setting aside it’s “a waste of time,” as Twenge’s daughter puts it, and the predatory pornography and terrible ideas that permeate social media, social media cannot carry the weight of real human connection.
Could all of this mean Americans aren’t as thoroughly converted on these matters as activists assumed?
Three members of the National Champion Oklahoma University softball team gave a God-honoring definition of joy. John and Maria discuss a new law in Uganda that criminalizes specific expressions of homosexuality.
— Recommendations —
OU Softball Press Conference
Segment 1 - OU Softball Team and the Culture of Joy
2023-06-06 WCWS Oklahoma Pregame Press Conference
Segment 2 - The Uganda Homosexuality Law
The Briefing with Albert Mohler
Last month, a local Memphis news station caught a drive-by shooting live on camera. During an interview about crime with Whitehaven community leader Yolanda Cooper-Sutton, a series of shots rang out across the street. Thankfully, no one was injured.
And just as surprising as the shooting was Cooper-Sutton's calm and faith-filled response. Immediately, she advised everyone to get down and stay down. “It’s okay,” you can hear her saying in order to comfort the shocked crew, and the clip ends with Cooper-Sutton saying from the ground, “Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for the blood of Jesus that cover[s] us.”
Paul promised the Christians in Philippi that the peace of Christ will rule our hearts. That’s just as true when our world is in chaos as when all seems fine and peaceful. And it’s a gift we can then give others. Live on camera, God gave Yolanda Cooper-Sutton peace. She then gave it to the crew and, because of a viral video, to the world.
In less than a decade, the number of American companies with either an official department, an HR initiative, or a job title that includes the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has ballooned. In fact, by the end of 2020, U.S. companies were spending an estimated $3.4 billion on so-called “DEI” initiatives.
Proponents say DEI initiatives are necessary to fight workplace discrimination. Despite how quickly the trend has grown in recent years, however, it’s not working. In 2019, after spending $114 million on an initiative aimed at increasing and promoting diversity, Google’s workforce was still only 3% African American. Last summer, The Economist published findings that suggested DEI programs “do more to protect against litigation than to reduce discrimination.”
Partly behind the failure of DEI initiatives to accomplish their stated goals is how the terms are defined. Diversity is never measured in terms of belief, political party, or religion but, particularly in corporate settings, is reduced down to only categories of race, gender, and sexuality. This is why Time magazine evaluated the success of Google’s diversity program based only in terms of the ethnic breakdown of their employees. Of course, diversity is not less than ethnicity, but it should certainly include more.
At least part of the history behind defining down these terms emerges from academic circles and the growing influence of critical theory. This quasi-Marxist way of seeing all human history and every human interaction as a power struggle places every human being into two categories: oppressor or oppressed. Moral status is then awarded depending on how many "oppressed" categories with which one identifies. What’s left is an approach to life and human interaction that does not elevate what is good, but a purely negative ideology driven by an arbitrary rejection of what’s subjectively felt to be bad.
For decades, critical theory has stepped out of the academy into other spheres of culture, including media, government, and increasingly the marketplace. Though very few people have actually studied the academic source material, our wider culture is now in what might be called a “critical theory mood.” Companies spend billions of dollars implementing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs, because they’re under tremendous pressure by cultural gatekeepers to conform and, in effect, define “diversity” of employees by a small, select group of external traits.
“Diversity” that doesn’t include ideological diversity, for example, isn’t really diversity. Hiring a racially or sexually diverse workforce that is otherwise trapped in groupthink when it comes to religion and worldview does not make a better workforce. The belief that group identity should determine who deserves a job, a raise, or a contract is based on a flawed view of who human beings are. While our gender or ethnic backgrounds can have an enormous impact on our lives, they do not ground our value or determine our understanding of life and the world. Nor do they determine what kind of employee we might be.
In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly created the Governor’s Office of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.” A few weeks ago, Virginia’s current chief diversity officer, Martin Brown, sparked controversy when he was caught on video saying “DEI is dead.” Brown’s job is mandated by the Virginia legislature, but instead of going along with the way these words are currently understood, Brown is committed to what he called “a different kind of civil discourse.” The name of his department has now been changed to the Virginia Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion.
Many business leaders, struggling to tread water amidst the DEI tidal wave, know discrimination is wrong. They also realize that many “DEI” programs in practice actually promote discrimination based on a faulty understanding of these terms. Virginia’s chief diversity officer is offering a different, better way. Promoting equal opportunity, instead of making promises of equal outcomes that cannot possibly be fulfilled, treats every human being with the respect and dignity of equal consideration and high expectations.
Most other expressions of “DEI” are solutions in search of a problem that, in the end, will only result in more problems.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Despite advocates’ claims that marijuana use is harmless, another study indicates otherwise. Apparently, the number of hospital visits for pregnant women has almost doubled in Ontario since Canada legalized recreational marijuana in 2018. Of those visits that were marijuana related, the majority were emergency room visits.
According to lead researcher Dr. Daniel Myran, although marijuana-related incidents were only a fraction of overall visits, almost all of them were serious. And according to other research, babies born to marijuana-using mothers are more likely to be born prematurely, have lower birth weights, and be admitted to neonatal care units. Exactly how marijuana harms preborn children will require additional research, but the clear risks are reason enough to recommend that pregnant moms avoid using marijuana altogether.
This is another contradiction to the narrative peddled to us for years. Recreational marijuana use is simply not as safe as we are told it was.
Recently, three families—one Muslim, one Roman Catholic, and one Ukrainian Orthodox—filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery, Maryland, school district. Back in March, the district had shifted its policy, announcing that parents would no longer be notified of LGBT content and parents could not opt-out their students.
This is just one example of how deeply worldviews can collide, in just one of many cultural arenas. Who is fundamentally responsible for cultivating the health, well-being, and beliefs of children? Parents or the state? What is acceptable behavior when it comes to sex, and at what ages should we expect them to think about such matters? Are we fundamentally defined by sexual urges and inner feelings, or by something (or Someone) else? Here, three couples who diverge wildly on religious matters agree that certain cultural narratives are undermining their ability to raise their children and imposing a secular worldview on them instead.
It is because of this very real collision of worldviews, and the consequences of them, that the Colson Center seeks to equip Christians to understand the public implications of Christian truth, including how to live out that truth in this difficult cultural moment. There are plenty of wonderful resources to learn and study the Bible and Christian theology, and there are different organizations dedicated to discussing and analyzing cultural issues. Seeing the challenges of our cultural moment through the light of Scriptural truth is, however, something else, as is seeing our presence in this cultural moment as a calling of God. Our daily Breakpoint commentaries and What Would You Say? videos are timely, but not merely reactive, offering a grounded way of thinking about tough issues and hard questions through the lens of Christian truth.
The Upstream and Strong Women podcasts engage a variety of thoughtful Christian voices who are pointing us both upstream and downstream, how to think and how to live. The Colson Fellows program trains and equips leaders in every sphere of culture and every walk of life, to live redemptively where God has placed them. The Colson Educators Collective equips teachers to teach from a Christian worldview, and the Colson Center National Conference is an annual time of learning and formation, not to mention quite a “family reunion” for us.
Breakpoint listener Lexi, who just graduated high school, wrote to tell us how the Colson Center was helping her live out her faith:
My junior and senior years of high school I began to discover a love for worldview study that I had not known . . . . I discovered Breakpoint, then read more Nancy Pearcey, C.S. Lewis, Schaeffer, watched Dobbs unfold, and realized there were more Colson Center podcasts and started listening to Upstream and Strong Women too.
The Colson Center and the concepts you discuss have played such a huge part in this watershed. It has shaped my understanding of the world I live in, and consequently who I’ve become, where I am going to college, my desire both primarily to be a mother and secondarily to pursue law. In short, the Colson Center has been very instrumental in my life.
Another Breakpoint listener, a mother, shared how God used Colson Center resources to bolster her faith and love her family through the upheaval of the last few years:
Both of my kids graduated in 2020; one from high school and the other from college. Navigating these major life transitions during a pandemic was very challenging for them, to say the least. With COVID also brought confusing messages from our families, Christian friends, health and political “authorities,” and even our beloved church . . . . George Floyd . . . . and a course in “Ethnic Studies” had our daughter buying into Critical Race Theory and deconstructing her faith.
Enter the Colson Center. I had somehow gotten on your email list and subsequently subscribed to your Breakpoint podcast. Then came along your online conferences and short courses, the Strong Women podcast and Upstream with Shane [Morris]. Your articles and programs grabbed a hold of me and helped me—a Christian of over 30 years—keep my eyes on Jesus during a very confusing time. They helped me speak truth in love to my kids, friends, family, and church.
The Colson Center equips Christians to live out their faith with clarity, confidence, and courage in this cultural moment. If Colson Center products and programs have helped you as a parent, grandparent, youth, student, citizen, employee, leader, or neighbor, would you prayerfully consider partnering with us through a fiscal-year-end gift? Any gift given by Friday, June 30, will help us continue equipping Christians to live as agents of restoration in this time and place.
To give, please go to colsoncenter.org/fye23.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Michaela Estruth. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Last month, a professor at Hunter College in New York City was fired and later arrested for an outburst directed at pro-life students. Shellyne Rodriguez was caught on video shouting profanity at the students and claiming their pro-life display was “violent.” She then shoved pamphlets off the table before storming off. When a reporter from the New York Post showed up at her home asking for a comment, she charged him with a machete.
Abortion is an example of what sociologist Philip Rieff called a “deathwork,” a cultural artifact that only tears down. One mark of a “deathwork” is incoherence—such as calling something “violent” before responding with actual violence, or claiming to promote tolerance and inclusion by excluding all who disagree.
The pro-life students at Hunter College did well, remaining calm in the face of this incoherent aggression. Their example is one we can follow as we point people in this culture of death to eternal life.
According to recent numbers released from the CDC, about 1 in 4 of today’s high school students identify as LGBTQ. This means it’s never been more important for Christian parents, teachers, pastors, and mentors to love, support, and guide teens who are wrestling through these issues. They need to know what biblical truth is about sex, identity, and relationships, and why it is loving, reasonable, and best.
I am so grateful for a brand-new resource from my friend Greg Stier, whose writing and work at Dare 2 Share ministries has made him a leader in working with students. In a recent blog post, Greg outlined four key principles to help lead teenagers to a biblical understanding of these difficult issues in a way that is loving, articulate, and bold.
The first biblical principle is to “choose love not hate, as [our] posture.” Even though Christians reject the false views of love promoted in so many ways today, we are not off the hook from practicing the real thing. Greg explains:
“God is love.” That’s who He is . . . . Because of His love, God doesn’t wait until we clean up our act to save us . . . . Romans 5:8 shockingly asserts: ‘But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us.’
. . . . Encourage your teenagers to love everyone, no matter what, all the time, because God has relentlessly loved us. Teach your teens to continually drench their theological convictions with biblical compassion and agape love—and may we do the same.
Second, we must “choose the Bible, not culture, as [our] authority.”
The Bible originated from the mind of God . . . . Because it’s inspired from God Himself, it’s as perfect as God Himself.
. . . . As Christians, we’re commanded to listen to, respect, and obey God’s Word—whether we like what it says or not, whether culture disagrees with it or not, whether people mock us for it or not. Even when we don’t like the rules, we can take comfort in the fact that they aren’t arbitrary—they’re based on God’s perfect character and are given for our good (see Deuteronomy 10:12-14).
. . . . (but) it’s important to help (students) understand that God’s house rules don’t apply only to Christians . . . . God made the universe, so everything in it belongs to Him. As Psalm 24:1-2 explains:
‘The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for He founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.’
The Bible is His primary way of explaining to His creation—to all humanity—who He is, who we are, and how the world works. Since the whole universe can be considered God’s “house,” His rules—as outlined in the Bible—apply to everyone.
In other words, the Bible is humanity’s instruction manual. And it’s clear on issues of identity and sexuality.
Greg goes to outline just how clear the Bible is on identity, gender, and sexual orientation.
Third, we need to “choose the Gospel, not sin management, for solutions.”
. . . . It’s vital to believe, and help our teenagers to believe, in this transforming power of the Gospel. Romans 1:16 makes it clear that “it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” The Greek word for “salvation” means “deliverance from peril or danger.” We must believe that the Gospel can deliver any teenager from any sin, including any kind of sexual brokenness.
We’re all born as slaves to our flesh—which encompasses our genetics, hormones, natural instincts, and sinful desires—and into a sinful, fallen environment—which includes abuse, unbiblical ideologies, and more. But the amazing news of the Gospel is that when we trust Christ, His Spirit frees us from that slavery and enables us to live in God’s ways—no matter what caused our sin to begin with.
And finally, fourth “choose engagement, not detachment.” For years, Greg and Dare 2 Share ministries have been training and equipping students to share their faith. Increasingly, this means having to engage difficult questions and issues such as these. What if it’s possible not only for Christian teens to not be confused and deceived, but to also be ambassadors for Christ to their confused and deceived peers. Greg thinks it is.
Imagine if the Church began to intentionally reach out—with a Jesus-style blend of love and conviction—to people who identify as LGBTQ and started seeing more and more lives transformed by the power of the Gospel. How much different would the future look, both for the Church and for the lives that were changed?
Greg is offering a free four-lesson curriculum for students called Hard Questions: Examining Gender, Sexuality, and Identity Through a Gospel Lens on his website. You can find it at gregstier.org.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
With a one-minute look at culture from a Christian worldview, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.
Recently, Christian writer Samuel Sey tweeted, “The question isn’t: ‘does God exist?’ The question is: ‘how could anything exist without God?’”
Or, as Fraulein Maria sang in The Sound of Music, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” Not only is there something (lots of them) in this world, but there is also consciousness, creativity, beauty, love, and order. These things say an awful lot about what kind of First Cause is required to bring all these somethings into existence.
One Twitter user pushed back against Sey arguing that a more important question is, “What kind of people should we be?” Sey responded, “It’s impossible to know what kind of people we should be without affirming who our [C]reator is.” God, in particular the Christian God, is the best explanation for the world we experience.
As C.S. Lewis put it, “I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but because by it, I see everything else.”
For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet.
Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet.
It’s been almost two years since the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan, leaving a void of power quickly filled by the Taliban. In that time, Taliban rulers have outlawed women’s education, religious freedom, and even music. That’s why a concert violinist named Ali left his instrument behind when he fled Afghanistan in 2021. He knew the Taliban would confiscate and destroy any instruments they found, along with music shops and schools.
After Ali arrived in the United States, a stranger heard his story and decided to donate his violin to the displaced musician. Through a series of connections, the violin made its way from New York to L.A., courtesy of a podcaster who shared the saga in a now-viral Twitter thread. Initially, Latif Nasser struggled to track down Ali in California. His texts and calls went unanswered. Eventually, when the two met, Nasser discovered Ali had been unresponsive due to an unpredictable work schedule at the mall. Most of the money Ali made was sent to support his family in Kabul.
Nasser also learned that Ali had been a famous violinist in Afghanistan. He performed in a TV orchestra and even toured in the West. In fact, he’d once played at Carnegie Hall.
Nasser not only gave Ali the violin, but he also set up an online fundraiser to help Ali restart lessons or attend music school. The fundraiser was so successful that Ali eventually shut it down, not wanting to take more money than he needed.
This remarkable story is not only about the kindness of strangers: It also points to something deeper about what it means to be human. God created us to create, like He does. Made in His image, as the first few chapters of Genesis make plain, humans were created for the purpose of cultivating the rest of creation for the glory of God (Genesis 1:26-28). God’s Word makes clear that, in Christ, He intends not just to save souls but to restore His creation. Just as the garden was full of beauty, when Christ’s Kingdom is finally “on earth as it is in heaven,” its beauty will be perfect. Though our attempts to cultivate the earth are tainted, frustrated, and even painful, our calling to care for His creation remains. Beauty remains even when perfection is impossible. Beauty pleases God and brings Him glory, just as beauty pleases us.
In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl tells the story of waking up one night in Auschwitz to the unlikely sound of a violin.
To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be surprise enough for an outsider, but he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well.
According to Frankl, beauty and humor offered the prisoners a kind of cognitive distance from their suffering, even if only for a few minutes, suggesting that a deep longing for beauty is central to the human experience. Art and music are not frivolous parts of life. If Frankl’s account is true, human beings will hunger for beauty even when they have far more urgent needs—like food, water, and safety—going unmet.
The gratuitously oppressive move by the Taliban to outlaw music is fundamentally different from how the Bible describes the purpose and substance of beauty, especially its power to point us to the one true God andmove us to worship Him. It only makes sense that the Taliban would hate music, just as they hate education, religious freedom, and individual rights. Each of these things flows from Christianity’s fundamental view about God, His world, and human beings.
In fact, the power of beauty to point us to God was a theme of this year’s Colson Center National Conference. We hosted an impressive lineup of speakers, many of whom have dedicated their lives to creating beautiful things, from graphic design to good barbecue. If you missed the conference this year, the footage will be available soon to stream online. Just visit colsonconference.org.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
TikTok is feeding teens a “diet of darkness.” Recently, a group of researchers created fictitious accounts of 13-year-olds and quickly found their feeds full with content about eating disorders, body image, self-harm, and even suicide. This is despite the fact that TikTok currently employs 40,000 content moderators and has default screen-time limits for teens.
TikTok’s problems have long plagued all social media platforms. Most have made efforts to prohibit the promotion of socially contagious self-destructive behaviors, but none have been able to eliminate this content entirely. Their guidelines, bans, and moderators do nothing to restrict other destructive content, such as ideas about gender confusion and transition.
Parents can’t rely on the goodwill of social media giants to protect their kids. They must be proactive in teaching them how to use tech wisely and, often, just say no to it. Most importantly, parents need to remind their kids who they are: people made in the image and likeness of God.
On June 5, 1865, Anglican priest and polymath Sabine Baring-Gould wrote the processional hymn, “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” The hymn was originally written for children walking to Horbury St. Peter’s Church near Wakefield in Yorkshire, England. Far from the cultural stereotype that the hymn earned Baring-Gould— that of a militant, narrow-minded clergyman fearful of and fighting against new knowledge— he actually led an impressive life, remaining keenly inquisitive about the world God has made.
The song, which he wrote in about 15 minutes, was originally titled “A Hymn for Procession with Cross and Banners.” It was inspired by biblical imagery of the Christian as a soldier and only became popular when composer Arthur Sullivan wrote a new melody for it later. Its military imagery, out of step with today’s cultural vibes, has led many contemporary hymnbook compilers to leave it aside.
Like other Anglican clergymen of his day, Baring-Gould was involved in more than serving parishes and writing children’s processionals. He was the son and heir of a noble family but decided on a career in the Church. Ordained in 1864, he became curate at the church at Horbury Bridge, where a year later he would pen “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” There, he met Grace Taylor, the then-teenaged daughter of a local miller. The two fell in love and, despite a considerable age gap, were married for 48 years until her passing. Together, they raised 15 kids, all but one of whom survived into adulthood.
Even while serving in parishes, Baring-Gould was a prolific writer, with nearly 1,300 titles to his credit. These include novels and short stories published in a variety of journals, a 16-volume series called Lives of the Saints, modern biographies, travelogues, hymns (the best-known of which aside from “Onward, Christian Soldiers” being “Now the Day Is Over”), sermons, apologetics, and cultural and anthropological studies. He had an international reputation as an antiquarian. His Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, a study of 24 medieval superstitions and their variants and antecedents, was particularly popular and was even cited by sci-fi and horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. He also published The Book of Werewolves, a collection of stories still widely cited.
To do some of this work, Baring-Gould studied and mastered several ancient, medieval, and modern languages. Along with more common languages for British scholars of the period, he knew Basque, an obscure language unrelated to any other, sufficiently well enough to translate a Basque Christmas carol into English as “The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came.”
Baring-Gould’s God-driven curiosity about the world only furthered when he inherited his family estate in Devon in 1872. He moved there as both squire and vicar in 1881, devoting a great deal of time to studying and writing about Devon and the West Country. He transcribed hundreds of folk songs from the region that would otherwise have been lost, even publishing several volumes in collaboration with Cecil Sharp, a central figure in preserving and promoting English folk songs in the Edwardian period. Baring-Gould considered these collections of songs his most important work.
He also earned an international reputation in the developing field of archaeology. With his friend Robert Burnard, Baring-Gould began the first scientific archaeological excavations of Dartmoor in Devon, which includes the largest concentration of Bronze Age remains in Britain. The two initially concentrated on hut circles, depressions in the ground outlined with stones that were the foundations for conical wooden huts thousands of years ago, before launching a more systematic investigation of the region. As secretary of the group, Baring-Gould authored the first 10 annual reports of the Dartmoor Exploration Committee. This began a systematic exploration and occasional restoration of the region’s prehistoric sites. Beyond the annual reports, he published several other works on Dartmoor.
As if all this were not enough, Baring-Gould was also an amateur ironworker and painter. Prior to his ordination, while a teacher at a boys’ school, he designed the ironwork for the school and painted scenes from The Canterbury Tales and The Faerie Queene on the jambs of the windows.
In all, Baring-Gould was far more than the lyricist for “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” As Anthony Esolen commented, he could only have lived in the 19th century, when scholarship was not so specialized, and amateurs could still make important contributions to a wide range of fields. For our era, he is a remarkable example of a person who used the prodigious talents God had given him to serve the church, his community, and the wider world.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria look at some alternatives to Pride month. Christian schools in Minnesota are taking the state to court.
— Recommendations —
Saving Private Ryan
Out of a Jar by Deborah Marcero
Segment 1 - Minnesota Dual Enrollment Law
Segment 2 - Pride Month
"Second Dodgers pitcher speaks out against Pride Night festivities: ‘God cannot be mocked’"
The Washington Examiner
Fidelity Month webinar
Segment 3 - Marijuana and Mental Health
Today is Donut Day. Believe it or not, the day wasn’t founded by Krispy Kreme or Dunkin but by The Salvation Army in Chicago in 1938 to commemorate their “Donut Lassies” who served during World War I.
Methodist minister William Booth founded The Salvation Army in the 1860s to care for the poor in London. It was originally called the East London Revival Society. During World War I, the organization provided ambulances, clothing for soldiers, and refreshment huts. Booth’s daughter, Evangeline, told volunteers, “You are going overseas to serve Christ. … You must forget yourselves, be examples of His love, be willing to endure hardship, to lay down your lives, if need be, for His sake.”
The Donut Lassies stationed at the refreshment huts in France served donuts to the weary men on the front lines to bring them a taste of home. When the troops returned, they brought their love of “donuts” with them. And that’s why we have Donut Day.
Therapy is about as much of the American experience these days as baseball, pickup trucks, and apple pie. Professional counseling is now seen as more than just a last resort for psychological distress, but as a healthy, essential path for resolving personal issues. In 2019, nearly 20% of Americans received some form of mental health treatment ranging from medication to therapy. Over 40% of Americans have seen a counselor at some point in their lives.
Recently in the New York Times, journalist Susan Dominus asked an important question, especially given that the U.S. is in the grip of an ever-worsening mental health crisis: “Does therapy really work?”
On one hand, dozens of studies confirm the value of talk-based therapy. A landmark 1977 study, for example, found that those with significant psychological distress “fared better than 75 percent of those with similar diagnoses who went untreated.” University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher Bruce Wampold put it, “the fact that you can just go talk to another human being … and get effect sizes that are measurable” is kind of miraculous.
Other research, Dominus explains, is less clear. A 2021 study found that more than half of depression patients saw little or no benefit from talk therapy, and only one third found their depression receding long term. Another study found that only 50% of patients responded to cognitive behavioral therapy regarding anxiety disorders. The uncertainty has led some to push for alternative treatments, including more prescriptions of drugs like psilocybin, the active ingredient in so-called magic mushrooms. One prominent researcher mused, “Maybe we have reached the limit of what you can do by talking to somebody.”
Of course, the results of therapy depend on a number of factors. While counseling is a powerful tool, it can only aim at the question, “What’s going on inside of me?” Often missed, which is especially consequential for a culture in a crisis of mental health, are the fixed reference points outside of ourselves by which we can be known and orient who we are.
Psychology is one of the many areas of modern life that has taken what sociologists call “an inward turn,” characterized by radical individualism and reliance on self-definition. Rather than pursue healing or the restoration of relationships, counseling can devolve into endless rounds of affirmation, a sort of perpetual re-baptism in the church of self-expression. This is just one way that therapy has replaced religion for many seekers. Self-discovery is the new salvation, and therapists the new priests. The key feature of psychology as religion, however, is the self as the new deity.
This has only enabled, as Lisa Selin Davis observed recently at The Free Press, so many of the West’s top schools and institutions to embrace and employ Critical Race Theory rhetoric and LBGTQ politics. The American Counseling Association now divides counselors and clients into either “privileged” and “marginalized” groups with a dedicated script for each and little mercy for those who dissent. More states have passed so-called “anti-conversion-therapy” laws, which threaten professionals who do anything other than only affirm a client’s proposed gender identity.
As a result, deeper mental health issues are never addressed, and anyone who speaks up can find themselves out of a job. One therapist in training put it, “My concern is that we’re not helping people heal and transcend. We’re just helping people live in their victim mentality.” In a tragic irony, the inward turn has made it harder, not easier, for the struggle to know themselves.
There are some, many of them Christians, striving to rethink psychology and counsel others by looking outward as well as inward, to know themselves by first knowing what is true and good. We can only know ourselves by first knowing reality, ultimately God and the world He made. Any mental health journey without that fixed reference point is destined to harm more than it helps.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. To help us share Breakpoint with others, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Recently, The Washington Post published an oddly titled piece celebrating the miraculous survival of Denver Coleman. Thirty weeks into pregnancy, Kenyatta Coleman learned her unborn child had a pre-birth condition which gave the baby only a 1% chance of survival. With Coleman’s permission, doctors performed a first-of-a-kind surgery. Days later, Coleman gave birth to Denver, a miraculously healthy little girl.
Despite the piece’s clear joy over the miracle of Denver’s life, even calling her an “unborn child” throughout the piece, The Washington Post’s editors ran with this title: “A Fetus had a 1% Chance at Life. A Historic Surgery in Womb Saved It.”
“Fetus” and “It,” not “Child” or “Her”? Talk about underwhelming. ... I doubt that her parents, her family, or even the doctors trained in medicalese used that language to describe Denver after working so hard to save her life.
All life is miraculous. All are, whatever their health or ability, created by God in His image. Welcome to God’s world, little Denver!
In his recent and remarkable book, Biblical Critical Theory, theologian Christopher Watkin points out how often our thinking falls into false dichotomies. Humans are either animals or gods; the planet is either progressing toward utopia or doomed to catastrophe; sex is either no big deal or our whole identity. Back and forth the cultural pendulum swings, never considering that there may be another option: a story that transcends these dichotomies and makes better sense of the way the world is.
Sex in particular has been subject to ideological extremes. For most of my lifetime, pop culture has followed the maxim that “sex sells.” So, scantily clad women have been used to market everything from cars and football to movies and music. Beer companies often took the lead, featuring provocative models in swimsuits unabashedly pandering to the lust of their predominantly male customers.
The pendulum seems to have swung the other direction, though the undisguised profit motive remains. For example, Miller Lite’s messaging has done a 180. In a new ad, the beer company chose to appeal to faddish feminist sensibilities. In it, actress Ilana Glazer indignantly tears down beer ads featuring women in bikinis while announcing that Miller Lite is now a champion of women’s dignity and women brewers. The company is doing the right thing and, to quote David Spade from Tommy Boy, “in just a shade under a decade, too ... Alright!”
If it weren’t laced with profanity, I could get behind this new direction. I fully support any move away from cynically exploiting women for marketing, whatever the motive. Unlike Bud Light’s recent, disastrous choice to feature transgender actor Dylan Mulvaney (a man) on its cans, Miller is at least gesturing toward an ideal that companies should sell products, not objectify people.
However, here’s where another cultural false dichotomy complicates things. Glazer and the executives at Miller would no doubt say they support abortion, so-called same-sex marriage, transgender identity, sexual liberation, and a whole host of other ideas that have now replaced the “sex sells” mentality of years past. But these still objectify, dehumanize, and exploit women. The pendulum has swung from one misguided extreme to another.
There is a better vision for sexuality that transcends the exploitation of women’s bodies on one hand or the denial of their existence on the other. That alternative was recently on display in a surprising place. Christian pro-life activist Lila Rose appeared on the dating talk podcast Whatever, which boasts over 4 million subscribers on YouTube. She was joined by a colorful assortment of guests, including a self-proclaimed pickup artist and several women who have made careers selling pictures of their bodies online.
Typically, the format of the podcast involves the men shaming the women for their promiscuous behavior which, of course, the men also engage in. Lila threw both sides for a loop by describing a Christian view of the sexes in which men and women have “equal dignity” and in which sexual relationships are not only about pleasure but also about “procreation and the ability to bring life into the world.” All of this, she added, is designed to occur “within marriage,” “a lifelong, public commitment” to one’s spouse, a commitment which, as she rightly pointed out, social science demonstrates to be the most fulfilling and stable type of sexual relationship.
The other guests on the podcast seemed mystified. One of the men dismissed Lila as “annoying” and “a goody-two-shoes” after she challenged him to exercise self-control and commit himself faithfully to one woman. She may not have converted any of the other guests, but if the reaction online is any indication, she made a lasting impression on a lot of people.
Lila did what every Christian should do in a culture captivated by false dichotomies. She painted a better vision of anything currently on offer. She pointed to an alternative in which men and women are not at war with one another but in harmony, an alternative characterized by self-giving and life-affirming love, not lust or an attempt to eliminate sexual difference.
Even if the world has forgotten this option in its reckless swings from one false extreme to another, God still calls us to reject these distortions and make the case for something better, and not to sell beer or win subscribers but to point people to the One who made the world that way. After all, a life lived in light of this truth can be a far more effective advertisement than anything a beer company produces.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
After a bit of back and forth, the Los Angeles Dodgers have decided to feature the drag group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence during their pride month celebrations and even award them a Community Hero Award. The “sisters” are a mockery of a Catholic religious order and perform blasphemous parodies of Christianity and the sacraments. Their tagline is “Go forth and sin some more,” a perversion of the words of Jesus. Other examples of their acts are too evil to mention.
As Robert George of Princeton observed,
If men wearing hijabs were to prance around mocking Muslim women, insulting Islam and faithful Muslims, and ridiculing the sayings of the Prophet Mohammad, their bigotry would be widely and rightly condemned. What would the Los Angeles Dodgers do? Praise them? Give them an award?
We need to pray for all those who are trapped in these perversions while also calling out the Dodgers for their bigotry against Christianity.
If the final few weeks of May were any indication, this June’s pride month noise will be louder and edgier than previous years. Already, the controversy surrounding Target’s new line of clothing, produced in partnership with a clothing company that also produces clothing to celebrate Satanism, has dominated the nation’s headlines. Incredulously, most mainstream media outlets (and a few “Christian” ones) have painted as the bad guys those concerned about children being groomed instead of the corporate and activist entities doing the actual grooming. However, there are plenty of people not fooled by this narrative, given the financial hit Target has already taken.
And then there is the strange saga of the L.A. Dodgers. After a rather public back and forth, the Major League Baseball team decided to platform an LGBTQ organization that is known for its hyper-sexualized performances that openly blaspheme Jesus and mock Christian symbolism. Such mockery would never be tolerated if directed at other religious groups. But in a culture lost in what might be called a “critical theory mood,” even the most extreme acts are seen through the lens of predetermined cultural groupings that have been given moral status. Not only did the Dodgers organization backpedal their initial reversal, the so-called “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence” will now be given some kind of Community Hero Award.
In response, Christians must do two things. First, we can and should protest both with our voices and our pocketbooks. Dodgers players and Target shoppers will need to think through where the line of complicity is. Second, we should proclaim a better way. One of Chuck Colson’s closest colleagues and collaborators has an idea worth considering:
“By the authority vested in me by absolutely no one,” Professor Robert George of Princeton University wrote in an email last week, “I have declared June to be ‘Fidelity Month’—a month dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, our country, and our communities.”
Perhaps the leading Christian legal thinker of our lifetime, Professor George worked closely with Chuck Colson and Timothy George on the Manhattan Declaration. The 2009 statement of conscience outlined Christian conviction on the areas of life, marriage, and religious liberty. It only makes sense that Professor George would suggest Fidelity Month as a time of intentional remembering of those allegiances so often scorned in a culture like ours. “Pride” for example asks us to prioritize desire and autonomy over allegiance to God, children, each other, and ultimately, to reality itself.
That makes June a particularly good month for Christians to be clear about where we stand, making the important decision to, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, “live not by lies.” It’s never easier, in fact, to go along with something that isn’t true than during so-called pride month. Like when Israel would set aside days and seasons to remember and repent and recalibrate, why not choose to be intentional about making June something else: a time to remember and teach the next generation about our most important responsibilities as those made in the image of God.
In this email from Professor George, the task of remembering seemed to be of particular concern:
You may have read about the rather disturbing recent WSJ poll indicating a precipitous decline in our fellow Americans’ belief in the importance of such values as patriotism, religion, family, and community—the values that used to unite Americans despite our many differences.
“There are a million things we can and should do to restore the faith of our people,” George continued, “but I would like you to join in one small one.” Fidelity Month will launch with a webinar that is open to the public, tomorrow, June 1, at 2 p.m. EST. Professor George will be joined by Lila Rose of Live Action, Andrew Walker of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Bill McClay of Hillsdale College, and others. Learn more and register for the webinar at www.fidelitymonth.com.
Also on the website, you can find the Fidelity Month symbol, a specially designed wreath that is,
representative of God and His eternal nature, while the openness at the top of the wreath is suggestive of a divine embrace. The branches and leaves that compose the wreath signify a family that is dependent upon and in union with God.
The star and stripe at the center bottom of the wreath symbolize our common union as Americans– “one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The color gold symbolizes generosity and compassion – virtues that are closely connected to fidelity (supporting it and being supported by it). Fidelity, generosity, and compassion are anti-narcissistic virtues, reflecting the knowledge – the wisdom – that everything is not “about me.” It is a recognition of the duties we have to others, and that our true fulfillment is to be found in serving others: God, our spouses and families, our communities and country.
The color blue, our background color, symbolizes truth, loyalty, responsibility, and peace.
The Fidelity Month symbol can be shared and posted on social media, and the Fidelity Month website includes other ideas for individuals, families, churches, and leaders to reframe the next month in a way that honors God, each other, our children, and our nation.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
It pays to pay attention. Earlier this month, Michigan seventh grader Dillon Reeves saved the lives of 60 students when he drove his school bus to safety. When the driver of the bus lost consciousness, most of the other students didn’t notice because they were on their phones. Dillon doesn’t have a phone, so he noticed when the bus started drifting and jumped into action.
The pressure to get smartphones for kids and let them access social media apps is incredible today. Almost 3 in 4 American youth own smartphones by age 12, and 84% of teens 13 to 18 use social media. Today’s teens average about 9 hours a day on screens.
The dangers of digital distraction are well documented: body image issues, sleep deprivation, pornography addiction, even suicidality. In the case of the Michigan school bus, kids would’ve lost their lives if Dillon had been distracted.
To quote Dillon’s dad, let’s hope that his son’s heroics will serve as “a change-the-world kind of lesson.”
Recently in The Guardian, Emma Beddington covered a new twist on an old practice. According to the 2022 U.K. census, writes Beddington, “74,000 people declared they were pagan, an increase of 17,000 since 2011.” Meanwhile in the U.S., “a 2014 survey by the Pew Research Center estimated at least 0.3% of people... identified as pagan or Wiccan, which translates to about one million people.” And, though it’s not clear how anyone could know this, “That number is expected to triple by 2050.”
Those numbers, while a small minority of the population, are significant when set against the overall decline of Christianity in the West. According to British historian Dr. Ronald Hutton, today’s version of paganism is “a religion in which deities don’t make rules for humans or monitor their behaviour—humans are encouraged to develop their full potential.” This comes with a heavy emphasis on being Earth-conscious, with rituals and festivals focused on connecting with nature. In this way, suggests Hutton, paganism is filling “a need for a spiritualised natural world in a time of ecological crisis.”
Beddington describes the new paganism as a “tolerant, open, life-affirming, female-friendly faith.” It does seem to check all the right contemporary Western boxes: a feeling of transcendence without many hard commitments, a rejection of traditional morality while keeping a vague inclusivity, and enough concern for the natural world to qualify as a social justice cause. Or, as a group based out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst summarized: “Pagans view the world as a place of joy and life, not of sin and suffering. We believe that the divine is here with us in the natural world, not in some faraway place in the sky.”
At the same time, the new paganism is a world away from ancient paganism. Though often a catch-all term for a wide variety of pre-Christian beliefs, paganism suffers from a shortage of written records. However, what we do know would not be best described as a universe born out of “joy and life, not of sin and suffering.”
In Hesiod’s Theogony, the Greek version of the origin of the cosmos and the gods, the birth of each divine generation is preceded by violence. Uranus, the sky, produces children with Gaia, the Earth, but hates them. Of their children is the titan Cronus who castrates his father. His blood falls onto the Earth and sea and creates still more gods. Cronus is, in turn, dethroned and imprisoned by Zeus.
Celtic paganism does little better. Drawing on contemporary sources, most scholars believe the Druids enacted human sacrifices on a broad scale to appease the forces of nature, which they saw as temperamental and hostile. One example is the Lindow man, whose mangled remains suggest a ritual death as part of cultic sacrifice.
Employing St. Augustine’s approach to the depravity of pagan gods, writer Paul Krause offered this critique:
The pagan gods were born from patricide and rebellion. They were born from primordial acts of sexual violence. Their patronage was in the civitas terrena which cared only to advance its depraved lust to control.
Modern pagans reject ancient paganism. They find solidarity with the idea of human equality and dignity, see the natural world as a place of order rather than of chaos, and call for sexual restraint, the protection of children and disadvantaged groups, the end of slavery, mindless conquest, and human sacrifice. To this extent, they are embracing the innovations of Christianity.
After all, it was Christianity and not paganism, as historian Tom Holland has explained, that taught that men, women, and children, slave or free, share the imago dei. It was St. Patrick, not the Druids, who believed and taught Ireland that “the Earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof” and not subject to hostile spirits who are appeased by bloodletting. It was Christianity that turned Nordic peoples away from a belief system that committed them to conquest, plunder, and death in battle.
In short, all the things that make modern paganism appealing to modern people aren’t pagan. Though many Westerners are bored by the hollowness of materialism and desperate to fill the spiritual vacuum it has left, they will not find answers in dead religions. Only Jesus offers the truth: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Analyzing medical data from 6 million people, researchers in Denmark have found that up to 30% of schizophrenia cases among young men could be linked to marijuana use. Increased potency of marijuana in the global market is a factor, and lawmakers have “decreas[ed] the public’s perception of its harm,” according to the study’s lead author.
The law is a teacher. Legalizing marijuana use essentially teaches constituents that marijuana is safe. Except it isn’t. Legalizing pot was, especially early on, sold as a way of helping sick people. But cannabis is the only substance I can think of approved for medical use and then legalized for recreation.
As far as the cannabis industry is concerned, which is estimated this year to be worth 32 billion dollars, it has never really been about health. As more and more evidence emerges that pot is not as safe as the public was sold, we’ll learn whether it’s possible to put this genie back in its bottle.
Today, Memorial Day, I want to share a commentary on Memorial Day from Chuck Colson. Here’s Chuck:
This Memorial Day, reflect with me on how we should respond to the enormous sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.
Memorial Day is when we honor the men and women of our armed services who have made “the supreme sacrifice,” who gave their lives for their country.
Especially these days, when Memorial Day seems nothing more than a time for cookouts and swim parties, we cannot be reminded often enough about how great a debt we owe our war dead.
They gave up their hopes and dreams, families, and friends. They submitted themselves to rigorous discipline—something I understand as a former Marine—24-hour-a-day duty—and placed their lives in great peril. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Their sacrifice should inspire in us a profound sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy, bought with a price. And that gratitude should compel us to lives of service as well. Serving Christ, our neighbor, and yes, our nation.
I can’t help but recall the brilliant film Saving Private Ryan. James Ryan, now in his seventies, has returned with his family to the military cemetery in Normandy. He visits the grave of Capt. John Miller, the man who, a half a century before, led the mission to retrieve—to save—Pvt. Ryan. At the end of the mission, Miller was fatally wounded. As he lay dying, his final words to Pvt. Ryan were “James. Earn this … earn it.”
We then see Ryan kneeling at Capt. Miller’s grave, marked by a cross. Ryan, his voice trembling with emotion, says,
“Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me. “
Red-eyed, Ryan turns to his wife and says, “Tell me I’ve led a good life … tell me I am a good man.”
With great dignity, she says, “You are.”
With that, James Ryan salutes the grave of Capt. Miller.
I tell this story in greater detail in my book The Good Life, which you can purchase at colsoncenter.org.
You see, Pvt. Ryan, out of gratitude for Capt. Miller’s sacrifice, did all in his power to live a good life.
And Memorial Day is a great time for each of us to look into the mirror … to examine our own lives. Are we living good lives in gratitude for all those who have sacrificed for us—including our men and women in the military, our families, our friends, and most of all Christ?
Are we, like Ryan, kneeling before the cross? Spielberg, a master cinematographer, had to realize the power of this imagery. Are we, out of gratitude, doing our duty for Christ, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, ministering to those in prison, in whatever harvest field to which the Lord has called us?
Examine your life.
And this Memorial Day, at the very least, thank those who have sacrificed for you and those you know who have served in our nation’s armed forces. Maybe you’ll do what I do when you see a guy or gal in uniform … at the airport, at the store, wherever … walk up to them and thank them for their service.
And then go and remember Whom it is you serve.
For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
This commentary was last aired on May 30, 2022.
A look at the passing of Tim Keller, who was called a giant by both top theologians and The New York Times. Christians are re-considering doing business with companies like Target and a handful of others that mock Christianity.
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Is the Metaverse headed for the graveyard? A year and a half after its release, the Metaverse remains vastly unpopular, despite millions of dollars of corporate investments and costly marketing campaigns. The most well-funded Metaverse app only has 38 active daily users, and Microsoft and Disney have laid off their specially designated Metaverse teams.
In the initial hype, Meta overestimated the desire and demand for virtual reality. Meta could be our generation’s MySpace, soon to be replaced by something superior, or it could be the failure to account for our embodied natures as image bearers.
Though we’re prone to dissatisfaction with our bodies and our relationships, we still crave “in-person” interaction and experiences, because our bodies are real and so is the physical world. Even the most beautiful picture cannot replace seeing the Grand Canyon up close.
Digital knockoffs do not change or alter who we really are, body and spirit, a “living soul” made in the image and likeness of God.
According to tradition, St. Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew evangelized the region of Armenia in the first century. In the year 301, it became the first nation to declare itself Christian. Through centuries of warfare and oppression, its Christian identity has endured as part of Armenian culture, despite repeated attempts by neighbors to stamp it out.
In 1915, the Turkish Ottoman Empire killed an estimated 1.2 million people during what has become known as the Armenian Genocide. Under the pretext that they were insufficiently loyal to the empire, Ottoman authorities shot entire villages, forcibly converted families to Islam, and marched hundreds of thousands of women and children into the Syrian desert to die. The brutal campaign of extermination led to a significant diaspora of Armenians to other countries.
Even after Armenia emerged from Soviet dominance and declared itself an independent republic at the end of the 20th century, peace has remained elusive. Armenia has faced decades of conflict over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, where some 100,000 Armenian Christians now live but which Muslim-majority Azerbaijan sees as its territory. In 2020, as the world was preoccupied with the global pandemic, Azerbaijan waged war against Armenia. Seven thousand lives were taken, and the region has remained in the shadow of a fragile ceasefire since.
Today, most Armenians exist in a state of uncertainty. Given their control over the region, it may be that Azerbaijan is poised to commit a second Armenian genocide. According to University Network for Human Rights researcher Thomas Becker,
Over the past decade, Azerbaijani officials have invoked language used in the Rwandan genocide and the Holocaust, referring to Armenians as a “cancer tumor” and a “disease” to be “treated.” More recently, the country’s authoritarian leader Ilham Aliyev has threatened to “drive [Armenians] away like dogs.”
The situation seems dire with Russia, Armenia’s ostensible security guarantor, bogged down in its own war against Ukraine, and with Iran, Armenia’s southern neighbor eager to fill the security vacuum. However, an unexpected recent development is that a significant number of Armenia’s diaspora population has been returning to their homeland. After a hundred years of exile and living in places like Russia, France, and the United States, an estimated 50,000 Armenians repatriated prior to 2020, with thousands more joining them every year since.
For some, the motivation to return is economic. For others, it’s about standing with fellow Armenians in the face of war. However, for many, the calling is about their faith. As the dean of Armenian Apostolic seminary put it, “We as a nation are called to witness to Jesus Christ in a very difficult region. … Our very existence is a testimony of Christianity.”
Lara Setrakian, an Armenian-American journalist, moved back with her family at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak. In a recent podcast, she put it this way,
"I am doing what I’m called to do … and it is to be a helper like Mr. Rogers would say. It is a catastrophe. There are crises. But I want to be among the helpers. … We’re not interested in not being Christian ... For Christians … this country is one big test of faith. And people I see are rising to the occasion. And they are finding strength, and they … have not ever given up. … They haven’t given up the cross; they haven’t given up their language, their love, their dance. They embody the resilience that we’re all looking for."
Another repatriated Armenian mused, “In America, I had a good life: a big house, a good car. But when I say, ‘good life,’ I mean something else.” As so many in the West reel from a crisis of meaning, Armenian Christians have found joy in the face of severe hardship. In that way, we have much to learn from our Armenian brothers and sisters, even as we ask God to bless them, to strengthen their faith, and to bring peace to the nation they are rebuilding.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
Middle school girls in a club in Colorado are being told that they are transgender simply if they are uncomfortable with their bodies. Leaders of the middle school Gay-Straight Alliance brought in a speaker who told sixth graders that “if they are not completely comfortable in their bodies, that means that they are transgender.” Two families are suing the school district for promoting the harmful ideas.
Far from remedying a teenager’s discomfort with their bodies, these ideas worsen the discomfort, cause irreversible harms, and significantly increase chances of suicide, especially for girls.
With unrealistic beauty standards and objectification, it’s no wonder girls feel unsettled in their bodies. But this doesn’t mean they were born in the wrong body. Rather than push controversial and dangerous ideologies that harm kids, parents, doctors, and educators should work to address the more immediate causes of body image issues, especially social media and pop culture.
Last Friday, May 19, pastor, theologian, and author Tim Keller passed away. The longtime pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and author of books such as The Reason for God was known for his thoughtful sermons, calm demeanor, and a ministry that extended beyond his own denomination and even his fellow Christians to the wider world of elite society.
It’s rare, especially today, for someone to be called “a giant” by both a top theologian and a New York Times columnist. Rarer still will such a prominent figure be regularly described as unassuming, living out the exhortation of Rudyard Kipling to be someone who can “walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch.” It’s notable that even his critics, which he certainly had, have refrained from doubting his self-effacing grace and kindness for others.
Keller was in his forties before he showed up on the public’s radar. Oddly enough, he went to Manhattan after pastoring a small-town Virginia church for nine years. Success in the Big Apple was by no means a sure thing. A theologically conservative pastor setting up shop in the “Babylon” of downtown New York City had all the makings of a fish-out-of-water story where the well-meaning parson was doomed to failure even before he set out.
Keller took pains to know his audience, leveraging his own intellectual rigor into sermons for his highly educated hearers. He refused to talk down, much less shout down. Nor did he attempt to make the distinctives of the Christian faith more palatable. He took strong stands on the deity of Christ, the reliability of Scripture, the resurrection, the hopelessness of secularism, and the enduring relevance of Christian sexual ethics.
From an initial church plant of 15 people in 1989, Redeemer Presbyterian Church grew to a network of multiple congregations with thousands of people attending each week. In time, his influence extended to other pastors, who were inspired by his example and teaching, and set out to emulate in their own communities what Keller had done in New York. Keller was also instrumental in cross-denominational efforts, linking like-minded Christians to share their ideas and cooperate in endeavors to enhance the presence of the Church around the world. He was a co-founder of The Gospel Coalition, a broadly Reformed network that is among the most influential voices of contemporary evangelicalism, and a central figure in a Reformed resurgence among those who became known as the “Young, Restless, and Reformed.”
He was also an original signer of the Manhattan Declaration, a Christian statement on life, marriage, and religious liberty because, as he put it at the time, “these are biblical.” Keller communicated a confidence that believers could maintain the classical faith of Christianity without being ashamed when dealing with cynical neighbors. Christians could, he believed, meet the claims of the world face-to-face because the Bible offers an accurate and holistic explanation for reality and the human condition and grounds the hope for which people are truly searching. His sermons offered a robust biblical analysis, a keen awareness and understanding of culture, and allusions to art, history, Lewis, and Tolkien.
Ironically, his critics include progressive Princeton students and faculty, who couldn’t stomach the idea that he would be honored by their school, and conservative Christians, some of whom believed his winsomeness to be weakness, and others who, as I often did in recent years, disagreed with his posture about politics and political allegiance.
Even so, Keller was a remarkable gift to Christ’s Church at an incredibly important cultural moment. Even in disagreeing, he made us better by, as St. Paul put it, “set(ting) the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity,” and reminding us that, in the end, the resurrection secures our hope for today and for eternity. As he said on a podcast near the end of his life, in his trademark thoughtful and calm demeanor, “If Jesus Christ was actually raised from the dead, if He really got up ... everything is going to be all right.”
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
The 2020 pandemic disrupted the education of millions of kids. In response, many parents opted for alternative forms of education. “In that single summer,” wrote Dixie Lane with the Institute for Family Studies, “the number of registered homeschoolers in America more than doubled, rising from about 5.4% to about 11.1 %. Homeschooling among African Americans alone jumped to 16.1%, a nearly five-fold increase.”
Still, Lane argues, the pandemic was not the only reason for the boom. In general, Americans are committed to two principles in education: localism and parental authority. The state overreach in K-12 education has brought parents back to those fundamental values.
Some are fighting to make public schools better; others are investing in homeschooling or private Christian education. Either way, kids are rightly being seen as the primary responsibility of parents, not the state.
More options mean a beautiful opportunity for Christians to love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds … and to teach their kids to do likewise.
Much has been documented about the growing mental health crisis among American teenagers. Young people, however, are not the only ones struggling. Middle-aged women, particularly white women over the age of 45, account for nearly 60% of all Americans who have been taking antidepressants for more than five years.
To be sure, with this kind of statistic, it is not clear the role that medical and pharmaceutical industries, which are incentivized to medicalize mental health struggles, play. There are also cultural factors at work. Affluent people, white people, and women are on average more likely to seek help for mental health issues than African American or Hispanic women, men, or people in poverty.
It is good that more attention is now given to the mentally and emotionally hurting and that these struggles are no longer as stigmatized. But we also have reached a point where it’s almost fashionable to be diagnosed with a mental health condition. This is especially true for women, and progressive women in particular.
It is not unusual for people to include a mental health diagnosis in their social media profiles. Regardless of how well-founded these diagnoses are, the fact that so many (especially women and young people) embrace them as part of their identity is a troubling sign of dysfunction.
Clearly, people are suffering. In a culture shaped by a “critical theory mood,” claims of suffering can be thought of as a desirable way of elevating a person’s moral status. It is also not a coincidence that this suffering has accompanied a culturewide loss of a sense of meaning. A 2021 Lifeway Research study found that nearly 60% of American adults wonder about how they can find more meaning and purpose in their lives on at least a monthly basis. Rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and suicide are up across all demographics.
Even as the wider world is struggling, there is a notable exception. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 36% of Americans who attend church or are “actively religious” regularly report being “very happy.” In other words, faith in God, marriage, family, and a sense of duty to something larger than ourselves are often what provide people with the richest sense of meaning.
Ironically, these are the very things that, we are constantly being told, will constrain us. Women are told that being a wife or a mother “gets in the way” of true happiness. Men and women are told that sacrificing for others leads to unhappiness. The numbers, however, don’t lie. Living unattached lives committed to individual autonomy is making us miserable.
Of course, mental health struggles often inflict the righteous, too. Elijah, Martin Luther, and many others also battled inner demons. Still, whether the increased rates of mental health struggles are primarily physiological or due to self-inflicted circumstances, how we think about them matters. As author O. Alan Noble puts it, in moments of profound mental suffering, “getting out of bed is an act of worship”:
But when you choose to rise out of bed each day, you also set a table for your neighbor. You declare with your being and actions that life itself is good. Whether you like it or not, your life is a witness that testifies to the goodness of God.
Worship, in fact, takes many forms: singing, teaching, reflecting, relating. This is because worship is a way of recognizing the meaning that God placed in His world and for His image bearers. In fact, worship is the meaning for which human beings were made. There is nothing more than to know and to glorify God. In His grace, He makes Himself known throughout His world. It is one of God’s great mercies that, by fulfilling His purpose for us, we are able to know happiness, satisfaction, and meaning.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.
If the language of yesterday is continually updated, how can we maintain an accurate grip on history?
Only 3% of the world’s population currently lives in a country whose birth rate isn’t declining.
To put all the weight of our humanness on consciousness is an erroneous idea that will have disastrous consequences
The emperor's real role in Christian history and what he didn’t do at the Council of Nicaea.
ADF has created a corporate index ranking companies on anti-Christian bias and John and Maria discuss John MacArthur’s claim that “We Lose Down Here.”
Keeping adult explicit material out of children's libraries is common sense, not cancel culture.
A few weeks ago, one of the world’s largest peddlers of pornography scored what they thought was a stunning victory for their cause.
Despite a government ruling suggesting the opposite, true religion takes place outside of church walls and should not be penalized.
The last few years, Christian colleges have faced a crisis of how to respond to increasingly vocal calls to “accommodate” LGBT students.
The rate of Gen Z women identifying as men has skyrocketed to about twice that of Gen Z men identifying as women.
As Western Christians take necessary stands against evil in our own cultures, we must also remember the struggles of our brothers and sisters around the world.
Scoring system will help faith-based and Conservative institutions fight discrimination in loaning and business practices.
How human rights are defined depends, first and foremost, on who we believe humans are and what we believe humans are for.
Great Britain crowned a new king last weekend, John and Maria will talk about the symbolism of the ceremony. This is the season for commencement speeches, we have one that will warm your heart. And in Canada the public appears to support euthanasia for just about any reason.
Did a pro football player just tell grads marriage and kids are more worthy than a career?
The aging generation may not be in an economic crisis as much as in a crisis of meaning untethered from absolutes.
Good books tell children the truth about the world and who they are, respecting their age, imagination, and innocence.
Proponents argue that chemical abortions are safe, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Christians show Christ by helping those in need through the suffering, not by eliminating it altogether.
A new government report finds religious persecution around the world is growing, states that decriminalized drugs are rethinking that plan and John and Maria discuss a leading voice in Artificial Intelligence saying he regrets his life work.
In the history of the world, the wholesale rejection of the supernatural is a quirk of Western secularism.
However many numbers trendy marriage laws allow in, God’s simple union plan of one man and one woman to create life really works.
On this day of May 2 in 373, Athanasius of Alexandria died in the city where he served as bishop.
The value of every human life is inherent, not determined by what we can do or how we feel.
Another measure makes parents suspects of the state over true advocates for their children.
The Church has a great opportunity to offer right ideas about faith, truth, and love to a primed generation slightly askew.
Anglicans gathered last week to debate the church’s position on a host of cultural issues and John and Maria discuss how much influence the Church should have on the world.
Recently in The New Atlantis, physician Matthew Loftus described how a culture of death has distorted our view of the vulnerable.
Four years ago, the 60-plus members of the Shenzhen fellowship fled their homes in Communist China.
No matter the reason, divorce is especially costly for children, something adults are quick to minimize and ignore.
In a touching moment at a press conference earlier this month, Drake thanked the students of Covenant School.
Recently, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt launched a Substack newsletter called After Babel to explore the cultural effects of social media which, he says, reminds him of the biblical account of the tower of Babel.
The Colson Fellows Church Affiliate program provides churches, from every denominational background you can imagine, with thorough training in Christian worldview and in-depth cultural analysis.
According to a recent study from the Institute for Family Studies, “On average, early-marrieds enjoy slightly higher marital quality than later-marrieds” on metrics like “relationship satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, teamwork, and communication.”
Recently, a number of prominent tech executives, including Elon Musk, signed an open letter urging a 6-month pause on all AI research.
Long-held Christian beliefs are being aligned with Christian nationalism. Are they? And John and Maria discuss the disturbing new law in Washington State that some have described as akin to kidnapping.
(FULL EPISODE AFTER POSTING A VERSION THAT WAS CUT SHORT)
Long-held Christian beliefs are being aligned with Christian nationalism. Are they? And John and Maria discuss the disturbing new law in Washington State that some have described as akin to kidnapping.
In response to critical race theory, Tennessee lawmakers have introduced a list of “divisive concepts,” which, under a law passed last year, are prohibited from being taught on college campuses.
Renae Regehr was recovering from her son’s birth a few years ago when she started thinking of all the women who had to do it alone.
According to a recent study out of the U.K., the more siblings one has, the less likely he or she is to get divorced.
The most dramatic moment of the Protestant Reformation occurred in April of 1521. Three and a half years earlier, Martin Luther had posted his 95 Theses attacking the abusive sale of indulgences—which promised the pardon of sin through payment—and other evidence of corruption in the Western Church of the time.
Christians are constantly pressured, within the Church and without, to evolve on these issues or, we are told, we will die out. It seems however, that biblical orthodoxy draws people in.
Passing on a Christian worldview to our kids requires much more than just telling them the truth. It requires us to help them love the truth and gain spiritual immunity against infectious bad ideas.
Chuck Colson called Summit Ministries “the gold standard” for training young adults in Christian worldview. If you know a student who needs to attend a Summit conference this summer, visit summit.org/student, and use code “BREAKPOINT” to receive an exclusive discount.
Wickedness and loss seem to hide God’s presence, but even when we cannot see or feel Him, the Lord is risen and is with us.
The ability to think and act morally largely depends on the ability to speak accurately.
A judge in Texas says the FDA rushed its approval of the abortion drug Mifepristone. John and Maria discuss a new study that finds children from large families are less likely to divorce.
— Recommendations —
Samuel Beckett's Breath
Waiting for Godot: A Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett
Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin
Segment 1 - Texas Ruling on Mifepristone
"Justice Department Appeals Texas abortion pill order"
AP News
"What’s Next for the abortion pill Mifepristone?"
NPR
"Danco Laboratories, LLC Revenue"
Kona Equity
Segment 2 - Love and Marriage
"Growing Up with Siblings Makes You Less Likely to Get Divorced"
The Daily Mail UK
"More Siblings Means Less Chance of Divorce as an Adult"
Science Daily
"Is Marrying Later Always Better?"
Institute for Family Studies
Segment 3 - Stories of the Week
"Israeli Government Threatens to Outlaw Evangelism"
The Point
"Why People Question Christianity"
Breakpoint
"The Restless Heart of Gen Z"
Breakpoint
"Being Christian in an Age of Heightened Hostility"
Breakpoint
A Texas court ruling, expected to go into effect today, temporarily revoked FDA approval for the abortion drug Mifepristone.
For the sake of our neighbors, all who believe in the importance of truth must continue to say so. We cannot beat ideological opponents into conformity, and it is sinful to try.
On July 27, I will be hosting a conversation about these things for the 2023 Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview in Bay Harbor, Michigan. I’ll be joined by Jim Daly, CEO and president of Focus on the Family and Kristen Waggoner, CEO, president, and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom. Please mark the date, July 27, to either join us live or by livestream.
Some of the loudest voices calling for conservation efforts are philosophical naturalists who espouse a worldview that lacks any basis for conservation efforts.
In the face of Gen Z’s mental health crisis, it is the Gospel and not gloom that should motivate and inform us. This mental health crisis is a spiritual crisis.
The State Department released its 2022 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, detailing how nations are handling everything from life and freedom of speech to how sexually progressive countries are tracking sexual orientation and gender identity policies.
A recent report by Barna Research listed the top reasons people question Christianity. Among those who claim to be Christian, the problem of human suffering topped the list, followed by hypocrisy of religious people.
The Colson Fellows program is a community of believers committed to learning and living faithfully under the fullness of Christ’s authority in this time and this place. We are committed to the church, to the formation of a Christian worldview, and to making sense of a confusing world with the heart and mind of Christ. To learn more about this program, please visit colsonfellows.org.
Last month, the Israeli Knesset considered a bill that would make religious evangelism punishable by up to two years in prison.
We need not deny reality to affirm that every person and therefore every body possesses dignity and deserves respect and kindness.
The Colson Fellows Church Affiliate program provides churches, from every denominational background you can imagine, with thorough training in Christian worldview and in-depth cultural analysis.
To learn more, go to colsonfellows.org, and look for “Church Affiliates.”
John and Maria look at the significance of Good Friday and Easter, discuss the recent apology from Rosaria Butterfield for using gender affirming pronouns, and take a sober look at the dire predictions of what AI will do to the human race.
— Recommendations —
Death on a Friday Afternoon by Richard John Neuhaus
The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross by Carl Laferton
“Crimson” by Nichole Nordeman
Segment 1 - Easter
"How Johnny Hart Taught Millions About Easter"
Breakpoint
Segment 2 - Rosaria Butterfield Repents of "Pronoun Hospitality"
"Why I No Longer Use Preferred Pronouns – and Why You Shouldn’t, Either"
Reformation21
Segment 3 - Catastrophizing AI
"Pausing AI Development Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it all Down."
TIME
Segment 4 - Rethinking the Gun Data/ Stories of the Week
"Gun Murders are not the leading cause of death for children"
"Suicides, Cities, and the Concept of Coupling"
Brandon Donnelly
"Proclaiming Human Dignity with Infectious Joy: Heart by Max"
Breakpoint
The Gospels spend a good chunk of time on the last few days of Christ and why this matters.
On Good Friday, 1867, a complete version of Johannes Brahms’ “German Requiem” premiered at Bremen Cathedral. Brahms obviously found consolation in the Bible, though he rejected its fundamental message.
Today is National Burrito Day, and just in time to celebrate, last week the Feds caught the alleged firebomber of a Wisconsin pro-life organization’s office because of a burrito.
Jesus embodied truth and love, not only in the event we commemorate this day, but in every event we remember this Holy Week.
Utah recently passed legislation to better empower parents to protect their kids online.
Johnny Hart can be an inspiration to all of us to find ways to bring a Christian worldview to bear on our work, whatever it may be.
Though Chuck Colson championed throughout his ministry the idea that every single human life has value, it was his grandson Max who brought the lesson home.
To be part of this movement that is reminding the world that every single human being is valuable and loved by God, give a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month. When you do, you’ll receive a T-shirt with one of Max’s hearts, and a Heart by Max onesie will be sent to a pregnancy resource center on your behalf. To give, go to colsoncenter.org/april.
Science and Christianity both reveal truth about reality. Recently on Piers Morgan’s television show, Dawkins pushed back against trans activists, even calling them “bullies.”
Last week, a young woman walked into a Nashville church school where she had once been a student and took six lives.
If the tragic events of last week do indeed mark a new chapter in our cultural moment, we’ll need to learn afresh what it means to live by hope, do good to those who persecute us, love our neighbors, and build a better future for the sake of Christ.
John and Maria close out a tragic week when a woman identifying as a man killed six at a Christian school in Nashville. Also, several Christian colleges are considering their future in these changing times for higher education.
— Recommendations —
Pray for The Covenant School in Nashville
Read Lamentations
Segment 1 - Nashville Shootings
Segment 2 - The Shift in American Values
Segment 3 - Stories of the Week
This month, a Norwegian independent government agency declared that Norway’s current standards of so-called “gender-affirming” care need to change.
Some in the Colorado legislature are attempting to prevent pro-life centers from saying they offer abortions, something no one has credibly accused them of doing in the first place.
A team of scientists created living baby mice with two biological fathers. In theory, we can now bring human children into existence who have no biological mothers.
For many in the modern West, life proceeds without even considering God. Good things come from our hard work and planning, not from the gracious hands of our loving Father.
Signals of Transcendence: Listening to the Promptings of Life is a profound tool for living and pointing others to Christ in a time of practical atheism. It will sharpen your own senses to find a God who is present and active in the world He has made. Receive a copy of Signals of Transcendence for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month. Just visit colsoncenter.org/March.
This Breakpoint was revised from one published 9.25.19.
Over the last few months, several long-established Christian schools announced cutbacks, budget crises, and major restructuring.
San Jose Sharks goaltender James Reimer made the decision not to wear a jersey celebrating LGBT pride.
Children born as the result of anonymous sperm and egg donations and those adopted via a closed adoption don’t know their biological parents. John and Maria discuss the potential problems. And what is the Biblical view of work?
— Recommendations —
Why You Can't Stay Silent: A Biblical Mandate to Shape Our Culture by Tom Minnery
March Madness Sweet 16
Segment 1 - Egg/ Sperm Donations
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce by Julia Lewis
Alone Together by Sherry Turtle
Segment 2 - Gay Marriage Settled?
Segment 3 - Retirement
When faced with the prospect of having its girls’ basketball team play another school with a trans-identifying player, the Mid Vermont Christian School chose to forfeit.
Earlier this month, social media behemoth TikTok announced that it would soon introduce new features designed to limit access to the app for users under 18.
Over the past decade, the medical community has treated cases of gender dysphoria differently than other mind/body disorders.
Recently, Colorado introduced a trio of radical new pro-abortion bills that, if passed, would make it the most hostile state for preborn life in the Union.
John Stonestreet welcomes Michael Craven to discuss the growth and impact of the Colson Fellows Program.
To learn more and apply for the program visit https://colsonfellows.org/.
Ke Huy Quan’s joy and gratitude were absolutely infectious and point to something deeper than mere nostalgia.
God can be seen, for those with eyes to see, in everything from the beautiful to the tragic to the mundane.
To receive a copy of Os Guinness’ latest book, Signals of Transcendence, make a gift of any amount to the Colson Center. This is an important book for everyone hoping to point people who are lost in a secular world to God. We’d love to send you a copy.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation accused NFL Hall of Famer and new University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders of forcing his Christian faith on student athletes.
When lawmakers and politicians redefine the legal meaning of “marriage” and “family,” they do not make lies true. They create additional tragedy.
As it turns out, the consequences of fatherlessness are not only temporal, but eternal.
Colorado lawmakers appear intent on having the most liberal abortion laws in the nation. John and Maria discuss the ramifications of the recent meltdown at Stanford Law School over the appearance of a conservative federal judge.
— Recommendations — I Was There When podcast
52 Weeks in the Word devotional
Segment 1 - Colorado Abortion Laws
Segment 2 - Higher Education
Christian Legal Society
Submit a comment at regulations.gov
ChristianLawStudents.org
Segment 3 - Stories of the Week
"Of Primates and Percentages: No, Humans Aren’t 99% Chimp"
Breakpoint
Late last month, 18-year-old Chloe Cole sued medical provider Kaiser Permanente for surgically and chemically altering her body.
Of the thousands of green-clad parade-goers, marchers, and partiers today, few know about Patrick, the man for whom today’s holiday is named.
To learn more about this man of faith and his consequential life, check out this Breakpoint interview between Shane Morris and T.M. Moore, a former colleague of Chuck’s and the author of Celtic Flame: The Burden of St. Patrick.
Last month, pro-life doctors were banned from setting up an exhibit at an annual medical education conference.
The U.S. Department of Education announced its intention to rescind the “Free Inquiry Rule," which was designed to fix the pressuring and discriminating against religious student groups.
Our friends at the Christian Legal Society have made it easy to submit a comment to the Department of Education. Please, go to regulations.gov to submit a comment, but only after reviewing the Christian Legal Society fact sheet at ChristianLawStudents.org. The deadline to comment on this new rule is Friday, March 24.
The U.K. has decided to shift its loyalties from courageously defying tyranny in the 20th century to embracing it in the 21st.
If the Son of God took time to pray, Christians should too. Learn more about Shodankeh Johnson’s ministry at colsonconference.org.
The season of Lent and Holy Week is an appropriate time to meditate on Christ, His Divine and Human natures, His sufferings on our behalf, the love that prompted them, and what that love has accomplished on our behalf.
It turns out that we really do want sacrificial love, and women want someone willing to make a physical sacrifice.
Whether we are 99 or 84% similar to chimps genetically, there is clearly more going on than materialists can account for.
The controversy over a recent article using sex to describe Christ and the Church caused quite a stir, but it’s a relationship well-grounded in Scripture. John and Maria discuss the implications. A recent decision by Walgreens to not sell the abortion pill has legal ramifications nationwide.
— Recommendations —
Colson Center National Conference
Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri
Segment 1 - The Sex-as-Metaphor Dust-Up
"Sex as Sacred"
Breakpoint
Segment 2 - What role should morality play in lawmaking?
"Walgreens won’t distribute abortion pills in states where GOP AGs object"
POLITICO
"America Has Gone Too Far in Legalizing Vice"
The Atlantic
"Of Vice and Lent"
Breakpoint
Segment 3 - Cynicism as Standard
"Young women disbelieve a marriage story"
The Daily Wire on Twitter
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"Discerning Divine Judgment: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address"
Breakpoint
"The New Equal Rights Amendment Erases Women"
The Point
The lesson to be learned from the history of lobotomies is to not rush forward when research is vague and consequences of being wrong are so high.
The slope from abortion to infanticide by way of physician-assisted suicide is a slippery one indeed.
This Point was originally published on August 14, 2020.
Historically, the Church’s shining moments have often come in direct conflict with dominant cultural beliefs and practice.
This Breakpoint was originally published on August 2, 2021.
On Wednesday, the recently announced Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics at The Gospel Coalition published a book excerpt authored by Pastor Josh Butler. Almost immediately, Twitterverse erupted, decrying the article as “icky,” “cringe,” and “dangerous.”
Last week, Senator Dick Durbin held a committee hearing in hopes of resurrecting the controversial Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
Shodankeh Johnson is an example of Christians running into the brokenness with truth and hope, not away from it.
Biblically speaking, if there is no place for divine judgment in our theology, there is something unchristian about our worldview.
For millennia, Christians have celebrated truth, goodness, and beauty as transcendent testimonies to God’s existence and character.
American plastic surgeons are reporting a spike in clients under 30 seeking changes or “enhancements” to how they look.
Advances in medicine have given us fixes for cleft palates and gender transitions. John and Maria discuss the good and bad in today’s medical technology and respond to concerns from our listeners.
Like the sacred songs of the Advent season, Lenten hymns are wonderful tools for theological instruction and worship.
Since so-called Medical Aid in Dying was legalized in Canada, those with severe medical conditions have been increasingly in danger.
Churchgoers tend to be more willing to associate with people outside of their immediate economic bracket.
Millions of girls with instant access to our culture’s most viral (and dangerous) behaviors and beliefs are currently manifesting the results.
Kasey Leander sits down with Ryan Bomberger of the Radiance Foundation to talk about creativity, adoption, and why every human life matters. Ryan will be a speaker at this year's Colson Center National Conference, May 19-21, in Indianapolis. To register go to https://colsonconference.org/.
While other famous people in the music and movie industries talk about parenthood as a career-killing disease, Pink is living the opposite.
As a pastor and church planter in Sierra Leone, this year’s Wilberforce Award recipient Shodankeh Johnson has faced serious threats and danger.
Lent is a time set aside each year in the Church calendar to consider our habits, evaluate them, and start new ones. It is hard to imagine anything more countercultural, especially in a culture that caters to vice and expects so little of us in terms of virtue.
At the 2023 Colson Center National Conference, we look forward to honoring Shodankeh Johnson with the Wilberforce Award.
Please join us as we honor Shodankeh Johnson at the Colson Center National Conference, May 19-21 in Indianapolis. Tomorrow, February 28, is the last day to receive the discounted rate.
Christians around the world are celebrating the start of the Lenten season, a new study underlines the importance of friends in our lives, and why did Richard Dawkins call Peter Singer, “the most moral person I know”?
— Recommendations —
Strong Women Lent Reading Plan
Dear and Glorious Physician: A Novel about Saint Luke by Taylor Caldwell
Segment 1 - What Friendship Does for Our Wellbeing
"‘Friending Bias'"
The New York Times
"Want to Be Healthier? Hang Out with Your Friends"
The Washington Post
"Why Friends Are Good For Your Health"
Rob Henderson on Twitter
Segment 2 - The Loneliness Crisis Among Young Men
"Most Young Men Are Single. Most Young Women Are Not."
The Hill
"What’s Behind the Rise of Lonely, Single Men"
Psychology Today
Segment 3 - Debating Different Ethical Theories
Richard Dawkins on Twitter
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"Is Christianity Sexist?"
Breakpoint
"You Are Dust and to Dust You Shall Return: Something to Know but Not to Fear"
Breakpoint
"Bethany Hamilton’s Stand"
The Point
Many critics of transgender ideology today argue that the “T” in the LGBTQ acronym doesn’t fit with the other letters.
Unrestrained by theology or organized faith, people eager for transcendence are opening doors without considering what might walk through.
Last week, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill that would set the legal age to sign up for a social media account at 16.
Just as the bad behavior of Christians does not disprove the truth claims of Christianity, neither can the sexism, misogyny, or even abuse committed by some Christian men prove that Christianity itself is sexist.
To learn more about how Christianity dignifies women, ask for a copy of Abdu Murray’s new book More Than a White Man’s Religion when you give a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month. Just go to ColsonCenter.org/February.
Recently, a Jacksonville church asked members to sign a statement on biblical sexuality. Ever since, they have received overwhelming local and national news coverage, most of it negative.
Today is Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of the 40-day period in the church calendar known as Lent, a time of preparation leading up to Holy Week and Resurrection Sunday.
Advocates of abortion claim to limit suffering by killing the sufferers. Every premise of that idea is wrong.
Revivalism, with a focus on a personal faith with public implications, dramatically shaped American life and culture.
John interviews Dr. Steve Seamands, Professor Emeritus of Christian Doctrine at Asbury Theological Seminary. A student during the 1970 revival at Asbury, Dr. Seamands has participated in the current revival and observed its shepherding by campus leadership.
This month, the World Surf League announced it will allow transgender-identifying men to compete in its women’s surfing competitions.
Christians, both in their words and their lives, point to the depths of meaning and beauty that God has woven into the world.
The worldview intensive at this year’s Colson Center National Conference will be a crash course in cultural apologetics. Join us in Indianapolis, May 19-21. To learn more about the lineup of speakers and to register, visit colsonconference.org before February 28 to get a special early admission price.
It’s been more than a week, and the revival at Asbury University is still going strong. The "He Gets Us" campaign spent 20 million dollars on Super Bowl ads—was it worth it? And some frightening findings on teen girls and mental health from the CDC.
— Recommendations —
Seven by Brooke Ligertwood
A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir by Colin Hanson and John Woodbridge
Segment 1 - The Revival at Asbury/ He Gets Us
"Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’"
Christianity Today
"A nonstop Kentucky prayer 'revival' is going viral on TikTok, and people are traveling thousands of miles to take part"
NBC News
"A $100m campaign aims to fix Jesus’ brand from followers’ damage"
The Washington Post
Segment 2 - The Mental Health Crisis Among Teen Girls
"These Staggering Statistics And Charts Reveal How Deeply Troubled Our Teen Girls Really Are"
The Daily Wire
"CDC report shows concerning increases in sadness and exposure to violence among teen girls and LGBQ+ youth"
CDC
Segment 3 - Why You so Cranky?
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"Valentine’s Day and True (Sacrificial) Love"
Breakpoint
"Jalen Hurts’ Best Performance"
The Point
Words matter. If our language is not honest, then our language is not compassionate either.
Women in a permanent vegetative state or who are declared brain dead could be used as unconscious surrogate mothers for people who either “wish to have children but cannot, or prefer not to gestate.”
A service that began last Wednesday at Asbury University is still going, and news outlets have noticed. “The Asbury Awakening” is attracting visitors from all over.
If ever a player for the losing team deserved the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player Award, it was Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts.
When we look through the Christian worldview, we see the brilliance of the world God made, the beauty of it along with the truth.
Ryan Bomberger co-founded The Radiance Foundation whose goal is to remind the world that human life has purpose in everything from the sanctity of life to adoption, gender, race, and parenting.
I hope you will join us for the Colson Center National Conference, in Indianapolis, May 19-21. Go to colsonconference.org, and register before February 28 to get a special early admission price.
The true meaning of Valentine’s Day reminds us that there’s much more to life than sensual pleasures.
This Breakpoint was originally published on February 14, 2020.
There has been a notable shift in Hollywood from film portrayals that mock Christianity to films that portray Christianity as a force of evil.
The decision late last week by the Church of England to now bless civil marriages and partnerships of same-sex couples made precisely no one happy.
Christian ministries were among the first on the ground after powerful earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria. John and Maria discuss, what appears to be, the Church of England apologizing for biblical teaching, and fallout from the Grammys.
— Recommendations —
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
The Most Reluctant Convert
Be Open to Spiritual Experience. Also, Be Really Careful. by Ross Douthat
Segment 1 - The Earthquake in Turkey / Church of England
"Death Toll in Turkey and Syria From Earthquake Passes 20,000"
The New York Times
"Turkish and Syrian Christians Rally Relief After Earthquake Kills 20,000"
Christianity Today
"Samaritan's Purse to send aid to Turkey and Syria after devastating earthquakes"
WFMY News
Segment 2 - Trans Clinic Whistleblower
"I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids. Now I’m Blowing the Whistle."
The Free Press
"When Students Change Gender Identity, and Parents Don’t Know"
The New York Times
Segment 3 - Satan and the Grammys
"Satan Shows Up at the Grammys"
Breakpoint
"Governor Kristi Noem Blasts Lil Nas X's 'Satan Shoes': 'We Are in a Fight for the Soul of Our Nation'"
Christian Headlines
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"Life, Even as We Don’t Know it, Is No Accident"
The Point
"Josephine Margaret Bakhita: From Slave to Servant of Christ"
Breakpoint
"Is the Pro-Life Movement Oppressive?"
The Point
Allowing MAID patients to donate organs incentivizes doctors to forsake medical ethics and exploit patients.
A former gender clinic caseworker has filed her concerns with the attorney general of Missouri and has gone public with what she saw behind clinic doors.
Stonewalling parents from the lives of their children leaves already suffering kids without those who know and love them most.
Rather than merely shock with a new display of creepiness, the “Unholy” Grammys performance marked the place where we’ve already been for some time.
John Stonestreet sat down with Timothy Goeglein to discuss his new book, Toward a More Perfect Union: The Moral and Cultural Case for Teaching the Great American Story.
"Civic education and American history have either not been taught or have been deliberately mistaught throughout our nation’s public—and in numerous cases, even our private—education system. This lack of education or misinformation has placed our nation in great peril, and we are seeing the consequences unfold daily in our corporate boardrooms, halls of power, and streets. This book is the prescription for returning our nation to a healthy culture for all."
Learn more and get a copy of his book here.
Recently, a Scientific American article titled “The Search for Extraterrestrial Life as We Don’t Know It,” reflected on the continued search for life across the universe.
Today, the anniversary of Josephine Margaret Bakhita’s death, has become the International Day of Prayer to Stop Human Trafficking.
Ever since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court last summer, lawmakers and media outlets have increasingly demonized pro-life voices and policies as racist and anti-woman.
The God-given joy of meaningful work is often, in our late-modern cultural moment, sapped by overwork, overregulation, and mission drift.
When a society is unmoored from any enduring truth about reality, what starts as a punchline quickly becomes plausible.
Erin Friday refused to give up on her 11-year-old daughter when she began to struggle with her identity as female.
Please, listen to the complete interview with Erin Friday, hosted by Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal Podcast. You can also learn about the nonprofit Our Duty, started by Erin Friday to connect and mobilize like-minded parents.
The death of Tyre Nichols is another reminder that the answer to our social ills can only be found in Christianity and John reads a poem on the importance and dignity of work.
— Recommendations —
Clubhouse Magazine from Focus on the Family
The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Biblical Critical Theory by Christopher Watkin
Colson Center National Conference
Segment 1 - The Tyre Nichols Story
"What we know about the killing of Tyre Nichols"
NPR
"The Killing of Tyre Nichols and the Issue of Race"
The New Yorker
"Statement from President Joe Biden on Tyre Nichols"
The White House
Segment 2 - What is Work?
"Teacher who quit career for Costco job blames low salary and burnout: ‘My passion couldn't pay my bills’"
FOX Business
"Work is Not a Result of the Fall"
Breakpoint
The Village Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Segment 3 - What are "Whole Body Gestational Carriers"?
"Whole body gestational donation"
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"Christianity Isn’t a Western Faith"
Breakpoint
"Is Genesis Just One of the Many Creation Myths?"
Breakpoint
"What Are Men Good For?"
Breakpoint
Just after midnight on February 3, 1943, the American transport Dorchester, carrying nearly a thousand men, was sunk by a German U-boat.
Because the transgender movement lacks any positive good to pursue, it only survives by hijacking other cultural movements that claim to “protect the oppressed.”
The first founders of Christianity were not powerful European rulers hoping to oppress the world. They were Middle Easterners, mostly “blue collar,” almost all of whom died a violent death at the hands of the ruling elite.
For a donation of any amount this month, receive a copy of Abdu Murray’s new book, More Than a White Man’s Religion, which examines and refutes many of the modern claims against Christianity. Go to colsoncenter.org/February.
Just a month after a woman was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic, police in the U.K. have fined army veteran Adam Smith-Connor for the same “crime.”
Lydia Booth and Jack Phillips are like living epistles to us, offering a picture of what faithfulness to Christ could require in the days to come.
Jess Gill with the British media site Reasoned recently took to the streets of London asking, “What are men good for?”
If multiple disparate cultures recorded similar stories of the world’s beginning, isn’t it possible these ancient peoples derived clues from the nature around them about the world’s actual beginning?
You can’t have liberty without a life to live freely. And, unless these rights come from God, all we have is what the state offers.
Because humans are made in the image of the God who is Trinity, relationships are as much a part of our created design, as eating, sleeping, working, and breathing.
John and Maria discuss what appears to be a vendetta against Jack Phillips and some striking patterns are found in a new study of mass shooters.
— Recommendations —
The Empathy Diaries: A Memoir by Sherry Turkle
Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
The Colson Center National Conference
—
"Colorado baker loses appeal over transgender birthday cake"
CBS News
Segment 1 - New Data on Mass Shootings
"Nearly all U.S. mass attackers were male and faced major life stressor, report finds"
NPR
"The Crisis of Fatherless Shooters"
The Heritage Foundation
"What We’re Missing About Mass Shootings"
Breakpoint
Segment 2 - ChatGPT: Friend or Foe?
"EXPLAINER: What is ChatGPT and why are schools blocking it?"
AP News
"Professor catches student cheating with ChatGPT: ‘I feel abject terror’"
New York Post
"Teachers consider ChatGPT’s place in the classroom"
WORLD
Segment 3 - Church Attendance and Affiliation Post-COVID
"Faith After the Pandemic: How COVID-19 Changed American Religion"
Survey Center on American Life
Segment 4 - Stories of the Week
"American Life Expectancy Continues to Fall"
Breakpoint
"Effective Compassion vs. Effective Altruism"
Breakpoint
"What Christians Can Learn from Secular Humanism"
Breakpoint
NFL coaching legend and commentator Tony Dungy is under fire for speaking at the March for Life.
What is “art” in a world where artificial intelligence can not only replicate nearly any image, but produce original images with superior skill and precision?
Recently, scholars announced another breakthrough discovery relating to Israel’s King David.
The science for medical gender transitions for children and teenagers is far from settled, and we should have no patience for those who say otherwise.
Last week, Philadelphia Flyers hockey player Ivan Provorov refused to wear a jersey for the NHL’s Pride Night.
According to a CDC report released in December, the life expectancy of Americans fell by about seven months in 2021, reaching the lowest point in two decades.
Years after the dawn of the Me Too movement, Hollywood’s reckoning with its embrace of bad ideas about sex continues.
A Christian moral vision does not reduce humanity or humans to a math equation. The effectiveness of our compassion cannot be adequately measured only in totals.
Recently, National Geographic covered the growing trend of experts now questioning the efficacy of marijuana as a treatment for what it is most commonly prescribed: pain relief.
A few months ago, a group called Humanists International updated their “defining statement of World Humanism.” If nothing else, secular humanism is a cautionary tale for Christians who think of the Christian faith as a kind of humanist project.
After decades of restricting population, China finds itself with an emergency caused by too few people and the LGBTQ mob comes for an NHL player who puts his religion above homosexual coercion.
— Recommendations —
Strong Women podcast with Jeanne Mancini
Prufrock Newsletter
Dutch Blitz card game
Segment 1 - China's Population Emergency
MarchforLife.org
Segment 2 - NHL player refuses pride jersey
Segment 3 - MLK and John Witherspoon statues
"The Real Problem with New MLK Statue"
Micah Mattix on Prufrock
"Should John Witherspoon’s Statue Remain at Princeton?"
Breakpoint
Robert George on moral superiority
According to Britain’s Telegraph, the Church of England has decided not to allow same-sex marriages by its clergy. This isn’t as ringing an endorsement of biblical truth as it may sound.
Fifty years ago, on January 22, 1973, the United States Supreme Court fabricated a so-called “right to abortion” out of thin air. Today, many will march in Washington, D.C., again committing to the great moral cause of our day.
If you would like to hear a recent interview with Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, on the Strong Women podcast, go to colsoncenter.org/podcasts.
The entire narrative of Scripture reveals a God committed to making Himself known. Just because we cannot know Him exhaustively does not mean we cannot know Him truthfully.
For a gift of any amount to the Colson Center in January, we’ll send you a copy of What Does It Mean to Be a Thoughtful Christian? and access to an exclusive collection of videos featuring interviews with teachers such as Alisa Childers and Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer about aspects of the Christian mind. To learn more, go to colsoncenter.org/january.
Recently, Reuters news service published an article titled, “Why detransitioners are crucial to the science of gender care.”
Princeton University is considering a petition, signed by nearly 300 members of the campus community, to remove a statue of John Witherspoon, one of the university’s most important presidents and one of the most important, albeit less-known, of America’s founders.
The Holy Spirit has been called the “forgotten God,” but according to Scripture, the Spirit is central to the Christian life.
This Point was originally published on December 31, 2019.
This week marks the death of Amy Carmichael, missionary to India and defender of children.
Revised from Breakpoint on March 16, 2021.
In grounding his dream in Scripture, Martin Luther King Jr. shows us the way forward.
This Point was originally published on August 27, 2021.
Today, on Martin Luther King Day, here is Chuck Colson with a commentary on Dr. King and his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.
John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander look at the state of the pro-life movement as Americans descend on Washington, D. C. for another March for Life and the horrors of the eugenics movement haven’t gone away. We have proof from Greenland.
It turns out that whether or not we think we can tolerate our future spouse’s annoying domestic habits is not nearly as important as committing ourselves to them, for life.
This Point was originally published on February 17, 2020.
Because music has been so central to Church worship and the Christian imagination, the first common-language hymnal is a milestone to remember and an opportunity to reflect on how music serves Christian worship today.
About a decade ago, well-educated women were told that freezing their eggs would not only allow them to postpone childbearing, it would even empower them.
This Point was originally published on January 1, 2020.
May we have the listening ears and the thankful hearts to acknowledge the Creator to which documentaries like Our Universe point, whether they admit it or not.
As Fox News reports, a biblical site only discovered in the last 20 years will soon be available to the public.
According to the BBC, doctors in Greenland inserted contraceptive devices into several thousand local women without their knowledge or consent.
Back in December, March for Life UK director Isabel Vaughan-Spruce was arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic in Birmingham, England.
According to scholars Brad Wilcox and Wendy Wang in a recent article in The Atlantic, married mothers fared quite well during the pandemic, including indicating a greater degree of happiness than their single counterparts.
No statement about religious liberty has generated more controversy than when Thomas Jefferson, in his letter to the Danbury Baptists, prescribed “a wall of separation between church and state.”
In his book Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis rightly suggests that we ought not judge something (or someone) based on its newness or oldness at all. Techniques, styles, even church movements come and go, but those whom Christ saves, He sustains.
After the terrifying collapse of Daman Hamlin on an NFL football field the nation turned to its only source of hope: God, and politicians are blaming pro-lifers for the results of the mid-term election.
On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that medication abortion drugs can now be sold over the counter at retail pharmacies.
Today could be the most significant Christian holiday that Christians know about the least. Epiphany, the 12th day of Christmas, was set aside in the Church calendar to remember the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus.
Commit a year to joining others and work through the implications of a Christian worldview for all of life. Consider joining the Colson Fellows program. Applications are currently being accepted for the next class, which begins later this year.
When Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field Monday, several sports analysts called it the scariest scene they’d ever seen on a football field.
God made us for relationship. He gave us bodies to mediate and facilitate those relationships. As helpful as computers and phones are, there is no substitute for real people.
Canada’s campaign to normalize suicide as a viable and even preferred medical treatment continues to escalate.
To be Christian, especially in this confusing cultural moment, requires the intentional cultivation of our minds. An exemplary model of someone who took this calling seriously is James Clerk Maxwell.
For a gift of any amount this month, I’d like to send you a very helpful and concise book, What Does It Mean to Be a Thoughtful Christian by scholar David Dockery. We’ve also developed a video series on the Christian mind, with teachers such as Alisa Childers and Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer. To learn more, please visit colsoncenter.org/January.
In December, the public school superintendent in Loudon County, Virginia, was fired and indicted for lying to parents about the rape of a young girl in a restroom by a male classmate.
Not that long ago, culturally speaking, someone known throughout the world for being neighborly said some things that most likely would have gotten him fired today.
On January 1, 404, a monk from the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire attended a gladiatorial match in Rome. But instead of watching the games, Telemachus leapt into the arena in an attempt to separate the combatants.
Today, as antisemitism once again rears its ugly head, the Church should take the lead in opposing this evil and supporting the value and dignity of our Jewish neighbors.
John and Maria look back on 2022 and talk about the effects some of the biggest stories of the year had on the church and faith.
Jesus’ words about loving our enemies remain as true and trying as ever. But the radical love to which Christ calls us shouldn’t be confused with squishy emotion or moral vacuity.
This Point was originally published on March 25, 2022.
From Pride month to education to companies telegraphing their commitments to inclusion and diversity, to just about every commercial, movie, or TV show produced today, sexual identity is treated as if it is central to human identity, human purpose, and human happiness.
This Breakpoint was originally published on August 1, 2022.
For the first time in a long time, scientists are bucking the so-called “Neo-Darwinian synthesis,” which has dominated the sciences since the early 20th century.
This Point was originally published on July 20, 2022.
Young men aren’t forming social bonds with real, live people, even the kinds of bonds that have historically captured their attention.
This Breakpoint was originally published on October 5, 2022.
We’re simply walking in the way Orwell warned against. It’s the dark side of an expressive individualism devoid of any deeper truth.
This Point was originally published on February 2, 2022.
Christians must insist that men and women are real. We must also insist that fact doesn’t compel a competition. There is no hierarchy of human dignity.
This Breakpoint was originally published on March 28, 2022.
In a culture where nearly 1 in 5 of Gen Z calls themselves “LGBT,” it’s crucial that parents pray hard, stay true, and remember the long game.
This Point was originally published on August 2, 2022.
Justice Alito thoroughly dismantles the claim that the right to an abortion is found anywhere in the Constitution.
This Breakpoint was originally published on May 3, 2022.
Evangelicals under 40 are twice as likely as their seniors to want more substance from the pulpit.
This Point was originally published on February 3, 2022.
In the tradition of so many who went before them, who were granted “not only to believe in Christ but to suffer for His sake,” the Chibok schoolgirls held on to faith, and in so doing, found life and hope where there was seemingly none.
This Breakpoint was originally published on March 7, 2022.
John and Maria look at the best and worst Christmas movies and would you host or attend a same sex wedding?
As we enter Christmas and the New Year, let’s keep pointing to Christ. And as we point to Christ, we point to reality, because in Him, as the Apostle Paul says, “all things hold together.”
For image bearers, names are not just blobs of letters, but a way of affirming identity, value, and history. Words mean something.
It can be easy to equate “greatness” with fame or followers or something loud and big. But God asks for faithfulness in whatever our hand finds to do.
The faithfulness that individual Christians demonstrate in their everyday lives makes a compelling case that the Christian worldview is both true and good.
Nothing is more encouraging than to hear from followers of Christ who’ve been resourced, encouraged, and equipped by Breakpoint, the Colson Fellows program, or the Upstream and Strong Women podcasts. If any of these resources have been helpful to you, please email us @info.colsoncenter.org.
And please consider supporting the Colson Center with a year-end tax-deductible gift. You can give at ColsonCenter.org/December.
The secular world doesn’t have a box for answered prayer or forgiveness. The Hoffman family does. Thank God.
If the power of our dominant cultural artifacts is to be countered and if new, better artifacts are to be created, Christians must be grounded in a thoroughly biblical vision for life and the world.
When absolute autonomy is the only rule, and children are lifestyle choices, then we can’t be shocked when human beings can be added to our shopping carts.
The biological realities of men and women are not social constructs. By ignoring these realities, prisons in the U.S. and Canada are putting incarcerated women at increased risk of rape or violence.
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, there was an unintended side effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: a slight increase in U.S. fertility rates.
We think it’s time to call Christians back to a bigger, older, and more thrilling way of seeing our world—of seeing Earth as crammed with heaven because it is. That’s the theme of our upcoming Colson Center National Conference, May 19-21, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Registration is now open at ColsonConference.org.
When it comes to secular Christmas music there is the good, the bad and the ugly. John and Maria discuss them all. And how could Christians take part in a shocking White House celebration of the desecration of marriage?
Maybe it’s time for Disney to listen to the words of a particularly wise old baboon. “The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it.”
By linking opposition to the Respect for Marriage Act to (rightly) ostracized ideas like racism, advocates, like the president, are setting the stage for leveraging hate crime legislation and other cultural tools to criminalize dissent.
To those who insist babies in the womb aren’t fully human or can be traded around like products, as in the case of surrogacy, science is stubborn. The more we learn, the clearer it becomes: Preborn children have rights.
Social revolutionaries who want doctors or teachers or bureaucrats to step between parents and children on sexual issues are revealing their hostility not only to parental rights but to human nature and how we were created.
Every year, the Christian students at Oxford University put on an evening of carols, singing hymns like “Oh Holy Night” and “Joy to the World,” followed by a guest speaker who unpacks the hope of Advent.
Every follower of Christ is on the front lines when they take their faith into every walk of life, as “salt and light” to a world that desperately needs the redemptive power of the Gospel.
This month, we would love to hear your experience with the Colson Center. If any of our resources—the Breakpoint podcast, the Strong Women podcast, Upstream with Shane Morris, the Colson Fellows, or Colson Educators—impacted the way you think and live, please email us at info@colsoncenter.org.
This month, China exploded in protests against President Xi Jinping’s three-year “Zero-Covid” policy.
Today, we do not wait for the Messiah to bring salvation. We wait for the Messiah to return, when He will reveal Himself fully as King and restorer of all creation.
A few weeks ago before their contest against Papua New Guinea, the Fijian rugby team took the field and lifted their voices in honor of God.
Throughout history, Christians have fought for the protection and wellbeing of children, quite often from sexual exploitation and abuse.
The case of a web designer in Colorado is argued at the Supreme Court as the Justices go to great lengths to find loopholes. And John and Maria discuss former President Donald Trump’s call to terminate the US Constitution.
According to Britain’s Daily Mail, lawyers in the United Kingdom are being told to no longer address judges as “Sir” or “Madam” but only, “Judge.”
Tomorrow, December 10, is the anniversary of the birth of a man regarded as the father of modern fantasy literature, someone who profoundly influenced writers such as G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis.
In this case, it will be impossible for the Court to neglect the issue of free speech. The question is whether the state of Colorado (or any state) can compel speech in order to advance the state’s message.
We should all agree that the mission of science is to seek the truth about our world, but that requires a working definition of “truth.”
As British commentator Peter Hitchens recently pointed out, being “schooled” isn’t the same as being “educated.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in 303 Creative v. Elenis, a case with significant implications for the future of conscience rights and free speech. Please pray for Lorie Smith of 303 Creative, and for the Alliance Defending Freedom who is providing her defense.
Please consider making a year-end gift to support the Colson Center. Breakpoint is listener-supported, and if these daily commentaries help you think biblically about this confusing world, please consider supporting us financially at colsoncenter.org/december.
Today, December 6, is the anniversary of the death of St. Nicholas in 343, a leader in the ancient Church in the city of Myra in Asia Minor, or modern-day Turkey.
In this time of Advent, as we look back to Christ’s first coming and await His second, we should recall the prophesies that pointed to His forerunner, John the Baptist.
On December 5, we remember poet Phillis Wheatley, on the day of her death in 1784, at just 31 years old.
God has called us to this moment, not another. Chuck Colson founded the Colson Center and this daily commentary Breakpoint to help Christians develop confidence in the truth of a Christian worldview so they could face the challenges of life today with courage and a clarity that can seem elusive.
To all of you who support Breakpoint and other Colson Center programs with your prayers and financial generosity, be encouraged that God is at work, and thank you for joining with us in this calling.
To give a tax-deductible gift to support Breakpoint and the Colson Center, please go to colsoncenter.org/december.
We’re seeing protests in China over Covid lockdowns not seen since the days of Tiananmen Square. And a new phrase has been introduced into civil debate: Stochastic Terrorism. What is it and where did it come from?
More than 700 authors and publishing agents have signed an open letter to Penguin Random House demanding the publisher cancel a book deal with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
In a culture so captive to a “critical theory mood,” the only right and loving response to the hijacking of language is to oppose falsehood and advance truth. This will mean, among other things, refusing to accept or use words and phrases like “stochastic terrorism” which assume all kinds of false and dangerous ideas about who we are.
Recently, a Massachusetts boarding school banned smartphones because the devices stunt kids’ attention and make them more emotionally volatile.
Our call as Christ followers at this moment is not to resign ourselves to some inevitability, even for a mess of religious freedom pottage. No, we must continue to embrace and promote the truth and beauty of marriage as it truly is.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, desperate to reverse his nation’s population woes, has announced plans for a national pro-birth policy, and local officials are already encouraging bigger families.
Neither cultural darkness nor theological apathy is new. Still, this season is uniquely full of songs proclaiming that hope, and that articulate the theological realities that grounds that hope.
Generosity reflects God who generously created the world and, in Christ, generously gave Himself for us.
So, please, on this Giving Tuesday, give. To support the Colson Center, visit colsoncenter.org/givingtuesday2022. And wherever you give, give generously.
Each and every Christian should be clear on this point: Antisemitism in any and all forms is a despicable evil.
Every year, our sister organization Prison Fellowship offers a way to spread some Christmas cheer to the children of those incarcerated. It’s called Angel Tree.
Wherever you choose to invest, remember that this Giving Tuesday is an incredible opportunity. Because God has given us everything, generosity is part of the Church’s living testimony of what God has done for us.
Who will you give to this Giving Tuesday? If Breakpoint and other Colson Center resources have helped you make sense of this culture, we invite you to join us in this work. Go to colsoncenter.org/givingtuesday2022.
As a gunman opened fire in an LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs the media quickly blamed Christians and Christian organizations before knowing anything about the shooter. And what do you know about that first Thanksgiving?
Culture is most powerful in what it normalizes, and when lies are normalized, the truth becomes shocking. Thank God for Christian ministers willing to “shock” and speak truth.
We need a theology of being labeled controversial, and a theology of helping each other through the professional, reputational, and personal fallout that comes with that label.
This week marks the death of Columbanus, a Christ-follower used by God to nurture education and establish the Christian foundations of Europe.
Rather than falsely maligning that first Thanksgiving, we should look at it as a model of how things should have been and by God’s grace one day will be.
This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. Listen to his interview with the Strong Women podcasters about the women of Plymouth, or hear how Thanksgiving was declared a holiday.
Tough conversations on controversial topics don’t have to be a disaster, even if had over holiday visits and meals. The key to civil and productive conversations is to ask good questions.
Our society largely fails to cultivate young men, to teach them about their fallen natures, and to morally form them to choose love over hate and courage over violence. Thus, the epidemics of addiction, aimlessness, depression, irresponsibility, perversion, selfishness, victimhood, and low expectations continue.
The sexual revolution promised women liberation, but men were the real beneficiaries. Children paid the price for that too.
This week marks the anniversary of both the birth (Nov. 29) and the death (Nov. 22) of C.S. Lewis, one of the most remarkable Christians of the last century.
Fanny Crosby, the “Blind Poetess,” wrote hymns such as “Blessed Assurance” and “Safe in the Arms of Jesus” that remain beloved today.
Young people need parents who will have the difficult but thoughtful and gracious conversations with them.
The Respect for Marriage Act is one step away from passage. John and Maria discuss the consequences very few politicians are admitting. And have you considered your motives when you engage on social media?
Our lives are a performance, but only for an audience of One, who indwells us and makes our obedience possible. Paul’s advice to “aspire to live quietly” still applies in this age of social media.
If life’s purpose is found in the goodness of creation and the ultimate purposes of God’s kingdom, dating has a context, as does marriage, work, sex, friendship, procreation, and yes, singleness.
Because a child is more than a “product,” procreation without relationship robs children of the right to know their parents.
In a culture that advances state-sponsored death, people granted the “right to die” soon sense it is their duty to die. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims.
The best stories, Tolkien wrote, acknowledge the seriousness of evil, but give us “a fleeting glimpse of joy… beyond the walls of the world.”
There is no “silver bullet” when it comes to navigating tough conversations, changing someone else’s mind, or helping those struggling with gender dysphoria. At the same time, to avoid the topic is to not help people at all, which is simply not an option for followers of Christ.
Focus on the Family has compiled a list of resources on gender identity and transgender ideology, and the Restored Hope Network also has compiled a helpful list of books, articles, and other resources. And remember, God promises wisdom to those who ask for it. Let’s ask for it.
Note: If you have examples of Christians walking through transgender issues faithfully, we’d love to hear about them. Email us at info@colsoncenter.org.
Despite the fact the vast majority of OB-GYNs do not perform abortions, the message from the American College of Nurse-Midwives is “embrace the culture of death, or choose another career.”
AAPLOG is constantly confronting actual misinformation about abortion. Learn more about them at www.aaplog.org.
The “Respect for Marriage Act” would firmly root marriage in the United States in nothing more than abstract desires, redefining it from the institution that offered a bedrock for civilization to thrive.
People of faith and conscience must act. The best next step with the short amount of time we have on our hands is to call your senators, especially if they are Republicans, especially if they have not been clear on where they stand on the Respect for Marriage Act. If you are in a state with Sens. Blunt (MO), Burr (NC), Cassidy (LA), Capito (WV), Ernst (IA), Fischer (NE), Grassley (IA), McConnell (KY), Romney (UT), Sullivan (AK), or Toomey (PA), make especially sure to contact them.
Killing inconvenient babies has long been framed as an issue of “rights,” not what is right.
Today, November 14, marks the 306th anniversary of the death of Gottfried von Leibniz, a German polymath, committed Lutheran, and one of the most wide-ranging intellects in all of history.
John and Maria examine how the expected “red wave” fizzled and why the pro-life position in the abortion debate is losing at the cultural level.
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has officially appointed Putin the country’s “Chief Exorcist” and claims that Ukraine is full of hundreds of sects of the Church of Satan.
The tradition in the West for tolerating dissent and demanding free speech came from the hard realization that none of us is fit to hold absolute power... even on Twitter.
Recently, music icon, multi-millionaire, and U2 lead singer Bono said that the key to beating extreme poverty is “entrepreneurial capitalism.”
In a sense, we’ve loaded politics with all the expectations of a worldview. But politics cannot bring salvation, determine morality, provide ultimate meaning, or secure our relationships.
China’s repression of Hong Kong has led to an explosion of growth for Chinese churches in the U.K.
Parents have the right to protect their children from harm, such as being inducted or indoctrinated against their will into a harmful ideology. The state has no business interfering with parents protecting their children from an ideology younger than smartphones.
Recently the Women’s March organization tweeted, “We’re not just pro-choice. We are proudly, unapologetically, pro-abortion.” It’s a shocking stance but not surprising, given that just days after that first Women’s March, organizers announced that pro-life women were unwelcome at all future events.
75% of young adults don’t know their purpose in life and that’s why almost half feel hopeless. Dr. Jeff Myers reminds us that truth exists and can be known because Jesus is truth and he has revealed himself to us.
This is what our “Cruciform witness” will look like today: faithful devotion to Christ leading to a loving engagement with a watching world.
Recently, Glen Scrivener was a guest on the Upstream podcast. You can listen to his interview with my colleague Shane Morris wherever you get your podcasts. And please, go vote today.
Technology that infringes on a child’s rights to life, to be protected in body and mind, and to his or her own mother and father should not be pursued at all.
A tragic trend of the past few years is the explosion in the number of young people who identify as “transgender” or “non-binary.” Filmmaker Donald J. Johnson’s latest production, Dysconnected, examines the ways transgender ideology pulls young people apart from their bodies, families, and reality itself.
John and Maria discuss the role of identity politics in the reaction to the attack on Paul Pelosi and how should Christians respond to a call for forgiveness after Covid lockdowns?
The Vatican has renewed its 2018 arrangement with Beijing. Critics continue to warn that it’s a recipe for disaster.
Salvation won’t arrive on Air Force One, and a perfect world won’t come through the ballot box. But a better world is possible if all our actions, political and otherwise, flow downstream from our Christian convictions, and not the other way around.
Beneath all of this is a worldview that sees reproduction as primarily about “production.” Missing is not only the word, but the framework that comes with seeing the making of human life as “procreation,” or as the word implies, that human life is created.
Many Christians bravely fought against changing the legal definition of marriage. Today, 10 years later, we must not stop fighting for children, who have a God-given right to their mother and their father.
Just like an ideology that affirms everything, a flag that affirms everyone’s ideas about gender and the body ends in self-parody and as a source of headaches.
Morality, and its absence, are contagious, especially from one generation to the next. After all, families are the place we first learn to trust and to be trustworthy.
Amazon doesn’t sell what kids need most: our love, our time, and our commitment to raising them in the Lord and teaching them what’s true. Give these gifts, and it won’t matter how much you spend on a stroller.
In Truth Changes Everything, Jeff Myers’ skill to teach through stories is on full display. Ultimately, he demonstrates that these amazing stories happened because of what is true about the world and how followers of Christ oriented their lives to that truth.
Stories of the faithful who have gone before offer a perspective for our own life and faith that we cannot get anywhere else.
Sure, go ahead and let the kids dress up like Batman and hit up your neighbors for candy. But when the hoopla of modern Halloween is over, encourage your kids to imitate some real heroes—not in what they put on, but in how they live their lives.
That was Chuck Colson, from October 31, 2007, describing the rich history behind All Saints' Day.
John and Maria talk about prioritizing issues for voting in the midterm elections. Afterward, they discuss the factors leading to a decline in reading and math skills for K-12. They end on the moralistic mysticism affecting the hard sciences and medicine.
As youth struggle with an unprecedented loss of satisfaction and sense of meaning, God’s Word is the best way to draw them closer to the One they’re already keen to know.
No matter what day it is, Paul’s instructions in Philippians 4 should guide our celebrations. Christians should think on “whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and commendable.”
(This commentary is an updated version of one that first aired on Oct. 31, 2014).
As the intentional handiwork of a Creator, we have a foundation to discover the meaning our culture has lost.
Though we love the idea that God is not “safe,” we often live as if our safety or comfort marks the boundaries of our relationship with Him. Many Christians cannot conceive that God’s will for our lives could involve anything unpleasant or uncomfortable.
(This Breakpoint is re-published from 11.4.21)
Suggesting we should kill unborn children for economic reasons is an atrocity, but those who link childrearing to economic realities are actually right. Just not in the way they realize.
Science is being made subservient to religious values and immaterial claims because every worldview is a kind of faith. As the epistle of James warns, demons, too, believe, which is why we should all tremble when we consider where this “woke” religion is taking us.
Watching Dahmer won’t make every viewer a serial killer, but it won’t help us love our neighbors either. As Marshall McLuhan observed, we become what we behold.
Marriage isn’t about self-fulfillment, or even about companionship (as important as that is). It’s about “fruitfulness,” or taking care of the creation, something that required additional image bearers.
To receive a copy of The Story of the Family, along with access to a series of exclusive teaching videos by Dale Ahlquist, who compiled the essays for the book, go to colsoncenter.org/October.
Defenders of marriage and the family are often accused of “idolizing” marriage and family.
This month, with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, receive The Story of the Family, a book of essays by G.K. Chesterton compiled by the scholar Dale Ahlquist. You’ll also receive access to a video series on the book by Ahlquist. Go to colsoncenter.org/October.
Whether married or single, the call of Christ for His people is to reject a life focused on individual self-fulfillment and instead embrace a life focused on Christ and His Kingdom.
That’s why we are making available an amazing new book featuring G.K. Chesterton’s best writing about the family. The Story of the Family is compiled by the Chesterton scholar Dale Ahlquist. Receive a copy—and access to exclusive videos Ahlquist created for the Colson Center—with a gift of any amount this month. Go to colsoncenter.org/October.
John asks Alexandra questions about abortion, ranging from the error inherent in the language “removing the right to abortion,” the radical nature of Michigan’s Proposal 3 on the ballot, the case for the child in the womb, and building a pro-life culture.
It may not have been said by Albert Einstein, but it’s true. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
I think about this every time I read another article about “why young people are leaving the Church.” So many of these articles are written by progressives or ex-evangelicals proclaiming that churches must adopt liberal theology, LGBT ideology, and focus on social justice rather than sin and salvation if they hope to survive. But churches and denominations have already tried this for years, and the ones who have are overwhelmingly old, white, and dying. The churches losing members at a dizzying rate still are the ones that have ordained gay clergy and are preaching a social gospel. On the other hand, their conservative counterparts are growing still.
Look, young people don’t need another institution to make them feel good. They need one that will tell them the truth about sin, and the Savior who calls them to be transformed in the world, not conformed to it.
(Republished from 8.29.17)
Christian, stay in your lane: Do the good works which God has ordained for us to do from the foundations of the world. Just know that they encompass every conceivable aspect of human existence.
This Breakpoint is republished from 8.2.21.
In a recent study, of the 114 women who claimed to have chemically aborted their babies, “six out of ten” said that chemical abortion “is a traumatic experience that can include physical pain, emotional distress, and lasting feelings of isolation for which they desire help, but most don’t know where to turn.”
If you know a woman who’s experienced a chemical abortion, the Abortion Pill Reversal Network or Support After Abortion may be able to help.
While 66 clinics are no longer providing abortion, pregnancy resource centers continue to do their important care.
As platforms like Twitter facilitate nastier and hotter debates than ever, Christians who take part would do well to examine our principles and consider how it’s possible to laugh at our enemies and love them.
According to NPR, Planned Parenthood will soon be sending out “mobile abortion clinics,” buses outfitted to provide abortion services on wheels.
Fathers are more than just sperm donors. They have a connection with their children beyond contributing DNA. This supports the claim that there’s really no such thing as parenting: There’s only mothering and fathering.
You may have heard that Eastern story about the six blind men who encounter an elephant. Who was right about their view of the elephant? Everyone, we’re told. Just like everyone is right in their own view about God. But in reality, none of the men were right about the elephant.
Detransitioners are considered either non-existent or an embarrassment by the cultural powers that be. Yet, they make clear that people struggling with dysphoria are not the enemy. Rather, the dogmas of trans ideology are.
John and Maria consider the latest cheating scandals in competitions, recognizing people’s capacity for self-rationalization. After a discussion about government-funded suicide of young people in Canada, they conclude with a recent survey in the U.S. showing that conservative women are happier.
Instead of letting social media notifications, games, and texts control your schedule, keep those activities to pre-allotted time slots. Be physically present with people.
His words may at times offend our post-Holocaust sensibilities, but taken in context, Chesterton emerges mostly as a friend and defender of the Jews.
This month, the Colson Center has teamed up with Chesterton scholar Dale Ahlquist to create an exclusive set of videos on Chesterton’s understanding of the purpose of family. Ahlquist has recently compiled a new book of Chesterton’s essays, titled The Story of the Family. For a gift of any amount, you may receive this book and access to the video series at colsoncenter.org/October.
From its earliest days, wherever abortion was practiced, the Church condemned it and must continue to do so today.
The data is overwhelming. Contrary to what is consistently filling our newsfeeds, there is a disturbing lack of evidence that intervening in a child’s gender development produces beneficial results of any kind. More than that, many studies are showing a strong potential for lasting harm.
Love must speak the truth. As gentle as we must be with those who struggle with whom God created them to be, or even those who profess to be our enemies in this cultural tug-of-war, the Church has to stand for what is true about humanity, including God’s good creation of the human body and the inherent value each person has since they bear His image.
Just because someone feels offended by the sight of prayer doesn’t mean that it’s coercive. The Lemon Test is now gone, thankfully, and religious liberty will be better protected because of it.
The solution to homelessness must always revolve around re-engagement with relationships, with families, with community, and all the values that spring from them: responsibility, accountability, restoration, grace, and connection.
F3 offers a witness to the goodness of fellowship in the lives of men—and particularly how fellowship grounded in faith in Jesus just seems to be the strongest and most life-giving kind there is.
Can the definition of family “morph”? Is family a real thing that exists, or is the word family a mere placeholder for any relational arrangement?
Children need their moms and their dads. Moms need their husbands, and dads need their wives. These needs aren’t fake, socially constructed, or culturally conditioned.
This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we’ll send you Chesterton scholar Dale Ahlquist’s compilation of Chesterton essays, The Story of the Family, and also provide access to a video series developed by Ahlquist exclusively for the Colson Center. Visit colsoncenter.org/october for more information.
Emma’s poise, serenity, and sense of humor counterbalanced her husband’s impulsive, emotional nature and became the backbone of [Dwight] Moody’s success.
Recently in The Atlantic, Maggie Mertens declared that “separating sports by sex doesn’t make sense.” As long as equality means sameness and exceptions disprove created norms, we can expect headlines to only become more and more absurd, reflecting even more creative mental gymnastics.
As pro-life resource centers undergo not only physical assaults but regulative ones, John and Maria discuss how we can support them. They then consider what to make of the Herschel Walker allegations and how Christians can engage with others on social media. Concluding, they discuss the historical process leading to a gay couple claiming infertility and a judge re-defining marriage to be polyamorous.
God did not create generic people with shapeless identities. While there is not biblical warrant to call any nation “Christian” since the days of ancient Israel, there’s plenty for living fully as Christians as citizens of our nations.
Christians must avoid two extremes when it comes to inappropriate conflation of Christianity and nationalism. While God moves through nations and states, just as He does through individuals, the restoration of all things involves people from every tongue, tribe, nation, and language. It is simply unwise to take up a term that has been historically associated with some of the worst villains of the last century or so.
Pregnancy resource centers need public support from business leaders and pastors. They need our support and prayers more than ever.
Young men aren’t forming social bonds with real, live people, even the kinds of bonds that have historically captured their attention. Christians have an answer for a world that obliterates the helpful aspects of sexual difference, pacifies men with distractions and addictions, and promises limitless sexual freedom while dismantling the family.
Last month the world lost a fearless evangelist. Known simply as “Brother Andrew,” he was responsible for smuggling thousands of Bibles into the Soviet Union.
Not only is transparency a necessary accountability, but parents have a “deeply rooted” constitutional right “to direct the upbringing of their children, and to make decisions regarding their children’s education and healthcare in a manner consistent with family values.”
On Tuesday, October 11, in person or via online live streaming, please join me for an important conversation about “Kids and Culture: The Clash for the Next Generation’s Hearts and Minds.” Joining me for this conversation will be my Breakpoint This Week co-host Maria Baer, Aaron Baer of the Center for Christian Virtue, and Todd Marrah from Tree of Life Christian Schools. Reserve your free ticket at ccv.org.
Christians have the unique perspective that our work is a way of participating with God in His creation, working toward the flourishing of everything and everyone else.
Michael Faraday is an example of how Christians can balance the constructive purposes of science with an accurate understanding of scientific authority. Some of humanity’s greatest discoveries began by bucking conventional wisdom and allowing the evidence to lead elsewhere. “Science,” after all, never “says” anything. Only scientists do, offering hypotheses as a way of stewarding the data science provides.
As the hurricane finished its course through Florida, John and Maria talk about how worldview analysis applies to such natural calamities. They then consider the popularity of the term “Christian nationalism”–should Christian nationalism be a concern for U.S. Christians right now? In closing, they discuss why, in the case of the Iran uprising, an authoritarian state cannot perpetuate a society well.
Fetal development is no conspiracy of men to control women. Politically convenient talking points cannot deny the reality and truth of humanity in the womb.
Now more than ever, Christians must rally around the pro-life pregnancy centers that are placed in just about every town in America, doing work no one else is doing. Right now, they need support, volunteers, advocacy, and prayer. Increasingly, it is going to become important, especially in pro-abortion states, for community leaders both in business and the church to publicly express their support. It will come at a cost, but it will be absolutely necessary, especially as attacks increase.
Enjoy this podcast in which Colson Center writer and speaker, Kasey Leander discusses with a group of Colson Fellow alumni how God is making them redemptive agents in their spheres of influence.
Pennsylvania’s education department suggests the use of “gender neutral pronouns” in schools for “a more inclusive learning environment.” Among their suggestions are “ne,” “ve,” and “xe.”
We need biblical and cultural literacy so that our beliefs are orthodox, but we also need to be about orthopraxy, applying the answers of Scripture to the rigors of actual life. One of the distinct things about the Colson Fellows program is how many different strands of worldview and life are brought together and how desperately needed that is today in such a fragmented society.
If the ministry of the Colson Center has helped you gain clarity, confidence, and courage in your life, would you prayerfully consider a gift today to continue the work, supporting products and programs like the Colson Fellows?
You can give at breakpoint.org/september. We look forward to hearing how God is using you in this cultural time and place.
Jesus said to get rid of your eye or hand if it offends you, but getting rid of the internet or social media can be even harder to fathom for many of us. Maybe it shouldn’t be.
Avatar stands as one of the clearest examples of how worldviews can be embedded in stories, and of New Age ideas embedded in a film. Chuck Colson reminds us that every movie contains worldview messages, which gives Christians the opportunity to discern, to engage, and to communicate truth with others.
All of the reports correctly treat muscle dysmorphia as a disorder that required helping these men see the goodness of their bodies as they are. Yet these same news outlets treat gender dysphoria as a problem of the body, with treatment that involves body modification, such as hormones and surgery.
America’s largest provider and promoter of abortion has added another revenue stream. This one also promises to destroy lives, albeit in a new and subtler way. This one also promises to help women but is, in actuality, built on ideas that deny the existence of women.
According to the CDC, there were 600,000 fewer marriages in the United States in 2020 than in 2000, even though the population grew by nearly 50 million. While many reasons are offered for the downward trend, one of the most common is cultural instability.
But that explanation does not apply to Ukraine, which has been in the midst of a war for the past six months. With thousands dead, infrastructure wrecked, and control of cities switching back and forth, “stability” wouldn’t be the word to describe Ukraine. Yet, in the first half of 2022, the nation had a record number of marriages, with weddings more likely at the front than behind the lines.
What explains so many couples taking the big leap in the face of mortal danger? Maybe they’ve got nothing to lose. Maybe marriage is an act of defiant hope. And maybe, marriage isn’t the relationship of convenience that so many in the West have come to think of it as.
| Every two years, Ligonier Ministries works with LifeWay Research to evaluate the theological temperature of the American church. This year’s State of Theology study’s results show that not just Americans but evangelicals in particular are increasingly muddy on core truths such as the nature and character of God, the reality of human sin, the role of the Church in the world, and the exclusivity and divinity of Jesus Christ. |
| For context, the survey defines “evangelical” as a Christian believer who meets four criteria: that the Bible is the highest authority for what someone believes, that it is important for non-Christians to trust Jesus Christ as their savior, that Jesus’ death on the cross is the only sacrifice that removes the penalty of humanity’s sin, and that only those who trust in Him alone receive God’s free gift of eternal salvation. Though that definition is a promising theological start, the results go quickly downhill from there. For example, nearly half of evangelicals agreed that God “learns and adapts” to different circumstances, in stark contrast to the biblical doctrine of unchanging nature, or immutability; 65% of evangelicals agreed that everyone is “born innocent in the eyes of God,” denying the doctrine of original sin, and with it, the very reason that people need salvation in the first place. Some 56% of evangelicals agreed with the idea that “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam,” in contrast to Jesus’ words in Matthew that without Him, “no one knows the Father.” The most stunning result had to do with the topic of Jesus Christ’s divinity. When asked whether they agreed that “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God,” 43% of American evangelicals answered yes. That number is up 13% from just two years ago. Even if we generously allow for some confusion in the phrasing of the questions and what they implied, The State of Theology paints a bleak picture. People who claim the title of “evangelical,” a title that long was defined, at least in part, by adherence to historic Christian belief, stand a good chance of believing humanity is basically good at birth, that God is not concerned with worship or doctrine being particularly “Christian,” and that Jesus was a good teacher, but not God incarnate. It’s worth noting that these failures are not because evangelicals have a low view of Scripture. Some 95%, after all, still agree with the statement that “the Bible is 100% accurate in all that it teaches.” The implication, then, is that they simply don’t know what it teaches, either because they haven’t been taught or they haven’t cared enough to learn. In fact, in many corners of evangelicalism, it is assumed that doctrine doesn’t matter. This can take at least two forms: hyper-emotionalism, the idea that God will settle for our sincerity and our affection, even over and above whether or not our beliefs are true; or a hyper-politicization, one that assumes it really matters whom you vote for and what group you belong to, not what you believe about the essential truth of the Gospel or the claims of Christ. In reply to all this, Jesus was really clear. Here’s what He said, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the spirit and in truth.” It was for this reason that the divine Logos came into the world “to testify to the truth,” and it’s only the truth that sets us free. And it’s interesting to me that in the Old Testament, idolatry is portrayed not only as worshipping a false God but worshipping a false idea of who God is, such as was the case with the Golden Calf incident. A bright spot to this survey is what it revealed about hot topics, moral issues: 92% of evangelicals agreed that abortion is a sin, and 94% agreed that sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin, although that conclusion is muddied by another 28% who agreed that Scripture’s condemnation of homosexual behavior “doesn’t apply today.” We will never have a clear sense of who God is, His omnipotence and immutability, His character and work in the world, how He sees us and what He requires of us, without a biblical understanding of who Jesus is and the absolute authority He wields over all creation. If our thinking is rooted instead in only our political allegiances or some vague notion of God’s “niceness,” we will have simply obtained a “form of godliness, while denying its power.” Once in a meeting I attended, a Christian leader quipped, “If we could just get all the Christians saved, we’d be in good shape.” The results of this study show it’s time for many so-called Christians to repent, for many churches to renew their commitments to catechism, and for all of us who claim Christ to commit our hearts and minds to know who He is, who He has revealed Himself to be. |
John and Maria discuss the dark, lucrative nature of transgender “medicine” revealed by videos disclosed from Vanderbilt University. They conclude that Christians must step into these muddy cultural waters. Later, they share about a Breakpoint on the demise of the New Atheism and finish with a conversation about the political tensions since the Dobbs decision.
After the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the work to protect preborn lives continues at the ground level, in every community, every city, every church. Here are some resources to fulfill that calling.
Continuum of Care is a project of the Human Coalition that networks mothers to financial services, job training, maternity housing, and other resources in six major cities. To equip churches to minister to pregnant and parenting moms, another pregnancy and life-assistance network, Her Plan, offers a guide you can find online.
The Abortion Pill Reversal Network educates on the reversal of chemical abortions and connects women who have started a chemical abortion with a provider within 72 hours, the window in which a baby can be saved. And, the Support After Abortion website provides classes, virtual groups, and a help number for those suffering after an abortion.
These are just some of the organizations and resources available. Let’s make abortion unthinkable.
A mortal affliction affects much of America’s heartland. Known as “deaths of despair,” both the Rust Belt and Appalachia have seen incredible spikes in rates of addiction, overdoses, violence, and suicide. In addition to the thousands who die each year by various forms of self-harm, thousands more live Gollum-like, trapped by their chemical chains and in loneliness.
It is a complex situation. While we must not diminish anyone’s moral agency, the downward paths we are on are paved, lined, and greased by a number of contributing factors. For example, Beth Macy, the author of the book Dope Sick, has documented the lethal partnership of doctors and drug companies, not to mention the co-option of government oversight agencies, which inflicted a plague of highly addictive opioids on some of America’s poorest areas of the country.
A new recent study, however, points to an additional complexity, an oft-ignored element of this cultural disease: the decline of religion. According to the study’s authors, there is some correlation between the end of so-called “Blue Laws” and the opioid epidemic. In certain parts of the country, Blue Laws have long limited the range of activities allowed on Sundays. Certain businesses were not allowed to be open, and certain things (especially alcohol) could not be sold. Though these laws continue in certain areas, particularly in Europe, they began to disappear in parts of the United States as the 20th century wore on, to the point that now they are few and far between.
Of course, a significant, culture-wide phenomenon like the opioid crisis cannot be reduced to something as simplistic as whether or not people can shop on Sunday. To do that would be to mistake correlation for causation, kind of like saying murders go up with ice cream sales. And this is something the study’s authors readily admit.
Rather than claiming that the end of Blue Laws created the opioid crisis, they use the end of Blue Laws as a marker to track the decline in American religiosity. The diminishing connections to faith in communities across the country, especially in those areas where they were once so strong, are among the factors that contributed to our nation’s chemical plague. In other words, Blue Laws are a kind of canary in the coal mine, marking when we’ve crossed a dangerous line.
In light of these diminishing religious commitments, reinstating Blue Laws likely will not lead to a reversal in rates of addictions or other deaths of despair. Even if they were an important part of our cultural life of faith at one time, too much has changed for such an easy fix. However, what these laws represented and what has been lost as they disappear points to the underlying causes, not only of the opioid crisis but of many of our parallel pains as well.
What we need to ask is, in a mix of Friedrich Nietzsche and REM, what is the cost of losing our religion?
As much as we prize our individualism, particularly here in America, human beings aren’t just dust motes of consciousness, floating on the air currents of life. We’re connected, not just to one another, but to a host of other elements through relationships that give us meaning, identity, direction, and hope. To be healthy, as individuals and as communities, these relationships (upward, inward, outward, and downward) must be strong.
Human beings need a connection to something beyond ourselves, something higher and transcendent in order to find ourselves, to know who and what we are, to be sure of our identity. We need connections with one another, especially the links of family and friendship, in order to be accountable, supported, and complete. And, we need proper connection to the physical world around us, so to be tethered to reality through things like meaningful labor, a place to call home, and some part of the world to call “mine.”
Marx got it wrong. Religion isn’t the opiate of the masses, but instead a part of life most needed, irreplaceable by technological convenience or scientific mastery. The loss of religion has been a bad idea wherever it has been tried, and those suffering across Appalachia and the Rust Belt are some of its most obvious victims. By abandoning religion, specifically the Christianity which once provided meaning to these now missing relationships, the essential connection between individuals and communities and a higher purpose has been lost.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said all the way back in 1983, “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Blue Laws didn’t hold off the effects of substance abuse, but the religious impulse that such laws represented were part of a way of seeing life and the world, one in which we weren’t just reduced to being cogs or animals or sexual expressions. The Christianity that the world has rejected offers the hope that the world so desperately needs.
According to Christianity Today, Belarus is cracking down on religious dissent. The new policies come from an earlier case when a Pentecostal group wasn’t allowed to meet together without registering with the government but also wasn’t allowed to register since there were only 13 people. When the group appealed the decision, they received unexpected support from the United Nations. Eager to avoid further embarrassment, Belarus is now taking steps to prevent minority faiths from getting outside aid.
Of course, dictatorships are never keen on those who refuse to march to the state’s drum, especially religious dissenters. As Francis Schaeffer once argued, no state that claims total authority can tolerate those who recognize a power higher than itself. Thus, conflict between religion and dictatorship is inevitable.
Which is why religious liberty should never be reduced to a special pleading by quirky groups to practice their hobbies. It makes possible the essential freedom to dissent from those who hold the strings of power.
Though it’s not always clear when a movement is over, there are many indicators that suggest this is the case of the “New Atheism,” a cultural wave that rose in the 2000s and aggressively attacked religion in the guise of scientific rationalism. Despite the name, the New Atheism wasn’t really new, at least not in the sense of presenting new arguments. Instead, leveraging the global shock of 9/11, New Atheists pushed an anti-religious mood along with a vision of a society free from the cobwebs of religion, defined by scientific inquiry, free speech, and a morality not built on God or religious traditions.
In 1996, prominent New Atheist Richard Dawkins articulated this mood in his acceptance speech for the “Humanist of the Year” Award: “I think a case can be made that faith is one of the world’s great evils,” he said, “comparable to the smallpox virus but harder to eradicate.” There was a commercial aspect to the New Atheism, with bumper stickers and T-shirts carrying well-worn slogans, such as one coined by Victor Stenger: “Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings.”
Though, at the time, it grew into somewhat of a cultural force and platformed a group of minor celebrities, the New Atheism now seems to have run out of steam. Divided by progressive politics and haunted by the obnoxious tone of many of its own founders, the movement is being devoured by other ideologies. Concepts like freedom of expression, scientific realism, and morality without God have all met their antitheses, often in clashes featuring the New Atheists themselves.
One watershed moment was a conflict over the role of science. Just last year, the American Humanist Association revoked Richard Dawkins’ “Humanist of the Year” award for his long history of offensive tweets. For example, Dawkins told women who experience sexual harassment to “stop whining” and parents of babies with Down syndrome to “abort it and try again.” These tweets were among the cringeworthy, but the one that completed Dawkins’ long transformation from champion of free thought to persona non grata, at least for the American Humanist Association, questioned gender ideology: “In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as Black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss.”
The New Atheist commitment to seeking truth via the objectivity of science has collided with a new ideology that deifies the subjective sense of self. Ironically, this is the kind of religious dogmatism Dawkins and other New Atheists always accused organized religions of promoting, only less scientific.
New Atheism has been further undermined by a cultural shift in censorship and tolerance for freedom of expression. Organized religion, New Atheists claimed, suppressed dissent. Only by enthroning secularism could we remove the fear of speaking or hearing the truth, even when truth is shocking and offensive. As it turned out, religion’s retreat only left a secular progressivism to censor and suppress at will.
In 2017, for example, The End of Faith author Sam Harris ignited a firestorm when he interviewed political scientist Charles Murray. Just a month earlier, a violent mob had shouted Murray down at Middlebury College, injuring moderator Dr. Allison Stanger as the two tried to reach the exit. Harris defended Murray, arguing his research was unfairly maligned as racist and he should be allowed to speak. In retaliation, Ezra Klein published a piece in Vox that landed Harris on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Hatewatch Headlines,” while in Salon Émile P. Torres accused Harris and the New Atheists of “merging with the far right.”
That same year, Richard Dawkins was barred from speaking at UC Berkeley for his comments about radical Islam, not by Christians or Muslims but by progressives. Turns out that freedom of expression wasn’t faring as predicted in a post-religious world.
In addition to their own jarring polemics and personal misfires, the New Atheists failed to realize that religion, especially Christianity, was the proverbial branch upon which they were sitting. For example, the freedom of expression depends on a number of assumptions, that there is objective truth, that it can be discovered, that it is accessible to people regardless of race or class, that belief should be free instead of coerced, that people have innate value, and that because of this value they should not be silenced. Every one of these ideas assumes the kind of world described in the Bible and mediated across centuries of Christian thought. Not one of these assumptions can be grounded in a purposeless world that is the product of only natural causes and processes.
Maybe that’s what led Dawkins, just a few years ago, to warn against celebrating the decline of Christianity across the world. Turns out that all of the efforts that he and the other New Atheists extended to root out organized religion have left him with “a fear of finding something worse.”
Today’s Breakpoint was coauthored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to colsoncenter.org.
Last month the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal responded to the claim that the average American family spends an estimated $300,000 to raise a child.
Of course kids are expensive, they conceded, but “that isn’t the way to look at it.” Seeing children only in terms of cost is a mistake. “Whatever children cost to raise,” the editors concluded, “they are a priceless vote of confidence in the future.”
They’re right. It’s not that kids don’t take massive investments of time and energy. They do. But kids are investments. And the returns are incredible, though rarely easy.
Parents should be thoughtful about how and when to embark on the journey, but children are a gift, not a burden. They are image bearers, not luxury goods. To think about kids only in terms of how they impact our happiness or our wallets is to completely miss the point. The most important relationships don’t always make life easier, but they do make it better.
Grocery store remarks can reveal a lot about a culture. Just ask any mother or father of more than 1.7 children about the comments that strangers somehow feel free to make about their unfashionably large broods. “You know what causes that, right?” “Are you done?” “What are you—Catholic?” Comedian Jim Gaffigan, who has five children, jokes that people who see him in public with his family sometimes remark, “Well, that’s one way to live your life!”
These comments reveal what more and more data are also showing. A lower percentage of Westerners, including Americans, are embarking on parenthood than ever before. However, these comments also betray how we think about children: as burdens, impositions on freedom, or so very, very expensive that only the wealthy can afford them.
It doesn’t help how often media outlets stoke fears that children will eat you out of house and home. For example, a recent Wall Street Journal article grimly reported: “It Now Costs $300,000 to Raise a Child.” I wonder how many parents read the headline and panicked or at least scratched their head at this summary of a Brookings Institution study.
The cost of raising kids varies widely, depending on variables such as where you live, what you drive, how you educate your children, and how much you spend on household extras and vacations. Still, given that the median U.S. household income is about $68,000, any middle-class family of five not living under a bridge should be proof enough that something is askew with the numbers reported in the Wall Street Journal.
For starters, the numbers are not itemized, and the article initially gestures toward inflation, rising food costs, the pandemic, and supply chain hiccups, as if those are the main things driving up the cost of parenting. To put it mildly, this was misleading. Another breakdown by Josh Zumbrun, also in the Wall Street Journal, revealed that “housing and child care” are the actual main expenses.
For the average family (an elusive statistical entity with 1.7 kids), housing and childcare are supposed to account for over half the annual cost of children under age six. But, anyone who grew up sleeping in bunkbeds and wearing hand-me-downs knows that housing expenses are highly negotiable. Jim Gaffigan’s family of seven famously lived in a two-bedroom apartment in New York City!
The other cost, childcare, is something not all families employ. As Zumbrun writes, many families simply do not incur this expense, “because a parent, extended family or some combination provides the care.” Historically, this arrangement was the norm.
Of course, many married couples simply cannot afford to live on a single income. It can be necessary for both parents to work, but it is worth considering how often it is taken for granted that childcare is an expense. Back in 2018, The New York Times asked millennials why they’re having so few children: 61% of those who’ve had fewer kids than they would like cited the cost of childcare.
There are other factors as well. For example, “gender equality” also emerged as a major theme in the 2018 study, meaning that, all things being equal, women are often choosing careers ahead of children. As the authors wrote: “Women have more agency over their lives and many feel that motherhood has become more of a choice.” While we can rejoice that women have more options in life, it should give us pause when parents see the decision to have kids as a lifestyle choice.
Among respondents who said they didn’t want kids, the number one reason was a desire for “more leisure time.” One young woman may have spoken for many when she said she planned to forego children in order to travel, focus on her job, get a master’s degree, and play with her cats.
None of this directly makes children more expensive for those who choose to have them, but it does raise the perceived opportunity cost, which makes inflated numbers like those in the Wall Street Journal seem more believable. When fewer people on average are starting families and more people than ever are choosing self-expression as a life goal, it creates a kind of cultural feedback loop that makes having children seem not only less affordable, but less normal.
That context helps explain where the grocery store remarks come from. Making family a central goal in life, one worthy of personal sacrifice, is certainly counter cultural, but it’s just not as expensive as it’s made out to be. And even if were, it’s an investment with incredible returns.
Today’s Breakpoint was coauthored by Shane Morris. To learn more about the Colson Center, go to colsoncenter.org.
Earlier this year, two professors at Tufts University rediscovered a book buried deep in their library. It was called Maladie de Famine or The Disease of Starvation. The story behind this scientific research is stunning.
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, hundreds of thousands of Jews were detained in the Warsaw Ghetto, deprived of food and subject to mass executions. Jewish doctors disobeyed their Nazi captors and recorded the effects of starvation on their own bodies as a testimony against the atrocities. Their work eventually shaped the Geneva Conventions of 1949, when the starving of civilians became a war crime.
Why did these doctors do this? One answer is that they believed there was meaning to life and death, and therefore to their work. Former Harvard chaplain D. Elton Trueblood said, “A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.”
As mid-term elections loom, both pro-abortion candidates and the Democratic party — not always for the same reason — have been working to advance abortion “rights” and access as a central issue in November. Increasingly, three common myths are touted by abortion advocates and pro-abortion media sources: (1) that abortion is healthcare, (2) that ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages will be treated as abortion in a post-Roe society, and (3) that the abortion pill is safe.
To counter these myths (as well as a few others), the American Association for Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG) has launched a campaign to put fact sheets into the hands of medical professionals. This information is vital not only to prevent patients from being misled but also as a public statement of solidarity for pro-life doctors and nurses.
A few days before the campaign’s launch, the pro-abortion American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology threatened to revoke the certification of pro-life OB-GYNs, for disseminating what they called misinformation about “reproductive health care, contraception, abortion, and OB-GYN practices.” In essence, the board is saying that any OB-GYN that disagrees with their stance on elective abortion could lose their license to practice. As Alexandra DeSanctis, co-author of Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, wrote recently in National Review, the vagueness of the board’s claims regarding its version of “misinformation” is nothing other than “veiled intimidation.” This is why the work of AAPLOG and all pro-lifers in correcting the oft-repeating myths of healthcare is so vital.
In stark contrast to AAPLOG’s fact sheet, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has its own, and it directly states, “Abortion is essential health care.” Sometimes all it takes to misrepresent truth is an adjective or, as in this case, a missing adjective. While in rare and tragic situations, a sick preborn child can put the mother’s life at risk, that kind of essential healthcare does not justify the vast majority of abortions that are “elective.” OB-GYNs are trained to recognize when life-giving medical intervention is necessary for a pregnant mother. In these heartbreaking cases, medical professionals work to save the mother. In elective abortions, medical professionals work to kill the child.
Adding the word “elective” to “abortion” tells the truth about the completely different situation in which a decision is made to end the life of a preborn child who is not endangering the mother’s physical health. That is not healthcare. And, according to AAPLOG, 93% of OB/GYNs do not provide elective abortions. Most enter the field to help women care for preborn babies — not take their lives — and they are able to tell the difference.
A second myth addressed by the AAPLOG fact sheet is that “women with ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages will not receive the care they need.” Each of these situations is categorically different from elective abortion. An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilized egg implants outside of the uterus. In these cases, the baby will not survive no matter what the doctors do. In fact, up until July, Planned Parenthood’s website explicitly stated that treatment for ectopic pregnancy was not equivalent to an abortion. That statement was removed when it became a convenient talking point. As DeSanctis has written, none of the legislation in any of the 50 states eliminates care for ectopic pregnancies or miscarriages. Doctors who would refuse care for an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage are misinterpreting their state’s laws, and to claim otherwise is patently false.
A third myth that the AAPLOG fact sheet repudiates is that “chemical abortions are a safe and convenient option for women.” Last December, the Food and Drug Administration extended their pandemic policy that mail-order chemical abortions be made available without requiring a patient to meet with a medical professional in person. And recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services stated that it plans to find ways to protect access to chemical abortions.
Even if there were not the ethical problem of taking a human life, abortion medication is meant to be used before 10 weeks of pregnancy. If a woman is not required to see a medical professional, there is no way to confirm how far long the pregnancy is.
Everyone who cares about building a culture of life should be clear on the facts about abortion and women’s health. AAPLOG’s website includes counters to six other abortion myths. And, Alexandra DeSanctis will be speaking at the next Lighthouse Voices series on her book, “Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Our Culture and Disadvantages Women.” Join us at 7 p.m. (Central time) on October 4th either live (if you live near Holland, Michigan) or on livestream. You can register for free by visiting focusonthefamily.org/lighthouse-voices.
Anytime that doctor-assisted death is legalized, what begins as a so-called “right” to die soon devolves into a duty to die. For example, defenders of Canada’s expansive policy of Medical Aid in Dying frequently claim that its supposed safeguards will prevent a simple cost-benefit analysis when it comes to deciding who should live and who should die.
However, the truth has slipped out a few times now. Back in 2017, the publicly funded Canadian Broadcasting Corporation cited a report that Medical Aid in Dying could result in “substantial savings across Canada’s health-care system” to the tune of $136.8 million a year. Those “savings” happen when high-cost patients are put to death.
Aaron Trachtenberg, author of the report, said it frankly: “In a resource-limited health care system, anytime we roll out a large intervention …. cost has to be a part of that discussion. It’s just the reality of working in a system of finite resources.”
And that’s why decisions about life and death should never be put into “systems of finite resources.” Putting a price tag on what is priceless cheapens it. And human lives are priceless.
In November 2016, a student at Oberlin College in Ohio attempted to steal two bottles of wine from Gibson Bakery. The owner confronted and then chased the student down the street. He was arrested and later pleaded guilty to shoplifting. Recently, nearly six years after the incident, a judge ordered Oberlin College to pay more than $35 million in damages to the bakery.
How did just two bottles of wine become so expensive?
The student who shoplifted is black. The shop owners are white. That was enough to start an uproar on the Oberlin College campus. The story is an example of a culture that is in a critical theory mood.
The day after the incident, Oberlin students started to protest the treatment of the accused outside of Gibson’s Bakery. Soon after that, the Oberlin student senate passed a resolution that called for Oberlin College to “officially condemn Gibson’s Bakery” as a racist institution. Professors got involved, passing out fliers and encouraging students to join the protest. The college then severed longstanding catering contracts with the bakery.
Neither the protestors nor the school ever claimed the student had not shoplifted but, in their public statements, the fact that he did was conveniently ignored. This allowed them to turn the shoplifter, the store owner, and even the bakery into symbols that served a narrative they were telling. In a recorded audio, one student protester yells, “Shoplifting, the stuff on the surface, does not matter. This runs so much deeper.”
It is not uncommon for any discussion of critical theory, in any of its forms, to be dismissed. After all, critical theory, we are told, is an academic theory that few people have studied. That, of course, is true. Few people have studied the original source materials for this formalized theory.
This dismissal not only ignores that many of those who dismiss concerns about critical theory are those mostly actively advocating its core ideas, it misunderstands the way that ideas work within a culture.
If you happen to be listening to this commentary on radio, you have two people to thank: German physicist Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, who discovered radio waves in the 1880s and Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian engineer who invented wireless radio communication in the 1890s. However, whether you knew these names before now and regardless of how well you understand how radio waves work, it is still quite possible to conceptualize radio and to hear my voice.
Worldviews often work like this. A person does not have to fully understand an idea before being shaped by it. When Oberlin College faculty and administration determined, in the face of the evidence, that the white bakery owners were guilty and the student was not, they were applying a critical theory lens to the situation and interpreting the facts accordingly. When the Oberlin College student said that the shoplifting did not matter because of deeper issues at play, the student was parroting a critical theory way of thinking about the world, in which every interaction must be understood and explained by the demographic groupings of the people involved. Moral status is awarded based on these groupings, not on actions. Certain groups are oppressed, and others are oppressors. End of story.
Far from being “too complicated” of a theory to infect culture, critical theory offers a simplistic substitute for the actual complexities of life and people. We cannot determine a person’s character by tallying their list of demographic features or applying assumptions of privilege. Individuals are not stereotypes, but critical theory reduces them to such. No one need be able to pronounce multisyllabic academic jargon used by critical theorists to be infected by this mood. We simply are infected by it.
A few months ago, a friend told me of something that points to the level of cultural infection. She had asked a friend of hers, a junior high teacher, how many students in that class identified as LGBTQ. The answer, offered immediately in a sort of “don’t you know this” tone, was, “Oh, all of them do.”
“All of them?” my friend replied. “Are they sexually active?”
“Not at all,” the teacher replied. “But none of them want to be straight or cis.”
Ideas that have infected college students, academics, and junior highers should not be so easily dismissed. The first way to counter infectious cultural moods is not to share that mood. Intentionally, and especially with our own kids, we must talk about and treat every human being as essentially valuable as image bearers of God, and as equally fallible because of their common descent from Adam and Eve. These are essential truths about the world and people and are far better ideas than the ones assumed by the critical theory mood.
Ideas are especially dangerous when assumed, as C.S. Lewis once put it, so we must also not allow the bad ideas to go unchallenged, lest they become normalized.
Finally, within a critical theory framework, in both its academic theory and cultural mood forms, there is no possibility of forgiveness or redemption. In a Christian vision of God and people, there is. In Christ, there is solid ground for forgiveness (He first forgave us) and for finding redemption (He has taken the punishment for our guilt). So, in Christ, we not only counter bad ideas, we point to a better way.
John and Maria discuss that parents who are engaged in community organizations or events can promote Christian morality, and even have a redemptive influence, without being deemed Christian nationalists. Afterwards, they point out how Lila Rose, founder and president of the pro-life organization Live Action, powerfully debated with Dr. Phil and other audience members on the Dr. Phil show. They conclude with how the story of the lawsuit against Oberlin College shows the “critical theory mood” of our culture.
A new workplace trend, called “Quiet Quitting,” isn’t about quitting your job but about how hard you work while there. It’s about rejecting “the idea of going above and beyond,” said one influencer. “You’re still performing your duties but you’re no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life.”
There’s been so much upheaval in the economy and the workforce lately, and Christians can point to a better way: God designed humans to work, but not for work’s sake or even consumption’s sake. Work is a way we image God, making the world all it can be.
And God also gave the gift of rest, baking the Sabbath into the creation and even modeling it for us. It’s almost as if God knew that after the fall, humans would be tempted to make work an idol. (Hint: He did know.)
What “quiet quitting” misses is that it’s not about whether or not to “go above and beyond.” It’s about whether our work has purpose, not as an end in and of itself, but as an act of worship, excellence, and love of neighbor.
It’s tempting to think that secularized academics are too intellectual to ever come to the kind of “childlike faith” that Jesus described, or that, if they ever were to trust Christ, they’d have to abandon their academic pursuits. However, like once-liberal theologian Thomas Oden or once-radical feminist English professor Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, the case of Rodney Stark suggests otherwise. Dr. Stark’s research and reading, specifically about the impact of Christianity in history, was part of what moved him to become a committed believer.
Stark was born in North Dakota in 1934. Oddly enough, he played high school football with Alvin Plantinga, the great Christian philosopher. After a stint in the army, he studied journalism in college, graduating in 1959. Once, during his early career as a reporter, he covered a meeting of the Oakland Spacecraft Club where the speaker claimed to have visited Mars, Venus, and the moon in a flying saucer. After Stark reported the story straight, with no sarcasm or snide comments, he was assigned all of the odd stories that came along.
Stark’s ability to treat people’s beliefs seriously and recognize that, at least for them, these beliefs are plausible, was a key element in his decision to shift from journalism to sociology. In 1972, after completing his graduate work at the University of California-Berkley, he was hired as a professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington.
Stark focused his research on why people were religious. How did they understand their faith? What did they get out of it? How did they live it out? From this focus, Stark developed a theory of conversion that emphasized social relationships, felt needs, and personal choice. In essence, Stark concluded that conversion was a rational choice, based on the expectation that one would receive more from the religion than it would cost to join it.
He was among the first sociologists to recognize that competition between religious groups increased the overall religiosity of a community. In other words, a religious group with a monopoly tends to get lazy and neglect meeting needs and conducting outreach. Stark was also critical of the standard academic view that secularization was an inevitable result of modernization. Instead, he argued this idea was wildly wrong because sociologists misunderstood religion and failed to account for religious revivals and innovation.
His book The Rise of Christianity was published in 1996. In it, Stark argued that the incredible growth and spread of Christianity were because it offered more to people than any of its competitors. In particular, Stark argued that the rapid growth of the Church was, in large part, due to how Christians treated women. This, especially compared to the pagan treatment of women, led to more conversions, which led to the faith being spread through social networks. Also, prohibitions of abortion and infanticide led to an organic growth of the Church, and how Christians responded to persecution and plague led to a growth in credibility. The Rise of Christianity was so groundbreaking that it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
After this, Stark focused his work on the history of Christianity. After writing two books on the historical impact of monotheism — first One True God in 2001 and then For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch Hunts, and the End of Slavery in 2003, Stark wrote what may be his greatest book, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success, in 2005.
In 2004, the year before The Victory of Reason was published, Stark commented, “I have trouble with faith. I’m not proud of this. I don’t think it makes me an intellectual. I would believe if I could, and I may be able to before it’s over.” The Victory of Reason first brought Dr. Stark to the attention of Chuck Colson, who was astounded that a self-professed agnostic sociologist was clear-eyed and honest enough to recognize and highlight the effects of Christianity on the world. Chuck featured The Victory of Reason on Breakpoint and included it in the Centurions Program (now known as the Colson Fellows).
After the commentary aired, Rodney Stark contacted Chuck Colson, and thanked him for the kind words. He also told Colson that he had come to faith in Christ, which he publicly announced in 2007.
In 2004, Stark became the distinguished professor of the social sciences at Baylor University, as well as the co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion and founding editor of the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion. Although Baylor is a Baptist school, Stark preferred to call himself an “independent Christian” and continued to produce important and sometimes controversial books on Christianity, history, and culture.
Throughout his career, Stark was an irascible critic of political and religious biases in the academic world, especially in his own field of sociology. His intellectual brilliance is attested by his groundbreaking work, and his intellectual honesty and integrity by his faith, a faith he studied for many years.
One of the most sensational claims of abortion advocates is that “pregnancy is more dangerous than legalized abortion.” This argument is largely based on a 2012 study by Elizabeth Raymond and David A. Grimes in the journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. However, as James Studnicki and Tessa Longbons described recently in National Review, this claim is "demonstrably false."
By its own admission, the Raymond and Grimes study underreported maternal deaths associated with abortion. While deaths involving pregnancy and childbirth are subject to national data collection in the United States, no consistent metric exists for reporting deaths related to abortion. In other words, the data sets Raymond and Grimes used compared apples and oranges and “should have rendered the paper’s conclusions invalid.” In fact, multiple other studies reach the opposite conclusion. In Finland, for example, researchers found that mortality after abortion is three times higher than childbirth.
Much of the so-called “conventional wisdom” on abortion is invalid and treats pregnancy itself like a disease, unborn children as a pathogen, and abortion as a cure. None of which could be farther from the truth.
Science is supposed to be objective, an undeniable source for truth not subject to fads or fashion. The phrases “scientists say” or “the science is settled” is supposed to inspire hushed awe and open ears. Scientists are supposed to serve as arbiters of truth, at least on questions within their fields of expertise, able to settle disputes and sort fact from fiction.
Many progressives, especially, employ the phrase “the science says” to silence disagreement about everything from climate policy to gender ideology. “The science,” at least in certain circles, is an authority appealed to in order to end debate and dismiss critics of favored policies. Increasingly, the theory that science is a neutral arbiter or source of truth looks shaky, especially when scientific publications openly announce their commitment to ideology over evidence.
Bell Curve author Charles Murray recently tweeted an editorial published by the peer-reviewed journal, Nature Human Behaviour. Murray (who is no stranger to what happens to those who publish politically incorrect findings) highlighted a section in which the editors announced they will be censoring scientific results that do not conform to a favored political narrative. Specifically, the editors reserved the right to amend, refuse, or retract “[c]ontent that is premised upon the assumption of inherent biological, social, or cultural superiority or inferiority of one human group over another based on race, ethnicity, national or social origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, political or other beliefs, age, disease, [or] (dis)ability …”
They also reserved the right to censor content that “undermines — or could be reasonably perceived to undermine — the rights and dignities of an individual or human group on the basis of” any of these categories, as well as to refuse submissions that are “exclusionary of a diversity of voices …”
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how language this sweeping could be used. For instance, studies that find children do best in homes with their biological mother and father could be “reasonably perceived” by the editors of Nature Human Behaviour to suggest the “inherent inferiority” of same-sex parents. Research that finds female athletes are disadvantaged when competing against biological men could “undermine ... the rights and dignities” of transgender opponents. A study that finds little girls do better in societies that don’t practice female genital mutilation could be censored for its “assumption of inherent … cultural superiority.”
As Murray tweeted, “It is hard to exaggerate the scientific insanity this represents.” Even psychologist and science author Steven Pinker, no friend of Christians or religious conservatives, slammed the journal, tweeting: “Nature Human Behavior [sic] is no longer a peer-reviewed scientific journal but an enforcer of a political creed … (how do we know articles have been vetted for truth rather than political correctness)?”
It’s a good question, and one more people should be asking. Increasingly, the scientific enterprise itself is looking shaky, not only because of political correctness but because the practices on which science depends — peer review and replication — are breaking down.
Consider an analysis published in the journal Science last year in which behavioral economists at the University of California found that the least reliable studies are the ones other scientists cite the most. This team analyzed over 20,000 papers in some of the top psychology, economy, and science journals, and found that “studies that failed to replicate since their publication were on average 153 times more likely to be cited” than studies that did — mostly because their findings were more “interesting.” And this problem was found to be worst in leading journals Nature and Science.
The takeaway here is not that science is bad. On the contrary, science is a gift of God, made possible in how He made the world and His image bearers. Science has made the world immeasurably richer, and the world arguably owes a debt for these riches to Christian assumptions and pioneers. However, scientists and science editors are human and just as vulnerable to bad ideas and dangerous ideologies as other humans.
Reform can happen within a field of knowledge. Thus, science can regain its authority as a source of truth and public good, rather than propaganda. Christians in the sciences have an especially important role to play, as voices protesting ideologically loaded conclusions and as examples of integrity and objectivity. Until that reform happens, anything announced with “the science says,” especially on intensely politically charged issues, should be greeted with suspicion. As Pinker said, we have a right to know whether their claims “have been vetted for truth rather than political correctness.”
Recently (and finally), the United Nations has released a report condemning China’s treatment of Uyghurs. Given China’s clout within the UN, its strenuous PR and lobbying campaigns, and its ability to intimidate scholars and witnesses, the report’s release was delayed for months.
Finally, in the final few minutes of UN human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet’s term, the report was released. The report strongly condemned China’s actions and called for “urgent attention” from the UN, validating years of warnings by watchdogs, observers, and activists worldwide.
This one report by itself may not change the terrible situation on the ground for the Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province, but nothing will change without first telling the truth. As one article in the Associated Press noted, “That the report was released was in some ways as important as its contents.”
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, was himself a witness to the internment of untold millions in the former USSR. He put it this way, “The simple step of a simple courageous man is not to partake in falsehood.… One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world.”
Religious liberty is a human right. So why are American courts so confused?
In recent months, American courts have continued to grapple with the size, scope, and even the definition of religious freedom. For Christians who believe that religious liberty for all is a public good, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news includes the decision from the Fifth Circuit two weeks ago in the case of Franciscan Alliance, a group of Catholic hospitals and doctors that sued the federal government in 2016. Rules issued from the Biden Administration would have forced doctors within Franciscan Alliance to perform so-called “transition surgeries” on patients with gender dysphoria, as well as provide abortions for patients who requested them. Lawyers for the hospital system argued that these procedures are violations of the oath doctors take to “do no harm” to their patients, and therefore a violation of the doctors’ religious freedom. Thankfully, the Fifth Circuit respected Supreme Court precedent and ruled in favor of Franciscan Alliance.
The bad news includes a case out of New York, in which a trial court ruled that Yeshiva University, a Jewish school in New York City, must allow an LGBTQ club to establish on campus. The university argued the club’s mission openly violated the school’s religious beliefs about sexuality. In a particularly bizarre ruling, a judge sided with the LGBTQ club by reasoning that Yeshiva University is not a religious institution. “Yeshiva” is the Hebrew word for “a school that studies the Talmud,” or ancient rabbinic writings on Scripture. Still, the judge cited Yeshiva University’s charter, which refers to the school as an “educational institution,” as evidence that the school therefore cannot be religious.
The question at the heart of each of these cases is the same: What does it mean to be religious?
Though it is good news for everyone, doctors and patients, that Franciscan Alliance will not be forced to mutilate bodies in the name of “transgender medicine,” the judge in this case ruled explicitly that the government could not violate these doctors’ religious beliefs. It is not good news that the reality that men and women are different is being denied, or that bodies are being mutilated and called “healthcare,” or that opposing being involved is reduced to a “religious belief.” In the same way, the idea that we should not take the life of a child in or out of a mother’s womb should be obvious, not reduced to merely “religious.”
In one sense, every law is religious in the sense that they are predicated on some view of the universe, human nature, and morality. They assume that certain things ought to be done and others ought not to be done. Everything we do, including where we work, what we value, and how we raise our kids, is built upon moral beliefs about the world, whether Christian or not. Even if we don’t always act consistently with those beliefs, religious liberty ensures the right to call upon these views inside and outside of Church, synagogue, mosque, or Twitter.
In our culture, however, certain views are designated “religious” and others are not. Therefore, the “religious” views are considered biased exceptions to be tolerated. In fact, progressive judges and administrations often deem policy positions they don’t like as “religious” as a way of suggesting they should not be taken seriously in the public square. In other words, taking innocent human life and mutilating healthy bodies are presented as the “obviously right” views, and opposing these horrors is dismissed as “religious.”
All of which says a lot about the moral status of our culture. Further, it misunderstands the meaning of “religious” and leads to obvious violations of religious liberty. Christian doctors within the Franciscan Alliance cannot leave their worldviews at the operating room door. Yeshiva University doesn’t stop being religious when it educates. In fact, it educates because it is religious.
The Supreme Court, at least currently, recognizes this reality, but some lower courts do not. Thus, the absurd ruling that claims Yeshiva University is not religious because it educates, or the one in Colorado which held that a Christian school chaplain wasn’t in a “religious position,” or the lower court ruling from a few years ago that attempted to force a group of Catholic nuns to pay for abortion and contraception.
In such a conflicted time, Christians must, more and more, live like Christians. We must compellingly demonstrate that the resurrected Christ we worship in one building one morning a week shapes how we live and act in any other building every other day of the week. And we continue to defend religious liberty as a public good for all people.
About this, the U.S. Constitution is clear. Hopefully, our nation’s courts will gain clarity too.
Recently, the world learned of the death of Mikhail Gorbachev. While living to age 91 is an achievement for anyone, it’s a historical exception for a dictator to live 30 years past his downfall. Gorbachev did, having survived from when the first waves of American pop culture entered his homeland decades ago to when those same waves receded in renewed hostility.
Gorbachev’s legacy is, to say the least, complicated. His former subjects in Eastern Europe will likely shed few tears, his former enemies in the West have praised that he chose peace in the face of imperial collapse, and his fellow Russians mourn his role in their nation’s lost status on the world stage. The last leader of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was once one of two most powerful men in the world. He died without the acclaim and power he once commanded.
His death reminds us that no matter how great, death comes to us all. We do not control the timing nor manner of our demise. All of that is in God’s hands. We can only strive to live lives worth remembering and emulating.
The Queen has died.
When those words were heard and repeated, over and over last Thursday, people around the world knew immediately which queen. In fact, few are alive today who can remember a time when she was not on Britain’s throne. She lived to 96, not only the longest reigning monarch in British history but the second longest reigning monarch in all of history, surpassed only by King Louis XIV of France, the “Sun King.” Among the many anecdotes that put her life in historical context, Elizabeth II was queen for a full third of the existence of the United States of America as a nation.
When Elizabeth ascended to power, Winston Churchill was the prime minister. Just two days before she died, in a final act of royal duty, Elizabeth received a 15th person into that high office. When she began her rule in 1952, there was a British Empire, and not just in name. Though every nation within the empire would gain independence, she remained head of state of a dozen of them, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other smaller countries around the world.
Elizabeth’s historic tenure as queen might have never happened, except for a domestic turmoil that has never quite seemed to leave the House of Windsor alone. Her father, George VI, assumed the throne only because her uncle abdicated it for an illicit romance. Her sister’s temperament did not, shall we say, “fit” her royal duties. Her eldest son, now King Charles III, entered a loveless marriage in the midst of his own extramarital affairs, while her second son ruined his place in the world by falling in with Jeffrey Epstein. Her grandson Prince Harry is full of bitter words and accusations about the royal family.
In this way, the royal family was a reflection of changes seen across the Western world during the Queen’s reign. Marriage rates in the U.K. have dropped by double digits in the last few decades, and divorces have increased by several orders of magnitude. While the Britain she inherited in her youth famously stood up for liberty and democracy against tyranny, corporate and government powers often enforce conformity and silence. Weekly church attendance in Britain has dropped to less than a million each week in a population of nearly 70 million. Add in technological change, war, globalization, populism, the rise and fall of global powers, and it may be that the Queen’s most remarkable achievement was preserving the monarchy as a legitimate institution amidst the flux and chaos of the last few decades.
As one who could, as Kipling once put it, “walk with Kings, nor lose the common touch,” she played the part of elegant empress, with an impish sense of humor and a delightfully ordinary demeanor. As such, Queen Elizabeth was, in many ways, an always-relevant anachronism. She was an incarnation of G.K. Chesterton’s call for a “democracy of the dead” or C.S. Lewis’ warning against “chronological snobbery.” In an age that confuses change as progress, her life was a reminder that certain truths and duties do not change with the times—eternals that are not subject to our whims or imaginations—but are revealed, at least in part, through the accumulated wisdom of the ages.
In fact, “duty” is the word most commonly used to describe Elizabeth II, as if she inherited her father’s sense of it along with the throne. As Bloomberg’s Adrian Woolridge noted on Twitter, “The Queen grasped Edmund Burke’s great dictum that, for a true conservative, the point of change is to stay the same, at least in the things that really matter. Monarchy is a restraint on modernity or it is nothing.”
She was barely an adult when she declared, “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Years later, she reflected back on that promise, “When I was 21, I pledged my life to the service of our people, and I asked for God's help to make good that vow. Although that vow was made in my salad days, when I was green in judgement, I do not regret, or retract, one word of it.”
There are few contentions more despised today than the idea that our rights must be balanced by our duties, but Elizabeth thought of the crown as a calling, a part of something greater than herself. How she carried out those duties in an ever-changing world points to a commitment that goes beyond tradition or even the monarchy. As she put it herself, monarchs do not lead troops into battle or rule from on high anymore. So, she committed to lead by serving, which is of course the way of Jesus, who said the greatest among us are servants. In many of her annual Christmas radio messages, she pointed to Christ as the One she sought to follow and emulate. Leading by serving is one of the things that the New Testament calls the “fruit” of faith.
Having reached the end of her era, it’s difficult to imagine what the monarchy will become. As Jake Meador from Mere Orthodoxy observed, “After she and Benedict XVI pass, I think European Christendom will be conclusively gone from this world. Something else will come and God will continue to work. But the loss is still immense.”
Indeed, it is, but what makes a person “great” has not changed. Around the world, followers of Christ are living faithful lives, committed to what God has called them to, in truth and service. Their stage may not be as global or their mistakes as public, but their lives point to the Sovereign who sits on the throne of heaven and earth and whose kingdom shall have no end. That faithfulness is, in God’s economy, greatness.
Last Saturday was World Suicide Prevention Day, a time to remember that suicide is a growing problem. In the U.S., it increased by 30% from 2000-2018, and that was before COVID. In 2019, it was the second leading cause of death for ages 10-34.
Christians aren’t excluded. LifeWay research has shown that 32% of Protestant church-going respondents had a family member or “close acquaintance” die by suicide.
Because of this great need, Colson Educators has teamed with Dr. Matthew Sleeth, a former emergency room physician and chief of hospital medical staff, to offer a free online course called Hope Always, based on the title of his book Hope Always: How to Be a Force for Life in a Culture of Suicide. This course, which you can take for free at any time, will help you know how to talk with loved ones about the difficult topic of suicide. It offers scientifically grounded information with biblically based theology to start a conversation about mental health and how the Church can offer light and hope.
Go to courses.colsoneducation.org/hopealways to register for this course today.
Recently, an impressive development in embryology was reported by the Israeli Weizmann Institute of Science. Using only stem cells, without the presence of sperm, eggs, or even a womb, researchers successfully created functioning mouse embryos, complete with beating hearts, blood circulation, brain tissue and rudimentary digestive systems. Carolyn Johnson in The Washington Post described the discovery as “a fascinating, potentially fraught realm of science that could one day be used to create replacement organs for humans.”
For the more than 100,000 people currently waiting for a life-saving organ donation, that kind of breakthrough would indeed seem like a miracle. However, since scientists are still years away from creating human organs in a lab for the purpose of transplant, the technology raises serious ethical questions, none of which should be taken lightly.
One of these questions is, in fact, an old one. Do the promises of embryonic stem cell research justify it? While some stem cells can be harvested from a variety of non-embryonic sources such as bone marrow, others are harvested from so-called “unused” embryos that have been donated to science. The lives of these tiny, undeveloped human beings are taken in the process.
For context, the research conducted by the Weizmann Institute uses embryonic stem cells. Though, for the time being, this implies only embryonic stem cells harvested from mice, the move to human research would involve the harvesting of stem cells from human embryos and involve tissue derived from already living human beings.
The Christian stance on when life begins is the same as the science. Human life begins at conception, and every single human life is worthy of protection. If we would not take the life of a born child in our research for a cure for some medical condition, neither the anonymity of an embryo nor the confines of a laboratory justify doing the same thing in the process of embryonic stem cell research.
Science is a process of trial and error, but we should never employ “trial and error” with the lives of thousands of human beings, in particular human beings who cannot consent to our actions. A rule of thumb is this. If you wouldn’t try an experiment on an adult or small child, don’t do it to human embryos at any stage.
The breakthrough at the Weizmann Institute, however, takes this old debate a step further. On one hand, lead researcher Dr. Jacob Hanna was quick to clarify that the goal is not to make complete, living organisms of mice or any other species. “We are really facing difficulties making organs,” he said, “and in order to make stem cells become organs, we need to learn how the embryo does that.”
Given the history of science, including the last chapter involving breathless promises of what embryonic stem cell research would bring, the grandiose predictions of scientists should be taken with at least a grain of salt. The process of growing organs for mice, for example, involved the creation of entire embryos. Should the technology be perfected in mice, what ethical or legal limits are there to prevent the creation of synthetic human embryos for the purpose of harvesting their organs?
Our first concern should be what these embryos would be created for. The answer is, inevitably, “science,” devoid of any consideration for human purpose, relationships, worth, or dignity as equal members of the human species. All societies that treat people as a means of scientific advancement, instead of infinitely valuable ends in-and-of themselves, have a track record of perpetrating atrocities.
A second concern is what these embryos would be deprived of. Though not all do, every human should enter the world with the love and commitment of their biological mom and dad. The very design of human development suggests this, and societies have long recognized that those born without these relationships have had something priceless taken from them. Creating children from cloning or stem cells intentionally makes them orphans, ripping them from the vital context of parental relationship. It is a grave injustice.
Bringing children into the world as a product of pure science without the possibility of relationship with their biological parents or relatives is enough an ethical consideration to oppose such research, but we should also consider the implications of recklessly creating humans for future experimentation and of dismantling them to see how their components work.
Science is, in many ways, blind to what should be ethical bright lines. Creating organs for transplant in order to save lives is a worthy goal. But such work should only proceed in an ethical manner, one which does not require the death of other distinct, valuable, human beings. Unfortunately, such ideas have not shaped the society we live in today.
John and Maria discuss the life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II and her longstanding sense of service to her nation. Afterwards, they stress the correlation—not the causation—between deaths of despair and decline in blue laws, laws against commerce on Sunday. They end by touching on commentaries from this week, in particular one highlighting the rebuttal of a false narrative that the religious right was founded in racism.
Yesterday, after the world had learned that her family had been called to her side, Queen Elizabeth II, the longest reigning monarch in British history, died at age 96. It’s simply impossible to articulate just how much the world, Britain, the British Empire, Western civilization, and the monarchy changed during her reign.
Many Americans were fascinated by her and the royal family, as demonstrated in the popularity of shows like The Crown. She seemed to navigate a changing world by not changing, something that at times stabilized and at other times infuriated the British people.
Perhaps the most consistent features of her tenure, which seemed out of step with the modern world, were her sense of duty and her consistent expression of faith and religious observance. Her annual Christmas messages reflected theology that was mostly orthodox and a faith in Jesus Christ that seemed personal. Convinced that Divine Providence had brought her to the throne, she seemed to see the crown as a calling and not an entitlement. In both of these things, her death marks the end of an era.
A few weeks back, Twitter banned a user for violent language. The offending tweet was, “I will out sword drill any Christian man.” For anyone not familiar with evangelical subculture, a “sword drill” has nothing to do with blades. It’s a game to see who can find a particular Bible passage first. Had the protectors of Twitter taken the time to investigate or, even better, had some Christians on their staff to ask, they may have spared themselves the ridicule which rightfully followed.
Unfortunately, it’s a habit of academic and media circles to either not understand or not take evangelicalism’s claims for itself at face value. Sexual ethics, we are told, are novelties, due more to patriarchy than anything Jesus taught. The priority that evangelicals place on the home, family, and gender norms is more the product of 20th-century cowboy movies than any enduring truths about men and women. And, most commonly, political involvement by conservative Christians is nothing more than a naked grasp for power and maintaining the status quo.
Recently, a handful of political commentators have claimed that the rise of the so-called Religious Right was rooted more in racism than in concern for the unborn or the spiritual fate of our nation. Though conservative Christians claim that the 1970’s-era increase in political action was birthed in opposition to the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and removal of prayer and Christian symbols in public schools, it was really about segregation. White Christians did not care about saving the lives of unborn children as much as they wanted to make sure their kids did not have to attend school with African Americans.
This contention is now part of most formal analyses of evangelical culture, including from mainline and progressive Christianity. As one recent book put it, “In the end…what changed their mind wasn’t abortion or school prayer, but tax-exempt status for segregated schools.”
Jonathan Whitehead, writing at The Gospel Coalition, dates this story to a book published in 2006 which claimed that conservative Christians got into politics in response to the 1975 action by the IRS against the (overtly) segregationist policies of Bob Jones University, a view the school later recanted.
Whitehead goes on to argue that this supposed smoking gun turns out, in reality, to be an urban legend. Rather than being agitated that the IRS had attacked segregationism, conservative Christians found that the Feds were using the situation with Bob Jones University as a pretext to move against other religious schools that weren’t segregationist. This was at a time when school choice and homeschooling were far from established options, and anyone who did not comply with state schools was suspect.
The segregation narrative fails in other ways, as well, most notably in timing. One of the first political action groups expressly formed by evangelicals in 1972 supported Democratic Senator McGovern’s ultimately failed presidential campaign. Christians, especially Roman Catholics, were already organizing for political action in the wake of Roe in 1973, and evangelical standard bearers like Christianity Today were talking about abortion before Roe and speaking out against segregation even earlier than that.
In the end, the racist history rumor is an example of “nut-picking,” when the worst-case example of a vast movement is held up as normative while any example to the contrary is ignored. It only contributes to our culture’s increasingly uncivil discourse but is convenient for rhetorical purposes. Throughout his career, the late, great Michael Cromartie declared that there needed to be a dramatic improvement in the relationship and understanding between secularly minded Americans and their religious neighbors. “We’re like an anthropological project for them,” he once said, summarizing the approach of secular elites to religious believers as “We’ll go study these people, because I’ve never met one.” Without any first-hand knowledge about the intricacies of Christian culture, or at times, having an axe to grind for being raised evangelical, too many are quick to assign the worst of motives to Christian actions and words.
Billions of people rely on the professionalism of journalists and academics to discover and share the truth. The truth is never served by a convenient story that happens to neatly coincide with the popular narratives of the day. If pundits and professors are going to continue to regain any authority to speak into our lives, they’ve got to do better.
Recently the University of Washington published research into whether hormones and puberty blockers improve the mental health of kids with gender dysphoria. According to the PR team for the university, pretty much every media outlet that covered the study, and the study’s authors themselves, the answer was yes.
Except it wasn’t. The numbers actually revealed no difference between kids’ mental health before taking hormones and after a year of the treatment. At both moments in time, kids were suffering from dramatic mental health problems. If anything, the study suggested that kids who did not start taking the medications got a little worse.
The university refused to officially respond when an independent journalist challenged their conclusions—though the study’s authors admitted their findings had been misrepresented. Internal emails showed the university’s communications team wasn’t concerned the story was not accurate. They liked that it was popular.
Among the casualties of the politicizing of scientific research is public trust in our institutions. Still, the most vulnerable casualties are the kids.
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature,” wrote Karl Marx, “…the opium of the people.” Decades of often painful historical experience has proven his observation both right and wrong. Believing in God does ease pain and suffering of faithful followers, but he was wrong in thinking that religion, especially Christianity, leaves them with nowhere else to go from there.
A recent article in The Economist put it this way: “Religious belief really does seem to draw the sting of poverty.” Although there is a correlation between poverty and decreased mental health, the article highlighted German sociologist Dr. Jana Berkessel’s recent findings that religion significantly mitigates this effect.
A variety of similar studies confirm this. Regular attendance at religious services consistently correlates with longer life spans, stronger immune systems, and lower blood pressure, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, and suicide. Kids raised in religious households have a lower incidence of drug addiction, delinquency, and incarceration. They’re more likely to graduate high school. In short, the nearly unanimous scientific consensus is that religious belief is good for you.
Of course, Marx’s point was that these benefits only serve to keep people content in their chains and to keep them distracted so much by the next world that they do nothing to change this one. Many critics today take the critique even further. Religion, especially Christianity, has not only been used to pacify people in their oppression but is the very source of it.
Of course, the charge that Christianity has been co-opted, corrupted, and weaponized to justify all kinds of abuse, conquest, and enslavement, is undeniable. At the same time, it’s also undeniable that Christianity has been a global force for the kinds of goods now so pervasive, it’s hard to even imagine the world without them. Many of the rights and principles we consider to be naturally occurring features of the world only came to be by the influence of Christianity.
In the ancient pagan world, violence, rape, infant exposure, and prostitution were rules, not exceptions. Almost immediately, Christianity began to revolutionize pagan ethics, particularly in its view of the poor and the outcast. Roman Emperor Julian famously wrote that when the “impious Galileans support not only their poor, but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.”
To a world with no reason to believe in the equality of all people, Christianity taught that “there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” This belief was grounded in the Christian view of the human person, which had no parallel in the ancient world and which created an explosion of literacy, social mobility, and human rights that we now take for granted in the modern world.
Christianity’s unique contributions in humanizing the modern world are yet another reason to not simply lump all “religious beliefs” into the one blanket category. All religions are simply notthe same, not in substance nor impact.
Economist Robin Grier, for example, conducted a cross-national survey of 63 formerly European colonies. She found that, across the board, Protestant Christianity, in particular,was “positively and significantly correlated with real GDP growth,” and that “the level of Protestantism is significantly related to real per capita income levels.” A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) paper found that only certain religious beliefs—notably beliefs about heaven, hell, and an afterlife—are linked with economic growth. In other words, it’s not just about having a “religion,” but about what your religion teaches.
Consider Africa. A recent paper from NBER analyzed educational outcomes among religious children. Though Africa is becoming increasingly religious across the board, the paper found that in many countries, “primary school completion for Christians was more than double that of Muslims or Africans adhering to local religions.” Christian communities far outpace others when it comes to intergenerational educational growth.
Writing in 1843, Karl Marx couldn’t have anticipated how thoroughly science would analyze his claims about religion. He’d likely have been among the modern theorists surprised that the world is becoming morereligious, not less. As one writer with The Brookings Institution put it, “While weak state structures collapse and aid agencies switch priorities, one group of actors persist against all odds: religious institutions.”
Of course, this isn’t why anyone should believe the truth claims of Christianity. They should be believed if they are true. At the same time, the fact that Christian belief has been an educational, social, and economic ladder for millions suggests these beliefs ought to be taken seriously.
Hope Resource Center, a Christian crisis pregnancy center in Knoxville, Tennessee, offers free pregnancy tests, well-women exams, STD testing, and ultrasounds. If you search for Hope Resource Center on Yelp, a “consumer notice” pops up with a warning: “Crisis Pregnancy Centers typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite.”
Last week, Yelp announced that these notices will appear at the top of listings for every crisis pregnancy center—even when they don’t apply.
If Yelp truly were worried about women’s access to “real” medical care during pregnancy, they’d put a consumer notice above every Planned Parenthood listing. A few years ago, Live Action found that fewer than 5% of Planned Parenthood facilities in the country actually offer prenatal care, even though Planned Parenthood openly pretends and advertises otherwise.
It’s these practices by Planned Parenthood that make crisis pregnancy centers so necessary in the first place. Women—especially those in crisis pregnancies—deserve accurate information and actual care, which they can’t find from Planned Parenthood or, for that matter, on Yelp.
The Institute for Family Studies has published a list of legal and policy recommendations to protect teens from the dangers of social media. Among the recommendations are age-verification laws, parental consent requirements, and shutting down social media platforms at night for teens. Other nations have already attempted to restrict young people’s access to technology. For example, a couple of years ago, France banned cell phone use in schools up to age 15.
Monitoring teens’ engagement with social media should be a no-brainer. Anyone still not convinced that something needs to be done need only consider the teens on TikTok exhibiting Tourette-like tics, not to mention the rapid onset gender dysphoria crisis initiated within social media communities.
However, the fact that government may now be the last line of defense in providing some boundaries for social media means that the other lines have failed. Most notably, families have failed to protect children from that which threatens them the most.
This is a modern-day application of one of the most helpful ideas of Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, who lived at the turn of the 20th century. Kuyper has jokingly been called the Colson Center’s “patron saint.” Near the end of his life, Chuck Colson described how influential Kuyper’s thought was to his own, specifically in understanding how Christians were called to interact with and influence the culture around them.
Christians could best influence society, according to Kuyper, through the sphere of our family, the basic building block of society. During his lifetime, Kuyper worked across various spheres of culture, not only writing as a theologian but founding a university, leading a newspaper, and eventually becoming prime minister. Throughout his various careers, Kuyper proposed and championed a concept called “sphere sovereignty.”
“Spheres,” as Kuyper understood them, are the social groupings, or domains, that keep society running. He saw them as interlocking “cogs” that work together. In his message at the inauguration of the Free University in the Netherlands, he explained that each sphere—such as science, art, business, government, and family—has “its own law of life” and “its own head” or leadership. Ultimately, Christ is sovereign over all of life. His most famous quote is, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life of which Christ, Who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” It is Christ who moves “the wheels to turn as they are destined to turn. Not to oppress life nor to bind freedom, but to make possible a free exercise of life for and in each of these spheres, is not this a beckoning ideal for every noble State Sovereign? [or leader].”
His idea, that the duty of the head of a state is to facilitate “free exercise of life,” reveals that, in many ways, Kuyper lived in a time period similar to ours—a time when people were calling for revolution. Kuyper was so uncomfortable with this lawless approach that he called his political party the “Anti-Revolutionary Party.” According to the author Michael Wagenman, Kuyper believed, "Human beings are called to responsible human agency in which 'the course of our historic development may be altered only through gradual change in a lawful way.' But this is accomplished through responsible reforms rather than outright revolution that seeks to usher in a manufactured utopia."
If the language of ushering in a “manufactured utopia” doesn’t sound familiar, just search for “antiracist” and “revolution” on Twitter. The crisis in the state, Kuyper believed, revealed a crisis of family.
Kuyper saw family leadership as “responsible for the good order in the family,” rather than the “head of the state.” Government should only step in if parents did not do their job. He insisted that “the central government may only take on and carry out what is not (and for so long as it is not) properly taken care of in the smaller spheres of life.”
If government control of the good order of the family has to occur, it should be only temporary. Thus, the government can incentivize good family order, such as tax deductions for college saving plans, but a secular government controlling family life can get weird fast, such as removing a child seeking a transgender identity from a Christian family’s home. It’s one of the reasons Christians should recognize and champion parental rights.
Coming back to the topic of teens and social media, we can say that restricting their access to social media is a good idea. But this is the job of the family, not the government. When families fare well, society fares well. That’s those cogs of spheres working together well. A society is only as virtuous as its families.
This month, if the Colson Center has helped you understand the sphere of the family better—if it’s helped your thinking to be big enough for this world and for living in your place in it, would you consider giving a gift of any amount? Go to colsoncenter.org/september.
Recently The New Yorker profiled a nursing home run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The piece described, in admirable terms, the Catholic nuns’ reputation for treating the elderly with dignity and compassion, as well as the Little Sisters’ founder, a French nun known for personally taking in the homeless.
Such behavior is not strange for followers of Jesus. What is strange is The New Yorker’s about-face. Not long ago, the magazine covered the Little Sisters for a very different reason. Writing about the nuns’ lawsuit against the federal government’s Obamacare mandate, which would have forced them to pay for contraception and abortion, The New Yorker called the nuns “irrationally passionate.” There was not a word about the Little Sisters’ love for the elderly or their courageous founder. Instead, reporters suggested they didn’t care about women.
In a secular society, Christ followers will sometimes be loved and sometimes subjected to baseless accusations. That’s OK. We were told this would happen. Our job is to keep loving our neighbors while never compromising our convictions.
Teen mental health has never been this bad.
As New York Times journalists Michael Barbaro and Matt Richtel discussed last week on The Daily podcast, we’re facing an unprecedented crisis in teen mental health. Mere decades ago, the major threats to the health and well-being of young people in the West were nearly all external, such as illness, car accidents, risky sexual behavior, alcohol, or smoking. Today, the greatest threats to the health and well-being of young people are internal. As Richtel reported, in 2019, 13% of all adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60% increase from 2007. Teen suicide rates, which had been stable for nearly a decade prior to 2007, “leapt nearly 60% by 2018.” In 2019, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced, “Mental health disorders have surpassed physical conditions as the most common reasons children have impairments and limitations.”
The factors behind this tsunami of depression, anxiety, and self-harm are many, one of which is the internet. In 2017, Dr. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University noted that the spike in adolescent mental health problems reached a crescendo in 2012. That year, the percentage of Americans who owned smartphones surpassed 50%. Exposing developing brains to an overwhelming amount of social information, she argued, was contributing to a massive, unprecedented uptick in mental health issues.
On one hand, social media has brought the near constant experience of social comparison to the developing minds of 8-, 9-, and 10-year-olds. On the other hand, the sheer amount of panicked, hyperbolized, and truly frightening headlines a student must navigate is unprecedented in human history. We might forgive students who are convinced the world is completely out of control.
Richtel and Barbaro also noted other factors in the podcast. For example, the average age for the onset of puberty has become earlier and earlier since the 1980s, especially for girls. Experts are unsure as to exactly why this is the case, but there are plenty of correlations having to do with early exposure to sexually explicit material, fatherlessness, and family breakdown. Whatever the cause, the impact is real.
In the face of this exploding mental health crisis among young people, the demand for care is outpacing the number of trained counselors and psychologists. Pediatricians and emergency rooms have become first responders. As Richtel observed, “Every night, in emergency rooms across the country, there are at least 1,000 young people spending the night waiting in a room to get to the next level of care where they can be helped.”
More and more frequently, medication is seen as the only answer. While an important tool, Ritchie notes why that is far from adequate. “We are prescribing medications in the absence of dealing with… fundamental structural changes that we have not addressed as a society.”
In every generation, followers of Christ have seen protecting and caring for vulnerable children as a crucial part of their calling. Today, children are vulnerable to radically changing social conditions, harmful ideas about their minds and bodies, the loss of institutions crucial to their health and well-being, and a barrage of bad news.
The first step in fulfilling our calling is, in the words of my friend Dr. Matthew Sleeth, to Hope Always. Children need the truth about life and the world, about themselves and God, and we can give it to them. Of course, parents must limit and help guide children in their digital interactions, as nearly all experts recognize. But this is not merely a crisis of media: It’s a crisis of meaninglessness. That’s one reason a Harvard psychologist writing in Scientific American argued that “Psychiatry needs to get right with God.”
To that end, we’ve developed a new Colson Center Educators course taught by Dr. Matthew Sleeth to equip parents, pastors, and educators, with the tools to meet the current crisis.
Also, tonight, is the latest in our Lighthouse Voices series. “Despair, Mental Health, and the Crisis of Meaning: How Christians Can Speak Life to a Lost Culture” is a live event featuring Dr. Ryan Burkhart of Colorado Christian University. To register for the live event in Holland, Michigan, or the livestream, visit Colsoncenter.org.
Christians have an obligation to care. When we see the brokenness of the world around us, we are to imitate the work of Christ. In His name, we can be a force for good in our lifetimes, and, God willing, reverse the tide.
Fertility is a gift, not a problem.
According to an NPR report, more women are seeking sterilization. For example, at Bozeman Health Deaconess Hospital in Montana, more women in their twenties and thirties are asking not for their tubes to be tied—a reversible procedure—but to be removed, a permanent procedure.
This is another sign that women’s fertility has been largely pathologized, treated as a bug rather than a feature of being a woman. It’s as if a woman’s body is presumed better when more like a man’s—without the ability to bear children... somehow in the name of “women’s rights.”
But studies cited in the article suggest these women may regret their decision. Dr. Kavita Arora, the chair of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ Committee on Ethics, described a patient: “She wanted to have autonomous control over her body, and this was her way of ensuring she was the person who got to make the decisions.”
Rather than practice sexual self-restraint, the patient’s desire for “control” led her to deny the potential of motherhood.
On this Labor Day, here are some important ideas from Chuck Colson on the importance of work.
Americans are rethinking work, at least in the sense of employment. While there are many factors behind what has been called “The Great Resignation,” “The Great Quit,” and “The Great Reshuffle,” we shouldn’t underestimate the connection between how people see work and our culture-wide crisis of meaninglessness.
Christian ethicist Oliver O’Donovan has written:
"In work we make a difference to the world, not merely the kind of difference that any event must make … but a purposeful difference. In work we not only affect things; we effect things…. To work well is to bring intelligence and love to bear upon the grain of our worldly material, whether that is inert stuff, living beings or abstract relations of things."
In other words, our work, whether physical labor or intellectual pursuits, matters. Here is a recording of Chuck Colson, from many years ago, explaining a Christian vision of human work.
"In American society, most of us spend more of our waking hours at our jobs than in any other activity. While that may or may not be a positive commentary on our culture, it’s a fact that’s got to be considered by churches and ministries seeking to equip Christians to live faithfully. Yet, in our work cultures today, most of us have been trained to separate our faith lives from our work lives. The chasm between the two worlds disturbs us, signaling that something is wrong. And this comes at a time when the single most common demographic among people in the church is work, and at a time when the culture of that workplace is most foreign to our faith.
For years we’ve lived with the belief that the real work of God’s kingdom was done by missionaries and members of the clergy. Others work to make money to support the 'real work.' Yet, Scripture insists that our work is good. The ancient Greeks thought of work as a curse; Christianity gave meaning to work. Work, for the Christian, is a calling. After all, Jesus grew up with the callused hands of a carpenter, and the very fact that He worked gives dignity to our work. The Reformation, as I wrote with Jack Eckerd in Why America Doesn’t Work, 'struck at society’s dualistic view of work. Just as they saw the church comprised of all the people of God, not just the clergy, so the Reformers saw all work—sacred and secular, intellectual and manual—as a way of serving God.'
Work embraced as a calling expresses the glory of God, and it’s part of—very literally—following Jesus. Through our work God provides for us and for our families, contributes to the common good, and also gives us a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. He has given us work as the way to fulfill His mandate to us as humans—to take dominion over the world he has created. As we work, we extend God’s reign and influence as his agents or stewards.
And the way that we take that dominion, confronting the challenges and difficulties that “go with the job,” is, in itself, our witness to the reality of God and our faith in Christ. Excellence in our calling, which the Bible calls for, makes the most powerful witness for us in the workplace. Sure, we could wait for those who are seekers and skeptics to come into our church buildings, but the vast majority never will. We could wait for them to seek out a pastor, but most don’t know any.
Now more than ever the “indigenous believers,” those Christians already in the mission fields of accounting, sales, software, construction, and other honorable vocations, need to be equipped to work with integrity and thus share their faith in actions as well as words."
That was Chuck Colson. I hope that this Labor Day can be a sabbath from your work today.
John and Maria focus in on the factors contributing to the remarkable rise in mental health issues for young people, including the crisis of authority that results from the barrage of information online. Afterwards, they discuss how the Church has always led in innovative education and must continue to do so. They end on a recent win and two losses for religious liberty in the lower courts.
It’s been a year since the U.S. military’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan left allies, colleagues, and up to 1,000 American citizens there to fend for themselves. Though the new Taliban government promised to respect human rights, especially the rights of women, it’s turned out as many expected.
Universities and primary schools are open to women, but girls over age 11 are locked out of secondary schools, women are only permitted to work in education and health, must keep their faces covered, and must be accompanied by a male guardian for long-distance travel. And, swift and cruel punishments for breaking these rules also have returned.
Though the Taliban deny it, a division is growing between a political wing that wants better relations with the outside world (and therefore wants to relax restrictions on women) and clerics in Kandahar who, like the Ayatollahs in Iran, dictate policy on the ground.
We often hear that all worldviews are equal, all religions the same, and we shouldn’t impose our values on anyone else. The truth is that our ideas about the world and human beings have real consequences and real victims.
Three days before the first day of school in Columbus, Ohio, the teachers’ union went on strike, leaving 47,000 students with nowhere to go. School board officials promised that schooling would move forward “online,” but on what was supposed to be the first day, the website suffered hours-long outages. It was chaos.
Even as this teachers’ strike was brewing, a new school, in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Columbus, was preparing to open its doors for the first time. Westside Christian School will serve kindergarteners through second graders this year, using Sunday school classrooms and the gym inside a local Baptist church. Thanks to funding from donors and Ohio’s school voucher program, which allows kids who live in failing school districts to use their tax dollars for private schooling, students can attend Westside Christian School without paying tuition.
This is just one example of the kind of creativity that has animated Christians all over the country for decades now, with the goal of offering different and better educational options for families. While some consider the idea that Christians are involved in education, especially public education, controversial, it didn’t use to be. In a filmed conversation a few years ago, I asked Dr. Vishal Mangalwadi, a philosopher who has studied the historic impact of Christianity on the world, why Christians should engage in educational work, especially in a pluralist society like ours. His answer was that Christianity is education.
The Christian account of reality, from creation in Genesis to the New Creation in Revelation, is the true story of the world. The biblical mandate to tell that story to everyone, rich or poor or clergy or not, is the foundation of the entire Western world’s concept of universal schooling.
For example, a chief complaint of the Reformers was that Rome kept a tight rein on education and learning, most notably in limiting Bible translations to Latin. The Reformers’ view that everyone should hear God’s Word led to Bibles in a common language and widespread education for those previously left out. The ability for everyone to read God’s Word for him- or herself led to the dramatic expansion of literacy and learning, not to mention commerce.
Of course, the Roman Catholic Church was also a great champion of education, founding universities and parochial schools everywhere the Church expanded. That’s because of the fundamental view that all Christians share: that God has revealed Himself and wants to be known. Therefore, learning is a high calling of being human.
A few hundred years after the Reformation, the American founders established public education as the right and duty of every citizen. Thomas Jefferson even suggested that an uneducated citizenry would neither flourish nor long be able to self-govern. Unfortunately, public education was isolated from religious faith long ago and therefore untethered from its moral foundation. Today, most people, including Christians, think of education as a secular arena. Religion, we’re told, should be kept personal, private, and above all, outside the classroom.
This bad idea has had real consequences. Far from neutral on issues of religion and morality, public schools instead push dangerous religious and political ideologies, like critical race theory, and harmful, irrational ideas about sex and gender. Administrative costs have ballooned while teachers strike over salary demands.
Many American schools aren’t even succeeding in the basics. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Education found that almost 20% of American high school graduates could not read. In many communities, that number is far higher. Lockdowns and Zoom classrooms made parents more aware of these things, and so now in many communities, public school enrollment is in a free fall. In contrast, private, Christian school enrollment has gone up, and a record number of households are homeschooling.
This is a moment for Christians to love our neighbors through education, like our forebears did. We do this by pressing public schools to do better and by providing as many other options as possible, and by making those options financially and otherwise feasible. We should also advocate for new school choice policies, like the one just implemented in Arizona which allows parents to use their own tax money for the schooling that’s best for their kids.
There’s a lot that we can do, and when we do it, we give good gifts to the world. While grown-ups stalk picket lines, there are real kids who need a real education right now. The Church has always been more than up to the task.
Recently, in a speech at a Georgia church, rising progressive star Stacey Abrams, after noting that her parents had been pastors, declared, “I was trained to read and understand the Bible, and I will tell you this, there is nothing about the decision to eliminate access to abortion care that is grounded in anything other than cruelty and meanness.”
However, the way the Bible speaks of preborn children eliminates abortion as a moral option. In Psalm 139, the psalmist declares, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The Prophet Jeremiah was told by God, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” And in one of the most beautiful moments in Holy Scripture, John the Baptist, still in Elizabeth’s womb, leapt when in the presence of Jesus, still in Mary’s womb.
Test everything, the Scripture says. Especially those who claim to speak for God.
Recently, at The Celebration of America’s Promise to Parents event, hosted by the Alliance Defending Freedom, Abigail Martinez, a grieving mother, shared a story that every single parent, pastor, and lawmaker in America needs to hear. Abigail’s daughter Yaeli began to struggle with depression when she was in the 8th grade. Without communication with her mother, Yaeli was quickly funneled by personnel at her school towards the LGBTQ group, and then to an outside psychologist. Soon, Yaeli was being led by these adults towards a “social transition,” going by the name “Andrew” and increasingly presenting as a boy. All the while, she was urged to keep the details hidden from her family.
Once she caught wind, Abigail protested both the secrecy and the strategy of this counseling, urging the counselors to instead look into underlying issues of Yaeli’s mental health. Instead, she was told that by refusing to call her daughter by her new name and pronouns, she was the problem. If anything happened to Yaeli, the school said, it would be Abigail’s fault.
From that moment on, the system boxed her out at every turn. When Yaeli was 16, the school psychologist urged the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services to intervene, arguing that because her mom was “unsupportive” of her social transition, Yaeli would be better off living elsewhere. Yaeli was moved to a group home, where she started taking cross-sex hormones. Abigail was only allowed to see her daughter for one hour each week, supervised, and strictly warned not to bring up anything relating to her daughter’s transition, including their Christian faith. If she did, her visitation rights would be revoked.
“If we keep [Yaeli] out of your home,” Abigail remembered being told, “she [will] have more chance to survive. She’s not going to try to commit suicide.”
Instead, all the while, Yaeli’s mental health continued to decline. The testosterone caused her constant pain, for which a doctor prescribed CBD oil. “She was taking the [cross-sex] hormones; she was not happy,” her mother said. “She changed her name, [but] was not happy, she adopted a dog because that was going to make her happy. None of it, everything that they’ve done, didn’t work.”
At age 19, having moved out of the group home and pursued her new identity for about three years, Yaeli took her own life. As Abigail later told The Daily Signal, “I don’t want any parent to go through this, because this pain never goes away. … You breathe and you can feel the pain.”
It’s hard to imagine a tragedy like this could happen. It’s hard to believe that a parent could lose custody to the state, simply for holding to a child’s biological sex. What’s not hard to imagine is that Yaeli Martinez will not be the last victim of these bad ideas, indoctrinated by state power.
Local governments like Los Angeles County aggressively promote the doctrine of “gender-affirming care,” even if it means tearing a family apart. On a state level, one California senator has proposed a bill empowering courts to remove children, not just from California residents, but from anyone who travels to the state and whose children claim their parents do not support them in their gender identity or sexual orientation choices. A similar case recently unfolded in Ohio, where a county prosecutor charged a couple with “abuse and neglect” for seeking counseling instead of transition for their daughter. And in Michigan, it is very likely that a ballot initiative will be taken to the voters this November utilizing the language of “reproductive freedom” to usurp parental rights in similar ways.
Through these laws, the state perpetuates grave evil. In the case of Yaeli Martinez, the silence of her church was even more tragic. When at the state-assigned group home, Yaeli repeatedly asked her mother when a pastor or youth leader might come visit. She had felt close to these leaders and was eager to see them. “[They] know I’m here, right?” Abigail remembered her daughter asking.
As Abigail said, “I asked them. I gave them the address.” But they never visited. Not Abigail. Not Yaeli. No public support from the pulpit. No private support either. Abigail Martinez has walked this path all alone.
In this, Abigail was the victim of a church culture designed around making people feel good and dodging difficult issues. Shame on them. Yaeli Martinez will not be the last teenager in crisis.
That’s why I’m grateful for churches that, with truth and grace, do show up for parents in need. Nobody wants this culture war over sex and gender, but we didn’t choose this moment. To oppose state-sponsored trans ideology in law and in school is a necessary act of love.
No child should be harmed by state-sponsored lies. No parent should go through what Abigail Martinez went through. And absolutely no parent should go through what Abigail Martinez went through alone.
Earlier this month, British-Indian author Salman Rushdie was brutally attacked at an event in upstate New York. In 1989, Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses so enraged Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini that he issued a global kill-order, or fatwa, on the author, his editors, and publishers.
Though Khomeini died later that year, fatwas cannot be revoked posthumously. So, Rushdie went into hiding, appearing later only under heavy security. Eventually, many in the West simply forgot about it.
Shia extremists did not.
This tell us something about how differently the secular West and radical Islam sees the world, and how short our cultural memory is compared with theirs. And, at stake is more than a contest of memory. In the Western world, we’ve been secularized to think of religion as a privatized matter of preference. We therefore underestimate the power that religious convictions wield, including the power that our secular religious convictions hold over our own hearts, minds, and culture.
All of which is an opportunity for Christians to show and live a better way, one that sees God, history, people, and the world so differently.
In 2016, Canada legalized euthanasia through the euphemistically titled Medical Aid in Dying (or MAiD). Since passing, the number of Canadians who either “enthusiastically” or “cautiously” support the practice has risen slightly from 75% to 80%. The response from communities representing those with disabilities, however, has remained consistently opposed. Their fears, that Canada’s end-of-life policies would prove to be only the cliff edge of a moral abyss, have proven to be largely accurate.
As Maria Cheng of the Associated Press has reported, Canada “arguably has the most permissive euthanasia rules [in the world.]” Just last year, over 10,000 lives were legally taken, an increase of a third from the year before. Patients can request aid in dying without informing family members and for any reason, including, beginning in 2023, mental health issues and not just physical suffering. Doctors, as well as nurse practitioners, can raise the topic of euthanasia with any patient and are not required to first exhaust all other treatment options. Though the government keeps track of yearly deaths by euthanasia, it does not have a commission to review troubling cases, a practice used by other permissive nations like Belgium and the Netherlands.
Next year, euthanasia will likely be extended to so-called “mature” minors. At a time when so many efforts are being made toward suicide prevention among teenagers, they will be taught that death is an acceptable way out of mental anguish. Horrific.
The deadly cocktail of adverse incentives, little accountability, and ineffective “safeguards” have led to a context in which, as AP’s Cheng wrote, “Some disabled Canadians have decided to be killed in the face of mounting bills. .… Other disabled people say the easy availability of euthanasia has led to unsettling and sometimes frightening discussions.”
The worst impact of this slope Canada is sliding down could be a perversion of the word “care.” For example, one Canadian armed forces veteran was outraged after a healthcare worker raised the possibility of assisted death as a “treatment” option for his PTSD. Alan Nichols was a 61-year-old man who was hospitalized in 2019 over fears he might be suicidal. “Within a month,” Cheng described, “Nichols submitted a request to be euthanized and he was killed, despite concerns raised by his family and a nurse practitioner.” The only physical health condition listed on Nichol’s form of consent was hearing loss. According to his brother Gary, “Alan was basically put to death.”
Stories like these are shocking, but we can’t say we were not warned by nearly every disability group in Canada, observers from the UN, and even the American Medical Association. When it comes to euthanasia and doctor-assisted death, abuses and loopholes are not anomalies. They are inevitabilities of a system that operates from a cheapened view of human value and a redefined understanding of healthcare.
The AMA’s official opinion makes clear, “Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks.” Particularly in a single-payer health care system like Canada’s, the decision of who lives and who dies will inevitably be influenced by crass factors such as money, access to medical resources, and arbitrary decisions about what constitutes “quality of life.”
Against such cultural headwinds, mere “consent” is not enough. In fact, whenever and wherever it is legalized, the so-called “right” to die soon becomes a perceived “duty to die.” Patients consistently report making decisions about not wanting to be “a burden” on friends or family, or because they are convinced, as law and disability professor Theresia Degener described, “a life with disability is automatically less worth living and that in some cases, death is preferable.”
Euthanasia is at odds with any civilized vision of human value. As Alan Nichols’ sister-in-law said, “Somebody needs to take responsibility so that it never happens to another family. I am terrified of my husband or another relative being put in the hospital and somehow getting these (euthanasia) forms in their hand.”
Let’s pray the rest of the world learns from Canada’s terrible example and in nation after nation the lid of this Pandora’s box will be slammed shut.
Last week President Biden announced a plan to cancel student debt, about $330 billion worth. The cost to taxpayers could be as high as half a trillion dollars.
My friend Dan Darling joked on Twitter that youth pastors just received the gift of a great sermon illustration, but some have actually defended the policy (which even former Obama advisors have criticized) by pointing to Jesus words in the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…”
For example, an editorial in TIME argues that when Christ prayed these words in the Garden, He was referring to the Old Testament “Year of Jubilee,” in which debts were canceled every 50 years. So, mass debt forgiveness, conclude the authors, comes from Moses not Marx.
OK, I’m lost. Is it now suddenly OK to impose Old Testament laws on America? Which ones? All of them? It’s so strange after hearing over and over that when it comes to things such as sexual morality, the Bible is not clear; but when it comes to debt policy, it is...
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus was not talking about economic debts. Both His words and the Year of Jubilee in Israel point to the forgiveness of a debt far greater than college loans: our sin. That debt was paid in full by His blood, not by moving tax dollars around.
A new “manifestation trend” called “The Whisper Method” has gone viral on TikTok. If the word salad in that sentence is new to you, “manifestation” is the practice of focused, intense thinking about what you want until you get it. The practice is grounded in New Age philosophy and seems to re-emerge every few years in some new form. The “Whisper Method” is the latest manifestation of manifestation, and TikTok is where it is all happening.
The “Whisper Method” involves thinking of what you really want and identifying who can give it to you. Then, you are to imagine whispering instructions into that person’s ear, such as, “You’re going to give me that promotion.” Or, “You’re going to fall in love with me.” If you really believe (and whisper), then eventually you shall receive.
We’ve seen this kind of thing before. Years ago, Oprah popularized “The Secret,” a philosophy that if people put “positive thoughts and vibes”’ into the universe, they’d get positive results back. In other words, if we send out energy claiming a bigger bank account, a smaller waist, or a better parking spot during Christmas, we’ll get those things.
From a motivation standpoint, it’s easy to understand how something like The Secret or The Whisper Method gains traction. It involves little work with big rewards. Beneath the irrationality and geographic specificity (these strategies aren’t very popular in war-torn areas or regions inflicted by famine), there is a truth. The human imagination is incredibly powerful.
In a 2006 episode of Oprah, she described “The Secret” this way: “What you focus on gets bigger.” Short of the weird metaphysical claims to be able to “manifest” new objective realities, Oprah was not entirely off base. God created humans with creative ability. We cannot create out of nothing, or ex nihilo, like God did, but humans are unique among creation in our ability to make something out of the world around us. Thus, humans invent and build and improve and innovate. And, in Psalm 37, we are told that if we “delight” ourselves “in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart,” though that has more to do with God first giving us rightly ordered desires once He is our ultimate delight.
Various studies have demonstrated that athletes who routinely imagine themselves performing well often develop a measurable competitive edge. However, even the most imaginative and sincere visualization techniques cannot magically bend reality. Thus, researchers believe that visualizing strong athletic performance is a way of practicing the sport. Not to mention, that any athletic improvements served by visualizations are in addition to actually physically practicing the sport.
The Whisper Method isn’t about training for a good performance or searching our hearts and motives to make sure they align with the will of God. The Whisper Method is about the illusion of control. It assumes that internal focus can determine external realities. This desire for control is nothing new, nor has The Whisper Method shifted from changing our own actions in place of manipulating the actions of others. In that way, The Whisper Method reflects the cultural ethos that other people are primarily objects to be used in service to our own ends.
We didn’t make the world, and we’re not in charge of it. God did, and He is. We’re not to worry ourselves over controlling it but instead are to “cast all our anxieties on Him.” If we are going to “whisper,” it should be in prayer to the God who made us and loves us.
In honest prayer, our hearts are taught what they truly desire. In prayer, we place those desires at the feet of our Heavenly Father, ask Him to conform them and us to His will, trusting that everything He does will be for our good. All of which makes prayer the opposite of The Whisper Method, which only pretends that we can control the world and assumes that our strategies for controlling it are fully informed and perfectly wise, as if we have the faintest idea of what’s really best for us. We don’t.
In his book on prayer, Pastor Tim Keller wrote that “God will either give us what we ask or give us what we would have asked if we knew everything He knew.” Thank goodness we don’t live in a world where our wishing, or our “whispering,” makes it so.
A new law in a northern state of India imposes up to 10 years in jail time for so-called “forced,” or “mass” conversions … meaning more than one person at a time. It also casts suspicion on those influenced by Christian social services like health, education, and charity, which often appeal to those trapped in Hindu’s marginalized lower castes.
India’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but laws like this reflect how rapidly the ruling party’s push for Hindu Nationalism has changed things for Christians in that country.
But efforts to restrict the gospel rarely work. As one local bishop put it...
Anybody who converts to Christianity is doing so from a strong unflinching personal following of Jesus Christ and very much as a personal conscious decision of divine attraction to Jesus Christ, God’s love, compassion, forgiveness, justice and truth. His death we celebrate in love, His Resurrection from the dead we profess with living faith, His coming in glory we await with unwavering hope. This personal experience makes them embrace Christianity.
Amen. That’s why faith in Christ has survived so many attempts to stamp it out.
The Dobbs decision is the most significant Supreme Court decision of our lifetime, and it’s already been cited in another legal case.
Recently, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall requested that a federal district court remove an injunction against a ban on medical intervention for youth seeking a transgender identity. He wrote: “But no one—adult or child—has a right to transitioning treatments that is deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition.”
His words are based on language from Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in the recent Dobbs case. Alito argued that abortion cannot be found in the Constitution, nor has it ever been “deeply rooted” in the history and traditions of the American people.
Roe v. Wade, which was overturned by the Dobbs decision, was part of a series of Supreme Court decisions that “discovered” new constitutional rights based on little more than the whims of the sitting Justices. Commonly, in the use of the “substantive due process doctrine,” earlier Supreme Courts invoked a so-called “right to privacy,” as they did in Roe v. Wade. While there’s little more American than the right to be left alone, the Court misconstrued this reasonable desire for privacy to mean the “right” to kill children in the womb.
“Substantive due process” is supposedly based on the 14th Amendment’s due process clause. Proponents of the doctrine contend that, even if a right isn’t explicitly recognized in the Constitution, the rights that are explicit cast “penumbras”—or shadows—which suggest the existence of other, unenumerated rights that the Supreme Court should protect. If this sounds like a stretch, that’s because it is, not least because the due process clause is about just that—lawful process, not substantive rights.
The notion of “substantive due process” is often a pretext for judges to affirm current social norms with little more than passing reference to the Bill of Rights. So, what was never historically a right could be deemed one simply by finding a way to rationalize it with reference to some other right in the Constitution. Instead of rights finding root in the constitutional text or in who we always are as human beings, they become based on shifting cultural norms, as easily created as denied. As Justice Thomas pointed out in his concurrent opinion in the Dobbs decision, substantive due process is “legal fiction.” Thus, he questioned the Court’s power to “divine new rights.”
While substantive due process has been used to cause harm, it’s also been used to support good decisions, for example the ruling on interracial marriage in the case of Loving v. Virginia. However, the Court also based Loving v. Virginia on another part of the 14th Amendment, the equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, among other things. In other words, the victory for interracial marriage was a recognition of reality, that all human beings, of whatever race or ethnicity, are fundamentally equal and therefore should not be treated differently. The call for a right to gender transition, however, is a rejection of reality, arguing that maleness and femaleness are illusory or ancillary to who and what we are.
In the current application of the “deeply rooted” test in Alabama, parents demanded a right to experimental medical treatments for their children seeking a transgender identity. They argued that “enduring American tradition” makes them, and not the state of Alabama, primarily responsible for “nurturing and caring for their children.” In that sense, they are right. Parents rank higher than the state when it comes to childcare, but what these parents are demanding is the oppositeof nurturing and caring. And in too many cases, government officials are usurping parental rights in promoting gender transitions to children, against their parent’s wishes.
American tradition recognizes a right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children and even to make medical decisions for them, but it has never recognized a right of parents to cause their kids harm by radically altering their bodies in ways that render them permanently sterile and perpetually dependent on medical interventions. This is something radically new, not deeply rooted in American tradition and history, at best social experimentation.
We can expect more cases in which the “deeply rooted” language of Dobbs is cited. Lower courts, taking the Supreme Court’s cue, should be reluctant to strike down democratically enacted laws based on newly minted theories of unenumerated rights. In the meantime, Christians must continue to point to the reality of human nature, including the good of our bodies as male and female, and most of all, to the Source of our actual rights: our Creator.
In response to a recent op-ed at Christianity Today, Maria and John insist that Christians can and should be involved in the public square, particularly in the schools. One clear reason is the proposed regulations reinterpreting Title IX. These regulations would remove parental rights from parents whose kids are drawn to radical gender ideology, making the schools conduits to transgender treatments. Maria and John then move to a discussion of the “why” behind a new stat showing that women are leaving the Church.
Next month, the Colson Center is offering a short course entitled “The Essential Church: Why Christians (and the World) Still Need the Church.”
It’s a timely message, especially given a recent shift in Church demographics. Christianity Today reported that younger women are, for the first time, less likely to go to church than men... not because more men are now attending church, but because more women are deconstructing their faith, and more likely to identify as “nones.”
Battered by church controversies and scandals, and shaped by cultural messages, women are increasingly heading for the exit. In doing so, they are rejecting a faith that, in the words of my colleague Glenn Sunshine, has done “more to improve the status of women than any other historical force.” The Church is meant to enable and empower men and women to live as image bearers, according to God’s design.
Simply put, the Church is essential, and that’s the topic of our upcoming short course, hosted by Dr. Tim Padgett and featuring Peter Leithart, Collin Hansen, and Glenn Sunshine. Christians need to know why. Go to colsoncenter.org/August to learn more.
Frequent readers and listeners of Breakpoint know about Max. The grandson of Chuck Colson and subject of a book called Dancing With Max, authored by Emily Colson (Chuck’s daughter and Colson Center board member), Max is a remarkable young man who has autism. The last few years have been difficult for Emily and Max, especially since the COVID lockdowns disrupted their routines and canceled their helpers. The last few years were particularly hard on full-time caretakers.
And yet, in the middle of the challenges and disruptions of the last few years, God gave Max a ministry of encouraging and blessing others, a ministry now reaching people whose lives have been disrupted by war.
Here’s how Emily Colson described this remarkable story in a recent email:
We didn’t have a plan: We had a prayer. “How can we be a blessing to others?”
More than two years later, God continues to answer that prayer beyond what we could ask or imagine, bringing hope around the world. Even into a war zone.
It was COVID shutdown 2020 when Max began to hand-paint colorful heart yard signs and deliver them around our community. Max wasn’t an artist: Autism had made fine motor a lifelong challenge. God often uses the most unlikely individuals to accomplish His purposes so that the story is unmistakably His.
Our dining room became a workspace with plastic wrap stretched across the table and paint dripping into places that won’t be found for another decade. Our home began to look as if we’d invited Jackson Pollock to dinner. It was there, in the ache and loss and isolation of shutdown, that Max would paint his joy-filled hearts.
Max has given away more than 250 heart yard signs now, and he is still painting. The hearts have made it onto note cards, 36,000 cards in circulation so far, with all proceeds going to charity. His hearts grace the front of shirts, each one packaged with a message of God’s love and the value of every life. With every shirt purchased a duplicate is given to a life-affirming charity. And a “heart exhibit” is traveling to different gallery locations, telling the story of what only God can do. Of how He can multiply blessings.
As incredible as all of that is, there’s now another chapter to this story, which began when Emily’s friend April sent her a message.
She’d been watching the war break out in Ukraine on live television. She prayed, and God pressed an idea into her heart like a hot wax seal: Send Max’s hearts to Ukraine.
Our church leapt at the idea. Our printer, Spectrum Designs, a company employing the most amazing team of individuals with autism, jumped just as quickly, printing the first 1,000 shirts. A team of highly caffeinated volunteers began folding and packaging each shirt with a message of God’s love and hope—all translated into Ukrainian.
But…where would we send these? Who would receive and distribute these shirts in Ukraine?
That answer began 50 years ago, in the brokenness of Watergate. My dad, Chuck Colson, served as Special Counsel to President Nixon... When my dad was released from prison he founded Prison Fellowship ministries, which became the largest prison ministry in the world, reaching millions of people in the darkest places around the globe with the hope and love of Jesus Christ.
Even reaching Ukraine.
The ministry he founded 50 years ago through the brokenness of Watergate would carry his grandson’s hearts, born of the brokenness of COVID, to bring hope to those in a war zone on the other side of the world.
James Ackerman, president of Prison Fellowship USA, traveled to Romania... and (with) a team of ministry leaders and volunteers carried the shirts and other supplies deep into Ukraine, delivering them to children of prisoners, and to people in a Ukrainian refugee center.
Emily received a photo of one little boy who was holding Max’s picture, and wearing a shirt printed with Max’s hearts and the words, “Beloved by God.” Both of his parents were killed in the war. As Emily said,
When I saw this little boy’s face, I cried for days... God cares. He aches for the brokenness of this world. He is close to this little boy, just as He is close to Max. God was even leaning over Max’s shoulder as he began to paint, knowing He would carry these hearts—and His hope—around the world.
You can learn how to join Max and Emily in their mission at www.heartbymax.com.
According to Ian Lovett in The Wall Street Journal, “Dozens of priests from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the country’s largest denomination, have been kidnapped or killed since the (Russian) invasion began.”
Some have been tortured, accused of stirring up anti-Russian sentiment. Those allowed to return to their congregations bear scars and missing teeth. Some never return at all.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s split from Russian Orthodoxy in 2019 provides the political motivation for Russia to target its members. The Russian church, under Patriarch Kirill, has supported the war, arguing that it has “metaphysical significance.”
He may be right, though not in the way he believes. By targeting Ukrainian believers, Russia adds to the ranks of those who suffer, not just for Ukraine, but for Christ.
Father Ioann Burdin, a Russian Orthodox priest who has publicly opposed the invasion, wrote in February, “Russian soldiers are killing their brothers and sisters in Christ…. We can’t shamefully cover our eyes and call… evil good.”
Earlier this summer, the U.S. Department of Education announced new regulations regarding Title IX, which is designed to ensure and protect access for women and girls in education. These new rules are 700 pages long and are being trumpeted by organizations such as the National Education Association as a victory for victims of sexual harassment and clarification of discrimination based on sex. However, what is meant by “sex” will be a disaster for women.
The massive document is infected with the presumptions of transgender ideology, specifically that “sex” includes “gender identity,” ignoring the biological reality of sex. Not only will these rules limit our daughters’ opportunities to participate in sports and lead to dangerous violations of their privacy, but they will erase parental rights and free speech in favor of state-centered authority. There is a limited time to speak into these regulations before they are instituted.
In 1972, Title IX was enacted to provide equal access to education and athletics for girls and women. Recent reinterpretations of sex threaten the good goals of Title IX by turning reality on its head. In a recent meeting of ministry leaders, Vernadette Broyles, general counsel and president of the non-profit law firm, Child & Parental Rights Campaign, explained three major implications of this regulation.
The first concern has to do with the removal of parental rights. Minors who decide to transition at school will be supported by the schools and led into the process of “social transition,” including using preferred pronouns, without requiring the consent of parents. It’s Broyles’ belief that this will “weaponize” government agencies like Child Protective Services and channel these children to “gender-affirming” counselors and clinics, eliminating the influence of parents in the process. This is already happening in some states, such as California.
A second and primary concern is the remarkable damage that will be done to children’s bodies and emotions by encouraging and furthering social experimentation. For example, in July, the FDA announced that puberty blockers, which activists claim are harmless, can cause brain swelling and vision loss. Their long-term cognitive effects are still being studied. We also know that cross-sex hormones cause permanent sterilization. And of course, that doesn’t even get into what happens when things go “right” with the devastating permanent injuries caused by so-called “gender-affirmation” or “sex-reassignment” surgeries.
Finally, Broyles spoke of the scandal intrinsic to girls having no private spaces in locker rooms or on school trips, and the heartbreaking irony of women and girls’ losing place to male athletes, all under the banner of Title IX.
Even if your state has already acted, as some have, to protect parental rights and girls’ opportunities in sports, these rules will challenge state legislation at the federal level.
So, what can be done? Every American has the opportunity to submit comments on these new rules before September 12. Through bureaucracy, the Biden administration has skirted the legislative process and accountability to elected representatives as it did with the mandate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding insurance supporting “transgender medicine.”
When contacting Congressional Representatives and Senators about legislation, it is acceptable to use a copied script. In this situation, however, comments must be submitted through the Federal Register, the online journal that publishes the federal government’s rules and regulations. Rather than a Senate staffer tallying positions for or against a bill, staffers associated with the Register look for unique comments. If thousands of people flood the Register with the same script, that repeated comment would be counted as only one.
So, please comment, in your own voice, laying out your specific concerns with these regulations. The Child & Parental Rights Campaign has provided multiple prompts—not scripts—to assist you in registering a comment. There are “comment starter letters” for parents, educators, and community religious leaders. In your comment, tell a unique story or specify your concerns for your daughter, son, grandchild, or school. If you have a psychological or medical background, refer to that expertise in explaining your perspective. If you have a law degree, use your legal training to explain the issues with these regulations. Express your concerns, not only for parental rights and potential harm to children, but also implications this will have for freedom of religion and speech, especially for teachers.
Please, flood the Federal Register with unique comments before September 12. Visit the Child & Parental Rights Campaign website for resources, links, and prompts.
The future of our children may depend on it.
Last month the world got its first look at new photographs of deep space from NASA’s James Webb telescope. The level of detail in the photos was staggering and beautiful, revealing stars, “Cosmic Cliffs,” and ultraviolet radiation from the birth of new stars.
Christians should approach new technologies with care. Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we should. At the same time, this new telescope is an inspiring example of what humans can do because of how God made us. Technology can enable us to know and appreciate God’s world and to better tend the garden of creation. It also enables us to fight God’s design or try to control it as if we were God.
This telescope is a remarkable achievement, involving years of insight, ingenuity, and perseverance, which are God-given virtues. The fruit of this work rightly elicits awe and should drive us to study and admire a vast and mysterious universe. And it points us to the God who made it all.
Technology that leads us to appreciate creation, grow in wonder, and learn more about it is a true gift.
Regular listeners to the weekly Breakpoint This Week podcast know that my co-host Maria and I are fans of the reality competition show Alone. Ten wilderness experts are dropped in the middle of nowhere, usually a place that is cold and full of bears, forced to fend for themselves. Whoever stays the longest wins.
In the latest season, a military veteran with strong survival skills and extensive experience overseas seemed poised to win. Instead, he called it quits just a few weeks in. In an interview afterwards, he explained, “When I was in the military and separated from family, I didn’t have a choice. Out here... I had that opportunity to get on the radio or the phone and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to go back to where I’m comfortable.’” In other words, having the choice to go home made staying much harder.
According to conventional wisdom, at least the kind accepted in this cultural moment, the opposite should have been true. More control and more choices are supposed to bring easier and more satisfying lives.
That misconception is, in fact, a feature of life since modernism. For most of human history, humans held no illusions of being masters of their own fate. Writing back in 1976, American sociologist Peter Berger identified what changed, especially for Westerners. Because of the dramatic progress brought by science and technology, humans in the modern period began to believe that the world would eventually be fully understood. And if understood, it could also be mastered, as well.
“What previously was experienced as fate now becomes an arena of choices,” Berger wrote. “In principle, there is the assumption that all human problems can be converted into technical problems… the world becomes ever more ‘makeable.’”
A mark of our late postmodern era is the obsession with having choices. The higher the stakes, the more acute is the illusion of freedom. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy described this impulse in his now overturned Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, when he wrote that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” In his view, the “freedom of choice” extends to even choosing what is real. Is it any wonder that people now believe that choice extends beyond sexual behavior to sexual identity?
However, if happiness truly comes from the control made possible through infinite choices and the ability to “make the world,” why did the military officer competing on Alone find the opposite to be true? Why did his freedom of choice turn out to be too much of a burden? Why do so many studies show that we are less happy than ever?
The postmodern assertion that we can “make the world” exploits a weakness inherent to our fallen humanness and especially acute today. We struggle to delay gratification. We might fool ourselves into thinking that we can, in fact, define our existence or choose our gender. We may think our decision about whether to stay married or whether to bring an unborn child to birth is based on deep reflections. However, because we can, we tend to choose comfort now at the expense of flourishing later. If we have the option, we call the producers and tap out.
Justice Kennedy was wrong. No matter how many choices we have, we cannot remake the world. Everywhere we turn, we butt up against the limits of creation. According to a Christian worldview, this is actually good news. God created the world with limits: physical and moral laws, bodies, certain geographic locations and times in history, and not other ones. He gives us specific parents and siblings and children, whose specific needs constantly impose limits on our choices.
Even if, in modernity and postmodernity, such limits are anathema, to be resisted and fought against with all the science and technology we can muster, true freedom is found by recognizing and resting in God’s good limits, both physical and moral. If God is good, then the limits He imposes are not burdens. They’re blessings.
President Biden called the recent killings of Muslim men in New Mexico “hateful attacks,” implying they were hate crimes against the Muslim community. Less subtly, the mayor of Albuquerque commented: “violence against members of our community based on race or religion will not be tolerated.”
Then the police arrested a Muslim man who, according to NPR, frequented the same mosque as his victims (though he was Sunni and three of his victims were Shia).
This is what happens in a culture infected by a critical theory “mood.” Reduce everything to sex, power, and race, and as the adage goes, to a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Assuming racism without facts provokes suspicions among groups and keeps us from seeing others in God’s image. In the end, people are judged by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character or, even worse, the content of their character is assumed because of the color of skin.
The last few years have felt like a real-life version of the popular board game “Pandemic,” in which players cooperate to contain the spread of infectious, often imaginary diseases. The latest disease to grab real-world headlines sports a name that sounds like it came straight out of this board game: monkeypox. Our nation’s response to this new outbreak has been far from a winning strategy, mainly because some public health officials have been more focused on sexual politics than protecting public health.
Monkeypox is rarely fatal but reportedly excruciating. It is “overwhelmingly” transmitted by sexual contact between men. According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine and reported by NBC News, 95% of monkeypox cases have so far occurred in the “gay community,” and evidence strongly suggests that behaviors distinctive to that community are primarily responsible for spreading the virus.
The public health response to monkeypox, which many are now describing as a complete disaster, has been largely shaped by officials who are unwilling to offend gay rights activists. Despite more than 6,000 cases reported nationwide, a figure The New York Times says is probably low, major cities like New York and San Francisco have hesitated to make clear exactly how the disease spreads, or to urge those primarily at risk to stop spreading it.
In June, as The Washington Post described, officials in San Francisco stood by as “thousands of gay men clad in leather, latex—and often much less—descended on the city for an annual kink and fetish festival.’” According to the Post,
"Even after the city had just declared the monkeypox outbreak striking its gay community a health emergency—one day after the World Health Organization urged men to sleep with fewer men to reduce transmission—San Francisco public health officials made no attempt to rein in festivities or warn attendees to have less sex."
Officials in New York, Chicago, and other metro areas were also “avoiding calls for sexual restraint.” Why? Well because they were “wary of further stigmatizing same-sex intimacy” and wanted to limit “government intrusion into the bedroom.”
“Officials and activists who spent decades on the front lines of the battle against HIV/AIDS,” the Post article continued, “say they have learned it is futile to tell people to have less sex.”
There has, at least, been some pushback to this suicidal public health strategy. Gay sex columnist and polyamory advocate Dan Savage slammed cities that refused to tell the truth, saying “It was devaluing gay men’s lives and health” not to warn them. And writing in The Atlantic this month, Jim Downs argued that it’s not homophobia to warn gay men to be careful: “Public-health officials don’t need to tiptoe around how monkeypox is currently being transmitted.”
Along with an incompetent rollout of vaccines and medications, which The New York Times’ Daily podcast blamed for the crisis, these muted warnings may prove to be too little, too late in preventing more patients from suffering this painful and humiliating illness. Against the backdrop of two years of COVID lockdowns, mask mandates, mandatory quarantines, and “two weeks to stop the spread,” the display of political priorities is breathtakingly hypocritical.
While even the World Health Organization urges gay men to temporarily curb their lifestyle for the sake of safety, many American officials practically begged for an outbreak, afraid to place any limits on the expression of politically favored sexual identities. Doing so, they claim, threatens to revive the “stigma” and “homophobia” our culture has so successfully suppressed.
In an echo of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, the disease itself is treated as discriminatory, as if it’s unfair of the monkeypox virus to target gay men. The solution, many seem to believe, is to let it tear through the gay population unchecked as if sexual tolerance and progressive attitudes can make up for bad public health policy.
In the end, all these sick men point to a sick worldview, one that would rather sacrifice people’s wellbeing than treat them as moral agents capable of choice, whose actions have consequences. Monkeypox is only the latest damaging effect of this broken view of people and sex, but as long as our country is willing to play games with pandemics and people’s lives, it won’t be the last.
This month in The Atlantic, writer Kaitlyn Tiffany described a conflict with a friend over which Lorde album was best. A slammed door signaled the end of the relationship, and a text to Tiffany’s boyfriend described her as “toxic.”
“I had rarely heard [the word] used offline, and then only semi-ironically, or in regard to people who were objectively terrible,” she wrote. “I had never had to consider whether it was a word that could be applied to me.”
The story epitomizes the relational crises that face our culture. Of course, there are plenty of situations that require boundaries, distance, and healthy confrontation. But our culture-wide turn inward, which prioritizes one’s own sense of self over everything else can escalate conflict quickly.
Next comes an accusation of “toxicity,” which tends to lack specificity or meaning. Missing are three virtues: humility (an awareness that all is not centered on us), resilience (the courage to face challenges rather than avoid them), and forgiveness (the expression of grace for the good of the other).
Without these things, there’s no way forward.
Perhaps the strongest antidote for optimism or for misplaced faith in our fellow man is watching the news. Of course, much of the media we consume is voyeuristic, so in a sort of supply-and-demand scenario, bad news makes headlines more than good news. At the same time, this is more than a problem of clickbait filling our newsfeeds. A series of events in recent years suggests that our cultural center cannot hold much longer.
Not decades but just a few days ago, prominent novelist Salman Rushdie was stabbed, not in some “shady” part of the world, but in public at a lecture in upstate New York. Also, dogs in San Francisco are becoming hooked on meth. Apparently, human excrement is so common in public areas, pets have learned where to go for a quick high from the residue of addicted residents. Radical ideologies continue to dominate headlines, which few outside of ivory towers had heard of until a few years ago. They are now compulsory at some schools. And, those who challenge the new orthodoxy are often ostracized from what is an increasingly impolite society. Healthcare now involves practices that, until yesterday, would’ve rightly been considered abuse, including children having otherwise healthy organs turned inside out.
Clearly, the state of our world is largely rotten. For some Christians, this indicates that the end is nigh. Particularly in the last century or so, many books and sermons have declared that we are living in the last days, so the best we can hope for is to go down fighting this increasingly fallen world.
It’s easy to forget in all these headlines that things have been bad before, in some ways even worse than today. In that time and place, God called His people to keep the faith, commit to the tasks at hand, and steward the time they were given by remaining faithful. Sometimes they won against the forces of darkness and death. Sometimes they lost. Either way, their calling remained the same, and God’s Kingdom marched on.
William Wilberforce was among those followers of Christ who faced down great obstacles. He deserves all of the recognition he receives as an archetype for faithful Christian engagement in the world. Eventually, because of his efforts, he won a long battle over the entrenched power of slavery in the British Empire, what he called one of the great aims that God had set before Him. But none of it happened in a day.
Wilberforce began his fight against human bondage in the late 1780s, but he did not see the fruit of his work for decades. The slave trade wasn’t banned until 1807 across the British Empire and was not fully brought to an end until 1833, just days before he died. How often must he have wondered at his impossible task? How often did he consider giving up?
Closer to our own time and less well known is a story out of Russia. Detailed in a new book by Matthew Heise, The Gates of Hell: An Untold Story of Faith and Perseverance in the Early Soviet Union tells of the trials of Lutheran Christians living under the newly founded Communist tyranny. The book is encouraging and heartbreaking at the same time. The constant determination of these Christians to be faithful to their Lord in the midst of some of the 20th century’s most intense persecution is encouraging. Yet, by all earthly terms, their resistance absolutely failed. They fought to retain their freedom and their faith, but few managed to even retain their lives.
They had no way to know their story’s end—that all were wiped out by atheist totalitarianism. Regardless, they were faithful to the end.
Our task is no different. We don’t know if ours is a Wilberforce moment, when the enduring faithfulness of God’s people standing athwart the tides of history will push this world back to reality. Or if this is a Russian Lutheran moment: We will lose our lives in our quest to be faithful. What we do know is that Christ has called us to this time and this place. As Gandalf said to Frodo, when he wondered why he should have to live in such times, being meant to be here and now “is a very encouraging thought.”
So, whatever comes, great victories or the full evaporation of progress, our task is the same: faithfulness, not success.
In this special episode of Breakpoint This Week, John talks with theologian and professor Carl Trueman about the challenges that affect us in this cultural moment. They discuss how technological advances have placed a “burden of self-creation” on us, influencing transgenderism, transhumanism, and artificial intelligence but also the loss of meaning and cultural institutions like the family.
Christians are often accused of “forcing our faith on others.” But the idea that we shouldn’t do that comes from the Church.
Early Christians were persecuted because they refused to cater their faith to imperial power. Across Rome, people could worship whatever god(s) they wished, as long as their worship did not preclude the empire, the emperor, and the Roman gods.
When Constantine the Great granted toleration with the Edict of Milan in 313, a new level of freedom extended not only to Christians but, with a few restrictions for public order, to others as well. Even when Christianity became the “official” faith of the empire, pagan worship remained legal.
Of course, Christians have not always recognized religious freedom for others, but the fact remains, it came from the Church. This month, for a gift of any amount, join a Breakpoint online course called The Essential Church: Why the World (and Christians) Still Need the Body of Christ, featuring Drs. Timothy Padgett, Glenn Sunshine, and Peter Leithart as well as Collin Hansen. Go to colsoncenter.org/August
In June, a Google employee who claimed the company had created a sentient artificial intelligence bot was placed on administrative leave. Blake Lemoine, part of Google’s Responsible AI (“artificial intelligence”) program, had been interacting with a language AI known as “Language Model for Dialogue Applications,” or LaMDA. When the algorithm began talking about rights and personhood, Lemoine decided his superiors and eventually the public needed to know. To him, it was clear the program had become “sentient,” with the ability to feel, think, and experience life like a human.
Google denied the claim (which is exactly what they would do, isn’t it?). “There was no evidence that LaMDA was sentient (and lots of evidence against it),” said a spokesperson. The Atlantic’s Stephen Marche agreed: “The fact that LaMDA in particular has been the center of attention is, frankly, a little quaint…. Convincing chatbots are far from groundbreaking tech at this point.”
True, but they are the plot of a thousand science fiction novels. So, the question remains, is a truly “sentient” AI even possible? How could code develop the capacity for feelings, experiences, or intentionality? Even if our best algorithms can one day perfectly mirror the behavior of people, would they be conscious?
How one answers such questions depends on one’s anthropology. What are people? Are we merely “computers made of flesh?” Or is there something more to us than the sum of our parts, a true ghost in the machine? A true ghost in the shell?
These kinds of questions about humans and the things that humans make reflect what philosopher David Chalmers has called “the hard problem of consciousness.” In every age, even if strictly material evidence for the soul remains elusive, people have sensed that personhood, willpower, and first-person subjective experiences mean something. Christians are among those who believe that we are more than the “stuff” of our bodies, though Christians, unlike others, would be quick to add, but not less. There is something to us and the world that goes beyond the physical because there is a non-material, eternal God behind it all.
Christians also hold that there are qualitative differences between people and algorithms, between life and non-living things like rocks and stars, between image bearers and other living creatures. Though much about sentience and consciousness remains a mystery, personhood rests on the solid metaphysical ground of a personal and powerful Creator.
Materialists have a much harder problem declaring such distinctions. By denying the existence of anything other than the physical “stuff” of the universe, they don’t merely erase the substance of certain aspects of the human experience such as good, evil, purpose, and free will: There’s no real grounding for thinking of a “person” as unique, different, or valuable.
According to philosopher Thomas Metzinger, for example, in a conversation with Sam Harris, none of us “ever was or had a self.” Take brain surgery, Metzinger says. You peel back the skull and realize that there is only tissue, tissue made of the exact same components as everything else in the universe. Thus, he concludes, the concept of an individual “person” is meaningless, a purely linguistic construct designed to make sense of phenomena that aren’t there.
That kind of straightforward claim, though shocking to most people, is consistent within a purely materialist worldview. What quickly becomes inconsistent are claims of ethical norms or proper authority in a world without “persons.” In a world without a why or an ought, there’s only is, which tends to be the prerogative of the powerful, a fact that Harris and Metzinger candidly acknowledge.
In a materialist world, any computational program could potentially become “sentient” simply by sufficiently mirroring (and even surpassing) human neurology. After all, in this worldview, there’s no qualitative difference between people and robots, only degrees of complexity.This line of thinking, however, quickly collapses into dissonance. Are we really prepared to look at the ones and zeros of our computer programs the same way we look at a newborn baby? Are we prepared to extend human rights and privileges to our machines and programs?
In Marvel’s 2015 film Avengers: Age of Ultron, lightning from Thor’s hammer hits a synthetic body programmed with an AI algorithm. A new hero, Vision, comes to life and helps save the day. It’s one of the more entertaining movie scenes to wrestle with questions of life and consciousness.
Even in the Marvel universe, no one would believe that a mere AI algorithm, even one designed by Tony Stark, could be sentient, no matter how sophisticated it was. In order to get to consciousness, there needed to be a “secret sauce,” in this case lightning from a Nordic hammer or power from an Infinity Stone. In the same way, as stunning as advances in artificial intelligence are, a consciousness that is truly human requires a spark of the Divine.
The cultural crisis of loneliness is more acute than ever, partly due to factors like technology, and COVID-related protocols. And one researcher has identified another factor that should not be overlooked: isolation by choice.
Time spent talking to other people, Dr. Jeffrey A. Hall has argued, has declined steadily for nearly 30 years. What’s behind this trend?
“Self-care regimes focus on cultivation of a mindful, inwardly focused life,” he wrote. “There are increasing efforts to cut out other people in the name of removing toxicity. And all these tendencies are pushed forward by frictionless technologies that remove social obligations to leave home, talk to others and engage in our community.”
In response, Hall suggests that we develop a “social regimen that trains our atrophied muscles, even if there is some short-term discomfort, and even if it means encountering people with disagreeable or uninteresting opinions.” It doesn’t sound complicated, but it won’t be easy in a culture that rewards the opposite. There is simply no substitute for real relationships, with real people.
Though we tend to think that Europe is less “Christian” than the United States, in some ways, that’s not true. Certainly, per capita, church attendance is lower throughout most of Europe than it is here, and religious Americans enjoy certain political freedoms that Europeans do not. However, on at least two major social issues, America has, for a while now, been more extreme than Europe.
In the case of abortion, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs reversed nearly 50 years in which Roe v. Wade kept states from passing meaningful abortion restrictions. States are now free to set their own rules on abortion and many are actually coming into line with the vast majority of European countries restricting abortion to the earliest weeks of pregnancy. America has long been a more progressive (and dangerous) place when it comes to the preborn.
Another issue in which America remains extreme and dangerously out of step with the rest of the Western world is childhood gender “transitions.” This became more apparent last month when Britain’s National Health Service closed its largest and most influential center for childhood gender “treatment.”
Writing recently at Common Sense, Lisa Selin Davis chronicled the last days of the Tavistock clinic, which was shuttered after its “gender-affirming” treatment methods came under serious scrutiny. Thousands of children have been treated at Tavistock which, in the last 10 years, had seen a 4,000% increase in referrals for girls alone. The vast majority of younger patients were prescribed puberty blockers, drugs that are now known to cause brain swelling and vision loss.
During the clinic’s heyday, numerous voices raised the alarm about its gung-ho approach to altering children’s bodies. Mental healthcare employees like Sonia Appleby and Sue Evans, both of whom worked at the clinic, warned that vulnerable minors were being rushed through transition without efforts to properly discern other mental health issues they may have had. Keira Bell, a young woman who received treatment at Tavistock, won a lawsuit in 2020 that temporarily halted referrals for puberty-blockers in children under 16. Bell is just one of a rapidly growing community of “de-transitioners” who were fast-tracked through medical transitions only to regret them later.
For Tavistock, the final straw came when respected physician Dr. Hilary Cass concluded that the clinic’s approach to gender dysphoria in minors had no convincing evidence to back its claims of effectiveness or safety. As she put it, there is “a lack of consensus and open discussion about the nature of gender dysphoria and therefore about the appropriate clinical response.”
Following her recommendation last month, the NHS permanently shut down the clinic. “In effect,” wrote Davis, Britain has rebuked “the common American medical approach” of “gender affirming care…. There will be no more top-down, one-size-fits-all transitioning for kids with gender dysphoria in the UK.”
And then last week, as The Times of London reported, around 1,000 families are expected to join a lawsuit filed against the Tavistock clinic for rushing their children into life-altering puberty blockers.
Other European countries are also pumping the brakes on these sexual experiments on children. Davis pointed to “uber-progressive” countries like Sweden and Finland that have pushed back “firmly and unapologetically” against such interventions. The American approach, on the other hand, is now “at odds with a growing consensus in the West to exercise extreme caution when it comes to transitioning young people.”
In fact, despite absence of evidence for benefits and real evidence of harm, medical establishments in the U.S. and both state and federal government powers are doubling down on so-called “affirming” treatments, calling puberty blockers “safe and reversible.” Groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics not only endorse chemical interventions but actively work to block state bans that would protect kids from them.
All critics of runaway gender ideology, but especially Christians, have an urgent duty to speak up against our nation’s dangerous experiments on children. All who love to look to Europe as a model for progress need to pay close attention to Europe’s reversal on childhood gender interventions. Together, we should consider that progress in this area means taking a big step (or several) back from the edge of the abyss.
The closing of Tavistock and the impending lawsuit are powerful reminders that there is nothing inevitable about the triumph of bad ideas. They can be challenged. They can even be toppled. Protecting their would-be victims is all the motivation needed. A quick glance across the pond should dispel us of our doom and gloom and inspire us to take a stand.
Pleas for tolerance and inclusion are often pretext for intolerance and exclusion. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. This is the Point.
“If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one.” Remember that one? These days it ought to say, “If you don’t like gay marriage, kiss your job goodbye.”
At least that’s what happened to U.K. mayoral candidate Maureen Martin last month. Martin published a campaign leaflet describing her views, including that “natural marriage between a man and a woman” is the “building block for a successful society, and the safest environment for raising children.”
LGBTQ activists swiftly complained that this was “hate speech” and got Martin fired from her day job at a housing association. Notice, she said nothing about gay people or same-sex marriage. All she did was state fundamental truths about the importance of man-woman marriage to society—truths central to her Christian faith and shared by millions.
Still, like Martin, Christians must speak the truths that get us in trouble and show any way we can that God’s idea of family is the best idea.
Far from being an otherworldly religion, Christianity teaches both the importance and goodness of life in this world. In fact, from Jesus’ healing ministry to the work of modern missionary doctors, a consistent feature of the work of the Church in the world has been to care for the sick and needy, and not just point them to the life to come.
The early Church understood Jesus’ ministry to be a paradigm for their own work. So, just as Jesus set believers free from their bondage to sin, early Christians purchased slaves specifically to free them. Whereas Jesus used miraculous power to heal people from physical effects of the Fall, Christians used more ordinary tools to care for the sick and disabled. These activities are not merely good deeds in themselves but serve to advance the Kingdom. Though the Gospel is a message and must be proclaimed, the early Church saw works of mercy and preaching the Gospel as two sides of the same coin.
The first major epidemic faced by the Church was the Antonine Plague (A.D. 166-189). In fear of their lives, the Romans threw the sick out of their homes to die in the streets. Galen, the most prominent physician of the age, knew he could neither heal its victims nor protect himself. So, he fled Rome to stay at his country estate.
Recognizing that all persons were made in the image of God and that Jesus came to make all things new, body and soul, many Christians ran the other direction. They fought the Fall by tending to the sick, at risk (and often at the cost) of their own lives.
Since even basic nursing care can make a significant difference during an epidemic, Christian action saved lives. Their courage and self-sacrifice contributed to the rapid growth of Christianity. For example, when Irenaeus arrived in Lyon from Asia Minor, there were very few Christians. By the time the plague ended, there were 200,000 believers in Lyon.
The Plague of Cyprian, which took place the following century, was named after the bishop of Carthage who documented the epidemic. Dionysius of Alexandria, also a bishop, described what happened this way:
At the first onset of the disease, they pushed the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treating unburied corpses as dirt...
But, he continued...
Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.
From the earliest centuries, Christians embraced the medical theories and practices of the day. Contrary to stereotypes, the early Church did not attribute illness to demons, though they did recognize demonization as a real phenomenon. The real difference between Christians and physicians of the day was the willingness to risk death in order to treat the sick, convinced that if they died it would only mean a transition to a better life. The physicians, on the other hand, fled.
Christians also founded the first hospitals in history. By the late fourth century, there were hospitals in both the eastern and western halves of the empire. By the Central Middle Ages, hospitals and leprosaria (leprosy hospitals) could be found throughout most of the Christian world. When universities began granting medical degrees during the period, church-affiliated institutions continued to provide much of the care.
By the 18th century, the medical field had become increasingly professionalized and separate from the clergy. Though monasteries still provided care for the poor and nursing was almost entirely in the hands of sisters and nuns, professional physicians increasingly handled medical issues for those who could afford to pay. Clergy attended to the dying and contributed to discussions of medical ethics but had few other responsibilities for the sick.
However, medicine was an integral part of the modern mission movement of the 19th century. Because Christianity has always affirmed the importance of the body, hospitals soon followed wherever missionaries went. This is another way the Church has been essential throughout history.
Many Christians and critics today are skeptical that the Church is essential or necessary in the modern world. It is. To learn how and why, please join the new online Breakpoint course The Essential Church: Why the World (and Christians) Still Need the Body of Christ. Hosted by Colson Center theologian-in-residence Dr. Timothy Padgett, the course will feature thought leaders Dr. Peter Leithart, Dr. Glenn Sunshine, and Collin Hansen. Go to colsoncenter.org/August.
A recent article in Fatherly summed up the risk of divorce by married years. Years 1 to 2 are “high risk.” Years 9 to 15 go down to “low.” By years 15 to 20, the risk rises again to “average.”
“Newlyweds and old married couples,” concluded the article, “can never get too comfortable.”
The numbers don’t lie, but the danger of studies like this is portraying divorce as something that just happens because of “falling out of love” or something like that. The truth about marriage is, thankfully, more complicated.
Couples committed enough to fight for their marriage stand a good chance of making it. Eighty percent of couples who participated in Focus on the Family’s Hope Restored Marriage Intensive are still together two years later.
It also matters what we believe about marriage. As of 2019, divorce in America had reached a 50-year low, but that’s because fewer Americans are getting married at all. So, the ones who marry tend to believe there’s something to it.
And there is, which is why when it comes to marriage and the health of our society, none of us should be comfortable.
Canceling a speaker is run-of-the-mill these days. So, when a university “cancels the cancellation,” it’s worth noting.
Dr. Kristin Collier is a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan and director of the school’s Program on Health, Spirituality and Religion. She was a natural choice to give the keynote address at the school’s white coat ceremony for incoming students. The Gold Humanism Honor Society selects speakers “who are exemplars of compassionate patient care and who serve as role models, mentors, and leaders in medicine.”
A group of 300 students protested because of Collier’s pro-life views. “We demand that UM stands in solidarity with us and selects a speaker whose values align with institutional policies, students, and the broader medical community,” they wrote in an anonymous letter.
Rather than bow to the pressure, as so many school officials have done in recent years, medical school dean Marschall Runge defended the choice of Collier and the school’s commitment to freedom of expression. “Our values speak about honoring the critical importance of diversity of personal thought and ideas,” he wrote in a statement. “We would not revoke a speaker because they have different personal ideas than others.”
The handful of students who walked out during Dr. Collier’s address missed something special, an incredible speech that challenged students to rethink what medicine is and is for.
“The risk of this education and the one that I fell into is that you can come out of medical school with a bio-reductionist, mechanistic view of people and ultimately of yourself. You can easily end up seeing your patients as just a bag of blood and bones or human life as just molecules in motion.”
You are not technicians taking care of complex machines, but human beings taking care of other human beings. Let’s resist a view, of our patients and ourselves, that strips us of our humanity, and takes away from the very goal of why we went into this profession in the first place: to take care of human beings entrusted to our care in their moments of greatest need.”
From there, Collier challenged these medical professionals in training to ask big questions about who they are and what they do, and to practice gratitude. It was a brilliant speech overshadowed by a fabricated and unnecessary controversy.
Roughly half of all Americans share Dr. Collier’s views on abortion, which she did not address in her speech. As Dr. Vinay Prasad wrote in the blog Common Sense,“I do not share Dr. Collier’s faith or her views on abortion. But ultimately, the decision of students to walk out of the lecture because they disagree with the speaker on another topic has no limit.”
Collier’s colleague, University of Michigan professor Scott Richard Lyons, wrote for Inside Higher Ed,
If the academy brooks no dissent, how can knowledge advance? If differing opinions are treated as thought crimes, how much longer will thinkers want to work at our universities? If institutions of higher education do not protect free thought and speech, intellectual diversity, dissent… why should they exist at all?
In fact, the University of Michigan’s Faculty Handbook states that “expression of diverse points of view is of the highest importance” and should be protected. Of course, most universities and organizations have similar statements but lack the courage to live by them.
In contrast, Dr. Collier’s courage, grace under pressure, and dedication to professional excellence exemplify what’s required in a culture that forgets that free speech in a free society blesses everyone. Her kindness to those who walked out of their own white coat ceremony exemplifies how we must treat everyone, from those who reject that freedom to those still located inside the womb. In that moment, she lived out her advice to not see people as machines but as human beings. Especially for those entering a profession especially prone to cynicism and burnout, her address is worth watching in its entirety.
Let’s pray there are many among that University of Michigan crowd who follow in Dr. Collier’s footsteps.
The second most important commandment, Jesus said, was to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Why our neighbor?
Decades ago, G.K. Chesterton offered an explanation:
“The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world…. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us.
“We make our friends; we make our enemies, but God makes our next door neighbor. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as the rain…. That is why the old religions and old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one’s duty towards humanity, but of one’s duty towards one’s neighbor.”
Of course, Jesus was the first to expand the word “neighbor” to beyond those with mere physical proximity to us. But by the same token, our literal neighbors matter too.
They may not share our convictions, lifestyle, or worldview, but agreement is not a necessary prerequisite for love. So, our actual neighbor might be a great place to start.
Recently, the Colson Center announced an upcoming Breakpoint course entitled, The Essential Church: Why Christians (and the World) Still Need the Church.
The responses we have received just to the title reveal a lot about where people are in regard to the Church.
“Dear John, ‘What is the Church for?’ It used to be the Body of Christ. And the Bride of Christ. Being conformed into His Image. They were to ‘love one another.’ Despise is closer. ‘What is the Church for?’ Well . . . I have no clue anymore.”
“The nutjobs and con artists have run people away: Get rid of them and maybe people might come back.”
“I had to quit hanging out with other Christians so I could hang out with nice people again.”
“What is the Church for? To psychologically abuse people, particularly children, with indoctrination into its religion of FEAR.”
Some critiques of the Church are nothing more than personal grievances that they’ve elevated into blanket condemnations. Some critics didn’t appreciate learning the truth about their behaviors, beliefs, and lifestyles, which they then chose over Christ. Condemning the Church becomes an act of self-rationalization, not justice.
Others, of course, have more legitimate complaints. Christians have not been there for them at crucial points in their lives and families. And far too often, the Church has imitated the world in its worst depravities, and then, rather than expose sin within its ranks, closed them, protecting the institution or its leaders from being held accountable.
While there are times (like now) that Church scandals seem to add up, a recent joke turned meme on social media notes that, at least historically speaking, this is not really new. “There are two kinds of Paul’s epistles to the early Church,” the meme goes. “One is, ‘I always thank God for you and His unsearchable blessings in Christ.’ The other is, ‘Why can’t you sick weirdos be normal for just a minute?’”
A great hymn of the 19th century tells a similar story. In “The Church’s One Foundation,” Samuel John Stone proclaims Christ to be the security and preserver of His Bride, despite its obvious brokenness. This verse in particular speaks volumes.
Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed,
Yet saints their watch are keeping;
Their cry goes up, “How long?”
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song.
These beautiful words describe the tension of life between Pentecost and the Second Coming, and underscore something hotly debated today, even among Christians. Despite the painful reality of sin’s enduring power in its members, the Church is essential, not only for Christians but for the entire world.
Despite all these critiques—we could add so many more— Christians must see the Church as essential because Christ does. As a former colleague used to say, “the Church is Plan A, and there is no Plan B.” Jesus didn’t call us merely to embrace a set of theological proofs and wait for the end of the world. To be Christian is not just to believe in Him for personal forgiveness and meaning and then to live a moral life.
When Christ saves us, He saves us into a movement, His Body, His redeemed people. Somehow, joining together with other frail saints is part of His plan to restore our hearts and minds, make all things new, and glorify the Father which is in heaven. We stick with the Church not because it is perfect, but because it is His plan.
Because of this and the current confusion about the Church, we invite you to ponder with us what it means that the Church is essential, especially now when it does not always seem as if it is. For a gift of any amount this month, you can join this online course hosted by theologian-in-residence Dr. Timothy Padgett, and it will include thought leaders like Collin Hansen and Dr. Peter Leithart. To give and register for this course, please go to colsoncenter.org/August.
After describing the church’s obvious faults, Stone then, in the very next verse of “The Church’s One Foundation,” proclaims this:
The church shall never perish,
Her dear Lord to defend
To guide, sustain and cherish,
Is with her to the end
Though there be those that hate her,
And false sons in her pale
Against a foe or traitor,
She ever shall prevail.
John and Maria discuss the Tavistock centre (a gender clinic) in north London being forced to close due to multiple lawsuits. They also muse over Serena Williams' recent announcement to quit tennis so that she can focus on her family, particularly examining the way it's culturally framed as being a burden. Concluding by reflecting on a recent commentary, they talk about the ways that "chosen families" can never replace the responsibility and foundational importance of biological families.
A new California bill would require that youth receive so-called “gender affirming care” … even if it means removing them from the custody of their parents to do so. If passed, SB 107 would, according to the California Family Council, “empower California courts to take ‘temporary emergency jurisdiction’ of children if they come to California for trans-drugs, surgery, or mental healthcare.”
This would not only apply to parents and children who areCalifornia residents, but to children who travel to California from anywhere in the country. As one attorney put it, “SB 107 may be the most brazen assault on fundamental parental rights in the history of this state.”
This bill is the culmination of destructive and backwards ideas: that gender affirmation means rejecting the body, that removing healthy organs is the right way to treat gender dysphoria, that “trans kids” are expressing an innate identity instead of a temporary experience, and that parents who question invasive procedures deserve to have their kids taken away from them.
Ideas have consequences. If this bill becomes law, there will be many victims of these bad ideas.
What would it be like to live only—and exclusively—in the present?
Clive Wearing, a former musician for the BBC, is now the most famous amnesia patient in the world. In 1985, Clive suffered a severe fever that gave him both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. That means he can neither form new memories, nor recall most of his previous life. Instead, he lives his life thirty seconds at a time.
Clive’s struggle has been well chronicled in two documentaries, the first produced in 1986 and the second in 2005. Clive retains some knowledge—he can play piano expertly, for example, and remembers that he is married—he doesn’t remember the wedding, his children, or his wife’s name. The dominant experience of Clive’s life, repeated hundreds of times a day, is of waking up from a coma for the very first time, without knowledge of who or where he is.
“You are the first people I’ve spoken to in thirty years,” he repeatedly tells his interviewers.
Clive’s story has inspired multiple publications of medical and psychological research, not to mention haunting existential questions. Who are we without our memories? What is life worth with no knowledge of the past and no ability to form new experiences from the present? Where is the hope for the future in this?
While much has been written about Clive, the most powerful story lies with his wife, Deborah. The two had been married only a year when catastrophe struck. In the midst of her shock and grief, Deborah campaigned relentlessly to get Clive the care he needed. However, after seven years, she reached an impasse. A future with Clive seemed unbearable after years of the same questions, the same confusion, the same anguish.
Deborah decided to leave and start a new life in America. She moved to New York, intent on resuming a career in the arts. She even tried new relationships. However, none of it worked.
“I wanted to be with someone else and have kids and a regular life. Yet how can you love somebody when you already love somebody? I loved Clive,” she wrote later in her book Forever Today.
It was only after she returned to England, torn by what felt like the impossibility of life, that she found a future. It came from an unexpected source.
“I’d reached the end of my tether, and I rang a friend and I asked her to pray for me,” Deborah described years later.
"She was the only Christian I knew, and as she was whispering away to God, I just felt this extraordinary power coming into me. And I knew that God was in my room. I just had this incredible sense that I was really, really loved … and that emptiness that I had been trying to fill all those years with relationships, with food, with alcohol, I was filled. "
That moment changed everything for Deborah. She discovered peace. Though God did not erase her suffering or Clive’s, suddenly their lives were imbued with purpose.
In a scene from the 2005 documentary, standing in a London church, Deborah tells Clive about one of the last concerts he performed before the illness stole his memory: “It was so moving that everyone was in tears. That’s how good of a musical director you were.”
At this, Clive is filled with emotion. Though he cannot remember the scene, or even the name of the woman describing it to him, he sensed her compassion. “I’m amazed that you would say that,” he said. “I can’t think that.”
“You were marvelous. You still are marvelous,” she replied and kissed him on the cheek.
Where, in the entire modern arsenal of materialist evolution, self-help, and expressive individualism is love like that to be found? Much less explained. Each of these dominant theories that claim to explain so much only turns the search for love and purpose inward. In the end, as Augustine described, these eternal values become incurvatus in se, destructively turned in on themselves—no help in the face of serious struggle.
True love, like what Deborah offers Clive, dignifies the other. It’s turned outward. Though he doesn’t recall her visits, when asked what he wants to do after Deborah leaves, Clive answers: “A gin and tonic I think, and a cigarette. Waiting for time to elude and disappear. And her arrival.”
According to new research, the link between depression and “chemical imbalances” in the brain could be less settled than previously thought.
A leading theory as psychiatrists Mark Horowitz and Joanna Moncrieff write, “Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence.”
Related studies show, for example, that when people believe their depression is the result of mere brain chemistry, their self-confidence and ability to change plummet. Ironically, they also tend to feel more stigma, not less.
Christians, of course, have nothing to fear from the insights of science. Findings like these matter. It confirms what a Christian worldview confirms: People are not merely their brains, nor are they at mercy of chemical forces. Thinking that everything about us is located in the brain is the inevitable conclusion of materialism, and an idea that has real consequences.
Our brains are a big part of what we are, but they aren’t all of who we are. A worldview limited only to material components is too small for reality. That’s a conclusion that the science is beginning to support.
Particularly “in the L.G.B.T.Q. community, it’s not uncommon to find a substitute family, colloquially known as a chosen family,” Dani Blum recently wrote in an article in The New York Times. According to Blum, a “chosen family” refers to the “intense, intimate relationships … people form apart from their biological relatives; it is the kinship you create outside of a traditional family structure.”
Chosen families are not a new phenomenon, nor are they exclusive to LGBTQ people. But in an age quick to write essential relationships off as “toxic,” they are increasingly common and consequential.
Relationships were designed by God to be a gift of His common grace. Certain relationships, like the intimacy between a husband and wife or the bond between parents and children are distinct in purpose and unique in function, irreplaceable in their roles as building blocks of society. Friendship, from our deepest commitments to common neighborliness, is to be treasured. All of these relational arrangements are increasingly rare and disordered in a techno-driven culture, captive to utilitarian concern.
And it is important to remember that Jesus taught of a tie that binds the redeemed beyond blood relation, secured by His blood. He asked in Matthew’s Gospel: “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then, pointing to his disciples, he answered: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
The Church then is a family in an even deeper sense of the word. It is the family that is chosen by God. It has the capacity to fill needs keenly felt by those whose home life has been broken, characterized by absence, abuse, or hostility. In fact, family is the only relationship employed in Scripture as an analogy for the Church, both in the sense of Christ’s relationship with us and our relationships with one another.
The troubling thing about so-called “chosen families,” at least in our modern context, is what they are intended to replace. Rather than simply “expanding” the scope of family or letting friends step into a gap, we employ these relationships to shove away and replace our biological families.
The harms of this are most evident to children, as decades of studies have shown with stunning clarity. Biological fathers and mothers each contribute things irreplaceable by any other relationship. Even in the case of adoption, the most redemptive of all arrangements, deep emotional wounds often remain that children must process. Adoption is a beautiful choice, made because something has gone wrong. Thus, adoption is among the family relationships employed by Scripture to describe how God loves and redeems us.
In its glee over creating “family” out of any assorted collection of people, society has forgotten that the biological family is baked into the world by God’s intent. Family is no accident of history, no social construct that can be replaced. It is so woven into the fabric of biology that no society that has rejected it has survived.
In fact, “chosen families” are already failing to meet people’s basic relational needs. As Joshua Coleman wrote in The Atlantic, “Studies on parental estrangement have grown rapidly in the past decade, perhaps reflecting the increasing number of families who are affected.” In one survey of mothers aged 65 to 75, one in 10 reported being estranged from an adult child. Some 62% reported contact less than once a month.
Part of the beauty of biological families is that they are not chosen. In essence, they are built around obligation, a duty to the other, not merely as a means of self-fulfillment. By contrast, if we can opt into a group of friends, we can just as easily opt out.
There are certainly cases in which family members are abusive, controlling, or in the true sense of an exhausted word, “toxic.” Still, the spirit of the age is one that teaches us to prefer the company of those who ask less of us. Will these “chosen” replacements endure the demands of life, illness, and aging?
In such an age, the Church’s calling to be a family for those who have none matters all the more. Like the family, the Church is no social construct, but a reality baked into the world by the One who created it. He is the same One who included man and woman, husband and wife, mother and father in the design specs of humanity. Any society that tries to write these relational realities out of the story of the world will not fare well.
In the face of record crime, Starbucks has announced the closure of 16 stores in five cities: Seattle, Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.
The reason, according to CEO Howard Schultz, is these cities have “abdicated their responsibility in fighting crime and addressing mental health,” leading retail partners to repeated concerns over “their own personal safety.”
“Starbucks is a window into America,” he continued. “And we are facing things which the stores were not built for.” Given Starbucks’ outspoken support for progressive candidates who lead these cities, it’s easy to think the coffee giant should sleep in the bed it helped to make. As the National Review reports, Starbucks “pledged over $100 million in social-justice grants” over the last few years, and individual stores are hubs for left-wing causes from trans rights to climate change.
Basic law enforcement is about the reality of the human condition. When Proverbs says that “whoever sows injustice will reap calamity,” it goes for individuals and entire cities.
Social justice is trendy, but at the end of the day, pushing hip causes is only possible where there’s actual justice.
This year, the familiar back-to-school windup includes a growing sense of trepidation for many parents. A host of faddish ideologies, and the ham-fisted ways of imposing them, adds to their worries (or at least should). Revised historicism, sex and gender ideologies, even the seemingly harmless Social and Emotional Learning are all expressions of Critical Theory in some form or fashion.
Of course, many ideas out of accord with Christian teaching have been taught by schools, but these reject core realities of what it means to be human. Critical Theory in any form, whether established academic theory or mere cultural mood, categorizes people as members of particular groups and either awards or reduces social and moral merit based on those groups. This is something Christians must never do. As philosopher Douglas Groothuis writes in his analysis of the influence of Critical Theory in the U.S., “One’s fundamental identity is being made in the Divine Image; it is not found in race or gender or social class.” Many parents have begun to see that whenever that primary identity is dismissed, all manner of confusion sets in.
Even so, this sort of thinking plays an outsized role in the rules and guidelines of our kids’ schools. Recently, a colleague of mine, while enrolling her daughters at a new school, was assured by the principal that the curriculum and policies were “ideologically neutral” with respect to transgenderism. Wisely, my colleague pressed further, and asked a clarifying question. “What would happen if one of my daughter’s classmates identified as trans? Would she be compelled to use their preferred pronoun?”
The principal replied, “We’d want to make sure we respect the viewpoints of everybody, and so, yes, we’d ask your daughter to use the correct pronouns.”
“What if she didn’t?” my colleague clarified.
“In that case,” the principal conceded, “it would probably be grounds for a disciplinary conversation.” In other words, gender ideology wasn’t taught, it was enforced, and in such a way as to assume that the matter was already settled.
That’s only one of a half dozen or more stories I have heard so far this year. Parents must research schools, both policies and personnel. Unfortunately, some administrators simply don’t have a grasp of how they will handle these issues. Even more find their hands tied by laws like Colorado’s Gender Identity Expression Anti-Discrimination Act. By asking specific, sometimes uncomfortable questions, parents not only protect their own kids, they provide an opportunity for transparency, maybe even change. That protects everybody’s kids from bad ideas that threaten to overtake every element of their lives.
A tremendous tool for parents is the Promise to America’s Parents, a project of the Alliance Defending Freedom, in partnership with other organizations such as the Family Policy Alliance and the Heritage Foundation. In addition to legal assistance for those facing discrimination based on their religious convictions, this project gives a roadmap and a toolkit for parents when it comes to education and healthcare.
For example, did you know that “parents can regularly and proactively request in writing to… review the entirety of their child’s education records, including any files involving counseling on gender identity issues”? Also, according to a guide on transgender ideology in schools from the Minnesota Family Council, parents have the right to request the policies for locker and restrooms to know if students identifying as transgender are allowed to use the opposite sex’s changing rooms and toilet stalls. In addition, parents can review curriculum before it is delivered by teachers to their students.
Explicit rights afforded to parents differ state by state. For example, only 25 states and D.C. require schools to inform parents whenever sexuality is being taught. And, 36 states and D.C. openly allow opt-out options for sexual education. ADF has a sample opt-out letter for parents and other letters to request notification for any issue or ideology with which they are concerned.
And, of course, all of these concerns point back to a key premise too often forgotten. Parents are in charge of educating and protecting their children, not the state. More than ever, it is vital that parents take this right seriously. The Promise to America’s Parents is one way to do that. In fact, on Friday August 19, I will join ADF, the Heritage Foundation, and others for a Celebration of the Promise to America’s Parents. It will be livestreamed and absolutely free. Just visit adflegal.org/celebratethepromise to register.
Truth doesn’t become falsehood because it’s unpopular. The hard thing to do is also the loving thing to do, and both kids and educators need to know the difference.
According to the BBC, the U.K.’s “only dedicated gender identity clinic” for youth has been ordered to shut down. The reason is not a lack of demand. In fact, referrals for “treatment” are 20 times higher than 10 years ago.
Rather, the clinic has received wide criticism from an independent report of their practices. Former patient Kiera Bell, now 25, was prescribed puberty blockers at age 16. She underwent a double mastectomy at age 20. She has now changed her mind about the procedures and says that doctors “should have challenged” her thinking, especially at such a young age.
A former consultant psychiatrist to the center agrees: “Some children have got the double problem of living with the wrong treatment, and the original problems weren’t addressed—with complex problems like trauma, depression, large instances of autism.”
While countries like the U.K. are questioning these wrongly named “gender affirmation” treatments, clinics, academics, and the executive branch of the government in the U.S. have only doubled down. We should stop now. The rising tide of those who are expressing regret is quickly becoming an ocean.
Throughout Church history, church attendance and overall religiosity have been higher among women than among men. That seems to be changing, especially for younger generations. According to new data, the long-existent church gender gap, which shows up in both religious affiliation and church attendance, has now flipped.
However, the headline is not that more men are connecting with the Church. The story is that more women are disconnecting from the Church.
A number of factors have contributed to this demographic shift, not least of which are recent scandals of sexual impropriety and abusive leadership among prominent pastors and Christian leaders. Also, education and ethnicity seem to play a significant role in the religious identification of millennial women. “Among white respondents,” a recent Christianity Today article summarized, “women are 9 percentage points more likely to say that they have no religious affiliation compared to white men,” but “there’s no real difference in the share of male and female nones among Black, Asian, and other racial groups.”
Another factor, Dr. Abigail Favale argues in a new book The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory, is the rising influence of feminist thought, what she calls “the gender paradigm” in evangelical circles. Or as a colleague recently put it, describing the deconstruction process of a few of her friends, “It’s all about ‘resisting the patriarchy.” That kind of language points to the paradigm which Dr. Favale once herself subscribed. She now believes it to be incompatible with a Christian understanding of male and female, sex, and gender.
Even so, the feminist paradigm has quite successfully framed Christianity and the Church as misogynist, patriarchal, and harmful for women. The same paradigm idealistically reframes pagan religions and cultures as being pro-woman, at least until Christianity gained prominence. This narrative, however, doesn’t match the historical realities.
First, in contrast to ancient paganism, monotheism provided women with more freedom than polytheistic religions with goddesses did. In cultures dominated by the latter, women were limited to roles performed by the goddesses, and not always all of them. In fact, the “role” designated for many women by pagan religion was temple prostitute, a tool of men’s worship.
In ancient Rome, women were permitted to engage in business, but their primary role was in the household. Men had public roles, but women engaged in domestic work were subservient to their father or husband. As in other historical periods, elite women had more options. However, the vast majority of women were seen as not much better than slaves.
Twelve was the legal age for girls to marry in Rome. If not married by 20, women were generally marginalized. Though divorce was available to both men and women, husbands caused most divorces since women rarely had other financial means. Ex-wives and widows were often left destitute.
In contrast, Christianity saw women as the spiritual and moral equal of men. Women and men shared the same created dignity, the same problem (sin), and the same solution, Jesus. As result, women in the Christian community had a higher status and more freedom than women in the broader Roman world.
The Christian rejection of divorce and sexual double standards, and its insistence on strict monogamy reflected this. Further, women were given more choice about whom and whether to marry and tended to marry later than their Roman counterparts. While widows were encouraged to remarry, the Church provided aid for those who did not or could not.
The Church also rejected abortion and infanticide as murder, meaning that women were not subjected to dangerous surgical procedures, and girls were not “discarded.” Thus, there were proportionately more women in the Christian community than in Roman society as a whole.
Because of Christian attitudes and behavior toward women, more women converted to Christianity than men, and many men who converted did so under the influence of their wives. Eventually, Christianity transformed the status of women in the Roman world. Unfortunately, as Greek ideas were adopted within the Church, elements of pagan misogyny were as well. For example, some Church fathers placed blame for the Fall entirely on Eve and ignored the Apostle Paul’s putting the blame on Adam.
Nonetheless, Christianity did more to improve the status of women than any other historical force. Even today, as the Gospel spreads around the Global South, the status and freedoms enjoyed by women are being raised. The treatment of women is just one example of how the Church has been an essential force for good in the world.
There are others, even in an age that often labels the Church “non-essential.” Don’t buy it. This month, for a gift of any amount, the Colson Center’s theologian-in-residence, Dr. Timothy Padgett is hosting a course entitled “The Essential Church.” Be equipped theologically, biblically, socially, and culturally in the critical role of the Church, both in the past and today. Go to colsoncenter.org/August to sign up.
Recently, two separate crisis pregnancy centers in Worcester, Massachusetts, were vandalized on the same night. Next to broken glass and spilled paint were the words “Jane’s Revenge,” the name of a group behind a number of similar attacks in recent months.
Earlier that same week, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey warned the public of a group using “deceptive and coercive tactics,” but she wasn’t referring to the pro-abortion extremists threatening violence. She was warning of the crisis pregnancy centers themselves. Though her office has since condemned the violence, the bulk of its attention is still in all the wrong places: not the vandals, but the clinics offering help to women in crisis.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote that “violence cannot conceal itself behind anything except lies, and lies have nothing to maintain them save violence.”
In this case, the attorney general’s lie about pregnancy resource centers covers up the violence of abortion… and those using violence are allowing the attorney general to maintain the lie.
Let’s pray that, by some miracle, Attorney General Healey focuses her office’s attention where it needs to be.
Back in May, 20 Nigerian Christians were brutally martyred by the Islamic militant group ISIS. In June, 40 more Christians died in Owo, Nigeria, in a terrorist attack against a church. Though it is not clear who is responsible for that attack, what is clear is that Christians continue to be severely persecuted in this West African nation. The persecution, which has been ongoing for years, is part of a long history of conflict with Islam.
In 1953, Christians made up only 21.4% of the population in Nigeria. Today, about half of the country’s population, about 96 million people, are Christians. To put that number in perspective, Germany, the largest country in Europe, has a total population of less than 84 million. Much of the Christian growth in Nigeria has resulted from education efforts by Western missionaries, though the country has long had a Christian presence.
Nigeria’s Christians live primarily in the southern, farming part of the country. They are mostly under attack by Islamists and the Muslim Fulani, who live mostly in the northern herding areas. They also face the threat of Boko Haram, a ruthless Islamist terrorist organization whose name literally means Western learning (boko) is prohibited (haram).
Boko Haram was founded in 2002 to overthrow Nigeria’s government and impose strict sharia on the country. The group was relatively quiet until 2009, after which conflicts with police escalated. By December 2010, Boko Haram began a campaign of suicide bombings and attacks on churches and government buildings. In 2014, they began to attack schools. In one attack, 59 school boys were burned alive or shot. In another, 276 school girls were kidnapped. In both cases, the victims were Christians. Boko Haram has also conducted massacres in mosques that do not support their radical ideology.
Also in 2014, Boko Haram pledged loyalty to ISIL. That loyalty ended in 2016, when ISIL ordered Boko Haram to stop attacking Muslims. Currently, there are three Islamist terrorist groups that originated with Boko Haram: Boko Haram proper, the Islamic State West African Province, and Ansaru, an al-Qaeda affiliate. All are engaged in terrorism, not only in Nigeria but also in surrounding countries, with much of it aimed at Christians.
As dangerous as these explicitly Islamist groups are, the Fulani herdsmen are worse. Because the Fulani territory in north Nigeria is suffering from a long-term drought, the Fulani are moving south to access water. In the process, the herdsmen have been raiding and burning villages, slaughtering villagers, destroying crops, and engaging in a host of other atrocities in order to take the land for themselves and drive out Christians.
President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulani. Though he has attempted to address some of the economic issues that drive Fulani militancy, he has denied that religion plays any role in the conflict. He points out, for example, that Muslim villages have also been raided. Still, the vast majority of attacks have come against Christians, and the Fulani’s history of Islamic militancy dates back to the late 17th century.
Though contemporary Fulani militancy reveals a struggle between nomadic herders and farmers going on for millennia, denying the religious dimensions of these attacks is pure propaganda. Christian villages are deliberately targeted, Christian houses and churches are burned, and Christians driven off or slaughtered.
Although up-to-date numbers are hard to come by, between the Fulani and Boko Haram and its offshoots an average of 13 Christians per day were killed in Nigeria last year. That’s 372 per month or over 4,450 alone. In the last 12 years, 43,000 Christians have been killed by Islamic radicals in Nigeria. And these numbers do not include those injured, beaten, or driven from their homes.
What has happened to Nigerian Christians meets the established international standards for genocide.
Christians must not forget the spiritual aspects at the root of this conflict. God is moving and the Church is expanding across Africa. In 1900, there were just 9.64 million Christians on the continent; today there are over 692 million. It is not surprising to see Satan counterattacking by inspiring persecution.
For our Nigerian brothers and sisters, we can fight on two fronts. First, we must continue to lobby our government on behalf of suffering Christians, asking our officials to put pressure on Nigeria to take more decisive action against Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen. Second, we must lobby Heaven, for both our persecuted brothers and sisters and their persecutors, praying that God’s kingdom would advance and win even the jihadis to Jesus.
John and Shane, standing in for Maria, examine the Biden’s administration executive order that Medicaid patients can travel across state lines for abortion. They also explain how the killing of an Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan reminds us of not just the danger of extremist Islam in other nations such as Nigeria but also the threat of secularist states toward religious freedom. Musing on two recent commentaries, they discuss the cracks in Neo-Darwinism and the Gnostic basis of the topic of cannibalism in popular media.
Recently, police in Hampshire, England, arrested a man for an unusual crime. Not vandalism, theft, or murder but, according to the arresting officer because “someone has been caused anxiety based on your social media post.”
Setting aside the dubious and dangerous logic of involving the state in social media spats, appealing to emotion as a matter of justice is astonishing. So, I no longer have to prove wrong has been done, only that I feel a wrong has been done?
All that’s left once a culture has rejected the idea of right and wrong is to grope for some moral foundation in nebulous ideas like “anxiety” and “offense.” Everyone’s inner voice becomes an unassailable authority, and the loudest outer voice must win.
Common sense tells us that this is a disaster in the making, but without the common sense that there is common truth, there won’t be common justice.
As America adjusts to the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade, including by enacting more laws in some states to protect unborn children, a higher number of women will likely bring their babies safely to birth. This is good news, including for those in unexpected and crisis pregnancies. Not only will more at-risk babies be saved, more women will be spared the violence and false promises of abortion.
This will also mean that the efforts of pregnancy centers, adoption services, foster agencies, and other providers who generally care for struggling families must continue. In fact, by the grace of God, their work must increase. I have nothing but confidence that the Church is up to this task.
And yet, as a pro-life leader recently put it, these could be the hardest days for the pro-life movement to date. The oft-repeated charge that Christians must “redouble our efforts” to care for women in crisis pregnancies in the wake of the Dobbs decision presumes that women who feel unprepared, ill-equipped, scared, and abandoned to deal with crisis pregnancies on their own is a given part of life in America in 2022. That should not be a given. It should be unacceptable to us. In other words, the emergency before us isn’t only that women are facing crisis pregnancies, and often facing them alone, but our culture’s warped views of sex, marriage, children, and commitment. These bad ideas have set the stage for a world brimming with crisis pregnancies in the first place.
This is another subtle way legalized abortion has poisoned our cultural imagination. As Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis demonstrate in their profound new book, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing, legalizing abortion—which then normalized and destigmatized abortion culturally—rewired American thought so deeply that we don’t even realize anymore when we’re accepting demands that we could—and should—refuse.
Our work is not just to make abortion unthinkable. It is to make abandoning pregnant women unthinkable, to make derelict dads unthinkable, to make the fable of “sex without commitment” unthinkable. It is to re-catechize the world, and ourselves, about the true, un-severable relationship between sex, marriage, and babies.
Legalized abortion has blinded us to that core truth. In her book Rethinking Sex, Washington Post columnist Christine Emba describes how legalized abortion and even normalized contraception were sold to women as indispensable tools of their liberation. In fact, they made possible the widespread cultural acceptance of a lie: that sex and babies have nothing to do with one another.
“As contraception has become more mainstream and the risks of sex more diffuse,” Emba writes, “saying no can feel like less of an option for women: after all, what’s your excuse?” In other words, once abortion was legally on the table, it gave us leave to deconstruct sex to nothing more than a play for individual pleasure. That fundamental lie changed our worldview and thus our behavior.
However, rather than “liberate” women, it put more pressure on women to have sex without commitment and less pressure on men to commit. It allowed us to view and treat any children who result from our sexual activity as unexpected and unwanted consequences, rather than human beings with rightful claims on our protection and commitments.
To be clear, none of this was ever true. We never actually separated sex from babies. We never changed the fact that kids and mothers need committed dads and husbands in order to thrive. Lies never have the power to change God’s design. They only teach us to pretend we can change reality. Crisis pregnancies and chronic absentee fatherhood are the fruit of these fictions, and women and children pay the price for these cultural fantasies.
This is the house abortion built. It led us to see children as things—even burdens—instead of as image bearers. It put pressure on us that we were never meant to bear by pretending family building is fully in our own hands, not God’s. Legalized abortion normalized promiscuity, promoted fatherlessness, and secured a view of children so bereft of humanity that we won’t even call them children anymore. We employ euphemisms like “fetus” or “tissue,” but euphemisms don’t change reality, or the hard consequences of ignoring it.
Yes, Christians must continue and even re-double our “pro-life” efforts inside crisis pregnancy centers. And we must continue and re-triple our pro-life efforts outside as well, advocating for healthy sexuality, biblical marriage, and a Christian vision of moms, dads, and children. This is how we finally suck the venom of legalized abortion out of our cultural imagination.
Last week, more than 80 organizations—including the Colson Center, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Focus on the Family—sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The purpose was “to denounce . . . the so-called ‘Respect for Marriage Act, ‘in the strongest possible terms.”
The letter outlined three problems with this legislation.
First, the act would require recognition of any state definition of marriage, making possible options such as polygamous or open marriages. This would sacrifice the well-being of children for adult happiness.
Second, the act sets up religious organizations and businesses to be sued for upholding that marriage is between a man and a woman. So, religious foster agencies, social service organizations, and other organizations and businesses contracted with the government could expect to be targeted.
Third, this legislation could threaten the tax-exempt status of non-profits that believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.
The so-called “Respect for Marriage Act” would establish and expand the wrongly decided Obergefell ruling. If you care about religious liberty and children, please contact your senator today.
Resources:
Call Your Senators About the Respect for Marriage Act>>
Possible Script to Say to Senator’s Office About Marriage Act>>
Letter From Coalition to Senate Minority Leader>>
One of the iron laws of popcorn cinema, especially to score the coveted (but ever-more elusive) summer blockbuster status is that there must be sufficient shock value. And one of the iron laws of shock value is that it must always increase. Each new film must outdo the last one.
Take the Jurassic Park series. In the first movie back in 1993, a mere five people were eaten by dinosaurs, all of whom were confined to a tiny island. Fast-forward a few inferior sequels, and a score or more people are gobbled by a host of mutant CGI dinos prowling the entire planet along with giant killer grasshoppers. The lesson is clear: Audiences had already been shocked by dinosaurs coming back to life, and they wanted more. The old thrill would no longer do.
The more this iron law holds across pop culture, the more desensitized we become. Enter another rising entertainment genre more gruesome than dinosaurs eating people. People eating people.
Writing recently in The New York Times, Alex Beggs documented a growing fascination with cannibalism. In the article, Beggs offered a long list of movies, TV shows, and novels in which characters eating one another is a central plot device. The novel A Certain Hunger is “about a restaurant critic with a taste for (male) human flesh.” The Showtime series Yellowjackets is “about a high school women’s soccer team stranded in the woods for a few months too many.” A new show on Hulu called Fresh is about “an underground human meat trade.” Raw is a film about “a vegetarian veterinary student whose taste for meat escalates,” and Bones and All is a movie about “a young love that becomes a lust for human consumption.”
“Turns out,” wrote Beggs, “cannibalism has a time and a place,” and “that time is now.”
What on earth is fueling a sudden fixation with perhaps the oldest and most unsettling of taboos? The writer of one show told the Times: “I feel like the unthinkable has become the thinkable, and cannibalism is very much squarely in the category of the unthinkable.” Another seemed to find the concept potentially appetizing, asking, “what portion of our revulsion to these things is a fear of the ecstasy of them?”
When I first saw the headline for this New York Times story appear in my newsfeed, I thought it was a prank. Apparently, all of these books, movies, and TV shows about cannibalism point to a very real partially popular trend. Why?
Perhaps, in a culture that has made virtues of deconstructing all moral boundaries and celebrating all desires, it is increasingly difficult to shock anyone. Shock value, after all, depends on some sense of what is right and wrong, and even more, what is normal. With sexual and gender identities multiplying daily and more and more people treating the human body as moldable clay without any underlying design or purpose, is it any wonder some are reimagining it as food?
And why shouldn’t they, if human beings are only, as Christian author Glen Scrivener puts it, “mischievous apes?” Chimpanzees routinely kill and eat one another. If we are only advanced animals, it’s difficult to imagine why we humans should have a strong aversion to dining on each other, too. If our bodies are in no way sacred or made for a higher purpose, then not just every sexual appetite, but every appetite must be permissible.
To be clear, I am not suggesting that we are on the cusp of a cannibal rights movement. I certainly hope we are not. The social aversion is extremely strong, as it should be, and has only been broken in a few times and places throughout history. Still, the current flirtations with people-eating in entertainment is a tell-tale sign of a culture that is losing all good aversions.
Like those sub-par Jurassic Park sequels resorting to ever hungrier and bigger dinosaurs, our movies and stories reveal a lost creativity, leaving a culture that must constantly push boundaries. In particular, our gnostic age tends to push the boundaries of how characters think of and use their bodies, and the bodies of others. When it comes to sex, titles like Fifty Shades of Grey and Cuties have already put sadomasochism and the sexual exploitation of children on the menu. In such a culture, a side dish of cannibalism isn’t surprising.
Those who find a worldview in which bodies have no purpose or boundaries a bit nauseating should wonder why. Christians can tell them, and offer the alternative: a worldview in which bodies are sacred, not only because they are part of what it means to be created in God’s image, but because God, Himself assumed a body and gave it for us. Interestingly, Christianity’s early critics alleged that the Lord’s Supper was a form of cannibalism. In fact, it was and is the ultimate reason that the human body is worthy of respect and honor, in the bedroom, at the movies, and even at the table.
Philosopher Blaise Pascal was best known for his so-called “wager” that believing in God is the smartest decision, even if you’re not sure God exists. What many don’t know is that Pascal was a pioneer in the psychology of persuasion.
Heated disagreements are common in social media, writes Olivia Goldhill at Quartz. But Pascal suggested centuries ago that if you want to convince someone of your position, you don’t begin by telling them they’re wrong. You understand where they’re coming from, admit ways they’re right, but suggest they maybe haven’t seen the whole picture.
“No one is offended at not seeing everything,’ wrote Pascal. “But [they don’t] like to be mistaken.”
Another tip? Lead people to the answer, but let them discover it on their own. “People are generally better persuaded by reasons they have themselves discovered than by those from the minds of others.”
These are great tips, especially for Christians, who are entrusted with the most important truths there are, and who are to speak those truths in love.
In 1973, evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.” Almost 50 years later, an increasing number of scientists are asking whether evolution makes any sense in light of what we now know from biology.
A recent long-form essay in The Guardian signals just how urgent the problem has become for the most dominant theory in the history of the sciences. In it, author Stephen Buranyi, gives voice to a growing number of scientists who think it’s time for a “new theory of evolution.”
For a long time, descent with slight modifications and natural selection have been “the basic” (and I’d add, unchallengeable) “story of evolution.” Organisms change, and those that survive pass on traits. Though massaged a bit to incorporate the discovery of DNA, the theory of evolution by natural selection has dominated for 150 years, especially in biology. The “drive to survive” is credited as the creative force behind all the artistry and engineering we see in nature.
“The problem,” writes Buranyi, is that “according to a growing number of scientists,” this basic story is “absurdly crude and misleading.” For one thing, Darwinian evolution assumes much of what it needs to explain. For instance, consider the origin of light-sensitive cells that rearranged to become the first eye, or the blood vessels that became the first placenta. How did these things originate? According to one University of Indiana biologist, “we still do not have a good answer. The classic idea of gradual change, one happy accident at a time,” he says, “has so far fallen flat.”
This scientific doubt about Darwin has been simmering for a while. In 2014, an article in the journal Nature, jointly authored by eight scientists from diverse fields, argued that evolutionary theory was in need of a serious rethink. They called their proposed rethink the “Extended Evolutionary Synthesis,” and a year later, the Royal Society in London held a conference to discuss it.
Along with Darwinian blind spots like the origin of the eye, the Extended Synthesis seeks to deal with the discovery of epigenetics, an emerging field that studies the inherited traits not mediated by DNA. Then there are the rapid mutations that evade natural selection, a fossil record that appears to move in “short concentrated bursts” (or “explosions”), and something called “plasticity,” which is the ability we now know living things have to adapt physically to their environments in a single generation without genetically evolving.
All of these discoveries—some recent, others long ignored by mainstream biology—challenge natural selection as the “grand theory” of life. All of them hint that living things are greater marvels and mysteries than we ever imagined. And, unsurprisingly, all of these discoveries have been controversial.
The Guardian article described how Royal Society scientists and Nobel laureates alike boycotted the conference, attacking the extended synthesis as “irritating” and “disgraceful,” and its proponents as “revolutionaries.” As Gerd Müller, head of the department of theoretical biology at the University of Vienna helpfully explained, “Parts of the modern synthesis are deeply ingrained in the whole scientific community, in funding networks, positions, professorships. It’s a whole industry.”
Such resistance isn’t too surprising for anyone who’s been paying attention. Any challenges to the established theory of life’s origins, whether from Bible-believing scientists or intelligent design theorists, have long been dismissed as religion in a lab coat.
The habit of fixing upon a dogma and calling it “settled science” is just bad science that stunts our understanding of the world. It is a kind of idolatry that places “science” in the seat of God, appoints certain scientists as priests capable of giving answers no fallible human can offer, and feigns certainty where real questions remain. The great irony is that this image of scientist-as-infallible-priest makes them seem like the caricature of medieval monks charging their hero Galileo with heresy for his dissent from the consensus.
As challenges to Darwin mount, we should be able to articulate why “settled science” makes such a poor god. And we should encourage the science and the scientists challenging this old theory-turned-dogma, and holding it to its own standards. After all, if Darwinian evolution is as unfit as it now seems, it shouldn’t survive.
In a recent article at The Gospel Coalition, writer Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra tells the story of a Christian family with a teen who once identified as transgender.
“I started to associate womanhood with being sexualized,” says Grace, now age 16. Peers, teachers, counselors, and—above all—social media circles guided Grace towards a strong case of rapid onset gender dysphoria. She stopped wearing feminine clothing and asked her parents to refer to her as “they/them.”
This is the moment that many parents fear. These parents prayed hard, stayed true, and remembered the long game. “They built their relationships with her,” writes Zylstra. “They drew boundaries around how she could express herself. They took her to counseling and to church.” Eventually, Grace began to feel comfortable as a girl again.
In a culture where nearly 1 in 5 of Gen Z calls themselves “LGBT,” the story of Grace and her family is worth reading. At a time when so many are tempted to despair, it does not offer a quick fix. But it does offer truth, love, and hope.
In early March 2021, the U.S. Senate’s Caucus on International Narcotics Control released a report on the increasing potency of marijuana products available on the market. At the time, America was just a year into the pandemic and related lockdowns, so marijuana policy was not front and center on everyone’s mind. It should have been. In fact, the findings contained in the report can be described as shocking. A more creative, but just as accurate, title for this 58-page report would be “This Isn’t Your Grandpa’s Weed.”
Included in the findings, the THC levels in marijuana products are soaring. THC is the psychoactive chemical that gives pot users a high, and reportedly provides relief from pain and nausea. In recent years, high-potency products have become more common. In 1990, the average concentration of THC in a marijuana plant was 4%. By 2012, it had tripled to 12%. Today, some products on the market have THC levels as high as 90%.
These increasing levels come even though a 2020 NIH study found that pain relief benefits of marijuana require THC levels no higher than 5% and that marijuana with higher THC levels might even be less effective in fighting pain. Setting aside the consistent political reality that legalizing medical marijuana is always intended to lead to the legalizing of recreational marijuana—even if legitimate pain patients need medical marijuana, they do not need THC levels of 90%.
And yet, marijuana policies are clearly headed in a direction that does not align with what we now know. Most U.S. states allow marijuana use in some capacity. The only two states in the country with a cap on THC levels and high-potency products are Vermont and California, where the cap is 60%. Right now, Ohio’s legislature is considering a bill to cap THC levels at 90%. At that level, what is the point?
While the political posturing continues, a dystopian reality born of the marijuana revolution is unfolding outside statehouses. Doctors and emergency rooms across the country have sounded the alarm on the spike in psychosis, suicidal ideation, actual suicide, schizophrenia, and addiction-like behavior they have seen among young people using high-potency marijuana.
In June, The New York Times reported the story of a teenage girl who could not stop fainting and throwing up after becoming functionally addicted to vaping high-potency pot. A doctor at the Adolescent Substance Use and Addiction Program at Boston Children’s hospital has reported an explosion in the number of young cannabis users experiencing “hallucinations and trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality.” And increased marijuana use also poses secondary dangers such as more deadly traffic accidents, more poisonings of young people who mistake edibles for candy, and a worsening opioid crisis, which many doctors believe is directly correlated with marijuana legalization.
Lawmakers in Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational marijuana 10 years ago, are now trying to apply brakes to this runaway train. Last year, the state legislature passed a bill mandating that coroners test THC levels when someone under 25 suffers a “non-natural death.” According to one state senator, “Since legalization in Colorado, the regulatory framework has failed to keep up with the evolution of the new products…. The industry has changed, and we need to catch up with those changes.” Unfortunately, “catching up with changes” is not generally a “strength” of government.
The Church, however, can play a redemptive role. American Christians have a responsibility to advocate for policies that benefit our neighbors’ welfare and against policies that hurt them. Marijuana should be no different. The 30-billion dollar marijuana industry has been incredibly deft in crafting messaging that makes anyone opposed to legalizing weed seem “uncool” or “behind the times.”
So, it is essential to understand that today’s weed is far ahead of the times. We are far removed from the Cheech and Chong days. This stuff is dangerous, particularly for young people. Christians should be highly motivated to not let this cat out of the bag wherever it has not yet been loosed and to minister to people where it has, including in addiction recovery centers and other healthcare settings.
Christians have a legacy of running into the plague when everyone else is running away. Marijuana legalization has reached plague status. It is time to head in.
Earlier in July, an Ohio Democratic state senator thought she was taking a courageous stand against the Supreme Court’s overruling of Roe v. Wade. She introduced a bill that would allow pregnant women to file civil lawsuits against the men who got them pregnant. Those men could then be on the hook for up to $5,000 in damages.
The senator, an outspoken abortion supporter, said she wrote the bill to counteract Ohio’s “draconian” abortion restrictions. However, instead of making a statement for abortion, the bill is more of a solution for abortion and an endorsement of marriage. After all, the idea that men should take responsibility for the babies they make isn’t revolutionary... or at least it shouldn’t be. In a Christian vision, sex and babies go together and shouldn’t be separated. So, God established a way to hold them together: Cultures around the world call this arrangement “marriage.”
In fact, $5,000 is a pretty sad settlement. It won’t pay for a baby, much less a wedding budget. But hey, if lawmakers want to dis-incentivize men abandoning their children, I’m all for it.
It is not normal or healthy for a culture to talk about sex this much. From Pride month to education to companies telegraphing their commitments to inclusion and diversity, to just about every commercial, movie, or TV show produced today, sexual identity is treated as if it is central to human identity, human purpose, and human happiness. And this vision of life and the world is especially force-fed to children, who are essentially subjects of our social experimentations.
If the energy spent talking about sex is disproportionate, it’s important to know there were some who saw this coming. The best example is Oxford sociologist J.D. Unwin. In 1939, Unwin published a landmark book summarizing his research. Sex and Culture was a look at 80 tribes and six historical civilizations over the course of five millennia, through the lens of a single question: Does a culture’s ideas of sexual liberation predict its success or collapse?
Unwin’s findings were overwhelming:
Just as societies have advanced [and] then faded away into a state of general decrepitude, so in each of them has marriage first previously changed from a temporary affair based on mutual consent to a lifelong association of one man with one woman, and then turned back to a loose union or to polygamy.
What’s more, Unwin concluded,
The whole of human history does not contain a single instance of a group becoming civilized unless it has been absolutely monogamous, nor is there any example of a group retaining its culture after it has adopted less rigorous customs.
Unwin saw a pattern behind societies that unraveled. If three consecutive generations abandoned sexual restraint built around the protections of marriage and fidelity, they collapsed.
Simply put, sexuality is essential for survival. However, sexuality is such a powerful force, it must be controlled or else it can destroy a future rather than secure it. Wrongly ordered sexuality is devastating for both individuals and entire societies.
Unwin’s conclusions can be boiled down to a single issue. Are people living for the future, with the ability to delay gratification, or are they focusing only on the here and now? When a culture fails to restrain its sexual instincts, people think less about securing the future and instead compromise the stability, productivity, and the well-being of the next generation in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.
Unwin claims that he had no moral or ideological axe to grind in this research. “I make no opinion about rightness or wrongness,” he wrote. But his work is nevertheless profound, as are his conclusions, which we seem to be living out in real time.
According to Pew Research, almost 90% of children lived with two married parents in 1960. By 2008 that number had dropped to just 64%. Over the same period, the percentage of kids born to unmarried women rose from 5% to 41%. There is really no question of how this impacts children. Studies show that teens from single-parent or blended families are 300% more likely to need psychological assistance, twice as likely to drop out of high school, and more likely to commit suicide. They end up with less college education and lower-paying jobs than their parents and are more likely to get divorced themselves.
This is not because children from non-traditional homes have less potential or less value. Nor do stable two-parent families guarantee outcomes for children. Statistics do not determine the future of an individual, but they can identify the future of a society. On a civilizational level, the future is a matter of math.
The early days of the sexual revolution reframed the morality of sexual behavior, but today it’s gone further, undermining the already fragile identity in the rising generation, fraying it in the various directions of the ever-growing acronym of sexual identities. Anywhere from 1 in 5 to nearly 40% of young people identify as LGBTQ today. Or, in the case of one junior high class in the Northeast I heard of recently, “all of them do.”
Christian faithfulness in this cultural moment must involve the protection of children and a commitment to the future of society. At the very least, that means speaking up, especially when it is unpopular to do so. Along the way, we will have to reject the “inevitability thesis,” the notion that all is lost and that things will only get worse so nothing we do matters. With courage and unconditional love for our neighbor, we continue to speak the truth.
And we will need to remind ourselves and each other of something that should be obvious but is not: The ideas and behavior of the late sexual revolution are not normal. Nor is our fascination and focus on sexuality as the central defining factor in human existence and value.
Human sexuality is not some arbitrary construct like a speed limit. It is as much a part of the fabric of life as gravity. We may deny that, but we will not avoid the pain of hitting the ground if we do.
John and Maria share about a coalition of organizations that sent a letter to the Senate Minority Leader with concerns about the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act.” Afterward, they discuss whether government and businesses should provide subsidies for birth and childcare. They finish with the harm in our society’s quest for infinite options.
Some abortion proponents claim that by overturning Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court elevated evangelical and Catholic morality, and violated what’s known as the establishment clause found in the First Amendment.
The establishment clause, however, was never meant to exclude citizens from voting their consciences or seeking their vision of the common good. It was never intended to keep morality out of our lawmaking. In fact, every law reflects some moral vision, whether or not the vision is labeled secular or religious. Are our laws against murder and theft somehow unconstitutional because they echo the morality of the Bible?
Think of all the other laws that violate the establishment clause if these critics are right: the abolition of slavery, criminal justice reform, workers’ rights, etc. Even the bankruptcy code is rooted in a uniquely biblical understanding about the rights of debtors, economic justice, and redemption.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that the rights to life and liberty are “endowed by [our] Creator.” Should we set aside the entire American project because the Declaration of Independence violates the establishment clause? No, because without it, there wouldn’t be an establishment clause.
So many of the cultural debates that rage around us and captivate our attentions result from dueling definitions of truth. All ideas have consequences, especially our ideas about truth. It matters greatly whether truth even exists, whether truth can be known, and how we should think about those who reject truth.
Fifty years ago, in his landmark discussion of the flow of Western history, Francis Schaeffer offered what he called “a simple but profound rule” about truth: “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.”
Even a brief look at the half century since he wrote reveals how right he was. Because of the loss of belief in the existence of truth, our cultural conversations become more fractured and disconnected, our willingness to hear one another out seems to diminish by the day, and corporate, political, and other cultural activists readily work to impose their views on everyone else. And, who’s to say that they’re wrong if nothing is truly right?
Like Schaeffer, Chuck Colson would often appeal to the idea of “true truth,” the idea that truth exists independently of people and our clashing opinions. At least in theory, this provided a means to check who is right and who is wrong. Having abandoned the idea of the reality of truth and our ability to know it, we didn’t find the sort of freedom and tolerance promised. Instead, we gained chaos, conflict, and coercion. “Truth” belongs to those with the social power to decide.
In recent years, many Christians have either abandoned or deprioritized the notion of truth, elevating personal experience over what God has revealed about Himself and His world. Years ago, Chuck Colson warned in his book The Faith that Christians must not give up on the idea of truth nor downplay its importance, even in an attempt to gain a wider hearing. Christianity matters precisely because it is true. If it isn’t true, it doesn’t matter. Here’s Chuck:
Why does truth matter so much? Because the Church simply can’t be the Church without being on the side of truth. Jesus came as the champion of the truth and of those on the side of the truth. Without understanding this, the Church cannot even present the Gospel. Without truth, it resorts to therapy and has patients, not disciples.
Much of Christianity’s retreat from the truth or tempering of our witness in the West has been motivated by good intentions—not to offend or be judgmental, the desire to feel more personally connected to God and to make Christianity more relevant and culturally acceptable. The history of Christianity, including the faith’s surge in the Third World today, shows the reverse to be the case. While we always want to be sensitive to other cultures, we cannot be co-opted by them.
The early Christians who treated plague victims certainly weren’t embracing the pagan culture. Nor were they trying to make Christianity more relevant and win over the hearts of an empire; they were simply carrying out the truth of their faith—that every person is made in the image of God and therefore possesses dignity. The task of this generation—as it will be in every generation—is to understand Christianity as a complete view of the world and humankind’s place in it, that is, as the truth. If Christianity is not the truth, it is nothing, and our faith mere sentimentality.
Next Thursday, the Colson Center is hosting a conversation on truth with Lee Strobel, author of the classic The Case for Christ and Brett Kunkle, founder of president of MAVEN, an organization committed to communicating truth to the next generation. This conversation is the focus of the third annual Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview to be held on August 4, at the beautiful Great Lakes Center for the Arts in Bay Harbor, Michigan. During the event, I will be pressing that truth matters, Brett will discuss how we can regain confidence in the idea of truth in this skeptical age, and Lee Strobel will be presenting the case for truth.
Attendance in-person or online is completely free. In-person seating is almost full, but there is still availability for the livestreamed event. You must sign up to receive access, but thanks to the generosity of local donors, this symposium is being offered entirely free of charge.
In a world where many people deny the existence of truth, learning how to clearly and confidently live out our Christian faith requires that we equip ourselves with a firm grasp of the trustworthiness of the Gospel. Again, please join us online as we work together for a more truthful world.
Today marks the death of Johann Sebastian Bach (1865-1750), an ardent student of music and diligent student of theology. Raised in a family of north German musicians, he lost both his parents by age 10. He sang in a boys’ choir and played the violin early on, and later moved to the organ where he quickly was recognized for his unique talents.
And of course, today he’s known for his compositions, where his deep knowledge of theology is so evident. Although music historians may point out the variety of musical influence—northern and southern German, French, and Italian music, Christians have long marveled at the theological richness found in the cantatas Bach wrote for churches in Leipzig. As director of church music, he designed each one to echo the Gospel reading in both language and emotional effect. Over time, it earned him the title of the “Fifth Evangelist.”
Like Bach, let’s be sure that in all the works of our hands and especially in our creative acts to draw from a deep and growing knowledge of God.
The most common response from pro-abortion advocates since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court is misinformation. One of the most common pieces of misinformation that’s been floated by media outlets, politicians, and cultural commentators alike is that certain pro-life laws triggered by the Dobbs decision place the lives of pregnant women at risk, especially those facing an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage. These pro-life laws are not clear, the argument goes, so doctors could face legal reprisals for offering the life-saving treatments that women with at-risk pregnancies need. In some versions of this scenario, hospitals and doctors are frozen with fear and confusion, unsure of what they can and cannot do.
However, as Alexandra DeSanctis wrote recently at National Review, “This is simply not the case.” What her article offers is exactly what pro-lifers need to answer this pro-abortion talking point, and exactly what the title promises: “How Every State Pro-Life Law Handles Ectopic Pregnancy and Miscarriage.” Here’s the summary of what DeSanctis’ deep dive into state law revealed:
Abortion supporters have argued that state abortion limits aren’t clear about whether these types of health care are permitted—and they have argued that, as a result of this supposed lack of clarity, doctors have declined to perform necessary and potentially life-saving procedures out of fear of reprisal from officials enforcing state pro-life laws.
This is simply not the case. If doctors are doing so—and abortion supporters have offered little evidence of a systemic problem in this regard—it is the fault of the doctors themselves, not the fault of the pro-life laws, which are eminently clear. The pro-life worldview has always held that both lives matter, that of the mother andthat of her unborn child. It is always permissible to act to care for a pregnant mother whose life is at risk.
Neither miscarriage care nor treatment for ectopic pregnancy has anything to do with an induced-abortion procedure, which intentionally kills an unborn child. Every successful elective abortion has a single aim: to end the life of the child growing in his or her mother’s womb. What’s more, medical professionals acknowledge that induced abortion is never medically necessary to treat a pregnant mother; modern medicine can treat the mother without intentionally killing the child.
For instance, miscarriage care treats a woman whose unborn child has already died, and ectopic-pregnancy treatment removes an unborn child who cannot develop or survive, in order to save the life of the mother. Neither of these types of health care bears any resemblance to directly and intentionally killing the child. The only people confused about this—or pretending to be confused—are supporters of abortion on demand. And their aim is clear: to cause confusion for the sake of undermining pro-life laws.
To put a fine point on the issue: Until just last week, even the website of Planned Parenthood explicitly stated that ectopic-pregnancy treatment is not an abortion. But then the abortion business erased that clarifying information in an effort to perpetuate the tide of misinformation, intentionally blurring the lines between actual health care aimed at saving a mother’s life and abortion procedures, which intend to cause the death of an unborn child.
DeSanctis then provides a summary and a quote of the relevant portion of the law from every state in question: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. I highly recommend that you read the whole thing, especially if you encounter this particular talking point that has been repeated so often that many have begun to actually believe it.
And I recommend Alexandra DeSanctis’ book, co-authored with Dr. Ryan Anderson, Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing. In it, Anderson and DeSanctis describe what’s really behind this particular talking point. Legalized abortion has taught us to see the God-given and good ability to procreate as a barrier to full humanness as women. Along the way, fertility is treated as a problem to be overcome, not a good thing to be embraced.
If Christians are going to build a culture of life, we must understand all the ways in which this legal travesty poisoned our understanding of life, sex, marriage, and children. That’s what Tearing Us Apart offers: the understanding we need to continue to uphold the dignity of life. I think this book is so very important right now. For a gift of any amount this month, I will send you a copy of Tearing Us Apart by Alexandra DeSanctis and Ryan Anderson. Just go to breakpoint.org/give before the end of July.
France is pretty mad at the United States. In fact, the entire European Union is mad, so mad in fact, they wrote a strongly worded letter. Earlier this month the EU passed a resolution condemning the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dobbs abortion case, which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the matter of abortion restrictions back to individual state legislatures.
Parliamentarians said the Dobbs ruling showed that “women’s and girls’ rights” are under attack. The strange part is that the Mississippi law which sparked the Dobbs case restricts abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. That’s one week later than France’s law, which restricts elective abortions after 14 weeks.
It gets weirder: The EU’s condemnation also warns the Dobbs ruling could embolden “anti-gender” groups around the world. But if abortion is about the rights of “women and girls,” that implies we know how to define “woman” and “girl.”
It’s all a silly bit of posturing, but if the EU is worried Dobbs will change the world, I hope they’re right.
“Christians should stop seeking political control and power and just focus on winning the lost.”
“Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ so Christians should stay out of government.”
“Neither Jesus nor the early Christians tried to take over Rome. He built His kingdom in people’s hearts and minds.”
Many variations of this argument can be found in Christian Twitterverse, usually, in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. The idea seems to be that real Christian spirituality neither seeks nor celebrates political or judicial victories. Christians should only be concerned with the things of God, not the things of this world. In other words, God isn’t concerned with government, and Christians shouldn’t be either.
Though this line of thinking sounds quite Christian, it isn’t. Rather, it is an inaccurate portrayal of the relationship between God’s justice and earthly justice. Just as importantly, it misunderstands what our salvation is for and why God calls us to live in this world, instead of just whisking Christians to heaven the moment we’re saved.
Recently, my colleague Shane Morris tackled this bad theology on Twitter, and the thread was republished by the Babylon Bee news offshoot, Not the Bee. I’ll paraphrase his points:
First, for most of the Church’s history, Christians have agreed that civil laws should in some way reflect biblical morality. Neither Catholics, Orthodox, nor most Protestants believed that being apolitical was a good or godly thing. While there were occasions over the centuries when Christians shunned political involvement for a variety of reasons, often because they were prohibited from any involvement, it wasn’t until the Radical Reformation and movements like the Anabaptists in the 1500s that swearing off politics gained traction as a principle for following Christ. Even then, it was a minority opinion. On the contrary, for most Christians, being a civil magistrate has always been seen as a high and noble calling.
This, of course, makes a lot of sense since there is really no such thing as not legislating morality. No matter who writes the laws of a land, those laws always reflect someone’s moral beliefs. Protecting innocent lives from deadly violence, something that occurs in abortion and other forms of murder, is the central function of good government. God created government to serve that purpose.
Second, Shane pointed out something many theologians have noted over the years: that when Jesus said, “my kingdom is not of this world” in John 18:36, He did not mean “my kingdom has nothing to do with this world.” Rather, He meant that His kingdom is not from this world, does not use this world’s methods (such as violent revolution), and does not aim at the world’s ends.
Still, as Abraham Kuyper pointed out, Jesus’ kingdom absolutely does affect this world, over which He has declared total sovereignty, and in which He holds individuals and governments accountable for administering justice and punishing violence against the innocent (see Genesis 9:6).
As for the part that neither Christ nor the first Christians tried to take over Rome, anyone who says this should read further in their history books. In A.D. 325, the Emperor Constantine ended the official persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Just decades later, in the year 380, Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. As a matter of simple historical fact, Christians did take over Rome!
Setting aside questions about the legitimacy of established religion and how good such an arrangement is for the Church, it’s simply not true that early Christianity did not seek to impact earthly governments. Early Christians showed intense interest in impacting governments in everything from the outlawing of infant exposure to ending persecution to the ending of the gladiatorial games.
The assault of the Church against the gates of Hell progresses, of course, through the preaching of the Gospel and the conversion of souls—what the Apostle Paul called “spiritual weapons.” But by advocating for good and just governments—especially when it comes to protecting innocent lives—Christians are loving their neighbors and fulfilling the other half of our calling in this world: to pray and obediently work so that God’s kingdom will come and His will be done “on earth as it is in Heaven.”
We are saved for a purpose. Along with evangelism and worship, we are to be good citizens and to love our neighbors. This will involve supporting righteous laws and opposing wicked ones. No law in this nation’s history has been more wicked than Roe v. Wade. Therefore, Christians are right to celebrate its downfall and to work to undo its bloody legacy. And Christians are right to oppose other wicked legislative efforts, such as the misleadingly named “Respect for Marriage Act.”
The idea that Christians have a calling so high that it keeps us from politics may sound spiritual, but it’s something almost no Christian in history would recognize. Nor would Jesus, who in the same conversation with Pilate where He said, “my kingdom is not of this world,” also reminded this government official where his power came from.
There’s a virtual army of faith-based adoption, foster care, and family support organizations in existence today, all of whom strive to care for vulnerable families.
In the 2015 majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, a decision that overruled laws in dozens of states and imposed same sex “marriage” on the United States, Justice Anthony Kennedy rightly described marriage as an institution that is fundamental to society, that protects and ensures the well-being of children, and that is essential for a flourishing society. To withhold this institution from same-sex couples, Kennedy then wrongly concluded, would be to violate their dignity and disrespect their autonomy, especially the autonomy reflected in their intimate unions. What went missing in this opinion was a definition of what marriage is, and therefore why it is such an irreplaceable institution.
In the end, Kennedy’s decision failed in the same way that Matt Walsh’s new documentary What Is a Woman? reveals that transgender ideology fails. Repeatedly, advocates Walsh interviewed echoed the same refrain, that a woman is “anyone who identifies as a woman.” However, when pressed further and asked, “but what are they identifying as?” they had no answer. In the same way, under Kennedy’s reasoning, any relational arrangement we identify as marriage is marriage and warrants being included in the institution, even if it lacks the necessary ingredients that make marriage what it is. It is like saying, “The Rockefellers are rich, so I’m going to change my name to Rockefeller so I can be rich.”
Of course, this is not how reality works. Instead, Kennedy resorts to identifying marriage as an ever-evolving institution. In other words, marriage is not baked into reality like gravity. Instead, it is more like a speed limit, a social construct that changes as society changes.
If marriage is indeed just a product of abstract progress, untethered from any created intent or design, it suffers the same moral quandary as naturalistic evolution. There is no way to control what creature comes next, or to know, as Justice Kennedy assured us, that what followed would be better than what came before (or even if it will be good). There is no guarantee that marriage will remain an institution fundamental to society, that protects and ensures the well-being of children and contributes to human flourishing.
In fact, since Obergefell was decided, the rights of children to know their mom and dad, and to have their minds, bodies, futures, and most important relationships protected, have been replaced by the rights of adults to pursue their own desires and happiness. Justice Kennedy, it seems, has gotten his wish. Marriage has indeed evolved, or at least our conception of it has, but not for the better. Throughout human history, marriage was understood, including in law, to be a sexually complementary union, ordered toward procreation. No-fault divorce and now more fully same-sex “marriage” redefined it as an institution ordered only toward the vagaries of adult happiness.
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives proposed the wrongly named “Respect for Marriage Act.” If it passes the Senate, this bill will result in a further stage of the legal evolution of marriage. When Obergefell was decided, the “T” had not yet taken over the ever-growing acronym of sexual identity preferences. The Respect for Marriage Act would not only encode Obergefell, but it would also further the reinvention of marriage in law. In effect, marriage would evolve into a genderless institution, not only unbound from its essential connection to children and sexual difference but to any embodied realities whatsoever. In other words, there would be no legal obstacle to extending marriage beyond couples to relationships consisting of multiple partners.
Even worse, redefining marriage not only redefines the definition of “spouse” but also “parent.” Parenting should be a sacrificial investment in future generations, but redefining marriage in this way has made it a self-determined right of getting “what we want.” Children have always borne the brunt of the worst ideas of the sexual revolution, especially when combined with new reproductive technologies. Rather than the fruit of a loving union, children are now increasingly treated as products of casually partnered consumers.
Further, if the Respect for Marriage Act becomes law, the worst parts of the Obergefell decision would be established in law in a way that abortion was not under Roe v. Wade. Like Roe, Obergefell was an act of judicial overreach. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in dissent, “[T]his Court is not a legislature…. Under the Constitution, judges have power to say what the law is, not what it should be…. Five lawyers have closed the debate and enacted their own vision of marriage as constitutional law…. The majority’s decision is an act of will, not legal judgment.”
In his majority opinion, Justice Kennedy claimed that the decision would not affect people of conscience, especially “religious institutions and people.” That has proven to be flatly wrong. The Respect for Marriage Act contains no conscience protections.
Despite their party platform which claims a commitment to Constitutional originalism and religious freedom, this bill could find support from 10 Republican Senators. If it does, it will pass the Senate and become law. Please, if you live in a state with a Republican Senator who has not indicated he or she will oppose this bill, contact them today and tell them to do so.
A recent NPR article lamented that “the end of Roe v. Wade has huge economic implications for male partners, too.” According to a study quoted in the piece, “men involved with a pregnancy and whose partners had an abortion were nearly four times more likely to graduate college” than those whose partners gave birth. And males under the age of 20 were more likely to earn more money if their partner had an abortion instead of carrying the child to term.
I guess we should thank the reporter for proving that legal abortion has always incentivized the financial well-being of men over the lives of the children they create. Still, presenting this as some kind of hardship for men is reminiscent of British slaveholders arguing against abolition by warning that sugar would cost too much without free labor. The whole moral picture is upside down.
Rather than arguing for legalized abortion on the basis of “disadvantaging men,” I’ll happily vote for a new idea other abortion advocates have come up with: requiring men to be financially committed to the lives they create... you know, like they are supposed to be.
If this bill could find the support of 10 Republicans in the Senate who share this fuzzy view of marriage, it will pass, securing the federal government’s claim on marriage and creating even less room in public life for people who object to redefined marriage.
John and Maria discuss the Respect for Marriage bill before the Senate, which undermines traditional marriage, a bedrock of society. They link the importance of family to new data on the need for fathers and also recent news about the possibility of virtual babies in augmented reality.
If we never speak up, we’ll never find out what could happen...
After nearly 10 years of hosting its annual “Wilberforce week,” an Oxford college abruptly disinvited British group Christian Concern this March. Apparently, a handful of students accused the group of “hateful and invalidating” language.
In response, Christian Concern approached Worcester College and asked them to substantiate those accusations. The college was unable to do so and was instead reminded of a prior statement issued by its provost, that “the free expression and exchange of different views … goes straight to the heart of our democracy and is a vital part of higher education.”
In the end, the college walked back the cancellation of Christian Concern and issued an apology.
Thank God for small victories like this, and for Christians willing to live out Peter’s command to respond with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak against us “may be put to shame.”
But this also requires Christians who, like the Apostle Peter, are willing to speak truth in the first place ... which takes courage, but who knows what God will do?
One of the more helpful analogies to explain the personal and cultural damage wrought by the sexual revolution is that sex is like fire. When a fire is in the fireplace, it brings light, warmth, and ambience. It can even preserve life. When, however, a fire jumps out of the fireplace onto the curtains, it brings destruction, even death. A similar analogy compares sex to water. Our bodies need water to live, but we need water in the right place. When water gets in the lungs, it can be deadly.
One point of these analogies is that, like fire and water, sex is good. It has a design and purpose. The sexual revolution wanted sex to be “good,” but forfeited the “design and purpose” part. In fact, proponents of the sexual revolution argued that sex is only good if it is set “free” from all restraint, responsibility, and consequences.
This kind of fundamental error, like all bad ideas, is bound to have victims. With each day that passes, we meet more of them. Consider a piece published several months ago at Vice that announced a hip new way to find sexual satisfaction: “radical monogamy.” Don’t call it marriage (that’s for dinosaurs), but man, there’s something really fulfilling and safe (apparently) about sexual fidelity between two committed people. Or consider the recent book by Washington Post columnist Christine Emba. In Rethinking Sex, Emba argues that using the often vague ideal of consent as our only moral guidepost governing sexual activity has left a lot of people hurt, lonely, and frustrated.
All of this is pointing to an opportunity for the Church to offer something better. However, to do that, we must be careful and clear. If sex is designed, it is under the authority of the One who designed it. If it is, indeed, under God’s authority, and God is good, then rightly ordered sex is a good gift.
In other words, the full antidote to the toxic sexuality of the sexual revolution isn’t just to return it to the safety of the fireplace. The sexual morality we rightly talk about from Scripture isn’t the whole story of this beautiful gift. Keeping sex within the confines of a lifelong marriage between one man and one woman is a moral good, but just as loving our neighbors is much more than not actively hating them, respecting God’s design for sex is much more than not transgressing certain boundaries.
In His kindness, God has called us to the lifelong cultivation of being properly sexual. This is the virtue of chastity, something often mistaken by Christians and non-Christians alike for prudishness. Instead, the call to be properly sexual with one another is a calling for all of us, married and single, to pursue all our lives, before, during, and after marriage.
The Scriptures describe this well. Husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church. Christ laid down his life for His Church. And so, we give our bodies generously to our spouses, but not with degradation or violence.
Sex within marriage can still demean, degrade, and victimize. When sex is seen as nothing more than an act of mere pleasure seeking, or when sex is demanded or withheld out of anger or contempt, or when sex is pursued in body or in mind with someone who is not given to us in marriage, chastity is abdicated, and we are sinning against God, our spouse, and ourselves.
Wedding rings are not some “license to practice” in any and every way that comes into our minds. That’s reductionistic. Sex is allowed in marriage, but it is also still designed.
Often we think of biblical exhortations like the call to “love our neighbor” or to “seek the good of the other” as applying only to our actual neighbors, friends, or coworkers. But these verses also apply to our sexual relationships with our spouses. Practicing the virtue of chastity means to approach sex as an act of generosity. It’s not something to treat lightly or selfishly, even in marriage.
The sexual revolution sent the fire screaming out of the fireplace and then poured gasoline on the whole disaster. As more and more people are burned in its wake, the Church has a wonderful gift to offer, a gift that goes beyond the rules of the fireplace. When ordered rightly, the whole world will be blessed by its warmth, its light, and its life.
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed what is known as the Respect for Marriage Act. Despite its traditional-sounding name, this bill is anything but. It’s an attempt to make legislatively secure what was decreed by the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that redefined marriage for the entire nation.
It’s not surprising the bill passed the progressive-controlled House, but 47 Republicans joined all the Democrats in the vote. And it seems at least possible that Dems could find 10 Republicans in the Senate, which would make the deceptively named act a law.
There’s nothing conservative about the state redefining marriage and forcing it on a nation as Obergefell did. If so-called conservative lawmakers don’t get that, it seems there is little left for conservatism to conserve.
Too many political conservatives are philosophically rootless. Their ideas are built on sentiment or nebulous “values” instead of the solid rocks of Scripture and common sense. If society is ever to re-embrace creational norms about marriage and family, our so-called conservatives must reject “the Hallmark-ization” of ethics. They must stop prioritizing sentiment over conviction.
In 2016, psychologist Dr. Peter Langman compiled biographical data on 56 American school shooters. He found that 82% had grown up in dysfunctional family situations, usually without two biological parents at home. The trend has sadly continued. The shooter in Uvalde, Texas, hadn’t lived with his father in years. The Sandy Hook shooter hadn’t seen his father in the two years leading up to that massacre.
Last month, new research from the Institute for Family Studies demonstrated, once again, how important fathers are, especially for boys. For example, boys growing up without their dads are only half as likely to graduate from college as their peers who live with dad at home. Strikingly, those numbers remain steady even after controlling for other factors such as race, income, and general IQ. Boys without a dad at home are also almost twice as likely to be “idle” in their late twenties, defined as neither working nor in school, and are significantly more likely to have been arrested or incarcerated by the time they turn 35.
These are only a few of the data points which demonstrate that fatherlessness is one of the most pressing crises our culture is facing. Why doesn’t our culture talk more about this?
One reason is that this crisis intersects other “third rails.” Our culture got to this point via the sexual revolution, which encouraged promiscuity by redefining freedom and prioritizing autonomy over responsibility. When sex outside of marriage becomes normal, it is mostly women who are left on their own to raise the resulting children.
There are other contributing factors as well, many of which were made possible by legislation. Divorce has been largely destigmatized, not in small part by making it legally easier. The legal demand for same-sex “marriage” brought with it the demand for same-sex parenting, which by definition asserts that kids do not need both a mother and a father. Certain forms of assisted reproduction likewise assert that children are less the fruit of a committed marriage than they are a commercial process.
And now here we are, with 32% of American boys growing up in homes without their biological dads. If there’s anything that we should learn from the grim outcomes of this social experiment, it is that dads aren’t replaceable. This was true from creation, but even more so in a fallen world with each of us born with a fallen human nature. We only learn to grow from socially, emotionally, and spiritually immature children into adults so that we can live together in a healthy way by seeing healthy behavior modeled and by having unhealthy behavior corrected.
Scripture passages affirm that mentoring in righteousness requires demonstration, as much or more than just explanation. Christ repeatedly told his followers to “do as He did.” When He washed His disciples’ feet, He offered it as an object lesson: “I give you an example, that you also should do as I did to you.” Paul told believers in Corinth and Ephesus to be “imitators” of him, just as he was an “imitator of Christ.”
In other places, Scripture even points to modelling and mimicry in sex-specific ways. In his letter to Titus, Paul instructed men to be “dignified” and “self-controlled” and to “urge the younger men to be self-controlled.” He also told the older women to “teach what is good” and to “train the younger women” to be “self-controlled,” “pure” and “kind.”
That, of course, is another cultural third rail. We are so desperate to pretend sexual difference isn’t built into our biological reality, we simply cannot abide the suggestion that our genders are critically important in parenting. But the numbers don’t lie. As Dr. Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, puts it, “[T]here is no such thing as ‘parenting.’ There is mothering, and there is fathering—children do best with both.”
Christians can challenge the growing public safety crisis that is fatherlessness, and we must start in the Church. We must affirm, in word and in action, that there are men and there are women and that both matter in parenting. We have to de-normalize absent dads, challenge men to take responsibility for their sexual choices and for their children, and fill in the gaps whenever and however necessary.
No matter if our technologies and cultural dogmas pretend otherwise, every child has a father. These new statistics show, again, that every child needs their father. We have no right to deprive them of
According to a recent article in The Guardian, the theory of evolution may be in trouble. For the first time in a long time, scientists are bucking the so-called “Neo-Darwinian synthesis,” which has dominated the sciences since the early 20th century.
This doesn’t mean “evolution” is finished as a theory, but it could mean the end of thinking of it as the only theory.
There’s a lesson here for Christians. Every new fad, whether in science, the arts, government, or social issues, comes with the temptation to capitulate or avoid being on “the wrong side of history.”
In the past, proponents of the death of religion, the looming “population bomb,” utopian Marxism, and all kinds of other theories have made this claim, only to be proven completely false as time went on.
As a theory of everything, neo-Darwinism has failed. As a theory of the origins of biological diversity, it is clearly failing. Christians have no cause to abandon what Scripture reveals just because an idea, lifestyle, or theory becomes popular.
Nineties kids (and their parents) may remember the Tamagotchi craze, a tiny egg-shaped video game that dominated toy markets for a time. Kids would raise a virtual pet that could hang from their backpack like a keychain. I’ve been told it was a great toy—the trauma of forgetting it somewhere and then finding it had passed on to greener digital pastures notwithstanding.
Now, in the age of the Metaverse, something else is here … and it is even creepier. “Augmented reality babies” offer users the virtual experience of “parenting” an algorithm designed to behave like a real baby. Using virtual-reality goggles, or even potentially wearable gloves which can simulate physical touch, users can interact with a digital baby as it grows … or, optionally (and even more creepily), as it stays exactly the same.
Some gurus are heralding AR babies as a new age of parenting. “Make no mistake that this development, should it indeed take place, is a technological game-changer which… could help us solve some of today’s most pressing issues, including overpopulation,” says Catriona Campbell, a former technology advisor to the British government, and author of the book AI by Design: A Plan for Living with Artificial Intelligence.
Some argue this new development could also ease loneliness for those who want children but are unable to have them,
or for those who feel they can’t afford to have children. While the average kid costs about $230,000 by the time they reach age 17, reports the New York Post, “a digital kid … could have all its needs met for less than $25 per month.” And as a bonus, no changing diapers!
In light of these possibilities, Campbell offered a somewhat unsettling prediction: “I think it would be reasonable to expect as many as 20% of people choosing to have an AR baby over a real one.”
On one hand, it’s hard not to be cynical of Campbell’s bright-eyed tech optimism, especially given the current dubious state of Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. No matter how good it gets, augmented reality simply cannot replace many of life’s best experiences. Playing a video game in the Metaverse, for example, is fun. Eating a slice of cake... not so much.
By misunderstanding why people become parents in the first place, many proponents of augmented reality misunderstand the essentials of what it means to be human. Logging off from an AR “baby” might be easier, but all the labor spent on an actual child is something that simply cannot be simulated or replaced by a simulation.
And of course, the entire idea of global overpopulation continues to fall apart as its predictions continue to prove false. Should it actually work, this technology will almost certainly be adopted in countries where the most acute problem is underpopulation, not to mention increasingly devastating rates of loneliness. It’s a common trend in the modern world—much like prescribing marijuana to combat anxiety—that our “cures” only further aggravate the problem.
Spending over seven hours every day staring at screens for work, leisure, and connection has led many people to think technology can replace real relationships. But the opposite is true. Technology can do wonders, but putting a virtual baby in the hands of a lonely person is akin to giving a glass of salt water to someone dying of dehydration.
Likewise, it is simply not true that a life free of responsibility is the one which will produce the most happiness. As any parent knows, real kids are noisy, expensive, and inconvenient. There are days when they seem to constantly take our reserves of energy, and sometimes the last strands of patience. But, they’re worth it.
Jesus’ words that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” aren’t just a pious aphorism. They’re describing a core piece of what it means to be human. The surprising source of real life, joy, and vitality is from serving others, not just ourselves.
No matter how sophisticated they may someday be, virtual babies will always be just a piece of code, a vain attempt to meet the felt needs of lonely adults while never providing for their true needs. If that’s what people want, it would be best to avoid any pretense of “parenting” and buy them a Tamagotchi instead.
Post-Roe rhetoric continues to reach new levels of rumor, scare tactics, and red herrings. Take a recent headline from Scientific American, “Abortion Restrictions Could Cause an Ob-Gyn Brain Drain.” The implication is most doctors want to offer abortion so badly, they’ll leave medicine if they can’t.
The truth, however, seems to be the opposite.
The LA Times reported, from a 2019 survey of American OB-GYNs, that “while nearly 3 out of 4 had a patient who wanted to end a pregnancy in the past year, fewer than 1 in 4 were willing and able to perform one themselves.”
For some, the reasons were pragmatic. Many others cited pro-life convictions. As Dr. Donna Harrison of the Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists put it, “We have two patients: both the unborn child and the mother. As physicians, we’ve taken the Hippocratic oath… we don’t kill our patients.”
That’s the actual heart of the issue. Doctors are there to heal, not kill. It’s not hard to tell the difference.
Today, July 19, marks a dark day in Christian history. On this date in A.D. 64, the Great Fire of Rome left two-thirds of the Eternal City in ashes. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, the fire was sparked in a part of town concentrated with flammable goods, quickly spread by high winds, and burned over the course of the next week and a half. This was the stuff of nightmares.
According to Tacitus:
"The blaze in its fury ran first through the level portions of the city, then rising to the hills, while it again devastated every place below them; it outstripped all preventive measures, so rapid was the mischief and so completely at its mercy the city, with those narrow winding passages and irregular streets which characterized old Rome."
He went on to describe screaming women, helpless children, and panicked crowds, trampling everything before them.
The end of the blaze was not the end of the terror. On the throne at the time was Emperor Nero, a man notorious for his immorality and hatred of Christians. Suspicious by the way Nero refashioned the charred city into his own image, as well as by rumors that he “fiddled while Rome burned,” many Romans began to wonder if he had started the fire himself.
To forestall the whispers, Nero blamed the Christians. And why not? Christians were weird. They talked about eating flesh and drinking blood. They called their husbands “brother” and their wives “sister.” They denied the gods, like atheists. They thought a dead man had come back to life and was going to return one day in glory and, most pertinently, in vengeance.
Up to this point, believers had mostly been left alone by Roman authorities, but Nero found they were easy to pick on. In the days that followed, the Apostles Peter and Paul met their fates, along with an unknown but great number of other Christians.
If this was the first time Christians took heat for a public disaster, it certainly would not be the last. Christians have found themselves an unpopular minority in many cultural settings and have been consistently blamed for various disasters in various societies. A century and a half after Nero’s attacks, Tertullian, a North African Christian writer, morbidly quipped, “If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.” In 410, pagan writers suggested that the sacking of Rome by German tribes would not have happened had Rome not abandoned her gods for a supposedly immoral Christianity. That accusation led Augustine of Hippo to respond with his magnum opus, The City of God.
One of the most important works in the history of Western civilization, The City of God is still read, centuries later, by pastors, philosophers, and historians alike. In it, Augustine provided a thoroughgoing defense to a shallow trope leveled against Christians. He offered a litany of natural and military disasters and gross moral failings from Rome’s supposedly purer and pagan past. With these examples, he undid the critique that Christians had somehow made life worse. If anything, in fact, the influence of biblical ideals had made things better.
Christians today face analogous accusations. We aren’t being cast to the lions (at least not here in the West, anyway), but there’s a clear and growing undercurrent of hostility toward Christians that often resembles the tropes used in ancient days. Christians have been blamed for the prevalence of poverty, natural disasters due to climate change, the degradation of science and technology, and all kinds of social and political oppression.
Our reply can be much the same as Augustine’s. Oppression, poverty, military, and natural disasters are the common lot of humanity. They are common in times and places where the Gospel has never gone. However, in those places where Christianity has gone there are hospitals, universities, technological innovation, freedom, and an unusual insistence on human dignity.
Recently, the good that Christianity brought to the world has been described in books like Dominion by the (as yet!) non-Christian historian, Tom Holland, and the newer The Air We Breathe, by Anglican evangelist Glen Scrivener. These works remind us how bad the world was before Christ came, and how much of what we think of as good and valuable has come, not despite Christianity, but because of it. Any Christian who faces an unfair accusation today should read these books and be encouraged. Christianity is just as true and good today, as it was then.
The day that Roe v. Wade died, reactions were mixed. Those who long supported Roe’s legal death work mourned the victory for life. For many, it provoked fear, sadness, outrage, and hyperbole. “I thought I was writing fiction in The Handmaid’s Tale,” Canadian author Margaret Atwood wrote. “The Supreme Court is making it real.”
On the other hand, many pro-lifers celebrated. “For nearly fifty years, America has enforced an unjust law that has permitted some to decide whether others can live or die. We thank God today that the Court has now overturned this decision,” said Archbishop José Gómez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The only truly surprising reaction came from a third group. While technically pro-life, this group viewed the overturning of Roe as a sort of problem, a cause for caution and even sorrow. Some even condemned the celebrations they saw from the rest of us.
Apologist Mike Winger referred to this group as “the sideways people,”
... because it’s like they are taking a sudden turn from the issue at hand and going sideways onto other things they care about more. Or perhaps it’s because they are “looking sideways” at this whole thing in the sense of being bothered by it, even if not repudiating it.
He’s right. After achieving a goal that united Christians for nearly 50 years, it was strange to see a tone of fear and concern from some corners of the Church.
If the caution came from a fear that the Dobbs decision was wrongly understood to have ended abortion or to have settled the issue, that’s valid. Overturning Roe did neither. As many have said, this is not the end of this battle on behalf of pre-born life. It’s not even the beginning of the end. At best, it’s the “end of the beginning.” The pro-life movement must continue, and its future has to be not only pro-child but also pro-mother, treating people, especially women caught in unexpected pregnancies with compassion and support while unraveling the lies our culture tells them about their child’s life. All of this is true. But that’s not really where these critiques were coming from.
These were coming from Christians who declared that real compassion precluded celebration and that we must “lament” with women who no longer have a presumed right to end the life of their child. It was as if the real problem was that this particularly heinous choice was being taken away from them. Abortion is an act of violence to both mothers and children. Only a society that’s been deeply poisoned by a culture of death pretends otherwise. Should celebrations of the Emancipation Proclamation have been muted as well?
The real issue is that too many Christians crumple under the weight of mere public opinion. Whenever empathy becomes the chief virtue of a Christian, their moral waters are muddied. “Winsomeness” somehow looks like “silence.”
Cultural elites, from business to entertainment, have made it perfectly clear: To speak out against abortion carries with it the crushing stigma of somehow hating women, of being merely “pro-birth,” of needlessly offending our neighbors with divisive rhetoric. The tragic irony is anyone who favors the killing of unborn children can publicly say so without a hint of moral disapproval from some of these Christians.
This imbalance is, of course, not new for pro-life advocates. We’ve come to expect it from those who are deceived by the worst ideas of our age. But we don’t expect it from those who claim to be pro-life.
Princeton Professor Robert P. George often tells of a question he asks his students. If you had been born before the Civil War, would you have accepted slavery, or opposed it? Nearly every student quickly answers that they would have opposed slavery and would have worked tirelessly to dismantle it. “Of course, this is nonsense.” George writes: “Only the tiniest fraction of them, or any of us, would have spoken up against slavery or lifted a finger to free the slaves.”
If he’s going to believe those students who claim the moral high ground, George demands that they show evidence of how they have stood, today in some context, for an unpopular victim of injustice, knowing that, as a result of their moral witness, they would lose standing with their peers, be loathed and ridiculed by powerful people and institutions, abandoned by some of their friends, called nasty names, and denied valuable professional opportunities.
Because that is the cost of moral clarity. If we will not even risk being liked, the end of Roe v. Wade feels more like a problem than the win it really is.
Of course, from here, if we’re going to show true love, it’s far more difficult than simply speaking pro-life opinions. It will cost us to support crisis pregnancy centers at the level they need to be supported, to protect at-risk mothers, to show compassion to all children, and to live lives that are in line with God’s plan for human flourishing.
In short, there’s plenty of work to do. But we can do that work and still celebrate the end of a legal obstacle to life that has poisoned so much of our culture for so long.
A gay couple is suing a fertility business in California because they had a daughter instead of a son. The lawsuit is full of loaded terms we shouldn’t miss. Gay couples “must” pay surrogate mothers if they want to have kids, the suit says. The men paid the clinic to create “their” embryos and to implant only male embryos into “their” gestational carrier.
Must two men, who’ve chosen a biologically sterile union, demand children at will? Who exactly owns a young embryo or a gestational carrier—which is another word for mother?
At the end of the day, this distasteful story isn’t a bug of assisted reproduction: It’s a feature. Treating women and children as objects is the enterprise. If we are uncomfortable when someone is more upfront about that—like a couple who files a lawsuit because they didn’t receive what they had ordered and paid for—maybe we should reconsider turning procreation into a manufacturing business.
John and Maria comment on how reactions to the images from the James Webb Telescope tell us about God and humans. Moving to the fallout after the Dobbs decision, they discuss Gov. Whitmer's stance in Michigan to restrict extradition due to abortion. They also respond to the accusation of transphobia aimed at Senator Hawley when asking for clarification for women’s rights. Finishing, they touch on two popular stories from this week’s Breakpoint.
The Declaration of Independence’s statement that “all men are created equal,” which Chuck Colson called “the American creed,” often elicits a response: since slaves were anything but equal, was this creed a lie?
Many signers of the Declaration were abolitionists who compromised on this issue so that the hope of independence would not end before it started. And without excusing the injustice of slavery, it’s notable that Thomas Jefferson originally included a condemnation of slavery in the Declaration, but was forced to remove it due to opposition from the Southern colonies.
And, it takes time for an idea to take root, to spread, to move from abstract principle to practical implementation. Jefferson was himself a slaveholder, and though in principle he opposed slavery, he failed to make Monticello work without them. The existence of slavery was assumed at the time, and many could not imagine a world without it. They should have but didn’t.
The American creed is an aspiration which neither our founders nor we have perfectly achieved. Rather than dismiss it as hypocrisy, we should commit ourselves again to work toward it.
The moment Roe v. Wade was overturned last month, desperate activists began to dust off the oldest and oddest arguments for abortion. These “gotcha” scenarios are supposed to prove that pro-lifers don’t really value human life or consider preborn babies from the earliest stages of development to be human. Instead, these pretend scenarios demonstrate that pro-lifers are simply hypocrites.
On closer inspection, however, these scenarios fail to convince. For example, there’s the so-called “burning fertility clinic” scenario. A friend emailed me recently and asked for a response to this one, which as best I can tell, was invented by author Patrick Tomlinson.
It goes like this. You’re in a burning fertility clinic and hear a 5-year-old child crying for help. Across the room is a container marked “1,000 Viable Human Embryos.” The flames are rising, smoke is filling the air, and you can only save one: the child or the container of embryos. According to Tomlinson, if you would choose to save the crying child, you’re betraying the fact that, whatever you may say, you really believe embryos aren’t equivalent to human beings. How, otherwise, could you justify saving one over 1,000?
“Gotcha,” right? Not really. First, this argument has nothing whatsoever to do with abortion. In no instance does a woman or her doctor ever choose between saving the life of one child at an advanced stage of development, or 1,000 at an earlier stage. Abortion involves the intentional killing of one or multiple children who, in most cases, would have lived if left alone. There’s no analogy, here, which means as an argument for abortion, the burning fertility clinic is toast.
But even setting that important point aside, the decision to save the imaginary 5-year-old over the embryos—which for the record, I would make—doesn’t necessarily reflect my view of the embryos’ humanity. It only reflects what I would do with limited time in a no-win situation. Perhaps, I would be acting on an impulse to stop conscious suffering, or to prevent parents from losing a child whose face and voice they know, or from a spur-of-the-moment instinct to answer a cry for help. None of these actions has any equivalence to an intentional killing, and none of them means I consider embryos less than human.
Of course, abortion activists continue to repackage this flawed scenario, again and again, with help from media sources. Last week in The Washington Post, another and even more bizarre form of this argument surfaced. Harvard ethics professor Daniel Wikler and Northwestern University law professor Andrew Koppelman argued that if state lawmakers who are now outlawing abortion really believe embryos are human beings, they should be panicking over the sudden statistical spike in their states’ infant mortality rates.
As these professors write: “30 percent of human embryos spontaneously self-abort”—or are miscarried. These deaths aren’t normally counted in infant mortality statistics, which only account for deaths after birth. But if embryos are human persons, these profs argue, infant mortality stats should include miscarriages. If we did that, though, we would be looking at mortality rates more than twice those of the most dangerous countries on earth—a true public health crisis! They conclude: “the fact of spontaneous abortion shows that opponents of abortion do not themselves believe what they are saying.”
This “gotcha” scenario has nothing to do with abortion, which is, once again, the intentional killing of unborn babies. Their use of the term “spontaneous abortion” instead of “miscarriage” may be medically acceptable but muddies this crucial distinction.
And consider their logic: Lots of miscarriages, tragically, do happen. If pro-life lawmakers aren’t adequately panicking about this, they must not really think intentionally killing unborn babies is wrong? That is like saying if you aren’t panicked about children dying during a pandemic, you can’t be against a shooter gunning them down in a school. It’s an absurd line of thinking yet, in the frenzy of a post-Roe abortion movement, passes for Ivy-League-level ethical reasoning.
None of these “gotcha” arguments should intimidate pro-lifers, especially Christians. We have the truth on our side, and now, thank God, the law in an increasing number of states. Bizarre hypothetical scenarios cannot change the moral reality that elective abortion is evil. On close inspection, the “gotcha” scenarios, like the imaginary fertility clinic in which they so often take place, just go up in smoke.
A line typically attributed to George Orwell states that “in times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.”
Well, we live in times in which “deceit” has been joined by “confusion.” So, even claiming to know truth can mean being called a “liar,” even when it comes to the observable realities of shared history or biology. In other words, telling the truth today requires nothing short of revolutionary courage.
That’s why I hope you can join me, Lee Strobel, and Brett Kunkle for Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview this August 4 at the stunning Great Lakes Center for the Arts, located in Bay Harbor, Michigan. Thanks to generous sponsors, the event is completely free for those who can attend locally and will be livestreamed for everyone else. To attend in person or livestream, register at GreatLakesSymposium.org.
Christians must re-embrace the idea of truth. Please join us August 4 at Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview, where we can spur each other on to do exactly that.
In response to the recent Dobbs decision and the Supreme Court’s clear, consistent support for religious liberty throughout this term, many progressives are warning of an imminent “Christian theocracy.” Among the loudest voices predicting our collective doom are mainstream media outlets. For example, a recent story in Reuters claimed, “U.S. Supreme Court Takes Aim at Separation of Church and State.”
What’s missing in virtually all of these pieces is a proper understanding of the “establishment clause.” The establishment clause is derived from the opening lines of the First Amendment which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” There are two ways this statement is commonly misunderstood.
First, it is often described as establishing a “wall of separation between church and state.” In fact, those words are found nowhere in the Constitution. The phrase actually was coined later in a letter by Thomas Jefferson. Second, and more importantly, it is assumed that if organized religion cannot be supported by the state, then secularism is somehow “neutral.” Thus, by default, anything goes as long as it’s “secular.”
Understanding the historical context is essential. In the 18th century, an “established” religion referred to an official state church. In the U.S., individual states had already established churches, such as the Anglican Church in Virginia. The First Amendment specifically applied to Congress and prohibited a national church. To prefer the Anglican Church over the Congregationalists or Presbyterians would, at the time, mean alienating certain citizens and entire states. States continued to have established churches well into the 19th century.
In addition, the First Amendment was not intended to prohibit religious activities in governmental institutions. From the very beginning, Congress started each session with prayer. That continues today and is led by an official chaplain.
Our founding fathers, particularly James Madison, believed that religious liberty was an innate right, and inseparable from the freedom of conscience. He also believed that religion would better flourish in a free marketplace of ideas. That thinking was the basis for the free exercise clause.
This understanding of the freedom of conscience is the foundation for the other freedoms protected in the First Amendment. Without conscience rights, we cannot truly speak, write, assemble, or advocate freely from our deepest beliefs. That’s why the freedom of religion is often called “the first freedom.” Its position in the Bill of Rights highlights its importance.
Although the rights of conscience should not be controversial, somehow, that’s what they have become. How this happened is worth considering. By claiming secularism to be neutral, proponents of secularism ,as far back as the 19th century, attempted to broadly apply laws originally intended by Protestants to prevent Catholic schools from accessing state funds. In the 20th-century, secularists embraced the concept of “a living Constitution” in order to transform the meaning of the First Amendment, attempting to keep religious institutions from accessing state funds and allowing only “secular” views in the public arena.
Though many court cases illustrate this, among the more important was Torcaso v. Watkins (1961), which declared unconstitutional Maryland’s requirement that officeholders state belief in God. Rather than ruling on the basis of Article VI, which prohibits religious tests for public office, the Supreme Court ruled on the basis of the establishment clause of the First Amendment and of the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from violating the rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens. The same line of reasoning has since been used to challenge prayers at public meetings, Bible studies in schools, and nativity scenes on public property. In the process, the First Amendment was turned on its head, taking a clause intended to keep the state from backing any one denomination and construing it to position the state in opposition to all organized religions.
In footnote 11 of the Torcaso v. Watkins decision, Justice Hugo Black listed secular humanism as one of a number of religions “which do not teach what would generally be considered a belief in the existence of God.” Calling humanism a religion was not outlandish. For a century, humanists such as John Dewey and Julian Huxley had defined their beliefs as a religion. After all, secularism involves certain claims about the cosmos, existence, and human nature.
And yet in 1994, the Ninth Circuit Court ruled in Peloza v. Capistrano Unified School District that while “religion” should be broadly interpreted for free exercise clause purposes, “anything ‘arguably non-religious’ should not be considered religious in applying the establishment clause.” In other words, secular organizations were able to play both sides, qualifying as a religion for the free exercise clause but free from constraints from the establishment clause.
To further determine whether religious activities could utilize public spaces, the Supreme Court derived the so-called “Lemon Test” in the case Lemon v. Kurzman (1991). According to this rule, a religious activity is only licit on public grounds if it performs a secular purpose, neither advances nor inhibits religion, and does not foster excessive government entanglement in religion. This test maintained an obviously secular bias: Secular organizations were not required to pass any tests to obtain access.
In the recent decision in the Coach Kennedy case, the Supreme Court continued its long-overdue corrections to the anti-religious way the First Amendment had been interpreted. Particularly by unequivocally tossing the “Lemon Test,” the Court has stopped the active suppression of religious beliefs and practice. We ought not fear an impending theocracy, but instead welcome a redress to the unjust and ahistorical understandings of religion.
Since SCOTUS overturned Roe, sales of the morning-after pill have exploded. Amazon had to restrict purchase numbers as did the pharmacies CVS and Rite Aid. One company saw a 600% increase in purchases within 24 hours of the Dobbs decision, with 72% of those for multiple units.
Morning-after pills, colloquially called by the brand name Plan B, don’t need a prescription. They range from $10 to $50 a pop. Women take it within three days of unprotected sex to deter ovulation and, if not that, to prevent the fertilized egg from implanting in the womb, which as many Christians have pointed out is abortion. It’s not the same as what’s called “medication abortion”—two different pills used up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
In a recent commercial for a new show, a woman hands a friend a bag with the morning-after pill, so the friend can sleep with a guy spontaneously. In other words, the phrase “emergency contraceptive” is most often a misnomer. Most of the talk of reproductive justice is really about sex without restraint.
In most of the world today, slavery is unthinkable. Is it possible that we could ever reach that same place with abortion in America?
Just as there were once states where it was legal to own slaves and other states where it wasn’t, we are now a nation deeply divided on the issue of abortion on a state-by-state level. In certain states, abortion is allowed, encouraged, and even subsidized abortion. In others, abortion is all but illegal. The history of the Church’s stance on both issues, abolition and abortion, is instructive as we seek to obey Christ in a post-Roe world.
Clearly, the early Church did not like slavery. The New Testament condemns behaviors that were endemic to the slave trade. In his letter to Philemon, Paul gave broad hints that masters should free their Christian slaves. Early Christians often purchased slaves specifically to set them free.
Even so, neither the New Testament nor the early Church pushed for full abolition of slavery, for at least two reasons. First, taking a public stand would have brought even more unwanted attention to an already targeted group. Second, the ancient world offered no model to Christians for a society without slaves, so few could envision what that would look like. Though Christians saw slavery as a curse, they could not conceive of being rid of it entirely (any more than they could imagine a world rid of disease or poverty). This failure of moral imagination meant that it would be centuries before the implications of the Gospel would lead Christian rulers to take definitive steps toward abolishing slavery.
By the Middle Ages, overt slavery was rare in Europe, and Church leaders spoke out against it. Thomas Aquinas claimed that slavery might be part of the “law of nations” but was against the law of nature and therefore a sin. When, centuries later, the infamous Atlantic slave trade began, Portugal and Spain defied the decrees of four different popes to spread it in their colonies. In the English-speaking world, the rampant practice of slavery found opposition among Quakers and a rising evangelicalism that eventually ended first the slave trade, then slavery altogether.
All this means that the American theologians who defended slavery were following the culture’s lead, not Church teaching. Though it took far too long for the implications of the Gospel to become clear, the teaching of both Jesus and Paul of the spiritual and moral equality of all persons meant that slavery was incompatible with Christianity, and its abolition in Christian states was only a matter of time. Eventually, because of the commitment to the worth and dignity of every human being as created in the image of God, Christians fought to end the abuse of slavery.
In contrast, the Christian position on abortion has been clear from day one. In the Didache, the earliest non-New Testament Christian work to survive, Christians are instructed “you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.” Similarly, the late first or early second century Epistle of Barnabas, a manual of ethics in this early period, says “you shall not murder a child by abortion, nor again kill it when it is born.” In “A Plea for Christians,” written in 177, Athenagoras of Athens wrote, “[w]e say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder …”
Similar teaching can be found in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, the pseudonymous Apocalypse of Peter, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, and Lactantius, which takes us up to the de-criminalization of Christianity by Constantine. The teaching of the Church on abortion has been clear from the start and continued to be clear well into the 20th century.
Only recently have some claiming the name of Christ accepted abortion as morally licit, or worse, have celebrated it. Christian opposition to abortion is based on precisely the same reasoning as Christian opposition to slavery. Every human being is made in the image of God and is crowned with glory and honor, a dignity we dare not ignore. The same dehumanizing and depersonalizing claim that undergirded the idea that slaves were less worthy as human beings, and further undergirded the horrific treatment of African Americans in the Jim Crow South, is also at work in pro-abortion thinking. And yet, the same liberating power of the imago dei that broke the chains of slavery demands that we see the dignity of preborn children and work to protect them.
Slavery and the subsequent dehumanizing treatment of African Americans was evil, and that the crusade to end both was (and is) God’s work. May we also recognize that dehumanizing and killing the unborn is at least as evil, and rightly abhorred.
Yesterday in 1924, Eric Liddell (1902-1945) won an Olympic gold medal in the 400-meter race. As a devout Christian, Liddell decided to never race on Sundays. Imagine his dismay when he realized that his best race—100 meters—was scheduled for a Sunday.
Liddell withdrew, to the derision of many Britons, who thought he was being disloyal to his nation. He quickly pivoted for the 200-meter and 400-meter races, taking third in the 200-meter and claiming the gold in the 400-meter.
Liddell was the son of Scottish missionaries to China, and his story was memorialized in the film Chariots of Fire, which won the Oscar in 1981 for Best Picture. Despite athletic success, Liddell returned to China the following year. During World War II, the Japanese took over his mission station and placed him in an internment camp, where he faithfully served Christ and others before dying of a brain tumor in 1945.
Liddell’s Olympic-time decision was consistent with the life he lived in faithful service to Christ who “made [him] for China,” but also “made [him] fast.” He ran every race, including the race of life, to “feel God’s pleasure.”
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One of the most enigmatic, sensational, and misguided thinkers of the last 10 years is Israeli historian and pop philosopher Yuval Noah Harari. His book Sapiens, published in English in 2015, sold over a million copies as it told the story of mankind’s evolution. His 2017 book Homo Deus predicts a transhumanist future, a world where technology fundamentally reshapes what kind of entity human beings are.
“We humans should get used to the idea that we are no longer mysterious souls. We are now hackable animals,” he told attendees at the 2020 World Economic Forum annual meeting. “By hacking organisms, elites may gain the power to reengineer the power of life itself,” he said two years earlier. “This will be not just the greatest revolution in the history of humanity. This will be the greatest revolution in biology since the very beginning of life 4 billion years ago.”
Harari’s prophecy doesn’t end there: “Science is replacing evolution by natural selection by evolution via intelligent design,” he continued in 2018. “Not the intelligent design of some God above the clouds, but our intelligent design, and the intelligent design of our clouds: the IBM cloud, the Microsoft cloud … these are the new, driving forces of evolution.”
Conspiracy theorists might be forgiven for having a field day with such statements. After all, Harari’s outspoken fans include some of the most powerful people alive: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, former President Barack Obama, as well as executive chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab. Despite a somewhat critical response from academics, the success of his books is undeniable.
Still, Harari suffers from a fatal inconsistency. While positioning himself as a prophet, interested in solving the worst abuses that could befall our future hackable selves, he cuts the ideological ground out from anything standing in their way. A keen example is his critique of both liberal democracy and the entire concept of the “individual” as outdated political norms.
“Liberalism,” he wrote in the Guardian “is unprepared for a situation when individual freedom is subverted from within, and when the very concepts of ‘individual’ and ‘freedom’ no longer make much sense.” Yet in nearly the same breath, Harari rushes us towards that exact conclusion: “In order to survive and prosper in the 21st century,” he writes, “we need to leave behind the naive view of humans as free individuals—a view inherited from Christian theology as much as from the modern Enlightenment.”
Though he is right about the origins of classic liberalism, the result is a self-contradictory mess. In effect, Harari is saying we should stop people from being hacked by hacking ourselves first … and defend universal values by denying that they exist. “I don’t know where the answers will come from,” Harari admits, “but they are definitely not coming from a collection of stories written thousands of years ago.”
If those stories are just stories, Harari is correct. But as C.S. Lewis described, some stories ground us in reality. This is, in fact, what Christianity does, and what reductionist materialism makes impossible.
Though new insight on technology may have helped Harari sell interesting books, dreaming of a world stripped of all values is as old as modernism itself. Had someone given him a copy of Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, he may have seen his exact premise tackled by an Oxford don nearly 80 years ago.
All of this matters because ideas have consequences. Harari and those like him may be attempting to shape the trajectory of transhumanism towards a utopian future but, as often the case, public intellectuals with good intentions but bad worldviews are often the blindest to the practical implications of their thinking.
“How does liberal democracy function in an era when governments and corporations can hack humans?” Harari asked in the Guardian article. A better question is: How does liberal democracy function in an era when people rush to assume they are merely pre-determined “hackable animals” instead of moral agents who are responsible for their decisions, living in a society of people created equal and “endowed by their creator with inalienable rights?”
History tells us the answer to that question. It can’t. The entire concept of human rights is intimately connected with a Christian anthropology. Gut a society of that worldview, and there’s no limit to how far we can fall.
If Harari’s predictions somehow do become reality, it will have less to do with technology, and far more to do with ideas: specifically, the nihilistic, reductionist humanity he so ardently promotes. Technology makes imagined futures possible, but ideas shape how and why we use technology. If he’s looking for a worldview that’s better for empowering techno-tyrants, corporatists, and demagogues, he could do little better than the one he’s promoting.
On the other hand, if he’s looking to evade the oppression he fears, he should look to One of the old stories he derides.
I’m going to say it—a book is better than a phone.
Stop me if you’ve heard this: A guy is walking his dog right beside a very busy road and he almost dies because he’s staring straight into, wait for it . . . a book!
You were expecting it to be his phone, right?
If you’re going to risk your life, at least do it for the printed word. We might tell ourselves there’s no difference between reading on paper and reading on a screen. But as Dr. Martin Tobin writes, “Our eyes lie to us.”
“Cognitive scientists have discovered that reading is not only a visual activity, but also a bodily activity,” Tobin writes. “A book is a physical object . . . you see and feel the texture of its pages. Leafing back and forth provides a mental map of the entire text, aiding comprehension …and recall.”
And, of course, when we read a book, we’re not tempted to check email, voicemail, Facebook, texts, and on and on.
So put down the phone. Grab a real book. But avoid traffic when you do so.
A recent photo essay in The Atlantic documented dozens of pro-abortion demonstrations around the country following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling. Protesters, often dressed like handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, seem to believe the Court has taken something away from them. Even the article’s description blames the justices for “removing a federal right to an abortion.”
In reality, the majority’s decision in the Dobbs case did not change a single abortion law. What they did was end the Supreme Court’s 49-year-old intervention that took the abortion question out of the hands of elected lawmakers, and therefore out of the hands of the American people. Now, thanks to this ruling, voters can, for the first time in a generation, decide the issue democratically by going to the ballot box and making their voices heard.
Of course, any law that allows for the killing of unborn children is unjust and morally unacceptable, even if it is the will of voters. So, the ultimate goal for Christians should be that abortion is not only illegal in all 50 states, but unthinkable in the modern world, swept into the dustbin of history like other historic evils. Obviously, given the reaction to the Dobbs decision, this will involve changing a lot of hearts and minds.
Still, the ruling in Dobbs is an incredible victory and important step in restoring the rule of law in this country and putting the question of abortion before the people. Roe was a legal disaster that was used for decades to swat down any state-level regulations on abortion and silence voters who wanted those regulations in place. As Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis write in their new book, Tearing Us Apart,
[Roe] removed nearly every question about abortion policy from the hands of the American people and placed the issue into the hands of unelected judges, even though the Constitution contains nothing that could remotely support a right to abortion.
Former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, someone who was far from pro-life, described the judiciary’s attitude on this issue as “the abortion distortion.” According to Justice O’Connor, “no legal rule or doctrine is safe from ad hoc nullification by this Court when an occasion for its application arises in a case involving state regulation of abortion.” In other words, she saw that her fellow left-leaning justices were willing to use specious arguments to prop up abortion rights, even when they meant ignoring established norms and precedent. In fact, even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of the so-called “right to choose,” admitted that, in legal terms, Roe was a “heavy-handed judicial intervention.”
Not only does Dobbs represent a moment when the Supreme Court is giving up power and returning it to the states, but it may place America much more in line with the rest of the developed world on the abortion issue. Believe it or not, American law on abortion, thanks in a big part to Roe, has been more in line with the laws of repressive, totalitarian regimes than other liberal democracies.
As Anderson and DeSanctis note, only seven countries, including North Korea
permit elective abortion after twenty weeks of pregnancy. U.S. abortion policy is far more permissive even than the policies in most European countries. Thirty-nine of the forty-two European countries that allow elective abortion permit it only in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy.
To put that in perspective, we are told that the Mississippi law at the heart of the Dobbs case is comparable to Margaret Atwood’s fictional sexist dystopia. But the reality is that in prohibiting elective abortion after 15 weeks, the law made Mississippi comparable to such sexist dystopias as…well, France.
Considering these facts, it’s difficult to understand the extreme reaction many in the pro-abortion camp have had to this ruling. The justices didn’t change a single law. What they did was return the issue to the states, and thus, the voters. The process now unfolding in all 50 states is one the Supreme Court short-circuited almost 50 years ago by making the decision for us and inventing a constitutional right to an abortion.
As Anderson and DeSanctis note, this “heavy-handed” intervention corrupted our political process, undermined the will of voters, and fostered a mentality among progressives that whatever they couldn’t win support for in legislatures, they could demand from the Supreme Court. In Dobbs, six of the justices appear to be signaling that things will no longer work this way.
Of course, progressive states will entrench abortion in law, meaning lives will continue to be snuffed out in this country by white-clad professionals practicing what they call “healthcare.” Until that changes, our work for justice must continue. But thanks to this ruling, laws designed to save young lives will no longer be snuffed out by black-robed lawyers practicing what they call “Constitutional law.”
Maria and John hold a lively conversation about human dignity in the Declaration of Independence, the correlation of marijuana use to teen mental health, and the surge in purchases of the Plan B morning-after pill.
Recently, Ezra Klein wrote a column attempting to answer a question he says he is asked all the time: Should today’s adults have kids, given the climate crisis?
Klein received a good bit of pushback for the odd premise of the question, which seems to reveal more about the company he keeps than actual sentiment. After all, according to Pew Research, only a tiny fraction of childless adults cite climate worries as their motivation.
But the most poignant part of Klein’s piece is what it assumes. Think about it: No one is wondering whether adults should abstain from sex in order to keep children from being born onto this doomed planet. Just whether they should use birth control and have abortions in order to keep children from being born onto this doomed planet.
Childbearing is seen as a technologically controlled choice, completely independent of the act that causes it. This is how much technologies can change how we think about the world and why Christians must always approach new biotechnologies by first asking what humans are for.
And, as for his original question—yes, we should still have children.
According to the writer of Proverbs, “death and life are in the power of the tongue.” So is cultural change, which most often comes with efforts to change language use and the definitions of words. For example, Harvard Medical molecular biologist David Sinclair is combining innovation in the lab with innovation in language. In a recent CNN article, one of Sinclair’s financial backers described the goal of his research as changing the definition of the word “aging.” He wants to “make aging a disease.”
Sinclair claims to have successfully interrupted the aging process in mice by turning adult cells back into stem cells. Some animals are designed with a similar capability, albeit in a more limited way—think, for example, of an octopus re-growing a leg that has been cut off. Using that same idea, what Sinclair calls an “ancient regeneration system,” he hopes to regenerate cells that deteriorate with age. Already, he has been able to repair ocular cells in older mice, allowing them to recover their “youthful” eyesight.
His ultimate aim, of course, is to develop anti-aging therapies for humans. Though some concern has been directed toward the safety of Sinclair’s process, what goes largely unquestioned in media coverage is Sinclair’s chief aim. In other words, as so much medical ethics goes these days, if we can do it, then we should.
Medical ethics from a Christian worldview perspective is not that simple.
Whenever Christians can affirm aspects of work like David Sinclair’s, which attempts to overcome the consequences of the fall, we should. The Bible teaches that death is an enemy, and that humans were not made to die. And humans should recognize that the ingenuity and passion for exploration that often inspires medical progress are God-given.
To accuse people like Sinclair of “playing God,” as if that were an insult, is not helpful. After all, according to Genesis 1 and 2, human beings were created by God to, in a sense, “play God.” We are not to pretend that we are God, of course, but He did gift us with the ability to work alongside Him to accomplish His purposes for the world He made. After the fall, He promises to eventually restore His creation, so our work alongside Him continues. The mandate to build and create, tending the garden of His world, is to be done within the moral limits that reflect His character and how He created the world.
Within this framework, causing or hastening death is a great evil, but so can be attempts to avoid death “at all costs.” Jesus’ own death was an act of unprecedented evil but also only fully understood in the context of His obedience to the Father’s will. Jesus lay down His life, and many Christians have followed in His footsteps. Thus, there are certain moral goods—such as the will of God—that are higher than avoiding death.
Keeping these sorts of things straight is essential to ethically pursuing and employing technologies, like those that promise to “reverse aging.” In his book Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, bioethicist and theologian Gilbert Meilaender counsels Christians to view the freedom to pursue medical progress not as freedom from restraints, such as death. Instead, we should consider ourselves free to work alongside God imitating Him on the path He set out for human flourishing. This will mean, very often in fact, not doing (as God described the men who built the tower of Babel) “whatever comes into our minds to do.”
Meilaender counsels Christians to fight the temptation to use medicine, not merely as a way to care for our bodies, but from the desire to control them. If the chief end of medical research and practice is to live on our own terms, we will inevitably make moral compromises along the way. It was the serpent who promised Eve that she could live as she wished but evade death, which was not only a lie, but not sufficient justification for attempting to usurp the authority that only belongs to God.
The goal of medical research and practice should be to help people flourish in the bodies, times, places, and limits that God has given us. From this beginning, Meilaender suggests that the “principle” which should “govern Christian compassion” is not to “minimize suffering,” but to “maximize care.”
Our purpose is not to avoid suffering or even death at all costs despite that they are effects of the fall we are called to oppose. Rather, we take into account that in God’s mercy, even our suffering can be redeemed for good. We lament the hard realities of our fallen world, and we seek to understand them within the larger context of creation and resurrection. Thus, we know that death is not the end of life, nor is life only a prerequisite to death.
Last month, a New York court ruled that Happy the elephant should not legally be considered a person. An organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project had sued the Bronx Zoo for “imprisoning” Happy, arguing it should be set free since it showed signs of “self-awareness.”
“While no one disputes the impressive capabilities of elephants. ...” Janet DiFiore, the chief judge, wrote, “[h]abeas corpus is a procedural vehicle intended to secure the liberty rights of human beings who are unlawfully restrained, not nonhuman animals.”
Confusion is inevitable whenever a culture untethers itself from all sources of truth. If there’s no God, then people aren’t in His image. So why shouldn’t animals have the same rights we do? And if our rights aren’t based in our design, the only option is to base them on some slippery criteria like “self-awareness” or intelligence. But, of course, that way of thinking also makes it possible to not extend human rights to certain humans.
According to Judge DiFiore, granting Happy “personhood status” would be legally “destabilizing.” In fact, the worldview that animated this legal comedy to begin with is destabilizing. When it comes to human rights, only Christianity offers solid ground.
Last year, a coalition of organizations, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Policy Alliance, Colson Center, and the Heritage Foundation, teamed up to issue a Promise to America’s Children, a commitment to protect their minds, their bodies, and their most important relationships amid this hypersexualized culture.
Today, we join again, this time to issue a Promise to America’s Parents. Why? As the website puts it,
Local, state, and federal government policies are imposing ideologies that divide children by race and promote the falsehood that a boy can become a girl or vice-versa. Some schools are treating children as if they are the opposite sex without the permission of parents. Medical professionals are performing harmful experiments on children who are emotionally distressed about their bodies. To protect children, parents need laws that protect their rights.
Simply put, no government entity should usurp the place of parents. In too many classrooms, progressive ideas are forced on children, targeting their hearts, minds, and identities. A reigning ideology in education is critical theory which, in its various forms, denies that every single person is made in the image of God. Thus, kids are taught to see other people in simplistic categories of oppressed or oppressor, to see Christianity as an oppressive and destructive historical force, and to see themselves primarily in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Promise to America’s Parents galvanizes parents to “A.C.T.”—an acronym referring to accountability, choice, and transparency—on behalf of their children. According to the Promise,
Children belong first and foremost to their families. In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, they are not “mere creatures of the state.” The unique and intimate relationship between a parent and a child creates a duty and a corresponding natural right. Parental rights are fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. However, courts have not consistently protected parental rights against government interference and invasion as they should.
In the “A.C.T.” acronym, accountability means that “Every mother or father may hold the government accountable for infringing on their rights to care for their child.” Choice means that “Every mother or father has the responsibility and right to choose the education and medical treatment that they deem best for their child.” Thus, neither schools, nor healthcare providers, nor schools acting like healthcare providers should push a child toward an alternative gender without the parents’ permission. Schools also must not restrict a child’s speech by creating vague anti-racist policies that would prohibit differing viewpoints being stated.
Transparency means that “Every mother or father has the right to know about what their child is learning, their child’s health, and any harms to them.” Parents have the right to know the content within the curriculum, from textbooks to other materials. Parents have the right to know the content of their children’s files. Specifically, no separate files should be kept to maintain secretive use of counseling, gender pronouns, or treatments.
Please read the whole Promise to America’s Parents at promisetoAmericasparents.org. There’s also a free downloadable toolkit, explaining parental rights at schools and in doctors’ offices. It also provides practical advice on how to proceed if a child describes their school day, and warning lights start flashing in your head. For example, the toolkit explains what you can and cannot ask for in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, how to access the school’s curriculum, securing opt-out policies for classroom instruction that conflicts with religious or moral beliefs, and how to help children report statements or actions that treat students differently because of their race, religion, or moral views.
There are also plenty of stories on the Promise website about parents who took a stand. Two parents whose stories are told are plaintiffs in cases represented by ADF. Melissa Riley says of her son, who is biracial, “He is changing . . . . If things don’t go his way or things seem unfair, he will now claim it’s racism. He never did that before.” Another parent, Carlos Ibenez is a plaintiff because his daughter was told in middle school that as a Latina, she wouldn’t succeed because the system was set up to privilege people with white skin.
Parents can protect their children from indoctrination that targets the mind and the heart. Parents can protect their children from being co-opted by the state. Please, visit promisetoAmericasparents.org.
According to a recent poll conducted by Gallup, the portion of Americans who believe in God has dropped to barely over 80%. That’s still a majority, but the one-in-five who don’t believe is the highest number ever recorded in this country.
Anyone seeking to understand this data should remember something theologian Carl F.H. Henry said, 70 years ago, when told that 99% of Americans believed in God: “The vast majority of Americans today may believe in a ghost god, in a phantom god, in a god who makes very little difference in the great decisions of life and even less in the cares of everyday existence.”
Imaginary gods, like imaginary friends, make us feel good for a time, but lose their staying power. That’s true for individuals and for societies—which is why Christians must be clear on Who God is as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, in creation, and in Christ... not a god we create in our own image.
What looks like good news for a nation in the midst of a demographic crisis isn’t really. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that “U.S. births increased last year for the first time in seven years.” In 2020, the U.S. fertility rate dipped to 1.64—the lowest “since the government began tracking it in the 1930s.” In 2021, the rate increased for the first time since 2014, to 1.66.
Though that sounds like good news, that’s a lower spike than we’d historically expect during something that keeps everyone at home, such as a pandemic. One economist has called it a “minor blip” that “still leaves us on a long-term trajectory towards lower births.” That’s because the replacement rate is at least 2.1, and some scholars think 1.7 is the threshold of no return.
Nations that fail to replace their population face economic stagnation and social instability. A society committed to adult happiness over the future and the well-being of children will be a nation that fails to replace its population.
In other words, birth rates are more than statistics and historic predictors. They reflect a nation’s priorities, values, and worldview.
The first step in making abortion unthinkable has been taken. Now that the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade with its ruling in the Dobbs case, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and work towards building a culture of life. This is not the time to back off, or as some Christians have suggested, to tone it down.
Back in May, at the “Preparing for a Post-Roe World” event at the Wilberforce Weekend, Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins issued a powerful and stirring challenge. Here’s Kristan:
Friends, tonight, I’m here to ask you to do something that’s never been done before in the history of our world. I’m here to ask you, the Church, to join with the pro-life generation to put our nation back together in a post-Roe v. Wade world. And I implore you to help us achieve this mission that has thus far spanned five decades—church by church, city by city, state by state—as we move forward to make abortion unthinkable.
Friends, the hour is upon us—something that we have all worked for, that many of you were working for before I was even created. Step one of our mission is almost complete. But there’s so many more steps we have to go. And the Church must rise to the challenge, and you are being called to lead it.
Make no mistake. The battles that we face in the coming months, the coming weeks will be physical, they’ll be political, and they’ll be spiritual. In our city streets, the violence that so many support behind the closed doors of the Planned Parenthood will be committed openly. And those in power will look the other way. In statehouses, those who we fought to elect will be forced to finally act to actually cast a vote that will determine the fate of lives. And I predict some of them who say that they’re with us will not be so.
And in our homes, our daughters and our granddaughters will start to order chemical abortion pills shipped from foreign countries or other states that could very well result in her own injury, infertility, or death. She’ll be aborting her child, your grandchild, your great-grandchild in her bathroom, and every morning she’ll return to the scene of that crime.
In our workplaces, women and men will be hurting from past abortion decisions, and they’ll be made to finally reckon with the choice that they made decades ago that they’ve been suppressing for years.
And in our churches, what will we be doing? Will we be a thermostat that can transform the mores of our society—of our country—or will we simply sit back and be a thermometer? I believe it’s not too late to become the former, but this relies on you.
First, I must ask you to speak truth at your church, especially to this young generation who has never lived in America without legal abortion. Show your youth group the truth about the violence of abortion. Show them how they can actually step up to serve and transform. Convince your pastor—6% of which say that they’ve given a sermon on abortion in the past year—convince them to speak. Start a ministry for men and women hurting from past abortions. Start a ministry for pregnant and parenting women and men and families in need. A great first step is to join Students for Life and the Colson Center for the national Standing with Her Sunday simulcast. We’re going to be launching August 28, and the goal is to get our churches all the tools that they need to support her.
The second thing you can do is envision what your community will look like and must look like in the post-Roe era. Ask yourself how your church can step up—what you can do. And I have to warn you—envisioning things is a little dangerous. It’s free—doesn’t take any money—but it’s powerful.
Quell the flames of fear that Planned Parenthood is fanning in our nation. Show them we actually have a progressive view for our families and women in America. This is 2022. This is not 1952. No woman in 2022 America should ever have to choose between the life of her child for her education or for her career goals. Tell America about the 3,000 nonviolent pregnancy centers, the more than 400 maternity homes that vastly outnumber the abortion facilities in our country. Tell America about support: AfterAbortion.org, abortionpillreversal.org, standingwithyou.org—all the resources we have in place. This is fundamental.
At Students for Life, we’ve knocked on 120,000 doors in the last year in neighborhoods in 20 cities that surround an abortion facility. And 73% of the neighbors we speak to have no clue that the pregnancy center exists in our community—have never even heard about it.
Friends, when the Supreme Court finally reverses its anti-science Roe v. Wade decision, what choice, what decision are you going to make? What course of action will you commit to taking that will help us determine the fate of this cause—the greatest human rights struggle in the history of our life?
Tonight, I implore you. Make a decision. Church, make a decision for a positive peace—to stand for innocent children and their mothers. Get to work to ensure that no woman stands alone in a post-Roe America.
That was Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins speaking at our preparing for a post-Roe future event. To hear the entire talk, and for more recordings like this one equipping us to build a culture of life, go to WilberforceWeekend.org.
As part of The Gospel Coalition’s “Good Faith Debates,” Scott Klusendorf and fellow pro-life advocate Karen Swallow Prior discuss what it means to stand for life today. Is it enough to oppose abortion? Or must the pro-life movement take on a wider range of causes?
The exchange brings clarity to a hot button issue. Both agree that Christians should be consistent, and that our love for neighbor and commitment to life should be reflected in how we think about and address other issues, from genocide to racism, from artificial reproductive technologies to poverty.
However, while the Christian life cannot be reduced to just one issue, the greatest injustices require our greatest attention. Pro-lifers should never apologize for focusing on and working tirelessly to end abortion, especially when about 900,000 children are aborted every year. So, we should celebrate the end of Roe, work for state-level protections for the preborn, speak with moral clarity on abortion, and help the women who need it most.
Now is the time to double down, not back off.
Eleven years ago today, Chuck Colson delivered a Breakpoint commentary on what would be his last July 4 holiday. In it, Chuck reflected on the basis of our national identity. Specifically, he recognized that the only true way to ground the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal” and possess “certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” is if we are indeed “endowed by their Creator.”
The stunning clarity of the Declaration of Independence in stating that rights are granted ultimately by God, not the State, is something too often forgotten today, if not entirely dismissed. Here’s Chuck Colson reflecting on this important truth:
The great British intellectual G.K. Chesterton wrote that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed.”
Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands—and the peasants who inhabited those lands.
But America was—and is to this day—different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.
And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
I’ll never forget when I graduated from Brown University during the Korean War. I couldn’t wait to become a Marine officer, to give my life if necessary, to defend that creed. To defend the idea that our rights come from God Himself and are not subject to whims of governments or tyrants. That humans ought to be free to pursue their most treasured hopes and aspirations.
Perhaps some 230 years later, we take these words for granted. But in 1776, they were earth-shaking, indeed, revolutionary.
Yet today, they are in danger of being forgotten altogether. According to Gallup, 66% of American adults have no idea that the words, “we hold these truths,” come from the Declaration of Independence. Even worse, only 45% of college seniors know that the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are proclaimed in the Declaration.
As America grows more and more diverse culturally, religiously, ethnically, it is critical that we embrace the American creed. Yes, America has always been a “melting pot.” But what is the pot that holds our multicultural stew together? Chesterton said the pot’s “original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy.” A democracy founded on those self-evident truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And as Chesterton remarked, “The pot must not melt.”
Abraham Lincoln understood this so well. For him, the notion that all men are created equal was “the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”
So go to the Fourth of July parade. Go to the neighborhood barbecue and enjoy the hot dogs and apple pie.
But here’s an idea for you. Why not take time out at the picnic to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your friends and neighbors.
Listen—and thrill—to those words that bind us together as a nation of freedom-loving people: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
These are the words that Americans live for—and if necessary, die for.
Chuck Colson’s words are just as relevant today, and perhaps even more important for us to understand. From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy 4th!
After discussing the horrific death of migrants in San Antonio, John and Maria talk about the reactions of some Christians to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They analyze the hedging that is occurring and insist there’s no shame in being grateful. Afterward, they parse misunderstandings of the establishment clause for Supreme Court cases on religious liberty.
— Recommendations —
What is a Woman>>
Tearing Us Apart>>
— In Show References —
Church of Spies: The Pope’s Secret War Against Hitler
“The Vatican's stance toward Nazism is fiercely debated. History has accused wartime pontiff Pius the Twelfth of complicity in the Holocaust and dubbed him “Hitler’s Pope. But a key part of the story has remained untold”
https://www.amazon.com/Church-Spies-Secret-Against-Hitler/dp/0465094112
On a Texas road called 'the mouth of the wolf,' a semitruck packed with migrants was abandoned in the sweltering heat
“A distant cry led a worker Monday evening to a tractor-trailer abandoned on a desolate country road under the blazing Texas sun on the outskirts of the city.”
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/29/us/san-antonio-migrant-truck-deaths/index.html
John Mark Mcmillan - Economy
According to The Economist, potential employees are beginning to discover the cost of their online behavior.
"The rise of the online self means the employer’s eye can travel … past your desk, past your office and into your home, family and even (through ill-judged social-media posts) your most intimate thoughts. Today, companies wield the sort of spy power less commonly associated with directors than with dictators, even deities."
Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise since our “most intimate thoughts” aren’t online in the first place unless someone chooses to post them. Still, the fact that some believe there should be a kind of immunity for bad behavior online points to a deeper truth about technology: Our tools shape us whether we like it or not.
For example, studies show that “negativity” spreads more easily than “positivity” online. What we’d never say to someone’s face, we’ll put on Twitter. What we’d never say about a neighbor, we’ll post on Nextdoor.
We aren’t two people. The best advice for Christians, whether online or off, is to “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer.”
Today marks the death of Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), a Christian whose storytelling ability inspired thousands to see the evils of slavery. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Harriet was the sixth child of prominent Presbyterian minister Lyman Beecher. Unlike many girls from that time period, she received a first-class education, attending the Hartford Female Seminary which was run by her older sister Catharine.
In 1832, Harriet’s father became president of Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio. The city was booming at the time, but competition for jobs between Irish immigrants and runaway slaves often erupted in violence, with the Irish attacking the black community. In 1834, the seminary held debates about slavery that, won by abolitionists, may have helped spur anti-abolitionist riots in 1836 and 1841. It was by witnessing these events that Harriet not only became interested in the issue of slavery, but also began to interview runaway slaves.
Harriet and her husband Rev. Calvin Stowe relocated to Maine in 1850. That same year, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which prohibited aiding runaway slaves, even in free states. As ardent abolitionists, the Stowes ignored this law. In fact, they made their home a station on the Underground Railroad.
After losing her 18-month-old son, Stowe’s sympathy for slaves separated from their families on the auction block deepened. Inspired by a vision of a dying slave, which she claimed to have experienced during Communion at her church, Stowe began to write the book for which she is now so well known. It is a book that can truly be said to have changed the world.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin was originally published as weekly installments in the anti-slavery journal The National Era, between June 5, 1851, and April 1, 1852. It was first published in book form in March of 1852, and sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies within its first year. By November of that same year, it was made into a play in New York. By 1857, the novel had been translated into 20 languages. Eventually, Uncle Tom’s Cabin would become the second bestselling book of the 19th century after the Bible.
While the main theme of the book is the evil of slavery, it also includes significant reflections on the nature of Christianity, Christian responsibility, and Christian love. In the end, Stowe clearly and compellingly presents slavery as incompatible with Christian theology. In this, she followed the mainstream of Christian tradition since the Middle Ages.
Stowe hoped her book would show how slavery affected, not just those directly involved, but everyone in society. She also hoped to document the horrors of slavery which she had learned directly from escaped slaves. In each of these aims, the book succeeded admirably. Its popularity energized the abolitionist movement in the North, and prominent abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass promoted it as a vital tool in the battle against slavery.
Not surprisingly, Uncle Tom’s Cabin generated significant backlash in the South. Southerners complained the novel was slanderous and accused Stowe of not knowing what she was talking about. Some Southern authors responded with novels of their own that defended slavery, but none that approached the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe received hate mail from defenders of slavery in both the North and the South, including one package that contained the severed ear of a slave, ironic evidence for the accuracy of her description of slavery’s horrors. In response to her critics, Stowe wrote A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in which she documented the sources used in her novel, as well as the accounts that corroborated her descriptions.
During the Civil War, Stowe was invited to the White House. Lincoln is said to have greeted her with the words, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”
Altogether, Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. As important as she was as an author, she was equally famous for her public stands on the important social issues of the day, from slavery to women’s rights. Her courageous life is a profound example of someone using their calling to engage the world around them. By obeying God’s calling on her life, using her God-given talent in the time and place in which He called her, she changed her world and continues to influence ours. May we also have the courage to do the same with our own skills in this cultural moment.
“For many years, the internet in China was seen as a channel for new thinking, or at least greater openness,” writes Human Rights Watch researcher Yaqiu Wang. “Online discussions were relatively free and open, and users, especially younger ones, had an eager appetite for learning and debating big ideas about political systems and how China should be governed.”
That changed when Xi Jinping took power. Explaining what’s known as China’s “Great Firewall,” Wang notes, “the government got savvier, and more aggressive about using its own technology.” For example, dissidents, journalists, and public figures disappear frequently, sometimes often for minor infractions like logging onto Twitter.
The state’s actions have created “a generational split,” says Wang. “[T]hose who experienced a relatively free internet as young people—many strongly resent the Great Firewall. Among people who started college after Xi took power, however, there is a strong impulse to defend it.”
It’s an extreme example of how tools intended and used for good can also be harnessed for evil. The same resource that can promote flourishing can also promote tyranny. That’s true everywhere, not just China.
In all the talk about racial injustices, the racial disparities for abortion are ignored. And that’s because we would need to talk about marriage. I’m John Stonestreet, and this is Breakpoint.
Recently in The Wall Street Journal, Jason Riley asked a provocative question, “Why Won’t the Left Talk About Racial Disparities in Abortion?” In it, he describes how the “black abortion rate is nearly four times higher than the white rate,” how more black babies in New York City are aborted than born, and how “[n]ationally, the number of babies aborted by black women each year far exceeds the combined number of blacks who drop out of school, are sent to prison and are murdered.”
Even books on racism by Christian publishers, for example, Jemar Tisby’s How to Fight Racism, never mention the significant racial disparities that exist when it comes to abortion, even while spending significant time on other disparities, such as student achievement, incarceration, wealth, and healthcare in general. The new book Faithful Anti-Racism by Christian Barland Edmondson and Chad Brennan shares similar disparity stats to Tisby’s, but the only mentions of abortion are embedded in quotations regarding conservative interests.
According to Riley, one issue is that talking about the racial disparity when it comes to abortion would necessitate discussing how to “increase black marriage rates,” since so many women having abortions are single. Riley states:
One problem is that such a conversation requires frank talk about counterproductive attitudes toward marriage and solo parenting in low-income black communities. It requires discussing antisocial behavior and personal responsibility.
Now, to be clear, disparities do not always point to injustice or racism. As Thaddeus Williams writes In Confronting Justice Without Compromising Truth, those who call themselves antiracists assume that disparities reveal widespread discrimination or institutional injustice. And disparities do sometimes point to systemic wrongs. Clearly, in Exodus 1, if the midwives Shiphrah and Puah had obeyed Pharoah when ordered to slaughter baby boys, a clear injustice would have created a disparity between the number of Hebrew boys born versus the number of Egyptian boys. Other times, disparities do not reveal an injustice. In his book, Williams describes how what appeared to be a racial disparity issue of injustice on the New Jersey Turnpike turned to be an issue cause by age instead.
Disparities can have multiple factors. In the case of the high number of abortions of black babies, as we’ve shared on Breakpoint before, almost 80% of Planned Parenthood’s clinics, according to a 2012 study, were near majority black or Hispanic neighborhoods. Pro-abortion advocates argue that the racial disparity for abortion is more about poverty. Perhaps, for example, the mother couldn’t afford to care for another baby. According to Riley in the Wall Street Journal, however, this argument fails to explain why the abortion numbers among Hispanics who are impoverished are not comparable.
Riley proposes that the high number of abortions of black babies is related to a reduced number of marriages. Quoting a book by Stanford law professor Ralph Richard Banks, Riley writes,
A single woman with an unplanned pregnancy is about twice as likely as a married woman to abort. . . . Black women thus may have so many more abortions than other groups in part because they are so much less likely to be married.
Since blacks who are married are much less likely to be in poverty, then why, he asks, aren’t activists promoting black marriage? It’s a good question.
According to the Family Research Council, “Married-couple families generate the most income, on average” compared to single-parent families, cohabiting families, or divorced families. Other studies have shown that marriage provides health benefits and the ability to deal with stress.
One individual courageous enough to talk about such issues is Anthony Bradley, a professor at The King’s College and an Acton Research Fellow, whom Jim Daly, President of Focus on the Family, and I hosted at an event, Lighthouse Voices, last February. Prof. Bradley points out again and again “that marriage is the vital/essential/the actual oxygen children need to thrive.” He writes, “If you love the poor, providing resources to support marriage has to be a top priority, otherwise you’re likely just helping people remain comfortably poor.”
Once again one of God’s ideas—marriage—is the best idea.
Last month, NBA legend LeBron James tweeted, “It’s a weird feeling to feel so alone sometimes!” He received over 4,000 replies from people expressing sympathy, disbelief, and from some, criticism.
It can be difficult to understand how rich, famous celebrities, like LeBron, could be lonely. Doesn’t he have it all? Four NBA championships, two Olympic gold medals, a $23 million LA mansion, marriage to his high school sweetheart, three kids, deep investment in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, ... and still, he feels lonely, even when 138,000 people liked his tweet saying so.
The problem with having it all is defining “it all.” Define it wrong, and you could get everything you want before realizing the hole in your heart is actually God-shaped. Fame, talent, wealth, stuff, activism, charity ... these things only mean something if life itself has meaning.
Of course, loneliness has always been part of the human condition after Eden, and I certainly don’t know what LeBron is dealing with. I just know more people than ever report being lonely, despite having more things than ever to distract them.
This term of the U.S. Supreme Court has been consequential, to say the least. In addition to the landmark decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, the court has now issued a second ruling that protects religious freedom. The first, issued about a week ago, protects religious institutions from being singled out and discriminated against by state-run entities and programs. The 6-3 decision was consistent with previous rulings in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer and Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue that state programs available to non-religious entities cannot be withheld from religious entities simply because they are religious. Instead, the state bears the burden of proof to demonstrate a compelling state interest in discriminating against religious institutions. It remains to be seen whether state officials have finally gotten the message.
This week, the court handed down their decision on Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, or what’s become known as the “Coach Kennedy Case.” High school football coach Joe Kennedy was fired for praying on the football field after games by school officials who kept (pun intended) “moving the goal posts” about what religious expressions were allowed.
Contrary to various news reports, Kennedy never forced student athletes, coaches, or anyone else to join him. After school officials raised concerns, he even agreed to pray silently by himself. However, he was told that if he insisted on closing his eyes in silent prayer, he must do it somewhere out of sight. Coach Kennedy rightly recognized their demands as a violation of his right to free religious expression and took his case to the Supreme Court with the aid of First Liberty Institute.
On Monday, the court ruled overwhelmingly for Coach Kennedy, on both free speech and free exercise grounds. As Justice Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion:
By its own admission, the District sought to restrict Mr. Kennedy’s actions at least in part because of their religious character. Prohibiting a religious practice was thus the District’s unquestioned “object.” The District explained that it could not allow an on duty employee to engage in religious conduct even though it allowed other on-duty employees to engage in personal secular conduct.
This behavior, Gorsuch concluded, was unacceptable.
Here, a government entity sought to punish an individual for engaging in a personal religious observance, based on a mistaken view that it has a duty to suppress religious observances even as it allows comparable secular speech. The Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.
Often, religious liberty violations are more symptoms of bureaucratic inertia or ignorance, than of animus. The first few letters sent by school officials to Coach Kennedy asking him to stop praying are not rantings of radical atheists. Officials acknowledged Coach Kennedy was “well-intentioned” and never forced students to participate in his religious observances. Still, they asked him to stop out of fear they would be sued for a First Amendment violation. In the end, they failed to understand the First Amendment and violated it themselves.
This is what happens when ignorance of the law mixes with stubbornness, or, even worse, animus toward religious conviction. When religion is seen as non-essential, religious freedom is limited to “religious” activities like private prayer, church attendance, and personal piety. At the same time, “secular” is wrongfully thought of as “neutral” or “unbiased.” Faith is reduced to a hobby, and a highly idiosyncratic one at that. Spiritually inspired convictions must be kept safely within church, synagogue, and mosque walls, and out of the government and schools.
This, however, is not religious liberty. It is merely “freedom of worship,” what some of the worst tyrannies and their successors falsely claim to be freedom. Thankfully, the court has seen through this muddled thinking and brought clarity to the freedom all Americans have to speak and exercise their religious convictions.
Christians, and those of other faiths, absolutely can stand on a football field and close our eyes in prayer, even if others can see us. Christian educators can cite the Bible as a historical record or a masterclass in philosophy. Christian school kids can host Bible studies after school. Christian workers do have the freedom to not take part in the latest ideological fad that business leaders have latched onto.
I am grateful for our friends at First Liberty, ADF, and elsewhere that defend conscience rights, and for organizations like Gateways to Better Education who help Christian educators know what those rights, in fact, are. I am grateful that the court has stated, again, that being religious is not a crime, and that the state is required to respect the religious freedom of individuals and institutions.
A final lesson for Christians is that we must not become like those who seek to silence us. If the truth is on our side, we’ve no reason to fear.
Disney’s newest Pixar film, Lightyear, isn’t doing great at the box office. While critics puzzle over why, an obvious reason is parents are tiring of the constant indoctrination in sexual matters. They feel betrayed by the once trusted Toy Story franchise.
All that may come as a surprise to Chris Evans, the new voice of Buzz, who recently said concerned parents are “idiots” who will soon “die off like the dinosaurs.” Not only, as Hans Fiene noted, is it strange for 41-year-old man with no children to predict the extinction of the fertile, it’s strange to leave children asking whether girls can marry girls, and how the couple had the baby who just magically appears in the film.
It’s one thing to promote the idea that dads and moms are interchangeable despite, you know, science, but it’s another to accuse anyone tired of being force-fed this whole thing of bigotry. As one reviewer put it, “Perhaps calling critics of a movie ‘idiots who are going to die off like the dinosaurs’ wasn’t the best strategy to get families to watch the latest entry in the Toy Story franchise.”
There are certain moments in history, such as the end of the Roman Empire or the dawn of the Enlightenment, when it becomes obvious just how much the cultural ground has shifted. In such moments, cultural norms that once fostered social cohesion and defined the good life can change dramatically. Shared ways of thinking, such as the definitions of words, can no longer be taken for granted.
It’s precisely at these historical hinge points that Christians must “re-catechize” themselves. This means recommitting to what is true and good, and regrounding who we are and how we live in the unchanging, overarching story of redemption outlined in Scripture.
We are living in one of these historical hinge points. And, if we take seriously what Paul told the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens, it is not by accident. God intentionally put us in this time and this place. Or, to quote something Tim Tebow said at the “Preparing for a Post-Roe World” event at the recent Wilberforce Weekend, “Anyone who has been rescued is now on the rescue team.”
God has called the Colson Center to help Christians navigate this consequential cultural moment, to become more deeply grounded in the True Story of reality, and to embrace their calling to this time and this place.
In fact, every resource the Colson Center offers is designed to provide (a) a Christian worldview analysis on culture (that’s Breakpoint, The Point, and the What Would You Say? video series), (b) a deeper dive into Christian worldview, one that counters the dominant cultural narratives (that’s the Upstream and Strong Women podcasts, short courses, and Wilberforce Weekend), or (c) in-depth formation in Christian wisdom and leadership (that’s the Colson Fellows program and the Colson Educators collective).
Our founder, Chuck Colson, realized that American culture was changing dramatically—he could see it coming—and that the Church needed to prepare for what lay ahead. We’ve embraced that call fully, and as our podcasts, conferences, training, and events continue to grow, we sense that more and more Christians are also sensing that they need to go deeper in their understanding of truth. This year’s Wilberforce Weekend event was the largest yet and featured the commissioning of the largest class of Colson Fellows yet. We anticipate over 1,000 Colson Fellows in next year’s class, studying in nearly 60 regional cohorts and over 40 church affiliates. That’s amazing. The Colson Educators collective is an investment into the training and formation of thousands of Christian educators, at a time—right now—where it is crucial for Christian education. And this year, by God’s grace, the Colson Center will launch a new, online education in public theology that every Christian can access. We believe that every Christian can live like one in this time and this place. And that’s exactly what every Christian is called to do.
We didn’t choose to be in this cultural moment, or to face the challenges it presents. Our time and our place in history are chosen by God. Our moment in history is not an accidental context in which we try to follow Jesus: It’s an essential aspect of the calling to follow Jesus. He invites us into His life and to join in the advance of His kingdom and His story right now.
So, if Breakpoint or any of the Colson Center ministries have been helpful to you, as a parent, grandparent, citizen, employee, leader, or neighbor, please prayerfully consider partnering with us with a fiscal-year-end gift. Any gift given by Thursday, June 30, 2022, will help us plan to more effectively obey the call God has for the Colson Center in the year ahead. Imagine if more Christians could live with the clarity, confidence, and courage that only a Christian worldview offers. That’s what this is all about.
To give a gift, please go to ColsonCenter.org/June.
The U.S. Department of Education is changing the rules again, and, again, forcing teachers into situations they may not be prepared for. On June 23, the feds announced that, going forward, gender identity would be included in protected classes under Title IX.
Between the efforts of federal officials implementing the latest executive orders and the activism of LGBTQ advocacy groups, school administrators struggle to keep up. Too often they end up caving to these outsiders by crafting new rules of dubious legality. Even though some of these bureaucratic diktats have been successfully challenged in court, those most affected, like teachers and students, don’t always know their rights when faced with this top-down pressure.
If you find yourself in that position, here are two groups you might want to contact. First, there’s our longtime partner organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, who will protect teachers of conscience. Second, there’s the Colson Center’s education initiative that trains teachers to know where and how to stand on these very important issues.
After nearly 50 years of waiting, working, praying, and weeping, a moment longed for by millions around the nation and around the world has arrived. In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned, not only the heinous 1973 Supreme Court decision known as Roe v. Wade, but also the equally flawed decision from 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
Ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court found that these earlier cases, the foundation of so-called abortion rights for a half-century, were without legal merit. Therefore, the final ruling was as follows: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”
To be clear, this ruling doesn’t end abortion in America, nor does it legally ban abortion. It means that state-level restrictions on abortion are not immediately invalidated by Supreme Court decisions that even honest pro-abortion legal theorists have recognized as poorly decided. It means that the work to see abortion swept into the same dustbin as other historic evils can now proceed legally unencumbered as it has long been. The next milestones are that abortion is made illegal in as many places as possible and, eventually, as unthinkable as slavery is.
Already, state officials have begun working to outlaw or dramatically restrict abortion in their states. Ohio’s attorney general has moved to revive its “heartbeat bill,” abortion will be illegal in Tennessee within a month, and Missouri has effectively ended the vile practice already. Much has begun, with many areas already prepared to enact similar pro-life laws, and much more remains to be done.
The Dobbs ruling is not a surprise. The final draft of the majority opinion was virtually unchanged from an earlier draft leaked back in May. Not only did Justice Alito, who authored the opinion, conclude that a Mississippi abortion restriction could stand, but also that Roe and Casey were promulgated without any constitutional or historical precedent, that the so-called viability argument was inadequate, and that decisions about regulating abortion should return to voters and their elected officials.
Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan co-authored a dissent, which (I suspect) will be quoted far more often than the majority opinion by most media outlets, especially this line: “With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” wrote the justices. The main difference between the leaked draft of the opinion and the final version is must-read material for everyone. In four pages, beginning on page 35 of his opinion, Justice Alito absolutely dismantles the dissent. “The dissent,” writes Alito, “does not identify any pre-Roe authority that supports such a right—no state constitutional provision or statute, no federal or state judicial precedent, not even a scholarly treatise.”
Or again,
Like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided. Casey perpetuated its errors, calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side. Those on the losing side—those who sought to advance the State’s interest in fetal life—could no longer seek to persuade their elected representatives to adopt policies consistent with their views.
Of course, many are outraged by this decision. Women’s March President Rachel Carmona already declared a “summer of rage.” In recent weeks, there have been acts of arson and vandalism, threats of violence against pro-life leaders and conservative justices, all with promise of more to come. In mid-June, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore released a statement asking “our elected officials to take a strong stand against this violence, and our law enforcement authorities to increase their vigilance in protecting those who are in increased danger.” According to Lila Rose of Live Action, the Department of Homeland Security has warned churches and other pro-life organizations to be prepared for “extreme violence” coming from pro-abortion agitators.
Today, it is right to celebrate a long-awaited and hard-earned victory in the fight to protect pre-born lives, with thanks to God. We thank God for this cultural grace. We thank Him for the Roman Catholics who called out this evil when many Protestants took refuge in moral ambiguity, and for courageous Protestants like Francis Schaeffer who called evangelicals out of their moral slumber on abortion. We thank God for all who spoke for life, signed petitions, attended rallies, crafted legislation, were spat upon and yelled at by those for whom Roe was a sacrament, not of life but of death. We thank God for the many people, mostly women, who have showed up every day for women and their children at churches, pregnancy resource centers, living rooms, and elsewhere to show compassion and speak life.
There’ve been times in the last 50 years when many assumed we’d never see the end of Roe. I confess to being among those skeptics. Today, a colleague reminded us of a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, and now Christmas carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”:
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
The Colson Center has compiled many resources to help prepare the Church for a post-Roe world. You can find them here and here. Also, in July, we’ll be making available Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis’ book Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing.
Because although today we celebrate with thanksgiving to God, tomorrow we get back to work... until abortion is not only illegal but also unthinkable.
While Maria’s out for the day, John and Shane swivel to discuss the breaking news of the reversal of Roe v. Wade after the Supreme Court announced the Dobbs decision. Reading through the ruling in real time, John points out that Roe was never constitutional. Because Shane just had an opportunity to interview Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis on their new book Tearing Us Apart, he talks about how abortion harms not only preborn children but entire cultural systems.
As John and Shane close, they reflect on the disembodiment of not only abortion but also of the message conveyed about a married lesbian couple in Disney’s new Pixar film: Lightyear. And yet, recent research has once again shown that fathers are irreplaceable.
“Perhaps it’s the clarity that comes from enduring a difficult period, but I’ve noticed, in myself and others, a diminishing tolerance for uncomfortable or unfulfilling social interactions,” Melissa Kirsch recently wrote in The New York Times. Reflecting on the impacts of the pandemic, Kirsch repeated what has become cultural orthodoxy: If certain relationships are a drag on your health, time, happiness, or resources, ditch them.
Of course, Scripture says that “bad company corrupts good morals.” But it also says to “bear one another’s burdens” and to not only “love our neighbor” but also our enemies.
In other words, friendships are so fragile today because our modern notions of friendship get it almost exactly backwards. Selfish instead of self-giving, the character ingredients a friendship needs in order to survive are incredibly rare: humility, patience with the faults of others, a willingness to laugh at ourselves.
G.K. Chesterton put it this way: “Sociability, like all good things, is full of discomforts, dangers, and renunciations.” Real friendship just isn’t for the self-interested. That’s why it’s rare. That’s also why it’s worth it.
Given the amount of attention the issue gets, it’s easy to yield to a so-called “inevitability thesis” when it comes to transgender ideology, the idea that, it’s just a matter of time before everyone is on board. A recent story aired for pride month highlighted the story of two parents who chose to raise their biologically female daughter as a transgender boy. “Before Ryland could even speak,” the anchor narrates, “he managed to tell his parents that he is a boy.” But, the piece continues, “unlike some trans kids, when Ryland came out at the age of five a few years later, he had the full support of his parents.”
This story was carried by Fox News, the so-called “conservative” news outlet.
Saying, with a straight face, that a child as young as five could somehow “come out” to her parents before she “can even speak,” tells us next to nothing about the child. It does, however, speak volumes about the parents, as well as the sad state of a culture that allows a story like that to go unscrutinized.
We’re never told, for example, how Ryland somehow “knew” she was a boy as a baby. Now that Ryland’s 14, we are not told the plan for puberty, or beyond. Will chemicals be administered to block puberty? Will destructive and irreversible surgeries enable her family to maintain the charade? Fox’s segment is the same paper-thin propaganda we’ve come to expect from other outlets, promoting a dangerous and unprecedented idea while inferring that anyone not on board simply doesn’t have enough love in their hearts.
The reality, of course, is different. Across the country, thousands of young people are being permanently marked by physical and psychological damage. In fact, some are now expressing deep regret, and their stories are coming to light.
Journalist Laura Dodsworth recently published a piece at the U.K.’s The Critic titled “The False Euphoria of Dysphoria.” It’s worth quoting at length:
I photographed and interviewed women [ who] thought they were transgender, had “top surgery”, then went on to change their mind and detransition.
But although they reverted their names, pronouns and passports, flesh cannot be returned after a double mastectomy. The effects of testosterone cannot be undone, nor the removal of the uterus and ovaries, which some of these detransitioners also had, leaving them sterile, on hormone replacement therapy for life, and traumatized.
Dodsworth describes how one young woman, Lucy, who, struggling with anorexia and body dysmorphia, was quickly prescribed gender reassignment surgery as treatment: “At the age of just 23, she could not comprehend how doctors could remove her breasts, uterus and ovaries. ‘I feel mutilated,’ she said.”
Another young woman, Susanna, described how her dysphoria grew from the scars of unaddressed sexual abuse: “For me, transition was a kind of self-harm. I was trying to destroy the person I was.”
Still another young woman, Sinead, wishes she could have received real help instead of a quick fix:
I’ve tried to talk about background issues with therapists. … Actually, I think my gender issues came out of mental health, not the other way around. … For the rest of my life I will always be bewildered that this was allowed to happen. I was dealing with unaddressed trauma from sexual abuse. I needed therapy and help, not a bilateral mastectomy.
The conclusion, according to Dodsworth, is simple. Listen to the stories of those who have detransitioned.
Women’s sports, prisons, even the basic question of what a woman is, have become a uniquely modern battlefield. Detransitioners bear the literal scars of this battle. ... The problem is that young people are affirmed and groomed before the first doctor’s appointment by euphoric and unbalanced content on social media. One trans man’s pure joy may be another woman’s pure regret.
The stories Dodsworth tells are just some of the stories now emerging from young people dealing with incredible regret. Figures like Helena Kerschner or Scott Newgent, and hundreds of others on blogs, Twitter threads, and Reddit posts are telling the sobering truth about what trans ideology cost them.
What this means for Christians is that we must not buy into any “inevitability thesis” when it comes to trans ideology. We aren’t on the wrong side of history, or of our religious beliefs, or of love. The number of detransition stories coming out of the U.K. are a good example that, if anything, America is out of step with much of the rest of the world, who are currently applying the brakes to “gender transitioning” therapies for minors.
Also, Christians must give up, once and for all, a foolish and dangerous position of neutrality on this issue. Most damning of all is the claim that to not oppose the destructive gender ideologies of our culture is somehow “the loving thing to do.” Too many stories of regret and permanent damage have already emerged. More are told every day. We can never again say that we didn’t know.
Creating space for the stories of detransitioners to be shared is a powerful way to combine truth with compassion. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims. In our cultural moment, the victims are not supposed to exist. But they do, and if we can share their burden or prevent the pain of even one other, we must.
This month, Colorado became the first state to officially ban anonymous sperm and egg donation. The law also gives those conceived through anonymous donation the right to seek out their biological parents at 18.
This is a win for reproductive ethics and for children. As Katy Faust at Them Before Us puts it, every child has the right to the love of their biological mom and dad, and that relationship matters throughout development. On average, kids raised by their married biological parents do better on every economic, social, and emotional metric.
And many children of our technologies struggle with identity, too. Left with the anguish of a missing or ambiguous parent, they wonder, Who am I? Where do I come from? Was I wanted?
In sperm donation, especially anonymous sperm donation, this lack of knowledge is by design. It’s a feature of sperm donation, not a glitch, treating children as products ordered by adults, sometimes even with specifications. The children’s wellbeing is, at best, secondary.
Colorado has long been a disaster on reproductive ethics, but this was the right call. We can hope other states will follow suit.
To repeat something said on Breakpoint last month, kids deserve better books than the ones currently being written for them. Too many children’s books today are activist books, not really written to kids (and certainly not for them) but to and for grown-ups who want to be the kind of parents who would give this kind of book to their kids.
I must admit, however, that I recently received an “activist” kid book that I really like, and so does my son. It’s age appropriate, written to kids, and designed to help them think well about something that they, sadly, need to understand.
Pro-Life Kids is authored by Bethany Bomberger. She and her husband Ryan, who recently spoke at the 2022 Wilberforce Weekend, are committed pro-lifers, creatives, and Christians. An experienced educator and mom, Bethany understands where kids are developmentally. Pro-Life Kids teaches them what’s most true about themselves and others, that every person is made in the image and likeness of God, and introduces them to an issue that’s really difficult to talk about—abortion—in an appropriate and engaging way. And, of course, it rhymes! Here’s a sample:
Sadly, there are those who don’t understand
… that life has purpose whether planned or unplanned.
Throughout history many believed a lie.
“You’re not a person!”
“No way!” they cried.
Today many think that lie is still true—
that babies in wombs aren’t people too.
Abortion is when some say it’s okay
to take that baby’s precious life away.*
The illustrations are instructive, but also appropriate. For example, the image on the page that introduces abortion is of an ambulance leaving an abortion clinic. And, my favorite page spread shows the value of every human life with a charming set of illustrations sharing the stages of development from baby to elderly, including people of multiple races, male and female, abled and disabled. Near the end is an elderly woman with gray hair and a walker.
After the book’s main text, there are tips on how kids can stand for life at any age, contained in 15 colorful text blocks. Suggestions include everything from loving their adoptive siblings, to praying outside abortion centers, to marching in D.C., to writing an essay about being pro-life, to showing their friends this book.
Bethany Bomberger and her husband Ryan lead the Radiance Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to “create a culture that believes every human life has purpose.” They’ve raised millions for pregnancy resource centers, and they have a special stake in their cause.
Ryan was conceived through rape, but his mom was courageous enough to proceed with his pregnancy. He was adopted into a loving, diverse family of 15. Bethany was a single mom who chose to have her baby after seeing an ultrasound of her daughter and encountering Psalm 34:5: “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.” That verse has been the basis of the Radiance Foundation since its founding.
Ryan and Bethany have also adopted two children. In fact, one of the most compelling illustrations in Pro-Life Kids is of their own diverse family.
Bethany’s story will be featured on the Colson Center’s Strong Women podcast in August, and Ryan’s message from our “Life Redeemed” Wilberforce Weekend can be heard online right now. In it, Ryan calls himself a “factivist,” instead of an activist. According to Ryan, many people act without facts, but factivists act with facts. They know that truth is unchanging because God is eternal. His message includes how to identify the lies of secularism “when it comes to human value.”
Bethany has a baby book version coming out soon and is launching an initiative called Put It on the Shelf, aimed at getting her book on library shelves to counter the “massive influx of books with destructive ideologies.” In fact, when you order a copy of Pro-Life Kids, pick up an extra copy to donate to the library. It’s a way of living out something the book says quite clearly, “Like many before us who stood for what’s right, we’ll never give up as we fight for life.”
To hear Ryan’s message, and also messages of others, such as Os Guinness, Nancy Guthrie, and Rachel Gilson, go to WilberforceWeekend.org. And check out Bethany’s book Pro-Life Kids. I believe it’s another way, paraphrasing Psalm 145:4, for one generation to commend God’s works to another.
*Excerpt used with permission.
According to a recent WORLD magazine opinion piece, “a massive trove of documentary evidence” was released this month, detailing in concrete terms China’s brutality towards minority groups.
“The files include photographs of detainees (including children), flamboyant speeches by senior Communist Party officials, police and military reports, and training documents,” Eric Patterson, the executive vice president of the Religious Freedom Institute, described. “They expose the precision of China’s genocidal policies toward Muslim Uyghurs.”
Drawn from leaked police reports, this evidence leaves little room for China’s leaders to deny their atrocities. Despite official claims, this is not a matter of Chinese national security, and China’s leaders are not impartial observers. They are orchestrating the process.
A quote attributed to Greek tragedian Aeschylus states that “in war, truth is the first casualty.”
Whether an actual war with China is in the cards, we are the middles of what Patterson calls “a war of ideas and a war on how international affairs will be conducted.” In such war, truth is on the front lines, and it must be told.
Back in 2017, with a 7-2 majority vote, the Supreme Court ruled that denying a church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status” amounts to violating the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. In that case, known as Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Comer, a Missouri church that operated a licensed pre-school and day-care facility applied for funding from a state program that offered “funds for qualifying organizations to purchase recycled tires to resurface playgrounds.”
Though Trinity Lutheran met all of the qualifications of the program, the state of Missouri informed them that a grant would violate a provision in the state constitution that “no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, section or denomination of religion.” That provision was one of 36 so-called “Blaine Amendments” in state constitutions, amendments originally aimed at Catholic schools and born of the now-incredible belief that public schools were a principal instrument in safeguarding America’s Protestant Christian character.
Trinity Lutheran sued the state, claiming that because of the Free Exercise clause in the First Amendment, a government benefit available to some organizations cannot be withheld from others solely because of religion. Remember, the First Amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Trinity Lutheran argued the “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” part. The state emphasized the “establishment of religion” part.
In his majority decision, Chief Justice Roberts came down squarely on the side of Trinity Lutheran, chiding Missouri for forcing the church to choose between whether to “participate in an otherwise available benefit program or remain a religious institution.” The right to be a church, he said, should not come “at the cost of automatic and absolute exclusion from the benefits of a public program for which the Center is otherwise fully qualified.” The Missouri law could only be justified if it served some compelling governmental interest in the least restrictive manner, a standard the state of Missouri failed to meet. So, Justice Roberts concluded, “the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.”
Then, in 2020, the Chief Justice authored another similarly blunt and straightforward opinion in Espinoza vs. Montana Department of Revenue. In that case, decided by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court held that a state tax credit, in which Montana awarded a dollar-for-dollar tax credit to individuals who donated to organizations that provide scholarships for private school students, could not “[discriminate] against religious schools and the families whose children attend or hope to attend them.” After creating the program, the Montana Department of Revenue had ruled that such a tax credit, if used to fund to religious private schools, would violate that state’s version of the “Blaine Amendment.”
Kendra Espinoza, a single mom who hoped to send her kids to a Christian school, challenged the Department of Revenue ruling in court. In late 2018, the Montana Supreme Court acknowledged that the Department’s ruling ran afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause. Instead of overturning the ruling, however, it invalidated the entire program.
In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts referenced his earlier Trinity Lutheran opinion, stating that Montana lacked a “compelling government interest” in discriminating against religious schools and that religion is not a secondary part of the First Amendment. Roberts continued, the attempt to invalidate the whole program did not change Montana’s “error of federal law.” Because of the Trinity Lutherandecision, the Montana Court knew the Department’s ruling was unconstitutional. However, instead of applying the decision as it should have, it invalidated the whole program “to make absolutely sure that religious schools received no aid.” That action in itself violated the Free Exercise Clause, said Roberts: “A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”
In summary, the Court has been more than clear on the rights of religious institutions. That, however, did not stop the state of Maine from continuing to discriminate against religious schools in their state funding program. Once again, the Court in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, said “no.”
Under a Maine program that provides tuition assistance for parents who live in school districts without a secondary school, parents “designate the secondary school they would like their child to attend, and the school district transmits payments.” That includes private schools, as long as they are accredited, but, since 1981, not “sectarian” schools. If these facts of the Carson v. Makin case sound somewhat familiar, they also did to the Chief Justice. And so, in an opinion released yesterday announcing a 6-3 decision against the state of Maine, the Chief Justice stated bluntly, “The principles in Trinity Lutheran and Espinoza suffice to resolve this case,” and that the state’s “‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment.”
It’s another win for religious liberty, at least the religious liberty of religious institutions. Once again, the Court and its Chief Justice John Roberts have been crystal clear: The state need not, and indeed must not, sacrifice the Free Exercise clause on the altar of the Establishment clause.
As University of Tennessee professor James Tucker writes, “The deterioration of reading achievement in the United States has been noted for decades, and the many attempts to correct this decay have been unsuccessful.”
He then quotes a sobering statistic: “At least “44 million adults [in the United States] are now unable to read a simple story to their children.”
The question is, why? Obvious factors include poverty, technology and education, but so are our ideas about what literacy is for.
We’ve largely rejected the great books of the past, preferring subjective and personal experiences to universal truths. So why study? Also, today’s emphasis on race, politics, and sexuality in education has transformed literacy from a gift, into more of a weapon.
Simply put, literacy cannot be ideologically neutral. It’s not just about that we read or even what we read. It’s also about why.
Consider William Tyndale who rightly sensed all people should be able to read Scripture. He believed that “the boy that drives the plow” could be more knowledgeable of Scripture than the Latin-speaking elite.
Words are powerful. And that’s why literacy matters.
A once-popular song by the band Switchfoot declared, “We were meant to live for so much more but we lost ourselves.” In the closing line of his remake of the song “Hurt,” which was way better than the original, Johnny Cash lamented that the one thing he’d do differently, if he could live life over, was “keep himself—I would find a way.”
Most people, no matter their worldview, can resonate with this kind of thinking of life. It points to something the Bible claims, that we all have some innate knowledge of God. We think about life in terms of moral expectations, and we seek purpose.
The problem, of course, is that because we are marred by sin so is our pursuit of the truth about who we are and what life is all about. In Christ, our relationships are reconciled, not only with God but also with ourselves and, of course, others too. The freedom, joy, and beauty that result when relationships are re-ordered in Christ is something we are to proclaim to the wider world.
Often, however, we struggle to communicate it well across worldview and cultural lines. In fact, the further adrift a culture gets from reality, the more reality sounds like fantasy. Up seems like down, down seems like up, and we get the impression that our efforts to present truth to others is going nowhere.
In his recent book, Mark Mittelberg tackles the challenge and calling to communicate faith in this cultural moment. It’s called Contagious Faith, and it teaches believers to communicate to a world looking for better answers. According to Mittelberg, a big obstacle to overcome is actually believing that Christianity is worth sharing:
I’m reminded of times in my life when I caught something that I couldn’t resist and didn’t really want to. Contagious isn’t always a bad thing. … It describes something irresistible... What if instead of quietly clinging to our relationship with Christ and succumbing to the idea that faith should be private, we realized that faith is for sharing? That Jesus came not just for me and you, but to be the Savior of the world?
While it’s easy to feel intimidated by the thought of sharing Jesus with others, Mark’s approach emphasizes the different gifts and skills within the body of Christ. He describes five of what he called “contagious faith styles” we can learn to practice. Those with the Friendship-Building Style are more like Matthew, the former tax collector-turned-disciple, who held a party in his house to introduce Jesus to his former co-workers. Friends are more likely to listen to friends.
Or perhaps you’re more of the Selfless-Serving Style like Tabitha, who is described in Acts 9. She was a kind of first-century Mother Teresa, used by God to point people to Him. The selfless-serving approach is particularly powerful in reaching those who are sometimes jaded toward God and the Church.
Most of us should be able to employ the Story-Sharing Style to share our experience with Christ and point others to Him. Think of the blind man described in John 9, who simply talked about his own life. “Though I was blind, now I see,” he said.
Mittelberg’s own approach is what he calls the Reason-Giving Style. Paul demonstrates this, as described in Acts 17, when he describes God to a bunch of philosophers in Athens. Though we hear that people are no longer interested in reasons for the Christian faith, they are, not just why Christianity is true but why it matters, and why the Gospel is good. They want to know not only what Christians believe, but how Christianity makes sense of the world.
A final approach is the Truth-Telling Style. We’re all called to share the truth with others, but some have a God-given strength in doing that. Think of Peter, as described in Acts 2, speaking to the crowd about who Jesus is and how he fulfills Old Testament promises.
Look, the Gospel is a message. The old adage “Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words,” is kind of silly. As Ed Stetzer often says, that’s kind of like saying “feed the hungry at all times and when necessary use food.”
Mark Mittelberg’s book is a great tool for learning and planning to share the message of Christ with the world. The message is one people need, and the mission field is right out the front door. Let’s be the kind of Christians with Contagious Faith.
Babies are people, not things. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with the Point.
In a recent interview with Today, an actress revealed she had paid a surrogate to carry twin boys for her because to be pregnant herself would have jeopardized her career.
Often, arguments for surrogacy paint pictures of childless couples yearning to be parents. Even that sad situation doesn’t justify taking a baby from the body that bore him. But the real stories of surrogacy often look more like this one: the wealthy paying underprivileged women to bear their babies so as to not interfere with what they want. At least this actress was honest: She paid a surrogate because she was “terrified of putting my life on hold for two-plus years.”
Even aside from surrogacy’s inherent exploitation of women and babies, this kind of story raises an important question, “What exactly does our culture think parenting is?
Parenting involves laying down our lives for our children—for a whole lot of years. Children are full human beings, with their own inherent rights and dignity, including the right to their mom and dad.
Matt Walsh’s new documentary, What is A Woman? is built on a very simple premise: Ask the academics, pediatricians, and politicians who promote trans ideology to define their terms.
John and Maria discuss the 50th anniversary of the break-in at Watergate. Although Watergate marks the decline of American trust in political institutions— something we're seeing in the January 6 hearings, John points out that Watergate's best legacy was the redemption of Chuck Colson.
After Maria shares an inspirational story on Mary Slessor, a missionary in Nigeria, they continue their conversation from last week on why uncarefully parsing first-order and second-order doctrines can be risky. They end by talking about our God-shaped hole for meaning to the point that even an elephant recently had to be declared not a person.
Earlier this month, Women’s March president Rachel Carmona declared that “For the women of this country, this will be a summer of rage. We will be ungovernable … until the right to an abortion is codified into law.”
Those aren’t empty words. Shortly after the Roe v. Wade draft opinion was leaked, at least five crisis pregnancy resource centers were vandalized across the country. On May 8, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through a Wisconsin pro-life group’s headquarters, and the words “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either,” scrawled on the side of the building.
In response, Students for Life of America announced a different strategy: a “Summer of Service.”
"We will have a renewed and reenergized dedication to serving as sidewalk advocates, volunteers at crisis pregnancy centers, fundraisers for pro-life financial help efforts, babysitters for childcare centers that serve mothers in need, and more," the group writes.
To learn more and to get involved, check out the Students for Life’s website.
Apparently, this summer will matter. I’m thankful for a pro-life organization committed to overcoming evil with good, and rage with service.
Fifty years ago today, on June 17, 1972, operatives from President Nixon’s re-election campaign broke into Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. Were it not for a night guard who noticed that a garage door was taped open not once but twice, the most notorious political scandal in American history may not have been. But he did notice. Before it was over, an American president was forced to resign, and the standard was set by which all other scandals would henceforth be compared.
In “honor” of this dark anniversary, Starz TV has produced a miniseries recounting the events. There are many reasons I cannot recommend Gaslit, despite the fact that it has a first-rate cast, including Julia Roberts and Sean Penn and Martha and John Mitchell, and the unexpected choice of comedian Patton Oswalt as Chuck Colson. I must say Oswalt pulls off the look, especially the hair and glasses famously. What he doesn’t pull off is the voice or the order of events, and Chuck’s remarkable conversion is left completely left out.
Because of Watergate, the suffix -gate is now added to every government scandal, but that’s still the least of its legacies. The colorful cast of characters—the Mitchells, John Dean, G. Gordon Liddy (who is portrayed as an absolute crazy man in the Gaslit series), and others—were part of a story that marked the beginning of what is now a long history of growing institutional distrust in America. The timing and progression of the January 6 hearings are a case in point.
Even so, Watergate’s most important and enduring legacy, at least according to God’s economy, was one of redemption, not corruption. As Emily Colson, Chuck’s daughter and Colson Center board member, who experienced Watergate as a teenager forced to watch her father maligned, mocked, and sent to prison, recently wrote to me about the anniversary of Watergate:
"People have been asking if this is difficult for me. But it isn’t. The events 50 years ago feel more like a beginning than an end. It was the turning point that brought my dad to his knees. And in that, God has brought so much good."
Chuck Colson certainly earned his early reputation as Nixon’s “hatchet man,” a tough, ruthless, and loyal operative. Even if you agreed with his politics, he wasn’t exactly known as a nice guy. Everything, however—and I mean everything—changed in the wake of Watergate.
As his career and reputation crashed around him, Colson came to his darkest hour. In August of 1973, friend and former client Tom Phillips led him to Christ. Though still today, some snidely suggest that Chuck’s conversion was a ploy to get out of prison, he gave his life to Christ even before he was considered a suspect in the Watergate investigation. And, of course, the conversion stuck throughout and after prison, and for decades of his life and ministry beyond.
The year after his release from prison, Chuck went back, and he kept going back, over and over and over, through the work of the ministry he founded to bring the Gospel to prisoners and their families. Today, Prison Fellowship operates in every state and many other nations besides, striving to rehabilitate the incarcerated, support their families, and bring about prison reform.
Later, Chuck would turn his attention, focusing on the calling of the Church to engage and restore culture,by embracing the fullness of a Christian worldview and courageously stand for truth. He founded Breakpoint, this commentary, to help Christians make sense of cultural events, and a program called Centurions—which has been renamed Colson Fellows—in order to equip Christians to go into their communities, standing for Christ, and bring about restoration.
Millions have been blessed in the wake of Chuck’s conversion. His story is like that of C.S. Lewis, Harriett Tubman, and so many others. It’s a story of what God can actually do through a “Life Redeemed,” a life fully and wholly redeemed. In fact, here’s how Chuck described it, in his own words:
"The truth that is uppermost in my mind today is that God isn’t finished. As long as we’re alive, He’s at work in our lives. We can live lives of obedience in any field because God providentially arranges the circumstances of our lives to achieve His objectives.
And that leads to the greatest joy I’ve found in life. As I look back on my life, it’s not having been to Buckingham Palace to receive the Templeton Prize, or getting honorary degrees, or writing books. The greatest joy is to see how God has used my life to touch the lives of others, people hurting and in need.
It’s been a long time since the dark days of Watergate. I’m still astounded that God would take someone who was infamous in the Watergate scandal, soon to be a convicted felon, and take him into His family and then order his steps in the way He has with me."
Fifty years after Watergate, headlines are still telling of government corruption and political abuse. Among the lessons we can learn from Watergate is that God is never stymied: He’s never frustrated in His purpose. Who knows whether 50 years from now, we’ll be thanking Him for another life, a different life, but one changed like Chuck’s was, even in the midst of cultural chaos. May it be so.
Recently, Pizza Hut, as part of their “Book It!” reading program, highlighted books that promote LGBTQ ideology to children. For example, Big Wig is a book about cross- dressing aimed explicitly at a Pre-K through 3rd-grade audience. The “Book It!” website describes the book as a “wonderful read-aloud (that) celebrates the universal childhood experience of dressing up…. acknowledging that sometimes dressing differently from what might be expected is how we become our truest and best selves.”
There was a time when businesses found it wiser to remain largely worldview neutral. Now, given the pressure of outside watchdog groups, the tyranny of social media, and what may be called the “true believers” that dominate so many HR departments, Companies, businesses advance ideas about good and evil, the nature of human beings, and the right way to organize society.
The rise in aggressive LGBTQ propaganda through business has been a key to the movement’s dominance of culture. Pushing back will require two things. First, Christians called to corporate America who reject a privatized faith. Second, Christian consumers willing to connect their convictions with their wallets.
For much of history, people have marked deaths and marriages with religious ceremonies and sacraments. In a time of rapidly declining religiosity, some are now looking to alternative spiritual authorities to give meaning to their most important moments. Spiritual authorities like, say, Mickey Mouse.
Recently, a Reddit post by a newlywed couple went viral after they asked whether it was impolite to spend their entire catering budget on an appearance by Mickey and Minnie Mouse. “My fiancée and I are huge Disney fans,” wrote the 28-year-old bride, “…we travel to Disney World as much as we can throughout the year. Disney is such an important part not only to us, but also our marriage.”
The bride and groom chose to pay for a 30-minute appearance from performers dressed as the iconic characters rather than buy food for their wedding guests. Not surprisingly, some in attendance took umbrage, as did people online who read the post, calling the couple childish and selfish.
A professor of religious studies at Lehigh University, however, defended the couple and urged her Twitter followers to “stop pathologizing Disney adults.” She explained:
"Many of the Disney fans I have observed in person and online find immense meaning in the parks. People don’t just marry at Disney. They mourn lost relatives at Disney. They go to Disney to celebrate surviving cancer. They go there for one last trip before they die. Religion is a way of making meaning in the world through stories and rituals. It’s about a network of relationships with the human and non-human…. It’s about making homes and confronting suffering…. All of this happens at Disney."
The professor is correct that some people view Disney and its theme parks in religious terms. Not long ago, reports emerged that Disney was secretly working to stop guests from scattering the ashes of their deceased loved ones at their parks. Apparently, urns of human remains are so often emptied, employees have code words to warn of that kind of cleanup.
The fact that some now look to cartoon characters and amusement parks to bless and sanctify their lives signals how spiritually impoverished and hungry their lives have become. Of course, Disney is just one of many religious alternatives on offer in a culture like ours. We could easily question the amount of money spent on sports or travel or distractions of various kinds. People who look to the state or the screen or to sex for meaning and purpose are just as lost as those who look to Disney for it.
There’s also the matter of how religion is understood in a secular society. If, as the professor wrote, “Religion is a way of making meaning in the world through stories and rituals,” then Disney fits the description. But this assumes that religious faith is subjective, based in fiction—not reality, a product of the imagination—not reason. If religion is merely a way of making meaning in an otherwise meaningless universe, then Mickey Mouse will work as well as Moses.
This is how secularists define religion and, tragically, how some participants of traditional religions live out faith. However, a social club gathered around nice fables no one is really convinced of is a hobby, not a faith. Christians insist that worship is directed to the real God who stepped into real history, died on a real cross, and really left behind an empty tomb. As the Apostle Peter put it, “We did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
Faith isn’t a way of inventing meaning where there is none. Nor is it built on any other patronizing definition that could include Cinderella as easily as Christ. The Gospel isn’t a “cleverly devised story.” It is the truth of all of reality, the truth that gives meaning to our lives, our marriages, and, yes, our deaths.
The fact that people in an increasingly irreligious culture look to the Magic Kingdom as a replacement for God only reinforces the kind of creatures we really are: “incurably religious” ones, as John Calvin put it. We seek because we were made that way by the One we truly seek. And, what we seek is real, not make-believe.
Building lives around cartoons is disturbing and sad. But the problem isn’t people who love fantasy too much. It’s people who have nothing better to love, and a culture that tells them they may just as well wish upon a star as call upon the Lord.
It’s an interesting time for travel. The price of flights notwithstanding, many are opting for what social media has dubbed “revenge travel”: the chance to get out and make up for time lost during the pandemic.
Which brings up the question: What is travel good for?
A popular answer is that travel is necessary to experience la dolce vita, or “the sweet life.” Writing to the Atlantic, one reader described his year overseas: “I went to Italy burned out from American corporate pressures and returned with better boundaries for work/life and an intentionally slower pace of doing things.”
But travel is no cure for all that ails us. Ralph Waldo Emerson famously called travel “a fool’s paradise,” the mistaken belief that internal restlessness can be escaped by a mere change of scenery. “Our first journeys,” he wrote, “discover to us the indifference of places.”
Travel is a way to connect with people and expand our knowledge of the world. But, as the writer of Ecclesiastes warns, living for life’s next high cannot eliminate life’s unsettling questions, nor does can it take us to the deeper Source of life’s passing joys.
Earlier this year, a very secular publication came to an unexpected conclusion. Vox ran a series of articles under the title “America’s Struggle for Forgiveness,.” In it, they wrote,
"Grace might be the holiest, most precious concept of all in this conversation about right and wrong, penance and reform—but it’s the one that almost never gets discussed."
Even in the most morally exhausted cultural moments, there are signs of life. Made in God’s image, with eternity in our hearts, we’re desperate for answers to our deepest questions and for purpose to help us make sense of our lives. We search elsewhere but, ultimately, only the Gospel can offer what we need.
At the same time, at least when it comes to forgiveness, Christians are struggling as well. In any context, because it always involves fallen human beings, forgiveness isn’t easy. In this cultural moment, so deeply divided at such fundamental levels and with so much at stake in the issues, it can seem impossible. How can we reconcile the idea of forgiveness in a world overrun by evil? How can we be examples of forgiveness, both forgiving and seeking forgiveness, to a world that so desperately needs to see it?
First, we need to be clear on what forgiveness is and isn’t. The way Jesus’ command to “love your enemies” is often used in order to silence Christians who hold unpopular views completely misses the point. Too often, we get the impression that we need to apologize not merely for failing to live out Christian ethics, but for holding Christian ethics, as if Christian witness is compromised by Christian morality.
Second, Christians must embrace the idea of forgiveness. There’s a fear in many corners of the church, particular those engaged in standing for righteousness in this cultural moment, that concepts like “forgiveness,” “gentleness,” or “compassion” are signs of weakness. Certainly, many Christians have been gutted of courage at the exact moment Christian courage is so badly needed. But asking for or offering forgiveness is not necessarily a sign of weakness. In fact, in a culture devoid of it, Christians have something essential to offer people, families, institutions, and cultures.
Plus, we don’t have a choice. A gracious posture is not an option for Christian. In Romans 12, Paul instructs Christians to “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” He also commands us to “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.” Holding to truth and righteousness and being gracious to others are not mutually exclusive options. Both are required for Christ followers.
We must not pretend people are somehow “doing good” when they are not, or that evil ideologies that hurt the innocent are somehow anything less than evil. In Jesus’ words, we will be “exclude[d]” and “revile[d],” and have our names “spurn[ed]” as “evil” for His sake, not because we’ve done anything wrong but because we’ve followed Him. As Jesus’ teaching about church discipline and instructions to the disciples to “shake the dust of unbelieving towns off their feet” suggests, the goal of Christian witness can only be faithfulness. Whether or not are liked is of little importance.
Which means, as Steve Cornell with The Gospel Coalition writes, forgiveness is different than “reconciliation.” We can and must extend forgiveness, and we ought be agents of reconciliation. However, because reconciliation always involves someone else, it isn’t merely up to us. When people actively pursue evil, boundaries are necessary.
The real battlefield of forgiveness is not just external behavior. It involves the heart, which God sees with piercing clarity. It may involve asking for forgiveness, even from ideological opponents who are on the wrong side of a given issue. It will mean forgoing vengeance, even while seeking justice and extending love to those extending hate.
In God’s economy, this is not weakness. It is the a strength rooted in Christ who Himself proclaimed, “Father, forgive them.”
A wonderful example is Barronelle Stutzman, a co-recipient of this year’s Wilberforce Award. For years, she’s been the target of the state of Washington, misrepresented in the press, slandered and sued for refusing to custom design flowers for the same-sex wedding. Only last November, after nearly a decade, was her legal case finally settled.
Through the whole, exhausting process, Barronelle extended nothing but kindness, even to the person behind her legal nightmare, longtime customer and friend Rob Ingersoll. “I did not turn down Rob,” she wrote in 2016. “I turned down an event. And if Rob walked into my store today, I would hug him and I would serve him for another 10 years.”
That same gracious attitude only became more evident in the years since. Through it all, she steadfast refused to betray her faith while still showing gentle kindness toward those who oppose her. Anyone who knows Barronelle Stuzman would never confuse that posture with weakness.
Rather, she’s a living, breathing example that Christians can have both unrelenting conviction and a tender heart of forgiveness. We need not choose between them.
Quantum theory boggles the mind. As science journalist John Horgan writes, quantum theory is
science’s most precise, powerful theory of reality. It has predicted countless experiments, spawned countless applications. The trouble is physicists and philosophers disagree over what it means, that is, what it says about how the world works.
At the core of the disagreement is what matter consists of at the quantum, or the smallest, level. At that size, matter’s properties change when we try to observe it, even—amazingly—because we try to observe it. That’s led to over a century of frustrated efforts to understand exactly what the fundamental “stuff” of reality is. It’s not that these tiny things aren’t real; it’s that we can’t figure out what they’re like.
At the same time, quantum theory has proven explanatory power.
A theological parallel is the Trinity. We can’t comprehend exactly how the Godhead functions, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.
As C.S. Lewis wrote back in 1952, if Christianity is true, it would be “at least as difficult as modern physics.”
And, we could add, just as rational.
How Christian must Christians be to still be Christian?
For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. This is Breakpoint.
A question every youth pastor should expect to answer at least once in their career is the “how far is too far?” question. Of course, the person asking—usually a guy—wants to know how close to the moral cliff he can get before getting married. It’s a common question, albeit fundamentally wrong. The ones asking rarely stay pure for long since purity is better understood as a direction rather than a line. Instead of tip-toeing the edge, a much better approach is to focus on trying to honor God and the young woman as much as possible.
This same kind of minimalist thinking affects Christians of all ages, in other areas of life and faith. This is especially true at a time of moral drift, like ours. If someone maintains a bare adherence to Christian form or most of the convictions in the ancient creeds, we hear, what they believe about controversial moral or cultural issues ought not matter (or even, in some cases, how they live). All that matters is that they are “sincere,” because, after all, “not all Christians agree” and “Christians have been wrong before” and “we should love everyone,” and so forth.
An increasing amount of evidence suggests that this kind of superficial allegiance to God and truth does not long keep the one questioning within the fold. Many churches, even entire denominations, that once flirted with the near side of progressivism, long ago dropped nearly every doctrinal and ethical stand of historic Christianity, even while holding to certain external trappings of the faith they now deride in their teachings. Especially during this month, many ornate Gothic buildings that once served as centers of historic Christian worship are not only redecorated with rainbow flags but claimed for another kingdom. Vestments come sleeveless to highlight a pastor’s (or pastrix’s?) amply tattooed arms and edgy new ways of talking about things. Many in the pulpits and in the pews, it seems, maintain a deep longing to remain connected to God and some semblance of Christianity, but not to the claims of morality and truth that go along with them.
More and more, historically Christian institutions are drifting too. In just the last few months, a once-Christian magazine published an article on sex written by a self-described “polyamorous Christian” and another that argued for the “reproductive rights” (abortion) of “women and pregnant people.” Many Christian colleges are likewise struggling with their identity and their past convictions, particularly in trying to find the line between loving those who struggle with same-sex attraction and functionally affirming such lifestyles. When Baylor University, a historically Baptist school, offered official status to a campus LGBTQ group, the reason was to “help students gain deeper understanding of their own and others [sic] complex and intersectional identities, including gender and sexuality and faith and spirituality.”
And then, two weeks ago, Eerdmans Publishing Company, publisher of some of the most important works of Christian theology for over 100 years, tweeted out a list of LGBTQ-affirming books they’ve published along with, “Wherever you stand or whatever you think you know, #PrideMonth is a time to take a step back, to listen to real stories, and seek to understand.” After initially deleting the tweet, they doubled down on their support, insisting in a lengthy tweet thread that Christian ethics couldn’t be reduced to “right” and “wrong” opinions. Jake Meador of Mere Orthodoxy rightly described the moral reasoning as “gibberish.”
The problem in these kinds of situations is not just reaching wrong conclusions about culturally significant issues. It’s the approach taken.
Throughout church history, Christians have attempted to keep issues of lesser importance from obstructing the overall work of the Church. This has required a sort of prioritization of doctrines and ethical reasoning. So, things like the deity of Christ and the reality of the Trinity are ranked higher than questions about the mode and meaning of baptism, the exact timeline to the Second Coming, or how long hymn lines should be.
Often, this principle is summarized by the phrase, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” On the whole, this is a wise philosophy. It allows cooperation among Christians who disagree about certain things but share an allegiance to Christ. The non-negotiable doctrines are epitomized in the creeds of the Church, like the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. For centuries, these statements of faith have been guideposts for the Church, noting the boundaries of Christian truth and warning how far is too far.
Even so, what the creeds state, especially about creation, sin, and salvation, further implies things that were once taken for granted. For example, no one claiming the term Christian would have questioned, until yesterday at least, that believing in the “maker of heaven and earth” did not also include believing that He also made humans in His image, male and female. Believing in the death and resurrection of Jesus implied believing that we need His death and resurrection to pay for our sin. Or at least it used to.
When these kinds of weighty ethical questions are put into the category of secondary concerns and then dismissed as largely irrelevant, even primary concerns are cut from the roots which give them meaning and definition in the first place. In the end, what is left is a religion that looks like the liberal Christianity H. Richard Niebuhr described a century ago, “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”
When Christ sent His apostles to convert the world, charging them with the Great Commission, He didn’t tell them just to teach new Christians the basics of the faith; He told them to make disciples. They were to do this by teaching all that they had been commanded. A rootless faith, content only with bare minimums, or with seeking the edge of “how far is too far?”, will never measure up to the riches both commanded and offered by Christ our Lord.
According to the U.K. Express, the Chinese government is afraid. Afraid of what? Afraid that there could be 300 million Chinese Christians by 2030, which would be a spectacular increase from the 75 to 100 million Christians in China today.
Still, for perspective, there were only about 4 million Christians in China when the Communists took over in 1949. That number had barely changed by Mao’s death in 1976.
But since then, Christianity has grown like the Chinese economy: 7% or 8% a year, despite the fact that even going to church, much less evangelizing, can be difficult if not dangerous. Like the early Church, many Chinese Christians are living lives “that are not only in marked contrast to the lives of their neighbors but better than those practiced in the larger society.” This kind of influence one church historian calls “patient ferment.” It could transform China just like the early Church transformed the Roman Empire.
No wonder the Communist government is scared.
Mary Slessor was born to a Scottish working-class family in 1848. At an early age, Mary joined her parents in the Dundee mills, working half a day while going to school the other half. By age 14, Mary was working 12 hour shifts. Ever an avid reader, she kept a book propped up on her loom so she could read while working.
Mary’s mother, a devout Presbyterian with an interest in missions, saw that her children were raised in the Faith. When a local mission to the poor opened in Dundee, Mary volunteered to be a teacher. Her sense of humor and sympathy made her popular among her pupils.
At age 27, Mary learned of the death of famous missionary, David Livingstone. Inspired to join her church’s mission in what is now southern Nigeria, Mary taught and worked in the dispensary. With her devotion to learn the local language, plus by cutting her hair and abandoning the traditional Victorian dress as impractical in the hot climate, Mary quickly set herself apart from the other missionaries. She began eating local foods as a cost-cutting measure.
Finding the mission hierarchy frustrating, she welcomed opportunities to go upriver into inland areas. The need for workers in these regions with fewer missionaries was significant, so she asked to be stationed there. However, since male missionaries had been killed in those areas, her request as a single woman was turned down as too dangerous.
After a medical furlough for malaria, Mary was stationed in a region where shamans dominated much of life. These men conducted trials in which guilt or innocence was determined by whether or not the accused died after taking poison. Slavery was also rampant among the powerful, and slaves were often sacrificed on their owner’s death to be their servants in the afterlife. Women’s rights were virtually nonexistent.
Despite these challenges, Mary was able to integrate into the community and earn the trust of the local people. As a woman, she was not seen as the threat that male missionaries were. And, her ability to speak Efik and her embrace of local lifestyles in clothing, housing, and food endeared her to the native peoples.
It was in Okoyong that Mary began the work for which she is now best known. The locals believed that when twins were born, one of them must be the child of a demon. The mothers were ostracized, and, since there was no way to tell which was cursed, both children would be abandoned to death by starvation or wild animals.
Like the earliest Christians who rescued victims of attempted infanticide by exposure, Mary began rescuing twins. She saved hundreds of children and, against the advice of her mission agency, adopted nine as her own.
Like the earliest Christians whose example she emulated, the actions of Mary Slessor not only saved lives but played a major role in changing the local culture. Her understanding of the language, history, and customs — plus her standing in the community –enabled her to work as a mediator and give judgments in local tribal courts.
When the British attempted to set up a court system in the area, Mary warned them it would be a disaster. So, the British consul appointed Mary as vice-consul in Okoyong, making her the first female magistrate in the British Empire. In this position, Mary continued to mediate disputes, while acting as liaison with the colonial government, continuing to care for children and continuing her work as a missionary.
At age 66, Mary finally lost a long fight with malaria. She was given a state funeral, which was attended by many people who travelled from the tribal regions in order to honor her. She was nicknamed the “Queen of Okoyong.”
Mary Slessor’s story is a wonderful part of the larger, ongoing Story of restoration, accomplished by Christ through His people within the time and place they are called. Slessor offers yet another example for Christ-followers that taking the Gospel to pagan cultures will typically involve protecting children. Our calling is no different.
John and Maria discuss the way some Christians are handling PRIDE month. Notably, Maria asks John to explain the background of a known publisher of Christian-based books, Eerdmans, and a list of books they've published to "help" Christians think about PRIDE month.
Maria then asks John to comment on a recent article by journalist and commentator Ezra Klein who discussed how climate change is impacting the decisions of some adults on whether to have kids. Maria offers some helpful thoughts for us on how we got to this place and why Klein's thinking and reporting isn't shedding light on the whole story.
To close, Maria wants John to explain a new report from Harvard that purports scientists have reversed the aging in mice. An article on the report says that aging is a disease, and John critiques that phrasing and offers some ways the Christian perspective is wholly different, especially as it looks to redeem and restore life in a fallen world.
-- Recommendations --
What is a Woman>>
-- In Show References --
Segment 1:
Eerdmans Publishers Promote “Books for PRIDE Month”
“We find ourselves at a time again where we should be willing to listen and seek to understand those in the LGBTQ+ community who are simply fighting to be seen and heard, cared for and loved.”
https://eerdword.com/pride-month-books/
Eerdman’s defending itself after posting on Twitter, removing it, and re-posting it: https://twitter.com/eerdmansbooks/status/1534269600736563200
State Farm drops its partnership with “GenderCool” program to distribute LGBT books to kids in publis schools after uproar
“The mission of GenderCool, founded in 2018 in Chicago, is to “replace misinformed opinions with positive experiences meeting transgender and non-binary youth who are thriving,” according to its website. The organization, which describes itself as “an inspiring disrupter,” has partnered with some of the biggest companies in the world, including Bank of America, Dell, General Mills, NBCUniversal and Nike.”
WaPo>>
{Pizza Hut features “Drag Kids” book for kids as young as kindergarteners}
“Pizza Hut is featuring a book about "drag kids" as one of the books promoted by its "Book It!" reading incentive program aimed at children in pre-kindergarten through 6th grade.”
FoxNews>>
Segment 2:
Ezra Klein says “Your Kids Are Not Doomed”
“Over the past few years, I’ve been asked one question more than any other. It comes up at speeches, at dinners, in conversation. It’s the most popular query when I open my podcast to suggestions, time and again. It comes in two forms. The first: Should I have kids, given the climate crisis they will face? The second: Should I have kids, knowing they will contribute to the climate crisis the world faces?”
“We will have caused incalculable damage to ecosystems. We will have worsened droughts, floods, famines, heat waves. We will have bleached coral reefs, acidified the ocean, driven countless animal species to extinction. Millions, maybe tens of millions, of people will die from increased heat, and more will be killed by the indirect consequences of climate change. Far more yet will be forced to flee their homes or live lives of deep poverty or suffering. We will have stolen the full possibility of their flourishing from them.”
NYT>>
Pew Research in 2021 finds that a tiny percentage of childless adults cite “climate concerns” as their reason for not having kids>>
Segment 3:
Scientists Can Reverse Aging in Mice. The goal is to do the same for humans.
" “It’s a permanent reset, as far as we can tell, and we think it may be a universal process that could be applied across the body to reset our age,” said Sinclair, who has spent the last 20 years studying ways to reverse the ravages of time.”
“His research shows you can change aging to make lives younger for longer. Now he wants to change the world and make aging a disease,” said Whitney Casey, an investor who is partnering with Sinclair to create a do-it-yourself biological age test.”
CNN>>
Many Christians settle for a reductionistic view of salvation, in which eternity is secured but the rest of life left untouched. The Bible, however, presents a much more holistic vision of redemption.
To explore salvation from a broader point of view, this year’s Wilberforce Weekend looked at “Life Redeemed.” The event was framed around three questions: What are we saved from, what are we saved to, and what are we saved for?
Rachel Gilson is the author of a fascinating book entitled Born Again This Way: Coming Out, Coming to Faith, and What Comes Next. She spoke specifically on something the Bible describes that we are saved from: confusion.
Here’s a portion of Rachel’s compelling message.
As I started having romantic and sexual relationships with other young women, I thought, “Oh, this is where home is for me.” So, I got to Yale, and I was like, “Oh no!” The girl I was dating at the time, well, she left me for this guy that lived in a van. And I was, like, “That is bad news, no matter what.” And also, I’m just sad, you know? So teenage breakups—very dramatic. I was basically dumped into the pit of an identity crisis, and never once did, I think, “Oh, I should turn to Jesus” because I didn’t believe in Jesus.
So, a little while after that, I happened to be in the room of—I could call her a friend; she was more like an acquaintance—a non-practicing Catholic. And I remember standing in her doorway, and she was further into her room getting something, putting it in a bag, whatever. We’re going to walk somewhere. And she had a bookshelf next to her doorway, and one of my favorite hobbies is to look at people’s bookshelves and judge them, you know? So, I’m checking it out, looking up and down.
And there was a copy—there was a book on this shelf. The spine read Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, and so I thought, “Oh, I really want to read that book,” but I was too embarrassed to ask my friend for it. So, I just stole the book because, again, I had no moral code, right? My bag, it’s not that big—you can just slip it right in.
So, I was sitting in the library soon after that, reading Mere Christianity, and while I was reading it one day, I was just overwhelmed with the realization that God exists. I was trying to explain this to an atheist friend of mine recently. He’s, like, “Tell me again.” I’m, like, “I don’t really want to say.” I was sitting there, and it was clear to me suddenly—I don’t remember where, what chapter I was in, what page, anything like that, but I was just overwhelmed with the reality of God. And not like a store brand, you know, like Zeus or something, but the God who made me and who made everything and who was perfect.
It was like I could sense God’s holiness even though I didn’t know that vocabulary and the only thing I felt was fear. I’m arrogant. I’m cruel. I’m sexually immoral. I lie. I cheat. I’m reading a stolen book. It’s clear all of the chips are in the guilty category, right? I had no confusion at that moment either, but really quickly with that I also understood that part of the reason Jesus had come was to place himself as a barrier between God’s wrath and me. And that the only way to be safe was to run towards Him, not away from Him.
It was lovely, but it also was really clear to me really soon in my walk with the Lord that my attraction to other women wasn’t going anywhere. And it’s been 18 years, and my attraction to women still hasn’t gone anywhere. So, it was where the confusion actually entered in. I was, like, “How, how am I supposed to thrive in Christ when these attractions aren’t gone?” And the Lord kept pushing on me at this time. Like, “Hey, if you’re only willing to obey when you both understand and agree, maybe you’re actually serving yourself as God and not me.”
Probably many of you experience other places where you feel confused because there’s something the Lord says and it doesn’t seem to line up with you intuitively. There’s maybe some sin that you love, that you don’t know how to—you don’t know how to part with. And I would just say again and again, the only place of safety is found in Him and in His Word. And He promises by His Word, by His Spirit, by His people, to lead us out of confusion and to lead us into love and joy and peace and patience, into the obedience of faith that He’s calling us to.
That was Rachel Gilson, author of a book called Born Again This Way. To hear more of Rachel’s message, and other speakers from this year’s Wilberforce Weekend event, “Life Redeemed,” including Os Guinness, Nancy Guthrie, Jim Daly, Monique Duson, and others, go to www.wilberforceweekend.org.
This summer the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Part of what the justices will have to consider is a legal principle called stare decisis, which means respecting precedent.
If the High Court wants to respect Roe, especially its deep ideological and legal flaws, it should take into account why Roe was decided the way it was.
Since then, the pro-abortion movement has insisted that abortion is a “women’s rights” issue. But in 1973, many Americans, especially elites, believed a now-debunked theory that the world was headed for catastrophe due to over-population. The Supreme Court justices themselves noted in the official majority opinion in Roe v. Wade that this concern, in part, motivated their decision to legalize abortion.
In the Dobbs case, the justices should consider that this part of the legal precedent is a debunked and harmful theory, and therefore should see abortion for what it truly is: an unconstitutional evil.
During a prayer gathering on the National Mall a few years ago, Terry Beatley, a commissioned Colson Fellow and president of a pro-life organization called the Hosea Initiative, reminded the crowd of a story Chuck Colson told in a Breakpoint commentary over 25 years ago.
The story, of how God changed the heart of one of our nation’s most notorious abortionists, is about as dramatic a conversion as Chuck Colson’s was. Yet, it came in the wake of one of the greatest defeats pro-lifers had suffered since the Roe v. Wade decision. Here’s what Chuck wrote, in a commentary entitled “The Ultimate Victory.”
“I was [recently] invited to witness a baptism,” Chuck said, “in the sacristy chapel of Saint Patrick’s cathedral in New York City. About 80 of us sat in a semicircle waiting for John Cardinal O’Connor to arrive.
“While waiting, I couldn’t help but think back to last fall and the Senate’s attempt to override President Clinton’s veto of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act—an attempt that failed. I remember walking the Senate corridors that day, looking for senators and pleading with them to vote to override the veto.
“One of my most dramatic memories,” Chuck continued, “happened while I was sitting in the Senate gallery, listening to the debate over whether it should be legal to commit infanticide—to kill babies already three-quarters born. The senators fell silent for a moment, and just as they did, a baby’s cry pierced the silence. A poignant reminder to both sides of what was at stake that day.
“After the vote I walked down to the Senate reception room and saw the grinning, almost cheering, crowd of abortion supporters. There was Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, surrounded by a crowd of people beaming and congratulating each other. They’d won; they’d scored a tremendous victory for the pro-abortionists. They’d stopped the bill.”
Chuck then continued: “Scenes of that day kept flashing through my mind as I sat in that dimly lit chapel at Saint Patrick’s. Why? Because the candidate for baptism was none other than Bernard Nathanson, one of the abortion industry’s greatest leaders, a man who personally presided over some 75,000 abortions, including the abortion of his own child.
“I watched as Nathanson walked to the altar. What a moment. Just like the first century—a Jew coming forward in the catacombs to meet Christ. And his sponsor accompanying him to the altar was Joan Andrews. Ironies abound. Joan is one of the pro-life movement’s most outspoken warriors, a woman who spent five years in prison for her pro-life activities.
“… just above Cardinal O’Connor,” Chuck continued, “was a cross. As I reflected on the day when infanticide could not be stopped by the United States Senate, I realized that I was witnessing, this day, the victory. I looked at that cross and realized again that what the Gospel teaches is true: In Christ is the victory. He has overcome the world, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against His Church.
“We might have taken a beating in the Senate on partial-birth abortion, but only temporarily. Because there at the altar was a man, who spent three decades in the satanic world of abortion, joyfully accepting forgiveness in Christ.
“And there were 80 people huddled in the catacombs of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, celebrating a victory Kate Michelman could do nothing about: the triumph of the Gospel over evil.
“This,” Chuck concluded, “is the way the abortion war will ultimately be won: through Jesus Christ changing hearts, one by one. No amount of political force, no government, no laws, no army of Planned Parenthood workers, can ever stop that. It is the one thing absolutely invincible.
“That simple baptism, held without fanfare in the basement of a great cathedral, is a reminder that a holy Baby, born in a stable 20 centuries ago, defies the wisdom of man. He cannot be defeated.”
John and Os Guinness discuss the privitization of faith, if Americans should support revolution or revival in this cultural moment, and what Christians should do with public school. They also answer a host of other questions from the audience at Wilberforce Weekend this year asked by Michael Craven, Vice President of Equipping and Mobilization at the Colson Center.
Kudos to these Tampa Bay Rays.
On Saturday night, several players for the Tampa Bay Rays opted out of wearing rainbow logos for “Pride Night.” Pitcher Jason Adam represented those players to reporters, saying, while players want all to feel “welcome and loved” at games,
We don’t want to encourage [an LGBTQ lifestyle] if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior. Just like (Jesus) encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage.
Adam’s clarity and his teammate’s bravery despite the furnace of public outrage reminds me of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego facing Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. They are following the example of U.S. women’s soccer player Jaelene Daniels, formerly Hinkel, who refused to wear a pride jersey in 2017. She also was castigated for her stand.
According to Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash,. instead of causing dissension, the opting out “has created … a lot of conversation and valuing the different perspectives inside the clubhouse but really appreciating the community that we’re trying to support here.”
In other words, opting out creates real diversity and inclusion.
Since the pandemic, American adults are behaving badly.
“Bad behavior of all kinds—everything from rudeness and carelessness to physical violence—has increased,” Olga Khazan recently wrote at The Atlantic. “Americans are driving more recklessly, crashing their cars and killing pedestrians at higher rates. Early 2021 saw the highest number of ‘unruly passenger’ incidents ever, according to the FAA.”
Plenty of viral videos, especially but not exclusively of passengers on airplanes and in airports, affirm Khazan’s description. Her question is a good one: Why are people acting so weird?
An obvious answer is that the social isolation of the last few years has taken a real toll on our mental health and well-being. Studies do show that prolonged isolation often does lead to anti-social behavior. “When we become untethered,” one Harvard sociologist told Khazan, “we tend to prioritize our own private interests over those of others or the public.”
It’s also not a secret that, to deal with the increased stress and isolation, more Americans have turned to destructive coping mechanisms. Per capita, we’re drinking more. Drug overdoses, despite a two-year decline pre-pandemic, have spiked by nearly 30% since 2019. Even crime—including break-ins, robberies and homicides—has increased, as the pandemic has eased. In the article, Khazan quoted a University of Missouri criminologist who thinks that we’ve developed “a generalized sense that the rules simply don’t apply.”
Everything about the pandemic, of course, increased individual and collective anxiety, isolation, and economic uncertainty. However, the coarsening of the American public was already in place. You might call it a “pre-existing condition,” made worse by COVID-19.
In his book A Free People’s Suicide, Os Guinness argues that America has become a “cut-flower” society. Though we still have the trappings of liberty and morality, he argues, we are cut off from its root. Just as with flowers, there’s a lag time between when a civilization is cut from its roots and when it dies. Even so, by cutting ourselves off from a shared Judeo-Christian framework, we are starving ourselves. The pandemic didn’t cause this, but it has worsened and exposed it.
G.K. Chesterton described something similar in The Everlasting Man. Sometimes, he argued, it’s the solutions we invent that unmake us, not the crises we are attempting to endure.
Pessimism is not in being tired of evil but in being tired of good. Despair does not lie in being weary of suffering, but in being weary of joy. It is when for some reason or other the good things in a society no longer work that the society begins to decline; when its food does not feed, when its cures do not cure, when its blessings refuse to bless.
The widespread cultural breakdown we see around us cannot by explained by a mere loosening of morals, or the wrong political party being in power, a pandemic, or our response to it. What we are seeing is the catastrophic emptiness when life is built on the wrong foundation.
While our distractions keep us busy—Americans streamed a mind-blowing 15 million years’ worth of digital content in 2021, according to analytics company Nielsen—but are failing to satisfy. The American dream has been written and re-written and altered completely but remains out of reach. It’s not clear what can hold us together anymore.
A critical question for Christians is whether there is anything we can do about it. A critical answer to that question is to remember that we aren’t the first to find ourselves in a society unmoored from morality and meaning.
If public behavior today is “weird,” public behavior at the start of the 18th century was downright shocking. In London, it was not unusual to come across bear fighting and heads on pikes. Crime and prostitution were endemic, as was poverty, and churches sat empty. According to a Christianity Today article about that time period, “only five or six members of Parliament even went to church,” and those churches often peddled nothing more than state-sponsored religiosity.
Yet, unknown to most, God was moving. The revivals led by John and Charles Wesley and their friend George Whitefield proved to be a match in a powder keg, sparking a massive return to Christian faithfulness and care in their own time. That revitalized Church set the table for William Wilberforce’s “reformation of manners and morals,” a movement for human rights that would change England and the world forever.
The secret, according to John Wesley, was realizing what really is at the center of human flourishing.
“How a sinner may be justified before God, the Lord and Judge of all, is a question of no common importance to every child of man,” John Wesley argued. “It contains the foundations of all our hope, inasmuch as while we are at enmity with God, there can be no true peace, no solid joy, either in time or in eternity.”
Those words are no less true in our times. When public morality is unhinged, Christians ought not lose hope. Who knows whether God is poised to bring another Christian revival as during the time of the Wesleys and Whitefield? Either way, our part is to reject the spirit of the age, embrace what is good and true, treat everyone as if they are made in the image of God, and speak boldly when we can.
Of course, that will make many think we are being weird. So be it. That’s the kind of “weird” the world needs.
Why are pro-abortion activists so committed? Because of lies built upon centuries of bad ideas... If we wondered just how committed some Americans are to abortion, the last couple of weeks have been a helpful demonstration. After a leaked draft opinion from the Supreme Court on the Dobbs cased suggested the court might overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-abortion activists erupted. Protests were organized outside the private homes of six Supreme Court justices, vile demonstrations were held on the steps of Catholic churches, and the offices of pro-life organizations in Oregon and Wisconsin were vandalized, threatened, and even set on fire.
People are angry, and they’re not faking it. Especially for Christians praying for an end to legal abortion in the United States, it should matter to us that people feel this strongly on the other side of the issue. If we want, ultimately, to make abortion not just illegal but unthinkable, we will have to reach the very people who are so dedicated to it that they’d debase themselves and threaten others just to protect it. But we will not be able to challenge the misconceptions they believe and spread if we don’t understand what they are.
In his 2020 book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Dr. Carl Trueman traced the philosophy behind abortion back several centuries, though these bad ideas date even earlier. When Charles Darwin suggested, in the mid-19th century, that human life resulted from mindless and purposeless processes, he wasn’t just making a biological claim. He was making an ontological claim. Human life, if accidental, has no ultimate purpose.
Instead, purpose had to be invented. Enter Sigmund Freud, who suggested that what we really live for is sex, even if we don’t realize it. After Freud came the philosopher Herbert Marcuse, who agreed that sex is everything. He also believed that power was a global currency. To Marcuse, so-called “sexual morals” or norms aren’t based in any objective reality but are merely inventions used by people to exert power.
Radical feminist Simone de Beauvoir built on this theory in her famous work The Second Sex. She argued that if sex is a tool of oppression, then women can only truly be free and fully human by making themselves “eunuchs." A free woman must, she wrote, be “freed from nature” and “win control of her body.” Abortion is a tool of this fantasy.
The patron saint of every single one of these bad ideas lived centuries earlier. Jean-Jacques Rousseau suggested that human beings are inherently good in their inner nature but are corrupted by our outer interactions with other people. The solution to that corruption was to look inward. In other words, to be human is primarily a psychological, not a physical, reality.
The ideas and lives of these people, long dead, have fundamentally shaped our world. The reason that abortion is so important to its supporters is the same reason it’s so abhorrent to Christians. Nothing else reveals more about what we believe it means to be human that what we believe about abortion.
To abortion supporters, the prerogative of women to violently hinder the gender-specific ability of their bodies to bear children is central to their humanity. If we believe the biological realities of our bodies oppress or even limit our feelings and desires, we must force our bodies to comply in order to be fully human. Anyone who wants to stop us may as well be killing us.
Christians believe that to allow the killing of a vulnerable image bearer is to proclaim, among other things, that our bodies have nothing to do with being human, that God doesn’t image himself in our bodies, that God didn’t make us for a purpose, and consequently, that He is not good—which means He is not God.
Even so, we should also remember that abortion is a real evil. Sociologist Philip Reiff believed cultures without a moral center produce what he called “deathworks,” or cultural artifacts that don’t build but only to tear down. Abortion is a deathwork of a culture captive to bad ideas. It is death for death; and if we don’t put an end to it, it will kill not only babies but the women and men who embrace it.
Our job as Christians is to build a culture that promotes life. When we do, we promote life not just for each individual child but for an entire culture that sits now on the brink.
Recently, The Economist wrote among those intrigued with “the idea of living forever” are “a motley crew of fringe scientists, cultish groups and tech billionaires.”
The article is a review of The Price of Immortality, a book by journalist Peter Ward. In it, he highlights a quirky, quasi-religious group called “The Church of Perpetual Life,” based out of Pompano Beach, Florida. Its adherents mainly talk food supplements and cryonics, while espousing the hope that science will one day grant eternal life.
The quest for immortality will always be, to some degree, religious. Even for people with limitless resources, like billionaire tech moguls like Jeff Bezos, the lines between science, science fiction, and an existential crisis can be blurry.
Part of the longing is that no matter how many toys we have, there’s something more than our materialistic age can offer. As C.S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” This is part of what Ecclesiastes calls the eternity put in our hearts by God.
A couple weeks ago, a Title IX investigation was opened for three middle school boys from Wisconsin who used the pronoun she for a biologically female student who wished to go by they. Under the Biden administration, refusing to use misaligned pronouns is considered sex discrimination. Even style guides today encourage the use of they if it is the chosen pronoun of an individual.
One rationale given is that someone really is, whatever gender they claim, and to not recognize that with pronouns is to contribute to that person’s psychological distress. This is the case even if, as Abigail Shrier describes as being increasingly common, a person’s gender dysphoria is socially conditioned. So, according to our own government, we are now in a zero-sum game: Either use individuals’ chosen pronouns or be blamed for their suicides.
Thankfully, many are beginning to recognize that even using the pronoun they for an individual is deeply problematic, much less fully imbibing all that the new transgender orthodoxy commands. Recently, the Manhattan Institute’s Leor Sapir wrote an editorial entitled “Don’t Say ‘They.’” In it, Sapir argues that using they and them to refer to an individual is far from harmless, and amounts to buying into an ideology that “gender is an oppressive social system.” In other words, using nonbinary plural pronouns and also opposite-sex pronouns says something that is not true about God’s design, the created reality of men and women.
So, what are we to do? Shall we use words that align with reality or shall we refuse to risk the psychological distress of a transgender person?
Two guiding principles can help us here. First, as Aleksander Solzhenitsyn advised, we must “live not by lies.” Second, as Paul advised, “so far as it depends on (us), live peaceably with all.” Living like Christians today requires both, together.
Words matter. Not only do our words reflect reality, and thus misusing words can distort reality, but Scripture is plain that God’s words make up reality. To use words incorrectly is to not only embrace something not true, it is to mislead others away from God. This is not true, nor is it loving. Thus, God says that He hates a “lying tongue.”
Honoring the second principle, to do our best to “live peaceably with all,” is particularly difficult when the choice is to tell a lie or to be responsible for psychological distress. Philosophy professor Nick Meriwether had a creative response when he found himself between this rock and hard place. When a male student requested that Dr. Merriweather refer to him as a female, using feminine titles and pronouns, he offered to only “refer to this student by a first or last name.”
In response, Shawnee State University in Portsmouth, Ohio, charged Dr. Merriweather with creating “a hostile environment,” placed a warning in his employee file, and threatened future punitive action if he refused to comply. So, Dr. Meriwether filed suit, claiming his free speech had been violated. He won. Shawnee State was forced to award him $400,000 and remove the disciplinary statement.
Dr. Merriweather's story demonstrates that people of conscience ought not prematurely surrender their convictions, or believe that cultural defeat in inevitable. Even more, it offers a way forward when it comes to pronouns, telling and truth and living at peace.
In English, names do not indicate gender. Pronouns do. Offering to call an individual by their chosen names is a way of respecting a person without saying something that is not true about them. In a conversation with the individual, the pronoun you is acceptable, since in English it refers to both plural and singular, and to both male and female. In no way, does “you” deny that biological sex is binary.
On the other hand, speaking in the third person—he, she, or they—when speaking about others is trickier. Some people point out that we use the word they all the time to refer to individuals. However, whenever we say something like, “Somebody left their book” when we don’t know who it is. It’s different if we do know who it is. For example, it would be inaccurate (and strange) to say, “Abigail left their book.”
In other words, there are ways to not say something that is not true. We can avoid using nonbinary or opposite-sex pronouns, and instead use names. And, we can use plural pronouns to talk about a group rather than an individual. Still, as Dr. Merriweather’s situation illustrates, these alternatives will not satisfy everyone. And, when there is no choice but to use third person pronouns, the only way to tell the truth is to use the pronouns that align with biology, not ideology.
To be clear, there is one situation where using someone’s chosen name violates the first principle of telling the truth: If you’ve known a person all of their life, and if their name was given for specifical purposes. So, for example, to ask a mom to use a chosen name over a given name for the child they’ve raised and loved, is just cruel.
Some argue that because language changes over time, accepting pronoun changes is just changing with language. This argument assumes that language doesn’t actually refer to reality, but only to other words. But there is a real world, and sexual distinction is part of that real world. To change the language of pronouns severs a link to reality, denies that reality, and disconnects people from what is actually true about their created bodies.
Pronouns may not seem like a fight worth having, but as Chesterton said, “The Church and the heresies always used to fight about words, because they are the only thing worth fighting about.”
John and Maria reflect on recent claims that Judaism supports a pro-abortion agenda. The pair reflect on a Breakpoint commentary with Glenn Sunshine that dispels this myth, and explains why the falsehood has picked up steam in culture.
Then Maria asks John to explain more of the culture breakdown as we are seeing a rise in gun violence across the country. John helps explain that gun violence is one of many examples of how our culture is in a crisis of meaning. He explains how we've gotten here and what many philosophers are saying about this issue.
Maria then asks John to comment on what is being celebrated as Pride Month during the month of June. John explores areas the church can engage this, referencing a piece written by Carl Trueman on social justice and pride month.
To close, Maria asks John to comment on a recent Tweet showing public posters in support of reducing the stigma around drug addiction, encouraging recreational use of addictive narcotics.
-- Recommendations --
See Life Event>>
-- Show References --
Segment 1:
Judaism and Abortion
While Conservative and Reform Jews do support legal access to abortion, they have only done so recently and despite their moral and religious views, not because of them
Breakpoint>>
Segment 2:
Iain McGilchrist And Uvalde
“If you had set out to destroy the happiness and stability of a people, it would have been hard to improve on our current formula: remove yourself as far as possible from the natural world; repudiate the continuity of your culture; believe you are wise enough to do whatever you happen to want and not only get aways with it, but have a right to it — and a right to silence those who disagree; minimise the role played by a common body of belief; actively attack and dismantle every social structure as a potential source of oppression; and reject the idea of a transcendent set of values.”
It seems to me that she is making a point complementary to Dr. McGilchrist’s: that we have created a culture and indeed a civilization that produces unhappy, unstable people, and provides them with the means to stay hidden from the rest of us, and to inflict mass murder.
The American Conservative>>
Segment 3:
Social justice demands our opposition to its celebration and symbols
The Christian cause of this month should be opposing Pride Month and its flag in as public and strident a way as many have opposed racism and its symbols. Let us have many blog posts and tweets on the topic. And may we even have pointed op-eds and major articles slamming Pride by those Christians privileged enough to have access to the pages of The Atlantic and The New York Times. Social justice surely demands it. And I, for one, am looking forward to reading them all.
WNG>>
Religious Liberty Is Good for Everyone for Many Reasons
Often, the term religious liberty is cynically thrown around in cultural discourse by those critical of the legal or social arguments for religious liberty. Religious people are accused of being ignorant or selfish, of only caring about their own rights, or of “clinging to their guns and religion.” At the same time, some Christians wrongly talk about religious liberty as if it’s only for Christians, or as if religion should be kept personal, private, and out of the public square.
Breakpoint>>
Most People Don’t Agree With Trans Ideology
Most Americans do understand the categories of biological sex and feel uncomfortable foisting harmful ideology on children.
Breakpoint>>
Segment 4:
Drug Addiction and Harm Reduction
This normalizes injecting deadly life-changing drugs
“avoid using alone” 🤔
“Start w small doses” 👀
“Using safely” 😳
This is twisted
Twitter>>
The latest Dr. Strange movie is making waves, partly because of its dark, violent, and even occultist overtones. Heroes are brutally murdered, seances are had, and undead souls go shrieking in and out of books of demonic curses.
As one critic put it,
I worry that younger kids who are excited to see the typical Marvel movie may get frightened by the very, very dark tone …. but hey, everyone needs that movie from their childhood that gave them nightmares, right? Mine was Poltergeist; maybe for some kids it will be The Multiverse of Madness.
They don’t need this one. The Marvel Cinematic Universe usually has plenty to appreciate: heroism, redemption, and a striving for that which is good. Even if it mostly paints with broad brushes to reach bigger audiences, that’s why the movies have been a kind of cultural unifier.
But Multiverse of Madness mixes the script, to the detriment of the audience. Christians don’t have to agree with everything to engage with a movie—but we should never take off our glasses of discernment even for a series we once had reason to like.
During the “Preparing for a Post-Roe World” event at the annual Wilberforce Weekend conference, Stephanie Gray Connors responded to various slogans that are used in our cultural moment to promote abortion. Here’s her response to the slogan, “Abortion is healthcare.”
Abortion is healthcare. Instead of using five minutes to reply, it’s really tempting to just use five words. “What? That is ridiculous.” To respond to that, what we want to do is ask a question, two in particular. We want to ask, “What is abortion, and what is healthcare?”
In terms of answering the question, “What is abortion?” I’m reminded of something my dad would tell me growing up. My dad is originally from Scotland. He didn’t immigrate to Canada, where I’m originally from, until he was in his thirties, which means my dad’s got a fantastic Scottish accent, right? He’s right from Glasgow, Barrhead.
Anyway, so my dad would always say to me growing up, “Right, Stephanie, your old Scottish grandfather used to say use their own words against them.” So, when it comes to answering the question, “What is abortion?” Don’t quote a pro-lifer. Use the abortion supporter’s words against them. Go to their textbooks. What do they say?
And, so, I went to the National Abortion Federation’s textbook on abortion. It’s called the Clinician’s Guide to Medical and Surgical Abortion. And in chapter 10, they specifically refer to feticidal techniques, feticidal techniques. So, the question we want to ask is this: “What is the meaning of the root word cide?”
Feticidal, cide. That means to kill. So, there’s an admission there by using the term feticidal, that it’s a technique that involves killing. Or take one of their chapters on D&E abortions after 12 weeks. That chapter in this textbook refers to the pregnancy elements by calling them “spinal cord” and “calvarium.” Well, we want to ask, “The spinal cord and calvarium of who?”
That textbook is not referring to the spinal cord of the pregnant woman, but rather of the preborn child. So, there’s this admission that it’s killing and that it involves parts not of the woman but of the baby and dismembering those particular parts. Then, there’s Planned Parenthood itself. We just heard the reference to Margaret Sanger, their founder. And yet, would you know that back in 1952, long before Roe v. Wade, they had a brochure not on abortion but on birth control. And in answering questions about birth control, they answered the question, “Is birth control abortion?” And they said, quote, “Definitely not. An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun.” End quote. Planned Parenthood, 1952.
So, if we’re asking the question, “What is abortion?” We get the answer from abortion supporters that abortion is killing. So, then we have to ask ourselves if we’re trying to figure out whether killing is healthcare, “What is health care?” And we know healthcare involves the treatment and prevention of disease or maintaining and restoring health. So, the question is “What disease are we responding to when someone’s pregnant?”
And the answer is pregnancy isn’t a disease. It’s a sign the body is working right. If you have cancer of the eye, you might have to remove the eye. It could cause you to be blind, but you never take a healthy eye and maim it. So, with abortion, we actually have a healthy body, a healthy state—a pregnancy—which should occur because the body is fertile at that time. And then abortion is maiming that. It’s like destroying an eye that’s functioning well. It doesn’t make sense. And it’s certainly not healthcare.
You know, some abortion supporters might say, “Well, abortion is healthcare because physicians do it.” So, we want to ask a question: “Just because the doctor does something, does his action suddenly become morally acceptable by his involvement?”
And then to answer that, we can use a little parable. Imagine you have someone working in the black-market underground organ-harvesting industry where they kidnap people or take political prisoners and have their organs removed—maybe their kidneys, maybe their liver, maybe their heart—and transplant them into someone who’s paid good money to get access to those organs. We all agree that’s unethical.
But in order to remove the organs from one person and successfully implant them in another, you can’t have just a random person on the street doing that, right? You need a physician to do it. Would we ever say because it’s a surgeon working in the black underground human organ trafficking market—would we ever say that that type of organ harvesting is ethical and healthcare because a doctor does it? And obviously, we would say it is not ethical, and it’s not healthcare because what a physician is doing in that case is destructive to a human person.
And, so, since we know the preborn child is a human person, albeit younger, and because we know abortion kills that human person, and because we know healthcare is about maintaining health and restoring a sick body to a healthy state, and abortion does the opposite of that, an abortion is not healthcare.
That was Stephanie Gray Connors, answering a common pro-abortion slogan that abortion is healthcare. Throughout our preparing-for-a-post-Roe-future event, Stephanie responded to a few more slogans just like that one. To receive access to her presentation as well as the other speakers at this very special event, go to wilberforceweekend.org.
John answers what Christians can do in the wake of a series of mass shootings that reveal we're not right as a culture. Before answering that question, John responds to a listener who asks if incrementalism is the best strategy for prolifers to honor God.
Technology is a gift, but there are real problems with certain forms of prenatal screening. When used to help parents prepare to care for an infant with anticipated genetic conditions, it’s an amazing asset. Instead, it is too often used to decide whether or not a child should live. Recently Daniel Navon, in an article written for Scientific American, raised his own concerns. “Prenatal screening is big business,” he writes. “The annual market for [noninvasive prenatal screening technology] is already around $4 billion dollars and is growing rapidly.”
The problem is that “including a condition on a prenatal genetic test implies that it may be incompatible with a ‘life worth living.’” One result, he warns, could be that religious communities, and staunchly pro-life states, will see increasing populations of those with genetic disorders.
So be it. That wouldn’t be a crisis. We must always resist the temptation to build a perfect world, especially when it comes “not by eliminating defects, but eliminating people.”
If Navon’s predictions prove true, it would be a badge of honor.
A year ago, Biden administration officials standardized a radically new interpretation of the word gender. In a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services, officials mandated all employers must cover the cost of so-called “transgender medicine” in their health insurance plans. In response, the Christian Employers Alliance sued HHS on behalf of a coalition of Christian-owned businesses. A few weeks ago, a federal district court ruled for CEA and halted the Biden mandate.
Many media outlets, in their coverage of this story, referred to the CEA as a “religious liberty group,” identifying them not by what they do but by their legal argument. To be sure, forcing an employer to pay for harmful hormones and violent surgeries on healthy bodies, against their deeply held beliefs, is to violate their religious freedom. All citizens of the United States have an unambiguous right, thanks to the First Amendment, to not just worship inside a church or synagogue or mosque but to order their lives outside of those buildings according to their deeply held beliefs. Whether the belief comes from religion, conscience, or some mix of the two, the ideas that men and women are real and distinct things and that their bodies shouldn’t be experimented upon is widely held across cultures, religions, scientific disciplines, and human history.
Legally speaking, then, it was perfectly sound for the Christian Employers Alliance to argue that forcing employers to subsidize those experiments violates their religious freedom. And, by doing so, the CEA wasn’t arguing to protect their own rights, only. They are fighting for the common good.
Often, the term religious liberty is cynically thrown around in cultural discourse by those critical of the legal or social arguments for religious liberty. Religious people are accused of being ignorant or selfish, of only caring about their own rights, or of “clinging to their guns and religion.” At the same time, some Christians wrongly talk about religious liberty as if it’s only for Christians, or as if religion should be kept personal, private, and out of the public square.
These views are somewhere between incomplete and flat-out wrong, misunderstanding what religious liberty is and why it matters. The lawsuit filed by the Christian Employers Alliance against the federal government offers helpful clarity. Christians care about the religious freedom of others, not only in the sense that protecting our religious freedom helps others maintain theirs, which in itself is a moral good. Christians care about religious freedom because we believe Christian claims about life and the world are true, true for everyone, and the world is better off when we are not denying those truths.
If men and women are real things, made by God for a purpose and with a good design, to deny that goodness or mutilate that design is harmful, whether or not the person doing it believes in Jesus. Though being a Christian might determine whether or not someone accepts the truth, it doesn’t make the truth more or less true. And, if loving our neighbors includes keeping them from harm whenever we can, we’ll want to keep the freedom for truth to remain in the public square.
The cultural tidal wave of “trans medicine” can rightly be characterized as medical malpractice, even abuse. Medical institutions are prescribing puberty-blocking hormones and, increasingly, sterilizing surgeries to adults and children at skyrocketing rates. Refusing to be co-opted in this kind of abuse is not some sort of “don’t tread on me” self-defense.
Recently, writing in WORLD Opinions, author Abigail Dodds pushed back against the caricature of the self-interested Christians taking some kind of perverse pleasure in “fighting the culture wars”:
It is surely true that the kingdom of God advances not through resentment but rather by those who bear witness to Jesus in sincerity and truth. Yet, I wonder where and to whom some think we are to bear witness? What is all this Good News for anyway? Do we not believe we are against the world for the world? Do we deny that God’s ways are truly good for all?
Christianity has been a unique force for good in the world, for both its adherents and non-believers. It is a great horror to lie about and/or to mutilate our bodies. Hopefully more Christians will, like the Christian Employers Alliance, refuse to live by lies. A world where living out Christian faith is suppressed or illegal is a worse world, more corrupt, more exploitative, and more dangerous for everyone. Fighting for religious liberty isn’t selfish. It’s a way to love God, and our neighbors.
A new poll, commissioned by Summit Ministries with national survey firm McLaughlin & Associates, suggests that there is a gap between what people believe and what they’re willing to say.
Some 64% of those polled believe that “transgenderism is not a healthy human condition.” However, while 30% indicated they are willing to speak out on the issue, another 34% say they stay silent on the issue so as “to not offend others.”
Measuring public opinion is notoriously tricky. At the same time, it’s important to know that despite headlines and popular perception, the triumph of trans ideology is not inevitable. In reality, most Americans do understand the categories of biological sex and feel uncomfortable foisting harmful ideology on children.
This means that what we say and do on this issue matters.
Os Guinness made this point on a recent episode of the Upstream podcast. Americans like to think of themselves as rugged individualists, but we’re more susceptible to the whims of the most vocal popular opinion than we realize.
The loudest voices often cow people into silence, but Christians, with courage and gentleness, must speak up. Along the way, we may just win some people over.
Recently, U.S. House Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez huffed on Twitter, “For people who say, ‘I believe it’s a life,’ some people don’t. Our Jewish brothers and sisters, they are able to have an abortion according to their faith!”
The central point AOC is trying to make in the video is one that is on repeat these days, as America awaits the Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case. Not all religions agree on when life begins, so therefore, the pro-life movement intends to impose Christian morality on everyone else. “When does life begin?” asked an NPR article a few weeks ago. “Religions don’t agree.” In the piece, author Sarah McCammon also pointed to Judaism as the obvious counter to Christianity.
Of course, it’s not all that surprising that various religions would hold differing views on matters of significance. After all, religions don’t agree about whether God exists, who God is, how we would know, whether Jesus is God, and whether we are God. And that’s just disagreements about God. Expand the discussion to morality, heaven, hell, sin, and salvation, and we’d be here all day.
Even so, the constant reference to Judaism as the counter to “fundamentalist Christianity” (as AOC put it in the video) led me to wonder whether it is really the case that Judaism supports a woman’s right to abort her child. Thankfully, the eminent historian, Dr. Glenn Sunshine, is part of the Colson Center editorial team. In summary, here’s what he discovered.
Though Jews today differ tremendously on abortion (unsurprisingly, since they also differ tremendously on all manner of theological, liturgical, moral, and political issues), historically, the position is much clearer. Except to save the life of the mother, Judaism has historically opposed abortion.
The Jewish position goes back to Genesis 9:6. Because this is the record of God’s instructions to Noah after the Flood, many Jewish scholars have understood this verse to be binding on all humanity. While modern Christian Bibles such as the ESV translate the verse as, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image of God,” Jewish scholars who comment on this passage suggest that the text actually says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man within man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Rabbis who understood the text to read “man within man” believe that this teaching refers to an unborn child. Thus, these scholars argue for a universal prohibition of abortion for all of Noah’s descendants, Jews and Gentiles alike.
In Jewish law, the unborn is recognized as nearly a full-fledged human being, but not quite. Consequently, it is a sin to deliberately harm a fetus, but doing so did not carry the full penalty associated with harming someone already born. In Exodus, a man who strikes a woman and causes her to give birth was not guilty of murder but had to pay a financial penalty. While this could refer simply to a premature but live birth, to the rabbis this referred to miscarriage or stillbirth. They treated this loss as more of a property crime than a murder, despite the unborn being made in the image of God.
Similarly, if a woman’s pregnancy threatens her life, the fetus was to be considered “one who is pursuing another” to kill her. Jewish law permits one to kill a pursuer to save the life of the one pursued, and hence abortion is permissible to save the mother’s life if directly threatened by the pregnancy. If the baby’s head had emerged, however, the baby was given the same moral status as the mother and thus could not be killed.
Since Judaism refuses to assign differing values to life, all major Orthodox rabbis authorized to decide matters of Jewish law reject abortion for fetal abnormalities or deformities.
Historically, then, Judaism has opposed abortion under normal circumstances but permitted it in a very limited number of situations, primarily the saving of the mother’s life. For example, the great medieval rabbi Maimonides permitted abortion only if the pregnancy “definitely and without question” endangered the life of the mother. This was the nearly universal view within Judaism until less than a century ago.
Some modern Orthodox Jewish scholars permit abortion to save the life of the mother even if the fetus is not the direct cause of the threat to the mother’s life. Others extend permission further to protecting the mother’s physical or mental health; some to pregnancies caused by forbidden sexual relations such as adultery, rape, or incest; and some, a minority, to severe and proven fetal abnormalities.
These are not universal concessions, however, and most Orthodox Jewish scholars advocate making such decisions on a case-by-case basis rather than establishing general rules for handling these situations.
The Conservative branch of Jews, unlike the Orthodox Jews, generally follows a somewhat looser interpretation of these guidelines. In 1983, leading rabbis issued a statement permitting abortion to prevent severe physical or psychological harm to the mother or in the case of extreme fetal abnormalities. These were essentially the same guidelines already adopted by Reform Judaism in 1958, which were then modified in 1985 to specify that psychological reasons included rape and incest. At the same time, however, the Reform rabbis also opposed abortion on demand, abortion for trivial reasons, or abortion because of family hardship.
Using Judaism as a counterexample to the Christian position that life is sacred from the moment of conception is a red herring that ignores the real limitations placed on abortion within historic Judaism. While Conservative and Reform Jews support legal access to abortion, they have done so only recently and despite their moral and religious views, not because of them.
Regardless, our policies regarding abortion are not to be rooted in various opinions of others, but in the reality of life seen in both God’s Word and God’s world. In these, we are to embrace the innate dignity of all human beings, no matter how small.
A trend that has troubled researchers for years is the rising “deaths of despair,” particularly among blue-collar Americans. Opioids, for example, continue to ravage rural towns across America. According to data drawn from the U.S. Census, “The occupation with the highest suicide rate is Construction and Extraction … nearly 40% higher than the occupation with the second highest suicide rate.”
In addition to reflecting dangerous work conditions, tough economic prospects, and injury, a deeper problem impacts everyone from teens to seniors, those with degrees and those without: a culture-wide loss of meaning.
As J.D. Vance put it in Hillbilly Elegy, “I knew even as a child that there were two separate sets of mores and social pressures. My grandparents embodied one type: old-fashioned, quietly faithful, self-reliant, hardworking.” The other mindset Vance describes as “consumerist, isolated, angry, distrustful.”
The loss of a why leads to struggles with all kinds of whats. Without meaning, America is floundering. The answer is the One who never left us: the One who came that we “may have life, and have it to the full.”
The news has been relentless for a while now, but especially these past two weeks. After multiple mass shootings, the nation is grieving. People are angry that nothing seems to change.
According to the FBI, there’s been a 50% uptick in “active shooting incidents” since last year, and that’s not counting the shooting that left 21 dead in Uvalde, Texas. “The two attacks (in Buffalo and Uvalde) are not outliers,” announced National Public Radio. “Mass shootings happen in the U.S. with depressing regularity.” According to their count, 213 so far this year.
A variety of things and people are being blamed: access to guns, social isolation, politicians, talk show hosts, authorities, harmful ideas, and more. Behind any event this tragic will be a number of contributing factors. At the same time, we can no longer think of mass shootings as isolated incidents. They must be understood as indications of social breakdown, along with spiking rates of addiction, overdoses, violent crime, suicide, sexual confusion, and even airplane incidents.
Last week, a friend reminded me of Chuck’s words. One can easily imagine Chuck Colson extending that analysis to today’s issues, “The problem is not gun control, poverty, talk-show hosts, or race. The problem is the breakdown of moral values in American life, and our culture simply cannot respond.”
In fact, Chuck Colson is not the only thinker to have pointed to the inevitabilities of cultural breakdown. “Great civilizations are not murdered,” writes historian Arnold Toynbee. “They commit suicide.” In other words, civilizations do not last forever, and there are rules that determine whether or not they have a future.
At the recent Wilberforce Weekend, author and social critic Os Guinness stated that we are living in “a civilizational moment”:
“All the great civilizations reach a moment when they’re out of touch with the inspiration that made them. And there’s a critical transition moment when they either go towards renewal or down to decline.
We are at such a moment, if not already past it. For example, a civilization cannot survive if it is not able to prepare for the future. The dual modern realities of debt, both individually and nationally, and demographics, especially the collapse of birth rates below replacement levels, indicate that as a people we live more for immediate gratification than a strong tomorrow.
Of course, in an ultimately meaningless world, there is no sense of tomorrow. Increasingly, studies reveal that our culture suffers from a catastrophic loss of meaning. This only makes sense in a culture already detached from ultimate categories of truth and identity, but that doesn’t make it any easier to live here.
At the same time, life, even at a time of cultural collapse, does not come to an end. People are born and die. They gather and meet, buy and sell, create and invent. Civilizational collapse is never sudden, but almost always extends over decades and even centuries.
What can we do when our civilization is disintegrating around us?
First, we must remember that although the challenges of this cultural moment are real, they are never the whole story. The whole story is, instead, the story centered on the person and work of Christ, the Creator, Sustainer, and Redeemer of the cosmos. The ending of that story is sure, despite the chaos of the moment.
Second, rather than withdraw from the challenges around us, we give whatever good we can to the world. William Wilberforce, for example, not only lobbied against the slave trade but also fought to advance moral values in a corrupt nation. Our best efforts may not succeed, but that’s not why we do it. We do it out of love for God and neighbor.
Third, we must reject small compromises. Hannah Arendt wrote about the “banality of evil,” how in certain cultural moments, evil advances in mundane and seemingly harmless ways. Solomon is an example of this. The last half of 1 Kings 10 reads like a ledger of his remarkable success: extravagant wealth, imported horses and chariots from Egypt, and 700 wives (with accompanying military alliances and treaties).
However, Deuteronomy 17 records that, years before, Moses had instructed the Israelites about what their king should not do:
He must not acquire many horses for himself or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to acquire many horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You shall never return that way again.” And he shall not acquire many wives for himself, lest his heart turn away, nor shall he acquire for himself excessive silver and gold.
The author of the Book of Kings knows exactly what he is doing here... He is telling the exploits of Solomon in a way the Israelite readers would understand.
Now, whether we’re in a time of decline or a time of amazing success like Solomon, the same response is required from God’s people. We must be faithful to what He asks us to do, to what He asks us to believe, and to how He instructs us to live.
In all of these things, we take this moment as part of our calling. We are here because it is where He wanted us to be. And so we move forward, keeping our eyes on the One who perfects and finishes our faith, Who will bring history to its final culmination.
Os Guinness discusses the civilizational moment for America, where our nation is faced with a choice to turn to renewal or go down the path to decline.
This presentation was a part of the Wilberforce Weekend even in May. To register for the digital recordings from this event, visit www.wilberforceweekend.org
“There’s already a revolution in abortions happening,” wrote Christina Cauterucci in Slate magazine recently, “and the Supreme Court can’t touch it.” She’s referring to so-called “medical” abortions, when pills are used to terminate a child’s life at home. As of 2020, this kind of abortion was already the most common, and with the Supreme Court preparing to dismantle Roe v. Wade, it will only become more common.
One impact of this will be to drive abortion even farther into the shadows, away from even medical supervision. In fact, during COVID, the FDA allowed abortion pills to be prescribed without a doctor’s visit. Now the pandemic is over, but the policy remains.
The toll this will have on America’s unborn children, their parents, and our national conscience will be significant. Hidden evil always flourishes. That’s why we need pro-life legislation that extends to the abortion pill, but passing it won’t be easy.
The Church will need to be out there, making the case for the dignity of all life, making the path of forgiveness known, offering hope and healing in Christ.
And, we’ll need courageous lawmakers to take the next step in putting an end to abortion, including by mail.
Today, Memorial Day, I want to share a commentary on Memorial Day from Chuck Colson. Here’s Chuck:
This Memorial Day, reflect with me on how we should respond to the enormous sacrifices of our men and women in uniform.
Memorial Day is when we honor the men and women of our armed services who have made “the supreme sacrifice,” who gave their lives for their country.
Especially these days, when Memorial Day seems nothing more than a time for cookouts and swim parties, we cannot be reminded often enough about how great a debt we owe our war dead.
They gave up their hopes and dreams, families, and friends. They submitted themselves to rigorous discipline—something I understand as a former Marine—24-hour-a-day duty—and placed their lives in great peril. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Their sacrifice should inspire in us a profound sense of gratitude. Gratitude for the freedoms we enjoy, bought with a price. And that gratitude should compel us to lives of service as well. Serving Christ, our neighbor, and yes, our nation.
I can’t help but recall the brilliant film Saving Private Ryan. James Ryan, now in his seventies, has returned with his family to the military cemetery in Normandy. He visits the grave of Capt. John Miller, the man who, a half a century before, led the mission to retrieve—to save—Pvt. Ryan. At the end of the mission, Miller was fatally wounded. As he lay dying, his final words to Pvt. Ryan were “James. Earn this ... earn it.”
We then see Ryan kneeling at Capt. Miller’s grave, marked by a cross. Ryan, his voice trembling with emotion, says,
Every day I think about what you said to me that day on the bridge. I tried to live my life the best that I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that, at least in your eyes, I’ve earned what all of you have done for me.
Red-eyed, Ryan turns to his wife and says, “Tell me I’ve led a good life ... tell me I am a good man.”
With great dignity, she says, “You are.”
With that, James Ryan salutes the grave of Capt. Miller.
I tell this story in greater detail in my book The Good Life, which you can purchase at colsoncenter.org.
You see, Pvt. Ryan, out of gratitude for Capt. Miller’s sacrifice, did all in his power to live a good life.
And Memorial Day is a great time for each of us to look into the mirror ... to examine our own lives. Are we living good lives in gratitude for all those who have sacrificed for us—including our men and women in the military, our families, our friends, and most of all Christ?
Are we, like Ryan, kneeling before the cross? Spielberg, a master cinematographer, had to realize the power of this imagery. Are we, out of gratitude, doing our duty for Christ, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, ministering to those in prison, in whatever harvest field to which the Lord has called us?
Examine your life.
And this Memorial Day, at the very least, thank those who have sacrificed for you and those you know who have served in our nation’s armed forces. Maybe you’ll do what I do when you see a guy or gal in uniform ... at the airport, at the store, wherever ... walk up to them and thank them for their service.
And then go and remember Whom it is you serve.
John and Maria discuss the Uvalde shooting, working to understand the role of culture to respond to faltering character. Maria asks John about gun rights, and the pair discuss if freedoms become license and harm people what do we focus on: the conscience or the constable.
Then Maria asks John to comment to the recent Southern Baptist Convention's independent investigation by Guidepost on abuse allegations. The report exposes horrible actions and responses in local churches and the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention. John offers some insight, noting a recent Breakpoint commentary.
To close, John asks Maria to comment on a recent article she penned in Christianity Today. Maria explores if a common accusation regarding abortion is factually true. Many note that if abortion laws pass they will limit the types of services for mothers who have ectopic pregnancies and other pregnancies where a child dies ineutero. Maria dispels these myths and explores some of the underlying medical community thoughts and practices that undo this myth that is being retold in public circles.
Yesterday, when our writing team gathered to discuss the horrific events at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, we struggled to know how to even process what had happened, much less what to say: Yet, another evil attack on vulnerable children; evil so shocking, it’s impossible to fathom; and, at the same time, a story horrifyingly familiar.
On Tuesday morning, an 18-year-old young man, after shooting his own grandmother, drove to his former elementary school, rammed through the security gate with his car, and barricaded himself in a classroom. Before it was all over, 19 children and two teachers had been killed.
As if that were not horrible enough, it came just days after two other mass shootings. On May 15, one man was killed and five more wounded at a California church, and the day before that, 10 were killed in a racially motivated assault in Buffalo, New York. Over 30 dead in less than a week. For what? This simply should not be.
We’re left with a lot of uncomfortable questions. How could anyone be capable of such evil? How long until something like this happens again? Why does this keep happening? Why so often here in America, but rarely elsewhere, in places like Britain or Australia? Why did it not happen here even a generation or two ago? What is plaguing young men in our culture, who are far more likely to commit acts of evil like this?
Basic clarity seems elusive, much less progress. As a friend pointed out, it’s alarming to think that younger generations are being conditioned to think that these events are normal occurrences, and that retreating to political corners and blaming others is the normal way to respond to them. That would be a tragedy upon a tragedy.
Still, what hasn’t changed is that God has called His people to a particular time and place, and He’s called us to be part of His redemptive work in the world in this time and this place. While the temptation to “just do something” at times like this is strong, it also quite often misleading. Thank God for the vast resources He has given us in Scripture, and how they apply even to times as confusing as these.
First, the psalms of lament and the imprecatory psalms offer godly direction for our rage and sorrow. Not just once or twice, but repeatedly, God invites His people to weep before Him for the sorrows of the world and to be angry at the injustices we experience.
Second, the Apostle Paul gives us something to do at times like this: “Mourn with those who mourn.” This instruction matches the incarnational way that God, in Christ Jesus, interacted with His fallen world. He was with us. May God give strength to His people in Uvalde, Texas, to be the Church there. At the same time, this is another symptom of culture-wide brokenness, so all of us have the same incarnational work to do.
And we can do this work, because of what we learn from the shortest verse in the Bible. In one of the most poignant moments in Scripture, we read that “Jesus wept.” In Bethany, Christ joins in with a dead man’s sisters in their mourning for their loss.
What makes this so astonishing is that Jesus knows that He will raise Lazarus to life again, and, by doing so, he is going to end the family’s suffering, even turn it into a party. Yet, He is not aloof or dismissive of their grief. Instead, He weeps with them—for the pain of a fallen world, for the unnaturalness of death, for the hopelessness people feel in the face of tragedy. Because Christ—who had the power of life and death at His command—can weep with those who weep, we can do the same.
And finally, we have the gift of knowing that one day, death itself will be cast into Hell. So, we do not grieve as though without hope. One day, everything sad “will become untrue.” And because we do not weep as the world weeps, the Church has so much to offer when the world does weep. Like now.
A couple of weeks ago, an article by National Public Radio’s Sarah McCammon’s made the rounds on various public media outlets with this headline: “When Does Life Begin? Religions Don’t Agree.” Clearly, it was an attempt to warn pro-lifers against stubborn certainty on abortion. The central claim of the article is that not every religion holds that human life begins at conception.
Of course they don’t, but why would they? Religions don’t agree on all kinds of essential matters, such as if there’s a God, who is God, whether Jesus was God, or whether we are God. And that’s just about God.
If disagreement among vastly different worldviews is somehow supposed to trivialize the convictions of pro-lifers, wouldn’t the same reasoning trivialize any convictions of religious abortion supporters, too? So, what’s the point?
Interestingly enough, even though religions disagree on whether life begins at conception, science doesn’t. Or at least, every embryology textbook is clear about when life begins. Honest abortion supporters, such as Peter Singer, acknowledge as much, that abortion takes a human life.
So, should we follow the science, or not?
During the “Preparing for a Post-Roe World” event at the recent Wilberforce Weekend, Jim Daly described how the Focus on the Family team displayed the truth about preborn babies right in the middle of Times Square. The event not only made a powerful case against abortion, it showed how courage is contagious, and how Christians can be emboldened to speak the truth in love even in difficult situations.
Here’s Jim Daly, explaining what happened in Times Square before the pandemic:
What the Lord put on my heart was “Show them the baby.” Isn’t that just like the Lord to make it real simple? Show the baby! So, we applied for the permits and everything. Six months, eight months out, they’re not showing up. We got the permits at 7:30 the morning of our event.
But the Catholic cops were awesome. Tip the hat to the Catholic cops in Times Square. They called and said, “Hey, we like you guys. We’re going to do all we can do to help you out here in New York, OK?” That’s a true story. We’re like, “Awesome. We’ve got the cops on our side.”
But anyway, we get there, and there was a stage, we had 20,000 supporters that came in. 20,000. We were only permitted for 10,000, but they came in, and then we had all the bystanders. It was real simple.
We had a couple of speakers, and then we showed them the ultrasound right in Times Square. Now, the big ABC and all the big jumbotrons when we were eight months out [we asked] “We want to buy inventory for those jumbotrons.”
“Sure, there’s plenty of inventory. What do you want to show?”
“A preborn baby.”
“You know what? We’re all out of time.”
That is a true story as well. That’s exactly what they said.
The team came to me and said, “OK. Let’s just bring in our own jumbotrons.” So, we did, and we showed that baby…. Oh, whose baby was it? Abby, Abby Johnson’s baby in the back of the mobile (ultrasound) unit that people were spitting on and cursing at. And Abby’s in there, and her baby goes across Times Square and that baby’s heartbeat. Bum, bump, bum, bump. And everybody stopped. It was like this amazing spiritual silence. I mean it just stopped everything.
Everybody was looking. People were crying. I think one of the things that we need to do is show that emotional connection. These people know what they’re doing. They absolutely know what they’re doing.
About two weeks ago I had a broadcast recording that we’re going to air in a couple of weeks with Winsome Sears, Lieutenant Governor in Virginia.
So, these are her words to me. I could never say this, but she did, and I’ll repeat them. She said, “Planned Parenthood has been far more effective at killing black babies than the KKK ever was.”
She went on to say 6% of the population is African American women but 40% of the abortions. And we don’t think Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist, succeeded? Oh, she succeeded. Planned Parenthood just doesn’t admit it.
I had a Planned Parenthood executive tell me that. I said, “I’m a business person. I came from international paper. I didn’t go to seminary.” And I just said, “What is it that drives you?” She said, “Cash flow.” Cash flow. And I said, “That’s a very honest answer.” And one of the things we’re looking at— pray for us—because I said to her, “If it’s cash flow, what if I gave you—what’s an average abortion?” She said $600. I said, “What if I could pay you 1,200 for an adoption placement?” She said some clinics might do that.
So, I’m working behind the scenes right now—not so much now—to find some clinics that might be willing. Let’s turn them into adoption clinics. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
I’ll end with this. Again, I think for us in this century to look back to the first, second, third century: What did the Church do? That’s the blueprint, and what it is is action: Telemachus going to the gladiator events on January 1, 404 A. D. He went down to see what this thing was all about. He saw men killing each other in the colosseum. He jumps onto the floor of the colosseum in his robe and says, “You shouldn’t be doing this. You’re destroying people made in God’s image, each one of you.” And they killed him. But that was the last day they had gladiator events because it made an impression on the empire.
So, how do we make those impressions on the empire, that even hard hearts might crack open, and they might say, “Maybe it is life”?
That was Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family at our “Preparing for a Post-Roe World” event from the Wilberforce Weekend. Focus on the Family will be hosting its annual SeeLife conference on June 14 at 7 p.m. Though this year’s event won’t be hosted in Time Square, it will be livestreamed and something you won’t want to miss. For more information on the SeeLife conference, visit: focusonthefamily.com/seelife22/
John answers how a listener can respond and think well about the issue of replacement theory, something that has become a popular topic due to the recent shooting in Buffalo, New York.
John also gives perspective to how abortion became not only illegal, but also unthinkable. He answers which came first and how the abortion movement can replicate the trajectory of slavery becoming unthinkable in society.
To close, John answers a listener's question related to social movements inside the business community. He provides a path forward for Christians who find themselves in a changing landscape.
According to the BBC, the Chinese government has arrested Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal and outspoken critic of the Beijing regime. He is now in chains for his role in the 2019 human rights protests.
On the same day this arrest was reported, the Daily Mail announced that ISIS forces had slaughtered 20 Nigerian Christians, guilty only of being Christians, which was enough to seal their martyrdom.
While the last few years have presented incredible challenges to the Western church—plagues, riots, scandals, even war—followers of Christ in places like China and Nigeria have consistently weathered incredible hardship, and for so long. Their stories remind us that there’s a wider world out there—and a wider Church.
Ours is not the only part being played in the grand drama of God’s redemptive work in the world. Let’s pray for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world, and take hope that their role in shaping Christ’s kingdom doesn’t rest in our success but in God’s faithfulness.
This past Sunday, a devastating report was released about America’s largest Protestant denomination. According to the Guidepost Solutions’ Report of the Independent Investigation on the Southern Baptist Convention, not only has sexual abuse been a scourge within the denomination, but leading members actively obstructed efforts to expose the guilty, hindered attempts by victims to report the crimes, and worked to maintain the public image of the Convention at the expense of the truth. What the victims have been forced to endure for so long is sickening and heartbreaking. Lives will be forever marred by the corruption exposed in the report.
Though it feels as if some new report is revealing sexual misconduct, abuse, or criminal behavior within the Church every few months, in God’s economy, the day after evil is exposed is better than the day before. When evil is allowed to remain hidden, it flourishes. When it is exposed, both victims and perpetrators are in a better position to find grace, healing, and forgiveness.
At the same time, we can expect the world to be wagging its fingers at Christian hypocrisy. In response, there’s a strong pull in our hearts to point right back. After all, the infamous “casting couches” of Hollywood legend have raised such lechery to an abhorrent art form. And this has gone on for decades. Even Shirley Temple, the Golden Girl of classic cinema, was chased around an office by one of the top movie moguls of her day. Yet, he kept his post despite this and other crimes.
More recently, after headlining everything from dramas, to comedies, to action flicks through the 90s and early 2000s, Brendan Fraser found himself cast from favor after refusing the very aggressive advances of a (male) movie executive. Five years ago, Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey was blacklisted as stories broke of his habitual abuse of young actors. Most notorious of all, Harvey Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in the film industry until the rising #MeToo movement gained enough momentum to bring him down for his abuse of young women and threats to any who spoke against him. And that’s just Hollywood. We could also talk at length of public schools, congressional leaders, and corporate executives.
Of course, why would we expect any better from a culture like ours, in which sexual activity is treated as the high point of human existence? When Hugh Hefner is treated as a virtual saint and praised as an advocate for women’s dignity, who is the world to cast stones at the Church for its own failings? If they’re not any better than we are, why do we get the third degree while they get a pass?
It’s almost as if followers of Christ are held to a higher standard or something! To this we can only say, we are. By God.
One of the premiere accounts of worldly morality in the Scriptures is in the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 19, the story is told of two angels coming to Sodom, meeting Lot in the town square, who takes them into his home. After the men of the city seek to sexually accost his guests, Lot instead offers his daughters to them as sexual sacrifices.
This horrific tale is echoed later in Judges 19. Visitors from out of town, a meeting near the city, an invitation to dinner, a rapacious mob, and finally, a young woman offered to the lust of the crowd which, in this case, turns murderous and leads to military revenge, mass executions, and human trafficking. In this story, however, it’s not sinful pagans. It’s the people of God who commit an evil that exceeds even that of Sodom.
The reason the story is told how it is—other than to report what actually happened—is clear. The people of Israel had become indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. And this, God could not abide.
In Romans 2, Paul writes, “You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’” And, in 1 Corinthians 5, the apostle is aghast that a member of a Church has done worse than “the pagans.”
Sexual abuse is just as horrible and evil within the Church as without, yet we are more guilty because we should know better. We know where the human propensity for sin, evil, and abuse comes from. We know the human capacity to deceive and deflect. We know our own vulnerability, and the sin nature shared by all after Eden. So, if our defense for the sins of the Church is that those among us are no more guilty than Harvey Weinstein and Hugh Hefner, it’s fair to say that we’ve lost the plot of our own story.
When the unbelieving world acts in an immoral manner, it is no less horrible to its victims, but this is tragically to act according to their worldview. When Christians do the same, it is an abomination. After all, God doesn’t simply call us to be no worse than the world: He calls us to be set apart, faithful to His standards.
As Peter Kreeft once observed, when you find yourself on the edge of the moral abyss, the only way forward is backward. Thank God, there is repentance. Let judgment begin in the House of the Lord, and may His good and true judgment bring us to our knees. The answer now is not to circle the wagons, it is to tend to the wounded, confess our sins, and seek His face.
On Friday, according to the Catholic News Agency, “San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone instructed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to present herself for Holy Communion until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion.”
On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg told the archbishop via her audience on The View, “This is not your job, dude. That is not up to you to make that decision.”
It is, of course, the archbishop’s job to oversee the proper administration of the sacraments in that geographic region of the church. It is exactly his job, in fact. Other than playing a nun in the Sister Act movies, it’s not clear what qualifies Goldberg to tell an archbishop what his job is.
Years ago, Dr. Frank Beckwith taught a group of students how to respond to someone dismissive of their arguments: “If anyone ever says to you, ‘Who are to say what’s right?’ just ask back ‘Who are you to say, “Who are you to say?”’”
This isn’t about Whoopi, of course. Skeptics, secularists, and non-believers will often ask, “Who are you to speak for Jesus?” while speaking for Jesus.
A good response is, “Well, who are you to ask?”
On the YouTube channel “Lutheran Satire,” there’s a video entitled, “A Christian and a Feminist Almost Agree on Stuff.” In it, two sock puppets discuss the cultural breakdown of sexuality and marriage and how pornography plagues both. “Pornography harms women,” says the feminist sock puppet.
“Totally agree,” says the Christian puppet. “Pornography demeans women, and it also corrupts men by making them think of women as nothing but sexual objects.”
“Therefore,” interrupts the feminist sock puppet, “women should empower themselves by taking control of the porn industry and producing their own sexually explicit material.”
To which the Christian puppet responds, “That is not the solution I had in mind.”
Pornography and sexually suggestive material of any kind objectifies women, training consumers that female bodies are things to be leered at, to be lusted after, rather than persons to be loved and valued.
Those Lutheran sock puppets came to mind last week after Sports Illustrated announced the covers of its annual swimsuit issue. Of course, there’s never been any point to the swimsuit edition other than to objectify women to the publication’s largely male readership. It has nothing at all to do with sports. It has nothing at all to do with even marketing swimsuits.
It has been, instead, for decades now, the most visible example of everything that Christians and feminists and other protectors of women have decried about our objectifying culture: selling skin, airbrushed and impossible beauty standards, sexual provocation, etc., etc., etc.
This year’s cover model does not represent the typical, unreachable standards of thinness that porn and photoshop have imposed on women. However, she is still posed provocatively in a barely there swimsuit, as objectified as any other cover model has ever been.
There seems to be some confusion. The problem here is not that all women should be objectified for their bodies. It’s that no one should be objectified at all. Valuing a human being made in God’s image by changing standards of outward appearance is always wrong. But we don’t atone for a sin by committing it against everyone.
Now, I know it sounds a bit quaint in 2022 to object to swimsuit covers, but at the heart of even the mildly suggestive material in our culture is a lie that has long consumed our culture, the same one that is at the heart of the always accessible and ever darker online pornography world. That lie is that people are things to be used and therefore can be abstracted from their bodies for our gratification or titillation.
This lie can never be made true, even when people consent to it. As Christine Emba pointed out recently in The Washington Post, it is possible for a woman to objectify herself, and therefore consent to things that are actually terrible for her. Consent, Emba concludes, is not a sufficient sexual ethic by itself. We need to talk about a much more important value: love, which she defines, taking a cue from St. Thomas Aquinas, as “willing the good of the other.”
There is no sense in which reducing a woman to her body and putting her on display for millions is willing her good. No person—man or woman—is merely a body. Christians have always insisted, and must continue to insist against things like prostitution, polygamy, slavery, and pornography. Because human beings are bearers of God’s image, they must always be taken seriously, body and soul.
If there is a problem with displaying scantily clad women as objects for the eager eyes of sports fans—and there is—if we recognize the connection this ritual has with far darker corners of our culture especially online—and it does—the answer is to stop. Certainly, the answer is not more of the same. We have to treat women as whole people.
Kristan Hawkins, founder and president of the Student for Life. Kirsten spoke at the recent "Preparing for a Post-Roe World" event at the recent Wilberforce Weekend.
The day after a mass shooting in a New York supermarket left 10 people dead, a 68-year-old opened fire on parishioners at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in southern California. He killed one and injured five before parishioners subdued and tied him up.
The man killed in the attack authorities are calling “hate-filled” was 52-year-old Dr. John Cheng, who charged the shooter in an attempt to save fellow church members. Orange County officials called Cheng’s actions “heroism” and “a meeting of good versus evil.” His quick thinking and courageous actions undoubtedly saved lives, including his recently widowed mother.
Mr. Rogers always told kids, in times of calamity, to “look for the helpers.” Dr. Cheng is now part of Christian history, a history full of those who ran toward the danger in self-sacrifice. Jesus called this love—when a man lays down his life for his friends—the greatest. It proves that evil will not have the last say, and that evil is overcome with good.
Last Saturday, the country was left grappling with another reminder of human depravity. An 18-year-old gunman entered a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 and injuring three more. The victims, who were predominantly black, included Heyward Patterson, a local church deacon; Pearl Young, a retired school teacher; and Aaron Salter, a retired police officer.
Mass shootings are too familiar, but no less overwhelming: friends and family in agony, communities left to pick up the pieces, collective rage over the brutal violence, a longing for justice, and a rush to explain why.
For many news outlets, the narrative is a cut-and-dried example of right-wing extremism. The shooter’s manifesto pointed to an embrace of “replacement theory,” the idea that white Americans are being systematically edged out of society by minorities. “That idea,” claim Isaac Stanley-Becker and Drew Harwell of The Washington Post,
once relegated to the fringe, has gained currency on popular right-wing television programs and in the halls of Congress. The apocalyptic vision has accumulated followers during the coronavirus pandemic, which has deepened political polarization and accelerated the online flow of racist ideology.
The shooter’s 180-page document confirms that he was indeed motivated by replacement ideology and outright racism. In it he described his plan to deliberately attack a black supermarket, as well as his support for antisemitic and neo-Nazi causes. “I will carry out an attack against the replacers,” he wrote, “and will even livestream the attack.”
In a sort of guilt by association, blame was leveled at Republicans, especially those who hold conservative views on immigration, whether or not they harbor any ill will towards minority groups or immigrant neighbors. Ignored was the shooter’s description of his own ideals, which includes outright rejections of conservatism as “corporatism in disguise.”
“Are you right wing?” he asks rhetorically. “Depending on the definition, sure. Are you left wing? Depending on the definition, sure. Are you a socialist? Depending on the definition.”
As Kyle Smith at the National Review summed up:
The manifesto, while certainly political, is ideologically all over the map, as was the Unabomber’s. Whoever your ideological boogeyman of today’s discourse is, this person doesn’t link up to him very easily.
How do we make sense of this? Human beings are meaning-making creatures. The fact that we have an instinctive need to know why bad things happen says something about the kind of creatures we are and the moral kind of universe we inhabit. But we are also prone to misdiagnose the problem, and therefore mis-prescribe a solution, because of our allegiance to false ideologies that become a hammer looking for nails.
People are more than many ideologies can explain. This is why Communist and Fascist dictatorships end up looking like each other over time. As my colleague Tim Padgett put it recently, “Sometimes worldviews simply give shape to the evil already within individuals.”
And that’s what the Christian worldview says: That evil is already within individuals. The more the social bonds of a culture unravel, the more that people are pushed to their ideological extremes. This is especially the case in a world where digital technologies both radicalize and incentivize bad behaviors.
In such a world, politicized theories dominating our discourse are proving to be inadequate to explain violence on this level. Racism, while not what it was a few decades ago, is far from extinct. In its most diabolical forms, entire groups of people are seen as the enemy, as evident by the shooter’s manifesto. At the same time, the current analysis of nearly everything, including these incidents, is being dramatically hampered by what I call a “critical theory mood.”
While most Americans, including the pundits, have not read the academic source material behind the various expressions of formal critical theory, there is a predisposed commitment, on both the right and the left, to divide the world by tribes, people groups, and political parties and, in doing so, to pre-determine who’s right and wrong, good and evil, if by nothing else but association. The dramatically different ways that clearly racially motivated acts are treated and described—compare this event with the Waukesha tragedy a few months ago—based on these people groupings simply demonstrate that we have no clue how to distinguish between good and evil.
Critical theory in its formal form or as a cultural mood is short-sighted and inadequate. The Christian vision of the cosmos, people, morality, and human history offers an adequate understanding of good and evil on every level: both societal and individual.
As a young man, Tom Tarrants, was injured in a shootout with FBI agents and sent to prison. “If anyone deserved to die, it was certainly me,” this former member of the Ku Klux Klan, once filled with racial hatred, wrote recently in Christianity Today. But God worked a miracle, even in solitary confinement: repentance and even reconciliation with some of those he tried to kill.
Only the Gospel can do that.
As we grieve, we pray for justice and for healing to God who reigns over everything, even Buffalo, New York, last Saturday. In Him, we have hope, understanding, and a way forward.
John and Maria unpack the web of the recent shootings in Buffalo, New York and California. Rather than rest on the narratives, John provides a helpful way to consider the landscape and the underlying ideas that many are glossing over.
Then, Maria asks John for perspective on some social media traffic around the recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. Maria provides additional context to help us consider our culture's issue with objectifying women and how the church can provide a better way in this moment.
To close, Maria asks John for insight into a few Breakpoint commentaries from the week. John discusses how Russian art is important in this cultural moment, despite the call from some to cancel it in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. John also explains the scenario of a lesser known phenomenon in charitable giving that could impact Christians looking to support biblically-based organizations.
Can we stand for truth without becoming jaded? G.K. Chesterton, in his 1908 book Orthodoxy, describes how when he was a boy, many told him that his ideals would eventually “break up like clouds” and that he’d be forced to put his real faith in simple, practical politics. He writes: What has really happened is exactly the opposite. … I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics.
Tongue in cheek as always, Chesterton isn’t arguing that politics don’t matter. They do. But far too many build their life on the weak foundation of an ever-changing political landscape. It’s a recipe for burnout, anger, and disillusionment.
Christian hope is secure and makes us better neighbors, parents, spouses, and citizens. The unchanging values and methods of Christ’s kingdom give us the strength we need to go on even in the face of changing situations.
We’ll have to take unpopular stands in our lifetimes, but placing our hope in Christ is the opposite of being naive or impractical. It’s the only sure foundation there is.
A recent opinion column made quite a splash. In it, the author observed: In every other situation common to the human experience—eating, drinking, exercise, even email—we have come to realize that limits produce healthier results. It’s unlikely that sex and relationships are exceptions to the rule. An unrestrained sexual culture hasn’t necessarily led to better sex for all or to better relationships. In many cases, it has inspired numbness, callousness, hurting others and being hurt. And rather than being titillating, sexual overload has become boring.
She writes: “Getting rid of the old rules and replacing them with the norm of consent was supposed to make us happy. Instead, many people today feel a bit … lost.”
If you were to guess who published those words, what would you say? A Christian media outlet like Breakpoint or First Things? A conservative column by Ryan Anderson or Mary Eberstadt at The Heritage Foundation or Daily Wire? What if I told you this was published in The New York Times?
The author is Christine Emba, and the opinion column was based on her recent book: Rethinking Sex, a Provocation. Making a case quite controversial for modern ears, Emba argues for a recovery of ethical norms around sex, something “mere consent” is unable to provide.
A Catholic, Emba is quick to clarify that she is not advocating for a return to “purity culture,” or what many view as the outdated, repressive ethics of orthodox Christianity. She also carefully avoids talking about LGBTQ relationships, which some see as a desire to avoid permanently offending her progressive audience. Even so, the case she does make is profoundly countercultural, and she’s making it to a culture that just might be ready to listen.
Our culture is, after all, showing signs of sexual exhaustion in the midst of all of its confusion. As one news outlet reported on Valentine’s day, “Americans [are] less likely to have sex, partner up and get married than ever.” A Pew survey found that nearly half of single adults have given up looking for a partner entirely.
Another Pew Research survey showed that 65% of single women have experienced some form of harassment on the dating scene. Porn-inspired violence is so mainstream, Emba writes, that even when women are surprised by inappropriate conduct, they often feel like they can’t back out, once consent has been given. One young Twitter user put it this way: “I don’t think older generations realize how terrifying dating is for the current generation.”
In other words, it’s time to admit that the idea that consent could adequately govern human sexuality has failed. Consent may be the barest of moral necessities, but it cannot govern something as powerful as sex, especially when sex has been untethered from its purpose, design, and any other moral restraint. So, Emba concludes:
[S]ome new understandings may be in order. Maybe even casual sex is significant, an act unlike any other. Maybe some porn-inspired practices—those that eroticize degradation, objectification, harm—shouldn’t be mainstreamed. Maybe we do have a duty to others, not just to our own desire. We need norms more robust than “anything between two consenting adults goes.”
Her analysis is correct, though missing a necessary component. To say that we need to recover sexual norms leads to an obvious question: Whose norms? And why? What can make certain norms normative?
The answer, of course, takes us beyond exploring various moral options. Any analysis of morality quickly becomes a question of teleology. Or, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, we must know what something is for, before we can know what to do with it.
In its bid for unrestricted sexual freedom, late modernity lost any foundation of what sex is and is for. Now, even as the house crumbles, we’re busy throwing away every tool needed to build back a foundation.
Contrary to everything we’re taught, sex is inherently about other people. Biologically, it’s about creating children; sociologically, it’s about making strong bonds between moms and dads for the sake of those children. Spiritually, it’s a reflection of Christ and the Church; metaphysically, it’s about the ways we are each embodied beings, created as men and women for, and in relationship with, each other.
Of course, it’s never popular to suggest any restrictions when it comes to sex, but the alternative is proving to be worse. Emba and others are realizing how sex without restrictions leads to personal and social chaos. She makes a great case. Our job is to take it one step deeper, and to point with our words and our lives to a better way.
“Religion, not gender,” the Economist reports, “is the best predictor of views on abortion.” The editors continue:
Shocked by a draft Supreme Court opinion that would allow states to ban abortion…. some [activists] hope that women enraged by the loss of Roe v Wade will vote en masse for Democrats in November.
But, they argue, that hope is misplaced. Whereas the gap between men and women on abortion restrictions is just 6%, religion—combined with race—accounts for a 65% difference.
Among both men and women, for example, 92% of atheists favor pro-abortion policies. Likewise, according to Gallup, 75% of those who attend religious services weekly identify as “pro-life.”
In other words, abortion is not an issue of women against men. It’s an issue of worldview. Women are, of course, most affected by issues surrounding pregnancy, but not always the way that we are led to believe.
The real question is what is the pre-born? Are they, abortion advocates suggest, just disposable tissue or “lives worth sacrificing?” Or are they, in the words of Scripture, “fearfully and wonderfully made” in the image of God?
After the invasion of Ukraine, what should be done with Russian art?
According to Simon Morrison in a recent The Washington Post article, Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine has prompted a global push to disavow all things Russian:
Music providers like Sony are suspending their Russian operations. … The Royal Opera House in London scrapped a summer season featuring the Bolshoi Ballet. … The Cardiff Philharmonic in Wales pulled the 19th-century . . . composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
Some of these measures are warranted. For example, composer Valery Gergiev is an outspoken supporter of Putin, played victory concerts in Ossetia and Syria for Putin, and in 2014 publicly supported the occupation of Crimea. He was fired from his position as chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.
Other situations are less clear. As Morrison writes,
The Montreal Symphony Orchestra just postponed three shows by 20-year-old pianist Alexander Malofeev, despite the fact that he has stated publicly, “Every Russian will feel guilty for decades because of the terrible and bloody decision that none of us could influence and predict.”
It’s both true and unnerving that so many Russians support this rapacious war against their neighbor. Others have been taken in by Putin’s relentless campaign of misinformation about Ukraine and its leaders. At the same time, there are those who have done nothing wrong, some who are even leading the internal resistance. Like with economic sanctions, everyday Russians are being punished for the sins of their government. Though war makes such extreme measures necessary, they should never be employed thoughtlessly.
Canceling Russian artists is one thing. Canceling Russian art is another. Throughout its history, the country has produced some of the greatest composers, painters, and authors of all time—not to mention dissidents, prophets, and counter-revolutionaries.
Leo Tolstoy is a perfect example. A seasoned military veteran who became a devout Christian and pacifist, his work Sevastopol Sketches vividly describes the horror of war in an age prone to glamorize it. Rather than elevate a character or cause, Tolstoy closes with one of his most famous lines: “The hero of my tale, whom I love with all the strength of my soul, whom I have tried to set forth in all his beauty … is the truth.”
In War and Peace, Tolstoy elaborates on the idea of “greatness.” “When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical ratiocination any farther,” he argues,
when actions are clearly contrary to all that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving conception of greatness... “Greatness,” it seems, excludes the standards of right and wrong.
Deeply convicted by Christ’s teachings, Tolstoy reflected, “There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
The fact that Tolstoy’s works even survived, despite decades of Soviet censorship, is itself an act of God. Tolstoy’s Christian themes were overt, and his contributions both to and from Russian culture undeniable. “Russian school children are introduced to their country’s literary canon as early as the fifth grade,” writes journalist Tim Brinkhof. Even Putin has listed Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy among his favorite authors.
Perhaps his hypocrisy is an open door. Russia’s great artists have long served as a kind of national conscience, a reminder of the immutable, God-given truths stamped on the heart of every person.
In the words of The Economist,
Shunning the country’s back catalogue means giving up a guide to the darkness, and out of it. Cancel Dostoyevsky … and you miss peerless insights into nihilism and violence. Blacklist Tchaikovsky—or Shostakovich—and you silence a beauty wrenched from the chokehold of repression. Turn away from Malevich’s paintings, and you forgo his urgent vision of a world cracked open. Banishing Tolstoy means losing a timeless prophet of peace.
Of course, the Soviet era also has had its share of propagandist art, none of which should be celebrated. The problem with this art is not that it is Russian in origin, but what it was for, what it communicated, and the corrupt motives of its creators. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago,
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. … and even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.
John and Shane consider how to support families who have children wrestling with gender identity. A listener writes in asking for ideas, as some in his own family are navigating gender dysphoria.
Then, Shane asks John for a way to think well on manhood and womanhood, noting the natural gender breaks with speakers like Jordan Peterson.
Imagine if giving money in support of a group that protects religious liberty, crafts pro-life legislation, or teaches a biblical view of sexuality or marriage meant that your name and the amount of your contribution would be publicly available. Anyone, including anyone who hoped to intimidate, harass, or “out you” to your employer, would have access to that information.
Would you still give if giving exacted a social cost as well as a financial one? That’s the situation countless conservative and Christian donors could face.
An upstart group called “Unmasking Fidelity” is trying to expose conservative donors to harassment by demanding the nation’s largest grant-maker, Fidelity Charitable, publicly reveal contributions to ten key organizations. These include the Family Research Council, Turning Point USA, and Alliance Defending Freedom, which Unmasking Fidelity absurdly calls “white supremacist” and “fascist.”
The true agenda behind the name-calling is obvious. Some of these organizations have been thorns in the side of progressive policymakers and lawyers who wish to impose their views on all Americans. Alliance Defending Freedom, for example, has been responsible for several key religious freedom victories at the U.S. Supreme Court, including one last year that protected conservative donors in California from having their names and charitable contributions published. In Thomas More Law Center v. Bonta, lawyers with ADF successfully argued against a California law that effectively “doxxed” donors—exposing them to harassment and intimidation.
Having failed in court, progressive activists hare now directing their efforts to attacking their opponents’ funding, specifically any conservative and Christian donors who use Fidelity Financial to manage their nonprofit contributions. Unmasking Fidelity is demanding five years’ worth of receipts for all donations that have gone to ten charities whose views they don’t like.
If Fidelity agrees to these demands, any major donor who gives to these organizations, or any like them, ought to immediately move their charitable dollars. Thankfully, there are trustworthy homes for this money, including Waterstone, National Christian Foundation, and Signatry.
As ADF put it, Unmasking Fidelity “desires to punish [Fidelity] and their donors for supporting principles millions of Americans endorse—religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and sanctity of life.” If Fidelity caves to these demands, other financial institutions would likely follow, and an ideological litmus test would be imposed on account holders and institutions. Conservative and Christian groups would be effectively blacklisted by predominant financial players which is precisely what these activists want. From there, they can target other financial institutions and services, such as credit card processing and banking. As ADF concludes, this is an effort to “circumvent the First Amendment” right after the Supreme Court ruled that nonprofit donations are free speech.
This is, of course, cancel culture at its worst. If it succeeds, our radioactive political landscape would only become more toxic, and ordinary Americans will be increasingly afraid to contribute to or show public support for causes that would invite harassment or cost them their jobs. Our nation is divided enough, without every citizen who wants to make a charitable donation being effectively put on trial in the court of public opinion.
Fidelity Charitable needs to hear from its account holders and the public. As of this publication, more than 30,000 financial advisors, investment professionals, and nonprofit leaders have already signed a letter urging Fidelity Charitable’s leadership to reject the demands of progressive activists. Contact Fidelity Charitable directly and urge them to fight for the privacy and freedom of account holders, as well as for the good of our civil society. The email address is fidelitycorporateaffairs@fmr.com. And, if you plan on donating to conservative or Christian nonprofits through a donor-advised fund, consider a Christian-based financial firm that is less vulnerable to pressure from activists. ADF has compiled a list of suggested organizations.
The stakes are clear. Not only must we protect the future of charitable contribution and organizations doing great work, we must stop this financial squeezing strategy right now, before it gains any momentum.
A bizarre talking point circulating in the wake of the Supreme Court leak in the Dobbs case is that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, women who suffer miscarriages could be criminally charged in states that restrict abortion. The rumor apparently stems from a handful of stories involving women who’ve been charged for the death of their preborn babies after they used drugs or caused a car accident by driving under the influence.
These stories have nothing morally or medically in common with miscarriages, which are natural, albeit tragic occurrences. Abortions are needless, deliberate, violent, and dangerous for babies and women. Removing the body of a baby who has died from his mother’s womb is nothing like invading a healthy womb to dismember and kill a baby.
Propagating the miscarriage myth is nothing less than a ruthless political strategy aimed at keeping women terrified and distracted from the real issues at stake in abortion law.
Women deserve better than to be lied to. Christians need to tell the truth loud and clear.
Writing for The Atlantic, Quinta Jurecic argues the politics of rage are “seeping into every corner of life.”
The New York Times, for example, reported that over 500 health officials had quit their jobs since the pandemic, many citing threats and intimidation. According to an Education Week survey, 60% of school administrators say their employees were threatened with violence over the schools’ handling of COVID. In 2021, the FAA logged over 6,000 reports of “unruly passengers,” as opposed to just 150 in 2019.
To be sure, Jurecic’s political bias is obvious—but the problem she describes is real.
During the cultural hostility of the first centuries, the Apostles said to let our words “be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” That’s not advice, that’s instruction.
In today’s world, we won’t be able to avoid conflict, but these stands we take have to be the right ones and how we take them will reflect who we really serve.
People, to paraphrase Paul, are not our adversaries. They are our objective.
Last week at our annual Wilberforce Weekend conference, we held a pre-event on Thursday evening to discuss what it means to prepare for a post-Roe future. The presentations were exceptional across the board. Today, I want you to hear from my friend Stephanie Gray Connors. She responded throughout the evening to various slogans used in our culture to promote abortion. Here’s one of the short talks she gave in response to the slogan, “legal abortion saves women’s lives.” Here’s Stephanie Gray Connors.
Legal abortion saves women’s lives. Why is that claim made? It’s made to imply that if abortion becomes illegal, it will be unsafe. And the question we want to ask is this, “For who? Abortion will be unsafe for who?” Because abortion is always unsafe, whether legal or illegal for the pre-born child.
Another point we want to make is to ask this question: “Even if abortion, when legal, is safer for women than illegal—even if we were to concede that—is it ethical to legalize homicide just to make it safer for those who participate in it?”
We could come up with a little parable, and say, imagine you’re a nurse in an emergency room and a man comes in with broken, bruised, swollen, bloodied knuckles. And so you begin bandaging his wounds, and you say, “Sir, what happened that caused this to you?” And he replies, “I was beating my wife tonight, and this resulted.” Would it make sense for the nurse to say, “You know, we really need to legalize spousal abuse and give men boxing gloves so that when they beat their wives, they don’t hurt themselves”? Now, we would never say that. Why? Because we recognize what brought on the infliction of harm to the man was infliction of harm to another.
And so the question is “When an abortion occurs, does that abortion inflict harm on the most vulnerable of the human child or human beings—that of the pre-born child?” And if the answer is yes, then we may not legalize it.
But when I hear that false claim from abortion supporters—legal abortion saves women’s lives—what I’m hearing is a concern for women’s lives and on that, I can agree. As a woman, most particularly, I too am concerned about my life and the lives of other women. But my concern is not just that women survive. I want women to thrive.
So we have to ask the question, “What makes a woman thrive?” And I would suggest the answer is what makes a woman or anyone thrive is they live to the fullness of who they were created to be. And the ultimate fulfillment biologically, the greatest level of maturity for a woman, is maternity, is having offspring. A woman is called to motherhood. Whether that is lived out through the physical reality of biological mother or the spiritual reality of spiritual motherhood. But the point is all women at the heights of their maturity are called to motherhood.
What is abortion? It is a rejection of that. I have worked full time in the pro-life movement for 20 years. I have seen a lot of people on both sides of the debate, and I can tell you the most bitter people I have met over the last two decades are people who have rejected their maternity, and the happiest, most thriving women I have met are those who have embraced their femininity in the form of maternity, whether that is biological mothers or spiritual mothers in the form of nuns I’ve met who are happier than most people I know.
There are two paths ahead of our world today. One says, “This is my body given for you.” And the other one says, “This is your body given for me.” As we reflect on those two choices, I would suggest the great tragedy of abortion: It’s not just that it destroys the body of a baby, but that it destroys the very nature of a woman. Thank you.
That was Stephanie Gray Connors, answering a common pro-abortion slogan: Legal abortion saves women’s lives. Throughout our preparing-for-a-post-Roe-future event, Stephanie answered a few more questions like that. To receive access to her presentation as well as the other speakers at this very special event, go to breakpoint.org.
Chuck Colson lived a redeemed life. This past weekend we celebrated the redeeming work of Christ in our lives and the lives of those who have come before us.
One of the redemption stories we highlighted was Chuck Colson's, and today on the BreakPoint Podcast we share Chuck's story, as told by him, of how Christ saved him not only from something, but to and for many things for the glory of God.
Recently, Stanford Center on Longevity announced a project called the “New Map of Life.” “In the United States,” the authors write, “as many as half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to the age of 100, and this once unattainable milestone may become the norm for newborns by 2050.” The problem, the authors admit, is that we don’t know what to do with an extra 30 years: The “narrative of an ‘aging society’ seems to convey only a crisis.”
Reaching this 100-years-of-life milestone is, as one researcher put it, a “[breathtaking] package of human potential the world has never seen, unprecedented numbers of people with unprecedented capabilities, and significant desire to give back and leave the world better.”
Scripture agrees, calling old age “a crown of glory.” But that’s not because of how long it lasts or what is accomplished. It’s because there’s a “why” behind it all. As Stanford looks for technological and sociological benefits to longer lives, Christians can point to the Source of meaning for all of life, who faced and defeated death.
The more time we have to do that, the better.
Recently, we held a public event on the evening before our annual Wilberforce Weekend to talk about how we can prepare to live in a post-Roe world. A very important aspect of that event was learning how we can respond to the common slogans, the common lines that people often throw around in support of abortion. We asked Stephanie Gray Connors, one of the great apologists for the sanctity of life in our present moment to address some of these slogans.
One of those slogans was “embryos aren’t really people.” Here’s Stephanie Gray Connors responding.
Embryos aren’t people. And when we want to respond to that, the first thing we want to do is ask the question, “What our embryos? And what are people?” Let’s seek definitions of those two terms.
If you look at the word embryo—you actually look it up in the dictionary—it says an animal in the early stages of growth. And I would like to point out as a pro-lifer, I do not believe in protecting all embryos. Dogs have embryos. Cats have embryos. Other species have embryos because the embryo is the animal in the early stage of development. The embryos that I’m interested in protecting are the human embryos that happened to be at the earliest stage of their development. The question is “Are pre-born children human embryos at the very beginning of pregnancy?” And to answer that we have to ask, “Is the pregnant woman human?” Yes. “Is her partner human?” Yes. Then, that means the embryo in the pregnant woman’s body must be of the same species.
The next question we want to put forward in such a conversation is “Is that embryo that we know is human because the parents are human—is the embryo alive?” And to answer that we ask ourselves, “Is the embryo growing?” And scientifically we know that one cell grows into 2, 4, 8, doubling every time. And so by virtue of the embryo’s growth, the embryo must be alive. By virtue of having human parents, the embryo must be human.
“What are people?” Well, if you ask an abortion supporter that, they’ll say a person is someone who’s rational, conscious, and self-aware, and an embryo at the beginning of pregnancy might be human but isn’t those things. I have a nine-month-old baby. Yes, she interacts with me to a degree, but let me tell you she does not act rational, conscious, or self-aware very often. I even have to get boogers out of her nose for her. She is entirely incapable of doing many things. “Is she a person?” Yes, because she’s human, because she’s a member of the human family, and she has the inherent capacity to be rational, conscious, and self-aware like all of us. But due to her age, she can’t yet act on that capacity.
In the same way if someone is having surgery under anesthetic, in that moment they’re not rational, conscious, and self-aware. If you have a conversation or try to with someone under anesthetic, they will not respond back. If you say, “May I kill you?” They will not object. It doesn’t mean it’s okay to kill them because they have the inherent capacity to be rational, conscious, and self-aware. But due to the circumstances of surgery, they can’t act on it. In the same way with a born baby, like a nine-month-old, they have the inherent capacity for this higher brain function. But due to their age, they can’t act on it. And the same is true for human embryos. They have the inherent capacities as all of us have. But due to their age, they can’t yet act on those capacities.
The question then is this: “Our human rights grounded in how old we are, how developed we are, or who we are as members of the human family?” Throughout history, humans have been denied personhood status based on features that don’t matter. Women were denied personhood status at one point because of sex, blacks because of skin color, Jews because of ethnicity. And we reject the denial of personhood status of those humans. We reject the denial of personhood status when it comes to pre-born humans because the only difference between them and you and me is their age. And human rights are grounded in being a member of the human family, not how we currently function, how developed we are, or how old we are. Thank you.
That was Stephanie Gray Connors, answering a common pro-abortion statement, “embryos aren’t people.” And at last week’s pre-Wilberforce event, preparing for a post-Roe future, Stephanie answered three more slogans, just like that one. To receive access to the entire evening event, Preparing for a Post-Roe World, come to breakpoint.org.
John and Maria consider the ethics surrounding protests, looking specifically at the public outcry over the leaked draft opinion of the Supreme Court. The pair also considers how the war in Ukraine is sparking the consequences of the overpopulation myth many have believed.
And then to close, John unpacks the reason the Colson Center has selected The Life Redeemed as the theme of this year's Wilberforce Weekend.
A month or so ago, Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson was asked to define “woman.”
She responded, “I’m not a biologist.”
That was just a week after a biological male won the NCAA women’s swimming championship. Gender scholars were quick to support Jackson, pointing to biological anomalies such as people who are born “intersex.” But intersex and other “disorders of sexual development” are exceptions. They don’t erase the basic biological category of a woman.
Ironically, many who remained silent on what a woman is during the NCAA championship have not been silent regarding the potential loss of the so-called “right” to abortion.
For example, Vice President Kamala Harris proclaimed in a speech, “How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms,” assuming that we should all know perfectly well what a woman is, that the definition has to do with certain biological functions, and that you don’t need to be a biologist to know that.
Once again, God’s design is revealed to be reality.
Today launches our annual Wilberforce Weekend. Ten years ago, Chuck Colson gave what would be his final message, at a Wilberforce Weekend event. His message that day was that the world needed the Church to be the Church.
His call that day remains the central purpose of the Wilberforce Weekend. This weekend, we will be looking at salvation and redemption from every possible angle we can, in order to better live a life that is redeemed.
Chuck’s life was a wonderful redemption story. Today on Breakpoint, I wanted you to hear Chuck Colson, in his own voice and his own words, tell his own redemption story.
I was the first person in my family to go to college, and when I got through there, it was time for me to go into the military because the Korean War was raging. So, I became a lieutenant in the Marines and rose very rapidly and won honors in school. I think everything I ever did in my life I was successful.
I went to law school nights while I was working as an assistant to a United States senator. At one point, Newsweek wrote about me as the youngest administrative assistant to a United States senator. I think I was 28—ran campaigns, loved it, started a law firm—great success. I got to know Richard Nixon in 1968 when he was elected president and went into his administration as his special counsel. I arrived in his office when I was 38 years old, and my office was immediately next door to his.
And you know, you go to the eight o’clock senior staff meetings. There would be 12 of us sitting around the table, and the 12 senior aides would come in with their big portfolios under their arms. Henry Kissinger would always be the last one to arrive. And he would sit down at the end of the table and say, “Mr. President, the decision we are going to make today is going to change the whole future course of human history.” I mean every day of the week for five days. That gets pretty exhausting. And we thought we really were doing things that were of great significance. And in many respects, I suppose, looking back, they were.
When the campaign was over—and I pretty well ran the campaign for President Nixon in 1972—I decided to go back to my law firm. But I was feeling—instead of jubilant over what was at that point the largest landslide victory in American politics—instead of being jubilant over it, I was feeling kind of down. At 41 years old, I’d been there, I’d done that. There wasn’t much else left to do. And I kept thinking to myself, “My grandfather who was an immigrant to this country from Sweden would be so proud to see his grandson in a place like this, but what am I really doing here?”
Took a couple of trips abroad, but I came back, and I still had that emptiness. And one day I was back in my law firm, and I went to visit a client whom I had not seen in the four years I’d been in the White House because I refused to see anyone I’d ever practiced law as their lawyer. I was so worried about a conflict of interest. Can you imagine that?
But I went back to see one of these men, Tom Phillips, who was the president of the largest corporation in New England. I had been his general counsel.
I walked in his office one day, still feeling kind of empty, and I looked at him, and he was a completely different guy. He’s a guy like myself who had worked his way up the hard way, self-made man, the CEO of this corporation when he was barely 40 years old. And he was at peace, and he started asking me about my family, and finally, I said to him, “Tom, you’ve changed since I saw you four years ago.”
He said, “Yes, I have, Chuck,” and then he looked up at the clock, and he didn’t look me straight in the eye, but he said, “I have accepted Jesus Christ and committed my life to Him.” He looked away as I later found out because he’d never done this with anyone before.
I thought about that for the next three months, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. So, I went back to him one evening in August of 1973, and I said, “Tom, you’ve got to explain this to me,” and he said, “Before I do, I want to read you a chapter from C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity entitled the great vice, ‘The Great Sin.’”
I listened to this chapter, and I realized he’s writing about me. And I sat there that night in pain listening to that chapter, and I was really moved. He wanted to pray with me, and I said, “No. I have never prayed except in the church.” So, he prayed.
I left his home that night, and here I was a former Marine captain. And yeah, I was known as the White House hatchet man, the tough guy. And I got into the automobile, and I tried to drive away, but I could not because the tough guy was crying too hard. I couldn’t see the road in front of me. I pulled over and sat there. I have no idea for how long, thinking about my life, thinking about “Could there be a God, and if there were, could I know Him?” But that night for the first time in my life, I was sure there was a God, and I was sure He was hearing me.
I woke up the next morning figuring I was going to be embarrassed, and instead I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Mere Christianity and read it from cover to cover. Away from Watergate and before I was considered a target of the investigation, I simply quietly surrendered my life to Christ and asked Him to come into my life. I will tell you that’s 35 years ago this past summer. Nothing about my life has been the same since. Nothing about my life can be the same again. I am convinced Christ is who He says. I’m more convinced as Malcolm Muggeridge once said of the reality of Jesus Christ than I am of my own reality.
That was Chuck Colson describing the moment God got ahold of his life and changed it forever. Chuck’s redemption story is a feature of this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, this weekend in Orlando, Florida. To find out how you can gain access to all of the recordings and videos from this weekend’s event, visit breakpoint.org.
For years, sociologist Arthur Brooks has been trying to understand the secret to human happiness. Recently in The Atlantic, Brooks argued that at least part of the answer is wanting less, something taught by teachers as ideologically diverse as the Buddha and Thomas Aquinas.
“As we age, we shouldn’t accumulate more to represent ourselves,” writes Brooks, “but rather strip things away to find our true selves—and thus, to find happiness and peace.”
This is good practical wisdom, but there’s more to understand here. While the views of Aquinas and Buddha are superficially similar on this topic, they depart radically on what people are, and what people are for.
The Buddha taught us to stop desiring, but Jesus said to “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
In other words, it’s not about not desiring, but about desiring the right things. The difference between Buddhist asceticism and Aquinas’ idea of soul-building is knowing the One who created us with a capacity for happiness in the first place.
A friend of mine has, for decades now, suffered severe back pain. Finally, surgeons took a remarkable step, implanting a device that sends electrical signals to his spinal cord in order to disrupt pain signals traveling to his brain. For the most part, his pain has been dramatically lessened.
This was an incredible help for my friend. After all, pain tells us that something is wrong. His condition was never going to change, so the pain served no purpose.
The more our knowledge of the human brain increases, the more breakthrough treatments like this, for an increasing variety of mental and physical problems, are possible. Some, such as treating addiction with brain surgery, are more controversial than others.
As WORLD News recently reported, a new study at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute is utilizing deep brain stimulation in an attempt to counteract addictive cravings. Surgeons insert a tiny, thin wire into the brain’s tissue. This allows them to read the parts of the brain that light up when the patient craves a high. It also stimulates other parts of the brain in an attempt to affect, over a time, a “dopamine reset.”
Combined with additional medication, counseling and lifestyle changes, the treatment seems to have been successful in early trials. More trials are needed before widespread adoption. Even so, as with all technological innovations, any optimism should come with a healthy side dose of caution.
Unlike back pain, addiction involves more than just a person’s neurology. It involves relationships, lifestyle choices, sense of self-worth, spirituality, and identity. To be clear, addiction is not about less than our brain chemistry, but it is about more.
That’s one reason certain addictions, such as opioids, are so difficult to fight or overcome. The chemical forces at work can easily outmatch the human brain. Synthetically produced opioids like fentanyl and carfentanil, for example, pack roughly 100 to 10,000 times the potency of morphine. This partially explains why drug overdoses have skyrocketed in recent years, and why, according to some estimates, more than 90% of those addicted to opioids will relapse.
Illegal opiates kill, on average, over 100 thousand Americans per year. The societal and personal damage is incalculable. Finally, certain players in the pharmaceutical industry are facing a cultural reckoning, both on screen and in court, for the damage they caused.
Given the powerful chemical forces stacked in favor of addiction, it makes sense to enlist science on the side of the human brain. After all, if we can zap our brains out of addictive behavior, why wouldn’t we? The answer is that any theory of treatment that treats the physical and medical side of a person, at the expense of the moral, interpersonal, or spiritual side misunderstands the human person.
Of course, an increasingly dominant form of materialism does exactly that. Faced with complicated problems of human nature, such as poverty, crime, or addiction, it is tempting to grasp for explanations that rob people of moral agency. Poverty, in this view, is the result of generational difficulties, class discrimination, or racial inequities, but never the choices of the people involved. Crime is caused by poverty, or the lack of access to basic social institutions like education. Addiction is genetic, a result of chemical dependence in the brain, and nothing more.
To be clear, empathy, compassion, and care for those in poverty, prison, or addiction are not optional. Christians should know themselves well enough to say, “there but for the grace of God ...” Also, the biblical description of people and sin includes room for both personal and structural factors, both physical and spiritual sides, of each of these issues.
What we cannot do is reduce people down, as a naturalistic worldview tends to do, to only their brains. When we treat them as if they aren’t moral creatures, with the freedom to act, we don’t merely dehumanize them ... we fail to adequately help them.
The problem with poverty, especially in the first world, is rarely just a lack of money. This is why a significant percentage of lottery winners end up filing bankruptcy after winning fortunes. People are not reducible to their material selves: their brains, their traits, even their circumstances. Real treatment requires moral commitment and a strong network of spiritual and relational support.
Gerod Buckhalter, an early recipient of deep brain stimulation to overcome addiction, understands this better than most. After his surgery over two years ago, Buckhalter committed to counseling, accountability, and other support systems. He told reporters back in February, “When it comes to staying sober, it’s just as important as the surgery.” If neurostimulation does prove helpful, and I hope it does, it cannot replace a worldview change so that people see themselves as image bearers and moral agents. Neither people nor their addictions are reducible to just one thing.
John and Shane devote this episode of the Breakpoint podcast to the challenges society will face if Roe v. Wade and a federal protection on abortion is overturned and removed.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been immensely expensive, and not only because of global sanctions and lost military equipment. In fact, the highest price Russia is paying in this war has to do with an increasingly scarce resource: lives. Estimates of Russian casualties in just the first week of the war ranged from 2,000 to 6,000, with thousands more lost since then. Every life lost is tragic, but as British journalist Ed West points out, this is a loss modern Russia simply cannot afford. Russians, like in so many other European nations, simply aren’t having enough babies. The country’s population is shrinking by more than a hundred thousand people a year, with no clear end in sight. Some parts of the country are simply becoming devoid of people. According to West, about 20,000 Russian villages have been abandoned in recent years, with tens of thousands closely following. This is a factor that could ultimately affect the outcome of the war, West thinks: If Russians turn out to have no stomach for this fight, it will probably be for the simple fact that the country does not have enough men to spare. The majority of those poor young men killed for Russia’s honor will be their mother’s only son, in many cases their only child….
As it turns out, Russia’s problem is not unique. This country, so rich in land but poor in young people, is just one of dozens of nations across an “infertile crescent” from Spain to Singapore, consisting of populations aging so rapidly that their long-term existence is in doubt.
West cites a few examples that bring the stats into perspective: “In 2000 Thailand had 7 workers for every retiree; by 2050 that figure will be just 1.7. In Greece, 1,700 schools closed between 2009–2014.” In Stoke-on-Trent in England, “40% of bars and clubs have shut in the past twenty years, as the ratio of infants to retirees has gone from 4:1 to 1:2 in a century.” And in Paris, “15 schools merged or closed between 2015–2018.”
According to the United Nations map of world fertility, every continent except Africa is below or nearing the replacement birth rate. This widespread population crash is so steep that West compares it with P.D. James’ novel, The Children of Men, a tale about a world devoid of babies.
One reason it is difficult to imagine a world threatened by aging and depopulation is that, for decades now, we’ve been fed a steady diet of alarm about overpopulation. Ever since Paul Ehrlich published his book The Population Bomb in 1968, the idea that the Earth is too crowded has been the zombie myth that just won’t die. “The battle to feed humanity is over,” Ehrich famously declared. “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines—hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”
He was wrong, of course, largely because human beings aren’t mere eating machines. We have the capacity to innovate and improve methods of food production and living, and that’s exactly what happened. To the extent that famines do still occur, they are usually the result of political corruption and war. In fact, we now grow enough food to feed three billion more people than actually exist!
So why does the idea of overpopulation and the solution that we must have fewer children persist? How can this belief still hold sway over millions of people in the developed world despite the growing evidence to the contrary?
The partial answer is that people in places of influence in governments, academia, and the press have committed themselves to an anti-natal mindset, and struggle to admit that the real problem is too few new humans. The myth of an overpopulated planet sticks despite all evidence because it was long ago accepted as dogma, and almost no one has bothered to challenge it since.
The demographic trends at work in Russia and around the world—including in the United States—aren’t going to be easy to reverse. One author compared increasing a nation’s fertility with pushing water uphill. And in many ways, the gray, shrinking world of our not-so-distant future is an experiment never before tried. The most important strategies to address it—beyond building cultures where children and families are valued again—have probably not been thought of yet.
What we can say at this point is that Russia’s dwindling supply of young men is just another example of how far popular wisdom can be from the facts. On overpopulation, those facts are in. We’re seeing the results before our eyes. And the long-feared future where there are too many mouths to feed has not materialized. Instead, we have a banquet set for billions. But some countries may not be joining us.
The status of modern friendship isn’t good. “It’s precisely because of the atomized, customized nature of our lives that we rely on our friends so very much,” Jennifer Senior recently wrote in The Atlantic. “We are recruiting them into the roles of people who once simply coexisted with us—parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, fellow parishioners, fellow union members, fellow Rotarians.”
Friendships, however, are in short supply. According to one survey, nearly half of Americans have three or fewer close friends: 12% say they have none.
Senior writes, “One could argue that modern life conspires against friendship, even as it requires the bonds of friendship all the more.”
Complicating this problem is that friendship was never meant to be our only social relationship. People need churches, families, and neighbors, all relationships in steep decline in a culture that prioritizes autonomy over responsibility.
The unique beauty of friendship is, to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, that it’s about something bigger than itself. In fact, all human relationships are. And, Christians who know that have much to offer a world that doesn’t.
Last week’s leak of a draft opinion in the Dobbs case reignited comparisons of abortion restrictions with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This isn’t new, of course, but it is silly and misguided.
Atwood’s dystopian novel is about a fictional theocratic successor to the United States, the “Republic of Gilead.” In Gilead, select women are forced to become concubines for the sole purpose of breeding. Of course, not killing a child is not the same thing as forcing a woman to bear a child, especially in a culture like ours bent on rejecting sexual morality.
In fact, the closest thing to Gilead in our world is commercial surrogacy, particularly those nations where women are kept in surrogacy “farms” and barely paid to remain pregnant in order to bear children for wealthy Westerners, especially same-sex couples. Advocates of so-called “universal parentage” laws are bringing that to America, not pro-lifers.
Despite the promises, abortion doesn’t bring freedom to women, only a false promise. As Frederica Mathewes-Green and others have observed, abortion untethers men from their responsibilities, and women are on the receiving end of that bad deal. Abortion promises women freedom, but instead delivers abandonment.
Let’s pray abortion becomes as unthinkable today as those handmade outfits are.
In 2015, Canada’s Supreme Court struck down a 22-year ban on assisted suicide. The next year, its parliament passed legislation allowing “MAID,” or Medical Assistance in Dying for those who suffer from terminal illness and whose death was “reasonably foreseeable.” Five years later, the “reasonably foreseeable” language was dropped, as was the requirement of terminal illness.
Today, ending one’s life with “medical assistance” simply requires a physician and a witness to agree that physical or mental suffering is such as “cannot be relieved under conditions that you (the patient) consider acceptable.” Next year, that will expand to include anyone with a mental illness, like PTSD or depression. There’s also talk about expanding the practice to include minors.
Soon, under Canadian law, someone accused of a crime “must possess the capacity to understand that his or her behaviour was wrong in order to be found guilty.” However, someone will not need the mental capacity to understand the implications of “medical assistance in dying” in order to choose death.
None of which, we are told, should alarm us. Proponents of assisted death always point to “safeguards,” such as physician approval, the uncoerced consent of the patient, or humane conditions. Certain stories are elevated, such as Betty Sanguin, an ALS patient who chose to end her life in a Manitoba church, surrounded by friends, family, and clergy, who secured permission for a MAID team to kill her in their sanctuary. Other stories are ignored.
Even in the so-called “safe” cases, a grave evil has been done. Life is sacred, a gift of God, and should never be thrown away. To intentionally end life in a church is not a blessing. It’s a distortion and a blasphemy.
For the most part, the realities of doctor-assisted death look nothing like the beatific best-case scenarios described in the sales pitch. In particular, there are culture-wide implications for human dignity and value, something that euthanasia advocates seem unable or unwilling to predict. Many begin to believe that their lives are unworthy of life, their volition stolen, their dignity degraded.
Last month in The Spectator, Yuan Yi Zhu described some of these stories in an article provocatively titled, “Why is Canada Euthanising the Poor?” In it, he described the real human cost of euthanasia laws and how the practice blurs the limits of consent:
Now, as long as someone is suffering from an illness or disability which ‘cannot be relieved under conditions that you consider acceptable’, they can take advantage of what is now known euphemistically as ‘medical assistance in dying’ (MAID for short) for free. ... Soon enough, Canadians from across the country discovered that although they would otherwise prefer to live, they were too poor to improve their conditions to a degree which was acceptable.
His examples included an Ontario woman, who opted for assisted death because her disability benefits weren’t enough to cover smoke and chemical-free housing, and she was forced to live with crippling allergies. In Vancouver, another woman sought “medical aid in dying” when her debt kept her from affording the medication that would have alleviated chronic pain. The family of another 35-year-old disabled man discovered how appalling his living conditions were, only after he decided to end his own life. Tragically, by the time the government investigated the care facility and revoked its license, it was too late. As Zhu put it, “One may wonder how much autonomy a disabled man lying in his own filth had in weighing death over life.”
Individuals are supposedly “free” to choose, but it is unclear just how often this decision is impacted by financial concerns. “Healthcare, particular for those suffering from chronic conditions, is expensive,” wrote Zhu, “but assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per ‘case’.” He concluded:
Canadian law, in all its majesty, has allowed both the rich as well as the poor to kill themselves if they are too poor to continue living with dignity. In fact, the ever-generous Canadian state will even pay for their deaths. What it will not do is spend money to allow them to live instead of killing themselves.
For at least some of Canada’s poorest citizens, coercion in death is not some distant fear, promoted by scared conspiracy groups. The pressure is a daily reality.
Euthanasia in any form is a misguided answer to a real, human problem. Some, face a life of unimaginable pain. The only acceptable and loving response is to provide the best compassion, care, and pain management possible.
Anytime a country, such as Canada, embraces “death with dignity” or “medical aid in dying” or some other euphemistically disguised lack of compassion, a price tag is placed on people. And, whenever a price tag is placed on something that is inherently priceless, it is cheapened. In Canada’s case, the money is going to the so-called “autonomy” of vulnerable people, instead of fighting for their lives.
Last week’s leak of a draft opinion in the Dobbs case, reignited the comparisons of abortion restrictions with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. This isn’t new, of course, but it is still silly and misguided.
Atwood’s dystopian novel is about a fictional theocratic successor to the United States, the “Republic of Gilead.” In it, select women are forced to become concubines for the sole purposes of breeding. Of course, not killing a child is not the same thing as forcing a woman to bear a child.
The closest thing to Gilead in our world is commercial surrogacy, particularly in those nations where women are kept in surrogacy “farms” and barely paid to remain pregnant in order to bear children for wealthy Westerners, especially same-sex couples. Advocates of so-called “parentage rights laws” are bringing that to America, not pro-lifers.
Despite the promises, abortion doesn’t bring freedom to women, only a false promise. As Frederica Mathewes-Green and others have observed, abortion untethers men from their responsibilities, and women are on the receiving end of that bad deal. Abortion promises women freedom, but instead delivers abandonment.
Let’s pray abortion becomes as unthinkable today as those outfits are.
Today we revisit a speech by Chuck Colson on his renowned work The Faith. Chuck's main idea is that the church is at its best when we propose rather than impose the message of the Gospel.
To order a copy of The Faith, visit www.colsoncenter.org
Responding to the leaked draft of Justice Alito’s opinion in the Dobbs case, President Biden said, “The idea that we’re gonna make a judgment that is going to say that no one can make the judgment to choose to abort a child ... goes way overboard.”
His statement is hard to follow but here’s the point: The president said abortion kills a child—not a clump of cells, not a fetus, not a potential human. A child.
This is more than a Biden gaffe. He is acknowledging what even honest pro-abortion folks have been forced to admit: The preborn is a human being and a child. Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer has long held this position while not only arguing for abortion rights but also for infanticide. Most others don’t go that far, but still argue that the good of the mother outweighs the child’s right to life.
And yet, many still claim a preborn child is only a clump of cells. We can show them differently. Babies in the womb develop fingerprints, suck their thumbs, have food preferences, recognize their mom’s voice, and feel pain. The fact that abortion kills a child is something we can no longer not know. Heck, just quote the president.
Something long considered reliable evidence for Darwinian evolution, the chemical similarity of living things, is now in question.
In 1973, leading Neo-Darwinist Theodosius Dobzhansky wrote that “nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution.” He specifically pointed to “biochemical universals,” or shared features in the chemistry of life, as evidence that all creatures “arose from inanimate matter only once” and that everything alive today descended from an universal common ancestor.
Today, however, discoveries in molecular biology have complicated that conclusion. In fact, a new paper poses one of the strongest challenges yet to the idea that all life shares common chemistry. Though the title, “Scaling Laws in Enzyme Function Reveal a New Kind of Biochemical Universality,” may be one that could excite only a scientist, what the authors describe should make everyone sit up and take notice. In fact, philosopher of biology Paul Nelson, in a piece at Evolution News, called the paper “the most interesting biology paper of 2022 so far.” Its findings are precisely the opposite of what we’d expect if life evolved from a common ancestor.
The authors, including theoretician Sara Walker and Dylan Gagler from Arizona State University, looked at enzyme functions across all the major groupings of life. They tallied the different functions, then plotted these against the total number of classified enzymes. They found that “as the enzyme space grows … so do the number of functions.” In other words, there are very few “specific molecules and reactions” common to all living things.
If your head just exploded, Nelson offers a helpful analogy borrowed from one of the paper’s coauthors, Chris Kempes. The English language contains many words, or synonyms, that can mean approximately the same thing. If the sky is darkened, we could just say it was “darkened.” Or, we could say that it became “murky,” “shaded,” “shadowed,” dimmed,” or “obscured.” All these words mean, more or less, the same thing but with very different spellings and histories. According to Nelson, “a strikingly similar pattern” occurs among the chemicals that make life possible.
The authors of the paper agree, writing that “[biochemical] universality cannot simply be explained due to phylogenetic relatedness.” Or, stated more simply, living things don’t look like they evolved from a common ancestor using the same basic components on a molecular level. Instead, many different enzymes are used to accomplish similar purposes. This is precisely the opposite of what Darwinism predicts.
An editor of this paper, Eugene Koonin of the National Center for Biotechnology Information, has long argued that life lacks the “universal genetic core” that Darwinian evolution predicts. Instead, he says, living things show a pervasive pattern of what scientists have termed “non-orthologous gene displacement.” That’s a technical way of saying that the functions necessary to sustain life are carried out by different molecules coded by different genes in different species. Or, as original paper’s coauthor Chris Kempes puts it, “there are a lot of ‘synonyms’” at work in biology.
This is just the latest instance of scientific evidence complicating the Darwinian picture, which has long been portrayed as tidy, straightforward, and conclusive. In fact, this is an instance where evolutionary assumptions hinder rather than help us understand how life works and where it came from.
Nelson simply points out the obvious conclusion: Functional requirements fulfilled by a different molecular tool doesn’t appear to be the product of a universal common ancestry. Instead, it looks more like what we see in computers, cars, language, etc. Function and purpose seem to take priority over hardware in the world of biochemistry. And if there is a mind behind life, we can conclude from these findings that He took great care to equip every living thing with exactly what it needed to thrive, instead of giving them all identical tools.
Theodore Dobzhansky may have truly believed that nothing in biology makes sense without evolution, but it’s not clear how he would have dealt with these findings. The more and more we learn in biology, the less and less it makes sense when thinking from evolutionary assumptions. The more we follow the evidence, the more it leads elsewhere.
John and Maria explore the incredible emotion in the nation following a leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court.
Then, Maria asks John about the ethics and the way Christians should respond to moves by the government to eliminate student student. They plan to do this by forgiving student loans, but is this a concept Christians should get behind? John and Maria explain the trapings of student debt forgiveness and why the move challenges society.
To close, Maria asks John to go deeper into some of the ideas he presented this week in a number of commentaries. Notably, John explains society's problem with forgiveness, touching on a question from Maria on whether forgiveness is a sign of strength of weakness. Then, Maria asks John for some further commentary on the state of books for children, noting that many challenge children's developmental stages and interest in social movements around politics, race, and gender.
Pro-lifers aren’t the only ones strategizing for a post-Roe America.
By 2020, chemical abortions—abortions accomplished with oral medications—became the most common form of abortion in America. With the FDA recently permitting doctors to prescribe this poison without even an in-person visit, chemical abortions are only going to become more common.
This is why it’s critical to know that medical abortions can be reversible. The process starts with one drug that starves the baby. A few days later, the mother takes a second drug to induce labor. But women who take the first pill and do not take the second can and have gone on to have healthy pregnancies.
Medical abortions will become more common in a post-Roe world for the same reason that they are so dangerous: It pushes a violent, dangerous act behind closed doors. As Christians we know that in God’s light, we see light—pray for the light to shine in these dark places.
Many say they want a world without Christianity, but many secular thinkers are discovering they should be careful what they wish for.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of a public high school football coach who was fired for praying on the field after games. Though the firing should never have happened, this now years-long controversy has provided a window into how many in our culture feel about Christian prayer. Hint: they’re not positive feelings.
Still, one specific prayer, known as the Serenity Prayer, remains a part of our shared cultural language and a staple of addiction recovery meetings: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Of course, Alcoholics Anonymous’ official position is that the “God” of the Serenity Prayer can be any sort of Higher Power you wish, but it is profound that most addiction recovery programs continue to stubbornly insist that faith is critical for addiction recovery. That insistence is backed by a constantly growing mountain of data, which has become un-ignorable. Even the government quietly admits that faith-based recovery programs are the most effective.
A re-discovery of Christianity’s practical benefits isn’t just happening in addiction recovery. The more that various aspects of our culture struggle under the weight of bad ideas and their consequences, the more and more people are discovering “new” solutions in the old Scriptures.
Canadian clinical psychologist and self-described nonbeliever Jordan Peterson has become famous in part for his bold claims that Christianity has a unique positive impact on individuals and culture. Contemporary historian Tom Holland, a self-described atheist, literally wrote the book on the responsibility Christianity bears for just about every good thing about modern culture. According to Holland:
[Christianity] is the principal reason why, by and large, most of us… still take for granted that it is nobler to suffer than to inflict suffering. It is why we generally assume that every human life is of equal value.
And just last week, in former New York Times’ reporter Bari Weiss’s new independent Substack, non-believing author Tim DeRoche put forth what he called “The Secular Case for Christianity”:
The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is the most successful meme in the history of the world. And the spread of that meme over the last 2,000 years has largely been correlated with decreasing levels of slavery, war, crime, poverty, and general suffering.
Modern culture, the same modern culture so scandalized by football field prayers and so put off by Christian sexual ethics, must reckon with what Christianity has given the world, DeRoche argued.
We should, of course, welcome this kind of cultural self-discovery, though it is a bit like the angsty teenager who rejects the ways of his parents in order to find a more “enlightened” way to do life. But, after all his experimentation, that teen is forced to admit his open-mindedness only led to suffering and maybe his parents were right after all.
Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck wrote that “an independent creature is a contradiction in terms.” In other words, whether we acknowledge He’s there or not, all creatures were made and are sustained by God. He knows best, and He knows us best. That He chose to reveal Himself to us in the creation, the Bible and ultimately in Christ is a tremendous mercy. A Christian life isn’t without suffering, of course, but it is the only life in which suffering has meaning, can be redeemed, and will ultimately be defeated.
Christians who claim that publicly promoting Christian ethics is somehow intrusive or unloving miss this point, as well as the related point that sharing the best way to live is a way of loving our neighbors. Years ago, comedian Penn Jillette of the comedy duo Penn and Teller famously said that he did not respect Christians who did not proselytize. “How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” he asked. How much do you have to hate somebody to not tell them the best way to live life?
To be clear, neither Christian faith nor Christian public witness is utilitarian. Christianity isn’t true because it “works,” but it does work because it’s true. If God did not take the form of a man, if He had not died and then resurrected, if He were not on the throne of the universe, then Christianity’s cultural “benefits” would not matter all that much. But He did, so they do.
The Church’s great opportunity is not to say, “I told you so,” but rather “come and see.” The world is better because Christianity is true. Now, come and meet the One behind it all.
I don’t love BuzzFeed’s clickbaity and crowdsourced approach to content, but a recent article caught my eye: Reddit users revealing what their childhood was like after their parents divorced. “When we were little, mom worked full-time and dad stayed home with us,” wrote one user. “When I was six, they separated, and we only saw him once, maybe twice a year. I have never recovered from this sudden and unexplained abandonment.”
Others described having to become the unintentional middle man between their parents, or trying to keep up with both of them as adults. “Little things like that that take a really big toll on you,” wrote one: “I always got physically ill before having to switch houses because of the stress.”
These anecdotes line up with the research. Divorce is awful, even if tragically necessary. And, more often than not, our culture trips all over itself to obscure its real impact. In order to protect adult feelings, we tell ourselves “the kids will be fine.”
They aren’t. In fact, they deserve better. Sometimes, even BuzzFeed gets it right.
I hope people pay attention.
A few years ago, a kids’ book was published titled A is for Activist. On the book jacket is a tiny fist, raised, apparently, in solidarity. A quick stroll through any metropolitan library children’s section will find more books like this one. There’s Antiracist Baby by Ibram X. Kendi, The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish and, of course, Heather Has Two Mommies. There’s Let the Children March and Woke Baby. There’s even complete series, such as the “Little Feminists” and the “Citizen Baby” series, which include the titles Citizen Baby: My Vote and Citizen Baby: My Supreme Court.
Anyone with actual children or who has been around actual children or who was once an actual child knows that “baby activism” is a misnomer. Little fists are used for temper tantrums and for fighting with dad, not for “solidarity.”
Chuck Colson advocated for classical education because of its understanding of and respect for the natural development of kids. Postmodern thinking in education was disrupting what he called the “order of learning” instead of recognizing that the right foundations, known as “grammar” and “rhetoric” in a classical vision, must first be established before children can move on to, for example, making coherent political arguments. Today, however, we’ve got it exactly backwards. Instead of teaching third graders their multiplication tables, we’re teaching them to “express themselves.” Instead of teaching high schoolers logic, we encourage them to share their opinion on every subject, as long as it aligns with our opinion, and that anyone who challenges them is a “threat.”
This approach is, in part, a downstream effect of postmodernism. If there’s no absolute Truth, then anyone who believes they know something fixed about the world shouldn’t be trusted. It’s also a downstream effect of the sexual revolution, which prioritizes the needs and desires of adults over the needs, desires, and the design of kids.
A is for Activist isn’t really written for children. It’s written for the adults that will buy it. Adults that buy it aren’t really buying it for their children. They’re buying it in order to be the kind of person who buys a book titled A is for Activist. The voting booth to dinosaur ratio in kids’ books today is way off. Too many kids’ books are being written by adults talking to other adults.
This is an amazing opportunity for Christian creatives. However, there are plenty of bad “Christian” books for kids, too. Slapping a pastel-colored Noah’s Ark on a book cover or a Bible verse on every page does not good literature make.
C.S. Lewis, himself a master of children’s literature, wrote that “the world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” Elsewhere he implored Christians to write books on every subject:
What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent. You can see this most easily if you look at it the other way around. Our faith is not very likely to be shaken by any book on Hinduism. But if whenever we read an elementary book on Geology, Botany, Politics, or Astronomy, we found that its implications were Hindu, that would shake us. It is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist; it is the materialistic assumptions in all the other books. In the same way, it is not books on Christianity that will really trouble him. But he would be troubled if, whenever he wanted a cheap popular introduction to some science, the best work on the market was always by a Christian.
Good art paraphrases reality, describing the world as it truly is. Good art also respects the audience. Good literature for children will respect children.
Jesus explicitly respected children as full human beings, with their own dignity and value. Kids should not be used as political pawns. They ought not be asked to shoulder the burden of advocating for our modern innovations, like proclaiming that Heather’s “two mommies” replace a mom and a dad or that their bodies may be wrong or that they may be racist because of the color of their skin. They especially shouldn’t be asked before they’ve learned the alphabet.
Thankfully, a growing number of good books for kids is on offer. The Good Book Company produces a series of incredibly well-made picture books called “Tales that Tell the Truth.” NavPress publishes a series called “God’s Design for Sex,” with a different book for each age that carefully and slowly teaches kids about their bodies. And there are fantastic children’s authors whose books are not explicitly “Christian” but who tell good, true, and beautiful stories for kids in their own language.
After all, if kids are full members of God’s kingdom, they, too, deserve good books.
An early draft of Justice Alito’s opinion was leaked from the Supreme Court. That’s a big deal.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health case. Justice Alito’s opinion is important and is briefly explained in our Breakpoint podcast by Erin Morrow Hawley. Here’s a sample:
The opinion sort of has a couple of parts. It looks first at, “is there any historical right to abortion?” Is it deeply rooted at our nation’s tradition and history? That answer is clearly “no.”
Then the opinion talks about stare decisis. The idea is basically, even if Roe is wrong, even if Casey is wrong, should we still uphold them anyway? Justice Alito says clearly, “no.” There’s not the sort of alliance interest that would justify that.
One thing Justice Alito’s opinion focuses on is damage the so-called “right to abortion” and the Court’s finding of it in Roe and Casey have done to this country.
So, it’s been damaging to our democracy, it’s damaging to our institutions, and to the Court, so there’s no reason to stick to it.
Listen to the full conversation with Erin at www.breakpoint.org.
On Monday night, an initial draft of the Supreme Court majority opinion on the Dobbs case was leaked to news site Politico. As SCOTUS Blog tweeted: “It’s impossible to overstate the earthquake this will cause inside the Court, in terms of the destruction of trust among the Justices and staff.” Tuesday morning, Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed the authenticity of the draft, and called the leak a “betrayal of confidences of the Court intended to undermine the integrity of our operations.”
Most likely, the leak was intended to pressure the Court’s conservative justices to moderate their opinion before a final decision is published. That would be especially inappropriate if the source of the leak is a clerk of one of the Justices.
One response would be for the Court, as National Review’s Ed Whelan suggested, to announce the majority decision as soon as possible, allowing dissenting views to be published later. It’s happened before in extenuating circumstances.
What’s not clear is how the leaked draft of the majority opinion will compare to the final draft. Unless it is somehow significantly gutted, Justice Samuel Alito has thoroughly and thoughtfully dismantled, at least in legal terms, the 50-year hold that Roe v. Wade has held on America. Here are three observations from the leaked draft.
First, Alito thoroughly dismantles the claim that the right to an abortion is found anywhere in the Constitution. He states: “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” Thus, Alito concludes, the 1992 follow-up case to Roe v. Wade, known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey would also be overruled. Quoting other cases, Alito insists that Casey’s basis on Roe’s precedent “is not an exorable command” and that it’s time for the issue to “be settled right.”
Second, Alito dismantles what he calls Roe’s “most important rule”: “that states cannot protect fetal life prior to ‘viability.’” When Roe was established, viability was considered to be at around 28 weeks of gestation.
Today, it’s at 24 weeks or younger. Viability, Alito further notes, is also based on the health of the mother and the hospital facilities where she lives.
Given these multiple factors, Alito argues, “the viability line makes no sense, and it is telling that other countries almost uniformly eschew such a line.” In a footnote, Alito notes that the U.S and the Netherlands are the only nations to rely on viability. He doesn’t mention what others have recognized, that the U.S. is most in line with the authoritarian regimes of China and North Korea in its abortion policy.
Third, if this decision holds, the Court would not be outlawing abortion but returning the decisions about abortion to the states. “In the years prior to [Roe v. Wade],” writes Alito, “about a third of the States had liberalized their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process.” Roe was, writes Alito, quoting the late Justice Ginsberg, an “exercise of raw judicial power.” He then surmises that some states will expand abortion rights and other will limit them, but this is how states are supposed to work. State legislators will work out state regulations for abortion instead of a court, and voters will therefore have a voice in the process.
Limiting abortion rights in any way, including moving the decision to the states, is intolerable for abortion advocates. In a tweeted response to the leak, Sen. Elizabeth Warren pressed for the elimination of the filibuster in Congress in order for the Women’s Health Protection Act to pass. This extreme measure, which could be called the Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act, is not supported by a majority of Americans. According to a recent poll, 71% of Americans, including 49% of Democrats, want abortion limited to the first trimester.
Warren also claimed that dismantling of Roe v. Wade would be an act of racism. In the same tweet about eliminating the filibuster, she alleged,
If an extremist Supreme Court overturns Roe, wealthy women will still get safe abortions—by traveling to another state or country. But women of color, those with lower-incomes, and victims of abuse will suffer the most.
And of course, the leaked draft of Alito’s opinion also led to numerous Handmaid’s Tale references and the tired old canard that pro-lifers care about babies only until they are born. None of these claims, of course is true. In fact, 4,000 pregnancy resource centers exist to help parents who may be in crisis.
If this leaked opinion is indeed reflective of what the final decision will be, then we must do two things. First, we must thank God that this decades-long legal nightmare is over. Our efforts to protect babies and care for vulnerable women will no longer be pre-empted by an evil masquerading as an invented “right.” Second, the Court has done its job. It cannot do our job. State legislatures now have very important jobs to do, but they cannot do the jobs that we are called to: to speak the truth in love and to create a culture of life and care.
Next week we have a free event in Orlando, Florida, called Preparing for a Post-Roe World. If you’re in the area or nearby, register for an evening with speakers such as Tim Tebow, Erin Morrow Hawley of Alliance Defending Freedom, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life. Stephanie Gray Connors of Love Unleashes Life will be spending time in particular unpacking the slogans for abortion. Register now for this event preparing you for the cultural moment. https://wilberforceweekend.org/regional-bonus-event/
And while you’re doing that, pray for the safety of our Supreme Court Justices from intimidation and unlawful acts. Pray that the intentions of whoever caused this leak will backfire, and God’s true justice will reign.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a draft opinion from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito regarding the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health case.
John Stonestreet visits with Erin Morrow Hawley, senior counsel to the appellate team at Alliance Defending Freedom.
Erin explains the significance of the leaked draft opinion and helps us understand the circumstances surrounding the court. She also provides important insight on what this means for the pro-life community moving forward.
John also interviews Dr. Ryan T. Anderson, President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and the Founding Editor of Public Discourse. Dr. Anderson paints a picture of the pro-life movement in the wake of this leaked report and the possible decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood.
This conversation happens on the heels of the Colson Center's upcoming event, "Preparing for a Post-Roe World."
On Thursday, May 12th at 7:00pm at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando Florida the Colson Center is hosting a gathering looking at the future of advocating for the pre-born that is featuring Tim Tebow, Stephanie Gray Connors, Jim Daly, Erin Hawley, and Kristan Hawkins. This bonus session occurs in conjunction with our premier conference on Christian worldview, the Wilberforce Weekend. For more information on this special event visit wilberforceweekend.org.
In March, online magazine Vox ran a series of stories under the title “America’s Struggle for Forgiveness.” That’s not a typical topic for a thoroughly secular outlet like Vox, but, then again, Christians should be talking about forgiveness more than they are too.
“The state of modern outrage is a cycle,” writes contributor Aja Romano:
We wake up mad, we go to bed mad, and in between, the only thing that might change is what’s making us angry. The one gesture that could offer substantive change, or at least provide a way forward—forgiveness—seems perpetually beyond our reach.
Each contributor to the Vox series was a committed progressive, and it showed when they discussed who they considered most in need of forgiveness. Romano, for example, questioned how to forgive J.K. Rowling, for her repeated defenses of biological women against erasure. In even suggesting that what Rowling has done was so egregious, Vox only proved that the fantasy writer has a firmer grasp on reality than they do.
Still, Vox asked a question that is on point. What is the place of forgiveness in modern society? Consider, for example, how quickly celebrities are cancelled, for reasons ranging from the trivial to the serious. Ellen DeGeneres created a toxic workplace environment. Aaron Rodgers didn’t get vaccinated. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard engaged in domestic abuse. And, the jury is still out on Will Smith’s future.
The point here isn’t to equivocate every public fall from grace since, obviously, some are more deserved than others. What is missing in contemporary debate is any way forward. What’s missing in our culture is forgiveness.
After all, forgiveness doesn’t ask whether condemnation is deserved. It assumes it is. Forgiveness isn’t about the virtue of the other person’s actions. It’s about our response to that action.
In the Vox article, Romano quotes Elizabeth Bruenig, a writer at The Atlantic, who put it this way:
As a society we have absolutely no coherent story—none whatsoever—about how a person who’s done wrong can atone, make amends, and retain some continuity between their life/identity before and after the mistake.
She’s right, but clearly, we need something. Romano concludes her essay with a suggestion:
Grace, the act of allowing people room to be human and make mistakes while still loving them and valuing them, might be the holiest, most precious concept of all in this conversation about right and wrong, penance and reform—but it’s the one that almost never gets discussed.
Powerful words. It’s always fascinating when a culture has exhausted all the resources a secular worldview can offer, only to discover that Christianity always had the best option on the market.
Christianity offers the perspective on forgiveness that so many are desperate for. Because we’ve been forgiven, we can forgive others. Because we’ve been loved, even when unlovable, we can love even the unlovable.
But let’s be clear. There is no grace without God. Nobody likes thinking of the ways they have failed, and we avoid it at all costs. With God comes a moral law that we are responsible to. It may be that our world is short on forgiveness precisely because it has rejected God and His moral law.
That also will make it more difficult to extend forgiveness to others. In the words of C.S. Lewis, “Everyone thinks forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.” In a fallen world, we are quick to forgive people we like … for things we don’t see as particularly serious. But what if the wrong was serious? What if the person isn’t on my team? In those moments, only a transcendent perspective makes forgiveness a live option.
Like Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” That’s every one of us. That’s why He later said so strongly, as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel: “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
All of which makes me think, again, about Chuck Colson, whose unexpected redemption during Watergate led to an amazing amount of forgiveness between him and his political enemies. He was forgiven much by God, and by those who had been forgiven much by God, so he also extended forgiveness to others. In the end, that perspective grounded his whole understanding of criminal justice reform.
If the world indeed is looking for forgiveness, then once again, only Christians have what the world is looking for.
The Colson Center is offering a special short course featuring Dr. Carl Trueman and Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. In the BreakPoint Podcast today we are featuring the first session in a four-part series the Colson Center is offering this month.
During this month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, you’ll receive a wealth of resources that will be explored in a special short-course offering.
For more information visit www.colsoncenter.org/april
This April, scientists confirmed the dimensions of the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, the single largest comet ever recorded. Its core appears to be about 85 miles across.
“It’s 100 times bigger than the typical comets we’ve been studying for all these years,” says astronomer David Jewitt:
Finding this thing is a reminder of how little we know about the outer solar system. There’s a vast quantity of objects out there that we haven’t seen, and a huge number of things we haven’t even imagined.
Awe is powerful and humbling. As John Piper once observed, no one stands at the edge of the Grand Canyon and says, “I am awesome.” Awe points us outside of ourselves, and the whole drive to know the universe is, in reality, a drive to know God.
Seventeenth century astronomer Johannes Kepler, whose precise mathematics led to his groundbreaking laws of planetary motion once wrote, “I wanted to become a theologian, and for a long time I was unhappy. Now, behold, God is praised by my work even in astronomy.”
For the God who created everything, good science is more than good work. It’s worship.
Recently, a colleague noted how a growing number of conservative-minded people he encountered on social media, some of them Christians, were refusing to believe stories about Russian atrocities in Ukraine. Some even reject that the invasion was an unjustified war of aggression by Russia. When he asked the reason for their doubt, it was simply because those stories were reported in the “mainstream media,” which has done nothing but lie to us for years.
I share suspicion for certain sources. Most reporters for the major networks and news outlets have forgotten the difference between journalism and opinion writing. And, of course, their biases tend to lean in the same direction. Christian conservatives rarely get a fair shake on self-described neutral outlets, such as CNN or The Washington Post, let alone overtly progressive outlets such as Vox or MSNBC.
However, when our suspicion about truth-telling becomes suspicion that there isn’t truth, we’ve become postmodernists. Christian writer Samuel James calls this bad habit “negative epistemology.” This is the idea that we don’t need to figure out what’s true, we only need to believe the opposite of whatever our political enemies say.
Of course, this is only part of the overall and pervasive collapse of trust throughout American society, specifically trust in institutions. We are rightly concerned about misinformation, the frequently shifting landscape of rationale for dealing with COVID-19 and claims about election fraud. But beneath all of these specific examples is a cultural landscape that treats truth and truth claims as nothing more than power plays.
This isn’t a new idea. During the confirmation hearings for current Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, concern was raised over a speech she had given at UC Berkeley. In it, she stated that “to judge is an exercise in power.” The same idea leads activists to dismiss opponents by pointing out the color of their skin instead of addressing their argument. We see it every time cancel culture comes for a speaker or author on a college campus who says something that doesn’t support their team. In other words, behind the collapse of trust in American society is a collapse of truth, the very possibility of truth.
For more than a century now, academics have been preaching this kind of extreme skepticism, suggesting that all truth claims are really impositions of power. This belief was at the heart of a worldview known as “postmodernism,” initially conceived by mid-20th century French philosophers and most fully expressed in late-20th century pop culture. Today, Eminem and Nirvana are considered “classics,” but the fact that so much of our culture is reduced to political power plays and so many people decide what’s true by asking who believes the opposite only proves that, to some extent, we are all postmodernists, now.
For people whose faith teaches that truth is knowable and that it doesn’t depend on the source but a reality external to ourselves, this is a road we simply cannot continue down. Once we embrace the idea that all claims are mere power plays, there’s no room for reason, for revelation, for persuasion, for thinking, or for looking at God’s world to know something about it and Him. Instead, we employ a version of a tactic promoted by postmodern English professors called “the hermeneutics of suspicion.” We become suspicious of everything and, in the process, destroy the possibility of knowing anything.
I’m not the first to make this connection, but we’d do well to learn from the Dwarfs from C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Having been deceived once by their enemies, these sadly memorable characters decided they would never believe a non-Dwarf again. Terrified of being “taken in,” they retreated into a tribalistic huddle, and ultimately became blind to the world around them. Their suspicion of everyone and everything became their prison, and in the end, it deprived them of Lewis’ equivalent of Heaven.
If we come to believe that truth is only a matter of who’s talking, that Vladimir Putin must be a good man because CNN says he’s not, or that an unjust war must be just if a president from the other party condemns it, we have retreated into that same, fatal huddle. We have lost our ability to talk meaningfully about right and wrong, and even to persuade others of these moral realities. We have traded a Christian worldview for a postmodern one. In our fear of being “taken in” by a lie, we have blinded ourselves to truth.
Let’s not make that mistake.
John and Maria discuss society's reaction to Elon Musk buying Twitter. Maria questions why many reacted the way they did, and John explains how and why words matter in culture.
Then Maria asks John about an upcoming Colson Center event at the Wilberforce Weekend, where John will guide attendees to imagine a post-Roe world. A number of guest speakers will inspire us to consider the individual responsibility, as many states enact "trigger" laws in preparation for a dismantling of Casey and a weakening of Roe when the Supreme Court decides the Dobbs case, likely in June.
To close, John highlights a number of Breakpoint commentaries from the week, specifically pointing out the human rights challenges in China, lately expressed in China's "no-Covid" policies.
A recent viral video shows thousands of people in Shanghai screaming in unison into the night to protest the Chinese government’s brutal “zero-COVID” policy.
Entire high-rises of people are confined to their rooms, locked in with green fencing that appeared overnight. Children, including babies, are separated from their parents in massive government quarantine centers, some of which lack basic medical equipment or even beds. Other videos show hundreds of pets being collected and euthanized as supposed carriers of the disease.
In the meantime, many of the city’s 25 million people find themselves on the brink of starvation, with government food deliveries unable to keep up with demand.
If we’re looking for a culprit, it’s not just the lockdown. It’s not even COVID-19. It’s the ideology of China’s ruling elites, which rejects the sacred value of the individual in the name of the “common good.” Human dignity is a deeply Christian idea, one that China’s communist leaders have been at war with for decades.
We must pray that the voices of Shanghai’s suffering people will wake them up to what is true and good.
Many of our favorite stories culminate with a conversion experience. C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, Surprised by Joy is like this, with Lewis fighting God every step of the way until he finally recognizes that Christ is the source of true joy. Another example is Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, with Ebenezer Scrooge realizing the error of his ways and becoming a new man. It’s a Wonderful Life also features personal redemption, when George Bailey realizes his life has incredible value.
In other tales, however, personal redemption is not the end of the story but only the middle, a turning point that sets up all that comes afterward. Think of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which Edmund was redeemed, but Narnia still needed saving. Or Pilgrim’s Progress, in which Christian is released from the burden of his sin, but still must complete a journey to the Celestial City.
Or consider real-life examples, such as the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus or St. Augustine’s conversion, as described in his Confessions. In both cases, an incredible amount of life and influence came after and because of personal conversion. Chuck Colson’s personal transformation, in the midst of the Watergate scandal, was just the beginning of a life far more accomplished, influential, and significant after than before.
These kind of stories, in which personal redemption creates a wake of redemption that impacts families, churches, communities, and even entire cultures, are the ones that better reflect the biblical story. Often, Christians tell a truncated version of this story. It’s not a false Gospel, just incomplete, a “two chapter” story of sin and salvation.
However, Scripture has four chapters. It begins before sin and the fall, with a very good world that God created and designed with a purpose. It ends with His creation restored, a New Heavens and New Earth. Sin and salvation are crucial parts of the story to understand and embrace, but not the whole story.
Something incredible happens when we realize that our salvation is about more than getting to Heaven. We aren’t merely saved from sin and death and to eternal life that begins when we die. We are saved for an abundant life in which, to borrow Jesus’ own words, all things are being made new.
In just a couple weeks, at the Wilberforce Weekend in Orlando, Florida, we’ll be looking at “Life Redeemed” from as many angles as we can. Together with dozens of speakers, discussions, film sessions, and panels, we will explore the full scope of Christ’s redemption. Along the way, we will celebrate amazing stories of personal redemption, such as Lewis and Chuck Colson and Harriett Tubman and others, before looking at how their personal redemptions led to the world being changed around them.
This year’s speakers include Os Guinness, Monique Duson, Max McLean, Jim Daly, Jennifer Patterson, and many more. We’ll also be honoring the faith and courage of cake artist Jack Phillips and florist Barronelle Stutzman, two people whose redeemed lives meant taking a stand, paying a steep price, and inspiring thousands.
I hope you’ll join us May 13 through 15 at the Rosen Shingle Creek Resort in Orlando for the Wilberforce Weekend. And, if you are coming or live in the Florida area, please join us Thursday night, May 12, for a special training session to prepare for “A Post-Roe Future.” That event will better equip us to stand for life and against abortion, and features Stephanie Grey Connors, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, and the one and only Tim Tebow. Space is limited, and there are just a few days left to register. Visit wilberforceweekend.org to get tickets.
Recently, The New York Times asked six teens to describe what cancel culture “is really like.” Their responses show just how normal the term has become.
For many, it’s “basically a joke,” a word thrown around about anything and everything. That’s not surprising for a generation so plugged in and coming of age just as the term has reached critical mass. For others, “it’s a way to take away someone’s power and call [them] out for being problematic in a situation,” as one girl put it.
But that power element makes cancel culture dangerous. Canceling someone is less about holding convictions with integrity, than it is convincing a mob of peers to forever isolate someone else. And, who decides what’s canceled if not the powerful, which itself is subject to the changing whims of a moment’s majority? This isn’t about enduring truths or standing for what’s right.
These students have inherited a world with troubling public figures, celebrities, causes, and past sins, but no example of what to do.
This is an opportunity for Christians to show a better way forward.
Is there hope for Hong Kong? That’s the question the city’s citizens, including nearly 1 million Protestant and Catholic Christians, are being forced to ask daily. Under more than 150 years of British rule, Hong Kong established itself as a bridge from East to West, and an economic powerhouse that protected the basic freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. In 1997, when the British government relinquished control to Beijing, a 50-year transitional period was established under a principle known as “one country, two systems.” The idea that China would respect the agreement and Hong Kong’s liberties might have been tenuous, but it wasn’t completely irrational. In terms of economic prosperity and a tolerance for democratic norms, some even hoped Beijing’s own system would evolve to mirror Hong Kong’s.
That hasn’t happened. In fact, as The Atlantic’s Timothy McLaughlin wrote in April, “[T]hese hopes have now all but been extinguished.”
In 2014, China announced that, though Hong Kong voters could choose their chief executive, candidates first had to be screened by a Beijing committee. The response in Hong Kong was explosive. Over 1.2 million people took to the streets in peaceful protest, occupying the central commercial district and famously using yellow umbrellas to deflect tear gas.
In 2019, protests were renewed over a proposed extradition bill that would grant authorities the ability to transport anyone accused of a crime, including political dissidents, to mainland China. Again, the backlash was massive. In a city of 7.5 million people, an estimated 2 million took to the streets, many pushing children in strollers or elderly in wheelchairs. Even when Chief Executive Carrie Lam eventually scrapped the extradition bill, it did little to stop the momentum.
But COVID-19 did. And, like all authoritarian regimes, China did not let a good crisis go to waste. As the city locked down, key protesters were arrested and momentum stalled. China bypassed Hong Kong’s government and implemented a draconian national security bill of its own.
Now, the city’s future seems especially dire. While some embers of protest still smolder, two of Hong Kong’s last British judges resigned this April. By some estimates, nearly 50% of European firms are planning to leave the city. Though an economic blow like that should make Beijing think twice about Hong Kong’s fate, economics has never been the primary driver behind the actions of the Chinese Communist Party or Xi Jinping.
Christian concern goes beyond our commitment to human rights, or the tragedy of watching such a vibrant, beautiful place fall under oppression. Our brothers and sisters in Christ have long played a dramatic part in Hong Kong’s non-violent resistance. From the beginning, in fact, Hong Kong’s Christians have formed the backbone of its pro-democracy movement.
A powerful example is retired pastor Chu Yiu-Ming who, along with eight others, was sentenced to prison for his role in the 2014 and 2019 protests. While his sentence was lightened due to his age, Pastor Chu was fully ready to bear the cost of following Christ and articulate why. Chu’s speech, in which he described why he was compelled to act, should be required reading for all of us:
I am a Christian minister committed to the service of God,
and yet, at this very moment, my heart tells me that with this defendant’s dock, I have found the most honorable pulpit of my ministerial career. The valley of the shadow of death leads to spiritual heights. …
To those who are naked or hungry, the Christian minister has no business responding with greetings of Peace, Peace. I wish you well; keep warm and well fed, but does nothing about their physical needs. What good are such greetings? [A]sk the Bible. …
This is our conviction based on the faith we hold: Every person is created according to God’s image.
As such, every person should be respected and safeguarded. We strive for democracy, because democracy strives for freedom, equality and universal love. Human rights [are] a God-given gift, never to be arbitrarily taken away by any political regime. …
We have opted for a peaceful, non-violent way. Although the power of injustice before us is immense and those holding power capricious, we are not afraid, nor will we run away. …
We have no regrets,
We hold no grudges,
No anger,
No grievances.
We do not give up.
In the words of Jesus, “Happy are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires; The Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!” (Matthew 5:10)
Please pray for Hong Kong, for Pastor Chu, and for the other courageous Christians .
John and Shane are asked how a student should respond to his college requesting him to identify his preferred pronouns. John explains how using one’s name is unique from a person’s preferred pronoun. He also shares how choosing a pronoun says something distinct about what male and female are.
Along with emphasizing the importance of understanding the issue, John emphasizes the way in which a person engages the issue of pronouns. He encourages the listener to respond with light, not heat.
For another listener’s question on the topic of “white fragility,” John explains what white fragility is, where it originated, and how it’s become a theory of everything. He notes that it isn’t helpful to be reactive whenever a conversation on race presents itself, giving some helpful tips to guide conversation to a constructive end.
To close, John and Shane respond to a listener about what young people can do now to prepare for the future. John encourages them to read books, find a mentor, and critique habits.
Resources’
Dr. Meriweather Stand on Pronouns
John Stonestreet and Maria Baer | Breakpoint This Week | 2022
A Rebel's Manifesto: Choosing Truth, Real Justice, and Love amid the Noise of Today's World
Sean McDowell | Tyndale | 2022
Same-Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage
John Stonestreet and Sean McDowell | Baker | 2014
--
White Fragility
Robin DiAngelo | Beacon Press | 2018
--
Cultivate
Jeff Myers | Summit
Miracles
C.S. Lewis | Harperone | 2001
The Four Loves
C.S. Lewis | Harperone | 2017
Perelandra
C.S. Lewis | Scribner | 2011
Mere Christianity
C.S. Lewis | Harperone | 2001
The Screwtape Letters
C.S. Lewis | Harperone | 2001
Knowing God
J.I. Packer | Intervarsity | 1993
The Holiness of God
R.C. Sproul | Tyndale | 1998
Dancing with Max
Emily and Charles Colson | Zondervan | 2012
Through the Gates of Splendor
Elisabeth Elliot | Living Books | 1981
The Journals of Jim Elliot, repackaged ed.: Missionary, Martyr, Man of God
Jim and Elisabeth Elliot | Revell | 2020
Confessions
Augustine | Moody | 2007
The Way of the Modern World
Craig Gay | Wm. Eerdmans | 1998
In one of the most annoying tech moves since Microsoft’s “Clippy,” Google Docs now offers unsolicited advice about how to avoid using non-inclusive language. Terms like “landlord” or “motherboard” trigger a pop-up warning that reads “these words may not be inclusive to all readers.”
The folks at TechRadar were overly generous when they said that this was “a good idea, poorly executed.” In reality, it’s a bad idea, poorly executed.
It’s more than annoying for Google to thought police our words in this way. It simply doesn’t correspond with reality. Sure, not all “police officers” are “policemen,” but connecting “landlord” with slavery or class warfare misses the full history of the word. And questioning the word “motherboard”? That’s just silly.
Google has never been a neutral facilitator of communication, but this move demonstrates a misunderstanding of language itself. Words are more than social constructs. They reflect reality. Denying that certain realities exist with language doesn’t change reality.
As a friend used to say, “sloppy words make sloppy thought possible.” Misusing language damages our ability to think.
According to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, on January 1, A.D. 404, an ascetic monk named Telemachus jumped to the floor of the arena during a gladiatorial match, and begged the competitors to stop. The crowd was so angry at the interruption that they stoned him to death. When Christian Emperor Honorius heard about Telemachus’ act of bravery, he ordered an end to gladiatorial combat.
Telemachus’ stand led to martyrdom, but it changed a culture. Throughout history, similar stands made in Jesus’ name yielded similar results. Though they often came at great cost, and transformation was not instantaneous, in the end, a culture was left better.
Telemachus’ brave act occurred 91 years after Christianity was legalized by Constantine, and 24 years after it was made the state religion of Rome by Emperor Theodosius I. Earlier Christians denounced other evils, such as abusive sexual mores. They insisted that sex be limited to marriage and, following the Jews, rejected abortion and infanticide. They treated women and slaves as the spiritual equals of men. As a result, woman and slaves became leaders in the church. Pliny the Younger, in a letter dated about 111, mentions deaconesses, and a slave was made a bishop of Ephesus in the early second century.
Christians didn’t kill baby girls, a practice common among the pagans. Nor did they pressure girls into early marriage, or Christian widows into remarriage. As a result, Christian churches had a higher percentage of women than did society at large. In fact, Christianity was held in contempt by the Romans as “a religion of women and slaves.”
The Church’s response to slavery is more complex. Though the early Church did not outright oppose slavery, they opposed the abusive conduct normal to the slave trade, and often purchased slaves in order to free them. Eventually, as the implications of the Gospel’s insistence on the spiritual and moral equality of all people sank in, medieval theologians such as Thomas Aquinas declared slavery a sin.
Nonetheless, many Christians continued the horrible practice, particularly with the discovery of the Americas. Other Christians, most notably William Wilberforce and the Clapham Circle, actively sought the abolition of the slave trade. After decades of persistent effort in the face of opposition from cultural elites and an apathetic public, slavery was brought to an end in the British Empire.
Similar examples can be found in other cultures. Christian missionaries led the fight against sati, the practice of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, against the opposition of the Hindu elites in India. Native Chinese Christians fought against foot binding, the breaking of bones to compress the feet of girls, a trait considered desirable among the Chinese people. Christian diplomats saved Jews from the Holocaust, often bucking instructions from their home government and direct superiors. Many leaders and activists in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement faced beatings, dogs, lynchings, and fire hoses. Though these courageous actions led to the renewal of various aspects of those cultures, change was not immediate.
Christians had to oppose cultures before change took place. Of course, they had no way of knowing whether or not their actions would bring change. Telemachus did not live to see the redemptive consequences of his courage. They acted because they had to, not because they knew their actions would work.
As T.S. Eliot said, “For us there is only the trying. The rest is none of our business.” Christians today must oppose cultural evils, such as the taking of preborn life, the buying and selling of preborn lives, the ideological sexual abuse of children, and the persecution of religious minorities. Though the rapid changes in our society are confusing and distressing, we must understand them if we are to know when, where, and how we must take a stand.
So that we can join in the long history of Christian redemptive influence, the Colson Center is offering an in-depth study of our culture, particularly recent shifts in sex, gender, and identity, with the help of Dr. Carl Trueman’s new book, Strange New World. For a donation of any amount to the Colson Center, we’ll send you a copy of Dr. Trueman’s book, an accompanying study guide, access to a four-week course with Dr. Trueman and Colson Center theologian-in-residence Dr. Tim Padgett, and access to Dr. Trueman’s powerful presentation at last year’s Wilberforce Weekend.
To sign-up for this offer, simply make a donation of any amount to the Colson Center at www.breakpoint.org/april.
Big marijuana promised not to market to children. They are. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.
Legal recreational marijuana sales officially began this week in New Jersey. That’s the same state where, on Christmas Day in 2020, a 3-year-old was admitted to a hospital ICU after he ate a dangerous amount of cannabis edibles. They were in a bag that looked like a package of Nerds candy.
According to CNN, knockoff candy bags that actually contain THC edibles are a big problem. The New Jersey Poison Control Center reported that the number of kids poisoned with cannabis was six times higher in 2020 than just two years earlier. There are similar reports across the country.
Marijuana lobbyists promise they don’t market to kids, and that it’s just a few bad apples selling edibles in kid-friendly packages. But making THC edible at all is a step towards marketing to kids, a genie that can’t be out back into the bottle.
As the nationwide march toward legalizing marijuana continues, the consequences of our culture’s worst ideas will be paid by the most common victim: the kids.
Teens are not all right, and there’s an underlying cause—the loss of meaning.
At a recent gathering, Dr. Ryan M. Burkhart, Associate Dean of the Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling program at Colorado Christian University, noted that he and other counselors are seeing “treatment-resistant depression and anxiety.” These counselors are seeing more young clients but are not seeing typical therapies bring the same results as in the past.
One mark of this kind of despair is suicide. In the U.S., suicide increased by 30% between 2000 and 2018 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s pre-COVID-19. By 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, suicide was the runner-up cause of death for ages 10-14. As I stated yesterday, teens who claim they have “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” have increased from 26% percent to 44%. It’s such a concern that last fall the American Academy of Pediatrics deemed the mental health of youth a “national emergency.”
In his “The Parable of the Madman,” Friedrich Nietzsche famously declared, “God is dead.” He was not making an ontological claim, in the sense that God once lived but was now dead. Rather, the parable is full of observations of the consequences of a culture losing its divine reference point.
We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
Nietzsche’s remarkable description of meaninglessness echoes James 1:6: “The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.” In Nietzsche’s parable, when those secular intellectuals who were gathered about the madman are shocked at his words, the madman proclaims,
“I have come too early... my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.
Nietzsche penned “The Parable of the Madman” in 1882. Almost a decade earlier, in his “On Truth and Lies in a Non-Moral Sense,” he pointed out that humans, deceived by pride, are limited by language in their ability to know. Decades later, postmodern theorists embraced these ideas and cast a deeper doubt on the ability to know at all. Their ideas first infected higher education, and then most of our society.
Without God, there is no external reference point outside of ourselves. Nietzsche’s description of a world untethered is now a picture of youth untethered. In his words, they’ve been “unchained from the sun,” desperate for meaning, truth, identity, and ultimately, God.
Of course, devout Christians can also struggle with despair, experiencing what John of the Cross described, in the 16th century, as a Dark Night of the Soul. Still, even when God feels distant, it matters that He is there. Where can young people turn in a society that treats God as, at best, an inward feeling and, at worst, not there at all? Apologists and Christian philosophers have discussed the cosmic and personal ramifications of a world without God. They warned that such a world affords no source for meaning. Now, for many, those predictions have become an existential reality.
Behavior modification can treat symptoms, but not the underlying despair. In a Pew Research Center study released last November, only 15% of Americans mentioned faith as a “source of meaning”; outside of the U.S., the percentage drops to 5%.
Members of the mental health community are recognizing the connection between meaningful faith and effective therapy. Last June in Scientific American, David Rosemarin wrote an opinion piece provocatively entitled “Psychiatry Needs to Get Right with God.” In it, he argued that psychiatrists, the least religious of medical doctors, need to integrate spirituality into their treatment. As he put it, “The only group to see improvementsin mental health during the past year were those who attended religious services at least weekly (virtually or in-person): 46 percent report ‘excellent’ mental health today versus 42 percent one year ago.”
According to the protocols of the mental health community, secular counselors are not to point clients to a particular faith. Still, they must begin to point clients to meaning. Dr. Ryan Burkhart and his student apply Victor Frankl’s approach to psychology—a theory that encourages clients to search for meaning. Frankl, after surviving a Nazi concentration camp, went on to write Man’s Search for Meaning. In it, he explained that the heart hungers for meaning more than for pleasure. Although Burkhart and his students’ assessment is anecdotal, they are seeing results: clients are responding to Frankl’s approach.
Our culture is reflecting many consequences of the “death of God.” A Christian worldview has something powerful to offer in such a time and place, a God who is not only very much alive but Who beat death. Because He did, there is meaning.
Dr. Burkhart will speak at the September Lighthouse Voices Series about how we can speak meaning into lives suffering from meaninglessness.
Maria Baer visits with Ryan Bomberger about his upcoming presentation at the Wilberforce Weekend, May 10-13.
Ryan has a rather unique perspective of the innate nature of Purpose. His biological mother was raped yet courageously gave him a chance to live and the beautiful gift of adoption. He was adopted at 6 weeks of age and grew up in a loving, multi-“racial” Christian family of 15. With siblings of varying ethnicities, he grew up with a great appreciation for diversity. Ten of the thirteen children were adopted in this remarkable family. His life defies the myth of the “unwanted” child as he was adopted, loved and has flourished.
Today, he is an Emmy® Award-winning Creative Professional who founded The Radiance Foundation (TRF), a life-affirming 501c3, along with his wife, Bethany. He is a factivist, international public speaker, columnist, educator, broadcast media designer, producer and author of the powerful book, Not Equal: Civil Rights Gone Wrong.
For more on the Wilberforce Weekend visit www.wilberforceweekend.org
In the warp-speed cycle of digital news, caring for our souls requires time in God’s Word, time away from our devices, and a reminder that we’re called to faithfulness, not success.
In his book Every Moment Holy, Douglas Kaine McKelvey offers “A Liturgy For Those Flooded by Too Much Information.”
“We are daily aware of more grief, O Lord,” he writes,
“than we can rightly consider,
of more suffering and scandal
than we can respond to, of more
hostility, hatred, horror, and injustice
than we can engage with compassion.
“.... remind us that we are but small
and finite creatures, never designed to carry
the vast abstractions of great burdens,
for our arms are too short and our strength
is too small. Justice and mercy, healing and
redemption, are your great labors.
“…. Give us discernment,
to know when to pray,
when to speak out,
when to act,
and when to simply
shut off our screens
and our devices,
and to sit quietly
in your presence,
casting the burdens of this world
upon the strong shoulders of the one who
alone
is able to bear them up.
Amen.”
America’s teens are not all right. As Derek Thomas recently wrote in an Atlantic article entitled “Why American Teens are So Sad,”
From 2009-2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent. [This] is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded. [Almost] every measure of mental health is getting worse, for every teenage demographic, and it’s happening all across the country.
What Thomas is describing goes far beyond typical adolescent angst. In fact, according to the National Institute of Health, other risky behaviors traditionally chalked up to adolescence—such as drinking and driving, fighting at school, and even underage sex—are significantly down. Nor can these declines in mental health be blamed on the pandemic or lockdowns. Rather, these were “pre-existing conditions” that, though certainly aggravated, were not caused by the social chaos of the last two years.
Thomas suggests four converging cultural realities that are contributing to this crisis: social media, social isolation, the extra-stressful global situation, and today’s parenting styles.
Over a decade ago, psychologist Jean Twenge warned about the effect of smartphones on teenage brains. Since then, the prevalence of social media has unleashed new levels of comparison, exposure, and image problems on a demographic already wired to care too much about what their peers think. Instagram’s own research found that while a third of teenage girls say the app “makes them feel worse,” they cannot keep from logging on.
Even so, writes Thomas,
the biggest problem with social media might be not social media itself, but rather the activities that it replaces. [Compared] with their counterparts in the 2000s, today’s teens are less likely to go out with their friends, get their driver’s license, or play youth sports.
And, of course, it also matters what teens are encountering on the screens that are such a big part of their lives. Even more than TV or print media, phones bombard teens with 24/7 coverage of the world’s problems, creating a near-constant sense of fear and foreboding. These days, teens deal with more than just the stress of preparing for college. Alone in their rooms, they are worrying about the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, climate change, and whether they have been sufficiently “woke” on various issues.
In response to all of the social chaos, many parents are choosing what Thomas calls an “accommodative” parenting style. It is very tempting for parents, instead of letting teens experience life’s normal bumps and bruises, to insulate them. “If a girl is afraid of dogs, an ‘accommodation’ would be keeping her away from every friend’s house with a dog, or if a boy won’t eat vegetables, feeding him nothing but turkey loaf for four years” (which, he points out, is a true story).
That strategy, sometimes called “lawnmower parenting,” ultimately backfires. When every challenge on the path is mowed down, a child struggles to develop the resiliency necessary to confront the inevitable obstacles ahead. In the end, a world cannot be prepared for a child. A child needs to be prepared for the world.
Every factor that Thomas identifies certainly contributes to the current mental health crisis among teens. However, there is more to consider.
In his book, The Content Trap, Bharat Anand tells the story of the 1988 Yellowstone fire, infamously started by a single unextinguished cigarette. But Anand asks a critical question: Why that cigarette? After all, hundreds of cigarettes are dropped in Yellowstone every year. What was different this time?
The answer, he argues, is not found by focusing on the spark—but the environmental factors that turned Yellowstone into a tinderbox. The extremely dry summer of 1988, the driest on record, combined with the park’s controlled burn policy meant, as one former park superintendent put it, “We were a perfect setup to burn.”
Social media, parenting strategies, and world events are definite sparks for a mental health crisis (as are others such as the breakdown of the family and increased availability of substances to abuse), but it’s the prevalent cultural worldview that makes devastating cultural wildfires inevitable.
Our real cultural crisis is a catastrophic, culture-wide loss of meaning. Philosophers warned it was coming, as did social scientists, and now we are living with the existential results of a culture untethered from God, and therefore untethered from any fixed reference point for truth, morality, identity, and meaning. It is a tinderbox in which any spark, whether social media or addiction or lockdowns or something else, is destined to explode.
It is also a tinderbox primed for a different kind of spark, one which can point people again to the God Who infused His world with meaning. This spark is Christ-changed people, shaped by redemption, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and armed with the truth and love about life, the world, and what it all means.
Maria opens BreakPoint This Week asking John for some insight into who Chuck Colson was. It's been 10 years since Chuck Colson's passing following a final message at a Wilberforce Weekend in 2012. Highlighting attributes he remembers about Chuck, John explains the legacy he gave to the Colson Center.
Then, John and Maria explore how Florida is quickly becoming ground zero for the culture wars. John explains that a series of actions from the Florida Legislature and Governor DeSantis are causing sparks in the Sunshine State.
To close, Maria asks John about the significance of a college professor's day in court after the professor refused to call on a student using the student's preferred pronouns.
-- Recommendations --
These Precious Days
By Ann Patchett The Secular Case for Christianity
Common Sense - Bari Weiss Substack | By Tim DeRoche
-- References --
Wilberforce Weekend>>
Carl Trueman - Colson Center Offering in April>>
Segment 1:
Chuck Colson’s Leadership
One of the first projects after I joined the Colson Center team was a curriculum project called Doing the Right Thing. This film series reflected how Chuck understood those issues that plagued prison and the rest of our society. Upstream from the brokenness and evil was a lack of moral formation, an abandonment of right and wrong, and a neglect of virtue. In this film series, Chuck issued a clarion call for Christians to influence our communities with the Christian worldview. Christianity was, after all, a better way of being human
BreakPoint>>
Chuck Colson’s Last Address
At the 2012 Wilberforce Weekend, Chuck collapsed on stage. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where, on April 21, he died. His final words may have been delivered with less energy than some of us were used to hearing from Chuck, but with no less lucidity or passion.
BreakPoint>>
Segment 2:
Florida Rejects Math Texts For 'Indoctrinating' Kids?
Florida called for textbook submissions from publishers in 2021 in accordance with a 2019 executive order from DeSantis aimed at eliminating Common Core standards in the state. The textbooks rejected "were impermissible with either Florida’s new standards or contained prohibited topics."
The 41% rejection rate was the highest in Florida's history.
FoxNews
Florida Senate passes bill to strip Disney's special self-governing status
The Florida House still has to vote on the measure, which would dissolve the special taxing district that allows Disney to operate much like a local government.
NBC>>
Ron DeSantis takes his culture war to the next level
(Gov. Ron DeSantis) has been outspoken in opposition to mitigation measures to slow the spread of Covid-19. (Florida was one of the last states to close down in the midst of the original outbreak in spring of 2020 and one of the first states to re-open after the initial wave.)
He's championed civic literacy efforts aimed at teaching students the dangers posed by socialism and communism. "You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed," DeSantis has said of the moves. "We don't want that in Florida, you need to have a true contest of ideas, students should not be shielded from ideas and we want robust First Amendment speech on our college and university campuses."
CNN>>
Segment 3:
Shawnee State: Professors must speak contrary to their beliefs or be punished
In January, during a political philosophy class he was teaching, Meriwether responded to a male student’s question by saying, “Yes, sir.” Meriwether responded in this fashion because he refers to all his students as “sir” or “ma’am” or by a title (Mr. or Miss, for example) followed by their last name to foster an atmosphere of seriousness and mutual respect.
After the class, the student approached Meriwether, stated that he was transgender, and demanded that the professor refer to him as a woman, with feminine titles and pronouns. When Meriwether did not instantly agree, the student became belligerent, circling around Meriwether and getting in his face in a threatening fashion while telling him, “Then I guess this means I can call you a c**t.” Before walking away, the student promised to get Meriwether fired if he did not agree to the student’s demands.
The student then filed a complaint with the university, which launched a formal investigation. Meriwether offered to call the student by his first or last name only, but university officials rejected this and anything else that would allow him to speak according to his conscience and sincerely held religious beliefs. Instead, they formally charged him, saying “he effectively created a hostile environment” for the student. Later, they placed a written warning in his personnel file and threatened “further corrective actions” unless he articulates the university’s ideological message.
ADF>>
Professor disciplined for refusing to use transgender student’s pronouns to receive $400K in settlement
In a statement, Shawnee State said the settlement was an “economic decision” and that it continues to stand behind a student’s right to a discrimination-free learning environment while also allowing its faculty and staff to freely express their beliefs.
The Hill>>
According to The New York Times, some teens are choosing to keep their masks on, even after pandemic mandates end . The reason isn’t because they fear Covid. It’s due to anxiety.
“The mask has offered teens a way to hide some of their anxiety symptoms and emotions from others, and wearing it has also made many of them feel ‘normal’ and ‘like everybody else,’” writes Emily Sohn.
The last two plus years have been tough on teenagers. Rates of Anxiety and suicidal thinking are both high post-pandemic, as is social media use.
One psychologist described the “imaginary audience” with which many teens constantly deal: an invisible jury of peers scrutinizing their every decision. Only, in the age of social media, the audience isn’t so “imaginary.”
Masks, by contrast, provide a degree of relief via anonymity. Even if teens feel the need to hide their faces, they were made for face-to-face interaction. The lack of it—whether from isolation or screens—is no way forward.
We have to help students steward technology and their anxieties. A big part of that will mean investing in relationships that are out of the spotlight.
This week, the Colson Center has remembered our founder, Chuck Colson, on the 10th anniversary of his death. Though the Colson Center is part of Chuck’s outsized legacy, we are not a memorial organization. We’ve often joked that if the Colson Center were only about playing a tape recorder of Chuck’s commentaries, he would come back and haunt us from the grave.
Chuck had a vision for the Church: that it would be the Church. And, he had a vision for the Colson Center: that it would serve and equip the Church to fulfill her calling. We’re still as committed to that vision as we were when Chuck was with us.
I’m constantly amazed at how prescient Chuck was. He foresaw many things that have, since his death, become realities. Today, I want you to hear from Chuck Colson about the necessity of courage in this cultural moment:
The critical question in the West today is, “Can freedom survive where virtue isn’t able to flourish?” A friend of mine who is a member of a good, strong evangelical church, met with his pastor to urge him to get more involved in some of today’s worldview and cultural battles. The pastor drew back in his chair and said, “You know, I have one great regret about my ministry: that I got involved in the gay marriage debate. We lost several members over there.” My friend was speechless as I would have been. What do you say to somebody who denies the clear teaching of Scripture or who in this case stands up for it, but then regrets it? Where was this man’s courage?
I wish I could say this was an isolated instance. It isn’t, friends. We’re navigating through rough waters in the culture today, and we’re woefully unprepared. Oh, sure we have all kinds of information at our fingertips. Amazing technology, vast resources our forebearers could only dream of, but we’re lacking something far more important: character.
That’s why on this morning, and for the next few weeks I want to talk about the building blocks of character: the four classic Greek virtues and the three Christian virtues. Today, we’ll look at the first and I believe most important virtue, courage.
Now courage is not a lack of fear. It’s the willingness to do what you have to do in the face of your fear. Courage, Jerry Root and Stan Guthrie note in their book The Sacrament of Evangelism is the habit of saying yes to the right action, even at the risk of pain or loss. Courage never gives up. Courage sticks with the task until it’s done. Courage faces one’s fears and does the right thing in spite of them.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, of course, would be near the top of anybody’s list of courageous Christians. He had the courage to defy the Nazis at the cost of his life. On his last day, Bonhoeffer held a brief service for his fellow prisoners. A contemporary who was there describes the scene. It’s described in Eric Metaxas’ wonderful book Bonhoeffer, which I strongly recommend. Bonhoeffer hardly finished his last prayer when the door opened and two evil-looking men in civilian clothes came in and said, “Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us.”
“Bonhoeffer came over to me,” the man writes, “drew me aside, and he said, ‘This is the end, but for me the beginning of life.’” Bonhoeffer and countless martyrs like him through the ages had the courage to stand up to evil in the name of Christ and pay the ultimate price.
Do we have the courage to lay it all on the line? Do we have the courage to speak out for traditional marriage when we know we’ll be called bigots and worse? Or would you have the courage to stand up at a school board meeting and speak against a curriculum that indoctrinates kids and sexual license? You have to prepare to be shouted down. Believe me, it takes courage to take an unpopular stand and risk our popularity, our reputations, and maybe even lose a few church members.
Now I could be wrong. But the continuing assault on religious liberty is a test. If we lack the courage to defend our religious freedom, then we will lose all other freedoms as well. Remember this.
However, it’s easier to summon up courage when you know someone has your back. I learned this well. When I was a lieutenant in the Marines, I knew my men had my back and I had theirs—that they would have laid down their life for me. That inspired courage in me. I have to say, too, that when we act for goodness for truth, Jesus Christ has our back. He is the source of our courage, He who laid down his life for us.
Ten years ago yesterday, Chuck Colson went to be with the Lord. We are grateful for his life, for the work of Christ to make Chuck a new creation, for his remarkable life of passion and leadership, and for the privilege of being part of his ongoing work and legacy.
Christian legal experts are bracing for the Biden administration to issue a reversal of a 2019 “conscience rule,” which protected faith-based groups from being forced to violate their beliefs. To quote one Christian attorney, reversing the protection would create “an existential threat to religious-based employers,” who would be forced to provide services, such as abortifacients or gender assignment surgery, or face fines, lawsuits and legal challenges that would drive them out of business.
If they are to respond in a helpful way, Christians first need to remember the basics of religious liberty: It’s for all individuals, it’s the cornerstone of a free and democratic society, and it’s the first freedom from which every other freedom springs.
Respecting the right to conscience provides a setting in which both people and society can thrive. Remove it, and there’s nothing to stop some future administration or regime from imposing its worldview on millions of people.
Religious liberty might be the direct result of a Judeo-Christian worldview, but it’s the birthright of every American—and it’s worth fighting for.
Ten years ago today, Chuck Colson met Jesus Christ face-to-face in eternity. As many would note later, Chuck Colson died in a way fitting for a marine, with “his boots on.” I was sitting on the stage behind Chuck as he delivered what would be his final speech.
At the 2012 Wilberforce Weekend, Chuck collapsed on stage. He was taken by ambulance to the hospital where, on April 21, he died. His final words may have been delivered with less energy than some of us were used to hearing from Chuck, but with no less lucidity or passion. Here’s Chuck Colson:
My topic is the cultural environment today. Culture and a crossroads, which indeed it is, and what you’ve just witnessed with the Department of Health and Human Services attempting to impose a mandate on the Church, that the Church and Christian groups and religious organizations would have to provide insurance for things which violate our conscience and that we wouldn’t be allowed conscience for exemptions.
What’s extraordinary is that there haven’t been battles of religious liberty ever since the nation was founded and most of them have ended up in court decisions. Sometimes legislative. This is the first time in history, which is why Cardinal Wuerl here in Washington said, “This is the most serious invasion of the Church by government ever.” This is the first time it’s been done by a bureaucrat in a government agency simply writing it and then putting it out as law. Normally in a court case, you get a chance to argue both sides, but there wasn’t a chance for two sides to be argued this time. It was done by executive fiat.
This is a moment in which the Church has to learn how to defend itself against this sort of thing and do it in a way that is constructive with what we’re witnessing in our culture today. The HHS mandate is but the tip of the iceberg. It’s about the latest visible manifestation of a growing hostility towards Christianity mainly because—this has always been the case— government officials feel threatened by the power of the Church because we all worship a king higher than the kings of this Earth. And that’s seen as a threat, and we’re also seen as wanting to impose our views on people.
Don’t let them tell you that we don’t propose to impose anything. We propose an invitation to the wedding feast to come to a better way of living, a better way of life. And it is the great proposal. We couldn’t impose if we wanted to impose, and we don’t want to impose in a democracy. You can’t. So, we need to be very clear about who we are and what we do and why we do it.
What we’re seeing now is the full fruits that have come from 30 years of relativism, death of truth in the academy particularly and in public discourse, and the coarsening of public-discourse question of politics. Everybody looks at the elections and thinks the elections are going to settle this problem. Elections are important for who it is who serves in office. It makes a difference what kind of person that is and what that person believes.
But elections can’t solve the problem. We’ve got the problem that our culture has been decaying from the inside for 30 or 40 years, and politics is nothing but an expression of culture. So how do you fix the culture? Culture is actually formed by the belief system of the people, by the cult, which was what the Church has been historically. So if things are bad, I don’t think it’s going to be solved by election: It’s going to be solved by us. You have a healthy cult, you have a healthy culture, have a healthy culture of healthy politics.
So it comes right back to us. Look in the mirror: That’s where the problem is. And if we can through the Church renew the Church too, really bring healthy cultural influence, then there’s some hope that we can be changed. I think Eric is right that this is a moment. This is a moment when the time is right for a movement of God’s people under the power of the holy spirit to begin to impact the culture we live in. It’s desperately needed. This is why I’ve been spending so much time in recent years teaching biblical worldview because I think that’s at the root of our problems. Once we can get that understood by the Church: that it is a worldview and we have to live it and express it and contend for it.
Otherwise, it’s not going to be. You’ll see that continued deterioration of the culture and all that goes with it. So, I think the responsibility has to be taken by the Church for a movement that will bring back the authority and strength and winsomeness of the Church, which then in turn affects the culture.
Chuck’s final passion was to see the Church embrace the fullness of the Lordship of Christ and be the Church in this cultural moment. Many of us took these final words, delivered at the 2012 Wilberforce Weekend, as a calling. The Colson Center exists to carry this mission forward.
John and Shane reflect on who Chuck Colson was and the legacy he left in the Colson Center. A listener writes in asking for some context to the organization, noting that this is the 10th anniversary of Chuck's passing.
John and Shane then provide some answers to how a public school parent can work to impact their community. A single-parent writes in asking how a parent can guide a student in the public arena noting the challenges in curriculum and ideology taught in public schools that oppose a Christian worldview.
As pressure continues to mount on institutions to accommodate the sexual revolution, it’s no longer possible to avoid the issues or craft a “third way.” Yet, colleges keep trying.
Recently, Calvin University spun off a department to accommodate a lesbian staffer who wished to marry her same-sex partner, and the assistant professor who presided over the ceremony. The staffer quit after Calvin asked her to keep her “marriage” quiet.
Writing at WORLD Opinions, Bart Gingerich points out that attempts by Christian colleges to thread this moral needle makes nobody happy and everyone upset, including donors and board members committed to Christian truth, and the LGBTQ students and staff committed to full affirmation.
Over the last few years, other colleges have attempted similar flip-flops, for example, deciding to allow LGBTQ “romance” among students but not sex, then reversing the decision, then reversing the reversal…none of the attempts have gone well.
It’s time for Christian institutions that want to remain meaningfully Christian to make decisions, and when they do, we should remember what Jesus said about serving two masters.
Ten years ago this week, Chuck Colson went to be with the Lord. After his time in the White House and then in prison and then in leading the largest ministry to prisoners and their families in the world, the great passion of the last few years of Chuck’s life was advancing a Christian worldview. He worked and prayed so that, as he often put it, the Church would be the church. One of the first projects after I joined the Colson Center team was a curriculum project called Doing the Right Thing. This film series reflected how Chuck understood those issues that plagued prison and the rest of our society. Upstream from the brokenness and evil was a lack of moral formation, an abandonment of right and wrong, and a neglect of virtue. In this film series, Chuck issued a clarion call for Christians to influence our communities with the Christian worldview. Christianity was, after all, a better way of being human:
I have a peculiar habit in my life. I read the Bible every morning, but I also read The New York Times through clenched teeth. I have to. I do it because I write BreakPoint radio broadcasts every day, and I usually get half my BreakPoints out of The New York Times, out of some of the silly things they say. It’s wonderful. I mean for a guy like me who’s writing biblical commentary on public events The Times is indispensable. I should be paying twice as much for my subscription.
But one morning I picked it up and—let me tell you what—I read the extraordinary Thomas Friedman, a great writer of The World Is Flat, a great thinker, very liberal, secular Jew. Thomas Friedman wrote a column about why America was number one in the world by all ratings and all polls and all standards and all measurements for years and years and years and all of a sudden it appears number 11 on the list. What happened? Everybody’s talking about Newsweek’s cover list of the most important and influential nations in the world, the best nations in the world. America’s number 11.
So, Friedman writes a column in which he restates the whole thesis of all of his books, which is that the world is flat. Everybody’s got access to all the same resources and tools, and therefore we’re all equal now. But here’s what he says at the end about why America is number 11. This is the conclusion of his column: China and India have been catching up to America not only via cheap labor and currencies; they’re catching up with us because they now have free markets like we do, education like we do, access to capital and technology. They alike in what we do.
But most importantly—listen. Most importantly, they have values like our greatest generation: They have a willingness to postpone gratification questions. That’s a Christian virtue, deferred gratification, paying your bills, providing for your kids in the future. In a flat world where everyone has access to everything, values matter more than ever. And listen to this coming from a secular Jew. Right now, the Hindus and Confucianists have more Protestant ethics than we do. And as long as that is the case, we will be number 11.
All of you know that I spent my life, the last 35 years going into prisons. I love it. I have a passion for it: to bring the Gospel to prisoners who are absolutely loved. But I discovered early on that the reason the prisons were being filled wasn’t all the sociological theories about crime that we hear generally. It was the fact studied at Harvard in 1986 by two great social scientists: the lack of moral training during the morally formative years.
It hit me that we are raising a generation that lacks male role models. The family has broken down. These kids aren’t learning character. Where does character come from? It comes from habits that you learn in the family first. That’s the first basic structure that Aristotle once said is the first school of human instruction. It comes from associations that you become part of, where you find your identity—you find role models and other people. That’s how character forms.
You cannot teach character. All these courses going in public schools today about teaching character. It’s a joke because you can’t teach character. You learn character. You learn character by living with people who create an environment which is righteous where people live righteously in that environment. That’s how you do it. So, I thought to myself, “This is really a problem.” And I had had this experience at Harvard, and then I’d spoken at schools all across the country.
I ended up speaking at the 2nd Marine Division where I started out as a platoon commander in the 1950s. The commanding general invited me back to give a speech on ethics. Grizzled-up old master sergeant stood up to me, and he said, “Mr. Colson, which is more important, loyalty or integrity?” Ah, got it! I wish I had thought about that when I was in the Oval Office. Whoa! They really got it. But the result of this, when I was realizing what was happening in the prisons, was I thought, “I’ve got to do something about ethics.”
When I said, “Wouldn’t it be something if five million Americans started to do the right thing?” one of my friends said to me, “You’d turn the country upside down.” It can happen. I want to see that. That’s my goal. That’s why I’m standing here today. I want to see five million people, 2% of the population of this country start doing the right thing, start practicing virtue.
That was Chuck Colson describing the potential influence that he believed Christians could have on our society. Join us tomorrow to hear a clip from Chuck Colson’s very last public speech, delivered at the 2012 Wilberforce Weekend.
One company is proposing an innovative digital solution for loneliness. “Replika” is an AI chat-bot created “for anyone who wants a friend with no judgment, drama, or social anxiety involved.”
The company makes audacious claims. “Feeling down, anxious, having trouble getting to sleep, or managing negative emotions?” the website asks. “Replika can help.” Presumably, this is by filling a relational void: a virtual “friend,” “mentor,” “boyfriend,” or “girlfriend” … whatever the user wants.
If you think that’s both weird and problematic, you’re right. Replika promises the loneliest generation on record a technological answer that only people can deliver.
It’s a gimmick now, but what happens when the technology is perfected?
What pornography is to lust, Replika could easily become to loneliness. Like pornography, it can never solve the underlying problem.
Young people are hurting and longing for a better answer. There is one. Real friendship always exposes us to the risk of social anxiety, drama, or judgment … but it’s worth it. The Church has a chance to model the real thing, so they’ll never be fooled by a replica.
Evidence is mounting of possible war crimes by Russia and, on a vastly smaller scale, by Ukraine. We can be sure, given that every act of warring nations is documented on social media today, that the truth will come out. But where did the idea come from that some ways of fighting wars crossed some sort of civilized line? Who decided where that line should be drawn? Where did the very notion of “war crimes” come from?
Union Major General Sherman, the general behind the infamous Sherman’s March during the Civil War, famously said that “War is hell.” International laws on war crimes are a historically recent innovation intended to mitigate how terrible and devastating war becomes. They are attempts to prevent war from descending entirely into hell, especially for non-combatants.
In the West, the primary sources for laws governing how war should be waged are found in Just War Theory. The earliest idea that war should be governed and moderated, however, dates long before any formal formulation of Just War Theory. In Deuteronomy 20, Moses instructed the Israelites not to kill the women and children of their enemies.
Much later, the Roman Republic would embrace three criteria for waging war: first, that it had to be waged for a legally sound reason, such as in response to aggression; second, that it had to be declared by someone legally authorized to do so; and third, that it had to be waged justly. As ethically innovative as that may sound, the Romans still had no problem using horrific tactics, such as rape, torture, enslavement, and terrorism, in their warfare.
It was Christian thinkers, especially Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, who most fully developed the ideas governing if and how war was to be waged. This Judeo-Christian approach eventually influenced the formation of the code of chivalry in Medieval Europe. Like the injunctions in Deuteronomy 20, the code was eventually expanded to include the protection of women and non-combatants, with the ideal of the knight being a protector of the weak. Though in the throes of war, these ideals were rarely followed, the code held among the nobles. For example, if a knight unnecessarily killed another knight in combat, he could be charged with murder. This was not considered a war crime, however.
In the wake of the brutality of the Spanish conquests in the Americas, thinkers such as 16th century Spanish theologian and jurist Francisco de Vitoria began to argue that war was never part of God’s plan and could only be justified on the grounds of the common good. Thus, consideration of war and warfare shifted from a topic within theology to the emerging realm of international law.
At the same time, the emergence of gunpowder armies and other military technologies made war increasingly destructive. As weapons became more powerful, the ability of armies to target civilians grew as well. This led to legal attempts in the 19th century to restrict warfare.
The first international treaty on warfare was the 1864 Geneva Convention, which covered the treatment of sick and wounded prisoners of war. This was followed by the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which also banned weapons such as poison gas, the killing of surrendering prisoners, looting, and the bombardment of undefended towns. The 1925 Geneva Protocol supplemented the ban on chemical weapons with a ban on biological weapons. Protections afforded to civilians were expanded in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. In 2008, the U.N. Security Council added rape and sexual violence to the list of war crimes.
Although a few Germans were tried for war crimes after the first World War I, it was the Nuremberg Trials and the lesser known International Military Tribunal for the Far East after World War II that most fully established the idea of war crimes and holding violators accountable. Since 2002, such trials have been handled by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In the U.S., war crimes can be prosecuted using the 1996 War Crimes Act and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Despite all the conventions, treaties, and laws, war crimes continue to be a part of every military conflict and are often perpetrated by all sides. Heads of state and others have been prosecuted, from a range of countries, while others have escaped accountability altogether. It is important to remember that the U.S. has been guilty of war crimes, such as the violations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The very concept of war crimes is rooted in the Judeo-Christian understanding that in a deeply flawed world, war is at times a horrible necessity. However, the desired ends of nations, even if noble, do not justify the means. The waging of war, even if just, must not violate the inherent dignity of human beings. In other words, all is not fair in love and war, and to whatever extent we can control, war should not be hell.
In the midst of brutality, the war in Ukraine is revealing stories of courage, beauty, and human decency in the face of evil.
The Polish city of Przemyśl is situated on Ukraine’s western border. According to the BBC, over 4 million Ukrainians, about 10% of the population, have fled their country since the war’s beginning. Poland has received more than half of them.
What makes their kindness ever more incredible and significant is that during World War II, Ukrainian nationalist groups killed over 100,000 Poles in the region of East Galicia. This led to Polish reprisals and an ongoing cycle of violence, ethnic tensions which remained until quite recently.
Today, this Polish city has been transformed into a refugee hub: locals giving their own time and resources to house and resettle those fleeing the war. As one veterinarian put it, “We have to help. It’s our destiny.”
It’s a beautiful reminder that there’s something deeper than borders, political gridlock, or even ethnic tension: when other image bearers of God are seen and treated as neighbors.
-- www.wilberforceweekend.org --
Virginia Prodan grew up in Communist Romania. Unaware of the truth about her own family — including why her family never showed the slightest hint of love toward her — she discovered God’s Truth and Love as a teenager.
Virginia accepted the divine call to defend fellow followers of Christ against unjust persecution in an otherwise ungodly land as a human rights attorney.
For this act of treason, she came within seconds of being executed under the orders of Ceausescu himself. How Virginia not only managed to defeat her enemies time and again, but helped expose the appalling secret that would lead to the demise of Ceausescu’s evil empire is one of the most extraordinary stories ever told.
BreakPoint This Week Co-Host and Wilberforce Weekend Emcee Maria Baer sat down with Virginia to discuss Virginia's session on forgiveness at the upcoming Wilberforce Weekend.
I’m Kathy Koch of Celebrate Kids here in Fort Worth, and I want to talk with you about how God made us good. I think God is good and God is a good Creator. And if children, teens, or adults don’t know that, then it doesn’t matter to them that they’re created in His image. That’s how my friend, Dr. Kathy Koch began her presentation at last year’s Wilberforce Weekend event. In a remarkable talk, which many attendees identified as the highlight of the conference, Koch talked about something incredibly elusive in this cultural moment: a settled identity. In Psalm 139, verses 13 and 14 declare that we have been formed by God in our inward parts. It says in Psalm 139:13 that Father God knitted us together in our mother’s womb. Knitting is a precise skill; the knitter knows before starting what he is making, or he’d better not start. Otherwise he’d have a mittens-scarf-hat-afghan sweater thing.
The size of the stitch and the needle, the color of the yarn, and the design of the creation is known before the knitter begins.
For years, Dr. Kathy Koch has taught the truth about God’s design of human beings, especially how to help children grasp who they are. Tomorrow, she joins the Lighthouse Voices Series to speak about how parents, educators, and mentors can secure the hearts of children for God. The Lighthouse Voices Series is sponsored by Focus on the Family and the Colson Center. If you live in the Holland, Michigan area, please join us in person. If not, please join us online for the live stream.
Childhood matters. In our culture, children are too often the victims of adults pursuing their own happiness. If children are to experience their full potential, they must learn to see themselves as the image bearers they are. How can we point children to God? How can we help them understand who they are when there are so many competing voices? How can we help them emerge as adults, stewarding their gifts and talents for the glory of God? How can they grow up to be who God created them to be?
Tomorrow night, Dr. Kathy will share three essential beliefs and three communication approaches that can help us secure our children’s hearts for God. You’ll appreciate her upbeat instruction, her practical and realistic ideas, and her tremendous speaking ability.
The verse that revolutionized my understanding of God’s creative intent is the end of Psalm 139:14 where David writes on behalf of God: My soul knows very well that I am a wonderful work of the creative intent of God. A fearfully and wonderfully creation made in His image.
Dr. Kathy Koch is founder and president of Celebrate Kids, and is one of the best speakers I have ever heard. She is practical, relevant, and gives a results-oriented approach that’s grounded in a Christian worldview. She helps parents, grandparents, teachers, and anyone caring for kids do so in a way that’s engaging and honoring of the image bearers that children are.
Dr. Kathy’s presentation in our Lighthouse Voices series will guide us to secure children’s hearts. Her talk will be practical, powerful, and impactful.
I hope you’ll register to attend, either in person or through the live stream, tomorrow, Tuesday April 19, at 5:45pm for those in the Holland Michigan area, and at 7pm for the livestream.
To register visit www.colsoncenter.org/events
Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet introduces a sermon given by Chuck Colson from a Prison in Michigan in 2010. Nearly every Easter, Chuck visited a prison to give the Gospel. In this presentation we hear why, and the significance of Easter to Chuck Colson.
John and Maria discuss new findings in teen sadness and what it means for culture. They also discuss a recent podcast by Jen Hatmaker and what it means to misunderstand what church is and what church is for.
To close, John explains the landscape of a recent BreakPoint commentary on the roots of Easter. He shares how Easter is a pivotal moment in history that changed the course of humanity.
-- In-Show Mentions --
Segment 1:
New York City subway shooting attack timeline Frank R. James, the 62-year-old man accused of popping a smoke canister in a crowded New York City subway car before opening fire during the Tuesday morning rush hour, is in police custody after a good Samaritan spotted him walking down a Manhattan sidewalk in broad daylight Wednesday.
In 30 hours between the attack and his arrest, investigators obtained and distributed images of the suspect in the hope that the public could help catch him. They searched a storage unit and apartment linked to him in Philadelphia, which he had spoken of in numerous videos posted to a now-disabled YouTube channel. And he may have taunted investigators by calling in the tip line to report himself, according to law enforcement sources, even as a security camera technician spotted him in the East Village and turned him in.
FoxNews>>
Why American Teens Are So Sad
The United States is experiencing an extreme teenage mental-health crisis. From 2009 to 2021, the share of American high-school students who say they feel “persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” rose from 26 percent to 44 percent, according to a new CDC study. This is the highest level of teenage sadness ever recorded.
The government survey of almost 8,000 high-school students, which was conducted in the first six months of 2021, found a great deal of variation in mental health among different groups. More than one in four girls reported that they had seriously contemplated attempting suicide during the pandemic, which was twice the rate of boys. Nearly half of LGBTQ teens said they had contemplated suicide during the pandemic, compared with 14 percent of their heterosexual peers. Sadness among white teens seems to be rising faster than among other groups.
The Atlantic>>
Derek Thompson on This Week in Startups>>
Segment 2:
What is Church? With Jen Hatmaker
1999: 70% of US adults said they belonged to a religious institution. 2020: It fell to 47%. Why are people leaving & where are they going? Is the church experience still relevant & what is its future?
Jen Hatmaker Youtube>>
Is Easter a Pagan Holiday?
Most Christians consider Easter to be a sacred and joyous celebration of Christ’s resurrection. But what about the claim that Easter and its accompanying traditions originated from a pagan spring celebration?
BreakPoint>>
One of my all-time favorite B.C. comic strips has two guys talking. “I hate the term Good Friday,” says one. “Why?” says the other guy. “My Lord was hanged on a tree that day,” the first guy replies. “But if you were going to be hanged on that day,” his friend says, “and He volunteered to take your place, how would you feel?” “Good,” the first guy replies. And there it is. Today marks the greatest act of love in the history of the universe: “he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Today on very a special BreakPoint podcast, we air four of Chuck Colson’s classic BreakPoint commentaries reflecting on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the day that, as he said, tells “the truth about everything.”
Today, on Good Friday, we remember, honor, and reflect on the God who entered the world of human suffering on our behalf.
“I thirst.”
Only John’s Gospel records these words. They were uttered by Jesus, we’re told, not as a guttural physical response, but with intention: “Knowing that all was now finished,” Jesus said, “I thirst” in order to fulfill the Scriptures (John 19:28). And yet, we ought not think these words are manufactured or insincere either.
Earlier in His ministry, Jesus had, on the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, “stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7:37). “The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13–14).
And now, on the cross, He who said these words was Himself thirsty. Why are we told this? Why is the fact that Jesus thirsted important?
The world changed on All Saints Day in 1755. In Lisbon, Portugal, a 10-minute earthquake, followed by a tsunami and fires, killed an estimated 60,000 people, many crushed by collapsing churches where they had gathered to celebrate that Christian holy day.
According to moral philosopher Susan Neiman, for many Western intellectuals this incident of natural evil proved that God could no longer be trusted. The French philosopher Voltaire offered scathing words in a poem:
“Are you then sure,” he wrote, “the power which would create
The universe and fix the laws of fate,
Could not have found for man a proper place,
But earthquakes must destroy the human race?”
And so in the modern era, trust moved from God to man. And it seemed to work: The next few centuries were marked by technological advances, scientific progress, and scholarly criticism of the Bible.
However, the peak of modernism was the 20th century, which revealed that trust in man was badly misplaced: the mechanized slaughter of millions in two world wars, Communism, Auschwitz, and the threat of nuclear annihilation. So where do we turn now if we can’t trust God or man?
The cross directly addresses this world of moral and natural evil: As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5).
The cross proves that God is not aloof from human suffering as Voltaire had imagined, nor will human evil have the final say. Our God once thirsted, like we do. He bled, as we do, in this existence of fallen people and a fallen world. In Christ, God entered the world of human suffering, suffered Himself, defeated suffering and now has the scars to prove it.
Nearly two centuries after Voltaire, theologian Edward Shillito, offered a poem with a very different take on the suffering we experience. Here are two stanzas of that poem:
“If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow;
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars. . .
“The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”
Today on Good Friday, we remember, we worship and proclaim this God, Jesus of the scars. To Him be all glory and praise forever and ever. Amen.
And before I leave you today, I want to invite you to come to BreakPoint.org for a free pdf that the Colson Center team has prepared on the seven last sayings of Christ from the cross. It’s a beautiful booklet, with reflections from our team and sacred art to help you reflect this Easter season on what Jesus suffered and said for our benefit. Again, it’s at BreakPoint.org.
In the church calendar, the Thursday before Easter is called Maundy Thursday. It’s set aside to remember the last supper Jesus shared with his disciples.
The word “maundy” comes from the Latin word for command. At this supper. Jesus commanded His disciples to love and serve one another. And then he demonstrated what he meant by washing their feet. And let’s not forget: This was the supper remembering Passover, when the Jews remember God rescuing His people from Egypt, as described in Exodus. At this supper, Jesus revealed himself as the fulfillment of that event.
It’s His broken body and shed blood we are to remember. So is Christianity service or salvation? This divided the church in the 20th century and still does today. The answer is, it’s both. On the same night, Jesus commands us to remember that we need rescue by His broken body and spilled blood, and to show we have been rescued by loving and serving each other.
“Jesus would’ve baked the cake.”
“Christians hate LGBTQ people.”
“You’re on the wrong side of history”
“Why can’t you let them be ‘their true selves’?”
“That’s just your truth, not mine.”
And, perhaps most painful, especially when it comes from a friend or family member: “If you love me, you’d accept me for who I am.”
All of the slogans that leave Christians silent or shamed today are, at root, different ways of saying the same thing – that truth and love are incompatible. For people to tell the truth, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality and gender, is to be unloving and intolerant. And, to love someone is to affirm their choices.
There’s a uniquely “Christian” version of these slogans, too. Taking a moral stand, we are told, especially on questions so culturally controversial, is to distract from the Gospel. Instead, the Church must become more welcoming and avoid anything that makes people feel excluded from the Church. After all, we are told, isn’t the Gospel really about inclusivity?
Today, of all the days of Holy Week, directly confronts this mentality. Maundy Thursday is set aside on the Church calendar to remember the Last Supper. The word “maundy” comes from the Latin word for “mandate,” or “command.” At this first celebration of Communion, Jesus gave His disciples “a new command,” that they should love and serve each other. To demonstrate what He meant, He picked up a basin of water and a towel and washed their feet.
To fully understand His words and actions, recall that at this “Last Supper” and first Communion, Jesus and His disciples were obeying God’s original command, given to all Jews, to remember the Passover. God’s people were to never forget how they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus to issue a “new” command was an audacious thing to do, especially given how significantly God’s original command stood in Israel’s history and identity as a people.
Jesus, however, went even further than merely adding instructions to an old celebration. Now, rather than remembering how the angel of death “passed over” those homes with lamb’s blood on their doorposts, they were to remember His broken body and His shed blood. Ultimately, the new command was to remember a new rescue, and how, through Christ’s death, death is not merely avoided but finally defeated.
Since at least the mid-20th century, the American Church has been divided over whether it should be primarily about proclaiming truth or about serving others. More recently, the volume in this debate has significantly increased. The Lord’s Supper and Jesus’ “new” command remind us that this is a false dichotomy, an unnecessary choice to make. Truth and love need never be separated and should never be separated. On the same night Jesus when commanded us to remember how His broken body and shed blood rescues us from sin (that’s the truth), He commanded us to demonstrate our new life by serving others (that’s love).
We need not choose between truth and love. In fact, we must not choose. They always go together, because they are both grounded in the same Source, or specifically, the same Person.
Jesus embodied truth and love, not only in the event we commemorate this day, but every event we remember this Holy Week. He is truth. He is love.
And, He has risen. Indeed.
John and Shane discuss what a worldview is and if it can shelter racist sentiments. John gives a full explanation of worldview, and explains how the concept is both helpful and challenged in this cultural moment.
Then Shane asks John to explain how we know Adam is a historical figure. A listener writes in because a pastor he knows presents Adam as an idea inside Scripture.
To close, John explains an interesting trend in the United States where in some cases we're outpacing Europe in progressive actions. A listener asks for some explanation on the culture trends that are creating fertile soil for secular ideas.
Quantum theory boggles the mind. As science journalist John Horgan writes, quantum theory is “science’s most precise, powerful theory of reality. It has predicted countless experiments, spawned countless applications. The trouble is physicists and philosophers disagree over what it means, that is, what it says about how the world works.”
At the core of the disagreement is what matter consists of at the quantum, or the smallest, level. At that size, matter’s properties change when we try to observe it, even—amazingly—because we try to observe it. That’s led to over a century of frustrated efforts to understand exactly what the fundamental “stuff” of reality is. It’s not that these tiny things aren’t real; it’s that we can’t figure out what they’re like.
At the same time, quantum theory has proven explanatory power.
A theological parallel is the Trinity. We can’t comprehend exactly how the Godhead functions, but that doesn’t mean it’s not real.
As C.S. Lewis wrote back in 1952, if Christianity is true, it would be “at least as difficult as modern physics.”
And, we could add, just as rational.
Most Christians consider Easter to be a sacred and joyous celebration of Christ’s resurrection. But what about the claim that Easter and its accompanying traditions originated from a pagan spring celebration?
In his treatise On the Reckoning of Time, eighth-century English monk The Venerable Bede proposed that the word Easter comes from the name of a pagan goddess: “Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘Paschal month’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month.” Modern pagans latched onto this idea, and further associated Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring and fertility, with Ostara, a Germanic goddess of spring.
There are multiple problems with this theory, however, the Venerable Bede notwithstanding. For centuries, the Church fought to turn people from paganism. Therefore, it is unlikely that one of the most important Christian holidays would be named after a pagan goddess. More importantly, there is no evidence, aside from Bede, of a goddess named Eostre, nor is there evidence for a Germanic goddess named Ostara. The name Easter is only used in English, and its cognate Ostern in German. Everywhere else, even in Germanic languages such as Dutch, Norwegian, or Swedish, the word is derived from Pascha or Passover. And, since Resurrection Day was celebrated for hundreds of years before the Anglo-Saxons or Germans were converted, it is unconvincing that its name points to a pagan origin of the holiday. More likely, Bede was mistaken, either following a folk etymology or simply guessing.
In fact, where the day’s name does originate is a bit more complicated. New converts, after receiving intensive instruction, were baptized on Easter. Easter Sunday was known as Dominica in albis, or “the Sunday in white,” after the white robes worn by the catechumens. It may be that albis was misunderstood to be the plural of alba, or dawn, which was then translated into Old High German as eostarum. The words Easter and Ostern most likely are derived from that.
Another common argument is that Easter traditions such as rabbits and decorating eggs were pagan fertility symbols. Some modern pagans even claim, without evidence, that the worship of Ostara involved these very things. However, the connection of these items to Easter is much less elaborate and far more recent than any mythical pagan past.
During the Holy Week fast preceding Easter, Christians were prohibited from eating eggs. The chickens kept laying, however. Eggs laid during Holy Week were considered Holy Eggs. The practice of decorating them began in the thirteenth century, many centuries after Europe turned from paganism. The egg was seen as a symbol of the resurrection, with Christ bursting from the tomb in the same way the chick broke free from the egg.
As for rabbits, the timing of their association with Easter also eliminates the possibility that they are a holdover from pagan ideas. During the Middle Ages, rabbits were seen as innocent, good, and harmless, and as such were sometimes used as a symbol of Christ. However, they were not associated with Easter until the 17th century.
Another version of the “Easter has roots in paganism” idea associates the celebration of the resurrection with the ancient Sumerian myth of Tammuz and Ishtar. This myth, which is an explanation of the annual cycle of death in winter, tells of Tammuz and Ishtar spending half a year in the underworld, before a new birth when they are released for six months each spring. The myth bears little resemblance to resurrection story, especially the three days Jesus spent in the tomb and his once-and-for-all resurrection from the dead.
Even so, this pagan story and others like it may, in fact, be connected to Christianity, just not in the way we normally think. In fact, we may have it the wrong way around. As C. S. Lewis described in Mere Christianity:
And what did God do? …. He sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men.
Lewis believed that these myths were hints that God gave to the pagan world of the person and work of Christ. In other words, the argument that myths are the source of the story of the Resurrection has it exactly backwards. The Resurrection actually happened, and is the Reality to which these myths have always pointed.
And because the Resurrection actually happened, it is certainly worthy of celebrationg... with Hallelujahs, raised glasses, and lots of joy.
Dr. Christopher Yuan led our Time of Guided Prayer last week. He shared how the prayers of his parents, and hundreds of other believers, were used to lead him to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.
For more information on our Time of Guided Prayer please visit: www.breakpoint.org/praywithme
Recently, Twitter banned Christian satire site The Babylon Bee from their platform. Their offending tweet “awarded” Admiral Rachel Levine, the nation’s first transgender four-star admiral, with their satirical “Man of the Year Award.”
Clearly, big tech censorship is a problem. What should Christians do?
Christians, even in comedy, will have to continue to speak truths that people will not always want to hear … It’s too easy to look away, ignore controversy, and just focus on what are often called primary issues.
But truths about identity and sexuality are primary issues because they deal with the deepest questions of worldview: Who are we? And where does our design come from? Is humanity’s fundamental problem society’s lack of acceptance, or the wrongdoing we are each guilty of? Is the solution self-expression or self-surrender?
Wherever and however we can, Christians should do things differently, especially in the digital world. But we should never give in to the culture’s biggest demand: to stay silent on matters that matter the most.
Just a small sampling of recent headlines reveals what a disorienting cultural moment this is: Man wins a women’s swimming championship, Supreme Court nominee refuses to define the word woman, Biden administration endorses gender reassignment surgery for minors. Back in 2020, theologian and historian Dr. Carl Trueman provided a full account of how something that was unthinkable a generation ago became unquestionable today. The dramatic shifts in how we think about gender and sexuality are among the fruits (not roots) of a much deeper shift in how we think about the human person.
Trueman’s book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self described the origin story of what has been called “the cultural identity crisis.” Centuries ago, thinkers, writers, and activists began to rethink, redefine, and over-sexualize the concept of self. By describing this process, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self felt like a long-overdue answer key for our cultural moment. Weighing in at over 400 pages, it is the definitive account of the thinkers, ideas, expressions, and consequences of the sexual revolution.
Thankfully, Dr. Trueman also heard the many pleas for a less academic approach to these essential concepts, one that works out the same essential analysis but for those Christians dealing with the everyday chaos of the culture he so aptly describes. The new and much slimmer version is called Strange New World: How Thinkers and Activists Redefined Identity and Sparked the Sexual Revolution.
In it, Trueman tells the story of the development and propagation of ideas that sparked a revolution in how Western people think about themselves and others. Eventually, these ideas transformed how we think about sex and the human body, about social institutions like the family and the role of the state, and about meaning, purpose, and fulfillment.
Along the way, Trueman introduces the thinkers whose ideas sparked this revolution: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Wilhelm Reich, Germaine Greer, and others. Trueman connects how these thinkers built on one another’s ideas, and ultimately shaped the assumptions that now influence most Western people, even those who have never read these authors.
No assumption has been more influential than the idea that discovering and expressing our authentic, inner selves is the goal of life. Though it is as widely held today as any other belief in our modern world, it is not an assumption that most humans for most of history could have shared. A whole collection of forces has made this idea, which Trueman identifies as “expressive individualism,” thinkable. Now, it is the ideological foundation for so much of modern Western culture.
Another assumption that emerges in Trueman’s account is the idea that there is no such thing as a fixed human nature. According to this assumption, our faculties as a species, our moral ideals, and even our gendered bodies are like “playdough,” raw material to be molded according to our shifting desires and the whims of activists. Again, it is not hard to see where this leads.
Strange New World is more than a Reader’s Digest version of Rise and Triumph. It is a book to be carefully studied, especially by Christians committed to engaging this cultural moment with the truth and love of Christ. Increasingly, the battles over gender, sexuality, and selfhood are being fought in more areas of our lives: not just across political aisles or in courtrooms, but across dinner tables, classrooms, and social media feeds. Sometimes, those closest to us have radically different views of what human flourishing looks like, and these relationships can quickly become vulnerable, even volatile.
This month, the Colson Center is offering an opportunity for you to join us in studying the essential ideas in Carl Trueman’s new book Strange New World. For a gift of any amount, we will send you a copy of the book, a study guide Dr. Trueman has prepared to go along with the book, and a four-lesson digital course with Dr. Trueman and Colson Center theologian-in-residence Dr. Tim Padgett.
Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary to give, and to be better equipped to understand the increasingly strange headlines and issues of our moment.
The White House issued a series of documents for the “International Transgender Day of Visibility.” Even more than revealing a new progressive “baseline” when it comes to politics and gender, these documents foreshadow new and real threats to religious freedom.
For example, a statement from the Office of Population Affairs claimed that so-called gender-affirming treatment “improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender-diverse children and adolescents.” In this case, however, gender “affirming” means to encourage grade-school children to question their gender and, once they do, provide them with puberty blockers and hormone therapy to help them reject their bodies. In some cases, the document says, adolescents should even have access to so-called “gender-affirming surgery,” a procedure which removes or destroys perfectly healthy body parts and is irreversible.
In recent months, states such as Texas and Florida have taken legislative steps to prevent children from being subjected to such mental and physical harm. However, the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN), an entity of the Department of Health and Human Services, issued a release proclaiming that “gender-affirming care” is neither “child maltreatment nor malpractice.” Around the same time, the Department of Justice sent a letter to all state attorneys general, saying that opposing HHS guidance is discrimination, is essentially an attack against “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, nonbinary, or otherwise gender-nonconforming” people, and that such actions “may be unconstitutional.” The Department of Justice!
To top it all off, President Joe Biden issued a video in which he spoke specifically to parents, insisting that “affirming [their] child’s identity is one of the most powerful things [they] can do to keep them safe and healthy.” In it, he not only jumped way past the line of state authority into parental authority, but he appealed to biblical language, misguidedly conflating the image of God with the confusion of gender dysphoria.
It’s not just that the government’s claims fail to match reality, or that their talking points are crafted from data with flawed research methodology, or even that their appeals to “settled science” are clearly premature. Transgender ideology falsely promises hope and instead brings harm to people who bear God’s image. When government forces and federal departments are co-opted to advance this ideology, religious freedom is placed in a precarious and fragile position.
Years ago, during the Obama administration, Chuck Colson began to notice how then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other officials began to use the language of “freedom to worship” instead of “freedom of religion.” As he said at the time, freedom to worship is a narrowing of religious freedom, away from public expression toward only private conviction. It is a major loss if religious freedom no longer includes the right to order one’s life around deeply held religious beliefs, but only protects the right to believe in one’s own heart, head, home, and house of worship.
These recent proclamations from the Biden administration assume that flawed understanding of religious conviction, while also establishing a new baseline for political enforcement of the sexual revolution. The statements and letters issued frame all opposition to the state’s view of sexual orientation and gender identity as intent, not only to discriminate, but to harm.
Procedurally, this is how federal departments like Health and Human Services now operate. Each new administration will spend a year and half dismantling the rules and regulations of the previous one, while planning ways to implement their new rules in ways that make them difficult to dismantle. The Obama administration did this, the Trump administration did this, and now the Biden administration is doing it. These recent documents, proclamations, and videos indicate that the rules coming out of the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, and others will be the most extreme yet.
Christians in this culture moment cannot abandon truths about the human person, sexuality, and religious freedom whenever a new administration roars. With clarity and courage, we must teach our kids, build our institutions, and take all necessary stands based on what is true about men and women, sex, marriage, and freedom.
Connecting what is eternally true to the challenges of the cultural moment is what the Colson Fellows program is all about. In May, over 700 leaders—of churches, homes, institutions, businesses, and communities—will be commissioned, having studied worldview and theology, having wrestled with the challenges of the cultural moment, and having planned how to implement what they’ve learned as Christians of influence. There are cohorts in over 60 cities and 28 churches across America, as well as online cohorts for others. Visit www.colsonfellows.org for more information.
This summer the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn Roe v. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Part of what the justices will have to consider is a legal principle called stare decisis, which means respecting precedent.
If the High Court wants to respect Roe, especially its deep ideological and legal flaws, it should take into account why Roe was decided the way it was.
Since then, the pro-abortion movement has insisted that abortion is a “women’s rights” issue. But in 1973, many Americans, especially elites, believed a now-debunked theory that the world was headed for catastrophe due to over-population. The Supreme Court justices themselves noted in the official majority opinion in Roe v. Wade that this concern, in part, motivated their decision to legalize abortion.
In the Dobbs case, the justices should consider that this part of the legal precedent is a debunked and harmful theory, and therefore should see abortion for what it truly is: an unconstitutional evil.
John and Maria visit on a number of laws that are anticipating a gutting of Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey from Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health that is before the Supreme Court.
Maria then explains a new law in Washington State to shroud abuses in transgender prisons from the public.
To close, John explains how unique it is that archeological findings continue to support the historical occurrences in the Bible. John points out that no other worldview that highlights a spiritual explanation for the world and humanity has as much archeological findings that support the guiding texts of the faith systems.
Recently Kristen Waggoner, an attorney with the Alliance Defending Freedom, was invited to join a panel at Yale Law School. Ironically, during her talk about free speech, a mob of Yale students—future lawyers, mind you—tried to shut down the conversation, yelling obscenities and pounding on the classroom walls, all because ADF defends the reality of sexual difference.
Kristen wrote about the volatile situation at WORLD Opinions. An anonymous student gave her a note before the event with the words “keep the faith.” She did.
The best argument for free speech is speaking freely and truthfully, with respect for those who disagree. Shouting down opponents is the opposite. Kristen showed how important free speech really is by her boldness and calm in the face of a group temper tantrum. Her demeanor sent the message even louder than her words, and also represented Jesus before the Sanhedrin who also offered a quiet and confident disposition that spoke louder than words.
Later this month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who was fired from a Washington state public school for praying on the football field after games. He never forced anyone to join him, though many students and others often did, and he even agreed to pray silently by himself after the school raised concerns. That wasn’t enough for school officials who demanded that if he insisted on closing his eyes in silent prayer, he had to do it somewhere out of sight. Coach Kennedy recognized their demands as a violation of his right to free religious expression. He is represented by First Liberty Institute.
Coach Kennedy didn’t set out to be a culture warrior or religiusreligious freedom icon. Like Jack Phillips and fellow Washingtonian Barronelle Stutzman, Kennedy has been objectified and caricatured. Political movements do this to people whose stories are valuable for political purposes. But these are more than faces on T-shirts. They are real people who have made real sacrifices. Barronelle Stutzman lost her flower shop. Jack Phillips has been harassed for going on ten years now. Coach Kennedy just wanted to coach football.
How the rest of us should respond is by taking any opportunity we can to pray for him and his family. His story is one of many verifications that serious violations of religious freedom are actually happening.
Some of these violations are clearly motivated by religious animus. For example, in Finland, a former parliamentarian was charged with criminally inciting hatred against gay people for quoting the Book of Romans to explain her views on sexuality. Thankfully, last week a Finnish Court ruled strongly in favor of both logic and free expression, protecting this official’s speech.
Other times, religious liberty violations are more symptoms of bureaucratic inertia or ignorance than of animus. The first few letters that Coach Kennedy’s school sent asking him to stop praying aren’t the rantings of radical atheists. In fact, the officials said they knew Coach Kennedy was “well-intentioned,” and that he had never forced any students to participate in his prayer. Still, they asked him to stop, citing their fear that they’d be sued for a First Amendment violation. They didn’t hate Coach Kennedy. They just didn’t understand the First Amendment. They really didn’t understand the First Amendment, in fact, which led to increasingly strange demands.
In fact, religious organizations such as First Liberty Institute, say that’s not uncommon. The majority of religious freedom violations are resolved quickly and quietly by sending a letter to an offending school or company, simply informing them of the law and its protections.
But whenever ignorance of the law mixes with human stubbornness or, even worse, an animus toward Christianity and traditional Christian morality, institutions become increasingly intolerant of an individual’s religious freedom. Even if it’s still illegal, which it is, it becomes socially and politically easier. The state of Washington seems to be case-in-point.
Coach Kennedy’s clarity and courage gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to provide the clarity on religious freedom desperately needed in public schools and other institutions.
All Christians need that kind of clarity. Too many have believed a sort of “inevitability” narrative, about the restriction of religious freedom advanced by bureaucratic demands. In fact, religious freedom is affirmed by the Supreme Court more often than not. And offending institutions back down more often than you think.
Christians absolutely can stand on a football field and close our eyes in prayer, even if other people can see us. Christian educators can cite the Bible as a historical record or a masterclass in philosophy. Christian office workers can place a Bible on their desks. Christian school kids can host Bible studies after school. That’s why I’m grateful for organizations that defend these rights and for organizations like Gateways to Better Education who teach Christian educators that they have those rights.
The cartoon version of what’s going on is that Christians like Coach Kennedy throw a temper tantrum in order to force religion on others. The real story is that religious freedom advances both Gospel witness and the public good, is a first freedom among many others, and is defensible, even as public sentiment against Christianity grows more hostile. We must not believe that unchecked and increased religious censorship is inevitable. It isn’t, and it never should be.
Writing in Vox news, Luke Winkie describes a new and growing trend for health-conscious Americans: “microdosing.” It consists of introducing small amounts of marijuana, magic mushrooms, ketamine, or other formerly illicit substances into a daily routine. The goal is to stay on top of mental health issues.
“What the government once considered contraband is being claimed by wellness culture, one tiny dose at a time,” Winkie writes; “After all, the chaos of the last few years has left so many Americans with a singular priority: to be calmer and happier, by any means possible.”
While the health benefits of microdosing are inconclusive at best , what is becoming clear is how we’ve confused coping with curing. That should be a warning sign. A world that treats every problem as a medical one misses the point. A population that increasingly needs dubious chemicals just to feel “okay” is one that’s not OK.
One early adopter put it this way: “I felt a disconnect from my logical, ever-critical brain to my soul.” That feeling is real, even God-given. The answer she needs is one the Church is tasked with providing.
John and Shane field a question on Matthew Sleeth's book Hope Always. They also discuss a question about working in a public school, and John helps a dad who is challenged by the world of online dating.
Reality TV has earned a reputation of being crazy … and Netflix’s dating show Love Is Blind is no exception. Over the course of 10 days, contestants on Love Is Blind talk, mingle, and then decide whether or not to get engaged—all without seeing each other first.
When Season 2 wrapped up in March, a common question was whether the “love is blind” angle delivered more substance than other shows, like The Bachelor. The consensus was don’t get your hopes up. As Vox news’ Alex Abad-Santos put it, “This season had it all: gaslighting, lying, cutting, sarcasm. … [The producers] seemingly pulled no punches.”
Reality TV has long made a consumer product of romance, but the fact that people tried to make a show with this angle says something. Most people want more than just sexual chemistry or even infatuation.
Real love isn’t blind—it sees truly both glories and flaws, and still seeks the other’s well-being regardless. That reality hasn’t changed—even if we try to use the worst possible medium to show it.
New gruesome photos of babies aborted late-term in Washington, D.C, are a reminder of what abortion really is.
For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. This is BreakPoint.
Last week, D.C. police collected the bodies of five babies that were reportedly aborted late-term. A pro-life activist claims the bodies were given to her by a “whistleblower” from an abortion clinic. The clinic conducts abortions until week 27, but experts contacted by Live Action News believe that one of the babies looks to be between 28 and 32 weeks.
I’ve seen the photos. They are absolutely horrific. The older baby is simply indistinguishable from a newborn.
With the Supreme Court soon to announce a decision in the Dobbs case, the abortion industry continues to dig in its heels. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is about the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that limits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The fact that such a law would be fought, especially at the highest legal levels, is evidence that America’s abortion laws are not where people, science, and the rest of the world are when it comes to abortion.
Of course, Christians have additional, sacred reasons for opposing abortion at any age in any circumstance. Even so, despite the alarmism presented in the media and from abortion advocates about any abortion restriction, Americans don’t want late-term abortions. A Wall Street Journal poll published last week found that a majority, although slim by 5%, were against abortion after 15 weeks. Another poll conducted last year by Associated Press and the NORC Center at the University of Chicago found that 65% of Americans don’t want abortion after the first trimester, ending after week 12 or 13. Additional research shows that millennials lean more pro-life than Gen X.
A major reason public opinion continues to trend toward more abortion restrictions instead of less is due to what we have learned from both natural and social science. Abortion is not the elimination of unformed masses but the killing of babies who, at 15 weeks, are developing eyebrows and eyelashes and can thumb suck and yawn. A survey conducted by pro-life organization Susan B. Anthony List found that when people know the science they are more uncomfortable with abortions past 15 weeks.
For example, 55% of survey takers informed that at 15 weeks a pre-born baby feels pain were “more likely” in support of a 15-week limit. And 53% indicated “more likely” support for a 15-week limit when informed that “by 15 weeks an unborn child has a beating heart, can move around in the womb, can close his or her fingers, can start to make sucking motions and hiccup, and senses stimulation from outside the womb.” Also, 52% responded in “more likely” favor of a 15-week restriction when they learned that “abortion carries signific physical and psychological risks to the mother, and these risks increase with late abortions.”
This science appears to be convincing much of the rest of the world to restrict abortions closer to the first trimester. Even Chief Justice John Roberts in his exchange with abortion industry counsel during discussion on the Dobbs case noted that, except for China and North Korea, the U.S. seems to be out of step globally regarding the “viability standard.” Viability outside of the womb is often thought now to begin at 24 weeks, and some high-tech NICUs’ have made is as potentially low as 22 weeks of gestation. Sharing a standard with two of the nations known least for respecting life is not commendable. In fact, a report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute finds that the U.S. is only 1 of 7 nations that allow voluntary abortion past 20 weeks.
As Patrick Kelly of the Knights of Columbus wrote in the Wall Street Journal a few months ago, up to 4,000 pregnancy resource centers are available for expectant mothers in the United States. Despite the criticisms of the abortion industry, Charlotte Lozier Institute in its research of 2,700 centers found that 25% of their paid staff were medically trained. The institute has shared that “consistently high client satisfaction rates reported to pregnancy centers reflect that women, men, and youth who visit centers feel respected, valued, and well cared for.” When we advocate for life, we are not advocating for just the life of the baby but also for the life of the parents. They and the baby are both made in the image of God.
If you are interested in “Preparing for a Post-Roe Future,” consider attending a special evening event on Thursday, May 12, in Orlando, Florida, before our annual Wilberforce Weekend. This event features Tim Tebow, Stephanie Gray Connors of Love Unleashes Life, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, Erin Hawley of Alliance Defending Freedom, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life. Join us to learn more about advocating for the pre-born, and continuing the struggle to abortion unthinkable.
At the end of March, the Associates for Biblical Research published a curse. While that may seem a strange thing to do, it wasn’t their curse. The curse was written in Hebrew, inscribed on a small leaden amulet (or tablet). It was found in 2019 among materials previously excavated on Israel’s Mt. Ebal.
It’s a short curse, just 40 letters in Hebrew and only 23 words when translated to English: “Cursed, cursed, cursed—cursed by the God YHW. You will die cursed. Cursed you will surely die. Cursed by YHW—cursed, cursed, cursed.”
As recorded near the end of Deuteronomy, God called the newly freed Israelites to assemble on Mt. Ebal and to declare there, to God and to one another, the promises of obedience and disobedience. Put another way, they were to announce the blessings and curses that came with their role as God’s people.
So, what we have in the discovery of this amulet is either a remarkable coincidence—a written curse left at the very location the Bible associates with curses—or yet another confirmation of something the Bible says happened. Even better, either of these options is the least important aspect of what makes this discovery interesting. The more important aspect is potentially earth-shattering for biblical studies.
According to a professor at the University of Haifa, this discovery is “the earliest Hebrew inscription found so far.” Scholars investigating the find place the date of the inscription to around 3,200 years ago. That puts it, biblically speaking, in the time of the Judges.
The common perception among biblical scholars, however, has been that the bulk of the Bible wasn’t written when it says it was. It’s long been assumed that the early, and supposedly primitive, Israelites simply lacked the skill to come up with the written grandeur of books like Genesis and Deuteronomy. This tiny curse reveals that the right people at the right time in the right place were writing about God just as the Bible describes. Despite the confidence of the scholarly consensus, this provides proof of the Israelites’ literary ability, hundreds of years before skeptics thought it possible.
And this kind of thing keeps happening. Four years ago, a then-recent discovery of an exploding meteor wiping out a series of cities at the south end of the Dead Sea corresponded to about the time the Bible says that Sodom and Gomorrah met their fiery fate. Three years ago, an unearthed signet-seal affirmed the identity of someone mentioned in the biblical text. Two years ago, new DNA studies confirmed aspects of the biblical description of the Philistines’ origin. How many times will the Bible have to be proved right before we accept it as true?
There’s a scene in the 1990 Shakespeare spoof Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead where Gary Oldman’s character starts flipping a coin. Again and again and again, it comes up heads, over 70 times in a row! At first, he finds it strange, even amusing. As heads keep coming up, his partner in crime, played by Tim Roth, starts contriving explanations as to why the laws of probability have been suspended. They must, he concludes, be encountering a moment where the ordinary rules just don’t apply. The repeated pattern of extraordinary events meant that something special was going on.
This is what the Bible claims for itself. The Bible doesn’t claim to be true in some watered-down “spiritual” sense. It claims to be the true record of God’s intervention into human affairs. It does not describe a faraway fairy world built on wishes and dreams, but this world, the real one. It is here that Lazarus and Jesus were truly dead but raised to life again. It is in this world that actual Israelites escaped from actual slavery in Egypt. If what Scripture claims to have happened didn’t, then we may as well “eat and drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Its reality confirms its truth.
As the Apostle Peter claimed, Christianity is not rooted in “cleverly devised myths,” but in the real account of actions in the real world. Bits of lead and clay in the dirt will never ultimately prove the Bible’s claims to the satisfaction of all skeptics, but day after day, more evidence emerges that its claims should be taken seriously by not only archeologists and historians, but all of us. In Holy Scripture, something special is indeed going on.
A quote attributed to Greek tragedian Aeschylus says that, “In war, truth is the first casualty.”
This is a particular relevant point when it comes to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Jon Greenberg with PolitiFact reports, in Russia “it is now a crime—punishable by up to 15 years in prison—to publish ‘fake’ information about the all-out attack on Ukraine. The government has blocked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and news websites aimed at Russians, such as Latvia-based Meduza. It is a crime for the average citizen to publicly post information that contradicts the government line.” The government line is that Russian forces are liberators not aggressors.
According to Greenberg , Russians who want the truth have to be adaptable, and take big risks in order to join small internet groups or use virtual private networks, called VPNs. They are only being lied to otherwise.
Truth matters for everyone. Everyday Russians, like the Ukrainians, are also victims of an autocratic regime, though in a less direct way. They deserve our prayers—every bit as much as this war deserves our opposition.
If a preborn baby isn’t a human person with rights, when does it become one? Some abortion advocates have drawn that line at the second trimester, while very few others point to fetal heartbeat or detectable brain activity. Harder-line activists reject any abortion restrictions and insist it’s okay to kill a baby at any point right up until or even during birth. Planned Parenthood’s official stance is still to the point of viability, when the baby’s experience of pain during abortion is excruciating.
What has never been clear is why abortion supporters would draw the line at birth. At least in medical, scientific, and philosophical terms, passing through the birth canal doesn’t change anything about a child. If a tiny human is considered a disposable inconvenience inside its mother, why would six inches and twenty minutes turn them into a person with rights? This is why some, like Princeton ethicist Peter Singer, propose that parents should be allowed to kill children well after birth, especially if they are born with a disability such as Down Syndrome.
Until now, this horrifying consistency of pro-abortion logic hasn’t made it into law. But as a Supreme Court decision looms in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, legislatures in progressive states are feverishly taking steps to safeguard so-called abortion “rights” in a potential post-Roe world. In at least one case, lawmakers finally followed the logic of abortion to its awful conclusion, and left room for post-birth infanticide.
Maryland Senate Bill 669 would amend the state’s fetal murder-manslaughter statute to prevent “any form of investigation or penalty” for a person “experiencing a miscarriage, perinatal death related to a failure to act, or stillbirth.” Notice that this is not in the context of a botched abortion. Abortionists have already been caught more than a few times in the past allowing babies born alive after abortions to die.
This law would prohibit investigations in any case where a baby died after birth as a result of neglect. Making matters worse, the term “perinatal” (which just means “newborn”) is not clearly defined. Typically, as Wesley J. Smith points out at National Review, perinatal refers to baby’s first month after birth, so this bill “effectively decriminalizes death by neglect for the first 28 days of life.” “In other words,” explained the American Center for Law and Justice, “a baby born alive and well could be abandoned and left to starve or freeze to death, and nothing could be done to punish those who participated in that cruel death.”
Even worse, the Maryland bill authorizes those who are investigated for fatally neglecting an infant to sue law enforcement for civil damages. And, since even investigations are not allowed, if this bill became law, any Maryland residents could allow any newborn child to die without facing questions or consequences.
Such deadly logic won’t stop at passive infanticide, either. “Based on the current advocacy trajectory,” writes Wesley J. Smith, “such proposals will eventually extend to permitting active infanticide, which is already promoted as legitimate morally by many in mainstream bioethics, and which currently is permitted in the Netherlands upon terminally ill babies and those born with serious disabilities.”
If this bill passes, and other states attempting to sure up abortion rights follow, Americans would be openly participating in a practice that has been widely condemned in the West since the Christianization of the Roman Empire. We should all pray this measure doesn’t pass, and every citizen in Maryland of should make sure state lawmakers know what you think about it.
The rest of us should take this as a wake-up call, the first skirmish in the post-Roe fight for the sanctity of life. The Supreme Court will not end abortion. Instead, a new battle, fought state by state and life by life, will be before us. This Maryland bill is just a taste of how high the stakes in that fight will be.
John Stonestreet explains the design of religious freedom, highlighting how it is the first freedom. John explains how this freedom is under attack in this cultural moment, and how Christians can respond to the increasing pressure to relinquish this right.
Thirteen years ago, satire news site The Onion aired a fake sports talk show announcing that March Madness would now allow four-thousand college basketball teams to compete. “All schools deserve to compete,” said the fake announcers: “This will take March Madness all the way into June!”
During this year’s March Madness tournament, the NCAA, the governing body of collegiate athletics, has been running not-fake commercials openly patting themselves on the back for all the opportunities created for women. One ad celebrated the NCAA’s embrace of Title IX, which gave female athletes the opportunity to compete in female-only sports leagues, along with greater access to scholarships and education. The self-congratulations rings a bit hollow since, just two weeks ago, the NCAA awarded a women’s swimming championship to a man.
The NCAA faces a real choice: Either acknowledge the real, consequential differences between men and women and why they are inherently relevant to physical competition, or become the organizing body that takes opportunities from women. If they choose the latter, and become a satire of themselves, the women will be the ones who suffer.
Fifty years ago last week, a government report lived up to the old adage that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
On March 27, 1972, a document known to history as the “Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future,” called for zero population growth in America as a means to save the world. While we have no reason to doubt that those behind the document had “good intentions,” history has proven this paper a high mark of state-sponsored hubris. Not only did its proposed solutions make things worse instead of better, but it set a dark precedent for terrible crimes against humanity.
To “stabilize” America’s population, the paper called for increased regulation of immigration and, most notably given the Roe v. Wade decision just 10 months later, the legalization of and even encouraging of abortion. Still, as terrible as the consequences of the Rockefeller Commission report have been, they were the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the value and nature of human beings. It assumed, as many do today, that human beings are a net loss to the global future, that, on the whole, we take more than we give to the world.
In the mid- to late 20th century, many elites grew concerned about the growing world population. Though it had remained in the hundreds of millions for thousands of years, the human population, with the rise of new technologies and social structures, topped a billion for the first time around 1800. Another billion was added by the early 1900s. By the time this report was written, the human population was approaching 4 billion.
Because the commission assumed that every new person meant another mouth to feed from a limited supply of global food, they also assumed that more people posed a problem that must be mitigated. The Rockefeller Commission didn’t so much find a solution to a real problem, as it created a solution to an already-assumed problem. To the chagrin of its devoted supporters even today, the Commission’s recommendations were not as widely implemented as many would have liked. What does remain from the report, however, is a mindset that validated both abortion and the assumption of overpopulation, even after the predictions of global disaster turned out to be as fictional as a summer blockbuster.
In fact, since the report’s catastrophic predictions, the world population has more than doubled, from 3.8 billion people in 1972 to an estimated 7.9 billion today. Yet, instead of mass starvations and increased conflicts over resources, crop yields have increased dramatically, more than keeping pace with the mouths to feed.
Humans simply didn’t prove to be the virus so many thought they were. Rather, they were proved to be creators of new resources and innovative solutions, which makes sense if they really were made to be co-creators by the One who created all things. Created to tend the Garden of this world, humans are not merely consumers. We are producers, tasked with cultivating what was made into more than it presently is.
It’d be nice if we could simply look back and chuckle at the folly of the ivory tower crowd and their bad ideas. But, as we often say, ideas have consequences; bad ideas have victims. The sort of thinking expressed in the Rockefeller Report had very real victims— tens of millions, in fact.
In the last 50 years, over 60 million Americans have been killed through abortion. In China, where the myth of the population bomb led to the horrific one child policy, some 300 million babies were slaughtered, many against the will of their mothers. Instead of saving the planet, these vain ideas of population control have left the nations of the world with a birth dearth. Russia, China, and Japan are notably struggling to maintain their numbers even as their older population phases out of the workforce.
We are fast approaching another 50th anniversary, which I hope and pray will be an empty one. Next January is the 50-year anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the miscarriage of justice that usurped state laws across the country and legally grounded abortion’s malign presence in America. With the Dobbs case being decided in a matter of weeks in the U.S. Supreme Court, next January’s anniversary could arrive with Roe a dead letter.
To prepare for the next phase of fighting this evil mindset and practice that plagues our nation, the Colson Center is hosting an event on Thursday evening, May 12, in Orlando, Florida. “Preparing for a Post-Roe Future” will be held the evening before our annual Wilberforce Weekend Conference and will feature Tim Tebow, Stephanie Gray Connors of Love Unleashes Life, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family, Erin Hawley of Alliance Defending Freedom, and Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life.
Please join us as we work to bring better ideas to the world around us.
John and Maria discuss the challenge in culture to toxic masculinity. This week the nation reacted to displays by Will Smith and Volodymyr Zelensky. John and Maria consider a recent commentary by comedian Bill Maher who challenges the view we have of masculinity and how we value it. In this vein, Maria asks John to comment on a recent HHS announcement to push so-called "gender affirming" surgeries on minors. John references a commentary by Maria on BreakPoint that discusses the role of women, and how the church has a unique place to affirm God's design.
Maria then asks John to comment on a recent BreakPoint where John discussed "The Declaration on a New American Future." The declaration opposes a movement in the 1970s under the banner of the Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth that looked at abortion as population management.
-- Recommendations --
30 Days of Prayer>>
Yuval Levin on Honestly with Bari Weiss>>
-- In-Show Mentions --
Segment 1:
Will Smith apologizes for slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars, calling it "unacceptable and inexcusable"
Will Smith has apologized for slapping comedian Chris Rock in the face during the Oscars on Sunday. Smith said his "behavior at last night's Academy Awards was unacceptable and inexcusable" in a Monday night Instagram post.
CBS News>>
ZELENSKY PROVES A LITTLE MASCULINITY IS GOOD & SEXY - ACCORDING TO BILL MAHER
Bill Maher laced into liberals who attack men for having supposed "toxic masculinity." The "Real Time with Bill Maher" host used Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and men taking up arms to defend Ukraine from the Russian invasion as examples of how masculinity can be anything but toxic.
The Blaze>>
NCAA Kicks-off March Madness Highlighting Title IX at 50th Finals
The NCAA began its Title IX at 50 celebration during the 2022 NCAA Convention in Indianapolis. The celebration commemorates the anniversary of the landmark federal law signed in 1972 that prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
NCAA>>
What are Women For?
Our culture has long struggled with the realities of sexual difference, or “gender.” While first- and second-wave feminism generally asserted that women were equal in value to men, transgenderism now asserts that women are interchangeable with men. Notice the underlying assumption: in order for men and women to have equal value, they have to be the same thing.
BreakPoint>>
Segment 2:
The “Declaration on a New American Future” Challenges Abortion as a “Population Solution”
The Rockefeller Commission report “reflected the temper of the times,” especially the kind of catastrophic alarmism of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, a book full of predictions and arguments that have since been proven wrong. And, in the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that factors such as “population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones” were considerations in the decision that imposed legalized abortion on America.
BreakPoint>>
Segment 3:
Biden administration endorses transgender youth sex-change operations, 'top surgery,' hormone therapy
President Biden's administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.
The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled "Gender Affirming Care and Young People." The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, "Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care."
Fox News>>
Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care
Major medical associations recognize gender-affirming care as the standard of care for transgender,gender diverse, and intersex (TGI) youth. Gender-affirming care broadly refers to creating an environment that facilitates youth to move through the world safely as the gender they know themselves to be.
This includes developmentally appropriate, evidence-based care provided by medical and mental health experts in partnership with youth, parents, and caregivers. It may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones. Gender-affirming care also includes access to opportunities that all children should have, such as playing team sports, safely using bathrooms in their schools and other public places, and positive relationships with supportive adults.
National Child Trauma Stress Network
Gender-Affirming Care and Young People
Research demonstrates that gender-affirming care improves the mental health and overall well-being of gender diverse children and adolescents.1 Because gender-affirming care encompasses many facets of healthcare needs and support, it has been shown to increase positive outcomes for transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents.
Gender-affirming care is patient-centered and treats individuals holistically, aligning their outward, physical traits with their gender Identity.
Gender diverse adolescents, in particular, face significant health disparities compared to their cisgender peers. Transgender and gender nonbinary adolescents are at increased risk for mental health issues, substance use, and suicide
OASH>>
Tomorrow is the start of Ramadan, a month of prayer and fasting for Muslims worldwide. It’s also a good month for Christians to pray for Muslims to find Christ. During this intense time for Muslims, not only are they are seeking atonement for their sins, they are actively seeking to know God.
Christianity Today cites five reasons Muslims are attracted to Christ: “the lifestyle of Christians,” “the power of God in answered prayers and healing,” “dissatisfaction with the type of Islam they [have] experienced,” “the spiritual truth in the Bible,” and “biblical teachings about the love of God.”
In recent years, scores of reports from the Muslim world testify how God has actively used dreams, visions, missionaries, and others to draw Muslims to Himself. We can pray for open hearts and additional opportunities. For 29 years now, the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World has guided Christians in their prayers for Muslims around the world. It’s also a great way to learn about Islam and teach kids how Jesus is what Muslims are really looking for.
In 1996, American political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote a book called The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. In it, he proposed a remarkable thesis, that while in the past, especially in the 20th century, global conflicts had been primarily between nations, countries, and kingdoms, in the future, especially in the 21st century, global conflicts would increasingly be not between nation-states but between cultures, between civilizations.
These cultural fault lines, as he called them, sometimes existed within a country or existed across regions. It didn’t take very long into the 21st century to prove his theory correct. In fact, in The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington went on to predict that the hottest of these conflicts would be between religious and non-religious cultures, specifically, that what you might call the hottest of the hot would be between Islam and the West. In the time since 9/11, his predictions have largely played out.
But there has been another story dealing with Islam that has played out at almost the same time. In fact, just over the last three decades or so, we have seen a remarkable number of Muslims coming to Christ. Individuals from the Islamic world are reporting conversions—sometimes through dreams, sometimes through missions, sometimes through other means. Regardless of the manner, it has been what one missiologist called a remarkable movement of the Holy Spirit.
The reports are so numerous, in fact, that a foundation recruited a friend of mine, a scholar named Dr. David Garrison, to investigate. They sent him for several months to visit various corners of the Muslim world and to figure out where these stories were coming from. They wanted to know how legitimate these reports were. Garrison put together his findings in a book called A Wind in the House of Islam.
You see, in the whole history of the Islamic faith, there have been few reports of large movements of Muslims becoming Christians—very few in fact. About 80 percent of all such movements in history have taken place in just the last three decades.
There’s something else that’s taken place over the last three decades: Each and every year for the last 29 years, during the season of Ramadan, the most holy period for the Islamic calendar, a group of Christians led by a prayer guide have together prayed for Christ to draw Muslims to Himself. Ramadan is a very good time to keep our Muslim neighbors and Muslims around the world in prayer.
Since 1993 to be precise, the 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World prayer guide has been equipping Christians to pray for Muslims during this season of Ramadan. It is an international movement that calls on “the church to make a deliberate but respectful effort to learn about, to pray for, and to reach out to our Muslim neighbors.” There is even a 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World prayer guide for kids which I have used with my own family.
The 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World is available both in a print booklet and as a digital download. You can find it by going to 30DaysPrayer.com, or come to BreakPoint.org, and we’ll tell you how to pick up a copy.
The Book of James tells us that “the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” This has been a movement of prayer of hundreds of thousands of Christians for decades. Let’s be a part of it.
According to National Geographic, “More than 80 percent of the ocean has never been mapped, explored, or even seen by humans.” That’s pretty incredible, given how much the ocean matters to our lives. And new research is showing us a much smaller frontier with just as much mystery: the cell.
As Yasemin Saplakoglu recently described in Quanta Magazine, scientists at the University of Illinois have embarked on an ambitious project to map, using computers, a complete simulation of a “minimal cell.” At 493 genes, the lab-made cell they’re mapping contains far fewer genes than even the simplest natural organism. But the challenge is still proving to be steep.
“For example,” writes Saplakoglu, “no one knows what 94 of those genes do except that the cell dies without them.” One of the researchers suggests there may be “living tasks or functions essential for life that science is oblivious to.”
That’s an understatement. The more we learn, the more we should be filled with awe. After all, as Casey Luskin with Evolution News recently argued, high information structures like these have only one known source: intelligence with a Designer behind it.
Every once in a while, someone who doesn’t profess Christianity will stumble upon some sort of natural or moral law that Christians have professed for centuries. To avoid agreeing with the Bible, or maybe because they legitimately think they’ve discovered something new, they’ll often give the old idea a cool new re-brand.
Case in point is a new piece at the edgy news-and-culture outfit Vice. The author reports on a brand-new type of progressive relationship structure: “radical monogamy.” Not to be confused with the “boring, old, religious, traditional” kind of monogamy, “radical monogamy” is an exclusive relationship commitment that’s chosen, not blindly accepted. And, this is crucial to the distinction: Monogamy that is “radical” is chosen from among the many equally valid relationship options, including polyamory.
On one hand, it’s not surprising that even those who wish to remain “sexually open minded,” but still want to enjoy the best relationships possible, would land on monogamy. After all, as my old Tennessee friend would say, “it ain’t rocket science.” Research routinely shows that exclusive relationships, especially marriage, yield higher rates of general satisfaction, sexual satisfaction, and healthier kids.
Still, according to this Vice essay, proponents of radical monogamy stress that the decision to remain in an exclusive relationship was made by themselves, and for themselves.
Of course, no one wants to be bamboozled, especially by someone else’s morality or long-standing tradition. It’s wise not to blindly accept social pronouncements or even moral and ostensibly religious arguments. Jesus often authenticated His pronouncements by alluding to or directly referencing the Old Testament.
At the same time, it’s quite foolish to rely only on our own minds or desires. And, to suggest that everyone who chose monogamy before now, including generations of stable couples who’d profess having wonderful lives together, either did it blindly or for the wrong reasons, is a profound act of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.”
The worst part of “radical monogamy” is to suggest it’s only valid if it’s what I want, rather than because it is morally superior. What if your relationship partner also wants and deserves your exclusive commitment? What if it is the best context in order for kids to be safe and healthy? Is monogamy only “radical” if the well-being of others is not considered?
An irony in all of this is that selfishness is about as mundane as it gets. “Me first” has been the same tired refrain of the sexual revolution for almost 50 years now. And it’s a shame. After all, self-interested monogamy won’t keep couples together any longer or make anyone any happier than any other sexually disordered relationship.
Monogamy works precisely because it’s a commitment to another because it says “I’ll stay here even when” without knowing what is coming next. In that sense, no one enters into committed monogamy—or any commitment—with eyes wide open.
So-called “radical monogamy” reflects a culture that tends to think of freedom only as freedom from any and all restraint. If free people are to choose monogamy, they have to consider, or maybe even try, every possible alternative. But life doesn’t work like that.
Christianity accepts that our lives are limited in both physical and non-physical ways: by things like the immovable reality of our bodies, by geography, and by moral laws. Human limits, including the moral limits of monogamy, narrow our relationship choices in ways that are more gifts than locked doors. Our limitations enable the freedom for something: the freedom to be truly human.
A few years ago, a spokesmen for the media platform Second Life told journalist Leslie Jamison that users on their virtual reality platform would often become paralyzed by what was called the “white space problem.” Apparently, the ability to build an entire virtual life from scratch, with limitless possibilities stretching in all directions, was too overwhelming. Too much white space isn’t freeing; it’s painful. Committed monogamy may limit our relational “white space,” but when marked by real commitment and self-sacrifice, it’s still the most fulfilling relationship option on offer, whether we call it “radical” or not.
John and Shane explain what happened at the Supreme Court nomination hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Many are talking about the fact that she failed to define a woman when asked. John explains that what we saw in the hearing explains a lot about where political parties are.
Shane goes on to ask John about a listener's question related to J.I. Packer's book Knowing God. Shane explores the question, asking John to unpack how Jesus death and resurrection fulfilled the justice of God.
To close, John is asked why he opposes the use of the word "balance." A listener asks how they should approach balance, when it has been a good tactic to build relationships with friends to explain the wholeness of the Christian worldview. John clarifies a definition of balance, and explains how true balance seeking is problematic and can cause troubled compromises.
As the Economist reports, the number of homeless Californians has surged by “more than a third in the past five years, compared with a rise of less than 6% nationally.” By some estimates, half of America’s unsheltered homeless population live in the Golden State.
We ought never reduce people to mere statistics on this or any issue, or worse, to inconveniences. Proverbs 21 warns: “Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered.”
In fact, reducing the homeless population to their homelessness has been a big part of this problem. Historically, the U.S. has historically focused on a “housing-first” approach to homelessness: expensive programs putting people under roofs, but not much more. California’s two most recent budget plans, for example, dedicate $26 billion to this approach.
More money won’t work if we don’t address the heart of the issue.
People must be seen as the connected image bearers and moral agents they are: in need of spiritual, relational, and physical redemption. Local governments do have a role to play, but this restoration requires the wider community, including the Church.
In 2014, physicist Michio Kaku wrote, “We are now entering the golden age of neuroscience. We have learned more about the thinking brain in the last 10–15 years than in all of previous human history.” One particularly fruitful area of this science has to do with, of all things, gratitude. In a culture that values authenticity and prioritizes feelings, telling someone to “be grateful” can sound a lot like cheap pop psychology, or even worse, a tone-deaf lack of empathy. However, plenty of studies suggest that being grateful is far more significant to our mental health and well-being that we may realize. “Time and again,” writes British psychologist Christian Jarrett: “Studies have shown that performing simple gratitude exercises, like keeping a gratitude diary or writing letters of thanks, can bring a range of benefits.”
A large and growing body of studies shows that exercising gratitude leads to better sleep, improved interpersonal relationships, better stress and hormonal regulation, and even reduced physical pains. One notable study followed over 40 participants seeking treatment for depression and anxiety. Half were asked to write letters expressing gratitude before the first few counseling sessions, while the rest formed a control group who attended “therapy-as-usual.” Three months later, both groups were asked to perform a generosity task while being measured by MRI.
According to Jarrett :
“The participants who’d completed the gratitude task months earlier not only reported feeling more gratefulness two weeks after the task than members of the control group, but also, months later, showed more gratitude-related brain activity in the scanner. The researchers described these ‘profound’ and ‘long-lasting’ neural effects as ‘particularly noteworthy’ …. [This suggests] that the more practice you give your brain at feeling and expressing gratitude, the more it adapts to this mind-set…. a sort of gratitude ‘muscle’ that can be exercised and strengthened.”
Best of all, writes Jarrett, the positive effects of gratitude can spiral outwardly, creating a culture where gratitude becomes easier for others as well.
Of course, gratitude is not a magic cure for all that ails us. It is, however, for mental health what vegetables are for physical health: vital, underrated, and sometimes difficult to swallow.
That difficulty, in fact, is one of gratitude’s enigmas. After all, it’s one thing to say gratitude is beneficial; it’s another to find an existential, compelling, or transcendent basis for gratitude. After all, the idea of gratitude is nothing new. It’s no innovation of brain science. Even so, it doesn’t always come easily for most people, even those who most know they need it.
It seems especially difficult today, even despite the incredible scale of modern prosperity we enjoy. One reason could be that a central belief of the modern world is expressive individualism, a philosophy which tells us to be true to ourselves over and above anything else. Though that might sound liberating, if our lives and success are ultimately self-created, who have we to thank? And for those who, as many people do, feel a real desire to thank “the universe” or “god, whoever he or she is” for some success or well-being, an illusion of gratefulness cannot be long maintained if aimed at no one in particular.
Many Christians, on the other hand, worry that if we allow ourselves to enjoy too much the good things from God’s hand, we will forget to be grateful, or perhaps even forget about others who are suffering around the world. The Psalms speak powerfully to this tension.
In many of the Psalms, God’s people are encouraged toward more expression, not less. God invites the full weight of our grief and the full force of our hardest questions, and yet, at the same time, expects our gratitude, too. Throughout the Psalms, in fact, God’s people openly share their sorrows and even despair. The way forward lies not in ignoring evil done to them by their enemies but in remembering the good and faithful work God has done on their behalf.
Ultimately, gratitude “works,” as more and more research suggests because it is a true response of a creature to Creator. As G. K. Chesterton has been somewhat paraphrased, “When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?” Gratitude helps us see life clearly, and allows us to live it as God intended, to its fullest.
Few are standing for the inherent dignity and rights of children against the innovations of our age. But in this cultural moment, defending children against gender ideology and misguided interpretations of parenting is our version of “running into the plague and caring for victims” while everyone else is running away. John Stonestreet introduces author Katy Faust, the founder and director of the children’s rights organization Them Before Us and author of the new book “Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement.” She is married and the mother of four children, the youngest of whom is adopted from China.
According to Pew Research, a growing number of Americans are realizing the importance of the nuclear family.
Just three years ago, 40% of Americans agreed with the statement “single women raising children on their own is bad for society.” That number has now jumped to 47%. The same is true of cohabitation, which nearly a quarter of U.S. adults say is “generally bad for society.” That’s up 5% from three years ago.
It’s an encouraging swing for public opinion, especially with both trends still on the rise. Kids do best with both a mom and a dad in the picture. They do better still when mom and dad stay married to each other.
Of course, there are a plenty of heroic single parents raising kids on their own, who will do everything they can to help their kids succeed. Data isn’t destiny for all individuals, but it is destiny for a society. The loss of marriage is unsustainable. As the world leader in single-parent households, Americans will either have to reckon with that basic truth, or the next generations will continue to pay the price.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon formally requested the formation of a commission to study the effects of population growth on the United States:
“One of the most serious challenges to human destiny in the last third of this century will be the growth of the population. Whether man’s response to that challenge will be a cause for pride or for despair in the year 2000 will depend very much on what we do today.”
Revealed in President’s Nixon words are a number of controlling assumptions: that humans are a problem to be solved, that the world continues to exist by razor-thin margins for error, that too many humans would certainly push the earth past its breaking point, and that some combination of science and state could secure the human future.
On March 27, 1972, the Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future issued its report. Named for its chairman, John D. Rockefeller, and made up of an august group of Republican and Democrat lawmakers, policy wonks, scientists, sociologists, economists, and foundation heads, the commission’s recommendations left “scarcely any topic touching on family relations and the human right to life… unaffected.”
A new document, entitled “Declaration on a New American Future,” describes in detail the 50- year legacy of the Rockefeller Commission report:
“…the Commission called for the legalization of abortion through the second trimester of pregnancy, public funding of abortion and abortion-providing organizations, universal private insurance coverage of abortion, and distribution of anti-population propaganda to teenagers.”
Even more important, was the report’s “long-term impact”:
“…the Rockefeller Commission report posed, and continues to pose, a profound shift in the relationship between government and people. … the report relies on decidedly bleak conclusions about human prospects, the opportunities for economic growth and technological invention. It establishes as normative a relationship in which government is not merely an expression of the choices of a free people, but an overseer dedicated to its own designs for and limits on the populace, an overseer unbound by any duty to respect the sanctity of human life or the sanctuary of the family and other private institutions.”
The Rockefeller Commission report “reflected the temper of the times,” especially the kind of catastrophic alarmism of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, a book full of predictions and arguments that have since been proven wrong. And, in the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackmun wrote that factors such as “population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones” were considerations in the decision that imposed legalized abortion on America.
The “Declaration on a New American Future” is a call to rethink the wrongheaded and destructive ideas of the Rockefeller Commission report, ideas with terrible consequences and countless victims. I am honored to join Chuck Donovan of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, former Ambassador Sam Brownback, pro-life leaders Jeanne Mancini, Kristan Hawkins, Catherine Glenn Foster, and brilliant scholars Robert George and Ryan Anderson and others, as a signatory, because as this important statement clarifies:
“In the half century since the Rockefeller Commission report was released, the lives of 63.5 million unborn children have been taken in abortion facilities erected in the United States in the wake of the errors of Roe. Parental rights over their children, and their health and safety, have been eroded to the point that in a number of states abortions can be procured by or foisted on minor children without parental knowledge or consent. These policies and practices have been abetted by a series of public health alarms, beginning with population and environmental concerns and proceeding now through diverse panics induced by pandemics and climate change. In each of these declared emergencies, legitimate matters of the common good and public concern have been translated into government policies and mandates designed to truncate parents’ rights and subject them to the will of the state. …
“…it is time for a new direction. We equally reject the core policies on respect for human life promoted by the Rockefeller Commission and the apocalyptic tone and content of its warnings about a bleak and heartless human future. We hold that the history of humanity, though troubled by conflict, poverty, war and disease, demonstrates that progress is possible in every area of human endeavor. We likewise hold that it is essential that public policy reject extreme notions that put every group and individual in society in endless competition with each other for limited goods, and that inevitably lead to declining standards of living. We embrace the worth of every human life and call for positive policies that put supreme value on the sanctity of life and the preservation of institutions that safeguard it.”
The Declaration on a New American Future offers five specific proposals:
“The reversal of the unconstitutional abortion decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court that have wreaked so much havoc on America and deprived our nation of the blessings of millions of young people of both sexes and all religions, ethnicities and races. The end of domestic funding at all levels of government to organizations that have embraced abortion, eugenics and population control as legitimate aims of health care programming, as these aims subvert respect for the equality of every human being under the law.
The United States to readopt similar policies in its programs of international aid to exclude abortion provision and advocacy.
Recognition that embracing abortion in response to population growth has contributed to sharply declining birth rates worldwide. We note with particular concern that the decline in births is correlated to American women having fewer children than they and their spouses would prefer. Since the release of the Rockefeller Commission report, the U.S. fertility rate has often dropped below replacement, reaching record lows in recent years.
A renewal of American understanding that, as the founders and our leaders have long proclaimed, God is the source of both our rights and our blessings, and that just government depends on recognition of and Thanksgiving for what a good and generous God has entrusted to us.”
As the Declaration concludes, it is time “to change course, to celebrate life, and to honor the principle that each and every member of the human family is endowed by the Creator with unalienable rights, including the right to life.”
For over four decades, William Wilberforce fought against the inhumane practice of slavery. He also worked for what he called the “reformation of manners.” In the words of one biographer, he “made goodness, compassion and integrity fashionable.”
Wilberforce’s work highlights the challenging reality Christians face in every cultural moment: the deep brokenness of this fallen world. Wilberforce engaged the culture of his time by highlighting the inherent dignity of humanity, most notably by fighting against slavery. His work in the “reformation of manners” was a major contributor to not only making slavery illegal, but also, eventually, unthinkable.
The Colson Center’s annual conference is named in Wilberforce’s honor. At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, we’ll explore the effects of Christ’s redemptive work across every area of life from a variety of angles.
The conference will be held at the stunning Rose and Shingle Creek in Orlando, May 13-15, and will feature Jim Daly, Os Guinness, Ryan Bomberger, Nancy Guthrie, Monique Duson, and many more. The weekend features compelling talks, panel discussions, live podcast recordings, and a screening of The Most Reluctant Convert, a film about the redemption of C.S. Lewis.
For more information, visit www.wilberforceweekend.org
Our culture has long struggled with the realities of sexual difference, or “gender.” While first- and second-wave feminism generally asserted that women were equal in value to men, transgenderism now asserts that women are interchangeable with men. Notice the underlying assumption: in order for men and women to have equal value, they have to be the same thing.
Yielding to this fallacy has been a disaster, not just for the concept of gender, but also for the concept of human dignity. It’s as if many think there’s not enough of it to go around.
The Church should be able offer clarity. Christians must insist that men and women are real. We must also insist that fact doesn’t compel a competition. There is no hierarchy of human dignity.
Unfortunately, Christians over the centuries have made some big mistakes in this area. At times, roles that men and women fill have been prioritized over the goodness of their God-given design. More often, roles have been conflated with design. For example, Christians have generally understood that the Bible does not permit women to pastor churches. Some have taken that further to suggest that women must lack the intellectual capacity or curiosity to study the Bible and learn theology. That’s demonstrably false.
Because of the real physical differences between men and women, and the different things children need from mothers and fathers, men have historically performed the breadwinning work for their families. Some Christians have wrongly assumed that this means women lack the ability, talent or calling to pursue any kind of work unrelated to motherhood. Yet the Bible is full of stories of women who contributed to their families, communities, and the kingdom of God in ways other than through motherhood or marriage.
Another mistake some Christians make, which may be in response to modern feminism or critical theory, is to suggest that when women contribute something positive to society—a scientific breakthrough, or an impressive career—it’s because of their inherent superiority to men. Conversely, when women contribute something negative—they commit a crime or mistreat others—the fault is the patriarchal systems that oppresses them. That way of thinking robs women of moral agency.
In response, some Christians talk about the moral imperative for women to bear responsibility for what is wrongly considered exclusively female sins—such as immodesty or even abortion. Often, these Christians are unwilling to expect positive contributions from women outside the roles of wife and mother.
In other words, Christians ought not react to the rejection, erasing, or confusing of gender, by merely retreating to roles. We must begin where the Bible does, with design.
Both men and women were made by God in His image. How we live out our calling to fill and cultivate the creation will be marked, in both physical and non-physical ways, by our maleness or femaleness. At the same time, women who serve as wives and mothers are neither contributing more nor less than women who aren’t in those roles.
In other words, the primary calling of both men and women is to glorify God. How we do that in particular times and places, and in particular seasons of our life, will differ.
Too often, while Church’s ministry to men is about cultivating admirable Christian virtues such as bravery and courage, too much of the Church’s ministry to women is only about how to be feminine. To think about Christian women only in relation to men is to paint an incomplete picture. In other words, we ought not leave the impression that Christian women are not also called to be brave and courageous, or well-studied and theologically grounded. And, Christian men are also called to be gentle, meek, and slow to speak.
If, as Jesus told the Sadducees, we will “neither marry nor be given in marriage” in the New Heavens and New Earth, how we will serve and glorify God in the age to come will not be as fathers and husbands or mothers and wives. When Jesus said that in order to be His disciples, we must take up our crosses and follow Him, He was speaking to both men and women.
Therefore, we should expect women to take responsibility for their sins, just as we should with men. And, we should expect profound contributions to the kingdom of God from women, as women, as much as we do from men. This has been the defining vision and approach of the Strong Women podcast.
In a culture so lost on gender, one which now suggests that women don’t really exist, Christians must stubbornly ground ourselves in God’s good, created design of His imago dei. If we can get this right, we’ll have much to offer our confused age.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson sat before the Senate this week and boldly stated that she does not know what a woman is because she’s not a biologist. Her statement says a lot, not necessarily about the judge, as John points out, but more about how we view the judiciary in this cultural moment.
John and Maria also explain that the so-called trend of “radical monogamy” and society’s need for more than consent are actually best housed inside Christianity. As John describes, these moments are a revisiting of history. He reveals how the power of sexuality is a physical reality, similar to gravity. Society highlights cultural moments like these as turning points when in reality these principles have been grounded inside God’s design.
Maria then shares the story of a high school football coach, Joe Kennedy, who simply prayed for his players privately on the field after football games. His school fired him, and his subsequent religious freedom court case is set to see the Supreme Court next month. John and Maria discuss the court case and project how the case will be received and why we can have encouragement and hope as we consider this situation.
To close, John revisits a few BreakPoint commentaries from the week. Specifically, John reviews a BreakPoint on how we should pray for the people in Russia, praying through all of the Psalms including the imprecatory Psalms that call for justice on specific people in a specific moment.
When we think of Christ’s call to love our enemies, we often think of work rivals or political opponents. Loving these “enemies” isn’t easy, but not impossible. What if, however, our enemies are evildoers, responsible for acts of evil and violence? We can respect the brave protestors that have been arrested for standing up to Putin. We pity teenagers conscripted into a fight they neither sought nor understand. But are we really called to love Putin and his cronies or the Russian troops rejoicing in their conquest or the talking heads in Moscow calling to expand the war into Eastern Europe?
Jesus’ words about loving our enemies remain as true and trying as ever. But the radical love to which Christ calls us shouldn’t be confused with squishy emotion or moral vacuity. We love our enemies by praying for God’s mercy on their victims, and for His justice to overwhelm and overcome their wicked intents, and for His will to be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
In the historical dockyards at Chatham in England is the largest collection of Royal National lifeboats in the U.K.. On many of the lifeboats, printed numbers show how many times the boat has launched, and how many lives it saved. It’s a haunting presentation of how life can sometimes hang on a precipice, and what it takes to rescue souls lost at sea. The dockyard is also an interesting analogy for the Church in this cultural moment. Sometimes churches seem more like a museum of saints, a place where salvation is remembered. Here, redemption is often described in the past tense, focused on what God has saved us from. Or, like the dockyard at Chatham, we mark our success by souls saved, with little reference to what happens next for those whose life is in Christ, much less their families, communities, or societies.
This presentation of the Church isn’t inaccurate, but it is inadequate. Our salvation isn’t only about being saved from sin and hell, but also about being saved to eternal and abundant life and for a redemptive purpose. Once Christians experience the life-changing impact of the Gospel, God’s restorative work alters every aspect of their lives. This is more than being saved from Hell, and it’s even more than being saved to eternal life.
The famous pastor John Newton embodied this. When he famously wrote, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see,” he revealed that he was not only redeemed from the incredible evil he perpetuated as a slave trader but that he was now given new vision, new direction, and new life. Newton inspired William Wilberforce, the great abolitionist, in the same way.
For over four decades, Wilberforce fought against the horrible and inhumane practice of slavery, and also for what he called the “reformation of manners.” He didn’t see success immediately, especially on slavery. In fact, he was three days from dying when he heard that the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. But, in embracing the scope of God’s redemptive work in Christ for the world, his personal redemption didn’t stay private, he became a public force for good.
Each year, the Colson Center gathers with Christians from across the country for an event named in Wilberforce’s honor. The Wilberforce Weekend will be held in Orlando, Florida, May 13-15. This year’s conference will explore, from a variety of angles, the scale and scope of God’s redemptive work in Jesus Christ. Our goal will be to see all of life as redeemed by Christ. Together, we’ll explore how Christ is best understood, not just as our personal Savior (though He is), but also as the center of reality. This means recognizing the essential links between who Christ is and creation, redemption, the kingdom of God, and all of history.
We’ll also dive deeply into the fullness of the redemptive vision Christ gives His people, as individuals, families, churches, and nations. We’ll look closely at what we’re saved from, not just Hell but death and fear of death, from bitterness and anger, and from confusion about who we are, all of which are incredibly relevant for the challenges of this cultural moment.
We’ll also look at what we’re saved to...truth, identity and meaning and life, and also the vital needs of this cultural moment. And, we’ll look closely at what we are saved for: wisdom, mission, reconciliation, and purpose. Along the way, we’ll talk about what happens when redemption shapes a distinctly Christian approach to life, society, education, sport, hardship and conflict, film, and other aspects of culture.
We’ll hear from Jim Daly, Os Guinness, Ryan Bomberger, Nancy Guthrie, Max McLean, Rachel Gilson, Larry Taylor, Monique Duson, Morris Michalski—and many more!
The Wilberforce Weekend features compelling talks, panel discussions, and live podcast recordings, and a special screening of The Most Reluctant Convert, a remarkable film about the redemption of C.S. Lewis.
And, we’re especially excited to announce an added pre-event, which will look closely at “Life After Roe,” and the responsibility the redeemed have to continue their defense of the preborn until abortion is unthinkable. This even will feature Tim Tebow, Stephanie Grey Connors, Jim Daly and others.
For more information, visit www.wilberforceweekend.org
The big problem isn’t climate change ... for the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.
In a recent interview, former Secretary of State John Kerry lamented that the war in Ukraine would cost human lives and disrupt the principles of international law. But then the President’s special envoy on climate expressed another concern: carbon emissions.
You’re going to “lose people’s focus,” on climate change, he told reporters: “Their attention will be diverted.”
To highlight the greenhouse emissions of a war which is actively claiming thousands of lives is backwards logic, at best. That’s not to say people shouldn’t care about the climate: We should. That’s not to say war doesn’t have a horrible impact on the environment: It does.
But this is a worldview incapable of dealing with human evil, its human cost, or its real motivations. The former Secretary of State later expressed hope that melting ice will make Vladimir Putin rethink his war and help the world “stay on track with what we need to do for the climate.”
If only it were that easy. The people digging themselves out of the rubble in Kyiv or Mariupol might beg to differ.
In a recent interview, Mark Zuckerberg was asked to fill out a captcha test to prove once and for all that he’s not a robot. In case you were wondering, he passed. It’s all a bit funny, given (as John Mulaney observed a couple years ago), just how much time we spend these days proving to robots that we’re not robots. Only human brains, apparently—can recognize every square with a stop sign or a boat.
It’s also a bit ironic, given the most exciting trend in computing technology is building computers using design principles based on the human brain.
“Today’s most successful artificial intelligence algorithms [are] loosely based on the intricate webs of real neural networks,” writes Allison Whitten in Quanta Magazine. She’s referring to something called “deep learning,” advanced artificial intelligence that can compute huge amounts of data, while correcting mistakes or even anticipating future problems.
From mapping traffic patterns to predicting storm fronts to understanding the stock market, the possibilities of deep learning are endless. For years, though, there’s been a major holdup: how to keep it running. Deep learning requires so-called “simulated neural networks” or multiple layers of computers all crunching out the same problem.
“Unlike our highly efficient brains,” Whitten explains, “running these algorithms on computers guzzles shocking amounts of energy: The biggest models consume nearly as much power as five cars over their lifetimes.”
And now, after years of puzzling out how to make a system capable of running advanced AI, researchers are finding a breakthrough source of inspiration: the human brain.
The secret lies in how the brain processes electronic data. Whereas digital communication is binary, using 1’s and 0’s, the brain’s communication is analog: using one continuous data stream. Likewise, while digital tech relies on one central processing unit, the brain arranges millions of computing units next to memory units in the forms of synapses and neurons.
The science is definitely chewy for us non-engineering types, but the results are incredible. Digital technology has transformed the modern world, opening vistas that previous generations would have thought impossible. Yet to fully master artificial intelligence, our brightest scientists are forced to direct their attention back to God’s original design specs.
This is part of a bigger phenomenon in engineering called “biomimetics.” It’s a word coined from the Greek bios, which means life, and mīmēsis which means imitation. Neurocomputing is just one of the more dramatic examples of what some have called the biomimetics’ “goldrush,” a race to understand and apply systems and design features of the natural world, which in many cases are far beyond even our most advanced engineering.
This is not to say God somehow always prefers “natural” systems to “artificial” ones. Humans are designed to create and innovate and design in ways that have advanced us past our Garden of Eden beginnings.
At the same time, there’s no escaping the basic truth that natural systems are nothing short of stunning. People didn’t design themselves, yet we possess self-repairing, massively complex biological systems. We experience life through five senses, our brains seamlessly integrating terabytes of data at all times. And to do it, we require only assorted organic materials we find around us. The brain can sustain itself on a cheeseburger.
In 2013, a collaboration between Japanese and German scientists created one of the most realistic brain simulations ever attempted. They used what was, at that time, the world’s fourth-largest computer, containing over 700,000 processor cores and producing an eye-popping 1.4 million gigabytes of RAM. The machine worked at top speed, crunching numbers for over 40 minutes. In the end, it produced just one second of simulated brain activity.
Technology has advanced since then, but it still raises a fundamental question: How do we explain the complexity of the natural world?
Darwinian naturalists are forced to punt to random, genetic mutations—or in the words of Bertrand Russell “accidental collocations of atoms”—and a limitless supply of time and chance.
But they still can’t escape the haunting questions. How did the universe itself come into existence? How do the laws of physics perfectly align for our survival here? How can we account for the incredible amount of complex and specified information in biological systems, including the human brain? How can we explain abiogenesis, or the origin of the first life from non-life?
Christians don’t have to agree on every scientific detail to point to what is obvious. There’s a designer behind all of this design. In other words, as Casey Luskin with Evolution News summarizes: “Where, in our experience, do language-based digital code, computer-like programming, machines, and other high [information] structures come from? They have only one known source: intelligence.”
John and Shane review healthy technology use. A listener asks for insight on what practices and habits a mindful parent has in their home as they lead their family in the digital age.
Another listener writes in to ask how Christians should respond to the presence of oppression. The listener asks for perspective on what a Christian should do when they don't feel oppression, but are told it is present.
John also helps a listener have a whole perspective of critiques of the modern church. The listener asks why church practices aren't reflected in the Bible.
Happy Lent. That’s an odd-sounding phrase. One of the chief purposes of Lent, after all, is to confront our mortality.
For the last two years, our focus has been on avoiding our mortality, dodging death, and largely hedging life against our fears of death. In this cultural moment, confronting our mortality during Lent is incredibly important.
As New Testament scholar Mary Healy said, “We instinctively resist and recoil from everything that reminds us of our mortality—pain, deprivation, weakness, criticism, failure. This paralyzing fear ... leads to various forms of escapism and addiction, induces us to grasp the false security nets proffered by Satan, and keeps us from pursuing the will of God with freedom, peace, and confidence.”
Whether or not you typically participate in traditional Lenten activities—like the marking of ashes, fasting, or giving up something—I hope you’ll still use these 40 days to face and ponder your mortality, with an eye to Jesus’ resurrection, and the resurrection that awaits all of us who belong to Him.
A central claim of the gay rights movement—a claim that won the movement acceptance with the majority of Americans—was that being gay is part of who a person is, and not a choice. “Born this way,” declared the title of a popular song. Another song insisted, “I can’t change even if I tried.”
This idea of immutable sexual identity was further extended to other orientations and self-expressions. So, trying to suppress or change orientation or even behavior was labeled “conversion therapy.” And, now that sexual orientation is considered identity, anything labeled “conversion therapy” is increasingly being outlawed. Recently, A new law just passed in Canada bans conversion therapy and defines it as any “practice, treatment or service designed to change a person’s sexual orientation” or “repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior.”
Completing this rapid worldview revolution, all kinds of identities, also based on desires and feelings, are being treated as if they are unchangeable. And, if a desire is unchangeable, the reasoning goes, a person has a right to act on it. This logic has been applied to most desires imaginable—until now.
In January, USA Today ran an article by Alia Dastagir titled, “The Complicated Research Behind Pedophilia.” The article summarizes a growing consensus among psychologists that pedophiles, too, are “born this way,” and that attraction to children is unchangeable. Understandably, Dastagir doesn’t call pedophilia a sexual orientation, but rather, “attraction.” Still, it isn’t hard to imagine a slippery slope here.
Slippery slopes are considered logical fallacies because they don’t have to happen. However, it isn’t hard to see how often they do happen. If our society maintains the logic that desires determine identity and therefore justify behaviors, then more deviant behaviors will eventually become acceptable.
Dastagir argues that even if pedophilia is an unchangeable attraction caused by genetic or environmental factors, pedophiles can and must “control [their] impulses.” The experts she quotes agree that people who are sexually attracted to kids have a choice whether to “act on the urge to abuse.”
One psychologist and author even said that acting on pedophilia is the same as the choice to act on any other “inappropriate sexual thought.” As she puts it: “Pedophiles may not have control over the fact that they are attracted to kids, but they are responsible for whether they do or don’t act on it.”
That psychologist continues: “Offending is devastating. It damages the lives of victims…You can learn to control yourself. You have the capacity to do better.”
The language sounds an awful lot like the kind that’s been labeled “conversion therapy,” or as the Canadian law puts it, an attempt to “repress or reduce a non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior.”
Don’t misunderstand me: Pedophilia and homosexuality are not the same. As much as we critique consent as the only moral stand our culture will take, it applies here. A minor isn’t developed enough to give consent. I’m only pointing out that the logic could be argued the same in both cases. It should also be noted that, at the same time pedophilia is being reconsidered an orientation, minors have been given control of their sexual identities. If they can determine their sexual identification at younger and younger ages, how long will we prevent them from determining their sexual activities?
Even so, the fact that social scientists and the press can avoid the logical conclusion of “born this way” for this instance shows how flawed that logic always was. Desires don’t determine behavior or identity. They never did because, as human beings, we are moral agents responsible for controlling our appetites.
This slope is just really, really slippery. I’m grateful that there are still those in our culture willing to distinguish between desires and behavior, in at least one case. We should press them on why this is a unique case because if the sexual revolution doesn’t stop here, the consequences are quite simply unthinkable.
It’s one of Russian painter Nikolai Yaroshenko’s most iconic works. Out of the window of a prison car, a small child feeds a group of pigeons. We’re not told who the child, his mother, or their fellow captives are. Yaroshenko’s title is our only clue: Life Is Everywhere. As the world watches the situation unfold in Ukraine, we are forced to deal with the world’s fundamental brokenness and the stark reality of human evil.
But at the same time, there’s something even more pervasive than evil and death: life. Today, even in Ukraine, there will be babies born, marriages officiated, and neighbors gathering to pray.
On a deeper level, redeemed life is everywhere. Jesus came that we may “have life and have it abundantly.”
That life is not about material wealth. Neither is it about simply waiting for heaven.
It’s a renewed commitment to the values of God’s Kingdom, right now. That can be simple as feeding pigeons or giving a cup of cold water to those in need. The joy Christians take in life points to our ultimate hope: a hope that can’t be shaken.
If there’s a term our culture has little appreciation for, it’s “limitations.” But that’s exactly what makes Kelly Kapic’s newest book You’re Only Human worth reading.
Intentionally or implicitly these days, people are told to ignore their physical, interpersonal, and spiritual limits. Even in Christian circles, it’s common to constantly feel exhausted or guilty, as if we haven’t done enough for God and His Kingdom. Dr. Kelly Kapic, a professor of theology at Covenant College, provides a compelling counter-thesis:
“Many of us fail to understand that our limitations are a gift from God, and therefore good.This produces in us the burden of trying to be something we are not and cannot be.”
Human limitation is different from the idea of “sin” or even “fallenness.” As a feature of time and space, “limitations” are nbuilt-in aspect of God’s design. We need things like food and rest. We were not created to do everything by ourselves, even something as simple as finding our own individual identities. Ultimately, we are dependent, and our dependency is meant to draw us closer to the God who created us.
Recently, Dr. Kapic joinedmy colleague Kasey Leander for a special episode ofon the BreakPoint podcast,. Their conversation is an especially relevant counter to dangerous assumptions that are shaping our world.
One of these assumptions has to do with physicality. Seized by what some have called a “gnostic impulse,” much of modern life downplays physical limitations. Digital technology tells us we don’t need to “go” anywhere to “be” with people. We sexualize everything, and in the process destroy the possibility of normal, everyday physical touch. The most extreme example of this gnostic impulse is transgender ideology, which tells people they can only and finally feel fulfilled outside the physical reality of biology.
In God’s original design, the physical world was created “good.” We flourish best, not when we “transcend” our God-given physical limitations, but when we live in accordance with them. This doesn’t mean everything is perfect: Some of our limitations, of course, actually are caused by the fall. However, even in a world infected by evil, Christians have hope in a renewed, physical creation. If God loves our bodies, we should too.
Kapic also highlights the idea of faithfulness in the Christian life. Too often, we’re driven by a desire to do everything, ignoring our limited resources of time and energy. “It was Ben Franklin who said time is money,” he tells us, “and as Christians we have baptized that.”
It makes me wonder what Jesus would make of modern busyness. The Son of God never shied away from challenges or difficulty … yet he spent an inordinate amount of time simply praying and resting. As the Agent of creation and the second Adam, Christ set the standard for a life well lived.
A third takeaway from You’re Only Human. has to do with the Church, the Bride of Christ:
“God extends his love, provision, and values through the people who make up his church. His offer to be a refuge and strength frequently comes through his church. When he wants to bring a word of grace, a safe hug, a warm meal, it often comes through his church. Even when the church cannot do everything itself, it keeps seeking to promote the common good.”
The Christian walk demands community,and our collective limitations also point at something significant about our human limitations. Kapic continues:
“The central mission of the church is to point people continually to the Messiah: he alone fully reveals the love of the Father and pours out his Spirit on us. The goal of all our good efforts is to draw people to the embrace of the triune God, not to serve as a replacement for him. All the gifts we exercise must ultimately point back to the true Giver.”
This is why Christians can read the news without losing hope. We cannot heal or restore our broken world, but Christ can and will. In that respect, our limitation isn’t weakness. It makes us rely on the only true Source of strength.
Dr. Anthony Bradley of the King’s College addresses the very important issue of how we are failing young men. The tyranny of low expectations, soft relationships, absent fathers… ours is a culture failing to transition boys to men. Dr. Bradley explains the current landscape and emboldens listeners to take action to love and support young men. This presentation is part of our Lighthouse Voices Series, done in partnership with Focus on the Family. Click here for more on the Lighthouse Voices Series>>
With the “Stop WOKE Act” and unfairly labeled “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the Florida legislature is ordering state-run schools to adjust their curriculum, and respond to the will of parents.
The U.S. Secretary of Education, in a strong response, threatened the state to follow federal interpretations of Title IX and civil rights laws or risk federal funding. It’s not the first time the White House has used federal funds as leverage to get what it wants from Florida.
The fundamental question here is whose job is it to educate? Increasingly, the state has not only claimed that task, it’s also sought to actively keep parents out of it, especially when it comes to controversial social issues like race or sexuality.
That state does have a place and purpose that was ordained by God. So does the church and so does the family. But the family isn’t designed to be the church, the church isn’t designed to be the state, and the state shouldn’t be teaching its worldview to our kids.
Right in the heart of the Bible are some passages that are uncomfortable. The imprecatory psalms are among the hymns sung by the people of God but are far removed from current cultural conceptions of Christian “niceness” or a gentle Jesus as you can imagine. These are not the psalms of praise and thanksgiving to God for His goodness and mercy, but rather psalms that call for God’s mercy to be withheld and His wrath to be unleashed against our enemies. For example, Psalm 69 says:
“Pour out your indignation upon them, and let your burning anger overtake them. May their camp be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents.”
Psalm 83 declares:
“O my God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind. As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze, so may you pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane!”
Then there’s Psalm 109: “May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow! May his children wander about and beg, seeking food far from the ruins they inhabit!”
Most disturbing of all is Psalm 137. Written after the people of Judah had been conquered and enslaved by the Babylonians, the psalmist cries out:
“O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock!”
We don’t know what to do with these words. We wonder why these psalms are in the Bible, and if the author was an awful person. We ask ourselves how they fit with the self-sacrificing God we’ve known and loved.
Not everything contained in the Bible is, of course, prescriptive. Many of the passages we struggle with are descriptive, describing evils or wrongs that took place. These passages, however, are hymns, even prayers of God’s people. So, in the case of imprecatory psalms, the confusion remains.
At times when world events, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, shake us out of moral lethargy, these cries for justice and wrath make more sense. We, too, become enraged. In the last few weeks, the world has looked on with horror as Russian forces violated the peace with those they claimed were their brothers. Millions have been displaced and thousands are now dead. As Moscow’s become increasingly frustrated at its lack of success, its leaders have resorted to indiscriminate shelling and intentional targeting of noncombatants.
It is right at these times to want justice, and to want it now! It is right to weep at the horrors of human existence, as Billie Holiday did with her mournful song about lynchings in the Jim Crow South, “Strange Fruit.” Passages like Psalm 88 describe the struggle to find hope in God, and to lament the injustice in the world. Sometimes, the only possible moral response is to appeal for God’s judgment on evildoers. Anger is a proper response to real evil in this world, a world that was created good.
At the same time, we should pray that evildoers will see their sin and approach the throne of grace for forgiveness and salvation. After all, Paul was a persecutor of the Church, yet he was saved and used by God to take the Gospel across the Roman world. At the same time, just three chapters after Paul’s salvation, another persecutor, Herod Agrippa, is struck down by God, and, as the text colorfully notes, was eaten by worms. The same Jesus who came gently riding a donkey into Jerusalem will one day come to establish the New Jerusalem riding a warhorse.
Imprecatory psalms affirm our sense that there’s real wrong with the world, that we are right to be angry about it. They speak of the psalmist’s pain in their realness and rawness. They remind us that God is not afraid of our anger. In fact, He, too, is grieved and angry at evil borne of the sin we have committed against one another.
These psalms, these imprecatory words, remind us that we can come to God in our anger and ask that He do something about it. The rest of the Psalms, and the rest of the Bible, remind us that He is trustworthy. As Abraham said of God, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” He will, and we can count on it.
John and Maria discuss the rise of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They ponder why the world seems to admire his leadership and what the significance is when the wider culture largely rejects many displays of masculinity.
Then, Maria asks John to explain a recent commentary that highlights beauty in the face of the conflict in Ukraine. Sharing about the weight of redemption, John notes that redemption grounds many issues in the world and expounds on the Wilberforce Weekend theme “Life Redeemed.”
To close, John describes a recent commentary at BreakPoint on assisted reproduction. Maria shares some of the feedback often received on commentaries about this topic, identifying some challenges to questions for BreakPoint.
During World War II, Jewish teenager Fania Rosenfield lost nearly her entire family to the Nazis. She somehow managed to escape the slaughter happening in her town and find refuge for two years with a Ukrainian family before settling in Israel to begin a new life. Fania repeatedly told the story of the brave Ukrainian family who saved her to her children and grandchildren. And, a few weeks ago when the Russian invasion of Ukraine was imminent, Fania’s granddaughter made a choice to reach out to the family who had saved her grandmother. Now, two young cousins from that Ukrainian family have fled to Israel and are safe with Fania’s family. In the utter darkness of wartime, such as we’re now witnessing in Ukraine, we wonder why a good God would allow such evil. Stories like this, of families transcending national, political, ethnic, and generational lines to sacrificially love others, remind us to thank God for allowing such beauty in the world.
In his book Life With a Capital L, author Matt Heard (also a speakers at this year’s Wilberforce Weekend) describes a famous oil painting by Russian artist Nikolai Yaroshenko.
“Five diverse prisoners—a soldier, a worker, a peasant, a mother and a child—are huddled together, peering through the barred window of a halted prison railcar. The child reaches through the steel bars, feeding pigeons on the railway platform. Even in the midst of an awful predicament, the five prisoners were making a choice to engage with something. With what?”
“Yaroshenko’s title gave me the clue, There Is Life Everywhere.”
Given the devastation mounting in Ukraine, that’s a profound meditation. As I write this, casualties are mounting, and the Russian military is increasingly targeting civilian infrastructure, including a maternity ward in Mariupol. The resulting images—pregnant mothers and newborn infants being pulled out of the wreckage, shell-shocked faces covered in blood, thousands crammed into bus stations and bomb shelters and fleeing across Poland’s border—remind us that life after Eden can be brutal, evil, and full of horror.
Ironically, thousands of refugees are now streaming towards Nikolai Yaroshekno’s own hometown of Poltava, once a city of the Russian Empire but now part of central Ukraine.
When the scale of a crisis is this large, the dominant feeling for those watching is helplessness. If the actions of entire nations haven’t been enough to stop Putin, what can ordinary people do? Like Yaroshenko’s prisoners, we are trapped here in this broken world, forced to deal with life’s fundamental brokenness and the stark reality of human evil.
Yaroshenko’s answer takes the form of a kid’s grubby hand holding crumbs out for pigeons, a mom pointing her child to a simple wonder, and others taking it all in while facing a grim future. Evil may be everywhere … but so is life. So is goodness. So is beauty.
Everything might be broken, but the goodness of our Creator’s handwork shines through the darkness. In fact, in a very real sense, that we recognize the darkness as darkness, and evil as evil, presupposes the existence of light and goodness. And even in the midst of the darkness and evil in Ukraine right now, there is light. There is goodness. There is beauty.
Take brand new baby Mia, born in a Kyiv bomb shelter as explosions rocked the surrounding neighborhoods. Or the nearly 4,000 marriages, some officiated in a mixture of bridal wear and fatigues, performed as Russian troops bore down on the city.
For Christians, the context for the existence of evil is not just the good creation which precedes it. It is the redemption that will overcome evil. Anchored in His victory over death, Jesus offers abundant, overflowing life, not just in the distant future, but now. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy,” Jesus announced: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
This is no prosperity gospel. Nor is it some detached, pietistic hope of heaven. In Christ, there is life which both secures our eternal destiny and endows our earthly existence with meaning, love, and identity.
C.S. Lewis articulated this brilliantly in his 1948 essay On Living in An Atomic Age. As the world first faced the possibility of nuclear destruction, Lewis offered an eternal context:
“Those who care for something else more than civilization are the only people by whom civilization is at all likely to be preserved. Those who want Heaven most have served Earth best. Those who love man less than God do most for man.”
So, Lewis argued, should the atomic bomb ever drop, it ought to find us doing “sensible and human” things: praying, working, listening to music, laughing, and talking with friends. This is no naive or lighthearted invitation to shirk responsibility. It’s an invitation to celebrate good things, even when by every worldly standard, the only realistic response is despair.
Even now, there are Christians in Ukraine living this out: packing churches and singing hymns in a metro station. Volunteers who hosted “Night to Shine” events with the Tim Tebow foundation are now evacuating special needs families with their own trucks and gas. Indeed, there is life everywhere. In Christ, there is Life, abundant life, even in the darkest moments.
“Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial,” James wrote, “for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” These words describe the joy and courage Christians have embodied for millennia, from the earliest martyrs to the Chibok schoolgirls. At the end of the day, there is Life everywhere.
Today we revisit a conversation from Shane Morris to commemorate St. Patrick's Day. Getting beyond the shamrocks, green beer, and parades, who was the historical St. Patrick? Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, we welcome back our former Colson Center colleague and expert on St. Patrick, T. M. Moore.
Moore describes the events of Patrick’s life and gives us an inspiring glimpse into the spiritual life of this giant of the faith, a man whom God used to ignite a revival among the Irish–a revival that would, in the end, save Western Civilization.
Moore is the founder and principal of the Fellowship of Ailbe and author of Celtic Flame: The Burden of Patrick, which is available at our online bookstore.
According to the Barna Group, millennials who stayed in church were “twice as likely to have a close personal friendship with an adult inside the church.”
That was true for me. Around Christmas in December of 1990, I met Ms. Buckner, who lived down a windy, rural Virginia road. She was an 89-year-old widow. There was, shall we say, a pretty significant generation gap between us. We didn’t know what to talk about, so she prayed for me.
That prayer time led me to visit Ms. Buckner again two years later. I was even less interested in spiritual things by then and didn’t think she’d remember me.
When Ms. Buckner came to the door, I said, “You probably don’t remember, but I was here two years ago.”
“John,” she smiled. “I prayed for you this morning.”
Her friendship and prayers impacted me in ways I cannot measure.
Prayer not only unites the church, it inspires faith.
That’s why we’re hosting a time of guided prayer during Lent. These times will inspire you to pray for people in your church especially those in other generations. To sign up for the weekly reminders, visit breakpoint.org/praywithme.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has disrupted the global economy, sparked fears of world war, and pumped gas prices to record highs. There are personal costs, too.
Aside from the lives already lost in the fighting, the conflict in Ukraine has revealed a conflict of interest at the heart of an increasingly common practice. In an article at The Atlantic, Alison Motluk described how, in recent years, Ukraine has become “an international surrogacy hub.” Prospective parents from the U.S., China, Germany, Australia, and other countries have rushed to take advantage of Ukraine’s lax surrogacy laws, hiring less-wealthy women there to gestate their children.
By some estimates, around 2,500 such arrangements are made each year in Ukraine. One large fertility clinic in Kyiv reported that they expect 200 surrogate babies to be born in the next three months. None of the “intended parents” involved foresaw a Russian invasion. Like COVID-19 did in early 2020, the war has “disrupted the supply chain,” something you say until you realize the product is human beings. the war has “disrupted the supply chain,” something you say until you realize the product is human beings.
In the last few weeks, surrogate mothers across Ukraine have been forced to choose between doing what’s right for themselves and their families, and following the contractual demands of paying “parents” thousands of miles away. Many of these women have refused to move since that would separate them from loved ones in harm’s way. Others fled after the clinics in charge of their pregnancies were forced to shut down. Still others are debating whether to seek refuge in other countries, knowing their babies’ legal status and ultimate fates will be uncertain.
As Motluk writes,
“Some people in wartime can turn all of their attention to family and the war effort, but surrogates cannot. Even if they defy pleas to go to places of safety, they carry their work with them, inside their body. … The reality is that the interests of the surrogate and the interests of the parents don’t always align. War just makes it that much more stark.”
Of course, there’s a third party whose interests often aren’t considered, particularly in the media coverage: the unborn babies. Where are their rights? What say do they have in all of this? Who will they call “mommy” and “daddy”? If they make it to their intended buyers, what will they think of being the result of a risky commercial transaction? And if they don’t make it “home,” what fate awaits them? Maybe something similar to the dozens of surrogate babies who were stranded in Ukraine in 2020 after COVID-19 hit.
All of this reveals one of the central problems with our limited ethical deliberations over artificial reproductive technologies, such as surrogacy (especially surrogacy across national borders and between people from such disparate socioeconomic backgrounds): we tend to assume best-case scenarios.
Moral dilemmas, however, rarely happen in a best-case scenario. That’s not how the world works. The hardest decisions we make in life are during times of chaos and conflict—when illness, financial hardship, or family trouble make it incredibly hard to do the right thing, or even know what that is.
We’ve approached surrogacy as if the women contracted to carry the children are always informed, never under financial pressure, protected by contracts that can handle extenuating circumstances such as war or pandemics, that the wishes of the intended “parents” never conflict with their best interests, that no lasting emotional bonds to the baby will be formed, that no coerced abortions will ever happen—and of course, that no one’s country is invaded. When any of these assumptions prove wrong, a terrible human cost is exacted.
Recently, my colleague Shane Morris interviewed pro-life author and speaker Stephanie Gray Connors on the Upstream podcast about her new book Conceived by Science. The book and the conversation detail the ethical problems with both in-vitro fertilization and surrogacy.
One of the principles Stephanie emphasizes is that good desires don’t justify immoral actions. It’s natural for couples to want children of their own and tragic when they can’t conceive or carry them. Still, that is no license to bring children into the world through any means, including technologies that treat children as a commercial product and another human as a supplier or that abandon children or “excess” embryos.
The unfolding crisis for surrogate mothers in Ukraine is a sad reminder of what happens when people are treated as instruments rather than image bearers, as means instead of ends. But ultimately, it’s the children who pay for our failed transactions.
John and Shane discuss structural racism, how should Christians respond. They also explore the wide landscape of Disney movies, especially noting recent films that are problematic for a Christian worldview. To close, they field a challenging dilemma from a listener who is weighed down by an in vitro fertilization situation.
In his 1979 book The Culture of Narcissism, sociologist Christopher Lasch argued that as the bonds of religious identity and family erode, Americans were increasingly looking inward for security and meaning. In such a culture, feelings and subjective experiences aren’t just considered the most important thing in the world: They’re considered the most accurate view of the world.
We see that played out today, where special social status is awarded to people perceived as victims. In a secular culture increasingly hostile to Christianity, one a person’s negative experience at Church or disdain for Christianity is elevated, and quickly believed,, even if that perception is false, or at least uncommon.
As Lasch described, “the contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.”
In such a climate, Christians must be quick to repent and quick to invite others into the abundant life Christ offers. If Christians have found peace, it’s by God’s grace, and our task is to invite the lost to come and find it, too.
Sir Isaac Newton, in a letter written in 1675 to fellow scientist Robert Hooke, wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” Chuck Colson was one of those giants for many of us, and it is our privilege to steward his legacy at the Colson Center.
In fact, Chuck believed that his most important legacy, more than any organization or his many books, would be people. That’s why he started what he called the Centurions Program, something that continues today under a different name, the Colson Fellows program. Here’s Chuck Colson, in his own words, on the important vision he had for this program, which continues today:
I have a burning passion—it’s the first item on my prayer list every day— and that’s to see a movement of Christians raised up from the churches to defend truth in the marketplace of ideas and to live out the Gospel. Nothing less than this kind of an awakening can possibly save our quickly deteriorating culture. That’s why I’m now spending all of my time working at BreakPoint and the Colson Center. One of my major projects is developing Christian leaders who can understand and defend a biblical view of all of life. We call this the Centurions Program.
For the past six years we have brought 100 of the best and brightest into this year-long teaching effort, to study under some of the best minds in the Christian world. It’s demanding: We read books together, view movies, and critique them; do a lot of teaching online; and have three residencies during the year in Lansdowne, Virginia, near our offices.
Our Centurion graduates are like the Marines or the Navy Seals who are on the front lines of the next wave of leaders. Can this work?
Just two weeks ago I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for a rally on behalf of the Manhattan Declaration. It was organized by the Catholic Archbishop of New Mexico, Michael Sheehan, and a former congressman named Bill Redmond, who is a Centurion graduate. You can imagine my thrill when I walked into the convention center to see 1,600 participants. And they were on fire!
They were there to learn biblical worldview, to learn how to defend the sanctity of human life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty, to learn how to become activists! There were representatives from across the denominational spectrum: Southern Baptists, Nazarenes, Assemblies of God, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics. The Church had come together. And all of this was organized by one gutsy archbishop and one Centurion graduate. They in fact have built a powerful network across the state of New Mexico. So yes, it can be done.
And our Centurions are doing a whole variety of important tasks across the spectrum. Like Jon Blankmeyer, who founded a safe home for girls rescued from forced prostitution. Josue Delgado, a hospital chaplain who teaches Emergency Medical Technicians on how to build stronger marriages. Kathy Peele, who founded a group to help mothers under distress, and so many more. By the time they are certified, Centurions know how to write, discuss, and teach Christian worldview in all sorts of settings.
They know how to create God-honoring culture through the arts, media, literature, and business. They’re able to debate ethical challenges with medical professionals, advocate human rights, and develop tomorrow’s leaders by raising children grounded in biblical values. In short, they learn to defend Truth in an age in which many believe such a thing does not exist.
Look, folks, the reason the Church today is having so little impact is too many Christians view their faith only in terms of a personal relationship with Jesus. But Christianity does not stop with salvation; that’s only the beginning. We’ve got to learn how to present our worldview in a winsome way. And if we don’t do this, it simply dooms our churches to isolation and irrelevance—just when our culture desperately needs the hope of the Gospel more than ever.
After Chuck’s death in 2012, the program he started as the Centurions Program was renamed as the Colson Fellows Program. I think Chuck would be ecstatic that, this year, over 750 Christians from across the country, and even around the world, have been studying worldview, theology, and culture in the Colson Fellows Program, and are currently planning to apply what they’ve learned in the time and place God has called them.
If you desire to make a similar impact in your community for Christ, consider studying with the Colson Fellows program next year. With over 60 regional cohorts around the country, there is likely a cohort in your region. If not, there are online cohorts offered as well. Either way, you’ll find a deeper understanding of truth and be better equipped to live out your faith in this cultural moment in whatever calling and vocation God has put before you. For more information, visit www.colsonfellows.org.
According to Pew Research, roughly 79% of Americans agree that there are major differences in the viewpoints held by different generations. The gaps are significant, but there’s reason for hope. According to a report outlined in Christianity Today, younger generations are eager for more from church. Evangelicals under 40 are twice as likely as others to say they want more substance from the pulpit.
That’s one reason why the Colson Center is offering a special tool to help you connect with the generations in your church.
The Pray for Me Campaign, headed by my friend Tony Souder, is a simple idea: Connect every student with three or more “prayer champions” across multiple generations. These mentors regularly pray for students, encouraging them in their spiritual walk. Already active in over 700 churches, 42 states, and more than 17 denominations, the Pray for Me Campaign is a practical tool for bridging a generational divide.
We want to give you this resource in exchange for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center. To receive this resource simply visit colsoncenter.org/february.
It’s not easy or comfortable to talk about the ethics of assisted reproduction. But too much is at stake not to.
Artificial reproductive technologies are fraught with moral, ethical, and practical dilemmas. This includes technologies already widely accepted and practiced in our culture (and even our churches), technologies such as surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, and sperm donation. How these technologies are increasingly employed also goes largely unquestioned. For example, much of the demand for both international commercial surrogacy and for legalizing commercial surrogacy in the United States is now coming from same-sex couples who, having chosen a sterile relationship, demand the right to have children. There’s also been a number of social adjustments made in order to reimagine reproduction and family life, such as changing the legal definition of the word “parent.”
All of this demonstrates just how much our technological abilities have outpaced our ethics. For the most part, the extent of our ethical deliberation has been reduced to two questions: Can we do this? And, do we want to do this? If the answers to these questions are “yes,” the ethical case is closed, and the conclusion is that we should do this.
In fact, the editorial team of the Colson Center recently recognized a trend in the significant amount of feedback we receive anytime we broach these difficult topics in a commentary, podcast, or short course. With rare exception, nearly every comment or question (especially the critical ones) has to do with the will and desires of the adults involved, not the rights and well-being of the children involved.
For example, we are assured that couples who pursue assisted reproduction have good intentions, and anyone who suffers with infertility should be able to consider any and all available options, without judgment. Others wonder why, since we claim to be pro-life, we are critical of certain technologies that make it possible for couples to have children. Most ask if we have considered how painful it is to desire children but struggle to conceive.
We have. The pain of infertility is real and deep, and the desire for children is natural, inherent, and good. It’s a tragedy whenever someone who embraces this desire is unable to experience it. At the same time, we question the use of certain artificial reproductive technologies. Ours is a culture in which adult happiness is prioritized over the rights of children, both in the taking and the making of preborn life. It’s as if the well-being of the children who may result from such technologies aren’t even a consideration. It’s as if they are the desired ends that justify any means. It’s as if any innovations or experiments having to do with family structure, or the procreative process, are justified as long as the adults involved get what they want.
To be clear, infertility is so personal and painful that the only reason to address the ethical and theological problems inherent to some forms of assisted reproduction is if much is at stake. After all, it is more than a little uncomfortable to discuss the ethics of a technology with someone, especially a friend or family member, who believes it could deliver what they want most in the world. Though some people do employ assisted reproduction after parsing out what is ethically acceptable from what is ethically problematic, too many operate from only good intentions and broken hearts.
Good intentions, however, are not enough. Refusing to talk about these technologies to protect the feelings of adults won’t end what is a growing human rights crisis, especially when so many people—Christians included—are unaware there’s a crisis at all. Many people don’t realize, for example, that the sperm donation industry is outrageously unregulated. In some areas, it’s not only legal but common for donors to father dozens and dozens of children who, in the end, may be legally prevented from learning about their father or their half-siblings.
Many don’t realize the trauma inflicted on surrogate mothers and babies who have bonded physically and emotionally for nine months before being separated shortly after birth, robbing that child of the right to his or her birth mother. Many don’t know that surrogate moms lose custodial rights to their babies or that their names aren’t listed on their babies’ birth certificates. Many don’t realize that commercial surrogacy is banned in much of the Western world and many developing nations because of how it enables the exploitation of women. Many don’t know that where commercial surrogacy is legal, it is a booming industry, primarily because wealthy Western couples keep impoverished women pregnant, underpaid, and away from their own families.
Many also don’t know how common it is for companies in the U.S. to lure college women into the incredibly dangerous process of freezing their eggs by promising an enormous fee. Many don’t realize that an estimated one million embryos —tiny human beings that are referred to as “excess” embryos—are currently kept in freezers across the United States, or that only 7% of all embryos created by IVF will be born alive.
Many pastors avoid addressing these issues with their congregations, either because they think them too irrelevant or too risky to address publicly. But the moral stakes are too high to remain silent: Embryos are abandoned in freezers right now with more added every day. Couples are hiring surrogates to carry their babies today. Some Christian women even think of it as their mission field. States are passing legislation to turn the practice into a full-blown industry. Christians are in church pews today, tempted, and even pursued by segments of assisted reproduction industries at risk of making uninformed but serious moral mistakes.
It must be said that any and every child God brings into the world is made in His image and shares in the dignity inherent to any human being. After all, no child is born whom God did not intend. No moral concern with assisted reproduction, nor any corruption or spin employed by the assisted reproductive industries, should ever reduce our enthusiastic love, respect, and care for children conceived by its technology. In fact, it is the inherent rights and dignity of these children that demand we speak out on their behalf.
My friend Katy Faust has been doing that for years through her nonprofit Them Before Us. I’ll be joining her in person tonight for another live event in the Lighthouse Voices Speakers Series, at the new Focus on the Family bookstore in Holland, Michigan. The event starts at 7 p.m., Eastern Time, and if you can’t make it in person, it will be live streamed for free. For more information, please visit colsoncenter.org/events.
Covenant College Professor of Theology Kelly Kapic has written a new book called You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God's Design and Why That's Good News.
Nobody likes the idea of “limitations.” And that’s for obvious reasons. A core piece of the American dream is to always fly higher, do more, and never let up off the gas pedal.
As Kelly argues though, we sometimes internalize that idea even as Christians. As a result, too many of us go to bed exhausted and distracted. It’s easy to have this underlying feeling that, at the end of the day we just didn’t do enough for God.
The good news is that there’s a solution: we need to recover the God-given idea of human limitations.
According to the Pew Research Center, the U.S. has the world’s highest rate of children living in single-parent households. Almost a quarter of U.S. children under 18 live with one parent.
Of course, there are many heroic single parents courageously committed to raising their children. Still, decades of research show how costly it is for so many. Children of unmarried parents, on average, do worse in school, have poorer emotional and physical health, are more likely to commit crimes, and are more likely to have children out of wedlock themselves.
The sexual revolution decoupled sex from marriage while insisting “the kids will be fine.” Well, they’re not.
Christians must speak into this issue with truth and love, especially in a society that fosters adults to seek happiness at the expense of kids. Redefining and reinventing family structures, parenting, and marriage are having horrible consequences.
On Tuesday, March 15, we are partnering with Focus on the Family to address this topic. Katy Faust of Them Before Us will teach how Christians can stand for the rights of children. Register for the live stream at Colsoncenter.org/events.
Earlier this year, Kelsey Ichikawa of Nautilus magazine raised an important question: Is virtual reality harming the cognitive development of children? As they grow, kids rely on years of practice to develop basic levels of coordination. The process of “sensory integration,” where sight, balance, orientation, and touch are integrated into a seamless neurological experience is a “long and elaborate process of development,” writes Ichikawa, “that begins before birth and extends into early adulthood.”
One of the reasons young kids perform terribly in the virtual world is that they have yet to master those basic skills in the real world. This has led some experts to question if hours spent playing as an avatar could shortchange the process, leading to developmental issues later in life. So far, the jury is still out.
“When you enter the virtual world, the rules of sensory experience change, which could impact kids’ development,” says Swiss neuroscientist Jenifer Miehlbradt; “Maybe it’s totally safe, or maybe it’s not. Either way we need to know a lot more about what happens to them when they slip into avatar.”
Researchers won’t have to wait long for data. According to Bloomberg, more than two-thirds of all U.S. kids between the ages of 9 and 12 play “Roblox,” a massive, multiplayer online game that lends itself to VR. Immediately after going public, the game was valued at $41 billion, making it an overnight competitor with juggernauts like Nintendo and Electronic Arts. While you don’t have to use VR to play Roblox, millions do. Their experience could give researchers a baseline to test their theories, but with a painfully obvious catch. Any harm will have already been done.
As it develops at a breakneck pace, VR is already creating other ethical dilemmas. For example, despite developers’ best efforts, games like Roblox can fall victim to lewd or predatory content, as the BBC covered in February. As users upload content, a “small subset” find creative ways around built-in parental safety controls. It’s a problem as common as the internet, but with dramatically higher stakes.
VR is a powerful technology. University of Texas at Austin researcher Jakki Bailey found that immersive virtual reality far outpaces other digital media like TV or standard computers when it comes to creating a sense of “presence.” That’s exactly the purpose it was designed for. “It’s why even most adults have trouble stepping off a gangplank in immersive VR despite knowing that in reality, an office carpet lies just below,” writes Kelsey Ichikawa.
But like any technology, that immersive power should raise questions. Some are Class 1 questions or questions that come up when technology doesn’t work perfectly. What happens, for example, if VR safety protocols can’t filter out disturbing content?
But the more powerful dilemmas are Class 2 questions or “What happens if this technology does work perfectly?” What if we create such a seamless virtual experience that it’s indistinguishable from real life? What if we spend more time there than in real life? What if kids can instantly connect with anyone on the internet in a way that to them seems completely real?
For questions like these, simple answers aren’t enough. Christians need to think critically here because, like all technology, VR needs to be carefully stewarded.
On one hand, it has the potential for great good: medical applications, seamless business meetings, and just the fun of trying new things in virtual space. As God’s image bearers, we were designed to build, innovate, create, and explore. As we’ve said before on BreakPoint, “God is no Luddite.”
But we should also exercise caution. Our bodies aren’t an accidental part of who we are.
In an age that increasingly downplays physical aspects of reality, elevating our quasi-spiritual projects of self-creation, God’s view of our bodies is critical.
We live in the most interconnected age in human history, yet people are lonely. We’ve forgotten that sharing simple things such as food, hugs, eye contact, fellowship, and physical proximity are essential aspects of living life together as humans made in God’s image.
This especially matters for children, who are at risk of losing the normal interactions of life. Some have never experienced them in the first place. As early adopters, they may gain the most from our new technologies, but they also have the most to lose.
Is the invasion of Ukraine a sign of the end times? What are the end times and how are Christians called to respond? John and Maria unpack the Ukraine crisis and how both Christians and the secular world are interpreting the events as an omen of the end of the age.
Maria then asks John for clarity on the new Florida bill that protects young children from being exposed to sexual ideology in grade school. John explains the landscape of the culture and how and why many are responding the way they are.
To close, John and Maria discuss a pair of recent commentaries and how Christians are called to this cultural moment.
Is your worldview big enough?
Everything at the Colson Center, from the Point and BreakPoint commentaries to podcasts to Wilberforce Weekend brings clarity on culture from a Christian worldview.
But the goal isn’t just to think clearly. It’s also to live in an intentionally redemptive way. And nothing gets in the way of that more than a truncated view of the Gospel. You might call it a “two-chapter” worldview, one focused only on sin and salvation but doesn’t take seriously the biblical realities of creation and restoration. Creation helps us see God’s intent; restoration puts our personal salvation in larger context of Christ’s work in history. A two-chapter Gospel simply isn’t big enough for this cultural moment.
What if you could spend nine months building the worldview “muscles” needed to make sense of the culture and, working and studying with others, develop a plan to live a life of Christian influence grounded in the story of Scripture?
The Colson Fellows program is a regionally based (or online) deep dive into a robust Christian worldview. There are cohorts in over 60 cities and online. Colson Fellows can be found in state legislatures, board rooms, schools, medical research, prisons, pulpits, dinner tables, racial reconciliation efforts...in other words, in every area of life.
And that’s the vision: everyday Christian leaders, all across culture, with a clear vision for how God can use them in this cultural moment. Learn more at colsonfellows.org.
Babies aren’t popular, right now.
In fact, on average, Americans have never had fewer children as we did in 2020. Of course, that was also the year the pandemic began, something that historically, like war and recession, tends to empty maternity wards.
The decline in our nation’s birth rate, however, didn’t begin with COVID-19, and there’s little reason to believe it has turned around in the last year and a half. The current decline goes back a while now, and didn’t reverse when the economy boomed in the second half of the 2010s. In fact, the dwindling U.S. birth rate seems strangely indifferent to what’s happening in the stock market or the headlines. It’s almost as if, no matter our financial or political situation, Americans are simply choosing to have fewer and fewer children year by year. And, it’s not because they can’t afford them. It's because they don’t want them.
That’s the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, which found that economic factors such as rising cost of living or student debt, factors which historically played outsized roles in fertility rates, are not when it comes to declining birth rates today. To isolate what is causing today’s decline, the authors estimated the impact of policy and economic shifts—things such as Medicaid coverage, abortion access, childcare cost, and sex education. “Perhaps the key explanation for the post-2007 sustained decline in US birth rates,” the authors conclude, “is not…some changing policy or cost factor, but rather shifting priorities across cohorts of young adults.” Or as Patrick Brown at the Institute for Family Studies summarized: “It’s not the economy, stupid, but the culture.”
In fact, American incomes have reached record highs, and standards of living are better than they were in decades past. Americans, on average, have the resources to bear and raise more children than they are, something like 5.8 million more, according to the Institute for Family Studies’ Lyman Stone
One factor that did stand out as firmly predicting fertility was marriage rates. Birth rates among married women haven’t changed much since the mid-1990s. What has changed is the percentage of women getting married. That number has fallen by nearly half since 1990. According to Brown, “It doesn’t seem to be the case that women who might have had multiple children are stopping at one, but rather delayed marriage and childbirth are preventing more women from having any children at all.”
The authors of the study cite cultural preferences about adult life as the cause of both falling marriage and fertility. This shouldn’t really surprise us. As a 2018 poll publicized by The New York Times found, the most frequently cited reason for young adults’ decision not to have children was a desire for more leisure time.
Patrick Brown at the Institute for Family Studies is appropriately cautious about what we can learn from this research. For example, it doesn’t mean policies designed to make parenting easier for young couples aren’t important or that we don’t need to address the student debt crisis. What it does mean is that it’s time to rethink the conventional wisdom about why people decide to have children. We are not purely economic creatures. Cultural attitudes, norms, and preferences about what makes for a meaningful life have a far bigger impact on fertility than previously thought. Young adults today are having fewer children than ever before, not because they can’t keep food on the family table, but because for so many there is no family table.
Christians should have different priorities. Throughout Scripture, God prioritizes marriage and children. In the creation account, in the history of Israel, in the Wisdom literature, and in the New Testament Epistles, family is seen as a blessing, the cradle of faith, the place where culture begins, a center of worship. and the setting for some of the greatest joys human beings can experience.
That doesn’t mean that single life is any less of a calling, or that every young person should focus all their energy on finding a life partner. Just that it wouldn’t hurt for more churches and Christian families to play matchmaker, helping young adults reimagine what life should be. We ought not imitate a society that, in its zeal to get the most out of life, is forgetting to pass it on.
There’s a religious element to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In 2019 the Orthodox Church of Ukraine officially split from the Russian Orthodox Church. Obviously, the political and religious history of this part of the world goes back far beyond that, but it should be noted that one of the ways Vladimir Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine is by claiming that he was fighting for “the religious soul of Ukraine.”
And prior to the invasion, one strong indicator of his ultimate intentions is that Jews, Muslims, and Protestants were reporting religious oppression in the parts of Ukraine under Moscow’s control. In other words, restrictions on religious freedom came first.
Unprovoked invasions, genocide, and totalitarian tendencies are often the things that draw the world’s attention that something is wrong in some part of the world. A better “canary in the coal mine” of geo-political conflict is religious persecution.
That’s because religious freedom is the first freedom. When it falls, so do the others.
When the University of Northampton added a trigger warning to George Orwell’s 1984 last year, a fresh round of conversations about speech and censorship followed. What do people in a free society owe each other when it comes to our words? What is the nature and purpose of education? Is it possible to have accountability if there’s no real debate? Many educational institutions are taking extreme measures to eradicate language they think is problematic. Students at Brandeis University, for example, compiled a suggested word list to help students and faculty avoid terms with any conceivable sexist, racist, or ableist undertones. Phrases like “killing it,” for example, made the list because of their supposedly violent connotations. Others, like “rule of thumb,” “you guys,” or “that’s crazy” were included for even less convincing rationale.
In one of the strangest ironies, Brandeis students placed the term “trigger warning” on the list. The students put it this way: Their reason, and I quote, was that “‘Warning’ can signify that something is imminent or guaranteed to happen, which may cause additional stress about the content to be covered.”
Ah, but there’s a plot twist here: Recent studies are now questioning the effectiveness of trigger warnings for this exact reason. It turns out, the students were on to something.
For example, a study published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry found that, on average, trigger warnings increased peoples’ perceived emotional vulnerability to trauma. For example, reading written material identified as harmful led to an increase in anxiety. Crucially, these findings only held if the reader actually “believed that words can cause harm” in the first place.
In other words, teach a generation that reading certain words can cause irreparable harm, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same logic applies to other “trigger warnings,” like the Brandeis word list: They may create the exact anxiety they’re intended to prevent.
As Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt write in their book, The Coddling of the American Mind,
“A culture that allows the concept of ‘safety’ to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger is a culture that encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy.”
This is not to say any limits or changes in language amount to censorship. Derogatory terms for people of a different race or with a disability such as Down Syndrome once passed as normal in even “respectable” parts of society. Ridding our language of those terms was an improvement. And, on a personal level, we all need to filter the content we take in daily. That’s the idea behind the rating system on movies, which has proven to be more than a bit problematic. Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom initially received a PG rating despite a cultic ritual where a man’s still-beating heart is pulled out of his chest. The outroar by parents is what led to the PG-13 rating. On the other hand, Facing the Giants, the Christian movie, received a PG rating instead of G because critics feared it was too religious and would offend viewers. The whole thing is a mess.
Even so, we should be able to see that there’s a world of difference between old-fashioned parental guidance—really, what we would call wisdom—and immediately removing anything controversial under the guise of it being “triggering.”
The former acknowledges the moral agency that needs cultivation and shaping. The latter treats us as passive victims in need of coddling.
And to be clear, there is always a moral framework behind anything that is labeled as “triggering” speech. Even when it’s not clear who is making the rules, they reflect some worldview. And once they are set in stone, violating them is anathema … the equivalent of a physical act of violence. That’s an impossible system to uphold and leads to a culture void of real moral discourse and the possibility of forgiveness
This is our context, and it is quite a challenge for Christian parents. The answer is not to create our own version of intellectual isolation, hiding from any and all offensive content, shying away from tough topics like sexuality or CRT, or arguing as if our own feelings of being offended are legitimate moral reasoning. In the words of Lukianoff and Haidt, “Prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child.”
All Christians, but especially students, will have to be able to think critically and articulate why things like free speech matter. The best antidote for fragility is the confidence that comes from real preparation. It’s the only way to avoid resorting to outrage as a strategy and how we can follow the example of Jesus, Who is truth and love together. Intellectual fragility, on the other hand, is neither.
Listeners write in asking for a framework to teach young people to view the world with a Christian perspective. John talks about credibility, plausibility, and discernment.
Then, Shane asks John for a Biblical grounding for Lent and how Christians should approach the season.
Another listener writes in to ask for clarity on how BreakPoint recently explained Jesus' humanity and if his body was fallen or perfect.
To close, John helps a listener think well on where we find our identity and how to think well of cultures and race in the spheres of society.
America has a real trust problem. We’ve lost trust in our institutions and each other, and the ramifications for society are immense.
Recently a senior partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers wrote in the Harvard Business Review about how businesses should focus on building trust with their customers. A recent survey showed that Americans are wary of trusting companies on issues such as cyber security, employee relations, and transparency. A crutch for many businesses, the author wrote, is not having a dedicated employee or department charged with building trust. Much of his advice was helpful, but the piece could have been distilled into a much more effective message: Anyone who wants to be trusted must be trustworthy.
This goes for individuals, businesses, and the state. Because all are comprised of fallen people, there’s always the temptation to hide missteps and protect our image. This goes back to the Garden of Eden. It shouldn’t take a dedicated employee in the C-suite or a checklist from the Harvard Business Review to act virtuously, but in the end, that’s the only true “secret sauce” to building real trust.
Richard John Neuhaus, founder of the journal on religion and public life First Things, once wrote, “When I meet God, I expect to meet him as an American.” The line got him in a good bit of trouble back then, but today he’d almost certainly be accused of being a “Christian nationalist.” Nationalism of any stripe has gotten a bad name recently, but especially so-called Christian nationalism. How should Christians think about nations and national loyalty? The first use of the Hebrew word for nation comes appears in Genesis 10, in a listing of nations that descended from Noah’s sons. It’s notable that this comes before the Tower of Babel, recorded in Genesis 11, where God created more nations by confusing the languages and scattering people across the Earth. Nations, it seems, were part of God’s plan for humanity before the rebellion at Babel. And, even in that story, the dividing into tongues and scattering of the people is described more as an act of mercy than of judgment, to prevent humans from doing all that was possible as one people.
Then in Genesis 12, God tells Abram that his descendants would become a great nation, and that, through them, all the nations of the world would be blessed. The Old Testament frequently refers to the Jewish people as a nation, while also using the same word to describe the other kingdoms and empires around them.
In the New Testament ethne, the Greek word for “nation” most famously appears in Jesus’ instructions to make disciples “of all nations,” which is a fulfillment of God’s original promise to Abraham.
Also interesting is that in the New Testament, language about nations seems to exclude “empire.” Though ethne can be translated either as “people group” or “nation,” the two are related. Historically, the word “nation” referred to a relatively homogenous group, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically. The kingdoms of the ancient world mostly consisted of people of a single nation. Thus, ethne can refer to a people group within an empire, but not to empires themselves because they contain multiple nations.
Nations also seem to be present after the Second Coming of Christ, according to biblical descriptions. For example, Micah 4:2 says:
“Many nations shall come, and say: ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
And in Revelation 21:24, we are told that “by the light [of God and of the Lamb] will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it [the New Jerusalem].” So, it seems that something of the nations will survive into eternity.
Of course, because human beings are fallen, everything humans build are susceptible to sin, including nations. Just as sins characterize our lives as individuals, so also can certain sins dominate nations, corrupting their cultures. And, just as we must be cleansed of sin to enter the Kingdom, so must nations be cleansed from sins if they have any place in the New Heavens and New Earth.
A fascinating illustration of this is found in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Their high views of ancient northern European culture show up in their stories of Narnia and Middle Earth. However, though they believed virtue could be found, they also recognized the evils of Norse paganism. Thus, they argued for a recovery of “northernness,” cleansed of its paganism and Christianized by the Gospel.
Exactly what the cleansing of nations entails isn’t clear, but the result is beautifully described in Revelation 7, where “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” will join together in worshipping the Lamb.
This passage confirms that, at least to some degree, our nationality will accompany us into eternity. Rather than homogenizing us, God’s Kingdom will be a glorious mosaic of people of different races, ethnicities, and nations. This makes sense given that God delighted in the diversity of His creation.
In other words, according to these texts, when Father Neuhaus died in 2009, he did, in fact, meet God as an American.
Of course, all good loves, including love of spouse, child, family, community, or culture, can be disordered and even idolatrous. Nationalism becomes idolatry whenever love of nation devolves into an excessive or uncritical devotion, is confused with the Kingdom of God, justifies evil, or engages in a partiality that treats citizens of other nations as less worthy of love or justice or charity. However, the idea that nations should be defined, self-governing, and the immediate object of Christian stewardship is not idolatry.
Another way to say this is that Christians are called to be good stewards of the nations they are in. Our nations are, after all, the most obvious aspect of the time and place in which God has placed us.
At the same time, great harm is done whenever Christians attempt to build empires. The reason is simple: Jesus is the only one who rules over all nations, and no one on earth has the right to usurp His authority.
In 2020, America reached a grim milestone. According to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, 2020 was the first year that more than half of all abortions performed in the U.S.—54%—were done with drugs instead of instruments. That’s up from 39% in 2017.
Abortion pills are only approved for use before a baby reaches 10 weeks’ gestation. Due to COVID-19, prescriptions became available via “telehealth.” But how can a doctor verify gestational age without seeing a woman in person? In fact, how is a doctor supposed to monitor women for life-threatening complications after they take the drugs—which do happen—if they never even come into the office?
Privatizing abortion for hurting women will increase profits for drug companies and doctors, who can collect their dues without seeing patients, let alone treating them. However, sending abortion home also increases the danger, shame, and isolation of women in need of care. And, of course, adding this bad idea to an already bad idea makes more babies the victims. A grim milestone, indeed.
Many Christians, rightly concerned about protecting the Church’s witness in front of the wider world, have embraced claims about the church that simply are not true. Last week, Pastor Josh Howerton of Lakepointe Church in Dallas shared a fascinating Twitter thread demonstrating that when it comes to the Church’s reputation, perception is not always reality.
Citing research from the Barna Group and others, Pastor Howerton debunked the popular myth of the pro-life evangelical who cares only about babies until they are born but not once they are outside the womb. For example, practicing American Christians are more than twice as likely as non-Christians to adopt..
Then there’s the accusation that conservative Christians are sexually repressed, obsessed with “purity culture” and the sexual oppression of women. The research actually shows that couples who identify as “highly religious” report having the most satisfied sexual lives. Those numbers are even higher for women than for men.
A more recent accusation is that American churches are rampant with abuses of power, gaslighting, or narcissistic leaders. To be sure, those problems exist, as illustrated not long ago by Christianity Today’s podcast The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill. But the data show clearly that regularly attending church, on the whole, dramatically improves people’s mental and emotional health, accounting for a 33% decreased risk in deaths from despair, a 50% reduced risk of divorce, and a 29% decreased risk of depression.
The Church, of course, has plenty of problems. But how has the gap between reality and perception grown so wide?
Part of the problem is myopia. It is human nature to think that our perception of the world is true, and to downplay or even ignore evidence to the contrary. This is especially true when we are trying to stand with victims and work for wrongs to be righted.
Even so, ours is a culture that rewards self-preoccupation. In 1979, sociologist Christopher Lasch wrote The Culture of Narcissism, arguing that as the bonds of religious identity and family erode, Americans were increasingly looking inward for security and meaning. In such a culture, feelings and subjective experiences aren’t just considered the most important thing in the world: They’re considered the most accurate view of the world.
In such a world, special social status is awarded to people perceived as victims. Thus, testimonies of victimization—both inside the Church and out—get louder play. Stories of everyday faithfulness, sacrifice, and ministry seem boring. And, in a secular culture increasingly hostile to Christianity, one person’s negative experience at church or disdain for Christianity in general will be much better received and more readily believed than the opposite testimony, even if that one person’s perception is false, or at least uncommon.
Simply put, a lot of people just don’t want to like the Church. In some cases, they have good reason. Whenever that is the case, we should grieve and take appropriate steps to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. But we should also not be surprised when a secular culture skeptical of the existence of moral realities flinches at the moral certainty offered in Scripture. As atheist Thomas Nagel honestly admitted, “It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God…. I don’t want there to be a God. I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
Describing The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch wrote, “the contemporary climate is therapeutic, not religious. People today hunger not for personal salvation, but for the feeling, the momentary illusion, of personal well-being, health, and psychic security.”
Even though the Christian life offers the best path for human flourishing, there is no promise of personal comfort. Jesus promised that the difficult grind of sanctification—the self-sacrifice, the commitment, the generosity that we’re called to—wouldn’t always come across well, not to others or even to us. He said the world would hate Him because darkness hates the light.
As Christians, our response should be invitation, not self-flagellation. The reason data shows Christians are living more satisfied lives isn’t because Christians are better people. If we’ve succeeded in anything, it’s only because of God working through us. Without Him, Jesus said, we can do nothing.
The advantage to being a Christian is seeing reality as it really is. It makes perfect sense that the people willing to accept the Bible as the true account of the world would be the people most able to live at peace in the world. If we’ve found that peace, it’s by God’s grace, and our task is to invite the lost to come and find it, too.
The data doesn’t lie. Neither does the Bible.
Tony Souder is the founder of the Pray for Me campaign, something being used in over 700 churches to connect generations.
BreakPoint writer sat down with Tony Souder this week to hear how his ministry is uniting the church. Kasey also shares how BreakPoint listeners can receive the resources from The Pray For Me Campaign, and bridge generational breaks in their own communities. For more information visit www.breakpoint.org/february.
“From Neolithic constructions to atomic clocks, how humans measure time reveals what we value most,” writes Clara Moskowitz in Scientific American. She’s reviewing physicist Chad Orzel’s new book A Brief History of Timekeeping, and her comment is an insightful one. We may not think measuring time is an extension of worldview, but it is. Os Guinness puts it this way: “Accelerated time is one of the primary shapers of our modern world and far more influential than any individual modern thinker.”
Our tools have made us incredibly productive, but they also encourage us to ignore the contextual clues from the world around us. Under the glare of LED lights, for example, we can stay up and work when even our hardest-working forbears would have chosen rest.
One of the best gifts Christians can give the world is a re-contextualization of time. Like professor Kelly Kapic writes in his book You’re Only Human, “What we want most is to live in harmony with time, instead of being driven by it.” We may have gained productivity with our calculated time, but we lost some things as well.
In his letter to the church at Philippi, St. Paul exhorted the believers there to live lives “worthy of the gospel of Christ..” How Paul goes on to describe that kind of life lived is a bit unnerving, especially in a letter supposedly about finding a life of joy. Such a life, wrote Paul, involves, “striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, not frightened in anything by your opponents…. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake.”
Most of us cannot imagine living out those words, but the Nigerian schoolgirls, kidnapped almost eight years ago by Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram, can. Now in their early 20’s, their stories are documented in a new book, Bring Back Our Girls: The Untold Story of the Global Search for Nigeria's Missing Schoolgirls by Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw
The nightmare began the night of April 14, 2014, when armed members of the terrorist group descended on the majority Christian town of Chibok, firing their weapons and looking for food supplies and a new brickmaker. After forcing the 276 teenage girls out of their beds and into the courtyard, they eventually decided to them as captives as well. They burned the school to the ground and disappeared into Nigeria’s rugged northern scrubland.
The multinational search and rescue attempt that followed was accompanied by the viral social media campaign known as #BringBackOurGirls. Unfortunately, it had limited immediate effect. The girls, most of whom were Christian, were at the mercy of their captors.
While the Muslim classmates were forced to marry Boko Haram fighters, the Christian schoolgirls faced a choice. They could convert to Islam and likewise be forced into marriage, or they could refuse and endure every imaginable form of forced labor, assault, and deprivation. For the girls, the answer was clear. They would not submit. “Anything that happens, happens,” they told each other.
Kept at near-starvation levels and forced into back-breaking labor over the next three years, Parkinson and Hinshaw describe how the girls’ faith remained strong. Parkinson and Hinshaw tell the story:
“At the risk of beatings and torture, they whispered prayers together at night, or into cups of water, and memorized the Book of Job from a smuggled Bible. Into secret diaries, they copied Luke 2, because they saw themselves in Mary’s ordeal of giving birth to Jesus. They transcribed paraphrases of psalms in loopy, teenage handwriting: ‘Oh my God I keep calling by day and You do not answer. And by night. and there is no silence on my part’ (22:2).”
“As we interviewed some 20 of the young women,” Parkinson and Hinshaw continue, “We discovered [something] that much of the foreign coverage had missed. We saw clearly how the teenagers’ will to survive was inseparable from their religious convictions.”
Those same convictions are being tested in other parts of Nigeria, as well. To this day, the regular murder, abduction, and violence meted out towards Christians—combined with the sometimes complicity of the government and relative silence of the international community—has led some to call it “Nigeria’s silent slaughter.” To date, the Red Cross estimates that more than 24,000 people are registered as missing, the most of any country.
In the case of the Chibok girls, 163 either escaped or were eventually released. At least 13 died in captivity. Nearly 100 girls remain unaccounted for.
According to Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw, their story holds a surprising but important lesson for Africa’s most populous nation: “At times it could be easy [to] adopt the facile hope that Nigeria’s problems might be resolved by gradually secularizing its more than 210 million people,” they write: “Yet we found a different perspective in a group of young women who had faced unimaginable hardship and survived. Their faith provided twin anchors of identity and hope during a period when their captors were trying to erase both.… [it] became the language of their resistance.”
In the tradition of so many who went before them, who were granted “not only to believe in Christ but to suffer for His sake, the Chibok schoolgirls held on to faith, and in so doing, found life and hope where there was seemingly none.
Pray for Nigeria, and the thousands of Christians suffering for Christ there.
What exactly did President Joe Biden say at the State of the Union? John and Maria identify the worldview foundation that President Biden spoke from and how the topics in his speech, ranging from Ukraine to education, reveal important realities about his worldview.
To close the show, Maria shares a haunting reality in the Ukraine conflict: Surrogate children conceived for commercial purposes are stuck in a Ukrainian bomb shelter because their paying parents aren’t able to reach them. John explains the challenge of commercial surrogacy and how it differs from adoption and other forms of surrogacy.
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Ukraine’s Surrogacy Industry Has Put Women in Impossible Positions
Ukraine is an international surrogacy hub, one of only a handful of countries in the world that allows foreigners to enter into surrogacy arrangements. That means people from the United States or China or Germany or Australia can go there and hire a local woman to gestate their child. There are conditions—the parents have to be straight and married and have a medical reason for needing a surrogate—but surrogates are plentiful, paying them is legal, and establishing legal parenthood for the intended parents is uncomplicated.
The Atlantic
Protecting the Victims of Bad Ideas
Standing for the inherent dignity and rights of children against the innovations of our age is our version of “running into the plague and caring for victims” while everyone else is running away.
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As the world watches Russia attack its neighbor, it’s worth remembering that threats to freedom can come from within, too. Scotland’s newest Hate Crime Act is aimed at squashing any speech that critiques transgender ideology. Offenders face jail time, for up to seven years, for what’s being called “stirring up hatred.” Exactly what “stirring up hatred” means, of course, is the problem. Incredibly, the law not only applies to public spaces but to conversations held in one’s own home.
Many in Scotland are rightly worried about the chilling effect this law would have on free speech, let alone how it would enable more of a police state.
This is in stark contrast to a classical liberal view of liberty. As John Stuart Mill famously argued, free speech is the only defense against the “tyranny of the majority.”
Christians have an additional reason to care about free speech. Loving our neighbor means defending their ability to speak without coercion… especially when those opinions are unpopular.
Earlier this week, Christians were reminded, by a smudged cross on foreheads and with words first spoken to Adam and Eve, of our mortality: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words, delivered by clergy on Ash Wednesday, are God’s words about us, recorded in Genesis 3:19.
Though it’s not pleasant to be reminded that we are dust, it is good. Ash Wednesday tells the truth about who we are. The Season that follows, Lent, helps us order our lives around that truth. And yet, dust is not merely our status after the fall, or because of sin. We were created from the dust of the earth. That meager beginning is what God intended for those who would bear His image before the rest of creation.
Recently, an article was published critiquing how Christians often talk about identity. Under the provocative title, “Stop Finding Your Identity in Christ,” Caleb Morell rightly notes that throughout most of Church history, the theological emphasis was on union with Christ, not identity in Christ. He also rightly notes that how we talk about finding identity in Christ is, too often, a re-hashed postmodernism, more about self-discovery or, even worse, self-determination, than anything theological.
While I agree with much of it, I don’t think that “finding your identity in Christ” is unbiblical. It is, however, incomplete if disconnected from our identity in creation. Any talk of who we are disconnected from who God originally created us to be misses essential truths of what it ultimately means to be in Christ. And, it leaves our thinking about a fundamental question of human existence, who are we as human beings, vulnerable to modern and postmodern ways of thinking. Is the self a “construct” of culture and bias? Do our feelings determine what is true about who we are? Are our bodies pliable and changeable according to our internal whims? Or are we created? What is given about who we are that we need to know, accept, and embrace?
In the creation story, the answers to these questions are not up for grabs. When God reminded Adam he had been formed from dust scooped from the Earth, He’s taking Adam back to the creation narrative. Adam and Eve were the only members of God’s creation not merely spoken into existence. The difference in language is dramatic. Rather, than “let there be... and it was so,” God said:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Humans were given authority over the rest of creation. They were to care for and cultivate the creation according to God’s purposes for it. In this way, they were created distinct from the rest of creation. They were to glorify God by stewarding His world.
Our ability to fulfill that purpose was crippled by sin, but that purpose was not removed. God sent Jesus, in the flesh of fallen humanity, to restore and reconcile humanity to God, and therefore, also to our created purpose.
In Eden, the first promise of redemption is given. The Seed of Adam and Eve would crush the serpent’s head. In Christ, the culmination of this and all of the promises of God is realized. Jesus Christ is, as Paul said, the person in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” As such, in Christ, we are restored to Who we really are.
Paul, writing to the Colossians, directly connects Christ with Creation:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”
Paul uses that phrase “in Him,” meaning “in Christ,” multiple times. The image of God is restored in Christ. Through His birth, life, obedience, death, resurrection, and ascent, human purpose is restored, renewed again in the Holy Spirit.
Another way to say all of this is that Christ did not come to save us from being human, He came so that we could be fully human.
It’s not unbiblical to talk about identity in Christ. But, disconnected from the larger Biblical Story of Creation to New Creation, it’s woefully, and consequentially, incomplete. Our identity was established by God from the very beginning of the story. We’re made in the image of God, and that image is restored and perfected in Christ.
The implications of this are immense. Our purpose to steward and rule the created order is restored in Christ. Our God-given relationships—with Him and others and the created order—are reconciled by Christ. Our sense of self is not constructed, but it is only realized in Christ.
At last year’s Wilberforce Weekend, we looked at our identity as imago dei from various angles, and each of the different chapters of the Story: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, we look at the implications of our salvation, what it means to see and live all of Life Redeemed. Because that’s how big redemption is: as big as life itself.
As Thomas Howard wrote about the incarnation,
“He did not come to thin out human life; He came to set it free. All the dancing and feasting and processing and singing and building and sculpting and baking and merrymaking that belong to us, and that were stolen away into the service of false gods, are returned to us in the gospel.”
What if that is actually true? Well, it is.
I hope you’ll join us at this year’s Wilberforce Weekend to explore the implications of our identity as human beings redeemed by Christ to be truly and fully human. To learn more, go to wilberforceweekend.org.
Are we overusing the word trauma?
In a recent article, Lexi Pandell of Vox news notes: “Current cultural references to the word (trauma) have become a mess of tongue-in-cheek and casual mentions, mixed with serious confessions and interrogations of the past.”
Of course, trauma is a reality, which is why overusing it is so problematic. The undiagnosed shell shock among World War I veterans is a tragic example. Unaddressed, emotional wounds caused by injury, violence, or sexual assault can have terrible consequences.
But for a culture lacking moral consensus, it’s so tempting to overuse the word. “Its current usage has created a tidy framework within which to understand our lives and roles,” writes Pandell: “An event happens to us, an aggressor attacks us, we are born into generations of suffering. In this telling, we are powerless—it’s beyond our control.”
Another expert put it more cynically, “(The word) has currency, so people broker in it.”
The only way forward is to recover two truths: That people have agency and that definitions matter.
In Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden told young people with gender dysphoria that he will “always have (their) back.” Though he didn’t specify what exactly that means, presumably it had something to do with extending Title IX protections to include allowing men full access to women’s facilities and sports; extending mandatory insurance coverage for “gender reassignment” surgeries; and restricting any counseling, treatments, or public advocacy that does anything less than fully affirm one’s gender dysphoria.
What makes it likely that the President’s late-speech shoutout referred to these sorts of extreme positions on the issue is that it was quickly followed by a call to pass the so-called “Equality Act,” something that remains (at least for now) dead in the Senate. The Equality Act would be a kind of legislative nuclear option, rendering about 250 so-called “anti-LGBTQ” bills under consideration across America pointless, leading to serious restrictions on religious liberty, especially for religious schools.
Over the last few years, following a strategy that proved effective for pro-life protections, states like Texas have been laying creative groundwork to hold adults accountable for experimenting on young people struggling with gender identity. Having these laws in place is incredibly important, given the astronomical rise in the number of young people identifying as transgender, and how quickly transgender ideology went from being unthinkable to unquestionable in so many aspects of society.
For instance, the field of so-called gender-affirming “medicine” is the only example of medical treatment that attempts to orient the body to the mind, as opposed to correcting the mind to align with biological reality. That was a $316 million industry in 2018. By 2026, it is projected to be a $1.5 billion industry.
Children, in particular, are the subjects of this social experimentation, which is only one example of how reality has been reimagined along the lines of sexual autonomy. If the early days of the sexual revolution were about being free from the confines of sexual morality, these latter days are about being free from the confines of sexual reality.
That these created realities were part of a biological, social, and religious package deal went largely unquestioned until recently. However, technological innovations such as the pill, IVF, and surrogacy; legal innovations such as no-fault divorce; and cultural innovations such as ubiquitous pornography and “hook-up” apps, have all made it increasingly easy to reimagine the world along the line of advancing our sexual happiness. Children are forced to go along.
Pursuing social and legal equality without reference to reality has proven even more disastrous. It’s one thing to say that men and women are equal before God and the law; it’s quite another to say that they are the same or, like we are saying today, that any and all differences are either an illusion or unjust. So now, we talk without a hint of parody that men can bear children and that “not all women menstruate” and that love can make a second mom into a dad. None of this is true, but young people are expected to play along, to adapt and adopt these lies, pretending all is well, even if they’re not.
Of all of the lies of the sexual revolution, that’s the most devastating. It was repeated at each new stage of the sexual revolution, in some form or another, in order to justify whatever way we were going to reimagine life in the world: “the kids will be fine,”
But, of course, the kids haven’t been fine. Not even close. In her book, Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement, Katy Faust documents all the ways the kids aren’t fine, and all the ways their wellbeing is sacrificed on the altar of adult happiness. On Tuesday, March 15, I will be talking with Katy Faust about all the ways that the kids aren’t fine. We’ll talk about how Christians can and must defend children from the myths, misnomers, and lies of the sexual revolution. This isn’t a theoretical topic. In fact, I’m absolutely convinced that standing for the inherent dignity and rights of children against the innovations of our age is our version of “running into the plague and caring for victims” while everyone else is running away. It’s what we’re called to at this cultural moment.
Katy’s presentation will be part of the new Lighthouse Voices Speaker Series, a partnership between the Colson Center and Focus on the Family. We aim to help Christians think clearly and biblically, especially about the most critical, confusing, and important issues at the intersection of family and culture.
If you’re in the Holland, Michigan, area, you can join the conversation in person. If not, you can sign up for the livestream of this important discussion at www.colsoncenter.org/events
Earlier this week, Christians were reminded, by a smudged cross on the foreheads and with words spoken first to Adam and Eve, of mortality: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words, delivered to us by clergy on Ash Wednesday, are God’s words about us, recorded in Genesis 3:19.
Though it’s not pleasant to be reminded that we are dust, it is good. Ash Wednesday tells the truth about who we are. The Season that follows, Lent, helps us order our lives around that truth. And yet, dust is not merely our status after the fall, or because of sin. We were created from the dust of the earth. That meager beginning is what God intended for those who would bear His image before the rest of creation.
Recently, an article was published critiquing how Christians often talk about identity. Under the provocative title, “Stop Finding Your Identity in Christ,” Caleb Morell rightly notes that throughout most of Church history, the theological emphasis was on union with Christ, not identity in Christ. He also rightly notes that how we often talk about finding identity in Christ is re-hashed postmodernism, more about self-discovery or, even worse, self-determination, than anything theological.
While I agree with much of it, I don’t think that “finding your identity in Christ” is unbiblical. It is, however, incomplete if disconnected from our identity in creation. Any talk of who we are disconnected from who God originally created us to be misses essential truths of what it ultimately means to be in Christ. And it leaves our thinking about a fundamental question of human existence, who are we as human beings, vulnerable to modern and postmodern ways of thinking. Is the self a “construct” of culture and bias? Do our feelings determine what is true about who we are? Are our bodies pliable and changeable according to our internal whims? Or are we created? What is given about who we are that we need to know, accept, and embrace?
In the creation story, the answers to these questions are not up for grabs. When God reminded Adam he had been formed from dust scooped from the Earth, He’s taking Adam back to the creation narrative. Adam and Eve were the only members of God’s creation not merely spoken into existence. The difference in language is dramatic. Rather, than “let there be... and it was so,” God said:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Humans were given authority over the rest of creation. They were to care for and cultivate the creation according to God’s purposes for it. In this way, they were created distinct from the rest of creation. They were to glorify God by stewarding His world.
Our ability to fulfill that purpose was crippled by sin, but that purpose was not removed. God sent Jesus, in the flesh of fallen humanity, to restore and reconcile humanity both to God, and therefore, to our created purpose.
In Eden, the first promise of redemption is given. The Seed of Adam and Eve would crush the serpent’s head. In Christ, the culmination of this and all of the promises of God is realized. Jesus Christ is, as Paul said the person in whom “the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” As such, in Christ, we are restored to Who we really are.
Paul, writing to the Colossians, directly connects Christ with Creation:
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”
Paul uses that phrase “in Him,” meaning “in Christ,” multiple times. The image of God is restored in Christ. Through His birth, life, obedience, death, resurrection, and ascent, human purpose is restored, renewed again in the Holy Spirit.
Another way to say all of this is that Christ did not come to save us from being human, He came so that we could be fully human.
It’s not unbiblical to talk about identity in Christ. But, disconnected from the whole Biblical Story of Creation to New Creation, it’s woefully, and consequentially, incomplete. Our identity was established by God from the very beginning of the story. We’re made in the image of God, and that image is restored and perfected in Christ.
The implications of this are immense. Our purpose to steward and rule the created order is restored in Christ. Our God-given relationships—with Him and others and the created order—are reconciled by Christ. Our sense of self is not constructed, but it is realized in Christ.
At last year’s Wilberforce Weekend, we looked at our identity as image bearers of Christ from various angles, and each of the different chapters of the Story: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, we look at the implications of our salvation, what it means to see and live all of Life Redeemed. Because that’s how big redemption is: as big as life itself.
As Thomas Howard wrote about the incarnation,
“He did not come to thin out human life; He came to set it free. All the dancing and feasting and processing and singing and building and sculpting and baking and merrymaking that belong to us, and that were stolen away into the service of false gods, are returned to us in the gospel.”
What if that is actually true? Well, it is. I hope you’ll join us at this year’s Wilberforce Weekend to explore the implications of our identity as human beings redeemed by Christ to be truly and fully human. To learn more, go to wilberforceweekend.org.
John clarifies the role of technology in worldview, specifically how it impacts the Church. He is asked how the Metaverse is problematic for Christianity when people from around the world are able to enter deep conversations inside the faith.
Then, Shane asks a listener's question who is wondering if we're missing relevance in the Russian motivation for invading Ukraine. Later in the show, John explains the role of religion in the conflict.
Free speech is very much at risk on college campuses.
According to one study, some 66% of students say that “it is acceptable to shout down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus.” And, over 80% of students report self-censoring their own viewpoints out of fear of saying the wrong thing.
But as the Atlantic’s Jennifer Miller reports, a new, grassroots movement of civil-dialogue clubs is offering a strong response in support of free speech. One such organization is Bridge USA.
As one of their student leaders put it, “Not being able to speak openly [is] I think, one of the main problems. I just wanted to create this community where anyone could feel like they could express their ideas and actually be heard.”
This is a particularly worthy aim for a student, and for Christians, who should never be afraid to bring their best ideas to the table. Christianity, after all, is the best explanation for reality there is. Thus, we don’t need other people to “self-censor” their opinions around us. We extend an invitation to all to join us in exploring truth in love, an invite God extends to us.
And, when we do, it can be a tremendous witness in an age of stifled public discourse.
Today is Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the season of Lent. Its message is more needed today than ever.
Lent is a 40-day period of time (Sundays aren’t included in the count), set aside in the Church calendar to reflect and to prepare. In a sense, the Season of Lent is for Easter what the Season of Advent is for Christmas, but even more counter-cultural in its assessment of the human condition. Plus, as a holiday, Easter is not nearly as popular as Christmas, and can come and go before we know it.
Even so, for most Christians, all that’s left of this season is the idea of “giving up something for Lent.” The original idea of disciplining the body, repenting of sins, and preparing to remember Jesus’ passion and death in order to celebrate His resurrection has been whittled down to an annual Christian weight-loss plan. It’s a loss far greater than mere tradition.
Implied in the disciplines of Lent, whether fasting from some indulgence or embracing some new habit of life and godliness, is the inherent connection between body and soul. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, when ashes are imposed by the clergy on the forehead in the shape of a cross, we are reminded of who we are with these words, “Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The ashes remind us that we are not less than physical beings, made from the dust of the earth, and therefore mortal. We will one day die. All of the above is easily forgotten in a society like ours, which suffers from a split personality.
On one hand, tremendous emphasis is placed on physical appearance and meeting physical desire. We idolize sex, obsess over diet and how our bodies look, and rearrange the entire world in order to guard our physical health. On the other hand, we deny that our bodies have any say about who we are, instead demanding biological workarounds that will accommodate whatever it is we want.
This is just the latest incarnation of an ancient heresy that will not die. Gnosticism arose at roughly the same time as Christianity. The name comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means knowledge. Gnostics believed that through the acquisition of secret knowledge, one could escape the confines of the physical world. According to Gnostic cosmology, the invisible and immaterial are superior to the physical. Thus, the soul or spirit is superior to the body. At best, the body is irrelevant. At worst, the body is an evil, an hindrance to the spirit and thus to salvation.
So, some Gnostics gave themselves over to hedonistic expressions of drinking, gluttony, and sexual abandonment since the body could not affect the spirit. Others turned to strict asceticism, rejecting sex, wine, meat, and other foods, denying the body to strengthen the spirit. Some even went so far as to starve themselves to death.
Gnosticism as a formal religion largely died out by the end of the third-century A.D. Gnostic ideas, however, continue to show up in both conservative and progressive Christianity. Some Christians confuse the Bible’s condemnations of the world and the flesh as a rejection of the physical world and the significance of our bodies. This shows up in forms of false asceticism, which in the words of Paul’s letter to the Colossians “are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.”
Alternately, many progressive Christians embrace new cultural orthodoxies and deny that our bodies have meaning. Rejecting the natural purposes of God’s good design, they deny sexual difference and that our reproductive systems are designed for procreation; they deny the inherent good and rights of children, the permanence of marriage, the morality that best protects sexual relationships, and other ordered goods of the human body.
In particular, transgenderism is an explicit neo-gnostic rejection of human bodies, treating them as largely irrelevant to our identities. Instead, who we really are is determined by some non-observable, non-objective, non-empirical secret knowledge known only to ourselves, but to which everyone else and reality itself must adapt.
Ash Wednesday and Lent directly challenge this way of thinking, reminding us that our bodies and souls are inextricably linked, that we are more but not less than physical beings, and that God’s creation was, indeed, good. We will die, one day, a fact of life that so many in our culture perpetually try to distract themselves from. And, corrupted by our own sin, we are in need of God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Whether or not you receive the imposition of ashes today or participate in a Lenten fast, don’t let Easter sneak up on you just yet. Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Embrace the significance of the body and its inseparable union with our spirits. This knowledge is revealed by God, and not kept in secret. Use it to draw near to God, who took on a human body, lived, died, and rose again so that we might rise with Him.
In Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden told young people with gender dysphoria that he will “always have (their) back.” Though he didn’t specify what exactly that means, presumably it had something to do with extending Title IX protections to include allowing men full access to women’s facilities and sports; extending mandatory insurance coverage for “gender reassignment” surgeries; and restricting any counseling, treatments, or public advocacy that does anything less than fully affirm one’s gender dysphoria.
What makes it likely that the President’s late-speech shoutout referred to these sorts of extreme positions on the issue is that it was quickly followed by a call to pass the so-called “Equality Act,” something that remains (at least for now) dead in the Senate. The Equality Act would be a kind of legislative nuclear option, rendering about 250 so-called “anti-LGBTQ” bills under consideration across America pointless, leading to serious restrictions on religious liberty, especially for religious schools.
Over the last few years, following a strategy that proved effective for pro-life protections, states like Texas have been laying creative groundwork to hold adults accountable for experimenting on young people struggling with gender identity. Having these laws in place is incredibly important, given the astronomical rise in the number of young people identifying as transgender, and how quickly transgender ideology went from being unthinkable to unquestionable in so many aspects of society.
For instance, the field of so-called gender-affirming “medicine” is the only example of medical treatment that attempts to orient the body to the mind, as opposed to correcting the mind to align with biological reality. That was a $316 million industry in 2018. By 2026, it is projected to be a $1.5 billion industry.
Children, in particular, are the subjects of this social experimentation, which is only one example of how reality has been reimagined along the lines of sexual autonomy. If the early days of the sexual revolution were about being free from the confines of sexual morality, these latter days are about being free from the confines of sexual reality.
That these created realities were part of a biological, social, and religious package deal went largely unquestioned until recently. However, technological innovations such as the pill, IVF, and surrogacy; legal innovations such as no-fault divorce; and cultural innovations such as ubiquitous pornography and “hook-up” apps, have all made it increasingly easy to reimagine the world along the line of advancing our sexual happiness. Children are forced to go along.
Pursuing social and legal equality without reference to reality has proven even more disastrous. It’s one thing to say that men and women are equal before God and the law; it’s quite another to say that they are the same or, like we are saying today, that any and all differences are either an illusion or unjust. So now, we talk without a hint of parody that men can bear children and that “not all women menstruate” and that love can make a second mom into a dad. None of this is true, but young people are expected to play along, to adapt and adopt these lies, pretending all is well, even if they’re not.
Of all of the lies of the sexual revolution, that’s the most devastating. It was repeated at each new stage of the sexual revolution, in some form or another, in order to justify whatever way we were going to reimagine life in the world: “the kids will be fine,”
But, of course, the kids haven’t been fine. Not even close. In her book, Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children’s Rights Movement, Katy Faust documents all the ways the kids aren’t fine, and all the ways their wellbeing is sacrificed on the altar of adult happiness. On Tuesday, March 15, I will be talking with Katy Faust about all the ways that the kids aren’t fine. We’ll talk about how Christians can and must defend children from the myths, misnomers, and lies of the sexual revolution. This isn’t a theoretical topic. In fact, I’m absolutely convinced that standing for the inherent dignity and rights of children against the innovations of our age is our version of “running into the plague and caring for victims” while everyone else is running away. It’s what we’re called to at this cultural moment.
Katy’s presentation will be part of the new Lighthouse Voices Speaker Series, a partnership between the Colson Center and Focus on the Family. We aim to help Christians think clearly and biblically, especially about the most critical, confusing, and important issues at the intersection of family and culture.
If you’re in the Holland, Michigan, area, you can join the conversation in person. If not, you can sign up for the livestream of this important discussion at www.colsoncenter.org/events
This past Wednesday morning, a man named Tedd Mathis announced that his father had died a champion.
“Forty-eight hours before he died,” Tedd wrote, “dad was wheeled to the nursing home chapel to preach his final sermon. Christ was worthy, even with a cracked hip, failing kidneys, and a 95-year-old body bruised and stitched together from numerous falls of late.”
There’s something unusual and inspiring about a life lived faithfully to the very end. It’s what we want for ourselves but see so rarely. Of course, really the only way to end well is to live well… What can be called “a long obedience.”
At funerals, we hear how someone “is in a better place.” They are, but it’s also true that God has called us here to make this a better place. So, like this godly man, let’s live our lives in such a way that our end is the capstone of a life lived in restoring all things to God’s will.
In ninth grade, I was a knucklehead. Even worse, I was a Christian school knucklehead. Those are the worst kind...
Six days a week from as early as I could remember, between Bible classes and Sunday school, I was in the same building, often the same classrooms, hearing Bible lessons, often from the same people. I spent my time on basketball and girls (in that order) but didn’t have much of a faith I could call my own.
Around Christmas in December of 1990, I met someone who would change my life. Instead of a much-anticipated Christmas party, the boys senior high Bible class was sent out in twos to visit the elderly “shut-ins” of our church. I’m sure the intention was to bring Christmas cheer to folks not physically able to get out anymore, but as you might imagine, the only thing we wanted to do less than schoolwork on the last day of classes before Christmas break was to visit two old people we’d never met.
I was paired with my friend Brian, who shared my disdain for the assignment. But he had an idea: “We’ll go visit one person and say we couldn’t find the other person’s house. That way, we’ll be done early and can go to the mall.”
That’s how I met Ms. Buckner, who lived down a windy, rural Virginia road in a little apartment attached to her grandson’s farmhouse. Ms. Buckner, an 89-year-old widow, came to the door and invited us inside. There was, shall we say, a pretty significant generation gap in that room. We didn’t know what to talk about, and she didn’t really know what to talk about.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get more awkward, Ms. Buckner said, “Let’s sing Christmas carols together.” After we stumbled our way through “Silent Night,” she decided one carol was enough.
“Well, Ms. Buckner,” Brian said, “we’d best be on our way.”
“Yes,” I lied, “we still have one more person to visit before heading back to school.”
And then she asked, “Well, before you go, let’s pray together.”
So I prayed, and Brian prayed. That took about 45 seconds. And then, Ms. Buckner prayed. At that point in my life, I’d probably heard thousands of prayers. But there was something about this one. Ms. Buckner spoke to God as if she knew Him, with a confidence and humility that only comes when you’re certain that Someone is listening.
We left Ms. Buckner’s house and headed to the mall, hoping to meet some girls. But Brian and I agreed that Ms. Buckner was a pretty cool old woman.
Two years later, (and to this day, I have no idea why) I woke up thinking about Ms. Buckner. I was even less interested in spiritual things by then, but I ended up going back down the windy road to her house.
When Ms. Buckner came to the door, I said, “you probably don’t remember me, but two years ago I came here with my friend Brian.”
“John,” she smiled. “I prayed for you this morning.”
Ms. Buckner became a close friend. She prayed for me every day for the rest of her life. I have no idea what she has prayed me into or out of.
In so many ways, the gap between generations today is more pronounced than ever. And one way to bridge that gap is prayer. My friend Tony Souder has developed a set of prayer guides that will help Christians bridge that generation gap through prayer, just as Ms. Buckner did for me. According to the Barna Group, millennials who stayed in church were “twice as likely to have a close personal friendship with an adult inside the church.” Tony’s Pray for Me Campaign is a way to facilitate those relationships between generations through prayer.
The Pray for Me Campaign offers simple, practical guides that equip adult believers to pray for children and students. There are guides aimed to jumpstart intergenerational prayer relationships between parents and their children, grandparents and their grandchildren, and adults and the students in their church. This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we will send you the prayer guide of your choice that best fits the relationship needs that you have with the next generation. Just go to breakpoint.org/February
INC.com’s Jeff Steen has a new technique for anxiety management: schedule time to worry. Setting aside time to consider what worries us, he writes, clarifies our fears.
It reminds us of what’s important, what we can do about it, and (most importantly) what we can’t. It’s something he’s encouraged business leaders to do for years, and it’s seen results.
There’s a biblical term for Steen’s technique: prayer. If that sounds cliché, it might be because we’ve lost one of the main things prayer is meant to be.
“Cast all your anxiety on him,” writes the Apostle Peter, “because he cares for you.”
The Psalmist also puts it beautifully:
For God alone my soul waits in silence;
from him comes my salvation.
He alone is my rock and my salvation,
my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.
We aren’t meant to muscle through our anxieties, but to bring them to God. That’s important – because as good as Steen’s advice is, it’s still only self-help, a speaking into the void. Christians have something just as good and even better. We have Someone listening on the other end.
With the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization expected this summer, panic is rising in pro-abortion ranks.
There is real possibility that the Court could overturn or at least severely gut Roe v. Wade, curtail abortion rights, and throw the issue back to the states. Because abortion advocates see this as denial of basic women’s rights, their arguments are increasingly shifting from legal ground to moral ground. Instead of claiming that abortion is a constitutional right, some are even arguing that it is a “theological right”—in other words, sacred.
In 1939, Margaret Sanger recruited ministers for her “Negro Project,” which sought to promote birth control and sanitized eugenics ideas to African Americans. Today, in an attempt to sanctify another cause rooted in eugenics, the killing of the unborn, progressive clergy are recruited to promote abortion. This has been going on for years, for instance, when mainline Protestant pastors hold “prayer services” outside of abortion clinics in order to bless the “work” going on inside.
Earlier this month, The Washington Post intensified the effort to baptize abortion with a thinly veiled advocacy piece entitled, “The Threat to Roe v. Wade Is Driving a Religious Movement for Reproductive Choice.” In it, Michelle Boorstein profiled a young pastor of a mainline church in Maryland who calls the practice “holy.” The Reverend Kaeley McEvoy says she has “never felt more known and heard and loved by God than when [she] entered the doors of a Planned Parenthood.” Two of those times, she entered for her own abortion.
According to Boorstein, this pro-abortion minister is part of “an increasingly bold and more visible religious movement for reproductive choice, a hard shove back to the decades-old American narrative that a devout person sees abortion only as murder.” And this really is her argument: that Christianity is not necessarily opposed to abortion, and that any perception otherwise is just a “narrative.”
As proof, she points to a gathering of “clergy and other advocates” back in January who met virtually for an event called SACRED. For these 450 pro-abortion advocates—again, mostly mainline Protestants and liberal Jews—abortion is “a theological right of women to bodily autonomy and health.” To take away that “right,” these clergy believe, is “theologically wrong,” since it means choosing “a fetus over a woman.”
For Boorstein, the very existence of such gatherings, even if dramatically smaller than the many pro-life gatherings held across the United States each year, proves that pro-lifers have hijacked Christianity and that an honest look across Christian traditions yields “more nuanced and varied perspectives about abortion.” She even (rightly) points to the sad history of some evangelical denominations, who signed on to pro-abortion statements in the days before Roe only to reverse course and join Roman Catholic ethicists later in opposing the practice.
Boorstein’s analysis, however, hinges on whether Christian history began in the 20th century. Of course, it didn’t. A casual investigation shows that it is religious abortion supporters, not pro-lifers, who have radically departed from historical Christian morality.
As early as the beginning of the second century, Christian documents condemned abortion. The Didache or “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles” admonished readers, “you shall not kill a child by abortion nor kill it after it is born.” The first- or second-century Epistle of Barnabas says, “Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.” The fifth-century Church Father John Chrysostom called abortion “worse than murder,” asking, “Why then do you abuse the gift of God…and make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that was given childbearing unto slaughter?” And Tertullian, who lived in the second century, even described an abortion using a copper instrument strikingly similar to what one might find at a Planned Parenthood—and he condemned such killing in the strongest terms.
Throughout Christian history, far before modern, liberal theology came along, Church teaching was anything but nuanced on abortion. And it’s little wonder, given Scripture’s own testimony about the unborn: that they are “knit together” and “known” by God in the womb—that they sometimes “leap for joy,” and that God, Himself, once came to dwell with us as an unborn Baby.
It’s true that Christians haven’t always been faithful in upholding the value of unborn image-bearers of God. But such failures have been in spite of millennia of clear teaching, not because of them. Liberal clergy may call the sacrilege of abortion “sacred,” but the evidence from Church history that Christianity was pro-life from the beginning is as clear as the evidence today that babies in the womb are human beings.
John and Maria consider the images and harsh reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There's a call for Christians to pray, but is prayer really doing something? John responds.
Then, Maria asks John to clarify a new religious liberty case before the Supreme Court out of Colorado. The case has a lot to say about free speech, but John pulls back and explains how religious liberty is really a primary liberty for all of humanity.
Two days ago, we talked about the possibility of war, the fear that maybe the long peace the West had enjoyed for nearly a century could be broken. Well, now that fear has been realized. As an American official told ABC News, “You are likely in the last few hours of peace on the European continent for a long time to come.”
After weeks of saber rattling out of Moscow, along with vain promises that they had no designs on Ukraine, the Russian army has invaded its neighbor. In retrospect, this isn’t much of a surprise. After all, you don’t roll 200,000 men up to the border just for kicks.
And, of course, there have been theatrically executed meetings at the Kremlin where Vladimir Putin walked his advisers through a script of dubious historical grievances, justifying his nation’s recognition of the independence of territory inside Ukraine that Russia already controlled.
At the same time, especially this time in history where we actually see the effects of war up close and personal, and in real time, what we’re seeing is really hard to believe. Up to the very end, pundits and politicians claimed that there was no way the Russians would take such a risk, with the Russians themselves calling warning of an invasion just American propaganda. It just didn’t seem possible.
There’s an old military saying that no plan survives contact with the enemy, and Putin had to know that invading his neighbor would make his nation a pariah in the world community. So, surely, he wouldn’t do it, would he?
He would and he did. After an alleged call by the newly “independent” regions for aid against the “terrorist” actions of the Ukrainians, Putin ordered Russian forces into Ukraine. He claimed that this was to prevent a humanitarian crisis from the supposedly Nazi-inspired government in Kyiv, even though that government had a Jewish president.
While pre-war estimates guessed that he’d go with a smaller attack, aimed to seize just part of Ukraine and to place a pro-Moscow puppet in charge, the Russian attack hit all across the nation.
As of this writing, Russian forces are said to be in control of the Kyiv airport, to have seized the infamous Chernobyl nuclear plant, and to be making progress out of Crimea in the South and toward Kharkiv in the East.
Our news feeds are showing this in real time. There’s the low-flying Russian plane, flinging missiles into resident neighborhoods with a child crying in the background. The fathers saying goodbye to their children as they head back to the front. The massed helicopter attack, looking like something out of the 1980s movie Red Dawn.
This is as chaotic as it gets, and we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Maybe, somehow, Western sanctions will force the Russians to back down. Maybe the Ukrainians will show such a hardened resistance that they will outlast their foe. Maybe the Russian people will finally sicken of Putin’s despotism and demand a new regime. Maybe it will all spiral out of control to the point that Europe and America will have to get involved. We do know that before it’s all said and done, tens if not hundreds of thousands of people will be dead for the sake of Putin’s vanity.
Where can hope be found in such dark days? It’s in the same place it’s been since the beginning.
When Christ was on Earth, He offered hope to people whose situation was more defined by fear than the affluence we’re all used to. He also knew that their world was about to be further rocked by turmoil, the likes of which they’d never seen. And He knew He would not be with them, at least not in person.
In fact, He issued a somewhat vague warning about how bad it could get. Wondering what His words meant, His disciples asked for direction, clarification, and hope. In Matthew 24, you can read his reply:
“See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”
This is one of those places where Jesus doesn’t pull any punches. He issues no false promises of world peace. He assures them that there would be wars, troubles, and calamities, and when they come, they’ll just be the beginning. Despite the chaos, Jesus said that it’s possible for us not to lose our way. Or, as He put it in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
As we face these days ahead, I’ve been reminded of something about prayer. We often wonder at times like this, “Other than pray, what can I do?”
Let’s never forget that praying is doing something. In fact, it’s doing the most important thing.
The Anglican Church in Dublin, Ireland, has crafted a prayer quite fitting for this moment:
O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world:
We commend to your merciful care the people and government of Ukraine
that, being guided by your providence, they may dwell secure in your peace.
Grant to their leaders and all in authority,
wisdom and strength to know and to do your will.
Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness,
and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve their people;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit
may so move every human heart in the nations of the world,
that working and witnessing together,
we may live in justice and peace
and change the hearts of those who would make for conflict and war;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
America’s corporate cooption in China’s oppressive activities is shameful. Political philosopher Charles de Montesquieu said that “The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.” With China, , we’re seeing this play out in real-time. China’s control and censoring of its own citizens is disturbing, but predictable. But the number of American corporations and media willing to censor themselves is what’s really stunning With access to 1.4 billion consumers at stake, corporations like Nike and the NBA, and most Hollywood studios have bowed to China’s demands, apologizin profusely for any perceived offense. Ahead of the Olympics, house speaker Nancy Pelosi warned athletes not to speak up against human rights abuses while in China.
Clearly, those with the most money to lose are wiling to stay silent on human rights abuses. human dignity
Which makes China’s evils not just a “them” problem. It’s an “us” problem, too. Freedom of speech is only as good as what it is used for.
Let’s hope we start using it for something better: speaking the truth.
So-called “No-Fault Divorce” has always been a bad idea, and children have always been its tragic victims. For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. This is BreakPoint.
A couple of weeks ago, Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister for the United Kingdom, praised what he called an “important” debate in Parliament. He was referring to a law effective April 6, under which married couples no longer have to name any faults before seeking a divorce.
Ironically for a member of Britain’s Conservative Party, this idea flies in the face of what “conservative” means. It certainly cuts against conservative foundations articulated by the likes of Edmund Burke and T.S. Eliot. According to these thinkers, family and tradition are the only real bulwarks against the chaos of our atomistic age.
As we noted recently, “If we lose our belief in marriage and the family as the foundation of a healthy and flourishing society, there will soon be very little left for ‘conservatives’ to conserve.”
But Mr. Raab’s comments got worse. He went so far as to claim that this new law was a positive good, not just for parents seeking divorce, but for children. As he put it, “This vital reform will remove unnecessary conflict from the process by ending the blame game—helping [to] spare children from the harmful effects this can have.”
This, “the kids will be fine” line, is not just nonsense: it’s dangerous nonsense. It flies in the face of everything we know about the impact of divorce on the most vulnerable among us. Over 20 years ago, Chuck Colson said, “People who divorce are more likely to die from stroke, heart disease, cancer, and hypertension. Kids from broken homes are more likely to fail in school, abuse drugs and alcohol, commit crimes, and have children out of wedlock.”
What Mr. Raab and our friends across the Pond should do is look before they leap. A look at the American experience reveals how this so-called “freedom” has played out here, and the enduring scars it’s left upon children.
In the early 1970s, an incredible (and incredibly sad) study was launch, which was later published in book form under the title The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. It told some of the tragic stories of these children. Drs. Judith Wallerstein and Julia Lewis interviewed over a hundred children of divorce in California, hoping to get at the real-world impact of divorce on the increasing number of children growing up in broken homes.
They didn’t only interview these individuals as children, but also followed them over the next 25 years. What this study found was devastating. As one reviewer described their findings:
[O]nly seven of the 131 children from the original sample experienced a post-divorce home in which they had a good relationship with a step-parent. At this 25-year mark, only 60 percent had contracted for marriage. Two-thirds of the sample decided not to have children. Only 30 percent of the sample received financial support for college, as contrasted with 90 percent of children whose parents were not divorced, an indication of the nature and quality of their troubled relationships with their parents.
This story is about far more than stats. It’s about the heartbreaking impact divorce had on these kids’ lives. There’s the woman who almost 30 years later could still see in her mind the details of “the sun striking the patterns on the living room carpet” the day her father left when she was only 4. There’s the boy who refused to take off his heavy coat at school despite the day’s heat in case he’d have to leave at a moment’s notice. There’s the little girl who kept telling her teacher about her new baby brother, except there was no baby, only her little heart’s plea to imagine her parents were still together. Then, there was the 5-year-old who said she needed a new mommy because hers had been “a tense, cranky, unavailable stranger.”
There are times when divorce is necessary, but it is always tragic in the same sense as when catastrophic cures like amputation or chemotherapy are necessary. To pretend otherwise is a dangerous fantasy. The Bible sees marriage as a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, but, recognizing the frailty of human nature after the Fall, it allows for divorce in extreme cases, such as abandonment, adultery, or abuse.
Highlighting the “wholesome” effects of no-fault divorce is even more reckless than praising the upside of amputation. Divorce is a messy, sometimes necessary, side effect of living in a world full of sin and folly. But while we may have to deal with our human weakness in this way, it’s never something we should excuse by saying that it is for the kids’ good. The cost to children is too high. Its effects on children are too long-lasting for society to allow, let alone encourage. To do so is to ignore the data, the stories, and reality itself.
- References -
The Quarrel Movie>>
Moral Therapeutic Deism - Christian Smith>>
Making Sense of it All - Thomas Morris
Pensees - Blaise Pascal
The Mad Man - Nietzsche
A Free People's Suicide - Os Guinness
“What happens to fascist architecture after fascism?” asks a recent BBC Culture headline. It’s a good question. Because buildings are made by people and cultures, they are never just “functional.” They tell stories.
A tax office in Bolzano, Italy, for example, features a mural of Benito Mussolini on horseback, giving the infamous straight-arm salute. “It’s a remarkable piece of fascist [propaganda-inspired] architecture,” writes the BBC’s Alex Sakalis: “Awe-inspiring, odious and perplexing all at once.”
For decades, the building sparked conflict, until yearly neo-fascist rallies and bombing attempts forced leaders to seek a compromise in 2017. The tax office was left standing, its mural still visible, but over the top, the words of Hannah Arendt were written in LED lights: “Nobody has the right to obey.”
In other words, the duty of conscience triumphs over the demands of totalitarian regimes.
Incredibly, the compromise seems to have eased the tension.
We need not choose between romanticizing or demolishing history. Sometimes it’s enough to let the truth be put in context, and learn from it.
The top headline of the past few weeks has been the saber rattling out of Moscow. This week, Russian leader Vladimir Putin stepped even closer to war. On Monday, Russian troops entered Ukraine, and Moscow formally recognized the pro-Russian breakaway parts of Ukraine as independent states (independent of Ukraine, that is).
There will likely be further developments by the time this is posted. In addition to a build-up of forces, Russia has ratcheted up the rhetoric against America, NATO, and Ukraine. In his speech Monday, Putin declared that Ukraine has no real right to exist, and only lives as a colony of the West. Cross-border cannon fire has increased, along with accusations of Ukrainian terrorist activity. Russian authorities have forced ethnic Russians living in separatist regions of Ukraine to leave their homes, supposedly for their own safety, but also to provide an excuse to fight a war of “liberation.”
Many in the West are being reminded that we’ve actually not evolved beyond this kind of thing. Wars are not only fought in other, less-enlightened parts of the world, and not only instigated by rogue agents of unstable nations.
The truth is that in our small part of the world, the last several decades have been remarkably peaceable. Recent conflicts have been fought on the periphery of the world order. The wars we’ve seen have been, for the most part, across the sea, away from our shores and our lives.
Of course, not everyone has been as fortunate as we have been. Full-scale war in Ukraine could cost tens of thousands of lives in a matter of days, might lead to an ongoing blood fest in the agricultural heart of eastern Europe, and may result in an even greater remilitarization of the world. In fact, it’s possible that this could be the start of something the world has not seen in 80 years: a great power war. If the industrial might and technological prowess of the world’s biggest nations are brought against, not ill-equipped insurgents in deserts or jungles, but against those equally capable of hitting back, millions could die. All of our illusions of being invulnerable to destruction would end.
That’s certainly a worst-case scenario, but not out of the realm of possibility. Such dark tidings lead to a fear, not just for our lives but that nearly everything we consider sure in this world could come crashing down around us. What if the “personal peace and affluence” we think of as our birthright is relegated to the history books?
When Christ was on Earth, He offered hope to people whose situation was more defined by fear than affluence. He also knew that their world was about to be further rocked by turmoil, the likes of which they’d never seen. And, He knew He would not be with them in person.
In fact, He issued a somewhat vague warning about what was to come. Wondering what His words meant, His disciples asked for direction, clarification, and hope. In Matthew 24, He replied:
“See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.”
Jesus doesn’t pull any punches, does He? He issues no false promises of world peace. He assures them that there would be wars, troubles, and calamities, and that would just be the beginning. Despite the chaos, He said, it’s possible to not lose our way. Or, as He puts it in John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
It’s been 20 centuries since He said these words, and there have been wars and rumors of wars. There have been revolutions and famines and earthquakes and plagues. Yet, through it all, it’s still true: Christ has overcome the world. Christ remains on the throne of the universe. This is no Pollyannish “hope of heaven.” The fear is real because the danger is real, and the Bible never treats our pain as imaginary. Like the Hebrew children proclaimed, God does not promise to keep us from the fire, but He does promise to be with us in there as well as out here.
It may be tomorrow that this global threat fizzles out, and we sigh collectively at what a close call it was. Or, it may flame up into a conflagration the likes of which few alive today have seen. It’s not trite to say we don’t know what the future holds, any more than it is to say but we know Who holds the future. Because we do, and whatever our moment entails, He has called us to it, to play our role in His greater story.
Dancing with Max by Emily Colson, , is an intimate look at what it means to raise a child with autism, alone. Emily’s dance partner, Max, is Chuck Colson’s grandson. He’s now 31 and spreads love through art.
The pandemic was incredibly difficult for people like Emily and Max, who lost their support structures. But Max took to painting colorful hearts on posters and hanging them around town. Pretty soon, Max’s hearts were put on notecards, which have sold by the tens of thousands, with the proceeds going to charity.
Writing at WorldOPINION, Jennifer Marshall Patterson described this mother-and-son dancing duo’ss latest project: infant onesies featuring one of Max’s hearts and the word “Loved.” Printed by a company that hires only employees with autism, For each onesie sold, Emily and Max donate another to a life-affirming charity.
It's more than a way to pass the time until things return to normal. As Patterson observes, Emily and Max have shown that hope and encouragement “can be contagious in their own right.”
Last year, the U.K. and German ministries of defense released a joint statement titled “Human Augmentation: the Dawn of a New Paradigm.” The statement explored the future of technology in seeking to “enhance” people beyond the limits of biology, for military purposes. In this case, it’s not a question of “whether” human enhancement is in our future. It’s “when.”
CRISPR and other gene-editing tools, promise the ability to genetically alter human beings, turning off harmful genetic factors and turning on helpful ones. Pharmaceuticals promise, in addition to groundbreaking cures for mental illness, increased cognitive abilities. And, so-called “brain interfaces,” promise the ability to “establish high-bandwidth data connections between brain and computer.”
“Six million years of evolution to where we are today,” the authors claim, “and now we have the tools in our hands to decide how our continued evolution should be shaped.” It’s as if they don’t even realize that there’s at least half a dozen bad guys I can think of who used almost that exact line in some movie before nearly destroying the world. This time, it’s not a sci-fi character making the promise he cannot keep. It’s defense ministers from two major Western nations. While the authors do manage to mention ethics from time to time, it’s a secondary concern at best. “The need to use human augmentation may ultimately be dictated by national interest,” they write Countries may need to develop and use human augmentation or risk surrendering influence, prosperity, and security to those who will.”
In other words, like it or not, the cat is out of the bag.
In response, bioethicist Robert Malone warned: “The arrogance and hubris in this point of view is enormous. That in one or two generations, the military industrial complex will pivot to controlling human evolution via genetic engineering and human augmentation is not only naive [and] ethically corrupt, but fundamentally dangerous.”
A helpful framework for thinking about what this future may entail is the difference between “Class 1” and “Class 2” problems, something articulated by Wired magazine’s Kevin Kelly. Class 1 problems are when technology fails. An example would be iff someone botched an attempt at genetic editing and infected the human gene pool. Class 2 problems are worse. It’s when technology works perfectly. As Gandalf put it, even the most wise cannot foresee all ends. It’s possible that technology used exactly as it was intended could bring an outcome we failed to expect.
To say, “it’s going to happen anyway” is not an adequate ethical framework. Any ethical consideration, especially one with such consequential potential for humanity, should begin instead with the question, What does it mean to be human?
Human innovation is possible because of how God made us. IFor that reason, we must distinguish between augmentation and restoration. Restoration is an amputee gets neural implants and can control a prosthetic limb with thoughts, Augmentation is an army or Olympic team outfitted with exoskeletons to make them stronger and faster.
Our bodies are given to us, from our genders to our hands, feet, faces, and minds— As one moral theologian said:
There are God-given limits, and if the limits are transgressed, people don’t flourish. And one of those limits is respect for our bodily nature, which implies at very least that we shouldn’t metamorphose that nature into some grandiose more-than-human reality. They [Christian scientists] hear in the transhumanist imperative a whisper of original sin, which is pride: “Do it and you’ll be like God.”
The body is sacred, given purpose by God. Secularism lacks that grounding principle entirely. If everything is random, purposeless chance, then the physical “stuff” of our bodies can be shaped, molded, changed, prodded, and rearranged at our leisure or for our benefit. Other than individual desires, there are no limits on what we should do. In fact, if we can do it, we should.
According to the authors of this report on human augmentation, all is justified under the guise of “national interest.” It’s as if they never heard of the Second World War... But good intentions cannot prevent bad ideas from having consequences and victims. Not in sci-fi films or in real life.
According to new census data, the number of parents living with their own children dropped to 40% in 2021 from 44% in 2011 and 48% in 2001. At the same time, as Brad Wilcox, Director of the National Marriage Project tweeted, “elite colleges are disproportionately made up of students from intact families.” According to the Institute of Family Studies, 75% of graduates from selective schools have married birth parents.
This counters the “divorce-is-better-for-the-kids” narrative, repeated in op-eds, that prioritizes adult happiness over children’s rights. In a recent piece in The New York Times, entitled “Divorce Can Be an Act of Radical Self-Love,” the author claimed that “Children benefit because happier mothers are better parents.”
The “children need happy parents not married parents” argument was widely used to advance no-fault divorce, at a time when we didn’t know better, statistically speaking. Now we do. Even as the number of children not living with married parents increases, the data continues to show that’s where kids are mostly likely to thrive. There are exceptions, of course, but they only prove the rule: family is God’s idea.
In the historical dockyards at Chatham in England is the largest collection of Royal National lifeboats in the U.K.. On many of the lifeboats, printed numbers show how many times the boat has launched, and how many lives it saved. It’s a haunting presentation of how life can sometimes hang on a precipice, and what it takes to rescue souls lost at sea.
The dockyard is also an interesting analogy for the Church in this cultural moment. Sometimes churches seem more like a museum of saints, a place where salvation is remembered. Here, redemption is often described in the past tense, focused on what God has saved us from. Or, like the dockyard at Chatham, we mark our success by souls saved, with little reference to what happens next for those whose life is in Christ, much less their families, communities, or societies.
This presentation of the Church isn’t inaccurate, but it is inadequate. Our salvation isn’t only about being saved from sin and hell, but also about but also about being saved to eternal and abundant life and for a redemptive purpose. Once Christians experience the life-changing impact of the Gospel, God’s restorative work alters every aspect of their lives. This is more than being saved from Hell, and it’s even more than being saved to eternal life.
The famous pastor John Newton embodied this. When he famously wrote, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see,” he revealed that he was not only redeemed from the incredible evil he perpetuated as a slave trader but that he was now given new vision, new direction, and new life. Newton inspired William Wilberforce, the great abolitionist, in the same way.
For over four decades, Wilberforce fought against the horrible and inhumane practice of slavery, and also for what he called the “reformation of manners.” He didn’t see success immediately, especially on slavery. In fact, he was three days from dying when he heard that the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. But, in embracing the scope of God’s redemptive work in Christ for the world, his personal redemption didn’t stay private, he became a public force for good.
Each year, the Colson Center gathers with Christians from across the country for an event named in Wilberforce’s honor. The Wilberforce Weekend will be held in Orlando, Florida, May 13-15. This year’s conference will explore, from a variety of angles, the scale and scope of God’s redemptive work in Jesus Christ. Our goal will be to see all of life as redeemed by Christ. Together, we’ll explore how Christ is best understood, not just as our personal Savior (though He is), but also as the center of reality. This means recognizing the essential links between who Christ is and creation, redemption, the kingdom of God, and all of history.
We’ll also dive deeply into the fullness of the redemptive vision Christ gives His people, as individuals, families, churches, and nations. We’ll look closely at what we’re saved from, not just Hell but death and fear of death, from bitterness and anger, and from confusion about who we are, all of which are incredibly relevant for the challenges of this cultural moment.
We’ll also look at what we’re saved to...truth, identity and meaning and life, and also the vital needs of this cultural moment. And, we’ll look closely at what we are saved for: wisdom, mission, reconciliation, and purpose. Along the way, we’ll talk about what happens when redemption shapes a distinctly Christian approach to life, society, education, sport, hardship and conflict, film, and other aspects of culture.
We’ll hear from Jim Daly, Os Guinness, Ryan Bomberger, Nancy Guthrie, Max McLean, Rachel Gilson, Larry Taylor, Monique Duson, Morris Michalski—and many more!
The Wilberforce Weekend features compelling talks, panel discussions, and live podcast recordings, and a special screening of The Most Reluctant Convert, a remarkable film about the redemption of C.S. Lewis.
For more information, visit www.wilberforceweekend.org
John and Maria discuss recent events in the world, connecting how Christians find grounding and purpose in God's redemptive story. They consider the Church's role and influence in driving a culture of relationships in the wake of Valentine's Day.
After a short break, the conversation shifts when they reflect on how the conflict in Ukraine is mirrored by a conflict inside the Orthodox Church.
In this moment of virtual online church, Maria prods John to explain the important role technology plays in our lives, shaping our understanding of humanity and how we interact with each other.
A rural Ohio high school superintendent made a questionable decision last month by allowing an “After-School Satan Club” to meet on school grounds while refusing a group of protestors from even meeting outside.
The Ohio attorney general sent a letter, reminding the superintendent that the protestors had as much right to gather on public property as the club.
That this required a letter from the state attorney general is telling. Cultural tastes shift quickly and unpredictably. Not so long ago, it would have been the “Satan Club,” not the protestors, who were considered “subversive.” Today, apparently, it’s the other way around.
This is why it’s so important to advocate for free speech based on principle, not on the content of the speech.
Still, it could be argued that every news story about this dust-up in Ohio buried the real lede: The After-School Satan Club, it turns out, had 7 attendees at its first meeting. Two were students. The rest were adults.
It’s always the grown-ups.
Many Christian parents worry about how to best pass on the faith to their children. Sadly, statistics suggest they should. In 2020, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found that just 2% of millennials, a generation now well into adulthood, have a biblical worldview. That’s the lowest of any generation since surveys began. Lifeway Research reports that two-thirds of those who attend a youth group as teenagers will drop out of church as adults.
No matter how noble its intentions, every idea is ultimately tested by how well it handles reality. By most measures, the “Defund the Police” movement has failed dramatically.
Since 2020, when calls for policing reform escalated, the nation has seen a 30% spike in homicides, combined with a rise in other violent crime. Now, cities that slashed police budgets like Portland, Los Angeles, and Oakland are increasing them again—some by up to 12%.
The President has been inconsistent on the issue but, in January, he argued against “cutting funding for police,” but also for supplementing their work with community and mental health services.
The Economist sums up why: “No evidence suggests a relationship between the size of a police force and the number of people its officers kill,” yet “ample evidence suggests that bigger and better-funded forces tend to reduce violent crime.”
A Biblical position is that people aren’t just mental health cases to be cured. They’re also moral agents who sometimes do wrong things.
Even a healthy society will need more than just police, but will never need less.
Futurists and tech industry gurus have long promised a utopia where humans aren’t dependent on pesky biological or geographical realities. Behind yesterday’s cyberspace and today’s “Metaverse” is the same idea: In a brave new world of digital existence, humans can be freed from bodies, specific locations, and other physical limitations.
The rise of online technology made it possible for churches to continue in the early, uncertain days of the pandemic. Many congregations have chosen to keep their live-streaming option on offer, in order to accommodate their older, more vulnerable, or physically distant constituents. Other churches have taken it a step or two further.
Some have opted for an online-only congregation, abandoning a physical building altogether. Somewhat more spectacularly, other churches are starting “churches” in Facebook’s new Metaverse, where people, or their avatars, can “come” to church from anywhere in the world with other people who join from anywhere in the world. D.J. Soto, a pastor at what is called VR Church in the Metaverse, recently claimed, “The future of the church is the metaverse… in the church of 2030, the main focus is going to be your metaverse campus.”
On one hand, such innovation is just a recent chapter of a long history. Churches have long employed new technologies and methods to reach the sick or infirmed, particularly in times of crisis, and keep them connected with the wider Church. Evangelicals, in particular, have a long tradition of using new technologies in the service of evangelism, including the printing press 500 years ago, the newspaper 300 years ago, the radio in the early 1900s, and the TV in the late 1900s. This commentary, BreakPoint, got its start on the radio.
But new technology and communication methods must be evaluated on more than whether or not something “works.” This is also about what Church is.
Decades ago, Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” Put another way, the means used to tell a story will shape what is said. When it comes to Church, it can change the nature of what we kind of people we are. People aren’t just inviting the world into the Church through new technology, they’re moving the Church into the new realm of that technology. Such a move can have unexpected consequences.
While there’s certainly cause for attempts to “reach people where they are at,” what we reach them with is what we reach them to. We must make sure any effort to communicate the Gospel doesn’t reduce the Gospel down to anything less than It is. Remember, Christ spoke of those who, in the Parable of the Sower, initially received the Gospel with joy, but, lacking root, turned aside when growing stopped being as convenient.
But there’s also something else to consider. A disembodied Church assumes that a disembodied faith is possible. A Christianity lived only online encourages America’s already existing “choose your own adventure” understanding of religion. Christianity is about more than content. Rather, its content cannot truly be lived outside of the context of real people in the real world.
As Tish Harrison Warren put it recently in the New York Times, “[B]odies, with all the risk, danger, limits, mortality and vulnerability that they bring, are part of our deepest humanity, not obstacles to be transcended through digitization.” In contrast, a cyberspace “church” is something akin to 2013’s “Her,” where an imaginary relationship with an online persona becomes preferable to the often painful and inconvenient nature of tangible reality. As someone from that movie puts it, “You always wanted to have a wife without the challenges of dealing with anything real,” a line that could be said of what too many seek from the Bride of Christ.
The faith of our fathers is not simply attending a performance, or even embracing a set of ideas about God or Jesus. A church without doctrine is a mere social club or an arbitrary special interest group, but a “church” that remains doctrinally correct but only connects online is a mere chat room.
A disembodied online existence makes it too easy to hide who and what we really are from those God has called to love and be loved by. The Christian life cannot be fully lived online. God has called us to this time and this place, to times and crises that are uncomfortable and to people whose issues and ailments are unpleasant. The world in which God is making all things new is filled with real people and real problems, and these won’t be mended in the illusive world of an online existence.
John and Shane field a question from someone in the medical community who asks what physician-assisted suicide does to our view of medical practitioners. The listener also asks for a worldview breakdown on how physician-assisted suicide came to be.
Next, Shane asks John what makes a church "woke", after a listener asks John and Shane to explain what woke is and what it does to a church body.
A listener also writes in asking for clarity on what the mindful movement is and what worldview category it fits inside before John answers a listener's question on the four chapter Gospel that John has talked about in other shows.
To close, John responds to a listener who asks for clarity on how Christians should respectfully disagree, noting a video from Matthew Vines and a response from Sean McDowell. The listener asks what Christians are to do when there is conflict inside Christian thought
Instead of having a doctor or nurse on hand, Nova Scotia’s new “oral protocol” puts the ability to take lethal medicine in the hands of “patients” themselves. Incredibly, that could decrease the total number of assisted deaths in Canada.
When using the oral method, up to 40% of California residents chose not to go through with the procedure. By contrast, asks ethicist Daryl Pullmann, why do only 2% of Canadians choose the same?
Perhaps the presence of medical personnel creates a kind of “unintentional coercion,” a troubling thought, given that over 7,000 Canadians died from assisted suicide in 2020.
But the bigger problem, like the law taking effect in 2023 in Canada which allows for death on the basis of “mental health” issues alone, is that “We seem to be rushing headlong for a precipice here,” as Pullman said in an interview. “We’re medicalizing suicide effectively so that people who, for whatever reason, judge their life to be unacceptable [can] get medical assistance in ending their life.” Human dignity is too important a thing to squander in our haste.
New data is poking holes in what’s become a prominent cultural myth. “When it comes to divorce,” write Brad Wilcox and Lyman Stone in The Wall Street Journal, “the research has generally backed up the belief that it’s best to wait until around 30 to tie the knot.” This is because the divorce rate is generally lower for those who wait to wed.
However, according to the National Survey of Family Growth, there’s an interesting exception to this modern-day rule of thumb. Couples in their 20s who don’t cohabitate first have some of the lowest divorce rates of any group. Though it’s not exactly clear, from the research anyway, as to why this is the case. This particular cohort is disproportionately religious, something that is linked to lower divorce rates across the board. Even so, the data sheds further light on the relationship between cohabitation and marriage in American society.
Decades of studies have led sociologists to broadly conclude that cohabitation leads to higher rates of divorce. In general, living with a partner, even one that eventually becomes a spouse, is associated with a 15% higher chance of splitting up. One Stanford study indicates that the rate is twice as high for those who cohabitate with someone other than their future spouse.
“We generally think that having more experience is better….” says University of Denver psychologist Galena Rhoades, “but what we find for relationships is just the opposite.” More partners mean more comparison, she argues, which can make it harder to achieve long-term contentment. Cohabitation also teaches couples that one can always head for the exit when problems seem too daunting, instead of to press in and stick it out. As a result, while marriages in general are more stable at 30, marriage to one partner is better, even if at a younger age.
Still, despite a significant amount of data that says otherwise, society pushes a very different story about living together. People in their 20s, says convention, should avoid commitment, establish themselves professionally, and certainly try living together before tying the knot. For a generation raised in divorced homes, skepticism toward marriage is understandable … as is the desire to “try it before you buy it.” After all, this is the same generation who never has to pick a restaurant before checking its rating on Yelp.
And so here we are, in a culture where both delayed marriage and cohabitation are “normal,” but relational satisfaction is rare.
Married couples report more satisfaction across the board than cohabiting couples, in all kinds of areas, and report more trust by double digits. Even couples who’ve had to persevere in marriage through difficult seasons report higher levels of satisfaction. Marriage is also broadly connected with better health and wellbeing, not to mention the wellbeing of children, 40% of whom today are born out of wedlock.
Though the data about marriage is overwhelming, fewer and fewer are choosing it. Compared to only 9% of Americans in 1970, more than a third of adults today (35%) will never tie the knot. That’s not to say they won’t have romantic relationships and create children. They will simply opt out of marriage.
Given the relevant data, the idea that one should not get married “too early” emphasizes the wrong factors. Wisdom should always be exercised with commitments this big, but at the same time, age matters far less than the commitment itself. Limitless sexual experience, self-actualization, and the freedom to leave don’t actually produce relational happiness in the long term. In fact, they damage it.
In short, as a project of self-fulfillment, marriage might be worthless. As a way to reap the rewards of self-sacrifice, its value is incalculable.
Christians know why. Marriage is a part of the created order. Though some marriages will tragically end for various reasons and others may want marriage but struggle to find it, the Church can provide vital community for all of its members, while still promoting marriage for the God-given good that it is. And when marriages hit rocky ground, resources like Focus on the Family’s Hope Restored conferences, are available for those willing to fight for reconciliation … with incredible stories of success.
Ultimately, though, a successful marriage requires the same thing as Christianity, a commitment to something bigger than ourselves.
Winston Churchill famously said that “we shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.”
A recent example is Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue. After the deadly 2018 shooting, synagogue leaders consulted security expert Juliette Kayyem on how to prevent the same thing from ever happening again.
“In security, we view vulnerabilities as inherently bad,” she explained. “We solve the problem with layered defenses: more locks, more surveillance. Deprive strangers of access to your temple (and) have congregants carry ID.”
Her basic suggestions were good. But to Kayyem’s surprise, when it came to keeping strangers out of the synagogue, “they would have none of it.”
Inviting in outsiders, the leaders explained, was central to the building’s purpose. The Jewish concept of tikkun olam means the “repair of the world.” Changing the building to prevent what would be antithetical to its design.
Churches should also welcome outsiders, but according to Paul, it's primary task is to gather Christians for worship in order for them to be sent out. It’s supposed to be a “go and tell” model, not a “come and see” model. Something to ponder…
Our information-saturated world runs on news headlines, one after another, all calling us to shock or outrage. It’s tempting to simply want to turn off the noise. It’s almost like the world is constantly coming into our clean rooms and dumping a new pile of dirty laundry for us to deal with. So, we just shut the door in order to stop the madness.
For Christians, simply closing our eyes and plugging our ears is not an option. We may choose silence or a sort of media fast for a while, but God has not called us to this time and place in history to disconnect from it.
At the same time, we need to discern between what is noisy and what ultimately matters. All of the breathless headlines and news stories can distract us from the most critical issues we face. Christians believe that the specific stories of our culture don’t ultimately reveal “what” we should care about, but they are the “when” and “where,” the context where God has called us to live out our faith.
Another way to put this is that this cultural moment is the stage of the play, not the plot. It’s the moment, but not the story. The news is where we see ideas and their consequences expressed, both good and bad. It’s where the philosophies that were born in ivory towers meet the reality of people’s lives, dreams, and decisions. Confusing the noise and chaos of the headlines with the Story of the world is the most common way Christians stray.
As Christians in this part of the story, it’s essential to trust the Divine Script Writer. God hasn’t called us to success as we see it in this moment, but he has called us to faithfully play out our part of the story. Like any great play, the actors can forget their role or lose their place in the storyline and miss their entrance or line. Thank God, our Director is as good as it gets.
This year, the Colson Center is partnering with Focus on the Family to produce a series of events to offer Christians a deeper level of understanding about the issues that matter most in this time and place. This special speaker series will focus on some of the most confusing and controversial parts of our story right now, specifically at the intersection of family and culture.
The series will be presented in three parts this spring and three parts this fall and will feature a who’s who of thought leaders addressing areas where we need to refocus our attention on the roles and responsibilities we have as Christians in our community contexts.
The series starts tonight, with Dr. Anthony Bradley of the King’s College. He will address the very important issue of how we are failing young men. The tyranny of low expectations, soft relationships, absent fathers… ours is a culture failing to transition boys to men. In March, Katy Faust of Them Before Us will address the various ways that children’s rights are being sacrificed for adult desire.
I hope you’ll join the Colson Center and Focus on the Family for this special series called “Lighthouse Voices.” To register for the livestream, visit www.colsoncenter.org/events.
Authority and submission are difficult concepts in a society that’s fully committed itself to individual autonomy. In this special BreakPoint Podacst Dr. Bruce Ashford explains the unrivaled authority of God, and those authorities He has established throughout the created order.
This is a portion of Dr. Ashford's full teaching on the topic in our ongoing short course: The Authority of God and the Authorities He has Ordained. For more information on this short course visit www.colsoncenter.org/events
During an online school board call last month, Ontario teacher Carolyn Burjoski raised concerns over the literature given to K-6th graders. One particular novel, she argued, made it seem “simple and cool” to have a gender transition surgery.
Mid-call, the Regional School Board chair Scott Piatkowski interrupted, and the board voted 5-4 to discontinue her presentation. “This person was speaking about transgender people in a way that was disrespectful, that would cause them to be attacked and I really needed to ensure it did not continue,” Piatkowski later claimed.
Under Canada’s human rights code, gender expression is a protected status in housing, employment, unions, and trade or professional associations. Burjoski was given a “stay at home order,” and told to refrain from speaking to staff or students.
This kind of story is why Christians need to think through a theology of getting fired. In the short run, speaking the truth might cost us. But if we really love our neighbor, we’ll find a way to do it—gently and graciously—but with courage.
What if the church became the new go-to source for singles to find a date, instead of an app? For the Colson Center, I’m John Stonestreet. This is BreakPoint.
Years ago, would-be couples met at a dance, at church potlucks, or around a friend’s dinner table. Even further back, due to the gender imbalance in Roman society because of selective infanticide, many young men found their spouses at church. Today, many singles (including Christian singles) search for a relationship online, scouring profiles in dating apps, debating whether to swipe right, swipe left, or just give up.
Dating apps have re-conditioned how singles think about dating and relationships. Long gone are the times when a single young man walked into a community, noticed a young lady, and was forced to overcome his nerves to take a risk. On one hand, many dating apps have taken the first impression beyond appearances to other important relational factors such as interests, hobbies, and shared views on essential issues. On the other hand, apps enable relationships to be even further isolated from real community. That’s often not healthy.
It may also be that apps are another way our lives are being disembodied. Recent studies reveal that many young people are “explori-dating,” interacting with someone from a different country, background, or faith, ditching these leading indicators of long-term relational stability in order to just explore. Some are now “hesidating,” a term coined by the online dating site Plenty of Fish to describe mostly single females who struggle to choose whether to date seriously or casually because of how uncertain life feels. Tonight, in fact, many young people will choose to celebrate “Gal-entine's” or “Pal-entine’s” Day instead of Valentine’s Day, an indication of how difficult it is for so many to date and commit.
And of course,
there’s the uglier side of dating apps: a world of sexting, secret connections, ghosting, and targeting. Online anonymity can lead singles to go farther than they wanted to, stay longer than they intended, and pay more than they were hoping.
To be clear, dating apps have diversified and improved. Many young people find love online , and enter long-term committed relationships culminating in marriage. In one sense, apps now fill the significant relational gaps in our changing culture. Some suggest that given how difficult it is to date these days, apps have changed things in “positive ways.”
Helen Fischer, an anthropologist who's studied dating trends for over forty years, and is a scientific adviser to one of the largest dating apps, believes these opportunities create “historic turnarounds with singles. They are looking for committed relationships.”
What if the church has a role to play in creating contexts for relational connections, even romantic ones? What if the current relationship dearth being filled by apps could be filled by Christian matchmaking communities instead?
Since it is Valentine’s Day, it’s worth reflecting on the day’s namesake. Valentinus of Rome was a 3rd-century martyr, and though the specifics around his life are somewhat cloudy, the most widely accepted version of his martyrdom is that he ran afoul of emperor Claudius II for encouraging romantic love and marriage in his community.
Claudius believed that Roman men were unwilling to join the army because of their strong attachment to their wives and families. So, he banned it. But Valentinus believed marriage was an essential part of human life, or like we say around the Colson Center, like gravity. So, he reportedly married couples in secret despite the edict from Rome and was caught and executed for his deeds.
Today, to follow Valentinus’ example by creating contexts for singles to meet, within a larger healthy community, is to offer the world something it needs but doesn’t have. To celebrate marriage not just in word but indeed is to declare that committed romantic relationships are possible and good. To place these relationships, as the Christian worldview does, in the larger context of our God-given identity and purpose is to point young people to love for the good of others, as opposed to love as mere self-expression.
As C.S. Lewis outlined in The Four Loves, a Christian view of passionate love, “eros,” differs from mere sentimentality or sexual desire. Eros, when rightly ordered, causes us to toss “personal happiness aside as a triviality and [plant] the interests of another in the center of our being.” Where else will young adults hear that definition of love?
The Church has much to offer a lonely world on Valentine’s Day and the rest of the year. The Church, of course, is to be a people that cultivate a community together. It may be that we should become a bit more intentional about cultivating marriages too.
Given the mounting tension at the Russian-Ukrainian border, Maria and John discuss insights on how Christians should think through Russia's preparation for conflict.
A recent New York Times highlighted a phenomenon known as "Birds Aren't Real," leading to Maria and John commenting on the state of young adults in America. To close, John recommends the new series the Colson Center is conducting with Focus on the Family: Lighthouse Voices.
-- Resources --
From Peter the Great to Putin the Bully — A Briefing on the Ukraine Crisis and the Russian Threat: History, Empire, Kiev, Moscow, Religion and Worldview
The Briefing>>
A Movement to Fight Misinformation…With Misinformation
Birds Aren’t Real, a conspiracy theory with an apparently absurd premise, has become surprisingly popular in the past few years.
But its followers were in on the joke: The movement’s aim was to poke fun at misinformation … by creating misinformation.
Has it been successful?
NY Times>>
Our Christian Witness
Since the contentious 2016 election, many have publicly questioned whether evangelical support for Donald Trump “hurts the Church’s witness.” Others assert that to vote for anyone but Donald Trump warrants excommunication. Over the last two years of the pandemic and all its associated controversies, some have confidently proclaimed that if Christians choose to not wear a mask or not be fully vaccinated they’ve harmed the cause of Christ. Others announced that to wear a mask or be vaccinated is to compromise the cause of Christ.
BreakPoint>>
-- Recommendations --
Lighthouse Voices Series - Colson Center and Focus on the Family>>
Pandemic Board Game>>
An Atlantic reporter who visited last month’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., painted an encouraging picture: This year’s march was full of teenagers. “Liberals might not know just how young the March for Life crowd tends to be,” the reporter wrote, describing groups of high schoolers and college students who’d come from several states away to march in the freezing cold.
Statistics routinely show that younger people are the most pro-abortion demographic in the country.
If that’s true, the youthful March for Life crowd is especially encouraging: Young pro-lifers might be the minority, but they’re more mobilized, more willing to face the cold and the criticism, and they’re less quiet. In fact, the Atlantic reporter wasn’t surprised only by the age of the marchers; she also called the atmosphere hopeful.
Kids are good at hope. It’s good to know there’s a generation coming up with the energy to take on the cultural challenge of a post-Roe United States.
Before the Glasgow climate summit in November, British ecologist and futurist James Lovelock wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian, entitled “Beware: Gaia may destroy humans before we destroy the Earth.” “Gaia” is the ancient Greek goddess who personified Earth, and the theory behind it is one Lovelock pioneered in the 1970s. The idea is that Earth is a single complex organism with its vast amounts of life striving to balance and correct its ecology, sort of like a huge immune system.
From that worldview foundation, Lovelock offers this extreme conclusion: “Covid-19 may well have been one attempt by the Earth to protect itself.” He means, of course, that the earth was attempting to protect itself from humans. If people continue to egg on the planet he warns, “Gaia will try harder next time with something even nastier.”
It’s not clear whether Lovelock means for his theory to be taken literally or metaphorically. On one hand, this could be the musings of a materialist, talking in a colorful way about “natural systems.” On the other hand, Gaia theory is the kind of belief a generation of spiritually hungry climate activists are tempted to latch onto.
Gaia theory taps is one expression of an emerging spiritual trend among Americans. In recent years, number of people claiming to practice witchcraft in the U.S. has increased dramatically, as have the number of young Americans interested in astrology. The line between secular materialism and new age panpsychism is surprisingly thin these days. Just take “New Atheist” Sam Harris, who despite being an avowed materialist, advocates strongly for meditation to achieve “transcendence” and push past what he calls the “illusion of self.”
Beliefs like Gaia attempt to explain the improbability, complexity, and intentionality of our universe, something old-school Darwinism has always struggled with. They provide an avenue for spiritual feelings without demanding any significant responsibility or change in return. They can also serve—as Gaia theory clearly has for James Lovelock—as a sort of ideological battering ram, to help convince those who would otherwise oppose a certain ecological agenda.
But beliefs within the Gaia ecosystem (pun intended) all have something in common: They’re user-generated. Unlike organized religion, Gaianism (the name for the spiritual version of Gaia Theory) can essentially conform to any number of beliefs of the person holding it. It’s not subject to any kind of empirical test or source of divine revelation. It doesn’t require a lot of specificity as to what exactly believing it entails.
For that reason, it not only buckles under close scrutiny, it evades scrutiny altogether. That’s a red flag.
First, because, short of just claiming it, there’s no way to verify whether or not a belief like Gaianism is true or real. No tree, rock, or koala bear has ever said a word to me about Mother Earth’s existence. In fact, outside of people attributing personality to nature, there’s absolutely no way to prove that Covid-19 is the Earth’s angry way of punishing us.
But therein lies the huge conundrum for Gaianism: It doesn’t know what to do with humanity. Are we a part of nature, a plague of nature, or something else entirely?
If people are just another part of the system, then who’s to say constructing massive cities, designing virtual worlds, dumping chemicals and sewage into rivers, or chopping down trees is anything other than natural selection working towards its logical end? If everything is Gaia, aren’t we Gaia too?
Of course, we all agree that people shouldn’t do things like dump chemicals in rivers. But that’s only true if we are qualitatively different from—and responsible for—the natural world. Otherwise, it’s just nature conquering nature, which nature always does. There needs to be a true and distinguishable “we” in this scenario, something Gaia theory can’t account for. Christianity can.
In fact, Christianity gives us a grounding for every belief Gaia theory proposes but doesn’t have grounding for.
For one thing, the Christian story bases its entire existence on a potentially falsifiable event: the resurrection of Jesus. That gives an evidence test that New Age philosophies can’t match. If Jesus rose from the dead, the whole thing is true. If Jesus didn’t, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, then the whole thing is nonsense.
Secondly, Christianity can explain the mind behind the cosmos: the infinitely wise, infinitely just Creator who made this world and cares what happens to it. It’s not just blind forces of nature telling us to check ourselves, or illusions of physicality based on some kind of divine spirit. We have a Heavenly Father, the divine source of personhood.
Third, Christianity tells us who we are, how we fit into the full story. We are special stewards of creation, capable of massive amounts of good and evil. We’re made in the image of God with a divinely ordained job to do: Cultivate the created world.
The thing Christianity doesn’t do is subject people to is a constant dread of Mother Earth viewing us as parasites. One could easily ask a believer in Gaia theory: How many humans are too much? Would Gaia be satisfied with pre-industrial levels or only with the eradication of every last person? Is somewhere in the middle okay? Who’s to say?
Of course, we’ll never know. But we get the sense Gaia is a capricious master, at least as brutal as what Tennyson famously labeled “nature, red in tooth and claw.”
My advice for would-be panpsychists is this: Ditch Gaia. Look at Jesus: Earth’s creator, gardener, redeemer.
John and Shane answer a question on whether or not abortion rates are impacted by who is President. They also give context for how spending money on gambling is different from other forms of entertainment.
Shane asks John for some worldview structures for a listener starting a worldview group in his church. To close, Shane asks John why it seems society doesn't recognize the LGBTQ movement as a religion or worldview?
-- Resources --
Snopes: Abortion Rates Fall During Democratic Administrations and Rise During Republican Ones
Politico: A graphic on U.S. abortion rates shows larger declines during recent Democratic presidential administrations, and says its due to the party’s approach of making abortions unnecessary, rather than the Republican Party’s approach of making the procedure illegal.
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BreakPoint: Sports Gambling Is a Bad Bet BreakPoint: Gambling: A Plague We Can Do Without BreakPoint: Don’t Bet on the Gambling Industry BreakPoint: The Cost of Digital Addictions?
Josef Pieper: Leisure the Basis of Culture Neil Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death
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Subscribe to BreakPoint: https://breakpoint.org/subscribe/
AXIS - Connecting Parents, Teens, and Jesus in a Disconnected World: https://axis.org
Os Guinness - Why The Cultural Moment is a Crucial Aspect of Our Calling As Christians: BreakPoint Podcast
According to The Washington Post, undergraduate enrollment nationwide dropped by over 3% last year—some 465,000 students. Maybe the pandemic led more students to stick closer to home, or maybe a job-friendly labor market tempted more to work instead. Either way, it’s forcing the question of what college is actually for? In too many universities, true critical inquiry has been replaced by ideological conformity. For example, Republicans comprise just 4% of historians, 3% of sociologists, and 2% of literature professors. But the problem isn't just that there are more Dems than GOPers, but that there are more admins and “Diversity Equity and Inclusion” officers than students. It’s that schools are indoctrinating instead of educating.
Christians have a new challenge—and opportunity: to preserve the best of classical liberalism. After transferring to Hillsdale College, one surprised former Ivy Leaguer atheist liberal put it this way:
“I was confronted with the fact that these religious institutions were, in practice, far more aligned with my values like individual liberty, critical inquiry, and diversity of thought than the place that explicitly claimed [those] things."
That’s a great report card—and an even better goal.
Since the contentious 2016 election, many have publicly questioned whether evangelical support for Donald Trump “hurts the Church’s witness.” Others assert that to vote for anyone but Donald Trump warrants excommunication. Over the last two years of the pandemic and all its associated controversies, some have confidently proclaimed that if Christians choose to not wear a mask or not be fully vaccinated they’ve harmed the cause of Christ. Others announced that to wear a mask or be vaccinated is to compromise the cause of Christ.
Whenever cultural flashpoints are used to judge the faith of others, the same script tends to be followed. An appeal is made to the Church’s witness and reputation in the wider world.
Of course, the Bible is clear that Christians indeed bear some responsibility for how our faith is both perceived and received by those inside and outside the Church. After He washed His disciples’ feet, Jesus told them that by loving each other in that way, “all people will know you are my disciples.” When He prayed in the garden on the night before His crucifixion, Jesus asked God to unify His followers so that “the world may believe that you have sent me.” When people see our good works, Jesus said, they may “glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). In other words, Jesus clearly tied together the love among fellow Christians with the plausibility of the Gospel message to the wider world.
What’s clear from these verses, and throughout the Bible, is that we bear responsibility for our reputation both inside and outside the Church, and that stewarding the Gospel message means protecting both the integrity of the message and demonstrating its impact on our lives and the world around us. The Gospel is both plausible and compelling, and we ought never do anything to make it seem less so.
However, what the Church is not (and cannot be) responsible for, is the reaction a world will have, particularly a world that is unbelieving and even hostile to either Christian morality or Christian truth claims.
“Loving our neighbor,” for example, will mean very different things to someone depending on their definition of love. According to our constantly shifting, culturally dependent definition, an act of love can seem like intolerance or even hate. In the same way, we are not responsible if someone perceives the good news of the Gospel message as bad news. We are not necessarily at fault when it is rejected or hated, or when it offends as Jesus predicted it would offend. The good news, though, is that when the Gospel is believed, embraced, or heeded, the success belongs to God, not our clever methodology or presentation.
According to Scripture, what “hurts our witness” the most is disunity. And this doesn’t mean that unity comes at the expense of church. But what we’re told “hurts our witness” the most in this cultural moment is violating the new moral consensus about sex, politics, or controversial public figures. So, in an effort to “protect the witness,” we spend an inordinate about of time policing each other’s behavior, often publicly, about matters prioritized within a wrong set of values.
I’ve no doubt that much of the concern over the Church’s witness is genuine and well-intentioned. We are responsible to live as if what we say we believe is real. At the same time, Jesus didn’t rebuke the Pharisees for being “mean,” but for being hypocrites. Whenever our well-intentioned concern for the Church’s witness becomes a dressed-up purity test, what we’re really saying is “You can’t be a Christian and do that thing.” And that misunderstands the Christian faith altogether.
True belief always leads to regeneration, and sanctification takes time. Salvation is not forfeited every time a mistake is made or a theological error is committed. The patience and grace we extend to each other, even when a fellow believer makes a decision we disagree with, is a way of loving one another and advancing the witness of Christ to a watching world.
In fact, imagine how compelling the Church’s witness would be today if we prioritized forgiveness. Our wider culture has absolutely no time for it, and many of those most “concerned for the Church’s witness” have little time for it either. To forgive, is considered complicity in evil. To accept any apology as sincere, or to extend grace, or even the benefit of the doubt is completely unacceptable. Christians should be different. We shouldn’t just take different sides of an issue: We should take our sides differently. We might find out that forgiving easily and assuming the best of one another will compel a watching world to ask us for the reason for that kind of hope. We might find that forgiveness, not a purity test, is the best thing for the Church’s witness these days.
Weighing just 11 ounces, newborn Hannah Stibbles is considered the smallest baby born in the U.K.—certainly in the last 20 years.
Glasgow doctors told Hannah’s parents she had “next to no” chance of survival, but delivered her by C-section anyway. For Hannah’s mother, 17-year-old Ellie Patton and her partner Brandon, Hannah became a living miracle.
“She came out fighting for her life and proved everyone wrong,” says Ellie. “She is a wee smasher.”
Hannah’s survival—and the natural joy so many feel at her fight for life—are just another moral paradox for those who maintain that the unborn aren’t fully human. It’s a fiction that is getting harder to maintain.
Though the Roe v. Wade decision considered birth at 25 weeks “unviable,” science is continually reassessing that criterion—and reaffirming what we should have known all along: It’s a fantasy that the unborn aren’t alive and human Hannah, and every child born or unborn, are worth fighting for.
Writing in The Washington Post last week, prominent columnist George Will described the heart-wrenching account of 29-year-old California man dying a slow and agonizing death from cancer. The man’s wife has documented his painful decline in photos. In his column, the writer argues that it would have been better if this man had obtained a medical suicide and praises states like Oregon that make this option available.
In Will’s ideal world, medical aid in dying would be available for all terminally ill patients, “not for truncating an unhappy life,” but for “preventing a hideous death.” He hopes to distinguish between a world in which doctors hand out suicides like candy, and one in which people already in their final days can obtain a swift and peaceful end.
This modest-sounding proposal is obviously motivated by compassion. However, compassionate motives don’t make something morally right, nor can they prevent horrifying abuses of human dignity. If the ideas are bad, there will be victims.
Doctors killing their patients—even when those patients request death—fundamentally alters medicine. Everywhere this has been tried, the weak and vulnerable have been endangered, the medical profession corrupted, and family relationships poisoned. In places like Oregon, in which doctor-assisted death was legalized on arguments from stories of unbearable physical pain (like the one told by Will in his column), a significant number of patients choose death for psychological factors.
Will, however, dismisses these concerns. “Life is lived on a slippery slope,” he wrote. Just because we can imagine ways medical aid in dying could be abused doesn’t mean it will be. But doctors killing patients isn’t so much a slippery slope as it is a radical altering of the medical landscape. It’s a sheer drop off a moral cliff. And it’s not guesswork if we have the trial runs to prove it.
In countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, where physician-assisted suicide has been legal for decades, the acceptance of doctor assisted death has led to euthanasia, the killing of patients who don’t request death. Ryan Anderson, now with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, thoroughly documents this in an in-depth report from 2015 for the Heritage Foundation. Government surveys in the Netherlands uncovered “thousands of cases” in which doctors “intentionally administered lethal injections to patients without a request.…” This includes “children, the demented,” and “the mentally ill.”
The progression from death-on-demand to death-at-doctors’-discretion makes a grim kind of sense once the original premise is accepted. As Justice Neil Gorsuch noted before he was on the Supreme Court, physician-assisted suicide always relies on the physician to make the fatal decision. The patient may request to die, but the doctor is still the one who determines whether the patient is competent and eligible. Small wonder that wherever medical aid in dying has been legalized, doctors and lawmakers have quickly begun asking why they need patient’s permission before exercising “compassion.” The arguments for medical aid in dying lead so quickly to euthanasia that one legal scholar quoted by Anderson chides his fellow advocates for a “certain lack of courage” in not admitting their ultimate aims.
Once death is a treatment option, patients can no longer trust their doctors, their insurance companies, or even their families to have their best interests at heart. “Terminal illness” quickly broadens to include “intolerable suffering” which soon broadens to include “mental suffering.” And as medical bills pile up and family members whisper in the halls, patients themselves begin to feel that their “right to die” has become a “duty to die.”
Yet as Anderson points out, there are alternatives to the corrupting practice of medical suicide, such as renewed investment in hospice and palliative care, that affirm human dignity and mortality while not asking doctors to become executioners.
While none of these alternatives make death easy, they do respect the sanctity of life and the precious relationships that make life worth living to its natural end. If compassion is our goal, we should think long and hard about these values, and we should consider the consequences for societies that have leapt into medical suicide with nothing but good intentions.
As NBCNews reported via Twitter, the Chinese Communist Party chose a member of the Uyghur minority to complete the torch relay and deliver the Olympic flame to the opening ceremonies of the winter Olympics.
The Uyghurs are a mostly Muslim ethnic minority in China’s western regions that have been targeted in Chairman Xi Jinping’s nationalistic and totalitarian agenda. Uyghur are being sent to concentration camps, subjected to systematic rape, forced abortions, and sterilization. By every measure, it’s genocide.
Going into the games, the world already knew that the Uyghurs were being subjected to the same sort of atrocities that defined evil in the last century. The Chinese Communist Party also employs the same sort of propaganda. As CNN’s Jake Tapper put it, it’s “hard to imagine a more cynical move.”
We can’t keep tyrants from being tyrannical, but we can refuse to pretend that what they’re doing is normal. And, we can call on our leaders to do the same. Anything less would be, as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn put it, to live by lies. Something we must never do.
“Trust is to capitalism what alcohol is to wedding receptions,” suggests Jerry Useem in an article in The Atlantic last November, “a social lubricant... ‘If trust is sufficiently low,’” he continues, quoting economists Paul Zak and Stephen Knack, “‘economic growth is unachievable.’”
Public trust, specifically of the federal government, began to erode in the 1960s. The series of unfortunate events in the decades that followed—wars, Watergate, economic struggles, impeachments, ever-deepening political divisions—only contributed to what has become a steady decline of public confidence in the federal government. The only notable exception came with the brief spike in national unity in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. During the last two years, like so many other social conditions that pre-existed the COVID pandemic, the numbers hit an all-time low.
Our national distrust is not only aimed at Washington D.C.. According to a 2019 Pew Study, almost two-thirds of Americans believe trust in each other is falling. The inherent connection between interpersonal trust and social stability, has an impact on the economy, among other things. In their report, titled Trust and Growth, Paul Zak and Stephen Knack describe that “low trust environments reduce the rate of investment and thus the economy's growth rate…very low trust societies can be caught in a poverty trap.”
On the other hand, when social trust improves, so does interpersonal trust..This can actually lead to economic growth. Americans’ trust in each other, however, dropped from 45% in 1973 to just 30% in 2014. Useem thinks that had trust among Americans been stronger during that time frame, more like New Zealand for example, “(our annual GDP per capita would) be $16,000 higher.”
In addition to our pocketbooks, the loss of trust is affecting work. According to one study, 42% of employees think that their employers do not understand their pandemic experiences. Conversely, employers are showing a decline in trusting their employees. Since the pandemic started, the employee monitoring software industry has grown by 50%. According to one study, 74% of remote workers are concerned their employer is monitoring when and how much they work. As one Forbes article that predates the pandemic put it, a lack of trust in the workplace “demotivates employees and is costing businesses dearly.”
Trust is a significant ingredient of what can be called “social capital.” Just as an individual needs financial, relational, and labor resources to start and grow a business, so a society needs financial, relational, and labor resources in order to grow and flourish. It only makes sense that a collective loss of trust, particularly at the scale we are now experiencing, would be felt in economic terms. As opposed to more short-term factors like monthly job creation or a particularly volatile stock price, social trust points to more consequential concerns about longer-term stability and sustainability.
Christians, of course, care about social trust for far more important reasons than the economy. The economy, in fact, is just one of many indicators of human flourishing, but there are others, such as family stability, mental health, upward mobility, education, and creativity. Trust is critical in each of these aspects of social capital.
Starting tonight, and continuing for the next four weeks, a new Colson Center short course will tackle this crisis of trust. Taught by Dr. Bruce Ashford and Dr. Yuval Levin, the course will begin with Dr. Ashford exploring where authority is grounded in a Christian worldview, namely the character of God. Next Tuesday night, Dr. Ashford will explore some of the social factors and historical shifts that have led to the current crisis of trust and authority.
In the third session, Dr. Ashford will teach on how Christians can cultivate discernment, an essential ingredient if we are to rebuild trust in the context of our fallen world and broken cultural moment. Finally, to close the course, Dr. Yuval Levin will talk about the crisis of trust in social institutions and how we can work to rebuild them.
As Useem wrote in the Atlantic article, “A trust spiral, once begun, is hard to reverse.” But what choice do we have but to confront it? If we are to be faithful to Christ in this cultural moment, Christians must embrace the call to be agents of reconciliation in their own spheres of influence. That’s why this short course is so important right now.
“The Crisis of Authority and Loss of Trust: A Christian Response” course begins tonight, at 8 p.m. Eastern, and will continue for the next four weeks. Each session is live online, and recordings are made available for anyone enrolled in the course not able to make the live session. To register, please visit www.colsoncenter.org/events.
Several Nordic countries that, for decades, have had among the world’s lowest birthrates, experienced a babyboom during the pandemic. In the second half of 2021, Iceland saw an incredible 16.5% more births than usual, and Finland and Norway experienced 7 and 5% more births, respectively.
Typically, a global crisis results in lower fertility rates. In the U.S., for example, the birthrate dropped by 4%. In China, it was a staggering 15%. For years, Nordic countries have offered generous incentives to increase child births, to little effect, as have other European nations that did not see a similar boom during the pandemic. So, money can’t explain it.
Perhaps for some, the pandemic highlighted what really matters.
One Icelandic mom of teenagers said: “We would just have conversations about everything and nothing and have fun and laugh. … I think that was the tipping point for me. I realized I wasn’t ready to be done with the mom thing.”
The mom thing—and the dad thing—is a good thing.
It should go without saying that, in 21st century America, most of the assumptions at work in contemporary culture are not Christian assumptions. And whatever new “normal” is, it’s constantly changing, it’s anything but worldview neutral. As my friend and author Natasha Crain puts it in her new book Faithfully Different, “We are in a culture where feelings are the ultimate guide, happiness is the ultimate goal, judging is the ultimate sin, and God is the ultimate guess.”
That means that Christians today are called to a daunting task: believing, thinking, and living contrary to widely accepted beliefs and practices. We must be a “worldview minority,” even, at times, among those who call themselves Christians.
In her punchy and accessible new book, Natasha Crain helps Christians embrace this calling while resisting the false assumptions that surround us. Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture is a terrific guide for those who wish to maintain Christian identity and confidence in the face of pervasive secularism.
Of course, the first step to faithfully living as a worldview minority is to establish that we are, in fact, a minority. After all, Pew Research’s Religious Landscape Study still shows that around 65 percent of Americans identify as Christians. However, surveys that look at actual beliefs give a clearer picture of what’s going on.
In her interview with my colleague Shane Morris on the Upstream podcast, Natasha pointed to the recent results of the American Worldview Inventory, conducted by George Barna and Arizona Christian University. According to that survey, just 6% of Americans hold a “functional biblical worldview,” meaning they gave recognizably Christian answers to questions like, Who is God? and What are human beings? and Is there absolute truth? Among respondents between the ages of 18 and 29, only 2% had a functional biblical worldview.
This kind of extreme minority status means there is constant pressure on Christians to live in a secular way and to hide beliefs that our neighbors find unbelievable. Even worse, there is strong temptation to join in the cultural scorn on historic Christian faith, following the example of the many authors, entertainers, and pastors who have publicly “deconstructed” their former faith.
Faithfully Different is a clarion call for Christians to intentionally push back on this pressure. In twelve rich but readable chapters, she identifies and challenges the primary assumptions held in our secular culture and reasserts the Christian alternative as a better way to understand the world.
In full disclosure, Natasha asked me to write the foreword for Faithfully Different, and I did so gladly after reading it. Here’s a portion of what I wrote:
All humans are, in many important ways, shaped by cultures. Our fashions, tastes, beliefs, and so many other things about us reflect the social environments into which we are born and live. In fact, a culture is most powerful in shaping us by what it makes seem normal.
If you’ve ever traveled to another country, you’ve likely experienced the feeling of, seemingly, being in a different world. You’re not, of course. You’re in a different culture, a place imagined and built differently by a different group of people. This is what humans do. We build worlds within the world.
In recent decades, the Western world (which include the United States) has shifted in dramatic ways. Things once unthinkable are now unquestionable. Beliefs and behaviors once unimaginable now seem so, well, normal. Christians who aren’t discerning will quickly find themselves embracing things that are wrong.
That’s why this book, Faithfully Different, is so important and, if you read it carefully, will be so helpful. Natasha is a clear thinker and a captivating writer, with this knack of explaining things most essential, such as worldview and culture. Not only does she help her readers understand what they need to know, she helps them act in ways faithful to truth.
As parents of four kids, my wife and I are big fans of Natasha’s previous books. As someone who has spent the last two decades studying worldviews and culture, trying to convince Christians to take both seriously, I’m a big fan of this one, too.
Faithfully Different covers an incredible amount of crucial ground without cutting any corners. It’s one of those rare books that is both faithful to biblical truth and honest about our cultural situation, a work of sound cultural analysis from a solid, and distinctly Christian worldview. It’s just so very helpful.
I hope you’ll pick up Natasha Crain’s timely new book, Faithfully Different: Regaining Biblical Clarity in a Secular Culture, and listen to her interview with Shane on the Upstream podcast.
John and Maria discuss a recent situation where Neil Young pressured Spotify to remove Joe Rogan from their lineup due to what is being discussed on his show about the coronavirus. John explains how this situation is a sample of our society's loss of trust in many institutions. He shares why institutions are important for a flourishing culture and offers a short course from the Colson Center. The course explains how institutions are important and how we can rebuild trust that is informed and has significance for culture shaping.
Maria then asks John to explain a recent commentary on technology that paints a picture to how and why Christians should be involved with technology as it guides and impacts society. Maria also asks John to further explain a commentary on how the word "parent" is being redefined and what that does to those closest to the redefinition, children.
-- In Show Mentions --
The Loss of Trust and Our Crisis of Authority: A Christian Response>>
Psaki cheers Spotify warning on COVID podcasts, says ‘more’ should be done
White House press secretary Jen Psaki applauded Spotify Tuesday for adding disclaimers to podcast episodes that discuss COVID-19 — before adding “there’s more that can be done.”
The New York Post>>
The new moral majority comes for Joe Rogan.
Last week, Canadian-American rock god Neil Young made a clarion call against free speech. Displeased by The Joe Rogan Experience’s Covidian contents, Young demanded that Spotify remove Rogan’s podcast—or remove him. Days later, Young’s music was off the platform, though you can still stream his songs on Apple (ignore their forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang) and on Amazon (but don’t read about the company’s infamous working conditions in James Bloodworth’s book “Hired.”)
Common Sense>>
God is no Luddite, and We Need Not Be Either
In the broadest sense, God created humanity with the capacity to structure and organize life, and steward the world He created. The tools we create to do this are good, as they serve these ends. A strong clue lies in the book of Revelation, where history, which began in a Garden, is culminated in one of humanity’s own sociological innovations: the city.
BreakPoint>>
Redefining ‘Parent’ is Bad for Kids
As Christians, we accept that the One in charge of the definition of “parent” is the One who created the process by which we become one. However, whether or not we are Christians, biology requires a man and a woman to create a child, even if some find these mechanics of reality discriminatory or unjust.
Despite our best attempts to separate sex from procreation, which Obergefell codified into law, it simply cannot be done. Same-sex relationships cannot produce children. Children need both a mother and a father. These things remain true even if the God who created the world this way is rejected.
At the same time, the Bible acknowledges that the desire for children is both natural and good. God repeatedly honors that desire throughout Scripture, sometimes despite biological challenges like age or infertility. And, at other times, God does not give the gift of children, even to those who desperately desire them. BreakPoint>>
So many indications reveal just how much young men are struggling in our culture… mentally, spiritually, and relationally. And new research reveals how much women are struggling, too.
A recent survey from The Roots of Loneliness Project found that middle-aged women reported the sharpest rise in loneliness when the pandemic lockdowns began in 2020. According to The Wall Street Journal, women in this group, particularly moms, spend a lot of time on social media but feel increasingly stressed and isolated.
At best, social media “connections” can only supplement embodied community, but they cannot be a replacement for it.
Because women aren’t as likely as men to act out in violent or destructive ways, their struggles can go unnoticed. Moms are in a uniquely challenging spot. Though rarely alone, they are also rarely around other adults.
This survey is a good reminder that moms should make time for adult community without feeling guilty for it. And, it’s a good reminder for dads and the larger Church body: Don’t forget about the moms.
Twenty-six years ago, Wired magazine co-founder Kevin Kelly made a $1,000 dollar bet with author Kirkpatrick Sale. The wager was about whether or not, by the year 2020, society as we know it would have collapsed entirely.
Back in 1995, Sale was known for his critique of the internet, which was just starting to overhaul daily life. His book Rebels Against the Future praised the Luddites, a group of English textile workers who opposed industrialization by aggressively destroying the technology that made it possible. Sale’s premise was similar.
“If the edifice of industrial civilization does not eventually crumble as a result of a determined resistance within its very walls, it seems certain to crumble of its own accumulated excesses and instabilities within not more than a few decades, perhaps sooner.”
That was just too much for Kelly, a dedicated tech-optimist who had spent most of a decade living in remote parts of Asia before becoming the founding executive editor of Wired in 1993. That experience had given him new appreciation for both human culture and technological progress. It ultimately led him to oppose Sale’s pessimism.
“I saw completely vehicle-less cities—people throwing garbage in the streets, no toilets. So when people were talking [about] getting rid of technology, I was like … no no no, you have no idea.”
In 1995, Kelly interviewed Sale and sprung his trap. Pulling out a check for $1,000, he wagered that in 25 years the world wouldn’t even be close to the kind of disaster Sale predicted: total economic collapse, war between rich and poor nations, and environmental catastrophe. Their mutual publisher would decide the winner.
In January of last year, the bet was settled. Even in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was no real debate about who had won. The challenges of the modern era aren’t trivial, but even Sale had to reluctantly agree that society had not collapsed.
Kelly’s interview with Sale not only makes for a fascinating read, it’s a helpful springboard for Christians to think about the role of technology in shaping worldview.
First, while Sale’s claims seem far-fetched in hindsight, there’s a voice like his in every generation. In the 1960s, it was Paul Ehrlich’s infamous book The Population Bomb, which predicted that hundreds of millions of people would starve due to overpopulation. Ehrlich wasn’t just wrong about that prediction: His ideas were disastrous fodder for totalitarian regimes worldwide, justifying forced sterilization in places like Mexico, Bolivia, and Indonesia or the one child policy in China.
The same fear persists even today, whether from an all-consuming “climate-anxiety” or the misguided belief that simply making fewer babies will solve the world’s problems. But Christians should know better. While actively and responsibly caring for the planet, it’s our duty to resist philosophies that come at the expense of infinitely valuable human lives. This is based in Christian confidence: We know how the story ends.
Second, a Neo-Luddite outlook assumes that technology, not human nature, is responsible for the world’s evils. This, too, is on the rise in our day by a romanticization of life in the distant past, based on the idea that humanity’s ancestors lived in a state of harmonious bliss with the Earth and each other. This doesn’t just miss the point: It encourages a quixotic fight against humanity’s tools, while ignoring their souls.
It’s here that we need clarity. Innovation hasn’t ruined humanity’s idyllic past, but it cannot give us an idyllic future, either. As Neil Postman wrote in his excellent book Technopoly, “Every technology is both a burden and a blessing; not either-or, but this-and-that.”
For evidence, we need only look at digital communication. The same technology that allows us to make video calls to friends on the other side of the world can keep us from looking our own children in the eye. One survey reported more than 1 in 3 Americans reported feeling lonely, either “all the time, or almost all the time.” Better methods of communication can help people stay in touch, but it can’t make that communication meaningful. It can even make us too busy or too distracted to see the real needs of those around us.
In the broadest sense, God created humanity with the capacity to structure and organize life, and steward the world He created. The tools we create to do this are good, as they serve these ends. A strong clue lies in the book of Revelation, where history, which began in a Garden, is culminated in one of humanity’s own sociological innovations: the city.
In other words, God is no Luddite. We need not be one either. A truly Christian worldview celebrates the beauty of innovation, while maintaining healthy skepticism about any and all utopian promises.
As Kate Shellnut with Christianity Today writes, “Evangelicals under 40 are twice as likely as their seniors to want more substance from the pulpit.” She’s referring to a new survey on church satisfaction from Grey Matter research group. Not only do 3 in 10 evangelicals want more in-depth teaching, but the strong majority are happy with how their church handles even tougher topics like giving or politics.
It correlates with a 2017 Gallup poll, which showed that 83% of Protestants consider learning about Scripture as the main reason they attend church. That outpaces other worthy things like kids’ programming, musical worship, or social opportunities.
Of course, making churchgoers happy isn’t the ultimate metric of the Christian faithfulness … but that might be exactly the point. Strategies to make church relevant and interesting have to be grounded in the main thing: the truth of God’s word.
Watering it down isn’t just unfruitful or unwise: It’s a bad retention strategy.
In case you haven’t heard, Major League Baseball is in the middle of a lockout. Later this week, the players’ union will meet with team owners to negotiate on new contracts, hopefully in time for spring training. Imagine, if all of this haggling over salaries and contracts and terms happened without the players being at the table? What if MLB team owners were negotiating with sportscasters or concession stand workers or third-base umpires over the terms and million-dollar conditions of the baseball players’ contracts, but the players were not welcome?
It’s an absurd notion. Negotiations cannot work unless all of the key stakeholders are in the room. And that’s the exact scenario right now at a very different negotiating table.
In 1973, states began considering, with many eventually passing, something called the Uniform Parentage Act. The legislation codified a legal definition of the word “parent,” which more or less aligned with reality: “Parent” meant the biological parents of a child, regardless of whether they were married. (This solved prior legal questions over the rights of so-called “illegitimate children” when it came to their fathers.) The 1973 version of the act also declared that the term “parent” could apply to an adult who’d gone through the legal adoption process.more or less aligned with reality: “Parent” meant the biological parents of a child, regardless of whether they were married. (This solved prior legal questions over the rights of so-called “illegitimate children” when it came to their fathers.) The 1973 version of the act also declared that the term “parent” could apply to an adult who’d gone through the legal adoption process.
In 2002, as assisted reproductive technologies were becoming more popular and sophisticated, several states started to update their Uniform Parentage Act. The definition of “parent” was stretched to include adults with no biological relation to a child or legal adoption papers, but who had obtained the child through sperm donation, egg donation, surrogacy or some combination thereof.
The negotiations didn’t stop there. Despite promises by activists, lobbyists, and judges that gay marriage had everything to do with consenting adults and nothing to do with bearing children, the 2015 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges renewed calls to revise the Uniform Parentage Act again. As Katy Faust, Founder and Director of the children’s rights organization Them Before Us predicted, “When you make husbands and wives optional in marriage, mothers and fathers become optional in parenthood.”
That’s the way many legislators saw it, too. After Obergefell, multiple states revised the legal definition of “parent” under their Uniform Parentage Act again. In these states, unmarried same-sex partners of people with a child can be legally recognized as that child’s parent, even without going through the adoption process. Many of these states also allow something called “pre-birth orders” in surrogacy, which allows the couple paying a surrogate mother to apply for legal custody of that mother’s baby up to three months before the birth.
It’s not just that the stakeholder with everything to lose in these negotiations—the children—aren’t at the negotiating table, their rights aren’t even considered. If the Church is to continue its long history of defending and protecting children, especially in eras of extreme sexual exploitation, we’ll need to pay attention to this issue, show up for them, and demand their rights are considered.
As Christians, we accept that the One in charge of the definition of “parent” is the One who created the process by which we become one. Whether or not we are Christians, biology requires a man and a woman to create a child, even if some find these mechanics discriminatory or unjust.
Despite our best attempts to separate sex from procreation, which Obergefell codified into law, it simply cannot be done. Same-sex relationships cannot produce children. Children need both a mother and a father. These things remain true even if you reject the God who created the world this way.
At the same time, the Bible acknowledges that the desire for children is both natural and good. God repeatedly honors that desire throughout Scripture, sometimes despite biological challenges like age or infertility. And, at other times, God does not give the gift of children, even to those who desperately desire them.
This tells us that despite the real pain of childlessness, children are not a right. They are, as the Bible calls them, a blessing. They come when God wills;. When we venture outside His created design for children, whether through assisted reproduction or redefining the word “parent” to reflect adult desire, we intentionally sever a child’s relationship to either their mother, their father, or both. By treating children as our “right,” we violate theirs.
If our culture persists in negotiating the rights and terms of children’s’ lives, children deserve a seat at the table. That’s exactly what Katy Faust at Them Before Us is providing. I hope you’ll check out her work and get involved at thembeforeus.com.
John explains the reason the Colson Center is involved in the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together. A listener asks what the group does and what recent developments have come out of the organization.
Shane pushes John to answer a question from a listener he knows about praying for one's enemies.
And to start the show John outlines the challenges present in China's worldview after a listener asks for clarity on a video he shows to his students. -- Resources --
Making Sense of Your World: a Biblical Worldview John Stonestreet, Bill Brown, & Gary Phillips | Sheffield Publishing
Shelby Houston Speech at Father's Funeral
Emanuel Mother Emanuel Documentary
The Ring Makes all the Difference Glenn Stanton
“If liberty means anything at all,” wrote George Orwell in the original preface to Animal Farm, “it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Recently, the University of Northampton demonstrated where they stand on that matter, adding a trigger warning to another iconic Orwell book 1984. Students are now warned that Orwell’s seminal critique of totalitarianism, censorship, and thought control might contain material some find “offensive and upsetting.” You just can’t make this up. For the record, strong evidence indicates that trigger warnings do not prevent feelings of trauma and can even have the opposite effect of heightening emotional vulnerability to potentially scary or offensive content. On a much deeper level, we’re simply walking in the way Orwell warned against. It’s the dark side of an expressive individualism devoid of any deeper truth. Eventually, embracing an ideology that tells us to create our own realities will only lead us to cancel anyone who threatens them.
There’s a new genre of literature that most people have never heard of: “hopepunk.”
Coined in 2017 by fantasy author Alexandra Rowland, “hopepunk” was a reaction to a different kind of writing dominating the market that year, a genre that Rowland and others refer to as “grimdark.” Grimdark emphasizes the cruelty that so often defines human interaction. Think, for example, of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, a show which hit its highwater mark in 2017 and capitalized on a trifecta of gore, nudity, and nihilism. AMC’s The Walking Dead and the more recent Netflix global hit Squid Game are also examples of shows that attempt to portray the very worst of human nature as graphically as possible.
In contrast, “Hopepunk,” wrote Rowland in a line that captured the attention of the internet, “is the opposite of Grimdark.” And then she added, “Pass it on.”
After that post went viral, she elaborated further: “Hopepunk says that genuinely and sincerely caring about something, anything, requires bravery and strength. It’s about demanding a better, kinder world, and truly believing that we can get there if we care about each other as hard as we possibly can.”
Since she invented the label, bloggers have retroactively applied it to works like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. In a sense, the term applies to works that attempt to answer a vital existential question of the human condition: Is there really any hope? This question is especially relevant in a culture experiencing record levels of depression and purposelessness.
One source for ascertaining the hopefulness of a culture is its stories. Consider the Greek myth of Pandora’s Box, penned by Hesiod in 700 B.C. In it, the gods place all of the world’s evils in a box and give them to Pandora, the first woman. When she cracks the lid, they escape into the world and the jar is emptied, except for one thing: hope, which is captured before it can escape.
The story raises a haunting question: Was the hope left in Pandora’s box a good, or an evil? Is hope legitimate, or is it merely a trick of the gods designed to induce more suffering?
The Stoics believed that hope was foolish. Anticipating future joy leaves humanity vulnerable to all kinds of disappointment and miscalculation. As Seneca wrote, quoting his friend Hecato, “Cease to hope, and you will cease to fear.”
This makes sense in a worldview where neither nature nor the gods are particularly benevolent. All that remains for humanity is hedonism, the ancient ideal of a heroic death, or a joyless, gritty stoicism.
Within a secular worldview, the challenge remains. How can there be any real hope if there’s no God, or any basis for ultimate things such as purpose, right, wrong, good, evil, reward, or justice? Indeed, if we do live in such a world where, as Bertrand Russell famously put it,
“…Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the débris of a universe in ruins…”
If Russell is correct about the world, it’s hard to argue with his conclusion that “only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.”
In fact, two years after writing her viral post advocating “hopepunk,” Rowland’s idea of hope seemed to have slipped toward cynicism. “Those are the words of a person cloaked in a story that hasn’t yet been worn threadbare and ragged,” she admits. One gets the sense that although she wants to hope, she just cannot find a reason to hope.
Of course, the stories that originally inspired her to hope are grounded in a much better worldview. Unlike armchair nihilists like George R.R. Martin (whose books were the basis for Game of Thrones), J.R.R. Tolkien actually experienced the brutality of war. In the trenches of World War I, he lost all but one of his childhood friends, even while Western Europe was reduced to a muddy, hellish burial ground. That may have been, in fact, the inspiration for his fictional realm of Mordor.
Yet, even in his grief, Tolkien believed in something deeper, a way things should be. Sam and Frodo stuck to their grueling quest to destroy the ring not from an existentialist “hope in hope itself,” but from a full awareness that good and evil are real, nothing is accidental, and some things are worth fighting for.
Years later, Tolkien would sum up his basis for hope in a poem.
“The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned.”
In other words, hope stems from what is true and because of what is true, what is possible. That’s why, ultimately, hope is so powerful. There is life and light. There is a way out of chaos into a new day. All that is sad can be made untrue. Only that level of truth can carry us when the world is darkest and we are weakest.
In a recent essay, Oxford Professor Roger Crisp toyed with the idea that human extinction may not be a bad thing after all. With so much suffering on Earth, he argues, if NASA were to locate a massive asteroid hurtling towards our planet, we would be justified in letting it obliterate us.
“I am not claiming that extinction would be good;” Crisp clarified, “only that, since it might be, we should devote a lot more attention to thinking about the value of extinction than we have to date.”
This is an Oxford philosopher of ethics, but he’s wrestling with an idea that long ago left the ivory tower.
Wesley Smith of the Discovery Institute put it this way: “With our supposedly best minds suggesting that human extinction could be desirable, is it any wonder that so many of our young people seem to be despairing?”
When God is taken out of the moral picture, reason evaporate, as does the rest of our moral logic. Someone tell Bruce Willis and the rest of his team from Armageddon, the mission is off.
In his book The Last Word, atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel talked about “the fear of religion”:
“… I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper–namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.”
This “cosmic authority problem,” Nagel thought, was at the root of modern attempts to explain everything by science. Today, 45 years, and more than a few other factors later, has evolved into what might be called a “cultural authority problem.” Its roots lie not only in the philosophical denials of God and His authority that Nagel wrote about but also in what Pope Benedict once referred to as “the dictatorship of relativism … which recognizes nothing as absolute and which only leaves the ‘I’ and its whims as the ultimate measure…”
And, of course, upon these ideological foundations, we’ve all had the experience of living in the Information Age, being forced to navigate a dizzying amount of information daily and the many voices constantly vying for our pocketbooks and attention (often by any means necessary). Even before the chaos of the last 24 months, there has been more than enough to spur on our collective distrust.
Still, on top of all that, what social institution in American life hasn’t failed us in recent years? The state, churches, education, corporations, big tech, news, even medicine… we don't trust any of them anymore.
To some degree, skepticism of authority is understandable, even commendable. And, when healthy, it’s a necessary ingredient of discernment, a skill required of anyone who wishes not to be brainwashed today. Increasingly, however, skepticism has been replaced by cynicism and is expressed in an immediate distrust anytime anyone tells us anything to think or do. This is not healthy or sustainable, nor is it a biblical way of thinking about authority.
If we begin from a Biblical Story instead of the chaos of our cultural moment, we must grant that authority is a God-given feature of life in this world. Beginning with God, the ultimate authority, the Bible describes how God also ordained other authorities, especially His image-bearers. Of course, unlike God, all of these ordained authorities have been twisted and compromised by the Fall. At the same time, the fact that the Bible continues to recognize (even after the fall) both God’s authority and the, should chasten us whenever our discernment is replaced by cynicism. And there's an awful lot of cynicism these days.
Is it possible for Christians to be discerning without being cynical? If so, how? Are there ways to respect authority without being duped? Can we recognize the collapse of our institutions without wholly abandoning them, and perhaps seek to restore them?
Christians must answer these questions as part of our cultural witness. Certain existential questions rise to the surface in specific cultural contexts. For example, at a time of tragedy, the question on the top of the cultural surface tends to be, where was God? At this moment, in a culture with a cosmic authority problem, the question is, who can we trust?
To help us think through the cultural crisis of authority and the loss of trust, the Colson Center will be hosting a special virtual short course beginning next Tuesday night, February 8. Each of the sessions will feature a presentation and a time for live Q&A. The first three weeks will be led by Dr. Bruce Ashford and will cover the topics of “God’s Authority and the Authorities He Has Ordained,” “Where Did the Crisis of Authority and Trust Come From?” and “How to Cultivate Discernment in an Untrustworthy World.” The fourth week will be led by Dr. Yuval Levin, a scholar from the American Enterprise Institute, who will help us think about the collapse of our cultural institutions and what it would look like to rebuild them. He's an example of a scholar who can inform Christians on how to think about life in this cultural moment.
Each of the four sessions will be recorded and distributed to all who sign up for the course. To register for this course, “The Loss of Trust and the Crisis of Authority,” please visit colsoncenter.org/events.
Os Guinness shared an important message at a recent Colson Center event in Phoenix, Arizona. He spoke to the situation of the church in this cultural moment, where institutions are failing and people are losing trust. Os offered a way forward, for Christians to ground themselves in truth, repentance, and forgiveness. Out of this event, the Colson Center is launching a short course on the loss of trust and our crisis of authority. Society needs a Christian response to the breakdown we are witnessing in nearly every societal institution. The church has an answer and to help encourage Christians with clarity, confidence, and courage in this moment, we are offering a special short course in February. For more information visit www.colsoncenter.org/events
The Loss of Trust and Our Crisis of Authority
Recently, online magazine Fatherly sent out this prompt to their readers: “What would you tell your younger self about being a dad?” The answers are worth sharing.
“It only gets better.” wrote one 39-year-old from Vancouver. “I wasn’t ready for my prior life to end until I held my baby on the first day…. There’s a place for having fun while you’re young, but don’t think that’s meant to be it. Life really starts to get good when you feel your children enjoying your presence and loving every minute, they spend with you.”
Another dad agreed. “Once you’re knee-deep in the reality of raising a baby all the seemingly ‘boring’ milestones feel incredible.”
Of the nation’s 73 million children, “1 in 4 live without a biological, step or adoptive father in the home,” the National Fatherhood Initiative tells us. That absence is felt in every measurable category of child well-being. And it’s a tragedy for men too.
Our culture tells us that caring for others is a burden on our true happiness, but Scripture - and the wisdom of experience - tell a different story. Just ask the dads.
Anabaptist theologian Stanley Hauerwas once said that in 100 years, if Christians are known as those who do not kill their children or their elderly, we would have been doing something right. May we, in fact, be known for nothing less than these things, but I hope we’ll be known for far more. Specifically, Christians must be known as those who acknowledge created reality, in particular the goodness of the human body.
This won’t be easy. Unthinkable a couple decades ago, it’s now normal to deny the purpose, the meaning, and the goodness of the human body. Increasingly the body is seen, not as a given of reality, but as a fully morphable canvas of self-expression. Not only do we celebrate unnatural ways of using it, we see it as something to be reinvented and remodeled, even mutilated if that allows us to “be ourselves.”
Because Christians believe in a world created by God, including the human body, we must not allow what is considered normal to seem normal to us. We might be shocked and grieved, but we should always point to the truth of who we are, and oppose these ideas which destroy and degrade, rather than liberate, human beings.
Any culture that denies what our bodies reveal about who we are must work hard to suppress the overwhelming evidence of reality. At times, like beach balls pushed below the water, this evidence re-emerges. For example, just before Christmas, New York Magazine released an issue with a cover photo of a person with a beard and body hair, wearing nothing but briefs, staring at readers. A massive scar dominates one leg. The headline reads: “My Penis, Myself: I didn’t need a penis to be a man. But I needed one to be me.”
The person in the photo is a woman. The organ in question was surgically constructed using flesh taken from her leg. The author and subject describe her “transmasculine” surgery, performed in a San Francisco hospital, in full detail. The procedure was potentially life-threatening and involved physicians doing things that, in any other surgical context, would be considered harm, not help.
The result of the surgery was not a male body, but a wounded and disfigured female body. The author is now in near constant pain, and in constant danger of infection or rejection. Even so, this dysphoric woman viewed the process as a liberation from her own body.
By portraying this procedure as a surgery rather than an act of harm, and by portraying the choice to undergo the procedure as heroic rather than heartbreaking, New York Magazine bypasses any real discussion about a host of related ideas, ideas about sex, gender, humanity, morality, medicine, and more. At the same time, the cover photo, of a largely exposed woman with horrific scarring, points to truths that, in the end, cannot be suppressed.
This movement is, in reality, an assault on humanity. The bad ideas behind the movement leave victims in their wake. In a sort of gnostic remix, these ideas reject the most basic of created realities. Christians, who believe that God called our bodies “good,” must continue to point to what is true. First, we must point out that there are very real scars left when people deny reality. And second, we must point those with these scars to Christ, the One whose scars can make them whole again.
Back in June, an episode of “Blue’s Clues and You” earned applause for featuring a pride parade of LGBT-identifying animals. Only later did viewers notice that one cartoon beaver, waving a trans pride flag, had scars like those of women who’ve had what’s called “top surgery.” A Nickelodeon spokesperson confirmed that the producers’ intent was to teach young children that this “surgery” is normal, and if women wish to have healthy breasts removed in order to mimic men, they should.
To point out that this sort of message, aimed at children, is body shaming and abusive will inevitably mean being called “transphobic,” “bigoted,” and “hateful.” We may be cancelled. But to be silent is not to be loving. Rather, it is to be complicit in harm.
In this cultural moment, faithfulness to Christ involves not just declaring salvation but defending creation; not just preaching how men and women can be saved but that men and women exist. Churches will need to include extensive and thorough education on what it means to be made in God’s image, why He made us male and female, and the difference that makes in modern culture.
All of which will mean proclaiming obvious, now unfashionable truths. But, given the damage being done by denying those truths, it’s the only loving thing to do.
Maria asks John to revisit a few commentaries from the week, specifically our piece recognizing Holocaust Remembrance Day and a new report on the state of Christians passing on the faith to younger believers.
Then John explains the significance of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement and what him stepping down does to the court. He also explains how President Biden will likely respond, based on campaign promises.
To close, Maria asks John about a recent comment from author Jordan Peterson who made a startlingly insightful observation about the Bible. John shares why Jordan Peterson is a person Maria should recognize and care about and why this comment is important to consider.
-- Show Stories --
Holocaust Remembrance Day
Christians, in fact, should always be quick to counter any hatred or desecration poured out on any of our fellow image bearers, including those through whom God revealed His Word and brought His Son into His world. Having met on the 80th anniversary of Wanassee Conference, the European Coalition for Israel, issued a Declaration entitled: “Fight Antisemitism, Protect Jewish Life.” It’s worth a read, especially at a time when so much of the world seems at risk of forgetting.
BreakPoint>>
Passing On the Faith: Good News and Bad News
“Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately,” wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity. But, “if you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.”BreakPoint>>
A Conservatism Without Marriage & Family Is No Conservatism At All
Any political vision that treats marriage and family as optional or fungible, even if it goes by the label “conservative,” is destined to fail. This isn’t a matter of updating our definitions. If we lose our belief in marriage and the family as the foundation of a healthy and flourishing society, there will soon be very little left for “conservatives” to conserve.BreakPoint>>
Stephen Breyer, pragmatic liberal, will retire at end of term
As a justice, Breyer’s demeanor and questions during oral arguments often conjured up comparisons to an absent-minded professor. One legendary hypothetical, in 2003, posited that a sign barring “all animals” from a park would not include a “pet oyster.” A year later, in a case involving federal efforts to ban medical marijuana, Breyer raised the specter of “tomato children that will eventually affect Boston.”
But if Breyer – who majored in philosophy as an undergraduate at Stanford University – sometimes came across as an academic on the bench, he was at the same time both a member of the court’s liberal wing and, as his former law clerk Kevin Russell told USA Today, “unapologetically pragmatic in thinking that it’s the court’s job to help make government work for real people.”
SCOTUS Blog>>
How Biden will choose the next Supreme Court nominee
With today’s reporting that Justice Stephen Breyer intends to retire, we now kick off our analysis of potential nominees to replace him. President Joe Biden previously promised to nominate a Black woman, and we assume he will keep that commitment. Two potential nominees therefore stand apart from all others: Leondra Kruger, a justice on the California Supreme Court, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Both are well known to the White House team that will lead the nomination process. Kruger is a former Department of Justice attorney. Biden recently appointed Jackson to the court of appeals.
SCOTUS Blog>>
Jordan Peterson’s Realization About the Bible
“The meaning of the words is coded in the relationship of the words to one another. And, Postmodernists make that case, that all meaning is derived from the relationship between words. That’s wrong, because what about “rage?” That’s not words. What about moving your hand, that’s not words. It’s wrong, but part of it’s right because the meaning we derive from the verbal domain is encoded in the relationship between words.
So, now you think, “let’s think about the relationship between words.” Some words are dependent on other words and some ideas are dependent on other ideas. The more ideas are dependent on a given idea the more fundamental that idea is, that’s a definition of fundamental.
So now, imagine you have an aggregation of texts in civilization, and you say, “which are the fundamental texts?” and the answer is the texts upon which most other texts depend. So, you put Shakespeare's way in there because so many texts are dependent on Shakespeare’s literary revelations. Milton would be in that category, and Dante would be in that category - at least in translation. (They’re) fundamental authors, part of the western canon, not because of the arbitrary dictates of power, but because those texts influenced more other texts.
Then, you think about that as a hierarchy, with the Bible at its base, which is certainly the case. Imagine that’s the entire corpus of linguistic production, all things considered. Now, how do you understand that? Literally, how do you understand that? You sample that by reading and listening to stories and hearing how people talk. You sample that whole domain and you build a low-resolution reputation of that inside you and then you listen and see through that.
And so it isn’t that the Bible is true, it’s that the Bible is the precondition for the manifestation of truth. Which makes it way more true than just truth. It’a a whole different kind of truth.
Joe Rogan Experience Podcast>>
-- InShow Mentions --
Fight Antisemitism Defend Jewish Life
Summit Ministries
Impact 360
Worldview Academy
-- Recommendations --
Too Prevalent to Track Maria Baer | The World and Everything in It | January 27, 2022
Women of the Movement ABC Series | January, 2022
Last week, an Oklahoma state representative who describes himself as a “pragmatic progressive” announced on Twitter, “This week I filed HB3129, which codifies that a father’s financial responsibility to his baby and their mom begins at conception. If Oklahoma is going to restrict a woman’s right to choose, we sure better make sure the man involved can’t just walk away from his responsibility.”
What he intended as a gotcha instead went viral with pro-lifers. They loved the proposal, and filled his feed with memes saying “your terms are acceptable.” The only resistance to the law came from pro-abortion allies. Quickly and furiously, the lawmaker backpedaled with a follow-up tweet:
“I understand how the language in my message and bill both hurt the cause instead of helping it, and I apologize for not being more thoughtful….”
It’s just amazing that so many still claim and so many still buy the whole “pro-lifers only care about babies before birth” nonsense, but they do. Which means, we must continue to refute this silly narrative, in both word and deed.
There’s a new ad playing on radio stations in Ohio as part of a PR push called the Stop the Stigma campaign. The ad is a game show skit, where contestants must guess the biggest risk factor for substance addiction. One guesses “making bad choices” and gets the buzzer; another guesses “hanging out with the wrong people” and is also wrong. The right answer, we’re told, is family history. Ohio officials said the ads are meant to encourage people to “practice empathy, not judgment” for people suffering from addiction.
That’s wise advice. And research does show there is a strong genetic component to addiction. But research also shows that making unwise choices and spending time with others who are making unwise choices also unequivocally contribute to addiction.
In a similar vein, USA Today recently ran a story about the latest research on pedophilia, quoting scientists who say the sexual disorder is “determined in the womb” and therefore “misunderstood” by our culture. The implication is that when something evil is “inherent,” it carries a different — or no —moral weight.
The first mistake here is the suggestion that we can have empathy for or compassion on people who do something wrong only when they “couldn’t help it.” That’s both naive and wrong. None of us is immune from sinful desires; that’s the fall. But none of us is helpless against our sinful desires, either; despite genetic components or elevated risk factors — that’s the redemption of Jesus.
That’s why the Bible tells us to “flee” from sin; even when sin “feels” natural. Paul tells the Galatians the desires of the flesh are in conflict with the Spirit. He doesn’t say “therefore you are helpless.” or “do good things to cancel out the bad.” He says we must “crucify the flesh.”
Still, even when we lose that battle, God offers grace and forgiveness and commands us to do the same. People who do bad things deserve appropriate compassion and help not because they supposedly “can’t help it;” but simply because they are human beings, made in the image of God.
But we also deserve the dignity of facing the consequences of our actions. The second mistake in efforts to “stop the stigma” of bad behavior is the suggestion that those consequences, as well as healthy guilt and even shame, can’t play a motivating role in our moral formation. The Bible testifies that it does.
Friends of mine who have recovered from addiction or who are active in addiction ministry all say that the cliche is true: the first step to recovery really is admitting you have a problem. We block that important step if we try to convince those suffering that they bear no responsibility for their behavior.
My friend Dr. Matthew Sleeth, and emergency room physician who wrote a book about the Christian response to suicide, spoke to our Wilberforce Weekend audience last year about his research. He said the common denominator that he found in testimonies from those who survived a suicide attempt or ultimately chose not to go through with it was that they believed, to one degree or another, that suicide would be wrong.
But that assertion that something could be wrong requires a consistent moral standard against which we can measure our inclinations and behavior. Christianity - not cultural tastes - is the only worldview that offers a fully formed and consistent moral standard; built on God’s design for the world.
I want to be clear here that the chemical components, including genetic predispositions, and even outside factors like predatory pharmaceutical companies are very real contributors to things like suicide and addiction. But removing stigma by suggesting people aren’t still responsible for their moral choices forfeits that very real and apparently motivating sense that we don’t want to do something wrong.
This is a casualty of a culture that continues to distance itself from its Christian moral foundation. Some theologians suggest the loss of “cultural Christianity” is good, in that it will reveal those truly committed to Jesus, as opposed to those only claiming Christianity for its social advantages. But the loss of cultural Christianity will still leave much to mourn, including the healthy social norms and stigmas, based on the Biblical moral standard, that protect us from our inherent sinfulness.
Christians should always practice empathy. And we should be ready to help when and where it’s appropriate. That kind of love holds room for healthy stigma, and it doesn’t require pretending there are no consequences to our choices. That’s the deep, consistent love of the gospel.
Most of the time, Twitter’s a wasteland, a dark world of rancor, recriminations, and moral posturing. But every once in a while, to quote the classic movie Dumb and Dumber, it goes and redeems itself…
Anthony Bradley, professor at The King’s College in New York, recently noted on Twitter that most father/son photos on social media are of younger sons. It’s like they stop once the boy hits teenage years, the time when a father’s influence becomes most crucial in a young man’s development.
So he challenged dads to celebrate their teenage sons by posting photos with the hashtag #ThisIsMyBelovedTeenageSon. And proud dads, from all walks of life, did, proudly posing with their sons for all the world to see.
Good for them. Popular culture portrays fathers in such diminished, negative ways, but studies consistently show not only that dads matter, but that they’re essentially for flourishing. The full family of mom and dad is part of God’s blessing to people everywhere.
Two weeks ago, in Colleyville, TX, a monster reappeared. Malik Faisal Akram walked into Congregation Beth Israel and demanded that the United States release a scientist connected to Al Qaeda. At first, news outlets and even the FBI seemed hesitant to ascribe any motive to the attack or even to name him. Yet, the assailant himself said, “I want to kill Jews.”
This sort of thing is far too common. As Social commentator Abigail Shrier described on Twitter: “10 years ago, my synagogue and my kids' Jewish school had no armed guards. Now, both have a near platoon of special forces guys. In the last 5 years, my kids' Jewish camp & my kosher grocer have hired armed guards b/c of threats. This is how Jews live now. Americans should know.”
Antisemitism has been a scourge of the human race since the ancient world. Too often throughout history, Christians have not only turned a blind eye but even took part themselves. That this still happens in America, even after the long shadow of the 20th century’s greatest horrors, is incomprehensible.
Each year, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the world takes stock of one its darkest moments. The Holocaust is among those historical markers that force us to face the reality of evil. Especially in a culture like ours, that too often thinks in “Dr. Evil” comedic caricatures, we must never forget the true potential of humanity.
The Holocaust that was perpetrated by the Nazi regime is the most well-known horror of a horror-filled twentieth century. In many ways, it is now shorthand for the reality of evil in this world: eleven million dead, six million of these specifically targeted Jews. No discussion of the problem of evil or of the Second World War is complete without an extensive commentary on the realities of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Bergen-Belsen.
Whatever it takes, we must never forget.
Many in our generation first came to know the terror of this part of our history through films such as Schindler’s List, Life is Beautiful, or The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. For others, it was a book assigned in school, such as The Diary of Anne Frank, Man’s Search for Meaning, or Eyewitness to Auschwitz,where a narrator describes three years working in the crematorium. The Holocaust Museums in Washington D.C. and Jerusalem are also invaluable tools of our cultural memories.
Even as we learn this history, we must also remind ourselves that this “enlightened age” is no less capable of great evil than our supposedly more primitive ancestors. The lie of moral evolution is a particularly pernicious and dangerous one. Future generations must know of the limits of the human condition, lest they too get lost in illusions of technological grandeur.
After all, the Holocaust was not the work of some oppressed people, seeking to redress sins inflicted in the past. Neither was it done by backwoods, uneducated folks, so ill-informed about life that they lashed out against any and all who were different. This was done by citizens of what was arguably the most scientifically advanced and best-educated nation in the world at that time.
As portrayed in an excellently unnerving HBO movie, Conspiracy, the leaders of German society, military, legal, and political, came together at what was called the Wannsee Conference, on January 20, 1942. They thought the matter through, planned, and then did it.
Recently, on the 80th anniversary of that horrible gathering, religious and political leaders, both Christian and Jewish from across Europe and North America gathered to clarify why we must continue to oppose anti-Semitism in all forms, and to address the antisemitic ideas, laws, and spirit that is still alive and well today. As one German participant put it, “It is the duty of Christians to make the concerns of their Jewish compatriots their common concern.”
Christians, in fact, should be the first to condemn and counter any hatred or desecration poured out on any fellow image-bearer, including those through whom God revealed His Word and brought His Son into His world. At their meeting, on the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, the European Coalition for Israel issued a Declaration entitled: “Fight Antisemitism, Protect Jewish Life.” It’s worth a close read and our full consideration, especially at a time when so much of the world seems at risk of forgetting.
John and Shane field a question about where Christians find grounding for freedom. Then they discuss a few questions related to a recent commentary on death and dying before helping a listener process the rise in books that are challenging Christian history and tradition that are impacting the church. To close, John answers a question from a listener who asks for advice in raising a strong-willed child.
John and Shane field a question about where Christians find grounding for freedom. Then they discuss a few questions related to a recent commentary on death and dying before helping a listener process the rise in books that are challenging Christian history and tradition that are impacting the church. To close, John answers a question from a listener who asks for advice in raising a strong-willed child.
John and Shane field a question about where Christians find grounding for freedom. Then they discuss a few questions related to a recent commentary on death and dying before helping a listener process the rise in books that are challenging Christian history and tradition that are impacting the church. To close, John answers a question from a listener who asks for advice in raising a strong-willed child.
An eight-year court battle over a bakery cake in the United Kingdom is finally over. Earlier this month, the European Court of Human Rights declined to hear the case brought by Gareth Lee, a gay activist who sued a Christian-owned bakery in 2014 after the shop declined to decorate a cake with the words “Support Gay Marriage.”
This leaves in place Britain’s Supreme Court’s 2018 ruling, which said the bakery didn’t discriminate against the customer by refusing to print a message.
This is good news.
When Lee first sued the bakery he said publicly that their refusal to print the message made him feel like a, quote, “lesser person.” This points to how vapid modern notions of identity have become. There are real consequences of disconnecting people from their Creator, and leaving them with no real reference point than their own self-expression.
The Biblical idea of the image of God is so much better than anything else on offer in the marketplace of ideas.
“Love and marriage, love and marriage,” crooned Frank Sinatra, “go together like a horse and carriage.” Today, however, an ever-growing majority of Americans seem to think marriage is just as outdated as a social institution as a horse and carriage are as a transportation technology. And this includes those who have historically championed marriage as essential to a healthy and flourishing society.
Overall, belief in the importance of marriage is at an all-time low. According to Gallup’s annual Values and Beliefs poll, just 29% of Americans say it is “very important” for a couple who have children together to be legally married. That’s down from 49% in 2006.
Given that, during those intervening sixteen years, marriage was both legally redefined and constantly assaulted by advocates of so-called “alternative” family models, these numbers aren’t that surprising. Nor is it surprising that a strong majority of respondents now believe sex outside marriage and having a baby outside of marriage is morally acceptable.
What is surprising is the dramatic shift in beliefs about marriage among those groups that have historically defended and championed the institution. Just 36% of self-identified Republicans now say marriage is “very important” for couples who have children together, compared with 62% in 2006. And, incredibly, only 41% of self-identified “conservatives” now agree with that statement, which is down 21 points since 2006.
How did party demographics shift so dramatically over the last sixteen years? Did the “populist turn” of the party contribute to these discouraging numbers? Is this shift the cause or the effect of other policy shifts?
Related research suggests that America has a growing “marriage divide.” In other words, more and more working-class couples are choosing cohabitation over marriage, and seeing marriage increasingly as a kind of status symbol of the elite. And there's another divide too, the one between fiscal and social conservatives. That one has been growing for some time.
On one side, there are those who merely want a smaller, less intrusive, and more efficient government. On the other hand, there are those who champion the ideals of life, marriage, and religious liberty. The label “conservative” is used to refer to those who hold one, the other, or both positions. What these Gallup numbers now indicate is that those who hold socially conservative positions, much less prioritize them, are getting rarer and rarer, especially among the young.
This is not only a loss for those who care deeply about these social values, but also futile for those who think that a smaller government is possible without strong social institutions, especially marriage. Decades of research show that children raised by married parents not only enjoy better outcomes in almost every area of life, they tend to be more productive and able to self-govern. According to the Brookings Institute, children of married parents “do better in school, develop stronger cognitive and non-cognitive skills, are more likely to go to college, earn more, and are more likely to go on to form stable marriages themselves.”
This is not to say, of course, that every child from a married home succeeds. They don’t. And there are, of course, many heroic single parents who successfully raise children in less-than-ideal situations and many heroic children who overcome incredible hardship as they grow into adulthood. Statistics are not destiny for individuals, but they are destiny for societies.
Marriage is simply the best means of keeping both parents—especially fathers—involved in a child’s life. And, the science is settled: moms and dads are irreplaceable, in different ways and for different reasons.
In other words, marriage and the family help produce the kinds of citizens that make small government even possible. When marriages and families fail or decline, governments must provide all kinds of additional (and expensive) aspects to their social safety nets to make up for the terrible loss of this most basic institution. For a society to flourish, there is simply no substitute for the family.
That’s why it is an oxymoron to claim to be a conservative while downplaying the importance of marriage and the family. The reason is simple: marriage is a non-negotiable part of reality. It isn’t something arbitrary or socially constructed, like a speed limit, which can be changed or expanded with little consequence. It’s real, like gravity, built into the world, whether we recognize it or not. To ignore it is dangerous and, ultimately, futile.
Any political vision that treats marriage and family as optional or fungible, even if it goes by the label “conservative,” is destined to fail. This isn’t a matter of updating our definitions. If we lose our belief in marriage and the family as the foundation of a healthy and flourishing society, there will soon be very little left for “conservatives” to conserve.
“The U.S. is facing an aging population, a shortage of caregivers, a dearth of affordable housing, and an increase in social isolation that threatens wellbeing,” wrote Clare Ansberry in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year.
It’s true. Covid-19 only deepened an existing crisis for seniors, who were the most susceptible to both the virus and prolonged social isolation.
A solution is desperately needed, but in the words of Ansberry, “some think what we really need is Magic.” She’s referring to an acronym, coined by geriatrician William Thomas, that stands for “Multi-Ability, multi-Generational, Inclusive Co-living.”
The idea is to build neighborhoods where “young and old, families and singles, live side-by-side, supported by inclusive design, technology, and neighbors.”
If that sounds like a good idea, it’s because people were designed to live in intergenerational communities.
It’s a model that reflects a much older, much deeper design: the institution of the family. Not just parents and kids, but extended families are part of God’s original design to protect and care for one another, especially as we age.
With the breakdown of the family, that’s something we've lost sight of. It’s worth getting back.
“Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately,” wrote CS Lewis in Mere Christianity. But, “if you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing-rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.”
This punchy analysis is apt for, among other things, assessing the spiritual health of American Christianity. How people within a cultural setting think about and practice spirituality is interrelated. Statistically, the most significant relationship by far between spiritual belief and commitment is that of parents to children. That’s always been true. However, especially in light of new data from the Institute for Family Studies, the struggle to pass faith from one generation to the next is more difficult than ever.
Overall, the “tree” is not looking very healthy. “…the challenges of passing on the faith remain considerable,” writes study author Jesse Smith. That’s an understatement, but there is a silver lining: “…religious conservative parents are managing that challenge somewhat better than others.”
Accounting for other important factors - like the relative importance of religion to the parents and whether they “practice what they preach”- Smith looked at the role the substance of the religious beliefs played in transmitting them: things like a high view of the Bible, belief in objective morality, traditional sexual ethics, and a sense of tension with the larger society.
In contrast to parents with more “liberal” or “moderate” beliefs, “children of religious conservatives are more likely to match the religiosity of their parents, and when they stray, they tend not to stray as far.” Smith concluded that the primary reason for this success is that parents with more conservative spiritual beliefs took them more seriously and took a much more active role in their children’s religious socialization. Therefore, they more frequently talked about God, prayed with their children, and engaged with a church community.
“To pass on religion,” wrote Smith, “parents need to make it a part of daily family interactions.”
Good advice. However, this study is no cause for celebration. Conservative parents may have an edge in passing faith down to their children, but they’re still only “winning” at a game everyone is losing.
For example, while Smith reports that only 15% of children from moderate or liberal families attend worship services weekly, the percentage of conservative families was just four percentile points higher, 19%. In the last year, 52% of children from moderate and liberal families did not attend a single church service entirely. Conservative kids fared only slightly better - 43%.
The fact that 43% of religiously conservative kids failed to darken the door of a church even once last year should cool our celebration. More and more of this population are among those joining the religious “nones,” or those who refuse to claim any religious identification. The overall number of “nones” has roughly doubled since 2007 and now represent 3 out of every 10 Americans.
Of course, none of this is new news. Culture watchers have seen a religious decline in America for decades now. It’s something we cover on Breakpoint frequently. Still, it’s worth studying, again and again, especially by any Christian parent hoping to pass on healthy faith to their kids.
One clear lesson is how seriously parents must take their role as disciple-makers’s a common instinct to lean away from spiritual conversations, especially with teenagers who seem uninterested or annoyed. Not to mention, almost every voice in culture says students must be free to determine their truth and identity. All of which makes talking to teens intimidating, especially in a culture increasingly hostile toward Christian beliefs and ethics.
But from this data, Smith strongly cautions against thinking that a “light touch” on religious matters is enough to keep kids in the fold. His conclusion is blunt. “If kids do not receive a clear and consistent message from their parents that religion is important, they are likely to simply conclude that it is not important.” (emphasis mine)
At the same time, what a parent does also plays an essential role in their child’s spiritual outcomes. By living out Biblical convictions, frequently talking about spiritual issues, and being willing to live in counter-cultural ways, parents convey that faith matters.
As much time and effort goes into making church relevant and attractive to young people, a better strategy would be for churches to invest heavily into parents and family, equipping parents to disciple their kids. The best place to start is in our own homes.
If you’ve spent any time at all on the Internet talking about controversial political subjects, chances are someone has told you to “do your own research.”
In theory, reading up on a topic before giving an opinion is a good idea. But as James Ballantine and David Dunning write at the New York Times, it’s not always so easy to get good information online.
A little bit of reading, especially reading purposely selected to reinforce our biases, can convince us we know a lot more about a subject than we do.
Dunning is one of two social scientists who named the Dunning-Kreuger effect, or the “beginner’s bubble.” It’s the illusion someone has after reading an article or watching a video that they have mastered a subject. And it’s become an Internet-wide problem.
Echo chambers are not somehow superior to ivory towers. The same ease of access to information online that allows us to “challenge the status quo” also enables us to find the answers we want to see, whether or not they are really true. So beware the bubble, and remember the wisdom of humility.
One quote in Steve Garber's excellent book on education, The Fabric of Faithfulness, has always stood out to me. It comes from a Duke University graduate and offers an important observation, an indictment really, about higher education. “We've got no idea of what it is that we want by the time somebody graduates. This so-called curriculum is a set of hoops that someone says students ought to jump through before graduation. No one seems to have asked, ‘how do people become good people?’”
In other words, simply amassing a large collection of classes, buildings, resources, books, and other so-called “hoops” does not an education make. What's missing in the whole enterprise is an idea of what an educated person would look like if the process worked.
This “thinking with the end in mind" is just as necessary for any church, Christian school, or other Christian organization committed to discipleship. On most of our websites, we use language to communicate our commitment to discipleship, but how clear are we on what a disciple is? Do we have a clear enough vision of what a disciple looks like in order to contextualize and guide all of our programs, books, sermons, teaching series, small groups, and other discipleship tools that we so often employ?
Imagine launching a new computer company but not having an answer to questions such as, “What kind of computers will you make? What will they look like? What will be unique about your computers compared to others? What kind of functionality will they have?” To respond to these questions with, “Well, I have no idea, but I bought a bunch of computer parts, and I'm going to put them together” would be absurd. (And, there’s a Johnny Cash song that comes to mind…)
This is why a Christian worldview is so important. The Biblical vision for discipleship only makes sense within the larger Biblical vision of reality. In other words, discipleship is far more than having a sense of spirituality, or a sense of meaning and purpose, or a set of Christian habits, or even “feeling close to God.” Discipleship is living life under the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ, Who is sovereign not only over how we ought to behave but over the entire cosmos.
In The Faith, Chuck Colson wrote, “Orthodox Christianity, alone among worldviews, provides a stop to the inertia of time through the renewal of the soul and the regeneration of people that transforms cultures.” Chuck understood that disciples are those who have been transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they actively engage the world around them with the heart and mind of Christ. They see others as Christ does. They seek to obey Christ in every area in which He has authority, which is every square inch of His creation.
Twenty years ago, Chuck Colson created a program to replicate this vision of discipleship within Christian communities everywhere. Through the Colson Fellows program, Christians would think deeply about life and the world through a Christian worldview, and seek to follow the Lord in every aspect of life and culture. Rather than a Christian faith turned exclusively inward, the Colson Fellows program turns faith outward.
Underlying the Colson Fellows program is a framework that begins with understanding reality in light of the full scope of the Biblical account of reality. This account can be understood in four chapters—creation, fall, redemption, and restoration—and it stands in stark contrast to other worldviews. So, Colson Fellows dig deeply at the Christian worldview, and they study the alternatives. This is an essential step if we are to, like the men of Issachar, “understand the times and know what to do.”
Another critical part of the Colson Fellows framework is understanding the Biblical doctrine of the imago Dei as the fundamental identity of human beings. This is particularly critical to understand in light of the crucial issues that confront followers of Christ in this cultural moment. A deep dive into this idea enables the kind of response we need to have as Christians, one that goes beyond mere reactionism and outrage.
Finally, every Colson Fellow, after spending a year in a committed learning community, articulates a plan for living out what they’ve learned. Each of these plans is built along the lines of intentional Gospel-shaped questions that connect the reality of the Kingdom with the calling we have to our cultural moment.
This year, nearly 750 people have been studying with us in 60 different learning communities across the United States and beyond. Lord willing, they’ll be commissioned as Colson Fellows at the Wilberforce Weekend in May. And when they are, by God’s grace, they will be committed to their Lord, to His truth, to loving their neighbors, and to His church.
Applications for next year’s Colson Fellows class, which begins this summer, are currently being accepted. For more information, visit www.colsonfellows.org.
John unpacks a number of recent commentaries from BreakPoint, specifically highlighting the march for life and a hero we profiled, Dr. Mildred Jefferson. John also discusses a new report from the New York Times which suggests that many prenatal tests give false positives more often than they produce an accurate diagnosis.
John then discusses death and dying and how we as a society struggle to think carefully about such matters. He highlights two recent commentaries the outline how the Christian worldview offers great hope and framework to deal with mortality.
To close, John shares the latest report from The World Watchlist on the state of Christianity and religious freedom worldwide. He highlights the stress on faith around the world and challenges Christians in America to pay attention to the plight of brothers and sisters in the faith worldwide. He also explains the importance of practicing and defending faith in our culture where we may not feel the stress of traditional persecution.
Many churches have shut their doors in the face of Covid, but one large church in Denver hasn’t just shut their doors; they’ve sold them. According to Christianity Today, “The Potter’s House Denver will sell its property in Arapahoe County and continue to worship exclusively online.” We often hear that because the Church isn’t a building, it doesn’t matter whether it meets in one. But trading in-person worship for an online experience misses what the Church actually is. It isn’t just a place for individual contemplation on “spiritual things.” That’s not the Christianity of the Bible but the pietism of Gnosticism. Embodied worship is an essential part of a Christian worldview.
If our faith is the sort of thing we can live it out alone, never needing the presence of others, then are we truly still the Church? The Church is the ecclesia, the called ones, the gathered ones, the community of the saints of God. If we aren’t a “we,” we are not the Church.
Today, as tens of thousands March for Life in Washington D.C., we remember one of the movement’s most important pioneers.
Dr. Mildred Jefferson emerged from the segregated South during an era of intense racism.
She was the first black female doctor from Harvard University, the first woman to intern at Boston City Hospital, the first female surgeon at the Boston University Medical Center, the first woman admitted to the Boston Surgical Society and a renowned professor of surgery at Boston University Medical School. Over her career, she was awarded 28 honorary degrees.
Her accomplishments to advance female and racial diversity in the medical field are cause enough to celebrate her incredible life, but she should also be remembered for her tireless work opposing abortion, both as a physician in the Hippocratic tradition and as a Christian. Her work for the pro-life cause began in earnest in 1970, in response to a decision by the American Medical Association to declare abortion ethical for doctors as long wherever it was legal. Jefferson, incensed by the decision, co-founded the Massachusetts Citizens for Life and was appointed to the board of the National Right to Life in 1971.
In 1972, a public television station in Boston featured Dr. Jefferson in an episode of a series called “The Advocates.” The program aired nationwide and showcased Dr. Jefferson’s credentials as a physician, as well as her skills as a powerful and winsome speaker who used impeccable logic to argue against abortion. After the broadcast, Dr. Jefferson received a number of letters, including one written by a rising west coast politician. It read:
“Yours was the most clear-cut exposition on this problem (abortion) that I have ever heard. . . . Several years ago I was faced with the issue of whether to sign a California abortion bill. . . . I must confess to never having given the matter of abortion any serious thought until that time. No other issue since I have been in office has caused me to do so much study and soul-searching. . . . I wish I could have heard your views before our legislation was passed. You made it irrefutably clear that an abortion is the taking of a human life. I’m grateful to you.
The author of the letter was Ronald Reagan.
On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court struck down all restrictions on abortion nationwide. The infamous Roe v. Wade decision only led Dr. Jefferson to redouble her efforts in the defense of life. A few months later, she became vice-chair of the board of National Right to Life. The following year, she became the board’s chair and, the year after that, president of the organization. Dr. Jefferson held that post from 1975 to 1978 and soon became the most prominent pro-life spokesperson in the country.
Even after leaving her position at National Right to Life, Dr. Jefferson continued to be a powerful advocate for the movement. Representative Henry Hyde, himself an eloquent pro-life champion, once said that the best thing the pro-life community could do would be to raise enough money to pay Dr. Jefferson to travel the country advocating for the unborn full-time.
Dr. Jefferson understood that the fight against abortion was a moral imperative:
I’m opposed to abortion as a doctor and also because I know it is morally wrong. An individual never has the private right to choose to kill for whatever reasons, be they whim, convenience or compulsion. Because I know abortion is wrong, I will use every means available for free people in a free country to see that it is not perpetuated.
The doctor who willingly accepts destroying life will have no grounds on which to object if the state should compel that doctor to destroy life.
Abortion on demand, Jefferson realized, would turn into a demand for doctors to perform abortions. As a result, conscience rights for medical professionals would disappear. They would be forced to obey the state rather than their faith or their conscience. And, if the state could demand this of doctors, it could demand it of anyone. Abortion, Jefferson realized, was a step toward totalitarianism. In other words, Dr. Jefferson foresaw the coming attacks against conscience rights for medical professionals such as nurses and pharmacists, and if allowed to stand, similar demands would be extended to other, non-medical professions.
Dr. Jefferson died in 2010, but the movement she helped lead continues, stronger than ever. Today, as tens of thousands are in Washington D.C. for the March for Life, consider honoring Dr. Jefferson’s legacy by donating to your local pregnancy resource center. Those who provide care, assistance, and support for families facing unexpected or crisis pregnancies, are on the front lines of fighting our nation’s greatest evil. Their work, birthed in the wake of Roe v. Wade, is more important than ever. Though we may soon see the end of this legal travesty, the pro-life movement, built by people like Dr. Mildred Jefferson, is nowhere near its end. The best way to honor those who’ve gone before us in this cause is to join them.
We’re used to hearing that free speech is being squashed in places like Iran or China. But Finland? According to Christianity Today, several Lutherans in that country are now on trial for “criminal incitement against a minority group—hate speech.” All for affirming the same beliefs about human sexuality Christians have held for thousands of years.
On the one hand, this is surprising. Finland is a Western country that prizes human rights and diversity of thought. On the other hand, this kind of thing is inevitable once it is assumed that any opposition to LGBT ideology “must” be born of hate and fear, and that hate speech isn’t protected speech. Then it becomes inevitable that society will seek to squash tenets of Christianity.
Those who challenge the current sexual status quo do so out of love for neighbors, and it’s precisely ideas that the wider society finds distasteful that free speech is supposed to protect.
What’s happening in Finland is a reminder that political decisions flow downstream from deeper cultural assumptions.
Grappling with death is as old as the Fall, but a new generation of smartphone apps provides a modern twist. By combining predictive factors such as age, smoking habits, and body mass index, these apps predict when a user will give up the ghost. To be fair, some of the “death” apps do more reminding than predicting. WeCroak, for example, is inspired by a Bhutanese saying that “to be a happy person, one must contemplate death five times daily.” Users receive “five daily invitations” with quotes that remind them that their death is inevitable.
On one hand, these apps attempt to fix a cultural wrong. The idea for WeCroak, for example, came to co-founder Hansa Bergwall through an addiction to the popular mobile game Candy Crush. Sick of wasting time, he hoped that being confronted with his own mortality would help him use his time more wisely. Apps like WeCroak are sometimes called “anti-apps” or attempt to undo what technology does best to us… distract us.
Distraction, of course, is the primary way that Westerners cope with the prospect of death and takes many forms. A five-hundred-billion dollar beauty industry glamorizes youth and promises immortality. A thriving commercial economy allows us to pursue our dreams to the extent that was impossible for most people throughout human history. We may have a God-shaped hole in our hearts, but the sheer variety of stuff available keeps us occupied in trying to fill it. And, when death finally comes, we can outsource it to the professionals: care homes, hospice workers, and morticians.
By contrast, some Eastern traditions go the opposite way and try to embrace death completely. Some Buddhist monks, for example, practice “maranasati,” or death contemplation. In some traditions, this takes extreme forms, such as spending weeks in cemeteries observing corpses in various states of decay. Awareness is a central pillar in Buddhist teaching, which promises an escape from the suffering of our unmet desires.
Given how evasive real answers about death are outside of Christ, it’s no surprise that the continued search would eventually lead to an app like WeCroak. But is simply contemplating death enough to produce the life-giving answers we’re looking for?
Recently, WIRED magazine’s spiritual advice columnist, Meghan O’Gieblyn, received this question:
“Lately I’ve been feeling like life is passing me by, so I downloaded an app that reminds me [that] I’m going to die. I thought it would help me accept my mortality and focus on what really matters, but it just makes me anxious. Is there something wrong with me? Is being anxious the point? Do you think these apps can be helpful?”
O'Gieblyn’s responded,
“Death apps are less a wake-up call than another false comfort, one that reflexively defers to the favored religion of our age—information… [I] suspect your anxiety stems in part from your awareness that the app, on its own, is not really addressing the heart of your fear.”
That’s well said but far from an answer. In fact, O’Gieblyn goes on to recommend a coping strategy almost as powerless as WeCroak: more “life experiences,” political activism or a fuzzy sense of “religion,”
The Bible, on the other hand, describes the reality of death seriously, because of its accurate view of life. Death is not a healthy or normal part of life. As one author put it, it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. In death’s shadow, says the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, “everything is meaningless.” Fools and wise people alike end up in the grave. Even our best endeavors come to nothing.
But the Bible doesn’t leave us there. Jesus’ mission to Earth wasn’t merely to spread wisdom or help us face death with a stiff upper lip. He came to destroy death. “I am the Living One:” he says in the book of Revelation. “I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”
That means that knowing Him is the beginning of life, the starting point for real joy, the only way to overcome death, and the only foundation for real hope. Like the founders of WeCroak, early Christians in Rome were fond of the phrase memento mori: remember that you will die. In light of the Gospel, this reminder is also an invitation. Know Christ… and live.
John and Shane answer a listener's question about training men to embrace manhood. They also field a question from a listener who has seen a conversation open up with a daughter who has closed the listener off. The question is, how should the listener should proceed?
John then revisits a commentary on sperm donation and provides greater context to a challenging topic before answering a listener's inquiry in whether Adam and Eve were primates.
Resources How to have a Conversation: Difficult Circumstances Greg Koukl | What Would You Say? |
Recently Cambridge University established Europe’s first center devoted to studying and promoting animal rights law. The academics in charge say they’ll focus on questions such as whether animals should be farmed for food, used for testing, caught and killed, or kept in zoos. According to the Los Angeles Times, it’s part of a growing push to designate some animals as “non-human persons,” with legal rights to life, liberty, and even property.
This would be bad for both humans and animals. The very concept of “human rights” comes from Christianity’s doctrine that people are made in the image of God. Likewise, animal welfare—which is different from “animal rights”—was pioneered by Christians like William Wilberforce, who saw humans as stewards of the rest of creation.
If we’re just animals, as the concept “non-human persons” implies, there’s no reason we should be kind to or respect other animals. Human rights and animal welfare become nonsense, and things get a lot hairier for all of us.
Imagine a pregnant mother, recently informed that her baby may have a rare genetic condition. She now faces a future caring for someone with an intellectual or physical disability, perhaps financial stress, and even a shortened life. Certain dreams and hopes she has harbored for her preborn child have been dramatically altered.
To make matters worse, many women in this challenging situation face intense pressure from medical professionals and family members to have an abortion. Some have even described having to defend the decision to not have an abortion to medical professionals who assume that a disabled child should not be allowed to live.
But what if the prenatal test that sparked this whole series of events was a false positive? What if this test returns false positives 85 percent of the time? According to a shocking new expose in the New York Times, a new investigation of companies manufacturing and promoting prenatal tests for rare and serious conditions concluded that certain prenatal tests, tests which lead countless women to get abortions, are “usually wrong.” Up to a third of expectant mothers in the United States will face this scenario, claims the article, telling stories of mothers who received positive test results for debilitating chromosomal conditions. Many of these mothers considered abortion until they discovered through more invasive follow-up tests that the screening results were false, and their babies were fine.
Of course, even if accurate, test results do not in any way alter the inherent value of every human being. Still, many women do not bother with follow-up testing, trusting the results of these prenatal screenings, which manufacturers advertise as “reliable” and “highly accurate.”
These tests are neither “reliable” nor “highly accurate.” According to an analysis conducted by The Times, screenings for several rare conditions yielded false positives 85 percent of the time. A few screenings, such as the test for Prader-Willi syndrome, were wrong 90 percent of the time.
Millions of women, conclude the authors, have “been misled by a wondrous promise that Silicon Valley technology has made…that a few vials of their blood, drawn in the first trimester, can allow companies to detect serious developmental problems…” The false promises are made via incredibly dishonest advertising. Medical giants like Quest Diagnostics and Myriad Genetics use phrases like “total confidence,” “clear answers,” and “information you can trust.” However, they fail to publish data on how well their tests perform, and even cherry-pick numbers to make them appear more accurate than they are.
However, in one case, The New York Times appears to join in on the deception. The authors repeatedly assure readers that prenatal tests for Down syndrome are reliable. Yet, a 2014 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that around half of the positive Down syndrome screenings for low-risk pregnancies turned out to be false. For trisomy 18, a similar condition, up to 60 percent of screenings yielded false positives.
The tragedy of this many false positives comes into focus in light of another number: Nearly 70 percent of babies in the US who test positive for Down syndrome in the womb are aborted. It’s terrible that many of these children didn’t even have the condition their parents so greatly feared. It’s even more terrible that this culture has decided that people with disabilities are better off dead.
The real name for this way of thinking is eugenics, something that didn’t end with Nazi death camps in Europe and forced sterilization in the United States. The deadly logic that follows the idea that some humans are “defective” and “not worthy of life” is still with us, only gussied up, sanitized, and medically justified for the 21st century.
Ours is the real-life version of the movie, GATTACA, in which a “perfect” society free is built, not by eliminating defects, but by eliminating people. While The New York Times deserves credit for exposing the eugenics underbelly of the prenatal testing industry, the authors of this article ultimately buy the same basic premise.
The problem, they suggest, is bad testing, not deciding some are “defective” and eliminating them. But both history and good science fiction warn where this kind of thinking leads. The issue is not the bad science behind modern eugenics but the bad idea behind all eugenics. It’s an idea that’s claimed victims throughout history and must be rejected no matter how accurate our tests are.
Christians have faced down dehumanizing cultures like ours before, since its earliest days when the persecuted church rescued abandoned Roman babies. They were inspired and animated by a better idea: that every human being is intrinsically valuable because they bear the image of God.
Recently, Medium’s Tom Whitwell reported, “a study of 14,000 Australians over 14 years found that neither being promoted nor being fired has any impact on either emotional well-being or life satisfaction.”
The fascinating study compares the emotional impact of a variety of life events, from retiring to going to jail, being robbed, getting married, or having a baby. Some of the results are what you’d expect. For example, major health issues hurt both emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction; and though getting married can be stressful leading up to the event, it brings distinct positives afterward.
But surprisingly, neither getting fired nor getting promoted have long-term effects. That certainly challenges the idea that climbing the corporate ladder is the secret to happiness.
Of course, other studies show the high value of work in general: as the Harvard Business Review summarizes, “being unemployed is miserable.” All of which points a generation struggling with the meaning of work to the truth of how God made us. Work is a worthy endeavor … but not our ultimate identity.
We live at a rather unusual time in history when it comes to death. Not because there was ever an age when death was escapable, but because, until fairly recently, death was a much more present reality in people’s lives. Infant mortality was high; women died in childbirth at much higher rates; different kinds of accidents claimed the lives of men, women, and children, not to mention infections, parasites, diseases.
A major difference is that, in the past, people tended to die in their own beds. In-home Funerals were common. In fact, many homes were built with a coffin door to facilitate moving bodies in and out of the house.
Much of this changed with the advent of antibiotics, which extended lifespans. The professionalization and institutionalization of medicine and the funeral industry changed the landscape. When people became gravely ill, they now went to hospitals. When they died, they were taken to funeral homes. Death was hidden from immediate experience, allowing us to ignore it and its inevitability.
Though in many ways, the pre-modern world had a far more realistic understanding of life and death than we do today, that doesn’t mean they better grasped the hereafter. Although ancient cultures possessed various views about what happens after death, there are only a few basic options to choose from. Some cultures believed that, after death, humans became spirits, either as a ghost or an ancestral spirit to be worshipped. There is evidence that this belief may go back as far as the paleolithic period.
Other cultures believed in a more substantive afterlife, particularly those with more elaborate mythological systems. It was a dreary and desolate existence for some, even those not actively being punished for their sins. Others saw the afterlife in more favorable terms. This was especially true if one belonged to the elite or ruling class, though many visions of an afterlife included the prospect of judgment.
Asian cultures were among those who held to some form of reincarnation in which, generally, the quality of someone’s next life was determined by how well they lived this one. The meaning of life, within these systems, was to grow spiritually to a point where one could escape the cycle of reincarnation and lose individual existence.
The only other real option, one typically held by philosophers and intellectual elites, was that death meant the end of personal existence altogether. This essentially materialistic view was held by diverse groups like the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and the Sadducees of Second Temple Judaism.
These alternatives offered little hope for people facing the inevitability of death. Even those with a relatively positive vision of the afterlife sought to delay or prevent death. For example, Shi Huangdi, China’s first emperor, built a magnificent tomb for himself, full of goods set aside for his use in the afterlife. But, he also sought to find an elixir that would allow him to live forever. (Ironically, the elixir contained mercury, which may have hastened his death.)
Overall, when it comes to death and the afterlife, the author's assessment in Hebrews sums up the ancients well: people were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:15).
Christianity changed all this. The Gospel is about God becoming man to take upon himself the punishment due to us, to die on our behalf, and to be raised from the dead as its Conqueror. By faith, we are united to Him. His death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and glorification are made ours. Death is a defeated enemy, no longer feared by those who follow the one who already faced it and was victorious. We follow the one who can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death without fear.
For the early Christians, these were not platitudes. Thus, many faced martyrdom with joy rather than renounce their allegiance to the One who died for them and rose again. Therefore, many tended the sick during terrifying epidemics, in complete disregard for their own lives, seeing death from sickness as simply another form of martyrdom and a doorway to a better life. Thus, they lived with a hope that stunned their pagan neighbors.
This is why second-century church father Tertullian would observe that “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” The pagan world had never seen anything like this. Even the philosophers, who viewed death with such indifference, struggled to grasp how Christians faced death when simply burning a bit of incense to the emperor could avoid it.
In the modern world, the Christian tradition of the ars moriendi, the art of dying well, has been replaced with the art of ignoring death. Our technologies make this possible in all kinds of ways but, as was made obvious in our global responses to COVID-19, do nothing to help us face the fear of death. The world needs what only Christianity offers: the promise of resurrection, a guide who can lead us past the gates of death, a world beyond this one in which all that is sad is made untrue, and a hope that cannot be shaken by any of the circumstances of this world.
Last week John Stonestreet joined the Colson Fellows in Training in a special teaching webinar. These live presentations with a Q&A to follow are a staple for the Colson Fellows program. Last week, Dr. Bill Brown asked John for an explanation on the speed and direction of culture change and how it is impacting mediating institutions and why it matters.
For more on the Colson Fellows program visit www.colsonfellows.org
According to Fiona McDonald with Science Alert, “There's Evidence Humans Didn't Actually See Blue Until Modern Times”
Apparently, people tend to group or separate colors in different ways depending on their language. In a lot of languages, blue wasn’t considered a separate color. it was thought of as a kind of green. So many ancient writers compared the sky to copper and the sea to wine.
Even today, Namibia’s Himba tribe has several words for green, they lack any specific word for “blue,” and have trouble even seeing it. At the same time, they could clearly see shades of green that are invisible to Western eyes.
Language is not just a passive tool humans use to describe the world. It’s a proactive means through which we understand the world. It’s not that blue didn’t exist or even that ancient people couldn’t see it. It’s the role of language in shaping how we see and think.
In other words, when James talked about how important the tongue is, he meant it.
Though President Ronald Reagan signed into law a national holiday to honor Civil Rights Movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1983, it was not fully observed by all 50 states until the year 2000. This, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is an example of a law being upstream from culture rather than the other way around. Today, the day is recognized across the country and even by cities and nations worldwide.
In more recent years, King’s legacy as a leader, minister, and powerful orator has been complicated by allegations of sexual misconduct. He also held certain theological views, specifically about the Divinity of Christ, the resurrection, and the Virgin birth, that were not orthodox. What Dr. King was clear about was the doctrine of the image of God. The way that this exclusively Christian idea shaped his leadership and activism demonstrates what a world-changing doctrine it is.
Specifically, it was King’s outworking of the Imago Dei in legal theory, forged in the context of persecution and mistreatment, that led to what many think is the greatest legal work of the 20th century. Chuck Colson thought so. So, to commemorate Martin Luther King Day, here’s Chuck Colson on Dr. King and his “Letter from Birmingham Jail:”
“A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is out of harmony with the moral law."
It was with these very words, in his memorable “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” that Martin Luther King, Jr., threw down the gauntlet in his great Civil Rights crusade. King refused to obey what he regarded as an immoral law that did not square with the law of God.
All across America today, millions of people are celebrating the birthday of this courageous man, and deservedly so. He was a fearless battler for truth, and all of us are in his debt because he remedied past wrongs and brought millions of Americans into the full riches of citizenship.
In schools and on courthouse steps, people will be quoting his "I Have a Dream" speech today. It is an elegant and powerful classic. But I would suggest that one of Dr. King's greatest accomplishments, one which will be little mentioned today because it has suddenly become "politically incorrect," is his advocacy of the true moral foundations of law.
King defended the transcendent source of the law's authority. In doing so he took a conservative Christian view of law. In fact, he was perhaps the most eloquent advocate of this viewpoint in his time, as, interestingly, Justice Clarence Thomas may be today.
Writing from a jail cell, King declared that the code of justice is not man's law: It is God's law. Imagine a politician making such a comment today. We all remember the controversy that erupted weeks ago when George W. Bush made reference to his Christian faith in a televised national debate.
But King built his whole case on the argument, set forth by St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that "An unjust law is no law at all." To be just, King argued, our laws must always reflect God's Law.
This is the great issue today in the public square: Is the law rooted in truth? Is it transcendent, immutable, and morally binding? Or is it, as liberal interpreters have suggested, simply what courts say it is? Do we discover the law, or do we create it?
Ever since Dr. King's day, the United States Supreme Court has been moving us step-by-step away from the positions of this great Civil Rights leader. To continue in this direction, as I have written, can only lead to disastrous consequences—indeed, the loss of self-governing democracy.
So I would challenge each of us today to use this occasion to reflect not just on his great crusade for Civil Rights but also on Martin Luther King’s wisdom in bringing law back to its moral foundations.
Many think of King as some kind of liberal firebrand, but when it comes to the law he was a great conservative who stood on the shoulders of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, striving without apology to restore our heritage of justice.
This is a story I tell in my book, How Now Shall We Live?: a great moment in history when a courageous man applied the law of God to the unjust laws of our time, and made a difference. And that is the lesson we should teach our kids on this holiday. It is not just another day off from school or a day to go to the mall.
That was Chuck Colson describing the important insights in Dr. King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. Take a minute today to read through it, and to talk through it with your kids. Its central question is an especially important question today: “What makes a law just?”
John and Maria discuss a new report on the division in the American church. John outlines how it is helpful to have these kinds of reports, but Maria points out that statistics shouldn't be a determining factor on living out one's faith.
Maria then asks John a few questions that embody some of the feedback we've received from our January commentaries. John explains the approach BreakPoint has inside these tense politically-charged moments and thanks and welcomes feedback from listeners as we navigate societal issues together.
To close, Maria asks John for insight how to respond to church issues. John gives a perspective to help keep the story and the moment straight, while being the church.
Story References
THE THREE WORLDS OF EVANGELICALISM
American evangelicalism is deeply divided. Some evangelicals have embraced the secular turn toward social justice activism, particularly around race and immigration, accusing others of failing to reckon with the church’s racist past. Others charge evangelical elites with going “woke” and having failed their flocks.First Things>>
Why Are Religious Conservative Parents More Successful at Passing on the Faith?
Children of religious conservatives have a 19% chance of attending worship services at least weekly. This may sound low, but it's higher than the 15% chance we see in people from moderate or liberal families. At the other extreme, an estimated 43% of the children of religious conservatives report no worship attendance at all in young adulthood, compared to 52% for everyone else.
Religious conservative parents are more effective at transmitting their faith to their children. We shouldn't overstate the effect here, though. Children from all groups are, on average, less religious than their parents. Religious conservative parents still face an uphill battle in passing on the faith. But they do fare somewhat better than their moderate or liberal counterparts, even those who are just as religiously committed themselves, belong to the same religious tradition, and are similar in other respects.
IFStudies>>
Remembering January 6 by Missing the Point
Neither our faith nor our despair belongs placed in the idols of political parties or candidates. God has called us to this time and this place. Therefore, we cannot abandon our political moment no matter how messy it gets. Conversely, we should never treat our politics as if it’s greater than the One who calls us.
BreakPoint>>
God (Still) Loves His World
Bavinck lived and wrote amid a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. So, in many ways, his time resembled our own. Through his work, he sought to help Christians develop a robust “world-and-life view,” one not only big enough to handle the vast changes of the emerging modern world but which would enable God’s people to join His work in restoring all that’s marred and misdirected by sin.
BreakPoint>>
Recommendations
The Lost Daughter
The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism
Activists in the mid-2000s coined the term “Latinx” as a gender-inclusive, non-binary way to describe anyone with Hispanic heritage. But According to one study, only 2% of Hispanic voters actually use the term, and almost 40% say it offends them. That might only be surprising to the academics, Hollywood stars, and policymakers who, for some reason, keep using it. Like other Romance languages, gendered language is woven into the fabric of Spanish. That’s why the Royal Spanish Academy so fiercely resisted attempts to incorporate the term into its lexicon. Citing the swing of Hispanic voters away from the Democratic party in 2020, columnist Jamelle Bouie puts it this way, “No message, no matter how strong on the surface, will land if it isn’t attentive to those forces and the other forces that structure the lives of ordinary people.” Terms like Latinx assume a view of the world people don’t actually live in: where “race” is all-consuming, and the daily reality of gender is ignored.
An old Chinese proverb says that if you want to know what water is, don't ask the fish. Why shouldn't we ask the fish about water? I asked that question to a group of high schoolers years ago, and they replied, "because fish can't talk?”
No, you don't ask fish about water because fish don't even know they're wet. Fish don't know anything other than the water.
Culture is to humans what water is to fish. It is the air we breathe, the environment we think is normal. Because of this, we often forget that culture could be different than it is, unless we travel to another culture or take note of a cultural change. That means we tend to accept culture as it is, rather than asking whether culture is good or bad.
That's why it's so important that Christians find ways to step out of culture from time to time, to intentionally look at and evaluate our cultural moment. Often, we get distracted by the noisier stuff in our culture, and lose sight of what’s important. But, as Brett Kunkle and I discuss in our book A Practical Guide to Culture, the louder parts of our culture are rarely the most important parts of our culture.
In recent years, our cultural moment has become more and more relentless. We are pounded by issue after issue, such as addiction, the rise in suicidal ideation, the ever-growing list of identities and acronyms, and the onslaught of social media dominating every moment of every day. The issues are like pounding waves. They seem endless, and we feel them.
However, there are also aspects of culture that we don't feel. Like the ocean, in addition to the waves we see and feel, there are undercurrents we barely notice until they sweep us out to see. These currents lurk beneath the surface, dramatically altering the landscape of our culture.
One of the most significant cultural undercurrents is what historians and scholars call “the age of information.” We live in a noisy world that is saturated with content. Today, you will likely encounter more information than someone who lived hundreds of years ago would have seen in their entire lifetime. The sheer amount of information available to us is stunning and historically unprecedented.
Information is not neutral. Information carries and communicates ideas. These ideas may be true or false, but they are not neutral. Ideas matter. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.
In other words, the age of information is also the age of ideas. Ideas have a source. This means we also live in an age of competing authorities.
Certain existential questions become more important in certain cultural moments. One of the most significant questions that has emerged in our moment is, "who can I trust?" This is no small question. How can we glean the good when there are so many bad ideas floating around?
The obvious reaction to the age of information is to think that what we need is truth. And, of course we need truth. But, if true information is added to a sea of information, it can easily get lost, part of the white noise we experience on a daily basis.
The Apostle Paul’s prayer for the church at Philippi is one we need to claim as our own in this cultural moment. Paul prayed for this church that "their love would abound more and more in truth and in all discernment.” We need truth, and we need the skills to navigate all of the ideas, the competing authorities, and the information of this moment. The word for that is discernment, that ability to tell the difference between what is true and false, what is genuine and counterfeit, what is good and what is evil.
This is one reason I encourage families to have World Magazine in their homes. WORLD has proven to be, in my home, a reliable source of discernment in this age of information. In addition to the print magazine, their digital resources and podcasts are committed to analyzing the events of our world through the lens of Biblical truth.
WORLD is one of our closest Colson Center partners. For a gift of at least $20 this month to the Colson Center, we will provide a year’s subscription to World Magazine, as well as access to their digital resources, podcasts, and the brand new World Opinions. If you're already a subscriber to World (and I hope you are), the subscription can be given to a friend, family member, or neighbor.
I contribute weekly to the WORLD podcast, The World and Everything in It. I'm grateful for our long partnership and grateful that they've made it possible for the Colson Center to extend this incredible offer to you.
By contrast, Dixit explains, an important half of our brain lights up and makes new connections when we’re actually at rest, which helps foster innovation and creativity.
Because so many distractions preoccupy the modern world, we have to be intentional to have what previous generations did.
Perhaps it’s because God knew this quirk of human psychology that He gave the world the Sabbath and a command to rest. He knows what we need because He made us.
Several years ago, Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California into Washington State by herself. In her memoir, Strayed described the trek as a search for self-fulfillment after several family tragedies, including her own divorce. In 2014, Strayed’s story was made into a movie.
In 2010, Julia Roberts starred inEat Pray Love, a movie adaptation of another memoir about a post-divorce self-fulfillment trip, this one across Europe. Last year, The New York Times published the essay “Divorce Can Be an Act of Radical Self-Love.,” and last month, The Atlantic published a nearly identical piece claiming divorce was an exercise of “self-improvement.” Everything was fine at home, the author claimed, but she just wanted ‘something else.’
Though it may not qualify as a trend just yet, a surprising number of Christian social media influencers, writers, and even pastors are announcing their own divorces using similar language. They describe the end of their marriages as a positive step in their own self-discovery, a matter of self-expression or, even, just another normal part of life. Last month, one pastor tweeted that his divorce was “the next best chapter in the evolution of our love.”
Of course, every marriage story is unique and, in a fallen world, marriages end for all kinds of reasons. However, the recent volume of stories publicly framed in similar ways using similar reasoning is worth noting. Not only are we struggling to do marriage well these days, we’ve also lost sight of what marriage actually is.
Announcing divorce on social media is odd in and of itself, but most people sharing these sorts of testimonies will claim that, despite the pain and disruption of divorce, it is the right decision for them. It’s not unusual for someone to refer to their decision to leave a marriage as being “brave,” even if there was no infidelity or abuse. In light of the Bible’s description of marriage as permanent and the dramatic harm, divorce inflicts on children; there’s clearly a way of thinking about marriage at work here.
In many of these stories, a sense of dissatisfaction, the pressure of family responsibilities, or even just boredom constitutes a marital crisis. What marriage actually is and what it is for, is irrelevant. Rather, marriage must accommodate our own self-expression. The highest good is found in minimizing personal pain and maximizing personal pleasure. Therefore, we must be true to ourselves over and above anything else.
The sense that discontentment or anxiety is an emergency is both radically new and exclusively Western. Dr. Carl Trueman, in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, sees this as a symptom of the modern philosophy of expressive individualism.
This way of thinking imagines marriage as a speed limit instead of gravity. A speed limit is a social construct, something relatively arbitrary that was invented to order our lives together. Suppose something changes, such as an improvement in braking technology or additional houses built in the neighborhood. In that case, a speed limit can be altered or changed with relatively minor effort. Gravity, however, is not a social construct. It’s built into the fabric of reality. It cannot be changed or altered. A speed limit might be broken without consequence (as long as you don’t get caught), but gravity won’t.
In so many ways, from “no-fault divorce” to the trope of the “brave” divorce to calling same-sex relationships “marriage,” we treat marriage like a speed limit. But it’s not. Marriage is like gravity. A society constantly reimagining marriage in law will catechize its citizens to do the same. Up becomes down. Leaving becomes brave. What I want becomes right, even if it’s not.
In The Atlantic article mentioned earlier, the writer admits to leaving her husband and kids to focus her time on her career as a public defender. Because that’s what she wants to do and likes the most, she theorizes she’ll do more good in that role than by staying in her marriage. The logic breaks down. People suspected of crimes need good public defenders. Children who grow up in broken homes are vastly more likely to commit crimes than kids with married moms and dads. We may not like that it is this way, but gravity is still gravity. Marriage is still marriage, even if we want it to be different.
Marriage is a real thing. God created it to last, by love and in mutual submission, until death. God created it to protect children and the good of the world. Christians should define and approach marriage as the Maker of marriage intended it to be, not as a speed limit that changes from one cultural moment to the next.
John and Shane respond to listener feedback that critiques John's commentary on the Woke Rebuilding of Notre Dame. John and Shane walk through why they believe the rebuild has problems, while also offering that it might not be as bad as it seems.
Then Shane asks what resources are beneficial in pre-marital counseling, as a mom is asking how to come alongside her children in that area, and also in the area of race relations.
Another listener wrote in to ask how she should talk with her daughter who is adopted from China about her birth country. The mother is trying to celebrate the culture her daughter comes from, while also being honest about the problems coming out of China right now.
To close, a listener asks John and Shane to comment on the best process for mentorship in the church. John outlines the Colson Center approach, with an encouragement for listeners to consider joining the Colson Fellows program this year. For more information on Colson Fellows, visit www.colsonfellows.org
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published the heartbreaking story of a 27-year-old man who died from a drug overdose back in 2020. Steven Gunner was conceived through the use of a sperm donor. He also struggled with schizophrenia.
After his death, his mom and adoptive dad reached out to other children who were also fathered by Steven’s donor, in order to let them know that their son's mental illness may have been genetically inherited.
Their research confirmed that the sperm donor — known to them as just a number — had also suffered from schizophrenia, had also died by a drug overdose, and had not disclosed his mental health issues on health history forms - which American sperm clinics are not required to verify.
The Gunners' research also revealed that Steven’s father has at least 18 other children.
It’s unknown whether they also inherited schizophrenia from the father, but the Gunners’ tragedy is yet another chapter in the larger story of assisted reproduction: when we rip apart God’s design for families, there is pain in every direction.
BreakPoint with John Stonestreet
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God Loves His World: Leavening Grace in Herman Bavinck
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So, does God love the world or not? Does He plan to overcome it or restore it?
Christians have long struggled to understand the various ways the Bible, especially the New Testament, talks about “the world.” In John 16:33, for example, Jesus tells His disciples that "in this world (they) will have trouble," but to “be of good cheer” because He has “overcome the world.” The Greek word here for “world” is “kosmos,” often used by New Testament writers to present the world as an enemy of God and God’s people, alongside the flesh and the Devil.
However, in His famous conversation with Nicodemus (recorded a few chapters earlier), Jesus says that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” to save it. The same word is used here, “kosmos.”
Understanding God’s posture to His created world was a central part of the thought and work of a 20th-century theologian whom every Christian should know. Herman Bavinck, who died a century ago, was a Dutch Reformed theologian and statesman who served alongside the more famous Abraham Kuyper. Theologian and Colson Center board member Jennifer Marshall Patterson recently wrote about Bavinck’s work in a WORLD Opinion column. As she explained, God’s love for His creation and His plans in Christ to restore it, rather than replace it, was central to Bavinck’s theology. It also makes a world of difference within a Christian worldview.
Bavinck lived and wrote amid a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. So, in many ways, his time resembled our own. Through his work, he sought to help Christians develop a robust “world-and-life view,” one not only big enough to handle the vast changes of the emerging modern world but which would enable God’s people to join His work in restoring all that's marred and misdirected by sin.
Bavinck was especially fond of the oft-used biblical metaphor of leaven. According to Patterson, he saw the Christian worldview as an “activating agent that enables everything to expand to the fullness of its created potential.” Jesus likened the Kingdom of God to leaven, which works through the dough, turning it into bread. In other words, leaven works according to the nature of the dough, not against it. In the same way, Christ works to redeem God’s creation, a creation He declared to be “very good,” though now marred by the Fall of humanity. Simply put, the Gospel does not work against creation but according to God’s intent for it.
At the same time, Bavinck never downplays the damage of the Fall. He describes it as a brokenness manifested in our four most fundamental relationships, relationships we were created with by God: our relationship with God, our relationship with self, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the created order. As Patterson put it,
“Sin fractured each of these relationships. God’s grace operates to restore them. In our context today, the challenges that individuals and communities face—from divorce to opioid addiction to suicide—have to do with brokenness in one or more of these relationships.”
Among Bavinck’s most import and powerful insights is that instead of seeing the full scope of these relationships as largely irrelevant, as many Christians do, we are called to announce Christ’s redemptive work for each of them. Even further, we are to advance this redemptive work in any way we can. This is what real “human flourishing” looks like.
Our culture presents very different, competing ideas of human flourishing: material possessions, self-expression, sexual fulfillment, etc. A Christianity that only addresses the so-called “spiritual” stuff, with no understanding of God’s original design for His world, cannot compete with or critique these false worldviews.
As Bavinck’s fellow Dutchman Abraham Kuyper famously said, Christ claims lordship over “every square inch” of life. Thus, a fully-formed Christian worldview will see no relationship, calling, or sphere as outside of the jurisdiction or redemptive power of Jesus.
The Bible sometimes uses the term “world” to refer to a realm broken and corrupted by sin, which threatens to take captive the hearts and minds of humanity. Other times, it refers to the realm God created as good. However, as Bavinck taught, Scripture is clear that God loves the world He created, and He intends to make it new, redeeming and glorifying it and His image-bearers. Or, as one commenter on Bavinck put it, echoing the carol “Joy to the World,” God’s intent to restore His creation reaches “as far as the curse is found.”
The work of Herman Bavinck should be better known and studied. Patterson’s WORLD Opinion piece is a great place to start. A recently compiled and translated version of his work is available by the title The Wonderful Works of God. This approach to God’s world is the kind of leaven this cultural moment needs.
Canada has just adopted a new ban on so-called “conversion therapy” that criminalizes any “practice, treatment, or service” designed to change, repress, or reduce a person’s same-sex attraction or transgender identity.
According to WORLD, the ban covers even the mildest forms of “talk therapy,” including counseling for adults who want to de-transition.
So, in effect, Canada is denying that people even exist who detransition or who may legitimately want help reconciling themselves with their biological sex. And offering that service is punishable by up to five years in prison.
The lack of science behind this law is staggering. As Canadian clinical psychologist James Cantor points out there’s not a single study showing harm from so-called “transgender conversion therapy.” It could, in fact, be desperately needed, since up to 80 percent of minors with gender dysphoria will desist at puberty.
This Canadian law isn’t designed to protect patients. Rather, it is designed to protect the convenient fiction that transgender feelings are unchangeable. We know this narrative is false.
Though Canadian lawmakers may want to pretend de-transitioners don’t exist, that’s as much a denial of reality as believing someone can change their biological sex in the first place.
“What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That’s a bad trade for anyone, but for the Christian, it’s rank idolatry.” This observation, made by Chuck Colson in his book, God and Government, is as true today as when he wrote it. In fact, all the evidence needed to prove that America has made the “bad trade” Chuck described, was on full display last week.
Most of the commentary reflecting on the anniversary of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol was basically as expected. Voices on the left, most notably the Vice-President, attempted to place the day within the pantheon of America’s darkest hours alongside 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course, this was more rhetoric than reality, less about “never forgetting” and more about advancing progressive agenda items and attempting to preemptively salvage the midterms.
Though many on the right denounced the violence from January 6, others repeated the widely discredited theory that it was a “false-flag” event. Others went as far as to describe it as something to celebrate. Senator Ted Cruz applied the term “terrorism,” before backpedaling furiously on Tucker Carlson’s show.
In other words, a discouraging number of voices, pundits, and leaders chose to reduce the day to a pre-determined set of political talking points, and therefore largely missed the point. At a moment where we so desperately need better thinking about our national experiment, we were served breathless partisan outrage instead.
The irony, of course, is that breathless outrage may be the only bipartisan activity remaining in this deeply divided age. Two-thirds of Americans now doubt the integrity of our elections, which means that cynics come from either side of the aisle depending on who wins. And, according to these same voices, each and every news story, whether political or not, must be understood as a referendum on our very democracy, which is at stake.
Of course, democracies are put at risk by bad policies and politicians and, in many ways, ours is up for grabs at the moment. Still, whenever that happens, much bigger problems, that are upstream from whatever election, policy, candidate, or riot of the moment, are revealed. Politics is an unavoidable part of life, but it’s never good when politics becomes life… not for an individual nor for a society. A few decades ago, the slogan “the personal is political” was coined as a way of calling the state to enlarge personal freedoms. Today, our slogan may as well be the reverse. “The political is personal,” especially when the state and the political process is expected to determine morality, humanity, or reality.
Politics, however, cannot carry that kind of weight. Only what is transcendent can determine what is good, what is just, and what is true. As Christianity fades in our nation’s collective memory, we increasingly look to politics as its substitute. It’s a poor one because the pragmatic can never replace the transcendent.
Put differently, politics makes for a lousy worldview. Like lenses through which we see reality, worldviews either enable or prevent us from seeing the world clearly. Any worldview built on the political alone will be the wrong prescription and will leave us with blind spots. For example, we’ll imagine individual leaders as either demi-gods or devils. In reality, they simply lack the power to bring either the glory they promise or the ruin we fear.
“To think of everything as political,” wrote Jacques Ellul in The Political Illusion,
“to conceal everything by using this word…, to place everything in the hands of the state, to appeal to the state in all circumstances, to subordinate the problems of the individual to those of the group, to believe that political affairs are on everybody’s level and that everybody is qualified to deal with them—these factors characterize the politicization of modern man and, as such, comprise a myth. The myth then reveals itself in beliefs and, as a result, easily elicits almost religious fervor.”
In our case, it’s no longer “almost.” In many ways, politics is all that’s left. The state is increasingly inseparable and often indistinguishable from the rest of culture. The vast variety of pre-and non-governmental life, from family to neighborhoods to worship to what Edmund Burke called “the little platoons” of society, have all become quite thin. That’s neither healthy nor sustainable.
In response, some have called Christians away from politics altogether, and even away from the love of country. However, we must not trade one error for another. We are not called to a pietistic, disembodied love of the human race. God calls His people to love particular neighbors in particular communities of particular nations within a particular cultural moment. To love our neighbors, to seek the welfare of the city, and to live faithfully to God in the time and place to which He has called us, will require more of us than just political engagement, but certainly not less.
As Brian Mattson recently put it in a helpful essay, “it’s ‘walk-and-chew-gum-at-the-same-time’ time again.” Neither our faith nor our despair belongs placed in the idols of political parties or candidates. God has called us to this time and this place. Therefore, we cannot abandon our political moment no matter how messy it gets. Conversely, we should never treat our politics as if it’s greater than the One who calls us.
According to the British news outlet The Guardian, it wasn’t a happy holiday for many Christians in India. Radical Hindu activists raided Christian churches - smashing statues, burning Bibles, and threatening believers. This capped off an already bad year for Christians in India, a year that averaged 100 attacks on Christians in each of its first three months.
It’s vitally important that we remember our brothers and sisters around the world face great trials and tribulations. In totalitarian regimes like China, in hostile Islamic states like Iran, and even in ostensibly democratic nations like India, a public profession of faith in Christ is an invitation to harassment, persecution, and even death.
Thinking of our brothers and sisters around the world also reminds us that we need to maintain a bigger perspective about life. There’s much more to the world than what happens on social media. As important as controversies might seem, and sometimes are, the strength and suffering of Christ’s church is more important our Twitter feed.
Let’s pray for the church around the world.
“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter,” writes the author of Proverbs, “(and) to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” The Biblical account of reality—that God created a world that was knowable and His image-beares to be knowers—powerfully explains the human drive to learn and investigate the world around us. It also justifies the utilization of general revelation as we pursue knowledge of the created order through various branches of science.
To put it bluntly, the Bible is not anti-science. Rather, the Bible explains why science works.
And, every once in a while, the Bible offers an insight that shed further light on an unsolved question of science. That seems to be the case with the Assyrian destruction of Lachish, an event recorded in the book of Kings. The accurate Biblical accounting of this event has provided scientists with a reliable anchor from which to better answer two tricky dilemmas: one having to do with geophysics and the other with archeology.
A recurring question of geophysics is how to measure changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over time. The Earth’s magnetic field acts like a massive cosmic shield, protecting us solar winds that could disrupt navigational equipment, introduce harmful radiation into the atmosphere, or perhaps even blow our atmosphere away completely.
The earth's magnetosphere is not a perfect shield, however. For years, scientists have known of gaps in the magnetosphere over certain regions, which drift over time. However, since measurements have only been collected since the 1850s, there is also a significant gap in our knowledge of how the magnetosphere has changed in the distant past. Though it’s possible to take sizeable measurements from the magnetic record in rocks, localized measurements are much harder to obtain. Or, at least, they were harder to obtain until research found a way to use burned-out ruins from ancient archeology.
Tel Aviv University’s Yoav Vaknin recently led a team to Tel Lachish to measure magnetism. When the Assyrian King Sennacherib burned Lachish in 701 BC, he unknowingly reset the magnetic charges in the minerals found in floors, tools, and pottery pieces. As they cooled, these artifacts re-attuned to the Earth’s magnetic field, forming a snapshot of the Earth’s magnetic field in that particular location at that specific moment.
With enough snapshots like this one, scientists could much better piece together how the magnetic field has changed over time. If, of course, the Biblical dating of this event is accurate.
The consensus from historians is that it is. “In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah’s reign,” 2 Kings 18:13 tells us, “Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah.” By providing accurate dating of Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian conquests of the region, the Bible gives scientists the kind of helpful “data footholds” they can reliably use.
And this is connected to a second advance enabled by the Bible in archeology. For reasons not fully understood, radiocarbon dating isn’t accurate around the years 800-400 BC, an historical period known as the “The Hallstatt Plateau.” The curve of carbon-generated dates around this time is distorted, flattening out where it seemingly shouldn’t. As a result, scientists cannot reliably carbon-date objects within a sizeable and important stretch of history.
Breakthroughs like the one at Lachish give us a new way to find those dates through archaeomagnetism, a process that uses the magnetic readings from archeological sites to help determine their age. As with the advance in geophysics, archaeomagnetism is dependent on reliable, independently established dates from ancient history. That’s the kind of thing Scripture offers over and over again
This isn’t the first time the Bible’s accuracy has been vindicated, of course. The Old Testament predicted the existence of ancient groups like the Hittites long before anyone discovered evidence of their culture. Its description of the assassination of the same Assyrian king Sennacherib matches the one his son, Esarhaddon, provides in his records. At the ruins of Jericho, many archeologists believe there is evidence of a sudden structural collapse, which would align with how the book of Joshua describes the city’s destruction.
Of course, many mysteries remain about how the many pieces of the archeological record fits with the Biblical one. But in the words of archeologist and Jewish scholar Nelson Gluek, "[It] may be clearly stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a single Biblical reference.” Yet, “scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible."
This is what we should expect from a religion grounded in history. The Bible describes real things that happened to real people. We should expect it to provide accurate data about the events it reports, even events from the ancient past. And if true, the data it presents could help us solve puzzles about the world around us
John and Maria reflect on the commemorations of January 6th. They outline how that event marked who we are, highlighting the summer riots and breakdown in cities that led up to the incident in Washington D.C.
Then Maria asks John for further explanation of a BreakPoint commentary on the Woke influence in the renovations of the Notre Dame cathedral in France.
To close, John explains to Maria how marriage is a reality, like gravity, in our world as Maria reflects on recent high profile divorces and the way marriage is being explained in their wake.
-- Story References --
SEGMENT 1: President Biden and Vice President Harris Speak on Capitol Incident Anniversary President Joe Biden on Thursday addressed the nation on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.ABC NEWS TRANSCRIPT>>
SEGMENT 2:
The Woke Plans to Rebuild Notre Dame
The 2019 fire in Notre Dame reminded the world of the importance, the history, and the beauty of this magnificent structure. As we mourned the damage, many hoped the building would be repaired to remind the world of its original purpose. Recently, the cathedral’s reconstruction plans were announced and, unfortunately, the news isn’t good.
BreakPoint>>
SEGMENT 3:
Honor Jones chronicles “How I demolished by Life,” celebrating her feminist divorce
The Atlantic
Much environmentalism today assumes that humans are always the problem, and our activity is always harmful. But the more we study, the more we realize how resilient living things are.
Recently, USA Today and the BBC reported that the infamous Pacific Ocean garbage patch—an area of more than 610,000 square miles littered with manmade trash—has become a thriving habitat for small marine animals.
Scientists have found arthropods, crabs, and mollusks on more than 90% of debris—some of the species that would never live so far out to sea.
This story is similar to a report a few years ago that peregrine falcons are now more common in some major cities than they are in the wild, primarily due to the abundance of tasty pigeons.
Of course, litter is very bad for the ocean and the environment, but these reports remind us how resilient life is… it’s almost as if it wasn’t an accident that shouldn’t be here, but a carefully designed part of how God made the world.
God has a long history of working inside prisons. The very first book of the Bible describes how God granted Joseph favor with a prison warden, something that eventually led to the saving of his family, the saving of Egypt, and the preservation of God’s promises to establish the nation of Israel. The book of Acts gives several accounts of God working in prisons. For example, after Paul and Silas were miraculously released from jail in Philippi, the jailor and his whole household converted. And, Jesus Himself said that those who visit and care for prisoners are actually visiting and caring for Him.
Of course, the founder of the Colson Center knew firsthand how God worked behind bars. Chuck Colson devoted much of his life to working with inmates, wardens, and justice systems, as well as with policymakers and family members of those incarcerated. Today, Prison Fellowship is the largest and among the most effective and well-respected prison ministries in the world.
God is still working in prisons, as a recent news story from Religion News Service demonstrates. What Rodrigo Abd and German De Los Santos describe as taking place in an Argentinian prison, most of us would identify as a revival: evangelical Christians taking over entire cell blocks in one of that country’s most crime-ridden cities.
Rosario in Santa Fe Province is the birthplace of Communist revolutionary Che Guevara. Drug dealing and murder are common career choices there. Many young men end up as assassins, serving drug lords who, according to one prosecutor, often run their networks from within overcrowded prisons.
These drug kingpins now face competition from, believe it or not, evangelical preachers. In addition to witnessing and making converts, these preachers are effectively starting their own prison units run by the inmates. Unsurprisingly, their units tend to be safer and calmer, with their own rules against fighting, smoking, alcohol, and drugs. Offenders are dismissed. Reportedly, there’s not been a single riot in units where the evangelicals are in charge, and residents block the frequent attempts by prison gangs to infiltrate them.
“We bring peace to the prisons,” said one minister who helped establish these units. “And that is better for the authorities.” (Not to mention, it’s better for the inmates, too!). Another pastor explained, “We don’t use knives, but the Bible, to take over a cell block.”
And, since prisons are often prime recruiting grounds for gangs, a revival behind bars will likely bring positive, long-term change to the broader community.
Incredibly, 40% of Santa Fe Province’s inmates now live in these Christian communities that exist “behind bars.” Not only are residents finding greater peace, many are also granted greater freedom. One former hitman and convicted murderer, Jorge Anguilante, is allowed to leave prison every Saturday for 24 hours to minister back home at a church that he started. No one seems afraid he will escape. As he told reporters, his life as a contract killer is “buried,” and Jesus has made him “a new man.”
In the late 18th century, American founding father Benjamin Rush started the world’s first prison reform organization. He saw it as a noble and enlightened experiment that would improve both the lives of inmates and society as a whole. Chuck Colson was clearly motivated by the thousands and thousands of individual lives that the Gospel changed through the work of Prison Fellowship, as well as his conviction that “the church being the church” could be a redeeming force across society. For Chuck, that included the church behind bars.
At the heart of a Christian worldview is Christ’s work of redemption and renewal, an invitation not only to the respectable and law-abiding but to the outcast and criminal, and to those Paul called the “weak” and “foolish.” It’s available to anyone who, like the thief on the cross, will look to the Lord Jesus and say, “Lord, remember me.”
Clearly, Christ is remembering those calling on Him from a prison in the Santa Fe province in Argentina.
Kevin Kelly, co-founder of WIRED magazine recently argued that there are two problems emerging in technology.
Class 1 problems are when tech doesn’t work perfectly. Think of code glitches, the wheels are falling off, expensive repairs, and the like. Market forces typically solve these kinds of problems over the course of a few years.
Class 2 problems, however, are more insidious. They arise when technology works too well.
A good example is facial recognition software. “What if the system was infallible in recognizing a person from just their face?” Kelly asks. “There would be no escaping it, no way to duck out in public. You could be perfectly tracked …. not only by the public but by advertisers and governments. ‘Being in public’ would come to have a different meaning than it does now.”
To be clear, Kelly is no Luddite. But he does realize how limited our will and our abilities are to think through the implications of technology. Christians who understand the fall, not to mention human history, should join Kelly in this realization.
Our only real grounding for ethics, which grounds our ability to determine the implications of technology, is if God made the world, and us in His Image.
Today could be the most significant Christian holiday that most Americans know about the least. Epiphany is set aside in the church calendar to remember the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus. The day’s name comes from a Greek word that means “manifestation.” Through these strange visitors, God’s gift of Himself to the world was first made manifest to the wider world.
Until recently, in much of the Christian world, gifts were exchanged on Epiphany, not Christmas day. A former BreakPoint colleague, who grew up in Puerto Rico, recalls neighborhood children leaving straw out for the Magi’s camels on the night before Epiphany.
Though most Christmas-time gift-giving today has largely shifted to December 25, what Epiphany commemorates is central to the Christian faith. Thus, it remains worthy of the Church’s attention.
Among those who understood this was Lew Wallace, who lived about as eventful a life as possible. Civil War buffs will tell you that he may have saved the Union at the Battle of Monocacy in 1864, when his forces delayed Confederate General Jubal Early long enough to prevent the possible capture of Washington, D.C. Later, as territorial governor of New Mexico, Wallace dealt with the likes of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Still, it was a reunion of Civil War veterans that led to that for which Wallace is best known today. A few years ago, this story was told on the FoxNews website by John Murray, head of Brookstone Schools in Charlotte and a commissioned Colson Fellow.
On the train ride to an 1876 reunion in Indianapolis, Wallace was reunited with Colonel Robert Ingersoll, a man known as the “great agnostic.” Ingersoll traveled across the country deriding and challenging people of faith. This time, he aimed his fire at his old comrade-in-arms, even though Wallace was mostly indifferent to his own Christian faith. Wallace would later describe their conversation this way,
“To lift me out of my indifference, one would think only strong affirmations of things regarded holiest would do. Yet here was I now moved as never before, and by what? The most outright denials of all human knowledge of God, Christ, Heaven, and the Hereafter which figures so in the hope and faith of the believing everywhere. Was the Colonel right?”
Determined to prove Ingersoll wrong, Wallace returned to a short story that he had written during the Civil War about the Magi, “who had captured his attention as a young boy — taking a ‘lasting hold on his imagination.” The conversation prompted Wallace to wonder again, “Who were they? Whence did they come?” Above all, “what led them to Jerusalem asking of all they met the strange question, ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?”
Starting with this meditation on the Epiphany, Wallace expanded his story, adding more meditations on the life of Christ. Eventually, in 1880, he published the finished work, about a fictitious Jewish prince named Judah Ben-Hur who discovered “the necessity of a Savior.” You probably know it as Ben Hur: The Tale of the Christ.
Ben Hur remained the best-selling American novel until Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. And, of course, it was the basis of the 1959 film starring Charlton Heston, which won eleven Academy Awards.
When Wallace died in 1905, he believed he had met Ingersoll’s challenge. Millions of Americans agreed. And, like the Magi before him and John Murray after him, Wallace’s reflection took the light of Christ to the world around him.
The rhythm of our society largely distracts us from “the true light, which gives light to everyone, (who had come) into the world." It’s hard enough to see the Light in such a culture, even harder to fulfill our calling to take the light to others. A great way to start is by celebrating Epiphany. We’ve compiled a number of resources at BreakPoint.org to help you do just that.
God has called the Colson Center to help Christians take the light of Christ into the world, specifically this one. So, take a minute to learn more about our podcast, the Colson Fellows program, and the upcoming Wilberforce Weekend.
Shane welcomes Michael Craven to answer listener questions. Michael and Shane respond to how a young listener can encourage the seniors in his church who seem worried by this cultural moment. They also answer if beauty is objective and what makes Critical Race Theory a worldview.
A horrifying new survey found the number of pre-adolescent children in the U.S. who admit to sharing nude images of themselves more than doubled last year.
Fourteen percent of kids aged 9-12 say they have shared inappropriate pictures of themselves. This is up from just six percent in 2019. Of that number, over a third said they shared those images with someone they believed to be 18 or older.
As WORLD notes, this spike in dangerous behavior coincides with the pandemic, which meant increased screen time for many folks. An obvious takeaway is that preteens are not mature enough to handle all that comes with unsupervised smartphone use. The more time they spend alone with their devices, the more opportunity for pornography and predators.
At the very least, we must take active roles in our kids’ tech use. Quarantining with screens is more dangerous for kids than COVID ever was. It may keep the virus at bay, but for children especially, it lets in things far worse
The 2019 fire in Notre Dame reminded the world of the importance, the history, and the beauty of this magnificent structure. As we mourned the damage, many hoped the building would be repaired to remind the world of its original purpose. Recently, the cathedral’s reconstruction plans were announced and, unfortunately, the news isn’t good.
Notre Dame is rightly considered one of the most fantastic examples of French Gothic architecture. It took nearly 100 years to build, from 1153 to 1260, and incorporated several architectural innovations. For example, rib vaults and flying buttresses enabled the walls to be opened up for stained glass windows, including three beautiful, enormous rose windows.
The only way to fully understand Gothic architecture is by experiencing it. Despite its dark-sounding name, Gothic cathedrals were built for light. This was to symbolize divine illumination. Vertical lines and soaring ceilings were intended to point thoughts and imaginations upward to God. In fact, as Dr. Glenn Sunshine has pointed out, nearly every aspect of Gothic cathedrals symbolically point to the truths of the Christian faith. And, in the case of Notre Dame, the result is simply jaw-dropping.
For over 500 years, until the French Revolution, Notre Dame stood at the center of French Catholicism. The revolutionaries desecrated the church and destroyed much of the religious art. They beheaded the statues of biblical kings in the mistaken belief that they represented the kings of France. After a brief period in which Notre Dame was reconsecrated as the Temple of Reason, it was used as a storehouse for grain.
Napoleon Bonaparte had the cathedral rededicated and redecorated in the then-popular Neo-Classical style as part of his efforts to restore the Church in France. After the Napoleonic Wars, the cathedral fell into such a state of disrepair, the French considered demolishing it. It was Victor Hugo’s book Notre Dame de Paris (better known by its English title, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which, more than anything else, spurred the French to renovate and restore it.
Sculptors, glassmakers, and other craftsmen worked to reconstruct the cathedral using illustrations of it from before the Revolution. Whenever critical information was missing, the work was completed after the spirit and style of the thirteenth century. A taller and more ornate spire replaced the original, which had been removed in 1786.
Historically, the French have demonstrated a commitment to preserve and, when necessary, restore the cathedral in its original spirit and style, with the desecration of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s neo-classical decorative style as the most notable exceptions. (There was also the incident when, after being damaged by gunfire during World War II, some of the medieval glass was replaced by abstract art in the colors of the French flag.)
The spire, the roof, and a considerable part of the interior were destroyed by the fire of 2019. Even before the structure had been stabilized, proposals for restoring the cathedral began pouring in, with many of them offering a modernist vision utterly incompatible with the medieval building. Many breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced that the roof and spire would be rebuilt as they had been.
More recently, however, plans for the interior were released to the public. One Paris architect referred to what was planned as “a politically correct Disneyland.” Mood lighting at head level would obscure the impact of the stained glass. Added light and sound effects would create “emotional spaces,” and “themed chapels” as part of a “discovery trail” that would feature Africa and Asia and end in a chapel entitled “reconciled creation.” An environmental focus, merged with Bible verses in various languages, would be projected on the walls. Modern art murals would be added, the confessionals would be removed, and the altars rearranged so that visitors could more easily experience the newly imagined cathedral.
To say this is a travesty is an understatement. After all, nothing goes out of date faster than the latest taste and fashion. The previously timeless beauty of the cathedral would soon go the way of parachute pants and brutalist architecture. Even worse, the new design would undermine the message of the cathedral itself, which has long proclaimed an integrated set of eternal truths in a way that demonstrated how “the faith given once and for all” remains true and vibrant.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not a culture like ours could make much progress in fully restoring a structure like that, given how different the dominant worldviews of the eras are. It would be a real shame if the eternal truths long attested to by and in this 13th-century cathedral were obliterated, especially if replaced by modern tastes and political correctness. Even more than a real shame, it would be a real loss.
A vlogger recently asked 100 different people to say their age on camera, starting with 1-year-old babies and ending with 98, 99, and 100-year-olds. It’s kind of like watching 100 years pass in the course of 3 minutes.
The common phrase used in ancient times was momento mori: remember that you will die. Respect for the elderly came not just from their wisdom, but because they had lived long enough to earn it. In our modern world, our relationship with age is complicated.
Today, we tend to focus on youth. Americans spend billions annually to try and keep it. Scripture helps us live with both the certainty of death and the value of life by bringing in an additional dynamic.
This is how the Psalmist put it:
The godly will flourish like palm trees
and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon.
For they are transplanted to the Lord’s own house.
They flourish in the courts of our God.
Even in old age, they will still produce fruit;
they will remain vital and green.
In his new book, A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles: Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ, renowned Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland makes a provocative claim. Ninety-five percent of what the average evangelical church accomplishes in a given year, suggests Moreland, could be explained even if God didn’t exist.
In other words, too much of our sermons, programs, and worship could be explained away (and perhaps dismissed by outsiders) as due to skillful leadership, public speaking, and production quality. No work of God required.
While I would suggest that Christians should strive to see God at work anywhere, including in the mundane and ordinary, Moreland’s claim is provocative. His book, as we’ve come to expect from the professor at Biola’s Talbot School of Theology, is carefully reasoned and worthy of consideration. In it, Moreland explores what miracles are, investigates whether they are still happening today, and offers guidance to Christians for identifying and experiencing them.
True to his profession, Dr. Moreland begins by defining his terms. A miracle is a “supernatural intervention” into the course of natural events, either by God or an angelic being. Included in Moreland’s definition would be those answers to prayer that come through what theologians often call “providence,” in which God works events together toward specific ends.
In fact, Moreland provides over forty accounts of supernatural intervention: from miraculous healings, to stunning answers to prayer, to near-death experiences, to spiritual warfare. He even includes stories in which God provided what we might consider being small requests: a pool table, a hot water bottle, even a parakeet. Dr. Moreland not only stands by the accounts included in his book, he stakes his reputation on the reliability of the eyewitnesses he interviewed. And, he includes accounts of miracles he personally witnessed and received.
In making his case, Moreland does more than simply rely on stories. He offers a biblical case for why Christians should believe that miracles still happen today, perhaps more regularly than we recognize.
Recently, Dr. Moreland discussed his book with Shane Morris for the Upstream Podcast. It’s an inspiring and important conversation, especially in a “disenchanted” culture like ours that tends to dismiss the supernatural without due consideration.
As Shane points out in the Upstream discussion, not every theologian shares this expectant attitude toward modern miracles. Some critics, such as 19th-century Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield, argued that miracles were “part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church.” Because that main purpose has already been fulfilled, Warfield believed that miracle-working as a gift “passed away” with the Apostles.
Moreland disagrees with this view, even though his academic training makes him cautious about supernatural claims. Still, he believes that Christians ought to expect miracles as a regular part of the Church’s life. He goes so far as to urge readers to “err on the side of belief.”
Perhaps the most unique contribution of this book is Moreland’s step-by-step guide on how to recognize a miracle and distinguish it from mere coincidence. Borrowing from the sciences, he employs what he calls the “Intelligent Agency Principle.”
A true miracle must meet two criteria: First, it must be very improbable—in other words, not something that typically happens by accident. And second, it must be independently meaningful, or have “specificity.” It must answer a prayer or fulfill a need that clearly shows God at work. By applying these two principles, Moreland believes it’s possible to distinguish miracles from coincidences with almost perfect accuracy and give God the glory He deserves as a result.
There’s much more to the book, as well, like the discussion on angels and demons and an exploration of why God doesn’t always miraculously answer prayers. It’s a must-read for anyone curious about how God works in the world today and how we can experience it. Also, Dr. Moreland’s discussion with Shane Morris on Upstream touches on nearly all of these subjects. Come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary, and we’ll link you to the discussion, as well as how you can get a copy of J. P. Moreland’s A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles.
Os Guinness joins John Stonestreet to discuss the cultural landscape in America. The two visit how it is desperately important for Christians to consider their calling in society as a calling to represent Christ in this cultural moment.
Register for the event with John and Os Guinness in Phoenix at www.colsoncenter.org/phoenix
Parents, educators, the church, and the state all play essential roles within a society, but when the state goes bad, it can take down every other sphere with it. For example, according to a recent article in The Economist, “A struggle is underway for the hearts and minds of Hong Kong’s children.”
In August, the city’s pro-democracy teacher’s union disbanded, following a government crackdown that had called it “a malignant tumor.” Since then, the curriculum now “educates” children solely on the virtues of the Chinese Communist Party. Speaking out against these changes could lead to life in prison.
As a result, some parents have stopped talking about politics at home, fearing their young children will say the wrong thing at school. Others continue to teach their kids democratic ideas, at risk of government retaliation to themselves or relatives. As a result, tens of thousands of residents are leaving the city altogether.
It’s good that parents are aware enough to be concerned. Unfortunately, too many parents here fail to take seriously the ideas that threaten the hearts and minds in our schools.
In his best-selling book The Call, social critic and author Os Guinness observes that one reason Christians struggle to discern and follow God’s will for their lives is that they haven’t fully wrestled with the gravity and challenges of this cultural moment.
The fact that we should see the challenges of this time and place as an essential and defining aspect of our calling, rather than an accidental context in which we live out our calling, is implied throughout Scripture. God reveals Himself to us as a God Who is concerned with and Who works through particular times and places. Even as He does so, He is providentially orchestrating a cosmic-sized plan of redemption and renewal.
Nowhere in Scripture is this made more clear than in Acts 17, which describes Paul's sermon to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill. In it, Paul says that God determines the times in which we live and the boundaries of our dwelling place.
If what Paul says is truly the case, our moment in history is not an accident. We are called to it, especially those who follow Christ. Thus, we must seek to understand our cultural moment, and what it means to live out of the true Story of the world in this time and place to which we have been called.
Os Guinness recently joined me on the BreakPoint Podcast to talk about exactly this and clarify the most important aspects of our cultural moment. Here’s a sample of what Os had to say:
Second to Alexis De Tocqueville is Lord James Bryce, who is an Englishman, around 1900. He warned about what he called “the completest revolution of all.” He said, If you look at Europe, Europe always has tradition, of a sort, and social cohesion.
He said, in 1900, that America has no tradition and no social cohesion. America is the freest and mobile civilization in history. He said that nothing holds America together, except one thing: religion. He said that if the day comes that America loses religion, too, then you’d have the ‘completest revolution.’
Put it another, one of the key elements of discipleship is responding to the times. People like to quote David’s men, who were skilled at reading the signs of the times. The Lord rebukes his generation; they can read the weather, he says, but not the signs of the times. I think what’s missing in the American church is a living awareness of the nature of the times we’re in.
Now, of course, you add to that, what’s calling? Well, a Biblical view of leadership is not someone at the top. It’s the person who takes the initiative and takes responsibility for either the opportunity or the crisis right in front of them.
In other words, it’s every one of us, in our spheres of calling; some are teachers, some are doctors, some are factory workers, some are politicians, people who take responsibility for the opportunities and the crisis right in front of their noses, at their level and in their sphere. And that’s what we have to recapture today in the present crisis.
You can take, say, the famous quote from Martin Niemoller, they came for the unionists, and I wasn’t one, so I didn’t speak up. They came for the Jews, and I wasn’t one, so I didn’t speak up. They came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I didn’t speak up. And then you remember he says, and then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.
This is a time when every American, certainly every follower of Jesus, has got to stand up and speak out exactly where they are.
That was my friend Os Guinness, and a part of our conversation from the BreakPoint Podcast. Os and I will be continuing this conversation during a special event at Redeemer Bible Church in the Phoenix area, on January 14th at 7pm. We’ll attempt to answer the question: “What kind of people will we be? The Church and culture at a crossroads.”
If you are in the Phoenix area on January 14th, you can register to attend this event at no charge. If you’re not in the area, please come to BreakPoint.org to sign-up for the Livestream.
John and Maria recount prominent people who passed in 2021, the top inventions of the past year, and important trends to consider as we close out the year. Then, John and Maria look ahead at current movements in culture. They consider the move of parents to be more involved in their school districts, the influence of China worldwide, and the pro-life movement. John closes the discussion by sharing how the Church is in an important position as we enter 2022, equipped to answer the big questions the culture is asking.
The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021
Like every other student in America, Mississippi third-grader Lydia Booth has to wear a face mask to school. But when Lydia donned her favorite mask, with the words “Jesus loves me” on it, school officials forced her to remove the mask and threatened her with suspension if she wore it again.
As the Alliance Defending Freedom points out, students in Lydia’s school were wearing masks with all kinds of messages, from Black Lives Matter to sport-team logos to images and brands. Yet school officials singled out Lydia, and then created a policy banning masks with religious, political, or “offensive” messages.
The policy that clearly violates a students’ right to free speech, so ADF has now filed a federal suit on Lydia’s behalf. To stand with Lydia, you can request a “Jesus Loves Me” mask produced by Revelation Media. Proceeds will be used to help ADF protect Lydia’s rights and all of ours.
The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021
Faithful watchers of the Olympics experience a letdown after the games are over. This year, with viewership in a freefall, there was likely not enough enthusiasm for there even to be a letdown on Monday morning. Many have tired of the politicization of this year’s games, which started before the opening ceremonies. Patriotism, courage, and even “historic performance” were redefined in Tokyo, and for the worse.
However, there is one protest, a quiet one, that demands our respect from the 2021 Olympics. Female athletes who are mothers earned well-deserved attention. Not merely with social media statements or corporate endorsements, but for winning medals and advocating for life. This Olympic narrative is not only heroic but counter-cultural in women’s sports.
In 2008, gold medal favorite Sanya Richards-Ross boarded a plane for the Beijing Olympics games after visiting an abortion clinic. Her husband, Aaron Ross, was in practice with the New York Giants, so Richards-Ross terminated her pregnancy alone. She came home with a bronze medal, writing later, “I made a decision that broke me.” Richards-Ross went on to say that every female athlete she knows has had an abortion.
This year, the U.S. Women’s Olympic Track & Field team replaced a star runner in the 200 meters hurdles after she was slapped with a five-year ban on competition. The runner failed to follow anti-doping procedures because she was “traumatized after having an abortion”. Her trauma lingers now even as she is facing repercussions for responding as she did to the anti-doping process. McNeal now speaks out against the pressure female athletes face in choosing career over motherhood.
Now a truly historic performance in the 2021 Olympics games may change this narrative in profound ways. Allyson Felix is the most decorated track star in U.S. history. Tokyo was her fifth and final Olympics games, and she has left with two more Olympic medals. Perhaps she will display them beside a picture of her two-year-old daughter whom she carried and gave birth to despite pressures to abort her. The decision to carry her child nearly cost Felix her life.
Felix had already won six gold medals and three silver medals before becoming pregnant in 2018. She chose to carry her child, even when her pregnancy was found to be high risk. At 32 weeks Felix underwent an emergency C-section.
Throughout the pregnancy, Felix faced intense pressure from her sponsor. After she opted to keep her baby, Nike, her corporate sponsor, pushed a new deal that included a 70 percent pay cut to her previous contract, with no maternity exceptions. The sports brand wagered that Felix’s performance would falter as she bounced back and forth from competing to pregnancy to juggling motherhood. Felix spoke out, challenging the double-standard that exists in women’s athletics for moms. Nike has since restructured how it works with mothers after Felix challenged the double standard.
Following her Olympic successes, Felix is refocusing her attention on a new endeavor called “The Power of She Fund.” The new organization is designed to support mom athletes in practical ways. The Power of She Fund will provide childcare for mothers who compete at high levels, offering them the support and encouragement they need. At least nine athletes who competed in Tokyo participated in Felix’s program this year. These athletes received childcare grants that opened opportunities for greater training. Felix’s work is also inspiring women’s athletic brands to get behind mom athletes. Athleta and the Women’s Sports Foundation are both corporate sponsors for The Power of She Fund.
Felix's story is a tremendous example of what it takes to change culture. The ideas that are evil must be challenged; the imagination of what is possible must be expanded; new and better ideas must be offered. Also, very importantly, the direction of corporate pressure must be changed. In this case, it was from pro-abortion to pro-child. Hopefully, the important work of Allyson Felix will undo the abortion-minded atmosphere that currently surrounds women’s athletics.
The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021
G.K. Chesterton said that gratitude was “nearly the greatest of all human duties, (and) nearly the most difficult.”
It is the greatest of human duties because, as Paul wrote the Corinthians, “what do we have that we did not receive?” Truth, tradition, technologies, medicine, democracy, relative peace, are all things that were given to us by those who’ve gone before.
And yet, to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when things are going well. Expressing gratitude in a year like this, is much more difficult. Things could have gone better. We mourn for our friends and neighbors who’ve faced sickness, financial struggles, and relational fractures throughout this year.
Gratitude in difficult times is what Jonathan Edwards called “gracious gratitude.” We give thanks, not just for what God has done for us and not for what we’ve received, but for who He is. This gratitude is relational, not conditional. Though our world may shatter, we are secure in the One who made us and who saved us, and we can never be separated from His love.
The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021
Francis Schaeffer described how ideas escape the ivory towers of universities and think tanks eventually to shape how ordinary people think, speak, and view their world. In 2020, one idea made that journey in record time. Not that long ago, conversations involving Critical Race Theory were largely relegated to academic papers, classroom discussions, and scholarly journal articles. Today, dialogues about CRT can be found across social media, in corporate boardrooms, and even in the Church.
As a theory, CRT descends from European and North American philosophical traditions, particularly Marxism and Postmodernism. Like these worldviews of its intellectual ancestry, CRT sees the world in terms of power dynamics. In this way of thinking, social evils such as poverty, crime, or oppression result not from universal human frailties but from Euro-Americans intent on securing and increasing their economic and social power. Based on this metanarrative, equality and justice demand privileging the stories of those kept out of power. CRT sees members of the oppressed group as morally right, and members of the oppressor group as morally wrong.
CRT, like any worldview framework, should be evaluated. That, however, is easier said than done, even in the Church. Advocates often point to common ground between Critical Race Theory and the Christian worldview (for example, the commitment to justice and human dignity), and label any critiques of CRT as convenient ways to avoid confronting injustice and racism (which may not be true, but often is).
Many Christian critics, myself included, are specifically concerned with how CRT conflicts with a Christian worldview, particularly in areas of identity and morality. Not everyone agrees. Recently on Twitter, a defender of CRT boldly tweeted, “Whoever told you CRT is a worldview was either lying to you or didn’t know what they were talking about.” Of course, assuming malice or greed is a way of dodging the question rather than making an argument.
Another Twitterer offered a different response, “If CRT is bad because it’s a ‘secular worldview’ and we must only derive our worldviews ‘biblically’ then I better not see a TRACE of Aristotle or Plato in your worldview either, brother.” This one is a slightly more clever way of missing the point or, specifically misunderstanding what it means for a worldview to be “biblical.” To have a Christian worldview is to hold views that are consistent with the Bible, not to only have views that are in the Bible. The problem with Critical Race Theory is not that it isn’t found in the Bible; it’s that it offers a very different explanation of humanity, sin, and redemption than the Bible does.
Like the postmodernism that birthed it, Critical Race Theory can be considered a worldview. It does more than just offer a handful of specific ideas about race and society; CRT offers a complete framework of beliefs, a universalizing story of the world. CRT describes who we are, what’s wrong with the world, and prescribes how to fix it and what “better” would be. In other words, like Christianity, CRT answers the basic questions any worldview does. Except, the answers CRT provides are very different than those Christianity offers, even if both worldviews recognize the world is broken by evils such as racism and injustice.
Critical Race Theory has critical errors. By simplistically reducing evil to power dynamics and external social realities, CRT denies moral agency and the redemptive potential of entire groups of people because of their racial identity.
At the same time, those who oppose Critical Theory must do more than simply write off all its concerns. Like Marxism, Critical Theory is something of a Christian heresy, taking the Christian themes of human dignity and justice and a world remade, and re-orienting these causes under new management. Most pertinently, CRT is slipping into the space where the Church belongs but is too often absent.
If we don’t want unbiblical explanations of life and justice sweeping through the Church or culture, we’d better make sure we communicate and embrace the full ramifications of Christian truth for society, and then act justly and love mercy. If we rob our Faith of its social implications, we are no longer talking about Christianity. Such a personalized, privatized moral system may make us feel better, but it will never stand up to the rival worldviews of our day.
Over the next four Tuesday nights, The Colson Center is hosting an online course taught by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, on his book, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. This is the book I’ve been waiting for, the book that carefully and biblically walks through a Christian view of justice. Dr. Williams carefully explains not only why theories like CRT aren’t true, but what the Bible asks of Christ’s followers when it comes to justice. Space is limited. Register today at breakpoint.org/Williams.
Because, the best antidote for the failings of Critical Theory and its inadequate worldview is for the Church to understand and live consistently with the Bible.
Shane invites historian and BreakPoint writer Dr. Glenn Sunshine to explain why we celebrate Christmas even though the first century Christians likely didn't.
Then, Shane brings a question from a listener who recently ready Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from a Birmingham Jail and wonders if they still apply in the current culture climate that focuses so much on race.
To close, Dr. Sunshine helps a reader seeking resources to better understand Irish history and how it impacted Western civilization
Several months ago, Amazon began banning books deemed “dangerous” to LGBTQ people. Some of these books were hateful, demeaning, and unhelpful. Others simply questioned the dominant narratives about homosexuality or gender dysphoria. Now Amazon has banned one of the most thoroughly researched books on transgenderism: When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan Anderson.
In the book, Anderson shares stories of people who aren’t supposed to exist: de-transitioners, those who desperately regret undergoing gender transition. He also argues convincingly from the best biology, psychology, and philosophy that sex is a bodily reality, not a social construct.
Anderson’s case is powerful. So powerful, apparently, that supporters of transgender ideology have resorted to coercion and name-calling, enlisting companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter.
You can still pick up a copy of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment at our online bookstore. Amazon may not want you to read it, but to understand this issue, you should.
As the world watches the disaster unfold in Afghanistan, there’s another chapter of the story we’re not hearing nearly as much about. The Afghan church, a body of believers that’s experienced incredible growth, now faces life under the Taliban.
Early indications are not encouraging. Almost as quickly as the Islamic fundamentalists are taking control of cities, Christians are being notified that they are being watched.
Yesterday, I spoke at length with World Magazine Senior Editor Mindy Belz, who explained what is happening in Afghanistan. As part of the interview, she described what the Taliban takeover means for the Christian church in Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt from our interview.
Here is a transcript of a portion of my conversation with Mindy Belz:
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[The Afghan church] is a unique community, mostly aged 40 and younger. They are all Muslim converts. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the world. Since they are a tiny church, now doubled in size, they are considered very fast-growing. There are perhaps only 2,000 people. But they are an important force in Afghanistan, simply because of the force that the Gospel is. Because of the love of Jesus, the reach they have is a real thing in a dark, Taliban-shadowed country.
About two years ago, a number of these church community leaders did something amazing and brave: they decided to change their identity, their religious affiliation in particular, on their national identification cards.
All Afghan citizens have a national ID card. They are used all the time for many reasons. They often show religious affiliation. That affiliation tends to be handed down by the father of the family.
The new Christian church elders wanted to change their identification for the sake of their future generations. Not all Christians agreed that this was a good idea, but several dozens of them have changed their official identification to Christian. Now the government records show Christian affiliation. These are the Christians that have been targeted over the past few days.
At least one Christian that I know of has received a letter from the Taliban stating: “We know where you are, and we know what you're doing.” This implies that the Taliban has access to this government record.
The Taliban then showed up to this Christian’s house the day before the full city takeover. They have also visited other Christian homes. You might argue these are small, isolated incidents, but they play against the backdrop of nearby atrocities: Afghan military who have been hauled out of their homes and shot, and in one case beheaded.
Afghan Christians are totally vulnerable with no political power. They have no-one to appeal to. They don't even generally qualify for special immigrant visas to the United States or other Western countries because they have avoided working for American organizations or working for the Afghan military. To do so potentially exposes them to attention and danger.
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Belz is the most experienced, trustworthy source I know of when it comes to the Middle East, especially on Christians and the Christian movement there. In yesterday’s interview, she covered in detail not only the history of Afghanistan and how the past 20 years is understood differently by Islamic fundamentalists, but the failure of U.S. policy under various presidents. This is a disaster of America’s own making.
Visit breakpoint.org to listen to the entire conversation. And please pray for our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan.
Image Sourced from: Twitter>>
This deconversion story, I can get into.
With so many stories of “exvangelicals” and why they left the faith, and celebrity Christians “deconstructing” their faith, including some formerly strong voices for Christianity and the Church, it’s important to note that it’s not just Christians walking away from their faiths.
Last week, the Atheists in Kenya Society issued a regretful announcement that the secretary of their organization, Seth Mahiga, had resigned because “he has found Jesus Christ and is no longer interested in promoting atheism in Kenya.” Praise God!
This is a reminder that Christ is building His Church in places beyond the United States and North America. While we talk of the growth of non-belief in the West, the Holy Spirit is working in places often ignored, drawing men and women and children to Christ.
I pray that Mr. Mahiga will follow the footsteps of Justin Martyr, Augustine of Hippo, and C.S. Lewis, who came to faith later in life, converting from other belief systems, and were used by God to build His Church.
In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, Athens decided to attack the neutral island of Melos. When the Melians protested they had done Athens no wrong, the Athenians replied, “The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.” The Melians were starved into surrender, their men were killed, and their women and children were sold into slavery.
None of this was unusual in the ancient world. The strong, it was supposed, had every right to dominate the weak. Cruelty, rape, torture, and slaughter were ordinary means of enforcing power. Neither the gods nor the moral codes opposed dominations. Atheist historian Tom Holland, describes his feelings about the Greco-Roman world this way: “It was not just the extremes of callousness that unsettled me, but the complete lack of any sense that the poor or the weak might have the slightest intrinsic value.”
So what changed? As Holland notes, the difference was Christianity.
Christians and Jews believed that all persons were made in the image of God. Thus, every person had intrinsic worth and dignity, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or strength. On this basis, oppression of the poor and weak was condemned. Neither might nor wealth made right. Christianity further emphasized the spiritual and moral equality of all people. Not only do we all share the same humanity, but we all suffer from the same problem (sin) and are in need of the same solution (salvation through Jesus).
Because of these ideas, Christianity is the sole historical source of concepts now taken for granted: human dignity, human equality, and universal human rights. As not only Tom Holland but other prominent atheists such as Jürgen Habermas and Luc Ferry admit, these ideas are at the root of our modern concern for the poor and oppressed.
And this is why it’s accurate to call “wokeness” a Christian heresy.
“Heresy” comes from the Greek verb hairein, which means to choose. The idea is, heresy is the result of choosing one thing that is true and then running with it until it distorts everything else. “Wokeness,” a way of seeing the world built on critical theory, fastens onto the Christian idea that oppression is evil, but makes it the sole significant fact about humanity and society, while rejecting so much else that Christianity teaches — original sin, forgiveness, and salvation.
It should not be difficult to see why various expressions of critical theory and “woke” rhetoric resonates with so many Christians. The appeal is rooted in legitimate biblical concerns about the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and the potential misuse of power. However, it fails on many other levels.
First, the anthropology of critical theory misunderstands who we are by assuming that the only relevant fact about us is where we fit within the various categories of oppression. We are the group we belong to, which serves a social role as either oppressor or oppressed. As such, this theory rejects any universals that unite humanity, including the image of God.
Second, the understanding of sin, or what’s wrong with the human condition, is limited to oppression. In this view, oppressors are guilty and the oppressed are innocent. The universality of human guilt before God, that we all are broken and sinful, that we are all in need of forgiveness and redemption is replaced by a moral reckoning that is dependent on which group we belong to. Human identity, human nature, and human problems are all flattened onto a single spectrum of oppression.
Given its failure to diagnose sin, it’s not surprising that critical theories lack an adequate understanding of salvation. At best, a semblance of acceptance is offered to those who accept its worldview, but even then, the guilt of certain groups and the moral superiority of other groups is fixed and perpetual. This also means that forgiveness and reconciliation are effectively ruled out a priori. Even for the oppressed, there is no path for healing; no bearing one another’s burdens; no easing the burden of pain by forgiving another.
In the end, wokeness is built on a worldview without salvation and offers an eschatology with no real hope. Though the proclaimed goal is to end oppression, it’s what the late sociologist Philip Rieff called a “deathwork,” dedicated to tearing down things but unable to build, or offer, anything better. Advocates of critical race theory, for example, argue that although race is a cultural construct, racism is an inevitable and irredeemable trait of certain groups and society. They cannot offer a vision of the world in which this sin is defeated or redeemed, much less one in which the guilty are forgiven and restored. The best that can be hoped for is to replace one set of powers with another.
Playing off of legitimate concerns about power and corruption, concerns first introduced to the world by a Christian vision of life and the world, critical theories push these ideas to the point of reframing the Gospel.
The real problems with race and injustice in America need to be addressed. However, any expression of critical theory fails even as an analytical tool for Christians because it is built on a flawed and contrary worldview.
Normally when an Olympian wins the gold, we see happy tears. We see families back home cheering. We see the pride in carrying the national flag around the field. It’s such a pure moment. It never gets old. So, when the Fiji men’s rugby team recently won the gold over New Zealand, there was something about this that was even more pure and enjoyable.
This was the second Olympic gold for the Fijians. They got on their knees, they prayed to God in thanksgiving, and sang a hymn of praise. It was so beautiful. It’s a traditional tune that contains these words, “We have overcome, by the blood of the lamb, and the word of the Lord, we have overcome.”
It was a wonderful moment, and a wonderful reminder, that whether we win in rugby, or anything else, the most certain thing in the world is what Jesus Christ has done for us, not what we will ever do.
The following post is a highlight from 2021
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In the introduction to his book The Content Trap, author Bharat Anand asks readers to consider what caused The Yellowstone Fires of 1988, which lasted for months and destroyed over 1.3 million acres of the world’s oldest, and one of our nation’s most treasured, national parks. The traditional story places the blame on a worker who dropped a single, still-lit cigarette. Anand disagrees.
The cigarette certainly triggered this fire, but a million cigarettes are dropped every single day. That year (likely even that day), other cigarettes and, for that matter, lightning strikes, fell in Yellowstone. Why did this one spark so much damage? Anand’s point has to do with the pre-existing conditions, which made something that is benign in most other circumstances, a trigger for incredible destruction.
Yesterday, as protestors stormed the Capitol, Illinois Representative Kinzinger, a Republican, said, “We (Americans) are not what we are seeing today…” Others remarked how shocking it was to see the sort of political unrest common to other countries, here in America. And, of course, it was shocking.
But we’d better be clear on why. It’s not because somehow Americans, even those who love freedom and wish to protect the remarkable gift that is our nation, are somehow exempt from the Fall. It’s not because America has some sort of Divine pass to last forever. It’s not because the rules that govern nations and civilizations, which have been proven over and over again throughout history, somehow do not apply to us.
In what now seems like an ominous prediction, my friend Trevin Wax tweeted out a quote from Chuck Colson Wednesday morning: “People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government ... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well."
Colson was right. Another way of saying what he did is, “Character is destiny.” It’s tempting to apply this undeniable truism rather selectively, but it is as true for individuals on “our side” as it is for those on “their side.” It is true for presidents and for peasants. It’s as true about a President “not as bad as she would have been,” who delivers strong policy wins for our side as it is about anyone else. It is true for the narcissist and for the abortionist, for the one who rejects religious faith and the one who uses it for his own ends.
But, and this is the much more important point that many miss, character is destiny for a people as well as for a person. Yesterday, when President-elect Biden said that the actions of the mob did not reflect America, I wish he were correct. But he wasn’t. We are not a moral nation. We are lawless. We are not a nation that cultivates the kinds of families able to produce good citizens. Our institutions cannot be trusted to tell us the truth or advance the good. Our leaders think and live as if wrong means are justified by preferred ends. Our churches tickle ears and indulge narcissism. Our schools build frameworks of thinking that are not only wrong, but foster confusion and division.
Yesterday’s riot was not the first in our nation’s recent history, nor will it be the last. There are certainly immediate causes for what we witnessed, including the words of a President who appeared to care more about the attention the riots gave him than the rule of law that they violated. Still, there are ultimate causes, ones that predate his administration and that have created what is clearly a spark-ready environment.
Yesterday’s events cannot be understood, much less addressed outside this larger context. And the moment we excuse ourselves from being part of the problem, we have lost our saltiness.
Often throughout history, moments like this have been embraced by the Church as an opportunity by God’s people. When a people reach this level of vulnerability, either as individuals, as families, or as nations, it is clear that they are out of ideas. There is no sustainable way forward when the ideological divide reaches this level, not only about how best to reach commonly held aims but when there is no consensus on the aims themselves.
To be clear, civilizations usually die with a whimper, not a bang. America will go on, but we aren’t ok. Even more, the resources once found in various places within our culture to build new things or fix what’s broken are largely depleted. The only way out of the long decline of decadence, punctuated as it is by noisy, scary moments like yesterday, is either, as Ross Douthat wrote, revolution or religious revival.
The story of Yellowstone Park is that now, decades later, it has been largely revived and reborn. Let’s pray that’s also the story of the Church, and even our country.
Image sourced from C-SPAN
John and Maria revisit a recent BreakPoint commentary that highlighted the theology in Christmas Carols. John highlights how many carols highlight the Incarnation as an act of war against evil, discussing how this imagery has fallen out of favor in pop-Christianity but holds significance inside church history and tradition.
Maria shares the recent story of the escape by a number of missionaries in Haiti from their captors. She tells how this is a miracle, recounting a few details surrounding the escape. John responds to a question from Maria about understanding calling in the wake of this event, as Maria is challenged by the missionaries resolve and passion to engage dangerous situations.
To close, John and Maria revisit a number of troubling things coming out of China. They wrap up their conversation discussing some new technology that assigns gender to individuals in pictures using facial recognition software. The software is said to be transphobic, because it fails to assign the correct gender two-thirds of the time. John and Maria discuss the worldview significance of this and other realities surrounding this new technology.
-- Recommendations --
The Magnificat with Wexford Carol Keith and Kristyn Getty
Noble Warriors>>
-- In Show Story Mentions --
-- Breakpoint Recap
Share Christ with Christmas Carols
the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War...That’s something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons…[Christmas Carols] confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. BreakPoint>>
Erasing Women
Just because a man or a woman can do something without risking his or her identity doesn’t mean he or she should do that thing. As Christians, we should always wrestle with how best to live out our God-given design as men and women, by asking questions like: “is this an honorable thing to do? Does this respect the body God gave me, or fight against it? Does it glorify God and His design? BreakPoint>>
-- Hostage Missionaries Escape in Haiti
12 missionary hostages in Haiti made escape after receiving sign from God
The 17 Christian missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang after visiting a local orphanage in Port-au-Prince on October 16. The group, which was made up of Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities, included 16 US citizens and one Canadian. Five of those kidnapped were children. Their Canadian driver was also kidnapped.
On two occasions, he said the group received divine signs to stay put, but after receiving a sign to flee, they snuck out under the cover of nightfall following a sign on Dec. 15.
“At times they felt God prepared a path before them,” Showalter said. “God was leading them.”
NY Post>>
Press Conference for Missionaries
After the news conference, a group of CAM employees stood and sang, “Nearer My God to Thee” in the robust, four-part acapella harmony that is a signature of conservative Anabaptist worship
Watch Press Conference>>
-- China Issues Pile Up
Chinese tennis star Peng denies she made accusation of sexual assault | Reuters
Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai said on Sunday that she had never accused anyone of sexually assaulting her, and that a social media post she had made early last month had been misunderstood.
Reuters>>
Amazon agreed to allow only five-star reviews for Xi’s book in China
Amazon quietly removed criticism of President Xi’s books by scrubbing bad reviews, ratings and comments from its Chinese site, it has emerged.
The US retail giant agreed to Beijing’s demand to have anything below a five-star review of Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China removed from Amazon.cn about two years ago, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified sources
The London Times>>
-- Transphobic Technology
Is facial recognition software transphobic? Controversial tech ‘has a gender problem’
The controversial tech is now so accurate that it can figure out the gender of men or women with little more than a brief glance.
But if that face belongs to a trans person, the systems get it wrong more than a third of the time, new research suggested.
Study lead author Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, said: ‘We found that facial analysis services performed consistently worse on transgender individuals, and were universally unable to classify non-binary genders.
Metro UK>>
David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College
“Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive. But it’s pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people’s thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real.”
FS Blog>>
Last week we received a note from a listener concerned with the pagan roots of the Christmas holiday. It’s something you hear a lot this time of year, that Christians “borrowed lumber” from pagans to build the traditions of Christmas.
Often, critics point to things like the Christmas tree, the alignment of Jesus’ birth with the Egyptian God Horus, and the Christian culture war against the practice of Saturnalia. A lot of these arguments gained traction in a documentary called Religulous by liberal critic Bill Maher.
To address this and many questions, Shane Morris invited Dr. Glenn Sunshine to the Upstream podcast. The two unpack the historical roots of the church embracing December 25th for the Christmas holiday. They talk about what it means to “spoil the Egyptians,” as St. Augustine put it. They also lay a Christian worldview foundation for the celebration of Christmas.
Listen to this deep dive into the Christmas holiday on Shane’s Podcast, Upstream, or you can watch our What Would You Say? Video, “Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday.”
Christians have so many wonderful resources that can help us celebrate Christ’s birth and prepare our hearts for His second coming, and one of them is sacred music. The abundant supply of truly majestic Christmas music points to a long line of theological artists, individuals who took seriously both what truth needed to be said in music and how it could be said so as to be both memorable and beautiful. Perhaps the greatest offering of all is Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
For much of his life, Bach was in charge of music at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany. However, his many other responsibilities, such as raising 20 children, might explain why he indulged in a few shortcuts. For example, Bach often recycled old material for new musical pieces.
Of course, true creativity does not always require an artist to work from scratch. We are made in the image of the God, who created ex nihilo, out of nothing, but human creativity always, to some degree, involves cultivating what God has given us and developing it to its highest form. In the Christmas Oratorio, Bach took virtually every solo from sacred music he had composed earlier and combined them with other choruses and instrumentals that were both new and old.
The opening chorus, “Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and… glorify what the Highest has done today,” was completely original. Later in the oratorio, Bach invites us to contemplate the paradox of the Incarnation: that the King of heaven saw fit to become a tiny baby born in a stable. By means of a powerful bass, Bach marvels that, “Great Lord, O powerful King, dearest Savior. . . He who sustains the entire world, who created its magnificence and beauty, must sleep in a harsh manger.”
Bach’s original lyrics are in German. Come to BreakPoint.org, for a link to the entire English translation.
Bach’s notion of creativity has been largely lost today. As children of 19th century Romanticism, many contemporary artists focus on the self as the creator and see the role of the artist to spin out something completely novel and unique. Most artists today equate creativity with novelty, some even think that the role of art is to be subversive to any and all norms. It’s a form of what C. S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery.”
Bach’s music is as a powerful reproach to that vision of what art is. He saw creativity as a means of highlighting and enhancing traditional Christian belief. He saw that scriptural texts and musical forms were compatible, serving each other in order to supply rich liturgy.
Bach signed all his work “SDG,” shorthand for Soli Dei Gloria, which means “to God alone the Glory.” Bach knew the One true source of human creativity and that He must work through the composer if the art is to be what it should.
This Christmas, let one of history’s greatest artists, remind you that all of our work should be done to the glory of God. Like Bach, our creativity is intended to serve the Creator, who is the source of our lives and our abilities.
Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into two big pharmaceutical companies profiting from pushing off-label hormone treatment for gender dysphoric kids.
In a public statement, Paxton accused these companies of failing to warn about the devastating side effects of the medications, including sterility. The fact is, the hormone suppressing medications being prescribed by so-called “gender clinics” are not approved by the FDA to treat gender dysphoria. They are only FDA-approved for diagnosable physical medical conditions like premature puberty and prostate cancer.
Paxton is right: these companies should be held accountable, as should medical professionals who cave to social pressure and prescribe medications for the wrong use.
And, if nothing else, Paxton is sending a critical message: that gender dysphoria is a mental condition, not a physical one like malaria or the flu. If more public officials and medical professionals would emulate Paxton’s courage, many hearts, minds, and lives could be saved.
At the risk of falling into the current debate over whether Christians should tone down the violent language and imagery when it comes to their faith, the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War. In fact, the Bible presents the Incarnation as the central chapter in the larger story of the conflict between good and evil; one never fully lost by God but captured in Christ Jesus. That’s something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons.
Still, there is a source that continues to confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. Christmas offers us the amazing opportunity to not only immerse ourselves with deep Christian truth, but also present it to others.
Of course I’m talking about Christmas carols. Carols provide us a level of incredible clarity and depth, that is so rare. As an example, consider the “Wexford Carol.”
Good people all, this Christmas time, Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son With Mary holy we should pray, To God with love this Christmas Day In Bethlehem upon that morn, There was a blessed Messiah born
You get a sense of the rescue mission that was the Incarnation in the traditional English carol, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.”
God rest ye merry gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas Day To save us all from Satan’s pow’r When we were gone astray Oh tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy Oh tidings of comfort and joy
And in the haunting beauty of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” the coming of Christ is presented in the context of God’s Old Testament promises.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might, Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height, In ancient times didst give the law, In cloud, and majesty, and awe.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan’s tyranny; From depths of hell Thy people save And give them victory o’er the grave.
And few hymns offer a Christology as rich as “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is the brainchild not only of the great hymn-writer Charles Wesley but also, in part, the great revivalist, George Whitefield.
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel
Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace, hail the sun of Righteousness Light life to all he brings, ris’n healing in his wings Christ the highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home
We could go on, but finally in “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” we are offered hope in how this cosmic battle will eventually turn out.
And in despair I bowed my head: “There is no peace on earth,” I said, “For hate is strong and mocks the song Of Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep, The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men”peace on earth, good will to men”
Till, ringing singing, on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men!
In these songs, sung by my friend Josh Bales, we have the fullness of the Christian story: a world that belongs to God, our lost plight due to sin, our captivity to Satan’s schemes, the working of God through the ages, His promises revealed in the long path of redemption that God worked through the Patriarchs, through prophets and kings, and through promises given so long ago; the wonders of the Incarnation, the fear and hope of Mary and Joseph, and the realization and glory of angelic hosts proclaiming their king, and ours.
Each year in these hymns, and others, we are reminded that God did not leave us in our sins but came down and lived among us that He might die for us. We have in these songs the whole gospel of God.
As comforting and instructive as they are to our own hearts, at what other time of the year do our disinterested friends, neighbors, and family members find themselves humming along with theology? What greater opportunity will we have to share the Faith than when our listeners are already hearing its truths every day?
As a colleague once observed to me, this is our moment to echo the work of Philip with the Ethiopian. The world around us knows their need. They hide it well, under vain pleasures and false narratives, but they also know that things are not quite right. What they need is someone to explain to them how things might be made right in Christ Jesus.
Let’s take this opportunity, singing our way through Christmas, to share the joy that has been given to us that this joy may spread to others.
John and Shane are asked if there should be a Christian approach to boycotting. They are then asked about the unity Evangelicals and Catholics can have while still being true to their convictions. Another listener writes in to ask how to think well of a liberalizing in her field of psychology. To close, John and Shane discuss a commentary on the rise in opioid deaths in America and how the church can and should respond.
Two months ago, Apple quietly removed a Quran app and a Bible App from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party. Apple claimed in a statement they had to do it because they have to, quote, “obey local laws.”
This is the same 2.8-trillion-dollar company with an “Inclusion and Diversity” initiative that claims, without a sense of irony, to hold a, quote, “long-standing commitment to making… the world more just.” According to its American website, that means hiring a more racially diverse group of employees. That’s great. It’s unclear how that helps the 1.4 billion people living under increasing religious oppression in China.
This is a good reminder. When companies like Apple throw around the word “inclusive,” it’s because they see a profit opportunity. When companies like Apple are happily complicit in outright oppression, it’s because they won’t risk a profit opportunity. If the day comes when American culture gives Apple an ultimatum: either nix the Bible here or lose your profit, we need only look to China to discover what they’d do.
As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Americans continue to leave religion behind in large numbers, even during the pandemic. According to Pew Research, the percentage of American Christians has fallen about 12% over the last ten years, from 75% in 2011 to around 63% today. The number who pray every day is even lower, at 45%. The demographic rising in its place are the so-called “nones,” those who identify religiously as “nothing in particular.” This group grew to about 20% of the US population in 2021, up from 16% in 2017.
The surprising thing here isn’t that Americans are leaving organized religion behind. That’s been happening at about the same rate for a while now. However, it is newsworthy that this trend continued unabated in the face of a global pandemic. Historically, catastrophic events that bring uncertainty, stress, or political chaos tend to draw people to reconsider faith.
In this sense, ours is in sharp contrast with other historic moments, such as World War II, the assassination of JFKL, and the Gulf War. More recently, 9/11 brought a flood of Americans back to church and, although the trend wasn’t permanent, those who lived through it remember a renewed sense of unity and commitment to spiritual activities such as prayer.
Of course, other moments were deeply divided along religious lines. America’s war in Vietnam is a good example. While overall church attendance remained steady, Vietnam represented what some have called “a ripping of the nation’s religious fabric.” Mainline churches, in particular, posted significant losses about this time. As the Washington Post reported in 1982, the United Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ lost 21%, 15%, and 11% of their membership respectively in the previous decade.
The fact that certain crises inspire unity, and others division, likely says more about the state of the culture affected than the crisis affecting it. The Covid pandemic has only further ignited the rift created by America’s massive political and ideological differences, and further shaken religious loyalties. In the 1970s, people reacted to the cultural upheaval by changing religious affiliations. Today, people are dropping their religious identities altogether.
Of course, one reason that Americans didn’t flock to churches was many were closed. Still, even after Churches adapted, attendance took a hit. In June 2020, even though 96% of pastors said they offered live streaming services, Barna reported that just 48% of otherwise regular attendees were tuning in. Today, even with Sunday morning services available nearly everywhere, in-person attendance is still between 30-50% lower than before the pandemic.
In contrast, Netflix added an incredible 10 million subscribers to its ranks in just three months in 2020. While an encouraging number of Americans reported that the pandemic strengthened their faith, they were the minority. When given the choice of where to find meaning, Americans chose streaming platforms over church pulpits.
On a purely pragmatic level, this is bad news. Recently Tyler Vanderweele and Brendan Case argued over at Christianity Today that “Empty Pews Are an American Public Health Crisis.” They have a point. Study after study suggests that church attendance corresponds with lower rates of substance abuse, divorce, incarceration, and depression…. not to mention higher levels of meaning and satisfaction, volunteering, longevity, and civic engagement.
Given that we are in one of the loneliest eras in recent memory, why aren’t Americans back in church? Perhaps a better first question would be, why aren’t American Christians back in church?
They may be catechized too well in an entertainment-driven, performance-oriented kind of service. It may be because of the moralistic and therapeutic ways they were taught to think about faith in our hyper-individualistic age, and they found better fulfillment elsewhere. We may be more steeply formed by the liturgies of our age rather than the liturgies of Christian worship.
For Christians, church attendance simply is not optional. Scripture commands it and, for all its imperfections, the Church is the body and bride of Christ. It’s how Christians are equipped and sent to proclaim and live the Gospel. It’s the means by which Christians grow the kinds of deep roots needed to survive a chaotic and hostile culture. As Scripture says, a cord of three strands is not easily broken, but “pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”
To be clear, the Church will go on. In particular, outside of the western world, the Church is growing at incredible rates. It will survive COVID, militant secularism, and rampant individualism. In other words, the Church can take up the strands of life together again.
The question is whether we will put down our idols.
Last year, the FDA lifted an important restriction on the “abortion pill,” a drug that induces abortion in early pregnancy by starving the preborn child. Prior to the pandemic, doctors were required to meet face-to-face with patients before prescribing the drug, but that requirement was lifted during the pandemic. Last week, the FDA made the policy change permanent.
This comes just as our culture, from psychological literature to the arts, has begun to understand miscarriage as real trauma, even if it is a loss not readily seen.
Part of the trauma is how hidden a miscarriage can feel. The abortion pill causes this trauma on purpose. Not only do many women report physical trauma after so-called “medical” abortion, but without a face-to-face visit, the mother is isolated from one less source of support and accountability.
This is not healthcare.
This is, however, the reality of what it will mean to advocate for the preborn in the days ahead. Hidden evil is allowed to flourish, we must work to change hearts and minds, no matter what the Supreme Court decides.
More than a few folks, from theologian John Calvin to philosopher William James to French theologian and historian Louis Auguste Sabatier, have noted that humans are “incurably religious” creatures. In other words, religion is native to the human heart.
In the history of the world, the wholesale rejections of the supernatural is a quirk of Western secularism. At the same time, it will not ultimately survive the human longing for transcendence and communion with the supernatural, no matter how far technology advances.
Evidence for this analysis is currently on display in Dortmund, Germany. An art exhibition, entitled “Technoshamanism,” was recently highlighted in the New York Times article “Space Pagans and Smart Phone Witches: Where Tech Meets Mysticism.”
Josie Thaddeus-Jones describes the exhibition, which features the work of twelve artists and collectives, as an exploration of the “connections between technology and esoteric, ancestral belief systems.” Visitors are welcomed by quotations from French artist Lucile Olympe Haut’s “Cyberwitches Manifesto,” which urges readers to, among other things, “use smartphones and tarot cards to connect to spirits” and “manufacture D.I.Y. devices to listen to invisible worlds.”
According to the Times, the exhibition is an example of the rising interest in pagan and occult practices among “spiritual but not religious” Westerners. The new development, reports Thaddeus-Jones, is how frequently these practices are being combined with technology: “Spirituality is all over our feeds: The self-help guru Deepak Chopra has co-founded his own [Non-Fungible Token] platform, witches are reading tarot on TikTok, and the A.I.-driven astrology app Co-Star has been downloaded more than 20 million times.”
One Brazilian artist at the Technoshamanism exhibition organizes festivals where participants use robots to “connect with ancestral belief systems and the natural world.” Other artists imagine a pagan future for humanity in space, where “rituals and visions play as much of a role as solar power and artificial intelligence.” For others, animistic customs and psychedelic drugs meet virtual reality and black lights for an experience that looks part séance and part science fiction.
So, why are digital technologies and social media bringing about a resurgence of pagan spirituality? The Times cites an assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, who says that because of the Internet, “people have access to belief traditions that were not easily accessible to them before.” This allows them to “discover, select and combine the spiritual traditions that most [appeal] to them.”
Still, availability is only part of the story. Materialists of all stripes have long predicted that the human thirst for superstition would soon vanish with the rise of science and more enlightened societies. Karl Marx famously prophesied that communism would bring the end of religion.
Yet, this renaissance of paganism continues to happen precisely in countries where science and technology have most influenced life. If the Times is right, smart devices and the Internet have only fueled the spread of pagan spirituality.
What this reveals is not only that the draw of the numinous is more enduring than 19th-century atheists ever imagined, but also that secularism isn’t satisfying as a worldview. As it turns out, it’s not so easy to disenchant the world or the human heart. We are incurably religious creatures.
At the same time, celebrations of “technoshamanism” should remind us that pagan mysticism also fails to fill the “God-shaped vacuum” in every human heart. With VR headsets and tarot apps, would-be witches may try to reimagine what pre-Christian beliefs were like, but real paganism died out in Europe over a thousand years ago. The reason was the advance of Christianity, something historian Rodney Stark has called “The Victory of Reason.” Christianity’s triumph led to expanded human rights and freedom, capitalism, and the science that made the “tech” in technoshamanism possible in the first place.
Fundamentally, Christ supplanted paganism because His gospel was better news, and the worldview centered on His rule and reign brings rest to the restless human heart. The more secular forces and ideologies in the modern West attempt to replace Christ with belief in nothing, the more paganism rushes back to fill the vacuum. But it has already been tried and found wanting before, and it will fail again. True hope, joy, and dignity come only from Christ, no matter how tech-savvy the world becomes.
Historian and long-time friend of the Colson Center, Dr. Glenn Sunshine joined Shane Morris to discuss if Christmas is a pagan holiday. During his conversation with Shane, Dr. Sunshine answered some of the core questions about Christmas.
For instance, Sunshine argued that December 25th was not chosen as the date for Christmas in order to co-opt a pagan solstice festival. More likely, it was based on an ancient Jewish belief that people are conceived on the date of their deaths. Since Christ died on or around March 25th, some Church Fathers believed that Christ must have been conceived on that day and born nine months later… December 25th.
For more on this topic, visit www.whatwouldyousay.org to find a special video to help guide conversation with your family.
Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, believes social media platforms should be held accountable for the damage they cause teenage girls. He offers many reasons why. In one study, young women were told to use Instagram, Facebook, or play a simple video game. After just seven minutes of scrolling, the Instagram users, in particular, showed decreased body satisfaction and a negative emotional state. This isn’t because of the amount of time on the site, but because of its design. Focusing on body image creates a trap that young people can’t escape. “Instagram,” he writes, “can loom in a girl’s mind even when the app is not open, driving hours of obsessive thought, worry, and shame.” What’s worse, Haidt argues, big tech executives have known about this effect for years but have done little to stop it. They should be held accountable, but that accountability starts with parents. We shouldn’t just look to the state to do what God has tasked parents with first, to fight for the hearts and minds of our kids.
A few years ago, my friend and former Breakpoint co-host Eric Metaxas wrote a book called Seven Women. While researching for the book, Metaxas made a strategic decision: he would not write about women who were merely the first women to do something men had already done — even though these were the sorts of women people kept recommending he write about.
Instead, Metaxas wrote about women who improved the world because they were women, not in spite of that fact.
Since Seven Women was published in 2016, the rise of the transgender movement has further degraded our culture’s respect for femaleness. A few weeks ago, Twitter users began sharing stories of notable women in history and claiming, under the hashtag “TransAwarenessWeek2021,” that these women weren’t women at all.
“Queen Kristina of Sweden was born female, but wore male clothing,” one user wrote. “She did not marry and inherited the Swedish crown.” Thus, we are to believe, Kristina of Sweden was transgender.
The contrast between Metaxas’ celebration of women as women and the transgender movement’s aggressive decree that any woman who does something stereotypically male must therefore be a man is profound.
Until yesterday, culturally speaking, it was our bodies, not our minds or feelings — let alone what kind of clothes we wear — that determined a person’s sex. This should especially hold true for Christians, who know that God created His world good, and His image-bearers, very good. Transgender ideology tells lies, not only about the human body, but about the inherent goodness of sexual difference itself. That’s what was happening with this Twitter trend, too.
In the name of inclusivity, transgender ideology says there is a box inside which exists all the potential actions, attitudes, and appearances of a woman. Any woman, whether centuries ago or today, who does not fit neatly inside that box must be a man. This isn’t inclusivity. This is, in fact, the most exclusive possible vision of gender and sex.
Even more, this backward view isn’t unlike the unrealistic standards of female beauty often propagated by advertisers or the entertainment industry. For years, movies, advertisements, and fashion designers featured tall, incredibly thin, and often photoshopped women in their productions. These unrealistic depictions of femininity are harmful to women, especially young women. So, over the past two decades, the “body positivity” movement has pushed back, for a more accurate representation of women in mass media; including women of many shapes and sizes. That’s a good thing not just because it could mitigate actual harm; it’s a good thing because it better portrays reality.
Transgender ideology promotes the same damaging error of improbable beauty standards, but further. Now, we’re told, there’s not just one right way to look like a woman. There’s only one narrowly-defined way to be a woman.
A Christian worldview, in contrast, offers a much more expansive, inclusive view of women (and men, for that matter). Asking the question, “Is this something a woman would do” about something a woman just did, is perfectly redundant. Would a woman really ride a horse or assume the Swedish crown? Well, a woman did…so, yes! This is the beautifully diverse way God created humans in His image.
Of course, just because a man or a woman can do something without risking his or her identity doesn’t mean he or she should do that thing. As Christians, we should always wrestle with how best to live out our God-given design as men and women, by asking questions like: “is this an honorable thing to do? Does this respect the body God gave me, or fight against it? Does it glorify God and His design?”
Christians find answers for these questions in Scripture, common sense, observable realities, and history with guidance from the Holy Spirit, wise counsel from other believers, and in the (ironically) most ignored source of all, the general revelation of our own bodies. We will not find those answers in a culture like ours, one that increasingly and obstinately refuses to see the inherent goodness in our sexual differences.
A few years ago comedian Tina Fey produced a charmingly strange comedy show for Netflix called “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” The script was characterized by somewhat stupid jokes that often followed a format of a premise with a predictable punchline, but then the joke would swerve. In one scene, a woman put on a pair of high heels and complained about how much they hurt her feet. “You know how I know men invented high heels?” She began. “Because women never invented anything.”
Her joke is not just an analogy or a metaphor for what’s done to women when we look at their clothes, their bravery, or their intelligence and then claim, by virtue of those things, they must be men. It’s the exact same thing. And it’s wrong.
John and Maria discuss the destruction from a series of Tornados that swept the Midwest this week. The explore the worldview significance of the devastation in light of our culture's loss of the inherent value and dignity of life.
To close, Maria asks John to expound on how society is experiencing a rise in acts of desperation, through crime and violence, and the avoidance of the deaths from despair.
References:
God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas Deitrich Bonhoeffer | Westminster John Knox Press | 2012
Every Moment Holy Douglas McKelvey | Rabbit Room | 2017
-- References --
Segment 1:
Rare tornadoes strike America's heartland, destroying homes and knocking out power
At least 21 tornadoes were reported across three U.S. states -- Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota -- between Wednesday and Thursday this week. This happened five days after tornados tore through Kentucky that have killed 74 as of Tuesday morning.ABC News>>Fox News on Kentucky>>
Opioid Deaths Pass A Grim Milestone
So how can the church help in this opioid crisis? Before we talk about how, we need to discuss why we must. It’s not clear that any other institution, particularly those that lost so much public trust in the last 25 years, has anything much to offer. They are largely exhausted as social resources.
The Gospel is never exhausted. It offers a clear sense of who we are, a source for meaning and purpose that goes beyond our age’s radical individualism, and a potential source of the kind of social support everyone, especially men, desperately need. It also offers a clear call: to run into the brokenness, not away from it. To go where people are, into broken communities and families, often to those beyond our comfort zones, and be part of the solution. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost; can we, who claim Him as Lord, do less in the face of this challenge?BreakPoint>>
Kids Are Dying. How Are These Sites Still Allowed
A few years ago, a website about suicide appeared. On it, not only do people talk about wanting to die, but they share, at great length, how they are going to do it. Through public forums, live chats and private messaging, users can get advice as they make their plans. Times reporters were able to identify 45 people who killed themselves after spending time on the site, several of whom were minors. The true number is likely to be higher.NY Times>>
Assisted suicide pod approved for use in Switzerland “The person will get into the capsule and lie down. It’s very comfortable. They will be asked a number of questions and when they have answered, they may press the button inside the capsule activating the mechanism in their own time.”The Hill>>
Segment 2:
Our Nation’s Crime Spike and the Need for Shalom
Communities must develop around virtuous citizens and mutual responsibility. The more shalom is cultivated within a community, the less “the stick” of coercion is needed. An essential ingredient is what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of society, the flourishing of non-governmental, local networks and institutions, an often intangible infrastructure of education, creativity, care, and problem-solving.
BreakPoint>>
Chicago Mayor Invests $400 million in social plan to curb violence
“We may not call all of these (aspects in the “Our City, Our Safey” plan that highlights violence prevention, street outreach, affordable housing, job training, health and wellness, and community development) things part of the tools of public safety, but they absolutely fundamentally are. Because when people are healthy, when communities are vibrant, when folks feel like they have ownership of the geography under their feet, communities thrive.”
~Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot on $400 million safety plan targeting 15 communities in Chicago
Chicago Sun Times>>
Every generation, it seems, complains about the next generation’s music, sometimes for moral reasons and other times from taste. When Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring debuted in Paris, it sparked outrage from conservative opera-goers, leading to a full-scale riot.
While musical styles often differ, the emerging consensus of researches suggests that music leaves its mark, especially when it delivers lewd or violent content. Multiple studies published in the American Association of Pediatrics, for example, have found a strong correlation between listening to sexualized lyrics and risky sexual behavior in teens.
“Let me write the songs of a nation,” says a quote sometimes attributed to Homer and sometimes to Scottish statesman Andrew Fletcher, “and I care not who writes its laws.” Music is a powerful medium, shaping how we think and what we love.
Recently Emily Ratajkowski publicly regretted her role in Robin Thicke’s 2013 song Blurred Lines. Far from empowering, she now mourns the ways it commodified her body - and taught younger girls to do the same.
When Solomon wrote, “Above all else, guard your heart,” that includes music… “for everything you do flows from it.”
In his article “A Photo History of Male Affection,” Brett McKay catalogs the dramatic ways male friendship has changed over time. One hundred years ago, men were far more comfortable showing each other everyday physical affection: draping arms over shoulders, sitting close to each other, even holding hands.
To modern eyes, McKay’s examples look, well, odd. It seems impossible for us not to see some kind of homosexual subtext to these photos. But challenging that assumption is precisely why McKay wrote this article in the first place. “[You] cannot view these photographs through the prism of our modern culture and current conception of homosexuality,” he writes. “What you see in the photographs was common, not rare; the photos are not about sexuality, but intimacy.”
In other words, as crazy as it sounds, we’re the weird ones. The typical ways men have shown each other affection for all of human history are so foreign to us that, when we see them, we don’t recognize them.
That’s the exact phenomenon C.S. Lewis wrote about in The Four Loves, when he said that “those who cannot conceive friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a friend.” [emphasis added]
Lewis was right in more ways than he knew.
Americans are lonely. According to research from Harvard Graduate School of Education, 36% of Americans report feeling “serious loneliness,” as do an incredible 61% of young adults. According to a Cigna health survey, nearly 54% of American adults agree with the statement, “nobody knows me well.” Isolated and glued to our screens, it’s a crisis that’s only getting worse.
The most significant decline in friendship is among men. According to a May 2021 poll, the percentage of men who say they have “no close friends” has quintupled since 1990, affecting nearly one out of every six American males.
There are obvious reasons why ours is a lonely culture, and most of them predate the global pandemic: a high rate of geographical mobility, time spent traveling for work, and time on screens all play significant roles.
And yet, behind those factors is one few people are willing to talk about: the power of ideas, namely ideas about sex. We’ve created a culture so obsessed with disordered erotic love that we’ve all but thrown away the concept of friendship as a vital component of life. This is especially true for men.
There’s evidence that the over-sexualized experience of American men is dramatically harming their ability to foster their other relationships. A good example is the effects of pornography. Porn addiction fuels cycles of loneliness, draining motivation and hijacking the brain's reward centers. Men addicted to pornography have less capacity to form life-giving relationships with real people.
And increasingly, pornography is contributing to the sexualization of men, in a widening trend across culture. As the visual matrix of our collective brains are trained to see both men and women as sexual objects, what will the impact on male friendship be? Like McKay observes, the increase in - and corresponding fears of - homosexuality are exactly what led to the cooling effect in male friendship in the first place.
One NYU researcher put it this way: “Children have remarkable social and emotional skills — to listen to each other, to read each other's emotions, empathy, all sorts of lovely things.” But when they hit adolescence, “[You get the] ‘No homo’ [response], as if I've been asking a question about their sexuality rather than about their friendships."
The tragic irony is that, these days, we are asking, or more accurately forcing questions about their sexuality. We tell girls who like to climb trees that they’re actually boys. We tell boys who share emotions with their friends that they might be gay. Caught between what they are told is sexual behavior toward other men, and the type of cold, isolated masculinity demonstrated for them everywhere else, it’s no wonder so many boys grow into lonely men.
In the 1993 film Tombstone, Doc Holliday is asked why he’s going to such lengths to bring a band of outlaws to justice. “Because Wyatt Earp is my friend,” he says, referring to the legendary gunslinger. “I got lots of friends,” comes the reply. Doc pauses for a second, then says simply, “I don’t.”
Male friendship has always been a precious thing. It’s worth fighting for. The first and best way to do this is to teach young boys what it means to be a friend. Sharing emotions and normal physical affection are not inherently sexual acts. But on a societal level, restoring friendship to its proper palace means keeping sexuality in its proper place.
If we don’t, it will keep ruining the relationships men - and all people - need the most.
According to Lifeway Research, over 90 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, but only 22 percent feel confident they could retell the story of the Jesus’ birth from memory. 17 percent said they couldn’t remember any of it!
It’s tempting to cry out with Charlie Brown, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?!?!” Maybe it’s time to whip out the Charlie Brown Christmas Special, and watch Charlie go through the motions of the holiday season without knowing why. Right when he is at his wit’s end, Linus steps into the spotlight, literally, and recites the Nativity story from Luke’s Gospel.
The more our world detaches from the Bible, the more it detaches from truth. What the world needs are more Linus-es. Only the Church has the words of life, the message that explains, not only the reason for the season, but the real story of the world, why it is the way it is, and how God took on flesh to make all things new
Yesterday on BreakPoint, we talked about the rise in addictions and overdose deaths due to our nation’s opioid crisis. Through a constellation of unemployment rates, cultural darkness, and opioid availability, thousands in America’s “Rust Belt” are falling to what are being called “deaths of despair.” All of which was worsened by the greed and deception of pharmaceutical companies and the FDA.
And now, thanks to a new report, we know that the largely rural pain of opioid deaths is being matched by a predominantly urban crime scourge. In the last year, there’s been an increase in crimes of all kinds, from shoplifting flash mobs to property crimes to outright murder. Just as with the opioid crisis, a network of causes is behind the uptick in lawlessness, and the consequences are particularly devastating for the poor living in many of our nation’s urban centers.
Though violent crime per capita isn’t as bad as it was in the early 90s, at least twelve major U.S. cities broke annual homicide records this year, before the first week of December. This includes Portland, Oregon, Tuscon, Arizona, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Philadelphia, a city of nearly 1.5 million people, had more homicides this year than New York and Los Angeles, a 13% rise from 2020 and breaking the homicide record set in 1990. Overall, major American cities have seen a 33% rise in homicides since the “new normal” of Covid began. 63 of the 66 largest police jurisdictions saw a rise in at least one violent crime category in 2020, those being homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.
An obvious factor is that, in many cities, deterrents to crime have been removed. Facing accusations of police brutality, activists and municipal leaders called for defunding the police, diminishing the presence of law enforcement, and scaling back arrests and prosecution for certain crimes. The results have not been good. Target, Walgreens, and CVS have largely pulled out of the Bay Area after stores were targeted for “smash and grab” looting. Criminals were slapped with only misdemeanors if they lifted less than $950 worth of merchandise. Cities like Chicago have seen crime waves that began downtown nut now have hit the suburbs as well. Many cities which advocated for defunding the police last year are now looking to beef up police departments as crime continues to rise. But for too many, this is too late. As one study put it, “marginalized communities endure endemically high levels of violence. The events of 2020 exacerbated disparities in several forms of violence.”
Communities already suffering from economic hardship and crime are now stripped of the legal and police protection their more affluent neighbors take for granted. Many corporations and shop-owners who experience not only a rise in crime, but a corresponding drop in profits conclude it’s best to take their business elsewhere. This can leave already doubly-afflicted communities without food stores and jobs.
Still, it would be mistake to place all the blame for this crime surge only on fewer police officers and reduced law enforcement. After all, in 19th century Victorian London, the police force shrank without precipitating more crime. The difference is, in that case, they were no longer needed. A people able to govern themselves by the conscience is not in need of the constables. In our moment, those pushing to reduce law enforcement got the math exactly backward. As our culture is showing an inability to govern itself, evidenced by dual epidemics of “deaths from despair” and what could be called “acts of desperation,” is not the time to lose the constable.
A word used often in Scripture is Shalom, often translated peace. So much more than the mere absence of conflict, shalom means wholeness, rightness, the state of being when things are ordered as they ought to be. It is right to insist that those who “protect and serve” do just that. Security is a non-negotiable prerequisite to shalom in civic life. Without it, outside investors will stay away from poverty-stricken areas and residents seek a better life elsewhere, taking their talent and resources with them.
Even so, security is only a first step. Communities must develop around virtuous citizens and mutual responsibility. The more shalom is cultivated within a community, the less “the stick” of coercion is needed. An essential ingredient is what Edmund Burke called the “little platoons” of society, the flourishing of non-governmental, local networks and institutions, an often intangible infrastructure of education, creativity, care, and problem-solving.
Without it, communities only experience a peace born of force.
This, of course, is precisely where the Church can thrive, doing what it’s always done, caring for those in need through things like charity and education and care, as well as by proactively encouraging the other spheres of society to live out their roles as God intended.
John and Shane discuss the role of subsidiarity in the life of Christians before they answer a question for resources on caring for the elderly and those with disabilities. Then, Shane asks John how Christians should prepare for a post-Roe world before John answers a question for resources on building a four-chapter Gospel framework.