Breakpoint

Hospitals across the nation are facing litigation concerns tied to their gender clinics. And John and Maria discuss the devastating effects of pornography on children. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

After claiming the U.S. Open's Women's Singles championship this week, Atlanta-born tennis star Coco Gauff paused to, in the words of ESPN's SportsCenter, "soak it all in." What she was really doing was kneeling with eyes closed and head bowed. In other words, she was praying, or as she told reporters later, "just saying thank you." At just 19 years old, Gauff is only the third American teenager to win the U.S. Open, the most recent being Serena Williams in 1999. She broke onto the tennis scene by defeating Venus Williams at Wimbledon when she was 15. All the while, her faith in Jesus Christ has been clear. She told The New York Times last year that she prays with her dad before every match—not for victory, but for the good health of both players. As she told reporters this week, "I don't pray for results. I just ask that I get the strength to give it my all." Amen. That's a prayer we should all soak in. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

For over 30 years, my friend Greg Koukl has taught Christians how to engage with people across worldview lines by asking questions. His first book Tactics has equipped thousands of Christians to communicate with wisdom and passion. This month, Koukl is releasing a follow-up to that book, entitled Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity's Toughest Challenges. Among the goals of the book is to make evangelism a less intimidating and more successful endeavor: "There are few things that cause more nagging guilt for Christians than sharing their faith. They feel guilt because they don't witness enough. They don't witness enough because they're scared. And they're scared for good reason. Sharing the gospel and defending it—apologetics—often feels like navigating a minefield these days. For most of us, engaging others on spiritual matters does not come easy, especially when people are hostile." Koukl helpfully distinguishes what he calls "harvesting," and "gardening." Because God brings the harvest, our goal is simply faithfulness to what is true about the world and about people. According to John's Gospel, some Christians harvest and others sow, so "that sower and reaper may rejoice together." A singular focus only on "harvesting," Koukl argues, leads to a number of problems. For example, the very important "gardeners" are encouraged to sit out the evangelism process, in favor of the "harvesters." This is often the case when Christians fail to understand the power of the cultural forces shaping the worldview of non-believers, one reason our Gospel seeds seem to only bounce off "hard soil." Christians, therefore, must also commit to "spadework," or digging up the faulty preconceptions about life, God, and humanity that people hold, often unknowingly. One great way to do this "spadework" is by asking questions. "Ask questions. Lots of them. Your first step in any encounter should be to gather as much information as possible. It's hard to know how to proceed—or even if to proceed—unless you first get the lay of the land. You need intel, and friendly queries get it for you. When you need to buy some time to catch your wits, ask a question. When you face a challenge you're not sure how to deal with, ask a question. When the conversation bogs down and you think it best to move in a new direction, ask a question. Whenever you're in doubt about how to move forward, ask a question." In Street Smarts, Koukl teaches the kinds of questions that are most effective while also providing sample conversations on the most common topics, which is another very important contribution of this book. In addition to answering the misconceptions about faith that people often have—from God's existence to the divinity of Jesus—Street Smarts helps believers engage others on the moral and social issues at the center of our cultural discourse, such as abortion and gender and the many topics related to human sexuality. Koukl provides the questions, the talking points, and the examples that can open up significant conversations, invite skeptics in, and challenge presuppositions. In the process, Christians will develop confidence in what is true. Our job is to jump in. The results are up to God. "You may be serving quietly, in the dark, often not knowing the true extent of your impact—going out in obedience, doing what is right, speaking what is true, laboring faithfully. The course of history is often changed by small things done by ordinary people at opportune times, even though they never realize it. We take what we have—our skills, our gifts, our capabilities, our opportunities—then place everything in the hands of the Savior. … A person may rebel at what you share, but if you're thoughtful in what you say and gracious in how you say it, chances are good you'll give him something to think about." This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we will send you a copy of Greg Koukl's book Street Smarts. As Koukl writes, both knowledge and action "breed courage." His book cultivates both. To receive a copy of Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity's Toughest Challenges, visit colsoncenter.org/September. As Koukl writes, "Now is not the time for fear of any kind. It's not the time to circle the wagons or to pull up the drawbridge. It's the time for ambassadors equipped with knowledge, tactical wisdom, and character to seize the moment as agents of change for the kingdom of heaven when the world needs them most."  For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

A California law decriminalizing loitering went into effect in January. When Governor Gavin Newsom signed it last year, neither its supporters nor its opponents attempted to hide what it was really about: prostitution. Police previously could stop and question people they suspected of soliciting. This led to, advocates agreed, discrimination against so-called "transgendered adults." What wasn't said out loud is that transgendered adults apparently present themselves in ways that lead them to be confused for prostitutes. According to a recent story in the Times of San Diego, the new law has led to an explosion in prostitution and sex trafficking in California. After all, the law says that police cannot try to identify prostitutes. It does not say that customers and traffickers can't. Often, laws that are put forward as "safety" measures for the LGBT community endanger other people. It's what happens when up is down, wrong is right, and all kinds of other really important words are redefined. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper, a black professor from Bates College, argued that so-called "anti-racism" has gone too far. "In their righteous crusade against the bad color-blindness of policies such as race-neutral college admissions, these contemporary anti-racists have also jettisoned the kind of good color-blindness that holds that we are more than our race, and that we should conduct our social life according to that idealized principle. Rather than balance a critique of color-blind law and policy with a continuing embrace of interpersonal color-blindness as a social etiquette, contemporary anti-racists throw the baby out with the bathwater." The term "anti-racist" came from a recent explosion of writing such as Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, and it carries enormous ideological implications. According to Kendi, "One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.'" For figures like Kendi and DiAngelo, anti-racism isn't just the commitment to combat racism wherever we happen to see it, it's the commitment to see racism everywhere, entrenched in the heart of society and present in all its aspects. Even more, to be "anti-racist" requires the adoption of a very narrow set of policy prescriptions, all of which come from an increasingly left side of the political world. In this world, white people must move from a position of "neutrality" to actively "centering" race in all their discourse. Only then can "whiteness" and "implicit bias" be identified, admitted, and confessed. In practice, Harper warns, this only obliterates any distinctions between "structural" racism, a term referring to racial injustices embedded in wider society, and the interpersonal interactions with people of different races. "It tends to rest on a troubling, even racist subtext: that white and Black Americans are so radically different that interracial relationships require careful management, constant eggshell-walking, and even expert guidance from professional anti-racists. Rather than producing racial harmony, this new ethos frequently has the opposite effect, making white-Black interactions stressful, unpleasant, or, perhaps most often, simply weird." This weirdness that Harper described is the fruit of Critical Race Theory, a wrong way to diagnose and respond to racism, because it makes racial injustice "a theory of everything." Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world in which his own children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." However, "anti-racism" reverses that, presuming to know one's character, a priori, based only on the color of skin. Another important insight from Harper's article is that our racial dialogue has been shaped by the "triumph of the therapeutic," which social critic Philip Rieff described as the "self, improved, (as) the ultimate concern of modern culture." In a moment in which everything is about the self, Harper believes that racial dialogue is often not about making real progress, but making ourselves feel better through confession and activism. Throughout the biblical narrative, people are described as having a common parentage and heritage as image bearers. The Apostle Paul told the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers in Athens that God "made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth." Those who are in Christ, no matter which tongue or tribe or nation or language they represent, are reconciled to their Creator and thus, to each other. Only Christianity can anchor this beautiful vision of the human condition on solid ground, and it has incredible implications for individuals and nations, for people and for social structures. Harper rightly concludes that we must see each other, first and foremost, as people, a kind of colorblindness that will prove far more effective than performative racial confessions or racialized division. That, however, is only true if there is something universal to our identity, dignity, and value. If there is, it must be an intrinsic reality of the human person, given rather than acquired. Only one vision of the human story, the biblical account of people and creation, offers anything like that. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 their 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, visit Colsoncenter.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. __________ 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

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." For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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?" For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 v

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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. __ 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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 l

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" For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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

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." For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 their 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 or 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, visit Colsoncenter.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'" For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 toward 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 the

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

In The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche tells "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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 a barrier 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 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

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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 i

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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

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, visit Colsoncenter.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. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org