Breakpoint

Recently, Medium's Tom Whitwell reported, "a study of 14,000 Australians over 14 years found that neither being promoted nor being fired has any impact on either emotional well-being or life satisfaction." The fascinating study compares the emotional impact of a variety of life events, from retiring to going to jail, being robbed, getting married, or having a baby. Some of the results are what you'd expect. For example, major health issues hurt both emotional wellbeing and life satisfaction; and though getting married can be stressful leading up to the event, it brings distinct positives afterward. But surprisingly, neither getting fired nor getting promoted have long-term effects. That certainly challenges the idea that climbing the corporate ladder is the secret to happiness. Of course, other studies show the high value of work in general: as the Harvard Business Review summarizes, "being unemployed is miserable." All of which points a generation struggling with the meaning of work to the truth of how God made us. Work is a worthy endeavor … but not our ultimate identity.

We live at a rather unusual time in history when it comes to death. Not because there was ever an age when death was escapable, but because, until fairly recently, death was a much more present reality in people's lives. Infant mortality was high; women died in childbirth at much higher rates; different kinds of accidents claimed the lives of men, women, and children, not to mention infections, parasites, diseases. A major difference is that, in the past, people tended to die in their own beds. In-home Funerals were common. In fact, many homes were built with a coffin door to facilitate moving bodies in and out of the house. Much of this changed with the advent of antibiotics, which extended lifespans. The professionalization and institutionalization of medicine and the funeral industry changed the landscape. When people became gravely ill, they now went to hospitals. When they died, they were taken to funeral homes. Death was hidden from immediate experience, allowing us to ignore it and its inevitability. Though in many ways, the pre-modern world had a far more realistic understanding of life and death than we do today, that doesn't mean they better grasped the hereafter. Although ancient cultures possessed various views about what happens after death, there are only a few basic options to choose from. Some cultures believed that, after death, humans became spirits, either as a ghost or an ancestral spirit to be worshipped. There is evidence that this belief may go back as far as the paleolithic period. Other cultures believed in a more substantive afterlife, particularly those with more elaborate mythological systems. It was a dreary and desolate existence for some, even those not actively being punished for their sins. Others saw the afterlife in more favorable terms. This was especially true if one belonged to the elite or ruling class, though many visions of an afterlife included the prospect of judgment. Asian cultures were among those who held to some form of reincarnation in which, generally, the quality of someone's next life was determined by how well they lived this one. The meaning of life, within these systems, was to grow spiritually to a point where one could escape the cycle of reincarnation and lose individual existence. The only other real option, one typically held by philosophers and intellectual elites, was that death meant the end of personal existence altogether. This essentially materialistic view was held by diverse groups like the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and the Sadducees of Second Temple Judaism. These alternatives offered little hope for people facing the inevitability of death. Even those with a relatively positive vision of the afterlife sought to delay or prevent death. For example, Shi Huangdi, China's first emperor, built a magnificent tomb for himself, full of goods set aside for his use in the afterlife. But, he also sought to find an elixir that would allow him to live forever. (Ironically, the elixir contained mercury, which may have hastened his death.) Overall, when it comes to death and the afterlife, the author's assessment in Hebrews sums up the ancients well: people were held in slavery by their fear of death (Heb. 2:15). Christianity changed all this. The Gospel is about God becoming man to take upon himself the punishment due to us, to die on our behalf, and to be raised from the dead as its Conqueror. By faith, we are united to Him. His death, resurrection, ascension into heaven, and glorification are made ours. Death is a defeated enemy, no longer feared by those who follow the one who already faced it and was victorious. We follow the one who can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death without fear. For the early Christians, these were not platitudes. Thus, many faced martyrdom with joy rather than renounce their allegiance to the One who died for them and rose again. Therefore, many tended the sick during terrifying epidemics, in complete disregard for their own lives, seeing death from sickness as simply another form of martyrdom and a doorway to a better life. Thus, they lived with a hope that stunned their pagan neighbors. This is why second-century church father Tertullian would observe that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church." The pagan world had never seen anything like this. Even the philosophers, who viewed death with such indifference, struggled to grasp how Christians faced death when simply burning a bit of incense to the emperor could avoid it. In the modern world, the Christian tradition of the ars moriendi, the art of dying well, has been replaced with the art of ignoring death. Our technologies make this possible in all kinds of ways but, as was made obvious in our global responses to COVID-19, do nothing to help us face the fear of death. The world needs what only Christianity offers: the promise of resurrection, a guide who can lead us past the gates of death, a world beyond this one in which all that is

Last week John Stonestreet joined the Colson Fellows in Training in a special teaching webinar. These live presentations with a Q&A to follow are a staple for the Colson Fellows program. Last week, Dr. Bill Brown asked John for an explanation on the speed and direction of culture change and how it is impacting mediating institutions and why it matters. For more on the Colson Fellows program visit www.colsonfellows.org

According to Fiona McDonald with Science Alert, "There's Evidence Humans Didn't Actually See Blue Until Modern Times" Apparently, people tend to group or separate colors in different ways depending on their language. In a lot of languages, blue wasn't considered a separate color. it was thought of as a kind of green. So many ancient writers compared the sky to copper and the sea to wine. Even today, Namibia's Himba tribe has several words for green, they lack any specific word for "blue," and have trouble even seeing it. At the same time, they could clearly see shades of green that are invisible to Western eyes. Language is not just a passive tool humans use to describe the world. It's a proactive means through which we understand the world. It's not that blue didn't exist or even that ancient people couldn't see it. It's the role of language in shaping how we see and think. In other words, when James talked about how important the tongue is, he meant it.

Though President Ronald Reagan signed into law a national holiday to honor Civil Rights Movement leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1983, it was not fully observed by all 50 states until the year 2000. This, like the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is an example of a law being upstream from culture rather than the other way around. Today, the day is recognized across the country and even by cities and nations worldwide. In more recent years, King's legacy as a leader, minister, and powerful orator has been complicated by allegations of sexual misconduct. He also held certain theological views, specifically about the Divinity of Christ, the resurrection, and the Virgin birth, that were not orthodox. What Dr. King was clear about was the doctrine of the image of God. The way that this exclusively Christian idea shaped his leadership and activism demonstrates what a world-changing doctrine it is. Specifically, it was King's outworking of the Imago Dei in legal theory, forged in the context of persecution and mistreatment, that led to what many think is the greatest legal work of the 20th century. Chuck Colson thought so. So, to commemorate Martin Luther King Day, here's Chuck Colson on Dr. King and his "Letter from Birmingham Jail:" "A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is out of harmony with the moral law." It was with these very words, in his memorable "Letter from Birmingham Jail," that Martin Luther King, Jr., threw down the gauntlet in his great Civil Rights crusade. King refused to obey what he regarded as an immoral law that did not square with the law of God. All across America today, millions of people are celebrating the birthday of this courageous man, and deservedly so. He was a fearless battler for truth, and all of us are in his debt because he remedied past wrongs and brought millions of Americans into the full riches of citizenship. In schools and on courthouse steps, people will be quoting his "I Have a Dream" speech today. It is an elegant and powerful classic. But I would suggest that one of Dr. King's greatest accomplishments, one which will be little mentioned today because it has suddenly become "politically incorrect," is his advocacy of the true moral foundations of law. King defended the transcendent source of the law's authority. In doing so he took a conservative Christian view of law. In fact, he was perhaps the most eloquent advocate of this viewpoint in his time, as, interestingly, Justice Clarence Thomas may be today. Writing from a jail cell, King declared that the code of justice is not man's law: It is God's law. Imagine a politician making such a comment today. We all remember the controversy that erupted weeks ago when George W. Bush made reference to his Christian faith in a televised national debate. But King built his whole case on the argument, set forth by St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, that "An unjust law is no law at all." To be just, King argued, our laws must always reflect God's Law. This is the great issue today in the public square: Is the law rooted in truth? Is it transcendent, immutable, and morally binding? Or is it, as liberal interpreters have suggested, simply what courts say it is? Do we discover the law, or do we create it? Ever since Dr. King's day, the United States Supreme Court has been moving us step-by-step away from the positions of this great Civil Rights leader. To continue in this direction, as I have written, can only lead to disastrous consequences—indeed, the loss of self-governing democracy. So I would challenge each of us today to use this occasion to reflect not just on his great crusade for Civil Rights but also on Martin Luther King's wisdom in bringing law back to its moral foundations. Many think of King as some kind of liberal firebrand, but when it comes to the law he was a great conservative who stood on the shoulders of Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine, striving without apology to restore our heritage of justice. This is a story I tell in my book, How Now Shall We Live?: a great moment in history when a courageous man applied the law of God to the unjust laws of our time, and made a difference. And that is the lesson we should teach our kids on this holiday. It is not just another day off from school or a day to go to the mall. That was Chuck Colson describing the important insights in Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail". Take a minute today to read through it, and to talk through it with your kids. Its central question is an especially important question today: "What makes a law just?"

John and Maria discuss a new report on the division in the American church. John outlines how it is helpful to have these kinds of reports, but Maria points out that statistics shouldn't be a determining factor on living out one's faith. Maria then asks John a few questions that embody some of the feedback we've received from our January commentaries. John explains the approach BreakPoint has inside these tense politically-charged moments and thanks and welcomes feedback from listeners as we navigate societal issues together. To close, Maria asks John for insight how to respond to church issues. John gives a perspective to help keep the story and the moment straight, while being the church. ** Story References ** THE THREE WORLDS OF EVANGELICALISM American evangelicalism is deeply divided. Some evangelicals have embraced the secular turn toward social justice activism, particularly around race and immigration, accusing others of failing to reckon with the church's racist past. Others charge evangelical elites with going "woke" and having failed their flocks.First Things>> Why Are Religious Conservative Parents More Successful at Passing on the Faith? Children of religious conservatives have a 19% chance of attending worship services at least weekly. This may sound low, but it's higher than the 15% chance we see in people from moderate or liberal families. At the other extreme, an estimated 43% of the children of religious conservatives report no worship attendance at all in young adulthood, compared to 52% for everyone else. Religious conservative parents are more effective at transmitting their faith to their children. We shouldn't overstate the effect here, though. Children from all groups are, on average, less religious than their parents. Religious conservative parents still face an uphill battle in passing on the faith. But they do fare somewhat better than their moderate or liberal counterparts, even those who are just as religiously committed themselves, belong to the same religious tradition, and are similar in other respects. IFStudies>> Remembering January 6 by Missing the Point Neither our faith nor our despair belongs placed in the idols of political parties or candidates. God has called us to this time and this place. Therefore, we cannot abandon our political moment no matter how messy it gets. Conversely, we should never treat our politics as if it's greater than the One who calls us. BreakPoint>> God (Still) Loves His World Bavinck lived and wrote amid a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. So, in many ways, his time resembled our own. Through his work, he sought to help Christians develop a robust "world-and-life view," one not only big enough to handle the vast changes of the emerging modern world but which would enable God's people to join His work in restoring all that's marred and misdirected by sin. BreakPoint>> ** Recommendations ** The Lost Daughter The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism

Activists in the mid-2000s coined the term "Latinx" as a gender-inclusive, non-binary way to describe anyone with Hispanic heritage. But According to one study, only 2% of Hispanic voters actually use the term, and almost 40% say it offends them. That might only be surprising to the academics, Hollywood stars, and policymakers who, for some reason, keep using it. Like other Romance languages, gendered language is woven into the fabric of Spanish. That's why the Royal Spanish Academy so fiercely resisted attempts to incorporate the term into its lexicon. Citing the swing of Hispanic voters away from the Democratic party in 2020, columnist Jamelle Bouie puts it this way, "No message, no matter how strong on the surface, will land if it isn't attentive to those forces and the other forces that structure the lives of ordinary people." Terms like Latinx assume a view of the world people don't actually live in: where "race" is all-consuming, and the daily reality of gender is ignored.

An old Chinese proverb says that if you want to know what water is, don't ask the fish. Why shouldn't we ask the fish about water? I asked that question to a group of high schoolers years ago, and they replied, "because fish can't talk?" No, you don't ask fish about water because fish don't even know they're wet. Fish don't know anything other than the water. Culture is to humans what water is to fish. It is the air we breathe, the environment we think is normal. Because of this, we often forget that culture could be different than it is, unless we travel to another culture or take note of a cultural change. That means we tend to accept culture as it is, rather than asking whether culture is good or bad. That's why it's so important that Christians find ways to step out of culture from time to time, to intentionally look at and evaluate our cultural moment. Often, we get distracted by the noisier stuff in our culture, and lose sight of what's important. But, as Brett Kunkle and I discuss in our book A Practical Guide to Culture, the louder parts of our culture are rarely the most important parts of our culture. In recent years, our cultural moment has become more and more relentless. We are pounded by issue after issue, such as addiction, the rise in suicidal ideation, the ever-growing list of identities and acronyms, and the onslaught of social media dominating every moment of every day. The issues are like pounding waves. They seem endless, and we feel them. However, there are also aspects of culture that we don't feel. Like the ocean, in addition to the waves we see and feel, there are undercurrents we barely notice until they sweep us out to see. These currents lurk beneath the surface, dramatically altering the landscape of our culture. One of the most significant cultural undercurrents is what historians and scholars call "the age of information." We live in a noisy world that is saturated with content. Today, you will likely encounter more information than someone who lived hundreds of years ago would have seen in their entire lifetime. The sheer amount of information available to us is stunning and historically unprecedented. Information is not neutral. Information carries and communicates ideas. These ideas may be true or false, but they are not neutral. Ideas matter. Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims. In other words, the age of information is also the age of ideas. Ideas have a source. This means we also live in an age of competing authorities. Certain existential questions become more important in certain cultural moments. One of the most significant questions that has emerged in our moment is, "who can I trust?" This is no small question. How can we glean the good when there are so many bad ideas floating around? The obvious reaction to the age of information is to think that what we need is truth. And, of course we need truth. But, if true information is added to a sea of information, it can easily get lost, part of the white noise we experience on a daily basis. The Apostle Paul's prayer for the church at Philippi is one we need to claim as our own in this cultural moment. Paul prayed for this church that "their love would abound more and more in truth and in all discernment." We need truth, and we need the skills to navigate all of the ideas, the competing authorities, and the information of this moment. The word for that is discernment, that ability to tell the difference between what is true and false, what is genuine and counterfeit, what is good and what is evil. This is one reason I encourage families to have World Magazine in their homes. WORLD has proven to be, in my home, a reliable source of discernment in this age of information. In addition to the print magazine, their digital resources and podcasts are committed to analyzing the events of our world through the lens of Biblical truth. WORLD is one of our closest Colson Center partners. For a gift of at least $20 this month to the Colson Center, we will provide a year's subscription to World Magazine, as well as access to their digital resources, podcasts, and the brand new World Opinions. If you're already a subscriber to World (and I hope you are), the subscription can be given to a friend, family member, or neighbor. I contribute weekly to the WORLD podcast, The World and Everything in It. I'm grateful for our long partnership and grateful that they've made it possible for the Colson Center to extend this incredible offer to you.

By contrast, Dixit explains, an important half of our brain lights up and makes new connections when we're actually at rest, which helps foster innovation and creativity. Because so many distractions preoccupy the modern world, we have to be intentional to have what previous generations did. Perhaps it's because God knew this quirk of human psychology that He gave the world the Sabbath and a command to rest. He knows what we need because He made us.

Several years ago, Cheryl Strayed hiked the Pacific Crest Trail from Southern California into Washington State by herself. In her memoir, Strayed described the trek as a search for self-fulfillment after several family tragedies, including her own divorce. In 2014, Strayed's story was made into a movie. In 2010, Julia Roberts starred inEat Pray Love, a movie adaptation of another memoir about a post-divorce self-fulfillment trip, this one across Europe. Last year, The New York Times published the essay "Divorce Can Be an Act of Radical Self-Love.," and last month, The Atlantic published a nearly identical piece claiming divorce was an exercise of "self-improvement." Everything was fine at home, the author claimed, but she just wanted 'something else.' Though it may not qualify as a trend just yet, a surprising number of Christian social media influencers, writers, and even pastors are announcing their own divorces using similar language. They describe the end of their marriages as a positive step in their own self-discovery, a matter of self-expression or, even, just another normal part of life. Last month, one pastor tweeted that his divorce was "the next best chapter in the evolution of our love." Of course, every marriage story is unique and, in a fallen world, marriages end for all kinds of reasons. However, the recent volume of stories publicly framed in similar ways using similar reasoning is worth noting. Not only are we struggling to do marriage well these days, we've also lost sight of what marriage actually is. Announcing divorce on social media is odd in and of itself, but most people sharing these sorts of testimonies will claim that, despite the pain and disruption of divorce, it is the right decision for them. It's not unusual for someone to refer to their decision to leave a marriage as being "brave," even if there was no infidelity or abuse. In light of the Bible's description of marriage as permanent and the dramatic harm, divorce inflicts on children; there's clearly a way of thinking about marriage at work here. In many of these stories, a sense of dissatisfaction, the pressure of family responsibilities, or even just boredom constitutes a marital crisis. What marriage actually is and what it is for, is irrelevant. Rather, marriage must accommodate our own self-expression. The highest good is found in minimizing personal pain and maximizing personal pleasure. Therefore, we must be true to ourselves over and above anything else. The sense that discontentment or anxiety is an emergency is both radically new and exclusively Western. Dr. Carl Trueman, in his book The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, sees this as a symptom of the modern philosophy of expressive individualism. This way of thinking imagines marriage as a speed limit instead of gravity. A speed limit is a social construct, something relatively arbitrary that was invented to order our lives together. Suppose something changes, such as an improvement in braking technology or additional houses built in the neighborhood. In that case, a speed limit can be altered or changed with relatively minor effort. Gravity, however, is not a social construct. It's built into the fabric of reality. It cannot be changed or altered. A speed limit might be broken without consequence (as long as you don't get caught), but gravity won't. In so many ways, from "no-fault divorce" to the trope of the "brave" divorce to calling same-sex relationships "marriage," we treat marriage like a speed limit. But it's not. Marriage is like gravity. A society constantly reimagining marriage in law will catechize its citizens to do the same. Up becomes down. Leaving becomes brave. What I want becomes right, even if it's not. In The Atlantic article mentioned earlier, the writer admits to leaving her husband and kids to focus her time on her career as a public defender. Because that's what she wants to do and likes the most, she theorizes she'll do more good in that role than by staying in her marriage. The logic breaks down. People suspected of crimes need good public defenders. Children who grow up in broken homes are vastly more likely to commit crimes than kids with married moms and dads. We may not like that it is this way, but gravity is still gravity. Marriage is still marriage, even if we want it to be different. Marriage is a real thing. God created it to last, by love and in mutual submission, until death. God created it to protect children and the good of the world. Christians should define and approach marriage as the Maker of marriage intended it to be, not as a speed limit that changes from one cultural moment to the next.

John and Shane respond to listener feedback that critiques John's commentary on the Woke Rebuilding of Notre Dame. John and Shane walk through why they believe the rebuild has problems, while also offering that it might not be as bad as it seems. Then Shane asks what resources are beneficial in pre-marital counseling, as a mom is asking how to come alongside her children in that area, and also in the area of race relations. Another listener wrote in to ask how she should talk with her daughter who is adopted from China about her birth country. The mother is trying to celebrate the culture her daughter comes from, while also being honest about the problems coming out of China right now. To close, a listener asks John and Shane to comment on the best process for mentorship in the church. John outlines the Colson Center approach, with an encouragement for listeners to consider joining the Colson Fellows program this year. For more information on Colson Fellows, visit www.colsonfellows.org

Last week, The Wall Street Journal published the heartbreaking story of a 27-year-old man who died from a drug overdose back in 2020. Steven Gunner was conceived through the use of a sperm donor. He also struggled with schizophrenia. After his death, his mom and adoptive dad reached out to other children who were also fathered by Steven's donor, in order to let them know that their son's mental illness may have been genetically inherited. Their research confirmed that the sperm donor — known to them as just a number — had also suffered from schizophrenia, had also died by a drug overdose, and had not disclosed his mental health issues on health history forms - which American sperm clinics are not required to verify. The Gunners' research also revealed that Steven's father has at least 18 other children. It's unknown whether they also inherited schizophrenia from the father, but the Gunners' tragedy is yet another chapter in the larger story of assisted reproduction: when we rip apart God's design for families, there is pain in every direction.

BreakPoint with John Stonestreet Tags Length 1 Of 1 Title God Loves His World: Leavening Grace in Herman Bavinck Author Shane Morris Rcvd Recorded Air Date So, does God love the world or not? Does He plan to overcome it or restore it? Christians have long struggled to understand the various ways the Bible, especially the New Testament, talks about "the world." In John 16:33, for example, Jesus tells His disciples that "in this world (they) will have trouble," but to "be of good cheer" because He has "overcome the world." The Greek word here for "world" is "kosmos," often used by New Testament writers to present the world as an enemy of God and God's people, alongside the flesh and the Devil. However, in His famous conversation with Nicodemus (recorded a few chapters earlier), Jesus says that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son" to save it. The same word is used here, "kosmos." Understanding God's posture to His created world was a central part of the thought and work of a 20th-century theologian whom every Christian should know. Herman Bavinck, who died a century ago, was a Dutch Reformed theologian and statesman who served alongside the more famous Abraham Kuyper. Theologian and Colson Center board member Jennifer Marshall Patterson recently wrote about Bavinck's work in a WORLD Opinion column. As she explained, God's love for His creation and His plans in Christ to restore it, rather than replace it, was central to Bavinck's theology. It also makes a world of difference within a Christian worldview. Bavinck lived and wrote amid a rapidly shifting cultural landscape. So, in many ways, his time resembled our own. Through his work, he sought to help Christians develop a robust "world-and-life view," one not only big enough to handle the vast changes of the emerging modern world but which would enable God's people to join His work in restoring all that's marred and misdirected by sin. Bavinck was especially fond of the oft-used biblical metaphor of leaven. According to Patterson, he saw the Christian worldview as an "activating agent that enables everything to expand to the fullness of its created potential." Jesus likened the Kingdom of God to leaven, which works through the dough, turning it into bread. In other words, leaven works according to the nature of the dough, not against it. In the same way, Christ works to redeem God's creation, a creation He declared to be "very good," though now marred by the Fall of humanity. Simply put, the Gospel does not work against creation but according to God's intent for it. At the same time, Bavinck never downplays the damage of the Fall. He describes it as a brokenness manifested in our four most fundamental relationships, relationships we were created with by God: our relationship with God, our relationship with self, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the created order. As Patterson put it, "Sin fractured each of these relationships. God's grace operates to restore them. In our context today, the challenges that individuals and communities face—from divorce to opioid addiction to suicide—have to do with brokenness in one or more of these relationships." Among Bavinck's most import and powerful insights is that instead of seeing the full scope of these relationships as largely irrelevant, as many Christians do, we are called to announce Christ's redemptive work for each of them. Even further, we are to advance this redemptive work in any way we can. This is what real "human flourishing" looks like. Our culture presents very different, competing ideas of human flourishing: material possessions, self-expression, sexual fulfillment, etc. A Christianity that only addresses the so-called "spiritual" stuff, with no understanding of God's original design for His world, cannot compete with or critique these false worldviews. As Bavinck's fellow Dutchman Abraham Kuyper famously said, Christ claims lordship over "every square inch" of life. Thus, a fully-formed Christian worldview will see no relationship, calling, or sphere as outside of the jurisdiction or redemptive power of Jesus. The Bible sometimes uses the term "world" to refer to a realm broken and corrupted by sin, which threatens to take captive the hearts and minds of humanity. Other times, it refers to the realm God created as good. However, as Bavinck taught, Scripture is clear that God loves the world He created, and He intends to make it new, redeeming and glorifying it and His image-bearers. Or, as one commenter on Bavinck put it, echoing the carol "Joy to the World," God's intent to restore His creation reaches "as far as the curse is found." The work of Herman Bavinck should be better known and studied. Patterson's WORLD Opinion piece is a great place to start. A recently compiled and translated version of his work is available by the title The Wonderful Works of God. This approach to God's world is the kind of leaven this cultural moment needs.

Canada has just adopted a new ban on so-called "conversion therapy" that criminalizes any "practice, treatment, or service" designed to change, repress, or reduce a person's same-sex attraction or transgender identity. According to WORLD, the ban covers even the mildest forms of "talk therapy," including counseling for adults who want to de-transition. So, in effect, Canada is denying that people even exist who detransition or who may legitimately want help reconciling themselves with their biological sex. And offering that service is punishable by up to five years in prison. The lack of science behind this law is staggering. As Canadian clinical psychologist James Cantor points out there's not a single study showing harm from so-called "transgender conversion therapy." It could, in fact, be desperately needed, since up to 80 percent of minors with gender dysphoria will desist at puberty. This Canadian law isn't designed to protect patients. Rather, it is designed to protect the convenient fiction that transgender feelings are unchangeable. We know this narrative is false. Though Canadian lawmakers may want to pretend de-transitioners don't exist, that's as much a denial of reality as believing someone can change their biological sex in the first place.

"What people once expected from the Almighty, they now expect from the almighty bureaucracy. That's a bad trade for anyone, but for the Christian, it's rank idolatry." This observation, made by Chuck Colson in his book, God and Government, is as true today as when he wrote it. In fact, all the evidence needed to prove that America has made the "bad trade" Chuck described, was on full display last week. Most of the commentary reflecting on the anniversary of the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol was basically as expected. Voices on the left, most notably the Vice-President, attempted to place the day within the pantheon of America's darkest hours alongside 9/11 and the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of course, this was more rhetoric than reality, less about "never forgetting" and more about advancing progressive agenda items and attempting to preemptively salvage the midterms. Though many on the right denounced the violence from January 6, others repeated the widely discredited theory that it was a "false-flag" event. Others went as far as to describe it as something to celebrate. Senator Ted Cruz applied the term "terrorism," before backpedaling furiously on Tucker Carlson's show. In other words, a discouraging number of voices, pundits, and leaders chose to reduce the day to a pre-determined set of political talking points, and therefore largely missed the point. At a moment where we so desperately need better thinking about our national experiment, we were served breathless partisan outrage instead. The irony, of course, is that breathless outrage may be the only bipartisan activity remaining in this deeply divided age. Two-thirds of Americans now doubt the integrity of our elections, which means that cynics come from either side of the aisle depending on who wins. And, according to these same voices, each and every news story, whether political or not, must be understood as a referendum on our very democracy, which is at stake. Of course, democracies are put at risk by bad policies and politicians and, in many ways, ours is up for grabs at the moment. Still, whenever that happens, much bigger problems, that are upstream from whatever election, policy, candidate, or riot of the moment, are revealed. Politics is an unavoidable part of life, but it's never good when politics becomes life… not for an individual nor for a society. A few decades ago, the slogan "the personal is political" was coined as a way of calling the state to enlarge personal freedoms. Today, our slogan may as well be the reverse. "The political is personal," especially when the state and the political process is expected to determine morality, humanity, or reality. Politics, however, cannot carry that kind of weight. Only what is transcendent can determine what is good, what is just, and what is true. As Christianity fades in our nation's collective memory, we increasingly look to politics as its substitute. It's a poor one because the pragmatic can never replace the transcendent. Put differently, politics makes for a lousy worldview. Like lenses through which we see reality, worldviews either enable or prevent us from seeing the world clearly. Any worldview built on the political alone will be the wrong prescription and will leave us with blind spots. For example, we'll imagine individual leaders as either demi-gods or devils. In reality, they simply lack the power to bring either the glory they promise or the ruin we fear. "To think of everything as political," wrote Jacques Ellul in The Political Illusion, "to conceal everything by using this word…, to place everything in the hands of the state, to appeal to the state in all circumstances, to subordinate the problems of the individual to those of the group, to believe that political affairs are on everybody's level and that everybody is qualified to deal with them—these factors characterize the politicization of modern man and, as such, comprise a myth. The myth then reveals itself in beliefs and, as a result, easily elicits almost religious fervor." In our case, it's no longer "almost." In many ways, politics is all that's left. The state is increasingly inseparable and often indistinguishable from the rest of culture. The vast variety of pre-and non-governmental life, from family to neighborhoods to worship to what Edmund Burke called "the little platoons" of society, have all become quite thin. That's neither healthy nor sustainable. In response, some have called Christians away from politics altogether, and even away from the love of country. However, we must not trade one error for another. We are not called to a pietistic, disembodied love of the human race. God calls His people to love particular neighbors in particular communities of particular nations within a particular cultural moment. To love our neighbors, to seek the welfare of the city, and to live faithfully to God in the time and place to which He has called us, will require more of us than just political engagement, but

According to the British news outlet The Guardian, it wasn't a happy holiday for many Christians in India. Radical Hindu activists raided Christian churches - smashing statues, burning Bibles, and threatening believers. This capped off an already bad year for Christians in India, a year that averaged 100 attacks on Christians in each of its first three months. It's vitally important that we remember our brothers and sisters around the world face great trials and tribulations. In totalitarian regimes like China, in hostile Islamic states like Iran, and even in ostensibly democratic nations like India, a public profession of faith in Christ is an invitation to harassment, persecution, and even death. Thinking of our brothers and sisters around the world also reminds us that we need to maintain a bigger perspective about life. There's much more to the world than what happens on social media. As important as controversies might seem, and sometimes are, the strength and suffering of Christ's church is more important our Twitter feed. Let's pray for the church around the world.

"It is the glory of God to conceal a matter," writes the author of Proverbs, "(and) to search out a matter is the glory of kings." The Biblical account of reality—that God created a world that was knowable and His image-beares to be knowers—powerfully explains the human drive to learn and investigate the world around us. It also justifies the utilization of general revelation as we pursue knowledge of the created order through various branches of science. To put it bluntly, the Bible is not anti-science. Rather, the Bible explains why science works. And, every once in a while, the Bible offers an insight that shed further light on an unsolved question of science. That seems to be the case with the Assyrian destruction of Lachish, an event recorded in the book of Kings. The accurate Biblical accounting of this event has provided scientists with a reliable anchor from which to better answer two tricky dilemmas: one having to do with geophysics and the other with archeology. A recurring question of geophysics is how to measure changes in the Earth's magnetic field over time. The Earth's magnetic field acts like a massive cosmic shield, protecting us solar winds that could disrupt navigational equipment, introduce harmful radiation into the atmosphere, or perhaps even blow our atmosphere away completely. The earth's magnetosphere is not a perfect shield, however. For years, scientists have known of gaps in the magnetosphere over certain regions, which drift over time. However, since measurements have only been collected since the 1850s, there is also a significant gap in our knowledge of how the magnetosphere has changed in the distant past. Though it's possible to take sizeable measurements from the magnetic record in rocks, localized measurements are much harder to obtain. Or, at least, they were harder to obtain until research found a way to use burned-out ruins from ancient archeology. Tel Aviv University's Yoav Vaknin recently led a team to Tel Lachish to measure magnetism. When the Assyrian King Sennacherib burned Lachish in 701 BC, he unknowingly reset the magnetic charges in the minerals found in floors, tools, and pottery pieces. As they cooled, these artifacts re-attuned to the Earth's magnetic field, forming a snapshot of the Earth's magnetic field in that particular location at that specific moment. With enough snapshots like this one, scientists could much better piece together how the magnetic field has changed over time. If, of course, the Biblical dating of this event is accurate. The consensus from historians is that it is. "In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah's reign," 2 Kings 18:13 tells us, "Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah." By providing accurate dating of Aramean, Assyrian, and Babylonian conquests of the region, the Bible gives scientists the kind of helpful "data footholds" they can reliably use. And this is connected to a second advance enabled by the Bible in archeology. For reasons not fully understood, radiocarbon dating isn't accurate around the years 800-400 BC, an historical period known as the "The Hallstatt Plateau." The curve of carbon-generated dates around this time is distorted, flattening out where it seemingly shouldn't. As a result, scientists cannot reliably carbon-date objects within a sizeable and important stretch of history. Breakthroughs like the one at Lachish give us a new way to find those dates through archaeomagnetism, a process that uses the magnetic readings from archeological sites to help determine their age. As with the advance in geophysics, archaeomagnetism is dependent on reliable, independently established dates from ancient history. That's the kind of thing Scripture offers over and over again This isn't the first time the Bible's accuracy has been vindicated, of course. The Old Testament predicted the existence of ancient groups like the Hittites long before anyone discovered evidence of their culture. Its description of the assassination of the same Assyrian king Sennacherib matches the one his son, Esarhaddon, provides in his records. At the ruins of Jericho, many archeologists believe there is evidence of a sudden structural collapse, which would align with how the book of Joshua describes the city's destruction. Of course, many mysteries remain about how the many pieces of the archeological record fits with the Biblical one. But in the words of archeologist and Jewish scholar Nelson Gluek, "[It] may be clearly stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a single Biblical reference." Yet, "scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or exact detail historical statements in the Bible." This is what we should expect from a religion grounded in history. The Bible describes real things that happened to real people. We should expect it to provide accurate data about the events it reports, even events from the ancient past. And if true, the data i

John and Maria reflect on the commemorations of January 6th. They outline how that event marked who we are, highlighting the summer riots and breakdown in cities that led up to the incident in Washington D.C. Then Maria asks John for further explanation of a BreakPoint commentary on the Woke influence in the renovations of the Notre Dame cathedral in France. To close, John explains to Maria how marriage is a reality, like gravity, in our world as Maria reflects on recent high profile divorces and the way marriage is being explained in their wake. -- Story References -- SEGMENT 1: President Biden and Vice President Harris Speak on Capitol Incident Anniversary President Joe Biden on Thursday addressed the nation on the anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.ABC NEWS TRANSCRIPT>> SEGMENT 2: The Woke Plans to Rebuild Notre Dame The 2019 fire in Notre Dame reminded the world of the importance, the history, and the beauty of this magnificent structure. As we mourned the damage, many hoped the building would be repaired to remind the world of its original purpose. Recently, the cathedral's reconstruction plans were announced and, unfortunately, the news isn't good. BreakPoint>> SEGMENT 3: Honor Jones chronicles "How I demolished by Life," celebrating her feminist divorce The Atlantic

Much environmentalism today assumes that humans are always the problem, and our activity is always harmful. But the more we study, the more we realize how resilient living things are. Recently, USA Today and the BBC reported that the infamous Pacific Ocean garbage patch—an area of more than 610,000 square miles littered with manmade trash—has become a thriving habitat for small marine animals. Scientists have found arthropods, crabs, and mollusks on more than 90% of debris—some of the species that would never live so far out to sea. This story is similar to a report a few years ago that peregrine falcons are now more common in some major cities than they are in the wild, primarily due to the abundance of tasty pigeons. Of course, litter is very bad for the ocean and the environment, but these reports remind us how resilient life is… it's almost as if it wasn't an accident that shouldn't be here, but a carefully designed part of how God made the world.

God has a long history of working inside prisons. The very first book of the Bible describes how God granted Joseph favor with a prison warden, something that eventually led to the saving of his family, the saving of Egypt, and the preservation of God's promises to establish the nation of Israel. The book of Acts gives several accounts of God working in prisons. For example, after Paul and Silas were miraculously released from jail in Philippi, the jailor and his whole household converted. And, Jesus Himself said that those who visit and care for prisoners are actually visiting and caring for Him. Of course, the founder of the Colson Center knew firsthand how God worked behind bars. Chuck Colson devoted much of his life to working with inmates, wardens, and justice systems, as well as with policymakers and family members of those incarcerated. Today, Prison Fellowship is the largest and among the most effective and well-respected prison ministries in the world. God is still working in prisons, as a recent news story from Religion News Service demonstrates. What Rodrigo Abd and German De Los Santos describe as taking place in an Argentinian prison, most of us would identify as a revival: evangelical Christians taking over entire cell blocks in one of that country's most crime-ridden cities. Rosario in Santa Fe Province is the birthplace of Communist revolutionary Che Guevara. Drug dealing and murder are common career choices there. Many young men end up as assassins, serving drug lords who, according to one prosecutor, often run their networks from within overcrowded prisons. These drug kingpins now face competition from, believe it or not, evangelical preachers. In addition to witnessing and making converts, these preachers are effectively starting their own prison units run by the inmates. Unsurprisingly, their units tend to be safer and calmer, with their own rules against fighting, smoking, alcohol, and drugs. Offenders are dismissed. Reportedly, there's not been a single riot in units where the evangelicals are in charge, and residents block the frequent attempts by prison gangs to infiltrate them. "We bring peace to the prisons," said one minister who helped establish these units. "And that is better for the authorities." (Not to mention, it's better for the inmates, too!). Another pastor explained, "We don't use knives, but the Bible, to take over a cell block." And, since prisons are often prime recruiting grounds for gangs, a revival behind bars will likely bring positive, long-term change to the broader community. Incredibly, 40% of Santa Fe Province's inmates now live in these Christian communities that exist "behind bars." Not only are residents finding greater peace, many are also granted greater freedom. One former hitman and convicted murderer, Jorge Anguilante, is allowed to leave prison every Saturday for 24 hours to minister back home at a church that he started. No one seems afraid he will escape. As he told reporters, his life as a contract killer is "buried," and Jesus has made him "a new man." In the late 18th century, American founding father Benjamin Rush started the world's first prison reform organization. He saw it as a noble and enlightened experiment that would improve both the lives of inmates and society as a whole. Chuck Colson was clearly motivated by the thousands and thousands of individual lives that the Gospel changed through the work of Prison Fellowship, as well as his conviction that "the church being the church" could be a redeeming force across society. For Chuck, that included the church behind bars. At the heart of a Christian worldview is Christ's work of redemption and renewal, an invitation not only to the respectable and law-abiding but to the outcast and criminal, and to those Paul called the "weak" and "foolish." It's available to anyone who, like the thief on the cross, will look to the Lord Jesus and say, "Lord, remember me." Clearly, Christ is remembering those calling on Him from a prison in the Santa Fe province in Argentina.

Kevin Kelly, co-founder of WIRED magazine recently argued that there are two problems emerging in technology. Class 1 problems are when tech doesn't work perfectly. Think of code glitches, the wheels are falling off, expensive repairs, and the like. Market forces typically solve these kinds of problems over the course of a few years. Class 2 problems, however, are more insidious. They arise when technology works too well. A good example is facial recognition software. "What if the system was infallible in recognizing a person from just their face?" Kelly asks. "There would be no escaping it, no way to duck out in public. You could be perfectly tracked …. not only by the public but by advertisers and governments. 'Being in public' would come to have a different meaning than it does now." To be clear, Kelly is no Luddite. But he does realize how limited our will and our abilities are to think through the implications of technology. Christians who understand the fall, not to mention human history, should join Kelly in this realization. Our only real grounding for ethics, which grounds our ability to determine the implications of technology, is if God made the world, and us in His Image.

Today could be the most significant Christian holiday that most Americans know about the least. Epiphany is set aside in the church calendar to remember the visitation of the Magi to the infant Jesus. The day's name comes from a Greek word that means "manifestation." Through these strange visitors, God's gift of Himself to the world was first made manifest to the wider world. Until recently, in much of the Christian world, gifts were exchanged on Epiphany, not Christmas day. A former BreakPoint colleague, who grew up in Puerto Rico, recalls neighborhood children leaving straw out for the Magi's camels on the night before Epiphany. Though most Christmas-time gift-giving today has largely shifted to December 25, what Epiphany commemorates is central to the Christian faith. Thus, it remains worthy of the Church's attention. Among those who understood this was Lew Wallace, who lived about as eventful a life as possible. Civil War buffs will tell you that he may have saved the Union at the Battle of Monocacy in 1864, when his forces delayed Confederate General Jubal Early long enough to prevent the possible capture of Washington, D.C. Later, as territorial governor of New Mexico, Wallace dealt with the likes of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Still, it was a reunion of Civil War veterans that led to that for which Wallace is best known today. A few years ago, this story was told on the FoxNews website by John Murray, head of Brookstone Schools in Charlotte and a commissioned Colson Fellow. On the train ride to an 1876 reunion in Indianapolis, Wallace was reunited with Colonel Robert Ingersoll, a man known as the "great agnostic." Ingersoll traveled across the country deriding and challenging people of faith. This time, he aimed his fire at his old comrade-in-arms, even though Wallace was mostly indifferent to his own Christian faith. Wallace would later describe their conversation this way, "To lift me out of my indifference, one would think only strong affirmations of things regarded holiest would do. Yet here was I now moved as never before, and by what? The most outright denials of all human knowledge of God, Christ, Heaven, and the Hereafter which figures so in the hope and faith of the believing everywhere. Was the Colonel right?" Determined to prove Ingersoll wrong, Wallace returned to a short story that he had written during the Civil War about the Magi, "who had captured his attention as a young boy — taking a 'lasting hold on his imagination." The conversation prompted Wallace to wonder again, "Who were they? Whence did they come?" Above all, "what led them to Jerusalem asking of all they met the strange question, 'Where is he that is born King of the Jews?" Starting with this meditation on the Epiphany, Wallace expanded his story, adding more meditations on the life of Christ. Eventually, in 1880, he published the finished work, about a fictitious Jewish prince named Judah Ben-Hur who discovered "the necessity of a Savior." You probably know it as Ben Hur: The Tale of the Christ. Ben Hur remained the best-selling American novel until Gone with the Wind, published in 1936. And, of course, it was the basis of the 1959 film starring Charlton Heston, which won eleven Academy Awards. When Wallace died in 1905, he believed he had met Ingersoll's challenge. Millions of Americans agreed. And, like the Magi before him and John Murray after him, Wallace's reflection took the light of Christ to the world around him. The rhythm of our society largely distracts us from "the true light, which gives light to everyone, (who had come) into the world." It's hard enough to see the Light in such a culture, even harder to fulfill our calling to take the light to others. A great way to start is by celebrating Epiphany. We've compiled a number of resources at BreakPoint.org to help you do just that. God has called the Colson Center to help Christians take the light of Christ into the world, specifically this one. So, take a minute to learn more about our podcast, the Colson Fellows program, and the upcoming Wilberforce Weekend.

Shane welcomes Michael Craven to answer listener questions. Michael and Shane respond to how a young listener can encourage the seniors in his church who seem worried by this cultural moment. They also answer if beauty is objective and what makes Critical Race Theory a worldview.

A horrifying new survey found the number of pre-adolescent children in the U.S. who admit to sharing nude images of themselves more than doubled last year. Fourteen percent of kids aged 9-12 say they have shared inappropriate pictures of themselves. This is up from just six percent in 2019. Of that number, over a third said they shared those images with someone they believed to be 18 or older. As WORLD notes, this spike in dangerous behavior coincides with the pandemic, which meant increased screen time for many folks. An obvious takeaway is that preteens are not mature enough to handle all that comes with unsupervised smartphone use. The more time they spend alone with their devices, the more opportunity for pornography and predators. At the very least, we must take active roles in our kids' tech use. Quarantining with screens is more dangerous for kids than COVID ever was. It may keep the virus at bay, but for children especially, it lets in things far worse

The 2019 fire in Notre Dame reminded the world of the importance, the history, and the beauty of this magnificent structure. As we mourned the damage, many hoped the building would be repaired to remind the world of its original purpose. Recently, the cathedral's reconstruction plans were announced and, unfortunately, the news isn't good. Notre Dame is rightly considered one of the most fantastic examples of French Gothic architecture. It took nearly 100 years to build, from 1153 to 1260, and incorporated several architectural innovations. For example, rib vaults and flying buttresses enabled the walls to be opened up for stained glass windows, including three beautiful, enormous rose windows. The only way to fully understand Gothic architecture is by experiencing it. Despite its dark-sounding name, Gothic cathedrals were built for light. This was to symbolize divine illumination. Vertical lines and soaring ceilings were intended to point thoughts and imaginations upward to God. In fact, as Dr. Glenn Sunshine has pointed out, nearly every aspect of Gothic cathedrals symbolically point to the truths of the Christian faith. And, in the case of Notre Dame, the result is simply jaw-dropping. For over 500 years, until the French Revolution, Notre Dame stood at the center of French Catholicism. The revolutionaries desecrated the church and destroyed much of the religious art. They beheaded the statues of biblical kings in the mistaken belief that they represented the kings of France. After a brief period in which Notre Dame was reconsecrated as the Temple of Reason, it was used as a storehouse for grain. Napoleon Bonaparte had the cathedral rededicated and redecorated in the then-popular Neo-Classical style as part of his efforts to restore the Church in France. After the Napoleonic Wars, the cathedral fell into such a state of disrepair, the French considered demolishing it. It was Victor Hugo's book Notre Dame de Paris (better known by its English title, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), which, more than anything else, spurred the French to renovate and restore it. Sculptors, glassmakers, and other craftsmen worked to reconstruct the cathedral using illustrations of it from before the Revolution. Whenever critical information was missing, the work was completed after the spirit and style of the thirteenth century. A taller and more ornate spire replaced the original, which had been removed in 1786. Historically, the French have demonstrated a commitment to preserve and, when necessary, restore the cathedral in its original spirit and style, with the desecration of the French Revolution and Napoleon's neo-classical decorative style as the most notable exceptions. (There was also the incident when, after being damaged by gunfire during World War II, some of the medieval glass was replaced by abstract art in the colors of the French flag.) The spire, the roof, and a considerable part of the interior were destroyed by the fire of 2019. Even before the structure had been stabilized, proposals for restoring the cathedral began pouring in, with many of them offering a modernist vision utterly incompatible with the medieval building. Many breathed a sigh of relief when it was announced that the roof and spire would be rebuilt as they had been. More recently, however, plans for the interior were released to the public. One Paris architect referred to what was planned as "a politically correct Disneyland." Mood lighting at head level would obscure the impact of the stained glass. Added light and sound effects would create "emotional spaces," and "themed chapels" as part of a "discovery trail" that would feature Africa and Asia and end in a chapel entitled "reconciled creation." An environmental focus, merged with Bible verses in various languages, would be projected on the walls. Modern art murals would be added, the confessionals would be removed, and the altars rearranged so that visitors could more easily experience the newly imagined cathedral. To say this is a travesty is an understatement. After all, nothing goes out of date faster than the latest taste and fashion. The previously timeless beauty of the cathedral would soon go the way of parachute pants and brutalist architecture. Even worse, the new design would undermine the message of the cathedral itself, which has long proclaimed an integrated set of eternal truths in a way that demonstrated how "the faith given once and for all" remains true and vibrant. Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not a culture like ours could make much progress in fully restoring a structure like that, given how different the dominant worldviews of the eras are. It would be a real shame if the eternal truths long attested to by and in this 13th-century cathedral were obliterated, especially if replaced by modern tastes and political correctness. Even more than a real shame, it would be a real loss.

A vlogger recently asked 100 different people to say their age on camera, starting with 1-year-old babies and ending with 98, 99, and 100-year-olds. It's kind of like watching 100 years pass in the course of 3 minutes. The common phrase used in ancient times was momento mori: remember that you will die. Respect for the elderly came not just from their wisdom, but because they had lived long enough to earn it. In our modern world, our relationship with age is complicated. Today, we tend to focus on youth. Americans spend billions annually to try and keep it. Scripture helps us live with both the certainty of death and the value of life by bringing in an additional dynamic. This is how the Psalmist put it: The godly will flourish like palm trees and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon. For they are transplanted to the Lord's own house. They flourish in the courts of our God. Even in old age, they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green.

In his new book, A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles: Instruction and Inspiration for Living Supernaturally in Christ, renowned Christian philosopher J.P. Moreland makes a provocative claim. Ninety-five percent of what the average evangelical church accomplishes in a given year, suggests Moreland, could be explained even if God didn't exist. In other words, too much of our sermons, programs, and worship could be explained away (and perhaps dismissed by outsiders) as due to skillful leadership, public speaking, and production quality. No work of God required. While I would suggest that Christians should strive to see God at work anywhere, including in the mundane and ordinary, Moreland's claim is provocative. His book, as we've come to expect from the professor at Biola's Talbot School of Theology, is carefully reasoned and worthy of consideration. In it, Moreland explores what miracles are, investigates whether they are still happening today, and offers guidance to Christians for identifying and experiencing them. True to his profession, Dr. Moreland begins by defining his terms. A miracle is a "supernatural intervention" into the course of natural events, either by God or an angelic being. Included in Moreland's definition would be those answers to prayer that come through what theologians often call "providence," in which God works events together toward specific ends. In fact, Moreland provides over forty accounts of supernatural intervention: from miraculous healings, to stunning answers to prayer, to near-death experiences, to spiritual warfare. He even includes stories in which God provided what we might consider being small requests: a pool table, a hot water bottle, even a parakeet. Dr. Moreland not only stands by the accounts included in his book, he stakes his reputation on the reliability of the eyewitnesses he interviewed. And, he includes accounts of miracles he personally witnessed and received. In making his case, Moreland does more than simply rely on stories. He offers a biblical case for why Christians should believe that miracles still happen today, perhaps more regularly than we recognize. Recently, Dr. Moreland discussed his book with Shane Morris for the Upstream Podcast. It's an inspiring and important conversation, especially in a "disenchanted" culture like ours that tends to dismiss the supernatural without due consideration. As Shane points out in the Upstream discussion, not every theologian shares this expectant attitude toward modern miracles. Some critics, such as 19th-century Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield, argued that miracles were "part of the credentials of the Apostles as the authoritative agents of God in founding the church." Because that main purpose has already been fulfilled, Warfield believed that miracle-working as a gift "passed away" with the Apostles. Moreland disagrees with this view, even though his academic training makes him cautious about supernatural claims. Still, he believes that Christians ought to expect miracles as a regular part of the Church's life. He goes so far as to urge readers to "err on the side of belief." Perhaps the most unique contribution of this book is Moreland's step-by-step guide on how to recognize a miracle and distinguish it from mere coincidence. Borrowing from the sciences, he employs what he calls the "Intelligent Agency Principle." A true miracle must meet two criteria: First, it must be very improbable—in other words, not something that typically happens by accident. And second, it must be independently meaningful, or have "specificity." It must answer a prayer or fulfill a need that clearly shows God at work. By applying these two principles, Moreland believes it's possible to distinguish miracles from coincidences with almost perfect accuracy and give God the glory He deserves as a result. There's much more to the book, as well, like the discussion on angels and demons and an exploration of why God doesn't always miraculously answer prayers. It's a must-read for anyone curious about how God works in the world today and how we can experience it. Also, Dr. Moreland's discussion with Shane Morris on Upstream touches on nearly all of these subjects. Come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary, and we'll link you to the discussion, as well as how you can get a copy of J. P. Moreland's A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles.

Os Guinness joins John Stonestreet to discuss the cultural landscape in America. The two visit how it is desperately important for Christians to consider their calling in society as a calling to represent Christ in this cultural moment. Register for the event with John and Os Guinness in Phoenix at www.colsoncenter.org/phoenix

Parents, educators, the church, and the state all play essential roles within a society, but when the state goes bad, it can take down every other sphere with it. For example, according to a recent article in The Economist, "A struggle is underway for the hearts and minds of Hong Kong's children." In August, the city's pro-democracy teacher's union disbanded, following a government crackdown that had called it "a malignant tumor." Since then, the curriculum now "educates" children solely on the virtues of the Chinese Communist Party. Speaking out against these changes could lead to life in prison. As a result, some parents have stopped talking about politics at home, fearing their young children will say the wrong thing at school. Others continue to teach their kids democratic ideas, at risk of government retaliation to themselves or relatives. As a result, tens of thousands of residents are leaving the city altogether. It's good that parents are aware enough to be concerned. Unfortunately, too many parents here fail to take seriously the ideas that threaten the hearts and minds in our schools.

In his best-selling book The Call, social critic and author Os Guinness observes that one reason Christians struggle to discern and follow God's will for their lives is that they haven't fully wrestled with the gravity and challenges of this cultural moment. The fact that we should see the challenges of this time and place as an essential and defining aspect of our calling, rather than an accidental context in which we live out our calling, is implied throughout Scripture. God reveals Himself to us as a God Who is concerned with and Who works through particular times and places. Even as He does so, He is providentially orchestrating a cosmic-sized plan of redemption and renewal. Nowhere in Scripture is this made more clear than in Acts 17, which describes Paul's sermon to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers on Mars Hill. In it, Paul says that God determines the times in which we live and the boundaries of our dwelling place. If what Paul says is truly the case, our moment in history is not an accident. We are called to it, especially those who follow Christ. Thus, we must seek to understand our cultural moment, and what it means to live out of the true Story of the world in this time and place to which we have been called. Os Guinness recently joined me on the BreakPoint Podcast to talk about exactly this and clarify the most important aspects of our cultural moment. Here's a sample of what Os had to say: Second to Alexis De Tocqueville is Lord James Bryce, who is an Englishman, around 1900. He warned about what he called "the completest revolution of all." He said, If you look at Europe, Europe always has tradition, of a sort, and social cohesion. He said, in 1900, that America has no tradition and no social cohesion. America is the freest and mobile civilization in history. He said that nothing holds America together, except one thing: religion. He said that if the day comes that America loses religion, too, then you'd have the 'completest revolution.' Put it another, one of the key elements of discipleship is responding to the times. People like to quote David's men, who were skilled at reading the signs of the times. The Lord rebukes his generation; they can read the weather, he says, but not the signs of the times. I think what's missing in the American church is a living awareness of the nature of the times we're in. Now, of course, you add to that, what's calling? Well, a Biblical view of leadership is not someone at the top. It's the person who takes the initiative and takes responsibility for either the opportunity or the crisis right in front of them. In other words, it's every one of us, in our spheres of calling; some are teachers, some are doctors, some are factory workers, some are politicians, people who take responsibility for the opportunities and the crisis right in front of their noses, at their level and in their sphere. And that's what we have to recapture today in the present crisis. You can take, say, the famous quote from Martin Niemoller, they came for the unionists, and I wasn't one, so I didn't speak up. They came for the Jews, and I wasn't one, so I didn't speak up. They came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up. And then you remember he says, and then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up. This is a time when every American, certainly every follower of Jesus, has got to stand up and speak out exactly where they are. That was my friend Os Guinness, and a part of our conversation from the BreakPoint Podcast. Os and I will be continuing this conversation during a special event at Redeemer Bible Church in the Phoenix area, on January 14th at 7pm. We'll attempt to answer the question: "What kind of people will we be? The Church and culture at a crossroads." If you are in the Phoenix area on January 14th, you can register to attend this event at no charge. If you're not in the area, please come to BreakPoint.org to sign-up for the Livestream.

John and Maria recount prominent people who passed in 2021, the top inventions of the past year, and important trends to consider as we close out the year. Then, John and Maria look ahead at current movements in culture. They consider the move of parents to be more involved in their school districts, the influence of China worldwide, and the pro-life movement. John closes the discussion by sharing how the Church is in an important position as we enter 2022, equipped to answer the big questions the culture is asking.

**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Like every other student in America, Mississippi third-grader Lydia Booth has to wear a face mask to school. But when Lydia donned her favorite mask, with the words "Jesus loves me" on it, school officials forced her to remove the mask and threatened her with suspension if she wore it again. As the Alliance Defending Freedom points out, students in Lydia's school were wearing masks with all kinds of messages, from Black Lives Matter to sport-team logos to images and brands. Yet school officials singled out Lydia, and then created a policy banning masks with religious, political, or "offensive" messages. The policy that clearly violates a students' right to free speech, so ADF has now filed a federal suit on Lydia's behalf. To stand with Lydia, you can request a "Jesus Loves Me" mask produced by Revelation Media. Proceeds will be used to help ADF protect Lydia's rights and all of ours.

**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Faithful watchers of the Olympics experience a letdown after the games are over. This year, with viewership in a freefall, there was likely not enough enthusiasm for there even to be a letdown on Monday morning. Many have tired of the politicization of this year's games, which started before the opening ceremonies. Patriotism, courage, and even "historic performance" were redefined in Tokyo, and for the worse. However, there is one protest, a quiet one, that demands our respect from the 2021 Olympics. Female athletes who are mothers earned well-deserved attention. Not merely with social media statements or corporate endorsements, but for winning medals and advocating for life. This Olympic narrative is not only heroic but counter-cultural in women's sports. In 2008, gold medal favorite Sanya Richards-Ross boarded a plane for the Beijing Olympics games after visiting an abortion clinic. Her husband, Aaron Ross, was in practice with the New York Giants, so Richards-Ross terminated her pregnancy alone. She came home with a bronze medal, writing later, "I made a decision that broke me." Richards-Ross went on to say that every female athlete she knows has had an abortion. This year, the U.S. Women's Olympic Track & Field team replaced a star runner in the 200 meters hurdles after she was slapped with a five-year ban on competition. The runner failed to follow anti-doping procedures because she was "traumatized after having an abortion". Her trauma lingers now even as she is facing repercussions for responding as she did to the anti-doping process. McNeal now speaks out against the pressure female athletes face in choosing career over motherhood. Now a truly historic performance in the 2021 Olympics games may change this narrative in profound ways. Allyson Felix is the most decorated track star in U.S. history. Tokyo was her fifth and final Olympics games, and she has left with two more Olympic medals. Perhaps she will display them beside a picture of her two-year-old daughter whom she carried and gave birth to despite pressures to abort her. The decision to carry her child nearly cost Felix her life. Felix had already won six gold medals and three silver medals before becoming pregnant in 2018. She chose to carry her child, even when her pregnancy was found to be high risk. At 32 weeks Felix underwent an emergency C-section. Throughout the pregnancy, Felix faced intense pressure from her sponsor. After she opted to keep her baby, Nike, her corporate sponsor, pushed a new deal that included a 70 percent pay cut to her previous contract, with no maternity exceptions. The sports brand wagered that Felix's performance would falter as she bounced back and forth from competing to pregnancy to juggling motherhood. Felix spoke out, challenging the double-standard that exists in women's athletics for moms. Nike has since restructured how it works with mothers after Felix challenged the double standard. Following her Olympic successes, Felix is refocusing her attention on a new endeavor called "The Power of She Fund." The new organization is designed to support mom athletes in practical ways. The Power of She Fund will provide childcare for mothers who compete at high levels, offering them the support and encouragement they need. At least nine athletes who competed in Tokyo participated in Felix's program this year. These athletes received childcare grants that opened opportunities for greater training. Felix's work is also inspiring women's athletic brands to get behind mom athletes. Athleta and the Women's Sports Foundation are both corporate sponsors for The Power of She Fund. Felix's story is a tremendous example of what it takes to change culture. The ideas that are evil must be challenged; the imagination of what is possible must be expanded; new and better ideas must be offered. Also, very importantly, the direction of corporate pressure must be changed. In this case, it was from pro-abortion to pro-child. Hopefully, the important work of Allyson Felix will undo the abortion-minded atmosphere that currently surrounds women's athletics.

**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** G.K. Chesterton said that gratitude was "nearly the greatest of all human duties, (and) nearly the most difficult." It is the greatest of human duties because, as Paul wrote the Corinthians, "what do we have that we did not receive?" Truth, tradition, technologies, medicine, democracy, relative peace, are all things that were given to us by those who've gone before. And yet, to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when things are going well. Expressing gratitude in a year like this, is much more difficult. Things could have gone better. We mourn for our friends and neighbors who've faced sickness, financial struggles, and relational fractures throughout this year. Gratitude in difficult times is what Jonathan Edwards called "gracious gratitude." We give thanks, not just for what God has done for us and not for what we've received, but for who He is. This gratitude is relational, not conditional. Though our world may shatter, we are secure in the One who made us and who saved us, and we can never be separated from His love.

**The following is a review of one of the top stories of 2021** Francis Schaeffer described how ideas escape the ivory towers of universities and think tanks eventually to shape how ordinary people think, speak, and view their world. In 2020, one idea made that journey in record time. Not that long ago, conversations involving Critical Race Theory were largely relegated to academic papers, classroom discussions, and scholarly journal articles. Today, dialogues about CRT can be found across social media, in corporate boardrooms, and even in the Church. As a theory, CRT descends from European and North American philosophical traditions, particularly Marxism and Postmodernism. Like these worldviews of its intellectual ancestry, CRT sees the world in terms of power dynamics. In this way of thinking, social evils such as poverty, crime, or oppression result not from universal human frailties but from Euro-Americans intent on securing and increasing their economic and social power. Based on this metanarrative, equality and justice demand privileging the stories of those kept out of power. CRT sees members of the oppressed group as morally right, and members of the oppressor group as morally wrong. CRT, like any worldview framework, should be evaluated. That, however, is easier said than done, even in the Church. Advocates often point to common ground between Critical Race Theory and the Christian worldview (for example, the commitment to justice and human dignity), and label any critiques of CRT as convenient ways to avoid confronting injustice and racism (which may not be true, but often is). Many Christian critics, myself included, are specifically concerned with how CRT conflicts with a Christian worldview, particularly in areas of identity and morality. Not everyone agrees. Recently on Twitter, a defender of CRT boldly tweeted, "Whoever told you CRT is a worldview was either lying to you or didn't know what they were talking about." Of course, assuming malice or greed is a way of dodging the question rather than making an argument. Another Twitterer offered a different response, "If CRT is bad because it's a 'secular worldview' and we must only derive our worldviews 'biblically' then I better not see a TRACE of Aristotle or Plato in your worldview either, brother." This one is a slightly more clever way of missing the point or, specifically misunderstanding what it means for a worldview to be "biblical." To have a Christian worldview is to hold views that are consistent with the Bible, not to only have views that are in the Bible. The problem with Critical Race Theory is not that it isn't found in the Bible; it's that it offers a very different explanation of humanity, sin, and redemption than the Bible does. Like the postmodernism that birthed it, Critical Race Theory can be considered a worldview. It does more than just offer a handful of specific ideas about race and society; CRT offers a complete framework of beliefs, a universalizing story of the world. CRT describes who we are, what's wrong with the world, and prescribes how to fix it and what "better" would be. In other words, like Christianity, CRT answers the basic questions any worldview does. Except, the answers CRT provides are very different than those Christianity offers, even if both worldviews recognize the world is broken by evils such as racism and injustice. Critical Race Theory has critical errors. By simplistically reducing evil to power dynamics and external social realities, CRT denies moral agency and the redemptive potential of entire groups of people because of their racial identity. At the same time, those who oppose Critical Theory must do more than simply write off all its concerns. Like Marxism, Critical Theory is something of a Christian heresy, taking the Christian themes of human dignity and justice and a world remade, and re-orienting these causes under new management. Most pertinently, CRT is slipping into the space where the Church belongs but is too often absent. If we don't want unbiblical explanations of life and justice sweeping through the Church or culture, we'd better make sure we communicate and embrace the full ramifications of Christian truth for society, and then act justly and love mercy. If we rob our Faith of its social implications, we are no longer talking about Christianity. Such a personalized, privatized moral system may make us feel better, but it will never stand up to the rival worldviews of our day. Over the next four Tuesday nights, The Colson Center is hosting an online course taught by Dr. Thaddeus Williams, on his book, Confronting Injustice without Compromising Truth. This is the book I've been waiting for, the book that carefully and biblically walks through a Christian view of justice. Dr. Williams carefully explains not only why theories like CRT aren't true, but what the Bible asks of Christ's followers when it comes to justice. Space is limited. Register today at breakpoint.org/Williams. Bec

Shane invites historian and BreakPoint writer Dr. Glenn Sunshine to explain why we celebrate Christmas even though the first century Christians likely didn't. Then, Shane brings a question from a listener who recently ready Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letters from a Birmingham Jail and wonders if they still apply in the current culture climate that focuses so much on race. To close, Dr. Sunshine helps a reader seeking resources to better understand Irish history and how it impacted Western civilization

Several months ago, Amazon began banning books deemed "dangerous" to LGBTQ people. Some of these books were hateful, demeaning, and unhelpful. Others simply questioned the dominant narratives about homosexuality or gender dysphoria. Now Amazon has banned one of the most thoroughly researched books on transgenderism: When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan Anderson. In the book, Anderson shares stories of people who aren't supposed to exist: de-transitioners, those who desperately regret undergoing gender transition. He also argues convincingly from the best biology, psychology, and philosophy that sex is a bodily reality, not a social construct. Anderson's case is powerful. So powerful, apparently, that supporters of transgender ideology have resorted to coercion and name-calling, enlisting companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter. You can still pick up a copy of When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment at our online bookstore. Amazon may not want you to read it, but to understand this issue, you should.

As the world watches the disaster unfold in Afghanistan, there's another chapter of the story we're not hearing nearly as much about. The Afghan church, a body of believers that's experienced incredible growth, now faces life under the Taliban. Early indications are not encouraging. Almost as quickly as the Islamic fundamentalists are taking control of cities, Christians are being notified that they are being watched. Yesterday, I spoke at length with World Magazine Senior Editor Mindy Belz, who explained what is happening in Afghanistan. As part of the interview, she described what the Taliban takeover means for the Christian church in Afghanistan. Here is an excerpt from our interview. Here is a transcript of a portion of my conversation with Mindy Belz: -- [The Afghan church] is a unique community, mostly aged 40 and younger. They are all Muslim converts. It's one of the fastest growing churches in the world. Since they are a tiny church, now doubled in size, they are considered very fast-growing. There are perhaps only 2,000 people. But they are an important force in Afghanistan, simply because of the force that the Gospel is. Because of the love of Jesus, the reach they have is a real thing in a dark, Taliban-shadowed country. About two years ago, a number of these church community leaders did something amazing and brave: they decided to change their identity, their religious affiliation in particular, on their national identification cards. All Afghan citizens have a national ID card. They are used all the time for many reasons. They often show religious affiliation. That affiliation tends to be handed down by the father of the family. The new Christian church elders wanted to change their identification for the sake of their future generations. Not all Christians agreed that this was a good idea, but several dozens of them have changed their official identification to Christian. Now the government records show Christian affiliation. These are the Christians that have been targeted over the past few days. At least one Christian that I know of has received a letter from the Taliban stating: "We know where you are, and we know what you're doing." This implies that the Taliban has access to this government record. The Taliban then showed up to this Christian's house the day before the full city takeover. They have also visited other Christian homes. You might argue these are small, isolated incidents, but they play against the backdrop of nearby atrocities: Afghan military who have been hauled out of their homes and shot, and in one case beheaded. Afghan Christians are totally vulnerable with no political power. They have no-one to appeal to. They don't even generally qualify for special immigrant visas to the United States or other Western countries because they have avoided working for American organizations or working for the Afghan military. To do so potentially exposes them to attention and danger. -- Belz is the most experienced, trustworthy source I know of when it comes to the Middle East, especially on Christians and the Christian movement there. In yesterday's interview, she covered in detail not only the history of Afghanistan and how the past 20 years is understood differently by Islamic fundamentalists, but the failure of U.S. policy under various presidents. This is a disaster of America's own making. Visit breakpoint.org to listen to the entire conversation. And please pray for our brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. Image Sourced from: Twitter>>

This deconversion story, I can get into. With so many stories of "exvangelicals" and why they left the faith, and celebrity Christians "deconstructing" their faith, including some formerly strong voices for Christianity and the Church, it's important to note that it's not just Christians walking away from their faiths. Last week, the Atheists in Kenya Society issued a regretful announcement that the secretary of their organization, Seth Mahiga, had resigned because "he has found Jesus Christ and is no longer interested in promoting atheism in Kenya." Praise God! This is a reminder that Christ is building His Church in places beyond the United States and North America. While we talk of the growth of non-belief in the West, the Holy Spirit is working in places often ignored, drawing men and women and children to Christ. I pray that Mr. Mahiga will follow the footsteps of Justin Martyr, Augustine of Hippo, and C.S. Lewis, who came to faith later in life, converting from other belief systems, and were used by God to build His Church.

In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, Athens decided to attack the neutral island of Melos. When the Melians protested they had done Athens no wrong, the Athenians replied, "The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must." The Melians were starved into surrender, their men were killed, and their women and children were sold into slavery. None of this was unusual in the ancient world. The strong, it was supposed, had every right to dominate the weak. Cruelty, rape, torture, and slaughter were ordinary means of enforcing power. Neither the gods nor the moral codes opposed dominations. Atheist historian Tom Holland, describes his feelings about the Greco-Roman world this way: "It was not just the extremes of callousness that unsettled me, but the complete lack of any sense that the poor or the weak might have the slightest intrinsic value." So what changed? As Holland notes, the difference was Christianity. Christians and Jews believed that all persons were made in the image of God. Thus, every person had intrinsic worth and dignity, no matter their race, ethnicity, gender, or strength. On this basis, oppression of the poor and weak was condemned. Neither might nor wealth made right. Christianity further emphasized the spiritual and moral equality of all people. Not only do we all share the same humanity, but we all suffer from the same problem (sin) and are in need of the same solution (salvation through Jesus). Because of these ideas, Christianity is the sole historical source of concepts now taken for granted: human dignity, human equality, and universal human rights. As not only Tom Holland but other prominent atheists such as Jürgen Habermas and Luc Ferry admit, these ideas are at the root of our modern concern for the poor and oppressed. And this is why it's accurate to call "wokeness" a Christian heresy. "Heresy" comes from the Greek verb hairein, which means to choose. The idea is, heresy is the result of choosing one thing that is true and then running with it until it distorts everything else. "Wokeness," a way of seeing the world built on critical theory, fastens onto the Christian idea that oppression is evil, but makes it the sole significant fact about humanity and society, while rejecting so much else that Christianity teaches — original sin, forgiveness, and salvation. It should not be difficult to see why various expressions of critical theory and "woke" rhetoric resonates with so many Christians. The appeal is rooted in legitimate biblical concerns about the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and the potential misuse of power. However, it fails on many other levels. First, the anthropology of critical theory misunderstands who we are by assuming that the only relevant fact about us is where we fit within the various categories of oppression. We are the group we belong to, which serves a social role as either oppressor or oppressed. As such, this theory rejects any universals that unite humanity, including the image of God. Second, the understanding of sin, or what's wrong with the human condition, is limited to oppression. In this view, oppressors are guilty and the oppressed are innocent. The universality of human guilt before God, that we all are broken and sinful, that we are all in need of forgiveness and redemption is replaced by a moral reckoning that is dependent on which group we belong to. Human identity, human nature, and human problems are all flattened onto a single spectrum of oppression. Given its failure to diagnose sin, it's not surprising that critical theories lack an adequate understanding of salvation. At best, a semblance of acceptance is offered to those who accept its worldview, but even then, the guilt of certain groups and the moral superiority of other groups is fixed and perpetual. This also means that forgiveness and reconciliation are effectively ruled out a priori. Even for the oppressed, there is no path for healing; no bearing one another's burdens; no easing the burden of pain by forgiving another. In the end, wokeness is built on a worldview without salvation and offers an eschatology with no real hope. Though the proclaimed goal is to end oppression, it's what the late sociologist Philip Rieff called a "deathwork," dedicated to tearing down things but unable to build, or offer, anything better. Advocates of critical race theory, for example, argue that although race is a cultural construct, racism is an inevitable and irredeemable trait of certain groups and society. They cannot offer a vision of the world in which this sin is defeated or redeemed, much less one in which the guilty are forgiven and restored. The best that can be hoped for is to replace one set of powers with another. Playing off of legitimate concerns about power and corruption, concerns first introduced to the world by a Christian vision of life and the world, critical theories push these ideas to the point of reframing the Gospel. The real prob

Normally when an Olympian wins the gold, we see happy tears. We see families back home cheering. We see the pride in carrying the national flag around the field. It's such a pure moment. It never gets old. So, when the Fiji men's rugby team recently won the gold over New Zealand, there was something about this that was even more pure and enjoyable. This was the second Olympic gold for the Fijians. They got on their knees, they prayed to God in thanksgiving, and sang a hymn of praise. It was so beautiful. It's a traditional tune that contains these words, "We have overcome, by the blood of the lamb, and the word of the Lord, we have overcome." It was a wonderful moment, and a wonderful reminder, that whether we win in rugby, or anything else, the most certain thing in the world is what Jesus Christ has done for us, not what we will ever do.

The following post is a highlight from 2021 -- In the introduction to his book The Content Trap, author Bharat Anand asks readers to consider what caused The Yellowstone Fires of 1988, which lasted for months and destroyed over 1.3 million acres of the world's oldest, and one of our nation's most treasured, national parks. The traditional story places the blame on a worker who dropped a single, still-lit cigarette. Anand disagrees. The cigarette certainly triggered this fire, but a million cigarettes are dropped every single day. That year (likely even that day), other cigarettes and, for that matter, lightning strikes, fell in Yellowstone. Why did this one spark so much damage? Anand's point has to do with the pre-existing conditions, which made something that is benign in most other circumstances, a trigger for incredible destruction. Yesterday, as protestors stormed the Capitol, Illinois Representative Kinzinger, a Republican, said, "We (Americans) are not what we are seeing today…" Others remarked how shocking it was to see the sort of political unrest common to other countries, here in America. And, of course, it was shocking. But we'd better be clear on why. It's not because somehow Americans, even those who love freedom and wish to protect the remarkable gift that is our nation, are somehow exempt from the Fall. It's not because America has some sort of Divine pass to last forever. It's not because the rules that govern nations and civilizations, which have been proven over and over again throughout history, somehow do not apply to us. In what now seems like an ominous prediction, my friend Trevin Wax tweeted out a quote from Chuck Colson Wednesday morning: "People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government ... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well." Colson was right. Another way of saying what he did is, "Character is destiny." It's tempting to apply this undeniable truism rather selectively, but it is as true for individuals on "our side" as it is for those on "their side." It is true for presidents and for peasants. It's as true about a President "not as bad as she would have been," who delivers strong policy wins for our side as it is about anyone else. It is true for the narcissist and for the abortionist, for the one who rejects religious faith and the one who uses it for his own ends. But, and this is the much more important point that many miss, character is destiny for a people as well as for a person. Yesterday, when President-elect Biden said that the actions of the mob did not reflect America, I wish he were correct. But he wasn't. We are not a moral nation. We are lawless. We are not a nation that cultivates the kinds of families able to produce good citizens. Our institutions cannot be trusted to tell us the truth or advance the good. Our leaders think and live as if wrong means are justified by preferred ends. Our churches tickle ears and indulge narcissism. Our schools build frameworks of thinking that are not only wrong, but foster confusion and division. Yesterday's riot was not the first in our nation's recent history, nor will it be the last. There are certainly immediate causes for what we witnessed, including the words of a President who appeared to care more about the attention the riots gave him than the rule of law that they violated. Still, there are ultimate causes, ones that predate his administration and that have created what is clearly a spark-ready environment. Yesterday's events cannot be understood, much less addressed outside this larger context. And the moment we excuse ourselves from being part of the problem, we have lost our saltiness. Often throughout history, moments like this have been embraced by the Church as an opportunity by God's people. When a people reach this level of vulnerability, either as individuals, as families, or as nations, it is clear that they are out of ideas. There is no sustainable way forward when the ideological divide reaches this level, not only about how best to reach commonly held aims but when there is no consensus on the aims themselves. To be clear, civilizations usually die with a whimper, not a bang. America will go on, but we aren't ok. Even more, the resources once found in various places within our culture to build new things or fix what's broken are largely depleted. The only way out of the long decline of decadence, punctuated as it is by noisy, scary moments like yesterday, is either, as Ross Douthat wrote, revolution or religious revival. The story of Yellowstone Park is that now, decades later, it has been largely revived and reborn. Let's pray that's also the story of the Church, and even our country. Image sourced from C-SPAN

John and Maria revisit a recent BreakPoint commentary that highlighted the theology in Christmas Carols. John highlights how many carols highlight the Incarnation as an act of war against evil, discussing how this imagery has fallen out of favor in pop-Christianity but holds significance inside church history and tradition. Maria shares the recent story of the escape by a number of missionaries in Haiti from their captors. She tells how this is a miracle, recounting a few details surrounding the escape. John responds to a question from Maria about understanding calling in the wake of this event, as Maria is challenged by the missionaries resolve and passion to engage dangerous situations. To close, John and Maria revisit a number of troubling things coming out of China. They wrap up their conversation discussing some new technology that assigns gender to individuals in pictures using facial recognition software. The software is said to be transphobic, because it fails to assign the correct gender two-thirds of the time. John and Maria discuss the worldview significance of this and other realities surrounding this new technology. -- Recommendations -- The Magnificat with Wexford Carol Keith and Kristyn Getty Noble Warriors>> -- In Show Story Mentions -- -- Breakpoint Recap Share Christ with Christmas Carols the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War...That's something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons…[Christmas Carols] confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. BreakPoint>> Erasing Women Just because a man or a woman can do something without risking his or her identity doesn't mean he or she should do that thing. As Christians, we should always wrestle with how best to live out our God-given design as men and women, by asking questions like: "is this an honorable thing to do? Does this respect the body God gave me, or fight against it? Does it glorify God and His design? BreakPoint>> -- Hostage Missionaries Escape in Haiti 12 missionary hostages in Haiti made escape after receiving sign from God The 17 Christian missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang after visiting a local orphanage in Port-au-Prince on October 16. The group, which was made up of Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities, included 16 US citizens and one Canadian. Five of those kidnapped were children. Their Canadian driver was also kidnapped. On two occasions, he said the group received divine signs to stay put, but after receiving a sign to flee, they snuck out under the cover of nightfall following a sign on Dec. 15. "At times they felt God prepared a path before them," Showalter said. "God was leading them." NY Post>> Press Conference for Missionaries After the news conference, a group of CAM employees stood and sang, "Nearer My God to Thee" in the robust, four-part acapella harmony that is a signature of conservative Anabaptist worship Watch Press Conference>> -- China Issues Pile Up Chinese tennis star Peng denies she made accusation of sexual assault | Reuters Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai said on Sunday that she had never accused anyone of sexually assaulting her, and that a social media post she had made early last month had been misunderstood. Reuters>> Amazon agreed to allow only five-star reviews for Xi's book in China Amazon quietly removed criticism of President Xi's books by scrubbing bad reviews, ratings and comments from its Chinese site, it has emerged. The US retail giant agreed to Beijing's demand to have anything below a five-star review of Xi Jinping's book The Governance of China removed from Amazon.cn about two years ago, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified sources The London Times>> -- Transphobic Technology Is facial recognition software transphobic? Controversial tech 'has a gender problem' The controversial tech is now so accurate that it can figure out the gender of men or women with little more than a brief glance. But if that face belongs to a trans person, the systems get it wrong more than a third of the time, new research suggested. Study lead author Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, said: 'We found that facial analysis services performed consistently worse on transgender individuals, and were universally unable to classify non-binary genders. Metro UK>> David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College "Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the abs

Last week we received a note from a listener concerned with the pagan roots of the Christmas holiday. It's something you hear a lot this time of year, that Christians "borrowed lumber" from pagans to build the traditions of Christmas. Often, critics point to things like the Christmas tree, the alignment of Jesus' birth with the Egyptian God Horus, and the Christian culture war against the practice of Saturnalia. A lot of these arguments gained traction in a documentary called Religulous by liberal critic Bill Maher. To address this and many questions, Shane Morris invited Dr. Glenn Sunshine to the Upstream podcast. The two unpack the historical roots of the church embracing December 25th for the Christmas holiday. They talk about what it means to "spoil the Egyptians," as St. Augustine put it. They also lay a Christian worldview foundation for the celebration of Christmas. Listen to this deep dive into the Christmas holiday on Shane's Podcast, Upstream, or you can watch our What Would You Say? Video, "Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday."

Christians have so many wonderful resources that can help us celebrate Christ's birth and prepare our hearts for His second coming, and one of them is sacred music. The abundant supply of truly majestic Christmas music points to a long line of theological artists, individuals who took seriously both what truth needed to be said in music and how it could be said so as to be both memorable and beautiful. Perhaps the greatest offering of all is Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio. For much of his life, Bach was in charge of music at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany. However, his many other responsibilities, such as raising 20 children, might explain why he indulged in a few shortcuts. For example, Bach often recycled old material for new musical pieces. Of course, true creativity does not always require an artist to work from scratch. We are made in the image of the God, who created ex nihilo, out of nothing, but human creativity always, to some degree, involves cultivating what God has given us and developing it to its highest form. In the Christmas Oratorio, Bach took virtually every solo from sacred music he had composed earlier and combined them with other choruses and instrumentals that were both new and old. The opening chorus, "Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and… glorify what the Highest has done today," was completely original. Later in the oratorio, Bach invites us to contemplate the paradox of the Incarnation: that the King of heaven saw fit to become a tiny baby born in a stable. By means of a powerful bass, Bach marvels that, "Great Lord, O powerful King, dearest Savior. . . He who sustains the entire world, who created its magnificence and beauty, must sleep in a harsh manger." Bach's original lyrics are in German. Come to BreakPoint.org, for a link to the entire English translation. Bach's notion of creativity has been largely lost today. As children of 19th century Romanticism, many contemporary artists focus on the self as the creator and see the role of the artist to spin out something completely novel and unique. Most artists today equate creativity with novelty, some even think that the role of art is to be subversive to any and all norms. It's a form of what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." Bach's music is as a powerful reproach to that vision of what art is. He saw creativity as a means of highlighting and enhancing traditional Christian belief. He saw that scriptural texts and musical forms were compatible, serving each other in order to supply rich liturgy. Bach signed all his work "SDG," shorthand for Soli Dei Gloria, which means "to God alone the Glory." Bach knew the One true source of human creativity and that He must work through the composer if the art is to be what it should. This Christmas, let one of history's greatest artists, remind you that all of our work should be done to the glory of God. Like Bach, our creativity is intended to serve the Creator, who is the source of our lives and our abilities.

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into two big pharmaceutical companies profiting from pushing off-label hormone treatment for gender dysphoric kids. In a public statement, Paxton accused these companies of failing to warn about the devastating side effects of the medications, including sterility. The fact is, the hormone suppressing medications being prescribed by so-called "gender clinics" are not approved by the FDA to treat gender dysphoria. They are only FDA-approved for diagnosable physical medical conditions like premature puberty and prostate cancer. Paxton is right: these companies should be held accountable, as should medical professionals who cave to social pressure and prescribe medications for the wrong use. And, if nothing else, Paxton is sending a critical message: that gender dysphoria is a mental condition, not a physical one like malaria or the flu. If more public officials and medical professionals would emulate Paxton's courage, many hearts, minds, and lives could be saved.

At the risk of falling into the current debate over whether Christians should tone down the violent language and imagery when it comes to their faith, the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War. In fact, the Bible presents the Incarnation as the central chapter in the larger story of the conflict between good and evil; one never fully lost by God but captured in Christ Jesus. That's something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons. Still, there is a source that continues to confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. Christmas offers us the amazing opportunity to not only immerse ourselves with deep Christian truth, but also present it to others. Of course I'm talking about Christmas carols. Carols provide us a level of incredible clarity and depth, that is so rare. As an example, consider the "Wexford Carol." Good people all, this Christmas time, Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son With Mary holy we should pray, To God with love this Christmas Day In Bethlehem upon that morn, There was a blessed Messiah born You get a sense of the rescue mission that was the Incarnation in the traditional English carol, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." God rest ye merry gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas Day To save us all from Satan's pow'r When we were gone astray Oh tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy Oh tidings of comfort and joy And in the haunting beauty of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," the coming of Christ is presented in the context of God's Old Testament promises. O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might, Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height, In ancient times didst give the law, In cloud, and majesty, and awe. O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan's tyranny; From depths of hell Thy people save And give them victory o'er the grave. And few hymns offer a Christology as rich as "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is the brainchild not only of the great hymn-writer Charles Wesley but also, in part, the great revivalist, George Whitefield. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace, hail the sun of Righteousness Light life to all he brings, ris'n healing in his wings Christ the highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home We could go on, but finally in "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," we are offered hope in how this cosmic battle will eventually turn out. And in despair I bowed my head: "There is no peace on earth," I said, "For hate is strong and mocks the song Of Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep, The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men"peace on earth, good will to men" Till, ringing singing, on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men! In these songs, sung by my friend Josh Bales, we have the fullness of the Christian story: a world that belongs to God, our lost plight due to sin, our captivity to Satan's schemes, the working of God through the ages, His promises revealed in the long path of redemption that God worked through the Patriarchs, through prophets and kings, and through promises given so long ago; the wonders of the Incarnation, the fear and hope of Mary and Joseph, and the realization and glory of angelic hosts proclaiming their king, and ours. Each year in these hymns, and others, we are reminded that God did not leave us in our sins but came down and lived among us that He might die for us. We have in these songs the whole gospel of God. As comforting and instructive as they are to our own hearts, at what other time of the year do our disinterested friends, neighbors, and family members find themselves humming along with theology? What greater opportunity will we have to share the Faith than when our listeners are already hearing its truths every day? As a colleague once observed to me, this is our moment to echo the work of Philip with the Ethiopian. The world around us knows their need. They hide it well, under vain pleasures and false narratives, but they also know that things are not quite right. What they need is someone to explain to them how things might be made right in Christ Jesus. Let's take this opportunity, singing our way through Christmas, to share the joy that has been given to us that this joy may spread to others.

John and Shane are asked if there should be a Christian approach to boycotting. They are then asked about the unity Evangelicals and Catholics can have while still being true to their convictions. Another listener writes in to ask how to think well of a liberalizing in her field of psychology. To close, John and Shane discuss a commentary on the rise in opioid deaths in America and how the church can and should respond.

Two months ago, Apple quietly removed a Quran app and a Bible App from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party. Apple claimed in a statement they had to do it because they have to, quote, "obey local laws." This is the same 2.8-trillion-dollar company with an "Inclusion and Diversity" initiative that claims, without a sense of irony, to hold a, quote, "long-standing commitment to making… the world more just." According to its American website, that means hiring a more racially diverse group of employees. That's great. It's unclear how that helps the 1.4 billion people living under increasing religious oppression in China. This is a good reminder. When companies like Apple throw around the word "inclusive," it's because they see a profit opportunity. When companies like Apple are happily complicit in outright oppression, it's because they won't risk a profit opportunity. If the day comes when American culture gives Apple an ultimatum: either nix the Bible here or lose your profit, we need only look to China to discover what they'd do.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Americans continue to leave religion behind in large numbers, even during the pandemic. According to Pew Research, the percentage of American Christians has fallen about 12% over the last ten years, from 75% in 2011 to around 63% today. The number who pray every day is even lower, at 45%. The demographic rising in its place are the so-called "nones," those who identify religiously as "nothing in particular." This group grew to about 20% of the US population in 2021, up from 16% in 2017. The surprising thing here isn't that Americans are leaving organized religion behind. That's been happening at about the same rate for a while now. However, it is newsworthy that this trend continued unabated in the face of a global pandemic. Historically, catastrophic events that bring uncertainty, stress, or political chaos tend to draw people to reconsider faith. In this sense, ours is in sharp contrast with other historic moments, such as World War II, the assassination of JFKL, and the Gulf War. More recently, 9/11 brought a flood of Americans back to church and, although the trend wasn't permanent, those who lived through it remember a renewed sense of unity and commitment to spiritual activities such as prayer. Of course, other moments were deeply divided along religious lines. America's war in Vietnam is a good example. While overall church attendance remained steady, Vietnam represented what some have called "a ripping of the nation's religious fabric." Mainline churches, in particular, posted significant losses about this time. As the Washington Post reported in 1982, the United Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ lost 21%, 15%, and 11% of their membership respectively in the previous decade. The fact that certain crises inspire unity, and others division, likely says more about the state of the culture affected than the crisis affecting it. The Covid pandemic has only further ignited the rift created by America's massive political and ideological differences, and further shaken religious loyalties. In the 1970s, people reacted to the cultural upheaval by changing religious affiliations. Today, people are dropping their religious identities altogether. Of course, one reason that Americans didn't flock to churches was many were closed. Still, even after Churches adapted, attendance took a hit. In June 2020, even though 96% of pastors said they offered live streaming services, Barna reported that just 48% of otherwise regular attendees were tuning in. Today, even with Sunday morning services available nearly everywhere, in-person attendance is still between 30-50% lower than before the pandemic. In contrast, Netflix added an incredible 10 million subscribers to its ranks in just three months in 2020. While an encouraging number of Americans reported that the pandemic strengthened their faith, they were the minority. When given the choice of where to find meaning, Americans chose streaming platforms over church pulpits. On a purely pragmatic level, this is bad news. Recently Tyler Vanderweele and Brendan Case argued over at Christianity Today that "Empty Pews Are an American Public Health Crisis." They have a point. Study after study suggests that church attendance corresponds with lower rates of substance abuse, divorce, incarceration, and depression…. not to mention higher levels of meaning and satisfaction, volunteering, longevity, and civic engagement. Given that we are in one of the loneliest eras in recent memory, why aren't Americans back in church? Perhaps a better first question would be, why aren't American Christians back in church? They may be catechized too well in an entertainment-driven, performance-oriented kind of service. It may be because of the moralistic and therapeutic ways they were taught to think about faith in our hyper-individualistic age, and they found better fulfillment elsewhere. We may be more steeply formed by the liturgies of our age rather than the liturgies of Christian worship. For Christians, church attendance simply is not optional. Scripture commands it and, for all its imperfections, the Church is the body and bride of Christ. It's how Christians are equipped and sent to proclaim and live the Gospel. It's the means by which Christians grow the kinds of deep roots needed to survive a chaotic and hostile culture. As Scripture says, a cord of three strands is not easily broken, but "pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up." To be clear, the Church will go on. In particular, outside of the western world, the Church is growing at incredible rates. It will survive COVID, militant secularism, and rampant individualism. In other words, the Church can take up the strands of life together again. The question is whether we will put down our idols.