Breakpoint

From its earliest days, wherever Christianity has spread, hospitals have followed, particularly for the world's poor. Although most Christians who served the poor by healing the sick remain largely unknown, José Gregorio Hernández is an exception. He is a major figure in the history of Venezuela and is remembered today, both for his medical skills and his generosity to the poor. Yet, for all his ability and eventual fame, he almost missed out on serving God in this way, ironically because he wanted to serve God. José Gregorio Hernández was born in the town of Isnotú, Venezuela, in the foothills of the Andes Mountains. His parents owned a general store, and his father was an amateur physician. People would come to him for treatment, and he would diagnose their illnesses and prepare medicines for them. He was particularly skilled with herbal remedies. By all accounts, his skills were highly regarded in the area. Perhaps inspired by this example, his son decided to pursue a medical career. José received his degree in 1888 from the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. Once he was licensed as a physician, the Venezuelan government helped him pursue advanced studies in Europe. He traveled to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, where he studied bacteriology, microbiology, histology, and physiology. When he returned to Venezuela, he became one of the principal doctors at the Hospital José Maria Vargas. Despite this early professional success, however, Dr. Hernández was not entirely sure about his vocation as a physician. He believed that in dedicating his life to serving God, his only choice was to join the clergy as a monk or a priest. A calling could only be to the cloister. This idea led him twice to attempt to become a monk. In 1908, he spent ten months in the Monastery of Lucca in Italy before his frail health forced him to return home. Then in 1913, he returned to Italy to continue his preparations for the cloister in the Latin America Pio School in Rome. Once again, however, poor health forced him to return to Venezuela. Even as he took these trips to Italy, Hernández continued to practice medicine in Caracas. He became known as the "doctor of the poor." He responded to any call for help, whether the patient was rich or poor. He treated the poor for free and sometimes even bought medicine for them with his own money. Along with practicing medicine, Hernández taught advanced medicine through his hospital in Caracas. This led him to publish The Elements of Bacteriology in 1906. He also continued his medical research., making important discoveries about the effect of malaria. His publications were not limited to medical topics, however. In keeping with his theological and philosophical interests, he published The Elements of Philosophy. In 1919, after attending Mass one day, Hernández stopped at a pharmacy to buy medicine for one of his patients. Cars had only recently been introduced to Caracas, and there were still very few of them on the streets. Perhaps for this reason, Hernández did not look as he walked around a tram and stepped into the street. He was struck by a car, thrown to the ground, and hit his head on the stone curb on the street, killing him instantly. News of his death spread across the city. So many wanted to show their respects that newspaper accounts said that nearly every flower in the city was picked for funeral bouquets and wreaths. At the funeral, tens of thousands of people filled the square around the cathedral, and when his body was going to be placed in the hearse, a spontaneous cry rose from the crowd, "Dr. Hernández is ours!" The people took up the coffin and bore it on their shoulders to the cemetery, and his memory lives on among the people of Caracas to this day. This was a life worth celebrating. He was a wonderful example of a Christian who lived out his faith sacrificially, using his considerable gifts to help the poor and to advance medical knowledge and education. His dedication and desire to serve God informed his work as a physician and his service to the poor. Yet, we also need to remember the mistake he almost made. God gives each of us a unique calling and purpose for our life, a calling that is as true out "in the world" as much as it is for those in professional ministry. For most of us, serving God and following His call means not becoming part of the clergy but working in the "secular" realm where our gifts can do the most good for our neighbors. Changed this sentence's scope from let's not make his mistake to let's remember that he almost made a mistake. Changed sentence for logical coherence.

Michael Craven joins John on Ask the Colson Center to discuss a myriad of topics. They discuss how a professional can retain credibility in their field in the face of woke courts and cancel culture. They also answer a question on how the church can care for the culture without swinging the pendulum into Critical Race Theory. Michael goes on to ask John if Christians should retire and if Christians should preach the simplicity of the Gospel to the culture rather than engage in culture wars.

Like his democratic predecessor, President Biden has prioritized LGBTQ rights in both the domestic and foreign policies of the United States. The administration's priorities were made most obvious in early June when an enormous rainbow flag was hung outside the U.S. embassy to the Vatican. While "trolling" the Roman Catholic Church isn't usually a diplomatic priority, officials made their intentions clear by tweeting: "The U.S. Embassy to the Holy See celebrates #PrideMonth with the Pride flag on display during the month of June. The United States respects the dignity and equality of LGBTQI+ people." The number of letters in that acronym continues to grow, but that shouldn't be confused with a unified movement. These are movements, plural, all made possible by what sociologist Peter Berger has called "modern man's perpetual identity crisis." And these movements based on fluid categories of sexual and gender identity are themselves suffering identity crises. A week after the Embassy to the Vatican flew the flag of virtue signaling, the gay news site "Them" announced that the Pride flag was updated in order to be even more inclusive. The new design features a purple circle on a yellow triangle in order to include intersex people (the "i"), pink and blue chevrons to represent transgender people, brown and black chevrons for LGBTQI+ people of color, and white chevrons for asexual individuals. All of this is overlaid on the original rainbow to form the new tincture-violating "Progress Pride Flag," that is even more representative than was intended. The clashing of colors is appropriate for the inherent contradictions of the movements represented, such as including intersex individuals alongside of those who identify as transgender. "Intersex" refers to a physical ailment, a quantifiable medical condition that afflicts a small segment of the population. To represent that biological characteristic on the flag of a movement that rejects the relevance of any biological characteristics to gender is flat-out incoherent. And then there's the ever-escalating conflict between the T's with the L's. Given the history of lesbian activism and its connection with second wave feminism, many of the "L's" are having difficulty with the men who appropriate the experiences, the struggles, and the sports teams of women. Understandably so. Given all that is interfering with the unity of these movements, a booklet provided by the Leicester Fire Brigade (UK) may be the only way forward. The booklet was filled with flags, 20 pages worth, each representing a particular gender or sexual identity, most I'd never heard of. The booklet has since been deleted for not accurately representing the fire house's "ongoing commitment to the LGBT+ community." Exactly how the booklet failed or what it ever had to do with fighting fires isn't clear. The flag problem reflects an ever-growing jumble of contradictory claims about sex, gender, and psychology, all of which lacks any uniting principle other than an opposition to what came before. There's no end to be found, and I mean that in two ways: First, the "plus" sign at the end of the acronym is an open invitation to ever more identities, with no end in sight; second, a movement built on deconstructing what came before has no end — in the sense of no telos. There is no clear, unifying purpose or goal to these movements, or for people taken captive by it. This provides both a challenge and opportunity for Christians, who can offer a compelling vision of human value, human dignity, and even diversity. In fact, the Progress Pride flag and its acronym are, in many ways, a poor parody of the unity and diversity central to the biblical story. In the beginning, God separated day from night, heavens from the Earth, land from sea, animals from humans, and the woman from the man. The diversity in the created order was intentional, but not as an end in itself. All that He made served a unity of purpose: to honor and please God who is Himself a Unity in Diversity, Three in One. The New Testament also speaks of one body with many parts; diversity united under Christ. We are one house that God builds out of many stones, with Jesus as the Chief Cornerstone. In the Church, one people is formed from Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. In the New Heaven and the New Earth (a beautiful reversal of Babel), people of every tongue, tribe, nation, and language are described as unified before the throne of God. All attempts at inclusion, without the larger context of a unifying shared humanity, lead to incoherence. But this incoherence is an opportunity for Christians to offer a better vision of our purpose, our value, our gendered bodies, and our sexuality. In a culture running out of colors and letters, it's a vision that is badly needed.

China's next great leap forward could be forced procreation, and it's animated by the same ideas that energize so much of the West. In 1957, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong told a Yugoslav official that his nation did not fear a nuclear attack: "What if they killed 300 million of us?" he said. "We would still have many people left." Recently, China announced a revision to its infamous one-child policy, instituted by Mao's successor. Married couples can now apply to have up to three children, an increase from the more recent limit of two. On the surface, the policy change might appear to be a significant improvement on Mao's 1957 statement — at least in terms of human dignity. In fact, it is not. Both these stories reflect what happens when a society rejects the core Christian idea of the image of God. Mao's callous suggestion that there were plenty more Chinese to replace the dead ones is the obvious one. That contempt for image bearers was central to Mao's worldview. By God's grace, his theory about China's ability to survive a nuclear war was never tested. But what of his willingness to sacrifice tens of millions of Chinese on the altar of his ideological ego? That's a matter of historical record. Mao's great leap forward, his attempt to transform Chinese society economically and politically, resulted in the slaughter of as many as 55 million people. Mostly through famine brought on by his reckless policies. His successors continued to treat the Chinese people as disposable ends to ideological means — from the one-child policy to the genocidal campaign against the Uyghur minority, to the crackdown against Christians. People there exist to serve the State, not the other way around. The second rejection of the image of God is in the recent announcement about the increased family size. It's not due to some newfound appreciation for family life or the dignity of children. Rather, as the New York Times reported, this new policy is a desperate attempt to avert a demographic crisis that jeopardizes China's economic future, as well as the Communist Party's increasingly precarious hold on power. As The Times ominously predicts, it's not clear that relaxing the policy further will pay off. After all, people responded coolly to the initial expansion of the policy back in 2016 that allowed couples to have two children. What happens if this new attempt at social engineering fails? Gordon Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, recently raised the horrifying specter of mandated procreation. Writing in Newsweek and quoting Reggie Littlejohn of Women's Rights Without Frontiers, Chang asked whether Beijing will turn to force pregnancy since coercion is at the core of its population control policy. That possibility cannot be dismissed. Chang stated that forced procreation has been on the mind of Chinese officials for years. China's fertility crisis and gender imbalance pose existential threats to a regime willing to respond in draconian ways. The monstrous behavior of the Chinese government is well known and well documented, but our increasingly secular Western world has also proved to miss the point from whence it comes. The same Western corporations that bow to China, particularly media and entertainment, breathlessly promulgate Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale thesis. But in the real world it's never pro-lifers that treat women as mere breeders or babies as mere commodities. It's unrestrained governments that see image bearers as economic units. And unrestrained consumers who see other image bearers as useful means to accomplish the ends of their sexual lifestyles. In fact, it is the same bad ideas that drive the behaviors of China's ruling elites and Western individualists. The same basic contempt for the sanctity of human persons. The same basic rejection of the image of God. In his book A Brief History of Thought, atheist philosopher Luc Ferry rightly noted that the only source for human dignity, universal human rights, and human history is the Christian vision of the imago Dei. "Christianity was to introduce the notion," wrote Ferry, "that men are equal in dignity, an unprecedented idea at the time, and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance." This notion, he said, is the direct result of the unique vision of the human person that's only found in Christianity. Thankfully most people will never take it as far as Mao and his successors. But there are many regimes and many people operating out of a similar world view. At the very least these days, we live as if Christian ideas about human dignity are true. Jettisoning the only worldview that has ever made these ideas possible, how long can the charade last? That is anyone's guess. We do know how the world will look when the charade is up.

Chuck Colson often observed that politics is downstream from the larger culture. In other words, the way culture thinks eventually leads to the political outcomes that we see and trouble us today. So many of the recent policy decisions of the Biden administration reflect that in real time. Recently at Wilberforce Weekend, my friend Professor Carter Snead gave special insight into how culture is impacting law. Specifically when it comes to the laws that govern reproductive behavior in American culture. He gave a number of strong examples. Below is an edited transcript of a portion of his talk: One of my favorite novelists, Walker Percy, said that everyone has an anthropology; there is no not having one. If a man says he does not, all he's saying is that his anthropology is implicit. It's a set of assumptions he has not thought to call into question. Everyone has an operating definition of what a person is, and what constitutes human flourishing. And that's true of the law as well. Why is that? Because law at bottom is about, and for, the protection and flourishing of persons. And therefore, because it's about protecting and promoting the flourishing of persons, it has to rest on a usually undeclared vision of what and who a person is and what people need. The richest way to understand, critique, or support the law is to drill down and ask: Is it the case that the law gets the question of who we are and what our flourishing is correct or not? And if it doesn't, then the law is built on a false understanding of human nature. And the law is not true, just, good, or humane. The case of assisted reproduction is something that I grapple with in my book (What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics ). The first question is: What vision of the flourishing of the human person anchors American law and policy relating to assisted reproduction? The answer is that the primary feature of the law of assisted reproductive technology (ART) in the United States is the absence of law. ART is regulated as the practice of medicine, which moves through a path of licensure and certification to the front-end. But pretty much anything goes. There's basically no limit in law in the United States about how you can try to make a baby. What is the theoretical underpinning of this landscape? The architect of the American legal landscape of assisted reproduction was a University of Texas law professor named John Robertson. He was the chairman of the Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. He defined his view in his 1994 book, Children of Choice, stating that the choice to pursue or avoid procreation is essential to self definition, pursuit of desires, and self expression. This became the ethical core of the legal landscape for its assisted reproductive technologies. And, if you look at the anthropological meaning of this landscape, you see that persons are conceived of as individuals pursuing an identity-defining plan. The goods at stake are: privacy, choice, rational mastery and bargain for exchange. What's missing is embodiment (especially involving procreation), vulnerability, dependence, finitude, relationships among the generations, reciprocal indebtedness, unchosen obligations to vulnerable others, tolerance of disability or imperfection, openness to the unbidden, and the very terms "children, parents and family." These are understood through the lens of will; a project to be freely chosen, constructed or rejected for our own purposes, sometimes with the aid of technology. And the child in this picture — to the extent that the child in the picture at all — is the object of the parents' will. The child is a product or a vessel to be accepted or rejected. I am not speaking of the ideas, feelings, or desires of people seeking fertility care. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what the law assumes people to be and to need. The paradigm of parenthood — as we who are parents, and those of us who desire more than anything in the world to be parents understand it — is that a child is a gift. So, how do we embrace forms of procreation that embrace a child as a gift? That is how we should measure the law, policies, and practices of assisted reproduction or any form of science, medicine, or biotechnology that touch and concern human beings. Because as human beings, we are made for love and friendship. To hear Professor Snead's full talk, and all talks from the recent Wilberforce Weekend (all concerning the topic of the image of God), as well as special bonus content that's only available online, register for Wilberforce Weekend Online for only $49 at wilberforceweekend.org.

John and Maria discuss the Christian worldview response to the receding coral reefs around the world. They provide a strong framework for the Christian worldview when looking at issues dealing with the environment. They also talk about a new Netflix TV show called Sexy Beasts. After explaining the masked dating show, John provides context for the problems inside the show related to progress in the sexual revolution. Maria also shares the story of a Colson Fellow who stood in a pro-choice rally to oppose a supposedly compassionate view of abortion. Maria charts her story, highlighting how God is bringing the Colson Fellow to a worldview engagement that gives hope. -- Resources -- Story Links: A Colson Fellow Finds Worldview Foundation for Apologetic Ministry Kirsten's story about speaking up at a pro-choice rally is the stuff of movies. It's also the stuff of ordinary Christians everywhere who choose to join in God's story, in the time and place where He has put them. How Dads Change with Fatherhood Recent discoveries suggest that dedicated fathers, like dedicated mothers, undergo dramatic hormonal and neurological shifts upon the arrival of a baby. Some experts now even think that those shifts and the father-child bond that creates them begin even before birth. Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its corals since 1995 Australia's Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its corals since 1995 due to warmer seas driven by climate change, a study has found. Scientists found all types of corals had suffered a decline across the world's largest reef system. The steepest falls came after mass bleaching events in 2016 and 2017. More mass bleaching occurred this year. Covid Treatment Stopped Dead Kory was referring to an FDA-approved medicine called ivermectin. A genuine wonder drug in other realms, ivermectin has all but eliminated parasitic diseases like river blindness and elephantiasis, helping discoverer Satoshi Ōmura win the Nobel Prize in 2015. As far as its uses in the pandemic went, however, research was still scant. Could it really be a magic Covid-19 bullet? 'Sexy Beasts' Is Coming To Netflix Sometimes, a trailer drops that instantly catches the attention of one's Twitter feed, and I started seeing discussions of Sexy Beasts as soon as Netflix put the spot out there. And that makes sense, since it opens with a scene where a woman wearing a panda head talks to a man made up to look like a bull with Carrot Top's hair. Resources Mentioned: Do Father's Matter Scott Raeburn Treatment of Transgender Students in Virgiinia Public Schools Honestly Podcast by Bari Weiss DONATE TO JACK PHILLIPS

Now, apartment therapy probably isn't the first place you look to find insight into God's design and His intent for Creation. But just a few weeks ago, a writer described going through her late grandmother's possessions and was surprised by how many candleholders her grandmother had owned. These were no ordinary candle holders. They were for Shabbat, Hebrew for "Sabbath." On a Friday afternoon, after looking at her grandmother's menorah and other Jewish art, the writer lit the candles, and for the first time in quite a while observed Shabbat. What followed for her was a rediscovery — actually a discovery of the wisdom and the blessings associated with keeping the Sabbath, or setting clear boundaries, as she put it, between work and non-work time. Not to mention the opportunities for rest and reflection that it brought. Thanks to her Jewish heritage this author discovered one of the most important things that we've lost as a society: the ordinances that God wrote into Creation, such as the Sabbath. Trying to live while ignoring these ordinances is trying to live while ignoring gravity. You might pull it off for a while, but eventually you'll come crashing back down to earth. Now, if you doubt the importance of Sabbath, just run a quick Google search for terms like "exhaustion" or "burnout" or the various mental disorders that accompany exhaustion and burnout in our society. This is what crashing back down to earth looks like for a society. It's a recurring blight on our culture. Now, you don't have to have a Jewish grandmother to gain an appreciation for God's gift of the Sabbath. All you need is a willingness to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, God has written down what we need for genuine human flourishing and built it into the actual fabric of the created order. In his book 24/6: A Prescription for a Happier, Healthier Life, physician Matthew Sleeth notes that the Third Commandment is the only one of the ten that begins with the word "remember." Sleeth adds, "It's almost as if God knew we would forget." And of course we have forgotten. As individuals, as families, and as a society, we keep forgetting the Sabbath. Not only do most of us work longer hours in the office than ever before, we take our work with us. Our phones are no longer primarily phones, they are computers keeping us tethered to our work. Even our watches keep us tethered to our phone, which keeps us tethered to the world of work. This rhythm, this pace, that we keep in our culture, is many, many steps away from what we read in Scripture. On the Seventh Day God finished the work He had done. And He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. Six days you shall labor, He commanded, and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You shall not do any work, you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. Recovering the Sabbath and living, as Dr. Smith puts it, 24/6 instead of 24/7 is maybe the only way we have to escape the cultural rhythm. This rhythm seems to be just lift-off after lift-off, followed by painful crash after painful crash back to Earth. Just like gravity begins by acknowledging that gravity exists and that it's pointless to defy something as powerful as gravity, God's creational plan for human flourishing is like gravity. It's not just random instructions that He gave based on arbitrary thoughts; it's literally how He created the world. Now, recovering the Sabbath, setting loving boundaries and safeguards isn't easy. But both the article's author and Dr. Sleeth gives us a model. They begin with one step, one commitment at a time. These steps include following rules that we've been trained to find arbitrary (or we might call them l legalistic), like for the author in the case of Shabbat, lighting candles at precisely 18 minutes before sundown on Friday night. But that kind of precision, that kind of obedience, is kind of the point. These are God's ordinances for human flourishing. They come from Him, not from us. The Sabbath isn't a social construct. Left to our own devices, we'll crash and burn every single time. Only when we're willing to conform ourselves to God's ordinances and His intent, not expecting for Him to change His rules and His policies to ours, we will find ourselves happier, and healthier. Starting these new rhythms can be as simple as taking the time to intentionally light a candle or to turn off our phones on Saturday night, in full expectation that God's ordinances are true and good altogether.

The integrity of a Christian worldview becomes most evident whenever the timeless truths of Scripture collide and intersect with the issues of our contemporary moment. That happened for one of our recently commissioned Colson Fellows named Kirsten. Kirsten's story about speaking up at a pro-choice rally is the stuff of movies. It's also the stuff of ordinary Christians everywhere who choose to join in God's story, in the time and place where He has put them. The following is a transcript of Kirsten's story. Note how God brought her into His larger work in this particular cultural moment, and where she's now headed. Kirsten's story: I was homeless, living in Berlin, Germany. I had just checked myself into an orphanage. I came from a background of not having been planned. My mom had an unplanned pregnancy. I was not desired or planned. I had a difficult childhood and then ended up checking myself into an orphanage. And at that point I was invited to a pro-choice rally. Out of curiosity, I decided to go since I was a Christian already at the time. I arrived at the rally about 15 minutes late. It was in a big conference room with a huge oak door, and behind the door I could already hear that the rally had started. I was going to sneak in quietly and sit in the back, but as I opened the door, it slammed shut really loudly and everyone turned in my direction, including the speaker. And I just thought, well I've got everyone's attention. I might as well ask the question that's burning on my mind. So, I addressed the speaker and said, "What makes abortion a good thing in your mind?" And he was surprisingly gentle and calm as a person. He replied in a very kind tone, saying, "Imagine a child, a child that was not planned And that has a difficult childhood and ends up living in an orphanage. Wouldn't we be doing that child a favor by not exposing it to such a miserable existence?" I looked at him and I blurted out, "I am that child. I'm that child you are talking about right now. I was not planned. I had a really hard childhood and I'm living in an orphanage right now and I'm glad to be alive. I'm glad to be alive because God made me, and He has a plan for me and that's all that matters." There was complete silence in that room. Even though the meeting had just started, it was already over. All you could hear was chairs moving and people getting up and leaving the room. There was nothing left to be said. I realized how powerful the truth was, how powerful my own story was. Many years later, I moved to South Carolina, married, and had children. I decided to google: "Is there anything pro-life near me." There was a pregnancy center. I contacted them to ask if I could volunteer. They responded by saying, "Well, to be quite honest, we're not even able to pay the electricity bill. We are not known. Churches don't even know we're here. Girls don't know we're here. Things are just not going well." I ended up becoming the director of the crisis pregnancy center. One of the things I was asked to do was to equip people with pro-life apologetics. So, I contacted Scott Klusendorf (of Life Training Institute) and said, "Scott, can you give me a print-out of one of your speeches? I can learn it by heart and then I can start going to schools and teaching." He said, "No, definitely not. You will not be able to do that because as soon as someone asks a question, you won't be able to answer it. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. I've got a stack of 10 books. Read those and then get back to me." I got a group of friends together and we read and discussed the books for six months. Then I went through public speaking training for three months. And afterwards I felt well equipped to start speaking at churches, youth groups, and schools. And I felt more and more passionate that this was really what I wanted to do. I trained someone else to take over the director role of the crisis pregnancy center and started doing more of the speaking full time. Before I was trained in the Colson Fellows program, I was batting pro-choice arguments on a surface level. Then I realized that abortion is just a symptom of underlying worldviews. To address those root issues is so effective when talking to someone who says, "My body, my choice," or "It's just like mercy killing at an animal shelter" (something I heard the other day). You look at all the different arguments. Instead of just answering the arguments (it was like batting mole hills before), now I can understand that wow, these are the different worldviews that align against the biblical worldview. So now, I can go deeper and address those worldviews. That's what Colson Fellows program did for me. That's Kirsten and her testimony of the impact of the Colson Fellows program on her life, the impact that it's had on her, and is having on her right now. She is in the first few months of carrying out her three-year ministry plan, a significant part of the Colson Fellows program

John and Shane discuss two significant questions dealing with mankind discerning their role as subduing the earth and making it flourish. They first field a question related to contraception, discussing the impact of mankind remaking the purpose and design of sex. Then, John is asked to provide some resources on parenting and the role of moms and dads. John and Shane give a plethora of resources to equip the listener to understand the power and role of moms and dads instead of simply parents. -- Resources -- On the Family and Marriage BreakPoint on Psychedelics – Cashing in on Psychedelics The Economics of Sex and Power of the Pill – Mark Regnarus – The Economics of Sex on Youtube Humane Vitae – Encyclical Letter of Pope John Paul VI – Humane Vitae What is Marriage – Ryan Anderson – What Is Marriage?: Man and Woman: A Defense The Problem with Surrogacy – Jake Meador – The Problem with Surrogacy: A Brief Sketch On the Body and Sex Our Bodies Tell God's Story – Christopher West – Our Bodies Tell God's Story: Discovering the Divine Plan for Love, Sex, and Gender Same Sex Marriage – Sean McDowell and John Stonestreet – Same Sex Marriage: A Thoughtful Approach to God's Design for Marriage Chasing Love – Sean McDowell – Chasing Love: Sex, Love, and Relationships in a Confused Culture Theology of the Body for Teens – Ascension Press – Theology of the Body for Teens: Middle School Edition For the Body – Timothy Tennent – For the Body: Rediscovering a Theology of Gender, Sexuality, and the Human Body The Campaign to Discredit Mark Regnerus – Peter Wood – The Campaign to discredit Regnerus and the Assault on Peer Review On Being a Dad Bringing Up Boys – James Dobson – Bringing Up Boys: Shaping the Next Generation of Men Future Men – Doug Wilson – Future Men: Raising Boys to Fight Giants

In the 1987 flick starring Tom Selleck and a few other guys called Three Men and a Baby, a trio of bachelors share a New York apartment and they take turns bringing home one-night stands. All seems to be going according to this hedonistic plan until one of their one-night stands leaves a baby at their doorstep. Jack is the father, but he's out of town and hilarity ensues as his two roommates rearrange their lives to care for this little baby named Mary after bumbling their way through bottles and diapers and bedtime and babysitting. Something surprising happens: these clueless cads find themselves actually acting like dads. The bond they form with this little girl brings mom and dad together in the end for something that looks more like a family than just a casual fling. Now, I'm not recommending this movie or this lifestyle, but I do think that it illustrates the power of parenthood — especially the power of parenthood to transform both the attitudes and the priorities of men. Fathers are more than just sperm donors. They have a connection with their children beyond contributing DNA. In fact, that whole myth is losing credibility in the face of scientific and medical evidence. For instance, we know now that fathers bond physically and emotionally with their children in a way that complements a mother's bond. That's why skin-to-skin contact with dad is now a common practice in delivery rooms. And the connections don't end there. Recent discoveries suggest that dedicated fathers, like dedicated mothers, undergo dramatic hormonal and neurological shifts upon the arrival of a baby. Some experts now even think that those shifts and the father-child bond that creates them begin even before birth. Writing recently in The Atlantic, Ariel Ramchandani describes a bizarre condition that sometimes afflicts expectant fathers. What's known as Couvade Syndrome is a poorly understood set of symptoms in which a man experiences physical changes that mirror those of his pregnant partner. Things like weight gain, vomiting, aches and pains, even cravings — understandably. Dads who go through such things are often embarrassed to talk about it. It sounds like one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's worst movies, Junior. Until recently, the go-to explanation was that Couvade Syndrome is psychosomatic. In other words, it's all in your head. But Ramchandani marshals evidence that something physical could be at work when men are experiencing so-called pregnancy symptoms. The key is probably hormones triggered by living with a pregnant partner, and caring for a child. "Becoming a dad is associated with declines in men's level of testosterone," she writes, "and those declines are linked with greater paternal investment. Hormonal changes could explain fathers' weight gain as well as their pre- and postnatal depression." According to one psychology professor at the University of Southern California, Couvade Syndrome is still a mystery, but less dramatic. Hormonal shifts among fathers are well documented and biologically important. We celebrate a vision of men as high-testosterone, aggressive and manly, said this professor. And that's inconsistent with the parenting role, and these few men who feel pregnant may simply be experiencing an extreme form of the natural shifts in body chemistry that prepares them to become good dads. Unlike mothers, however, fathers don't undergo these shifts automatically. It comes after investment. And time research at the University of Michigan points to a feedback loop in which fathers become better suited hormonally to nurture the more time they actually spend nurturing. According to one University of Notre Dame anthropologist quoted in The Atlantic,, the degree to which fathers physically adapt to their new role can even depend on cultural norms of fatherhood. Now given all this, it's not surprising that Tom Selleck and company slipped into their paternal roles so easily. Men who behave like dads, science seems to suggest, become better dads. But this research also understates an enormous difference between mothers and fathers in that they each contribute to child-rearing in unique, distinct and important ways. Ironically, the fact that some men experience symptoms reminiscent of motherhood could be proof that mothers aren't the only thing that children need. Male bodies respond to the call to nurture in their own way. This supports the claim that Dr. Ryan T. Anderson often makes, that there's really no such thing as parenting; there's only mothering and fathering. The fact is that we have a day set aside to recognize Father's Day, and even a few movies that describe it, even bad ones. Hence that on some level, we knew this all along.

Imagine a software engineering class that doesn't make students learn computer code. That should give you some idea how ridiculous it is that Princeton University is no longer requiring classics majors to learn Greek or Latin. Not zoology students or English majors, but classics students. You know, the folks who study Greek and Latin culture. Why this departure from centuries of academic standards? The head of undergraduate studies in Princeton's classics department explains that this change will bring "new perspectives," and make for "a more vibrant intellectual community." Not every student of language agrees. Writing at The Atlantic, Columbia University linguistics professor John McWhorter argues that buzzwords like "new perspectives" and "vibrant community" are code for forced racial diversity. Of course, as a black academic, McWhorter values diversity in higher education. But he argues that the study of classics is under assault from a twisted and condescending view of diversity — one that sees minority students as incapable of learning and reading ancient languages, and which requires colleges to dumb down their curricula. If anything, he's understating the problem. Not just Greek and Latin, as languages, but the study of classics itself is under attack by those who see racism behind every rock and ionic pillar. In his Atlantic piece, McWhorter quotes one of Princeton's classics faculty, who said in 2019 that the whole discipline of classics is "explicitly aimed at disavowing the legitimate status of scholars of color…Far from being extrinsic to the study of Greco-Roman antiquity," he claims, "the production of whiteness" resides "in the very marrows of classics." In other words, requiring students who want to study the Greeks and Romans to learn their languages is racist. In fact, studying the classics at all may be racist. If this sounds just as absurd as a recent Washington Post editorial that argued the names of North American birds are racist, well, that's because it is. Writing in The New York Times Magazine, Rachel Poser observes that "Some classicists have come around to the idea that their discipline forms part of the scaffold of white supremacy…" At America's universities and schools, this kind of claim is becoming alarmingly common — and it's not just Homer and Virgil in the crosshairs. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported on proposed revisions to the framework for California's mathematics curriculum, which would make "dismantling racism in mathematics instruction" a top priority. Among their suggestions? Stop correcting students' mistakes in a direct way. Apparently, that's what passes for white supremacy. The point here is less about Greek, Latin, or algebra than it is about the way modern ideologies (like the always nebulous "anti-racism") are gobbling up everything else that's worth learning. At the heart of this feeding frenzy is an attitude Owen Barfield dubbed "chronological snobbery,"the notion that we're smarter and better than our ancestors simply because we're modern. Writing at the Circe Institute, Austin Hoffman notices the same attitude. He argues that by abandoning classical languages, "We have cut ourselves off from the past and the wisdom which it has to offer us." As this sheltered thinking stunts our minds, we come to believe that "[o]ur modern concerns are the only real problems and our own insular discourse is the only hope of rescue." That's why one of the duties of Christians in a culture like ours is to be people who live in — but are not trapped in — the moment. To do that, we need to be well educated. First and foremost, of course, in Scripture. But we should also become fluent in age-old wisdom, in the books, ideas, and art that have stood the test of time and nurtured civilization. Reading the classics is worth doing for its own sake, of course. But as C. S. Lewis points out in his essay, "On the Reading of Old Books," ancient ideas can be a powerful antidote to modern errors, like the obsessions currently consuming higher education. Only by keeping "the clean sea breeze of the centuries" blowing through our minds, he argues, can we learn to recognize where contemporary thinking has become stagnant. Subjecting every discipline to woke racial ideology will only stifle true diversity, and buzzwords like "vibrant" and "new perspectives" can't conceal that. Still, I guess students ought to study the new jargon well. It may be the only language they learn at Princeton.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated ruling in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia. In 2018, the city of Philadelphia barred Catholic Social Services (CSS) from placing foster children, as it had been doing for over 200 years, unless it changed its policy on same-sex households. Rather than compromise Church teaching, CSS challenged the city's action in court. They lost at the Third Circuit, but in a 9-0 decision, CSS and religious freedom won the day at the Supreme Court. The win at the Supreme Court was expected, but many hoped the justices would use this case to overturn Employment Division v. Smith, a 1990 ruling which held that state and local law could restrict religious freedom, if it did so in a way that applies equally to everyone. It is because of Smith that so many religious freedom cases are argued on the grounds of either free speech or (as was the ruling of the Masterpiece Cakeshop case) that a law wasn't applied equally. Consistent with the aversion of the Roberts Court to issue sweeping rulings, the court didn't use this case to overturn Employment Division. Instead, all nine justices agreed that Philadelphia didn't apply its ant-discrimination laws equally, thus rendering Employment Division inapplicable. Philadelphia's anti-discrimination provision "permits exceptions [its requirements] at the 'sole discretion' of the [Human Services] Commissioner." According to the court, a law that "invites the government to consider the particular reasons for a person's conduct by creating a mechanism for individualized exemptions," cannot, by definition, be called "generally applicable." What's more, once exceptions are permitted for other reasons, exceptions in cases of "religious hardship" cannot be dismissed "without a compelling reason" In the unanimous opinion of the Court, the city didn't "have a compelling interest in refusing to contract with CSS." Chief Justice Roberts, who wrote the court's opinion, put it like this:, "CSS seeks only an accommodation that will allow it to continue serving the children of Philadelphia in a manner consistent with its religious beliefs; it does not seek to impose those beliefs on anyone else." So, the court ruled that Philadelphia did not have a basis for its actions against CSS and, further, "violate[d] the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment." Immediately, media headlines attempted to spin the outcome as the court privileging religious freedom over LGBTQ rights. It wasn't. No LGBTQ "rights" were in any way diminished by this decision whatsoever. The media outlet Vox, chided the court for failing to settle the significant issues raised by the case (which is true), claiming that "an epic showdown between religion and LGBTQ rights ended with a whimper." That's only true if you consider a decisive victory for religious institutions over forces that would force them to choose between their beliefs and their mission to be a whimper. The Human Rights Campaign made it sound like the court's real objection to Philadelphia's law was that it was badly drafted and, had it been better-written, might have survived scrutiny. Perhaps. But as the National Review noted, a majority of the court sees Employment Division v. Smith as something that needs to be addressed. While it's not clear which standard they'd accept as a replacement, it is reasonable to assume they could make it harder for government entities to justify infringements on religious freedom. Chief Justice Roberts' words, that there was "no compelling reason" for the city to refuse to contract with Catholic Social Services, is true whether or not Employment Division is applicable. Despite its narrow scope, the Court's ruling in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is very good news. In addition to being a win for Catholic Social Services, it means the court is taking seriously Justice Kennedy's warning in his otherwise terrible Obergefell decision: Religious organizations need protection "as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths." As Micah J. Schwartzman of the University of Virginia told the Washington Post, the "court's signal for social service providers is clear enough: It will grant them religious exemptions, even when doing so entails allowing them to violate anti-discrimination laws." Two additional observations: First, the Supreme Court will eventually have to address the conflict between religious freedom and LGBTQ rights, including for business owners like Jack Phillips. Jack lost this week in a Colorado court, when a judge ruled that Phillips discriminated against a transgender lawyer who has been targeting his business. Second, the court now has an even stronger track record of protecting the freedoms of religious organizations. So, there's no need to compromise biblical morality, even on these most controversial of issues.

John and Maria explain the significance of to important court cases that were decided this week. One case involving Jack Phillips challenges religious freedom in the public life. The other is a protection of the freedom of non-profit organizations to conduct businesses guided by religious convictions. Maria introduced a segment on Juneteenth, a recently minted holiday by the Biden administration that helps us recognize the challenges Americans faced at the hands of slavery. John then gives commentary on a recent canceling of a Nigerian author who recently referred to a trans-woman as a trans-woman.

Since I wasn't even alive in 1968, I'll defer to Boomers and historians to tell us whether the country was more divided back then or today. In my lifetime, however, I can confidently say that the racial, political, economic, and ideological polarization has never been worse, nor has the violence and outrage. No matter the issue, from public policy to personal morality to global health, people seem to immediately run to their ideological and political corners: No discussion, little charity, less concern about the requirements of a common life together, but a lot of yelling. It's difficult to imagine a people less able to accomplish a life together than us, with no shared vision and no shared memory. Tomorrow, however, offers us an opportunity to come out of our ideological and political corners and agree to commemorate a significant day in American history. Every American, regardless of politics or background, should reflect on a day marked in many African American communities for over 150 years. Tomorrow, June 19th, is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 in which the particularly vicious evil of chattel slavery effectively came to an end in this country. Here's the history. In 1862, President Lincoln issued the most famous executive order in history, known as the Emancipation Proclamation. "…on the first day of January," read the order, "in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State … in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward and forever free." With this order, Lincoln only declared the emancipation of slaves within the Confederacy. Pro-Union border states and even areas in the South controlled by Union troops were not "in rebellion against the United States." Practically speaking, the Emancipation Proclamation was more symbolic than effective. The surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox in April of 1865 signaled the end of the Confederacy and foresaw the final end of slavery. Even then, however, pockets of resistance persisted. Emancipation would have to be enforced. On June 19, 1865, "more than two thousand Federal soldiers of the 13th Army Corps arrived in Galveston [Texas] and with them Major General Gordon Granger . . . Granger's men marched through Galveston reading General Order, No. 3," which informed "the people of Texas… that, in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free." That is a moment worthy of commemorating. In fact, African-Americans in Texas began commemorating Juneteenth the very next year, 1866. As African-Americans migrated north and west, they took the commemoration with them. Even today, though officially recognized in hundreds of cities and in 47 out of 50 states, Juneteenth remains largely an African-American celebration. But it's a day all Americans should commemorate. Juneteenth was the culmination of the efforts of men and women across race and social standing to put an end to a particularly shameful practice on our shores. Last year, my Colson Center colleague Tim Padgett wrote an outstanding column on Juneteenth at BreakPoint.org,. In it, he described how American abolitionists "were driven by the understanding that the realities of American Slavery were irreconcilable to their Christian beliefs about the dignity of humanity and their American dreams about the centrality of liberty. They saw that the slave was as made in the image of God as anyone else and therefore as deserving of honor as themselves." Juneteenth 1865 is an important event in our national timeline, an attempt to live up to what Chuck Colson liked to call our American creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." We've not yet lived up to that creed. We still have a long way to go. Perhaps remembering Juneteenth together could remind us of the type of nation we say we are, and compel us to keep trying.

In a rather stunning op-ed at CNN a couple of weeks ago, a medical doctor offered an answer to one of the great worldview questions: "What is the highest good?" Bodily autonomy, wrote Dr. Alexis Drutchas, is the highest human right, and should trump all other considerations in medical decision making: "Adults with capacity should hold the ultimate authority over their own bodies and the medical decisions for their minor children." The obvious context of this op-ed, which should be especially obvious to anyone who's ever attempted to actually disagree with their doctors, is gender transition. Smartly, this doctor offered a philosophical take on the matter, since medical justifications for cross-sex hormones and body-mutilating surgeries are lacking. In his most recent book, What it Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, bioethicist Dr. Carter Snead addresses the growing influence of expressive individualism over medicine. This vision of the human being "as an atomized and solitary will" which "equates human flourishing solely with the capacity to formulate and pursue future plans of one's own invention" is, according to Snead, causing "mission creep" in the medical community. Instead of treating sick bodies with a view to heal, bodies are seen as arbitrary physical matter that should bend like clay to our wills, and medical ethics and science should follow suit. If expressing our own wills is the first duty of expressive individualism, accepting everyone else's expression is the second. Even doctors should comply, even if a patients' desired "expression" requires killing a healthy baby, cutting off a healthy body part, or causing death upon request. This philosophical shift is leading to dramatic practical changes in how medicine is practiced, in many cases leading to literal opposite ideas of concepts like "treatment," "illness," and "healing." Medicine has long balanced "bodily autonomy" against other interests. We've just spent a year and a half wearing masks, socially distancing ourselves away from airplanes and crowded restaurants, and zooming church services in order to fight a virus. Doctors don't give narcotics to anyone who asks, or perform weight loss surgery on dangerously thin patients with eating disorders. They can be prosecuted if they do. To get around this problem, Dr. Drutchas adds the caveat that full autonomy should only belong to "adults with capacity." What's not clear is what counts as "capacity," how to define it, and who gets to decide who has achieved it. In reality, the medical community is increasingly paying lip service to a philosophy it doesn't intend to keep to and can't actually live by. For starters, not all "expressions" are treated with the same degree of fanfare, as this doctor implies. Consider how "de-transitioners," those who've undergone gender transition but later regret it, are treated by both medical institutions and the media. They are treated as either non-existent or dishonest. How often do we hear of women in crisis pregnancies who heroically choose life rather than death for their preborn children? Or what of those who face suffering or disabilities and choose to live lives of courage, influence, and grace rather than accept what is being called "aid-in-dying?" Will these decisions also be applauded, or will they be used as an excuse to claim that these patients have "lost capacity"? The very concept of "bodily autonomy" was originally a Christian contribution to an often cruel and barbaric world. Far from suggesting that our bodies are mere heaps of matter for us to do with what we will, the Christian view was that to defile the body, either our own or another's, is to violate the image of God. Regardless of how old, how young, how healthy, or how sick, a Christian view is that our bodies are not our own. "You were bought with a price," Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, "therefore glorify God in your body." A fundamental difference between the kind of bodily autonomy Christianity gave the world and what is assumed today lies in whether or not the body is designed. A Christian view of bodily autonomy (or perhaps "integrity" would be a better word) is shaped by the larger telos, or purpose, for which we were made. Our bodies are created, not self-determined, for the larger purpose for which we were made: to glorify God, to love Him, and to love our neighbors. This is why medical ethics matters for the Church. If Christians suffer the "mission creep" of treating our own bodies as if they should bend to our own wills, whether by abusing assisted reproductive technologies or mutilating healthy body parts or treating medically assisted suicide as a tenable option, our witness to God's greater purpose for our bodies will be compromised. The world needs this witness — especially now. Without it, everyone will suffer.

John welcomes Michael Craven, Director of the Colson Fellows program, to facilitate the BreakPoint Q&A this week. John answers questions ranging from what parents should prioritize in fostering faith to how people who weren't mentors can mentor others. John also fields a question on a recent BreakPoint. A listener writes in to ask if being anti-surrogacy is like being anti-life.

Christianity has always been concerned about body and spirit, mind and matter, the spiritual and the physical. This was why wherever Christianity spread, believers established hospitals and schools alongside churches. In China, for example, Western medicine was an essential ingredient of the growth of Christianity. Many important Chinese Christians were first introduced to Christianity and Western learning via medicine. Shi Meiyu was born in Jiujiang, China. Her father was a Methodist pastor, and her mother was the principal of a school for girls in the city. They taught her the Chinese classics, as well as Christian literature. They also broke with Chinese tradition and refused to bind her feet. Meiyu's parents were especially impressed with the work of American missionary Dr. Katharine Bushnell. Although best remembered for her groundbreaking book God's Word to Women, Bushnell got her start as a medical missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Inspired by Dr. Bushnell's medical work, Meiyu's father decided that she should become a doctor. To prepare her for medical school, seven-year-old Meiyu was sent to Rulison-Fish School, the premier girls' school in China founded by iconoclastic Methodist missionary Gertrude Howe. Howe was a single woman who had scandalized the male missionaries in China by adopting four Chinese girls and raising them as their mother. Howe lived a very frugal life, saving money so that in 1892 she could take her five best students to her alma mater, the University of Michigan. These included Shi Meiyu and her adopted daughter Kang Cheng. Having tutored them in mathematics, chemistry, physics, and Latin, they passed the entrance exam with flying colors. Four years later, they graduated together as the first Chinese women to receive a medical degree from an American university. Meiyu and Cheng returned to Jiujiang and opened a one-room hospital. It was popular and always filled to capacity. In just the first ten months, the hospital had served 2,300 outpatients and made hundreds of house calls. A physician from Chicago, Isaac Newton Danforth, gave them money to establish the Elizabeth Skelton Danforth Hospital in Jiujiang. Shi Meiyu supervised this 95-bed, 15-room facility for the next 20 years. They treated up to 5,000 patients per month and oversaw the training of more than 500 Chinese nurses. Their work included translating textbooks and training manuals. Two years later, Kang Cheng left Jiujiang to set up a new hospital in Nanchang, the largest city in the province. She later returned to the United States and received a bachelor's degree in literature from Northwestern University and an honorary master's degree from Michigan. She then returned to China and was involved heavily in relief work and social causes until her death in 1930. In 1907, Shi Meiyu returned to the United States for surgery. Her sister Phoebe, also a physician, took over the Danforth Hospital in Meiyu's absence. While in America, Meiyu continued to fundraise for her hospital. A Rockefeller Foundation scholarship enabled her to do postgraduate work in 1918-19 at Johns Hopkins, where Phoebe had gotten her medical degree. With the Japanese attack on Shanghai in 1937, many of these believers moved inland and to Hong Kong, which only resulted in the spread of their organization and associated churches. For her part, Meiyu returned to the United States to raise funds for the mission and became one of the organizers of an evangelistic board. Shi Meiyu died in Pasadena, California, in 1954. Her work in medicine, public health, nursing education, ending abusive practices such as footbinding, and vices such as opium addictions, were an extension of her work of evangelism: They were all expressions of her understanding that the Gospel was meant for all of life, not just our eternal salvation. In all of these cases, she was acting out of love of God and neighbor, seeking to improve the lives of the people she served, both for this world and the next.

There are certain moments in history, such as the end of the Roman Empire or the Enlightenment, when it's obvious how much the cultural ground has shifted. Cultural norms that worked before to foster social cohesion no longer suffice. Certain ideas and shared ways of thinking can no longer be taken for granted. At these "hinge points," Christians are forced to remember who we are and to rethink our place in the overarching story of redemption. This is one of those hinge points. The cultural ground has shifted quickly, and it's disorienting. Many Christians struggle to know how to live in this strange cultural moment. Even committed Christians who study the Scriptures and attend church can struggle to make sense of it all. Even those with lots of answers to lots of questions, who've collected many pieces of truth from sermons, books, and wonderful teachers can struggle to know how those pieces fit together within the larger narrative of God's story. Our faith can feel fragmented and too far away, disconnected from day-to-day life in twenty-first century America. It's as if we have logical answers, but people are now asking different questions. It's as if too many Christians know the primary truth claims of Christianity, but not how they fit into our lives. It's as if we have this vast armory of truth, but we don't know how to wield the weapons effectively. Over the next year, the Colson Center will expand the ways in which we help Christians become more deeply grounded in the True Story of reality. This is so that they can better make sense of the world and connect more deeply with others who are committed to embodying what's true and good in this cultural moment. Specifically, the Colson Center will serve parents, grandparents, pastors, teachers, and other faithful Christians who are called to prepare the next generation for the challenges of this cultural moment. I'm humbled and driven by what God is choosing to do through the Colson Center. Last year, during the tumult of 2020, every single program of the Colson Center grew, including these BreakPoint commentaries, our newer podcasts, the quarterly short courses, the What Would You Say? video series, and especially the Wilberforce Weekend. In addition, the Colson Center partnered with the Association of Christian Schools International to train thousands of teachers through the innovative "Worldviews and Cultural Fluency" training program. This effort to "disciple the disciplers" continues to grow and expand, with homeschool parents and educators committed to passing on a Christian worldview to the young people in their care. Over 450 Colson Fellows were commissioned in May, having completed a year of in-depth reading, study, and planning in Christian worldview. By all indicators, the number of Colson Fellows will increase this coming year, with regional cohorts in even more cities, filled with Christians seeking to serve God in the time and place where He has put them. Increasingly, schools and churches are homes for Colson Fellows training, providing opportunities for their staff to shape the work and outreach in their institutions. We didn't choose this cultural moment. Our time and place in history is chosen by God. Because He has placed us here, our moment in history is not an accident, but a calling. We have been invited into His life, His kingdom, His story. Nothing in our lives is excluded from this reality, and He asks nothing less of us than full participation. The Colson Center seeks to serve you and your family, as well as churches and schools everywhere, to rise to the challenges of this moment, and find new ways to ground God's people into that True Story centered on Christ the King. Please prayerfully consider partnering with us with a fiscal year-end gift. Any gift given by June 30, 2021 will, by God's grace, help the Colson Center expand and more effectively obey His calling. Our success is when followers of Christ like you are equipped to be the embodiment and testimony of God's truth, God's goodness and God's story, and live with the clarity, confidence, and courage only a Christian worldview offers. To quote our founder, what the world so desperately needs right now is simply for the Church to be the Church. Thank you for your generosity. Go to breakpoint.org/give.

The scope and scale of the suicide epidemic is unbelievably scary, especially to parents. There's a growing number of suicide, suicidal thoughts, what's called deaths from despair that inflicts our culture. All we seem to be doing is treating the symptoms. Our culture says that the problem is lack of support; so that our government, schools, and even some churches, the social institutions that are supposed to weave the strong fabric of our communities are throwing caution to the wind to do anything to make students feel better. Some are even telling students to abandon their communities and even families to cope with their depression. We're just a culture grasping for answers. Dr. Matthew Sleeth has been researching the issue of suicide in our culture, as well as what the Scripture says about suicide from beginning to end. He presented a very important message for our audience at the Wilberforce Weekend this year. To watch Matthew's full presentation, and to catch more of the presentations from Wilberforce Weekend 2021, visit www.wilberforceweekend.org

A video that made the rounds on social media last week featured a group of Portland educators in a Zoom meeting. After introductions including the obligatory "preferred pronouns," the moderator said, "I'm gonna say something that's not nice and not sweet, but it's true. If you're not evolving into an anti-racist educator, you're making yourself obsolete." She didn't mean that these educators would fade away. As she went on to explain, anyone who disagreed with the new agenda would no longer find a home in Portland education. Plans were in place to ensure compliance. Either hop on the train of ever-shifting progressive orthodoxies or be driven out of work. Being opposed to evils like racism isn't enough. Teachers will have to conform to a very specific script. No dissent allowed. While it's not clear that this particular person wields the power to carry through with her threats, educators across the country face similar pressures. Recently via open letter, a New Jersey teacher explained that she was leaving a job she loved because her district had become "a hostile culture of conformity and fear." Students were expected "to see themselves not as individuals, but as representatives of a group, forcing them to adopt the status of privilege or victimhood." As in Portland, administrators overtly threatened termination for anyone who failed to comply. And, don't get me started on Loudoun County, Va. Increasingly, proponents of critical theory aren't merely looking for a place at the table, they're demanding control over "the menu, the venue, the seating," and the guest list. In response, several local governments have proposed various forms of bans on Critical Race Theory. Despite the hysteria, these bans aren't nearly as confining or controversial as the headlines suggest. Rather, they attempt to protect students, especially the younger ones, from being labeled as racist based on either past evils or on being a member of a particular race. Still, even well-intentioned educational bans are a dangerous game. First, and specific to this case, CRT is merely the loudest version of critical theory at the moment. Given the track record of the LGBTQ movement hijacking civil rights history and successes, we can expect the emergence of CQT ("critical queer theory") any day now. Second, bans grant expanded authority to the state. When it comes to what is taught within public schools, it's "live by the ban, die by the ban." Education is too important to be built on shifting tides of political fortunes. But a more important consideration than these is to take seriously how ideas advance in a culture. Bans may be necessary but they rarely win arguments. The influence of particularly dangerous ideas may be curbed by political power, but ideas are never refuted or stopped by political power (remember prohibition?). Last week on Twitter, Professor Robert P. George offered a thoughtful take on these bans, especially in the context of higher education: "1/ I "teach," in the sense of assign and discuss, work by Marx, Gramsci, and Marcuse. That's not because I think what they say is true. I think they're wrong on all the important points. It's because students need to know about them and students learn from engaging their ideas. 2/ I also "teach," in the same sense, critics of Marxism and other forms of socialism--such as Hayek and Solzhenitsyn. It's important that I do that, not because I tend to agree with them, though I do, but so that students are presented with the best arguments on competing sides. 3/ Professors who expose students to the views and arguments of thinkers on one side and fail to expose them to the best to be said on other sides violate a sacred trust. Whatever our views, our job is not to indoctrinate our students. It's not our job to tell them what to think. 4/ Our job is to encourage students to think deeply, carefully, critically (including self-critically), and FOR THEMSELVES. That's why we must expose them to the best arguments for competing perspectives, including those we oppose, even loathe. AND WE NEED THE FREEDOM TO DO THAT. 5/ Where things really go haywire is when a particular view or ideology is given a monopoly--whether formally or informally--and no critical perspectives on it are seriously considered. When that happens, education has been replaced by the vilest of counterfeits: indoctrination. 6/ At the college and university level (we can discuss the circumstances of K-8 and 9-12 education separately), no perspective or school of thought--be it critical race theory, classical Marxism, Platonism, Thomism, feminism, utilitarianism, libertarianism--should be prohibited. 7/ By precisely the same token--and for precisely the same reasons--no perspective or school of thought should be given a monopoly (formally or informally) or be treated as beyond questioning and immunized from critical scrutiny. No prohibitions; no monopolies. Fair competition." Professor George understands something fundamental ab

John and Maria discuss how politics makes a lousy worldview before dissecting stories on deconversion from Christianity and other stories of conversion to faith in Jesus. Maria then shares a recent story of a mother in Tanner Cross' school district to defends the elementary gym teacher with her story from Mao's China. John shares his disappointment that the mother's story isn't given more credence in the eyes of the media. John and Maria also visit on three important movements happening with China. They discuss new findings that some U.S. allies have been complicit in deporting Muslim Uyghur's to China where they joined labor camps. John then makes a prediction that China's new three child policy may turn into a baby-making mandate for Chinese citizens. He breaks down the worldview line, showing how economics is driving Chinese decisions. Then Maria shares a story that many U.S. politicians are likely boycotting the Olympics in Beijing over human rights concerns of the Chinese government's treatment of the Uyghur population. Finally, Maria and John discuss the removal of Queen Elizabeth's portrait at a British school. John breaks down the worldview analysis, showing how media coverage casts an implicit bias, while providing a structure for Christians to view the news with hope and purpose.

The most common refrain in Genesis about God's creation of the world is that it was good. Down through the centuries, many people both inside and outside the Church have tried to say that the material world is less valuable or important than intangible inner truths. This has been one of the main talking points for the new sexual orthodoxy: telling hurting souls that their bodies are somehow wrong. Kathy Koch has worked for years to undermine this demeaning perception. In her talk at our recent Wilberforce Weekend, she reminded us about the wonderful intentionality in the way God "knitted" us together as male and female. For today's BreakPoint, here's a portion of Kathy's talk. I'm Kathy Koch of Celebrate Kids here in Fort Worth, and I want to talk with you about how God made us good. I think God is good and God is a good Creator. And if children, teens, or adults don't know that, then it doesn't matter to them that they're created in His image. In Psalm 139, verses 13 and 14 declare that we have been formed by God in our inward parts. It says in Psalm 139:13 that Father God knitted us together in our mother's womb. Knitting is a precise skill; the knitter knows before starting what he is making, or he'd better not start. Otherwise he'd have a mittens-scarf-hat-afghan sweater thing with no purpose at all. The size of the stitch and the needle, the color of the yarn, and the design of the creation is known before the knitter begins. Do we praise God? Because we're fearfully made? Do we stand in awe of ourselves now? We're not God. Fear in the Old Testament is fear of God. That we would have this awesome respect for the creation of who we are. The verse that revolutionized my understanding of God's creative intent is the end of Psalm 139:14 where David writes on behalf of God: My soul knows very well that I am a wonderful work of the creative intent of God. A fearfully and wonderfully creation made in His image. I have tremendous empathy for young people who live in confusion in a chaotic, messy culture. I believe that if I was young today being called "sir," I might wonder if I was supposed to be a boy. I have empathy for these kinds of teenagers and young adults. We are privileged at Celebrate Kids to talk with those who do not believe they were created good. They do not believe in a good Creator. They don't understand the image of God and it is not their fault. Generations of young people are trying to change what they should not try to change. And they're unwilling to work on the things they could work on because frankly, the adults around them are weak. God is good. Therefore he made me good because I'm in His image and He is fully good! So there's gotta be something here and I choose to not see it as wrong. I don't see it as a mistake. It is a challenge. I'm surrounded by great people and I'm loved well by God, and by people who love me deeply; without that I would question so much. So I'm not a too-tall-Kathy-with-a-low-voice-who-can't-spell-all-that-well mess of a person. I am who I am, created in the image of God, and He is good. What's your story? And what story are we helping young people who we love live? Kathy Koch is founder and president of Celebrate Kids, reminding the Church and the world of the goodness of our Creator and the enduring beauty of His creation. In her words, we see a path forward to loving—truly loving—our neighbors who struggle with gender dysphoria. As she argued, the new sexual orthodoxy encourages hurting young people to change what shouldn't be changed and discourages them from working on the things that they can work on. While giving lip service to the claim that people are perfect just as they are, our culture's fascination with expressive sexual identities leads proponents to argue that the only way we can be truly ourselves is through a radical rejection of our physicality.

Politics makes a terrible substitute for a complete, thoughtful worldview. "God has filled his world full of pleasures," wrote C. S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. There are things for humans to do all day long without His minding in the least. Sleeping, walking, eating and drinking. It's only when these things are twisted, Lewis argues, that they become sinful. Now, there used to be many things we could do all day long without other people minding in the least: eating fast food chicken for example, flying an American flag from your porch, rooting for a particular professional sports team or athlete, watching a certain TV network, or watching the other certain TV network. Today all of these things are politically loaded, as is so much of life in a culture that pretends that we can't know any real answers absolutely. To the deep, ultimate questions of life, we're still a culture searching for the answers. Of course, we're a people in need of answers. Instead of finding them in the Church or in something transcendent, our culture looks largely elsewhere. More and more we choose to find our answers in politics. I define politics here as more than just the process by which we decide how to govern. The way we understand politics today is more like a game, complete with teams—good guys, bad guys, opponents, fandom, celebrities. All of this is a problem. Politics isn't big enough to answer the questions that we're expecting it to. For starters, politics certainly doesn't tell us the truth about real people. It's common now to think that based on who a person voted for we know everything we need to know about them. And making the problem even worse is what we do with the assumptions we make about people based on who they voted for. It's common now to treat another person's politics as grounds for our acceptance and love for them, or to excuse, or dismiss, or deny their personhood. Or even hate them. Just a few weeks ago, a New York Times opinion writer argued that violent anti-Semitic attacks in the U. S. and abroad were problematic, not because people were being attacked, but because those attacks made it more politically difficult to criticize Israel. In this view, the victims of those attacks were pawns, not people. Just a few days after that, I shared a commentary from my friend Gerald McDermott on BreakPoint about President Biden's speech impediment. We received many positive comments about the commentary, but we also received many many negative ones from listeners asserting that we shouldn't give any cover whatsoever for Biden in any form. That Biden's terrible politics somehow excuses us from having to treat him with dignity and compassion. In this, too, he became a pawn, not a person. We have to note that a person with the right politics doesn't have any more human dignity or deserve our love any more than someone with the wrong politics. Our politics don't determine who we are. It's that we're made in the image and likeness of God. Our politics aren't what makes us human. It's who we were created to be that does. And of course, our politics don't tell us the full truth about ideas. Right now our government and public health experts around the world are trying to decide whether COVID-19 first leaked from a lab in China. That theory has been proposed all along—as early as last spring. But it was categorically dismissed by most of the world's media. Not based on any information, not based on any investigation, not based on any facts, but simply because President Trump said that it might be true. Because of his politics that was treated as proof that it wasn't true. And if we're being fair, many others thought that because President Trump said it, that was proof that it was true. It is culturally and personally dangerous to either unquestioningly accept or dismiss ideas merely because of their political context. Politics doesn't determine reality. And of course, politics can't tell us the whole truth about the world either. This should be perfectly obvious. Politics are powerfully shaped by cultural taste. What was politically unthinkable 10 years ago, for example giving sterilizing cross-sex hormones to a pre-teen, is nearly politically unquestionable today. In other words, politics is just as trendy as fashion is. It's certainly not any rock on which we can build our worldview or our ethics. Politics first and foremost is merely a process. It's a way to do things. It cannot give us the purpose of life. Our political views don't make us human so they shouldn't be the basis of determining who we are willing to do life with or are willing to forgive, or willing to learn from, or are willing to love. Having the right politics isn't the fullness of our calling as followers of Jesus any more than having the wrong ones is eternal condemnation. Our politics today is merely a show, a reality show that doesn't give us the reality about us, or about the world. And let's be honest, the show is getting embarrassing. On

John and Shane field questions ranging from whose to blame for racism in institutions to rises in suicidal thoughts in teenagers. They also wrestle with a question on how to build a theology of being fired and what soft totalitarianism really is.

To paraphrase the author of Ecclesiastes, of the writing of "de-conversion" testimonies, there seems to be no end. In a somewhat recent innovation, many have embraced a different term for deconversion. It's common to hear something like, "I haven't lost or abandoned my lifelong Christian faith," I'm merely "deconstructing it." John Williamson, the host of the "Deconstructionists Podcast," defines this kind of "deconstruction" as "examining your faith from the inside looking for potential weaknesses." He likens the process to prepping a ship before it sails to make sure "it doesn't sink once you get out to sea." In and of itself, to self-examine faith is a good thing. The eleventh century Christian philosopher Anselm of Canterbury spoke of "faith seeking understanding," which is "an active love of God seeking a deeper knowledge of God." Throughout the history of the church, this "deeper knowledge of God" has included a healthy regard for apologetics, and a willingness to ask and seek answers to the hard questions. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of "faith seeking understanding" that's going on in much of the "deconstruction" stories. According to Williamson, the process of deconstruction is also "about taking ownership over what you believe and potentially letting go of some of the things that no longer work." That kind of talk should set off alarms. In place of Anselm's deeper knowledge of God, human autonomy and personal ideas about what is best for us has moved to the center of our faith journey. The primary, and maybe even the sole, judge of what work works is us. Even worse, the criteria that determines whether beliefs or religious practice "works" is determined by us. All of which fails to take into account just how often our actual motives are hidden from ourselves. We may tell ourselves that we struggle with a particular reading of Genesis, while our doubts really lie in our ability to live up to Christianity's moral demands. Or, more to the point within the context of our culture's reframing of the highest goods, we may simply not like that we don't get to pick and choose what to believe. The sort "deconstruction" Williamson describes is more of a demolition. What remains is often a hollow shell of a faith, one lacking any external and fixed points of truth by which we can find orientation in a chaotic world. Legitimate evaluation and questioning doesn't have to take this ultimately destructive form. Christian faith not only allows, but encourages honest doubt. Faith and understanding mature as life is lived, and as we learn more of how to connect God's Word with this world, in humility and repentance. In fact, the Greek word rendered "repentance," metanoia, literally means to change your mind or perspective. While we may point to a time and place in which we came to faith, conversion continues as an ongoing process of seeing, understanding, and trusting God's purposes in ways we had previously missed. Paul described the process to the Corinthians when he said that, "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways." Doubt is a constant companion for some of us, and take many forms. In many ways, intellectual doubts are the least difficult to deal with, in the face of doubts about God's goodness or the emotional struggles that accompany a particular difficult life situation. Throughout Scripture, God is revealed as One who meets people at the point of their confusion and doubt. Consider how he responded to Mary and Thomas. He silenced Zechariah's demanding spirit and rebuked Job's comforters' presumption. The Christian faith is big enough to honestly face the most difficult questions and the deepest despair. What's required of us, as Hebrews 11 says, is that we "believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek him." A wise mentor once pointed out how differently Proverbs describes seekers, those pursuing the truth and willing to reckon with it when they find it, and mockers, those cynical truth even exists and committed to their skepticism even if it hit them between the eyes. Get the approach right and ask all the questions you want. After all, God's big enough for the questions and the doubts. Get the approach wrong, and we won't be able to hear the answers that are there over the noise of the bulldozer we are taking to our faith.

One of the most important effects of embracing a deliberate, self-conscious Christian worldview, and losing the sacred-secular distinction so many Christians have absorbed from the world around us, is seeing the depth, the breadth, and the width of the Lordship of Jesus Christ in every sphere of life. Once we see life this way, our understanding of serving Jesus is radically re-shaped in light of the unassailable, undefeatable, and advancing Kingdom of God. Once Chuck Colson embraced that vision of the Christian life, he poured it into every single BreakPoint commentary, each and every day, desperate to help Christians think clearly about cultural issues and trends from a Christian worldview. And, during the last decade of his life, Colson decided that the best way He could advance this vision would be replication. That's why he invited Christians to study with him through what is now called the Colson Fellows Program. Inviting Christians to take a deep dive into Christian worldview over a ten-month course of study, trained and mentored by top Christian authors and thinkers, he saw class after class of Christians become the kind of culture-shaping leaders that could look at the world around them, effectively analyze, critique, and discern what was happening, and become catalysts of cultural influence and change for Jesus Christ. What makes the Colson Fellows Program so different and so vital is that it's not just an exercise in learning new things, as important as that is. Commissioned Colson Fellows are, well, commissioned. Because the training includes a teaching project, a three-year planning process, and self-inventory on who God has made them to be, they are able to apply a Christian worldview in real-world, practical ways. Here's how the program works: Those who are accepted learn how to articulate and defend biblical truth in the marketplace of ideas through intensive instruction on worldview and cultural analysis. They read both Christian classics and the best contemporary writers, many of whom they interact with on frequent webinars. Colson Center faculty includes folks such as Os Guinness, Joni Eareckson Tada, Dr. Glenn Sunshine, J. Warner Wallace, Jennifer Marshall, and Scott Klusendorf. And, in what may be the best part, Colson Fellows study together, either in one of 45 Regional Cohorts around the country or, for those with no local cohort available, through one of our Online Cohorts. So we have doctors and business professionals learning alongside of academics and lawyers, who are also learning alongside of pastors and educators. The cross-pollination of applied faith is rich, indeed. Those who complete the program join a network of more than 1,500 commissioned Colson Fellows, who have studied with us and are living out a deeper faith in a broken world. This network includes people like Colson Fellow Kristin Waggoner, one of the leading religious freedom attorneys in the nation, who represented Masterpiece Cakeshop owner Jack Phillips before the Supreme Court. In fact, my interview with Kristin about religious freedom in this age of coronavirus airs today on the BreakPoint podcast. Colson Fellows Program Director S. Michael Craven likes to say that as people study with the Colson Fellows, many have this moment of conversion. Serious-minded Christians who have been walking with the Lord for many years discover more clearly, some for the first time, that they are a part a much larger story—one that certainly includes, but goes beyond our personal salvation in Jesus Christ. Christians often say, "I've invited Jesus into my life," but the reality is that Jesus invites us into His life. His purpose. His restoring work in the world He created. To this life, His Life, we are invited to join Him in the work of making all things new. If you are stirred in heart and mind around this kind of faith, this kind of life, come to ColsonFellows.org to learn more. We respond to all inquiries and are happy to answer any questions you may have. We're taking applications now for next year's class of Colson Fellows.

Increasingly threatened with a future of economic and cultural instability, the Chinese government has worked hard to guarantee public safety and deliver a kind of domestic tranquility that only comes by limiting freedoms. For example, several sources are reporting that yet again, Beijing has increased pressure on religious groups. Beginning this year, all "approved" religions must conform to its new Administrative Measures for Religious Institutions. As Cameron Hilditch put it in National Review: The Chinese Communists aren't trying to extirpate every last trace of theism … Instead, they're attempting to enervate religious opposition to the regime by taming and co-opting domestic religious belief, turning it into another thoroughfare for the regime's agenda of social control. Despite Beijing's formal claims that "[c]itizens of China may freely choose and express their religious beliefs," this isn't freedom. It isn't toleration. It cannot even be called benign neglect. This is an empty permission to only obey. Going forward, religious groups and individuals will be "free" to practice their faith only if that faith actively conforms to and works under state authority. Under these orders, not conspiring against the state or even passively complying with Beijing's orders will not be enough to avoid trouble. Proactive support of tyranny is required. In no way can the precepts of heaven be allowed to challenge the mandates of the state. Of course, Xi Jinping's regime, like most totalitarian powers, likes to style itself as the frontline of innovation. In reality, he's in a long line of tyrants who, through the ages, tried and failed to unseat God by compromising the loyalties of His people. Think of Daniel's friends refusing to bow before Nebuchadnezzar, to Daniel himself refusing to kowtow to a Persian emperor's vanity, to Christians facing down Roman Caesars. Like Xi, these tyrants didn't care to whom or to what God's people prayed, as long as that worship didn't spoil their worship of the tyrant. In Rome, Christians only had to accommodate the state with a little incense offered to the empire alongside their loyalty to Christ. This was a line they would not cross. They would not subject the claim Christ had on their lives and all of reality to the demands of Rome and the "gods" of their age. To be clear, it's not just in the ancient world or in Communist lands where Christians are called to conform. Recently, the French Minister of the Interior demanded the Church's submission, saying of evangelicals, "We cannot discuss with people who refuse to write on paper that the law of the Republic is superior to the law of God." In American history, pastors who refused to follow the pro-slavery or segregationist script often found themselves "cancelled," if not worse. Today, Christians who do not conform to the new progressive sexual orthodoxy are threatened with dismissal from polite society, and maybe even their jobs. Christians have faced cultural hostilities throughout history whenever there is a system or power that claims to be the absolute and final authority. It's not that certain kings and dictators throughout history were bad men, and therefore acted badly towards the Church and other dissidents. Any ruler and any ideology that presumes the omniscience and omnipotence that only belongs to God will inevitably see claims to transcendent truth as an existential and intolerable threat. As Francis Schaeffer put it, when describing the Roman-era persecution endured by the early Church, "No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions." This applied to the ancient world, it applies to Beijing, and it applies to Western ideologies that demand our absolute and total allegiance. The good news is that God always strengthens, preserves, and sustains His people. He did it for Daniel and his friends. He did it for the early church, including the persecuted and the martyrs. He's doing it for our brothers and sisters in China. And, we can be sure, He will do it for us. We must never bow our knee to false gods.

John and Maria discuss the Tiananmen Square massacre, the Tulsa Race massacre, and Memorial Day. They discuss the challenges associated with remembering difficult times in history. John shares important realities surrounding the Loudon county school district. John shares a story that is developing where a gym teacher was dismissed for his views on gender identity. Maria then introduces the landscape that surrounds the movement to ban Critical Theory from schools. John points out the impact boycotting and banning has on our view of truth and our confidence in the Christian worldview. -- Resources -- The Greatest Love - Chuck Colson on Memorial Day President Biden's Stutter and the Image of God Virginia teacher placed on leave after speech disputing 'biological boy can be a girl and vice versa' Robert George on Critical Race Theory Being Banned in States Challenges Role of History

Though it will be a while before we learn the full impact of this past year on children, The American Academy of Pediatrics recently warned that the mental health of younger Americans is suffering. Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts are on the rise, as are childhood diagnoses of eating disorders and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors. While everyone was "flying blind" at the beginning of the pandemic, it is becoming more and more clear that, in the noble interest of protecting bodies, many public officials neglected to adequately consider the mental, emotional, and even spiritual aspects of our lives together. For kids, a full year without school and extracurricular activities has done terrible damage. The merits of school lockdowns as a public health strategy will certainly be hotly debated by policy makers and parents, but as American rhythms of life return to normal, we ought also to spend time evaluating just how we did at home, as families. And, like nearly every other issue that percolated to the top of our culture mid-pandemic, the health of our at-home habits pre-existed Covid. The rhythms of life shaping our families were more likely revealed by the lockdowns than created by them. Specifically, this is a question of three "L's": our loves, our loyalties, and our liturgies. If you were to ask me what I love more, my family or my phone, I wouldn't hesitate to reply, "My family." But how many times, while spending an afternoon with my kids, do I allow my buzzing phone to interrupt family time? The fact is, our loyalties aren't really tested by trivia questions or even with guns to our heads. We learn what we value most by looking at our everyday liturgies, those rhythms of life and relationships we embrace which, in turn, determine what gets our time and attention and what misses out. Of course, most people are unaware of just how much our loves, loyalties, and liturgies are shaped by unspoken cultural forces. Most Christians are shaped far more by cultural forces outside the Church than by anything inside. During the pandemic, most aspects of our lives were disrupted, in big and small ways. If some additional stress this year led to a little more screen time than usual, that is not necessarily a sign our houses are built on shifting sand. Still, we may have learned through the pandemic, just how much of our relative peace and safety comes from outside forces, rather than from inside our homes. We may have learned just how much our family liturgies rely on a busyness we love to prioritize. More and more, Christian parents will need to get used to saying "no" to things that are widely normal in American life, and not just because of the obvious moral shifting happening all around us. Counter-cultural priorities reconfigured around restored loves, renewed loyalties, and redeemed liturgies will earn us some strange looks, especially when it comes to money, to stuff, and to time. The forces that shape most American families today aren't centered around real needs, at least not spiritual needs. "Keeping up with the Joneses" and "perfecting leisure time" are much higher priorities for most of us than fostering and nurturing strong family bonds and bringing up kids who know and love Jesus. Covid caught all of us off guard, but unexpected challenges like it are wonderful opportunities to recalibrate. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, we may want to look carefully at whether or not "normal" is what we want to return to. Or if instead, we should rebuild the structures and habits that make a home a good place to land the next time the world throws us a curve.

Though it will be a while before we learn the full impact of this past year on children, The American Academy of Pediatrics recently warned that the mental health of younger Americans is suffering. Suicidal ideation and suicidal attempts are on the rise, as are childhood diagnoses of eating disorders and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors. While everyone was "flying blind" at the beginning of the pandemic, it is becoming more and more clear that, in the noble interest of protecting bodies, many public officials neglected to adequately consider the mental, emotional, and even spiritual aspects of our lives together. For kids, a full year without school and extracurricular activities has done terrible damage. The merits of school lockdowns as a public health strategy will certainly be hotly debated by policy makers and parents, but as American rhythms of life return to normal, we ought also to spend time evaluating just how we did at home, as families. And, like nearly every other issue that percolated to the top of our culture mid-pandemic, the health of our at-home habits pre-existed Covid. The rhythms of life shaping our families were more likely revealed by the lockdowns than created by them. Specifically, this is a question of three "L's": our loves, our loyalties, and our liturgies. If you were to ask me what I love more, my family or my phone, I wouldn't hesitate to reply, "My family." But how many times, while spending an afternoon with my kids, do I allow my buzzing phone to interrupt family time? The fact is, our loyalties aren't really tested by trivia questions or even with guns to our heads. We learn what we value most by looking at our everyday liturgies, those rhythms of life and relationships we embrace which, in turn, determine what gets our time and attention and what misses out. Of course, most people are unaware of just how much our loves, loyalties, and liturgies are shaped by unspoken cultural forces. Most Christians are shaped far more by cultural forces outside the Church than by anything inside. During the pandemic, most aspects of our lives were disrupted, in big and small ways. If some additional stress this year led to a little more screen time than usual, that is not necessarily a sign our houses are built on shifting sand. Still, we may have learned through the pandemic, just how much of our relative peace and safety comes from outside forces, rather than from inside our homes. We may have learned just how much our family liturgies rely on a busyness we love to prioritize. More and more, Christian parents will need to get used to saying "no" to things that are widely normal in American life, and not just because of the obvious moral shifting happening all around us. Counter-cultural priorities reconfigured around restored loves, renewed loyalties, and redeemed liturgies will earn us some strange looks, especially when it comes to money, to stuff, and to time. The forces that shape most American families today aren't centered around real needs, at least not spiritual needs. "Keeping up with the Joneses" and "perfecting leisure time" are much higher priorities for most of us than fostering and nurturing strong family bonds and bringing up kids who know and love Jesus. Covid caught all of us off guard, but unexpected challenges like it are wonderful opportunities to recalibrate. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, we may want to look carefully at whether or not "normal" is what we want to return to. Or if instead, we should rebuild the structures and habits that make a home a good place to land the next time the world throws us a curve.

Jane Goodall, the primatologist famous for living with chimpanzees and revealing their behaviors, has won the 2021 Templeton Prize. The prize honors those who "harness the power of the sciences to explore the deepest questions of the universe and humankind's place and purpose within it." Goodall follows last year's winner, Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, who led the Human Genome Project in mapping DNA. She also joins decades of laureates including Chuck Colson, who received the award in 1993 for progress in religion. At 87 years old, Goodall is a legend, and an obvious choice for the award, not just because of her work as a naturalist, but for rejecting naturalism as a worldview. In an interview with Religion News Service, she revealed that her time with the chimps in Tanzania gave her a "strong feeling of spiritual connection with the natural world." She went on to say: "…more scientists are saying there's an intelligence behind the universe, that's basically what the Templeton Foundation is about: We don't live in only a materialistic world. Francis Collins drove home that in every single cell in your body there's a code of several billion instructions. Could that be chance? No…[C]hance mutations couldn't possibly lead to the complexity of life on earth." She concluded: "…[S]cience and religion are coming together and more minds are seeing purpose behind the universe and intelligence." Intelligent design theorists who have spent decades trying to break the stranglehold of materialism on science can say "amen" to that. Yet Goodall's eye for purpose and intelligence when it comes to the natural world seems to fail her when she looks in the mirror. As Elizabeth Whately points out at Evolution News, Goodall has gone to great lengths to downplay the uniqueness of human beings. In the same interview, the primatologist scoffs: "I was actually taught in the early 1960s that the difference between us and animals was one of kind. We were elevated onto a pinnacle, separate from all the others. But my dog as a child had already taught me that wasn't true…we're not the only beings with personalities, minds and emotions." Goodall is also a longtime supporter of the Great Apes Personhood project, which seeks to confer human rights on primates. This blurring of the line between humans and animals is far from harmless. Fellow Great Apes Personhood supporters Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer have famously endorsed selective abortion and infanticide, and in Singer's case, have declared the worth of an adult pig to be greater than that of a person with mental disabilities. For all Goodall's talk of "intelligence," "purpose," and a "spark of divine energy" in living things, she misses the utterly unique place of human beings in creation. She's not alone. Recently, National Geographic released a documentary series by James Cameron entitled "Secrets of the Whales." The underwater photography is breathtaking, and some of the behaviors this team captured among orcas, belugas, humpbacks, and sperm whales have never before been filmed. Yet the narration by Sigourney Weaver is bogged down with anthropomorphic claims that whales have "culture," "language," and even self-awareness, making them "just like us." At no point does the series acknowledge the irony of making such a claim while only humans hold the cameras, breathe from SCUBA gear, engage in scientific reasoning, or sit in their living rooms reflecting on what all this natural wonder means. In spite of Cameron's childlike awe for living things, and in spite of Goodall's recognition that creation didn't create itself, both miss (or ignore) the most crucial fact: that one creature alone bears the image of its Creator. Indeed, the very curiosity that drove Goodall into the Tanzanian forest and the National Geographic crew into the briny depths leads us all to ask with the Psalmist: "What is man that you are mindful of him?" The answer is in the asking. No other creature reflects on its role and place in creation or its relationship with the Creator.

John and Shane provide encouragement for a listener whose community is hosting a gay pride weekend. A number of local businesses in this area are hosting adults-only fundraisers for the local teen LGBTQ+ organization. How can Christians correctly encourage the community in light of businesses that fail to think well about the LGBTQ+ lifestyle and the consequences of encouraging its ideology to young people? Shane then shares a question seeking clarity on God's design for marriage. The listener is concerned that the emphasis of procreation on marriage may insinuate some unions don't represent the image of God. In response, John speaks to a Christian worldview of marriage, encouraging believers to understand the expansive nature of God's design. To close, John replies to a pushback to a recent BreakPoint commentary critiquing the #LeaveLoud campaign. A listener argues that his majority white church doesn't understand the challenges of being a black man in their community and asks what kind of response he should give in such a situation. John and Shane offer important points on the purpose and role of Church, with John asking the man to engage his neighbors by providing feedback on important cultural realities for the church to understand.

In his important book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Dr. Carl Trueman argues that the key idea of our current cultural moment is expressive individualism. The only way to be "true to ourselves," we are told, is to define who we really are psychologically and sexually. This means that our identity is only truly known to ourselves, and others are morally responsible to embrace whoever or whatever we claim about ourselves even if, or especially if, what we reveal contradicts any observable realities. The Gnostics believed that there is a sharp distinction between the material and spiritual worlds, with the former being evil and the latter good. Since humans are both material and spiritual beings, our physical bodies are evil but our souls are good, possibly even fragments of God that yearn to return to Him. But they can't do this while trapped in our bodies. Salvation comes through secret knowledge, known as gnosis in Greek, hence Gnosticism. This knowledge differed from group to group. For one group, the secret knowledge was in passwords that would allow adherents to pass through crystal spheres until arriving at the highest heaven, the realm of pure Spirit. Gnosticism arose in parallel with Christianity. Some Gnostics considered themselves Christian, arguing that the God of the Old Testament was evil since He created the material world. The Father of Jesus, in contrast, was the true God and operated in the realm of spirit without mucking around with the material world. Some of these Gnostics even believed that Jesus was not a true physical being but only appeared to be one, an idea known as docetism. So, what does all this mean for how we live? Different Gnostic sects had different answers. For some, the body was a hindrance to spiritual development, and so they adopted an austere lifestyle. They might become vegetarians, drink only water rather than wine, and abstain from sexual activity. The last is particularly important since it could lead to babies, trapping another soul into a body. For others, the body was irrelevant to the spirit, and so they would adopt a hedonistic lifestyle, participating in orgies and the like, since these activities don't touch the soul. Although the details are different from ancient Gnosticism, our culture is awash with Gnostic concepts. It starts with the idea that we need to be true to ourselves, that if we follow the secret knowledge within us we will live a happy and authentic life. External rules about behavior shouldn't hold us back from the things we know in our soul will make us happy. As Woody Allen said to justify his affair with his girlfriend Mia Farrow's daughter, "The heart wants what the heart wants"—and following our heart, that secret knowledge within us, is the advice pop culture consistently drums into children and young adults. Thus, we follow both sides of ancient Gnosticism: We are sexually promiscuous but anti-natal, since children would hinder our pursuit of our happiness and truth. Looking within for our truth reaches its logical conclusion in transgenderism, the idea that our true self has nothing to do with our bodies. But, this Neo-Gnostic orthodoxy has nothing in common with God's Word or the reality of His world and the place of our bodies within it. The story of the Bible is that God created us good, both in body and soul, even if sin has marred both. Our own intuitions about ourselves, and about right and wrong are hopelessly distorted by sin, and so God in His mercy gave us His revelation to tell us about ourselves and to teach us what is good. Despite the reality of sin all around us, God doesn't make mistakes. Our bodies and souls are matched to each other, and any attempt to fight this will result in more brokenness in our lives. As Ryan T. Anderson put it recently at Wilberforce Weekend, "No one is born in the wrong body, because you are not 'in' a body. You are a body." God's directions for how to live are better for us than the advice of either our fallen desires or our fallen culture. We don't need secret, private truth. God has told us who we are, how we are to live, and united us with Christ who is the Truth to empower us to live in truth.

Because everyone is made in the image and likeness of God we have a responsibility to honor them as such. Even those we think are very, very wrong. In this cultural moment where everything from movies to sports to even the church is politicized, it's too easy to let our partisan team spirit shape whether or not we obey God and love our neighbors. But this part of the great commandment isn't optional. and we'll never be able to love others, especially those that are on the other side, those we think are very wrong, unless we settle the question of who they are. Image bearers who, like us, are corrupted by sin. Dr. Gerald McDermott is a friend and a brilliant scholar, and today on BreakPoint he shares an observation of seeing the Imago Dei in the life of one he's not inclined to view very favorably. Here's Dr. McDermott: It is hard for me to think of any Biden policies that I think are helpful to this country. Yet I must admit that I have deep sympathy for his struggle with stuttering. And I admire the grit he displays in soldiering on despite it. By now most of America has heard about the President's stutter, his honesty about it, and the perseverance he has shown trying to fight it. We have heard about the failure of his childhood speech therapy to cure it, his being bullied and mocked in school for it, the feeling of being betrayed by his own body, reciting Irish poetry rhythmically in front of a mirror to help control his tongue, and his vows to never give up fighting it. Keep pushing. Don't let it define you. Non-stutterers have little idea of the nightmares of the average stutterer. Unless they have seen the 2010 movie "The King's Speech," many who hear stutterers block on words think it might be trivial or a minor annoyance at most. But they don't know the times when occasional blocks mysteriously morph into paralysis, when even sounds that are normally effortless become mountains to climb. They have no idea of the apprehension when answering the phone, or the nervousness when, caught in conversation that goes quickly, we stutterers are afraid we won't be able to reply at the right pace, and all eyes will turn to us as the conversation suddenly stops. They don't know of the worry for weeks about upcoming speeches or presentations—not over what to say but whether we can get our tongue to cooperate. Other famous stutterers showed grit similar to Biden's. The ancient Athenian orator-statesman Demosthenes had a weak voice, and could not pronounce correctly words that started with "r." Yet Demosthenes became a great speaker by persistent determination. He practiced his speeches in a cave, repeated words with the "r" sound thousands of times, and ran up hills to strengthen his weak frame. Greater body strength helped him project his voice, which was essential in a world without microphones. The Yankee hero of the Battle of Gettysburg Joshua Chamberlain resolved when he was young that his stuttering was "intolerable." Rather than despair, he determined he would do whatever it took to find improvement. By strength of will and using a song-like rhythm, he eventually reached a state where he could get through nine of ten difficult words with no trouble. He was elected governor of Maine four times and after retirement went on the speakers' circuit. Winston Churchill practiced his speeches in the bathtub and spent hours rehearsing every speech. Repeated practice was his response to the terror he experienced early in his career when he lost his train of thought in a speech in Parliament. He had a complicated set of speech defects, one of which was stuttering. But disciplined practice helped him grow to become one of the world's greatest orators. Biden reminds me of John Updike, the great American novelist. He too stuttered, and like Biden he was a religious man of inner contradictions that were resolved by forging a faith that was captive to the spirit of the age. No one has ever described stuttering with such dead-on precision. Once Updike compared it to a traffic jam. "I have lots of words inside me: but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they jam." He painted a picture of facial tics that will make any relative of a stutterer groan with recognition. "Viewing myself on taped television, I see the repulsive symptoms of an approaching stammer take possession of my face—an electronically rapid flutter of the eyelids, a distortion of the mouth as of a leather purse being cinched, a terrified hardening of the upper lip, a fatal tensing and lifting of the voice." All stutterers will nod knowingly when they hear him refer to that "untrustworthy" part of himself that "can collapse at awkward or anxious moments into a stutter." They might smile at his philosophical conclusion that stuttering is a sign of the "duality of our existence, the ability of the body and soul to say no to one another." Or his reflection that a stammer is the acknowledgement of unacknowledged complexities surrounding even

John welcomes the Strong Women team to share a recent episode of the Strong Women podcast where Glenn Stanton dove into the theme of Strong Women. The episode reflects conversations John, Maria, and Shane have had on the BreakPoint Podcast recently.

Today on BreakPoint, we hear Chuck Colson's thoughts on Memorial Day and what he called, "The Greatest Love.": "It was February of 1945—three months before the end of World War II in Europe. Eighteen-year-old Sergeant Joseph George of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, was stationed in Lorient, France. It was evening, and George was preparing to go on patrol. The Americans were hoping to locate landmines buried by the Germans. Sergeant George had been on patrol duty the night before. As he told his friend Private James Caudill, he was tired—tired and scared. Private Caudill offered to take the patrol on his behalf. He pointed out that, at age 36, he was nearly two decades older than George. He told George—who had already been blown off a torpedoed ship in the English Channel—"You're young. Go home. Get married. Live a rich, full life." And then Private Caudill went out on patrol. A few hours later, he was killed by a German sniper. The actions of Private Caudill echo the values and valor of generations of military men and women we remember today. And they are an example of the sort of behavior we almost take for granted when it comes to our men and women in uniform who fight just wars. What is a just war? One that is defined as providing a proportionate response to evil, to protect non-combatants, among other considerations. Today, our military men and women around the world are fighting to resist evil. Ridding the world of Islamo-fascism—by just means—is a good and loving act. This willingness to sacrifice on behalf of our neighbors is why military service is considered such a high calling for Christians—and part of what makes just wars just. Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica puts his discussion of just war in his chapter on charity—the love of God and neighbor. John Calvin agreed; he called soldiering justly a "God-like act," because "it imitates God's restraining evil out of love for His creatures." A world in which free nations refuse to fight just wars would be a world where evil is unchecked and where the strong would be free to prey on the weak—as we are now seeing in Darfur. Our soldiers' willingness to defend the defenseless around the world makes me proud to be an American. Their willingness to lay down their lives is a reflection of how the Christian worldview has influenced our society, which is why American soldiers, by the way, are welcomed all over the world, as historian Stephen Ambrose wrote, while soldiers from other cultures are feared. So what of Sgt. Joseph George? He returned safely home. He married, fathered five sons. One of them—Princeton Professor Robert George—is a good friend of mine. He's devoted much of his life to fighting the moral evils of our time: abortion, embryo-destructive research, and efforts to redefine marriage in a way that would destroy it. In John 15:13, Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that [he] lay down his life for his friends." The story of Private Caudill and Sergeant George makes one realize more deeply what a tremendous gift this is. It's why the George family has remembered Private Caudill in prayers for sixty-one years. Today, Memorial Day, we ought to remember the sacrifices of all the Private Caudills in all the wars Americans have fought—and we should pray for those who are still in the field—laying down their lives for each other, for us, and for the freedom of strangers. That's a very Christian thing to do."

John and Maria discuss a perceived rise recently in acts of desperation and feelings of despair. There are growing reports of altercations at sporting events and in public settings pointing to a failing sense of trust in institutions. Maria looks to another trend in media where people are questioning the origin of the Coronavirus. John then highlights the challenge the public is having in trusting those who are in positions of authority. Before these two important topics, Maria and John discuss the impact Wilberforce weekend made on them, specifically the importance of understanding the image of God, a central theme throughout the entire presentation of BreakPoint This Week.

Recently, New York Times opinion writer Elizabeth Bruenig broke the internet for a bombshell confession that, wait for it, she likes being a mom. Her piece, "I Became a Mother at 25, and I'm Not Sorry I Didn't Wait" was a beautifully written essay about how motherhood grew and changed her. Nothing she said was controversial… unless you're on Twitter, of course. Responses on social media were swift and angry, and ranged from strange to cruel to violent. Many missed, given their expressed pro-choice commitments, the irony of being angry at a choice to have kids. Of course, it's simply no longer accurate for this movement to call itself "pro-choice" anymore. Modern feminism is definitively pro-abortion with extremes that have no interest in women making their own choices. There's only one particular choice that is always acceptable. The choice to have children is the one that must be justified and defended. The choice to prevent or kill a child is the one taken for granted. In an even greater twist of irony, one of the most powerful and exclusive aspects of womanhood, the ability to bear children, is seen to interfere with being a woman. In fact, "feminism" is certainly the wrong term for a movement that demands that women fight the thing that only a woman's body can do. And, it is the wrong term for a view that promises equality for women only if they promise to act more like men. In so many ways, this latest iteration of feminism is anti-feminism. The backlash to Bruenig's piece also reveals how children are viewed in so much of our world. Bruenig's joy in motherhood is wonderful, but it isn't unique or rare. Many parents would say something similar, in fact. Still, children are treated as an obstacle to personal happiness—too expensive, too much work, bad for the environment, irresponsible. Simply put, reproductive technologies like birth control, assisted reproduction, and abortion have changed our reproductive ideas. Specifically, we now have the illusion that the choice is ours, and we are in control primarily of our own happiness. Though certainly not every parent prior to the twentieth century felt ready or excited for a pregnancy, there was more to the equation than: "Will this make me happy?" Children are ends in and of themselves, not means. Our happiness is not, ultimately, what children are for. They are made in the image of God, made by God for the good and care of the world, made for the time and place in which they are conceived, made to love, live for, and to glorify God. Every parent knows that children bring intense joy, and can be the source of intense pain (not to mention anxiety). This makes marriage a gift from God as the context for children. Marriage and children go together. When God blesses a marriage with children, He makes a choice that isn't really ours to make. Relinquishing our cultural grip on control, and the supposed need to always "explore all of our options," is a common grace of parenthood. A.W. Tozer tells a story about two fields: one uncultivated and one that's put to the plow: The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow. But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility; never does it feel the motions of mounting life… The cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living… it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken. But its rewards come hard upon its labors. Nature's wonders follow the plow. Though we don't have children in the self interest of our own joy, God in His kindness brings incredible joy through parenthood. It's a joy only accomplished by man and woman together, unrivaled in any other human experience. That's grace on grace.

A Gallup poll released earlier this month documented a massive 20-year drop in church attendance in America. So far, there have been two responses to it. One group mourns the decline of organized religion because religion is good for society, whether or not the religion is true. For example, Jewish commentator Matthew Yglesias wrote on Twitter, "[I] think I'm becoming a Straussian/Putnamist who instrumentally wants to get everyone to go to church." (He was referring to two socio-political theorists who emphasized the value of Christianity as a social institution.) As Mark Tooley of the Institute for Religion and Democracy noted in a tweet, churches have always been crucial to the project of self-government, teaching people to love their neighbors, and training them in the qualities "needed for wider society" such as "compromise, sacrifice, grace, mercy, patience, [and] humility." Even arch-atheist Richard Dawkins has, in his words, "mixed feelings about the decline of Christianity" since, he warned his fellow unbelievers, "it might be a bulwark against something worse." Others, especially many believers, have a different reaction to record-low church attendance. They see this as not as the demise of true faith, but of "cultural Christianity." And, they add, good riddance to it. The reasoning goes like this: False believers who went to church because it was the social thing to do are now leaving since faith is no longer advantageous. True believers remain, and are now easier to distinguish within the wider culture. Among this school of thought are well-known evangelical pastors and leaders. As one tweeted: "Cultural Christianity is worse than no Christianity at all … Let nominal religion fall. Let the gospel rise." Another wrote: "If cultural Christianity means identifying as a Christian without fruit or praxis then secularism may be God wiping this malaise away." Still another declared: "Cultural Christianity is dying. Either you are a Christian or not. No faking it anymore." So, which view is right? Is the exodus of worshipers from pews a bad sign of our thinning social fabric? Or is it a good sign that the dross is being skimmed, revealing a smaller but purer Church? The choice is a false one. While Christianity is certainly more than a set of theological beliefs and the custom of sincere worship practices, it can never be less. So, just getting people back in church is not merely an "instrumental" good. This, to quote C. S. Lewis' observation in The Screwtape Letters, treats Christianity as a means, rather than an end: "Men or nations who think they can revive the Faith in order to make a good society might just as well think they can use the stairs of Heaven as a short cut to the nearest chemist's shop." It is the devil's goal, to get people to embrace Christianity "not because it's true, but for some other reason." Christianity does show itself to the world, as the love of Christ reflects outwardly through His people. True Christianity will change how people think, behave, and relate to each other. As a result, Christianity often reforms a society, rescuing the oppressed, establishing justice, innovating goodness and beauty, and building cultural and political institutions. These good things result because Christianity is true, and because people really believe and live out of a framework of creation, incarnation, forgiveness, restoration, and resurrection. When the good things Christianity brings to the world decline, it reveals far more about the state of the church than the state of the world. So, the news that most Americans no longer attend church regularly is not good news for the church or for the world, and there will be huge cultural consequences for generations to come. The only way forward is, as ever, for Christ's followers to treat the faith as if it is true, and more than a means of self-improvement or social reform.

John and Shane field questions ranging from how an adult can love her family that is challenging her decision not to vaccinate. The adult's brothers and sisters are saying she doesn't love her parents well because of her decision. John and Shane discuss the ongoing false dichotomies our culture creates. John then responds to concern from parents regarding their adult son who is currently living with his girlfriend. The girlfriend isn't a follower of Jesus and said she wants to "test drive" living together before entering marriage. John and Shane provide encouragement for the parents as they navigate challenging waters. To close Shane asks John for some grade school Sunday school resources on behalf of a budding worldview teacher. John gives a pathway for the teacher to provide a good base of worldview training for the students.

Many of us recognize how important religious freedom is in the world, but some think advocating for religious liberty compromises our Christian witness. We're excited to partner with our friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom in a six part series on religious liberty. It's part of our What Would You Say? video project. Here's the audio from the most recent video that was released just this morning. You're in a conversation and someone says, "Standing up for religious liberty is bad for Christian witness. After all, aren't Christians supposed to turn the other cheek?" What would you say? Sometimes people think that Christians who advocate for religious liberty do so at the cost of their Christian witness. They assume that defending religious freedom is motivated by fear, and distracts from the gospel. Since Christians are supposed to be fearless and self-sacrificial, doesn't defending religious liberty compromise our Christian witness? No, and here are three reasons why. Number one, religious freedom is not a social construct. It reflects what is true about us as humans. Religious liberty isn't an invention of America's Founding Fathers. It's a pre-political God-given right. All people have the right given by God to peaceably live according to our convictions without fear of unjust punishment and restrictions from kings, presidents and city councils. To be sure, governments don't always recognize religious freedom, but their failure to do so only highlights that religious liberty is a natural right given by God, not a privilege given to the people by a benevolent ruler. This is part of what it means to be made in God's image and to have the law of God written on our hearts. We know intrinsically that to be free to worship God according to our own convictions, our neighbors need to be allowed to do the same. Even if we think they're wrong. Standing up for religious liberty is part of our Christian witness. Religious freedom is rooted in the truth about who we are as image bearers. Telling the truth about how we were made will never get in the way of the Gospel. Number two, religious freedom is an ancient and central part of Christian teaching, from the Apostle Paul to the Catholic catechism to the Westminster Confession, Christianity has long taught that everyone should be free to worship and share their beliefs. In fact, religious freedom shows up in the earliest teachings of the Christian church. A third century church father wrote, "It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion." The early fourth-century edict of Milan, issued by Christian Emperor Constantine, opened the door to statewide religious freedom by ensuring that the government could no longer demand religious conformity. These early Christian teachings are based in the words of Christ Himself, who insisted that all His followers must choose Him freely, from the bottom of their hearts. Sometimes Christian communities have failed to respect religious freedom, but that does not change the reality that religious freedom is interwoven with the basic teachings of the church. These early Christians understood that they had a sacred responsibility to uphold their neighbors' religious freedom, and that responsibility carries over to us today. Number three, standing up for religious liberty is a way to love our neighbor. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor. If Christians truly love our neighbors, we should work to create the best society we can, where the government honors God-given rights and respects the God-ordained dignity of every person. Study after study has shown a direct correlation between societies that are healthy, prosperous and respect human rights, and societies that respect religious freedom. In 2018, Pew Research Center found that the nations with the most religious freedom also tend to protect free speech and freedom of conscience. Nations that restrict religious freedom like Iran and Chinarestrict other basic rights as well. Religious freedom leads to greater prosperity, too. A study found that in the U.S. alone, religious individuals and organizations contribute more than $1.2 trillion dollars to the economy. Economist Arthur Brooks found that religious people who practice their faith, that is people who say that their faith is a significant part of their lives, are 25% more likely to donate to charity than secularists or people who rarely attend church. And they are 23% more likely to volunteer their time serving others. Standing up for religious freedom is about upholding the common good according to God's word. It is quite simply a way for us to love our neighbor as Christ commanded us. So the next time someone says that standing up for religious liberty is bad for our Christian witness, remember these three things: Number one, religious freedom is not a social construct. It reflects what is true about us as humans. Number two, religious

TikTok is a social media platform created in China, best known for dance videos. Its parent company, in fact, is called ByteDance. Still, like so much of social media, TikTok has grown far beyond what its creators intended or thought possible. For example, TikTok has become a home for Christian evangelism and discipleship. That's somewhat ironic, given China's intensifying war against Christianity and somewhat unexpected, given the lack of clarity about how much control Beijing asserts over the platform. Still, according to the "influencer marketing firm" Traackr, "Christian TikTok . . . drove more than 169 million engagements in 2020." About 1,800 Christian "influencers'' are active on the platform, Traackr estimates, and that number is growing. Christian TikTok is especially big in Mexico and Latin America, reports Vice, where millions of viewers have made the platform "the go-to place for a religious dose." Dose, by the way, is not a bad word for what TikTok offers. With few exceptions, videos on the platform cannot exceed 60 seconds. On average, that means Christian influencers have only about 150 words to give viewers "content, intimate prayers, and empathetic counseling." That's not a criticism of those who wish to use TikTok and other social media platforms like it to spread the Good News, but it should be a warning. Whether influencers realize it or not, there's a long and storied history of Christians, especially evangelicals, using new technologies to preach the Gospel and advance the Christian faith. The most obvious example is the printing press. The first book ever published with movable type was the Bible in 1455. By 1500, an estimated 8 million books had been printed in Europe, most of which were religious texts. Throughout the Reformation, which began less than 70 years after the invention of movable type, new communications technologies allowed reformers to make an "end run" around ecclesiastical authorities and directly appeal to the growing and increasingly literate middle class. Two hundred years later, the explosion of newspapers played a central role in spreading reports of conversions during what came to be called "The Great Awakening." These reports not only tracked the travel of evangelist George Whitefield and the scope of the revival, they created interest and anticipation about where it might go next. And, of course, there are numerous twentieth century examples, from Charles Fuller to Billy Graham to Jerry Falwell, involving radio, television, satellite technology, and the internet. The fall of communism and the rise of televangelists can both be traced to the use of communication technology by evangelicals to spread the Gospel message. So, the use of a new platform like TikTok is right in line with a story that goes way back in church history. Yet, the same history reveals the limitations of certain technologies, especially in the areas of discipleship and catechesis. After all, as Marshall McLuhan taught us, the medium is the message. The message is not just the what, it's the how. And, the fullness of "abundant life in Christ" can't really be contained in a tweet. For example, social scientists use the term "parasocial relationship" to describe the illusion of friendship and intimacy that develops between viewers and personalities on social media or television. It's an illusion because reciprocity is impossible in these mediums. That's not to say anything insincere or sinister is necessarily going on (although it may be), only that virtual connections are not substitutes for friends and mentors. Jesus not only taught His disciples, He shared life with them: meals, hardships, joys, conflict, sorrows, jealousy, etc. His command to them to "love one another as I have loved you" is the ultimate call to reciprocity. Reciprocity required physical presence, something impossible in a parasocial relationship. The key lesson here is to allow new technologies to do what they can do, but not expect them to do what they cannot do. The internet can disperse sermons and teaching materials like no other platform the world has ever seen. It cannot, as we've learned through COVID, be the kind of gathering place required for church. TikTok is great for challenging people with truth. It isn't sufficient for the Christian tasks of fully giving the reason for the hope we have, or loving our neighbors as ourself, or bearing one another's burdens, or mourning with those who mourn, or becoming more like Christ. The really hard work of making disciples must be done, as they say online, "IRL," or in real life.

A Christian worldview offers dignity to women that's not found in any other worldview in human history. Author Rebecca McLaughlin spoke about this at Wilberforce Weekend and shared these thoughts at a special Strong Women podcast episode recorded at the conference. You can listen here. Here is an excerpt from Rebecca's talk: Sometimes marriage and motherhood are celebrated at the expense of all other things God calls women to do. Some say a woman's highest calling is to be a wife and a mother. But a woman's highest calling is really to follow Jesus. Some are called to do that as wives. Some are called to follow Him as a wife and mother, and some are called to follow Him as single people. The Bible gives us an elevated view of both modes. We Christians have tended to downplay or denigrate singleness in order to elevate marriage. But the negative contrast to marriage isn't singleness. It's having multiple partners in non-monogamous sexual relationships. An important piece of the puzzle, therefore, is actually those women who are called to follow Jesus as singles. I have always been a little surprised that I got married. Part of me feels single on the inside. I love my husband. It's just that the Lord could have pulled me in a different direction. The relational aspect is as true and important for men as it is for women. Part of how we are made in God's image and how we roll out His kingdom is in relating to each other in ways that flow out of the kind of love Jesus has for us. It's in relationships in which we recognize that the other person is made in God's image, and someone for whom Jesus died. How we relate to other people is so important. The creative piece applies in terms of creating new humans, which men and women do together. It applies in terms of all the other spheres in which we use our skills, gifts, experience, and hard work. To listen to the rest of Rebecca McLaughlin's talk on the Strong Women podcast, download the episode on your favorite podcast app. Rebecca's full talk at Wilberforce Weekend will be available as part of our online Wilberforce Weekend offering (included are all the video sessions plus some special online-only sessions). The online platform is available for only $49. To purchase it, please visit wilberforceweekend.org/online.

John and Maria discuss a recent retort by Harvard's Cornell West to Howard University's decision to dissolve their classics department. They also discuss how the federal government's actions to expand unemployment benefits is playing out in the marketplace. To close the first segment, Maria asks John to comment further on a recent action by Sweden to remove puberty blocking medications from the approved treatment of gender dysphoria. John and Maria then discuss the role of women in ministry, an issue that became a hot topic recently after Saddleback Church welcomed a few women to their staff as pastors. Reactions from within the Southern Baptist Convention have many wondering about the way culture shapes our understanding of Scripture. John provides clarity in presenting a Christian worldview response that reflects God's communicated design for the role of pastor in the church. John then speaks to a recent decision by the Supreme Court to hear a case involving abortion laws and state's rights, offering a picture of the role of government and the responsibility of Christians in understanding the purpose and design of government. To close, John responds to a recent Christianity Today article that challenged where religious freedom protections are found. John and Maria share critique on the article, calling listeners to understand the Christian view of freedom.

In a recent article in Christianity Today, Judd Birdsall of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University analyzed the differences between how the Biden Administration has handled religious liberty concerns so far, and how his predecessor did. The article provides a critical lesson in how religious freedom is so often misunderstood, both in terms of the relationship between church and state and in terms of conscience rights across the board. First, there's the seriousness of the issue. Birdsall, in arguing that the State Department under President Trump had exaggerated claims of global religious oppression, described the different ways that the data can be measured and reported. This seems a strange statement to make. As a friend said to me in response to the article, "Whether it's 80% of the world's population or it's 56 nations that are in trouble, it is still a huge problem." Birdsall also took issue with tone and tenor difference between Trump officials and Biden officials, claiming that the previous administration was too boastful about its commitment to religious liberty. Instead, wrote Birdsall, America should be known for "not only a higher level of respect for religious freedom but also more honesty about shortcomings and actively addressing them." There's nothing in this statement I'd disagree with. But the answer doesn't hinge solely on humility without international action. Nor humility without acknowledging national shortcomings when it comes to restricting the religious freedoms of our own citizens. In the wake of the nationalism, totalitarianism, and religious-based oppression of the last several decades, we should acknowledge and celebrate the fact that the U.S. government finally put the first freedom at the forefront of its international relationships. In contrast,the Biden administration so far has followed the Obama administration's second-term tack in placing LGBTQ and abortion access concerns front and center in international dealings. A more humble government would stop targeting and restricting the conscience rights of private business owners like Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman, or religious institutions like Christian colleges and orders of nuns. Birdsall accurately traces the history of these two competing views of religious liberty. The first he calls "The First Freedom" view, based on the place of religious freedom within the Bill of Rights. The other he calls "the Article 18" view, based on the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights definition of religious freedom. In the former view, religious freedom is the first freedom. It's the basis for many other freedoms essential for human and social flourishing. In the latter view, spiritual things are protected as a matter of personal choice, and it might be necessary to defer religious freedom to other human rights. Birdsall admits that the Biden administration holds an "Article 18" view of freedom, seeing religious liberty as something to be worked out in light of other freedoms, especially sexual freedom. That view is opposed right in the very first issue of Christianity Today in an article written by its founding editor, Carl Henry. Henry pondered the fragile basis for freedom in the West, arguing that champions of liberty far too often argued for it on a secular, individualistic basis. For Henry, this was woefully insufficient. The only hope for maintaining liberty, he thought, was for us to reorient ourselves to "the proper foundations of freedom." Religious liberty is properly understood as the first freedom, not as a mere side effect of other freeedoms. It guarantees other proper rights of citizens, religious or not, because it is based upon a particular vision of the kind of creatures we citizens are. In particular, that we do not belong—either in mind or body—to the state or to a particular interest group. We belong, in our consciences, to God. Any other basis of freedom subjects all freedoms to death by a thousand qualifications. To borrow from St. Anselm, there is an ontological primacy to religious freedom because itrelativizes the consistent but vain attempts of the state to claim preeminence. Of course it's true that God really does reign above all earthly powers, but you don't even have to believe that to know that without robust protections for religious freedom, all of our other rights will have no higher court of appeal than whomever currently holds the keys of power.

The road to hell, paved with good intentions, leads to some unpleasant travelling companions. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stonestreet. This is BreakPoint. According to a recent article in World magazine, several Australian states have initiated or expanded the practice of euthanasia "down under." Similar measures were expanded across the Tasman by New Zealand last year, and across the globe in Spain, but failed in Portugal. Canada's death laws are being expanded through appeals to allow the mentally ill to die, while Holland and Belgium are still racing to see how far this road actually goes. Here at home, ten U.S. states have "death with dignity" laws. Every one of these laws advances by an appeal to compassion. It is merciful, we are told, to allow the ill to end their pain in death. Denying death to those who suffer robs human beings of their innate dignity and our future of "a happier world." Death can be, the rhetoric goes, a gift of love. Couched in explicitly moral terms, euthanasia is offered as the only ethical choice, opposite of heartlessness and cruelty. The word games played in the euthanasia debate would be impressive if they weren't so evil. Words such as "illness," "pain," "compassion," "mercy," and "dignity," are moving targets. It's the same game played by some of the worst villains in history. The movie Ich Klage An (or "I Accuse" in English) was released in German in 1941. In the film, the accused is a society and legal system that refuses to let a young woman die. Hanna Heyt, who suffers greatly from MS, wishes to end her pain. Her doctor refuses but her scientist husband complies. He's brought to trial for murder, only to level his own accusation against society for its heartlessness in the face of needless agony. With a few stylistic edits and updated production, one could easily imagine this compassionate appeal for "death with dignity" hitting a theater or streaming service today. It's all there: a fresh young face full of promise shackled by an incurable disease, making an earnest plea for a merciful end to her suffering. A husband's compassionate struggle to aid his loved one in getting what she wants, offering wise and carefully nuanced counsel to the resisting authorities. The anguished husband's accusation hits not just the judges, but an entire culture's supposedly cold heart. Ich Klage An was produced at the behest of the infamous Joseph Goebbels and his Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, with the goal of selling his new euthanasia program for the chronically ill and disabled. It worked. The movie was so compelling, the Allies banned it in 1945 for its role in enabling the Holocaust. Our idea of Nazi propaganda is probably more the goose-stepping hyenas in The Lion King but, as one commentator put it: … Ich Klage An comes across as a well-made, balanced melodrama. Unlike other propaganda films made during the time, there is little Nazi imagery or rhetoric. Yet dig a little deeper, it soon becomes apparent just how slyly and insidiously it pushes active euthanasia. The film and regime's same utilitarian view of human dignity advances so-called "death with dignity" laws in our age. And, like the German extermination initiatives, these laws expand every time they are tried. The debate begins with those near death, and quickly expands to those who are terminal, then to those with incurable disease, then to those with permanent conditions, then to the disabled, and finally to the depressed and mentally ill. First, consent is required. Then, it is implied. Finally, it is unnecessary. Those who advance euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide laws should have to demonstrate how their arguments differ from Nazi propaganda. If they don't, it's time to ask hard questions about this movement expanding so quickly around the world.

John and Shane field a question from a listener who is wondering how to not only build a theology of being fired, but how he can evangelize his friends to build a theology of being fired. Shane then reads a question from a listener who responded to a BreakPoint podcast who was disappointed with how John approached dead naming. The piece was about Ellen Page, who now goes by Elliot Page. John provides and understanding for the listener, and shares his appreciation to handle relationships appropriately. Finally, John responds to a question from a listener who desires to wrestle with racial issues, specifically in his church, without succumbing to Critical Race Theory.

John and Shane field a question from a listener who is wondering how to not only build a theology of being fired, but how he can evangelize his friends to build a theology of being fired. Shane then reads a question from a listener who responded to a BreakPoint podcast who was disappointed with how John approached dead naming. The piece was about Ellen Page, who now goes by Elliot Page. John provides and understanding for the listener, and shares his appreciation to handle relationships appropriately. Finally, John responds to a question from a listener who desires to wrestle with racial issues, specifically in his church, without succumbing to Critical Race Theory.

In the book River Out of Eden, Oxford biologist and atheist superstar Richard Dawkins famously wrote: "The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference." Dawkins and other "new atheists" have long insisted that science has excluded the possibility of a creator or has, at least, rendered it unnecessary. Turns out this belief may be scientifically out of date. According to a new book, the biggest discoveries of the last century challenge a materialistic worldview and call science back to its theistic roots. Cambridge-educated philosopher of science Stephen Meyer wrote two books, Signature in the Cell and Darwin's Doubt, that both argue against materialist accounts of biology. His latest book, The Return of the God Hypothesis, makes an even more ambitious claim. Three key twentieth century discoveries, argue Meyer, challenge materialist assumptions and point, not just to an intelligent designer, but to a transcendent God. He recently joined my colleague Shane Morris on the Upstream podcast to talk about the book. Not only were most of the founders of modern science devout Christians, the scientific method itself emerged from assumptions found only in a Christian worldview, such as the intelligibility of nature and the need to constantly test our fallen intuitions against the facts. Tracing science from its theistic beginnings, Meyer shows how it gradually lost its way and became tethered to materialism. Famed scientists like Laplace, Hume, and Darwin came to believe that the "God hypothesis" was no longer necessary to explain the natural world, that the universe required no cause beyond itself. Given the opportunity and enough time, living things could arise and evolve on their own. Since the conditions for life were simple and the universe had existed from eternity, here we are. These assumptions went largely unchallenged until the twentieth century. However, breakthroughs in astronomy, physics, and biology began to undermine materialism. For example, telescopes began to challenge the proponents (Einstein being one) of a steady-state universe. More and more evidence mounted that the universe was, in fact, not eternal, as many scientists had long assumed. If instead the universe came into being at some point in time, it must have had a cause outside of itself, To be clear, there must be a cause outside of space, time, matter, and energy. Another discovery was how finely tuned the universe is. The very laws that govern the cosmos, such as gravity, electromagnetism, nuclear forces, and the cosmological constant, are precisely calibrated in such a way that makes life possible. There's not a compelling way to explain this "Goldilocks universe," one "just right" that could have been otherwise, within a naturalistic worldview. As English astronomer and former atheist Fred Hoyle put it, "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics…" And then, there's the discovery Meyer has already devoted two other books to exploring: Materialists long thought that Darwin's theory was a silver bullet against design arguments. Darwin, however, knew nothing about DNA, the inner structure of the cell, or the crucial role information plays in the existence and propagation of life. The more we learn about them, the more outdated this "God is no longer necessary" hypothesis seems to be. Simply put, Dawkins got it wrong. The universe we live in has properties one would expect if it were, in fact, designed by a God who had us in mind when He made the place. As Myer's book shows, this assumption was an original conviction of many who launched and drove the scientific revolution. It's the conviction of a growing number of scientists today who are willing to challenge the powers that be and admit the design they see in the heavens, the laws of nature, and under the microscope. As Meyer puts it, "The evidence is crying out for a God hypothesis." Come to BreakPoint.org and we'll tell you how to get a copy of Stephen Meyer's The Return of the God Hypothesis. We'll also link you to his conversation with Shane Morris on the Upstream podcast.

Emilie Kao is the director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. She is presenting at the Wilberforce Weekend. She will share her passion for protecting and defending the rights of children and how her campaign reflects the image of God. Emilie has defended religious freedom for the last 14 years. Kao has worked on behalf of victims of religious freedom violations in East Asia, the Middle East, Europe and South Asia at the State Department's Office of International Religious Freedom and Becket Law. Previously, she worked at the United Nations and Latham and Watkins. Kao also taught international human rights law at George Mason University Law School as an adjunct law professor. She earned an A.B. degree in Near Eastern Civilizations and Languages at Harvard-Radcliffe College and a J.D. at Harvard Law School. Kao is a member of the Supreme Court Bar and the bar associations of California and the District of Columbia.