Breakpoint

A pattern emerges whenever a culture tries to fix itself, with only the resources of its own unmoored virtues. A problem is identified, but misdiagnosed. Then, a solution is offered that accomplishes the exact opposite of the goal. Examples of this include trampling on the rights of women in the name of inclusion, firing ethnic minorities for racism, and the new brand of anti-Semitism prevalent on college campuses that are supposed to be (even because they are) "woke." These many examples reveal why worldview matters. Every worldview answers the questions "What's wrong with the world?" and "How can it be fixed?" Some worldviews get the answers to these questions very, very wrong. Hatred of the Jews, for example, is perhaps the oldest hatred in the world. Typically, anti-Semitism is perceived as coming from far-right, white supremacists or radical Muslim extremists. However, acording to a new student group called the New Zionist Congress, however, anti-Semitism is increasingly found on college campuses, notably among the far-left. Apparently, the progressive orthodoxies built around Critical Theory offers little space for Jewish people. In the name of "standing up for the oppressed," maybe the most oppressed group in world history is being excluded? Blake Flayton, a self-proclaimed progressive, gay, Jewish college student first explained the problem in a 2019 op-ed in The New York Times. "At many American universities," he wrote, "it is now normal for student organizations to freely call Israel an imperialist power and an outpost of white colonialism with little pushback or discussion — never mind that more than half of Israel's population consists of Israeli Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, and that the country boasts a 20-percent Arab minority." The problem, of course, is that Critical Theory is not big enough as a worldview to deal with a real world that constantly crosses racial, socio-economic and national lines. Critical theory relies on those lines to determine human worth, dignity, and moral standing. No room is allowed for actual progress. Once an oppressor, always an oppressor. And, if an oppressed group rises above their oppression, whether perceived or real, they risk falling on the wrong side of the measuring stick. Jewish history is long and winding. Even after the Germans attempted to exterminate them, and much of the world closed their borders to Jewish refugees, the Jewish people somehow managed to reclaim their homeland in Israel. Now that Israel has secured relative safety and freedom, all of a sudden, they're evil? This self-defeating and dehumanizing logic is a central flaw of this way of seeing the world. Any worldview that grounds human value in a perceived proximity to power or ethnicity robs individuals of their humanity. God's Image is what makes us human and therefore valuable, regardless of whether we have any power or belong to any group. The Bible not only provides a much better standard for determining human worth, but it also offers us a clue as to why anti-Semitism has persisted for so long. God formed the nation of Israel and chose the Jewish people through which to send the Messiah in order to bless all the peoples of the earth. A world animated by His Enemy will hate them. Years ago in a sermon, John Piper said that a church that fails to evangelize the Jewish people - to accept, value, learn from, and minister to them - cannot "long hold on to the gospel." He was drawing heavily from the writings of Paul, which explore the mystery of God's love for the Jewish people. The world's new or, more accurately, renewed hate for Jewish people is another opportunity for the Church to be profoundly counter-cultural. Psalm 122 instructs us to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem." That peace remains a long way off. We should keep praying.

John Stonestreet serves as president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. He wraps up our Time of Guided Prayer last week, reflecting on Proverbs as wisdom for the church and nation

Last week, the ACLU, an organization typically not friendly to Christian ideals, got one right (albeit unintentionally) when the organization tweeted out, "Trans children are perfect exactly as they are." Their attempt to affirm our culture's newest progressive doctrine actually communicated the opposite. After all, trans-activists insist that children, or anyone, who struggle with gender dysphoria are "trapped in the wrong bodies" and given the wrong names. The only way, in fact, for them to "be their true selves" is by altering their bodies, blocking their natural development through puberty, and sterilizing them with medication and surgery. In other words, what the ACLU really thinks is that trans children are not perfect the way they are. Then, just a few days after confusing the meaning of the word perfect, the ACLU issued another tweet with even more wrongly defined words, "Trans Youth are Loved. Trans Youth are cherished. Trans Youth belong." How is telling a kid that their bodies are a mistake of God or nature a way of cherishing them? How is telling them that they're wrong as is, not just in their feelings but in their very being, helping them "to belong?" How is any of this love? Still, it's one thing for the ACLU to get this issue so wrong; it's another thing altogether for the Church to get it wrong. Just as bad is the Church embracing one of the great lies of our culture, that telling the truth is unloving and that loving someone requires affirming their choices. Truth matters, ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have victims. This is why we cannot love someone without speaking the truth. It is not necessarily cruel to say what is true. It can be, of course, if the truth is said in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. At the same time, affirming someone's choices can be not only not telling the truth, but it can be an incredibly cruel thing to do, even when done from good intentions. In fact, the cruelest thing you can tell someone who's not ok is that they are. Even raising the issue of truth, especially in certain contexts, can end a relationship. For example, over the past few years, I've heard from many, many parents and grandparents of grown children, struggling to make sense of a generational gap that seems insurmountable. Generation gaps are, of course, nothing new but, in our culture, certain issues are driving these relationships to a breaking point. A new, four-week, online course, beginning tomorrow April 6, will address this need. "How to Speak Truth and Love Both Inside and Outside the Church" takes place four consecutive Tuesday evenings, led by four outstanding and practical speakers who will help us hold together truth and love in our interactions with four different groups of people. Greg Stier from Dare2Share will get things started tomorrow night as he discusses how we can speak truth and love to unbelievers who need to know Jesus. The following Tuesday, Colson Fellows National Director Michael Craven will help us communicate with Christians who don't know what (or how) to think about the issues in our culture (or maybe who don't seem to care very much). The third session, led by apologist and author Sean McDowell, will focus on communicating truth in love to progressive Christians who have abandoned important Christian truths. And finally, Jonathan Morrow from the Impact 360 Institute, will help us understand members of Gen Z, and help communicate to these people who often struggle to know who to trust. Register for this course at BreakPoint.org. Each week features a 90-minute session that includes a time for question and answer with the instructor. Everyone who signs up also receives a link to the recording of every week's session, that way you can review the information or you can catch it in case of a scheduling conflict. Truth and love are inseparable. Jesus Christ is the source and the very embodiment of both Truth and Love. We need not choose between them. We must not choose between them. Again, come to BreakPoint.org to register for tomorrow night's Short Course, "How to Speak Truth and Love."

John and Maria discuss a new song and music video by Little Nas X. They also discuss a new development in New York related to marijuana despite recent findings of its link to young male suicide. Through this, John and Maria consider how and why young men aren't o.k.. John also spends time discussing a recent court battle that went in favor of a university professor who elected to live not by lies, referring to a student respectfully while also refusing to use preferred gender pronouns.

Each year, the most popular meme that I share on social media is a picture of Chuck Colson with a quote where he describes how his experience in the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration helped him believe in the resurrection. Years ago, he described on video how watching the lies of a group of powerful men fall apart made him realize the disciples were, indeed, telling the truth. Here's Chuck Colson: I want to wish you and your families and friends a holy, blessed Easter. We celebrate because we as Christians know that our Lord is risen from the dead—and in His resurrection is our hope of everlasting life with God. Indeed, as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, the historical fact of Christ's resurrection is the only basis of our hope. Without the resurrection, our faith is futile. This is why critics of Christianity often try to explain away the empty tomb. They claim that the disciples lied--that they stole Jesus's body themselves and conspired together to pretend He had risen. The apostles then managed somehow to recruit more than 500 other people to lie for them as well, to say they saw Jesus after He rose from the dead. But just how plausible is this theory? To answer that question, fast forward nearly 2,000 years, to an event I happen to know a lot about: Watergate. You see, before all the facts about Watergate were known to the public--in March 1973--it was becoming clear to Nixon's closest aides that someone had tried to cover up the Watergate break-in. There were no more than a dozen of us. Could we maintain a cover-up--to save the president? Consider that we were political zealots. We enjoyed enormous political power and prestige. With all that at stake, you'd expect us to be capable of maintaining a lie to protect the president. But we couldn't do it. The first to crack was John Dean. First, he told the president everything, and then just two weeks later he went to the prosecutors and offered to testify against the President. His reason, as he candidly admits in his memoirs, was to "save his own skin." After that, everyone started scrambling to protect himself. What we know today as the great Watergate cover-up lasted only three weeks. Some of the most powerful politicians in the world--and we couldn't keep a lie for more than three weeks. So back to the question of historicity of Christ's resurrection. Can anyone believe that for fifty years that Jesus' disciples were willing to be ostracized, beaten, persecuted, and all but one of them suffer a martyr's death--without ever renouncing their conviction that they had seen Jesus bodily resurrected? Does anyone really think the disciples could have maintained a lie all that time under that kind of pressure? No, someone would have cracked, just as we did so easily in Watergate. Someone would have acted as John Dean did and turned state's evidence. There would have been some kind of smoking gun, or a deathbed confession. So why didn't they crack? Because they had come face to face with the living God. They could not deny what they had seen. The fact is that people will give their lives for what they believe is true, but they will never give their lives for what they know is a lie.The Watergate cover-up proves that 12 powerful men in modern America couldn't keep a lie--and that 12 powerless men 2,000 years ago couldn't have been telling anything but the truth. Again, may you and yours have a blessed Easter, firm in your faith that the Lord is risen. He is risen, indeed! Come to breakpoint.org, click on this commentary, and we'll share that meme of Chuck Colson talking about Watergate. Download it and share it with others by email and social media. From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Resurrection Day. Christ is risen!

"Jesus would've baked the cake." "Christians hate LGBTQ people." "You're on the wrong side of history" "Why can't you let them be 'their true selves'?" "That's just your truth, not mine." Perhaps most painful, especially when it comes from a friend of family member: "If you love me, you'd accept me for who I am." All of the slogans that leave Christians silent or shamed today are, at root, different ways of saying the same thing – that truth and love are incompatible. For people to tell the truth, especially when it comes to issues of sexuality and gender, is to be unloving and intolerant. And, to love someone is to affirm their choices. There's a uniquely "Christian" version of these slogans, too. Taking a moral stand, we are told, especially on questions so culturally controversial, is to distract from the Gospel. Instead, apparently, the Church needs to be more welcoming and to avoid anything that makes people feel excluded from the Church. After all, we are told, isn't the Gospel really about inclusivity? Today, of all the days of Holy Week, directly confronts this mentality. Maundy Thursday is set aside on the Church calendar to remember the Last Supper. The word "maundy" comes from the Latin word for "mandate," or "command." At this first celebration of Communion, Jesus gave His disciples "a new command," that they should love and serve each other. To demonstrate what He meant, He picked up a basin of water and a towel and washed their feet. To fully understand His words and actions, recall that at this "Last Supper" and first Communion, Jesus and His disciples were obeying God's original command, given to all Jews, to remember the Passover. God's people were to never forget how they were rescued from slavery in Egypt. For Jesus to issue a "new" command was an audacious thing to do, especially given how significantly God's original command stood in Israel's history and identity as a people. Jesus, however, went even further than merely adding instructions to an old celebration. Now, rather than remembering how the angel of death "passed over" those homes with lamb's blood on their doorposts, they were to remember His broken body and His shed blood. Ultimately, the new command was to remember a new rescue, and how, through Christ's death, death is not merely avoided but finally defeated. Though the volume has increased in recent years, the American Church has been dividing over whether it should be primarily about proclaiming truth or about serving others since at least the mid-20th century. The Lord's Supper and Jesus' "new" command remind us that this is a false dichotomy. It's an unnecessary choice to make. These two things need never be separated and should never be separated. On the same night Jesus commanded us to remember how His broken body and shed blood rescues us from sin (that's the truth), He commanded us to demonstrate our new life by serving others (that's love). We need not choose between truth and love. In fact, we must not choose. They always go together, because they are both grounded in the same Source, or specifically, the same Person. "How to Speak Truth and Love Both Inside and Outside the Church" is a new short course that begins next Tuesday. The course will examine how, in practical terms, we can communicate truth to four groups of people: unbelievers who need to know Jesus, Christians who don't know what (or how) to think, Gen Z who don't know how (or whom) to trust, and progressive Christians who have abandoned truth. Instructors for the course are Greg Stier from Dare2Share, Michael Craven from the Colson Center, apologist and author Sean McDowell, and Jonathan Morrow from the Impact 360 Institute. Come to BreakPoint.org to register. The course runs four consecutive Tuesday nights, beginning next week, April 6. All sessions are recorded and made available to all registered guests. Jesus embodied truth and love, not only in the event we commemorate this day, but every event we remember this Holy Week. He is truth. He is love. And, He has risen. Indeed.

John and Shane field two important questions from parents today. The first looks for guidance on training young people to value marriage and pursue having children in a culture that seems to devalue both. The second parental question is from a grandmother looking to have a shaping influence with her grandchildren in spite of a strained relationship with the parents due to the grandmother's commitment to Biblical standards.

Next week, Christians worldwide will celebrate, like the entire cloud of witnesses has before them, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The resurrection is, of course, the central event in the Holy Scriptures, the pivotal moment of the story of Christ, and the foundational belief of a Christian worldview. Even more, if it happened, it is the pivotal event in all of human history. Still, it's not difficult to see why it's so hard to believe, especially today. Both science and experience tell us that corpses do not revive. The dead stay dead. Even more, some skeptics level the charge that the story of Jesus' resurrection was simply borrowed from pagan myths, who had their own "dying and rising" deity stories. So, was the resurrection story basically stolen from pagan religions? In the latest "What Would You Say?" video, my colleague Brooke McIntire tackles this issue. The next time someone says the idea that Jesus rose from the dead was borrowed from pagan myths, here are 3 things to remember: Number 1: Just because some stories are similar does not mean that one borrowed from another. A little more than a century ago, a story was first told about a passenger ship that was unsinkable. However, while steaming across the Atlantic Ocean on a clear April evening, it struck an iceberg and sank. And, more than half of its passengers died from a lack of lifeboats. The name of the ship was spelled "T-I-T-A-N . . ." Yes, "The Titan." Did you think I was talking about the "Titanic"? That tragedy occurred in 1912. However, I was referring to the fictional story in a novel titled Futility: The Wreck of the Titan, published in 1898, 14 years prior to the sinking of the Titanic. There are a striking number of similar details between the two stories, even in the ship's name! However, we would never claim that the similarities suggest the latter story was influenced by the former and that the Titanic did not actually sink. Similarities between stories do not prove that one necessarily borrowed from another. Number 2: It is utterly implausible that the early Christians would borrow major ideas from pagan myths. The earliest Christians were pious Jews who often debated over the minutia of the Jewish Law. For example, they debated over whether Jewish Christians were still required to maintain the temple purification rites, whether Christians could eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols, whether non-Jewish male Christians needed to be circumcised, and whether Jewish Christians could even eat in the same room with non-Jewish Christians. Jews believed that they had been chosen by God to be a people separated from paganism. Given this background, it would have been unthinkable for these early Christians with Jewish sensibilities to engage in wholesale borrowing from pagan religions for the foundational belief of their own new sect. Number 3: Stories of people surviving death are not unusual. Surviving death is a deep-seated longing in most humans. So, it should come as no surprise to find stories peppered throughout human history of people returning from the dead. Fictional stories of dying and rising gods in pagan myths do nothing to discredit the story of Jesus rising from the dead. We must decide whether or not Jesus actually was resurrected from the dead based on the evidence. And there's a lot of evidence. If you want to learn about it, check out Gary Habermas' book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. To see the whole video addressing the question of whether the resurrection of Christ was based on pagan myths, go to whatwouldyousay.org. Or, you can go to YouTube and search for "Colson Center What Would You Say?" Subscribe and be notified each time a new "What Would You Say?" video is released.

A defining characteristic of pagan societies is the sacrificing the well-being of children on the altar of adult happiness and self-fulfillment. Our own pagan society is no different. In a single-minded pursuit of sexual pleasure, career, or lifestyle, we tell ourselves that "the kinds will be fine," even though they're clearly not. Throughout history, across cultures and time periods, Christians bringing the Gospel to pagan cultures found themselves defending and protecting abandoned and abused children as well. For example, 19th century India was not a welcoming place for girls. Considered inferior to men, women were not allowed to be educated or to work for a living. Child marriage was a fairly common practice. Though the practice of sati (burning widows on their husband's funeral pyres) had been abolished, the fate of widows in that culture was harsh. Considered to be cursed, they would often be subjected to terrible abuse at the hands of their husband's family. Pandita Ramabai's family was different. Pandita's father, a member of the priestly caste known as Brahmins, encouraged her to learn how to read the Hindu scriptures. Not only did she learn, her skills and mastery of the text earned her acclaim. Her study also fed her growing doubts about the truth of Hinduism. After she was married, Pandita found a copy of the Gospel of Luke in her husband's library. Drawn to Christianity, she invited a missionary to their home to explain the Gospel to her and her husband. Not long after, her husband passed away. And not long after his death, a child-widow came to her door looking for charity. Pandita took her in as if she were her own daughter. Moved by the young widow's situation, Pandita started an organization called Arya Mahila Samaj to educate girls and to advocate for the abolition of child-marriage. It was when she traveled to England that Pandita Ramabai formally converted to Christianity. Returning to India, she set up a school for girls and widows in what's now called Mumbai. At first, to avoid offending Hindus, she agreed not to promote Christianity and followed the rules of the Brahmin caste. Even these concessions weren't enough. Within a year the school was under attack, and her local financial support dried up. So, she moved the school to Pune, about 90 miles away. In 1897, after a famine and plague struck the area around Pune, Pandita Ramabai established a second school 30 miles away from there. Among the subjects taught to the girls in her school was literature (for moral teaching), physiology (to teach them about their bodies), and industrial arts such as printing, carpentry, tailoring, masonry, wood-cutting, weaving, needlework, farming, and gardening. At first, Pandita had only two assistants. So, she developed a system to help take care of and educate the girls. First, they would teach the older girls, who would then take care of and help teach the younger ones. In this way, they managed to care for the growing number of girls who made their way to the school and take care of. By 1900, 2000 girls were living there. In 1919, three years before her death, the British king awarded Pandita Ramabai the Kaiser-i-Hind award, the highest honor that an Indian could receive during the colonial period. Pandita's example is one of many that we must take seriously today. To live in a pagan society is to encounter victims of bad ideas. Often, especially in our culture, these victims are children. Whenever a Christian or a church decides that to speak up on controversial cultural issues is to "get too political," they leave these victims without protection and are out of step with Christian history. Whenever a Christian or a church claims that they avoid these issues because "it distracts from the Gospel," they are embracing an anemic, truncated Gospel. Christians today can join those who've gone before us, proclaiming the Gospel and caring for children. One way to do this is by signing the Promise to America's Children, pledging to protect the minds, bodies, and the most important relationships of children in our society. And learn all the ways children are being victimized and how the Church can help, by reading Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement, a vital new book by Katy Faust. Them Before Us is the featured resource from the Colson Center this month.

**REGISTER TO RECEIVE A FREE TRIP TO WILBERFORCE WEEKEND 2021** > We're not crying wolf with the proposed and mis-named Equality Act. Instead we're standing on the shore watching the tsunami of redefinition and rewiring of hearts, minds, and souls grow closer and closer. This version of the Equality Act presents with more support and more potential to be enacted than at any point in history. John is sounding the alarm, sharing a discussion he had with a number of educators regarding the potential cultural impact of the proposed bill. We have discussed at length the legal aspects of the Equality Act. However, today we consider the cultural impact the Equality Act could have on our communities and families. God has placed us in a special time and specific location at this point in history. John discusses our responsibility to communicate the Gospel with the resources He has given us to address the brokenness of the world, specifically in the face of the Equality Act.

This month, Congress halted the rollout of the Army's new Combat Fitness Test. Unlike the old test, which dates back to before combat roles were open to female soldiers, the new test requires men and women to meet the same standards of physical fitness. That's a problem, critics and activists say, since, so far, 54 percent of women have failed this new gender-neutral test. Service Women's Action Network CEO Deshauna Barber complained, "A fitness test that is so clearly biased simply cannot move forward without further review…" A letter from her organization to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees called the gender-neutral test "hasty" and "rash," and insisted that "too many otherwise qualified soldiers are failing." The test wrongly assumes that "every soldier is a warrior first," and that "superior physical strength is singularly critical in battle." Sadly, the Army eventually agreed and revised the test to reflect these complaints. To be clear, we are talking about testing for combat infantry roles, literally for the "boots on the ground." Isn't the physical strength of these servicemembers critical in battle? At least one notable voice thinks so. Writing at West Point's Modern War Institute, Captain Kristen Griest, the Army's first female infantry officer, argues that lowering the physical bar for women could have deadly consequences on the battlefield: "While it may be difficult for a 120-pound woman to lift or drag 250 pounds, the Army cannot artificially absolve women of that responsibility; it may still exist on the battlefield…each job has objective physical standards to which all soldiers should be held, regardless of gender…To not require women to meet equal standards in combat arms will not only undermine their credibility, but also place those women, their teammates, and their mission at risk." She's right. The bad idea behind lowering standards for female soldiers is the same bad idea behind putting transgender male athletes in the ring to fight women. Men and women are physically different. Just ask Tamikka Brents, who, back in 2014, had her skull fractured in two minutes by Fallon Fox, the MMA's first openly transgender fighter. Physical jobs require physical strength. There is no job in the world more physically demanding than combat infantry. Giving an assault rifle and a pair of boots to men or women unable to meet those demands is worse than madness. For them and their fellow soldiers, it could be a death sentence. Though the sexes were created with the same dignity as bearers of God's image, they were not created to be identical. Our differences are, in fact, where are greatest strengths lie. This truth was lost somewhere in the middle of feminism's second wave, when the movement went from being about equality in rights to equality in roles. While the exclusion of women from certain roles in society needed to be corrected, other roles are grounded in the differences that do exist between men and women. Recently re-watching Avengers: Endgame with my son, Hunter, I couldn't overlook that famous scene where all the female superheroes team up on the battlefield to kick alien keester and save the day. Of course, there's a lot of imagination involved in the entire Avengers world (and, Iron Man does end up being the one who actually saves the day, through an act of sacrifice), but cheesy "girl power" moments like this miss a remarkable truth Eric Metaxas highlights in the opening section of his book Seven Women. So often, women are portrayed as great despite being women, or because they act like men. But the greatness of women is as women, in ways that men are not, in and as the way God made them. It is in the "very good" way God created women that they have true strength. I was talking about that line from Eric Metaxas' book with my wife Sarah when she first had the idea of the "Strong Women" podcast, which she co-hosts with Erin Kunkle. If you haven't subscribed or listened, it will reset the thin narrative on women that dominates our world. By the way, the Friday Intensive at the upcoming Wilberforce Weekend, will offer a deep dive on the image of God as male and female. Speakers include myself, Ryan Anderson, Emilie Kao, and Rebecca McLaughlin. Come to WilberforceWeekend.org for more information.

John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss recent acts of desperation in two mass shootings in the past week. They discuss narratives coming from both secular and Christian sources. The two pull in some recent headlines having to do with Kristi Noem's veto of a bill that would protect female sports in South Dakota. They discuss the possible forces that pushed Noem, highlight the corporate pressure likely coming from the LGBT movement. -- Resources -- Win a Trip to the 2021 Wilberforce Weekend, including conference admission, travel, and hotel accommodations! "How Our Narratives Fail Us: Mass Shootings and a Culture without Conscience," by John Stonestreet, BreakPoint "The NCAA Tournament, Oral Roberts University, and Anti-Christian Bigotry," by John Stonestreet, The Point "Unexplained Light," by John Stonesteet and Maria Baer, BreakPoint "How churches talk about sexuality can mean life or death. We saw that in Robert Long," by Rachel Denhollander, Washington Post "Alone," Netflix "The Curious Case of Kristi Noem," by John Stonestreet and David Carlson, BreakPoint "What We Must Learn from Amy Carmichael, Missionary and Defender of Children," by John Stonestreet and Glenn Sunshine, BreakPoint Everything Sad Is Untrue (a true story), by Daniel Nayeri, available at Amazon.com

A few weeks ago, South Dakota's Governor Kristi Noem Tweeted, "In South Dakota, we're celebrating International Women's Day by defending women's sports!" She was referring to the state's "Women's Fairness in Sports" bill, which would prohibit biological males from competing in female athletics. She then added, "I'm excited to sign the bill very soon!" As it turns out, she wasn't so excited after all. After the legislature passed the bill, the Republican governor vetoed it. More specifically, she issued what's known as a "style and form veto," asking the legislature to modify the bill. The changes she requested not only gut the bill, rendering it ineffective in its original intent of protecting girls and women, but does great damage to the legislative efforts in a number of other states. Portions of the bill, she claimed, "create a trial lawyer's dream and include lawsuit opportunities that don't need to be there . . . We could pass a law, get punished, and face litigation for nothing but a participation trophy." That claim is somewhere between dubious and disingenuous. The South Dakota bill is similar to laws already passed in Idaho and Mississippi and introduced in a number of other states. The Idaho legislation was also backed and defended by 14 states attorneys general by means of an amicus brief. Noem, however, is worried about the NCAA (the governing body for major college athletics). She told Tucker Carlson, "This bill would only allow the NCAA to bully South Dakota, and it would actually prevent women from being able to participate in collegiate sports." So, among the "style and form" changes she requested is that the bill would only prevent biological males from competing against girls in elementary and high school athletics, not at the college level. But the NCAA has no policy that the South Dakota bill would violate. While the NCAA allows men who have surgically or chemically transitioned to compete in women's sports (and offers regulations to ensure what they claim is "fair"), as Margot Cleveland points out at the Federalist, "nothing in … NCAA policy requires a college or university to treat a male student-athlete as female." If they did, they'd lose all the Christian colleges that are part of the NCAA. Also, the NCAA has no legal standing at the state level, nor do they prevent athletes from schools that do not allow males to compete as women from their events. When the Idaho and Mississippi laws passed last year, the NCAA offered a harshly worded denouncement, but nothing with legal bite. Further, as Alexandra Desanctis reports at the National Review, Gov. Noem "altered the bill's language to allow athletes to compete based on biological sex 'as reflected on the birth certificate' or an 'affidavit'…" In other words, all it would take for a male to compete against females is "appropriate paperwork changing his legal records to match his gender identity." Most pointedly, Noem removes a provision that gives female athletes a cause of action if they believe they have been "deprived of athletic opportunities as the result of having been displaced by a biological male." As a legal advisor told me yesterday, a right with no recourse is no right at all. Not to mention, the bill would also give South Dakota schools the ability to retaliate against female athletes who complain. The Alliance Defending Freedom's General Counsel Kristin Waggoner summed up the whole debacle this way: "Gov. Noem has offered a hollow substitute for the urgent protections for women's sports that the South Dakota Legislature sent to the governor's desk . . . By stalling her support, attempting to dodge the legal conflict, removing protections for collegiate athletes, and eliminating a female athlete's legal remedy when her rights are violated, Gov. Noem . . . has downplayed the injustices that girls and women are already facing when they are forced to compete against males." So, what's really behind this whole story? Time and again in states like North Carolina, Indiana, and elsewhere, we've seen the enormous corporate pressure brought to bear when it comes to LGBT issues, and we've seen state officials tempted to cave in face of that pressure. Now, the address on your credit card may very well be a South Dakota one. Since the 1980s, the banking industry has played a major role in South Dakota's economy. Many banks are committed virtue signalers on LGBT issues. Not to mention, South Dakota's tourism industry would be helped by regional and national NCAA tournaments. What's really at play here, most likely, is the same corporate pressure that other states have faced. But the pressure can be weathered. Governor Noem's about-face makes it that much harder for the governors in Arkansas and other states who are currently debating similar legislation. Even worse, it undermines several years of thoughtful, pointed effort to defend the rights of women in sports and elsewhere. If you are a South Dakota citizen, please, call the governor

There have been two mass shootings in a little over a week, on opposites sides of the country by individuals who, from what we currently know, sit on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. Though quickly trotted out narratives have proven either obviously flimsy or flat wrong, Americans remains deeply entrenched in their corners and are seeing these issues through those lenses. All the while, yet another set of events reveals a country in moral crisis, with very little helpful guidance from media or from government officials. Mass shootings continue to be, tragically, a regular feature of American life. Each new attack on innocent children, students, church members, employees, concertgoers, and shoppers hits before we've recovered from the last one. May we never become numb to the horror of these crimes. After each shooting, the fury and passion to "do something" reaches a new level of volume and intensity. Certainly, those who wish to restrict guns are louder than ever, and the current political situation makes those restrictions at least a legal possibility. Now, in full disclosure, I'm a Second Amendment guy. I own guns, and I support the right to bear arms, which is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Gun ownership has been a consistent feature of American life since its founding, a reflection of the country's DNA – self-government, self-protection, self-provision. But I'm also enough of a student of history and worldview to know that rights always come with responsibility. People incapable of enjoying freedoms will inevitably lose them. Those unable to govern themselves will have to be governed. To be clear, this is not a statement of what ­ought to happen; it's a statement of what always happens when a culture morally breaks down. The choice for any people, as Chuck Colson often said, is between the conscience and the constable. If a people will not be governed by conscience, they will be governed by the constable. The loss of conscience, which is always a failure of moral formation, will lead to the loss of freedom. John Adams, the second President of the United States, famously said that the Constitution was meant for a "moral and religious people" and "is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." His observation applies as much to the Second Amendment as to any other. The shocking lack of conscience on display in America is producing behaviors that can largely be grouped into one of two categories. First, historic levels of suicide, opioid use, and overdoses, as well as epidemic levels of loneliness and isolation (especially among the most vulnerable) are together known as "deaths from despair." Second, the various and consistent acts of mass violence, such as shootings and rioting, are among those things that could be labeled "acts of desperation." With both deaths of despair and acts of desperation at epidemic levels, we are clearly not a people moral or religious enough to sustain the freedoms we've been blessed with. After his visit to America, Alexis de Tocqueville famously described the role that religion and local community groups played in uniting and directing the nation. If de Tocqueville were writing today, almost 200 years later, he'd instead describe a become a society of isolated individuals, and thus a place where addicts, the suicidal, the lonely, and too many disturbed young men are slipping through the cracks. Political conservatives, hear me on this: Freedom is unsustainable without virtue. Demanding rights without acknowledging responsibilities is a failing strategy. Political liberals, hear me on this: The problem isn't guns. Ban them without addressing the real problems of our society, and the next killer will choose some other weapon of mass destruction. The rest of us will be unarmed and unable to defend ourselves. America has become, to borrow words from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 1978 speech at Harvard, a place with "little defense against the abyss of human decadence…such as the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror." Even stricter laws, Solzhenitsyn went on to say, would be powerless to defend a people against such moral corrosion. If the devolution of our collective conscience continues, the replacement of constitutional rights with constables might be inevitable. And even constables cannot truly govern, or protect, a people without a conscience.

A listener writes in to John and Shane following a recent BreakPoint commentary on restricting access to organ transplants for those with disabilities. The questioner expands the concept to talk about the challenges inside the organ transplant process. John also fields a question from a listener who wrote in to Arizona Senator Kirsten Sinema regarding the Equality Act. The Senator's office wrote to the listener claiming religious freedoms are protected inside the Equality Act. John responds, outlining the challenge in the Senator's interpretation of freedom. John and Shane also field a question from a listener who is challenged by a church plant that is targeting a racial profile for the congregation. John and Shane work through the foundational concepts of the church.

Each year as Easter approaches, pseudo-scholars, newspapers, and cable networks make headlines claiming to offer the real story about Jesus. Their accounts assume that much of the Jesus story contained in the Gospels, especially anything miraculous is largely a myth created and propagated by, first, His followers, and then, Church leaders seeking to expand their power. Despite the skepticism, few suggest that Jesus never existed. Online, of course, that is a different story. Though there are no serious scholars who question whether Jesus of Nazareth actually existed, it's still a claim you might encounter, either on the internet or from someone who believes their internet source. So, what if you find yourself in a conversation with someone who says: "No one really knows whether Jesus existed or not." The latest video in our "What Would You Say?" series tackles this question: Here's my colleague Shane Morris… The next time someone says they don't think we can be sure that Jesus ever existed, here are 3 things to remember: Number 1: Several non-Christian historians of that period mention Jesus. Josephus was a Jewish historian who had grown up in Jerusalem in the first century, the same city where Jesus was reported to have been crucified. Josephus' father was a Jewish priest who would have been a contemporary of Jesus, and almost certainly would have seen him if he had existed. Josephus mentions Jesus on two occasions in his History of the Jews: In one he reports his crucifixion at the demand of the Jewish leaders and in the other, he mentions the execution of James, the brother of Jesus who is called Messiah. Josephus would have known Jesus was a historical person and would have no reason to invent him if he didn't. Other non-Christian historians also mention Jesus, including the Roman historian Tacitus, the Greek satirist Lucian, and a prisoner named Mara bar Serapion. Number 2: The apostle Paul, someone who persecuted the Christian Church, would have been a contemporary of Jesus and claims to have known Jesus' brother James. It is very unlikely that Paul would have given his life to a movement he had once persecuted if it had been based on a fictitious man who had supposedly traveled and preached in the same area in which Paul himself lived. Jesus would have been publicly crucified at a time and location where and when Paul would have been present, in response to demands made by Jewish authorities whom Paul would have known. Paul claimed to personally know Jesus' brother James. Fictitious people tend not to have brothers who are personally known. Number 3: Most contemporary scholars think that at least some of the Gospels are closely rooted in the eyewitness testimony of Jesus' disciples. Although modern scholars differ in their opinions about the historical accuracy of the Gospels, most think the Gospels of Mark and John are closely based on eyewitness testimony of two of Jesus' disciples, who had traveled with him. It would have been easier to invent the existence of a mythical person that supposedly lived centuries prior to writing about them. It's much harder to invent a person that supposedly existed within the memory of living eyewitnesses. The accounts of Jesus are eyewitness accounts. Find the whole video of Shane answering the question "Did Jesus Really Exist?" at whatwouldyousay.org. Or, search for "What Would You Say?" on YouTube. The first result will be a music video from the Dave Matthews Band, but look for the icon with the blue question mark. That's the What Would You Say channel. Be sure to subscribe and be notified each time a new What Would You Say video is released. And look out for next week's video on "The Resurrection of Jesus and Pagan Myth," just in time for Easter.

March Madness, the NCAA Division 1 national basketball tournament is back, and better than ever. Two interesting developments so far are the incredible number of upsets in the first two rounds and, with the notable exceptions of Liberty University and BYU, the success of the religious schools. So far, the Catholics (Loyola-Chicago), the Disciples of Christ (Abilene Christian), the Baptists (Baylor), and the charismatics (Oral Roberts University) have all advanced. The sweet 16 is quite the ecumenical affair this year. Another notable change this year is the non-stop commercials for online sports betting. In fact, as anyone who watches and follows sports can attest, betting on games is an increasingly important part of what it means to be a sports fan. March Madness will be, as the American head of British bookmaker William Hill predicted, "very heavily bet." The American Gaming Association expects about $8.5 billion to be wagered on the tournament. In fact, William Hill is ESPN's official sports betting partner, which means ESPN has an official sports betting partner. And all this is having an effect. Though much of the sports world shut down during the pandemic, 2020 was still a record year for sports gambling. The main target of this advertising is young men. Though men and women of all ages bet on sports, 43 percent of 25-to-34-year-old men who watch sports place at least one bet a week. That percentage drops to 20 percent for men 35-44, and to only 4 percent over the age of 55. Much of this dramatic demographic difference can be attributed to increased availability and ease of participation. Researchers have long known that living within ten miles of a casino nearly doubles a person's chances of becoming a pathological gambler. Now, with the legalization of online services and apps, everyone lives within not ten miles but ten feet. There are also the differences in generational norms. Gambling is, of course, no longer as taboo as it once was. Still, there's more to it than that. The vision of life in which men strive to contribute, and in which hard work is both rewarded and considered its own reward, has diminished, particularly among the young who, we now know, struggle to find a sense of meaning, and are catechized by cultural forces to live for amusement and entertainment. In a remarkable essay titled "Men Without Chests," C. S. Lewis described what happens in a culture that fills the brain with facts and titillates the senses but does nothing to cultivate virtue: "In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful." A defining feature of young men today is what some have called perpetual adolescence, or "Peter Pan Syndrome." Just a generation ago, young men were expected to be on a life trajectory that culminated with marriage and child-rearing. So, their decisions and actions, even as late teens and early twenties, were aimed at the future. As recently as 1986, most 25-year-old men were already married. Today, the median age for first marriage among American men is 30. Traits long associated with adolescence — self-entitlement, addiction to entertainment, lack of self-control, overall angst — are now features of young men well into their 30s and beyond. Fewer young men are reaching other marks of maturity, either, such as joining or remaining in the work force. With so much time on their hands, many turn to entertainment or video games or addictions or gambling to stave off the boredom. The legalization and growth of online gambling has coincided with the legalization of recreational marijuana. This is no coincidence. After all, laws are mostly downstream from the larger culture, and these laws do far more to expand personal license. Rather, they reflect and reinforce an unmistakable message, especially to young men, to aim low, to think short-term thoughts about life and the world, to pursue immediate gratification, and to not aspire to too much. In many cultures, this message would fall on deaf, more mature ears. Not in ours.

The gospel isn't just two chapters, but four – not just fall and redemption. Rather, the whole story begins with creation – then fall, redemption – and concludes with restoration (for His glory). Pastor Matt Heard shares the importance of guarding our heart, understanding that the gospel is restoring us to the original purpose for which we were made. The heart includes – but is way more than – our emotions. It's where we experience longing. It's where we discern and understand. It's where we ponder and think. It's where we remember significant events. It's where my interactions with others are birthed (all authentic relationships are heart connections). It's where we experience stress (i.e., "Do not let your heart be troubled"). It's where we cultivate our intensity. It's the center of our attitude. It's where we exhibit courage. Bottom line – our heart – including our walk with God (it's with our heart that we believe) Matt Heard is the Founder and Principal of THRIVE, a teaching, speaking, and coaching ministry that engages people to flourish as fully alive human beings to God's glory in every arena of their life, journey, and culture. The seeds for Matt's vision were planted when he studied at L'Abri in Huémoz, Switzerland with Francis Schaeffer, who introduced him to the writings of the late Hans Rookmaaker, an art historian known for proclaiming, "Jesus didn't come to make us Christian; Jesus came to make us fully human." A graduate of Wheaton College and Reformed Theological Seminary, Matt is the author of Life with a Capital L: Embracing Your God-Given Humanity. He and his wife, Arlene, are the grateful parents of three adult sons and two daughters-in-law and they divide their time between Colorado Springs and Orlando. He can be contacted through his website, mattheard.org.

According to a recent poll published in Reason magazine, trust in American political parties is at an historic low. For the first time, more than 50 percent of Americans now identify as Independent, as opposed to Republican or Democrat. And, of course, it's not just political parties that are targets of our growing skepticism. Trust in societal institutions across the board has been on the decline for years. For example, the American people have shrinking confidence in the media, in big tech, and in Congress. Even confidence the historically popular institutions, such as law enforcement and the military, is on the decline. Three years ago, civilian trust in the military stood at a whopping 70 percent. Today, that number has dropped to 56 percent. What's the story here? As one scholar put it, "This is not just the events of the past 12 months." It's a trend. At least part of the reason is an overall disorientation and fear in the general population. Any sort of traditional consensus has now receded in our collective memory. Such a shared consensus offers stability and consistency, but, now, no new governing paradigm or worldview has replaced what has been cast aside. Also, various offspring of postmodernism, such as critical theory, have slipped the surly bonds of academic culture to become defining features of popular culture. The portrayal of everything and everyone as only motivated by the acquisition and preservation of power erodes trust. And a growing number of Americans are now constantly looking over their shoulders for the cancel culture police. Perhaps the primary reason we have distrust for institutions is that so many institutions have earned it. Simply put, they've failed us – Politicians who change their principles at the drop of the hat; journalists who play fast and loose with the truth; Hollywood, sports, and political icons fallen to scandal; couples who said "till death do we part" finding various escape clauses; not to mention, pastors and ministry leaders indulging in corruption or turning a blind eye to those who do. This is a time for one of my favorite anecdotes. After a particularly embarrassing loss in the playoffs, the legend goes, Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi started the next season by holding up a pigskin and saying to his Green Bay Packers, "Gentlemen, this is a football." Maybe the best way for the Church to regain the trust of the world is to go back to basics. Christ's first words in the Gospels were straightforward, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Paul seemed to assume that caring for the poor was a given for the Christian life. James's definition of true religion was that it was a lived, not merely spoken, reality where Christians should "visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." To quote another of my favorite anecdotes, this one from an old friend from Tennessee, "It ain't rocket surgery, man." Chuck Colson called this the Church being the Church. In an age of failing institutions, the opportunities are incredible for those who reject both a privatized, pietistic faith and the temptation to be a rootless activist group. Now is the time to take seriously the tasks of living out the Gospel, being what Paul called "ministers of reconciliation." What that might look like could be different for different churches in different contexts. It may mean maximizing the use of church facilities, offering medical clinics or food pantries. It will certainly mean defending the weak and vulnerable, especially the victims of our culture's bad ideas, and supporting those Christian organizations that do. A former colleague used to say, "The Church is God's Plan A and there is no Plan B." Taking that calling seriously will require, at the very least, a "this is a football" moment for Christians. The task of re-catechizing Christians in a Christian view of life and the world is essential. The Church certainly has things to offer the wider culture that no other social institution does. We'll need to be clear on what is different about the Church, beginning with the Christian understanding of the human person and human dignity. Who humans are, nothing less than an image bearers of God, is not only a fundamental distinction of a Christian worldview, but finding ways to communicate and apply it will be critical to our cultural witness. We'll spend this year's Wilberforce Weekend, May 21-23 in Fort Worth, looking at the idea image of God and fleshing out how it can shape our approach to the world around us. For a full schedule, with speakers and topics, including our Friday intensive on what it means to image God as male and female, visit wilberforceweekend.org.

John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss the top events impacting culture this week. They highlight the recent, horrible shootings in Atlanta and dig into the various narratives by people making sense of the situation, including those which blame evangelicals. Maria then comments on the border crisis, pointing to the humanitarian concerns specifically impacting young people. John and Maria offer a Christian perspective to support both children and parents as the crisis is likely to grow in the coming weeks. Finally, Maria shares her gratitude for a number of virtues that make the United States a blessed place to live, while John alludes to line from Chuck Colson to guide our attention as we understand the privilege of living in America. To close, Maria introduces a story on a new "Zionist Congress" being established by young Jews who are facing persecution. John and Maria both comment on the spiritual component of racism that is impacting our country. Finally, John highlights the inspirational story that led Dick Hoyt to run marathons over the course of four decades with his son. Dick passed away this week at eighty-years-old. Maria shares a family tradition of honoring Passover with a recommendation for audience members to participate in a Seder meal. -- Resources Join us at the 2021 Wilberforce Weekend, May 21-23! "Curating Beauty," the Strong Women Podcast with guest Ashley Marsh "Anti-Semitism: The Oldest Hatred," by John Stonestreet and Maria Baer, BreakPoint "A New Zionist Congress Is Born," by Blake Flayton, Tablet "Inspirational Boston Marathon dad Dick Hoyt dies at 80 after 4 decades of races with his son," ABC News "Strongest Dad in the World," by Rick Reilley, Sports Illustrated A Passover explainer and recipes: https://mjaa.org/passover/ A Messianich Haggadah: https://www.amazon.com/Messianic-Jewish-Passover-Haggadah-Celebrating/dp/0917842081/ref=sr_1_13?dchild=1&keywords=messianic+haggadah&qid=1616167431&s=books&sr=1-13 Passover and it's NT connections: https://jewsforjesus.org/jewish-resources/jewish-holidays/passover/

Recently, especially as a response to the revelations of particularly egregious misconduct by Ravi Zacharias, and even abuse, we've been warned away from saying anything akin to "There, but for the grace of God, go I." What is, to some an admission that, as my colleague Shane Morris has put it, everyone is made of the same clay, is, to others, excuse-making cloaked in faux humility. To them, it suggests that sexual sin, even the most terrible kind, is inevitable for men, so we shouldn't expect any better. Or to put it differently, if only God's grace stands between us and horrific sin, we don't need to take responsibility for avoiding sinful behavior. In the end, it's up to God, and, in the end, the horror suffered by victims is downplayed. Though none of these things is, in our view, necessarily implied by saying "there but for the grace of God go I," the concerns are valid if for no other reason than an observation Chuck Colson often made. "There is no limit to the human capacity for self-rationalization." Even our admissions of guilt can be, he knew, attempts to rationalize our behavior. Still, there is an important truth about our propensity for sin no matter which slogan we use. In fact, the Bible repeats this in various ways. Proverbs 4 says, "The way of the wicked is deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble." In other words, we can surprise ourselves with our sin. After all, our "hearts are deceitful above all things," the prophet said, "and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" The Bible is full of this wisdom. At the same time, these verses are not excuses. It's precisely because our own sin can so surprise us, that we should be cautious and beg God for protective grace, even to the point of metaphorically cutting off our limbs and gouging out our eyes, should it come to that. In recent weeks, we've learned of abuse committed on a staggering scale, but it didn't come from nowhere. It came from a long-term trajectory of compromises made possible by a perfect storm of failures – of accountability, of honesty, of tolerating, hiding, and abetting temptation. It is a gift of God that so few of us are in such a position to commit evil on this scale. I doubt that anyone who says "there, but for the grace of God, go I" is suggesting they're mere inches away from doing the exact same thing as we've learned about Ravi Zacharias. That's because it's doubtful that anyone intends to sin on a grand scale. Back in the age of Saturday morning cartoons and "Just Say No!" public service commercials, there was one ad where, as the screen flashed images of a down-and-out drug addict, the announcer would proclaim, "No one dreams of becoming a junkie." In the same way, spouses who decide to cheat are often already unfaithful in their internal trajectory. Great sins are often the product of many little decisions and are driven by internal rebellions that are finally offered opportunity. King Solomon might be the best example of all (see 1 Kings 10-11). Acknowledging that our nature is fallen and susceptible to such compromise is a wise thing to do, especially when mixed with asking for God's grace. One of Jesus' last and most urgent commands to His disciples was for them to pray that they would not fall into temptation. The same request is a central part of how Christ taught all of His followers to pray in the Lord's Prayer. In other words, while not every sin may be expressly inevitable, each is possible. We are capable of it. To think otherwise is to sound an awfully lot like Peter, "Lord, I would never deny you." Every fallen human being is at least capable of many evils, even the unthinkable ones. If we are to accept our capacity to surprise even ourselves by the depth of our own depravity, we may need to deny ourselves things we'd like to have. Cutting off our limbs may mean some men or women shouldn't be in leadership, or shouldn't travel as much as they do, or shouldn't take that promotion, or accept that new job, or buy that new toy, or stay on Twitter. Where the rubber of "there, but for the grace of God, go I" meets the road is in understanding the depth of our sinful capabilities and in bearing the responsibility of making arrangements to avoid it. There but for the grace of God go any of us. It's true. We still have to grip that grace, from moment to moment, for dear life.

In his remarkable autobiography, Confessions, St. Augustine famously wrote, "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee." Solomon talked of God "putting eternity in our hearts." In other words, as John Calvin observed, humans are "incurably religious creatures." Though millions of Americans have given up on organized religion and a growing number now declare themselves as "nones" (in other words, no spiritual affiliation), these observations by Solomon, John Calvin, and St. Augustine remain true. In fact, our religious impulse is so strong, even the New York Times has noticed some new places where it is showing up. The vast majority of those who have fled the church, argued millennial author Leigh Stein in an article last week, haven't become less-religious at all. Rather, many (especially women) have embraced new belief systems, often led by self-appointed social media gurus who preach self-care, left-wing activism, and New Age spirituality, maybe with a side of herbal supplements. Instagram "Influencers" such as Glennon Doyle and Gwyneth Paltrow have won millions of followers with their personal growth advice and positive thinking. Though the packaging is updated, Stein pointed out, they're using the same old formula as televangelists. These "Instavangelists" (her word, not mine) don't talk as much about God, but they employ the same me-centric business model. It was in 2017, Stein claims, that she "began noticing how many wellness products and programs were marketed to women in pain," and how the social media industry would stoke moral outrage but fail to offer a worldview big enough to handle it. This, in turn, became a business opportunity for the internet gurus. Some specialized in call-out culture and others in self-help cures, but all insisted that the answers to our problems lie within us if only, like little gods, we assert our desires and moral intuitions as absolute. Self-worship in any form, however, is a recipe for spiritual restlessness. After all, we make terrible gods, and we know it, especially in our more honest moments. The women that millions have chosen as moral leaders, Stein argues, "aren't challenging us to ask the fundamental questions that leaders of faith have been wrestling with for thousands of years: Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What should we believe in beyond the limits of our puny selfhood?" "We're looking," she continues, "for guidance in the wrong places, instead of helping us to engage with our most important questions, our screens might be distracting us from them. Maybe," she finishes, "we actually need to go to something like a church?" For those of us who do go to church, this may seem obvious. But, for a writer who admits to seldom praying to God, this is a remarkable realization. As St. Augustine himself would attest, no one is more vulnerable to the truth than when they've seen all that the world has to offer and ask, "Is this it?" At the same time, a very different self-help guru seems to have come to that realization, recently. In a podcast with Orthodox iconographer Jonathan Pageau, clinical psychologist and bestselling author Jordan Peterson all but admitted, in remarkable and tearful words describing the limits of his intellectual capacity to understand, that God is breaking down the door of his heart. As a disciple of Carl Jung, Peterson has long treated Christianity as a useful myth in which people can find meaning. Yet, through personal struggles and dialogue with Christians, he admits to wanting to believe (and maybe in some sense to actually believe) that this Jesus story is true. "I probably believe (in Christ)," Peterson said, "but I'm amazed at my own belief and I don't understand it." Both the trajectory (outward not inward) and posture (teachable not entitled) of Peterson's search stands in stark contrast to Instavangelism, and it raises tough questions for those leaving organized religion behind. With what will you replace it? What's big enough to fill the God-shaped hole in your heart? If Christianity isn't the true story of the world, is there an alternative? If Stein and Peterson and, for that matter, Augustine are right, these alternative religions will never satisfy the human impulse to worship. At least not for very long.

John answers listener questions related to using gender pronouns, responding to employer terminology in assisted suicide, and considering statistics for support in defending marriage and parenting structures.

During the pandemic, the world learned that some British doctors placed "Do Not Resuscitate" orders on COVID-19 patients with intellectual disabilities. These orders reflected a tendency across Western culture to commodify human life, valuing people based on extrinsic abilities and appearances rather than assuming inherent value for all who are part of the human family. As a result, the disabled are not deemed as valuable as the non-disabled. To be clear, the pandemic didn't cause this way of seeing those with disabilities, it only revealed it and worsened it. For example, a recent story at NBC News reported that denying organ transplants to people with Down syndrome and autism "is common in the United States, even though it is illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act." According to one study, 44 percent of organ transplant centers will not add people with developmental disorders to their transplant list. Eighty-five percent "consider the disability as a factor in deciding whether to list the child." That's against ADA policy. One reason given to defend this discrimination is that someone with Down syndrome "may not be able to comply with post-transplant requirements, such as taking immunosuppressive drugs." This "reason" doesn't pass the laugh test. The intellectually disabled are usually, as several of my colleagues will attest, perfectly capable of taking their meds on schedule without assistance. Those who are aren't have guardians and caretakers who can ensure they comply. Another reason given for leaving individuals with disability off transplant lists is far more sinister. These patients are, some clinics claim, "more likely to have co-occurring conditions that would make a transplant dangerous" and "the patient's quality of life would be unlikely to improve with a transplant." On one hand, as a report from the National Council on Disabilities found, these worries are unfounded. Though some disabled people do have co-occurring conditions that make transplant surgery dangerous, most don't. And patients with intellectual disabilities can benefit from transplants as much as any other patient. The real story behind this discrimination, in fact, can be summed up in the phrase "a patient's quality of life," a phrase that has been used throughout history, but especially recently, to promote various forms eugenics. After all, providing people with "less-worthy lives" with a transplant is to waste a perfectly good organ that could go to someone more "valuable." Already, as NBC noted, more than 100,000 people are on the waiting list for organs nationwide. The average wait times, even after a patient makes the list, can be three-to-five years. Hopefully, new technologies such as printable organs will soon be available, but until then, rationing is necessary. So, shouldn't the organs go to the "best of us?" Of course, no one puts it like this. To do so would expose the lethal logic at work behind leaving people with intellectual disabilities off the list. Instead, we hear things about disabled people not "benefitting" from a transplanted organ, which is absurd. A new heart beats and circulates blood. This is true regardless of the person's intellectual capacity. Today, 16 states ban this kind of discrimination, with similar measures pending in eight other states and in Congress. Still, these laws face an uphill battle, even if passed. As the head of the National Council on Disabilities admitted, the real goal of these laws is to inspire "a change of heart so people understand that they are discriminating." So, even as we support the legal efforts to prevent this discrimination, we remember that the best protection for people with disabilities is to recover the idea of the Imago Dei. When people cease seeing themselves and others as image-bearers, they see people as means and not ends, as units of utility to us and to society. This is why we have chosen "restoring the Imago Dei" as the theme of this year's Wilberforce Weekend. For three days, May 21-23, in Dallas/Fort Worth, we will be exploring how to apply this principle to our cultural moment. I hope you can join us. Come to WilberforceWeekend.org to learn more and to register.

In nearly every sector of society—media, education, medicine, public policy, even sports—children are now subjects of social experimentation. As fundamental realities of life such as sex, marriage, and parenting are reimagined, we say to ourselves, "Oh, the kids will be fine." Overwhelming evidence suggests they aren't. At the same time, too many churches and too many Christians, often jaded by Christian activism either poorly done or poorly received (or both), have moved to the sidelines. At times, this move has been away from the social implications of the Gospel, focusing instead on personal transformation and privatized faith. Other times, this move has been simple compromise on moral issues, out of a misplaced attempt to be nice and "welcoming." This indifference to our culture's widespread exploitation of children, places these churches and these Christians firmly outside Church history. Time and time again, across cultures and time periods, those who brought the Gospel to pagan cultures found themselves defending and protecting abandoned, abused, and victimized children. One of the great missionary heroes of Church history is a clear example. Amy Carmichael was born in 1867 to devout parents in Ireland. By 1895, after already serving as a missionary in Japan and Ceylon, Carmichael devoted herself to bringing the Gospel to South India. Immediately, Carmichael started wrestling through the idea of contextualization, how best to present the Gospel in that cultural setting. For example, unlike most missionaries at the time, Amy wore the same clothes as the local population. She travelled with a group of Indian women converts known as the Starry Cluster and would tell anyone, regardless of caste, (another cultural reality) about God's love. Many women fleeing slavery and prostitution in Indian temples came to Christ because of her teaching. One day, a young girl named Preena, who had been sold as a temple slave by her widowed mother and literally branded when she tried to run away, listened as Amy Carmichael told of God's love. Preena ran away again, this time to Amy's house. Amy knew that if she took Preena in, she could be charged with kidnapping. However, she also knew to send Preena back would mean further beatings or even death. Driven by the truth of the gospel, Amy welcomed Preena into her home. This led Amy to begin began studying the caste system in more detail. She learned that children were often dedicated to the gods and left at temples to be slaves and child prostitutes. Horrified, she dedicated the rest of her life to fighting these abuses. As word spread, children and teenagers who had run away from temples began to show up at her door. Soon, Amy was looking after almost 50 people. So, she moved all of them to the city of Dohnavor and established the Dohnavor Fellowship, a home for former child prostitutes. In 1901, Amy was taken to court by infuriated Hindu priests. Still, Amy continued to provide a home for any child who came to her for help, and the priests' lawsuit was ultimately dismissed. In 1918, she added a home for boys, many former temple prostitutes. Throughout her life, Amy Carmichael took in over 1,000 children, giving each one a new home, renewed hope, and even a new name. In 1931, Amy had a serious accident and broke both her leg and her ankle, and badly injured her hip and back. This, combined with neuralgia, effectively left Amy bedridden for the rest of her life. As a result, she led the Dohnavor Fellowship from her bedroom. In 1948, largely because of Amy's work, child prostitution was outlawed in India. Three years later, Amy died at the age of 83. At her request, no stone marked her burial place. Instead, the children she had saved erected a birdbath over her grave, engraved with the word Amma, which means "Mother." The parallels between what children faced in that pagan culture and what children face in our pagan culture is obvious. In both contexts, children are sacrificed to sexual ideologies, and forced to serve the desires of adults. In both contexts, anyone who resists faces significant social pressures, even political penalties. One difference is that Carmichael didn't think that standing for children would be an impediment to telling people about the love of God. On the contrary, she believed it was an essential part of serving Christ in that pagan culture. Today, you can join Carmichael and others from Christian history by making a Promise to America's Children, pledging to protect the minds, bodies, and the most important relationships of children. And then, learn all the ways children are being victimized and how the church can help, by reading Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement, a vital new book by Katy Faust. Them Before Us is the featured resource from the Colson Center this month.

Cheryl Bachelder shared at the Time of Guided Prayer last week. She spoke on the importance of Proverbs 31, remembering a Proverbs 31 woman who made a significant impact on Cheryl's life. This is a special edition of the BreakPoint podcast. Cheryl is the former CEO of Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc., a multibillion-dollar chain of more than 2,600 restaurants around the world. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, featured on Mad Money, and received top industry awards. She had prior leadership positions at Yum! Brands, Domino's Pizza, RJR Nabisco, the Gillette Company, and Procter & Gamble. Today, Cheryl serves on boards, mentors CEOs, and invests in philanthropy.

A recent four-day visit by Pope Francis to Iraq was bound to attract attention, given that he is the Pope and Iraq is, well, Iraq. Some of the media coverage, however, demonstrated just how little the press "gets religion." In one especially funny and now-deleted example, CNN referred to the Vatican as the "Holly Sea," instead of the "Holy See." Still, this visit was full of meetings that mattered, such as the Pope's meeting with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leader of the Shiites in Iraq. This meeting took place in Najaf in what is called the "Plain of Ur" (yes that Ur, the one where Abraham came from). In a statement issued after the meeting, the Ayatollah affirmed "his concern that Christian citizens [of Iraq] should live like all Iraqis in peace and security, and with their full constitutional rights." That would be a welcome development given the suffering Iraqi Christians have faced at the hands of their Muslim neighbors. About two-thirds of Iraqis identify as Shia Muslims so, if their leader can persuade them that Christians belong and deserve the same rights they have, it could make a significant difference. The Pope's visit also focused much-needed attention on the plight of one of the oldest and most-vulnerable Christian communities in the world. The antiquity of this Christian community is apparent in a name: "Chaldean Catholic Church" (yes, that "Chaldean," as in "Ur of the Chaldeans," from the book of Genesis. Around 70-80 percent of all Iraqi Christians belong to this particular group, which traces its origin to the Apostle Bartholomew. Its distinctive historical identity is well-attested all the way back to the early-to-mid third century, and its liturgy is conducted in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke. These Christians begin their remembrance of Lent with what is called the "Fast of Nineveh," which commemorates the repentance and fast of that ancient city as told in the Book of Jonah. For these Christians, the biblical account is more than familiar. It's something akin to family lore. Still, in addition to their close connections with ancient history, they model faithfulness and perseverance. Iraq, like so much of the Middle East, is mostly Islamic. Since the early 7th century, this Christian community has experienced oppression at the hands of Muslim rulers. The severity and nature of this oppression varied, converting to Islam would have made their lives much easier. But they didn't. Despite their oppression, these Christians have made significant contributions to their society. They were the ones who translated Greek texts on science, math, and philosophy into Arabic. Thus, in a way, Chaldean Christians made Islam's often-heralded contributions in these areas possible. Recent events in the region have nearly accomplished what 14 centuries of Islamic oppression couldn't. Iraq's Christians are, as the Archbishop of Irbil put it in 2019, "perilously close to extinction." At the time, he was specifically referring to the threat of ISIS, but the dispersion of Iraqi and other Middle Eastern Christians had begun long before and with them went "the culture and wealth which flowed from" the Christian presence. Hopefully, the Grand Ayatollah's statement will make a difference. Meanwhile, the community's way of life is providing a compelling witness of the power of the Gospel. A mother who had lost her son to ISIS told Pope Francis, "Our strength undoubtedly comes from our faith in the Resurrection, a source of hope. My faith tells me that my children are in the arms of Jesus Christ our Lord. And we, the survivors, try to forgive the aggressor, because our Master Jesus has forgiven his executioners. By imitating him in our sufferings, we testify that love is stronger than everything." Her words left Pope Francis, as he put it, "speechless." Not only should we pray for our brothers and sisters in Iraq; we should watch them and learn what we can about faithful perseverance and reliance on the risen Christ. We may be put to the test ourselves, soon enough.

John Stonestreet and Maria Baer discuss the sex and gender issues dominating the news this week: President Biden's new Gender Policy Council designed to promotes women's rights, but actually advances the transgender agenda; Governor Andrew Cuomo's alleged harassment and even assault of female colleagues; to the treatment of women employees--even in Christian ministries. What does the Church have to say about what it means to be a man and a woman in today's culture? Also on today's episode: Millennials flock to the empty religion of Instagram; John and Maria's recommendations for the week: interviews with Jordan Peterson and psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist. -- RESOURCES -- Join us at the 2021 Wilberforce Weekend, May 21-23, in Fort Worth! "The President's New Gender Policy Council," by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, The Point "Two Marches, One Question: Can Anyone Be a Woman?" A What Would You Say? video 7 Women and the Secret of Their Greatness, by Eric Metaxas, available at the Colson Center online bookstore The Strong Women Podcast with Sarah Stonestreet and Erin Kunkle "The Empty Religions of Instagram," by Leigh Stein, New York Times "Prayer Isn't What We Think It Is," an Upstream Podcast episode with Shane Morris and Kyle Stroebel Jordan Peterson on Restoring the Faith, YouTube "The Divided Mind," Iaian McGilchrist on the Sam Harris Making Sense Podcast

According to a recent article in The Guardian, "Nearly every main voice of dissent in Hong Kong is now in jail or exile." The latest chapter of Beijing's grab for power saw "Hong Kong police charge 47 pro-democracy campaigners and politicians with conspiracy to commit subversion. All face life in prison if convicted." The protests, which began with hopes of a democratic rebuke to the autocratic regime of Xi Jinping, have seemingly come to an end, not with a bang but with a proverbial whimper. In the last year and a half, as the world's eyes turned to COVID-19 and other troubles, the Chinese government all but crushed any dissidents and all but ended democracy in Hong Kong. For a moment, it appeared as if 2019 might be a reboot of 1989, with the tide of freedom overwhelming attempts at dictatorship. News coverage told of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people in Hong Kong rising up against a law, pushed through by the Beijing-controlled local government, that allowed Hong Kong citizens to be prosecuted under the mainland's jurisdiction. Protestors were backed and, in many cases led, by Hong Kong's Christian population. At one point, the praise chorus "Sing Hallelujah to the Lord" became an unofficial anthem of the protests. For months, the Communist leadership tried everything from coercion to concessions, to squash the protests, but the protests only intensified. By late summer 2019, the government withdrew the offending law, but the movement had, by then, become about much more than one law. It was now about preserving a free Hong Kong. Pro-democracy candidates all but swept Hong Kong's local elections in November of 2019, and protestors flew British and American flags in an extra show of defiance. But when the headlines from changed from protesters to a virus and the world economy ground to a halt, other nations and their governments turned inward. The country best positioned to apply pressure, the United States, was also dealing with its greatest domestic turmoil in generations and the most contentious Presidential election in recent memory. Meanwhile, on China's mainland, the overlords didn't let this crisis go to waste. COVID provided all the excuse they needed to clamp down on crowds, protests, and news stories. Under new stringent national security laws, virtually any dissent to the regime's dictates is now liable to draconian punishment. China's promise to maintain a "one country two system" arrangement with Hong Kong was a surprisingly easy thing to discard for something enshrined in an international agreement. Though we may be tempted to give up hope for the people of Hong Kong, many there haven't. Hundreds continue to defy Beijing by publicly protesting the recent convictions. Though the United States is wavering on what to do, Australian, British, Japanese, and European governments have decided that it can no longer be business as usual with the "People's Republic." Beijing knows that as long as the West remains divided and distracted, they're free to extinguish Uighur culture and deny Hong Kong its liberty, but not because China is as strong as its leaders suggest. China's economy is incredibly vulnerable and will only become more so as its population ages. Not to mention, the world is now fully aware of what it's doing the Uyghur population. Given that so much Christian activity in China flows through Hong Kong, we owe it to our brothers and sisters there to pray. In a real sense, an assault on Hong Kong is part of the larger war on Chinese Christianity. We should also insist that the fate of Hong Kong becomes a foreign policy priority. There can be no "business as usual" with this regime… not from the U.S. government and not from U.S. corporations. As we make our appeals, let's remember how Christians have fared throughout history when challenged by godless empires. The empires are long gone. Christians aren't. By the way, we will honor someone who continues to speak up for China's liberties, Pastor Bob Fu of China Aid, at the Wilberforce Weekend this May in Fort Worth, Texas. Come to wilberforceweekend.org to learn more.

At the start of the pandemic, many expected the lockdowns and quarantines to lead to a "baby boom." Well, the data is in. Instead of a "boom" it's been a "bust." As CBS recently reported, records from more than two dozen states show a "7% drop in births in December — nine months after the first lockdowns began." While 7% may sound like a small dip, it's not. As the New York Times puts it: "The pandemic's serious disruption of people's lives is likely to cause 'missing births' — potentially a lot of them. Add these missing births to the country's decade-long downward trend in annual births and we can expect consequential changes to our economy and society in the years to come." As the Times pointed out, this "baby bust" is, in reality, a pre-existing condition of COVID, not created by the virus but made worse. While some of us have talked about the ongoing birth dearth for years now, a major news outlet reporting on it is itself newsworthy. Until recently, most media outlets have insisted the problem is overpopulation, that too many humans were literally destroying the planet. However, as USC demographer Dowell Myers told CBS, America's shrinking fertility rate and its economic impact is nothing less than a "crisis." Fewer babies means a smaller work force in the future, which means lower economic productivity and a smaller tax base. This, in turn, means additional stress to Social Security, and fewer people to take care of a rapidly aging population. If COVID isn't the cause, how did we get here? Ideas … bad ones with consequences and victims. At the top of the list is the "Population Bomb" myth. In 1970, Paul Ehrlich, the author of the book with that title, predicted that "Sometime in the next 15 years, the end will come . . . an utter breakdown of the capacity of the planet to support humanity." That didn't happen, but here's what did. Within 15 years of Ehrlich's prediction, nearly every developed nation, along with many developing ones, had embraced some version of his stark theory and declared war on human fertility. As a result, birth rates dropped below replacement rates. In addition to that ecological myth, there's an anthropological one, too. For decades, women were told that their bodies were in the way of their progress. If women wanted equality, they would need to be liberated from their own procreative potential. The tragic irony is that once women were, in fact, disconnected from their bodies, transgender men stepped in and appropriated all of the equality and all of the rights promised to women. And now, climate change has been added as the latest reason to forego child-rearing. The postponing and foregoing of childbirth has corresponded to the postponing and foregoing of marriage. Since 1980, the median age of first marriage has gone from 24.7 for men and 22 for women to 30 and 28 respectively. The additional six years for women correspond almost exactly with their peak fertility. It's impossible to over-emphasize the role of culture in all this. When was the last time marriage and childbearing, at least in their traditional forms, were celebrated on TV or in film? When was the last time they were celebrated in church? Israel is a notable exception to the global COVID-19 "baby bust" trend, with a birthrate twice that of the United States. Even non-religious Israelis are having children above replacement level. The cultural attitude toward marriage and family there is just as distinct as the results. As anyone who's been to Israel knows, Saturday dinner is a sacrosanct family event, for religious and non-religious Israelis alike, and children figure prominently in Israelis' definition of "life, liberty, and happiness." Christians, of course, should hold at least as high of a view of marriage and fertility. After all, God never revoked the command to be fruitful and multiply, and Jesus' command to let the little children come to Him implies there are children around in the first place. Scripture is clear that "children are a heritage from the Lord." Next to the Gospel itself, children are the greatest gift we can give future generations.

John and Shane field a follow-up question they answered last week from a single woman considering adoption. The question last week asked if the listener should move forward with an adoption knowing that the child would not receive a fatherly influence in the adoption. This week a listener wrote in to ask what the difference would be in a same-sex relationship where two parents of the same gender are unable to provide the mothering or fathering a child needs. Another listener reflected on work and worship, challenged to understand how to form menial tasks into worshipful acts. She pushes John and Shane for greater clarity in understanding what makes mundane tasks a spiritual expression. To open the Q&A time, Shane presents a question from a listener who is questioning if she is residing in a Christian echo chamber. She notes that she follows a number of Colson Center resources and finds herself deeply invested in understanding the world from a Christian perspective, but is slightly concerned that she might not be seeing the full picture in the world.

The overall cost – room and board – to attend Smith College, an elite women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, is in the neighborhood of 78-thousand dollars per year. An allegation of racism, made by an African-American student against a school janitor in 2018, has prompted a complex cultural discussion there that is full of worldview implications. It also exposes the significant limitations of critical theory and intersectionality, the dominant lenses by which our culture discerns issues of race, privilege, poverty, and discrimination. The New York Times called the situation a collision of "race, class and power." A black female student was eating lunch in a dorm that was supposed to be closed for the summer. When a janitor called security, the student claimed that she was questioned for "eating while black." The janitor, whose entire annual salary would barely cover half a year's room and board at Smith, was placed on leave. Another janitor quit after the student posted his picture online, calling him a racist coward. Smith College responded by issuing a public apology… to the student. Months later, an independent law firm released its report on the entire incident. They concluded that there was no evidence that anyone acted with racial bias. One of the embedded myths of American culture is the good-hearted, perhaps unlucky, but ultimately victorious "little guy." Almost every sports movie or war movie features an unlikely hero with a big heart but little chance of success, yet who nevertheless comes out on top: the Cinderella team in March Madness, "Rudy," the nerd who gets the girl, the hockey team of misfits, the basketball team with the actual dog on it. Most of us cheer for the underdog. The problem lies in assigning virtue to underdogs simply because they're an underdog. The modern world, said G.K. Chesterton, has far too many virtues, that are "wandering wildly" and doing "terrible damage." In other words, our virtuous instincts can go awry when they're not anchored to the Truth. This at least partially explains why this situation at Smith College has thrown off so many people, including The New York Times. Who's the "Good Guy" in a story in which everyone is the underdog? Who should win when an ethnic minority student and a blue-collar worker fall at odds? Who should win if we're not allowed, or don't know how, to issue moral judgments on behavior because we're issuing them simply on social class, ethnicity, or race? Jesus chose the uneducated and unpopular as His disciples: fishermen, tax collectors, Zealots… Viewing this through the myth of the "perfect-hearted" Little Guy, it's tempting to conclude that though the disciples didn't seem important or wise, Jesus must have known the real story. Perhaps the Twelve were the first century equivalent of the lead character in a high school romantic comedy. Maybe the nerd who's ignored and bullied until he takes off his glasses and everyone realizes how good-looking and big hearted he really is. But that's not true. The disciples, at least according to the Gospels, were kind of pathetic. When they weren't angry, jealous, or power-hungry, they were confused and scared. Jesus had to say "I came from the Father" about 400 times before they even kind of grasped what He meant. When Paul says that God chose the "foolish things of this world to shame the wise," he wasn't saying that fools are secretly wise and just haven't enjoyed their deserved moment in the sun. He uses the foolish and the weak to display His glory. By choosing these 12 disciples, outcasts and underdogs, He gets to say, "See what I can do?" After all, how great is a God that can save the world and build a kingdom using any of us? The fatal flaw in our current cultural discussions on oppression and justice is a misunderstanding of our common humanity: our common dignity as created in God's image, our common frailty as fallen from His grace, our common foolishness after the fall, and our common reliance on His grace for wisdom and help. Without a doubt, the young woman at Smith College shouldn't be profiled because of her skin color. Neither should a janitor be falsely accused of racism. Virtue is action, not category. And no one is virtuous or guilty simply because they are an underdog.

On March 8, International Women's Day, President Biden signed an executive order establishing a Gender Policy Council. According to USA Today, the Council will seek to "advance gender equality in domestic and foreign policy . . . [and] combat systemic bias and discrimination, including sexual harassment." Until recently, we could assume that by "gender equality," the president planned to deal with discrimination against women. But times have changed. The new council "will also focus on transgender rights," which means it's likely the council will find new ways to apply the Supreme Court's ruling in Bostock, a case that redefines "sex" to include "gender identity" in Title VII. So this new Council will likely ignore the lived experiences and needs of biological females in federal law, instead creating ways for biological males to claim the rights of being a woman. I cannot imagine this is what the organizers of International Women's Day had in mind.

The fundamental assumptions of a Christian worldview are straightforward. The universe is created, not eternal or random. Humans are made in God's image, not mere animals and not gods themselves. Right and wrong are grounded in eternal truths, not subject to the whims of a person or a culture. Christ's death and resurrection have cosmic implications, in direct contrast to both utopian and dystopian narratives. Applying the fundamental truth of a Christian worldview, particularly in this cultural moment, is not so straightforward. For example, this past week we heard from a woman wrestling with whether or not to go through with an international adoption. Adoption is so hopeful; why would anyone question it? Well, the women who wrote in is single and committed to the Biblical description of marriage and family. She knows that children fare best when raised by biological mom and dad. She understands that practices like sperm donation and surrogacy intentionally create a life in which that parent-child relationship is broken. She knows that even without a biological link, there's a difference between mothering and fathering and that kids tend to fare better with both. As a single woman, she wondered whether her desire to adopt may similarly deprive a child of a father. "My 'need' [her quotes] cannot be the deciding factor in this decision. I know raising a child in a single parent home will leave a hole in this child's heart. I know this child needs a father. I know that even my best intentions and hardest efforts will not compensate for this loss." At the same time, as she undoubtedly understands, the alternative for this child is grim. In much of the world, a high percentage of those who age-out of orphanages (including orphanages in Eastern Europe where she hopes to adopt), end up in jail. "I can't help but think that providing a loving home with one Christian parent would be better than a life in these group homes with no parents," she wrote. And, she's exactly right! In her honest and serious ethical reflections are all the right distinctions. Her desire to adopt a child in need is beautiful and not comparable with sperm donation or surrogacy, neither in intention nor in practice. Here's why. As Katy Faust, author of Them Before Us: Why We Need a Children's-Rights Movement points out, the child-manufacturing practices of our modern reproductive technologies are largely motivated by the emotional desires of adults. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself, but the child's needs have to be taken into consideration as well. While certain treatments of infertility attempt to fix or heal what is broken, others clearly cross the line and treat kids like commercial products. As a result, surrogacy and sperm donation create a place of brokenness that didn't exist before. Specifically, children are deprived of the right to know a biological parent. These technologies place "us" (the adults and their desires) before "them" (the children and their needs). To use stark terms, in a very real sense, these procedures create orphans. That is a very different scenario than meeting the needs of children already facing a life with no mother or father. Though this woman has a God-given desire to be a mom, her fundamental question is not, "How can I become a parent?" Rather, it's "How can I give a child a parent?" The difference is everything. Just as important is her recognition that fathers matter too, and, as a single mother, she won't be able to fill that need. While our larger society has embraced the idea that "all kids need is love," and while so many mothers have to play the heroic role of attempting to fill the need of both mom and dad, she realizes that a mother's love and a father's love aren't the same. Love is more than strong feelings and self-esteem. It's an embodied reality. This woman's desire to have children is not the problem, and it doesn't have to conflict with a child's needs. It actually can go to meet those needs. As Katy Faust says, when rightly understood, the rights of adults and children do not need to be in opposition. If this women does open her heart, life, and home to a child who's lost mom and dad, her story and example of clear thinking can inspire others to put "them before us," i.e. the needs and rights of children over and above the desires of adults. That's the title of Katy Faust's new book, which covers the full spectrum of issues in which our culture struggles to rightly honor and respect children. You can pick up a copy of Them Before Us with a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month. Just visit breakpoint.org/broadcast. And, for a full answer to this woman's question, check out the most recent "Q&A segment" on the BreakPoint podcast. Visit breakpoint.org, or subscribe to the "BreakPoint podcast" or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our culture proclaims a narrative, that what kids need are parents not moms and dads. Movies, television shows, music, public policies, they all call us to a new way of organizing the family. This new organization prioritizes adult desires, wishes, and needs over kids. We hear, over and over, that the kids will be fine. But the kids aren't fine. Katy Faust has been on a campaign for years to tell the stories of children who are victims of the sexual revolution. These are often unheard voices in our culture. Children, conceived by invetro fertilization have stories. Katy is telling them. Kids adopted into loving families have a story our culture often doesn't hear. Katy is sharing it. Those raised in same-sex households have stories. Katy is sharing those stories. Katy's new book is titled Them Before Us. It calls the culture to place the needs and desires of children over those of adults.

Imagine a young man with every advantage. He's well-educated, goes to church, lives in a nice neighborhood, able to secure strong employment... But he grew up without ever having known his father. Even as he moves into adulthood, his desire to know his father, his sense of loss for what he missed, is somewhere between insistent and consuming. There used to be a time when fatherlessness was considered a tragedy. Now, raising a child without a father or, in some cases, without a mother is a perfectly acceptable intentional choice. The only thing that matters are the adults making the decision who have desires to meet. The adults are put first; the children, all too often, come in a distant second. This sweeping social change didn't happen overnight, or by accident. It's the logical outcome of the three fundamental lies of the sexual revolution. These lies are now so widely embedded in modern society that we don't give them a second thought. But it wasn't always this way. The first lie of the sexual revolution (and I owe my friend Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse for the wording here) is that sex, marriage, and babies are separable. That these created realities were part of a biological, social and religious package deal, went unquestioned until quite recently. Technological innovations, such as the pill, IVF, and surrogacy, legal innovations such as no-fault divorce, and cultural innovations such as ubiquitous pornography and "hook-up" apps, have all made it increasingly easy to imagine that sex is not inherently connected to childbearing, and that childbearing is not necessarily best placed in the context of marriage. The second lie of the sexual revolution (thanks again to Dr. Morse for this wording) is that men and women are interchangeable. What we mean by this has evolved to a much more fundamental level. Interchangeability in rights was a good thing. Interchangeability in roles was, at times, good and, at other times, blurred biological distinctions. Today, of course, we talk as if men and women are interchangeable in reality, as if men can bear children and "not all women menstruate," and as if love can make a second mom into a dad. None of this is true. The third lie of the sexual revolution is that human dignity derives from autonomy, that our ability to sexually self-determine, not only in our behavior but our identity, is the essence of human dignity. In that equation, those unable to sexually self-determine, or who stand in the way of someone's "true self" (typically defined by happiness) are excluded from the category of dignity. These three lies of the sexual revolution were largely justified by a myth, one repeated over and over in different ways, to assuage our collective consciences as we fundamentally violate the created and social order. That myth was "the kids will be fine." But, of course, they aren't fine. Not even close. In her new book, Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement, Katy Faust documents all the ways the kids aren't fine, and all the ways their well-being is sacrificed on the altar of adult happiness. This is essential reading, not only so we can take our place in Christian history among those who stood for and defending children from hyper-sexualization, abandonment, abuse, and social experimentation, but also because too many Christians embrace cultural norms about reproductive technologies, sexuality, and marriage. In doing so, the Church is complicit in putting children at risk. In Them Before Us, Faust begins in a crucially different place than the sexual revolution: the rights of the child, not the happiness of adult. That's what "them before us" means. Simply put, adults must do those hard things that honor the fundamental right of children to be known and loved by both mother and father. The results of the sexual revolution are in: Children are the victims of our bad ideas. Christians are called to be agents of restoration in whatever time and place they find themselves. For us, now, that means advocating for children's rights. As Faust writes, "Our culture and our laws must incentivize and encourage adults to conform their behavior to the needs of their children if we are to have any hope of a healthy and thriving society." Get your copy of Them Before Us, this month, with any gift to the Colson Center. Come to breakpoint.org/broadcast to get your copy of Them Before Us today.

Bethany Christian Services, one of the nation's largest faith-based adoption and foster care agencies, has decided to begin placing children with same-sex couples: John Stonestreet and Maria Baer wonder why and discuss the implications not only for the children but for Christians organizations that seek to remain true to the biblical understanding of family and human sexuality. As John points out, this issue is certainly not about ensuring that same-sex couples have access to adoption, because there are plenty of organizations only too happy to help. Also on today's episode: What are deepfakes, and what potential dangers do they hold? Is Dr. Seuss being cancelled? Why we should care about "deadnaming."

If the last two Presidential elections, the last midterm elections, and every exit poll ever conducted can teach us anything, it's to not put too much faith in polling. Still, a new Gallup poll released last month deserves a serious look. In a remarkable jump from prior years, one in six adult members of Gen Z (that is, ages 18 to 24) self-identify as LGBT. The first thing to unpack is the definition of terms; specifically, what does it mean to identify as LGBT? The disconnection of biological reality from one's identity makes this question particularly complicated. Is merely conceiving of oneself as "LGBT" enough, or must on claim it, or advertise for it, or "outwardly present" in a way consistent with cultural stereotypes? Does identifying as an "L," "G," or "B" imply these 18 to 24-year-olds have engaged in homosexual behavior? Does being attracted to members of the same sex qualify as behavior? Or, does any sexual encounter with someone of the same sex mean they must identify as gay? The answers to these questions aren't clear. The fact is, in addition to those who experience same-sex attraction and struggle with gender dysphoria, calling oneself LGBT has become a sort of Cool Club for the disenfranchised. I've personally heard from high school guidance counselors, teachers, youth pastors, and others that many kids who struggle socially, or with depression, or with fitting in, now claim to be homosexual or transgender. In other words, it's entirely plausible, even likely, that more young adults identify as LGBT because the terms are not clear and because they're unhappy. Still, the ones who've made this acronym the new Cool Club are the adults, not the kids. To resurrect words from the early days of this issue, this is nurture, not nature. Now, to be clear, many of the most vocal advocates of the new sexual orthodoxy admitted years ago that the "born this way" narrative was useful, not really true. Now that the debate has largely been settled, at least culturally, there's no need to hold anyone to a fixed orientation or identity. Of course, Christians are typically accused of denying the "spectrum of sexuality," the idea that sexual urges may ebb and flow throughout a lifetime towards members of the same or the opposite sex. However, both Old and New Testament Scriptures take the idea that sexual attractions can change, both in intensity and direction, largely for granted. One way to describe the Biblical view, to quote G.K. Chesterton, is "there are a lot of ways to fall down, but only one way to stand up straight." Today, however, the various spectrums of sexuality (and there are at least four taught to elementary school age children) have nothing to do with moral or natural guidelines for our sexual impulses. Rather, those impulses are equated with identity, which is also seen as fluid. Though their impulses may change, children are taught that they have no power over their impulses and that to deny them is to deny themselves. They are, in fact, taught to be slaves to their desires, even if those desires lead them to misery or harm. In this context, Christianity's greatest news may be that humans actually have freedom to navigate our desires. We are not mere creatures of instinct and, in Christ, can be made free indeed. Another crucial component to make sense of this Gallup poll is a larger cultural observation: we don't know what love is. The adult Gen Z-ers highlighted in this survey have been raised in an environment offering only two bad understandings of love. For some, every time they've heard the word "love" used in their entire life, including within the Church, it's been in either a shallow and sentimental sense or in a sexual sense. Imagine never hearing that relationship between love and God's moral character, but only of a squishy, sentimental figure who has no strong feelings about anything except our happiness. Imagine never understanding Who God is or His created intent for His world, but then trying to make sense of relationships. In reality, one of the consequences of divorcing love from its only real Source is that sexual love has been disconnected from the physical bodies He gave His image bearers. In turn, sexual acts, sexual morality, and sexual impulses are left completely up in the air. Among the The Four Loves identified in his classic book (storge, or affection; phileo, or friendship), eros, or sexual love, and agape, or sacrificial love), C.S. Lewis thought true friendship had become the rarest. Recent data backs him up. At least part of the crisis of absolutizing sexual deviancy, is that young adults lose the ability to even conceive of true friendship. In fact, the vast majority of people who claim to be LGBT in the Gallup poll identify as bisexual. How many simply lack categories for true, affectionate, loving, and yet non-erotic, relationships? At the same time, trying to disconnect from our design is like trying to disconnect from gravity. Reality eventually wins. This

In just the last few weeks, two mass kidnappings took place, both at schools in northwestern Nigeria. In the first, "unidentified gunmen" attacked a boarding school in Niger state, killing one student and kidnapped 42 others -- 38 of the abducted were rescued a week later, presumably by government forces. The day before that rescue, "unknown gunmen" in neighboring Zamfara state kidnapped over 300 girls from a boarding school. On Tuesday, the AP reported the release of 270. It's not clear whether the kidnappings were driven by ideology or ransom money, though the motive doesn't make much of a difference to the girls and their families. Not to mention, in places like northwestern Nigeria, ideology and profit are not mutually exclusive motives. When hostages are released by Boko Haram or other extremists, it's almost always because some ransom has been paid. Regardless of motivation, the average Nigerian (especially the average Nigerian Christian) lives in constant threat for his personal safety. Nigeria's inability to guarantee the basic safety of its citizens has observers now asking whether it is on the verge of becoming a "failed state," the official term for a state "where the government is no longer in control." The label is most often applied to countries such as Yemen or Somalia, where basic institutions are virtually non-existent. At least when it comes to protecting the Christian population and institutions, Nigeria's government hardly seems in control. Because groups like Boko Haram and Fulani militants operate with a de facto immunity in Nigera, their actions against Christians are given a de facto legitimacy. If the government's blind eye is not intentional, it's fair to ask whether its authority even extends beyond Abuja, Nigeria's capital city. German sociologist Max Weber famously defined a state as a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." Using that most basic standard, Nigeria is failing. Groups like ICON have documented the violence in the northern part of the country, where Christians are killed, wounded, assaulted, and abducted with regularity by Boko Haram and Fulani militants. Nigeria is not the only country on the "World Watch List" for Christian persecution that is also characterized as a "fragile" or "failed" state. Seven of the top ten countries on the Open Doors list also rank high on the "Fragile States Index" list produced by the Fund for Peace. Nigeria ranks ninth on the World Watch List and ranks fourteenth on the Fragile States Index. This pattern makes both political and biblical sense. A state that cannot effectively restrain or punish perpetrators of violence is in no position to protect the religious freedom of its citizens. As the Apostle Paul told the Romans, government is "instituted by God" to "execute wrath on the wrongdoer." Thus, we are to obey the government, including paying our taxes, not because the government is morally praiseworthy (Rome certainly wasn't), but because of its God-ordained role in keeping the peace. Paul also urged Timothy to pray "for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectable in every way." Around the world, many of our brothers and sisters don't even have the option of living the kind of "quiet and peaceable" lives we take for granted. Still, so many manage to live in a godly and dignified way, which is a powerful testimony to the legitimacy and vitality of their faith. As we pray for persecuted Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere, we should also pray for the stability of their nations, and even for their government leaders. We should pray that they would have the courage and capacity to end insurgencies like Boko Haram, and, whenever possible, we should ask our nation and its leaders to intervene, or at least assist, in squelching the chaos. Without national stability, our brothers and sisters around the world are kind of like sitting ducks, at the mercy of those who would wish to do them harm, and they have no hope of living "quiet and peaceable" lives.

In just the last few weeks, two mass kidnappings took place, both at schools in northwestern Nigeria. In the first, "unidentified gunmen" attacked a boarding school in Niger state, killing one student and kidnapped 42 others -- 38 of the abducted were rescued a week later, presumably by government forces. The day before that rescue, "unknown gunmen" in neighboring Zamfara state kidnapped over 300 girls from a boarding school. On Tuesday, the AP reported the release of 270. It's not clear whether the kidnappings were driven by ideology or ransom money, though the motive doesn't make much of a difference to the girls and their families. Not to mention, in places like northwestern Nigeria, ideology and profit are not mutually exclusive motives. When hostages are released by Boko Haram or other extremists, it's almost always because some ransom has been paid. Regardless of motivation, the average Nigerian (especially the average Nigerian Christian) lives in constant threat for his personal safety. Nigeria's inability to guarantee the basic safety of its citizens has observers now asking whether it is on the verge of becoming a "failed state," the official term for a state "where the government is no longer in control." The label is most often applied to countries such as Yemen or Somalia, where basic institutions are virtually non-existent. At least when it comes to protecting the Christian population and institutions, Nigeria's government hardly seems in control. Because groups like Boko Haram and Fulani militants operate with a de facto immunity in Nigera, their actions against Christians are given a de facto legitimacy. If the government's blind eye is not intentional, it's fair to ask whether its authority even extends beyond Abuja, Nigeria's capital city. German sociologist Max Weber famously defined a state as a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." Using that most basic standard, Nigeria is failing. Groups like ICON have documented the violence in the northern part of the country, where Christians are killed, wounded, assaulted, and abducted with regularity by Boko Haram and Fulani militants. Nigeria is not the only country on the "World Watch List" for Christian persecution that is also characterized as a "fragile" or "failed" state. Seven of the top ten countries on the Open Doors list also rank high on the "Fragile States Index" list produced by the Fund for Peace. Nigeria ranks ninth on the World Watch List and ranks fourteenth on the Fragile States Index. This pattern makes both political and biblical sense. A state that cannot effectively restrain or punish perpetrators of violence is in no position to protect the religious freedom of its citizens. As the Apostle Paul told the Romans, government is "instituted by God" to "execute wrath on the wrongdoer." Thus, we are to obey the government, including paying our taxes, not because the government is morally praiseworthy (Rome certainly wasn't), but because of its God-ordained role in keeping the peace. Paul also urged Timothy to pray "for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectable in every way." Around the world, many of our brothers and sisters don't even have the option of living the kind of "quiet and peaceable" lives we take for granted. Still, so many manage to live in a godly and dignified way, which is a powerful testimony to the legitimacy and vitality of their faith. As we pray for persecuted Christians in Nigeria and elsewhere, we should also pray for the stability of their nations, and even for their government leaders. We should pray that they would have the courage and capacity to end insurgencies like Boko Haram, and, whenever possible, we should ask our nation and its leaders to intervene, or at least assist, in squelching the chaos. Without national stability, our brothers and sisters around the world are kind of like sitting ducks, at the mercy of those who would wish to do them harm, and they have no hope of living "quiet and peaceable" lives.

John and Shane field a question from a woman who is questioning her motivation to adopt as a single woman. She asks the two if her desire to adopt is to fill a "child-shaped hole" in her heart, or if she is really concerned with the betterment of their life. Additionally, she cites statistics related to children growing up without a father. She asks if it is best for her to pursue an adoption. John and Shane also field a question from a mother regarding best practices in addressing cancel culture. She references the move to take down monuments of flawed men. Her question is how to best equip her daughters to participate lovingly in the conversation. John and Shane begin the question and answer time working through a critique on their posture with young people leaving the church. A similar question asked for resources to equip young people to remain connected to the church.

On a cultural level, COVID-19 did not create as many problems and challenges as it revealed and escalated. Like the medical co-morbidities that made the virus more dangerous and more deadly for individuals, cultural pre-existing conditions only worsened during the pandemic. Social distancing and lockdowns, for example, made our pre-existing cultural problem of loneliness that much worse for many. In the same way, the general, widespread disregard for the those with intellectual disabilities in our culture made their mistreatment during the pandemic easier as well. For example, during the first wave of the pandemic in Great Britain, various facilities that care for people with intellectual disabilities, what the Brits call "learning disabilities" issued blanket "Do Not Resuscitate" orders. These orders came, according to one source, directly from doctors, without consulting the patients or their families. In December, following public outcry, Britain's Care Quality Commission investigated and found that the orders were, in their words, "inappropriate" and should be rescinded. That was not, however, the end of the problem. According to the Guardian newspaper, people with intellectual disabilities such as Down syndrome continue to be told that they will not be resuscitated if they become ill with COVID. This despite last year's public outcry and the Commission's report and instructions. Also, given that "people with [intellectual] disabilities aged 18 to 34 are 30 times more likely to die of COVID than others the same age," a Do Not Resuscitate Order is a practically a death sentence. This horrific practice has nothing to do with medicine. DNR's are usually reserved for people too frail to benefit from CPR, which is not the case here. As one advocacy group told the Guardian, "some [orders] seem to have been issued for people simply because they had [an intellectual] disability." Why single out people with intellectual disabilities? The immediate answer is obvious. The doctors issuing these orders are eugenicists, willing to eliminate patients who, they think, drain resources. The larger answer is also obvious. Embedded in Western culture is a tendency to commodify human life, valuing people based on extrinsic abilities and appearances. Thus, the disabled are not deemed as valuable as the non-disabled. In the U.K., this thinking is obvious in other ways, too. For example, a positive Down syndrome in utero test results in an abortion 90 percent of the time. Attempting to "explain away" this terrible number by noting that not all pregnant women are tested for trisomy 21 does not change the awful, inconvenient fact: when a British woman is told her unborn child has Down syndrome, she is nine times more likely to kill the child than to keep it. To be clear, in this respect, Britain is a typical Western nation. In countries like Iceland and Denmark, the percentage of abortions following positive test is nearly 100 percent. In addition, the Danish and Icelandic governments have made prenatal testing for Downs syndrome almost universal. In a now infamous 2017 tweet, CBS News announced that Iceland is "on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome ...." The language chosen by CBS News only revealed they shared Iceland's eugenic impulse. As actress Patricia Heaton replied, Iceland "was not, in fact, eliminating Down syndrome. They were just killing everyone who has it." It's hard to think of a clearer example of some lives being considered worth less than others, based on the criterion that what constitutes a "worthwhile life" is what the person can do. As medical ethicist Chris Kaposy has written, "Western cultures value independence, and consequently people with high levels of dependency are often stigmatized." A more-accurate word, at least under some circumstances, would be "loathed." Even "feel-good" stories about individuals with disability finishing a triathlon, or being a model, or scoring in a basketball game can betray sub-narratives of dehumanization. We end up "celebrating" these people for what they've done, not who they are, or how they mimic those things that earn value in our culture, rather than their intrinsic worth and dignity as Image-bearers. The stigma against these individuals remains. The British "Do Not Resuscitate" orders took place in the midst of the pandemic, but the ideas that led to them existed long before. COVID-19 gave cover for these ideas to be put in practice under the guise of some "greater good" or "necessity." Recently, a British joint committee on vaccinations announced that those with intellectual disabilities would be prioritized for the COVID-19 vaccine. That's good news, although it is likely merely a reaction to the scandal, but it doesn't address the eugenic impulse prevalent in so much of Western culture and medicine. Which means long after the COVID-19 emergency has passed, we'll still need to confront and displace the very bad idea that some lives are worth less than othe

For the last few months at the Colson Center, we've been doing a Q&A feature on our podcast. Each Wednesday, Shane Morris and I field questions from our readers and listeners about all sorts of topics. But once in a while we get a question that deserves a full BreakPoint in response. Recently, a woman wrote in asking how she can know that she's really worshipping God. "For years," she explains, "attending church meant singing in the choir, playing bells, women's Bible study, organizing funeral dinners, cleaning the church, making banners…now I'm in my mid 70s and all those things are not on my list anymore and I'm wondering: have I really been worshipping God all these years or was it just busy work? And how do we know if we are worshipping when we are sitting in church? Sorry to bother you but I'm locked in my house and my resources are limited." First of all, what an outstanding question. To this listener: Your heart for the Lord and for His people is obvious, and it sounds like you have years of faithful, humble service behind you. Don't doubt for a moment that your work—whether in corporate worship, or feeding the congregation, or helping them grieve, celebrate, or just enjoy a beautiful space has been anything but precious in God's sight. Nor are you likely to know this side of eternity the kind of impact you had on the lives of your fellow worshippers. Our culture teaches us to admire dramatic, heroic acts—the kind that make headlines and exciting movies. But I think if there's anyone sure to hear the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant," it's those like this listener, whose mundane, often unnoticed acts of love for the church span decades. "Busywork" has nothing to do with it. A life spent this way is more like, a "living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God." Now, I understand there's more to this question. It sounds like this listener's time in church services has been put on hold because of COVID. How does someone who is no longer able to serve God's people in obvious ways continue to worship Him? The answer really gets to the heart of what serving and worshipping God means. We have this deeply ingrained instinct that a higher calling must be dramatic, marked by speeches, battles, cures for diseases or passing historic legislation. But I'm convinced that the bulk of really world-changing work is done by ordinary people who will never make headlines, living faithful lives where God had placed them. They're the ones who really shape cultures and ultimately, eternity. Most importantly, their worship is pleasing to God. Remember the story of the Widow's Mite? All of the rich dumped bags of gold into the temple coffer. The woman who had barely two copper coins to rub together? She dropped them both in. And Jesus said she out-gave them all. The point is clear: The God who owns everything and has all power doesn't need our resources, and He's not impressed by our resumes. He's mainly interested in our faithfulness and our sincerity. And that's good news, because it means we can truly worship and glorify Him wherever we are and no matter how humble our circumstances. Look, I get it. It's tough when your mission field shrinks. Every CEO who retires feels that letdown. Every mom whose child goes off to college wonders, "What now?" The point is that God doesn't need us to do "great things" for Him. He wants us to do the right thing no matter where we are. Sweep the floor, make the bed, do the dishes, put food on the table, meditate on Scripture—maybe invite that neighbor no one ever talks with to join you. In all of these circumstances, it isn't so much what you do, but the Person for whom you do it that matters. Our listener is right to see being in church as a priority. If at all possible and prudent, we should be with God's people and serve wherever we can. But though the worship we give Him on Sunday is central, Scripture is clear that everything done well to God's glory is also a spiritual act of worship. It's also clear that acts the world sees as having little value can be priceless in God's sight. So, to our questioner: Keep up the good work, to the glory of God, wherever you find yourself, and you'll truly be worshipping. To the rest of our listeners: find someone like this woman and start taking notes. And please join me and Shane every Wednesday on the BreakPoint Podcast, where we take and respond to readers' questions.

Ryan T. Anderson and Emilie Kao joined John to reveal the victims of the Equality Act. Ryan T. Anderson is an American political philosopher who is best known for his opposition to same-sex marriage. He is currently president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Emilie Kao is an attorney who has defended religious freedom for the last 14 years. She 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.

Thirty years ago, the idea of socially and medically experimenting on children to advance a controversial and unproven ideology was unthinkable. Today, it's considered by some to be unquestionable. There is a full-court press to fully and finally embed transgender ideology in public life, especially with school-aged children, starting with the Equality Act. In his promises and nominations, President Biden has made his priorities on this clear. In his first day in office, he signed an executive order forcing K-12 public schools that accept federal funds to adopt sexual orientation and gender identity policies. As Emilie Kao at The Heritage Foundation points out, this paves the way for ending girls'sports and violating the privacy of bathrooms and locker rooms. We can also expect curriculum that would expose elementary-age children to claims such as, "little girls might be little boys trapped in the wrong body." So-called "gender-affirming" treatments, including social reinforcement, puberty blockers, and even mutilating surgeries, will enforced as the only acceptable course of action for counselors, teachers, physicians, and parents. At the root of this all-out assault on our children is the dangerously bad idea that adult desires matter more than the wellbeing of children. Each chapter of the sexual revolution, but especially the most recent ones, have placed "us before them," repeating the same myth in various forms: "the kids will be fine." But they're not. As author and children's rights activist Katy Faust insists, "Our culture and our laws must incentivize and encourage adults to conform their behavior to the needs of their children." We need, she says, "a new global children's rights movement." Christians ask me all the time, but especially when it comes to the all-out cultural assault on children, what can we do? My first answer is we must not sit this one out. In fact, Christian history is full of stories of Christians who confronted a pagan culture by seeking to protect children who were being abused and victimized. Two examples that come to mind are Amy Carmichael, who won souls and freed temple prostitutes, and William Wilberforce, who freed slaves and instituted child labor reforms. This is our moment to live out our faith by looking after children. To do just that is why the Colson Center has joined an important new coalition, of over a dozen other organizations, thousands of parents, and dozens of lawmakers. The Promise to America's Children (which is headed up by the Heritage Foundation, the Family Policy Alliance, and the Alliance Defending Freedom) has articulated a simple promise: that as adults, we will protect children in three areas: their minds, their bodies, and their most important relationships. I'm quoting here from the Promise: "I promise to nurture and protect your mind as you grow, doing everything in my power to keep you from harm, to instill values, and to give you the best opportunities for success." "I promise to honor and protect your body as you grow, affirming your dignity and worth in the body you have been fearfully and wonderfully given." "I promise to invest in, nurture, and protect our relationship because you are unconditionally loved by and of infinite worth to me." Within each promise are a set of principles that identify the key ways children need protection. Their minds need to be protected from graphic pornography and harmful curriculum. Their bodies need to be protected with privacy in vulnerable places like bathrooms and from experimental surgeries that create permanent damage. Their relationships with parents need to be protected from unnecessary government intervention and educators who think parents don't deserve to know what's going on with their kids. Read and sign this promise at promisetoamericaschildren.org. The statement can then be shared with your church leaders and legislators. In fact, the legislators that sign on receive model legislation that they can back and promote and that reflect the principles laid out in the full statement. Even better, you can share this statement and discuss the three areas to protect children and the ten principles of doing so, with your unbelieving friends and neighbors. I'm serious, this statement will help you discuss this difficult issue with others. To be even better equipped, check out today's BreakPoint podcast. Dr. Ryan Anderson joins me to discuss the Equality Act, followed by Emily Kao, who is spearheading this coalition effort, The Promise to America's Children. Also, for a gift of any amount this month, we will send you Katy Faust's new book, Them Before Us: Why We Need a Global Children's Rights Movement.

The Equality Act promises to impact nearly every aspect of life for men, women, and children. John Stonestreet, Shane Morris, and Maria Baer explore the impact the Equality Act will have on society. The trio also explores cancel culture and how it is causing big tech responses to ideas that aren't celebrated in progressive advances. Ryan T. Anderson's book When Harry Became Sally, presents strong evidence through research and stories to show the challenge in responding outside of physical reality for those challenged by gender dysphoria. They reference Rand Paul's recent interaction with Rachel Levine, formerly known as Richard Levine, over what is called gender mutilation around the world. Called gender transitioning in America, Levine responds saying, essentially, the science is complicated but firm and settled. John highlights how this issue impacts some of the most vulnerable in our society, namely children, and the culture is experimenting on the vulnerable with this issue. John calls Christians to respond in two ways. He calls Christians to research, build understanding, and discuss these issues in our circles. Christians cannot sit out on this issue. He also calls Christians to count the cost of participating in championing God's story on this matter. Maria highlights Solzhenitzyn's phrase Live Not By Lies, being made popular again by Rod Dreher.She notes that our call is simply to tell the truth, and helping others align their felt truth against physical reality. To close, Maria shares a story from Smith College where a student was eating lunch in a closed cafeteria. After being nicely engaged and escorted out, the young lady took to social media to claim racial bias. After an investigation the school found the claims were unfounded. The trio unpack this issue, highlighting the clashes that are happening inside intersectionality.

Last summer, outside a California courtroom, a group of protestors gathered, marched, chanted, took lots of selfies, and held signs that read, "Free Britney." Footage from that day now comprises the opening scene of a newly released New York Times documentary about Britney Spears, the pop music star who rose to fame as barely a teenager in the early 2000s. Spears is now in the middle of a legal battle over control of her financial estate. Her genuinely tragic story begins with her parents' insistence on making Britney a star at an extremely young age. Having achieved that goal, her innocent "bubble gum pop" persona turned into something far less innocent. After spending much of her career attempting to outdo her previous sexual explicitness, Britney Spears has spiraled into ongoing and severe mental health issues, worsened by broken relationships, and constantly being stalked by paparazzi. Objectifying others is not only a sin itself, it leads to other sins. Pride, contempt, jealousy, adultery, murder, sexual predation, even self-harming behaviors like drug abuse and sexual promiscuity are all rooted in seeing and using people, even ourselves, as objects instead of Image-bearers. Most Christians, and even non-Christians, would say that treating anyone in any of these ways is wrong. However, objectifying people has become so normal, we do it in ways we don't even realize. Some of those protestors who gathered outside the courthouse in California were probably genuinely concerned for her well-being. But what of the others, such as those telling reporters over and over how much they "love" this pop star they don't even know? Aren't they really using her, too? After all, they've turned her situation – her tragedy and pain – into something to consume. It's entertainment, or catharsis. They are using a person they cannot practically love, serve, sacrifice for, or even talk to, and making her fill a need they have. That's objectification, too. This behavior is different than admiring or honoring a well-known figure. There is a fundamental difference between, for example, the Americans who lined up along railroad tracks to honor the life of Abraham Lincoln as his body was taken to lie in state, and those who gathered for the "Free Britney" rally outside family court. Admiring virtue and being grateful for a life well-lived is different from looking to fill a need that should be met in real relationships. In a celebrity-driven culture like ours, it is tempting to think we have a celebrity-shaped hole in our hearts instead of a God-shaped one. For artists, this takes the form of seeking to be popular instead of seeking excellence. For consumers, this takes the form of elevating and worshiping celebrities in their prime and then ridiculing them and gawking at them afterwards. Celebrity-ism is as much a problem in the Church as out. We can be grateful for YouTube access to the teachings, articles, and sermons of our favorite pastors and for the inspiration from our favorite Christian authors or artists through Instagram. But are we idolizing? Are we angry if they say something we don't like, commenting as if they're not real people or as if their job is always to agree with us? Do we assume a level of intimacy that is not appropriate with someone we actually don't know? Do we use them to replace local churches or to provide spiritual authority in our lives, when that is not their place nor role? The dangerous mistake is confusing our ability to enjoy the consumable goods we get from Christians "celebrities" or social-media influencers with a right to access or intimacy with the people themselves to meet our needs. It is a mistake we make with people we don't agree with, too. Just look how Christians treat each other on Twitter, as if we are dealing with cartoon characters instead of real people. When it comes to the clarity we need on human value and boundaries with others, our culture is both out of ideas and off its foundation. Objectifying, idolizing, and "celebritizing" (I made that one up…) are all ways of treating image bearers as brands, not people, expecting them to fill our need, whether for diversion or community or meaning. In that context, mutual fandom and the hatred of a common enemy are two sides of the same coin. No matter how interesting, how talented, how fun to love or hate they are, people are not objects.

The Biden administration recently announced it will accelerate the process of replacing President Andrew Jackson image on the $20 bill with Harriet Tubman, at least on the front. Jackson would still appear on the reverse side. This plan was first announced under the Obama Administration but was halted by President Trump's Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. As the excellent 2019 film portrayed, Harriet Tubman was a towering figure of courage and faith who risked her own life and freedom, time and time again, to rescue men and women from slavery. Tubman was born into slavery on a Maryland plantation in 1822. As a young girl, she was trained as a nursemaid and made to work driving oxen and trapping muskrats in the woods. Harriet's owners frequently whipped her. She also endured the pain of seeing three of her sisters sold, never to be seen again. Even as a child, Harriet demonstrated a strong rebellious streak, running away for days at a time. She may have learned this from her mother. When her owner attempted to sell one of her brothers, Harriet's mother dissuaded the would-be buyer by announcing, "The first man that comes into my house, I will split his head open." This may have been where Harriet learned that resistance to evil was not only right, but could even sometimes be successful. Harriet's deep and abiding faith also came from her mother, who would tell her stories from the Bible. At about 26 years old, when Harriett learned she might be sold away from her family, she made her escape along the Underground Railroad, traveling at night to avoid slave catchers and following the North Star until she reached Pennsylvania and freedom. Once there, she made a dangerous choice. She decided to risk her own freedom in order to give others theirs. For eight years, as America headed toward the cauldron of the Civil War, Tubman made many dangerous trips back to Maryland, leading scores of slaves north to freedom. During these trips she relied upon God to guide and protect her. She never once lost a runaway slave. As Tubman herself later put it, "I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." Harriett never took credit for her remarkable success. Instead, she explained, "'Twant me, 'twas the Lord. I always told him, 'I trusts to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,' and he always did." In the process, she earned an appropriate nickname: Moses. Abolitionist Thomas Garrett put it, "I never met with any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken direct to her soul." During the Civil War, Harriet worked for the Union Army as a scout, spy, cook, and nurse to wounded and sick soldiers. Amazingly, she even helped lead an armed assault on Southern plantations in coastal South Carolina, during which 750 slaves were rescued. Many, she then recruited to join the Army. In later years, Tubman became an advocate for women's suffrage. She also donated property to be turned into a home for former slaves, despite the fact she lived in or near poverty for much of her life, mostly because she constantly worked to help others. It took 30 years for Tubman's service to the Union Army to finally be recognized by the U. S. government. She was awarded a widow's pension of $8 per month in 1895, and an additional $12 a month in 1899 for her war-time service as a nurse. If you do the math, that's $20. Now, 100-plus years after her death, the United States is ready to bestow on this heroic woman of faith the honor of placing her portrait on the $20 bill. Both ironic and fitting.

John and Shane walk through a challenging question related to perceived impressions that the church is slipping into moral deism. A Colson Fellow asked about John's Bene-Kuyper option, blending the Benedict Option and Kuyper's view of culture engagement. Another Colson Fellow asked John and Shane to explain how to engage a pastor and encourage a church that doesn't see the need to participate in conversations in the culture. The Fellow mentioned there is a growing fear the church could "lose our witness to the lost". To close, John is asked how believers should respond in the wake of the Ravi Zacharias report. When pastors, priests, and teachers fall morally, how should bewildered Christians move forward?

Late last week, Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives introduced the Equality Act, a grave threat to religious liberty and conscience rights that would, in effect, erase all legal distinctions between male and female in public life. The Equality Act would make gender identity and sexual orientation protected classes under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, forcing compliance in areas such as public accommodation and education. Until the GOP lost majority in the Senate, there wasn't much of a chance of the Equality Act becoming law. The outcome of the Senate runoff races in Georgia made it much more practical for President Biden to keep his promise of signing the Equality Act into law. Of course, its fate in the Democrat-controlled House was never really in doubt. To be clear, you should only care about the Equality Act if you are a Christian, or a person of faith, or a woman, or own a business, or run a non-profit, or go to school, or teach at a school, or are a medical or mental-health professional, or (especially) are a female athlete, or under the age of 18, or ever use a public restroom. That's not an exaggeration. In fact, here is the exact wording from the Equality Act: "An individual shall not be denied access to a shared facility, including a restroom, a locker room and a dressing room, that is in accordance with the individual's gender identity." This applies to… "any establishment that provides a good, service, or program, including a store, shopping center, online retailer or service provider, salon, bank, gas station, food bank, service or care center, shelter, travel agency or funeral parlor, or establishment that provides health care, accounting or legal services," along with any organization that receives any federal funding. So, for example, as Ryan Anderson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center described in an op ed this week: "Medical doctors, secular and religious, whose ­expert judgment is that sex-reassignment procedures are misguided would now run afoul of our civil-rights laws. If you perform a mastectomy in the case of breast cancer, you will have to perform one on the teenage girl identifying as a boy. All in the name of equality." Shelters for battered women would be forced to admit biological males. Prisons would not be able to protect female inmates from predatory males who claim to be females. Biological males will be given the opportunities, scholarships, and championships of female athletes. It's not clear that women's sports would survive. More religious adoption and foster-care agencies would be forced to compromise their convictions about marriage and the family or shut down. School bathrooms and locker rooms would be open to both sexes. In addition to these specifics, the Equality Act would bring with it three broad, sweeping changes. First, specific conscience protections of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which have long been legal priorities, would be circumvented in cases deemed discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. Effectively, conscience rights deemed religiously-based would be tossed aside. Second, anyone who affirms the biological reality of the sexes would be, in law, relegated to the same status as the racists whose oppression of African Americans made the 1964 Civil Rights Act necessary. Finally, The Equality Act would have a dramatic impact on education, public or private. According to a new coalition called "Promise to America's Children," a coalition I'm proud to be a part of, the Equality Act greases the skids for even more graphic curricula "about sex, abortion, and politicized ideas about sexual orientation and gender identity ideology . . ." Not only that, but as federal legislation, this would affect every state, not just progressive ones, "overriding efforts by concerned parents and community members at the local level." It's not over, however. The Equality Act still faces significant obstacles in the Senate. Here are three things you can do: Contact your Representative and your Senators and let them know to oppose the Equality Act. Share widely the resources and articles on the Equality Act found at BreakPoint.org. Go to promisetoamericaschildren.org and sign the statement committing to prioritize children's rights over adult happiness. That's PromiseToAmericasChildren.org, and share the resources found there with your pastor, church, and community.