Breakpoint

Recently, Ezra Klein wrote a column attempting to answer a question he says he is asked all the time: Should today's adults have kids, given the climate crisis?

Klein received a good bit of pushback for the odd premise of the question, which seems to reveal more about the company he keeps than actual sentiment. After all, according to Pew Research, only a tiny fraction of childless adults cite climate worries as their motivation.

But the most poignant part of Klein's piece is what it assumes. Think about it: No one is wondering whether adults should abstain from sex in order to keep children from being born onto this doomed planet. Just whether they should use birth control and have abortions in order to keep children from being born onto this doomed planet.

Childbearing is seen as a technologically controlled choice, completely independent of the act that causes it. This is how much technologies can change how we think about the world and why Christians must always approach new biotechnologies by first asking what humans are for.

And, as for his original question—yes, we should still have children.

According to the writer of Proverbs, "death and life are in the power of the tongue." So is cultural change, which most often comes with efforts to change language use and the definitions of words. For example, Harvard Medical molecular biologist David Sinclair is combining innovation in the lab with innovation in language. In a recent CNN article, one of Sinclair's financial backers described the goal of his research as changing the definition of the word "aging." He wants to "make aging a disease."

Sinclair claims to have successfully interrupted the aging process in mice by turning adult cells back into stem cells. Some animals are designed with a similar capability, albeit in a more limited way—think, for example, of an octopus re-growing a leg that has been cut off. Using that same idea, what Sinclair calls an "ancient regeneration system," he hopes to regenerate cells that deteriorate with age. Already, he has been able to repair ocular cells in older mice, allowing them to recover their "youthful" eyesight.

His ultimate aim, of course, is to develop anti-aging therapies for humans. Though some concern has been directed toward the safety of Sinclair's process, what goes largely unquestioned in media coverage is Sinclair's chief aim. In other words, as so much medical ethics goes these days, if we can do it, then we should.

Medical ethics from a Christian worldview perspective is not that simple.

Whenever Christians can affirm aspects of work like David Sinclair's, which attempts to overcome the consequences of the fall, we should. The Bible teaches that death is an enemy, and that humans were not made to die. And humans should recognize that the ingenuity and passion for exploration that often inspires medical progress are God-given.

To accuse people like Sinclair of "playing God," as if that were an insult, is not helpful. After all, according to Genesis 1 and 2, human beings were created by God to, in a sense, "play God." We are not to pretend that we are God, of course, but He did gift us with the ability to work alongside Him to accomplish His purposes for the world He made. After the fall, He promises to eventually restore His creation, so our work alongside Him continues. The mandate to build and create, tending the garden of His world, is to be done within the moral limits that reflect His character and how He created the world.

Within this framework, causing or hastening death is a great evil, but so can be attempts to avoid death "at all costs." Jesus' own death was an act of unprecedented evil but also only fully understood in the context of His obedience to the Father's will. Jesus lay down His life, and many Christians have followed in His footsteps. Thus, there are certain moral goods—such as the will of God—that are higher than avoiding death.

Keeping these sorts of things straight is essential to ethically pursuing and employing technologies, like those that promise to "reverse aging." In his book Bioethics: A Primer for Christians, bioethicist and theologian Gilbert Meilaender counsels Christians to view the freedom to pursue medical progress not as freedom from restraints, such as death. Instead, we should consider ourselves free to work alongside God imitating Him on the path He set out for human flourishing. This will mean, very often in fact, not doing (as God described the men who built the tower of Babel) "whatever comes into our minds to do."

Meilaender counsels Christians to fight the temptation to use medicine, not merely as a way to care for our bodies, but from the desire to control them. If the chief end of medical research and practice is to live on our own terms, we will inevitably make moral compromises along the way. It was the serpent who promised Eve that she could live as she wished but evade death, which was not only a lie, but not sufficient justification for attempting to usurp the authority that only belongs to God.

The goal of medical research and practice should be to help people flourish in the bodies, times, places, and limits that God has given us. From this beginning, Meilaender suggests that the "principle" which should "govern Christian compassion" is not to "minimize suffering," but to "maximize care."

Our purpose is not to avoid suffering or even death at all costs despite that they are effects of the fall we are called to oppose. Rather, we take into account that in God's mercy, even our suffering can be redeemed for good. We lament the hard realities of our fallen world, and we seek to understand them within the larger context of creation and resurrection. Thus, we know that death is not the end of life, nor is life only a prerequisite to death.

Last month, a New York court ruled that Happy the elephant should not legally be considered a person. An organization called the Nonhuman Rights Project had sued the Bronx Zoo for "imprisoning" Happy, arguing it should be set free since it showed signs of "self-awareness."

"While no one disputes the impressive capabilities of elephants. ..." Janet DiFiore, the chief judge, wrote, "[h]abeas corpus is a procedural vehicle intended to secure the liberty rights of human beings who are unlawfully restrained, not nonhuman animals."

Confusion is inevitable whenever a culture untethers itself from all sources of truth. If there's no God, then people aren't in His image. So why shouldn't animals have the same rights we do? And if our rights aren't based in our design, the only option is to base them on some slippery criteria like "self-awareness" or intelligence. But, of course, that way of thinking also makes it possible to not extend human rights to certain humans.

According to Judge DiFiore, granting Happy "personhood status" would be legally "destabilizing." In fact, the worldview that animated this legal comedy to begin with is destabilizing. When it comes to human rights, only Christianity offers solid ground.

Last year, a coalition of organizations, including the Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Policy Alliance, Colson Center, and the Heritage Foundation, teamed up to issue a Promise to America's Children, a commitment to protect their minds, their bodies, and their most important relationships amid this hypersexualized culture.

Today, we join again, this time to issue a Promise to America's Parents. Why? As the website puts it,

Local, state, and federal government policies are imposing ideologies that divide children by race and promote the falsehood that a boy can become a girl or vice-versa. Some schools are treating children as if they are the opposite sex without the permission of parents. Medical professionals are performing harmful experiments on children who are emotionally distressed about their bodies. To protect children, parents need laws that protect their rights.

Simply put, no government entity should usurp the place of parents. In too many classrooms, progressive ideas are forced on children, targeting their hearts, minds, and identities. A reigning ideology in education is critical theory which, in its various forms, denies that every single person is made in the image of God. Thus, kids are taught to see other people in simplistic categories of oppressed or oppressor, to see Christianity as an oppressive and destructive historical force, and to see themselves primarily in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Promise to America's Parents galvanizes parents to "A.C.T."—an acronym referring to accountability, choice, and transparency—on behalf of their children. According to the Promise,

Children belong first and foremost to their families. In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, they are not "mere creatures of the state." The unique and intimate relationship between a parent and a child creates a duty and a corresponding natural right. Parental rights are fundamental rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. However, courts have not consistently protected parental rights against government interference and invasion as they should.

In the "A.C.T." acronym, accountability means that "Every mother or father may hold the government accountable for infringing on their rights to care for their child." Choice means that "Every mother or father has the responsibility and right to choose the education and medical treatment that they deem best for their child." Thus, neither schools, nor healthcare providers, nor schools acting like healthcare providers should push a child toward an alternative gender without the parents' permission. Schools also must not restrict a child's speech by creating vague anti-racist policies that would prohibit differing viewpoints being stated.

Transparency means that "Every mother or father has the right to know about what their child is learning, their child's health, and any harms to them." Parents have the right to know the content within the curriculum, from textbooks to other materials. Parents have the right to know the content of their children's files. Specifically, no separate files should be kept to maintain secretive use of counseling, gender pronouns, or treatments.

Please read the whole Promise to America's Parents at promisetoAmericasparents.org. There's also a free downloadable toolkit, explaining parental rights at schools and in doctors' offices. It also provides practical advice on how to proceed if a child describes their school day, and warning lights start flashing in your head. For example, the toolkit explains what you can and cannot ask for in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, how to access the school's curriculum, securing opt-out policies for classroom instruction that conflicts with religious or moral beliefs, and how to help children report statements or actions that treat students differently because of their race, religion, or moral views.

There are also plenty of stories on the Promise website about parents who took a stand. Two parents whose stories are told are plaintiffs in cases represented by ADF. Melissa Riley says of her son, who is biracial, "He is changing . . . . If things don't go his way or things seem unfair, he will now claim it's racism. He never did that before." Another parent, Carlos Ibenez is a plaintiff because his daughter was told in middle school that as a Latina, she wouldn't succeed because the system was set up to privilege people with white skin.

Parents can protect their children from indoctrination that targets the mind and the heart. Parents can protect their children from being co-opted by the state. Please, visit promisetoAmericasparents.org.

According to a recent poll conducted by Gallup, the portion of Americans who believe in God has dropped to barely over 80%. That's still a majority, but the one-in-five who don't believe is the highest number ever recorded in this country.

Anyone seeking to understand this data should remember something theologian Carl F.H. Henry said, 70 years ago, when told that 99% of Americans believed in God: "The vast majority of Americans today may believe in a ghost god, in a phantom god, in a god who makes very little difference in the great decisions of life and even less in the cares of everyday existence."

Imaginary gods, like imaginary friends, make us feel good for a time, but lose their staying power. That's true for individuals and for societies—which is why Christians must be clear on Who God is as He has revealed Himself in Scripture, in creation, and in Christ... not a god we create in our own image.

The recent Supreme Court ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is a decisive and historic moment in American law. Not only is a 50-year legal fiction over—that the Constitution protects the right to dismember and kill an unborn child—but so is the stranglehold that Roe v. Wade has held on American law and lawmakers. The Dobbs decision was and is a moment for celebration and thanks to God.  

It isn't, however, the end of legalized abortion in America. This wicked practice remains legal in most states, and the fight to make it not only illegal but unthinkable will be long and difficult. It may take generations. 

Abortion has (like all historic evils do) poisoned American institutions and culture. On every level, from marriage and family to medicine to our political parties, abortion both supports and is supported by a web of social evils and false beliefs that make it incredibly hard to challenge. Yet challenge it we must, because the fundamental fact of what abortion is—the destruction of an innocent human life—does not change from one state to another or because of the political party in charge. If we are to see this through, and by this I mean abortion being cast out of modern society like other historic evils, we have an awful lot of unraveling to do.  

Which is why a new book from Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis is so important. This is a thorough account of the full damage abortion has done to this nation, and the beginning of how we must now proceed in the ruins of Roe.  

Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing prepares us to look ahead by carefully looking back. Through seven extraordinarily well-researched chapters, Anderson and DeSanctis describe the devastation abortion has left behind. Originally billed as the solution for unexpected pregnancies, social disparities between men and women, disability, and even poverty, abortion was driven, in both the medical community and in the courts, by utopian visions that have never materialized. Abortion rights were always driven by promises of liberation from the constraints that our bodies, our families, and traditional morality impose. However, rather than solving any real problems, legalized abortion made them worse while creating others:   

Roe v. Wade fostered a culture of death that has brutalized women, men, and children. …[It] hollows out marriage and family. It undermines the rule of law, distorts our thinking about the Constitution, and corrupts our political system. It turns healers into executioners and "women's health" into a euphemism for extermination. 

To highlight just one of these areas, the chapter on women and the family demonstrates how abortion "rights" undermined women's rights, instead of advanced them. In the end, modern people have been trained to think of the male body as normal and the female body as defective:  

Abortion treats pregnancy as a disease. Instead of accommodating women's natural capacity for childbearing and, often, natural desire for childrearing, a culture that permits abortion encourages women to behave like career-focused men. 

Just as infuriating, abortion "allows men to view women as always sexually available without any marital commitment or promise of stability." Therefore, abortion on demand has distorted relations between the sexes. It convinces men that an unexpected pregnancy is not only a problem but specifically a woman's problem. After all, she could just get an abortion, couldn't she? In the process, men are incentivized to abandon their children. 

Worst of all, abortion "encourages mothers to view their children as antagonists" to their full thriving and participation in society. It "injects violence" into the sacred relationship between mother and child:  

It tells women that, at least in some cases, her child is her enemy. By striking at the heart of that most foundational human relationship, a society that allows abortion risks compromising the solidarity that binds us all together. 

This point—just one of so many Anderson and DeSanctis make in their book—helps outline the work that lies ahead for us in a post-Roe world. Its bad ideas are still operative and claiming victims. Understanding these deadly ideas and how to oppose them will be a crucial aspect of the battle that lies ahead for us. So much work remains to be done. This book shows the way forward.  

That's why we've made this an area of focused study for the month of July. For a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we'll send you a copy of Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Poisons Everything and Solves Nothing by Dr. Ryan Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis. You will also receive access to a new online Breakpoint course How to Make Abortion Unthinkable, featuring the book's authors, Colson Center staff, and national pro-life leaders.  

To give, go to Colsoncenter.org/July.  

What looks like good news for a nation in the midst of a demographic crisis isn't really. Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported that "U.S. births increased last year for the first time in seven years." In 2020, the U.S. fertility rate dipped to 1.64—the lowest "since the government began tracking it in the 1930s." In 2021, the rate increased for the first time since 2014, to 1.66.

Though that sounds like good news, that's a lower spike than we'd historically expect during something that keeps everyone at home, such as a pandemic. One economist has called it a "minor blip" that "still leaves us on a long-term trajectory towards lower births." That's because the replacement rate is at least 2.1, and some scholars think 1.7 is the threshold of no return.

Nations that fail to replace their population face economic stagnation and social instability. A society committed to adult happiness over the future and the well-being of children will be a nation that fails to replace its population.

In other words, birth rates are more than statistics and historic predictors. They reflect a nation's priorities, values, and worldview.

The first step in making abortion unthinkable has been taken. Now that the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade with its ruling in the Dobbs case, it's time to roll up our sleeves and work towards building a culture of life. This is not the time to back off, or as some Christians have suggested, to tone it down.

Back in May, at the "Preparing for a Post-Roe World" event at the Wilberforce Weekend, Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins issued a powerful and stirring challenge. Here's Kristan: Friends, tonight, I'm here to ask you to do something that's never been done before in the history of our world. I'm here to ask you, the Church, to join with the pro-life generation to put our nation back together in a post-Roe v. Wade world. And I implore you to help us achieve this mission that has thus far spanned five decades—church by church, city by city, state by state—as we move forward to make abortion unthinkable.

Friends, the hour is upon us—something that we have all worked for, that many of you were working for before I was even created. Step one of our mission is almost complete. But there's so many more steps we have to go. And the Church must rise to the challenge, and you are being called to lead it.

Make no mistake. The battles that we face in the coming months, the coming weeks will be physical, they'll be political, and they'll be spiritual. In our city streets, the violence that so many support behind the closed doors of the Planned Parenthood will be committed openly. And those in power will look the other way. In statehouses, those who we fought to elect will be forced to finally act to actually cast a vote that will determine the fate of lives. And I predict some of them who say that they're with us will not be so.

And in our homes, our daughters and our granddaughters will start to order chemical abortion pills shipped from foreign countries or other states that could very well result in her own injury, infertility, or death. She'll be aborting her child, your grandchild, your great-grandchild in her bathroom, and every morning she'll return to the scene of that crime.

In our workplaces, women and men will be hurting from past abortion decisions, and they'll be made to finally reckon with the choice that they made decades ago that they've been suppressing for years.

And in our churches, what will we be doing? Will we be a thermostat that can transform the mores of our society—of our country—or will we simply sit back and be a thermometer? I believe it's not too late to become the former, but this relies on you.

First, I must ask you to speak truth at your church, especially to this young generation who has never lived in America without legal abortion. Show your youth group the truth about the violence of abortion. Show them how they can actually step up to serve and transform. Convince your pastor—6% of which say that they've given a sermon on abortion in the past year—convince them to speak. Start a ministry for men and women hurting from past abortions. Start a ministry for pregnant and parenting women and men and families in need. A great first step is to join Students for Life and the Colson Center for the national Standing with Her Sunday simulcast. We're going to be launching August 28, and the goal is to get our churches all the tools that they need to support her.

The second thing you can do is envision what your community will look like and must look like in the post-Roe era. Ask yourself how your church can step up—what you can do. And I have to warn you—envisioning things is a little dangerous. It's free—doesn't take any money—but it's powerful.

Quell the flames of fear that Planned Parenthood is fanning in our nation. Show them we actually have a progressive view for our families and women in America. This is 2022. This is not 1952. No woman in 2022 America should ever have to choose between the life of her child for her education or for her career goals. Tell America about the 3,000 nonviolent pregnancy centers, the more than 400 maternity homes that vastly outnumber the abortion facilities in our country. Tell America about support: AfterAbortion.org, abortionpillreversal.org, standingwithyou.org—all the resources we have in place. This is fundamental.

At Students for Life, we've knocked on 120,000 doors in the last year in neighborhoods in 20 cities that surround an abortion facility. And 73% of the neighbors we speak to have no clue that the pregnancy center exists in our community—have never even heard about it.

Friends, when the Supreme Court finally reverses its anti-science Roe v. Wade decision, what choice, what decision are you going to make? What course of action will you commit to taking that will help us determine the fate of this cause—the greatest human rights struggle in the history of our life?

Tonight, I implore you. Make a decision. Church, make a decision for a positive peace—to stand for innocent children and their mothers. Get to work to ensure that no woman stands alone in a post-Roe America.

That was Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins speaking at our preparing for a post-Roe future event. To hear the entire talk, and for more recordings like this one equipping us to build a culture of life, go to WilberforceWeekend.org.

As part of The Gospel Coalition's "Good Faith Debates," Scott Klusendorf and fellow pro-life advocate Karen Swallow Prior discuss what it means to stand for life today. Is it enough to oppose abortion? Or must the pro-life movement take on a wider range of causes?

The exchange brings clarity to a hot button issue. Both agree that Christians should be consistent, and that our love for neighbor and commitment to life should be reflected in how we think about and address other issues, from genocide to racism, from artificial reproductive technologies to poverty.

However, while the Christian life cannot be reduced to just one issue, the greatest injustices require our greatest attention. Pro-lifers should never apologize for focusing on and working tirelessly to end abortion, especially when about 900,000 children are aborted every year. So, we should celebrate the end of Roe, work for state-level protections for the preborn, speak with moral clarity on abortion, and help the women who need it most.

Now is the time to double down, not back off.

Eleven years ago today, Chuck Colson delivered a Breakpoint commentary on what would be his last July 4 holiday. In it, Chuck reflected on the basis of our national identity. Specifically, he recognized that the only true way to ground the ideals found in the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal" and possess "certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is if we are indeed "endowed by their Creator."

The stunning clarity of the Declaration of Independence in stating that rights are granted ultimately by God, not the State, is something too often forgotten today, if not entirely dismissed. Here's Chuck Colson reflecting on this important truth:

The great British intellectual G.K. Chesterton wrote that "America is the only nation in the world that is founded on [a] creed."

Think about that for a moment. Other nations were founded on the basis of race, or by the power of kings or emperors who accumulated lands—and the peasants who inhabited those lands.

But America was—and is to this day—different. It was founded on a shared belief. Or as Chesterton said, on a creed.

And what is that creed that sets us apart? It is the eloquent, profound, and simple statement penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

I'll never forget when I graduated from Brown University during the Korean War. I couldn't wait to become a Marine officer, to give my life if necessary, to defend that creed. To defend the idea that our rights come from God Himself and are not subject to whims of governments or tyrants. That humans ought to be free to pursue their most treasured hopes and aspirations.

Perhaps some 230 years later, we take these words for granted. But in 1776, they were earth-shaking, indeed, revolutionary.

Yet today, they are in danger of being forgotten altogether. According to Gallup, 66% of American adults have no idea that the words, "we hold these truths," come from the Declaration of Independence. Even worse, only 45% of college seniors know that the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are proclaimed in the Declaration.

As America grows more and more diverse culturally, religiously, ethnically, it is critical that we embrace the American creed. Yes, America has always been a "melting pot." But what is the pot that holds our multicultural stew together? Chesterton said the pot's "original shape was traced on the lines of Jeffersonian democracy." A democracy founded on those self-evident truths expressed in the Declaration of Independence. And as Chesterton remarked, "The pot must not melt."

Abraham Lincoln understood this so well. For him, the notion that all men are created equal was "the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world."

So go to the Fourth of July parade. Go to the neighborhood barbecue and enjoy the hot dogs and apple pie.

But here's an idea for you. Why not take time out at the picnic to read the Declaration of Independence aloud with your friends and neighbors.

Listen—and thrill—to those words that bind us together as a nation of freedom-loving people: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

These are the words that Americans live for—and if necessary, die for.

Chuck Colson's words are just as relevant today, and perhaps even more important for us to understand. From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy 4th!