Breakpoint

John answers how a listener can respond and think well about the issue of replacement theory, something that has become a popular topic due to the recent shooting in Buffalo, New York.

John also gives perspective to how abortion became not only illegal, but also unthinkable. He answers which came first and how the abortion movement can replicate the trajectory of slavery becoming unthinkable in society.

To close, John answers a listener's question related to social movements inside the business community. He provides a path forward for Christians who find themselves in a changing landscape.

According to the BBC, the Chinese government has arrested Joseph Zen, a 90-year-old Roman Catholic cardinal and outspoken critic of the Beijing regime. He is now in chains for his role in the 2019 human rights protests.

On the same day this arrest was reported, the Daily Mail announced that ISIS forces had slaughtered 20 Nigerian Christians, guilty only of being Christians, which was enough to seal their martyrdom.

While the last few years have presented incredible challenges to the Western church—plagues, riots, scandals, even war—followers of Christ in places like China and Nigeria have consistently weathered incredible hardship, and for so long. Their stories remind us that there's a wider world out there—and a wider Church.

Ours is not the only part being played in the grand drama of God's redemptive work in the world. Let's pray for our suffering brothers and sisters around the world, and take hope that their role in shaping Christ's kingdom doesn't rest in our success but in God's faithfulness.

What the victims have been forced to endure for so long is sickening and heartbreaking. Lives will be forever marred by the corruption exposed in the report.

Though it feels as if some new report is revealing sexual misconduct, abuse, or criminal behavior within the Church every few months, in God's economy, the day after evil is exposed is better than the day before. When evil is allowed to remain hidden, it flourishes. When it is exposed, both victims and perpetrators are in a better position to find grace, healing, and forgiveness.

At the same time, we can expect the world to be wagging its fingers at Christian hypocrisy. In response, there's a strong pull in our hearts to point right back. After all, the infamous "casting couches" of Hollywood legend have raised such lechery to an abhorrent art form. And this has gone on for decades. Even Shirley Temple, the Golden Girl of classic cinema, was chased around an office by one of the top movie moguls of her day. Yet, he kept his post despite this and other crimes.

More recently, after headlining everything from dramas, to comedies, to action flicks through the 90s and early 2000s, Brendan Fraser found himself cast from favor after refusing the very aggressive advances of a (male) movie executive. Five years ago, Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey was blacklisted as stories broke of his habitual abuse of young actors. Most notorious of all, Harvey Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in the film industry until the rising #MeToo movement gained enough momentum to bring him down for his abuse of young women and threats to any who spoke against him. And that's just Hollywood. We could also talk at length of public schools, congressional leaders, and corporate executives.

Of course, why would we expect any better from a culture like ours, in which sexual activity is treated as the high point of human existence? When Hugh Hefner is treated as a virtual saint and praised as an advocate for women's dignity, who is the world to cast stones at the Church for its own failings? If they're not any better than we are, why do we get the third degree while they get a pass?

It's almost as if followers of Christ are held to a higher standard or something! To this we can only say, we are. By God.

One of the premiere accounts of worldly morality in the Scriptures is in the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 19, the story is told of two angels coming to Sodom, meeting Lot in the town square, who takes them into his home. After the men of the city seek to sexually accost his guests, Lot instead offers his daughters to them as sexual sacrifices.

This horrific tale is echoed later in Judges 19. Visitors from out of town, a meeting near the city, an invitation to dinner, a rapacious mob, and finally, a young woman offered to the lust of the crowd which, in this case, turns murderous and leads to military revenge, mass executions, and human trafficking. In this story, however, it's not sinful pagans. It's the people of God who commit an evil that exceeds even that of Sodom.

The reason the story is told how it is—other than to report what actually happened—is clear. The people of Israel had become indistinguishable from their pagan neighbors. And this, God could not abide.

In Romans 2, Paul writes, "You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law. For, as it is written, 'The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.'" And, in 1 Corinthians 5, the apostle is aghast that a member of a Church has done worse than "the pagans."

Sexual abuse is just as horrible and evil within the Church as without, yet we are more guilty because we should know better. We know where the human propensity for sin, evil, and abuse comes from. We know the human capacity to deceive and deflect. We know our own vulnerability, and the sin nature shared by all after Eden. So, if our defense for the sins of the Church is that those among us are no more guilty than Harvey Weinstein and Hugh Hefner, it's fair to say that we've lost the plot of our own story.

When the unbelieving world acts in an immoral manner, it is no less horrible to its victims, but this is tragically to act according to their worldview. When Christians do the same, it is an abomination. After all, God doesn't simply call us to be no worse than the world: He calls us to be set apart, faithful to His standards.

As Peter Kreeft once observed, when you find yourself on the edge of the moral abyss, the only way forward is backward. Thank God, there is repentance. Let judgment begin in the House of the Lord, and may His good and true judgment bring us to our knees. The answer now is not to circle the wagons, it is to tend to the wounded, confess our sins, and seek His face.

On Friday, according to the Catholic News Agency, "San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone instructed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to present herself for Holy Communion until she publicly repudiates her support for abortion."

On Monday, Whoopi Goldberg told the archbishop via her audience on The View, "This is not your job, dude. That is not up to you to make that decision."

It is, of course, the archbishop's job to oversee the proper administration of the sacraments in that geographic region of the church. It is exactly his job, in fact. Other than playing a nun in the Sister Act movies, it's not clear what qualifies Goldberg to tell an archbishop what his job is.

Years ago, Dr. Frank Beckwith taught a group of students how to respond to someone dismissive of their arguments: "If anyone ever says to you, 'Who are to say what's right?' just ask back 'Who are you to say, "Who are you to say?"'"

This isn't about Whoopi, of course. Skeptics, secularists, and non-believers will often ask, "Who are you to speak for Jesus?" while speaking for Jesus.

A good response is, "Well, who are you to ask?"

"Pornography harms women," says the feminist sock puppet.

"Totally agree," says the Christian puppet. "Pornography demeans women, and it also corrupts men by making them think of women as nothing but sexual objects."

"Therefore," interrupts the feminist sock puppet, "women should empower themselves by taking control of the porn industry and producing their own sexually explicit material."

To which the Christian puppet responds, "That is not the solution I had in mind."

Pornography and sexually suggestive material of any kind objectifies women, training consumers that female bodies are things to be leered at, to be lusted after, rather than persons to be loved and valued.

Those Lutheran sock puppets came to mind last week after Sports Illustrated announced the covers of its annual swimsuit issue. Of course, there's never been any point to the swimsuit edition other than to objectify women to the publication's largely male readership. It has nothing at all to do with sports. It has nothing at all to do with even marketing swimsuits.

It has been, instead, for decades now, the most visible example of everything that Christians and feminists and other protectors of women have decried about our objectifying culture: selling skin, airbrushed and impossible beauty standards, sexual provocation, etc., etc., etc.

This year's cover model does not represent the typical, unreachable standards of thinness that porn and photoshop have imposed on women. However, she is still posed provocatively in a barely there swimsuit, as objectified as any other cover model has ever been.

There seems to be some confusion. The problem here is not that all women should be objectified for their bodies. It's that no one should be objectified at all. Valuing a human being made in God's image by changing standards of outward appearance is always wrong. But we don't atone for a sin by committing it against everyone.

Now, I know it sounds a bit quaint in 2022 to object to swimsuit covers, but at the heart of even the mildly suggestive material in our culture is a lie that has long consumed our culture, the same one that is at the heart of the always accessible and ever darker online pornography world. That lie is that people are things to be used and therefore can be abstracted from their bodies for our gratification or titillation.

This lie can never be made true, even when people consent to it. As Christine Emba pointed out recently in The Washington Post, it is possible for a woman to objectify herself, and therefore consent to things that are actually terrible for her. Consent, Emba concludes, is not a sufficient sexual ethic by itself. We need to talk about a much more important value: love, which she defines, taking a cue from St. Thomas Aquinas, as "willing the good of the other."

There is no sense in which reducing a woman to her body and putting her on display for millions is willing her good. No person—man or woman—is merely a body. Christians have always insisted, and must continue to insist against things like prostitution, polygamy, slavery, and pornography. Because human beings are bearers of God's image, they must always be taken seriously, body and soul.

If there is a problem with displaying scantily clad women as objects for the eager eyes of sports fans—and there is—if we recognize the connection this ritual has with far darker corners of our culture especially online—and it does—the answer is to stop. Certainly, the answer is not more of the same. We have to treat women as whole people.

Kristan Hawkins, founder and president of the Student for Life. Kirsten spoke at the recent "Preparing for a Post-Roe World" event at the recent Wilberforce Weekend.

The day after a mass shooting in a New York supermarket left 10 people dead, a 68-year-old opened fire on parishioners at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in southern California. He killed one and injured five before parishioners subdued and tied him up.

The man killed in the attack authorities are calling "hate-filled" was 52-year-old Dr. John Cheng, who charged the shooter in an attempt to save fellow church members. Orange County officials called Cheng's actions "heroism" and "a meeting of good versus evil." His quick thinking and courageous actions undoubtedly saved lives, including his recently widowed mother.

Mr. Rogers always told kids, in times of calamity, to "look for the helpers." Dr. Cheng is now part of Christian history, a history full of those who ran toward the danger in self-sacrifice. Jesus called this love—when a man lays down his life for his friends—the greatest. It proves that evil will not have the last say, and that evil is overcome with good.

Last Saturday, the country was left grappling with another reminder of human depravity. An 18-year-old gunman entered a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 and injuring three more. The victims, who were predominantly black, included Heyward Patterson, a local church deacon; Pearl Young, a retired school teacher; and Aaron Salter, a retired police officer.

Mass shootings are too familiar, but no less overwhelming: friends and family in agony, communities left to pick up the pieces, collective rage over the brutal violence, a longing for justice, and a rush to explain why.

For many news outlets, the narrative is a cut-and-dried example of right-wing extremism. The shooter's manifesto pointed to an embrace of "replacement theory," the idea that white Americans are being systematically edged out of society by minorities. "That idea," claim Isaac Stanley-Becker and Drew Harwell of The Washington Post,

once relegated to the fringe, has gained currency on popular right-wing television programs and in the halls of Congress. The apocalyptic vision has accumulated followers during the coronavirus pandemic, which has deepened political polarization and accelerated the online flow of racist ideology.

The shooter's 180-page document confirms that he was indeed motivated by replacement ideology and outright racism. In it he described his plan to deliberately attack a black supermarket, as well as his support for antisemitic and neo-Nazi causes. "I will carry out an attack against the replacers," he wrote, "and will even livestream the attack."

In a sort of guilt by association, blame was leveled at Republicans, especially those who hold conservative views on immigration, whether or not they harbor any ill will towards minority groups or immigrant neighbors. Ignored was the shooter's description of his own ideals, which includes outright rejections of conservatism as "corporatism in disguise."

"Are you right wing?" he asks rhetorically. "Depending on the definition, sure. Are you left wing? Depending on the definition, sure. Are you a socialist? Depending on the definition."

As Kyle Smith at the National Review summed up:

The manifesto, while certainly political, is ideologically all over the map, as was the Unabomber's. Whoever your ideological boogeyman of today's discourse is, this person doesn't link up to him very easily.

How do we make sense of this? Human beings are meaning-making creatures. The fact that we have an instinctive need to know why bad things happen says something about the kind of creatures we are and the moral kind of universe we inhabit. But we are also prone to misdiagnose the problem, and therefore mis-prescribe a solution, because of our allegiance to false ideologies that become a hammer looking for nails.

People are more than many ideologies can explain. This is why Communist and Fascist dictatorships end up looking like each other over time. As my colleague Tim Padgett put it recently, "Sometimes worldviews simply give shape to the evil already within individuals."

And that's what the Christian worldview says: That evil is already within individuals. The more the social bonds of a culture unravel, the more that people are pushed to their ideological extremes. This is especially the case in a world where digital technologies both radicalize and incentivize bad behaviors.

In such a world, politicized theories dominating our discourse are proving to be inadequate to explain violence on this level. Racism, while not what it was a few decades ago, is far from extinct. In its most diabolical forms, entire groups of people are seen as the enemy, as evident by the shooter's manifesto. At the same time, the current analysis of nearly everything, including these incidents, is being dramatically hampered by what I call a "critical theory mood."

While most Americans, including the pundits, have not read the academic source material behind the various expressions of formal critical theory, there is a predisposed commitment, on both the right and the left, to divide the world by tribes, people groups, and political parties and, in doing so, to pre-determine who's right and wrong, good and evil, if by nothing else but association. The dramatically different ways that clearly racially motivated acts are treated and described—compare this event with the Waukesha tragedy a few months ago—based on these people groupings simply demonstrate that we have no clue how to distinguish between good and evil.

Critical theory in its formal form or as a cultural mood is short-sighted and inadequate. The Christian vision of the cosmos, people, morality, and human history offers an adequate understanding of good and evil on every level: both societal and individual.

As a young man, Tom Tarrants, was injured in a shootout with FBI agents and sent to prison. "If anyone deserved to die, it was certainly me," this former member of the Ku Klux Klan, once filled with racial hatred, wrote recently in Christianity Today. But God worked a miracle, even in solitary confinement: repentance and even reconciliation with some of those he tried to kill.

Only the Gospel can do that.

As we grieve, we pray for justice and for healing to God who reigns over everything, even Buffalo, New York, last Saturday. In Him, we have hope, understanding, and a way forward.

John and Maria unpack the web of the recent shootings in Buffalo, New York and California. Rather than rest on the narratives, John provides a helpful way to consider the landscape and the underlying ideas that many are glossing over.

Then, Maria asks John for perspective on some social media traffic around the recent Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. Maria provides additional context to help us consider our culture's issue with objectifying women and how the church can provide a better way in this moment.

To close, Maria asks John for insight into a few Breakpoint commentaries from the week. John discusses how Russian art is important in this cultural moment, despite the call from some to cancel it in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. John also explains the scenario of a lesser known phenomenon in charitable giving that could impact Christians looking to support biblically-based organizations.

What has really happened is exactly the opposite. … I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics.

Tongue in cheek as always, Chesterton isn't arguing that politics don't matter. They do. But far too many build their life on the weak foundation of an ever-changing political landscape. It's a recipe for burnout, anger, and disillusionment.

Christian hope is secure and makes us better neighbors, parents, spouses, and citizens. The unchanging values and methods of Christ's kingdom give us the strength we need to go on even in the face of changing situations.

We'll have to take unpopular stands in our lifetimes, but placing our hope in Christ is the opposite of being naive or impractical. It's the only sure foundation there is.