Breakpoint

The theory of intelligent design is often dismissed as religion pretending to be science. Critics argue that the theory doesn't make any predictions or contribute to our knowledge of the natural world, and plus, it's not taken seriously in any peer-reviewed scientific journals. However, a new paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Theoretical Biology makes a strong case for the need for intelligent design.

The paper is called "On the waiting time until coordinated mutations get fixed in regulatory sequences." If that title is all Greek to you, don't worry; you're in good company. This technical, math-intensive paper was written by intelligent design researchers Ola Hössjer, Günter Bechly, and Ann Gauger. As Casey Luskin explains at Evolution News, the project came out of the Discovery Institute's ID 3.0 research initiative, which aims, in part, to test how plausible Darwinian evolution is on a mathematical level. And though it's just a beginning, this paper's conclusions should make die-hard Darwinists nervous.

Here's the background. The fossil record has been a perpetual problem for Darwin's theory ever since it was first published in 1859. Put simply, the fossil record doesn't look like the theory predicts it should.

If, as Darwin proposed, all the diversity of life on earth developed through natural selection, sorting random variations over untold eons, living things should change very gradually. This means the record of evolution we find in rocks should look gradual, too. Invertebrates should turn slowly into fish, which should turn slowly into amphibians, which should turn slowly into reptiles and mammals, and so on.

What we actually find is the basis of what philosopher of science Stephen Meyer calls "Darwin's doubt": the fossil record consists of numerous "bursts" of biological diversity, such as the famous "Cambrian explosion," in which new body plans and animal phyla appear in the fossil record seemingly without ancestors.

Evolutionary biologists have come up with several ways to explain away these sudden leaps in the history of life to reassure us of evolution's power. The problem is that it's difficult to test these explanations to determine whether evolution is up to the job of generating new life forms suddenly, rather than gradually. How fast is too fast for evolution?

This is the so-called "waiting time" problem. Traits like gills, wings, functional legs, and eyes don't just appear as the result of one mutation. They require many mutations, often in regulatory regions of DNA before an organism gets any fitter. But as the necessary mutations pile up, the time required for evolution to occur increases, and does so exponentially.

Summarizing the paper, Luskin uses an example of marbles. Imagine you have a bag of red and blue marbles. You want only blue marbles, but you need to select at random. Let's say it will take two seconds on average to pull out a blue marble. However, because the search is random, it will take four seconds to pull out two blue marbles. For three, it's eight seconds. And so on. The time required with each additional marble increases exponentially.

Now imagine those marbles are random mutations—the alleged raw material of evolution. As the authors of the paper note, many traits that confer a survival advantage—such as those activated by regulatory regions in DNA—involve sequences hundreds or thousands of nucleotides long. And when you realize that "blue marble" mutations may each take centuries to happen, and that none of them give a survival advantage until they change the expression of actual genes—well, the problem for evolution becomes a simple matter of math.

Okay, maybe "simple" is the wrong word. This paper's model is dense, and these authors merely develop that method and suggest how it could possibly be applied to the fossil record. They haven't yet taken that next step.

What they have done is offer a plausible way to calculate just how much time evolution requires, and show whether the theory can make good on its promises and actually explain the fossil record that caused Darwin so much doubt.

Maybe more importantly, this is the latest in a series of papers by intelligent design (ID) researchers to sustain peer review. It demonstrates, once again, that despite the protests of die-hard Darwinists, ID theory is capable of scientific predictions and insights, and may in fact be better at explaining the wonders of the living world than Neo-Darwinism. Perhaps it's even a theory that could eventually replace Darwin's. As this paper hints, the answer may only be a matter of time.

-- Story Resources --

Suicide Bomber Attacks Citizens at Kabul Airport

At least two explosions took place near the Kabul airport on Thursday as the US and other countries try to evacuate their citizens and Afghans at risk from the Taliban.

Three US officials and a source familiar with the situation said that, according to initial reports, there were some US personnel among the casualties.

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The Crisis in Afghanistan And Humanity's Capacity for Evil

The desperate scenes at the Kabul airport are hard to take in. To describe America's exit strategy as "negligence" is charitable. More accurately, it's somewhere between folly and abandonment. It's the latest chapter in a war with, as Mindy Belz put it, "a history of political ambivalence." Even back in 2006, one frustrated soldier described it this way: "We're at war; America's at the mall." It may have been our culture of self-absorption that sowed such a catastrophic exit, but it's the Afghan people who are reaping the whirlwind

BreakPoint>>

Prayer is Doing Something

I saw a tweet recently from a mom that described this well. "Sometimes," she said, "I'm mad at God that all he lets me do is pray about a situation that is out of my hands. I suppose that says more about me, and my frustration with prayer, than it says about God."

BreakPoint>>

Chuck Colson on "Radical Gratitude"

A friend reminded me of a commentary by Chuck Colson from all the way back in 2005. It's safe to say that it has aged well. Despite how much has changed and how much more chaotic the headlines might be today, the core truth underlying his commentary is the same. A posture of gratitude is one that recognizes Whose world this actually is, and how we fit in God's overarching plan to make all things new.BreakPoint>>

The Myth of Family-Friendly Abortion

Planned Parenthood's website says that "Deciding to have an abortion doesn't mean you don't want or love children. In fact, 6 out of 10 people who get abortions already have kids—and many of them decide to end their pregnancies so they can focus on the children they already have."

Less than six percent of Medicaid-enrolled women had both births and abortions. As study lead, Dr. James Studnicki remarked: "…abortion is in no way typical of motherhood…the overwhelming number of children are born to mothers who never have an abortion.The Point>>

The Pronoun Revolution

Chicago public school teacher sent forms to Abigail Shrier that show teachers are explicitly required to keep kids' newly declared gender identities from parents.

Twitter>>

Spike in Transgender Surgeries Show Medical Priorities

It's so strange that despite all the rationing we've been hearing about, there was a notable rise in so-called "gender confirmation surgeries" for women. These are procedures in which otherwise healthy body parts are removed from female patients suffering with gender dysphoria.

BreakPoint>>

-- In-show Mentions --

How Does the Women's March Define What a Woman Is? Joseph Backholm | What Would You Say? | January 22, 2020

Transgenderism Depends on Stereotypes Joseph Backholm | What Would You Say? | January 15, 2020

The Last Christian on Earth Os Guinness | Baker Books | 2010

The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self Carl Trueman | Crossway | 2020

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GI Joe on Youtube

The Fellowship of the Performing Arts

Bethany Bernard - All My Questions

Yesterday a suicide bomber from an ISIS-related group attacked crowds outside the Kabul airport. How will the U.S. respond?

Given how poorly President Biden has handled the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan up to this point, it's impossible to predict just how the U.S. will respond to an attack by an ISIS-related suicide bomber. The tragedy resulted in the killing of at least 12 U.S. service members and more than 60 others hoping to flee the country.

If yesterday's press conference by the President was meant to inspire confidence or provide clarity, it failed. Carl von Clausewitz, the famous German student of war, once argued that war is just politics by other means. That, if it's true to any degree, puts us in an absolutely terrifying position. Now, the question: how should the U.S. respond to a horrific attack like this one? That's another matter.

Thankfully, there's a long history of theological reflection that's known as Just War Theory. It's helpful, especially at times like these, when anger, hurt, and desire for retaliation overwhelm our senses. Acts of war should always be thought of only as extraordinary means, like surgery or chemo. War is only justified by a situation so bad that acts ordinarily unthinkable become morally obligated. Still, even justified violence will involve horrors that would never happen in a sinless world. Think of even the best possible situations, where all involved are adult males in uniform, under arms, with a clear objective: it's still image-bearers of God, using their God-given abilities to attack, to harm, to kill other image-bearers. And I'm not sure there's been a war that clean in all of human history.

Because of the awful realities of life after the Fall, Christian thinkers throughout the ages - from Augustine, to Aquinas, to Luther, to others today - have struggled to articulate acts of war within a Christian moral framework, so that believers could figure out ways to actively oppose grave injustice while not becoming part of the injustice themselves.

Some believers have, of course, held that this sort of thing is impossible, and they've embraced various degrees of pacifism. However, the majority of the church settled on a set of criteria that, if met, would justify acts of war.

Though different groups have categorized these criteria in different ways, they can generally be grouped into whether or not to go to war and how war should be waged.

The first set of criteria has to do with the right to war. It demands that leaders and nations never go to war without fully counting the cost. Not only must there be good reason, but all other options must have been exhausted. Extraordinary injustice has to be present or imminent acts of war must be waged by legitimate authorities, not just by vigilante individuals. There has to be a likely chance of success and the act of retaliation cannot exceed the evil that it opposes. Even a just cause is not sufficient justification in and of itself, if it's mixed with unjust goals, or an overly devastating response, or an unlikely chance of success.

The second set of criteria has to do with governing right behavior once a war has been waged. Even when fighting and killing is justified, not all means of fighting and killing are justified.

Whenever noncombatants are caught in crossfire, it's tragic. But noncombatants should never ever be targeted. Nor should military personnel be targeted if wounded, captured, or incapacitated in some way. Only the force necessary to accomplish a mission as quickly as possible is justified force.

Now, of course, there's a vast difference between a nice and neat theory like this and how it's applied on the ground. Rarely will both sides, or even anyone on one side for that matter, agree that each and every criteria has been sufficiently met. Both sides tend to assume that they're the ones justified in taking action against their enemy.

All of which brings us back to the very non-theoretical question of the moment: How should President Biden respond to the murderous bombing of innocent Afghans and American service members yesterday?

First, it's essential to remember the larger context of this bombing. It's a decades-long war that has, especially recently, been badly bungled. The more immediate context is that nothing in the President's handling of Afghanistan, especially in the last two weeks, does anything to inspire confidence that he can do the right thing here and now. This is where applying Just War criteria to yesterday's attack becomes all the more complicated.

On one hand, of course, American forces were attacked while not engaging in any sort of hostile action, even as they were trying to help innocent civilians. And this attack was maybe sponsored, but was at least allowed, by the ruling Taliban, the so-called government. Above and beyond our own losses, there were noncombatants killed. Going by all of these principles alone, there's ample justification for swift and serious retaliation, as well as proactive measures to prevent any further attacks.

On the other hand, it's just not clear - given our dramatically reduced forces, our self-imposed, foolish limitations, and the overall foolish strategy in Afghanistan - that there's a reasonable chance of success in any retaliation. Our President does not seem willing to end this threat, and his seeming desperation to leave Afghanistan as quickly as possible, without thinking it through, just makes the situation worse.

Clearly, the Taliban and other interested parties don't think that America will have the ability to follow through. The tragedy here is far beyond national embarrassment, and it's even in addition to yesterday's tragic loss of life. It's that the good that desperately needs to be done in Afghanistan right now, won't be done, and the evil that desperately needs to end there, won't end.

This is one of those times that swift and strong action is required for peace and protection. Tragically, given the determination of the President to exit Afghanistan - no matter the cost to its people or our allies - and the foolish way that this withdrawal has been carried out, such an act of retaliation is unlikely to succeed. Even if it's possible with the troops we still have on the ground, any American retaliation has to be more than a symbolic act. Otherwise, it's not a step towards justice at all.

The next edition of Webster's Dictionary will probably include a new definition for "zoom." For most people, life during the pandemic included Zoom meetings, Zoom classes, Zoom calls, Zoom church services, etc. Nearly everything now consists of a virtual option.

The shift has been culture-wide, especially in the area of work. Earlier this month, the Institute for Family Studies released findings from a new survey of 2500 American adults. More than 50 percent of working moms and dads said that the COVID-19 pandemic had changed their preferences. They'd now prefer to work from home than at the office at least part of the time.

The pandemic has also changed other work preferences of parents. Though economic realities leave many parents without the choice of whether to work or not, the study found that working, college-educated moms, in particular, are now more likely to want to work only part-time. And the most significant percentage of both moms and dads of children under five described their ideal arrangement as sharing childcare duties with a spouse instead of hiring a nanny or using daycare.

This study was only about preferences, and preferences don't always coincide with reality. Not every parent gets to choose whether or not to work or the job arrangement they prefer. And not every job can be done from home. However, because logistical realities so often shape our lives, whether we're aware of it or not, we should be aware of them and how they are changing us, and we should be intentional about them.

Not everyone is aware of their worldview, though everyone has a set of assumptions about the world that informs everything they do. Likewise, not everyone is aware of how much a changing cultural landscape can shape their worldview. By understanding how modern life and outside forces, like a pandemic or new work arrangements, affect the ways we order our lives, we can better align our choices with a Christian worldview instead of being blown around by cultural winds.

In the Psalms, David implored God to "teach him to number his days." Elsewhere, he asked that God would "search him and know him." It is a Biblical mandate to think about why we do what we do and align with how God calls us to live.

It's one thing to know that in principle, it's far more complicated to practice it. Does God want us to work? Does he want us to work that job? Do we justify our work's type, intensity, or location merely by the lifestyle we prefer, or based on other factors: what's best for the family? What's best for mental health? What is most conducive to church life or Christian service?

For the Christian, there are immovable Biblical principles that should mark and form the structures of our lives. These should not be moved, edited, or altered by cultural shifts. For example, the reality of marriage is a real thing, like gravity, ordained by God within the created order and reclaimed by Christ for the health and growth of His kingdom. Marriage is not made something else by changing cultural norms. In the same way, the obligations of parents to their children are fixed. Despite how they are so often treated in our cultural moment, they are image-bearers who belong to God, not ornaments to decorate our lives or pieces of clay to mold into our images.

A song by Christian singer Sara Groves called "Scientist in Japan" questions the pride humans have in the technological advances we've made or wished we've made, such as artificial heart muscles and front-load washing machines. "We set machines in motion just to set machines in motion," she sings, but "Who's going to stay to think about it? Everybody's left the room… there's no one here to talk it through."

Christians, of all people, should be the ones to stay and think about the ways our culture is changing and how these changes influence and dictate our decisions. God's truth is unchanging. How we live out of that truth in a changing culture must always be considered. No cultural wind should blow us around without us at least noticing. And no circumstantial change should stop us from living as God has called us.

John and Shane help a listener understand the difference between an evangelical, a protestant, and evangelical. They use the Bebbington quadrilateral to provide context and give a full explanation on the unique worldview understanding in evangelical, protestant, and evangelical approaches.

-- Resources --

Religion and American Culture: A Brief History George Marsden | Eerdmans | September 6, 2018

God in the WastelandDavid F. Wells | Eerdma ns | July 1, 1994

The American withdrawal from Afghanistan is forcing us to look, again, into the face of humanity's capacity for evil. President Biden's rationalizations aside, painful questions remain about Afghanistan: what will Taliban rule mean for Afghan women and children, for Christians, dissidents, and journalists? What will happen to those Afghan citizens who served and stood with the U.S. for the last two decades? Has this extremist regime really evolved as they claim and as many hope?

The desperate scenes at the Kabul airport are hard to take in. To describe America's exit strategy as "negligence" is charitable. More accurately, it's somewhere between folly and abandonment. It's the latest chapter in a war with, as Mindy Belz put it, "a history of political ambivalence." Even back in 2006, one frustrated soldier described it this way: "We're at war; America's at the mall." It may have been our culture of self-absorption that sowed such a catastrophic exit, but it's the Afghan people who are reaping the whirlwind.

In his book A Free People's Suicide, Os Guinness observed an historical reality being played out in Afghanistan. Winning freedom is not rare in history; maintaining freedom is. As James Monroe lamented, "How prone all human institutions have been to decay. How difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism."

Again and again throughout history, human frailty, foolishness, and fallenness corrupt even our best endeavors. Israel thought it had a righteous king in David, but his sin wrought personal, familial, and national havoc. Emerging from Roman persecution, some Christian leaders persecuted their pagan neighbors. St. Augustine of Hippo finished City of God, then watched from his deathbed as Vandals destroyed what was left of the Roman world. Even U.S. President James Monroe was a painful contradiction: a President who advocated for abolition but stubbornly refused to free his own slaves.

Every story of human failure reminds us, again, just how desperate our world is for re-creation. A quick paint job won't do. We are not capable of cleaning up our messes, or putting back together what we've broken. Even the best human rulers, institutions, and heroes of history cannot save us. Only the God of the Cosmos can. If He isn't on the throne, ruling and redeeming, all is lost.

Jesus' mission to Earth must be properly understood. This is more than merely an inspiring story of sacrifice, service, and humility. It's even more than the story of how we can find forgiveness and avoid eternal punishment. Let me be clear: the story of Jesus certainly isn't about less than these things, but it is about so much more. It is, rather, the story of the Cosmos. The story that best describes reality, particularly in its brokenness.

Os Guinness observed that "Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil." In the context of the Fall, this is significant. By suffering within His creation and with His image bearers, being despised and abandoned, tasting the bitterness of human failure and corrupt institutions, feeling anger at injustice and sadness at human frailty, Jesus experienced evil in its fullness. In His death, He became the only fully innocent victim of evil. And, by resurrecting from the dead, Jesus became the only secure source of hope - hope that evil will indeed be overcome and ultimately defeated. Though all human institutions should fail, Christ will make all things new.

Everything truly Christian flows from these bedrock truths: our ethics, any strength we have to continue to push back against evil and brokenness, any good that is within us. It's only because the Judge of the universe is perfect that our earthly justice has any meaning. It's only because of what Christ has done for us that we can truly love and care for our neighbors.

America has some serious soul-searching to do in light of this failure in Afghanistan. Even more, we have some serious course-correcting to do. Specifically, we'll need to reckon with the humanitarian crisis we helped create, and we'll need to find ways to support the tiny, embattled Christian remnant there.

At the same time, the only way to bear the overwhelming weight of human evil in this world is to embrace the long Christian view of history, and to fix our eyes on the Christ Who is at its center. All other ways lead to either judgmental cynicism or self-centered hedonism. Only the story of Christ is big enough to make sense of the evil in our world. Only His nail-scarred hands are strong enough to hold the course of humanity. As Edward Shillito wrote in his masterful poem Jesus of the Scars, "to our wounds only God's wounds can speak. And not a God has wounds but (Christ) alone."

Last week, the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change panicked. Or, at least, they officially announced to the world they were panicking. In its new official Assessment Report, the panel concluded we won't be able to stop the earth from warming at least 1.5 degrees. That change, scientists said, will melt arctic ice, cause a rise in sea levels and an increase in dangerous weather, and send millions into poverty. And if industrialized nations don't dramatically cut their carbon emissions, they said, those consequences will be even more devastating.

Sometimes Christians hear apocalyptic news about climate change and feel a distinct urge to change the channel. I empathize with that instinct - the people releasing these reports are not always unbiased or even trustworthy.

But it's not controversial to say that Christians should care about the planet. The book of Genesis says that God "breathed life into the dust" of the earth to create us. The earth feeds, clothes and shelters humans, but the Bible also talks about the world as an intrinsic good in and of itself. Just considering the incredible variety, intricacy and beauty of the animals, plants and topography across the globe is a study in God's intentional creativity. God doesn't breathe on what he doesn't love.

If the latest research seems to show the climate is changing in ways that could harm both humans and the planet, we should listen. However, there are worldview assumptions built into a report like the IPCC's that too often go unspoken. One such assumption is that the earth's climate is changing now in a way it was not supposed to.

A sense of existential instability is warranted within a naturalistic worldview. If one believes human beings only came into existence on razor-thin margins - that is, that the chance we evolved from single-cell organisms into the unfathomably complex, billion-cell organisms we are today was astronomically astronomical - then our survival here dances on razor-thin margins, too. In that case, a report suggesting "it's getting dicey out there" would be the least shocking news we could get.

Christians need not share that existential dread. The Bible tells us God both created and sustains His creation. "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together," Paul writes in Colossians.

But the consequences of the fall can wreak havoc on God's creation. Things aren't perfect here; we are capable of harming ourselves and the earth. But that doesn't mean our climate is hopelessly out of control. Isaiah 40 sounds at first like a warning: "The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it." But there's great comfort here: nothing withers or fades without His breath.

That comfort isn't available in a God-less worldview, and that's evident in many reports about climate change. For example, there's an emphasis in this IPCC report on what humans should do to prevent the globe from warming further. Notice the implication that we can control this problem. Certainly as humans we have agency, and a responsibility to make good decisions. But it's far easier on an emotional level to believe that the big, scary problems like climate change — or a pandemic — are humans' fault, and therefore can be fixed by humans, than to believe we can't control everything. Vulnerability is very uncomfortable.

But to believe we can either make or break the climate is to view humans as blunt instruments - as if we're a problem that needs solving rather than potential agents of a solution.

In fact, as the world has changed over centuries, including a warming period in the Middle Ages, humans have often displayed incredible adaptability. Even the things we blame now for harming the climate - like the industrialization that increases carbon emissions - have improved the lives of humans more than our ancestors could have imagined. - arguably, more than their side-effects have harmed humanity.

We should beware reports about the changing climate that come as an alarm and not a calling. Christians are to "hold fast to the hope that we confess without wavering, because the One who has promised is faithful." We are like the servants in Jesus' parable about the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 25: God has put us in charge of His home while we wait for His return. With the power entrusted to us, we should solve the problems that arise, reminding each other all the while that He's coming back, and that the foundations of the house don't rest on our shoulders.

A friend wrote to me and reminded me of a commentary from Chuck Colson on Breakpoint from all the way back in 2005. It has aged well. That's because, despite how much things have changed, despite how much more chaotic the headlines might be today, the core truth is the same. A posture of gratitude is one that recognizes whose world it actually is, and where we fit in to God's overarching plan to make all things new.

The notion of gratitude is hot these days. Search the Internet, and you'll find more than a million sites about thankfulness.

For example, university psychologists recently conducted a research project on gratitude and thanksgiving. They divided participants into three groups. People in the first group practiced daily exercises like writing in a gratitude journal. They reported higher levels of alertness, determination, optimism, energy, and less depression and stress than the control group. Unsurprisingly, they were also a lot happier than the participants who were told to keep an account of all the bad things that happened each day.

One of the psychologists concluded that though a practice of gratitude is a key to most religions, its benefits extend to the general population, regardless of faith or no faith. He suggested that anyone can increase his sense of well-being just from counting his blessings.

As my colleague Ellen Vaughn writes in her new book, RADICAL GRATITUDE, no one is going to disagree that gratitude is a virtue. But, Ellen says, counting our blessings and conjuring an attitude of to-whom-it-may-concern gratitude, Pollyanna-style is not enough.

What do we do when cancer strikes -- I have two children battling it right now-- or when loved ones die, when we find ourselves in the midst of brokenness and real suffering? That, she says, is where gratitude gets radical.

While they often mingle together in the life of a follower of Christ, there are actually two types of thankfulness. One is secondary, the other primary.

The secondary sort is thankfulness for blessings received. Life, health, home, family, freedom, a tall, cold lemonade on a summer day -- it's a mindset of active appreciation for all good gifts.

The great preacher and once president of Princeton University, Jonathan Edwards, called thanks for such blessings "natural gratitude." It's a good thing, but this gratitude doesn't come naturally -- if at all -- when things go badly. It can't buoy us in difficult times. Nor, by itself, does it truly please God. And, to paraphrase Jesus, even pagans can give thanks when things are going well.

Edwards calls the deeper, primary form of thankfulness "gracious gratitude." It gives thanks not for goods received, but for who God is: for His character -- His goodness, love, power, excellencies -- regardless of favors received. And it's real evidence of the Holy Spirit working in a person's life.

This gracious gratitude for who God is also goes to the heart of who we are in Christ. It is relational, rather than conditional. Though our world may shatter, we are secure in Him. We can have peace in times of pain. The fount of our joy, the love of the God who made us and saved us, cannot be quenched by any power that exists (Romans 8:28-39). People who are filled with such radical gratitude are unstoppable, irrepressible, overflowing with wha C. s. Lewis called "the good infection" -- the supernatural, refreshing love of God that draws others to Him.

That was Chuck Colson in a Breakpoint commentary from May 17th, 2005. It's aged well because it's a truth that transcends cultural moments and the challenges of one age to the next. That in and all were to be grateful to God for the fact that he is our creator, the fact that he has sent christ as our redeemer and he is overseeing the scope of history and allows us to be part of what he's doing in the world. It's always a good habit to take some time day by day to be grateful for the Colson Center.

John and Maria unpack the recent happenings surrounding Afghanistan. They discuss the history of the situation in Afghanistan and President Biden's responses to the U.S. force pull-out. They also discuss the worldview of the Taliban and the concerns for women and Christians.

Maria then asks John for insight on responding to claims that actions around the vaccine show morality. She asks for clarity in how to respond to intentions whether a person does or doesn't vaccinate.

To close, John gives Maria insight on a new report showing employees are preferring to work from home to have a better family life. Maria notes that the report shows how opinions and habits have changed in recent times due to Covid closures.

Today, historically horrific diseases like polio and leprosy have been all but eradicated. Most people consider past moral failures, such as slavery, despicable. Famines are increasingly few and far between, and abject poverty around the world has been dramatically reduced.

Among the reasons that our normal is so different from much of history is the work of Christians who saw their lives as a means by which God could accomplish restoration. In living out a Christian worldview within their own time and place, they laid foundations for this current world, which is better in so many ways.

Dr. Benjamin Rush is a prime example of someone who had this sense of vocation. Rush was born one of seven children in 1746 just outside of Philadelphia. He studied at the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), completing his degree in 1760 at age 15.

He received his medical degree in Britain, and then practiced medicine there before returning to the colonies in 1769. At the age of 24, he opened a medical practice in Philadelphia. He was also a chemistry professor, writing the first chemistry textbook published in America. He also wrote treatises on medical education.

A significant area of study for Rush was the treatment of mental illness. He argued that people with mental illness shouldn't be treated as criminals but brought into normal hospital settings. He also believed that giving them productive work could aid in their recovery. His ideas proved to be successful strategies in treating many of his patients.

Rush was also active in social reform. He was a founding member of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons (the Pennsylvania Prison Society today), and an ardent abolitionist, joining abolitionist societies and writing pamphlets against the institution of slavery. He specifically argued, on scientific grounds, that blacks were in no way inferior to whites.

All of the activities on Rush's very impressive resume were informed by his faith. His stands on mental health, prisons, and slavery came from his understanding that each person is made in the image of God and is, therefore, worthy of dignity and respect. His observations on the importance of work for well-being reflected ideas contained within the biblical worldview.

His stand on abolition had been the historical position of the Church and, in his day, was being advanced by evangelicals (among others) in Britain and America. His concern for the well-being of the black population led him to act as an advisor to Richard Allen in the founding of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He lent the church and Allen his public support.

His faith grounded his political beliefs as well. Rush's focus on inalienable rights can be traced through John Locke to medieval scholastic theologians. He wrote numerous patriotic essays. Thomas Paine even consulted with Rush as he wrote Common Sense. Not only was Rush appointed to the Continental Congress, he was a signatory of the Declaration of Independence.

Rush also championed education on all levels. Along with his work in higher education, Rush is considered the father of American public education, and he was a major supporter of the American Sunday School Union. Rush believed Christianity to be essential for the proper functioning of society and, therefore, integral at the heart of education.

"Without religion," Rush said, "I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind." This argument is key to Rush's views of the Bible and education. Rush believed education was vitally important to produce a virtuous society, but it needed to be grounded. Though he considered any religion better than none, he advocated for the superiority of Christianity and the specific importance of the Bible. For Rush, teaching the Bible was not just about personal salvation, but also about personal and societal well-being.

Stories from history, like that of Benjamin Rush, demonstrate what it means to live as if the Christian worldview is, indeed, true. Thus, aligning with it is good, not only in the hereafter but for individuals and societies here and now. In other words, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say much later, Christianity is not an otherworldly religion. It describes the world as it actually is, which allows us to be part of God's work not just to prepare for Heaven, but to repair what is wrong.