Breakpoint

Sean McDowell shares an important proverb in the Time of Guided Prayer led by the Colson Center.

Dr. Sean McDowell is a gifted communicator with a passion for equipping the church, and in particular young people, to make the case for the Christian faith. In addition to his role as Associate Professor in the Christian Apologetics program at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, Sean travels throughout the United States and abroad, speaking at camps, churches, schools, universities, and conferences. Sean is the co-host for the Think Biblically podcast, which is one of the most popular podcasts on faith and cultural engagement. He has written, co-written, or edited more than twenty books and has a leading apologetics blogs at seanmcdowell.org. In April 2000, Sean married his high school sweetheart, Stephanie. They have three children and live in San Juan Capistrano, California.

Michael Agapito's recent book review at ChristianityToday.com vividly illustrates one of the challenges Christians face when trying to apply their faith to issues of injustice. After praising much about Thaddeus Williams' new book Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth, in particular his commitment to not diminish or dismiss Biblical mandates for Christians to work toward justice and to rightly prioritize social justice efforts in light of the salvation message, Agapito offers a lukewarm review. His concern, even after admitting Williams' book explicitly states otherwise, is that "some will use it as an excuse to remain overtly comfortable with the status quo."

In other words, even raising (and much less) answering questions (as Williams' book brilliantly does) about the way social justice is defined and pursued today is to be guilty of enabling the detractors, even if you clearly and repeatedly state otherwise (as Williams' book brilliantly does). This kind of critique of those who want to be sure their efforts align with Scripture is unhelpful and far too common.

Now, let me attempt to be as clear as Scripture is: God cares about justice. The prophet Amos proclaims, "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream." The prophet then cites very specific examples of injustice. He condemns Israel for its mistreatment of the poor. He cites corrupt practices such as false testimony, bribery, and favoritism in the courts.

As is true throughout Scripture, "justice" is no abstract concept. Many of the prophets all but equate Israel's failure of justice with religious infidelity as reasons for the exile and other punishments they face. As Micah famously put it, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what the Lord requires of you, to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

One of the great contributions of Christianity to human history is the very idea that all people should be treated justly. As the influence of Christianity spread across the world, God's instructions for how Israel should treat the poor and the disabled and the unborn and the foreigner spread as well. Today, both inside and outside of the church, demands to address injustices are ubiquitous.

The problem is that radical, problematic views undergird so many calls for justice today. Too many social "causes" assume things about justice, God, morality, and who we are as human beings that simply aren't true. And, most of these ignore or deny the only idea that has ever been able to ground human dignity, that every human is made in the image of God.

Today, because of the legacy of postmodern ideas about oppression and the wide application of critical theory, justice is largely understood only in terms of power dynamics. Because words like "social justice" and "oppression" are so often wrongly defined, many Christians have abandoned the biblical call to care about victims of injustice or work toward addressing social evils. Not only is that tragic, not only does this compromise the message of Christianity to the world, but it puts us out of touch with biblical teaching, and Christians throughout history (think of individuals such as William Wilberforce).

That's the dilemma, and I've honestly been waiting for a resource would clearly and carefully walk through how we can work for justice from the solid foundation that every person is made in the image of God. I'm pleased to say that Thaddeus J. Williams's new book, Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth is that resource.

As Williams writes, "The problem is not with the quest for social justice. The problem is what happens when that quest is undertaken from a framework that is not compatible with the Bible. Today many Christians accept conclusions that are generated from madness machines that are wired with very different presuppositions about reality than those we find in Scripture."

Williams addresses on our culture's preoccupation with "wokeness," critical race theory, and emotivism, without letting us off the hook from our Christian responsibilities to love God and to love our neighbors (all of them).

After all, Christians are always at their best when running into the brokenness not away from it, when we are caring for the victims of bad ideas while we walk humbly with our God.

During the month of February, I would love to send you Confronting Injustice Without Compromising Truth by Thaddeus Williams for your next gift to BreakPoint and the Colson Center.

Come to breakpoint.org/February2021 to request your copy today. Again, that's Breakpoint.org/February2021 to get your copy today.

It's likely that there will be 300 million Christians in China by 2030, up from 75-100 million Christians estimated in China in 2020. That is a three-fold increase.

When the Communist Party in China took over in 1949 there were only 4 million Christians in China.During the reign of Mao, the total number of Christians didn't exceed 4million. Since the death of Mao in 1976, Christianity has grown at the same rate as the Chinese economy, 7-8% per year.

The church grows from a mustard seed. Christian's don't only live lives that are different from their neighbors, but better. John and Shane discuss how Communism isn't big enough to handle the holy spirit, neighborliness, and even grace.

John and Shane also discuss new Presidential executive actions and the state of persecution in the church.

Earlier this month, in a piece for The Atlantic, Joshua Coleman described an epidemic that's not COVID but that's also afflicting America: family estrangement. As a psychologist who specializes in family therapy, Coleman reports that his practice is flooded with older parents mourning the loss of contact with their grown children and with grown children angry and hurt by conflict with parents. "The rules of family life have changed," he said.

The more recent changes in family structures and dynamics he described have only added to the pressure already felt by earlier stressors. For example, the Industrial Revolution, which moved work from inside the home to out, completely upended family life in all kinds of ways. The more recent forces of family estrangement, on the other hand, don't come so much from the outside as from the inside.

Coleman quotes Stephanie Coontz, the Director of Research at the Council on Contemporary Families, to clarify this point:

"Never before have family relationships been seen as so interwoven with the search for personal growth, the pursuit of happiness, and the need to confront and overcome psychological obstacles."

This shift is bigger than we might suspect. Coontz continues,

"For most of history family relationships were based on mutual obligations rather than on mutual understanding. Parents or children might reproach the other for failing to honor/acknowledge their duty, but the idea that a relative could be faulted for failing to honor/acknowledge one's 'identity' would have been incomprehensible" (emphasis added).

In other words, we used to understand our families in light of our duties to them. Now we are increasingly understanding our families in light of their duty to us. What's more, we increasingly think that their primary duty is to make us happy.

Haven't we seen this same sort of approach play out in other areas of our lives? "My spouse and my marriage should make me happy." If not, divorce is the only answer, no matter how it impacts the children. "My church should make me happy (and agree with all of my opinions)." If not, I'll find another one, maybe online. "My work should leave me fulfilled." If not, it's my work's fault.

The same pop psychology, self-care, find-your-bliss platitudes are plastered all over social media: get rid of "toxic" people in your life who make you feel unhappy. Surround yourself only with "positivity." Don't let other people suck the "energy" out of you. Not only is it good to ditch the people you don't like, social media will give you the impression that it actually makes you brave and laudable and strong.

All of this is, of course, a nearly perfect inverse of biblical counsel. From Paul in Ephesians 4: "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." Paul assumes that living with others requires some "bearing with," which probably implies that we require some "bearing with," as well.

Family members make mistakes, of course. In cases of abuse, severing a relationship may be necessary and justified. Sometimes, however, our family members are simply annoying. Maybe they merely point out where we've gone wrong, and there are times parents warn children off a dangerous path because of their own painful experiences. To automatically confuse tough love or even disagreement with being "toxic" is not only to serve our own pride, it's foolishly to sacrifice an essential relationship.

We need the wisdom and care that only comes from those who know us best. We need what Proverbs calls "the faithful wounds of a friend" (Prov 27:6). In this fallen world, families will never be perfect, but God designed them to be the first and best safety net we should all have.

Over the last several years, the generation gap has clearly widened, especially over three issues: sex, technology, and Trump. Over the last year, COVID and masks have been added to that list. All of these issues matter, of course, and there aren't "two sides" to all of them, but these relational splits in our families – not to mention our churches and friendships – are too often not born out of wisdom, and certainly not out of the biblical instructions for how we should treat our families, but out of a social media, YouTube comments-section sort of mentality.

The family is a sacred design that was gifted to us by God. We ought not squander it. We have duty to serve it. If we do, it will be another way for Christians to be counter-cultural, another way for us to live for something bigger than ourselves and our own happiness.

The new Netflix film, "My Octopus Teacher," is hard to categorize. It's not exactly a nature documentary, nor is it strictly narrative storytelling, and the title is strange enough by itself. Still, this movie by documentary filmmaker Craig Foster has garnered glowing reviews and has become extremely popular on social media.

The movie follows Foster who, in the midst of a personal crisis, decides to snorkel in the kelp forest near his South African home every day for a year.

I doubt I was the only one whose first thought was, "Wow, it must be nice to have a breathtaking coastal home where personal therapy takes the form of a year of snorkeling."

And that's just the first thing that makes the show's popularity puzzling--especially in this culture, which analyzes all of our problems, every political issue, and even the identity and value of individual people in terms of who has privilege and who doesn't. Just last week, Kim Kardashian was widely panned for posting a picture of a beautiful beach with the caption "paradise," without duly noting how privileged she was to be there. Though it's difficult to see "My Octopus Teacher" without noting that cultural tension, it's also refreshing to see a person with clear privilege choosing not to dwell on it.

Still, "My Octopus Teacher" isn't a movie about privilege. It's about, wait for it, an octopus! Foster first comes across the animal in the very early days of his year of snorkeling, and he's mesmerized. Thanks to the engaging narration and cinematography, it's hard not to be mesmerized along with him.

Octopi are incredible. And strange. They have this ability to go from something solid to almost liquid in a matter of seconds. The thousands of suction cups on the outside of their bodies are like a second brain. In fact, two-thirds of their cognition happen there, according to scientists.

Throughout the film, we see Foster's octopus friend swim like a fish, walk like a dog, and play games like a kid. She changes colors. When she loses an arm in a shark attack, we watch it grow back. In simpler terms, Craig Foster's true privilege is one that God uniquely endows on His image bearers: the opportunity to marvel at God's extravagant creativity and the fact that He lets us live in a world like this.

The other lesson in "My Octopus Teacher" comes from Foster's attempts to explain his obsession. "I just wanted to know this octopus," he says. "I just wondered - what would happen if I went to the same spot, every day, for a year?" So, he does. He followed that octopus around every day, and each night, he went home to study more about her.

His obsession seems strange, to be sure, but it's also a poignant picture of a person looking for something outside of himself in a culture where most voices tell us to look inside. Even more, what if we approached God in this way? What if we became so obsessed with knowing Him that we spent our time and energy essentially stalking Him every single day, through reading the Bible, prayer, and serving others?

And, what if we came to God with the same sense of expectation Foster had underwater? He was painfully deliberate to not impose himself in the octopus's life. He wanted to know her, but he knew she had to decide whether to reveal herself to him. The good news is that God wants us to know Him. After all, consider the incredible lengths He has gone to in order to make Himself known, in His word, in His world, and especially in His Son.

Still, it is a particular discipline to not approach God with what Jesus called "many words" (Mt 6:7), and instead to "be still and know" that He is God (Ps 46:10).

Foster never really understood the octopus. Though God's ways are higher than ours, and our ability to understand Him will always be limited, God is knowable. We will never know Him exhaustively, but we can know Him truthfully.

St. Augustine said, "You have formed us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You." "My Octopus Teacher" is a strange movie, but Foster's film is a fascinating portrayal of the "God-shaped hole" in every human heart. To become obsessed with God, to follow him around like He's the answer to our troubles, to wait for Him to show Himself to us, is the only way for our hearts to be filled and at rest.

John and Shane field a series of thought-provoking questions this week. One listener wrote in asking why Christians are concerned with how people of faith in important positions hold and communicate their theology. Another listener asked an important question about end-of-life care and advanced directives, looking for a Christian worldview thinking structure to hang all of the new technologies and realities we have with life and end-of-life care.

The first question John and Shane fielded was from a professional whose current career may come into a conscience conflict. John and Shane provide strong understanding to stand strong in the culture stream.

In his book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote, "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how.'" Both the book and its most famous quote were products of an incredibly difficult experience. During World War II, Frankl and his family were deported from their native Vienna to various concentration camps, including Auschwitz. He was the only member of his family to survive.

Frankl knew just how unbearable the "how" of life could be. And yet, as Frankl explained, humans are meaning-seeking creatures. We want to believe that there's more to life than meeting our basic survival needs of food, water, shelter, and safety. Even more, we need this to be true. Otherwise, ours becomes a purely animal existence. Despite all the zoo placards and biology textbooks assuring us that humans are just animals, we certainly don't act like survival and promulgating the species are all that matters.

Without meaning, hope is difficult, if not impossible. At best, without meaning, we resort to a kind of detachment and resignation. At worst, we resort to self-harm, violence, or even suicide.

On the other hand, the benefits of meaning extend well beyond psychological and spiritual health. As a recent article in the Washington Post reports, a sense of purpose and meaning brings physical benefits as well. Believing that one's "existence has meaning" is linked to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and lower levels of heart inflammation. One study found that having a "clear purpose in life" can slow the impact of Alzheimer's in older patients. Another metanalysis of various studies even suggested that having a purpose in life can lower risk of death equally as well as following the "Mediterranean diet."

Of course, finding this kind of life-changing and life-extending purpose isn't as straightforward as changing a diet or starting a new exercise routine. An essential place to begin is the opening sentence of Rick Warren's The Purpose Drive Life: "It's not about you." Purpose is not found by looking inward; it's found by looking outward and is manifested in what we do for others. Among the examples cited by the Post article were volunteering, donating to charity, and "joining a group of people who share your values." What all of these ideas have in common is that they remove us, for however long, from the center of our personal universe.

Of course, nothing turns our perspective outward (and upward) like faith in Jesus Christ. I don't mean the consumerist, therapeutic kind of inward-looking religion that too often passes for Christianity these days. I mean something along the lines of what Paul told the Corinthians: "And [Christ] died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them" (2 Cor 5:15).

Living for the One who died and rose again not only removes us from the center of our own universe, but aligns our hearts and minds with what is actually true about the universe: that it belongs to God and that our purpose is given by Him not determined by us. True faith locates our lives in this cultural moment within the larger story of God, and how He is fulfilling His purposes throughout each chapter of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. When we no longer see our lives and actions as isolated, we realize they are part of the story and even the means by which God is restoring all things.

Knowing this doesn't make the "how" any easier, as my colleague Shane Morris recently testified on BreakPoint. Paul told the Corinthians that toil, hardship, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst, and anxiety were his lot as an apostle of Jesus Christ. But he also knew that his suffering wasn't meaningless. Neither, for that matter, was his success.

Despite and even through them, God's purposes were being fulfilled. This is the ultimate "why." This message is not only true; it's worth sharing, especially in a world where, for so many, meaning has been lost and the best efforts to manufacture meaning fall short.

The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic is still being tallied, both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost. In addition to the millions of dead, the millions more who've been infected (including some who face long-term physical damage), there's the psychological and emotional harm of extended isolation and the millions who face financial ruin. In the midst of all of that, we are now learning of another, less obvious, but just as deadly fallout from the pandemic.

Each January, Open Doors, an organization committed to "serving persecuted Christians worldwide," releases their World Watch List. The list documents the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian, highlights global trends in religious persecution and provides unique insights into the global persecuted church.

In many ways, the 2021 report resembles those of previous years. North Korea is still at the top of the list, followed by Afghanistan. As in previous years, the list is dominated by either Communist governments or overwhelmingly Islamic countries. Christian persecution in these countries may take the form of discrimination, restrictions on religious practice, imprisonment, violence, or killings. The persecution may come at the hands of the state or at the hands of private actors with the state looking the other way.

However, the 2021 World Watch List does differ from those in previous years in a very important way. The COVID-19 pandemic has, and I quote, "exposed the ugliness of Christian persecution in a new way."

For example, in India, COVID-19 food relief has been used by some radical Hindu government officials to pressure Indian Christians to renounce their faith. In some regions of India, Christians are last in line to receive aid, including food. As a result, some Christians there are being forced to travel long distances in order to receive help. Some are forced to hide their Christian identity. Similar reports are emerging from other countries around the world, including Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Malaysia, Yemen, and Sudan.

In some parts of Pakistan, the combination of COVID-19 and anti-Christian discrimination have wiped out Christian-owned businesses. Christians already struggling to make ends meet have found their Muslim neighbors using the coronavirus as a pretext to shut them down altogether. In the Kaduna State of Nigeria, Christians who were already facing genocidal violence at the hands of Islamists and Fulani herdsmen are, according to Open Doors, receiving only one-sixth of the rations allocated to Muslim families.

In addition to the health and economic pressures, authoritarian governments around the world have used COVID-19 to consolidate power and further restrict religious activities they deem to be a threat to their authority. In China, a series of "strange and anonymous" messages on social media blamed Christian religious activities for a rise in COVID-19 in Hebei province. It was fake news, but it still put Christians in the crosshairs of local authorities looking for an excuse to crack down on their activities.

China's legendary surveillance capability was used to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Already well on the way to implementing a tyrannical "social credit system" to monitor the loyalty and compliance of its citizens, during COVID, China has used surveillance to further scrutinize Christians and other religious minorities. Similarly, India, which has been steadily moving up the World Watch List in recent years, had already created what's been called the most sophisticated ID program in the world, AADHAAR. Nearly 40 percent of the world's population live in these two countries, countries that are already hostile to Christians and are actively perfecting ways to surveil their populations. To call it ominous would be an understatement.

Open Doors is right to warn us how COVID opportunism and the potential danger of "creeping surveillance" threatens religious freedom. Please, pray for persecuted Christians around the world. If you come to BreakPoint.org, I will link you to Open Doors 2021 World Watch List. It will help you pray in a more informed manner. And please, share it widely, especially with your pastor and elected officials.

A couple of weeks ago, the British left-leaning magazine The Guardian breathlessly proclaimed, "[E]xperts are warning the US is facing a wave of rightwing 'Christian nationalist' legislation in 2021, as the religious right aims to thrust Christianity into everyday American life."

And what nefarious legislation will "thrust Christianity in everyday life"? Prolife laws designed to protect the unborn, religious liberty protections for Christian organizations, and other things advocated by Christians long before anyone had ever heard of Christian Nationalism.

That this term, "Christian Nationalism," has become a one-size-fits-all label for whole swaths of the country, especially since the violence in the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, shouldn't surprise anyone. As images from that day reveal, there were plenty of Christians flags and symbols flying alongside Old Glory and pro-Trump banners. The "symbology" was heavy and indicative, as Andrew Walker told me on a recent BreakPoint Podcast, of a fusion of Christianity and the nation.

For many on the right, the connection seems obvious, especially those who think of America as God's primary agent in the world. And, for many on the left, it seems just as obvious: Christianity is bigoted, dangerous, and outdated in modern society.

In a sense, this kind of conflict isn't unusual. Throughout history, nations have tied their faith, secular or religious, to their flag. Ancient kings draped their wars in divine sanction, medieval monarchs cried "God wills it!" and 20th century dictators claimed that an overarching "History" or "Science" was on their side. America isn't even the only Western nation whose founding documents and hymns are full of Biblical references and appeals to God for protection.

Even so, much of the American story makes our own experience distinctive. From the "City on a Hill" language of the first Puritan colonists (an idea often misunderstood by both Christians and antagonists), to the revolutionary fervor of 1776, to the religious revivals in both camps during the Civil War, to the world wars of the 20th century and our overtly atheistic foe of the Cold War, to American Christianity's focus on the End Times, to the strong sense of Divine destiny, America's history is very religious.

All together, this history has left America with a civil religion, something profoundly helpful for social cohesion but not always good for theological orthodoxy. Whenever the truth of the gospel is watered down for the sake of political or national unity, it isn't long before politics and nationality are all that matters.

Let's be clear: no nation, no party, and no politician is indispensable for the advance or well-being of Kingdom of God. God works through individuals and nations, but His plans endure regardless of the success of nations and worldly kingdoms.

This leaves Christians with a two-fold problem. First is the often well-meaning but always-misguided tendency to conflate our nation and our faith. Any time the good of our country is the ends and the Kingdom of God is the means, we are guilty of idolatry. Especially in an age such as ours, Christians must check and recheck (and re-recheck) our hearts and words to make sure we only render to Caesar what belongs to him, and always reserve for God what is His.

Our second problem is when the scare label "Christian Nationalism," is used to dismiss any policy or person more conservative than whoever is using the term. As seen in the The Guardian, we're all but guaranteed for the near future that anything vaguely traditional or moral, and any appeal to anything higher than the latest cultural fad, will be smeared with this label. It's silly. Even more, it's dangerous.

Even so, Christians must not abandon the public square just because people say mean things about us. Our God-given call to be faithful to Him above our nation also means He's called us to be faithful to Him in our nation, at this time and in this place. Neither the excesses in the name of Christ or those who attempt to ban His people from public life remove this calling from us.

Also, and this will be tougher, we mustn't let the animosity leave us embittered or in despair. As Richard John Neuhaus said, Christians "have not the right to despair, for despair is a sin. And we have not the reason to despair, quite simply because Christ is risen."

Klon Kitchen is Director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for Technology Policy. He explains the background surrounding recent censorship of Donald Trump, Parler, and Q-Anon, sharing a logical path that led to de-platforming of many conservatives and conservative organizations.

Klon provides further understanding on the issues surrounding censorship in technology, providing a Christian apologetic to participating and engaging the challenges around recent decisions from powerful technology companies. Klon helps us understand the purpose of the government in the technology space, helping us understand roles, functions, and protections.

To close, Klon gives listeners an understanding how Christians can and possibly should respond to the recent actions on social platforms. He provides perspective on suppression and oppression as Christians look to the future. Resources: Klon Kitchen Article Section 230: Mend It Don't End It