Breakpoint

By Colson Center

Religion & Spirituality Christianity

What's Breakpoint about?

Join John Stonestreet for a daily dose of sanity—applying a Christian worldview to culture, politics, movies, and more. And be a part of God's work restoring all things.

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Tiny Forests

09.26.2023

According to Cara Buckley with The New York Times, a growing number of “tiny forests” are appearing across urban areas in the U.S. In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing water runoff, and providing homes for wildlife, “[T]iny forests can ...

Breakpoint episodes:

09.27.2023 A Generation Poisoned by Porn Speaks Not long ago, most non-Christians treated pornography as a harmless expression of sexual freedom. For half a century, Hugh Hefner’s Playboy philosophy dominated, teaching people to wink at porn use. Children discovering a relative’s “stash” became a popular trope in ...
09.26.2023 Tiny Forests According to Cara Buckley with The New York Times, a growing number of “tiny forests” are appearing across urban areas in the U.S. In addition to absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing water runoff, and providing homes for wildlife, “[T]iny forests can ...
09.26.2023 What Does It Mean to Have a Courageous Faith? Given our need for courage, this year, we’ve centered the entire Colson Center National Conference around the theme of Courageous Faith. Please plan by saving the date and registering today. The conference is May 30-June 2 at the Loews Hotel ...
09.25.2023 A Trash Thrifter’s Testimony In a recent video that went viral, a 60-year-old New York trash thrifter shared how he makes a living reselling and recycling trash in the Big Apple. From bottles alone, he makes $400 to $800 a week, plus another $1000 ...
09.25.2023 Senate Hosts Meeting on AI without Ethicists Recently, the U.S. Senate held a closed-door meeting with the biggest names from the world of big tech, such as Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. Senate leadership informed the media that the purpose of the meeting was to ...
09.22.2023 Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges John Stonestreet talks to Greg Koukl, the author of the new book Street Smarts, about effective ways to engage an increasingly hostile culture. This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, we will send you a ...
09.22.2023 The Sea is Still Worth Seeing Based on media reports, you might think the ocean is basically dead from pollution. But rumors of the ocean’s demise are greatly exaggerated. Recently, a colleague from Florida received an email from a Christian mom: My son Christopher, 11, used ...
09.22.2023 Dear Teens, Virginity Is Good for You Research consistently shows that young people who wait until after the wedding have a better chance for a stable, fulfilling, happy marriage. They also do not have to worry about sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancies. Though this does not ...
09.21.2023 Myanmar Junta Persecutes Christians After a military junta seized power in 2021, the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar has seen an escalation of violence, ethnic conflict, and religious persecution. With a long history of internal conflict, observers have long hoped for democratic reform and ...
09.21.2023 Humanity Isn’t a Problem to Solve: Technology Needs a Telos Pixar’s Wall-E has proven to be among the most profound and prophetic films of the last 20 years. After hopelessly polluting the Earth and leaving an army of robots to clean up the planet, humans now live aboard a giant ...
09.20.2023 Misleading Abortion Stats The pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute recently released abortion estimates for the first six months of 2023. Using these numbers, media outlets quickly announced that pro-life laws after the demise of Roe have been ineffective. Ironically, abortion proponents lament restricted access to ...
09.20.2023 Religious Liberty Déjà Vu In 2017, the Supreme Court ruled that to deny a church “an otherwise available public benefit on account of its religious status” is to violate the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution. In that case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia ...
09.19.2023 Same-Sex Attraction and the Doctrine of Concupiscence The government of New South Wales in Australia is contemplating a bill that would make it illegal to counsel an individual to “change or suppress” their sexual orientation or gender identity. But the Anglican Diocese of Sydney is refusing to ...
09.19.2023 Married People Are Happier If all there was to go on were sitcoms, movies, and mainstream editorials, we’d have to conclude that marriage is a direct path to misery, the “old ball and chain” that only ties us down, limits our freedom, and cramps ...
09.18.2023 Judge Allows Missouri Ban on Transgender Treatments A law in St. Louis banning so-called transgender care for minors can now take effect after a judge struck down a lawsuit challenging it. In a two-page order, Missouri Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer wrote that the lawsuit, which was brought ...
09.18.2023 Leonhard Euler: Called to Mathematics September 18 is the anniversary of the death of a mathematical and scientific genius, an outspoken Christian who defended the faith during the Enlightenment, when Christianity was under attack by much of the intellectual elite in Europe. Leonhard Euler was ...
09.16.2023 The Liability of Gender Transition, Protecting Children from Porn, and AI's Impact on Education Hospitals across the nation are facing litigation concerns tied to their gender clinics. And John and Maria discuss the devastating effects of pornography on children.
09.15.2023 Coco Gauff “Soaks It All In” ... Through Prayer After claiming the U.S. Open’s Women’s Singles championship this week, Atlanta-born tennis star Coco Gauff paused to, in the words of ESPN’s SportsCenter, “soak it all in.” What she was really doing was kneeling with eyes closed and head bowed. ...
09.15.2023 Having the Street Smarts to Talk About God For over 30 years, my friend Greg Koukl has taught Christians how to engage with people across worldview lines by asking questions. His first book Tactics has equipped thousands of Christians to communicate with wisdom and passion. This month, Koukl ...
09.14.2023 When “Anti-Discrimination” Leads to Actual Human Trafficking A California law decriminalizing loitering went into effect in January. When Governor Gavin Newsom signed it last year, neither its supporters nor its opponents attempted to hide what it was really about: prostitution. Police previously could stop and question people ...
09.14.2023 The Problem with So-Called “Antiracism” In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Tyler Austin Harper, a black professor from Bates College, argued that so-called “anti-racism” has gone too far. "In their righteous crusade against the bad color-blindness of policies such as race-neutral college admissions, these ...
09.13.2023 Why Siblings Matter For a lot of people, writes Angela Chen in The Atlantic, “[s]ibling bonds are the longest relationships of our lives. We know siblings before we meet our partners (and before we have our own kids), and we’ll know them after ...
09.13.2023 Suicide Rates at All-Time High According to the Associated Press, nearly 50,000 people committed suicide last year, an absolute record in terms of raw numbers and the highest rate in nearly a century. Though, as one scholar noted, there’s always the chance that the numbers ...
09.12.2023 Attacking Capitalism According to the editors at The Economist, “Republicans used to extol the benefits of free trade and free markets,” but now, many support barriers to international trade, generous government spending, and condemn corporate America. At least part of the shift ...
09.12.2023 Is Christian Nationalism Christian? On September 26, the Colson Center is launching Breakpoint Forums, digital discussions about topics that matter. The first Breakpoint Forum will deal with this contentious idea of Christian nationalism. Joining me for this online discussion will be R.R. Reno, the ...
09.11.2023 Why Are People Not Behaving in Public? Ever since the COVID-19 lockdowns, there’s been an increase in disruptive behavior at public events and spaces. Concert attendees have disrupted performances. One fan threw water on rapper Cardi B, and a couple of fans distracted country singer Miranda Lambert ...
09.11.2023 True Authenticity A year ago, The Economist urged readers not to bring their “whole selves” to work. While some corporate gurus suggest that we make work feel more like home, the authors beg to differ. "Your professional self displays commitment to the ...
09.08.2023 Relaxed Prostitution Laws in California, Tolkien’s Continuing Appeal, and the Growth of Suicide John and Maria discuss the new relaxed prostitution laws in California. As Tolkien’s appeal continues to grow, we discuss the biblical roots of his writings. And trying to reign in a culture that seems to be accepting and promoting suicide. ...
09.08.2023 Court Rules Against FDA on Abortion Drug Last month, the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found that the FDA wrongfully removed critical restrictions around access to chemical abortion. In 2021, the Biden administration decided to make mifepristone, the first of two drugs used to terminate pregnancies, ...
09.08.2023 Is Sex Assigned at Birth? The most recent installment in the What Would You Say? video series looks at an idea that is increasingly popular, often repeated, and surprisingly believable: that sex is “assigned” at birth. Most of us have or will encounter this phrase, ...
09.07.2023 Christians Persecuted in Pakistan Christians in Pakistan face increased threats to their lives and livelihoods. The most recent round of persecution started a few weeks ago when two Christian youths were accused of damaging a Koran. In response, mobs descended upon churches and the ...
09.07.2023 Empty Canadian Graves Back in 2021, news outlets around the world announced a scandal involving Canadian government schools and missing indigenous children. Starting in the 1800s, Canada built and opened a series of boarding schools where children from local native people could be ...
09.06.2023 APA Allows Kids to Self-Diagnose Recently, author Christopher Rufo tweeted an excerpt from a 2018 publication of the American Psychological Association citing a litany of outlandish terms, including “gender smoothies,” “gender prius,” “gender minotaur,” and more. In its typical cyber-censorship fashion, Twitter quickly attached a ...
09.06.2023 Rich Men North of Richmond When I was a college student in eastern Tennessee, classmates who felt called to teach in inner-city schools would take on student teaching practicums in the small town of Graysville. On the surface, a big city like Detroit could not ...
09.05.2023 Death by Mail According to pro-life group Live Action, British authorities have arrested a Canadian man for selling hundreds of “suicide kits” online. Kenneth Law was implicated in the deaths of at least 88 people, one only 17 years old. When interviewed, Law ...
09.05.2023 When Is a Question Better Than an Answer? As a thank-you for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center this month, we’ll send you a copy of Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges. The book is a guide through the hot-button issues with ...
09.04.2023 Chuck Colson on the Dignity of Work Before you fire up the grill one last time for the summer on this Labor Day, here is Chuck Colson describing the dignity of work. Work embraced as a calling expresses the glory of God, and it’s part of—very literally—following ...
09.04.2023 Work Is Not a Result of the Fall Physical labor was devalued in the ancient world. The exception, in classical Greece and the early days of the Roman republic, was farming, which was considered the proper pursuit of citizens. All other labor was viewed as demeaning. In the ...
09.01.2023 Notable Deaths: Al Quie and Alice Noebel; Also, The Canadian Boarding School Story John Stonestreet and Maria Baer remember the lives and legacies of two remarkable people of faith. They also discuss new information regarding the alleged mass graves at Canadian boarding schools and how the Church should view singlehood. — Recommendations — ...
09.01.2023 Parents Educating Educators in Mexico According to an article in The Daily Chatter, government officials decided to alter academic standards to be more in line with “decolonization” to offer a more favorable view of leftist ideas, and to fit better with the latest sexual ideologies. ...
09.01.2023 Remembering J.R.R. Tolkien Fifty years ago on September 2, one of the most important authors of the twentieth century passed away. While most today know his amazing works of fantasy and fiction, J.R.R. Tolkien was long recognized in academic circles as a brilliant ...
08.31.2023 Living on Your Face How many faces do you have? Atheist comedian Stephen Fry once said (quite ironically) that you are who you are when nobody’s watching. When social restraints are removed, when the cameras aren’t rolling, what sort of person are you? What ...
08.31.2023 The Church, Singles, and Calling Americans today are getting married later in life than their parents or grandparents. As of 2022, the average age at which Americans get married is 28 for women and 30 for men. This is eight years later in life than ...
08.30.2023 Jane Goodall, Avengers-Level Threat Primatologist Jane Goodall, who has dedicated her life to studying chimpanzees, recently made what some have jokingly called “an Avengers level threat.” If she had magical powers, Goodall said, “I would like to, without causing any pain or suffering, reduce ...
08.30.2023 Don’t Blame Your Sins on Montana: Our Climate of “Cost-Free Moral Preening” At least since the movie Inherit the Wind butchered the history of the 1925 Scopes “monkey trial,” many Americans—especially those on the left side of the political spectrum—have cherished a kind of myth about national debates being settled in dramatic ...
08.29.2023 “World Watch”: Cultural Literacy for Christian Families Kids born in our morally turbulent age, and the parents committed to guiding them through it, have precious few resources that can help them sift through the chaos. A few years ago, WORLD Magazine, a longtime Christian worldview partner of ...
08.29.2023 Pro-Life After Dobbs: Ohio, Issue 1, and the Worldview Work Ahead A few weeks ago, voters in Ohio rejected a ballot measure that would have made it harder to amend the state’s constitution. As it stands, to amend Ohio’s constitution only requires 50% of the vote plus one. Issue 1 would ...
08.28.2023 This 20-Something Couple Is Raising Two Teens Stories that depict parenting as the end of happiness are a cottage industry these days, but a story told recently in People magazine was different. Arkansas teachers Tasia and Drew Taylor are, at just 23 and 25, raising two teenagers, ...
08.28.2023 Chuck Colson on MLK’s Dream Speech Sixty years ago today, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” Speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The most well-known line of King’s speech is this ...
08.25.2023 The GOP Presidential Debate, Christians Banned From Foster Care, and "Rich Men North of Richmond" John and Maria discuss the high and low points in the GOP presidential debate. A growing number of states are telling Christians they can’t be foster parents and reaction to the song "Rich Men North of Richmond." — Recommendations — ...

Older episodes

Breakpoint

What's Breakpoint about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Breakpoint episodes:

A Generation Poisoned by Porn Speaks

Tiny Forests

What Does It Mean to Have a Courageous Faith?

A Trash Thrifter’s Testimony

Senate Hosts Meeting on AI without Ethicists

Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges

The Sea is Still Worth Seeing

Dear Teens, Virginity Is Good for You

Myanmar Junta Persecutes Christians

Humanity Isn’t a Problem to Solve: Technology Needs a Telos

Misleading Abortion Stats

Religious Liberty Déjà Vu

Same-Sex Attraction and the Doctrine of Concupiscence

Married People Are Happier

Judge Allows Missouri Ban on Transgender Treatments

Leonhard Euler: Called to Mathematics

The Liability of Gender Transition, Protecting Children from Porn, and AI's Impact on Education

Coco Gauff “Soaks It All In” ... Through Prayer

Having the Street Smarts to Talk About God

When “Anti-Discrimination” Leads to Actual Human Trafficking

The Problem with So-Called “Antiracism”

Why Siblings Matter

Suicide Rates at All-Time High

Attacking Capitalism

Is Christian Nationalism Christian?

Why Are People Not Behaving in Public?

True Authenticity

Relaxed Prostitution Laws in California, Tolkien’s Continuing Appeal, and the Growth of Suicide

Court Rules Against FDA on Abortion Drug

Is Sex Assigned at Birth?

Christians Persecuted in Pakistan

Empty Canadian Graves

APA Allows Kids to Self-Diagnose

Rich Men North of Richmond

Death by Mail

When Is a Question Better Than an Answer?

Chuck Colson on the Dignity of Work

Work Is Not a Result of the Fall

Notable Deaths: Al Quie and Alice Noebel; Also, The Canadian Boarding School Story

Parents Educating Educators in Mexico

Remembering J.R.R. Tolkien

Living on Your Face

The Church, Singles, and Calling

Jane Goodall, Avengers-Level Threat

Don’t Blame Your Sins on Montana: Our Climate of “Cost-Free Moral Preening”

“World Watch”: Cultural Literacy for Christian Families

Pro-Life After Dobbs: Ohio, Issue 1, and the Worldview Work Ahead

This 20-Something Couple Is Raising Two Teens

Chuck Colson on MLK’s Dream Speech

The GOP Presidential Debate, Christians Banned From Foster Care, and "Rich Men North of Richmond"