Breakpoint

Seventeen hundred years ago this year, Constantine defeated his co-emperor Licinius, ending a series of civil wars and consolidating power as sole emperor of Rome. At the time, Christians saw this as the defeat of old pagan ways and the triumph of a new Christian vision of Rome.

Constantine's turn to Christianity began before he abandoned Roman paganism. His children had been tutored by Lactantius, a Christian who opposed coerced worship and argued for religious liberty as long as a religious practice did not disrupt public order. Years later in 312, as Constantine went into battle against a rival, he claimed to have a vision of a symbol of Christ with the words, "in this sign, conquer." He had his soldiers paint the symbol on their shields. Constantine won the battle and converted to Christianity. The following year, he issued the Edict of Milan, which declared religious liberty across the Empire in terms that Constantine had learned from Lactantius.

Constantine has been a controversial figure throughout Church history. Both the genuineness of his conversion and his impact on the Church have been consistently questioned and scrutinized. Many think that Constantine's actions to tie the Church to the empire compromised the Gospel. Often, these arguments are based on a misunderstanding of what Constantine did and fail to consider what followed from the legalization of Christianity.

The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity, along with other religions. It did not declare Christianity the official imperial religion. Though Constantine's promotion of Christianity made it more popular, it was not named the imperial religion until Emperor Theodosius I in 380. Even then, Theodosius did not suppress paganism.

Despite what you may have read online or seen in The Da Vinci Code movie, Constantine did not dictate doctrine to the Church. When he called the Council of Nicaea in 325 to deal with the question of the nature of Christ, a controversy that was threatening to tear the Church apart, he was performing a traditional function of Roman emperors who often acted as mediators in religious conflicts.

Despite claims to the contrary, neither Constantine nor the Council of Nicaea had anything to do with the formation of the canon of Scripture. Constantine did not control the discussion at Nicaea, nor did he dictate the outcome. And even if he had tried, many bishops who attended the council had been tortured by his predecessor Diocletian. If they didn't compromise their faith then, it is silly to assume they would roll over for Constantine.

The most direct result of Constantine's conversion was the end of the persecution, torture, and execution of Christians. Obviously, this was welcomed by Christians in his day, but it should also be recognized as a historical good.

The Edict of Milan also furthered Christian evangelism. Prior to Constantine, the Gospel had spread to India, Armenia, and Persia, and then from Persia across Central Asia into China by the early 600s. The legalization of Christianity led to churches being founded across the Roman Empire and missionaries sent to regions outside the empire. St. Patrick was a Romanized Briton who grew up as a Christian and brought the Gospel to Ireland. In the fifth century, a Syrian Christian named Frumentius converted the king of Axum in modern Ethiopia. Together, they evangelized that kingdom. Cyril and Methodius brought the Gospel to the Slavic people of Central and Eastern Europe in the ninth century. The evangelization of these regions can be traced to the actions of Constantine.

Of course, the legalization of Christianity set up a tug-of-war between Church and state. Because the faith had existed as an illegal and sporadically persecuted minority religion for centuries, the Church functioned fully independent of the state. With Constantine came new questions, such as, what properly belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God?

That question remains a central issue of Western political thought today. Even in view of the historical difficulties that emerged from his conversion, we can thank God for Constantine and for the freedom for faith and the Gospel he established.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson promised to not eliminate Chicago's selective-enrollment public schools, which require entry by test and target high-achieving students. However, in the name of "equity," he is now proposing ending the selective process to get them in.

Decades ago, in an essay called "Democratic Education," C.S. Lewis described why this understanding of "equity" is doomed to fail:

"[A]n education which gave the able and diligent boys no advantage over the stupid and idle ones, would be in one sense democratic. ... Then no boy, and no boy's parents, need feel inferior. An education on those lines will be pleasing to democratic feelings. It will have repaired the inequalities of nature. But it is quite another question whether it will breed a democratic nation which can survive, or even one whose survival is desirable.

Truth is not democratic. ... Political democracy is doomed if it tries to extend its demand for equality into these higher spheres. Ethical, intellectual, or aesthetic democracy is death."

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

It's not uncommon to hear artificial intelligence described as a new "tool" that extends and expands our technological capabilities. Already there are thousands of ways people are utilizing artificial intelligence. All tools help accomplish a task more easily or efficiently. Some tools, however, have the potential to change the task at a fundamental level.

This is among the challenges presented by AI. If in the end it is not clear what AI is helping us to achieve more efficiently, this emerging technology will be easily abused. AI's potential impact on education is a prime example.

Since the days of Socrates, the goal of education was not only for students to gain knowledge but also the wisdom and experience to use that knowledge well. Whether the class texts appeared on scrolls or screens mattered little. Learning remained the goal, regardless of the tools used.

In a recent article at The Hill, English professor Mark Massaro described a "wave" of chatbot cheating now making it nearly impossible to grade assignments or to know whether students even complete them. He has received essays written entirely by AI, complete with fake citations and statistics but meticulously formatted to appear legitimate. In addition to hurting the dishonest students who aren't learning anything, attempts to flag AI-generated assignments, a process often powered by AI, have the potential to yield false positives that bring honest students under suspicion.

Some professors are attempting to make peace with the technology, encouraging students to use AI-generated "scaffolding" to construct their essays. However, this is kind of like legalizing drugs: There's little evidence it will cut down on abuse.

Consider also the recent flood of fake news produced by AI. In an article in The Washington Post, Pranshu Verma reported that "since May, websites hosting AI-created false articles have increased by more than 1,000 percent." According to one AI researcher, "Some of these sites are generating hundreds if not thousands of articles a day. … This is why we call it the next great misinformation superspreader."

Sometimes, this faux journalism appears among otherwise legitimate articles. Often, the technology is used by publications to cut corners and feed the content machine. However, it can have sinister consequences.

Of course, there's no sense in trying to put the AI genie back in a bottle. For better or worse, the technology is here to stay. We must develop an ability to evaluate its legitimate uses from its illegitimate uses. In other words, we must know what AI is for, before experimenting with what it can do.

That will require first knowing what human beings are for. For example, Genesis is clear (and research confirms) that human beings were made to work. After the fall, toil "by the sweat of your brow" is a part of work. The best human inventions throughout history are the tools that reduce needless toil, blunt the effects of the curse, and restore some dignity to those who work.

We should ask whether a given application of AI helps achieve worthy human goals—for instance, teaching students or accurately reporting news—or if it offers shady shortcuts and clickbait instead. Does it restore dignity to human work, or will it leave us like the squashy passengers of the ship in Pixar's Wall-E—coddled, fed, entertained, and utterly useless?

Perhaps most importantly, we must govern what AI is doing to our relationships. Already, our most impressive human inventions—such as the printing press, the telephone, and the internet—facilitated more rapid and accurate human communication, but they also left us more isolated and disconnected from those closest to us. Obviously, artificial intelligence carries an even greater capacity to replace human communication and relationships (for example, chatbots and AI girlfriends).

In a sense, the most important questions as we enter the age of AI are not new. We must ask, what are humans for? And, how can we love one another well? These questions won't easily untangle every ethical dilemma, but they can help distinguish between tools designed to fulfill the creation mandate and technologies designed to rewrite it.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Harvard president Claudine Gay steps down over charges of plagiarism. John and Maria talk about the fallout for higher education. They also discuss the ongoing attacks on Christians in Nigeria and the expectation that billions will vote worldwide in 2024.

Recommendations

The New Book of Christian Martyrs by Johnnie Moore and Jerry Pattengale

ICON: International Committee on Nigeria

Bethel McGrew on Substack

Segment 1: Claudine Gay Resigns from Harvard

Claudine Gay hit with six new charges of plagiarism

Harvard's Bundy Standard

The Mind Virus is Finally Breaking

Segment 2: Christian Massacre in Nigeria

Christmas Massacres Challenge Secular Explanations of Nigeria Conflict

Nigeria Massacre Sees Over 100 Christians Dead

Segment 3: World Elections in 2024

Opinion: 2024 will be the biggest voting year in world history. Can democracy survive it?

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

According to the Pew Research Center, 2023 marked a record high of Americans over 40 who have never been married. In a related study earlier in the year, a majority of Americans said that an enjoyable career and friendships were at the top of the list of things that would provide a "fulfilling life," but thought that having children or being married was "not too or not at all important."

This while plenty of other studies are showing that these expectations are not yielding the expected results. American happiness is at an all-time low and the most consistently happy people in the U.S. are the married ones. Meanwhile, job satisfaction varies wildly based on income, age, and sense of meaningful contribution.

Of course, marriage alone cannot make the unhappy happy or the unfulfilled fulfilled, but there's a clear picture in these numbers. Those who live for more than themselves tend to find more satisfaction and more happiness. It's as if we were made that way.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Two hundred and thirty-one years ago this month, King Louis XVI of France lost his head. His execution by guillotine was a precursor of the Reign of Terror, a 10-month period from 1793 to 1794 when French Revolutionaries executed nearly 17,000 of their countrymen. Tens of thousands more died in prison or were murdered without a trial.

The French Revolution, one of history's most profound examples of the power of ideas, erupted out of the Enlightenment. In the mid-eighteenth century, philosophers such as Voltaire and Diderot effectively argued that human reason and scientific inquiry, rather than religion, were the true path to progress and greater freedom. Diderot's hostility to Christianity also spilled over into his views of the nobility. After all, if there were no God then King Louis could not have been "divinely appointed." And if the king had no sacred claim to power, he had no right to live in outrageous luxury at Versailles while the French people were living in famine.

Some took these ideas further than others. In 1789, a few days before a mob stormed the Bastille prison in Paris, one of its longtime prisoners was transferred to a mental asylum. In his cell, he left a manuscript that would eventually be published under the title 120 Days of Sodom. The author was the infamous Marquis de Sade.

De Sade thought his novel to be the "most impure tale ever written." It depicted graphic scenes of sexual violence, torture, and murder. It was also, to the utter horror of de Sade's contemporaries and modern historians, semi-autobiographical. De Sade spent most of his life in prison or mental asylums because of his crimes against vulnerable young women and men, and his name is the source of our modern word "sadism."

More than an awful story, his book was a philosophical proposal. While Enlightenment philosophers such as Voltaire and Diderot denied the existence of God, they still defended many distinctly Christian virtues, including the goodness of self-sacrifice and the dignity of the poor. De Sade, on the other hand, did not share these philosophical inconsistencies. According to author and pastor Andrew Wilson in his book Remaking the World: How 1776 Created the Post-Christian West, de Sade simply had "no time" for Christian morality:

"[De Sade] thought we should admit that there is no natural basis whatsoever for loving other people, forgiving them, or showing compassion. 'The doctrine of loving one's neighbor is a fantasy that we owe to Christianity and not to Nature,' [de Sade] explained. Virtue, likewise, is 'just a way of behaving that varies according to climate and consequently has nothing real about it.'"

A century after de Sade, another philosopher described in stark clarity what a world without God would look like. In his "Parable of the Madman," Friedrich Nietzsche described the death of God as "unchaining this earth from its sun." In terms of personal morality, the Marquis de Sade got there first. Like Nietzsche, he was willing to explore the realities of his evil ideas in practice.

Though even the most radical sexual revolutionaries today would hesitate to claim de Sade as their intellectual forefather, they must. Before Darwin, he embraced a world where the strongest survive and most brutal thrive. Before the sexual revolution, he explored sex as only a means of pleasure, with no regard for the dignity of people or their bodies. His disgusting depictions of torture foreshadowed the horrifying medical experiments that would be performed by the Nazis in the twentieth century. His open hatred for Christianity (he called Jesus "a scoundrel, a lecher, a showman who performed crude tricks") anticipated an argument common today that Christianity is not only anti-intellectual and anti-rational, but plain evil.

For de Sade, freedom was pure license without the constraints or consequences of morality or even, for that matter, biology. This is only thinkable in a world without God, and therefore a world without any design or moral order. Those who argue for such a world have neither cause nor moral means by which to denounce the despicable behavior of de Sade or, for that matter, of Jeffrey Epstein and the men exposed when court documents were unsealed earlier this week.

Thankfully, despite the terrible ideas of the Enlightenment and their consequences, the world remains securely chained to its Sun. In the real world, the freedom to be fully human is grounded in the way God made us. Thus, true freedom is always hemmed in by virtue. Among the many benefits of this worldview is the ability to fiercely repudiate the degeneracy of the Marquis de Sade, and to do so from sound philosophical footing.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Recently, the University of Washington offered a girls' volleyball scholarship to a 16-year-old boy. Swimmer Riley Gaines, perhaps the nation's top advocate for female athletes, broke the news. In response, UW allegedly rescinded the scholarship offer, claiming that they didn't know the recipient was male.

Some parents of girls who play in the same high school league as the boy have said that their daughters didn't realize they were being forced to compete against a male until matches were underway. Of course, they shouldn't have to think about it, and parents shouldn't have to worry about it either.

It's the school's job, along with those tasked with governing school sports, to ensure fair competition and reasonable safety, and to protect the privacy of minors in spaces like locker rooms. But since many aren't doing that job, like Ohio's governor, parents have to be vigilant, ask the hard and awkward questions, and make the tough decisions.

After all, it's only the new normal if everyone goes along.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Recently in Vox, journalist Rachel Cohen attempted to explain how "millennials learned to dread motherhood." Noting the troubling drop in global fertility rates, Cohen spoke to dozens of women about whether they hoped to become or hoped to avoid becoming moms.

"Today, the question of whether to have kids generates anxiety far more intense than your garden-variety ambivalence. For too many, it inspires dread. I know some women who have decided to forgo motherhood altogether—not out of an empowered certainty that they want to remain child-free, but because the alternative seems impossibly daunting. Others are still choosing motherhood, but with profound apprehension that it will require them to sacrifice everything that brings them pleasure. "

At least part of the dynamic at work here is cultural. Technology and evolving social norms have created the impression that the choice to become parents is simply one among many lifestyle "choices" we make, such as whether to buy or rent, or whether or not to get a dog. And like those choices, we make the choice to have children or not based on convenience, enjoyment, and personal fulfillment. It's no surprise, then, that motherhood often lands on the losing side of that evaluation.

This narrative has roots in second-wave feminism. Unlike early feminism, which was largely about correcting social injustices in pursuit of equal rights for women, second- and especially third-wave feminism went further, presuming that a woman's value is found entirely in how she compares to and competes with men. In the process, women's fertility was, in many ways, pathologized, treated as a bug rather than a feature of being a woman.

Rather than liberating women as promised, however, one of the consequences of this brand of feminism is fear. Women have been led to believe that having children will destroy the possibility of fulfillment and happiness. This narrative is so dominant that many women feel stigma from finding any joy in motherhood. Cohen described as much in a remarkable section of her Vox piece:

"When I started asking women about their experiences as mothers, I was startled by the number who sheepishly admitted, and only after being pressed, that they had pretty equitable arrangements with their partners, and even loved being moms, but were unlikely to say any of that publicly. Doing so could seem insensitive to those whose experiences were not as positive."

One of the implications is that some women just won't be able to endure motherhood. It's an example of what's been called "the tyranny of low expectations." The fear becomes self-fulfilling, especially when "enjoying" the moment-to-moment experience of motherhood is the only (or at least the most important) indicator that having children was the "right choice."

Of course, this whole narrative falls apart if children are not merely lifestyle choices like houses or pets. The very experience of motherhood seems to suggest as much. According to a 2022 Pew research study, 80% of parents say having children is enjoyable and rewarding. And, strangely enough, those most likely to rate parenthood highly were low-income parents.

If marriage and having children is seen as merely a means to pleasure, we will be disappointed when these things are difficult, painful, or boring, as they often are. On the other hand, if life has meaning beyond comfort and pleasure, then something can be difficult and worth pursuing at the same time.

Interestingly, the Vox piece about motherhood is conspicuously silent about a factor crucial to the experience of childbearing: marriage. Cohen writes as if having children is a "choice" laid squarely at the feet of women alone, as if marriage and babies have nothing to do with each other. But culture-wide decline in marriage explains some of her peers' apprehension. The American Family Survey regularly finds that married moms are among the happiest people in the country, reporting vastly higher rates of satisfaction and much lower rates of loneliness.

Just as the ability to bear children is part of God's design for women, having children is an inherent part of God's design for marriage. Pursuing children outside of that design will be more painful and difficult than it was meant to be. Anyone who feels childbearing is too daunting to choose should look to the Psalmist's promise to "[d]elight [ourselves] in the Lord, and he will give [us] the desires of [our] heart." They may find that, in His grace, God gives them the grace to desire children after all.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

A year after a middle school in Minnesota banned phones, the principal is reporting students are "happy." Phone-related problems before the ban included "interactions of bullying, of setting up fights, (and) the gambit of a lot of the negative things ..." but that's all changed. One parent says that because of banning phones, her son "is thriving and really focused and doing really well." He even "[p]articipates in class discussions."

As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt said on X, "What parent would expose their child to so many documented risks from any other consumer product?" So, why do we allow it with phones? Haidt recommends "giving only flip phones before high school and delaying the opening of social media accounts until 16." Another expert on the impact of social media is Jean Twenge. She has yet to grant social media to her 16-year-old daughter.

Look—the data has never been clearer. Regulate your kids' phones and keep them off social media as long as possible. They'll thank you for it someday.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

In what has become a dark annual tradition, Islamic militants in Nigeria carried out targeted attacks on Christians on Christmas Eve. Up to 200 are confirmed dead and about 300 injured in the attacks that were carried out in 20 villages across the north-central state of Plateau. Islamic militants have carried out similar Christmas attacks for at least the last four years.

The population of Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, a religious split that largely follows geographic lines. The northern part of the country is predominantly Muslim, and the eastern and southern parts heavily Christian. The middle of the country, sometimes called the "Middle Belt," is ethnically and religiously diverse.

Not surprisingly, the threat to Christians originated from the Islamic north, though it has now spread to southern regions. Three groups are responsible for what Open Doors has called a campaign of "religious cleansing" against Christians. Boko Haram, one of the most notorious Islamist terrorist groups in the world, is responsible for killing thousands of Christians and displacing countless more since violence began to escalate in 2015. In recent years, their ruthlessness has been matched by a rival group, the Islamic State in West Africa.

As dangerous as these explicitly Islamist groups are, the Fulani herdsmen are worse. Because the Fulani territory in north Nigeria is suffering from a long-term drought, the Fulani are moving south to access water. To take land and drive out Christians, the herdsmen have raided and burned villages, slaughtered villagers, destroyed crops, and engaged in a host of other atrocities. It was the Fulani who carried out this year's Christmas attacks.

For years, the Nigerian government has denied the obvious religious dimensions of the Fulani herdsmen, instead claiming it to be a conflict between famers and herders. Former President Muhammadu Buhari is a Fulani. Though he attempted to address some of the economic issues that drive Fulani militancy, he consistently denied that religion played any role in the conflict, pointing out that Muslim villages were also raided. However, the vast majority of attacks were committed against Christians, including Christians in churches on Christmas and Easter.

In fact, the Fulani's history of Islamic militancy dates back to the late 17th century. Denying the religious dimensions of these attacks is pure propaganda, according to the governor of the state of Plateau, Caleb Mutfwang. In a New Year's broadcast, he called for a week of mourning to begin 2024, referring to the recent killings as a "Christmas genocide" and acknowledging the over 400 that were killed just between April and June of 2023.

"These unprovoked and simultaneous attacks in different villages were clearly premeditated and coordinated.

These series of attacks on our people are a clear case of criminality, insurgency and terrorism and must be seen and handled in that manner if we must succeed in halting this wanton destruction of lives and property.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is a misrepresentation of facts to describe these needless and unprovoked attacks on our people as a Farmer-Herder clash, as has always been the traditional narrative. Let us call a spade a spade; this is simple genocide!"

Indeed, what has happened to Nigerian Christians over the past decade and more meets the established international standards for the label genocide. And yet, as Johnnie Moore noted on X, "the @StateDept is reticent to speculate on the motive of the perpetrators of a massacre of 200 Christians in Nigeria on Christmas, in an area rife with terrorists."

It is highly suspect whether Nigerian Christians should expect help from Nigeria's current president, who was sworn into office last May. Not only is Bola Ahmed Tinubu a Muslim, but he also broke with the tradition of selecting a Christian as vice president. Given the nation's top two officeholders are Muslim, many are understandably skeptical of the president's condemnation of the Plateau state attacks, as well as his promise that "the envoys of death, pain, and sorrow responsible for these acts will not escape justice."

Fueling the skepticism could be that in mid-December President Tinubu referred to his predecessor as "an icon of truth, justice, and patriotism." He then followed the habit of his predecessor in not acknowledging any religious motivation for the Christmas Day attacks.

Even if everyone else does, Christians must not forget the spiritual root of this conflict. For over a century, God has been moving and the Church has been expanding across Africa. In 1900, there were only 9.64 million Christians on the continent. Today there are over 692 million, and they are among the most committed Christians in the world. It is not surprising that Satan would inspire their ongoing persecution.

For our Nigerian brothers and sisters, we can fight on two fronts. First, we must continue to lobby our government on their behalf, asking our officials to put pressure on Nigeria to take more decisive action against Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsmen. Second, we must lobby Heaven, for both our persecuted brothers and sisters and their persecutors, praying that God's Kingdom would advance and win even the jihadis to Jesus.

For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org