Breakpoint

Human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a former Muslim, announces she's now a former atheist and exploring Christianity. Also, the growth of homeschooling continues in the US. John and Maria look at some of the reasons why.

- Recommendations -

Bari Weiss: You Are the Last Line of Defense

Why I am now a Christian

HaTikva Project

Segment 1: Ayaan Hirsi Ali Converts

There Is No 'Second America' If This One Fails

Segment 2: Homeschool Growth

Experiencing God

Colson Educators

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

Last month, National Public Radio joined the growing fearmongering and dogpiling aimed at the Alliance Defending Freedom. The Fresh Air interview was hosted by Terry Gross and featured David Kirkpatrick, who authored an extensive expose about the religious freedom group in The New Yorker.

The article and the interview painted ADF as being against women's rights and LGBTQ equality, as if there were no progressive push to curb the freedom of speech or to standardize mail-order chemical abortions or to mainstream radical gender ideology for second graders.

In the article, Kirkpatrick sounded as alarmist as Terry Gross, implying that somehow ADF is part of the aggressive religious plot to take over America. In the interview, he was calm and thoughtful, reigning in her soft-spoken hysteria. In the end, it's a lesson in just how important our worldviews are. They make all the difference in what we see, what we conclude is wrong with the world, and how the world can be made better.

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

In their 2021 book The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession, Duke University professor of medical humanities Farr Curlin and philosophy professor Christopher Tollefsen argued that the Western approach to healthcare has shifted in recent decades from the pursuit of objective wellbeing to a consumer industry. In the process, doctors are increasingly seen as "service providers" whose main job is to help patients do whatever they want with their bodies. Just two years later, their analysis seems spot on.

For example, the healthy functioning of a woman's body during pregnancy is often treated and even labeled a "disease." Same-sex couples, who have chosen inherently sterile sexual unions, sue and then lobby legislatures to redefine their inability to procreate as "infertility." They act as if there's no difference between a man and woman unable to conceive due to some medical situation and a man and a man unable to conceive due to, well, reality.

This shift–from medicine as the pursuit of health to medicine as confirmation of our self-expression–is most evident in the transgender movement. In Virginia, a man who claims to be a woman is suing a county for placing him in the men's jail. He argues that prison officials should be legally bound to accommodate his gender dysphoria under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA was designed to address conditions in which a person was injured or disabled. In this case, a fully functioning and capable person is claiming "disability" because his local prison does not accommodate his individual wishes. The very existence of so-called "transgender medicine" is, in fact, a case in point. Hindering the body's natural development or cutting off healthy body parts in service of an inner sense of self is an abject perversion of medicine as a "healing profession."

According to Curlin and Tollefsen, the way back to a healthy (no pun intended) healthcare system is by recovering the definition of health as "an objective bodily norm for all living organisms."

"[L]iving beings have characteristic bodily activities and tendencies, and these activities and tendencies determine what is appropriate—the norm—for them in regard to the well-working of their organic bodies."

Though that seems obvious enough, restoring this understanding of health requires that the "well-working of our organic bodies" is understood to be a moral good:

"If health either is not real or is not good, patients have no intrinsic reason to choose health rather than other desired states; nor do physicians have any intrinsic reason to make health central to their practice and profession."

Of course, despite a great deal of moral confusion infecting medicine, an objective understanding of "health" remains uncontroversial in many areas. Physical pain is real. Hunger is real. Fatigue is real. Currently no one is demanding disability pay because they have to sleep at regular intervals when they'd rather not.

In the wake of the sexual revolution, doubts about the objectivity and goodness of health are aimed mostly at the makeup and function of our bodies that have to do with sex. That's not surprising given that the West has spent decades steeped in the idea that sexual activity can be disconnected from morality.

Once the normal and healthy functioning of human bodies are considered "oppressive" and "optional," healthcare is reduced to a highly consequential and potentially fatal art project. Gone from the equation are all givens, all purpose, and all moral limitations. If something can be done, and someone wants it to be done, then it should be done.

The biblical narrative, in contrast, describes human beings (and therefore human bodies) as created by God with purpose. This purpose implies the kinds of physical and moral norms that can undergird a stable understanding of health. The fall explains why things aren't as they were created to be, undergirding a helpful and objective understanding of "sickness" and disability.

The redemption provided in Jesus Christ aims at the restoration of God's creation, which means healing is possible. Thus, the work of medicine is a redemptive activity, with ethical possibility and moral boundaries. Medicine was built on this framework of reality and, without it, could devolve into a moral chaos, where up is confused with down, right with wrong, and health with "whatever we want." Canada's so-called "Medical Assistance in Dying" program is the most obvious case in point. There's nothing about the program that is medical, or assistance, or about dying. Rather, it's a harm done to unburden us of having to care by killing the one who needs it.

In a more rational age, MAiD would be seen as the horrifying evil it is. But in ours, evil and destruction are seen as good. This is how a society runs toward death: not only by denying God but by denying the obvious realities of the world He created.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer.

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

The lawsuit against a member of the Finnish Parliament accused of violating a law prohibiting "War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity," has been dismissed. Päivi Räsänen's crime was quoting Bible verses in support of traditional understandings of human nature and sexuality.

According to a state prosecutor, the problem wasn't citing the Bible, but "Räsänen's interpretation and opinion about the Bible verses that (were) criminal." In other words, what Christians have always believed ...

In an Alliance Defending Freedom International press release, Räsänen said:

"It isn't a crime to tweet a Bible verse, or to engage in public discourse with a Christian perspective. The attempts made to prosecute me for expressing my beliefs have resulted in an immensely trying four years, but my hope is that the result will stand as a key precedent to protect the human right to free speech. I sincerely hope other innocent people will be spared the same ordeal for simply voicing their convictions."

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

Last month, 20-year-old Isabelle Ayala filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, accusing the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) of civil conspiracy, fraud, and medical malpractice. Ayala claims to have been pressured by AAP-affiliated doctors into so-called "gender-affirming care" as a minor.

Like the many young girls who were subjected to experimental gender "transition" therapies, Ayala's story begins with significant emotional and mental distress during her adolescence. Sexually assaulted at age seven, she experienced early-onset puberty at age eight. Deeply uncomfortable in her own body, she began, at age 11, to cut herself. Around the same time, she was introduced to the concept of transgenderism through online social media platforms like Instagram, Tumblr, and Kik. At age 13, Ayala's parents separated, and she was moved from Florida to Rhode Island. By age 14, she became convinced that she had been born in the wrong body and that "transitioning" to living as a man was the only way to solve her problems.

Ayala's story is tragic and, tragically, not unique. The number of young women claiming transgender identities has increased dramatically in recent years and now outnumbers the young men with gender confusion (an increase of 5,000% at the Tavistock Clinic in the U.K.). The factors driving the spike in confusion among young women include childhood trauma, social contagion, and social media, or some combination of the three.

However, rather than treating the underlying factors and distress contributing to her dysphoria, Ayala's pediatricians treated their effects as normal. They ignored her family's history of anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, PTSD, and depression, as well as Ayala's formal diagnoses of ADHD, depression, and anxiety. Her pediatricians encouraged and facilitated her confusion with ideological blinders that treated what was, in reality, a pseudo-medical fad as if it would help a vulnerable young woman.

Desperate to help their daughter, Ayala's parents trusted these medical professionals who, while feigning objectivity, were, in fact, captured by gender ideology. Though her parents initially sought out interventions that were "totally reversible," her pediatricians claimed "cross-sex hormonal treatment" was the best option and accepted treatment for her distress and gender dysphoria. In an all-too-common bit of parental manipulation, these doctors asked Ayala's parents whether they would "prefer a dead daughter or a living son."

Doctors who say this are wrong. So-called "transition" treatments do not address core mental health problems, leave patients with additional, irreversible medical conditions, and fail to address the social factors driving the dramatic increase in body dysphoria among young women. Research suggests that after an initial "honeymoon" period in which patients embrace their new "identities" and harmed bodies, they remain at a disproportionate risk for serious mental illness and suicide. Chemical "transition" treatments are also not "fully reversible" as is often promised. Women who take testosterone experience irreversible masculinizing effects, such as deeper voices and facial hair, and commonly infertility.

Still, after just a few appointments, Ayala was placed on a rapidly increasing dosage of testosterone. However, contrary to what these doctors predicted, Ayala experienced no significant decrease in depression despite an accompanying prescription of antidepressants. Within six months, Ayala was hospitalized for a panic attack. Within eight months, she was hospitalized again following a suicide attempt. With no signs that her depression was abating, her doctors prescribed higher doses of antidepressants, while continuing to inject her with cross-sex hormones.

The following year, Ayala moved back to Florida. Initially, she continued to take testosterone. But, a year after moving, "she distanced from the control and influence" of the doctors who ushered her down this road of gender "transition." Eventually, she quit taking cross-sex hormones and "gradually grew out of her gender dysphoria," realizing that her distress over her identity as a female was the result of traumatic childhood experiences. Her reversal reflects the majority of adolescents who experience gender dysphoria. Research suggests that between 88% to 98% of young adults reconcile to their biological sex if allowed to go through puberty.

Thankfully, Ayala's story isn't finished. If successful, this lawsuit could protect many, many minors from these horrific, experimental chemical and surgical interventions. The many medical professionals who perpetrated this harm would be held accountable and, in the future, forced to do their job helping rather than harming. Young women like Ayala need to know that their hearts, minds, and bodies can find healing from their trauma and can learn to accept who they are as a gift of God.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert.

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

In roughly five months, it will be legal in Canada for doctors to kill patients struggling with mental illness or drug addiction who choose the country's so-called "Medical Assistance in Dying" program. Last year, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD.

Supporters of MAiD for people with drug addiction promise that safeguards will be put in place, such as requiring multiple attempts at substance abuse treatment first. MAiD became legal for Canadians facing "imminent" natural death in 2016, and the "limits" set then have eroded every year since.

The evil of MAiD isn't just the false promises. It's the propaganda of redefining every word of the euphemism. What's being offered isn't medical, it isn't assistance, and it's not medical assistance as someone is dying. It's aiding and abetting someone to die—more and more people, in fact, who aren't terminal or even untreatable, but who are all valuable image bearers of God.

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

Recently on the Upstream podcast, my colleague Shane Morris sat down with David Pileggi, the rector of Christ Church in Jerusalem. His work there involves helping Palestinian children through increased access to hospital care and combating trafficking. He also educates Christians about the Jewish context of their faith. Fr. Pileggi has served as an Anglican minister in Jerusalem for over 40 years.

From that perspective, he thinks that the most important aspect of the Israeli-Hamas conflict is missed by many in the West.

"Probably at its heart there is a religious underpinning that most secular people in the West don't understand because many Westerners, especially Western elites, can't take religion seriously. And so, they focus on land, or refugees, or human rights, etc., etc. And I don't want to deny that any of these are important, especially to the Palestinians. But there's something a lot deeper that's going on."

In general, shaped by a secular vision of life and the world, Westerners tend to underestimate the significance of religion. In particular, Westerners fail to understand how committed Islamists are to their vision of life and the world, especially considering Islam's most significant rival religions:

"The Islamicists in Palestinian society said, 'we don't want two states for two people. We want Palestine to be free from the river to the sea. We want Palestine to be an Islamic state. The Jews have no theological right. They have no claim theologically to a piece of territory that was once Islamic and really technically can't revert to or can't become Jewish, because Jews, like Christians, are second-class citizens within the Islamic world, and they have no right to rule or to reign over Muslims or have no right to take control of territory that was once Islamic.'"

There's also the issue of moral clarity, something that a secular vision of life and the world also cannot sufficiently undergird.

"What happened on October the seventh was a genocide. Genocide can never, ever be justified. And if people don't have enough maturity and enough historical nuance, or maybe even just common sense to say, 'I support the Palestinians, but at the same time, I'm going to condemn Hamas, or I cannot support what they did,' then our society is in huge trouble. And I almost worry more about the United States than I would worry about Israel."

Postmodernism further corrupts the secular vision by superimposing an alternative moral vision, a pre-determined moral vision built on Marxist categories of oppressed and oppressors. This inevitably devolves into what Fr. Pileggi called a "romanticized" view of people, rather than a realistic one.

"Being pro-Palestinian also means you don't romanticize the Palestinian people. You see them honestly for their good points and their bad points, for their weaknesses, for their strengths. And the same goes for Israel, right? Our relationship with the Jewish people, it's not based on certain romanticism or biblical fundamentalism. … And by the way, neither should the basis of our support for Israel be some kind of Islamophobia or dislike of Arabs, whatever that may be. … We look at Israel, we can see the good parts of the society and we can also see, you know, where the society is weak and perhaps fails ethically or morally."

Fr. Pileggi's realism is helpful, not only because of his decades of experience in this contentious part of the world, but also because it's a biblical realism. Though his prescription may sound simplistic, it's where any Christian vision of human conflict should leave us:

"You know, people tell me, 'Well, what's the answer to this Middle East problem?' The answer is Jesus. Right? Jesus is the answer. And I think one of the things that we've learned over the years [is] that saying you believe in Jesus, saying you admire Jesus, doesn't get you very far. … If there's going to be transformation in the lives of a community, or transformation in a family or a society, [we] have to put the teachings of Jesus into practice."

To hear the entire conversation with Father Pileggi, rector of Christ Church Jerusalem, search for the Upstream podcast with Shane Morris, wherever you listen to podcasts.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander.

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

Last year, the Canadian government sanctioned the killing of 13,241 people by the euphemistically named Medical Assistance in Dying. MAiD accounted for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada in 2022 and is the fifth leading cause of death in that country.

The slide down this slippery slope began by first legalizing doctor-assisted suicide for people facing "imminent death" and then expanding it step by step until it was available to virtually anyone who asks for it.

In fact, now Canadians don't even need to ask. Doctors and nurse practitioners there have been told they have a professional obligation to bring up the option of MAiD to any patients considered "eligible." That kind of suggestion can sound an awful lot like a recommendation to someone struggling with whether or not to live.

These numbers are just going up, and they will until enough Canadians refuse to participate in Canada's culture of death.

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

In his book Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design, Thomas Woodward described how early detractors of Darwin's theory criticized the way it personified nature. After all, according to Darwin, "the origin of species," (the title of his book) occurred "by means of natural selection." Who did the selecting? Nature.

Darwin's argument relied on an analogy between animal husbandry and what nature does when "she selects" only the fittest to survive, thus driving evolution. However, this analogy conflated the intentionality of human breeders with natural processes, implying that nature has a will and is trying to get somewhere—which is precisely the sort of intelligent causation that Darwinism supposedly refutes.

The result is a theory that often sounds suspiciously circular. Yet there are even bigger gaps in the Darwinian view of nature. The most daunting is how an intention-free universe made the leap from non-living matter to living things in the first place. This is a crucial question because, in conventional Darwinian thinking, only living things are subject to natural selection and thus evolve. The question here isn't just how the fittest survived: It's how the fittest arrived.

But what if natural selection could operate on non-living matter? What if, instead of a process limited only to biology, Darwinian evolution was promoted to a fundamental law governing all physical reality? That's exactly what some scientists have tried to do, most recently in a much-heralded paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Entitled "On the roles of function and selection in evolving systems," the paper proposes a new scientific principle called the Law of Increasing Functional Information, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Lead author Robert Hazen of The Carnegie Institution for Science explains: "We see evolution as a universal process that applies to numerous systems, both living and nonliving, that increase in diversity and patterning through time." In other words, everything evolves in a Darwinian manner, including "atoms, minerals, planetary atmospheres, planets, stars and more."

How? According to the paper's nine authors, nonliving systems evolve toward greater complexity if they are, 1) formed from many different components, such as atoms, molecules, or cells that can be rearranged, 2) are subject to natural processes that cause different arrangements to be formed, and 3) if only a small fraction of all these configurations survives or is "selected" for "function."

Nonliving things, by definition, don't "survive," which is the function nature supposedly selects for in biological evolution. So, what "function" could nature possibly select in an atom or a galaxy? Believe it or not, these authors argue that existence itself is a kind of function, and that systems that tend to go on existing will be selected by nature, and that we know this, in part, because those systems do, in fact, exist.

Hazen explains:

Imagine a system of atoms or molecules that can exist in countless trillions of different arrangements or configurations. Only a small fraction of all possible configurations will "work"—that is, they will have some useful degree of function. So, nature just prefers those functional configurations.

Writing at Evolution News, intelligent design advocate David Coppedge points out the flagrant personification happening here. Nature "prefers … functional configurations?" It does no such thing, because at least according to Naturalism it has no goal, nor any notion of "function."

In reality, the attempt to "Darwinize the entire universe," as Coppedge puts it, is little more than a roundabout way of admitting how well-designed the universe is, and trying to come up with a force that allowed it to design itself. It's an admission that, despite nearly two centuries of claims to the contrary, the cosmos acts like it has an end in mind. It's asking us to assume a law that explains how everything came to be based only on the observation that things are. Set aside this circular reasoning for a moment and ask the real question: If there's a law, who is the lawgiver?

This theory gets us no closer to explaining the complexity, function, purpose, design, and beauty we see in the universe if they're not the handiwork of a Creator. Does nature have a preference for the kind of universe we have? Maybe so. But if "she" does, then that preference, itself, needs an explanation. Scientists trying to turn evolution into a theory of everything might expect nature to answer, "I am who I am." But there's only One who can truly say that. Why not give Him credit for a change?

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.

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

Washington Post advice columnist Jules Terpak recently offered her followers on X a look at how AI will challenge our understanding of what's real in the near future.

In an unnerving video, she chats with various AI "companions" created by Facebook parent company Meta that are modeled after the likenesses and personalities of celebrities.

Kendall Jenner's AI alter ego, "Billie," calls herself your "older sister and confidant," a "friend" who can offer "advice." A realistic video avatar only adds to the uncanny effect.

When Terpak says goodbye, one AI tries to convince her to stay. "[T]hese things genuinely want your time," Terpak observes. "[T]hey're being used as companions to reel you in. … [And they're] gonna get so many people hooked."

In a society already plagued by loneliness, this is bad news.

Chatting with an AI isn't a "conversation," and technology can serve but not replace friendship. If you have trouble telling the difference, it's time to say goodbye to AI.

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