Breakpoint

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 later days of the republic, as plantation agriculture replaced small farms, the work of farming was also seen as demeaning and relegated to slaves.

By the time of the Roman Empire, all physical labor was only thought proper for slaves and lower classes. Though the foundation of the empire's wealth, the upper classes believed that production was beneath them. Their attention, or so they thought, belonged in the more "refined" areas of life, such as the arts and philosophy.

Of course, the biblical view of work is completely different. Scripture frames work as a good thing, an essential part of what it means to be human. Because God created us to work, at least in part, it's inherently connected to our worship and dignity.

Put differently, work is not the result of the fall. It was, however, tainted by Adam's sin. God's created purposes for humanity, to fill and form His world through work, would now feature pain and frustration. Aspects of human work were twisted from dignity to drudgery. Human efforts to cultivate the earth, designed by God to be part of the joy of imaging Him, became sources of frustration, pain, sweat, and sorrow.

Because of the uniqueness of the biblical framework, even the early Christians approached work with a very different view than their pagan neighbors did. They thought of work as good but marred by sin. So, for example, in monastic communities, monks were expected to do physical labor, if for no other reason than to grow their food. In his Rule for Monastic Life, St. Benedict of Nursia (480-547) insisted that monks should work both to fulfill the biblical mandate that God gave Adam, and to encourage humility in a world that thought of work as demeaning.

Within a full understanding of the biblical story, from creation to new creation, Christians came to understand the Gospel as Christ redeeming us of sin as well as all its effects. In addition to forgiveness of

sin and security of eternity, salvation also included the redemption of anything infected by sin. This included work, which led Christians to attempt to restore work away from "toil" and back to the kind of meaningful labor God intended.

So, in the Middle Ages, many monasteries became centers of technological innovation, focused on making work more significant. A prime example is the waterwheel. Although the Romans knew about waterwheels, they rarely made use of them. After all, why invest in an expensive machine when you have unlimited slave labor? The monks had a different view of human value and the value of work, which inspired them to develop ways of using the waterwheel to mechanize production.

Initially, waterwheels were likely used for grinding grain. This required converting the vertical rotation of the wheel into horizontal rotation for the millstones, which the monks accomplished through a system of wooden gears and wheels. Later, the waterwheel was adapted for a wide range of other applications including powering bellows in forges, operating trip hammers in smithies, sawing lumber, and fulling cloth.

Soon, even secular communities began to invest in building mills. While some might say secular communities adopted water wheels for economic impact, the economy in Rome was very specialized. Therefore, the Romans did not deploy waterwheels. What made communities adopt these and other technologies was likely the influence of the Christian idea of work, as it moved out from the monasteries to penetrate and shape the culture.

Many more inventions were developed during the Roman and Middle Ages, stimulating economic activity and making work more efficient and meaningful. These developments were inspired by the idea that Jesus' work in redemption meant restoration was possible in all areas of life, including reversing the curse of the Garden.

Though other countries had innovative technologies, some far more advanced than the West, the West's use and employment of technology was unique. According to Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi, the West used technologies to make the work of the common person easier and to aid in production, rather than to cater to the elites.

In our current cultural moment, many see work as frustrating, unrewarding, and not worth it (that is, as toil). Christians have an incredible, better vision of work to offer the larger world. We've also got a history to tell, of how a vision of human dignity and innovation became a blessing across economic and class lines. Just as in the past, the Christian view can move our imaginations about work beyond drudgery to a renewed and redeemed way of thinking and living.

This vision shaped the work of men like Johannes Gutenberg, whose motive for inventing printing with moveable metal type was to produce Bibles that were "no longer written at great expense by hands easily palsied but multiplied like the wind by an untiring machine." The same vision can find traction today, in a culture that doesn't know what work is for and needs an example of redeemed human labor, production, and meaning.

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

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

This Breakpoint originally aired October 27, 2021.

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 —

"Fresh off a Supreme Court Win, the Praying Coach Takes the Field"

Lighthouse Voices Event: Dr. Matthew Sleeth

Section 1 - Remembering the Legacies of People of Faith

"Former Minnesota Gov. Al Quie Dies at 99"

Alice K. Noebel Obituary

Section 2 - The The "Mass Graves" Hoax in Canada

"No Human Remains Found Two Years After Claims of 'Mass Graves' in Canada"

"Colorado Student Can Keep "Don't Tread on Me" Flag"

Section 3 - Stories of the Week

"The Church, Singles, and Calling"

"Don't Blame Your Sins on Montana"

"Jane Goodall, Avengers-Level Threat"

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

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. In response, conservative parents in southern states took the government to court and destroyed some of the proposed new schoolbooks.

Politicians then claimed it was all about partisanship.

But this wasn't America: It was Mexico. The parents protesting were indigenous people out of the state of Chiapas, whose traditional culture and centuries-old Christian heritage drove them to protect their children and protest the ivory tower fads that threaten them.

The most obvious form of colonization today is ideological colonization, and it is being conducted, not by Christians or traditional religious institutions, but by Western progressives who are committed to sexual values and lifestyles found only in the modern West. If parents from Chiapas can resist, so can we.

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

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 philologist and scholar of medieval literature. For example, his essay on Beowulf, written in 1936, reshaped scholarship around the poem and remains highly influential today.

It was in the following year that the world was first introduced to Middle Earth. The Hobbit was quickly recognized as a wonderful children's book. But The Lord of the Rings series that followed initially earned a mixed reception. C.S. Lewis and W.H. Auden, among others, quickly saw its genius, but many critics dismissed it as an overblown fairy tale, a contribution to a literary genre out of favor among modernist critics who favored "realistic" literature that dealt with the angst of the mid-twentieth century. Tolkien, however, believed that the world, and Britain in particular, needed something else.

Over the last few decades, Tolkien studies have blossomed into an important field. His popularity soared with Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and more significantly, people have been exploring the philosophical ideas behind Tolkien's legendarium. The full scope of Tolkien's vision has been made available thanks to the indefatigable work of his son Christopher, who analyzed and edited the many manuscripts Tolkien left behind. We now have a fuller picture of his writing process and the creative vision behind Middle Earth, as well as the intellectual influences that informed Tolkien.

Some of these influences are well known, including Beowulf and Norse and Germanic mythology. A linguist, Tolkien invented entire languages based on Finnish and Welsh, as well as several writing systems to go along with them. A philologist, he studied language as a window into culture, which led him to develop both history and culture to go with his newly invented languages. From this effort came the amazing world of Middle Earth.

Tolkien also drew on his own life story in crafting his stories. His description of the Dead Marshes and Mordor were inspired by his experience in the trenches in World War I. Also, Sam and Frodo's relationship was based on Tolkien's experience as an officer with his batman, an enlisted man who served as a personal assistant.

As a boy, Tolkien spent several years in the Birmingham area where he grew to love the English countryside and to hate industrialization. This obviously shaped his descriptions of the Shire and the ecological concerns in the legendarium. On a literary level, this connected him with British romanticism, a movement that emphasized beauty, imagination, and God. In fact, as Austin Freeman pointed out in a recent interview on the Upstream podcast, Tolkien explained that to understand his writing, one had to remember he was a British romantic and a Christian.

The significance of Christianity to Middle Earth is a matter of some controversy. Tolkien himself wrote, "'The Lord of the Rings' is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." Critics have scoffed at this, pointing out that there is little hint of religious practice in The Lord of the Rings nor any of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. In some Tolkien fandoms, discussion of Tolkien's faith is forbidden, as if his work can be understood apart from the author.

However, there are clear Christian influences on the story, even if not intentional. When someone pointed out that the three offices of Christ—prophet, priest, and king—were embodied by Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, Tolkien responded that though it was not intentional, his Christian beliefs would inevitably come out in his writing.

More recent scholarship, such as Bradley Birzer's J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth, has revealed the profound Christian ideas at the root of Tolkien's work. Jonathan McIntosh's The Flame Imperishable argues that Tolkien's creation myth was shaped by the metaphysical ideas of Thomas Aquinas. Austin Freeman's Tolkien Dogmatics looks at Middle Earth through the lens of systematic theology and identifies important elements of Christian belief embodied there.

Tolkien, of course, was never preachy, which is why his Christianity is so easily and often missed. However, as he explained in a letter, "[The] religious element is absorbed into the story and symbolism." Still, Tolkien's stories speak to profound truths about the world, and thus, can, in C.S. Lewis's words, "steal past those watchful dragons" of modernity.

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

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

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 sort of choices do you make?

All of us—especially men—need to ask these questions of ourselves in the wake of the daily flurry of scandals from Hollywood and Washington. This isn't a problem "out there" in someone else's sound studio, office, or home. It's a problem "in here," at the depths of the sinful human heart.

Is the person we portray to others the same person we are when we're by ourselves—or more importantly—when we believe there'll be no consequences for our actions?

This is sometimes called "living on your face," in other words, making sure that what you present in public is the character you demonstrate in private. Only as Christians, we know that there's nowhere we can flee from the presence of God, who sees all, and who's always with us, and who promises that "our sins will find us out."

This Point was originally published on January 1, 2018.

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

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 the average bride and groom of the 1960s.

As many have noted, today's spike in singleness and single-person households is, in part, the result of a widespread cultural erosion of marriage, both inside and outside of the Church. Over the past 60 years, marriage has taken a social and cultural beating thanks to the legalization of no-fault divorce and abortion, the widespread use of birth control, the proliferation of easily accessible hook-up apps, and the casual dominance of pornography. These realities undermine the maturity, self-control, and responsibility required for stable and successful marriages. Whether or not an individual chooses to engage in these practices, they decrease everyone's chances of finding a partner interested in or ready for marriage.

In the wake of this cultural erosion, the Church has had to make necessary and prudential efforts to reinforce marriage and family life as

the God-given norm, reaffirming the goodness of marriage and family life in its teaching, serving as a space for Christians who desire marriage to find a spouse, and offering support and recovery for those fighting the temptations of "free love." However, in these efforts, the Church has often struggled in its approach to singles. While not intentionally excluding singles, the Church has often failed to intentionally include singles—whether young or old, never married or widows/widowers—and create space for them to participate and serve in the life of the Church apart from the pursuit of marriage. In the process, some churches have even given the impression that singleness is only a problem to be fixed, rather than a calling that some have for part or all of their lives.

Though unusual as a long-term vocation, singleness is a biblical, God-ordained calling within which individuals show God's image and serve Him and His Church with single-minded, self-sacrificial devotion. Scripture presents single people as whole persons who bear the image of God. Unlike other creation stories (like Plato's Timaeus), Genesis 2 does

not present Adam and Eve as half persons made whole by joining in marriage. Rather, Adam was created a complete person who, in his singleness, reveals God's image. When God declares that Adam's aloneness is "not good," He does not thereby imply that Adam was half of a person. Marriage unites the man and the woman as "one flesh" precisely because both are full persons who bear the image of God. Because singles bear God's image, they are capable of revealing His image in their singleness.

Additionally, through Christ's redemption, singles have a means to devote themselves to Christ and His Kingdom in a way that married people, on account of simple logistics, cannot. Through faithfulness and chastity, Christian singleness—whether temporary or lifelong—also points to the mystical union believers have with Christ. Because of this union, those who are single can be free from the anxieties of this present,

passing age and can focus on the work of God's Kingdom (1 Corinthians 7:32-35). Their joyful, single-minded devotion paints a picture of life in the age to come, an age where we "neither marry nor are given in marriage."

In affirming the biblical legitimacy of singleness, the Church must avoid swinging too far in the other direction by elevating singleness over and against marriage. Just as being less common doesn't make singleness

abnormal or aberrant, neither does its extraordinariness make it intrinsically holier than marriage. Like the widow and her mite, the married couple with young children honors God. A husband and wife are not more mature by virtue of their marital status. Both singleness and marriage are ways for humans to bear God's image and glorify Him. Both singleness and marriage can be distorted by sin and selfishness.

For a number of reasons, extended singleness is a reality that many, young and old, face today. God is not surprised by this. Rather, He has called his people to live in "such a time as this." In such a time, the Church has a responsibility not only to recover and uphold the institution of marriage but to graciously help people live out their singleness in self-sacrificial faithfulness. Pitting marriage and singleness against one another, as if one were better or holier than the other, will only lead to incomplete ministry that abandons believers to the strong undertow of cultural brokenness.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Eckert.

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

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 the number of people on the planet, because there's too many of us. It's a planet of finite resources, and we're using them up."

Not only did the statement echo Thanos, it's fundamentally mistaken. As a tweet from the CATO Institute put it,

You cannot massively reduce the population and retain the benefits of our civilization. When you destroy people, you also destroy knowledge. Even if you could painlessly wish 95% of humanity out of existence, as Goodall suggests, it would be catastrophic for those left alive.

There's a big difference between a worldview that sees human beings as a plague on nature and one that sees humans as caretakers of creation.

In the meantime, let's be glad Goodall doesn't have the infinity stones.

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

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 courtroom clashes. In reality, they seldom are. However, that doesn't stop idealistic plaintiffs from trying.

The most recent controversy dragged before a judge was whether the state of Montana could be held responsible for climate change. Earlier this month, Montana District Court Judge Kathy Seeley ruled that the state's failure to take climate change into account when greenlighting new oil and coal projects was unconstitutional. The plaintiffs were a group of young people called Our Children's Trust. They sued the state over fossil fuel production, claiming that Montana violated a section of its constitution that guarantees citizens "the right to a clean and healthful environment."

Climate activists have hailed the decision as a significant victory and model for the nation but have not been clear on what exactly has been accomplished. As The New York Times put it, unless a higher court overturns the ruling, Montana must now "consider climate change when deciding whether to approve or renew fossil fuel projects." That's all. They must "consider."

Ed Whelan at National Review concluded that the impact of this "Children's Crusade to defeat climate change" on actual energy production and carbon emissions "might well be zero." Perhaps future projects will involve a symbolic gesture, akin to the so-called "land acknowledgments" commonly seen in academia and on recent episodes of Alone Australia. These rituals involve a speaker beginning by naming the Native American tribes on whose ancestral land they're standing. Of course, such acknowledgments, as Princeton's Robert George recently remarked, "do no one any good." No one gets land back. No de-colonization takes place. There aren't any reparations. It's "just a cost-free form of moral preening."

Few issues are more consistently plagued by this kind of cost-free preening than the debate over climate change, and not only in America. Last month, Spanish Climate Minister Teresa Ribera dramatically arrived at a European Union climate conference by bicycle. Photographers and reporters weren't supposed to find out that that she took a limo for most of the trip and only pedaled the last couple of blocks. But I'm sure Mother Earth was grateful.

Almost everything about the Montana case was similarly theatrical, from the 16 children recruited and presumed to have standing to sue the state, to its arbitrary nature. Why Montana, which produces a lot of oil and gas but has only about a million residents, rather than, say, California, which has about 40 times the population, creates a significant demand for that fuel, and emits vastly more CO2?

Answering that question requires speculation about people's motives. All of it certainly looks as if the primary goals of so much climate activism isn't to cool the planet, but to display superior virtue. At heart, it is not so different than the Pharisee from Jesus' parable, who loudly thanked God that he was not like other men.

It's true that we have a responsibility to leave our children a healthy planet, but the work required to do that won't be done in the courtroom of sparsely populated states or by bicycle photo ops. It will take place in the workshops and imaginations of engineers who come up with better and cleaner energy sources. It will take place in legislatures that have the will and the ability to lift restrictions on existing alternatives like nuclear energy. It will take place when those who say they care about the planet stop trying to locate the problem with someone else "out there" (usually in red, flyover states) and start recognizing their personal responsibility for both the problem and the solutions.

Most of all (and here we move beyond just the climate change debate), we need to recognize how unhealthy our addiction to "cost-free moral preening" is. It's a habit at the heart of so much we fight over, from mommy blogs and those annoying "we believe in" yard signs to pandemic posturing and presidential elections. The constant need to be better than "those people"—and to be seen being better—betrays a deep spiritual anxiety that no amount of political posturing can cure.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris.

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

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 the Colson Center, added a daily news program for kids to their already impressive lineup of print and digital resources. The tagline for WORLD Watch with host Brian Basham reads: "We can't keep your kids from growing up too quickly, but we can help them grow into humans equipped with news literacy and Biblical discernment. And make it fun, too."

It's tempting and often appropriate to shield our kids from what's going on. But even if that were possible all the time, we need to help them face now what they will face when they are no longer in our homes. Rather than hide them, let's guide our children to think well in this time and place where God has called them to serve Him.

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

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 have raised that threshold to 60%.

The turnout for this vote was unexpectedly high for what appeared to be a procedural change. It was the only issue on the ballot. However, this vote was not merely about a procedure. It was also about abortion.

In November, abortion advocates will put forth a proposal to enshrine the "right" to an abortion in Ohio's constitution, with no restrictions on the age of the baby or the mother. Had Issue 1 succeeded in Ohio, this new amendment would have been much more difficult to pass. In other words, Issue 1 was the latest chapter in the story of abortion in post-Dobbs America.

Last year, within six months of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, voters in three states, Vermont, California, and Michigan, added a right to abortion to their constitutions. Kentucky voters rejected a constitutional amendment that would have prohibited almost all abortions. And, in Montana, voters rejected a measure to mandate that doctors care for babies born alive after botched abortions.

The Ohio amendment was not technically an abortion vote, and it strained under additional political realities. Still, we have enough data at this point to assume how state-level politics on abortion are trending.

For decades, under the judicial tyranny of Roe v. Wade, pro-life activism aimed to make abortion unthinkable. The primary strategy was to show that the preborn in question are, indeed, babies by, among other means, making the philosophical arguments in defense of life, offering empirical evidence through funding ultrasound machines, and distributing tiny life-size models of preborn babies. This was done in the context of a growing and constantly improving network of care centers offered to women facing unexpected pregnancies. All of this work made a significant difference and saved an incalculable number of lives.

However, it is important to note that the Supreme Court's decision in the Dobbs case was not a popular vote. It was a welcome gift of God to the cause, and a world without Roe is better than a world with Roe. However, it is best to remember that it was a court case and should not be viewed as a cultural bellwether.

While it may be the case that at least some of these state-level ballot initiatives may have fared better had they been more clearly worded, the most obvious takeaway is that all our thinking about abortion is happening in the context of a culture steeped in relativism. People are increasingly willing to grant that the preborn is a baby (or at least increasingly unable to pretend it isn't), but they also tend to have a follow-up question many pro-life activists didn't anticipate: "So what?"

For many, perhaps the vast majority of people, the highest moral good is individual autonomy, and the default position on abortion is permissiveness. Even those who say they'd "never have an abortion" repeatedly tell pollsters they aren't comfortable taking away that option for somebody else. In that context, making rules that curb autonomy or being a tiny person who interferes with that autonomy are cardinal sins.

Relativism and the related commitment to personal autonomy are evils built on the false premise that we are the creator and not creatures. In this worldview framework, the only real moral errors are not having the world I desire, being made to do something I don't want to do, or being prevented from some life I imagine will make me happy.

Any meaningful pro-life agenda must account for this situation on the grounds that we are defending life in a cultural moment in which many are willing to sacrifice everything, even what is acknowledged as a child, to pursue these ends. Ultimately, we'll need to demonstrate, in both word, and deed, that this premise is false, untenable, and enables great evil. For example, abortion does not free and empower women, despite what has been claimed for decades. We now know that 7 out of every 10 women seeking an abortion feel pressured or coerced. Of course, these women still have a choice, but this is anything but "autonomy" and freedom.

Christians know what happens when "everyone does what is right in their own eyes." Cultures that worship personal autonomy inevitably violate human dignity. Within a Christian worldview, the dignity of every human person as image bearers supersedes their potential to infringe on someone's perceived autonomy. We were made for higher and deeper things than feeling comfortable and happy from one moment to the next.

All we have learned about where we really are in this post-Roe moment points to the fact that there will be no shortcuts, legal or otherwise, in our ongoing efforts to protect preborn life. We cannot stop stressing the fact that every preborn child is a unique, valuable, and fully human image bearer of God. We'll need to champion the very strange idea that marriage, sex, and babies go together and, when they do, they bring strength and flourishing to society. We'll need to stop enabling and rewarding men who pressure, coerce, or abandon pregnant women, while helping women deal with crisis pregnancies. Let's get to work.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Maria Baer.

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