Breakpoint

Rather than celebrating their differences and strengths, women are increasingly being told that the only way to true equality and freedom is by rejecting who they are, especially their God-given capacity for procreation. This message is clearly reaching teenage girls, who today make up the majority of those identifying as transgender or non-binary.

In recent years, a group of "reactionary feminists" have pushed back on the attempts to erase women. Unlike their progressive counterparts, reactionary feminists reject the transgender trend and the destruction it wreaks on women and their bodies. For them, the chemical and surgical erasure of female bodies is a means of oppression, not freedom.

Ironically, "reactionary feminists" are doing what too many Christians are unwilling to do: defend the reality and beauty of God's creation and the dignity men and women possess as image bearers.

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

Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes.

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When I was growing up, Christians had to wrestle with whether or not our convictions could withstand the threat of ridicule. We'd be asked, "Are you willing to be mocked and made fun of by a professor who doesn't believe in God or a friend trying to tempt you into doing something you know is wrong?" About the worst thing to expect from this was what a friend has called "cocktail party pressure" or getting kicked out of the cool kids' clique.

To be clear, cocktail party pressure was quite effective, though those days seem quaintly in the past. Increasingly, Christians are hated, fired, or otherwise harassed on account of their principles. Particularly bewildering is that the loudest complaints against believers today are for things considered mainstream until just a few years ago.

Just this week, the Alliance Defending Freedom came to the defense of a man in Vermont who was fired after 10 years as a successful snowboarding coach. His crime, as one of ADF's lawyers put it, was "merely expressing his views that males and females are biologically different and questioning the appropriateness of a teenage male competing against teenage females in an athletic competition." For that, "school district officials unconstitutionally fired him."

Clearly, the district violated coach David Bloch's First Amendment rights and likely, given the legal track record of the Alliance Defending Freedom, he will be vindicated in the end. Still, this is another example of what feels like a new cultural moment in which the question of Christian courage is in the context of even more tangible pressures.

This context is at the center of a conversation I will be hosting Thursday, July 27 at the fourth annual Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview in Bay Harbor, Michigan. If you happen to be in the area, there's limited space available to join us in person, or you can sign up to join us via livestream. Either way, there is no charge for this conversation featuring two Christians leading the way into this brave new moment: Kristen Waggoner is CEO, president, and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Jim Daly is president and CEO of Focus on the Family. Both are witness to these increased pressures.

For years, Kristen has successfully advanced legal protections and religious liberty by representing courageous Christians such as Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman. Most recently, she represented Lorie Smith of 303 Creative in a landmark victory for free speech at the Supreme Court. However, for her efforts, Kristen has been unfairly attacked and lied about by media outlets, fellow lawyers, and even the Attorney General of Colorado.

Last fall, Focus on the Family's grounds were vandalized by activists. Though not the first time, there was something different about this attack. The perpetrators falsely and unfairly blamed Focus for the then-recent murders at a local Colorado Springs gay club. These accusations have been repeated by media outlets and critics as recently as last week.

This brave new world of hostility is familiar for our brothers and sisters elsewhere, in places like Nigeria, India, and China. Ours are more experiences of a series of horrible moments, such as earlier this year in Nashville. Christians in the West do not fear for their lives. Even so, something has clearly shifted. Calls to tolerate the views of others are about as 1990s these days as talking about abortion being "safe, legal, and rare." As we've seen in Nashville, it's a perilously small step from the rhetorical games of wanting to punch "literal Nazis" to literally punching those who dare stray from the cultural narrative.

The only way forward for the Christ follower is to commit again to knowing what is true, to commit again to saying and living what is true even if there is a cost, and to say and live what is true in a way that is pleasing to Christ. In other words, faithfulness will involve both the what we believe and the how we'll live it out.

I don't know anyone I'd rather have in this conversation than Kristin Waggoner and Jim Daly. Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett.

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

On this day, in the year 64, the Great Fire of Rome broke out, for which Emperor Nero would blame a new religious sect, the Christians. The first Epistle of the Apostle Peter was written to those who experienced the persecution unleashed by Nero.

I Peter is best summarized as "the Book of Hope," but the hope he described is counter cultural. It does not anticipate a "good outcome," at least not in the here and now. Instead, Peter understands true hope as rooted in the certainty of something that has already happened: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which defines all of history.

Christ, the risen, sovereign ruler of the world, promises to make all things new (Revelation 21:5), and He is working in every time and place through His people. He has placed us in this cultural moment according to His redemptive plan.

So, as Peter encouraged the first Christians who faced cultural hostility, take hope in the risen Lord Jesus.

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

Throughout history, across diverse societies, nations, and eras, Christians who carried the Gospel into pagan cultures defended and protected abandoned and abused children. In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Senior Colson Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of Christian heroes, most of whom are unknown today, whose courage and faithfulness changed the way children are seen and treated. You can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World with a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July).

For example, 19th-century India was a particularly brutal place for girls. Women were considered inferior to men and were not allowed to be educated or employed. Child marriage was a fairly common practice. Though the practice of sati (burning widows on their husband's funeral pyres) had been abolished, the treatment of widows remained harsh. They were considered cursed and often subjected to terrible abuse at the hands of their husband's family.

The family of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) was different. As Dr. Sunshine explains, Pandita's father, a member of the priestly caste known as Brahmins, encouraged her to read the Hindu scriptures. Not only did she learn to read, her skills and mastery of the text earned her acclaim. Her study also led to growing doubts about the truth of Hinduism.

After she was married, Pandita found a copy of the Gospel of Luke in her husband's library. Drawn to Christianity, she invited a missionary to their home to explain the Gospel to her and her husband. Tragically, not long after hearing the Gospel, her husband passed away.

Shortly thereafter, Pandita was visited by a child widow looking for charity. Pandita not only took her in as if she were her own daughter but, moved by the situation, started an organization called Arya Mahila Samaj to educate girls and advocate for the abolition of child-marriage.

It was while traveling to England that Pandita Ramabai formally converted to Christianity. Returning to India, she set up a school for girls and widows in what is now called Mumbai. At first, to avoid offending Hindus, she agreed not to promote Christianity and to follow the rules of the Brahmin caste. However, these concessions were not enough. Within a year, the school was under attack, and local financial support dried up. Pandita moved the school to Pune, about 90 miles away.

In 1897, when a famine and plague struck the area, Pandita established a second school about 30 miles away. Among the subjects taught in her schools were literature (for moral instruction), physiology (to teach them about their bodies), and industrial arts such as printing, carpentry, tailoring, masonry, wood-cutting, weaving, needlework, farming, and gardening.

At first, because Pandita had only two assistants, she developed a system to care for and educate the girls, first teaching the older ones who would then take care of and help teach the younger. This allowed for a growing number of girls to be taken in and cared for. In fact, by 1900, 2,000 girls lived at Pandita's schools.

In 1919, the British king awarded Pandita Ramabai the Kaiser-i-Hind award, the highest honor an Indian could receive during the colonial period. Her life is an example that living in a pagan society means confronting bad ideas and caring for their victims. In her culture, like in ours, these victims are very often children.

To decide, as many have, that speaking up on controversial cultural issues is "too political" is to leave these victims without care and protection. It is out of step with Christian history. It also is an embrace of an anemic, truncated Gospel.

This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, you can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. Just visit colsoncenter.org/July.

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 was revised from one originally published on March 30, 2021.

According to NBC, Jesus has returned in an online incarnation. Yes, you too can log on and talk to a cyber savior, a disembodied vision of a white man who offers counsel on things ranging from the serious to the silly. Setting aside how this likely violates the Second Commandment, this stunt typifies a central problem with contemporary religious thinking: recreating Jesus in our image.

A programmed Christ built of nothing but the disparate thoughts of what we'd like him to be is literally an idol. If "god" is just our understanding of Him, there is not really a "Him" at all, but only our own projections. It's kind of like the old SNL skit of Stuart Smalley affirming himself in the mirror.

Seeking salvation from an AI chatbot is only a more technologically advanced version of picking and choosing the parts of the Bible we want to believe.

But salvation can never be found within.

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

Register to attend live or join the livestream for the Great Lakes Symposium at colsoncenter.org/greatlakes.

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In response to a Breakpoint commentary about the murders in Nashville in March, the Colson Center was identified by a critic as being "proudly, if quietly, Dominionist." To be clear, we aren't, but he was particularly troubled by how the commentary described Christians as victims which, of course, they were.

In that commentary, we wondered aloud whether in fact we have entered a new cultural moment, characterized by an increased hostility toward Christians and others who are, shall we say, culturally non-conforming. The strange and shameful reversal of who is victim and who is guilty in the reporting on the Nashville incident has only continued since, and now there are additional incidents to consider as well.

On March 29, while speaking on abortion at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kristan Hawkins and a group from Students for Life were confronted, threatened, and assaulted by an obscenity-crying crowd who failed to notice the irony of suppressing free speech by screaming "fascists!" Rather than remove those disrupting the presentation, the campus police removed the pro-lifers.

Two days later, on March 31, authorities in Colorado arrested 19-year-old William Whitworth for two counts of attempted murder, in addition to other charges. Whitworth, who goes by the name Lily and was in the process of "transitioning," was planning a series of bomb and gun attacks on several sites in Colorado Springs, including schools and churches. As with the Nashville shooter who identified as transgender, police have not revealed the "manifesto" that would reveal Whitworth's specific motives. However, there is ample evidence that rhetoric about the so-called "trans genocide" is leading advocates to increasingly violent means to make their point.

Then, on April 6, college swimmer Riley Gaines was physically assaulted while giving a speech at San Francisco State University. As she argued against the inclusion of men in women's sports, she was berated, threatened, and blockaded in a room until she paid a ransom. Media accounts employed terms like "allegedly" to cast doubt about what happened, but audio and video recordings were plain. Afterward, rather than condemn the violent and threatening acts, the vice president of student affairs praised activists for "defending diversity and free speech."

Three incidents in nine days are notable, but when placed alongside a host of others in the last few years, a disturbing trend begins to emerge. After examining the data, The Family Research Council concluded that over 400 "acts of hostility" have been committed against churches in the last five years including "vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more." Of these incidents, 137 occurred between January and September of last year.

The headline is not that there are suddenly those who disagree with Christian conviction or similar beliefs. That has always been the case. And frankly, the Christian view of the world hasn't held the dominant cultural position for some time. However, the old-school atheists and secular humanists of yesterday were content enough to let Christians have their say, if for no other reason than to ridicule and deride. To think of something as "outdated," or "silly," or "non-scientific" is one thing. To think of it and the one who advances it as "evil," "oppressive," and "fascist" is something else.

Whereas an older secularist thought of truth as something "out there" to be discovered through study, discussion, and even debate, truth in the contemporary critical mood isn't about what is said but who is saying it. More specifically, it's about where everyone is pre-ranked in an ever-shifting, intersectional hierarchy.

Anyone who insists that there are truths of a higher order, particularly truths that establish sexual morality and identity, will become a target of those who are blinded by today's ideologies. Fifty years ago, Francis Schaeffer explained, "No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions." The refusal to live by lies subverts the required certainty in the new orthodoxy.

For the sake of our neighbors, all who believe in the importance of truth must continue to say so. We cannot beat ideological opponents into conformity, and it is sinful to try. We'll have to say what is true, even when there is a cost. We'll have to remind the world of the beautiful legacy of the Judeo-Christian view of humanity and the world. We'll have to hold together truth with love.

This is why I've invited Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel of ADF, and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, to join me for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on July 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Go to colsoncenter.org/greatlakes to attend live or join the livestream.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to colsoncenter.org.

Revised from a Breakpoint released on 4.14.23.

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

Recently in The New York Times, Catherine Pearson noted how the growing cultural stigma against boredom burdens parents. Research shows that parents across cultural and economic lines believe it's their job to fend off their kids' boredom with activities.

Doing so implicitly teaches kids that boredom is bad for them, and entertainment a right. This plays well in an age that treats any discomfort as dangerous, and that having fun, or at least avoiding suffering, is the meaning of life.

This understanding of life robs kids of finding the joy, the meaning, and the truth of self-sacrifice, service to others, and devotion to things bigger than self. It's also cruel to teach kids who live in a fallen world that suffering and discomfort can be avoided and that you can't truly be happy if you fail to avoid it.

Allowing kids to be bored and uncomfortable, on the other hand, teaches them that they actually can handle tough things.

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

In 303 Creative vs. Elenis, the Supreme Court upheld Lorie Smith's free speech rights, deciding that the state of Colorado could not force her to produce websites for so-called same-sex weddings. Ever since, media pundits and public officials have distorted the ruling, claiming that it will allow people to refuse service to LGBT individuals. However, even the state of Colorado acknowledged that Smith serves all people with her business, but she would not provide services that meant expressing a view that violates her faith. The state made clear its intent was to suppress Smith's ideas about marriage. By a vote of 6-3, the Supreme Court found this a clear violation of the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of expression.

The dissent in the case was written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. It featured a rambling history of civil rights and public accommodation law, law that prevents discrimination of the public in services. Sotomayor argued that the decision violated the trajectory of the expansion of civil rights to more and more marginalized groups in society. She claimed that creating a website was a matter of providing a service and had nothing to do with expression, implausibly arguing that creating a website for a so-called same-sex wedding would not compel Smith's speech.

Writing for the majority, Justice Gorsuch dismantled the dissent, noting that the history of public accommodations and civil rights had no bearing on the matter, and that Sotomayor's argument that the question involved service rather than expression was contradicted by both the state of Colorado and the Tenth Circuit Court. He also noted how the dissent contradicted itself.

Still, the problems with Sotomayor's dissent extend beyond the issues identified by Gorsuch. When Sotomayor appealed to the murder of Matthew Shepard and the mass shooting in Orlando's Pulse Nightclub as examples of the dangers LGBT people face in the country, she was appealing to a revisionist history. The motive for Matthew Shepard's murder is at best unsettled and likely had nothing to do with his sexual orientation. The shooter at the Pulse nightclub had pledged allegiance to ISIS and apparently targeted Pulse because of its lax security.

While Sotomayor may simply have been sloppy–relying on popular rhetoric without investigating further–it is more likely that these are examples of her worldview commitments. Specifically, she employed standpoint epistemology and intersectionality, the idea that truth is ultimately unknowable so we can only rely on identity markers like race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation to determine what is right and wrong.

In standpoint epistemology, minorities have greater insights about the world because they know how to operate both in their own setting and in the dominant culture. This is the reasoning behind Sotomayor's infamous statement given at the University of California, Berkley before her nomination: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

However, though Sotomayor may assume her lived experience offers a fuller view of reality, her perceptions become more authoritative to her than the facts of reality. Rather than committing to an objectivity, she can determine via cultural narratives of oppression what happened regarding Shepard's murder or the Pulse shooting, or the conflict between Lorie Smith and the state of Colorado. Even worse, the objective facts (at least those that counter the accepted narratives) in these cases can be ignored, neglected, or revised.

Since objective truth doesn't exist, justice is left to the eye of the beholder. Once, in a presentation to congressional staffers, Sotomayor was asked about the foundation of justice in our country. She replied by admitting that she had never considered the question "in that form before." And then after a long pause said something like, "I suppose for me, it would be the inherent dignity of all people. But I don't know what it should be for anyone else" (emphasis added).

While it may be surprising that a sitting Supreme Court justice had never considered the question of justice, her response is fully consistent with her previous speech delivered at Berkley. In it, she claimed that "[t]o judge is an exercise of power," not a matter of interpreting law. In her dissent to the majority opinion that ended affirmative action in college admissions, she accused the majority decision of "an unjustified exercise of power." In other words, if judging is only a matter of power, no amount of facts could ever justify a decision she did not agree with.

This pair of dissents should not be viewed in a vacuum. Rather, they are based on a worldview rooted in Neo-Marxist ideas of oppression and class struggle and on postmodern ideas about knowledge and power. This is why it is important that a biblical vision of truth, justice, government, and the human person guide our thinking, not only so we can counter the false ideas shaping so much of our culture but so that we can offer a better way.

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

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

A lot of disinformation has been spread about the recent Supreme Court ruling in the case defending a Colorado graphic designer's free speech rights. John and Maria discuss some new thoughts surrounding the ethics of medicine.

— Recommendations —

Further Up & Further In

The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession by Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen

Section 1 - Correcting Misinformation on 303 Creative v. Elenis

"The Smearing of Lorie Smith"

The Wall Street Journal

"Correcting the Record on 303 Creative"

Breakpoint

Section 2 - What is medicine for?

"What is medicine for?"

Section 3 - Further Up and Further In

Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview

Further Up & Further In

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

The cases involving affirmative action and Lorie Smith and 303 Creative have received the most attention from the recent Supreme Court term, but another ruling has important implications for religious liberty. The Court ruled that U.S. Post Office employee Gerald Groff could not be forced to work on Sundays.

Thanks are due to Groff and his lawyers at The First Liberty Institute. In the past, employers could get away with merely offering lip service to religious exemptions for workers because any vaguely defined "undue hardship" for the bosses overrode their faith concerns. Now, employers must demonstrate that accommodating an employee's faith would entail a "substantial increased cost" before demanding their conformity.

The ruling is a final blow to the "now abrogated" Lemon Test that hampered religious liberty for a half-century. It also provides legal standing for challenging other impositions on religious liberty at work—such as being forced to use "preferred pronouns," or post rainbow flags, or join "pride" marches.

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