Breakpoint

For weeks, each Wednesday morning, the Colson Center has hosted a time of prayer for the church and the nation. Led by ministry partners and Christian leaders from around the country, these times have been moving and inspiring.

This past Wednesday morning, the day after an election that is still not resolved, my friend Ed Stetzer challenged us, in direct and clarifying terms, what kind of church the world needs right now. Despite what we might feel, the political and cultural chaos that engulfs us is, Stetzer said, an opportunity to champion the Kingdom of God in this time and in this place. After all, just as the prophet Isaiah learned, no amount of political or cultural chaos upends the plans of God.

Here's Ed:

"I voted like an Arminian and rested like a Calvinist, because I know at the end of the day, I've read the end of the book, and Jesus wins.

"My original assignment from the Colson Center was to pray for the newly elected or re-elected president, and, of course, we don't know who that will be at this point. It does remind us a bit of Isaiah Chapter 6, verse 1: "In the year King Uzziah died…" Now that's a very casual phrase that Isaiah writes, and it's worth noting for us that the year a king dies is a very, very big deal. It makes a contested and uncertain election look like nothing. . . A just ruler can replace an unjust ruler, or an unjust ruler can replace a just ruler. Alliances that kept enemies at bay can fall apart. So in the wake of Uzziah's death, the whole nation asked the question "What's next?"

"So, Isaiah writes, 'In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and exalted, seated at the throne with the train of his robe filling the temple.' I want you to know this is really key. We look to the words of Scripture, and people in the time of tumult and turbulence looked to God.

"When God's people pray, we know their hearts are-aligned with God's heart. We know ultimately that He hears our prayer."

After that brief introduction Ed began to pray. You can listen to the whole thing on a special edition of the BreakPoint podcast, which you can find at BreakPoint.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a portion of that prayer and, with so much not clear right now, I encourage you to pray along:

"Father. We come before you today and we acknowledge your Holiness and goodness. We acknowledge that the thing we can do that is most important, more than anything else, is not the flip on the news and to see where the electoral counts are not to see where the votes are coming in.

"Right now, the most important thing we can do is to say 'Holy, Holy Holy.'

"All of you pray with me out loud, the three-part 'Holy.' Let's say it out loud together.

"Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole Earth is full of your glory. In places for the vote's been counted-- full of your glory. In the places where votes have not been counted--full of your glory. In places where people are afraid—full of your glory. A place where people are excited--full of your glory.

"Lord, we know this truth literally shook the thresholds in Isaiah 6 and it shakes the thresholds of our world today…

"We pray for our nation. That you might forgive us when we haven't valued the unborn. We pray as a nation that you would forgive us when we haven't cared about racial injustice. We pray that you would forgive us for when we have celebrated the wrong and pushed aside the good."

"Father, forgive us for relying on politics for what only Jesus can do.

"Father, I pray for God's people on this call, in this conversation, people who will watch later or who are watching and sharing right now. Father I pray that they would be bearers of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ."

Please come to BreakPoint.org to find this special episode of the BreakPoint Podcast.

This week's BreakPoint Podcast highlights how expressive individualism is prominent inside bioethics. There is a rewriting of parenthood and end of life care. John Stonestreet invites O. Carter Snead to discuss Snead's new book What it Means to Be Human.

O. Carter Snead is the William P. and Hazel B. White Director of the Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. He is a law professor and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame.

Snead and John start by discussing anthropology as an account of what it means to be human and enable human flourishing. Snead addresses building a renewed vision of human progress apart from expressive individualism. He touches on the idea of building public policies that engage and protect humans who may be on life sustaining measures and has lost legal competence.

Snead reads a segment from his book where he quotes Dr. Gerald Schatten. "Reproductive medicine is helping prospective parents to realize their own dreams for a disease-free legacy." Snead highlights how expressive individualism is overriding the case for the body in bioethics.

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris wrap up a tumultuous election week from a Christian worldview perspective. With the outcome of the election still not entirely clear, we find our nation more divided than at any time since the Civil War. How did the pollsters get this election so wrong? What do the President's gains among minority groups say about the prevailing cultural view of race and politics in America?

John and Shane also discuss the numerous and critical ballot initiatives in various states--and what those results have to say about our nation, from late-term abortion, to protecting life, to gambling, drug legalization, and sex-education for kindergarteners.

And tune in for John's fierce conviction about the absolute necessity for pastors to summon the courage to speak out on behalf of the unborn from their pulpits. As John says, those pastors who think that it's too political to say that we shouldn't be dismembering viable babies are dead wrong.

John and Shane wrap up the show with their recommendations of the week and with an in-depth discussion of a crucial religious freedom case argued before the Supreme Court: Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, in which Catholic Social Services (CSS) is suing Philadelphia over the city's decision to disallow CSS from placing foster children--simply because the Catholic organization follows Catholic teaching and won't place children with same-sex couples.

"One reason the polls were wrong: Why the answer is so significant for our national future," by Jim Denison

"The Ballot Initiatives of 2020," by John Stonestreet and Maria Baer, BreakPoint

"Supreme Court Tackles Religious Freedom in Foster Care Case," by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie

BreakPoint Special – Prayer Webinar with Ed Stetzer

National Prayer Webinar with Joni Eareckson Tada

Last month, the LA Times reported that the University of California at Berkeley would no longer take money from "The Genealogical Eugenic Institute Fund." The school had been drawing from the fund for years, until a "shocked and dismayed" bioethics professor learned of the fund and saw the term "eugenics" in the title. Rightly so.

Modern "eugenics" emerged as an application of Darwinism in the late 1800s. Social scientists believed they could "improve the human race" by encouraging the "well-bred" and healthy to procreate, while discouraging (or even, for some, forcibly preventing) the poor, the sick or just the "undesirable" from having children. While eugenics typically brings to mind the Nazi attempt to exterminate six million Jews during the Holocaust, the idea's intellectual development is largely American. For example, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger openly advocated for eugenics, and actively worked to advance birth control with African American women as part of what she called the "Negro Project."

By the way, the organization she founded is the best example in our culture of systemic or structural evil. Planned Parenthood kills black babies at a rate five times higher than children of other ethnicities.

Though the Dean of UC Berkeley's School of Public Health promised the money was not used for any sort of racially motivated genetic research, it was used for genetic counseling, he admitted. In other words, money from the eugenics fund was used to research assisted reproductive technologies, specifically how those industries might "take advantage" of genetic testing. That research will continue.

So to be clear, though UC Berkeley disavowed a fund connected to a pseudo-science that is unarguably racist (a scary thing for Berkeley's PR department), the university made no promises to stop studying or funding actual eugenics. In other words, the university rejects the racist connotations of the word eugenics, but embraces the practice. They've judged this fund by the name on its letterhead but ignored the content of its character.

In 2020, eugenicists may not be goose-stepping down the street in khaki uniforms, but they are not hard to find. While the word "eugenics" rightly offends our modern sensibilities, the eugenics impulse is alive and well, especially in the sciences and social policies of human reproduction.

For example, Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, referred to neighborhood IVF clinics as the modern "cowboys" of genetic engineering. Of course, parents who use in-vitro fertilization to overcome infertility aren't attempting to systematically improve the human race, and most doctors at these clinics are motivated by an honest desire to help families. But choosing whether to implant or discard embryos based on birth defects or gender is very much an example of the eugenic impulse, as is treating "excess" embryos as medical waste.

The eugenic impulse is responsible for the near eradication of Down syndrome in Iceland, and the catastrophically low rates of girls born in China and India and other parts of the world because of "sex selection." When customers shop at the sperm bank for samples based on the donor's height, skin, athletic ability, IQ, or eye color? That's the eugenic impulse.

We justify this impulse not through promises of an improved race but through a technological pragmatism. In vitro fertilization is expensive, and clinics often counsel parents to get the most for their money by creating multiple embryos and implanting only the "healthiest" ones. And any parent who's received a positive diagnosis from an amniocentesis has experienced the pressure of justifying a decision not to abort, rather than vice-versa.

A million such decisions are made daily, most by well-meaning folks with perfectly reasonable explanations. At the same time, these decisions are being made within a cultural milieu in which not only the inherent relationship between marriage and childbearing is severed, but in which the eugenics impulse goes largely unchallenged.

In his book Our Bodies Tell God's Story, Christopher West rightly observes that "when we begin untying the tight-knot nexus of marriage, sex and babies, we end up redefining all three." Marriage becomes a piece of paper. Sex is reduced to an exercise of personal pleasure. Babies become products, disposable when unwanted, valuable only when wanted and, even then, designable to our specifications.

UC Berkeley ought be uneasy by the word "eugenics" and its racist history. We ought all be wary, however, of the practice of eugenics, and how normal it has become.

In a special BreakPoint Podcast we are sharing the prayer webinar led by Ed Stetzer.

Yesterday, as most of America continued to process a razor-thin presidential race, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in what could be a momentous religious freedom case. Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is a case that began in 2018, when Catholic Social Services (CSS), a charitable arm of the Church that dates all the way back to 1797, was barred by the city of brother love from placing foster children, unless it changed its policy on same-sex households. Rather than compromise, CSS took the city to court, claiming a violation of the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and, even more importantly, the free exercise of religion.

The reason that the outcome of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia is so potentially important goes back to another Supreme Court decision, from 1990. In Employment Division v. Smith, Justice Antonin Scalia determined that a state or local law could restrict religious freedom, as long as it does so in a way that equally applies to everyone. The only way such a law can be challenged under the Free Exercise Clause is if it violates some other right. In a way, Employment Division v. Smith turned religious freedom into a subset of the freedom of speech, rather than the "first freedom" it truly is.

Yesterday, the lawyers for Catholic Social Services not only asked the Court to rule in their favor but, also to overturn Employment Division. This would force state and local governments to abide by the same standard as the federal government, justifying any infringement on religious freedom by showing that a compelling interest is being served in the least restrictive way possible.

So, there are two things at stake here. First, there is the question of whether or not a religious charitable organization can operate according to its faith convictions. Second, there is the question of whether this case would put an end to the most problematic part of Justice Scalia's legacy. (Adding to the drama, this is the first major case heard by Amy Coney Barrett, an advocate of religious freedom and also a former protege of the late Justice Scalia).

Lawyers for Catholic Social Services pointed to incidents in which Philadelphia's Department of Human Services waived its anti-discrimination requirements when it comes to foster care. For example, in certain instances, the department had discriminated on the basis of disability or had clearly taken race into account in its fostering decisions. Thus, CSS attorneys argued, even if Employment Division wasn't overturned, it shouldn't be applicable in this instance.

Why then, Justice Coney-Barrett asked, should the court even consider overturning Employment Division if it wasn't applicable? Barrett, along with a majority of the Justices, seemed sympathetic to Catholic Social Services but hesitant about overturning Employment Division.

To be clear, attempts to predict Court decisions from oral arguments is about as reliable as predicting election outcomes from polls. (Well, it's not quite that bad). But, here goes: A ruling for CSS in Fulton that didn't fully overturn Employment Division would be disappointing but would still be a win for religious freedom. After all, the case was argued almost entirely on religious freedom grounds, not on freedom of speech, and both Justices Kavanaugh and Alito clearly spoke of the need to address imbalances in the growing number of cases that pit LGBTQ rights vs religious freedom.

As both pointed out, we were assured in decisions like Obergefell that anyone holding traditional views of marriage would be respected. We were told their rights would be upheld. They haven't been. Philadelphia, Justice Kavanaugh said, "created a clash" with a group that had been taking care of children there for two centuries simply because it was "looking for a fight."

Justice Alito said it even more bluntly. After observing that no same-sex couple had ever approached CSS and, if they had, would have been referred to another agency, Alito concluded that the case was never really about "ensuring that same-sex couples in Philadelphia have the opportunity to be foster parents." Instead, "the city can't stand the message that Catholic Social Services and the Archdiocese [of Philadelphia] are sending by continuing to adhere to the old-fashion view about marriage."

Given the perceived animus towards Catholic Social Services, the majority probably will not need to overturn Employment Division to send a strong message on behalf of religious freedom. At the same time, we've already had, in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case, a ruling about government animus toward religious conviction. What we need now is a ruling that protects the rights of religious organizations and individuals to operate according to those convictions, while limiting the government's ability to trample on them.

This may or may not have been, as many pundits claimed, the "most important election of our lifetimes," but it certainly has been the most contentious one of mine. In a series of reflections posted on Facebook, a former Colson Center colleague and current Family Research Council Senior Fellow Joseph Backholm said what all of us should be thinking, "The fact that there is a bipartisan expectation of riots and destruction means that in really important ways everyone has already lost. The peaceful transfer of power and faith in our institutions has been a critical part of our national success. If we've lost that, it's a bigger issue than the guy in the White House."

And, I would add, it should be an issue obvious to us all, but in the months leading up to the election, the sheer anger on both sides of the political aisle has been, to understate it, a distraction. We get so angry when someone doesn't agree with us. In too many cases, we want to win more than we want to be right.

At the same time, the heightened temperature and heightened rhetoric that has us all weary right now reflects what is at stake. Elections matter. Elections have consequences and, at times, victims. And I don't want to downplay how important this election was. Still, it remains unclear just how we might move forward together, not just as a nation but, specifically, as a church.

In addition to our atheist Twitter trolls and ideologically opposed commenters, I frequently receive troubled and angry emails from a particular BreakPoint follower frustrated that I don't see political realities completely the way he does. In his view, I am not conservative enough and, because of this, my sincerity, motives, intellect, and even my faith are in question. To be clear, our disagreements have nothing to do with the historic teachings of the church or moral teaching. After all most people think I'm politically conservative, too. We disagree primarily over political personality and pragmatics.

At some point, preferably sooner than later, we will have to address the deep relational rifts created and/or exposed by this election, especially between those with whom we agree on virtually every other issue.

Over the last several weeks, inspired especially by one of the Colson Center's weekly times of prayer for the church and the nation, I've been struck by a particular part of Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer," which is recorded for us in John 17. A central theme of this most important of all prayers, in which God the Son appeals to God the Father on the evening before His crucifixion, is unity. "Holy Father," Jesus prays, "keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are." Unity would even, Jesus said, help the world believe that He was the Son of God.

It would take months to unpack this prayer, especially the mind-blowing idea that our unity with each other is to be such that it reflects the unity Jesus has with His Father. Such unity seems impossible, of course, unless we remember how such unity is achieved. We may, Jesus prayed, "all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us…"

In other words, it is only through vertical unity with God that the horizontal unity of His people is possible. This is why true unity is never achieved by compromising what is true. As we are unified with God in Christ, we are unified with each other.

Our attempts to achieve unity primarily around political party or political strategy reveals the increasing dominance of politics over other aspects of life and culture. Chuck Colson often said that politics is downstream from culture. However, politics has become the most dominant aspect of our culture, and that's not a healthy condition for any group of people.

Joseph Backholm's admonition in his Facebook post, is spot on: "The future of our country and the quality of our lives is not determined primarily by who is in public office. Politicians are the fruit of the tree, they are not the tree. Our future will be determined by the strength of our families, and we all have control over that. Be great husbands, wives, parents, friends, and neighbors. Live for others, and live as if your kids, and God, are always watching. God is always watching, and our kids are watching more than we realize. Find things to be grateful for and resist the temptations to complain. Go out of your way to make someone else's life better and yours will be too, even if you don't like who is in the White House. If our joy is dependent upon a political outcome, we'll never be happy."

Amen.

In fact, Christians have the only other viable alternative on offer: unity in Christ. After all, Who occupies the throne in Heaven matters far more than who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

What narrative are Christians living by post election? John Stonestreet and Shane Morris answer a host of questions that essentially ask the same question. Many listeners are wondering how we should live after election results are tallied.

John points to church history as a testimony of God's soverignty. He highlights Jesus' prayer in John 17. There is unity for God's church because of unity in Christ. John notes our unity together rests in unity in Christ that hold strength in unity to God.

Shane directs the conversation to another question. A listener asked why there is a focus on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, with a lesser emphasis on the Cultural Mandate.

John references Chuck Colson, who said that God never changed his mind on the cultural mandate. John points to the four adjectives of being saved. He says we're saved to, saved from, saved by, and saved for something purposeful.

In closing the pair consider a question somewhat related to the election season. The question referenced the expedited movement of same-sex marriage. John provides teaching on the need for imagination to engage movements.

John notes that leading generations are imaginitively desensitized. They didn't foresee issues that would arise from not addressing cultural issues.

The pair close with hope. They direct us to the design and purpose in God as we engage the world and make His name known.

Four years ago, in the 2016 election, only about 61 percent of voting-age Americans cast a ballot. Among self-identifying Christians, the percentage was about the same. In other words, while faith seems to make a difference in the voting decisions of the American Christians who do vote, it doesn't seem to make much of a difference in whether or not American Christians vote.

But, of course, it should. The central fact of the universe, that Jesus Christ is Lord of all, should make a difference in every aspect of life, including how we think about and live out our citizenship.

When it comes to citizenship in our current political context, Christians are plagued by two opposite mistakes. The first is French theologian Jacques Ellul called "the political illusion," or, assuming that everything rests on political outcomes.

"If our guy is in office, all will be well. If their guy is in office, all will be lost." The political illusion, to be clear, plagues both sides of the political and theological aisles. To describe a particular candidate in messianic terms is to suffer from the political illusion. To describe him or her as the anti-Christ is also to suffer from the political illusion. No political candidate will "save Christianity." No candidate can "irreparably harm" it either.

Other Christians are plagued by the political delusion, the idea that political engagement of any kind is pointlessly unnecessary or perhaps even implicates one in evil. Of course, there are cases throughout history where an election is a farce, or where political engagement aligns one with unmitigated evil. Neither is not the case for American Christians today.

I will put it bluntly, for American Christians, voting is both a civic duty and a Christian responsibility. Our founder Chuck Colson agreed.

Today is Election Day. What will the outcome be? Well, thankfully, because we live in a free society, it all depends on you and me. So, have you voted yet? If so, well done. If not, as soon as this broadcast is over—or as soon as you're off work—I want you to go and fulfill your Christian duty to be a good citizen and go vote.

And while you're at it, call a few of your Christian friends. Find out if they've voted yet. If not, tell them you're going, and you'll be glad to stop by and pick them up.

Now is not the time to buy into the lie that your vote doesn't really matter. As a result of my Watergate felony conviction, I lost the right to vote for 28 years. When my right was restored, I was able to vote in the 2000 presidential election. That year, the national election—the presidency—was determined by just 500 votes in Florida. Mine was one of those votes. So your vote does matter.

And let me say this. The next time you hear someone tell you that Christians ought to take a vacation from politics, tell them to go fly a kite. Listen, it's our duty as citizens of the kingdom of God to be the best citizens of the society we live in.

If your pastor no longer has the energy or courage to motivate his flock to speak out on public issues, maybe you can lovingly "buck him up." Remind him—or her—that God's people are to love their neighbors, to desire the best for them, to pursue the common good. And we can't do that on the political sidelines.

When a rabid secularist tells you to stop forcing your religion down his throat—simply correct him. You might say, "Excuse me, but who is suing the government to remove crosses from cemeteries? Who has filed lawsuits to remove 'under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance? Who's trying to tell doctors and nurses and pharmacists that they have to participate in medical procedures that violate their religious conscience? Who's banning Bibles from schools?

In other words, who is forcing their point of view on whom?

We Christians are simply trying to PRESERVE and PROTECT the rights and liberties that we Americans have enjoyed from the founding of our Republic. We are the ones who take seriously our nation's founding creed: that "all men are created equal and endowed by their CREATOR with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," meaning virtue.

Our Founders recognized that true rights come not from government, but from God Himself. Government must not take those rights away.

And to protect those rights, we must vote.

Yes, the elections are upon us. Don't be intimidated. Do not retreat to the sidelines.

Go out and vote for the candidate of your choice. Vote as your conscience informs you. And yes, allow your faith to inform your conscience. But today of all days, thank God we still live in a free nation. So speak out. Exercise your right. Fulfill your duty. Go and vote.

I hope Chuck has stirred you up. If you haven't voted yet, you still have time. And after you've done your Christian civic duty, pray for our country.

In fact, tomorrow morning at 10:30 eastern time, we'll have our national prayer gathering online. You can attend via Zoom or on our Facebook page through Facebook live. Again, that's at 10:30 eastern time. For more information, click here.

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis imagines how an experienced demonic operative might advise a younger, less experienced understudy in the intricacies of counter-Christian spiritual warfare. In one passage especially relevant right now, Lewis describes how politics could be used to tempt and thwart a Christ-follower. The setting is World War II Britain. "Uncle Screwtape" says it this way:

"Let [your patient] begin by treating … Patriotism or Pacifism as part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the 'cause,' in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favour of the British war-effort or of Pacifism.

Note the progression: first, politics is part of religion. Then, politics is the most important part of religion. Then, religion becomes part of politics. It's genius.

To be clear, Lewis never advises that Christians ought abandon political engagement or political causes. He does, however, warn just how easily the enemy can use political engagement to confuse what are ends and what are means. Or, to use language we often employ at the Colson Center, when it comes politics, especially the high-stakes kind that defines the current climate, American Christians have a history of losing the Story in the chaos of the moment.

America is worth protecting and preserving, and Christians should always side with what is good, even if flawed. We have much to steward, including the historic recognition of God-given rights, a system of government designed to protect those rights, a Constitution that prioritizes our allegiance to God over any allegiance to the state, and a history of men and women whom God used, within the framework of that freedom, to spark revival, to confront our national sins, to secure civil rights, to found Christian institutions, and to send missionaries around the world.

However, as we rightly acknowledge the ways in which America has been a blessing for the Church, we can never confuse one for the other. It is the Church whose future is secure. It is to the Head of the Church that our allegiance ultimately and exclusively belongs. The Kingdom of God is the end of all of human history. It, and only it, can ever claim our highest loyalties.

Redirecting our loyalties is more tempting than we often care to admit in a context in which more and more of daily life is politicized, a reality that simultaneously reveals deep flaws in our current social order and elevates the stakes of each subsequent election. Whenever and wherever political realities invade spaces that properly belong to family, to community, to friendship, and to religion, Americans should push back.

For the Christian, however, the stakes are even higher. We have embraced Christ, who offers more than personal salvation. He offers a Kingdom that will have no end. He is not less than our personal Savior, but He is certainly more. He is the King. His throne is not threatened or vulnerable.

Loyalties, Lewis understood, are not lost in grand ways. Politics claims them in more subtle ways. As Uncle Screwtape wrote:

"Once you have made the World an end, and faith as a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours."

Chuck Colson famously said that salvation will never come on Air Force One. Neither will, for that matter, the antiChrist. The rule and reign of Jesus Christ does not stand or fall on this or any election. Rather, we see this moment, even this political moment that holds so much consequence for our nation, in light of what is ultimately true: Christ is risen! Christ is Lord! Christ is making all things new!

By all means, we ought labor and canvas and advocate and persuade to the best of our ability. We ought want the true and good to win the day on Tuesday. But we will not serve this moment or any righteous cause well unless we keep certain things straight. We must not confuse the end with means. We must not confuse the King of Heaven and earth with the princes of this world. We must not confuse the potential of politics with the hope of resurrection.