Breakpoint

During a recent prayer gathering on the National Mall, Terry Beatley, a commissioned Colson Fellow and president of a pro-life organization called the Hosea Initiative, reminded the crowd of a story Chuck Colson told in a BreakPoint commentary 25 years ago.

The story, of how God changed the heart of one of our nation's most notorious abortionists, is about as dramatic of a conversion as Chuck's was. Yet, it came in the wake of one of the greatest defeats pro-lifers had suffered since the Roe v. Wade decision. Here's what Chuck wrote, in a commentary entitled "The Ultimate Victory."

"I was [recently] invited to witness a baptism in the sacristy chapel of Saint Patrick's cathedral in New York City. About 80 of us sat in a semicircle waiting for John Cardinal O'Connor to arrive.

"While waiting, I couldn't help but think back to last fall and the Senate's attempt to override President Clinton's veto of the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act--an attempt that failed. I remember walking the Senate corridors that day, looking for senators and pleading with them to vote to override.

"One of my most dramatic memories," Chuck continued, "happened while I was sitting in the Senate gallery, listening to the debate over whether it should be legal to commit infanticide--to kill babies already three-quarters born. The senators fell silent for a moment, and just as they did, a baby's cry pierced the silence. A poignant reminder to both sides of what was at stake that day.

"After the vote I walked down to the Senate reception room and saw the grinning, almost cheering, crowd of abortion supporters. There was Kate Michelman, president of the National Abortion Rights Action League, surrounded by a crowd of people beaming and congratulating each other. They'd won; they'd scored a tremendous victory for the pro-abortionists. They'd stopped the bill."

Chuck continued: "Scenes of that day kept flashing through my mind as I sat in that dimly lit chapel at Saint Patrick's. Why? Because the candidate for baptism was none other than Bernard Nathanson, one of the abortion industry's greatest leaders, a man who personally presided over some 75,000 abortions, including the abortion of his own child.

"I watched as Nathanson walked to the altar. What a moment. Just like the first century--a Jew coming forward in the catacombs to meet Christ. And his sponsor accompanying him to the altar was Joan Andrews. Ironies abound. Joan is one of the pro-life movement's most outspoken warriors, a woman who spent five years in prison for her pro-life activities.

"… just above Cardinal O'Connor was a cross. As I reflected on the day when infanticide could not be stopped by the United States Senate, I realized that I was witnessing, this day, the victory. I looked at that cross and realized again that what the Gospel teaches is true: In Christ is the victory. He has overcome the world, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against His church.

"We might have taken a beating in the Senate on partial-birth abortion, but only temporarily. Because there at the altar was a man, who spent three decades in the satanic world of abortion, joyfully accepting forgiveness in Christ.

"And there were 80 people huddled in the catacombs of Saint Patrick's Cathedral, celebrating a victory Kate Michelman could do nothing about: the triumph of the Gospel over evil."

"This," Chuck concluded, "is the way the abortion war will ultimately be won: through Jesus Christ changing hearts, one by one. No amount of political force, no government, no laws, no army of Planned Parenthood workers, can ever stop that. It is the one thing absolutely invincible.

"That simple baptism, held without fanfare in the basement of a great cathedral, is a reminder that a holy Baby, born in a stable 20 centuries ago, defies the wisdom of man. He cannot be defeated."

Those are the words from Chuck Colson from 1996. Amen.

The highest-paid earner on YouTube isn't old enough to get a driver's license. He's nine. His name is Ryan, and his channel made 26-million dollars last year. In fact, two of the top three global earners on YouTube last year are under 10 years old. The third-highest earner was a six-year-old Russian girl, who bought in 18-million dollars.

Recently, lawmakers in France passed a bill that contained similar labor protections for child social media as for child actors and models. While protecting kids is always laudable, it feels a bit strange calling this new law a "win."

Several months ago in a BreakPoint commentary, we discussed a teenage pop music star named Billie Eilish, who swept the 2020 Grammy Awards. Our concerns about how Eilish has been exploited to make money apply here, too. When childhoods are directed toward building media empires, young YouTube stars and elementary-aged social media influencers earn money by broadcasting their lives online and charging money for ad placement, all of this enabled, of course, by their parents and our society.

An especially weird but largely unquestioned societal norm is revealed by all of this. Our culture idolizes agency, justifying most anything by the capacity to act according to one's will. All of our postmodern moral claims about sexuality hinge on agency. If an encounter was consensual, it was ok. If a baby is wanted, then it's a baby. If couple wants to stay married, they should. If they don't, they shouldn't. No other questions need to be asked.

However, does anyone actually believe a six-year-old girl who thinks she's just playing at the park with her dad but who's actually being broadcast to millions of subscribers online has agency? Is it even possible for her to realize she's the star of a kindergarten version of "The Truman Show?"

Of course not. Kids have no concept of the dangers that kind of publicity, not to mention money, can pose for her personal or relational well-being. We only need check in on Corey Feldman and Brittney Spears to see what should be obvious. The people meant to protect them aren't French lawmakers concerned about their "workload," as noble as that intention is. The people meant to protect them are their parents.

Still, the problem created is two-pronged. On the other side of the camera pointed directly in the faces of celebrity kids are other kids who are obsessively consuming their content and sold on a wrong idea of what life ultimately is all about.

Even more, a new Netflix documentary reveals just how much the success of social media companies hinges on our loss of agency. In "The Social Dilemma," a handful of Silicon Valley engineers and former social media executives describe how successfully algorithms keep users on their sites for as long as possible. The five videos that pop up in "Up Next!" column on YouTube are generated by an algorithm built by people who are trained in human psychology and determine what will interest you. The next video plays automatically. Intending to watch just one, we watch dozens.

While algorithms custom sell videos, artificial intelligence can create them. Writing in Medium, James Bridle describes the infiltration of bot-created videos for kids on YouTube. Bots determine what videos kids are watching, and then create mash-ups of images, songs, and buzzword hashtags to keep them watching.

No amount of gatekeepers or regulators can keep out those with nefarious intent, including those who create videos of lovable cartoon characters doing horrifying things. The New York Times covered this dangerous phenomenon a few years ago in a piece with the headline "On YouTube Kids, Startling Videos Slip Past Filters." One tampered-with video featuring kids' cartoon character Peppa Pig being literally tortured by her dentist showed up on YouTube's front page when users typed in a few basic search terms. YouTube, thankfully, found out and removed it.

At the very least, parents must diligently monitor what their kids watch online. However, we must also diligently push back on those parts of our digital culture that go largely unquestioned. Culture is most powerful, not where it is the loudest, but in what it normalizes: screen time, worldview messages, the inept concept of consent, and, yes, child celebrityism.

Children bear the image of God. They exist because He loves them, not so they can fulfill the desires of their parents or internet consumers. No French law or regulatory board at YouTube headquarters can replace a parent who simply pays attention. Let's be one of those.

Bari Weiss, who recently resigned in protest from the New York Times, has just published a shocking piece in Tablet, warning of a "danger, this one from the left… one that has attained cultural dominance, capturing America's elites and our most powerful institutions."

"I am here to ring the alarm," writes Weiss. "I'm here to say: Do not be shocked anymore… It's time to accept reality, if we want to have any hope of fixing it." Weiss describes a growing and institutionally enforced anti-Semitism, and proceeds to list a series of incidents that she says cannot be accurately understood as isolated, but instead as an essential and insidious component of the new liberalism, a "mixture of postmodernism, postcolonialism, identity politics, neo-Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and the therapeutic mentality."

Writing from the left, Weiss' diagnosis is not exactly a Christian one. Yet, what she describes is a powerful cultural undercurrent already felt by Christians such as Jack Phillips and Baronelle Stutzman and will most likely face Christians and Christian institutions in the near future. It's one thing when our most deeply held beliefs are thought to be wrong and antiquated. It's another when they are seen as evil, with no place in modern society.

It's a pessimistic view, to be sure, but we are not powerless.

In his final essay to the Russian people before his exile from his home nation, Alexander Solzhenitsyn offered a way forward. The essay is titled "Live Not By Lies," and I am indebted to my friend Rod Dreher for pointing me to this essay in his new book by the same title.

According to Solzhenitsyn, we must, at the very least, commit ourselves to "personal non-participation in lies."

Though lies may conceal everything, though lies may control everything, we should be obstinate about this one small point: let them be in control but without any help from any of us… It is the easiest thing for us to do and the most destructive for the lies. Because when people renounce lies it cuts short their existence.

Even if, Solzhenitsyn continued, "we do not march into the squares and shout the truth out loud… let us refuse to say what we do not think…let us each make a choice: whether to remain consciously a servant of falsehood…or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect from one's children and contemporaries."

Such a person, Solzhenitsyn wrote:

• will not sign, write or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth;
• will not utter such a phrase neither in private conversation nor in public, neither on his own behalf nor at the prompting of someone else, neither in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, nor as an actor;
• will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea in which he can see a distortion of the truth, whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science or music;
• will not cite out of context, either orally or in writing, a single quotation to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not completely share the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue;
• will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations and meetings if they are contrary to his desire;
• will immediately walk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda;
• will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed.

While these are not "all possible and necessary ways of avoiding lies," wrote Solzhenitsyn, "whoever begins to cleanse himself will easily apply the cleansing pattern to other cases." And then he warns,

"It will not be the same for everybody at first. Some will lose their jobs. But there are no loopholes… Either truth or falsehood: towards spiritual independence or towards spiritual servitude. If we are too frightened, then we should stop complaining that we are being suffocated. We are doing this to ourselves…"

Solzhenitsyn's prophetic voice is one of four that we are featuring in our upcoming short course, "How Four Christians from History Confronted Cultural Chaos." The course began yesterday, but recordings are available on demand for anyone who registers. Sign up at breakpoint.org.

John and Shane address the issue of racial care in our churches. A listener's church is teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT) to help heal. John is quick to note that Christians should have commitment to their church and to addressing the issues that arise. He and Shane point out why CRT is problematic for Christians and provide context on how to approach an issue when a church uses the world's tools to try to fix the problem of sin.

Another listener asked a question related to the sexual revolution. Are women and children really disproportionately affected by the sexual revolution? John pulls out a Margaret Meade quote, stating that a primary role of a society is to find a proper place for men. While not agreeing with Meade's worldview, John provides the listener a context to understand the broken promises of Margaret Sanger's sexual revolution, that women would be liberated and children would finally have happy parents. 

To close Shane engages a question the pair left us with last week. The question from a listener who asks about morality and where it comes from. John and Shane address an atheistic perspective and what evolutionary morality leads to. John does a quick survey of transhumanism and the goal of evolution as the pair provide helpful frameworks for us to engage challenging questions on where morality comes from and how we use it.

Resources:

I have a Dream Speech - August 28, 1963

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

The Real War on Women - Sexual Revolution Effect on Women

The Family Isn't Obsolete - Sexual Revolution Effect on Children

According to recent survey, nearly a third of self-described evangelicals do not believe that Jesus Christ is truly God. Arianism, as it turns out, is a heresy that plagues multiple generations of the Church, not just the one of the fourth century.

Well, over and over the Church has, in various times and ways, ruled that some beliefs are not acceptable alternatives within Christianity. Adherents are, in fact, outsiders to the faith. For example, nearly 100 years ago, in a book entitled Christianity and Liberalism, Presbyterian scholar J. Gresham Machen argued, in an extensive scholarly treatment, that liberal Christianity was not a version of the one, true faith handed down once and for all to the saints. Liberalism was, he argued, a completely different religion from Christianity.

The Liberal Christianity of Machen's day focused on a social-reform agenda, fueled by feelings and informed by secular thought, barely draped in religious language. The God it preached was not sovereign over creation and providential over the affairs of men; did not really come in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ, who did not really perform miracles or physically rise from the dead. The Bible was not really the fundamental and decisive revelation of God, nor the final authoritative source for morality, but must be understood according to our evolving scientific knowledge and political agendas.

Today, there is also an effort to update Christianity, to adapt and re-form it according to the spirit of the age. From church pulpits to the Christian blogosphere, from once-reliable Christian publishing houses to the campuses of Christian colleges that are Christian in name only, from beautiful and historic churches decorated with gay pride flags and pastored by ordained ministers who "bless" abortion clinics to the "exvangelicals" who become self-styled spokespersons for "what Jesus would really say and do," there is, in our day too, a Christianity that is no Christianity at all.

Devoid of the truth claims and moral teachings of historic Christianity, what is today called "progressive Christianity" is not another side of the same coin. It is a different religion founded on a different worldview.

Machen's crucial insights were presented in a largely academic book written for a largely academic audience. Since the progressive Christianity of our day is far more populist than the liberalism of his, I am pleased that a new book, theologically robust and very accessible, is now available to address the ideas deceiving so many Christians. The book is titled Another Gospel: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity.

Alisa Childers grew up in the church and eventually became a member of the very successful Christian pop group "Zoe Girl." Despite that pedigree, as she told my colleague Shane Morris on his Upstream podcast, she was completely unprepared when she learned her pastor was a skeptic, and confronted her with questions and counterclaims about the reliability of Scripture, the morality of the atonement, whether God answers prayer, or cares about our sexual choices, or even exists.

Flailing in doubt, Childers went to work to find answers, studying Scripture, church history, great apologists for the Christian faith (past and present), and critiques of the claims of progressivism. In the process, she found that her beliefs had rock-solid foundations, and answers to the toughest questions.

A "progressive Christianity" that denies the divinity of Christ, treats His incarnation and resurrection from the dead as myths, and reimagines human nature away from God's created design and according to sexual libertinism isn't just another take on the faith. It's another gospel entirely.

Childers' book Another Gospel is an incredibly valuable resource. Every week it seems, I talk with pastors, youth pastors, parents, and grandparents watching the next generation buy into a false gospel and questioning the historic truth claims of Christianity. Using the framework of Childers' story, Another Gospel provides a thorough, rigorous, and entirely readable take-down of progressive Christianity, and a reliable introduction to the non-negotiables of the Christian faith.

During October, we'll send you a copy of that book, "Another Gospel," with your gift of any amount to BreakPoint and the Colson Center. Come to BreakPoint.org to get your copy.

This Breakpoint was originally aired on October 9th, 2020

Shortly after her birth in September 2019, a baby girl, identified in Idaho court records as "H.V.," was removed from parental custody. The state asked the girl's great-grandparents, the Blaises, to consider caring for her. The Blaises agreed and began the process of becoming licensed foster-care providers in the state of Washington, where they live.

In Washington, becoming a foster parent requires more than proving financial capacity and the ability to provide emotional support. It requires agreement with the state on what it means to care for foster children "developing, discovering, or identifying themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning." So, in the process of becoming licensed to care for their own great-granddaughter, the Blaises were asked to react to hypotheticals such as "what if H.V. wanted to undergo hormone therapy to change her sexual appearance," or "wanted to dress like a boy and be called by a boy's name." Again, remember H. V. is one-year-old.

The Blaises are devout Seventh-Day Adventists. They told the licenser that "their Christian faith obliges them to love and support all people," especially "children who feel isolated or uncomfortable," but in the "unlikely event H.V. may develop gender dysphoria . . . would provide her with loving, medically and therapeutically appropriate care that is consistent with both then-accepted medical principles and (their) beliefs as Seventh-day Adventists and Christians." Remember, this is a hypothetical. And, remember, H.V. is one, and in need of a family.

Expressing alarm, the state licenser told the Blaises their application would likely be denied since "their responses conflicted with the Department's policy to support LGBTQ+ children." Again, no one knows if H.V. will identify as LGBTQ+.

Thankfully, last week, federal court judge Salvador Mendoza, an Obama appointee, ruled in the Blaises favor, effectively blocking the state from automatically banning those with religiously based objections to department policy from becoming foster parents.

The department's policies, wrote Mendoza, only burdens "potential caregivers with sincere religious beliefs," since those with religious beliefs are likely to object to the policy.  Even more, these policies probably "favor certain secular viewpoints over certain religious viewpoints," which is also a violation of religious liberties. Even giving the licensors the freedom to ask additional questions, suggested Mendoza, could "preclude people with certain religious beliefs from participating in foster care."

Judge Mendoza's ruling was not only strong, it clarified how the state is expected to handle the religious freedom of its citizens. While not rejecting the state's interests when it comes to LGBTQ kids, regulations must be applied in a neutral manner. In this case, clearly, they were not. As Mendoza put it, "The regulations and policies disproportionately exclude persons who observe certain religious faiths from qualifying as foster parents based solely on speculative future conduct."

Mendoza's emphasis on the lack of neutrality relies on the Supreme Court's ruling in Employment Division v. Smith. Washington State was required to prove that its regulations not only served a compelling state interest, but that they did so in the least intrusive means possible. Obviously, in this case, they did not.

Of course, if their past behavior and disdain for religious freedom (especially in the Baronelle Stutzman case) is any indication, the state of Washington will likely appeal this ruling. Even if upheld, Washington may try to find a bureaucratic way to deny the Blaises a foster care license. After all, government officials so easily "alarmed" about religious belief tend to be a vindictive bunch. Just ask Colorado cake designer Jack Philips.

By the way, Washington's foster care system has been described as "dysfunctional," and its difficulties retaining qualified foster parents are well-documented. Turning away people whose faith offends the state, when their faith is what motivates them to provide care for needy children in the first place, makes no sense. Turning them away based on the speculative future conduct of both the parent and the child makes even less sense.

Children have long been victims of the sexual revolution. Thankfully, Judge Mendoza refused to victimize little H.V.

Ideas have consequences that impact humans. Ideas either support God’s design or stand opposed. Ben and Kirsten Watson are passionate to push to unite our culture under God's design. The Watsons' latest Divided Hearts of America interviews influential scientists, politicians, and social influencers. The pair direct viewers through an important conversation dealing with the effects of Abortion on the legal, social, and racial fabrics of society.

In the Break Point Podcast this week John pushes Ben to take us into the heart behind the film. The pair discuss the importance of acknowledging the effects downstream when social structures are altered from God’s design.

Can you remember a time when a Supreme Court nomination hearing wasn't a blood sport? How has approving the nomination of a Supreme Court justice become such a partisan affair? John Stonestreet and Shane Morris provide their insights--as well as their thoughts on Merriam-Webster changing the definition of "preference" within 24 hours of the bogus dust-up over whether or not people choose their orientation.

Also on today's episode: A conservative Christian and a liberal question have a civil discussion about God and LGBTQs. But at what point does liberal Christianity cease to be Christian at all? And why does the scientific establishment hate, just hate, Intelligent Design theory?

John and Shane wrap up the episode with their recommendations of the week: Trevin Wax's new book, Rethink Yourself, and the Colson Center's next Short Course: "How Four Christians from History Confronted Cultural Chaos"

Another Gospel by Alisa Childers, available with your next gift of any amount to BreakPoint and the Colson Center

Why Jesus Proves Progressive Christianity Another Gospel – Colson Center Webinar with Alisa Childers

“How Four Christians from History Confronted Cultural Chaos,” register for the next Colson Center Short Course

Sen. John Kennedy questions Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, You Tube

“Why Progressive Christianity Is Another Gospel,” by John Stonestreet, BreakPoint

LGBTQ+ Against God’s Design? Progressive VS Conservative Christian, You Tube

“Intelligent Design Passes Peer Review,” by John Stonestreet and Shane Morris, BreakPoint

Rethink Yourself: The Power of Looking Up Before Looking In, by Trevin Wax

In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins defined biology as “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Though our generation’s arch-atheist recognizes the tendency of human intuition to attribute things wonderful and complex to the work of a designer, he goes on to argue that life is not designed at all. His prior commitment to a worldview that understands the universe to be the product of eons of accidents and natural selection only imitates design is reflected in the book’s title: the blind watchmaker.

For a long time now, the scientific establishment has shared that assumption. In classrooms and peer-reviewed journals, only naturalistic explanations for life are allowed. The U.S. National Academy of Sciences open admits this presumption, insisting that “creationism, intelligent design, and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life or of species are not science because they are not testable by the methods of science.” Of course, that assumption is itself is not testable by the methods of science.

But what if the claims of design are testable? What if our intuition that paramecia and porpoises and people are too exquisitely complex to have arisen by mindless, purposeless forces of nature could be expressed in, say, mathematical terms?

The authors of a groundbreaking new paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology argue precisely this. In it, Steinar Thorvaldsen of Norway’s University of Tromsø and Ola Hössjer of Stockholm University ask a simple question: Can we detect “fine-tuning” in biology as we can in physics? In other words, do the chemistry and construction of living things give Darwinian evolution any “wiggle room” for mistakes and do-overs, or are they precise? Will they, like a puzzle piece, only fit in one place, one way?   

Employing a lot of math, math too complicated for me to understand or articulate, the authors answer the question. Their use and definition of “fine-tuning” will sound familiar to anyone familiar with the language and work of the intelligent design movement. Something in biology can be described as “fine-tuned,” they say, if it is “unlikely to have occurred by chance” and if it conforms to “an independent or detached specification.”

As an article over at Evolution News points out, this is nothing other than what ID theorist William Dembski has called “specified complexity.” In fact, the authors of the paper published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology even cite Dembski by name. As if that weren’t risky enough, they also invoke biochemist Michael Behe’s concept of “irreducible complexity” as a measure of the fine-tuning in life, credit him by name, and mentioned other Intelligent Design notables Douglas Axe and Stephen Meyer.

These Scandinavian scientists offer, for the first time, a statistical framework for determining whether certain features in living things are fine-tuned or were “evolve-able.” Using this method, they demonstrate how functional proteins, cellular networks, and the biochemical machines found in cells exhibit evidence of “design.” 

“Fine-tuning,” the authors say, “is a clear feature of biological systems. Indeed, fine-tuning is even more extreme in biological systems than in inorganic systems.” And, in a shot over establishment’s bow, they say bluntly: “It is detectable within the realm of scientific methodology.”

Not only were their arguments compelling enough to be published in a major scientific journal, it challenges the long-held assumptions that design cannot be tested using scientific methods. Of course, the real reason design is so controversial within the scientific establishment is because of a deeply embedded and unscientific pre-commitment to the idea that every effect in nature must be explained by causes within nature. As expected, under pressure from critics who were unhappy about the fact this paper was published, the Journal of Theoretical Biology issued a rebuttal, (and a weak one at that), to Thorvaldsen’s and Hössjer’s paper.

Of course, that’s a sign of the vulnerability of materialism, which is most vulnerable when scientists arrive at the edges of nature and find it pointing beyond itself. Those committed to fine tuning out the ever-increasing evidence of the world’s fine tuning will demand that papers like this never make it past peer review. Those willing to follow the evidence where it leads will find themselves in a small but growing company of scientists who find their observations are confirming their intuitions.

Once “Harry Potter” author J. K. Rowling became persona non grata over her stance on the transgender issue, progressive writers are left with only one literary reference: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Even before Amy Coney Barrett was picked to replace Justice Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, opinion writers compared her to the misogynistic leaders in Atwood’s dystopia because of her views on abortion. Not a one of these opinion pieces references any book predating the 1980s.

The Great Books, argues Luther Ray Abel, have been largely abandoned. And, our culture-wide unfamiliarity with the great books can be directly attributed it our culture-wide unfamiliarity with the Good Book. An undergrad from a small liberal-arts school, Abel is consistently surprised that his peers do not know even the best-known accounts in the Bible. “When a class must stop at almost every biblical reference in the poetry of Emily Dickinson—so that a student or the professor can explain who John the Baptist was or why the Book of Revelation is kind of a big deal—the quality and pace of instruction decline.”

The Bible, of course, looms large in Western literature. Augustine, Chaucer, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Melville, Mark Twain, and even (ironically) Margaret Atwood allude to the Bible in their metaphors, turns of phrase, and portrayals of the human condition. In fact, the Bible is like a key that unlocks many of these works. To read and understand them requires some basic knowledge of the Bible.

In fact, the English language itself has been significantly shaped by Holy Scripture. Several years back, Anglican minister Glen Scrivener delivered an incredible spoken-word poem on YouTube to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. In it, Scrivener highlighted the many phrases owed to that historic translation, such as, “A law unto themselves,” “A man after his own heart,” “A thorn in the flesh,” “All things to all men,” “Eat, drink, and be merry,” “An eye for an eye,” and “By the skin of my teeth.” These familiar expressions, used countless times by authors, poets, politicians, leaders, and story tellers of various kinds, are Biblical expressions.

Think of the references to biblical stories and concepts still common to our speech. “That guy has ‘the patience of Job,’” we say.  “That rule is ‘written in stone.’” “I’d like to ‘extend an olive branch’ to my opponent.” Or even, (and especially apropos to 2020), “This year has been ‘apocalyptic.’”

The Bible is the beating heart of Western language and literature. Our lack of Biblical knowledge both reflects and reinforces the sort of “chronological snobbery” that dominates higher education and public discourse today.

The quick and easy remedy to this lack of knowledge, the way to open the closed door to the past, is simple: Know the Bible. Crack the cover open, absorb God’s words, let them work on our hearts and minds. Scripture is inexhaustible, with relevance and application that never run out. It’s like a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim. Like a certain Lion you may have read about, the Bible has this way of growing bigger as we grow older.

God has given us the gift of others who have invested their lives in understanding Scripture. Their works can help saturate us is Scripture, from Gordon Fee’s How to Read the Bible for All It’s Worth, to Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book, to The Big Picture Story Bible for kids.

One of the most helpful resources in understanding Scripture is actually on YouTube. The Bible Project’s collection of beautifully-illustrated explainer videos walks through books of the Bible, the Big Story of the Bible, and essential themes of the Bible. Together, the videos provide a tremendous course of study in this Book of books.

Though an appeal to Biblical study may fall on deaf ears in our culture (as will that reference), we can increase our knowledge of the Bible and, by extension, the reach and impact of Western literature. At the very least, we’ll have better references for current events than Margaret Atwood.