Breakpoint

In what will become a regular feature of the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet and Shane Morris answer your questions.

This week: What about SOGI laws, and what's the problem with Christians doing business with sinners? Besides praying and educating, how to Christians turn the tide of what seems to be a Marxist-inspired revolution in our country?  How are we to pray for the sick and dying when asked to--what about "Thy will be done?"

To submit your questions to John and Shane for  upcoming episodes, visit us on Facebook or contact us through BreakPoint.org.

“The Roots of Our Present Crisis,” a “Truth Love Together” video presentation by Os Guinness

“End of Life Care,” a Colson Center Short Course webinar with Ben Mitchell

“Dying Well in an Age of Denial,” by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint

Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, by Cornelius Plantinga, available in the Colson Center online bookstore

Knowing God, by J. I. Packer, available in the Colson Center online bookstore

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the recent "cancelling" of Margaret Sanger by part of Planned Parenthood, the organization she founded. While many debate whether she was a racist herself, her involvement in the eugenics movement and the lethal legacy of Planned Parenthood in minority communities make such questions practically moot.

Also, John shares the story of his friend, the late Mike Adams. Mourning the fact that for far too many, Adams will only be known by a conveniently select number of tweets which his ideological opponents wish to share. What they won't see is how his students from across the socio-political spectrum loved and respected this man of courage and conviction.

Finally, Shane and John talk about the defiance of state law by John MacArthur's church in California, noting that while they may have questions about MacArthur's wording, they sympathize with the frustration of the arbitrary and inconsistent legal reactions to the COVID crisis by state and municipal governments.

A recent BBC headline claimed the world is facing a “jaw-dropping” global crash. Not an economic crash, mind you, but a crash in the birthrate. Citing a new study by University of Washington, the BBC article claims that “Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.” In fact, twenty-three countries, including Spain, Portugal, Japan and South Korea, could see their populations cut in half by 2100.

The same study found that, between 1950 and 2017, the global fertility rate went from 4.7 children per women to 2.4 and is expected to drop below 1.7 children per woman by 2100. For reference, a fertility rate of 2.1 children per woman is required to maintain a stable population.

A few suggested explanations for the drop, according to the BBC article include, “more women in education and work,” and “greater access to contraception,” which leads “to women choosing to have fewer children.” Of course, the BBC was careful to offer the required nod to climate change, also suggesting that fewer people would result in lower carbon emissions and therefore help heal the planet.

In truth, however, the scenario is far from rosy.

"I think it's incredibly hard to think this through and recognize how big a thing this [population crash] is,” says University of Washington Professor Christopher Murray. “It's extraordinary, we'll have to reorganize societies."

In his book, What to Expect When No One Is Expecting, Weekly Standard digital editor Jonathan Last suggests that any country in which citizens aren’t having enough babies can look forward to long-term economic stagnation and social deterioration. After all, children are the economic engines of the future, both tomorrow’s labor force and tomorrow’s consumers.

Professor Murray described it this way to the BBC: “Who pays tax in a massively aged world? Who pays for healthcare for the elderly? Who looks after the elderly? Will people still be able to retire from work?”

And those are just the immediate concerns. As journalist Philip Longman explained years ago, declining populations and shrinking economies create a downwardly spiraling vicious circle: “As governments raise taxes on a dwindling working-age population to cover the growing burdens of supporting the elderly, young couples may conclude they are even less able to afford children…” Which in turn results in the kind of graying, despairing populations we see today in places like Japan and Europe, where some governments actually pay couples to get pregnant.

At the same time, the BBC notes, the population of sub-Saharan Africa will triple by the end of the century. Developed nations will be forced to open their borders and perhaps even compete for migrant workers. Given the human propensity for tribalism and racism, let’s just say this will could create significant “social pressures.”

Writing at the Gospel Coalition, Philip Jenkins describes yet another vicious circle that entwines a civilization dealing with an increase in secularization and a decline in fertility. Increased fertility is often associated with traditional religious beliefs, but as more believers accept secular ideas about sex, family, and the purpose of life, their connection to religious institutions weakens. Shrinking religious institutions, in turn, leads to increased secularization.

Babies have this unique ability to make adults care about the future, and even think beyond their own lifetimes. Babies incline people to save, invest, sacrifice and, most importantly, defer gratification. Even when it comes to the environment, the best reason to steward the planet is so our children and grandchildren can enjoy its fruits and grandeur.

Christians should always encourage those government policies that make it easier for couples to “choose life,” but we also need to help people think more clearly about the whole issue. First, we have to debunk the over-population myth that should have died decades ago. The latest What Would You Say video tackles this question. Watch it, learn the key points, and share it with your friends and family.

Second, Christian must take the lead in taking seriously God’s never-revoked command to be fruitful and multiply, and the Psalmist exhortation that children are a heritage from the Lord, and Jesus command to let the little children come to Jesus, which means there must be children in the first place.

What greater gift can we offer this world and the world to come, other than Jesus Himself, than future generations of image bearers?

Last week in Germany, vandals desecrated dozens of graves in the oldest Jewish Cemetery in Europe. Some of the stones vandalized date back to the 11th century.

Years ago, one of my colleagues visited Babi Yar, a ravine just outside the city center of Kiev in the Ukraine. There, in late September 1941, Nazi soldiers marched 34-thousand Jewish men, women, and children, before shooting them and burying in the dirt. On the day my colleague visited, someone had spray-painted a swastika on the memorial at the entrance to the ravine.

Right now, as our nation has a hard but necessary conversation about racism, reckoning especially with the often unjust and hateful treatment of African Americans, the Church must reaffirm that ethnic partiality of any kind is antithetical to the Gospel, which begins by recognizing all humans as made in the image of God. And, if we are to be consistent in upholding human dignity, we must say (unfortunately, again) that anti-Semitism is, still, a very real and growing evil. 

Though it often doesn’t receive the attention or the unanimous condemnation that other forms of racism do, the Anti-Defamation League reported 21-hundred incidents of assault, vandalism, violence or harassment against Jewish people in America in 2019. That’s the highest number reported since they started keeping track in 1979.

Less than two years ago, an American neo-Nazi committed the bloodiest attack on Jewish people in our country’s history, when he stormed Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue and opened fire, killing eleven people and wounding six. Less than a year later, another gunman charged a synagogue just north of San Diego on the last day of Passover, killing one woman and wounding three others.

And, since the beginning of the Coronavirus crisis, we’ve seen anti-Semitism hit a strange new cultural stride. Global pandemics, it seems, inspire conspiracy theories, and wherever there are conspiracy theories, there’s anti-Semitism. I can’t begin to explain it, but it’s true.

Earlier this month, Louis Farrakhan, the disgraced leader of a dangerous political group calling itself the Nation of Islam, called Jewish people Satan and accused Bill Gates of plotting world domination through a Coronavirus vaccine.

Though many would dismiss Farrakhan as crazy, he enjoys support by more than a few in the mainstream. Shortly after Farrakhan’s crazy speech, NFL star DeSean Jackson posted a video of it, offering his support of Farrakhan’s delusional claims. National leaders of the Women’s March Movement and other celebrities with sizeable platforms have also openly supported Farrakhan, and they’re not alone.

Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, for example, openly advocate for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, Movement, an international effort to boycott products made by Israeli companies in an open effort to hurt Israel’s economy. The BDS movement is founded on the principle that Israel, as a nation, has no right to exist.

Like any form of racism, I find anti-Semitism baffling. What I mean is that racism is arbitrary and irrational, but a hatred that’s persisted for this long and to this degree has supernatural roots. Biblically, it makes sense the Enemy would despise the Jewish people. God chose the nation of Israel through which Jesus would come and bring redemption to all nations. After targeting the Jews for centuries before Christ, the enemy has even been successful, at times, in turning the hearts of Christians against the Jews.

As long as the Jewish people endure, so will hatred of them. If our surrounding culture is going to turn a blind eye to it, or even openly support it, somehow without fear of cultural cancellation, the Church must lead in condemning it. After all, in this moment of racial reckoning, to pretend anti-Semitism isn’t a pressing and current problem is to lose our moral authority to fight other forms of racism.

In a recent poignant piece condemning anti-Semitic comments made by a few African-American athletes and celebrities, former professional basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabaar put it succinctly: “If we’re going to be outraged by injustice, let’s be outraged by injustice against anyone.” Amen.

Election Day is only three months away. Perhaps even more so than most elections, this one will be in large part a referendum on competing visions of what America ought to be. And perhaps the greatest fault line is religion in public life. What role does faith have in American life, in American government and governance? Can a truly democratic republic survive without a "moral and religious people"? And what role did faith and the Bible play in the founding of the American order?

Today’s guest on the BreakPoint Podcast is Alan Crippen, the Chief of Exhibits, Programs, and Public Engagement for the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center. Dr.  Crippen makes the case that not only was the Christian faith integral to the founding of the American experiment, the Bible itself was one of its founding documents—and that faith, liberty, and justice are inextricably intertwined.

In 2021, the American Bible Society (which, by the way, was itself established by several of the founding fathers) will open the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center on Independence Mall in Philadelphia. Dr. Crippen gives us a preview of the exhibits and interactive, immersive experiences visitors can expect as they learn about the role of faith and liberty in founding of our nation.

Learn more about the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center

Receive your copy of Seeing Jesus from the East by Ravi Zacharias and Abdu Murray with your next gift of any amount to the Colson Center and BreakPoint

Earlier this month, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper made an announcement. Actually, he made more of a non-announcement: He wasn’t sure whether North Carolina schools would reopen this Fall.

A few hours later, the state government’s website, which handles parents’ applications to homeschool, crashed. According to the error message, the crash was “due to an overwhelming number of submissions.”

Like so many problems brought to the forefront by the COVID-19 pandemic, the schooling crisis doesn’t have an easy solution. (Last week, Governor Cooper gave schools “Plan B” and “Plan C” for reopening, but not, apparently, “Plan A.”)

Since the Spring, school officials have sounded the alarm on distance and digital learning, saying it’s “not enough.” At the end of May, Chicago Public Schools reported they had had zero contact with more than two-thousand students since schools had closed in March. This was after schools had sent more than 120-thousand laptops and tablets to kids’ homes. And, earlier this month, education officials in South Carolina said they’d lost contact with more than 16-thousand students. Similar anecdotes continue to emerge from other states. Announcing, as so many schools did in mid-March, that grades would be frozen for the year, probably didn’t help.

Meanwhile, many parents are also saying that online school, at least the kind hastily created of necessity this spring, is not working. Many are stuck juggling their own work-from-home jobs with their kids’ school needs, trying to share tech devices and limited bandwidth among multiple family members.

While some health and government officials warn that a return to five-day-a-week in-person school in the fall will be too risky, the Secretary of Education is pushing for reopening schools nationwide. It’s a high-stakes Catch-22.

This is the time for good-old-fashioned Christian innovation in education.

My friend Todd Marrah is the superintendent of Tree of Life Christian Schools in Columbus, Ohio. Because Tree of Life prioritizes smaller class sizes, they have the space inside their schools to allow kids to come back full-time in the fall while following strict social distancing guidelines. At the same time, some of Ohio’s public-school districts are planning for students to come back just two days a week - at most.

Of course, the pandemic and its shutdowns have caused real trouble for private and Christian schools. Most rely on donations and tuition to stay afloat, revenue streams that are strained for many. Some private schools, like six Catholic academies in Brooklyn and Queens alone, will close.

For those able to stay open, however, this is a moment for Christian education to shine brighter. Parents who didn’t consider private school in the past might now consider it. If they do, they should be pleased to find that these schools are more innovative and successful than they’re often portrayed to be. Yes, they lack government funds, but that comes with the freedom to try new things, to pursue what works and to leave behind what doesn’t. It also means they don’t have to include Planned Parenthood presentations to or the New York Times’ historically iffy and ideologically-motivated 1619 Project in their curriculum.

Tree of Life and many other schools I know of are already innovating. Parents can choose whether to send their kids to the classroom full-time this fall or to take advantage of a fully online curriculum.

Private schools have been serving and improving their communities for years. Maybe this unique challenge will allow them to demonstrate their value new and compelling ways. Maybe more states will adopt programs similar to the Empowerment Scholarship Accounts in Arizona, which allows parents to use their public school tax dollars to pay for private or home-schooling instead. 

Our friends at the Home School Legal Defense Association are also expecting a migration to homeschooling this fall among parents who hadn’t considered it before. Homeschooling is no small undertaking, and it’s not possible for everybody, but HSLDA’s website has great resources for families considering that option. They’re also keeping a helpful tally of the way different states are making homeschooling easier for families this coming year.

There is no doubt that this fall is going to be tough, for families, for teachers, for school administrators, for government officials, and for kids. Still, like every other curveball this pandemic has thrown at us, God isn’t surprised. Maybe He’s using this pandemic to use His people to start another educational renaissance.

Last week, Planned Parenthood of Greater New York announced that the name of the organization’s founder, Margaret Sanger, would be removed from its clinic. They also asked the city to rename a local street known as “Margaret Sanger Square.” Sanger is being cancelled because of her advocacy of eugenics, a movement that began in the early 1900s and promoted the idea that the human race could be “improved” by selective breeding.

Proponents of eugenics, like Sanger, wanted wealthy, healthy and strong people to have more babies, and poor, sick, disabled and minority people to have fewer (or no) babies. In 1939, in fact, Sanger and Planned Parenthood launched something called the Negro Project, whose aim was to  push birth control on black women.

Removing Margaret Sanger’s name from a building in New York only actually means something in a time like ours, of low-stakes, symbolic gestures like erasing a name or disinviting a controversial speaker to a university. It’s the very definition of virtue signaling, a word I hate but which aptly describes what Planned Parenthood is doing here: “cancelling” Margaret Sanger while still perpetrating the exact racist population control for which she is being cancelled.

We should take this about as seriously as a southern state that removed a Confederate Statue but still allowed slavery and public lynchings. Erasing Margaret Sanger’s name from a lobby means nothing for Planned Parenthood. And it costs them nothing. If they truly wanted to help African American communities, Planned Parenthood would cancel themselves and shut down.

An estimated 62-million babies have been killed by abortion since Roe v. Wade. While African Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, black babies account for nearly 40 percent of the abortions committed each year. Black moms are somewhere between three and five times more likely to have an abortion than white moms. In New York City, there are thousands more black babies aborted than are actually born each year.

Since the death of George Floyd, the book How to be an Anti-Racist, by activist and professor Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, has hit The New York Times Bestseller list. Kendi, who has been interviewed by Oprah, Stephen Colbert, and Brene Brown, defines racism as anything that, quote, “produces or sustains racial inequity,” Intention, says Kendi doesn’t matter. Only outcomes matter.

Kendi’s definition, though controversial, is widely accepted, especially among the more progressive voices of our society. In that case, is there a company or cultural institution more obviously and inherently racist than Planned Parenthood? Planned Parenthood was explicitly built upon and continues today to sustain racial inequity. There would be over 19 million more African American people in the world today if not for legalized abortion and Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood’s executives know that number. Their business model directly targets black and other minority women. In 2012, An organization called Protecting Black Life used U.S. Census Data to show that almost 80 percent of Planned Parenthood’s existing abortion clinics that year were located within two miles of a majority black or Hispanic neighborhood. Apparently, Margaret Sanger’s legacy remains integral to Planned Parenthood’s marketing strategy; that is, to kill the babies of poor, minority moms.

Of course, the women who walk into a Planned Parenthood don’t have the luxury of caring whose name is on the clinic’s letterhead. They are likely not thinking about Margaret Sanger or politics. They’re in crisis and looking for help. Too many are in poverty. Way too many are there because someone has pressured them into it. Too many face bleak healthcare outcomes, especially black mothers, who are still nearly three times as likely to die during pregnancy or childbirth as white mothers. 

The women who enter a Planned Parenthood are often frightened and alone. The very last thing they need is “help” from a systemically racist corporation whose hundreds of millions of dollars in profit each year depend almost entirely on killing their babies. Whether or not the founder’s name is on the door doesn’t make any difference at all.

The question most central to defining a worldview, other than “Who is God?” and “What does it mean to be human?” is “What’s really wrong with the world?” It’s a tricky question, because there are a lot of things wrong with the world. The question is, what is the core problem that needs to be addressed in the world, the root cause of evil and human suffering, and what solution can be offered to fix it?

For example, we should want to see justice flourish and racism of all kinds come to an end, especially in light of our nation’s history and evidence that our African American neighbors are not treated equally before the law. But not everyone who talks about ending racism and creating justice means the same thing.

For a growing number of people, including some Christians with good motives, these goals are shorthand for an ideology that divides instead of reconciles, that sees people as either oppressed or oppressor rather than as divine image bearers created from “one blood.”

The ideas of Critical Theory, especially since the horrific killing of George Floyd, have become a central part of our national conversation. Once largely limited to the academy, these ideas have trickled down the way ideas do, to the media, through popular culture, and into the cultural imagination. Even those not familiar with the term “critical theory” will likely recognize its central tenets.

Critical Theory originated with a group of political philosophers who applied Karl Marx’s ideas about economics to society as a whole, especially across additional categories of class distinction, such as race, sex, and gender identity. The result was an all-encompassing worldview that purported to reveal hidden power structures behind society’s problems and institutions, by dividing people along the lines of oppressed and oppressor.

As Colson Center Senior Fellow and historian Glenn Sunshine explained in a recent episode of The Theology Pugcast, Critical Theory, like the classical Marxism it borrows from, views human beings in purely materialist terms. So, according to Critical Theory our race, sexual orientation, gender identity aren’t mere aspects of who we are, they are our defining characteristics. In each of these areas, we are either part of oppressed groups or we are oppressors.

According to critical theory, the oppressed group automatically has moral authority, while the oppressor group does not. Someone who is a racial minority or a sexual minority of some kind is automatically a victim of oppression and has claims against oppressors and the unearned privilege that makes their life easier (and this part is critical) at the expense of their oppressed neighbors.

Overlooked in this analysis are individual choices and life situations, which often has a far greater impact on a person’s life. For example, whether or not a child grows up with a father is statistically more important than their ethnic identity. Other factors, such as religious commitment, education, sexual decisions, and family stability have profound power to shape the lives and futures as individuals, families, and whole communities.

Critical theory, however, ignores every other factor or squashes it into the oppressor-oppressed dynamic. This view distorts reality, and often turns on itself.

A recent article at Quillette described a Danish professor and critical theorist attacked by fellow critical theorists. They claimed his branch of Critical Theory was racist. This is no isolated case. Critical Theorists have produced scholarly articles and whole books claiming that everything from logic to math are tools of white, heteronormative oppression.

The problem, as is explained in a recent “What Would You Say” video, is that Critical Theory’s answer to the question “what’s wrong with the world” is just wrong. Specifically, critical theory gets the human condition wrong and the human problem wrong. As a result, its solutions are simplistic and, at times, dangerous. They’re not compatible with Christianity, and we should reject them.

Now, to be clear, I believe racism still plagues our country, and is embedded in the hearts of individuals and in institutions and systems. We can reach this conclusion by care, by listening, and by statistical data, not to mention from  how the Christian worldview describes the cause and condition of fallen humanity.

Too often, any attempt to listen and to engage the race issue is dismissed as critical theory. It’s not. At the same time, Critical Theory’s analysis and answers to the problem of racism violate what we know to be true about the human condition. Only the Biblical story frames for us human value, human sin, and human hope, which both allows us and calls us to confront racism wherever it rears its ugly head, without embracing a theory that sees people as nothing but their race.   

When college students get back to class, will  cancel culture be there waiting for them? According to the Chronicle for Higher Education, 57% of school's currently planned to hold in person classes this year. In other words, tens of thousands of students will be back on campus in a few short weeks.

The burning question on many people's minds is what our institutions of higher education are going to look like after this tumultuous spring and summer. Specifically will free speech for Christian students and faculty?

Joining Shane Morris on the BreakPoint Podcast is Dr. Corey Miller, President and CEO Ratio Christi, the nation's most prominent college apologetics ministry.

Ratio Christi website

“Why this well-known atheist professor invited a Christian apologist to class,” by Corey Miller, The College Fix

It's impossible to miss the battles being waged over biological sex and gender roles these days. Think of biological males competing in women's sports; or Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling coming under attack for insisting that womanhood is a biological reality.  How can we effectively address these and other issues surrounding womanhood with our daughters? What is God's view of all this?

With John Stonestreet out on travel this week, on this episode of "BreakPoint This Week," we want to introduce you to a new Colson Center resource, the Strong Women Podcast.  Hosts Sarah Stonestreet and Erin Kunkle ask questions about what it means to be a strong woman living out God’s design in this confused culture. 

Today, Sarah and Erin welcome apologist Jo Vitale of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, to talk about perceptions of women in the Old Testament, Jesus’s radical love and concern for women, and words of advice for parents and for young women themselves. You can learn more about Strong Women at strongwomen.colsoncenter.org.

The Strong Women Podcast with Sarah Stonestreet and Erin Kunkle