Breakpoint

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the horrible shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery by two men who decided to take what they thought to be justice into their own hands. Why did it take so long for charges to be filed? How do Christians use discernment when weighing the factors of race, of individual or systemic sin and injustice? Will justice be done in this case?

They also discuss the fawning media coverage of CNN's Anderson Cooper announcing he now has a baby. What the media and Cooper didn't bother to tell you is that he paid a woman (who will ever remain nameless to her child and the world) to use her womb to manufacture a child. John and Shane detail the serious ethical problems of commercial surrogacy--and urge Christians to pay attention.

“A Vigilante Killing in Georgia,” by David French, The Dispatch

“Anderson Cooper and the New Normal,” by John Stonestreet and Maria Baer, BreakPoint

The Four Loves, by C. S. Lewis, available at the BreakPoint online book store.

couple of weeks ago, a woman had a baby. Childbirth, of course, happens tens of thousands of times a day in the United States, but this baby was a product. A couple paid a doctor and an agency to secure the child. The mom’s relationship with the child is governed not by biology, but by contract, one with clauses and exceptions and conditions. A man who made no genetic contribution is being called the child’s other “father,” along with Anderson Cooper, a major media celebrity, which is why this baby’s birth made national headlines.

Cooper is a homosexual man. He and his partner hired a woman to be a surrogate; a practice increasingly common in the U.S. The headlines announcing the couple’s acquisition were universally fawning, as if this story carried none of the extraordinary details listed above at all: “Anderson Cooper talks first weekend as new Dad;” “Anderson Cooper announces birth of his son; urges people to hold on to ‘moments of joy.’”

None of these articles, in fact not a single one that I could find in any major publication anywhere, even hinted that there might be any ethical concerns with Cooper’s purchase. In fact, when author Joyce Carol Oates mentioned on Twitter - after explicitly congratulating Cooper, by the way - that she found it curious the news coverage never mentioned Cooper’s hired surrogate at all, she was excoriated.

The speed at which our culture is able to normalize a behavior thought just yesterday to be somewhere between questionable to unthinkable is stunning. To not mention any shred of ethical hesitancy around the decision to purchase procreation, particularly by a couple who chose an intentionally sterile union in the first place is one thing. To gush over the doting dads as if the way this whole thing happened is quite unremarkable? Well, that’s something else entirely. After all, culture is often most powerful in our lives where it makes the least amount of commotion. When something is no longer considered debatable, and is instead assumed, it’s been normalized.

This story demonstrates that commercial surrogacy, including cases in which the child is intentionally deprived of its mother, is now fully normal.

We’ve repeatedly pointed out the many ethical problems with surrogacy on BreakPoint: it assumes “children” are a right that God never promised; it assumes a gnostic view of human bodies and relationships; children are denied the opportunity to be raised by their biological mom and a dad; it treats children as products instead of image-bearers; it poses a significant risk for women to be exploited financially.

We’ve also talked about the disastrous consequences of the sexual revolution, especially how it has divorced sex, marriage and procreation and devalues other human beings for how they can serve our own sexual desires. Here, in this story, we have a new chapter of this: two men who choose a sexual relationship that doesn’t include a uterus still consider entitled to the products of a uterus. And so, they hire a uterus, not really the whole woman. After all their decision make the woman a mom, but they don’t want that part of her. They only want the part that will allow them what they want.

We see the world through the stories we tell ourselves, and each reporter who told this story tacitly agreed that Cooper and his partner were the good guys. As Joyce Carol Oates quickly discovered when she asked why the baby’s mom should be left unnamed, the protagonist role was already taken, and it would be awkward to cast the hired help as the antagonist. So, they just didn’t mention her at all. That was probably what was specified in the contract anyway.

But what about her? Was she, as most women who agree to surrogacy tend to be, lower-income? Was the financial pressure simply too great to not be attracted by the payday?

Perhaps the strangest part of the growing cultural acceptance is how surrogacy is so often championed by the Progressive Left, especially as it’s increasingly served the cause of same-sex marriage. Yet, it violates almost every central tenet of the worldview they claim.

After all, if anything is capitalism run amok, it’s commercial surrogacy. Is there a more disgusting display of greed than the rich paying the poor for their babies? And, surrogacy exploits the vulnerable. It robs women of their bodily autonomy, especially when contract clauses commit them to reproductive decisions, including abortion. Increasingly, surrogacy is about two wealthy men using a woman for her body, while appropriating a role that only she can fulfill.

Surrogacy is also the final chapter of a culture that prioritizes adult happiness over children’s rights, in this case by offering a service only the very wealthy can afford. Surrogacy denies that children have rights to their mother and father, and that mothers have rights to her own child. Like transgenderism, surrogacy denies biological realities, in this case the miraculous bonds, both physical and emotional, that connects mothers with their children. Surrogacy serves money, and makes winners and losers. The losers are always women and children. The winners are always those with big bank accounts.

If there were a segment of culture that should rebuke surrogacy but often doesn’t, it would be the Progressive Left, which fancies itself the champion of the vulnerable, the poor, and of women. Some do, in particular feminists who see the potential for exploitation.

If there were another segment of culture that should rebuke surrogacy but often doesn’t, even more so in fact, it would be Christians. Some do, but too many don’t, mostly because their worldview analysis stops at what’s normal, rather than what’s right.

Behind Anderson Cooper’s money and these headlines, is this baby’s mom. No matter what we tell ourselves, about how willing she was or how better off she is now, she’s harmed and so is her son - who somehow knew from the moment he was born to look for her. Unfortunately, he won’t find her. Shame on us.

If you’ve exhausted your quarantine viewing list, and even if you haven’t, I’ve got a suggestion: “The Chosen.”  Premiered last fall by the streaming service VidAngel, season one of this series about the life of Jesus, as portrayed through the experience of His followers, has now garnered more than 20-million viewers.

My family just wrapped up season one, which is limited to Jesus’ early ministry, and speaking as someone who is typically skeptical of Christian television, this series is refreshingly gritty and has an impressive depth. And then, there’s the story behind the story: how “The Chosen” came to be at all.

While Christians throughout history have made invaluable contributions to the world of art, we don’t have such a stellar recent track record when it comes to Hollywood. Though there have been valiant efforts, the result has been some pretty cringe-worthy TV shows and movies. Sometimes, I think, it’s because we try to be too “wholesome,” “family-friendly,” and “positive” to adequately picture the depth of the fall and the human condition. Other times, we seem so scared of perceived heresy that everything comes out sanitized. Or, we get so super preachy that every drama becomes an altar call.

Of course, more than a little fault lies with the entertainment industry too, which often thrives on calling good evil and evil good. Let’s just say it has been difficult to find the sweet spot in Christian TV and movies.

After the response to a short film of Jesus’ birth he made for a Christmas Eve service, “The Chosen” Producer Dallas Jenkins was inspired to create an entire series about Jesus’ life, one that was neither sanitary, watered-down, nor uber-preachy.  Along the way, Jenkins and his team not only created their own TV show, they also created their own delivery system. “The Chosen” app allows viewers to stream all eight episodes of the show onto their TVs, computer screens, or phones, for free. No Netflix or Hulu or Apple TV- or their boardroom politics - required.

This costly strategy is behind another amazing part of this story. “The Chosen” is now the single largest crowdfunding entertainment project ever. More than $10-million dollars was raised from more than 19-thousand individual donors to create the first eight episodes. Through the app, viewers are encouraged and equipped to to recruit new viewers and new donors. To date, they’ve raised nearly $4 million toward season two.

Given how thoughtful and moving my family found season one, my family is looking forward to new episodes. While I could certainly find a quibble or two with the way some of the dialogue goes, or the way certain story lines proceed, I’m grateful that Jesus isn’t portrayed here as some serene, other-worldly guru-type figure who whispers parables and stared mysteriously into the middle distance. Instead, the series does a good job of portraying Jesus as he was--fully human, an actual man.

As my colleague Timothy Padgett put it at BreakPoint.org, Jesus in “The Chosen” works “outside in the hot Levantine sun, and He sweats. . . He’s working with wood for hours at a time, and He cuts Himself and has to bandage His arm . . The children come to wake Him one morning, and He’s tired and smilingly asks why they couldn’t wait another half-hour.”

To be clear, the series creates backstories to the gospel accounts, in order to carry the story forward smoothly. But, in my view, the writers have not gone overboard or off-base. The added material, such as Peter’s economic troubles or the place of Nicodemus in the priestly hierarchy, plausibly set up the details that we know to be true from the text of Scripture, like how the fishermen dropped their nets and why Nicodemus struggled to grasp Jesus' words in John 3.

Of course, “The Chosen” isn’t perfect. Some of the costumes are a little silly, and some actors over-act. There are more than a few cultural blind spots, and a few reviewers have pointed out areas of theological iffiness.

The key is to remember what “The Chosen” is and what it is not. It is art, and as art it’s good. It’s not the Bible. So, don’t expect “The Chosen” to stand in for your scripture reading. Instead, enjoy this refreshing way to consider again the God who made himself human, and experienced all the joy, heartache, and even tedium that entails.

Some of the most important scientific discoveries in history are the result of what's called “natural experiments,” in which researchers choose neither the conditions nor the participants, and in which all factors are outside the researcher’s control. In other words, researchers studying stuff that happens.

One of the most famous natural experiments involved two wells during a London cholera pandemic in 1854. Researcher John Snow who, after observing that people who drank from one well got cholera while those who drank from the other didn’t, correctly concluded cholera came from something in the water, not in the air. Because of that discovery, cholera was eventually eliminated from Britain.

Today, nearly two centuries later, the United States and much of the West is in the midst of another natural experiment. The pathogen being researched is not a virus, but the bad ideas of the sexual revolution, ideas that have left many victims and caused great suffering. As Katy Faust and Stacy Manning of Them Before Us recently described over at The Federalist, “Our entire population has unwittingly participated in the greatest abstinence object lesson of all time.”

For more than a month now, Americans have “been abstaining from physical contact, leaving our homes, dining out, and attending school because these activities have been deemed risky in the COVID-19 era.” While our participation in this grand experiment has been, shall we say, “encouraged” by government deployed drones, skate parks filled with dirt, and policies that encourages Americans to snitch on each other by texting Bill DeBlasio, the majority of Americans complied in order to flatten the curve.

Like John Snow before them, Faust and Manning have looked at the evidence of this natural experiment and have rightly concluded that asking people to abstain from harmful activities can work.  Of course, people must recognize the potential for harm in the first place and, when it comes to sex, our culture has consistently turned a blind eye.

That’s why, as governments were taking down basketball hoops to prevent illicit gatherings and banning fishing if your boat had a motor, the state of Oregon was dispensing advice for how to have “safe sex” during the pandemic.

The explicit “advice” told people, quote, “you are your safest sexual partner,” and urged them to practice “selective kissing,” and, well, there’s more, but this is a family friendly program.

Lost in all of Oregon’s recommended “safety” advice is any mention of the health risks associated with sexual activity among young people. This omission is nothing less than negligence given the fact that, as Faust and Manning point out, 2016 had the “highest number ever of STIs in the United States,” according to the Center for Disease Control, which were “partially fueled by apps that facilitate high-risk behaviors.”

For example, the Human Papillomavirus, which is “responsible for 9 out of 10 cases of cervical cancer,” may potentially “infect up to 75 percent of the population.” It’s been called “a hidden epidemic."

Despite these alarming numbers, it’s likely that when our kids return to school, they’ll again be encouraged to engage in risky sexual behavior and the risks associated with this public health crisis will be downplayed.

Despite results as clear as those about cholera in 1854, sexual freedom enjoys a privileged place in our culture. We have all the information we need from our experiment. However, unlike John Snow, who removed the handle from the well that caused cholera in order to keep people from drinking that water, we are basically handing out buckets to kids, encouraging them to drink even more deeply from what will make them sick. Once again, kids are the victims of the sexual revolution.

No one is doing a better job right now championing the rights of children in the face of the sexual revolution and its lies than Katy Faust, who is also one of many outstanding speakers at our upcoming virtual event, “Truth. Love. Together.” She will join Os Guinness, Lee Strobel, Joni Eareckson Tada, Andy Crouch, Uju Ekeocha, Max Maclean and many others to explore how we can become people committed to love and truth at the same time. The entire online event is absolutely free, on demand, with live sessions as well.

All you have to do is come to WilberforceWeekend.org to register.

Religion is not just one lifestyle choice among many. Not, at least, according to the Constitution. In fact, as Princeton’s Dr. Robert George tells John Stonestreet on today’s BreakPoint Podcast, “in our constitutional tradition, religion is singled out for special care. It isn’t a variant of freedom generally . . . Our founding fathers, those who bequeathed to us this great constitutional government … understood that religion has to do with the conscience.”

So at a time when so many Americans—not to mention our lawmakers and local officials—fail to understand religion’s privileged status under the Constitution, Christians must be especially vigilant to protect our religious freedoms—even as we make sacrifices during the current pandemic.

The Clash of Orthodoxies, by Robert P. George, e-book 

The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Jurisprudence, Robert P. George, Editor

A Banjo Minute . . . Robert P. George on Twitter

This year, April 24th marked the first day of Ramadan, considered the holiest period of the Muslim calendar. For one month, Muslims around the world fast from sun-up to sun-down, and many perform additional spiritual disciplines, to commemorate the revelation of the Quran to the prophet Muhammad.

Like the observances of Easter and Passover already this year, Ramadan too has been affected by COVID-19. Traditionally, the post-sundown meal, known as Iftar, is a communal affair, which many Muslim families share at their mosques. This year, they cannot.

Another dimension is that, in some areas, many Muslims work in health-care and are, thus, essential employees. For example, in Michigan, Muslims are 15 percent of the doctors despite being less than three percent of the population. This means that many Muslims are caring for COVID 19 victims during this fast.

Every Ramadan, but especially one in the midst of a pandemic, is a good time to keep our Muslim neighbors, and Muslims around the world, in prayer. After all, this is the time where many Muslims are seeking to hear from God, and for the last several decades, God has been breaking through to so many Muslims through dreams, in the reading of Holy Scripture, and via other Muslim converts to point them to Christ.

Since 1993, the “30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World” prayer guide has equipped Christians to pray for Muslims during this time of Ramadan.  This international movement calls on “the church to make a deliberate but respectful effort to learn about, pray for and reach out to our world’s Muslim neighbors.”

Started by Christians during Ramadan because, “Muslims are much more deeply aware of spiritual matters” at this time, the "30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World" equips Christians around the world to pray “informed prayers.”  Stories describe the difference in Muslim life, thought, and practice in different parts of the world. The guide includes everything from the plights of seekers and converts to Christianity in Muslim-dominated regions, to the differences between Shia and Sunni, to the questions your Muslim neighbor is most likely to ask, to helpful statistical data about where the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims are found throughout the world.

After all, Christians, of all people, should appreciate that it’s both wrong and unjust to treat over a billion people like a monolith. The more we know, the better we can effectively and specifically pray.

A few years ago, I spoke with Southern Baptist missiologist Dr. David Garrison, the author of a book called “A Wind in the House of Islam,” which describes an unprecedented movement of Muslims into the Christian faith since the early 1990s.

Garrison traveled around the world speaking to former Muslims about how God had brought them to faith in Christ. He also studied the so-called “hot spots,” those regions where thousands of Muslims had come to Christ within a geographic region and relatively close time frame. Garrison found that in the fourteen hundred years since Muhammad founded Islam, there have been eighty-two movements of Muslims turning to Christ, which he defined as 1,000 or more Muslims in an area being baptized. About 80% of those movements have happened in the last 30 years.

In Garrison’s words, “We’re seeing a moment in salvation history . . . that we’ve never seen before in the history of Christianity’s interaction with the House of Islam.” We’re seeing that movement, by the way, in about the same time frame as Christians have been praying for Muslims with the "30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World" guide.

It's not too late to start. Download  “30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World" here.

COVID-19 is real, and it’s deadly. Not only to lives, but to livelihoods. As political leaders—and everyone really—struggle to decide when and how to “open up” economy again, what questions do we need to ask? How do we weigh the physical and financial risks, individual liberties and government power?

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet and Mike Sharrow, President and CEO of the C12 group, the nation’s largest network of CEOs, discuss business owners, and executives, discuss these vitally important and extraordinarily divisive problems from a Christian worldview perspective.

The C12 Group website

“Remember the calamity of the Great Tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.” Those are the words inscribed on what are appropriately called “Tsunami stones,” markers left by previous generations in Japan that warn future generations of difficult lessons learned. After decades with no tsunamis, especially given new technologies such as better seawalls and flood-proof construction, these kinds of warnings were increasingly seen more as relics from the past than wisdom from past. They became easier to ignore and, as a result, in 2011, many perished.

The villagers of Aneyoshi, however, heeded the instructions their forebears placed on a tsunami stone in the 1930s, and they moved their village to higher ground. They not only survived the 2011 tsunami, but the one in 1960 as well.

When I learned about these stones recently from a friend, I immediately thought of a parable by G. K. Chesterton about those committed always to reform:

“… let us say, for the sake of simplicity, (there’s) a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'”

In other words, as Chesterton said elsewhere, we should never remove a fence until we know why it was put up in the first place.

There’s no doubt we live in a culture that’s quite committed to clearing away all kinds of moral fences in all areas of culture, often replacing them with new fences in new places. What used to be unthinkable is now unquestionable. What used to be unquestionable is now thought of as quaint, Puritanical, and in some cases, oppressive and evil. What used to belong to families now belongs to the state. The guilty are now victims; the good guys now the bad guys; the essential now non-essential.

Even in the Church today, perhaps especially in the Church, there’s a great temptation to move fences, to lower or remove moral standards in a well-intentioned, but often misguided, attempt to be “welcoming.” Almost always, these moves are made in the name of “love,” as if the key missional strategy of the church is to remove any and all barriers to the Gospel, including any that are inherent and essential to the Gospel itself.

Often the tsunami stones of moral truth, which the Church has embraced and taught faithfully for 2,000 years, are seen as obstacles to progress. The first and greatest commandment to “love God,” at least as we've long understood it, seems to be in conflict with the second one of “loving neighbor.” Truth and love are increasingly seen as incompatible in the fog of secularism and moral relativism. Believing the truth about human sexuality, which went unquestioned in Christian history until yesterday, is considered unloving. Speaking that truth? Well, that’s downright cruel.

This, of course, gets it exactly backwards. What’s cruel, if moral realities do exist and if we live in a world designed and not accidental, is to remove fences and ignore stones. It’s cruel to tell someone who’s not okay that they are. It is not only possible to be loving and to tell the truth, it is in fact, impossible to be loving without the truth.

Learning to hold truth and love together, especially in a culture committed to their divorce, is now a key task of the Church.

In a wonderful scene near the beginning of C. S. Lewis’s “The Silver Chair,” Aslan is preparing a young Jill Pole for a rescue mission in Narnia. His instructions are clear, but his instructions about his instructions, even more clear:

“…first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. . . And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind... Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.”

If this reminds you of God’s instructions to Israel in Deuteronomy, it should. Most of the Bible is about remembering. There is no way to live out what God has taught us and called us to, no way to love God or neighbor, without remembering.

At the most foundational level, each of the five modules of the Colson Center’s upcoming virtual event this month, “Truth. Love. Together.” is all about remembering. In our culture, there is no remembering without defining. The first module, featuring Os Guinness, Sean McDowell, Abdu Murray, and Natasha Crain is about defining, or remembering, what truth is. The second module, with Joni Eareckson Tada, Pastor Chris Brooks, Louis Markos, and me is about defining, or remembering, what love is.

From remembering, we move into doing. In module three, Andy Crouch, Brett Kunkle, Lauren and Michael McAfee, and Max McLean will challenge us on how we can “Become People of Truth and Love.”  In module four, the great apologist Lee Strobel, Promod Haque, Uju Ekeocha, and J. Warner Wallace will remind us “Why Telling the Truth Is an Act of Love” and how we can indeed do that--tell the truth in love. Finally, Katy Faust,  J. P. DeGance, and this year’s Wilberforce Award Winner, Bob Fu, will teach us how to “Love the Victims of Lies” by speaking the truth.

This is a 360 degree experience on “Truth. Love. Together.” And, it is absolutely free. Just come to WilberforceWeekend.org to register. All five modules, with more than 20 sessions, will be available live or on demand. Again, the cost is free.

As some states begin to relax lockdown orders, others are still tight as a drum. John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the complexities of responding to the Coronavirus and what the "new normal" may look like in the months and years ahead. How is the coronavirus exacerbating trends such as the decline of marriage, the growing opioid crisis, the decline of small town America, and more?

They also discuss presidential candidate Joe Biden's response to sexual assault allegations and how our political views tend to shape our view of this and too-many-similar situations.

John also invites all listeners to our upcoming virtual event: "Truth. Hope. Together." We have an unbelievable lineup of speakers, including Os Guinness, Joni Eareckson Tada, Lee Strobel, Sean McDowell, Andy Crouch, Katy Faust, Uju Ekeocha, and many, many more. And the event is entirely free. Register now.

Join us at our virtual event: “Truth. Love. Together.”

“Solzhenitsyn’s  Graduation Speech Revisited” by John Stonestreet, BreakPoint

“Marriage rate drops to record low” by Kaelan Deese, The Hill

What does an M&M factory in Virginia, a boardroom on Madison Avenue, the slave ship of John Newton, a U2 concert, and a cattle auction in Colorado have in common? Well, of course, each one is part of the “every square inch” over which Christ claims sovereignty, but each are also subjects of reflection in a tremendous new book by one of the wise and trusted sages in my life, Dr. Steven Garber.

His new book, "The Seamless Life: A Tapestry of Love & Learning, Worship & Work," is now yet another piece of Steve’s writing to mentor and challenge my thinking. His first book, "The Fabric of Faithfulness” is an essential resource for anyone involved in education as a Christian. And even if you are not, his description of Christian worldview in that book is easily among the best I know of.

This soft-spoken Regent College professor will tell you that his life and writing and thinking and leading have all been part of his exploration of what it means to live all life under Christ’s lordship; all of it, even in the most ordinary of places and relationships and professions.

In "The Seamless Life," Garber explores how to live a life that is connected, not disconnected. Throughout the book Steve weaves in and out of an amazing array of illustrations—of people he’s met, both in person and in history, of movies and plays and songs and works of art, of honest cowboys and prayerful candy executives. And each short chapter begins with a photograph, most of them taken by Steve’s own hand, of the places or people he’s writing about.

In one of my favorite chapters, Steve shares memories of the grandparents he spent his summers with as a boy in Cortez, Colorado. He knew they took their Scottish Presbyterian faith quite seriously by witnessing and participating in their nightly liturgy of kneeling together for prayer. But, when Steve witnessed an auctioneer asking his grandfather the market price of a particular cow, and taking him at his word without hesitation, Steve knew his grandfather lived a Seamless Life, in which being a cattleman was fully integrated with being a Christian man.

The book’s diverse and beautiful collage of insights, with its intellectually and theological rich devotional passages, are united by a single idea: Our work, in whatever corner of the world God has placed us, has a sacred quality. What we do for the good of our city or our company or our family or our neighbor is a tangible and real part of God’s project of making all things new. As the title of Steve's book suggests, the transition from worship to work should be seamless.

Of course, we face incredible challenges to this task on this side of the garden. Our world is broken, and it’s hard to live out the “already” of the Gospel bombarded and sometimes even crushed by the “not yet” of the Fall. And that’s where Steve introduces one of his favorite words, one he uses so often his students sometimes make fun of him for it: “proximate.”

The dictionary defines proximate as that which is “closest in relationship,” or “immediate.” What Steve means by proximate is though we can’t fix the whole world by ourselves, that’s okay. We’re not called to do everything, certainly not those things that only God can do. But, we are called, as Christ modeled in His earthly ministry, to do “something that is right and good and true and just” here and now, where we've been placed; to help the people within our reach, to feed the hungry within our sight, to speak life to whomever we happen to meet at the well, and sometimes just to haul in a netful of fish and give God the glory.

In other words, we're called to do the things we can do, not the things we can't.

As Steve observes, “None of us can care for everything everywhere. So, we choose to care about something somewhere.” And, as the chapters progress, dealing with great works of literature and mundane parts of life and the world, it becomes clear that this caring is sacred. It is, in fact, the essence of a Seamless Life: to “ora et labora,” or “pray and work” whether our jobs are “agricultural or academic, whether we are plumbers or carpenters, whether our labor is the law or the marketplace, whether our days take us into hospitals or schools…”

Come to BreakPoint.org/Garber and we'll send you a copy of "The Seamless Life" with your next gift of any amount to BreakPoint.  And be sure to catch my interview with the one and only Steve Garber on the BreakPoint Podcast.