Breakpoint

As we prepare to celebrate Easter,  can we assert that the resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact? Can it be established without a reasonable doubt? Our guest on the BreakPoint Podcast  has spent his entire professional career arguing that it is and it can be.

Dr. Gary Habermas, Distinguished Professor of  Apologetics and Philosophy at Liberty University joins Shane Morris to discuss the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection along with the grudging admissions of modern historians who grant that whether they believe that Jesus was raised from the dead or not, that the historical record is clear: The earliest Christians certainly believed it, and many of them claimed to have seen Him after His crucifixion.

The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, by Gary Habermas

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris talk about how Christians are responding to the coronavirus--and how even heroic efforts like those of Samaritan's Purse setting up a field hospital in New York City are being criticized by those with, shall we say, a certain bias against Christianity.

John and Greg also discuss at length the issue of church and state: Can states force churches to close? Are there historical precedents? When can--and should--even the Church obey the state in times of crisis, and how to we ensure that our freedom to assemble remains just that--a freedom?

Sign up for “Truth. Love. Together,” the Colson Center’s free virtual Wilberforce Weekend

“Mandatory social distancing is not a threat to religious liberty. It’s essential for humanity,” by Albert Mohler and Kelly Shackleford, Washington Post

“The New York Times’ Prejudiced Op-Ed: Evangelicals Are Anti-Science and Responsible for Coronavirus Epidemic,” by Glenn Stanton, Daily Citizen

Eric Metaxas visits Samaritan’s Purse field hospital in NYC, Facebook video

Each year, the Colson Center family gathers for the Wilberforce Weekend conference in Washington D.C. with friends new and old. The Weekend includes incredible Christian worldview teaching, networking with Christian leaders from across the country and beyond, the commissioning of a new class of Colson Fellows after they’ve studied with us for a year, and, of course, honoring together the Wilberforce Award winner.

As you may have guessed, the live gathering we had planned for next month can’t happen, at least not in person. However, all of this year’s Wilberforce Weekend content will be delivered virtually and, the best part is, it is absolutely free. Given the difficult and uncertain times, not to mention the rising unemployment rate, we’ve removed all costs associated with this event and are trusting God to use this virtual event to equip and lead His people for such a time as this.

When we developed our theme for the event months ago, none of us imagined that “Truth. Love. Together.” could possibly be even more relevant somehow. I mean the clash of worldviews in our culture is pretty steep as it is, but now, in the wake of a global pandemic, nothing is more central to the Christian mission in the world than to love our neighbors enough to share truth with them, and to make sure whatever we say and do is couched in true, authentic Christian love.

In fact, Bob Fu, this year’s Wilberforce Award winner can tell you that sharing truth in a context of crisis is difficult and can be costly.  Even dangerous. Pastor Fu is founder and president of China Aid, a Christian “human rights organization committed to promoting religious freedom and the rule of law in China.” Fu and his team expose the systematic persecution, harassment, torture, and imprisonment of Chinese Christians and human rights lawyers in China, while also “financially support(ing) Chinese Christians and their families who have experienced persecution by the Chinese government,” and “provid(ing) leadership and rule of law training for Christian and church leaders in China.”

If the biblical phrase “for such a time as this” comes to your mind too, it should, though Fu never intended this would be his life. Born in Shandong Province to a disabled father and beggar mother, he enrolled in university, fully intending to join the Communist Party and become a government official.

God, however, had other plans. An American professor gave him a biography of a Chinese intellectual who converted to Christianity, Xi Shengmo. As Fu told the Wall Street Journal, “that book changed my life.”

After graduation, Fu taught English at a Communist Party School in Beijing while he and his wife, Heidi, became active in the house church movement. They even established a Bible school there that used chairs borrowed from the Communist Party’s school.

Well, the Communist Party didn’t share Fu’s sense of irony. He and his wife were jailed. About a year after their release, with Heidi pregnant with their second child, the Fu’s fled China and its “One-Child Policy.” After emigrating to Hong Kong, Fu was granted political asylum in the U.S. in 1997.

Just as the persecution of the Church has, at times throughout history, led to the unintended spreading of the Gospel, Pastor Fu’s forced emigration has increased his influence. From his base of operations in west Texas, he operates what the Wall Street Journal has called “the most influential network of human-rights activists, underground Christians and freedom fighters in China.”

What Fu and China Aid have accomplished is the stuff of movies: In 2009, they helped smuggle the wife and children of Christian human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, called by Amnesty International “the bravest lawyer in China,” out of the country. More recently, Fu worked closely with human rights lawyer, Cheng Guangcheng, a.k.a., “the barefoot lawyer,” whose harrowing escape from China was the topic of a BreakPoint commentary a few years ago.

Fu has earned the nickname, “the Pastor of China’s underground railroad,” and I can’t think of anyone better to help the rest of us think through how truth and love can go together, and go forward in the name of Jesus, especially in times of crisis like ours.

Though our typical banquet honoring Pastor Fu with the 2020 William Wilberforce Award will have to wait until this fall, he and a host of world-class Christian worldview thinkers such as Os Guinness, Lee Strobel, Andy Crouch, Uju Ekeocha and others will be part this year’s Truth.Love.Together virtual event. And again, it’s free and on-demand starting May 15. Sign up at WilberforceWeekend.org.

Last month, we were all introduced to a new concept…“social distancing.”  Urged and even required, in places, to maintain physical distance and reduce close contact with other people, our collective goal has been to slow the spread of COVID-19 and keep it from overwhelming our health care system.

There’s a very real problem with this strategy, however. While social distancing may be the best way to fight the coronavirus, it may very well exacerbate an already existing epidemic: loneliness.

As former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy put it, “We live in the most technologically connected age in the history of civilization, yet rates of loneliness have doubled since the 1980s.”

The health impact of this loneliness epidemic is incredible. According to Murthy, “the impact of social isolation and loneliness on longevity equals that of smoking 15 cigarettes a day and exceeds the risks associated with obesity, excessive alcohol consumption and lack of exercise.”

A recent report from the National Academy of Science found that “social isolation has been linked to a 50 percent increased risk of dementia, a 29 percent increased risk of heart disease and a 32 percent increased risk of stroke.”

To put it plainly, loneliness can be just as lethal, maybe more so, than COVID-19, at least over the long run.

A group that should be at the front of our concerns when it comes to loneliness and its impact are the elderly. According to one study, “some 18 percent of adults age 65 and older in the U.S. live alone, and 43 percent report feeling lonely on a regular basis.”

Still, the loneliness epidemic isn’t limited to older Americans. A 2019 YouGov survey found that “27 percent of millennials have no close friends, 25 percent have no ‘acquaintances’ and 22 percent . . . have no buddies at all.”

In fact, Generation Z may be the loneliness generation on record. According to a 2018 Cigna survey, those born in 1995 or later report greater feelings of loneliness and worse health than any other generation.  If social media could make up for the lack of actual human contact, as we are promised, the generation most at ease with social media isn’t showing it. Apparently, “digital natives” are lonelier than the Baby Boomers they love to turn into memes.

And again, all of this was true before social distancing went into effect. So, during the next few months, the face-to-face activities that build relationships and keep loneliness at bay will be difficult; in some cases, even impossible.

Months ago, we decided to host an online Short Course on “How Christians can Respond to our Culture’s Brokenness.” We had no idea at the time that we’d be facing a global pandemic. So, on Tuesday, we hosted a webinar with Ed Stetzer on how Christians can respond to the coronavirus.  If you missed it, come to BreakPoint.org to see the recording.

The short course starts next Tuesday, and in our first of four sessions, we deal with this "other" pandemic. Dr. Kathy Koch, President of Celebrate Kids, will talk about how Christians can respond to “Loneliness, Isolation, and Relational Brokenness” (in other words, our other pandemic). Koch has written and spoken about how Christian parents can teach their kids who they are, and how to help them navigate the social norms that so often isolate them. She’s exactly one to help us respond to the loneliness epidemic.

I hope you will join us next Tuesday, April 8, at 8 PM Eastern. You can register here. And then, on the three following Tuesdays, we will confront other areas of brokenness. Ricky Chelette, Executive Director of Living Hope Ministries, will talk about how Christians can respond to the “Sexually Broken." C. Ben Mitchell, professor of moral philosophy at Union University, will talk about how Christians can lead in “End of Life Care”; and then David Galvan, Director of Education for a Lifetime, will talk about “Mental Health and Addiction.”

All Short Course sessions are recorded, so you won’t miss a single presentation.

Register today.

A recent article in Vice described how certain “life-altering” surgeries had been deemed “non-essential” during this COVID-19 crisis. The author was talking about gender-transition surgeries, and worried that, “in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic trans communities . . . are being flooded with reports of postponed and canceled surgeries in the U.S., U.K., Spain, Thailand, and elsewhere, leading to enormous stress and disappointment on top of a global health crisis.”

Despite what the article claims and largely takes for granted, the benefits of so called “gender-affirming” surgery (a strange name for a procedure that denies one’s biological sex) in order to treat gender dysphoria is strongly disputed. The best studies, as I described in a recent BreakPoint commentary, “found that medical transition was not the solution to the patients’ problems, especially in the case of male-to-female transitions.”

In other words, such “treatment” is driven by ideology, not evidence. One of the fundamental tests of a worldview is what I call “the test of the real world.” In other words, sometimes an ideology looks great on paper, even realistic and compelling and compassionate, but fails miserably when lived out. For example, communism.

Contemporary gender ideology not only fails this test by failing to deliver the green grass on the other side of mutilating surgery, but in a way made even more obvious in this time of crisis.

Reading the Vice piece, it occurred to me just how rare this kind of article suddenly is, when just a month ago, they were ubiquitous. In fact, in our present crisis, the piece comes across as indulgent and out-of-touch.

While the author acknowledged that “medical facilities may soon become overtaxed for everyone,” it didn’t even mention other procedures deemed “non-essential,” such as (in Massachusetts for example) colonoscopies, which can prevent colon cancer and save lives. Or hip replacement surgery, which would easily fall into the category of “life-altering” for people suffering from chronic pain.

The simple, historically obvious reality is that much of the LGBTQ movement is a luxury that only a wealthy, technologically advanced, and political stable society can afford.  Demanding that medical practitioners who were trained to heal and correct should be expected to amputate healthy organs and alter biological realities is a prerogative of a society with excess medical resources. A society that can rewrite moral codes and social norms to prevent anything, no matter how slight, that leaves anyone feeling less than fully affirmed? Let’s just say that’s rare throughout history.

To borrow from psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs,” we’re that rare people who can take for granted that our more basic needs will be met. Few of us have to worry, really, about food, clothing, or shelter, and next level worries, about physical safety and security, are highly mitigated for most of us. And though loneliness is certainly a growing problem, most of us have embrace the idea of family and friends on our own terms, at least.  

What’s left, at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy, is self-esteem and self-actualization. Only societies able to take more essential and basic needs for granted, can seriously entertain those worries, much less reframe them as fundamental needs on par with health and basic survival.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed this for the time being. Empty supermarket shelves, the lack of medical supplies, the threat of sickness and even death have brought more essential and basic needs to the front of our collective attention. Against this new backdrop, our demands for self-fulfillment and our complaints when those demands aren’t met seem petty and small. The reason is that they always were.

Times of personal and societal crisis can cause us to see things more clearly. Will everyone get the message? Judging by this Vice article, the answer is “no.”

But the rest of us should.

Just last week the Colson Center held a five-day online crash-course on Christian worldview. Our Wednesday guest was Christian apologist Sean McDowell, who spoke on the reliability of Scripture. Can we trust the Bible?

Sean tackles the question from three angles: First, the character test. Do the authors of the Bible write with honesty? Are they seeking to tell the truth? Second, the copy test: What proof do we have that the Bible we know today is substantially the same as its earliest manuscripts? Third, the corroboration test. What ancient sources can we find that corroborate much of what the Bible says?

Note that during his talk, Sean refers to a power point presentation. Just click here to follow along.

View Our Special "Crash Course" series on Culture and Worldview

Sean's was one of five talks given last week during our online “Crash Course” on Christian Worldview and Culture. Brett Kunkle and I led the other four sessions on Why Worldview Matters, Why Culture Matters, Issues with Technology, and the legacy of the sexual revolution.

All those sessions are available to you, for free. All you have to do is register here. Once you do, we’ll send you links to the 5 sessions along with numerous resources on the topics.

Register to view the entire “Crash Course” on Worldview and Culture

After almost two weeks of government-advised physical distancing, the president has announced a 30-day extension to this part of the fight against the coronavirus. As various numbers associated with this pandemic continue to grow, especially the shocking prediction that U.S. deaths could top 100,000, we must never forget that behind each and every number is a precious life made in the image of God. Numbers are necessary to communicate scale, of course, but they can also obscure that what we’re talking about here are real people.

Speaking of numbers and names, over three million Americans have filed for unemployment in recent weeks. Combine that with the volatile stock market, and the economic toll of this virus is beyond staggering. Still, behind these dollar figures are also real people, many trying to figure out how to keep their homes and feed their kids.

A one-time check from the government won’t be enough for restaurant and small business owners, hotel and shopping center employees, barbers and stylists, bus drivers and substitute teachers, and many others, who face a financial crisis if they social distance potentially as real and damaging as the sickness they could acquire or spread if they do not.

The tension here is real, and I’m not talking about spring breakers who scoffed at the health and well-being of others to have their own fun or those spouting despicable “if they die, they die” sort of rhetoric. I’m talking about my friend Dale who, after contracting a particularly nasty bacteria during a routine surgery several months ago, would be at tremendous risk if he contracted this virus. He needs others to help slow the spread of this disease by staying home.

But I’m also talking about other friends, legal refugees from a war-torn area of Africa, who go to my church and rely on wages now lost because a local hotel closed until Memorial Day and fired its employees. Certainly, unemployment will help for a while, but it’s impossible to know if their long-term security is now in jeopardy.

As more hospitals reach capacity and COVID-19 cases rise, our city, state, and federal leaders are making some of the hardest choices imaginable outside of wartime. While physical distancing is the most important thing we can do right now to slow this virus and save additional lives, the consequences of doing this will be devastating for many.

Now, I’m in no place to offer different policy solutions, of course, but I am convinced that a Christian worldview can help us think through these tensions.

First, the chief value that must ground any and all policy proposals, especially at a critical time as this, is a fundamental commitment to the dignity of each and every person. In fact, every policy question is, at root, one of how best to honor priceless image-bearers, whether what’s being threatened are their lives or their livelihoods.

It’s a false dilemma to assume that if someone is worried about jobs and the economy, they don’t care about people’s lives; or if we’re worried about the threat the virus poses to people’s lives, they’re obviously callous toward anyone in financial straits. In our culture, one that’s worked so hard to untether human dignity from its one and only true source, we will struggle to rightly honor human dignity whether we’re talking about emergency care or employment. As, Christians, we must never allow a price tag to be placed on people.

Still, among the painful lessons we are learning right now is that, like hospitals struggling to keep up with an influx of critical patients, we too are finite. So is our government. So is our economy. We can only do so much to stop this virus and prop up a faltering economy.

Our duty as individuals and as a society—just like those doctors and nurses—is to make wise decisions with limited resources and then do our best to alleviate any suffering of those hit hardest. We don’t look to utilitarian calculus for this, as if people were numbers on a spreadsheet or obstacles to our own security and happiness.

While must always encourage our leaders to do what’s right, we ought never demand they do what’s impossible. We must pray for them instead, fervently and frequently, asking God to give them wisdom. And, we must respond, as Christians have always done in times of crisis, by running toward the suffering we see, as best we can. In fact, tonight at 8 PM Eastern, my friend Ed Stetzer will join me for a free webinar to talk about “How Christians Can Love Their Neighbors During the Coronavirus.” 

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot of how Christians throughout history understood their responsibility to care for the sick and dying, rather than running for the hills like so many of their pagan neighbors. In many ways, the earliest Christians were the earliest first responders, risking their own lives and even losing them, because of what they believed about Christ, about their own lives, about the salvation and love of neighbor, and about human dignity.

In our cultural moment, one in which God has graciously given us knowledge of mitigating the spread of disease as well as the distinctly Christian legacy of hospitals, the love of neighbor involves things such as social distancing so as not to endanger others. But does that mean we disengage completely? How should Christians love their neighbors at this time?

Almost from the start of this coronavirus threat, even before it was called a pandemic, Dr. Ed Stetzer of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College and Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church have been working to gather resources and equip pastors and  ministry leaders for this challenge. They, in partnership with others have launched a new website, CoronavirusAndTheChurch.com.

The resources there are helping churches and pastors with everything from developing online worship and education, to communicating with and caring for their own people, to reaching out to the most vulnerable in their communities, including the elderly, sick, and unemployed. And they are collecting stories of innovative things that are already being done, by Christians, right now.

Tomorrow night, Tuesday March 31 at 8 PM Eastern Time, Ed Stetzer will join me for a free webinar “How Christians Can Love Their Neighbors During the Coronavirus.”  Though this webinar is the first session of a 5-part short course on responding to our culture’s brokenness, we are also offering it completely free to anyone, even if they are not signed up for the rest of the course.

This webinar is for anyone who wants to know how to make a difference in the midst of this crisis, and how Christians are already making a difference taking the love of Christ and the message of salvation to our culture right now.

If you’re not available at 8pm eastern tomorrow, sign up anyway. The session will be recorded and everyone who registers will receive a link to the video afterward.

During this free webinar, Ed and I will be discussing best practices, some of which have been developed in just the past few weeks by Christ followers from across the country. And Christians are doing this. Today. We’ve already shared examples on Breakpoint of Chinese Christians, who despite fierce persecution by their own government, passed out face masks and ensured that strangers were supplied with food.  Or an Alabama megachurch, who already had a huge medical clinic ministry, that turned its parking lot into a Coronavirus testing center.

And of course, my favorite story to date, is of how a YWAM base here in my backyard of Colorado Springs pivoted on a dime, from a business as ministry operation training folks around the world to an organization mobilizing churches and Christians in their own community. With lettuce. If you missed that story, come to BreakPoint.org to hear my conversation with director Josh Imhoff on our BreakPoint podcast.

In Acts 17, as Paul describes the one true God to the pagan Epicureans and Stoics, and he declared that God determines the exact times in which people live and the boundaries of their dwelling places. In other words, it’s no accident that we find ourselves in this time in history, in the cultures and communities where many of us are “locked down.” Our faith and these circumstances are not accidental. God has placed us in this moment, in this place, to be the hands and feet of Christ in this world at this time.

Please come to BreakPoint.org today to register for this Free Webinar with Ed Stetzer: “How Christians Can Love Their Neighbors During the Coronavirus.” 

You may remember back in the 1990s a massive wave of men rededicating themselves to their relationships with God, their families and their communities. These “Promise Keepers” flooded the Mall in Washington DC, filled football stadiums, and transformed lives.

Well, Promise Keepers is back, and the timing couldn’t be better, given the growing attacks on masculinity and the rising tide of young men suffering from various addictions and chronic loneliness.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Promise Keepers Chairmand and CEO Ken Harrison tells John Stonestreet how Promise Keepers rebounded, the movement’s vision of biblical manhood, and their plan for their national conference in Dallas this summer.

Promise Keepers Website and Info on the 2020 Conference

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the many hard choices our nation faces during the Coronavirus pandemic, from rationing medical care to the economy to freedom and security. In every decision, they insist, we must keep in mind the rock-solid biblical truth: Every human being is made in image of God.

They also discuss the question of suffering from a Christian perspective, what blessings we can see even in the midst of the crisis, and China's despicable crackdown against Christians even during the pandemic.

FREE Webinar with Ed  Stetzer and John Stonestreet: “How Can Christians Love Their Neibhors During the Coronavirus?”

“Deciding Who Gets Treated and Who Doesn’t” by John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint

“Running into the Coronavirus Crisis with Lettuce and Love” by John Stonestreet and David Carlson, BreakPoint

“Running into the Plague While Social Distancing,” by John Stonestreet and Shane Morris, BreakPoint

“Christians During a Time of Plague,” a BreakPoint Podcast interview with Dr. Glenn Sunshine

“The Best of Things in the Worst of Times,” by Dr. Glenn Sunshine

“Peace in Times of in Times of Suffering and Uncertainty,” Tim Keller, the Gospel Coalition