Breakpoint

Recently, in the UK Guardian, a woman told of her decision to have an abortion, but this wasn’t one of those “My abortion was personally empowering” type of stories.  Hers was a real-life dilemma faced by too many women. Let me be clear: Her reasons in no way justify her decision to have an abortion, but pro-lifers should listen to her story carefully and take her circumstances seriously, if we hope to build a culture where abortion is not just illegal, but unthinkable.

Charlotte Sullivan was newly married and newly employed when she learned she was pregnant. As a new hire, she didn’t qualify for the six-week paid parental leave her employer offered. Her husband’s job also didn’t pay enough for both of them plus a new baby to live on during those six weeks.

So, they agonized for several weeks before ultimately deciding to abort the child. The inner conflict she experienced in making the choice and continues to feel since, is palpable throughout the article.

Sullivan’s story isn’t unique. Though women have abortions for a variety of reasons, there’s no question that, in certain cases, financial pressures play a role for many.  We’ll have to take these pressures into account, if we hope to build a culture of life.

Paid family leave is a good place to start.

According to current data about abortion, nearly half of women who have an abortion live below the federal poverty level. To put that in perspective, the federal poverty level for a family of two—say a husband and wife—is an income of $17,420 a year. In other words, many abortion-minded women feel they simply can’t afford to take unpaid time off from work.

This year, paid family leave has become a bit of a priority on various political agendas on both sides of the aisle.

During his State of the Union address last week, President Trump threw his support behind the “Advancing Support for Working Families Act,” which was introduced late last year by Arizona Democrat Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy. An exclusively Democratic proposal entitled the Family Act is also on the table.

Not surprisingly, there are differences between the two. The bipartisan bill favored by the president would allow couples, who become new parents by birth or adoption, to collect a portion of their future child tax credits early and receive a smaller credit for the next 10 to 15 years.

As the New York Times describes, parents would be “borrowing from themselves.” Assume a new parent withdrew $5,000 to cover her six-week leave. Over the next ten years, her child tax credit, which maxes out at $2,000 a year, could be reduced by $500 a year.  At the same time, this bill “would not guarantee that a person’s job is protected when taking the leave.”

The Democratic proposal would be funded by a payroll tax averaging about $120 per worker and would not affect the child tax credit. Unlike the Sinema-Cassidy proposal, it would protect the employee’s job.

Neither bill is likely to become law this year, but the issue is getting the national attention it needs to advance.

For years, the Church has taken the lead in the building a culture of life through pregnancy care centers, adoption agencies, and sound arguments. We should also back policies that will encourage women to choose life.

Abortion advocates often point to poor women having to choose between their livelihood and their pregnancy. It’s a red herring that distracts from the central question of whether or not abortion takes an innocent life. Still, we can only advance the cause of life by assisting women and families that face dire financial situations.

Kudos to the president and to those in Congress who are seeking a way forward for paid family leave. And special thanks to those organizations and activists who’ve championed this cause for so long. It's a cause worthy of our support.

Solomon once said that of the writing of books, there is no end. The sheer number of books available online today is overwhelming, and there’s nothing worse than wasting time or money on a terrible book. A helpful clue to reveal the quality of a book is whether or not it has stood the test of time. Another indicator, though not nearly as reliable, is how many have sold.

On both of these counts, the book “Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions” by my friend Greg Koukl, passes with flying colors. In fact, it’s sold so well for so long, “Tactics” is now available in an expanded and updated 10th anniversary edition.

I have long regarded the original edition of “Tactics” as one of the best resources ever produced to equip Christians to engage in tough conversations with skeptics and unbelievers. While plenty of books tell us what to say on tough topics, this book is training on how to have the conversation. The title says it all: “Tactics.”

The expanded tenth anniversary edition, with several new chapters and updated examples that take into account the ways our culture has changed since 2009, means that this edition supplants the old one as one of the best resources ever produced to equip Christian to engage in tough conversations with skeptics and unbelievers—and, by the way, even with fellow believers who might be fuzzy on the key teachings of our faith.

According to Koukl, “representing Christ in any era requires three skills.” First, we need a “basic knowledge necessary for the task.” This means knowing the central message of God’s kingdom and “knowing something about how to respond to the obstacles [believers will] encounter on their mission.”

By itself, however, knowledge isn’t enough. “Our knowledge must be tempered with the wisdom that makes our message clear and persuasive.” As Greg puts it, “we need tools of a diplomat, not the weapons of a warrior.”

Finally, we must not forget that this knowledge and wisdom “are packaged in a Person.” If we don’t embody the virtues of Christ, we will undermine our message and attempts to share it.

Koukl’s book is especially helpful on the second of these necessary skills: tactical wisdom, or the skills necessary in both how to speak about our faith and how to constructively and conversationally listen. This is the tactical game plan to “artfully manage the details of our dialogues with others.”

Let me be clear: This book doesn’t teach conversational manipulation, or how to “own” someone. It’s not even about how to “win” a debate, and it certainly won’t equip you to embarrass or humiliate anyone. None of these things properly represent the goal of Christian conversation and witness.

The goal, Koukl insists, is to find a way to expose “someone’s bad thinking for the purpose of guiding her to truth” in a “gracious and charitable” manner.

To do that, Koukl teaches what he calls “the Columbo tactic,” named after a famous 1970s TV detective. This involves asking a series of questions in order to gather information and define the terms of our discussion. For example, “What do you mean by that?” and, because Christians are not the only ones who need to give reasons for what we believe, “How did you come to that conclusion?” Koukl calls this strategy “reversing the burden of proof.” These kinds of leading questions can help the person we’re conversing with reach the appropriate conclusion on their own.

Perhaps the most helpful aspect of the book are the stories. When Koukl shares the real-life conversations he’s had and how he has employed the tactics, it makes you think, “Oh, I can do that, too.”

The kind of practical wisdom he offers is more vital today, ten years after he first offered the book “Tactics,” than ever before. We will send you a copy for your next gift of any amount to the Colson Center.

And, if you need more convincing, listen to my podcast interview with Greg Koukl. And remember, with any gift you make to BreakPoint and the Colson Center during the month of February, you’ll receive a copy of “Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions.” 

There’s a new way of seeing the world that is dominating academic and public discourse, on that sees society as a collection of oppressors and the oppressed, which labels and divides people according to race, religion, sex, gender, class, etc. It’s called Critical Theory.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet talks with Christian apologist Neil Shenvi about Critical Theory: What is it exactly? Where does it come from? And how might it even be creeping into Christian theology?

Neil Shenvi Apologetics website

Join us at the Wilberforce Weekend, May 14-17!

Have you seen the image of that woman during President Trump’s 2017 inauguration who threw back her head and screamed “NOOO!” like Luke Skywalker did when he found out Darth Vader was his father? Well, the woman has since become a meme. And while it’s always unacceptable to ridicule or belittle anyone made in the image of God, I remember an insightful remark about this woman’s show of emotion.

         For her and for many others, the 2016 electoral results meant that hope itself was lost. For those who gnashed their teeth at the inauguration, politics had taken on the role of religion in their lives.

         January’s cover story of TIME magazine all but admits this, although the hope is noticeably revived. Charlotte Alter, the author of the forthcoming book “The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For,” makes no effort to hide the fact that for many millennials, political reform has become a kind of gospel—and they its evangelists.

         In a few years, writes Alter, millennials will be a majority of the electorate, and with historically favorable views of socialism, low views of organized religion, and liberal views on sex and gender, the up-and-coming generation looks ready to reverse what older voters have tried to accomplish by electing conservatives.

         Alter is not only okay with this, she’s more than okay. Her tone throughout the TIME article is triumphant. She can’t wait for millennial leaders and voters to transform America, nor does she expect their zeal to lessen, even as they age.

         The odd thing throughout the article is that Alter never bothers to argue that these ultra-liberal views are true. For her, young voters’ passion to “change to world,” together with the fact that they’re young, are all the evidence she needs to know that they’re right.

         If millennials’ and Gen Z’s political views are near-religious, then the devotion to that religion that Alter describes and reflects can be called a cult of adolescence. I used that term last year on BreakPoint after 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg was applauded for shouting, “How dare you?” at a room of adults at the United Nations. It’s also the same cult we saw after the Parkland high school students slammed adults as ignorant and lazy for not passing the gun control laws they wanted.

         Writing at First Things last month, Theodore Dalrymple compares the activism of millennial progressives with an account by a young Marxist who traveled to Syria to fight for ISIS. Like this recruit to totalitarian ideology, Dalrymple thinks the rising generation of American voters is seeking more from politics than just good laws. They’re seeking salvation—they’re seeking a cure for the world’s evils, and an escape from what feels like a meaningless existence. Having abandoned any hope that these things will come from God, they’re left hitching their hopes to the next election, to the next Supreme Court ruling, or the next session of Congress.

         “There is an evangelical tone to their declarations,” Dalyrmple writes, “a sorting of the wheat from the chaff, the sheep from the goats, the saved from the damned. They do not merely want formal changes...[t]hey demand a reform of the human heart and intend to bring it about.”

         But of course, politics can never deliver those things. For those who look to activism and policy to fill what Dalrymple calls their “existential void,” the only thing worse than losing elections might be winning them.

         I don’t know whether Alter is right about the way millennials will vote in the long-term. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last few years, political pundits struggle to predict the future. Whenever they tell us an outcome is inevitable that’s almost reason alone to doubt it.

         But what is inevitable, I’m much more certain, is disappointment for anyone who makes politics their religion. As Christians who have answer that actually can satisfy and a gospel that actually can change hearts and the world, we should see in that disappointment a chance for truth and love, not for gloating.

One of the things I learned from years of teaching students how to defend their faith is that sometimes the best way to test an idea is through questions: “What do you mean by that?” “Why do you believe that?” and “Can you define that?”

My colleague Joseph Backholm is a master of asking these revealing questions. You may know him from a viral video from a few years back when he asked university students whether they would accept him if he identified as a six-foot-five Chinese woman. They reluctantly all said “yes,” even though Joseph is a not-even six-foot white guy.

Over the last year, Joseph has led the Colson Center’s “What Would You Say?” video series. As part of this project, Joseph traveled to Washington, D.C. a few weeks ago to interview participants at two very different demonstrations: First the Women’s March and then the March for Life. His question this time was probing, and the answers were revealing.

“What is a woman?” It seems like answering that question would be a prerequisite for participating in, I don’t know, a women’s march. Yet incredibly, none of the women he talked to—despite their passionate advocacy of women’s rights—could give him a clear answer.

“A woman is anything that she wants to be defined as,” said one. “A woman is someone who chooses to express themselves,” said another. “That’s a trick question,” said still another. Two other women who were selling uterus pins told Joseph that they don’t think having a uterus is what makes a person a woman!

Joseph and I talk about these interviews on the latest episode of the BreakPoint Podcast. He explains how the video wasn’t produced by cherry-picking or selective editing. None of the women he talked with could clearly or objectively define a woman.

“They have been catechized so effectively,” Joseph said, “that they don’t spend any time thinking about whether what they say is true or consistent.”

He also asked marchers two more questions, which we’ll feature in another upcoming video at WhatWouldYouSay.org. First, he asked whether these women supported a new California law that requires that corporate boards have female members. All enthusiastically said yes. Yet when asked whether children need both a mother and a father in the home, these same women said no. Love, they said, not gender, is all that matters in parenting. The contradiction was apparently lost on them.

Thankfully, there was another march in D.C.—a much bigger, more energetic one. The 47th annual March for Life was filled with women calling for an end to legal abortion. And when asked the same question, “What is a woman?” these ladies were able to answer quickly and consistently. They were clear: A man cannot become a woman, regardless of how he identifies. In other words, those who clearly understand when human life begins also clearly understand what a woman is.

But I couldn't help but notice how some of the younger women that Joseph asked to define a woman hesitated before giving what they knew to be a politically incorrect answer. It was as if they expected the LGBT Zeus to smite them for telling the truth. And yet they still bravely told it, while also bravely standing up for the unborn. I tell you, I hope their march is the one that represents the future of America.

All of this should remind us of how much what’s “normal” has changed for the younger generation, and how far-reaching the contradictory catechism we saw at the Women’s March really is. Folks, when we say ideas and worldview matter, this is what we mean, and it’s why videos like “What Would You Say?” are so important.

Those of us who didn’t grow up with modern gender politics need to realize that we are immigrants in this brave new world, but our kids are natives. They’ve never known any different. What’s obvious to us isn’t always obvious to them. And answers that come naturally for us often take courage for them. That’s why we must keep exposing lies about the human person and prepare them to speak politically incorrect truths. And maybe the best way to do that is to teach them how to ask good questions.

What is a woman?  That’s the question the Colson Center's Joseph Backholm asked participants at the Women’s March in Washington D. C.  A week later, he asked the same question to women at the March for Life.

Joseph filmed their answers. And when it comes to worldview and a grip on reality, the participants at the Women’s March and the March for life are polar opposites.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Joseph Backholm talks with John Stonestreet about his experience at the two marches, and about the video he created.

Watch the Video: What Is a Woman?

Ever since Beyonce's shocking Super Bowl half time performance a few years ago, it seems that the networks and the NFL opted to choose less-racy fare. Until last Sunday, when parents were forced to run to the remote to turn off the over-sexualized and antics of Jennifer Lopez and Shakira. How was this possible in the age of  #MeToo?

They also discuss the catastrophe that was the Iowa Caucuses.

For the bulk of today's episode, they focus on the President's busy week, from the State of the Union to his acquittal to his controversial remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.

“America’s Crisis of Contempt: What I said in my address to the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday,” by Arthur Brooks, Washington Post

“J. Lo and Shakira’s Super Bowl 'Performance' and Our Culture’s Mixed Messages” by John Stonestreet, BreakPoint

According to Wikipedia, “cultural appropriation” is “the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another culture.” While accusations of cultural appropriation fly around a bit out-of-control these days, the most contentious example is the taking of cultural artifacts of indigenous peoples, such as Native Americans or Australian Aboriginals, by wealthy westerners, who then use the artifacts as hip decorations.

This kind of cultural appropriation divorces artifacts from their original context and strips them of their intended meaning. In other words, it ignores the worldviews that produced the artifacts in the first place.

Speaking of ignoring worldviews that produced the artifacts, a recent article BBC article announced, “Why philosophers could be the ones to transform [our year] 2020.” Apparently, “long dead thinkers from Socrates to Nietzsche are the latest hot property in self-help books.”

For example, there’s the popular book, “Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life.” Or, for those who like their wisdom applied with a hammer, there are books offering a sort of popular twist on the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, with titles like “What Would Nietzsche Do?” and “Get Over Yourself: Nietzsche for Our Times.”

Existentialist philosophers like Camus and Sartre are also getting new life as popular thinkers repurposed for our times.

Believe it or not, the hottest philosophers in this new publishing trend are the Stoics; for example, the book: “How to think like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.”

There’s a strange irony that these ancient philosophers are hitting it big in affluent place like Silicon Valley. As the BBC article notes, “the Stoics generally took a dim view of huge wealth.”

My intention here is not to criticize anyone trying to take to heart Socrates’ wise maxim that the “unexamined life is not worth living,” but I can’t help but think this self-help fad is a first cousin to the “mindfulness” craze that swept Silicon Valley in the early 2010s. Back in 2013, Wired ran an article proclaiming that meditation could “make your career” in the tech capital.

But, to paraphrase the car commercial, this wasn’t your grandfather’s Buddhism, unless your grandfather was a 60’s San Francisco hippie. At least, it’s not the Buddhism of your grandfather if he was Vietnamese or Tibetan. What was then dubbed as “Wisdom 2.0” – yes, that’s what it was really called – was really a Buddhism stripped of any of “the dogma and religious trappings.”

Instead of mimicking the prince who renounced his throne and sat under the Bodhi tree seeking enlightenment and preaching about renouncing ego, Wisdom 2.0 was an utilitarian attempt to use the parts of the religion that could increase productivity and offer an edge on their competitors.

It’s hard to think that in “Philosophy 2.0,” Aristotle, Socrates, or Marcus Aurelius will fare much better. How can the ethos of Silicon Valley, with all its talk about constant reinvention and utopian technologies be reconciled with the Stoic emphasis on “differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t?”

It cannot. The only option is to appropriate certain artifacts of Stoicism, such as the language and certain ideas, and use them to decorate your life, just as we might decorate our walls with Navajo rugs. Of course, the rugs don’t make you a Navajo, and quoting Marcus Aurelius in memos won’t make you a stoic either.

Chuck Colson used to say that people who identify themselves as “spiritual” while rejecting any ultimate authority, essentially build “god kits” for themselves, borrowing bits and pieces from various religions. I call it the “buffet approach to worldview”: a little of this and a little of that.

This utilitarian approach not only ignores essential ideas and concepts and fails to understand them in their original contexts, it fails to wrestle the final and ultimate question of whether or not the philosophy is true. We might mention that an awful lot of Sunday morning sermons do the same kind of thing with Jesus’ teaching, but that would take another commentary.

Either way, in this new trend of philosophical appropriation, the master is the same master of the old trend: Me. Stoic philosophy just sounds better than “self-help.”

February 8th marks the anniversary of the founding of the Boy Scouts, one of America’s most beloved youth organizations. For over a century, presidents, CEOs, astronauts, and athletes have begun their journeys as Scouts. But on this anniversary, the future of this storied organization is far from certain.

The Wall Street Journal reports that since 2008, the Scouts have lost nearly a million members and now face lawsuits over the sexual abuse of children and cover-ups that also go back decades.

With the Mormon church announcing in November that it plans to pull nearly half a million additional members out of the Boy Scouts, bankruptcy or even the end of the organization seems somewhat likely.

Those of us who have watched this sad story unfold can’t help but notice that the Scouts’ quickening decline coincides with the group’s decision to betray its founding values. In 2013, the Scouts began accepting openly gay members and then leaders. Shortly afterward, they opened their ranks to transgender members, and then—despite the organization’s name—to girls.

Families who might have turned to scouting to guide their young men into adulthood are left wondering: What do the Boy Scouts really have to offer? As one dad who grew up in Scouting told WORLD magazine, “I realized it wasn’t the same organization...”

The loss of the Scouts is just another blow in a culture already failing young men. So-called “deaths from despair”—drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicides—are at a historic high, and young men have been the hardest hit.

TIME magazine reports that as of 2017, the male suicide rate was three times higher than the female rate, and youth suicides are at their highest point in 20 years. Many of these are attributable to loneliness and a sense of alienation. More and more, young men especially feel that they don’t belong and aren’t welcome anywhere.

It’s a process that starts early, in subtle ways. More than ever before, schools cater to girls, slashing recess and P.E. time and requiring longer hours sitting at desks. Around 13 percent of boys are now diagnosed with ADHD, and a growing number of them are put on medication like Adderall and Ritalin.

In our misguided, one-size-fits-all understanding of equality, there’s almost nowhere boys can go to be with other boys. And, of course, the epidemic of fatherlessness is at the root of so much of the despair we see around us.

In our one-size-fits all society, boys are not just struggling, they’re falling into despair.

We talk a lot about gender here on BreakPoint—how God’s creation of human beings as male and female is good, beautiful, and life-giving. Often times, we’re responding to stories about the transgender ideology, or same-sex marriage. But the plight of boys, including the fall of the Scouts, hits even closer to some of us—especially for those of us raising boys.

That task is harder than ever before, but it’s not impossible. Despite the failing institutions around us, alternatives exist for parents committed to raising their sons to be godly young men.

Trail Life USA is an organization formed by ex-Scouting families and they’re dedicated to Christian values. It’s been profiled in WORLD magazine, and has a membership of around 26 thousand nationwide, many of whom describe it as the spiritual successor of the Boy Scouts.

And there are other organizations too, often hosted by churches, like the Royal Rangers, the Royal Ambassadors, and the Troops of St. George. Many congregations also host custom-made programs tailored to connect boys with their dads, or boys without fathers to men who can mentor them.

As sad as the Boy Scouts’ decline is, parents of sons do have other options.

And by God’s grace, churches and parents who believe what the founders of the Scouts believed: that boys are real, that they have a unique and God-given calling that should be cultivated, will continue to offer these alternatives. After all, if the church doesn’t, who will?

In just the past decade, the entire Christian understanding of reality has been discarded by the culture: how God made the world, what it means to be human, what marriage means, what sex is for. Everything is on the table.

Which is why today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet is excited to talk with Greg Koukl about the just-released 10th anniversary edition of Koukl’s outstanding book, “Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions.”

As you will hear on the Podcast, John believes “Tactics” to be one of the best resources ever produced to equip Christians to engage in constructive conversations about faith and the controversial issues of our day.

During the month of February, you can receive "Tactics" with your next gift to BreakPoint and the Colson Center. Click here for more information.

This podcast originally aired December 16, 2019.

“Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions,” by Greg Koukl . . . receive your copy with your next gift to BreakPoint and the Colson Center