Breakpoint

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris step away from the craziness swirling around the world to mark the anniversary of the deaths of missionary Jim Elliot and his companions at the hands of the Auca Indians, whom they were seeking to evangelize. What an eternal perspective these men had, embodied in the famous quote by Elliot: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

John and Shane then discuss  the Iranian response to the killing of its top general, President Trump's subsequent response, and the media's predictable response.

They wrap up this week's show discussing the Golden Globe Awards: Ricky Gervais's skewering of Hollywood elites and Michelle Williams's bizarre yet much-acclaimed thankfulness for abortion. Do women truly need  the ability to kill their children to succeed in life? Or is this truly one of the great lies of the Sexual Revolution?

“Through the Gates of Splendor,” by  Elisabeth Elliot

“The Auca Martyrs: Their Lives Were Like Bright, Short-Lived Flames,” Deep Roots at Home blog

The Christian Just War Tradition, an Interview with Daryl Charles, the BreakPoint Podcast

“Michelle Williams’s Acceptance Speech,” John Stonestreet, The Point

Does Rape Justify Abortion? What Would You Say? Video

When iPhones first hit the market in 2007, they were cool but clunky. Since then, they’ve gotten smaller, then sleeker, then bigger again. Then they added a camera, then a better one, now three of them. These things are always changing. They’re always getting better.

But they’re also changing us. And not for the better.

Before the smartphone, Dr. James Dobson used to say that busy schedules were the biggest challenge facing American families. We worked too many hours and our kids were on too many teams, which left us without enough time to just be together.

Today, whatever family time we can find is too often interrupted. At restaurants or even relaxing on the couch with family and friends, our screens are almost impossible to resist. We’re buzzed and notified, beckoned to leave the world we’re in for another, to choose people far away whom we may not even know over the ones right in front of us. We’re physically together but functionally alone.

According to a recent survey, 70 percent of adults believe they’re addicted to their phones, and 70 percent felt they’d be better parents if they didn’t look at their phones so often. I raise my hand with them.  

We have a problem.

Of course, phones, like most technologies can be used for good things too. They can even help relationships.

Therein lies the challenge. Like money, smartphones are an easy scapegoat. We can blame them for our misdeeds, but they are a-moral as a technology. The problem is we are not intentional enough with our technologies to think through how we use them and determine whether we serve them or they serve us.

After all, the biggest tempters in our techno-culture are often those things that distract us. If we were to give an account of how much time we’ve spent sitting and staring at a phone, wasting time that God has given us and we’ll never get back, we’d likely be somewhere between embarrassed and ashamed.

And it’s not just distraction that’s the problem. Social media sites encourage comparison and bragging and bullying. Twitter enrages. Pornography ensnares. The 24/7 news cycle wearies. In other words, it’s not just the phone that’s the problem, it’s all the nasty windows the phone opens to us.

I realize I’m preaching to the choir. I’m preaching to myself. Many of us are trying to break our bad smartphone habits, and not just for our own goods. It’s one thing to bemoan what phones are doing to us. It’s downright terrifying to consider what phones are doing to our kids. Today’s teens are among the first to walk into the world with the internet in their pockets. 

That’s why I’m so grateful for the new book Smartphone Sanity from my friends David Eaton and Jeremiah Callihan. Smartphone Sanity starts with a refreshingly reasonable premise: Smartphones are here to stay. Rather than offering a tone-deaf prescription to just throw them away - which, I might add, would be the quickest way to ensure your kids tune you out - Eaton and Callihan encourage parents to reason together with their kids, especially to talk about how as parents we’ve abused our smartphones, too. That attitude of humility that will go far with our hyper-vigilant teens, who are always ready to spot hypocrisy.

The book also recommends a series of activities for parents and kids meant to foster honest conversation, like making a meal together or engaging in an activity your kids love. The book offers real solutions. In fact, it is a solution, written so that families can read it and discuss the strategies together.

Along the way, Eaton and Callihan tackle all the major issues: screen addiction. Social media shaming. Sexting. When are kids ready for a phone? How much privacy should they reasonably expect when they have one?

David Eaton and Jeremiah Callihan’s book Smartphone Sanity is a terrific practical resource for parents and grandparents, pastors and youth pastors.

Right before the New Year, a Chinese court sentenced Early Rain Church Pastor Wang Yi to nine years in prison for “inciting subversion of state power” and “illegal business activities.” In addition to prison, Wang is deprived of his “political rights” for three years and his personal property (approximately $7200 worth) will be confiscated.

Thirteen years ago, Wang was in the White House discussing the state of religious freedom in China with then president George W. Bush. Today he is a symbol of just how perilous it is for religious minorities in China.

In fact, given the new regulations to be imposed on religious beginning February 1, 2020, Wang’s imprisonment is only a prelude to what lies ahead for Chinese Christians and other religious minorities.

As summarized by the Catholic website Asia News, “Religious organizations must spread the principles and policies of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as national laws, regulations, rules to religious personnel and religious citizens, educating religious personnel and religious citizens to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, supporting the socialist system, adhering to and following the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics . . .”

If that sounds like China will now force religious organizations to be organs of the Communist Party, that’s because China is forcing religious organization to be organs of the Communist Party. As a Catholic priest told Asia News, “In practice, your religion no longer matters, if you are Buddhist, or Taoist, or Muslim or Christian: the only religion allowed is faith in the Chinese Communist Party.”

Asia News summed up the new regulations this way: “Every aspect of the life of religious communities - from formation, gatherings to annual and daily projects - is subject to approval by the government’s religious affairs department.”

Back in November, I argued on BreakPoint that what drives the repression of religious minorities and democracy activists in China is the Communist Party’s insecurity about its own weakness. For example, contrast the way Beijing is treating Christians with how they treat technology giant Huawei. Setting aside the inherent contradiction of billionaires in a socialist system, companies like Huawei enjoy freedoms that churches can only dream about.

In its battle with the United States, Huawei has publicly distanced itself from the Communist Party and insisted that its equipment has “never been used, and will never be used, to spy” for Beijing. The point is not whether you believe Huawei – which, for the record, you shouldn’t—it’s that Beijing does not require Huawei to toe many of the same ideological lines as religions organizations.

Why? Because firms like Huawei and other Chinese e-commerce giants like Alibaba do not threaten the legitimacy of the Communist Party rule, but pastor Wang Yi does. “Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” apparently, can handle a man who makes billions of dollars, but not a man who claims “Jesus is Lord.”

As Time magazine said bluntly, “China feels threatened by the spread of Christianity.” As they should. There are significantly more Christians in China than Communist Party members, even though the latter comes with material benefits and security, while the former comes with increasing persecution.

As Willy Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong told Time, “[The Chinese government] is afraid that more people . . . are turning to the church for their spiritual needs and not to official nationalism and patriotism.”

In other words, Beijing’s attempt to co-opt churches for its own ends is a tacit admission of its own weakness. Unfortunately, this weakness makes them more dangerous, not less.

Since 2020 promises to be such a hard year for our Chinese brethren, they should be at the top our concerns and certainly our prayer lists, starting with Wang Yi.

Given the increasingly dire situation for Christians in China, it’s particularly fitting (and I am honored to announce) that the 2020 William Wilberforce Award will be given to Pastor Bob Fu, Founder and President of China Aid. The ceremony will take place at this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, May 14-17. Come hear from and honor this courageous Chinese Christian leader, and learn from other leading Christian thinkers, like Os Guinness, Lee Strobel, Obianuju Ekeosha, and Andy Crouch. Register here.

Well, that escalated quickly, didn’t it?

2020 just started and, within days, a U. S. drone strike at the Baghdad airport killed Iran’s top military leader, Qasem Soleimani. Almost before Iran could sputter threats of revenge, notable American politicians tried to turn a momentous national security decision into domestic political opportunism.

Depending on which news site you read, the President’s action was either a reckless attempt to light the Middle East on fire and to distract Americans from impeachment, or it was a justifiable act of deterrence in response to Iran’s increasing assaults on U. S. troops and interests.

And while thousands of Iranians turned out to see Soleimani’s casket as it tours the country, Western news media (like the Washington Post) reported that the drone strike has united the previously divided Iranian population behind its dictatorial religious leaders. Or maybe not. Yahoo News painted a different picture—of Iranians fearing what comes next and wishing their leaders hadn’t steered the country into even more conflict.

And that’s just the first news story of the year. Of 2020, an election year. How can engaged, thoughtful Christians hope to sift through the spin and stay informed amidst this kind of news chaos?

The Washington Post alone publishes an average of 500 news stories every single day. Thrown in the content-churning of The New York Times, The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, FoxNews, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, and a million content aggregators, and the noise is simply overwhelming.

There is no way to keep up with this relentless tsunami of information. Even worse, countless stories we should know about are often buried, while stories more sensational and speculative than substantive dominate the headlines.

Everyday on BreakPoint, we try to analyze and comment on the most important news events and cultural trends from a Christian worldview. It’s part of the Colson Center’s mission to equip believers to understand what’s happening around us, so that we can live out our faith in the public square with clarity, courage, and conviction.

And one of our critical partners in this task is WORLD magazine. WORLD is a source of news and thoughtful analysis like no other. I and the BreakPoint team turn to them frequently.

For example, the reporting of WORLD’s senior editor Mindy Belz has been our most reliable source in understanding the chaos in the Middle East, including these most recent developments in Iran. Back in early December, Belz reported that Iran was building up its supply of short-range missiles in Iraq—the very kind of missiles that struck a U. S. base and killed an American contractor, which in turn led to a U.S. airstrike, then led to the attack on the U. S. embassy in Baghdad, which ultimately led to the strike against Soleimani.

When news broke that General Soleimani had been killed by a US drone strike, I immediately asked Mindy Belz to join me on the BreakPoint Podcast to explain the bigger picture, a picture largely ignored by an American media that’s fixated on impeachment.

WORLD exemplifies the best of journalism from a Christian worldview—without the click-bait or hype. Their print magazine, online articles, and WORLD’s podcast “The World and Everything in It” (on which I am a weekly guest) includes not only clear reporting, but also features news about how God is working in the world through His people to restore all things.

To begin this new year, in return for your gift to the ministry of BreakPoint and the Colson Center, WORLD magazine will give you a one-year subscription. I can think of no better way for you to both support our worldview ministry and at the same time, stay on top of the staggering variety of political, cultural, scientific, and religious news, all from a Christian worldview perspective. If you already subscribe to WORLD, you can actually gift the subscription to a friend or family member.

Claim your one-year subscription to WORLD with your next gift to BreakPoint and the Colson Center here.

Was President Trump right to order the drone attack on Iran’s top general?  That’s a national policy question, a question of prudence. Here is a more important question from a Christian perspective: Was the drone strike just? Can any act of war be just?

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet welcomes Dr. J. Daryl  Charles, an expert on the Christian just war tradition. What conditions must be met before going to war? And what conditions must be met in conducting a war? Is pacifism a defensible Christian position?

You know what I’m happy to leave behind in the 2010s? All those headlines about how Millennials are killing everything. “Millennials are killing mayonnaise,”  “Millennials are killing golf,” and “millennials are killing real estate because they spend all their money on avocado toast.” Yes, those are real headlines.

Sadly, there’s at least one Millennial-related headline we can’t leave in the last decade: Millennials are killing churches.

According to Pew Research, four in ten Americans between the ages of 23 and 38 now say they are religiously unaffiliated. This is the biggest drop in religiosity between generations ever recorded.

While part of the hemorrhaging is explained by the forty-year decline in mainline Protestant bodies, evangelicals are not off the hook. We cannot say that conservative theology, in and of itself, is enough to shrink-proof your church. The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, America’s largest evangelical denomination, just hit a 30-year membership low.

Young people have left evangelical churches and are still leaving, and new data can fix some of our wrong thinking about it.

For instance, I’ve heard for years that young people who leave church in their college years will come back, as if nothing can or should be done about it. Let’s set aside for a moment what should be obvious, that we should never be okay with anyone ever rejecting Christ or His church. According to a study by the American Enterprise Institute, Millennials who drop out of church often end up staying away permanently. Maybe in the past, young adults who wandered away tended to become religious again when they got married and had kids. But things have changed, and there seems to be three main differences.

First, many young adults today who leave the church never had strong religious ties to begin with. Whether their parents didn’t attend services regularly or they were passed back and forth between homes with different beliefs, many young adults weren’t raised with God or His people at the center of their lives.

Second, those who drop out and have gotten married tend to have a spouse who is also not religious. For obvious reasons, this makes them less likely to go through the effort of making it to Sunday services or raising their families in the faith.

Finally, Millennial church dropouts are unlikely to view religion as a necessary part of teaching their own children morality. This is quite a change from past generations, which often returned to church after a youthful rumspringa because they had kids and wanted them to grow up to be good people.

Another claim I often hear these days is that growing number of dropouts are actually a good thing because it is separating true believers from cultural Christians. I get the spirit behind this claim, but it’s misguided in at least two ways. First, God often uses the culture we are born in to introduce us to Christ. Think about it: Are you more likely to hear about your need for Jesus in a culture with a church on every corner, or in a culture in which churches have been turned into bars? And second, the Gospel still has an effect on those who come to church for the wrong reasons, like social acceptability.

So what lesson can we take from this new data? First the bad news: We really are losing a generation of young churchgoers, and they’re probably not coming back—at least not if we stay the current course.

The good news: We now know with even greater clarity the difference parents make, and we can apply that with members of Generation Z. Parents who prioritize church as a central part of their family life, who teach their children to take Christianity seriously, and who encourage them to marry fellow believers, have the best chance of seeing not only their children but also their grandchildren in the pews beside them.

All of this is why I’m a fan of Summit Ministries, the premiere Christian worldview training program for young adults.

Summit’s two-week-long summer conferences are held in Colorado and Georgia. I’ve seen the results up close and have been a part of watching hundreds of young people learn to defend and embrace their faith in a way that will last.

Today on a special episode of BreakPoint podcast, John Stonestreet interviews WORLD Magazine’s Mindy Belz about the killing of Iranian General Hasem Soleimani and the situation in Iran. What prompted the U. S. take him out now?  What should the American public know about Soleimani and Iran’s intentions in the Middle East? And what are the implications for the future of the region?

Early on Friday morning Iraqi time, a U. S. drone strike at the Baghdad airport killed Iran’s top military leader, Qasem Soleimani. For decades, Soleimani has been the mastermind behind Iran’s involvement in armed conflicts and acts of terror across the Middle East, from supplying the terrorist organization Hezbollah, to attacking Saudi oil fields and international shipping, to targeting U. S. forces in the region. In fact, the Pentagon lays the deaths of over 600 U. S. military personnel directly at Soleimani’s feet.

At the time of his death, Soleimani was just 15 miles away from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, which, last week, was stormed by militants thanks to Soleimani.

Writing in the New York Times, the Hudson Institute’s Michael Doran asserts, “Taking out the architect of the Islamic Republic’s decades-long active campaign of violence against the United States and its allies, especially Israel, represents a tectonic shift in Middle Eastern politics.”

And, despite not knowing what those tectonic shifts might bring, Doran concludes, “The world to which we wake up today, rid of its most accomplished and deadly terrorist, is a better place.”

Of course, the U. S. attack on Soleimani raises a whole host of questions. How will Iran respond? Will it expand its “proxy war” through Shi’ite militias? Will it dare take on the U. S. military directly? Will it unleash terrorist cells in the Middle East and even here in America? Is this a decisive step toward a wider, bloodier war in the Middle East and maybe even beyond?

It is impossible to see the future, especially in such a volatile region that features such volatile actors. But we can evaluate whether this decision, and any decision leading to hostile action, is justified according to what is called “Just War Theory.” Over the centuries, Christian thinkers from Augustine to Aquinas to the Reformers—seeking to reconcile Christian teaching on the sanctity of human life with the Christian responsibility to love our neighbors by protecting them from evil—have proposed a set of conditions by which a violent act can be considered justified. These conditions deal with both whether war ought to be waged, as well as how war should be waged.

First, the cause for going to war and the intention behind it must be just. Second, the war must be waged by a legitimate authority. Third, force must be used as a last resort. Fourth, force used in war must be proportionate to the threat. Fifth, force must not target non-combatants, and finally, there must be a reasonable chance of success.

Obviously, these conditions deal with very precarious details, including some that we, as the watching public, may or may not have access to or assurances of.  If we measure the killing of Soleimani against these conditions, we can conclude that given Soleimani’s long resume of terrorism and evil, and his targeting of America and America’s allies (including civilians), there was just cause.

Whether the act was performed by a legitimate authority is a tougher question, since a formal, declared state of war does not exist between Iran and the U. S. However, our forces are in Iraq legally, with Congressional mandate and the approval of the Iraqi government. Soleimani was instigating hostile acts against the U.S. and the Iraqi government with, according to the Pentagon, plans to do even more. (David  French offers a helpful explanation in this Twitter thread).

The attack, a precise drone strike, did not target civilians, which also addresses the questions of proportionality and probability of success. Was the attack a last resort? That’s difficult to know. Clearly, sanctions against the Iranian regime weren’t affecting Soleimani’s activities around the region.

The most difficult question, in my view, is whether the evils prevented are greater than the potential consequences. Will this bold, new posture cause Iran to curtail its activities, or will it ignite a wider war? We’ll only be able to answer this question in hindsight.

Of course, we are dealing with limited information. But, we’ll need to keep these just war conditions in mind in the days and weeks ahead. As Mindy Belz told me in a special episode about Soleimani and Iran available on the BreakPoint Podcast: While America has been focused on impeachment, the Middle East has been exploding all over again.

Most importantly, let’s pray to the God of History, for wisdom for the President and Congress, for the safety of our men and women in uniform as well as the many other lives at stake, and for peace in the Middle East.

Please leave a comment below and tell us what you think.

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the stunning U. S. strike against Iranian General and terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani. Did the U. S. act justly, especially in light of the Christian Just War tradition?

They also discuss the sadly ever-more-common acts of violence in U. S. houses of worship. What's more frightening, armed church members (as one USA Today columnist wrote) or the fact that churchgoers find it necessary to army themselves? What does that say about our society.

Finally, was the last decade truly the best in human history? In terms of the lowering poverty, boosting health, and increasing longevity and other factors, the answer may be . . . yes.

Chuck Colson used to say that to judge the truth of a worldview, you just follow it to its logical conclusion. And as Apple TV’s “The Morning Show” accurately depicts, confusion is the logical conclusion of the secular demands for sexual freedom.

“The Morning Show” is about a shake-up at a fictitious morning newscast after its male anchor is fired for sexual misconduct. If you hear faint echoes of the Matt Lauer and Fox News scandals, yes, this show is an example of art imitating life.

Given the all-star lineup of actors, it’s not surprising how well-acted the show is. What is surprising is how relatively nuanced it is, especially for a Me-Too show coming out of Hollywood right now. “The Morning Show’s” lead anchor, played by Steve Carell, is unambiguously wrong, but he might not be the only one. The show, like the culture it is vividly portraying, raises more questions than it answers. Can a boss and a subordinate engage in any appropriate romantic relationship? Is flirting always wrong? Does a workplace culture with lewd jokes and accepted promiscuity bear responsibility for victims? If a man cannot use his power to advance his career, can a woman use her body?

Lines are drawn and redrawn all over the place, and it’s all deeply confusing. Our best attempt at a way forward is the new, elevated notion of “consent.” But what, exactly, is consent? How is it given? What if it’s given and then regretted?

I realize how delicate this is, and I’m grateful to have worked in places that have not had to deal with workplace sexual harassment or sexism. I am even more grateful that, as a husband, my wife communicates so well and works so hard to understand me. The problem is that culture-wide, we can’t seem to decide what consent is.

Planned Parenthood, which, I might add, has a vested interest in promoting promiscuity, says consent is, “actively agreeing to be sexual with someone.” But what does it mean to “be sexual”? How does one “actively agree?” The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, or RAINN, says consent “doesn’t always have to be verbal.” Dartmouth College, in its student policy handbook, says consent is “clear, voluntary, and unambiguous agreement.”

You get the picture. At the root of all of the confusion is the premise that sex is inherently unhooked from marriage. Our culture wants so-called sexual freedom, while also demanding that everyone play by some set of rules we can’t nail down and refuse to ground in anything substantial. How can we expect everyone to live by a same standard - like consent - while rebuffing the very notion of having standards in the first place?

The fact is, only marriage is substantial enough to ground any sexual standards that can bring about health and wholeness. Sex is like fire and marriage is like a fireplace. When the fire stays in the fireplace, it brings light, heat, ambiance, and maybe even preserves life. But when the fire jumps out of the fireplace onto the curtains, it instead brings death and destruction.

Sex long ago jumped out of the safety of the marriage fireplace, and now we are trying to contain it again. But a fuzzy notion like “consent” will be about as effective of a fireplace as a cardboard box.

We’re trying to have it both ways, and it’s not working. It cannot work. We can’t pretend to be liberated from limits and then erupt in self-righteousness when someone crosses a line.

But there’s also good news here. Our collective reactions are revealing that there is a law written on our hearts and it’s not some arbitrary standard. God didn’t design sex to be between one man and one woman because He’s mean. He did it to protect men and, especially, women. It protects us because that’s how He made us.

Healthy marriages offer a wider, life-giving context for consent: the up-front commitment to another’s best, the joining of families, the constant mutual giving of self to another, and a union that God both recognizes and celebrates… That context has no substitute, not in cohabitation, not in bosses using power over subordinates, and certainly not in “hookups” - even if consent is “unambiguously given.”

Reducing sexual ethics to something as downstream as consent leaves it alone on an island, without any mechanisms of virtue or safety to support it. Left alone with only our egos, brute strength, and unrestrained passions only guarantees that pain, emptiness, and abuse will inevitably follow.

Thank God for his brilliant design.