Breakpoint

An oft-repeated but, in my view, ultimately misguided self-critique by Christians, is that we are better known for what we are against than what we are for.  I fully agree with the spirit of the comment. As Chuck Colson liked to say, Christians should not just resist the bad stuff but always propose a better way.

Today, however, that statement is too often used as a way of saying Christians should be more positive, as if Christians should be known for what we are for, and not known for what we are against. But Christians just can’t choose between those approaches.  To put it bluntly, Christian faithfulness in a culture like ours demands that we be against many things even as we embrace the hope of the invading Kingdom of God. Otherwise, we will only offer the world a sort of moral confusion.

Case in point: Just before Christmas, Christianity Today editor Mark Galli suggested that, given the conclusion of the impeachment hearings in U.S. House, Christians should support the removal of President Trump from office, either by impeachment or in the next election.

So much has been said and written about Galli’s piece already, I’ll only focus on his two main and most problematic points: First, that supporting the removal of Trump from office is a mark of Christian faithfulness, and second, to not support his removal would harm the reputation of Christ and Christians. In other words, Christians should be against the president.

It’s always a weighty thing to bind the conscience of other Christians, and it should only be done with clarity and discernment. This piece, unfortunately, displayed neither.

Moral clarity today demands we be both for personal integrity in our leaders as well as for the conscience protections of citizens. It demands that we stand against the taking of innocent, preborn life and, at the same time, for civility and strong character. Moral clarity in our time requires being against the mistreatment of people on Twitter and, even more so, against the sexual experimentation on children by radical ideologues.

This is the moral complexity of the world we live in. It’s for us what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “the tempest of the living.” So we must be very careful before we demand all Christians adhere to our conscience, especially if by doing so, their consciences are made complicit in not sufficiently standing against the grave evils of our day.

At the same time, Gospel faithfulness cannot be delivered by mere political calculation. To stand against the evils of our day, we need not overlook, or much less, justify the moral failings of our leaders. Whenever we do that, we become, as Chuck Colson warned in his own Christianity Today article more than twenty years ago, “just another political interest group.”

Simply put, we must be clear about what we are for, and what we are against.

And, most importantly, the tough decisions that Gospel faithfulness demands of Christians, especially in this cultural moment, cannot be made based on a concern for reputation. After all, we would only need to join the choruses of support for abortion and the sexual confusion of children if we wish to improve our social standing, or at least we should lower the volume of our moral outcry, as far too many Christians have. That, of course, is an abdication of our responsibility to God and His truth.

As Chuck so clearly exhorted, “Our task is to serve as society's conscience, seeing all of life from God's perspective and interpreting that vision in prudential terms for our fellow citizens. We don't seek power; we seek a society where government promotes justice in all spheres of society and protects the public good.”

That task has not changed, nor is it simply a political one. In all of life, in every sphere of society, the challenge and the opportunity to proclaim Christ and promote what is true and good remains.

Especially now, as Paul prayed for the church at Philippi, Christian love requires knowledge and discernment. We’ll need that kind of clarity and courage to call balls and strikes and, to mix metaphors, to walk and chew gum at the same time. We’ll have to be clear about what we are against, and we’ll have to be clear about what we are for. Christ is our King. His causes are our causes.

So, let’s be known as people who are for the proclamation of the Gospel. Let’s be for truth and for goodness and for beauty. Let’s be against the taking of innocent life and the sexual exploitation of children. Let’s be for those ideas that align with God’s general and special revelation, and against those ideas that confuse self-determination for freedom. Let’s be against covering up sin, and for God’s good gift of repentance. Let’s be for the freedom only found in Christ and against all attempts by political or corporate forces to bind our conscience. Let’s be ruthlessly against ideas that dehumanize, and at the same time fiercely for those being dehumanized.

We can be appropriately for and appropriately against, but only if our love is shaped by knowledge and discernment. We will often find ourselves, in the New Year and beyond, against the world. But when we are, let it be because we are actually for the world, empowered by and in service to the One whose world it is.

Between 1997 and 2016, researchers at an excavation near Ashkelon in Israel examined the remains of more than one hundred humans, remains that dated from the 12th to 6th centuries before Christ. The researchers hoped to find human DNA in order to answer an old question: Who were the Philistines? Where did they come from?

As it turns out, the Philistines were exactly who the Bible says they were, and they came from where the Bible says they did.

Amos 9 speaks of God bringing up the Philistines from Caphtor, just as he brought Israel out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 2 tells us that “the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed [the original Canaanite inhabitants] and settled in their place.”

Originally aired

This brings us to the obvious question: “Where was Caphtor?” We just don’t know for sure, but the Bible does provide an interesting clue. Jeremiah called the Philistines “the remnant of the coastland of Caphtor.” The Hebrew word translated “coastland” can also mean “island.”

For this and other reasons, many archaeologists have concluded that biblical Caphtor was Crete. In fact, some modern Bible translations even render “Caphtor” as “Crete.” We can’t be completely certain that it is, but the Bible does tell us three additional things about the Philistines. First, they weren’t native to Iron Age Canaan. Second, they displaced the original inhabitants of the region. And, third, they came via the sea, that is, the Mediterranean.

Which brings me back to the excavation in Ashkelon. After analyzing DNA from the site, Michal Feldman, an archaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute, and Daniel Master, the head of the expedition, revealed the results. Master announced, “Our study has shown for the first time that the Philistines immigrated to this region in the 12th century (BC).”

And from where did they immigrate? According to Feldman, “This [DNA] ancestral component is derived from Europe, or to be more specific, from southern Europe, so the ancestors of the Philistines must have traveled across the Mediterranean and arrived in Ashkelon sometime between the end of the Bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age.”

Over time, the “ancestral component” became diluted as the Philistines mixed with the local Canaanite population.

All of this is pretty much in accordance with the Biblical narrative. The Philistines were ancient Israel’s principal antagonist during the period of the Judges, which coincides with the time frame Feldman and Master mention, as well as the early Monarchy. As the biblical narrative continues, they become less distinct from their Canaanite neighbors and basically drop out of the picture, except as an historical reference, as in Jeremiah.

Whenever the latest archaeological evidence confirms parts of the Biblical narrative, we are told that this does not prove the Bible is “true.” I suspect what critics are trying to say, for example in this case, is that confirming the biblical narrative’s account of the origin of the Philistines doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the Bible is true.

Of course, it doesn’t. But the Bible is on quite a streak here, isn’t it? And, each finding further distinguishes the Biblical narrative from other religious or even ancient historical texts. The Biblical writers weren’t creating myths or recounting legends. They were relating history.

Like all history, the events it describes are interpreted within Israel’s larger story, but the events are clearly not created out of thin air to suit their agenda. These were events either witnessed or received from reliable sources.

Which is why we must say that Biblical faith is a historical faith. Many other faiths are “ways of life” or “paths to enlightenment” or something like that. The Bible is different. It tells the story of God’s dealing with His people as it unfolded in human history. Its details are grounded in real events, not in some mythological “once upon a time.”

And, along the way, we learn of other actors. You know, like the Philistines.

Originally aired July 29, 2019.

Last week on the podcast we shared with you the most-viewed BreakPoint commentaries of 2019. Today, we will replay the most listened to and downloaded BreakPoint podcast of last year.

Interestingly enough, it was about purity culture. Specifically, about Josh Harris, author of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” renouncing not only his teaching sexual purity, but also his faith in Christ. John Stonestreet and I discussed the social media frenzy over this sad development—especially the backlash against the so-called purity culture. Was this backlash is really anti-purity culture, or simply a repudiation of Christian sexual morality?

Colson Center Short Course: A Christian Response to Tough IssuesRegister today!

From Apology to Apostasy: Joshua Harris Joins His CriticsG. Shane Morris, Troubler of Israel Blog, July 29, 2019

Against Evangelical Victim Culture (Stop Blaming Josh Harris for Your Problems)G. Shane Morris, Troubler of Israel Blog, September 13, 2016

The pitfalls and perils of marijuana legalization are well-documented, but whenever we discuss that research here on BreakPoint, we are accused of not having the right research. Of course, what that typically means is we’ve used studies that contradict the very vocal advocates of weed.

Well, let’s see what happens when we cite The British journal The Lancet which, along with the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association, is considered the “gold standard” for peer-reviewed medical research. It doesn’t get more “real” than being published in The Lancet.

A just-published study in the Lancet involving, among others, researchers at King’s College London, compared 900 people who had been treated for psychosis with 1,200 people who had not. Sample participants were drawn from across Europe and Brazil.

Both groups were surveyed on a host of factors, including their use of marijuana and other drugs. The study’s authors concluded that “people who smoked marijuana on a daily basis were three times more likely to be diagnosed with psychosis compared with people who never used the drug. For those who used high-potency marijuana daily, the risk jumped to nearly five times.”

By “high-potency” the researchers meant marijuana with a THC content of more than ten percent. Today, it’s not uncommon to read of marijuana that’s legally-sold in places like Colorado with THC content above 20 percent and, occasionally even 30 percent! Legalization advocates minimize the exponential growth in potency by saying that twenty or more years ago, Americans didn’t have access to the more potent strains, a.k.a, “the good stuff.”

That misses the point by several astronomical units. The point is that those people who daily use “the good stuff” are five times more like to find themselves in a hospital suffering from delusions and hallucinations, to name only two symptoms of psychosis.

Now, critics will respond, “That’s correlation, not causation.” And that’s the criticism leveled at journalist Alex Berenson, author of “Tell Your Children: The Truth about Marijuana, Mental Illness and Violence,” a book I recommend highly. But as I heard Berenson say just last week in Denver, “of course it’s correlation and not causation.” The only way to prove causation would be to ask half a sample group to experiment with something that may harm them. That’s not ethically possible. By the way, all the studies that made us believe that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer were correlated studies too, but that was enough to convince us all.

Even so, writer Ron Powers doesn’t need a peer-reviewed study to convince him of the link between marijuana use and psychosis. In his 2017 book, “Nobody Cares About Crazy People,” he tells the moving story of his two sons, Dean and Kevin, who were diagnosed with schizophrenia in their late teens.

As Powers tells readers, while there is a strong genetic component to schizophrenia, there is no “schizophrenia gene.” Instead, a constellation of genetic and environmental factors make people susceptible to schizophrenia. One of these, as Powers painfully learned, is heavy marijuana use, especially in your teenage years.

Of course, some people will tell you that they and most people aren’t mentally ill, so there’s little if any risk. But, for a host of reasons, no one can know that with certainty. In fact, all pronouncements about how safe marijuana legalization is, overstates the case.

That’s exactly what happened here in Colorado. The possible pitfalls were denied or downplayed. And since legalization, Colorado has seen a spike in marijuana-related emergency room visits by people between the ages of 13 and 20.

Given the well-documented mental health risks, especially to not-fully-formed adolescent brains, the rush to legalization is the height of irresponsibility. An irresponsibility that can shatter lives. And don’t just take our word for it.

Heading into 2020, we’re reviewing the most-popular BreakPoint commentaries of 2019.

In the whole runup surrounding the push for same-sex marriage and LGBT “rights,” some predicted that the normalization of homosexuality would open the door to other deviant practices. Usually at the top of the list of things being warned against was pedophilia, but we were told over and over that this was offensive, and just an invalid “slippery slope” argument.

It’s been just four years since so-called same-sex marriage was instituted by the Supreme Court, and it’s now clear that the slope was a lot slipperier than advertised.

Consider, for example, the growing, nationwide trend of “drag queen story hours” at public libraries. Confused men, dressed flamboyant makeup and women’s clothing, read often propagandistic story books to young children. Last weekend, Lansdale Public Library outside of Philadelphia hosted such an event, where a drag queen who goes by the stage name “Annie Christ”—I’m not kidding—read to dozens of elementary school-aged children while in full costume.

Later this month, a Greenville, South Carolina public library plans to hold its own drag queen story hour, and similar events have taken place in Houston, Detroit, and even here in Colorado Springs.

And, to be clear, drag queen story hour is not the worst news of children being sexualized. Last month, Huck Magazine featured a 10-year-old Canadian boy named Nemis, who is one of the first so-called “child drag queens.” For the article, this young boy was photographed in full makeup and in a dress, alongside and touching a nearly naked man in high heels.

A few months earlier, in December, another boy, 11-year-old named Desmond, reportedly performed a suggestive dance at a New York City-based gay bar while adult men in the audience threw dollar bills at him.

It’s hard to see how the boy’s parents and everyone at the bar aren’t already being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. New York’s newly-elected attorney general, Letitia James, should do exactly that.

The very fact that no one is in jail yet is proof of just how slippery that slope I talked about earlier really was. But it wasn’t the L, G, or B that really greased the skids. It was the “T.” Normalizing the gender dysphoria of little boys and girls, and by that I mean imposing our radical new experimental ideas about sex and gender on children who had no say in the matter, has proven to be the means for sexualizing them. “They’re just expressing themselves,” we’re told, ignoring the fact that children have no business participating in any kind of sexual expression, least of all for the entertainment of adults.

That fact that I’m here in front of this microphone, telling you about this on BreakPoint, is a little disorienting. Thinking about it all as a father, is a lot nauseating.  But how we got here is not complicated. Sexualizing children’s identity makes sexualizing their behavior inevitable.

So, what now?

First, we should refuse to accept it—we should refuse to adopt both the language and the mindset that sees this as anything other than abuse. We should protest the daylights out of any library that holds a drag queen story hour, and if you’re in law enforcement or criminal justice, treat sexualizing children as the crime it is! Kids must be sexually off-limits. Why do we even have to say this?

Ultimately, we’re witnessing the de-civilizing of our society, a sickening illustration of how bad ideas create victims. No culture wakes up and just decides to exploit its children, but the decades-long process of re-defining human beings according to our sexual ideologies rather than their God-designed dignity is what brought us here.

In the decades to come it will likely fall to Christians, as it did in ancient times, to be the ones who protect children, rather than preying on them.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, we want to take a look back at 2019. So we’ve assembled five of the most-viewed BreakPoint commentaries of the year:

“Greta Thunberg and the Cult of Adolescence.”

"Mayor Pete Buttigieg Preaches”

“Marijuana and Psychosis”

“Dragging Our Kids into the LGBT Agenda.”

“Archaeology, the Philistines, and the Old Testament.”

Please consider making a year-end gift to help BreakPoint and the Colson Center meet our financial goal for  2019. Thank you!

WORLD Magazine's Mindy Belz joins John Stonestreet and Shane Morris to talk about the top stories of the year from 2019 . . . from impeachment, to Mayor Pete's Bible, to Chick Fil-A, the U. S. withdrawal from Syria, China's crackdown on faith, and much more.

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Earlier this month, South Bend, IN, Mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg quoted the Bible in an attempt to speak to the question of abortion: “There [are] a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath, and so even that is something that we can interpret differently.”

If we applied the Bible in the way Mayor Pete suggests, abortion would be justified up until birth, a position now firmly embedded and championed across the Democratic Party.

One of the ways Mayor Pete has distinguished his candidacy from all of the other Democratic hopefuls for president is through constant reference to his religious faith. Already, Buttigieg has applied (and often, misapplied) the Bible to support far-left positions on several cultural issues, including economic policy and same-sex marriage.

These Biblical misapplications are easily taken apart. Or, at least, they should be. The Bible clearly treats unborn babies as persons, see Psalm 139 and Luke 1:15, and Jesus clearly affirms the Genesis account of marriage as between a man and a woman, see Matthew 19:4.

In fact, the Bible Buttigieg goes to for his political positions is missing a lot of pages, and suspiciously reads a whole lot like his party’s platform. As Ross Douthat put it, Buttigieg doesn’t appear to “support any policy that deviates from the progressive catechism.”

Of course, Buttigieg has every right to sermonize. My concern here is what makes it effective. It certainly isn’t the strength of his biblical argumentation. As I said on Twitter: “What makes #MayorPete’s gross misapplication of Scripture to cultural issues so troubling and so effective is the incredible void left when many pastors who won’t apply Scripture to cultural issues.”

The reason Buttigieg gets so much mileage out of his biblically revised one-liners is because so many Christians do not get a steady diet of the Bible applied to cultural issues, particularly from the pulpit.

Buttigieg is filling a void that’s been left by pastors who only teach the Bible as a personal, private self-help book, in order to help us find our purpose, improve our lives, and feel closer to God. For example, back in 2016, when Colorado was facing a ballot initiative on doctor-assisted suicide, at least two prominent pastors told me they wouldn’t address it from the pulpit because it was “too political.”

A Christianity that is never directly and broadly applied to the cultural moment we live in is one that is eventually reduced down to emotive sentimentalism. A friend responded to my tweet with this one that further clarifies the problem Buttigieg is revealing in the church: “Also, he's Very Nice. Reducing Christianity to bland platitudes and vague kindness leaves us utterly defenseless when the snake oil salesman is vaguely kind too.”

Exactly. Do the math. Too many Christians never hear the Bible applied to cultural issues. Too many Christians are left with the impression that Christianity is about being “nice” and happy. Mayor Pete is “nice” and happy. Mayor Pete applies the Bible to cultural issues.

As one of my Tennessee friends used to say, “This ain’t rocket surgery.”

Christianity is, of course, personal. But it’s not private. To say, as Jesus’ first followers did, that “Christ is Lord” is to state a public truth. Christ is sovereign not just over our salvation, but over everything. And if Christianity is true, its truth applies to every sphere of life.

I am grateful for those pastors and preachers, and there are many of them, who clearly and courageously articulate the whole truth of the Bible, working out its implications from the pulpit for the cultural moment in which we live.

There’s a scene in “Remember the Titans” in which Denzel Washington’s character tells his white assistant coach to stop coddling the team’s black players. He knows the racist hatred these young men will face. “You’re not preparing them for the real world,” he says. “You’re crippling them for life.”

In the same way, pastors who use the Scripture to coddle our emotions, but never apply Scripture to hot-button issues, will leave their flocks cripplingly vulnerable when politicians twist the Bible to their own ends.

Last week, sixteen-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg grabbed top billing with her “How dare you?” climate change speech at the United Nations. In fact, even before Thunberg had been declared as the voice of a generation, the ultra-liberal Church of Sweden tweeted that Jesus had appointed her as one of His successors.

While I, as I’ve discussed a few times recently, don’t share her climate alarmism, the international beatification of Thunberg mirrors something we saw in the wake of the Parkland shooting a few years ago: Elevating teenage spokespersons for political causes. In at least the cases of Thunberg and the Parkland victims, their activism jettisoned reasoned discourse for melodramatics, complete with screaming and swearing, and absent anything that could be considered “respecting your elders.”

And as a Babylon Bee headline parodied, challenging these elevated spokespersons is just not allowed: “I Will Stop at Nothing To Take Away Your Constitutional Rights—Whoa Bro, Why Are You Attacking Me, I’m Just A Kid!”

The increasing trend to block debate with angry teenage shields is the next step in a culture captivated by what I call the cult of adolescence. Adolescence, as Brett Kunkle and I have written about in our book "A Practical Guide to Culture," is a recent innovation in Western society. In most cultures throughout the history of the world, kids went from being kids to being adults. Today, they become adolescents. It’s so normal, we actually expect kids to lose their minds during their teenage years.

But along the way, two things happened. First, people began to enter adolescence earlier and earlier, and are leaving it later and later. Adolescence has expanded dramatically. In fact, many experts today identify adolescence as the stage of life between ages 11 and 30!

Second, adolescence has moved from being a stage of life to being the goal of life. Long gone are the days when grown men and women wished to appear older and wiser. We are now a culture that wants to stay young and free forever, one that sees the “good life” as the ability to be adolescent as long as possible.

What does this have to do with Greta Thunberg and the students from Parkland? Well, for many people in a culture like ours, chronology equals correctness. Beliefs and opinions of kids matter more than adults, not because they are informed or accurate, but simply because they’re younger.

In a culture captivated by a cult of adolescence, we should do what teenagers like Thunberg and the Parkland activists say (and dismiss their tendency toward hysterics and hyperbole) despite the lack of good arguments and evidence, as if youth confers a kind of sainthood and argument-immunity. In fact, all across our culture, on both the right and the left, we've allowed our most important conversations and debates to become adolescent-like, in which emotion always trumps facts.

Some conservatives have reacted by telling Greta and other teenage activists to sit down and shut up. One popular podcaster told his audience he has no interest in the political opinions of 16-year-olds, because they couldn’t possibly know anything of value. This is equally misguided.

The core problem with the cult of adolescence is that we penalize young image-bearers with low expectations. We do this when we elevate teen spokespersons without requiring them to know what they are talking about. We also do this when we say teenagers can’t know what they are talking about.

Both approaches mistakenly assume that this mythological period of life called “adolescence” actually exists— a time when young people can’t be expected to act like grown-ups.

In our book, “A Practical Guide to Culture,” Brett Kunkle and I debunk the myth of adolescence. Young adults should champion big ideas and important causes, and in the process, they should expect to encounter and be ready to answer opposing arguments—something they’re also fully capable of doing.

One of the best things we can do for young adults is respect them enough to expect more of them—and, of ourselves.

This commentary originally aired on October 3, 2019.

As you enjoy this Holy Christmas Day in the company of friends and family, be sure to reflect on how the babe in the manger reveals to us God's wonderful love. But even more, as Chuck Colson explained over a decade ago, remember the cosmic implications of the incarnation… that God would indeed become flesh. Here is Chuck Colson.

The manager scene inspires a sense of awe and comfort to the hearts of Christians everywhere. But we often forget the staggering implications of Christmas. What image does the mention of Christmas typically conjure up? For most of us, it's a babe lying in a manger while Mary and Joseph, angels, and assorted animals look on.

Heartwarming picture, but Christmas is about far more than a Child’s birth—even the Savior’s birth. It's about the Incarnation: God Himself, Creator of heaven and earth, invading planet Earth, becoming flesh and dwelling among us.

It's a staggering thought. Think of it: The Word—that is, Logos in the Greek, which meant all knowledge that could be known, the plan of creation—that is, ultimate reality, becomes mere man? And that He was not born of an earthly king and queen, but of a virgin of a backwater village named Nazareth? Certainly, God delights in confounding worldly wisdom and human expectations.

Thirty years after His humble birth, Jesus increased the Jews’ befuddlement when He read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue at Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor...to proclaim release to the captives...to set free those who are downtrodden...” Jesus then turned the scroll back and announced, “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

In effect, the carpenter’s son had just announced He was the King.

So yes, the birth of Jesus is a glorious moment, and the manger scene brings comfort and joy and Christmas cheer. But it should also inspire a holy terror in us—that this baby is God incarnate, the King who came to set captives free, through His violent, bloody death on the cross as atonement for us, His unworthy subjects.

It's through the Incarnation God sets His grand plan in motion. He invades planet Earth, establishing His reign through Christ’s earthly ministry. And then Christ leaves behind an occupying force, His Church, which is to carry on the work of redemption until His return and the kingdom’s final triumph.

Do we get this? I'm afraid most of us are so preoccupied and distracted by last-minute Christmas shopping and consumerism, we fail to see God’s cosmic plan of redemption in which we, as fallen creatures, are directly involved.

Well, the average Christian may not “get” this announcement, but those locked behind bars do. Whenever I preach in the prisons, and I read Christ’s inaugural sermon, Luke 4:18, and when I quote His promise of freedom for prisoners, they often raise their arms and cheer. The message of Jesus means freedom and victory for those who once had no hope. They're not distracted by the encumbrance of wealth and comfort.

People in the developing world get it, too. Whenever I've shared this message with the poor and oppressed people overseas, I see eyes brightening. Stripped of all material blessings, exploited by earthly powers, they long for the bold new kingdom of Christ.

Today is Christmas. Go ahead, enjoy singing about and celebrating the birth of the Savior. Set up a manger scene in your home. But don't forget this earth-shaking truth: The birth of the Baby in the manger was the thrilling signal that God had invaded the planet. And that gives us real reason to celebrate Christmas.

For all of us at BreakPoint, this is Chuck Colson in Washington, wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas.