Breakpoint

Between 1959 and 2016, life expectancy in the United States rose from 69.9 to 78.9 years. Most people know that. But did you know that since then, it’s reversed course?

A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association paints a portrait of a society in deep trouble. For the third year in a row, the average life expectancy in the United States has declined. The last time American life expectancy declined three years in a row, World War I and the “Spanish Flu” pandemic killed 675,000 Americans. Percentage-wise, that would be the same as losing 2.5 million Americans today.

Of course, in the early 1900s there were no antibiotics. Viruses were unknown--never mind antiviral drugs. The germ theory of disease had only recently been widely accepted in the U.S., and the kind of public health and sanitation measures we now take for granted were still in their infancy then.

Today, the U.S. spends a far larger share of its GDP on health care than any other nation. Yet, other wealthy nations are simply not experiencing this same reversal in life expectancy. In fact, some people in less-wealthy nations such as Costa Rica have significantly-longer life expectancies than Americans.

So, whatever is causing Americans to die younger and younger has nothing to do with medical science or technology.

As a recent Washington Post article describes, the causes behind this dramatic shift are things like “suicide, drug overdoses, liver disease and dozens of other causes.” These causes are summed up in the phrase “deaths from despair,” coined by researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton.

In other words, we are facing an epidemic of young people who are giving up on life, sometimes before it really even starts for them. As a public health expert told the Post, “People are feeling worse about themselves and their futures, and that’s leading them to do things that are self-destructive and not promoting health.” As the study shows, they’re giving up at a younger and younger age.

The same hopelessness leading to the uptick in “deaths from despair” is also driving what I will call “acts of desperation,” that we also see in our culture. In this category, I’d put acts of mass violence, abuse, and the increasing numbers of young people willing to self-mutilate in a pursuit of their identities.

This sad story brings to mind Matthew 9: 36, “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

The Greek word that is here translated “compassion” describes a visceral reaction, not a mere sentiment. In other words, Jesus felt this one in His gut. His response to their plight was to tell his disciples to “pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest,” starting with themselves.

Our current epidemic of dying young should elicit a similar response from us.

As Chuck Colson liked to say, “it’s time for the Church to be the Church.” Like our Lord, we must see the harassed and helpless around us, and we must feel their suffering as if it were our own. We must pray that God would show us how He would have us respond.

If, as Paul told the Athenians, God has determined the time and place where we live, then we cannot be spectators to the unfolding tragedies of our cultural moment. God has placed us here to act.

This doesn’t mean we can “solve” this problem, any more than those who ran towards the plague in ancient Rome could stop it. The restoration of all things will only be complete when Christ returns in glory.

But we can offer a preview of that restoration here and now. This is what we, and only we, have to offer. If we can’t bring ourselves to do this, then something else is terribly wrong.

This time, with us.

We’ve reached a barking point in American history. (Yeah, I’m sorry for that one.) A few years ago, for the first time ever, the number of dogs in this country surpassed the number of children under eighteen. According to Statista, there are 90 million dogs in America today, up from just 68 million in 2000. And a higher percentage of American households own dogs than ever before.

By contrast, there are just over 73 million children. That still sounds like a lot, but as a percentage of the population, children have never been rarer. In 1960, for instance, over one-in-three Americans were under the age of eighteen. According to government projections, by 2050, children will make up less than a quarter of the population.

As you’d expect, this drop in birth rates corresponds to a drop in marriages. What you might not expect is that it also corresponds to a drop in happiness. The General Social Survey in 2018 found that Americans today are more miserable than they’ve been in decades. And replacing family with dogs isn’t reversing the trend.

Of course, what we increasingly hear today, in print and on television and movies, is that what will make us happy is the freedom that can come only from singleness and childlessness. Writing in The Atlantic recently, Mandy Len Catron bemoaned all of the things “You Lose When You Gain a Spouse.” According to her, family life is isolating and unfair to outsiders, because spouses give most of their attention to each other and to their kids. When people get married, she writes, they retreat into “socially neglectful cocoons.”

London School of Economics professor Paul Dolan goes even further in his book, “Happily Ever After.” He says the only reason married people report being happier on average than singles is that they’re lying to save face. The book was corrected, by the way, when this claim turned out to be unsupportable.

In reality, the statistics are clear: Married people really are happier than those who are unmarried—by an average of ten percentage points. But is that because marriage makes people happy, or because happy people are more likely to get married?

A new paper by the Institute for Family Studies offers a surprising answer. Instead of looking at the effect of family itself, author James McQuivey decided to look at the effect of the desire for family. He asked over a thousand men and women how much they value having an emotionally intimate relationship, sexual faithfulness, and children. He then combined these answers into a single measure, which we might call a desire for a traditional, nuclear family.

He discovered that scoring higher on this measure predicted greater happiness and overall life satisfaction—regardless of whether or not the respondent was actually married or had kids!

It’s one of those results that makes you do a double take. After all, you’d expect people who want a family life and haven’t found it to be dissatisfied. But on average, they’re not. As McQuivey says, “[i]f you merely have the desire to pair bond and procreate, you are already happier than average...”

Act on that desire, he adds, and your happiness jumps, while your life satisfaction (a separate metric) “practically leaps off the chart.”

In other words, contrary to the thesis that getting married and having kids dooms you to misery, committing to a family is one of the most effective means ever created to train people to care for others. And a cornerstone of psychology is that other-centeredness brings human beings happiness.

Look, dogs are great and all, but we were made for communion with other people. The family bond is so central to our design that merely pursuing it leads to greater happiness.

For a society like ours, one in the midst of family and happiness shortages, the solution is obvious, but it won’t be found at the dog park.

Last week in Reykjavik, Iceland, The Women Leaders Global Forum gathered to recognize and celebrate women making a positive difference in the world. The “Trailblazer Award” honored women who’ve won high political office. Others were recognized for their work in easing various stigmas and discrimination women face around the world. There was even a category for female Nobel Prize Laureates—an award on top of an award, if you will.

         While I am happy to say congratulations to them all, I couldn’t help but think of the amazing women who are at least as worthy of recognition yet are never mentioned at any of these secular events.

         The women I am thinking of have at least one thing in common: In their various causes and through very different work, they speak up for those who, in our culture, have no voice: the unborn, those with disabilities, or victims of the sexual revolution. In doing so, they stand courageously against powerful cultural norms. If they worked on behalf of culturally acceptable causes, their names would be celebrated with the others.

         Obianuju Ekeocha, or “Uju” as her friends call her, is the founder and president of Culture of Life Africa. A Nigeria-born biomedical scientist, she’s devoted her life to promoting the sanctity of life, the beauty of marriage, and the blessing of family in Africa.

         In fact, Uju is one of the main leaders of the pro-life movement on that continent. Her bold declarations in defense of the unborn and against progressive sexual ethics is confronting what she calls Western ideological imperialism. By the way, Uju will be speaking at our 2020 Wilberforce Weekend this May, and trust me, you won’t want to miss it.

         Another heroine to know: Rachael Denhollander. This gymnast-turned lawyer brought down USA Gymnastics doctor and serial abuser Larry Nassar. In doing so, she enabled hundreds of his victims to have a voice, and is now spending her time as a wife, a mother and a crusader for the dignity of women and girls, especially calling the church to take sexual abuse seriously. We recently interviewed her on the BreakPoint Podcast.

         Then there’s Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action. Lila is one of the most influential voices in the modern pro-life movement, and the unquestioned media leader. From her undercover work exposing Planned Parenthood to her defense of the pro-life cause in mainstream media, she’s a powerhouse—and proof that the pro-life movement is, in many ways, being led by a younger generation.

         There’s Katy Faust, an author, a children’s-rights activist, and founder of the organization Them Before Us. She’s challenging one of the foulest lies of the sexual revolution: that the desires of adults trump the rights of children, especially their right to have a mom and dad. In one of our recent “What Would You Say?” videos, she debunks the popular but poisonous idea that love is the only thing required to make a family. She’ll also be at our next Wilberforce Weekend.

         Making the same case at the scholarly level is Helen Alvare, associate professor of law at George Mason University and a champion of life and the family in the legal sphere. She’s one of the intellectual heavy-hitters of our time—including in amicus briefs to the Supreme Court—that marriage is worth preserving, children deserve parents, and unborn life is worth protecting.

         I feel like the author of Hebrews here. I’m running out of time to talk about Reggie Littlejohn, founder and president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers, and the world’s leading opponent of sex-selective and forced abortion in China. And of course, Emily Colson and Joni Eareckson-Tada, who have dedicated their lives to honoring the dignity of those with disabilities, especially in recent years, leading battle against selective abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Through books and speaking they’ve made the case, like few else can, that a society that welcomes the vulnerable is a beautiful place worth living in.

         These women are forces of restoration. Not only do they deserve recognition for the incredible work they do. They deserve recognition because the causes they represent and the groups for whom they speak aren’t popular in this culture.

God bless these worthy women. If I were on an award committee, they’d have my vote.

How does KKK terrorist survive a shootout with the FBI, get thrown into federal prison, and then become an ambassador for racial reconciliation and the head of a major Christian ministry? That’s the story Tom Tarrants tells on today’s BreakPoint Podcast and in his new book, “Consumed by Hate: Redeemed by Love.”

Tarrants is the President Emeritus of the C. S. Lewis Institute. Here he is, with Colson Center President John Stonestreet.

Resources

Help the Colson Center reach its year-end financial goal. Thank you!

Consumed by Hate, Redeemed by Love: How a Violent Klansman Became a Champion of Racial Reconciliation

I certainly don’t recommend the cartoon “Family Guy,” but in a 2012 episode the main character, Peter Griffin, has a stroke that paralyzes half his body. He stumbles into a stem cell research lab and is cured in five minutes. “Why aren’t we funding this?” he asks.

         Well, the show not only got it exactly wrong, it cheated. Let me explain. The cartoon never delineates whether the research center uses adult stem cells or embryonic stem cells. The difference is everything. Embryonic stem cells are only acquired by destroying human embryos. Acquiring adult stem cells does not require the death of a human embryo.

         You might remember this was a central issue of the 2004 presidential election. Democratic nominee John Kerry led the chorus of outlandish promises for embryonic stem cells, shaming George W. Bush’s decision to ban federal funding of embryo destructive research while, for the first time, directing funding for adult stem cell research. Kerry even claimed that embryonic stem cell research would enable Superman actor Christopher Reeves to “get up and walk again.” For his decision to fund research that did not require destroying an embryo, George W. was accused of “banning stem cell research,” which just wasn’t true.

         I’m guessing the “Family Guy” episode was perpetuating the myth that Bush didn’t fund stem cell research. The truth is Bush didn’t fund embryo-destructive stem cell research. And, the Obama Administration lifted the Bush-era ban on embryo-destructive research in 2009, forking over between $100 to $200 million a year in federal funding. In 2012, when that “Family Guy” episode aired, $150 million in federal grants went to embryo-destructive research.

         But here’s the thing. Despite all the funding dedicated to embryo-destructive research, embryonic stem cells had not yielded a single viable treatment by 2012, but adult stem cells had. So if Peter Griffin was, in fact, miraculously healed by stem cells, it wasn’t because embryos were destroyed in the process.

         In fact, seven years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, there are still zero treatments from embryonic stem cells. But, according to the pro-life think tank Lozier Institute, adult stem cell research “has made significantly more progress, and shown far more real promise, in treating diseases and conditions” than embryonic stem cell research has.

         In fact, scores of diseases and condition are now treated using adult stem cells, including brain cancer, diabetes, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis.

         And, in an amazing breakthrough over a decade ago, Japanese scientists learned to reprogram adult stem cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, with the potency to differentiate into many different types of tissue, but without destroying an embryo. In other words, even if it weren’t so morally problematic, there is simply no reason to destroy embryos in the name of stem cell research anymore.

         This raises two questions. First, are we still funding embryo-destructive research? Yes. The question is why are we still funding embryo-destructive research? Over $200 million of federal funding still goes to embryo-destructive stem cell research, and it has every year since President Trump has taken office.

         In January, Indiana Representative Jim Banks introduced the Patients First Act of 2019, which would have effectively rerouted all National Institutes of Health funding to adult stem cell research. But, in a Democrat-controlled House, it hasn’t gone anywhere.

         This means executive action is necessary. President Trump has already restricted NIH experiments using fetal tissue. It’s likely he’d be willing to end our long national experiment in embryo-destructive research, as well. But he needs to hear from us loud and clear.

         Ending this deadly and unethical research, which has brought no miracle cures, should be a cause to unite not just pro-life voters, but all who think taxpayers deserve something for our money.

Between 2014 and 2017, the divorce rate in Jacksonville, Florida, and surrounding Duval County fell 24 percent. Of course, divorce rates are falling nationally already because fewer people are bothering to get married. Still, 24% is a huge number, especially compared to a 6 percent decline nationally and a 10 percent decline across the state of Florida during the same period.  

What happened in Jacksonville?

The difference was the commitment of local Christians to go beyond lamenting the state of the family and to actually do something to help married people.  

Behind these efforts was the unifying work of a group called Communio, whose goal is to help churches “strengthen marriages and families in their community.” The group uses a data-centered approach to identify couples in crisis, and then elevates “best practices” to offer help to these couples.  

In Jacksonville as elsewhere, data continues to show that “churches are the best at strengthening marriages.” After all, what other social institution can offer the sort of surgical precision needed to identify and connect with couples? What other institution is as scattered, de-centralized, and localized? This insight is obvious once you think about it, but unfortunately, it’s rarely put into practice, especially at the kind of scale needed to make a difference.  

Communio worked closely with churches across denominations to create programs to supplement marriage preparation and marriage enrichment programs. These programs both identified and helped couples who showed signs of being at risk of divorce; signs such as “struggling with anxiety, financial stress, or substance abuse.”

Whenever couples were identified as fitting the criteria for “the greatest level of marriage difficulty,” they “would be directed into more intensive programs like Live the Life’s Hope Weekend.” 

Altogether, between 2016 and 2018, 59,000 people attended a four-hour or longer program in Jacksonville. That’s nearly 12 percent of all adults between the ages of 18 and 64. In contrast, in 2015, only 300 people attended similar programs.  

Because “less than 20 percent of U.S. evangelical, Catholic, and mainline churches have any budget for marriage ministry,” that low 2015 number isn’t surprising. Connecting and sharing resources between churches is an absolute game-changer. 

For example, consider Watermark Church in Dallas. Their intentionality to strengthen marriage in Dallas is, like Communio’s efforts in Jacksonville, a model other churches can and should follow.  In the last decade, over 100,000 people have participated in the church’s “re|engage” program in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, a program that intends to change the way marriage is done in the area. And, Watermark is sharing its program widely. Chances are, there’s a church in your area that’s been trained in and employing re-engage.  

What’s happening in Jacksonville and Dallas embody an important truth summed up by Communio’s executive director J. P. De Gance, who was my guest on the BreakPoint podcast: “The federal government cannot fix marriage, but churches can.” 

Indeed, we can, if we decide to light a candle instead of merely cursing the darkness. If, we do not succumb to what Jacques Ellul called the “political illusion,” which is the tendency to look to the government to fix all of our problems, and instead employ the vast network and personalized potential of the church to the hurting and lost, we can make an incredible difference.

Strengthening marriage and the family is a task God has assigned to the Church. Delegating that task to any other institution is not only a dereliction of duty, it’s a failing proposition. And, the efforts of Communio and Watermark remind us that this task is not easy, but it is doable.  

What is the “secret sauce” for saving marriages? The Church. Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet talks with J. P. DeGance of Communio, a ministry that brings churches together to identify and help couples in crisis. Communio’s data-driven, church-centered approach has achieved stunning results in Jacksonville, Florida, where the divorce rate plummeted 24% in just three years—and their approach will be spreading to other cities around the country.

As J. P. DeGance mentioned on the podcast, pastors interested in Communio and getting an assessment of marriages in their communities may contact him at: [email protected]

Resources

Communio

website

Fixing the marriage crisis

Kiley Crossland, WORLD Magazine, November 1, 2019

J. P. De Gance on Jacksonville’s Divorce Decline: 5 Questions With Family Studies

Elysse ElHage, Institute for Family Studies, October 18, 2019

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris recover from their Thanksgiving feasts to discuss the concept of America as "a city set upon a hill."  What did John Winthrop mean when he used this phrase in his famous sermon to his band of intrepid puritans in 1630 as they set out for the new world? John and Shane debunk the standard interpretations used throughout American history.

They also talk about the voters of Hong Kong turning out in record numbers to endorse democracy; Mayor Pete Buttigieg's wooing of the Black vote, and how the media just doesn't get it; and the radical shift of the Democratic party to allow abortions under all circumstances--and just how out of touch the party is with the opinions of the vast majority of Americans when it comes to abortion.

Resources

What It Means to be “A City Upon a Hill”

John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint, November 28, 2019

Hong Kong Chooses Democracy

John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint, November 25, 2019

Across China, the clocks are striking thirteen. The people of Hong Kong hear it.

David von Drehle, Washington Post, November 26, 2019

Black Friday has certainly given America’s cultural reputation a black eye. The day after we pause to give thanks as a nation for God’s provisions, we trample security guards for iPhones and flat-screen televisions. It’s now an annual tradition: America’s big-box stores drop their prices and in response, shoppers go berserk.

News stations everywhere lead with the requisite embarrassing video footage, showing shoppers crawling over each other, throwing elbows and curse words. Checkout lines at Walmarts and Best Buys nation-wide become dangerous places to be or to work. It’s not a good look.

         Of course, online Black Friday sales have already been going on for a month now, which allows us to indulge our consumerist tendencies without physical violence. I guess that’s an improvement…

Dennis Prager once told me on a panel that if this is America’s biggest problem - scuffling with each other in a rush to buy presents for our loved ones - we could do a lot worse. I told him that I was not convinced that these shoppers were altruistically buying for others, but still, I take his point. There certainly needs to be room for frivolity at Christmas time.

All of this should remind us of the idols vying for our attention this Christmas season. Certainly there is the idol of stuff, but, looking through social media, there is also the idol of other people’s perceptions.

Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook is full of it, and we allow ourselves to feel the pressure. All those pictures of a perfectly decorated home… of perfectly well-behaved and perfectly matching children, complete with color, theme, and pattern-coordinating attire. Matching Christmas pajamas, shown off with a family lip-sync.

All the Pinterest-worthy décor and Instagram-worthy celebration videos reveal a different kind of materialism - a materialism of experience. And it has become another distraction in a season meant for holy reflection.

         Throughout church history, the days leading up to Christmas celebrations were to be a time of fasting. Many liturgically-oriented Christians see Advent as a bookend to Lent, the liturgical season of fasting and prayer that occurs in the forty days before Easter. For Christians, Advent is a time to reflect on Jesus’ first incarnation and prepare for his second coming. The Bible doesn’t prescribe this outright, of course, but Advent does provide us with a different calendar to go by, something especially helpful today, in our hurried cultural moment. 

         Unfortunately, for many of us, Black Friday settles into a rushed and hurried holiday-season rhythm. And for many, along with the chaos comes the melancholy. It’s a frustrating paradox: Feeling sad during what’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year.

 Jesus offers some insight in the Gospel of Matthew, when He calls the weary and burdened to come to Him. “I will give you rest,” He said. “For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Obviously, Jesus isn’t saying that to follow Him means having an easy or comfortable life. After all, His own earthly life wasn’t easy or comfortable in any sense. When He says His “yoke is easy,” I think at least part of what he’s talking about is simplicity. 

         Maybe our Christmastime melancholy is the byproduct of all the pressure to have a good time… and all the options we have in order to have a good time… and all the pressure we face to prove to others on social media that we’ve had a good time. After all, our culture implicitly convinces us, you’ll only know you’re having a wonderful, valuable life if you follow every Pinterest recipe, and constantly upload our joyful moments to Instagram and Facebook, and get lots of likes.

We’re afraid our lives won’t be full, but neglect that which will fill us: reflecting on holy things, like Mary’s obedience and Jesus’ sacrifice; embracing ordinary beauty like extra time with families and special traditions.

By all means, enjoy the frivolity. But don’t lose the season curating online versions of holiday experiences, or by comparing your curated memories with theirs. Celebrate Jesus’ birth. Give gifts freely. Eat some extra calories.

Have a Merry Christmas - just don’t feel the pressure to put it on Instagram.

The year was 1630. The location was the ship Arbella, which, like the Mayflower ten years earlier, was headed to what’s now Massachusetts. Like the Pilgrims before them, the Arbella’s passengers were devout Christians who came to the New World seeking to practice their faith as they believed God commanded.  

Just prior to the Arbella’s voyage, the group’s leader, John Winthrop, delivered one of the great speeches in America’s history: a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” The sermon is best-known for Winthrop’s use of the biblical phrase “a city upon a hill.” 

For nearly four centuries, that one phrase has shaped our American sense of purpose and our sense of what is often called “American exceptionalism.”

Yet, what many think Winthrop meant by “a city upon a hill” is, well, wrong. 

In the sermon, Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans what was at stake in their attempt to create “a new godly community.” “For we must consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” 

As historian Andrew Delbanco put it, Winthrop used the phrase not out of a desire for this new experiment to bring fame and emulation, but out of “a fear of notoriety.”  

Winthrop’s concerns about not failing God have been lost over time. His message, which was intended for a group of devout Christians, has been “‘plucked out of Winthrop’s context’ by politicians and pundits . . . and re-imagined as something quite different—as a founding document for the nation itself.” 

For example, President Reagan used the expression at least thirty times while in office, often adding the word “shining.” Then-Senator Barrack Obama used the expression to describe the world watching what he called “this improbable idea called America” to see if it would succeed. There are many other examples.  

What these all have in common is the substitution of the nation for the Church. Winthrop’s sermon was directed at a group of Christians who saw themselves as part of God’s Elect, and their mission as an act of stewardship.  

This stewardship included, as Winthrop put it, that “every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection.”

The exceptionalism Winthrop had in mind was “to follow the counsel of Micah, ‘to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.’” This meant not “[embracing] this present world and [prosecuting] our carnal intentions, [or] seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity.” Instead, Winthrop urged, “we must be knit together in this work as one man . . . we must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.”

Do this and others would see it. Fail to do it, and others would see it, too. Even more, if they failed, God would allow their name, as Moses told the Israelites, to become “a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples.” 

Obviously, this is not the way “city upon a hill” or “American exceptionalism” is often understood today. Plucked out of their theological and historical context, Winthrop’s words are used for either premature self-celebrations of national greatness or misunderstood mean to unfairly criticize the history of our nation. In context, it is an admonition to embrace responsibilities.

Here's Winthrop’s remarkable sermon—share it or even read it aloud with your family.

As we gather to give thanks today to God for all His blessings, let all who are God’s people re-commit ourselves to let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven. 

From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Thanksgiving.