Breakpoint

A new holiday trend, as evidenced by Google searches, is “Friendsgiving.” Instead of having to talk politics or religion with that opinionated parent, aunt, or uncle over Thanksgiving dinner, some folks – especially younger adults – are choosing friends over family on turkey day. After all, why risk an argument that will ruin the day for everyone?

Of course, there is nothing wrong with celebrating Thanksgiving with friends, but we shouldn’t shy away from conversations about things that matter, even if the topics are super-controversial—like, oh, I don’t know, same-sex “marriage,” the impeachment hearings, immigration, or the Dallas Cowboys.

There are two keys to civil, interesting, and productive conversations. First, we need to be confident in our beliefs. If we are, we are far less likely to be threatened by opinions and ideas we know aren’t true. Second, we need to love our enemies. And since we aren’t facing any hostile foreign invasions this holiday season, that means our ideological enemies. Remember that Jesus loves even those we find intolerable, so we must decide to treat them with respect.

And now, here’s a strategy for those tough conversations. Ask good questions. Questions turn monologues into dialogues, surface-level discussions into something deeper, and they might even open a closed mind or two.

Here are six questions I’ve found extremely helpful in any conversation:

First, What do you mean by that? The battle of ideas is always the battle over the definition of words. Thus, it’s vital in any conversation to clarify the terms being used. For example, a very important thing to clarify about whether Christians should support same-sex marriage is the definition of marriage. If the topic comes up, stop and ask, “Hold on, before we go too far into what kind of unions should be considered marriage, could you tell me what you mean by marriage?” Often, when it comes to these crucial issues, we’re using the same vocabulary as those with whom we disagree, but we’re not using the same dictionary.

Here’s a second question: How do you know that is true? Too often, assertions are mistaken for arguments. There’s a vast difference between the two. An assertion is a definitive statement made about the nature of reality. An argument is presented to back up an assertion. By asking “How do you know that’s true?” you’ll move the conversation beyond two people merely asserting what they believe to why those assertions should be taken seriously.

Of course, if you ask someone making an assertion this question, you’re going to have to be ready to receive that same question when you make an assertion. And that’s ok – Christians have good reasons for our faith that we can share. Our moral convictions make sense, and we should be ready to make the case for them whenever we get the chance.

Here’s a third question: Where did you get this information? Once arguments are offered, it’s important to ensure the arguments are valid. For example, news reports love to shout that same-sex parents are better parents than straight couples—a talking point based on very limited studies, while plenty of other studies suggest the exact opposite.

The fourth question: How did you come to this conclusion? Behind the person you are talking with and his/her convictions, there is always a story, maybe even a painful one. If you know where someone is coming from, it can help explain why they don’t find your views plausible. Plus, it’ll help you remember (see the second key above) that the person you’re talking with is a real, image-of-God bearing person.

Two final questions: What if you’re wrong? and What if you’re right? Look, ideas have consequences. These questions help us follow ideas to their conclusions.

Oh . . . and to get off to a great start tomorrow at the dinner table, here’s a seventh question, and one of the most important you can ask: For what are you thankful? It’s an easy transition from that question to “to whom are you thankful?”

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

This commentary first aired in November 2016.

What does the Thanksgiving holiday say about the American character? As Christianity retreats in the public square, are we in danger of losing an authentic sense of gratitude? And can Thanksgiving become a holiday that once again unites Americans in this divided political age? Author Melanie Kirkpatrick joins John Stonestreet to discuss her outstanding book, "Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience."

This podcast first aired November 21, 2018.

This past weekend, pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong won what the New York Times characterized as a “stunning victory” in local elections.  

Not only did a record number of voters turnout, something widely seen as a referendum on the ongoing anti-Beijing protests, but pro-democracy forces won 389 of 452 parliamentary seats. That’s more than triple their previous total. Meanwhile, pro-Beijing forces saw their total seats collapse, from more than 300 to just 58. 

Now the obvious question is: How will Xi Jinping and his Communist cadres respond to this unmistakable show of support for the protestors that have given them so much trouble for so long? 

The most likely answer is “not well.” Beijing’s proxies in Hong Kong have already stepped up their use of force against protestors. A week ago, police stormed the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, using water cannons, tear gas, and beanbag rounds against what it dubbed “coldblooded rioters.”  

After, the police superintendent made it clear that using “real bullets” was not off the table.  These election results make those “real bullets” even more likely.  

Here’s why. Despite everything we hear about China’s ascendancy, China is a lot weaker than it appears, especially economically. China’s economic growth has already slowed to “its slowest pace in nearly three decades of modern record-keeping.” And all indicators suggest that the slowdown will only continue. As one commentator put it, “Its labor force is shrinking, and the country is already full of roads, rails and factories, limiting potential new investment.” 

The shrinking labor force, which has even forced the Chinese government to reduce the size of its military, is largely due to three decades of China’s disastrous “one-child policy.” And, given the dramatic gender imbalance caused by the policy, the consequences of this very bad idea will continue for generations to come.

Additionally, many scholars are suggesting China’s economic boom wasn’t as miraculous as everyone once assumed. In fact, China now faces what Dinny McMahon (formerly of the Kissinger Center on China) has dubbed a “Great Wall of Debt.”

All of this is very bad news for the Communist Party, who’s source of legitimacy, as we’ve talked about before on BreakPoint, has been economic growth. For the past forty years, the Chinese people have been asked to trade certain freedoms for increasing prosperity. That trade-off has preserved a measure of social order, but it’s a fragile balance that is sure to collapse if that prosperity goes away.

It’s no coincidence that Xi Jinping’s cult of personality and crackdown on religious freedom took off around the same time that China’s economy began to slow.  At the same time, a renewed call to Chinese nationalism has not only effectively distracted the population from the country’s growing economic worries, it’s become the useful and effective pretext for discrediting Hong Kong protestors over in the mainland.

And, of course, the state-run Chinese media is tirelessly advancing the narrative that the protesters are tools of western nations who only seek to weaken China and prevent it from taking its rightful place on the world stage. 

All of this makes a more forceful intervention by China in Hong Kong almost inevitable. Beijing will not sit idly by as its authority is challenged.  

So, what can we do? The most obvious answer is “pray.” As I’ve told you, so much of the Christian activity in China flows through Hong Kong. In a sense, any assault on Hong Kong is part of the larger war on Chinese Christianity.  

We should also insist that the fate of Hong Kong’s democratic movement become a priority in our foreign policy. I realize how difficult that seems especially given our current trade war, but there can be no “business as usual” with a regime that threatens real bullets against people demanding legitimate freedoms.  

Nothing describes the social pressure to conform better than Hans Christian Andersen’s parable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”

         Do you remember it? An emperor hires two weavers who claim they can make a garment so fine it’s only visible to the very wise. Of course, they end up not making any clothes at all. They pocket the emperor’s money and send him on procession through the city naked.

         No one—not even the emperor himself—dares to say anything thinking if they do, it means they’re fools.  Only a child is willing to shout out, “The emperor is naked!”

         Each week, I come across a headline that makes me think, “Finally! This has got to be our naked emperor moment. Somebody is going to call this out.”

         Last week, for instance, the spokeswoman for a British doula association was forced to resign after reminding her social media followers that people who have wombs are... women.  Commenting on a health awareness campaign that encouraged “everyone aged 25-64 with a cervix” to get screened for cancer, the longtime birth coach wrote, “I am not a ‘cervix owner .  .  .’ I am a woman: an adult human female.”

         In response, angry transgender activists barraged Doula UK with complaints, ultimately driving someone willing to say the obvious out of her job.

         Honestly, I just cannot imagine that the majority of people really want to live in a world where birth coaches aren’t allowed to call women, “women.” In fact, it may be that we are ready to put at least some limits on the men who demand all the rights and privileges of women.

         For example, a biological man who filed complaints against Vancouver beauty salons because they wouldn’t wax his private area was just told by a Canadian court that he doesn’t have a right to force female beauticians to touch him.

         Then there’s the ongoing custody battle over a 7-year-old Texas boy whose mother is convinced he’s really a she and therefore should dress, live, and medically transition into girlhood. Since we last talked about this story on “BreakPoint This Week,” a Dallas judge refused to grant the mother sole custody—a big improvement over what the jury had recommended.

         And, resistance is growing in the academy, too. A recent essay at The American Mind describes how a growing group of radical feminist are bravely taking on the demands of transgender activists, having realized that their very existence as women is threatened by increasingly unrealistic demands. In response, they’ve earned a derogatory nickname: “TERF’s” which stands for “Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists.”

         Camille Paglia—a hard-left feminist, lesbian professor—has been mercilessly attacked for refusing to accept the claim that men who feel like women really are women. Paglia and other “gender critical” feminists think there’s something essential to biological womanhood that no man can never appropriate, claim or understand – no matter how much makeup, hormone therapy, or surgery he endures.

         As she told the Weekly Standard in 2017: “The cold biological truth is sex changes are impossible. Every single cell of the human body remains coded with one’s birth gender for life.”

         It sounds like something a conservative Christian would say.

         The very fact that we now find ourselves as Christians lining up with radical feminists makes me wonder if we are, in fact, approaching a turning point. After all, the stakes are only getting higher? Sports championships that belong to women are already being given to men. Will scholarships designated for women be taken by men? And what will happen when a federal small business grant program for women entrepreneurs is claimed by a man? Or when women no longer are able to represent their country in the Olympics because men claim all of the spots on their team?

         We will see whether there’s a limit to what people will sit back and take. I suspect there is. After all, the emperor just can’t walk around naked forever.

Did America have a Christian founding? That’s the title of historian Mark David Hall’s outstanding new book, and the topic of today’s BreakPoint Podcast.

As Hall relates, it’s a complicated question. Because first we have to ask, “What do we mean by Christian?” Did the founders identify as Christian? Or, would it be more fair to say they were influenced by Christian political reflection? And while historians focus on American founding luminaries like Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, they were hardly representative—religiously speaking—of the vast majority of Americans and other but less-known American founders.

Mark David Hall is the Herbert Hoover Distinguished Professor of Politics at George Fox University. Here he is with Colson Center President John Stonestreet.

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss Chick-Fil-A's decision to no longer fund the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Is it capitulation to LGBTQ bullying? How can Chick-Fil-A claim to focus on giving to homelessness, while at the same time de-funding one of the nation's leading providers of shelter to the homeless?  As John and Shane point out, Chick-Fil-A's change of course will never appease LGBTQ activists until it wholeheartedly and vocally supports the new sexual orthodoxy.

John and Shane also discuss the decline of the Boy Scouts of America, who have announced that they are mortgaging their crown-jewel property, the Philmont Scout Ranch.

They wrap up the show talking about the recent civil verdict against pro-life advocate David Daleiden, who was sued by Planned Parenthood for exposing their trade in body parts of aborted babies. How is it that Planned Parenthood continues to get off the hook for violating the law in the cruelest of ways? John has a thought: demonic influence.

Resources

Chick-Fil-A Announces New Giving Priorities

John Stonestreet, BreakPoint, November 19, 2019

Chick-fil-A is trying to distract you

Richard Morgan, CNN, November 19, 2019

A desperate move? The Boy Scouts mortgage their 'crown jewel'

Warren Cole Smith, WORLD Magazine, November 18, 2019

Federal jury rules against Daleiden

Lynde Langdon, WORLD Magazine, November 15, 2019

Please consider donating to BreakPoint and the Colson Center . . . Your gift will be matched! Thank you.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has renewed his vow to put astronauts on Mars by as early as 2035. The head of America’s space program says we’ll start by going back to the moon, where we can test the technology necessary to make a much longer voyage to the Red Planet.

But the whole project to put boots on another planet—something incredibly expensive, dangerous, and time-consuming—raises an interesting question: Why should we do this?

Back in the sixties, the obvious answer for why we should go to the moon was to beat the Soviets. The space race, like the nuclear arms race, carried enormous military implications.

And then there was the symbolic victory, which was won when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface.

But there was a third reason for space exploration back then—which, unlike the other two reasons, still applies now.

In last year’s movie, “First Man,” Neil Armstrong, played by Ryan Gosling, finds himself forced to justify the space program to the public and to public officials, not to mention his own family, as accidents accumulate and the cost lost lives mounts. Pointing beyond practical things like military supremacy, Armstrong argues that the ultimate reason for going to space is that it is a worthy undertaking—something human beings were made to do.

“It allows us to see things,” he says, “that maybe we should have seen a long time ago, but just haven’t been able to until now.”

Looking back on pictures from that first lunar landing, especially the photo of Earth rising over the moon’s surface—it’s hard to disagree with him.

His answer reminds me of a scene in “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the fifth Chronicle of Narnia, in which the Dawn Treader’s crew must choose whether to sail on toward an island cloaked in forbidding darkness or turn back to safety.

When one of them asks, “What manner of use would it be ploughing through that blackness?” Reepicheep, the bravest crew member despite being the smallest, rebukes them for their faintheartedness.

“Use?” the mouse replies. “If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of...”

And so, they sail on. If NASA’s plans are realized, so will we. With sincere apologies to Reepicheep the mouse, I think the renewed push to put astronauts on Mars is a sign of something uniquely human. The urge to venture beyond our horizon and discover—even in the face of seemingly impossible obstacles—is a dead giveaway that we’re not like all the other creatures, or even like the robots and rovers we build and hurl into space.

We’re made in the image of God, and His original mandate to take dominion over all of creation still rings in our hearts and in our ears. For most of human history, gravity prevented us from taking dominion over anything beyond this planet. The rest of creation still awaits us.

This urge points to something true about even those who don’t acknowledge or believe in the One whose image they bear. Every scientist who peers through a microscope, every mathematician who solves a seemingly impossible problem, and every astronaut who has slipped the surly bonds of Earth knows how asking what use these things are simply misses the point.

Of course, many human adventures turn out to be useful. But the real question to be asked is not what purpose our discoveries serve, but what purpose we serve. According to Scripture, God placed us here to rule creation, to steward it, and in the process of witnessing all He has made, to echo His glory back to Him.

You know, whenever people do set foot on Mars, I hope there are some Christians among them. Not because they’ll necessarily be better astronauts, but because they will be able to better appreciate why they’re there.

It’s exhausting to talk about Westboro Baptist Church. This small cult, made up almost entirely of a single family and their kids’ spouses, has caused a tremendous amount of pain around the country. Not only do they hurt those they picket, like families of fallen military heroes, they’re often trotted out by media outlets as an example of Christian bigotry. Somehow Christians are often forced to answer for a group that horrifies all of us. Like I said, it’s exhausting.

Megan Phelps-Roper is the granddaughter of Westboro founder Fred Phelps. She made news a few years ago when she escaped and renounced the cult of her childhood, an experience she describes in a new book. Her story, which I’ve followed since she first left the so-called church, is absolutely fascinating. And in her recent interview with popular atheist podcaster Sam Harris, Phelps-Roper offers a glimpse into the evil philosophy behind Westboro.

According to Phelps-Roper, the group’s motivation for publicly celebrating terrorist attacks or praising their so-called God for a deadly famine, is all grounded in a perverted interpretation of God’s sovereignty. Because God always accomplishes his will, they believe, and because 1 John 5 says it’s not burdensome to love God and His commandments, Phelps and company concluded we must celebrate everything that happens.

It’s a deeply inconsistent worldview to be sure: Why would they call others to repentance while rejoicing at their arrival into Hell as being God’s will? 

Nor is it clear how Westboro explains the loving Father God who created His people to enjoy Him forever that is revealed to us throughout the Biblical narrative. Why would we believe that God rejoices in our pain if He sent his Son to suffer and die in order to heal our pain?

How many times in the Old Testament do we read that God “hears the cries” of His people? How many times is God described as “the God of all comfort”? Jesus cried when His friend died, and upon seeing the pain that death caused to His siblings, just before He turned their tears into rejoicing by bringing Lazarus back to life!

The Phelps family believes so many wrong and damaging ideas, but at the root of them all is a bad idea about God. That bad idea leads to another: that the world today is exactly the way God always intended (not just allowed) it to be. Romans 8 tells us that the creation itself begs (and groans) to differ.

Of course, we cannot gloss over the fact that Westboro’s goal has always been to get attention. They go where the cameras are. Bad actions are never justified by bad theology, but bad theology does help to explain bad actions. After all, ideas have consequences - and bad ideas have victims. One really bad, wrong idea about God can infect the way we read the Bible and see the world until what comes out of us is nothing less than hateful nonsense.

To be clear, Westboro’s theological fatalism has much more in common with Islam than Christianity, both in their view of God and in their view of how He acts within human history. Many Muslims see within the Qur’an that Allah does what he wills without any particular affection for his creation. That one idea even infects how the Muslim world handles its own infrastructure. For example, in 2015, after a construction crane collapsed near the Muslim holy site of Mecca, killing 118 people, the Saudi company that operated the crane claimed zero responsibility. What happened was a holy act of Allah, they said.

This is why Paul tells Christians to work out their faith. We need to be conscious about what we believe and why we believe it. We need to be vigilant about what ideas we hold, knowing which ideas are shaping our beliefs.

That, of course, is why BreakPoint and the Colson Center are here: To bring clarity to the issues and trends surrounding us, and to help believers understand them in the light of a Christian worldview. Nothing brings me more joy than when a mom or a dad stops me at an event somewhere and tells me how BreakPoint provides their dinner table conversations. I know this daily commentary, founded by Chuck Colson nearly thirty years ago, is helping Christians connect their faith to the world around them.

I am very thankful to be a part of this. And we exist because of generous listeners like you. So please consider giving a year-end gift. 

G.K. Chesterton once observed that the “special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.” His point was that moderns have forgotten that they are assuming what they believe to be a given. “In short,” he concludes, “they always have an unconscious dogma; and an unconscious dogma is the definition of a prejudice.” 

That’s why I love Chesterton. If you didn’t know he wrote that a century ago, you’d think he was talking about today. Plus, he was always grumpy so he’s a lot of fun to read. 

Fast forward from 1919 to 2019, and little has changed about assumed dogmatism. As journalist Douglas Murray writes in a terrific new book, “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity,” “we are living through a postmodern age in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed.” However, since we can’t live without a grand narrative, we have created new grand narratives, new religions, new dogmas. Sounds a lot like Chesterton…

A chief contender for dominant narrative today is identity politics. The two things that characterize identity politics are, according to Murray, its “crusading desire to right perceived wrongs” and its “weaponization of identity,” both of which gives “mad crowds” the power to ruin reputations and cower opposition into silence. For example, anyone who dares question the dogmas of the new sexual orthodoxy is labeled a bigot and cast into societal outer darkness.  

The fundamental problem with identity politics is its understanding of identity, one which “atomizes society into different interest groups according to sex (or gender), race, sexual preference and more.” Such characteristics are suddenly elevated to be “the main or only relevant attributes of their holders.” But what’s so absurd is how artificial these “identities” so often are.

In a chapter simply titled “Gay,” Murray, who is a gay man himself, points out that the acronym “LGBT” combines four groups of people who not only have little in common but are often suspicious of one another. As a gay man, he writes, he has “almost nothing in common” with lesbians (and vice versa). 

However, one of the few things they do share is “a suspicion towards people who claim to be ‘bisexual,’” (i.e., the “Bs” in “LGBT.”) 

And, as for the “T,” Murray states something we’ve observed many times, that “there is a tremendous dispute over whether the T’s are the same thing as everyone else or an insult to them.” Apparently, some in the so-called “LGBT community” think transgenderism is a psychiatric disorder assuming the mantle of the gay-rights movement. 

Of course, by publicly airing all of this ideological “dirty laundry,” Murray has made himself somewhat of a persona non grata to his alleged “community.” As he jokes, his “gay card” has been revoked.  

For a self-described atheist, Murray’s antidote to weaponized identity sounds, well, almost Christian. “In some manner,” he laments, “…we have created a world in which forgiveness has become almost impossible.”  

All that’s left in a world of identity politics is to excuse those we like and condemn those we don’t, and mask it as some sort of progressive arch toward justice and tolerance.

As Chesterton once pointed out, post-Christian societies do not actually replace Christian categories and ways of thinking with new ones. Rather, they “repurpose” Christian categories, such as the struggle for justice and fight against evil, but without any defining essentials, such as grace and love.  

Societies lose the ability to forgive whenever they forget we are all sinners in need of forgiveness, and that our true identities can only be found in God—as bearers of His image. Once those things are forgotten, so is the grand narrative of God’s creation, man’s fall, Christ’s act of redemption, and the future restoration of all things – which is, unlike any of its counterfeits, the only true narrative to ground who we really are.