Breakpoint

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, we present John Stonestreet’s presentation at the recent Touchstone conference, “Fight or Flight? The Benedict and Other Options for Facing the World, the Flesh, and the Devil?”

In his address, John focuses on the legacy of Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper and the contributions he can make to the Benedict Option approach to culture. John reminds us that we are only at a particular moment in the grand story of the Creator and His creation. For Kuyper, our understanding of the moment and our approach to culture has to be grounded in the overall narrative of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. And that narrative is summed up in the Truth of all reality: Christ is risen.

Download the MP3 audio here.

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the  eventual economic, cultural, and moral collapse of Soviet communism under the weight of its dehumanizing ideology. What lessons have we learned, and more importantly, what lessons haven't our young people learned about communism?

Also on this week's episode: In the face of climate change, scientists call for population control; remembering the father of the Intelligent Design movement, Phillip Johnson; something's wrong among young men in Colorado; and the latest Christian scandal: that of comedian John Crist.

Resources

Fall of the Berlin Wall Anniversary

Ross McIndoe, iNews, November 6, 2019

World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency

Bio Science, November 5, 2019

Colorado Man Accused of Plotting to Blow up Synagogue

Jerusalem Post, November 5, 2019

The Legacy of Phillip Johnson

John Stonestreet and Jay Richards, The BreakPoint Podcast, November 6, 2019

Remembering Phillip Johnson

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris, BreakPoint, November 6, 2019

Christian comedian John Crist admits to 'destructive and sinful' behavior after multiple women come forward

Caleb Park, Fox News, November 8, 2019

Be Afraid of Yourself: A Plea to Christian Leaders on Sexual Sin

Shane Morris, Patheos, February 9, 2019

Darwin on Trial

Phillip Johnson, Intervarsity Press, 2010

“Sometimes it stings, like a slap in the face.” That’s how Araminta Tubman - known best as Harriet - describes hearing the voice of God in the new Focus Features’ movie “Harriet.”

 The film follows Tubman, the Underground Railroad’s most famous conductor, who after escaping to freedom herself, returns again and again, in order to bring other slaves to freedom. 

This is the latest of the sweeping trend filling theaters with biographies of interesting and important historical figures. Unlike many of the other biopics on offer, this heroine is famous not for pop-star talent or mass appeal, but because of what she did for so many others. Nor did she succeed by merely “overcoming great odds” or “relying on her own inner strength.” As the film makes quite clear, Tubman reliance on God gave her the great strength and helped her overcome the greatest of odds.

In a time when far tamer references to faith, prayer, or God can be cause for cultural cancellation, I am so thankful that the producers of Harriet featured this part of her life story from the beginning of the movie to the very end. But even so, the film does not picture God as some weird crutch or wish-granting genie in Tubman’s life.

The movie also manages to avoid picturing faith in any way that resembles the prosperity gospel. Though Tubman prays audibly to God and expects God to answer, He doesn’t always do so in the way she wants or expects. After her own harrowing and unlikely escape early in the film, Tubman believes God wants her to rescue her husband. But she’s horrified when she returns to the South to discover he’s now married to another woman. She comes to believe instead that He sent her back for the sake of others.

Later in the film, Tubman is confused and desperate when her sister refuses to be rescued. She prays for relief, but it doesn’t always come. God speaks to her, sometimes with comfort and sometimes “like a slap.” While some critics think this depiction of the Christian God looks too much like mysticism, I would suggest the film portrays her relationship with God in a way that is nuanced, complicated, and realistic.

We can also be thankful that “Harriet’s” screenwriters didn’t turn her into a cliched, female superhero. Certainly, Tubman’s achievements defy belief: she personally led 70 slaves to freedom, served as a spy for the Union Army, she led an armed battalion during the Civil War. Still, “Harriet’s” producers chose to portray her in a beautiful human way. She doesn’t deliver pithy, vengeful one-liners, even when confronting her former slave-keeper. She’s not some heroine who’s unusually strong or powerful. She simply had the courage to obey God—a God who sometimes confused her. There’s not a lot more inspiring than that. 

Tubman’s story reminds us that self-sacrifice, even if impractical, has great value. Every return trip she made to the South was, in any practical sense, a terrible idea. She was likely to fail.

But thank God that after tasting freedom in Philadelphia, she didn’t count her own comfort as something to be grasped. She had suffered so greatly that her freedom, once she found it, had to be shared. All followers of Christ should feel that same urgency when we remember what the Cross has done for us. 

Some critics have noted, with disdain, the movie’s lack of violence. This only makes me wonder how much violence we actually want. Make no mistake, there is plenty of violence in the film, on a level that could be too much for pre-teens. On the other hand, given the nature of the subject, the filmmakers could have gone a lot further. I’m glad they didn’t.

I took two of my daughters to see the film, the youngest of which is 12. She is a mature 12, and I’d say this was as intense a film as she’s seen. The movie is rated PG-13 for three instances of profanity and for many racial epithets—which is to be expected in a movie that deals with slavery. Still, I was grateful for this opportunity to confront the sins of our nation’s past with my daughters, while also being reminded that God is still at work in the darkest of times through real people.

Hollywood is an unlikely place to find a representation of a good, complicated God. But then again, Tubman was an unlikely hero. Thank God He accomplishes the unlikely through the unlikely.

A recent report from the Guttmacher Institute contained very good news: In 2017, the abortion rate fell to its lowest point since Roe v. Wade was decided.  The report also contained some not-so-good news: The pro-life gains Christians often talk about are probably “exaggerated.” 

At least that’s the word LifesiteNews used, and though it may not be what we want to hear, it’s what we need to understand if we are ever going to create a culture of life.  

According to the Guttmacher Institute, between 2014 and 2017 the number of abortions dropped by seven percent. To put this into perspective, the abortion rate is now less than half of what it was in 1980, the peak year for abortions.  

Still, according to the Guttmacher Institute, there is no “clear evidence” that links the decline in abortions to the several hundred targeted legal restrictions on abortion providers, (also known as TRAP laws) that have been enacted this decade, including those that even resulted in shutting down abortion clinics. 

Of course, we wouldn’t expect the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute to give any credit to laws they consider immoral. Still, Sarah Quale of the Personhood Alliance believes that Guttmacher’s read on this data is accurate.

In her article at LifeSite, Quale agrees that claims about the impact of TRAP laws on abortion numbers are just not supported by the data. Ironically, Quale also points out that the same data also contradicts pro-abortion claims that restrictions on abortion equal “limited access to the abortion procedure.” As she puts it, “the ‘war on women’s health,’ is simply a political fundraiser.” 

Here’s the punchline: Nearly 60 percent of the reduction in abortions occurred in states that did not adopt new restrictions on abortion. Even states like California and New York that took steps to increase access to abortion saw declines in abortion rates.  Meanwhile, “several states with newly passed restrictions, like Mississippi, actually had abortion rate increases.” 

And there was no clear relationship between clinic closures and the decline in abortion rates either. While abortion rates declined in virtually every state that lost abortion clinics, the same is true of states that added clinics. 

And because the decline in abortions is not accompanied by an increase in births, we cannot conclude simply that more women are choosing life.

Ultimately, it’s not clear what is driving the decline in abortion rates. The preferred liberal explanation is increased use of birth control, but that isn’t reflected in the data either.  

Where then does this leave us? Exactly where we were before the report was published. The battle for the sanctity of life was never going to be won just in the legislatures and courts, as important as those restrictions are and as encouraging as it is whenever an abortion clinic shuts its doors forever. The battle for life is won only in hearts and minds, which means work remains to be done, as Chuck Colson used to say, over backyard fences and around barbeque grills.  

The battles waged by politicians, lawyers, and judges are important, but we cannot outsource our work onto them as if they can do our job. Every Christian – all of us – must learn to make the case for life in both word and deed.  

As Quale points out, “moral relativism—not principles or consistent values—is what guides Americans’ view of abortion.”  This is especially true of American under thirty, 70 percent of whom believe that “abortion should be legal under all or most circumstances.”   

While there’s a place for law and politics, it will never replace witness and apologetics. While there’s some good news in the Guttmacher report, there’s no substitute for what Quale calls “the real, sacrificial work of changing hearts and minds, one person at a time.”

Equipping you for that work is why BreakPoint and the Colson Center exist, especially with the brand new What Would You Say? videos. Learn more here.

Reformation Day remembers how Martin Luther started a movement within the church that reshaped Christianity and the world. In many ways, Phillip Johnson was a Luther-like reformer, who was willing to question accepted dogmas and challenge stagnant thinking, sparking a movement that will long outlast his life.

Johnson, who passed away peacefully in his home over the weekend, is widely considered the godfather of the modern intelligent design movement. His 1991 book “Darwin on Trial” revealed how Darwinian evolution was plagued by worldview-level problems: most importantly, its reliance on philosophical naturalism.

Before we go into what that is, it’s important to note that Johnson wasn’t a scientist. He was a law professor at, of all places, Cal-Berkeley. His legal training enabled him to both see and point out Darwinism’s flaws in a way that many scientists often couldn’t and sometimes wouldn’t, and his book refocused the origins debate to its most fundamental worldview question.

For 150 years, Darwinists had claimed that blind and undirected natural processes are sufficient not only to “create” life from chemicals, but to produce the dazzling variety of life we see in the world around us.

Johnson wasn’t buying it. He argued that the complexity and precision we see in nature was best explained by intelligence and purpose. After all, whenever we see a written text, we know it required an author. Whenever we experience a beautiful design, we realize there was a designer responsible for it. If that’s true across the world, it’s also true for the origin of the world.

Johnson’s arguments inspired and effectively launched what became known as the Intelligent Design movement, most notably seen in the Discovery Institute. As Casey Luskin put it, the idea of intelligent design became “a magnet [for] scholars from a variety of fields—biology, chemistry, physics, philosophy, theology, and law”—all of whom, like Johnson, saw Darwinism’s fatal reliance on naturalistic thinking.

Among them was biochemist Michael Behe, author of what may be the movement’s best-known book, Darwin’s Black Box. Behe would later confess that it wasn’t just Johnson’s arguments that drew him to the movement, it was also his attitude, his humble grace under pressure, and the near-religious zeal with which Darwinists attacked him.

By challenging the Darwinian orthodoxy, Johnson had painted a target on his back and experienced what many proponents of intelligent design have: personal attacks, blacklisting, and accusations of being anti-science. But he took it all with cheerful patience, and in doing so not only launched the ID movement, he set its tone, one still heard in his successors like Stephen Meyer, Douglas Axe, Jonathan Wells, Ann Gauger and others.

Johnson’s articulation that naturalism had not only poisoned science but also law and ethics shaped Chuck Colson’s thinking, and consequently, shaped BreakPoint.

Johnson’s 1993 First Things article entitled “Nihilism and the End of Law,” argued that if there is no transcendent origin for life, then neither is there any transcendent basis for right and wrong. To outlaw theft, racial discrimination, or murder is to appeal not to any higher authority but merely to a majority vote, something that has a funny way of evolving.

A quick search for Phillip Johnson in our BreakPoint archives reveals the debt we owe to this first-class worldview thinker, who understood the power of ideas to shape all of life.

Johnson’s significant work is best measured not by his own work, but by the movement he helped spark.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, I speak with someone who is part of the legacy of Phillip Johnson, and who knew him well. Dr. Jay Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, was deeply influenced by Johnson and joins me to talk about his life and legacy. Please, come to BreakPoint.org to listen, or just search for the BreakPoint Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.

Last weekend, a true giant of Christian worldview went home to his Creator. Phillip Johnson, father of the modern Intelligent Design Movement and author of the groundbreaking book “Darwin on Trial died at age 79.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Colson Center President John Stonestreet welcomes a man who knew Johnson well: Dr. Jay Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute. Together they discuss Johnson’s important legacy, not only in unmasking neo-Darwinism as more of an intellectual “sleight of hand”  than a truly scientific endeavor,  but also Johnson’s dismantling of philosophical materialism.

They also reflect on Johnson’s journey to faith and his extraordinary humility and kindness, which extended to those who disagreed with him vehemently.

Resources

The Grand Sez Who?

Chuck Colson, BreakPoint, December 7, 1995

Join Us at Wilberforce Weekend 2019!

Darwin on Trial

Phillip Johnson, Intervarsity Press, 2010

Speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit on Tuesday, former President Obama told his mostly young audience to get over “wokeness.” “If I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb,” he said, “then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, because, man, you see how woke I was . . . That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

The former president’s comment reminded me of a moment during his presidency when he denounced universities that disinvited conservative speakers because they were afraid of exposing students to differing points of view.

That moment is featured in a brand-new documentary by two people you wouldn’t expect to share a stage—conservative commentator Dennis Prager and liberal comedian Adam Carolla. These two men have launched an important new movie called, “No Safe Spaces.”

Through this film, Prager and Carolla are tackling the dangers of “wokeness” and the suppression of speech that has taken over our nation’s college campuses. The folks interviewed in this film represent almost every political and cultural view imaginable: From conservative comedian Tim Allen to liberal TV host Bill Maher; from liberal legal genius Alan Dershowitz to conservative commentator Ben Shapiro; from liberal Darwinist atheist biologist Bret Weinstein (the guy who touched off protests at Evergreen State when he refused to participate in a woke campus event) to former Oklahoma Wesleyan University President Everett Piper.

Throw in the likes of Van Jones and Cornell West on the left and Robert George on the right and Jordan Peterson somewhere in between, and you’ve got an amazing variety of viewpoints from people who disagree about almost everything. But, they can all agree on this: Free speech on our campuses and in the public square is essential for a free society.

As the film makes abundantly clear, the American experiment is based on the freedom to articulate, discuss, and engage differing viewpoints, including and even especially those viewpoints we vehemently disagree with. What is true, what is not true? What promotes human flourishing, what destroys it? How do we arrive at the common good, or how do we undermine it?

Wrestling with these questions freely and openly lies at the heart of representative democracy, not to mention education itself. Losing the ability to wrestle with these questions means we become weaker people, more easily oppressed and ruled over, and ultimately it will spell the end of education and of representative democracy.

Political censorship, suppressing ideas, shutting down (or shouting down) conversation leads only to tyranny, as Prager himself relates in the film. Early in his life, Prager was sent by the government of Israel to smuggle Jews out of the Soviet Union. He experienced totalitarianism first hand, a totalitarianism he says no American can understand but every American should dread.

“No Safe Spaces” was released just a week ago in a small number of theaters and is scheduled to open across the country in more and more communities over the next few weeks. So far, the attendance has been encouraging. The more this film is seen in theatres, the more it will be shown in theatres.

Having seen a screener of the film before its release, I can tell you: It is very well done. This excellent, important documentary clarifies why we must do everything we can to support freedom of speech on our campuses and in every public sphere. Take the teenagers and young adults in your life to see this film, and then talk through the important ideas it presents.

Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary, and we’ll link you to the website of No Safe Spaces. There you can get information on where to watch this film, and also how to petition movie theaters near you to show how some ideas can still cross the political aisle.

Fresh off the plane from Israel, John Stonestreet speaks with Andrew Walker about celebrity conversions—specifically, the conversion of Kanye West. How should we as Christians respond? Walker shares his observations—and that he’s encouraged by what he’s hearing so far from West about his approach to Scripture, his concern for his family, and his regret over the lifestyle he’s promoted in the past.

Andrew Walker, formerly of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, is now Associate Professor of Christian Ethics and Apologetics at the Southern Theological Seminary, as well as Associate Dean of Theology, and the Director of the Carl F. H. Henry Institute for Evangelical Engagement.

Resources

Kanye West’s Conversion Could Be a Cultural Wrecking Ball

• Andrew Walker, National Review,October 28, 2019

Kanye West Proclaims Jesus Is King

• John Stonestreet, BreakPoint, November 1, 2019

Confessions of a Kanye Skeptic

• Shane Morris, BreakPoint, October 22, 2019

Wilberforce Weekend: Early Bird Discount!

Blaine Adamson is the owner of Hands On Originals, a “Christian Outfitters” shop in Lexington, Kentucky. Hands On creates customized apparel such as t-shirts, hoodies, and baseball caps.

In 2012, when Adamson got a phone call from the Gay and Lesbian Services Organization (or, GLSO) asking him to print t-shirts for a local gay pride festival, he explained that he could not accept the order because it would mean expressing a message that violated his Christian faith. He offered to refer GLSO to another shop that would gladly help them.

You can probably guess what happened next.

The GLSO filed a complaint with the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission. GLSO also widely publicized what happened, which led to protests, a boycott, vile phone calls, and threats of violence.

The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission ruled against Adamson and ordered him to print whatever GLSO wanted. But even that wasn’t enough. Taking a page out from the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s “How to Persecute Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop” Playbook, they ordered Adamson to undergo diversity training.

Thankfully, in a positive similarity to the Jack Phillips case, Blaine Adamson received help from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Even though two different lower courts ruled in favor of Adamson, GLSO took its case to the Kentucky Supreme Court. On Thursday, seven years after the incident, the Court ruled unanimously that GLSO had no standing, and therefore no right, to sue Adamson.

The Court ruled that because it was an organization and not an individual, GLSO had no standing under Kentucky law to file a suit. Which means, as the Alliance Defending Freedom explained, the decision “didn’t directly address the broader First Amendment questions concerning Blaine’s right to live and work consistently with his faith.”

However—and this is important—in his concurring opinion, Justice David Buckingham made clear that the Human Rights Commission “went beyond its charge of preventing discrimination in public accommodation and instead attempted to compel Hands On to engage in expression with which it disagreed.” He then cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in Masterpiece Cakeshop, adding, “the government may not regulate expression, either by prohibiting disfavored expression or compelling favored expression.”

Justice Buckingham went even further, putting on record that Hands On Originals doesn’t discriminate based on, well, anything.

“The record discloses three essential facts,” Buckingham wrote. “First, Hands On has an established practice of declining orders because of what Hands On perceives to be their morally-objectionable messages,” including sexually explicit or violent messages. “Second, Hands On accepted and completed an order from a lesbian singer who performed at the 2012 Pride Festival. Third, at no time did Hands On inquire or know the sexual orientation or gender identity of the persons with whom it dealt with on behalf of GLSO. These facts indicate that Hands On was in good faith objecting to the message it was being asked to disseminate.”

Hopefully, with another decision like this in the books, Christian business owners will soon no longer be forces to accept and promote the new sexual orthodoxy. If that day comes, it’s a win for everyone. After all, if Christians can be forced to promote messages with which they fundamentally disagree, then, as ADF points out, “it can force anyone to do the same… an LGBT printer who declines to create t-shirts criticizing same-sex marriage, a Democratic speechwriter who declines to write speeches for the Republican National Convention, or a Muslim singer who declines to sing Christian songs at a concert.”

That’s a world none of us want to live in.

Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary for more resources on the Hands On Case, as well as to ADF and other organizations that defend free speech and religious liberty.

Just back from Israel, John Stonestreet joins Shane Morris to discuss the Washington Post's bizarre headline on the death of the world's most-wanted terrorist, calling Abu-Bakr al-Bagdadi an "austere religious scholar." As John and Shane point out, not only does the secular media not understand religion, it tends to lump all religions together--after all, you could call St. Augustine of Hippo an "austere religious scholar" as well. And dare we say, he and al-Bagdadi have nothing in common.

John and Shane also discuss the now-famous conversion of very-famous celebrity Kanye West. What should Christians make of this? And how should we respond?

Finally, they talk about the recent denial of Communion to former Vice-President Joe Biden at a Catholic Church in South Carolina.