Breakpoint

Even before he was sworn into office, President Trump’s political opponents were talking impeachment. Still, nothing so far – not pressure from “the Squad,” not the Mueller Report—has been able to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in that direction. That may have changed.

         In response to the revelation that President Trump asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, Pelosi announced she was launching an “impeachment inquiry.” Though even after the release of partial transcripts of the call that was heralded as a “smoking gun” by some and a “nothing burger” by others, it’s still not clear whether this “inquiry” will lead to actual proceedings. Still, we’re a step beyond where we’ve been since the 1990s.

Two sitting U.S. presidents, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, have been impeached. Richard Nixon resigned in order to avoid impeachment. In 1998 and 99, Chuck Colson brought his up-close, intimate, and personal experience with Watergate to bear, along with his Biblical worldview, on the Clinton impeachment proceedings.

Three of Chuck Colson’s observations from those BreakPoint commentaries are, I think, particularly helpful and clarifying for what we likely face now in the coming months.

         In one commentary, Chuck noted that many people didn’t understand what impeachment is and how it works. That’s just as true today. Here’s his helpful explanation:

If the House of Representatives passes an impeachment resolution this coming week, it does not mean the president is going to be turned out of office. It simply means that the House has made a finding that there is credible evidence …

The Senate’s job will be to decide how to dispose of the matter: Do nothing, plea bargain, censure, or conduct a trial.

In their wisdom, our Founding Fathers designed a way we could bring to trial the only man in America who cannot be tried in the courts while he sits in office: the president of the United States. They intended no man to be above the law, a concept that reflects a major Christian contribution to the founding of our nation.

The House action will not, I repeat, not, despite what the president’s defenders claim this week, overturn the election results.

         In another commentary, Chuck noted a stark and important difference in how the Watergate investigation proceeded and what he was seeing in the Clinton impeachment:

Nearly 25 years ago, I sat in the witness chair facing the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment hearings of Richard Nixon. It was hardly a happy day for me because I was there to testify under oath about all the transgressions we now know of as Watergate.

I left the hearings that night knowing I was going to prison, despondent because I knew that my friend President Nixon would soon be out of office. But, in a sense, I had a renewed confidence in the American system. Why? Because the congressmen seemed genuinely concerned about upholding the law. Even the Republicans, mostly partisan defenders of Nixon, recognized that the integrity of the presidency was on the line, and what was right had to take precedence over politics. Even though I was on the losing end, I was reassured that the American system was stronger than any man or partisan interest.

Chuck went on to note how those days were over, replaced by a culture in which political leaders were unwilling to put national interest above political ideology, and in which citizens had lost their confidence in the American system. I can only imagine what he’d think now. My guess is that he’d add a loss of civic knowledge and a lack of public virtue to his analysis.

Still, in Chuck’s final analysis, after the Senate (wrongly, in his view) acquitted President Clinton, he reminded us that all the events of the cultural moment must be understood in light of something bigger, unchanging, and ultimately sure:

And for all of us who are Christians, regardless of how we view this process, let us remind ourselves that we serve a God who rules over the affairs of men—whether they know it or not.

               That was true in 1972, in 1998, and it remains true today.

On Friday, tens of thousands of students around the world staged a walk out, leaving their classes to demand action on climate change. Well, some students walked out. Many school districts, including across the state of New York, just gave students the day off to join in the protests. It’s still unclear how many students joined the protests and how many enjoyed an extra day off.

What is clear is that there is no further room for anyone who questions that the planet is indeed warming, that the warming is human caused, and that it is catastrophic. Oh, and that we have run out of time to do something about. Not only was that the loud and clear message from Friday’s student protesters, it was also the loud and clear message from last week’s issue of TIME magazine.

Titled “2050: How Earth Survived,” the issue is written from the perspective 30 years in the future, describing how we managed to avoid complete annihilation from climate change. It’s an issue full of breathless melodramatics and dogmatism, not least of which this paragraph from TIME’s editor-in-chief and CEO Edward Felsenthal in the opening editorial:

“Notably, what you will not find in this issue are climate-change skeptics. Core to our mission is bringing together diverse perspectives. Experts can and should debate the best route to mitigating the effects of climate change, but there is no serious doubt that those effects are real. We are witnessing them right in front of us. The science on global warming is settled. There isn’t another side, and there isn’t another moment.”

One of the people TIME does not want us to hear from is Judith Curry who, prior to her retirement, was the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Curry doesn’t think that the science is “settled.” In her words, “If all other things remain equal, it is clear that adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will warm the planet. However, the real difficulty is that nothing remains equal . . .”  

In other words, we simply don’t know enough about how, as she puts it, the “sun, volcanic eruptions,” and the “interactions between the atmosphere and ocean,” impact the climate to claim that the science is settled. How much of measured warming and recent tropical storm activity is the result of these factors which are beyond human control? How much is increased CO2 the result of human activity? We are simply not sure.  

There’s typically nothing wrong with admitting uncertainty. However, when it comes to this issue, by claiming the science “settled,” and treating those who disagree as “deniers” and heretics, uncertainty is no longer allowed. 

For many people, a certain kind of environmentalist catastrophism has become a religion, and arresting climate change has become a crusade.  The first casualty of this crusade is honest pursuit of the truth. David Wallace-Wells's book “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” is treated by many in the media and universities as scripture, complete with prophetic warnings about the end of the world.  

Yet, as my Colson Center colleague Warren Cole Smith points out, there are scientists who strongly disagree with Wallace-Wells. For example, Michael Mann, the creator of the “hockey stick graph.” And he isn’t alone. Another climate researcher called Wallace-Wells’s predictions “sloppy” and “hyperbolic.” 

Of course, I’m not saying that Christians shouldn’t care for the environment, or that we shouldn’t take the threat of climate change seriously. What I am saying is that there is no way to know what challenges we face, much less how we can confront those challenges, if we take the sort of “science is settled” approach that Time Magazine has.  

If you’d like to understand this issue, come to BreakPoint.org, and click on this commentary. I will link you to a series of five articles written by Warren Cole Smith. In the series, Warren asks tough questions about the history of the earth’s climate, doomsday scenarios, why the climate is changing, and what we can do about it.

Again, come to BreakPoint.org, and click on this commentary to learn more about the issues surrounding climate change. Even if TIME Magazine refuses to.

If a time-traveler from the early church secretly followed you from Monday till Saturday evening, would they be able to tell you’re a Christian?

         The answer for many of us just isn’t very clear… and that’s no accident. Many Christians live lives indistinguishable from secularists. The reason? Well, quite simply, secularism is the default state of our culture. It’s the water we swim in—the air we all breathe.

         Or, as author Craig Gay put it in his book, The Way of the Modern World, the problem isn’t atheism. In fact, a red-blooded atheist is hard to find. The problem, he said, is “practical atheism.” It’s not that people do not believe in God, it’s that they live as if God is largely irrelevant. That’s what secularism does to us. It doesn’t disprove our faith, it dismisses it. It makes faith an issue of personal, private belief, disconnected from the outside world.

Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor has written the monumental work on the subject called A Secular Age. The marginalization of religious belief in our world, Taylor argues, has led to “disenchantment.” While God’s revelation in creation was obvious to prior generations, we completely miss the sacred things revealed in the way the world is made and ordered. Scripture’s metaphors make no sense in a disenchanted culture. As practical atheists, we are deaf to the heavens’ loud proclamation of the glory of God. Stars and rainbows remind us more of human achievement and self-determination than they do of God’s promises. Even breathtaking events like weddings, the birth of a child, or even death itself fail to remind us of God’s eternal attributes.

In other words, we live in a world where the assumptions that govern how we think and what we do are almost always secular ones. Whatever people may say on surveys about their religious beliefs, the fact is that modern, Western life is overwhelmingly lived without even considering God.

         Living as a six-day secularist, shaped by secular assumptions and rituals, has very serious and practical consequences. Good things result from our hard work and planning, we think, not from the gracious hands of our loving Father.

         Also, because God is not easily replaced as an organizing principle for life itself, many of us today find ourselves living lives of fragmentation—our thoughts, emotions, and desires constantly pulling us in opposite directions; the changing values all around us giving us worldview whiplash.

         Still, worst of all, practical atheists are always subject to idolatry. As John Calvin said, humans are incurably religious creatures, and our secular age offers all kinds of God-replacements: Sex, self, stuff, state, science. Ironically, a secular age is still filled with faith—just in all the wrong gods. These gods mark us in their images in profoundly dehumanizing ways.

         The only way to be distinctly Christian in today’s culture is to consciously and intentionally swim against the secular currents. First, we need to recognize them, and how they sweep us away.

         Thank God this is not only possible; it’s been done before. Christians throughout history have had to swim against cultural currents opposed to their beliefs. Many not only succeeded in keeping their faith, but in transforming the surrounding culture.

         That’s why I think our next Colson Center Short Course is one of our most important. It’s a crash course in understanding and countering practical atheism. It’s called How Not to Be A Secularist. Beginning on October 1st and continuing for four consecutive Tuesday nights, this webinar series will equip you to recognize secularism in all of its forms and assumptions and to keep a firm grasp on your Christian identity in this secular age, even while the culture tries to sweep it away.

         All of our short courses have sold out, but this one is especially important today, especially in this cultural moment. Each session starts at 8PM Eastern and includes a Q&A session. If you have to miss a live session, all registered students receive the recording of each week’s class.

         We only have a limited number of spaces, so please sign up today.

Today we present the sixth and final session of “Doing the Right Thing: “An Exploration of Ethics,” with Brit Hume, Robert George, and Chuck Colson.

As with the other sessions, this episode was filmed in front of a student audience.

Session 6 is entitled, “Ethics in Public Life.”

This story has everything… Reproductive technology? Check! Same-sex union? Check! Autism? Check! Lawsuits? Check! The assumption that a child “product” of reproductive technology that someone paid for is “defective”? Check!

In fact, I’m not sure I’ve seen a story in the last decade that more definitively proves what we often say around the Colson Center: Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas have victims.

A recent Washington Post article tells of an Illinois woman who has struggled to raise two children, her now six- and seven-year old sons. Both have autism. But this story isn’t about her day to day life dealing with these challenges. It’s about why the boys are autistic in the first place.

Both of her sons were conceived by sperm donation, from the same nameless donor, “Donor H898.” This woman chose artificial insemination because her female partner, well, could not impregnate her. In other words, after having chosen a sterile union, she wished to have children. And this story goes on…

While researching ways to help her sons, the woman discovered they had at least a dozen siblings, also diagnosed with autism, also conceived via the same sperm donor. Some of these children, in fact, also suffer from additional neurological and cognitive disorders including ADHD, epilepsy, and various mood disorders.

A genetic counselor explained the obvious. Such results with so many children were unlikely to be coincidental, and very likely to be the responsibility of that single sperm donor. Upon further investigation, the Illinois mom discovered that almost everything she was told about Donor H898 was a lie. He didn’t have a Master’s Degree as advertised by the sperm bank. He never even graduated from college. His supposed “clean bill of health” neglected to mention that he “had been diagnosed with ADHD and was schooled in an institution for those with learning and emotional difficulties.”

In other words, after choosing to conceive a child with someone she had never met, she was shocked to learn she didn’t have the whole picture about him.

After complaints to the sperm bank and government regulators came up empty, the woman filed a suit against the sperm bank, who chose to settle out of court for $250,000. In the meantime, the woman lost her job, her home, and her partner.

Oh, and sperm banks continue to sell Donor H898’s sperm.

In other words, an industry that treats children as a commodity to be ordered and attained by consumers who buy them, continues to treat children as a commodity to be ordered and attained by consumers who buy them.

Few bad ideas have left more victims in their wake than the ideas of the sexual revolution. From the beginning, the sexual revolution has peddled lies to women – about what will bring them freedom, equality, and happiness, while at the same time turning children into social experiments.

In fact, the foundational idea of the sexual revolution is this: Sex, marriage, and children can be separated from each other. The consequences of that idea have been devastating, especially for women and children. Once males were untethered from marriage, they were untethered from sexual responsibility. Women were promised the same “freedom,” but that never materialized.

Still, the kids have paid the highest price. The foundational lie of the sexual revolution is “The kids will be fine.” It’s a lie that’s taken various forms like, “kids need happy parents, not married ones” and “kids don’t need a mom and a dad, just loving parents,” as if men and women were fully interchangeable.

Well, as this poor mother in Illinois found out, the kids aren’t fine. They are part of a grand social experiment conducted since the 1960s: Take our most important and basic responsibility – caring for the next generation – and repudiate the very ideas and institutions that make such care possible. And then, see what happens.

Six years ago, Sean Tagert of British Columbia was diagnosed with ALS, better known as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.”

An ALS diagnosis is essentially a death sentence. There is no known cure. People with ALS eventually lose control over most of the muscles in their bodies--including the ones that enable them to breathe.

Despite his grim diagnosis, Tagert decided to live as long as he could for the sake of his son, who was six-years old at the time. For five years, he advocated on behalf of ALS patients and became a symbol of someone who refused to give up.

Then, last month, Tagert informed his friends he had decided to opt for physician-assisted suicide under Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law.

Why? Tagert didn’t give up because he believed the fight for life was no longer worth it. He gave up because those who could have helped him refused.

Totally-paralyzed and requiring a ventilator to breathe, Tagert required full-time care in order to live at home with his son. But government medical officials would only provide 20 hours of care a day. Thus, he could only get ‘round-the-clock care by moving to a group facility nearly five hours away from his home, and his son.

Tagert appealed this decision that was separating him from his boy. Officials never responded!

A Facebook post in Tagert’s honor put it this way: "The few institutional options on hand . . . would have offered vastly inferior care while separating him from his family, and likely would have hastened his death.”

And so, in Tagert’s mind, physician-assisted suicide had become the least horrible option.

His death has set off shock waves throughout Canada.

Dr. Leonie Herx, a palliative care specialist and opponent of Canada’s euthanasia law, is harshly calling her country to task: "We need a public outcry around peoples' right to access care, to support them in choosing a right to life rather than just a right to death… We need to ensure [physical] needs are met before we get to a place where people are feeling like death is the only option.”

Of course, government officials first failed Tagert by making physician-assisted suicide legal in the first place.

The Medical Assistance in Dying act, like all pro-death legislation, sent a crystal-clear message that euthanasia is an acceptable alternative to palliative care. Inevitably, this will lead to decisions in which life is priced out, compared to the cost of resources. When the resources are scarce, the “right to die” will become the “duty to die.” In Tagert’s case, “scarce” was about $200 a day.

This scenario, as the disability-rights group “Not Dead Yet” has pointed out, isn’t limited to Canada. What happened in British Columbia can happen in Belgium, and in Oregon, and in New Zealand, and in Colorado and anywhere physician-assisted suicide is legal.

In fact, the U.S. likely spends less on in-home health care services than Canada. As Pew Research has reported, “Medicaid and private insurance plans offer scant or no coverage of home visits” for patients with “serious, debilitating conditions who are not hospitalized or in hospice.”

Are we ready for this, Church? It took a couple of decades for pro-lifers to catch up on all the ways we could protect preborn life. Are we ready for the fight against legalized euthanasia? Are we ready to protect the vulnerable after birth? The Church has learned to support expectant mothers, to make apologetic arguments for when life begins, to offer ultrasound insight into the womb. What do we now need to learn about palliative care, debilitating disease, and family support? How do we help those who lack the resources to keep themselves alive? How do we get creative? Do things like medical sharing hold promise? Will we support faith-based hospices like we support pregnancy resource centers?

These are tough questions. So please, before we give up, let’s open our Bibles to Matthew 25 . . .

The world we live in, a world that some call a “post-Christian” world, has what today’s podcast guest Paul Gould calls a dis-enchanted view of reality.  He believes that materialism and scientism, among other influences, have left us with a way of seeing, thinking, and living that leaves no space for beauty and wonder. We now live in a world bereft of mystery.

Gould says many Christians have uncritically accepted this materialistic understanding of the world.  As a result, the Christian imagination, conscience, and voice in the culture have become distorted or muted.

Paul Gould’s new book "Cultural Apologetics" addresses these issues by setting forth a fresh model for cultural engagement, rooted in the biblical account of Paul's speech on Mars Hill, which details practical steps for reestablishing the Christian voice, conscience, and imagination.

Paul Gould received his PhD from Purdue University and is currently a Henry Fellow at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and teaches philosophy and apologetics in the College of Graduate and Professional Studies at Oklahoma Baptist University.  In addition to the book we’re going to spend most of our time with today, "Cultural Apologetics," he is also the coauthor of "Philosophy: A Christian Introduction" and "The Story of the Cosmos:  How The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of God."

The Colson Center’s Warren Cole Smith had this conversation with Paul Gould at Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, Colorado, at a recent youth conference where they both were regular speakers.

Resources

How Not to Be a Secularist

Sign up for our next Short Course!

Claim a copy of "Carpe Diem Redeemed" by Os Guinness with your September donation to the Colson Center

Cultural Apologetics

Paul Gould, Zondervan, 2018

John and Warren discuss Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg's use (or misuse) of the Bible on the campaign trail. One, it indicates that the Bible still carries cultural capital, and two, the lack of push back reveals that too many Christians aren't able to apply Scripture to hot-button social issues. Why? Because too many pastors are afraid to take on controversial or supposedly "political" topics from the pulpit. John talks more about this on today's "BreakPoint" commentary.

Also on this week's episode: the horrifying revelation of a deceased abortion doctor's collection of thousands of fetal remains (right in Mayor Pete's home town); Time Magazine's declaration of "debate over" when it comes to climate change. And is Benjamin Netanyahu's apparent defeat a rejection of conservatism in Israel?

Resources

“Mayor Pete” Buttigieg Preaches

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris, BreakPoint, September 20, 2019

Abortionist kept remains of unborn babies at home

Harvest Prude, WORLD Magazine, September 16, 2019

Israel still at political impasse after election

Onize Ohihkere, WORLD Magazine, September 18, 2019

Earlier this week, the Supreme Court of Arizona issued an important decision in the Brush & Nib v. City of Phoenix court case, another case located squarely at the intersection of religious freedom and the new sexual orthodoxy.

The case dates back to 2013, when the city of Phoenix, in the name of public accommodations, enacted an ordinance prohibiting any discrimination against persons based on “sexual orientation,” among other things.

The ordinance also clearly prohibited “directly or indirectly [displaying, circulating, publicizing or mailing] any … communication which states or implies that any facility or service shall be refused … because of a ‘person’s status.’”

In 2016 the Alliance Defending Freedom filed a pre-enforcement challenge on behalf of Brush & Nib Studio, a Christian-owned business that creates custom wedding invitations. What that means is though the studio had not yet been asked to prepare invitations for a same-sex wedding, it was only a matter of time before they would be forced to make the same kind of choice that people like Jack Philips have had to.

That choice, ADF argued, would violate Arizona’s Free Exercise of Religion Act (FERA). ADF also claimed the advertising restrictions violated the proprietors’ free speech rights.

On Monday, the Arizona Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, sided with Brush & Nib and ADF. That’s good news. Even better news is that, just like the decision issued by the 8th circuit court two weeks ago, the majority opinion by Justice Andrew Gould was loaded with incredibly clear and helpful language about the nature of our religious freedoms.

“The enduring strength of the First Amendment,” Gould wrote, “is that it allows people to speak their minds and express their beliefs without government interference. But here, the City effectively cuts off [Brush & Nibs’] right to express their beliefs about same-sex marriage by telling them what they can and cannot say.”

Rejecting the city’s argument that Brush & Nib’s “custom wedding invitations are fungible products, like a hamburger or a pair of shoes,” Justice Gould acknowledged the “many hours” Brush & Nib owners Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski spend “designing and painting custom paintings, writing words and phrases, and drawing images and calligraphy.”

Because “Duka and Koski are involved in every aspect of designing and creating the invitations,” he continued, “and they retain substantial . . . artistic control over the messages that are expressed in the invitations,” they are more than mere “scribes.” Thus, to compel them to create custom invitations is to compel them to endorse the message in those invitations, which the Arizona constitution forbids.  

This strong language, in addition to the strong language issued by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in favor of Christian videographers Angel and Carl Larsen in their case against a Minnesota’s SOGI law, means that the courts have clarified the sort of protections that speech should have in our society. You might remember that the Supreme Court was hesitant to issue the same sort of sweeping language in Jack Phillip’s case a few years ago, focusing instead on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission’s outright hostility.

I’m glad the court smacked the commission down for their hostility, but the question of speech protection remains, and that makes this Arizona ruling so important. As ADF’s Kristen Waggoner put it, Justice Gould’s opinion included ADF’s arguments “perfectly.”

Though Gould’s opinion was specifically grounded in Arizona’s constitution, it is still applicable to the federal one. Brush & Nib v. Phoenix can serve as a kind of guide map for how other courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, can and should think about the protections religious speech deserve.

Like Waggoner, I am “thanking God for his favor and praying we are gaining momentum” for the Supreme Court’s upcoming October term.

Tragically, last week we all learned that Jarrid Wilson, associate pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship Church in Riverside, California, had committed suicide. He was a husband and father of two. He was only 30-years-old.

Jarrid had founded a ministry called “Anthem of Hope,” in order to minister to people with depression and suicidal ideations. He ended his life on the same day he officiated the funeral of a Christian who had ended hers.

About a year ago, Andrew Stoecklin, another 30-year-old pastor from California, also committed suicide. Like Wilson, he shared openly about his own battles with depression and anxiety.

About a year before that, Wisconsin Pastor Bill Lenz took his life after bouts of depression and anxiety. Like Wilson, he had ministered extensively to many with depression and suicidal ideation, and had created a suicide-prevention ministry.

In the fog of questions and grief, one thing is clear: Neither Christians nor Christian pastors are immune from the suicide epidemic that’s sweeping our country.

My friend Ed Stetzer wrote, in response to Wilson’s death, that while all suicides are shocking, stories of pastors and other Christian leaders who take their own lives “cause questions to arise,” questions that are unique.

Among them must be, why is there still such a lack of awareness about the emotional, psychological, and spiritual struggles pastors face?

And also, where can pastors turn for help?

It’s no surprise that so many pastors and ministry leaders are reluctant to admit that they are struggling with sin, with depression, or with their family. They especially struggle to be vulnerable with those who “hold the power of the purse” in their lives and can shape the future of their careers. And, as Stetzer pointed out in his article, there is an Evangelical reluctance to look outside Christian circles for assistance, especially when it comes to mental health issues. It’s as if by doing so, we’d be admitting that the Christian faith is somehow inadequate.

It isn’t, of course. The Christian faith not only explains who we are, it explains why truth and health can be found by those who carefully study God’s world. As Ed put it, “God does not fix it all…Yet.” Or as Wilson himself wrote on Twitter the day he died, “Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure suicidal thoughts,” and “Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure depression,” or “PTSD and anxiety, for that matter.”

Wilson ended his life on the eve of World Suicide Prevention Day, a day intended to draw attention to the enormity of the crisis in the U.S. and around the world.

In connection with World Suicide Day, and in order to help us all answer the one question we should be asking right now—what can we do?—my friend Jeremiah Johnston has written an article explaining how Christians can make a difference when it comes to suicide and depression. It starts with knowing more about suicide and its causes.

Among the most important thing to know is that “Mental illness is not a character flaw; it’s a disease.” Similarly, it’s “not a spiritual problem” in the sense it can be fixed with just “more faith” or “more church.”  Mental illness is a treatable medical condition.

There remains too much stigma and shame in Christian circles when it comes to mental illness. That has to stop. Mental illness is treatable, but only if it’s treated. By supporting those around us, the church can help make that more likely. So let’s help.

Just as Christians in the Roman Empire ran towards epidemics while everyone else was running away from them, we have a chance today to do the same.

If you who are suffering from depression or suicidal thoughts: Please, seek help. There are folks who love you, care for you, and want to help. If you need help immediately, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK. That’s 1-800-273-TALK.