Breakpoint

A few weeks ago, I came across a video that you might call “YouTube Gold.” That’s the phrase used these days for “an oldie-but-a-goodie” video. It was classic Chuck Colson speech. He was speaking at a conference that was otherwise over-academic.

But not Chuck. He spoke with passion and conviction. He pounded the pulpit. And, at the end, several hundred mostly academics erupted in a standing ovation. Seriously, you’ve got to see it.

Chuck made four points: four things that must characterize Christians today. I’m only going to give you the first two, not only because I want you to watch the whole thing but also because his first two points are especially in need of repeating today.

First, Chuck said, Christians must develop a biblically-formed worldview. At other times and places, the broad cultural consensus may have lined up with Christian truth, but no more. Of course, that goes without saying today. Twenty years ago, when Chuck said this to his Grand Rapids audience, it was every bit as true but not nearly as obvious.

Today, that you might be confronted in your Christian beliefs by someone with a deeply different perspective on life and the world is not a hypothetical scenario. At the neighborhood cookout, over the water cooler, across the Thanksgiving table, on social media, it’s going to happen. Even worse, you might even be asked questions directly, in a setting where you hold the minority viewpoint. A viewpoint that’s not only considered to be wrong but considered to be dangerous.

Which brings up Chuck’s second point. Not only do we need to develop a biblically formed worldview, he said, but we need to know that worldview well enough to defend it. This is exactly what Peter meant when he said to be prepared to give an answer for the hope that is within you.

It might be that your challenge comes about a particularly challenging issue in a particularly controversial environment. For example, an announcement that your local public library is hosting Drag Queen Story Hour for kids. Or your kid’s school wants to integrate restrooms. Or your neighbor, who you know and love, but who always drops racist comments. Or your radical environmentalist relative who drops an opinion bomb over a family dinner.

Silence, pretending you didn’t hear, and exiting stage left aren’t good options. So, how should you respond?

Answering these and other tough questions with clarity and conviction is the subject of our next Colson Center Short Course, which begins August 6.

Over the next four weeks, beginning tomorrow night, the Colson Center is hosting a short course on four of these confusing, challenging subject areas. It’s all online, taught by four incredible thinkers and communicators: Andrew Walker will help you navigate the issue of transgenderism; Jay Richards, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, will help us understand the science and politics of the climate change debate; Ryan Bomberger, founder of the Radiance Foundation, will walk us through the thorny issue of race in America and in the Church. And finally, Sandra Glahn of Dallas Theological Seminary will help us think through the implications of the #MeToo movement and the sexual abuse crisis in the Church.

Each Short Course session begins at 8 PM Eastern, and the live online interaction includes time for Q&A. If you have to miss a live session, no problem. Each session is recorded, and the link is sent out to all of our participants.

The question isn’t why should you sign up for this course. In light of the conversations we are all facing, the question is why shouldn’t we be better prepared? As Chuck said in that speech two decades ago, every Christian must know a Christian worldview well enough to defend it. When we don’t, we remain silence, and then bad ideas rule the day.

Faithfulness to Christ today means being prepared. This short course can help.

What is doubt? Is it sinful ? What are the sources of doubt?  In light of the recent apostasy of a well-known Christian writer and pastor, John Stonestreet invited Brett Kunkle on the program to discuss an issue that many if not most of us Christians have struggled with--or will struggle with.

 

Resources The Backlash Against Purity Culture–Or Against Purity?

• John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, BreakPoint Podcast, July 31, 2019

  A Practical Guide to Culture

• John Stonestreet and Brett Kunkle, 2017

John Stonestreet and Warren Smith discuss the distressingly typical misreporting of a tragedy--mostly by quick-take tweets. Have we gotten to the point where journalists and pundits care more about being first than being accurate?

They also discuss the odd nature of the very-public renunciation of faith by author and former-pastor Josh Harris, as well as the Democratic presidential debates. Looks like the Democrats are going all-in on a far-left agenda.

 

Resources The Backlash Against Purity Culture–Or Against Purity?

• John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, the BreakPoint Podcast, July 31, 2019

In the 1998 movie “Armageddon,” the Administrator of NASA, played by Billy Bob Thornton, informs the president that a huge asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. The president then asks, “Why didn’t we see this coming?”

The administrator replies that their budget only “allows us to track about 3% of the sky, and begging your pardon sir, but it's a [really big] sky.”

This scene came to mind after reading about an asteroid designated 2019OK. On July 25th, the 100-meter wide piece of rock passed within 73,000 kilometers of Earth. To put that distance in perspective, the moon is 384,000 kilometers from Earth.

While 2019OK wasn’t big enough to be a “planet killer,” it could have taken out a large city. That’s why one planetary scientist called the pass by “uncomfortably close.”

Even more uncomfortable was that no one noticed this big rock coming our way until it was almost on top of us. It wasn’t being tracked, so it wasn’t on any list of objects that would be passing near Earth.

But, as they say in sports, “no harm, no foul.” Sure, it jangled some nerves, but no one was hurt by our failure to detect 2019OK until it was too late to do anything about it. Still, there’s a lesson to be learned here…

Though no one was hurt physically, our collective scientific egos should be hurt, or at least chastened. The consistent claims of omniscience afforded to science these days has proven, once again, to be false.

Too often what is called science these days is, in fact, “scientism.” Scientism holds that science, as defined by its proponents, is the only “objective means” by which we should judge things, and the only legitimate way we can know in the first place.

Scientism masquerading as science is everywhere. Take a recent Washington Post article entitled “Five Myths About Consciousness.” One “myth” was that “Science will never understand consciousness.” The author, after calling this idea “pernicious,” assured readers that “the argument that difficult science problems are unsolvable has a very poor track record.” After all, “An entire profession, anesthesiology, is devoted to safely turning consciousness off and on again.”

See what he did there? He defined consciousness as, essentially, being awake, as opposed to what is usually means: the awareness of our own existence, thoughts, environment, and “apartness” from others.

Drugging someone until they fall asleep doesn’t bring you any closer to understanding consciousness than putting a person in a coma by hitting them with a blunt object, but claims to scientific omniscience require this kind of reductionism.

Usually, claims of inevitable omniscience like this are, at most, pretentious. The only real harm is us rolling our eyes so far into the back of our heads that they stick. The danger of our arrogance is much more palpable when it comes to other issues, such as playing God with the human genome. As I have said several times on BreakPoint, gene-editing technology such as CRSPR was made widely available with no more ethical guidance than an admonition to “play nice.”

We simply cannot predict the physical and social impact of gene-editing technology. Of course, that won’t stop us. The potentially disastrous process of “trial and error” with this technology won’t cause us to admit we aren’t nearly as smart as we think we are.

Or, we might put it this way: Tracking asteroids, which follows well-known laws of physics, is child’s play compared to manipulating the human genome. And asteroids still manage to sneak up on us. If we don’t learn from incidents like the 2019OK unexpected flyby, our next surprise visitor could find out that there is no one left to destroy.

The word “vandalism” comes from the Vandals, a Germanic tribe that sacked Rome in the middle of the 5th century. These “barbarians,” as Roman writers called them, actually behaved much better than their name might suggest. For example, they spared the lives of most of Rome’s citizens and left her buildings standing—including, notably, Christian churches. This was because the Vandals themselves claimed the name of Christ—although their theology was of a type condemned by orthodox Christians.

Modern vandals, on the other hand, fail to live up to their namesakes’ example. Over the last few months, Europe has seen a wave of attacks against churches and other Christian sites. CBN reports that in countries like France and Germany, there has been “…a spike in violent vandalism, desecrating cherished churches and Christian symbols...”

To clarify what the report means by “spike,” there were over one thousand attacks just in 2018, and the vandalism involved more than spray paint. Crucifixes, icons, statues, and sacramental vessels were damaged and destroyed. Sometimes attacks included human waste. According to Roman Catholic clergy in France, an average of two churches per day are desecrated. And that doesn’t include Protestant sites.

Recently, the Reformation Wall in Geneva was hit. The intended message of the vandals was made clear by the rainbow paint dumped all over the statues of 16th-century Reformers William Farel, Theodore Beza, John Knox, and John Calvin.

This wasn’t even the first act of vandalism at this site this year. Back in March, feminist activists graffitied the Reformation monument with the insightful message, “Where are the women?”

Around the same time, Newsweek quoted Ellen Fantini, the executive director of a Vienna-based organization that tracks religious discrimination. She said that while the motives and identity of vandals aren’t always clear, France in particular faces a surge of anti-Christian violence by “anarchist and feminist groups.” According to Fantini, attacks were up 25 percent in March over the same time last year.

The fact that Christianity is no longer Europe’s dominant religion, and hasn’t been for some time, is not new news. Pew Research reports that while a majority of Western Europeans still identify as Christians, just 22 percent attend services at least once a month. Compare that with the U. S., where around half attend regularly.

Increasingly, Europeans are devoted to a different religion—a militant form of secularism that sees the continent’s Christian past as a time of darkness and oppression—a time to be not just forgotten, but intentionally abandoned.

Yet how many of those who desecrate churches and vandalize religious monuments even know what it is they’re attacking? How much could those who dumped rainbow paint on the Reformers in Geneva tell us about them, other than they were Christians...or men?

But ignorance and/or cynicism of the past is a feature of the kind of secularism dominating western culture right now. C. S. Lewis dubbed it “chronological snobbery”—the belief that past people were unenlightened, evil, or just stupid.

As Art Lindsley writes, chronological snobbery “not only rejects the values of the past, it claims that the study of history itself is pointless.” The Christians who built Europe’s great churches—indeed, who built European civilization itself—are no longer read, nor are their beliefs taken seriously. Instead, along with their statues and churches, they are consigned to the ash-heap of history, condemned for not embracing our modern ideas about sexuality, gender, and God.

Ancient Rome was sacked by Vandals. Western culture today has been invaded by ideas. Bad ones. It’s a sad fate for a continent once alive with Christian faith—a continent that, today, is still littered with its buildings and monuments.

Yesterday I told you about a district in northern India where, according to reports, not a single girl was born for three months. The main cause of the shocking gender imbalance we see around the world, and especially in India, is sex-selective abortion. In reaction, some of us may be tempted to think, “well, what do you expect from people who worship idols with blue skin and elephant heads?”

         That would be exactly the wrong reaction. After all, Western countries have idols, too. Worshipping our idols also coincides with a lack of children, and not just baby girls.

         Recently in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson points out that, despite a decade-long economic and cultural boom in our cities, America’s urban rebirth is missing actual births. In fact, if current trends continue, the future of American cities is virtually childless.

         Take New York City. Last year, for the first time in forty years, the Big Apple’s population shrank during a non-recession year. Since at least 2011, the number of babies born in the five boroughs has declined by nine percent. In Manhattan, it’s dropped 15 percent—again, despite a pronounced economic recovery. At this rate, says Thompson, the city’s infant population will halve in thirty years.

         Of course, part of this has to do with the rising cost of living in America’s cities. Increasingly, the only people who can afford to move here are “rich, college-educated whites without children.”

         Still, Thompson makes a compelling case that, while it may appear that cost of living is changing the composition of our cities, it actually works the other way around. The modern city has become “an Epcot theme park for childless affluence, where the rich can act like kids without having to actually see any.”

         This explains why prices are climbing while population is dropping. According to U.S. Census and American Community Survey data, white college grads without kids have increased by 20 percent in America’s urban centers since 2000, while families with kids have fled. Cities once had people of all ages and stages, but they’ve now become revolving doors for people of a particular description, at a particular moment in life. The gentrified, “brunchable” neighborhoods popping up everywhere and pushing families out aren’t just temples to the idol of youthful self-indulgence. They also facilitate the worship of work.

         The richest 25 metro areas in the country now account for half of the U.S. economy, and just five counties—mostly the famous “Silicon Valley,” contain half of the nation’s “internet and web-portal jobs.”

         This is the sort of environment in which only the young and childless can thrive. Companies that set up shop in these major downtown areas increasingly demand a set of life choices that Thompson dubs “workism”—delaying marriage and family in favor of intense, high-paying jobs that go largely to support adult-centric lifestyles. In other words, we’re “swapping capital for kids.”

         This service to modern, urban idols not only results in cities devoid of children. It even has political effects, concentrating blue voters in tiny regions where their ballots won’t change the outcome of elections. This deepens already sharp regional divisions and drives our nation’s political fever ever higher.

         According to Thompson, there are some things city governments can do to help reverse or at least slow the process of creating childless cities. Notably, add family-friendly spaces and more affordable housing.

Still, one need not read between the lines of the article to realize it’s not just zoning laws that have turned our cities into theme parks for grown-ups. The true blame should be placed on a culture that worships the wrong things. It’s no coincidence that the country’s highest abortion rates and lowest rates of church attendance are both found in cities.

         Yes, developing countries who kill their children surely have a lot to answer for, but we in the West are only deceiving ourselves if we think our false gods are any less demanding.

Josh Harris, author of “I Kissed Dating Goodbye,” has not only renounced his teaching sexual purity, he has renounced his faith in Christ. Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the social media frenzy over this sad development—especially the backlash against the so-called purity culture. John and Shane discuss whether this backlash is really anti-purity culture, or simply a repudiation of Christian sexual morality.

 

Resources Colson Center Short Course: A Christian Response to Tough Issues

• Register today!

From Apology to Apostasy: Joshua Harris Joins His Critics

• G. Shane Morris, Troubler of Israel Blog, July 29, 2019

Against Evangelical Victim Culture (Stop Blaming Josh Harris for Your Problems)

• G. Shane Morris, Troubler of Israel Blog, September 13, 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Some 63 million women are missing from the population of India. Missing because they were the victims of sex-selection abortion. Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Jill McElya, founder of the Invisible Girls Project, sat down with John Stonestreet to discuss this ongoing human tragedy, the enormous social implications for India and Asia, and the work of the Invisible Girls Project.

 

Resources Receive a copy of "So the Next Generation Will Know," by Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace

John Stonestreet and Shane Morris discuss the Mueller hearings in light of Neil Postman's classic work, "Entertaining Ourselves to Death." In some sense, the hearing was political theater--and not very good theater at that. What were the parties trying to achieve? Do we know anything more about the investigation? How should we as Christians think about what we just witnessed?

John and Shane also discuss a new movement in conservative circles called "national conservatism;" and just what is a Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and how are they confronting the growing influence of the transgender movement?