Breakpoint

In June 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year old white supremacist from North Carolina, drove to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and committed one of the most shocking mass murders in American history.

After entering the church, Roof asked to see the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, and then joined a Bible study with members of the congregation. They welcomed him. But Roof pulled out a pistol and started shooting.

He killed nine of our Christian brothers and sisters in cold blood, leaving another alive to tell everyone what had happened.

He was hunted down and captured, and eventually was convicted of numerous state and federal charges. Roof currently awaits death by lethal injection.

What many found as shocking as the killings themselves was the reaction to Roof by many of the victims’ families.

At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, Christian film maker Brian Ivie told us how he had heard about the Emanuel AME shooting while on his honeymoon in Mexico. One morning, while he was out on the balcony, Brian heard his wife, Amanda, sobbing inside. “Nine people just got shot in their Bible study,” she said, “in Charleston, South Carolina.” And then she went on to describe the massacre.

Brian was stunned. “Then she looked at me again,” he relates, and said, “You don’t understand. They’re forgiving him. The family members are forgiving the murderer in court.”

On her laptop, Amanda had watched, stunned like so many of us, Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, tell Roof: “I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people, but God forgives you, and I forgive you.”

Then Anthony Thompson, husband of Myra Thompson, told Roof, “I forgive you, and my family forgives you. But we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Change your ways.”

Brian Ivie told his new bride, “I hope whoever tells that story one day does not skip [the forgiveness]. Because I think God just showed up.” As it turns out, Ivie’s prayer was answered, because he is the one who has been tasked with telling this amazing story of tragedy, suffering, forgiveness, and hope, in his new documentary called, “Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting.”

It will be in theaters next week, June 17 and 19 only.

You need to see this film. Brian, whom you might remember from his first film, “The Dropbox,” has done something special here. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful, and the music is excellent. But more than that, Brian Ivie has managed to tell the story by getting out of its way: the racial history of Charleston, the sacredness of a Bible study violated, the criticism that family members received for offering forgiveness, the overall cultural tension already present when this evil act was perpetrated, and how, in the end, forgiveness has the final word.

What sets this documentary about Emanuel Church apart, as Ivie told the Charleston Post and Courier, is “the theological understanding of where forgiveness comes from. And that is the cross of Christ.”

I urge you to gather friends and family, believers and unbelievers alike, and go see this film “Emanuel.” Again, it’s playing only on June 17 and 19 in theaters all across America. And by the way, Steph Curry (yes, that Steph Curry, the basketball player) and Viola Davis (yes, that Viola Davis, the actress) are the executive producers of the film. They believe in this film and so do I. Find out where it is airing at EmanuelMovie.com.

And you can also hear Brian Ivie’s terrific presentation from the Wilberforce Weekend where he tells the story of the film. It was appropriately titled “Can Christianity Answer Tragedy” and is on the BreakPoint Podcast right now. You can find it at BreakPoint.org or wherever you download podcasts.

In June 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year old white supremacist from North Carolina, drove to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina and committed one of the most shocking mass murders in American history.

After entering the church, Roof asked to see the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, and then joined a Bible study with members of the congregation. They welcomed him. But Roof pulled out a pistol and started shooting.

He killed nine of our Christian brothers and sisters in cold blood, leaving another alive to tell everyone what had happened.

He was hunted down and captured, and eventually was convicted of numerous state and federal charges. Roof currently awaits death by lethal injection.

What many found as shocking as the killings themselves was the reaction to Roof by many of the victims’ families.

At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend, Christian film maker Brian Ivie told us how he had heard about the Emanuel AME shooting while on his honeymoon in Mexico. One morning, while he was out on the balcony, Brian heard his wife, Amanda, sobbing inside. “Nine people just got shot in their Bible study,” she said, “in Charleston, South Carolina.” And then she went on to describe the massacre.

Brian was stunned. “Then she looked at me again,” he relates, and said, “You don’t understand. They’re forgiving him. The family members are forgiving the murderer in court.”

On her laptop, Amanda had watched, stunned like so many of us, Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, tell Roof: “I will never be able to hold her again, but I forgive you and have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people, but God forgives you, and I forgive you.”

Then Anthony Thompson, husband of Myra Thompson, told Roof, “I forgive you, and my family forgives you. But we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Change your ways.”

Brian Ivie told his new bride, “I hope whoever tells that story one day does not skip [the forgiveness]. Because I think God just showed up.” As it turns out, Ivie’s prayer was answered, because he is the one who has been tasked with telling this amazing story of tragedy, suffering, forgiveness, and hope, in his new documentary called, “Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting.”

It will be in theaters next week, June 17 and 19 only.

You need to see this film. Brian, whom you might remember from his first film, “The Dropbox,” has done something special here. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful, and the music is excellent. But more than that, Brian Ivie has managed to tell the story by getting out of its way: the racial history of Charleston, the sacredness of a Bible study violated, the criticism that family members received for offering forgiveness, the overall cultural tension already present when this evil act was perpetrated, and how, in the end, forgiveness has the final word.

What sets this documentary about Emanuel Church apart, as Ivie told the Charleston Post and Courier, is “the theological understanding of where forgiveness comes from. And that is the cross of Christ.”

I urge you to gather friends and family, believers and unbelievers alike, and go see this film “Emanuel.” Again, it’s playing only on June 17 and 19 in theaters all across America. And by the way, Steph Curry (yes, that Steph Curry, the basketball player) and Viola Davis (yes, that Viola Davis, the actress) are the executive producers of the film. They believe in this film and so do I. Find out where it is airing at EmanuelMovie.com.

And you can also hear Brian Ivie’s terrific presentation from the Wilberforce Weekend where he tells the story of the film. It was appropriately titled “Can Christianity Answer Tragedy” and is on the BreakPoint Podcast right now. You can find it at BreakPoint.org or wherever you download podcasts.

Resources

‘Emanuel’ documentary produced by Viola Davis and Steph Curry gets to heart of grace

Kalyn Oyer | The Post and Courier | November 14, 2018

Families of Charleston shooting victims to Dylann Roof: We forgive you

Dylan Stableford | Yahoo News | June 19, 2015

Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting

Theater locations and movie trailer, In theaters June 17 and 19

 

Can Christianity Answer Tragedy? With Brian Ivie

BreakPoint Podcast, June 12, 2019

When filmmaker Brian Ivie heard about the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, he knew he had to tell the story. Not the story of the shooting, but the story of the relatives of the victims, who, in court, shocked the world when they forgave the killer. That story is now told in the film “Emanuel,” which appears around the country on June 17 and 19 only.

Speaking at this year’s William Wilberforce weekend, Brian’s topic was “Can Christianity answer tragedy,” a question he answered by sharing the lessons learned from the Charleston shooting and from another film he produced, “The Drop Box,” about a Korean pastor who rescues unwanted infants.

Resources "Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting In theaters June 17 and 19

In one of Marvel’s recent blockbuster superhero movies, a genocidal alien-arch-bad-guy named Thanos acquires an “Infinity Stone,” which allows him to change the world around him at will. With this stone, he says, “Reality can be whatever I want.”

Well, many today imagine they’ve got that same mastery over reality—not with the use of a stone, but through words. Redefining words, they think, would magically change reality. It doesn’t, of course. We don’t live in a comic book movie. In the real world, reality is stubborn. Even more, when our words don’t correspond to reality, someone always gets hurt. Or, to paraphrase Confucius, “When words lose their meaning, people lose…”

Recently, we’ve seen several cases of people, especially women, losing the opportunity to win competitions they’ve worked hard for. WORLD magazine recently reported on several international weightlifting competitions where biological men calling themselves women entered women’s divisions and blew away the competition. The words used by these men to describe themselves didn’t change their massive bone structures or muscles, but they did deprive women of a chance at fair competition and victory. As did CeCe Telfer, who went from mediocre male track athlete to NCAA national women’s champion just last week.

Another example of playing fast and loose with words as if it changes reality came from Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by the State of Indiana to reinstate a 2016 law which banned abortions based solely on sex, race, or disability. The law also required that fetal remains be disposed of respectfully—not simply thrown in the garbage. The justices upheld the body-disposal provision, but declined to rule on the law itself.

In a scathing response, Justice Clarence Thomas detailed the history of abortion as a tool of eugenics. In the process, he referred to women who are pregnant and are abortion-minded as “mothers.” This triggered Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who retorted that “A woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a ‘mother.’”

As Princeton’s Dr. Robert George noted on Facebook, if a pregnant woman seeking an abortion isn’t a mother, how can the woman excitedly posting baby bump photos and receiving congratulations be a mother? What about the woman who wants to go through with her pregnancy but later decides to have an abortion, only to change her mind again at the clinic and has the baby? Does she go from being a mother to not being a mother, back to being a mother, again?

Justice Ginsburg may think her words have the power to reshape reality, or as a former Supreme Court colleague of hers wrote, to “create [our] own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” But when reality won’t cash our checks, it’s usually the most vulnerable who get stuck with the bill. When words lose their meaning, people lose… in fact, sometimes they even lose their lives.

Consider a recent case described in USA Today. A “man” arrived at a hospital complaining of stomach pains. While the nurse treated “him” for diabetic complications, “he” went into labor and gave birth to a stillborn child. The “man,” it turns out, was a biological woman who identified as transgender.

Incredibly, psychologists and transgender activists quoted in the article blamed the doctors and nurses for the preventable stillbirth, citing their “implicit biases” that only women can get pregnant, and then calling for better training.

So, that’s what went wrong here? That’s why an innocent baby died? No. The baby died because whenever there’s a mismatch between our words and our world, there’s a victim.

Reality is objective. “Mother,” “man,” “woman,” “male,” “female,” and “baby” are words that correspond to human attributes we can’t will or speak out of existence, because we didn’t will or speak them into existence. God did.

Until we accept that, the victims of our word games will continue to pile up.

Virtual relationships, excessive screen time, information overload, extended adolescence, these are just a few of the problems plaguing today’s teenagers. How do we help them navigate the cultural waters they’re swimming in?

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Warren Cole Smith interviews Mark Gregston, founder and executive director of Heartlight Ministries, a residential counseling facility for adolescents in crisis based in the piney-woods region of east Texas.

Gregston shares his thoughts on leading teens from information (which they have plenty of) to wisdom; on helping parents go from teaching to training, from providing answers to helping their teens ask the right questions.

And as we approach our fiscal year end, we would so appreciate you considering a donation to BreakPoint and the Colson Center to help us end this year strong. Thanks for your support!

 

Resources

Parenting Today's Teens with Mark Gregston

Website and Radio Program

Help BreakPoint and the Colson Center end the fiscal year strong.

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I’ve mentioned a few times that the possibility that Roe v. Wade might be in play, overturned or at least rolled back, has prompted a significant uptick in state action on abortion. Some states are moving to limit abortion, hoping to be the source of the case that will be considered by the Supreme Court. Other states are racing to ensure that unrestricted abortion remains available within their borders.

In other words, the possible demise of Roe in no way signals the end of this decades-long struggle against abortion. The struggle has only shifted from the federal courts and Congress to the states.

Already this has led to radically extreme pro-abortion bills being passed in various states. Gone are protestations and hand-wringing that abortion is a “tragic necessity.” Instead, abortion is increasingly treated as a positive good. In fact, a few states seem to be in a competition for who can pass the most radical laws.

The leader in this grotesque competition at the moment: Illinois.

Last week, the Illinois legislature approved the so-called “Reproductive Health Act,” and sent it to the governor for his signature. I use the descriptive “so-called” because in it “reproductive health” means abortion. That’s it. Nothing else. Full stop.

There’s nothing in the bill about the state’s rising maternal mortality rate or the disparity in health and mortality disproportionately affecting African-American women, who are six times more likely to die in childbirth than their white counterparts. No, instead the Act is solely focused on making it beyond easy for Illinois women to get an abortion in that state. In fact, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that the only place Illinois can go from this “Reproductive Health Act” is to make abortion mandatory.

The Act opens by stating that “Every individual has a fundamental right to make autonomous decisions about the individual’s own reproductive health, including the fundamental right to use or refuse reproductive health care.”

The right to “refuse reproductive health care”? What does that even mean? Are women in Illinois forced to use contraceptives or go to the doctor? Of course not. This is only the first example of how this bill is filled to the brim with loose and dangerous language.

Two paragraphs later, the Act states it bluntly, “A fertilized egg, embryo, or fetus does not have independent rights under the laws of this State.” That means a man who kills a pregnant woman could only be charged with one homicide, not two. Or that a man who intentionally punches a pregnant woman in the stomach and causes a miscarriage would only be charged with assault on the woman. How the loss of the child would be described and handled isn’t clear. The only thing that’s clear is that this kind of devastating language has been used in past times to legally justify history’s greatest horrors.

And it gets worse. The Act arguably opens the door for non-physicians to perform abortions. Its definition of “health care professional” includes “advanced practice registered nurse, physician assistant, or person acting under the supervision of one of the above.”

It’s not clear who “a person acting under the supervision of one of the above” might be, but it brings to mind the punchline from those commercials “No, I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express.” So what does “acting under supervision” mean? Does the supervisor have to be in the same room? In the same building? The same county? The workers responsible for mis-administering anesthesia in Philadelphia were under the supervision of Kermit Gosnell, and we all know how tragically that worked out.

When this provision is combined with the Act’s explicit exemption of abortion from the state’s Ambulatory Surgical Treatment Center Act, it becomes clear, as one opponent put it, that this Act “goes much further and does much more” than just preserve the right to abortion in a possible post-Roe world. In essence, as one of its supporters stated, it advances the idea that “there is nothing more intrinsic to freedom than bodily autonomy.”

When you start with that bad idea, there’s nowhere to go but down, and there will be many, many victims strewn along the way.

John Stonestreet and Warren Smith the heroic sacrifices made by American and  Allied troops on D-Day.  They also discuss the dangers of ignoring history, especially when it comes to the anti-human scourge of Communism.

Also on this weekend's episode: How doctor-assisted suicide increases suicide rates overall, and the continuing persecution of florist Baronelle Stutzman by the state of Washington for her religious beliefs.

 

Resources

The Spiritual Battle on D-Day

Eric Metaxas and Anne Morse, BreakPoint, June 6, 2019

 

Remembering Tiananmen Square

John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint, June 4, 2019

 

A Climate of Death

John Stonestreet and G. Shane Morris, BreakPoint, June 7, 2019

 

Support BreakPoint and the Colson Center as we near our fiscal year end. Thank you!

Last week, international news outlets reported that a 17-year-old Dutch girl named Noa Pothoven legally secured a physician’s help in killing herself after years of battling trauma from childhood sexual assault and rape.

This young woman, who had previously been hospitalized for extreme anorexia, underwent evaluations after requesting legal euthanasia. A few days before her death, she posted on Instagram that, “I’ve stopped eating and drinking for a while now, and after many discussions and evaluations, it has been decided to let me go, because my suffering is unbearable.”

Many jumped to the conclusion that she ended her life with a doctor’s help. But it turns out the story is more complicated. The Guardian reports that Pothoven’s request to die by doctors’ help was actually denied because she was too young and she might benefit from counseling.

Instead, the girl decided to starve herself with her parents and doctors deciding not to intervene.

The whole thing is tragic, from her initial trauma to her the eventual decision to die. But just because initial reports were mistaken about a physician being directly involved in her death doesn’t mean that it is unrelated to the Netherlands’ notoriously open euthanasia laws.

Quite the opposite, in fact. A growing body of research indicates that, contrary to expectations, legalizing euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide results in higher rates of suicide, both assisted and unassisted.

A 2015 study by Oxford researchers found that U.S. states where physician-assisted suicide became legal saw a 6.3 percent increase in total suicides. A 2017 study by Dutch researchers published in the Journal of Mental Health came to an even more startling conclusion: “...the option of euthanasia for people with psychiatric conditions does not reduce the number of nonassisted suicides [but] rather contributes to a rise in their numbers.”

And “rise” is almost a euphemism. Suicide rates in the Netherlands are among the fastest growing in the world. In fact, well over a quarter of deaths there are “induced”—a metric which includes suicides, murders, and euthanasia. By comparison, just 2.5 percent of deaths in the U.S. are induced, meaning that the Dutch, with their low murder rates, are simply choosing to die in historic numbers.

So how does legal assisted suicide cause an explosion in overall suicides—especially when so many predicted the opposite? The Dutch researchers venture a guess: “...making [suicide] a legal possibility,” they write, “is a political decision with potential implications for a society’s credibility and resolve to protect life and prevent premature deaths.”

In other words, when suicide is legal, psychiatric patients—particularly those like Pothoven who suffer from PTSD and depression—receive what these authors call a “paradoxical societal signal.” Sure, doctors will make a token effort at trying to talk people out of ending their lives, but if they really want to die, those same doctors will walk them through it.

“Seen more broadly,” the authors conclude, “the option of euthanasia for psychiatric patients may contribute to a societal climate in which death is increasingly seen as a remedy for all forms of severe suffering.”

I don’t think I’ve heard a group of social scientists come so close to summarizing Pope John Paul II’s famous criticism of the “culture of death.” They almost admit, in so many words, that the law is a moral teacher, and that a nation or state which teaches its citizens that death is a cure for suffering will reap more death.

Let me go on record right now as predicting that future research will confirm this link. It’ll become an established fact that legally endorsing suicide results in a frightening increase in unassisted suicides. How can it not?

When a society tells hurting people that their lives may not be worth living, they’re going to believe it. And people like Noa Pothoven need help living, not help dying. Her sad story should stand as a reminder that bad ideas have victims—especially when those bad ideas become enshrined in law.

John Stonestreet:

In honor of the 75th anniversary of D-Day, I want to share with you an outstanding BreakPoint commentary by Eric Metaxas, who reminds us that this monumental clash of arms was also an epic spiritual battle. Here is Eric Metaxas.

Eric Metaxas:

June 1944.

A tense and tired world is awaiting word of an Allied invasion of Western Europe, crushed for years under the jackboots of the Nazi war machine.

In the early morning hours of June 6, the news flashes over American radios: The greatest amphibious invasion in history has begun on the beaches of Normandy, France. As paratroopers leap from their planes and landing craft speed toward the coast, another great battle is being waged at home: a prayer battle, imploring God for victory over the dark forces of fascism.

It’s almost impossible to exaggerate the importance of the D-Day invasion. As one historian notes, “Without question, a failed invasion of France would constitute a calamity of incalculable proportions for the Western allies.” Who knows how long it would have taken to organize a second invasion attempt—time that might have allowed a German victory.

So as word of the assault trickled out, Americans began to pray. Stores closed, and prayer services were swiftly organized in small towns and big cities.

Photographs taken on June 6 show just how widespread these prayers were. One picture shows a sign in the window of a novelty button shop reading, “Sorry, no covered buttons today. We are praying for the success of the invasion.” A sign in front of a church reads, “Come in and pray for Allied victory: Hourly intercessions on the hour.” Another photo shows Americans in a synagogue, bowing their heads in prayer. At a noon Mass, we see men and women on their knees, fervently praying.

New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia took to the airwaves, urging citizens to “send forth [their] prayers to Almighty God . . . to bring total victory . . . in [this] great and valiant struggle . . .”

In Washington, President Roosevelt, who had sons in uniform, urged Americans to join him in prayer for all the nation’s sons: “With Thy blessing,” he prayed, “We shall prevail over the unholy forces of our enemy.”

And, by heaven, prevail they did. On D-Day, and in the bloody days that followed, allied soldiers brought to vivid life the words of Winston Churchill: “We shall fight in France . . . We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight on the fields and in the streets . . . We shall never surrender.”

As President Reagan put it 40 years later, speaking at Normandy to surviving Army Rangers: “These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the heroes who helped end a war.”

Today, I can’t help wondering: How much did the prayers of their loved ones back home have to do with this great victory?

War correspondent Ernie Pyle, who arrived at Normandy on June 7, observed that the Allies achieved victory “with every advantage on the enemy’s side and every disadvantage on ours.” Despite this, he wrote, the total Allied casualties “were remarkably low—only a fraction, in fact, of what our commanders had been prepared to accept.”

“Now that it is all over,” Pyle finished, “it seems to me a pure miracle that we ever took the beach at all.”

Yes, it WAS a miracle—a miracle backed up by millions upon millions of believers assaulting the gates of heaven.

We must never forget what the Allies gallantly sacrificed for the world on D-Day. Today we should set aside time to remember what they did. And then we should pray for the safety of our soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines who are serving across the globe today—men and women fighting and sacrificing for the freedoms we—and others—enjoy.

Resources

Real-Time Radio Broadcasts from D-Day, June 6, 1944

World War II Foundation

This is the First Thing Americans Did When They Heard of D-Day Invasion

Bethany Blankley | Christianheadlines.com | June 6, 2016

Winston Churchill Speech – We Shall Fight on The Beaches Presentation Magazine | May 9, 2010

Presentation Magazine | May 9, 2010

Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day Prayer

Our Documents: D-Day

Ernie Pyle describes ‘pure miracle’ on D-Day

Ernie Pyle | Tennessean.com | June 5, 2014

 

 

Are you prepared for the fiery trial? That’s the question Kelvin Cochran, former chief of the Atlanta Fire Department posed to us at the 2019 Wilberforce Weekend.

Chief Cochran was fired by the Mayor of Atlanta for having once published a men’s Bible study upholding traditional Christian teaching on sexuality. In his talk, “Finding the Goodness of God in Times of Trial,” Chief Cochran asks us five specific questions challenges us to help us assess how well prepared we are to face and endure suffering for our belief in Christ.

Chief Cochran is introduced by John Stonestreet. 

Resources   Life, Marriage, and Religious Liberty: What Belongs to God, What Belongs to Caesar (Essays for the Tenth Anniversary of the Manhattan Declaration). John Stonestreet and David Dockery, Editors, 2019