Breakpoint

The pro-life movie “Unplanned” debuted last weekend to “unplanned” success: Grossing over $6 million despite its limited release, an R-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and the fact that major cable networks wouldn’t advertise the movie, because it exposes the evils of abortion and the abortion industry.

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Warren Cole Smith interviews the subject of the movie:  Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood abortion facility director-turned pro-life advocate.

Hear from Abby herself how she became involved with the abortion industry giant, why she walked away, and why she now devotes herself to protecting innocent life.

“Increasingly optional.” That’s the phrase the Barna Group uses to describe the attitude many evangelicals have about sharing their faith. According to their 2018 study, only 64 percent of evangelicals agree with the statement that every Christian bears responsibility to share their faith. Twenty-six years ago, in 1993, nearly 89 percent of those polled believed they had a responsibility to share their faith. That’s a drop of 25 percent.

As I mentioned on BreakPoint earlier this year, though nearly all American Christians believe that “the best thing that could ever happen to someone is for them to know Jesus,” 47 percent of practicing Christian millennials believe it’s “wrong to share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes they will one day share the same faith.”

Now, I think there are a number of reasons for these low numbers, including the way some of the questions were phrased. But there’s also the reality that many Christians suffer from poor catechesis; they’re intimidated by the difficulty of swimming against the cultural tide of relativism, and they fear insulting or hurting someone’s feelings.

And, I’d guess that many just fear sharing their faith poorly. That’s why many of us, even when we’re asked some of the common tough questions about God and Christianity, are quick to find a conversational exit strategy. We just don’t have the answers for tough questions people like to pose—not only about the existence of God in general, but about specific claims about Jesus and Christianity.

Well, there are two things you should know. First, this is the Golden Age of answers. What I mean is that Christian apologists, philosophers, speakers and writers have produced an amazing amount of material in just the last few decades that tackle almost every tough question for Christianity that there is. The answers are there. But second, those answers haven’t always made it to Christian discipleship and personal study. Which is a shame.

That’s why we’re tackling the “Four Big Objections to Christianity” in our next Colson Center online short course.  Beginning Wednesday April 10, Sean McDowell, associate professor in Christian Apologetics at Biola University, will walk us through four questions that leave too many Christians stumped, and will teach us how to respond in grace and truth.

Two of the big objections that Sean will cover are ancient ones, and two are more modern.

The first question goes back as far as you can in human history: If there is a God—and this God is all powerful and all good—why is there evil? Pat answers to such a deep question won’t work these days. Sean will offer a framework for dealing with this problem.

The second question is one that went mostly unasked for about 1700 years: Can we trust the New Testament? But near the turn of the 20th century in particular, due to higher biblical criticism and skepticism of the supernatural, even many self-proclaimed Christians began to doubt the veracity of Scripture, especially those books that describe what Jesus said and what Jesus did.

(By the way, this question re-emerges with vengeance each Christmas and Easter because of those National Geographic and TIME magazine exposés on so-called “biblical scholarship.”)

The third question is one of increasing importance (just ask the United Methodists): Can you be gay and Christian? This question arose only because of the very modern innovation of the category of sexual orientation. Sean will explain the premises behind the question—what identity is and where we derive it from, and the difference between orientation and behavior, all in light of what the Scripture says about these things.

Finally, there’s the question Pilate asked of Jesus that is as old as humanity: What is truth?

This course will take place online four consecutive Wednesday nights starting April 10 and will be moderated by my Colson Center colleague Warren Smith. Every session will be presented live, with a question and answer period. If you have to miss a session, no problem. The recordings will be available to all who are registered for the course.

Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary to register today.

Recently on BreakPoint, I mentioned the disturbing new trend of “drag queen story hours” spreading across the country. Confused men, often overdressed in ridiculously flamboyant outfits, read books—usually filled with LGBTQ propaganda—to young children, with the full endorsement of the American Library Association.

Only a thoroughly, morally inept society would tolerate, much-less embrace, something like this. When news broke that one of the drag queens reading at a Houston story hour was in fact a convicted child molester, the library quickly distanced themselves from that individual, but continues to stand by the story hour.

It’s as if it’s a surprise that there might be some connection between men wanting to perform in garish women’s clothes in front of young children, and those same men being sexually attracted to children. Of course, not all drag queens are pedophiles, but that’s not the point.

This is: When those who are to protect and educate children, like libraries and schools, instead choose to inherently sexualize them, don’t be surprised when it happens.

How do we re-integrate our faith and our daily work? Or, to put it another way, how do we announce and live out the Kingdom of God through our day-to day job or profession?

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, we present a Colson Fellows webinar with Dr. Amy Sherman, Director of the Center on Faith and Communities at the Sagamore Institute. Her topic: Vocational Stewardship.

Resources

Apply to the Colson Fellows Program!

Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good

Amy Sherman

Last week, Phil Bryant, the governor of Mississippi, signed a bill that “bans abortions after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat during an ultrasound, unless the mother’s health is at extreme risk.”

The law, set to go into effect in July, would effectively ban nearly all abortions after about six to eight weeks.

Two weeks ago, Kentucky’s governor signed a law that prohibits abortions after six weeks. That law was blocked by a federal judge who ruled that the law was “potentially unconstitutional.”

As constitutional interpretation stands right now, he is probably correct. Even so, even abortion advocates are acknowledging that the days of Roe v. Wade may well be numbered. Which leaves us with an obvious question: What’s next?

Even if we see a complete reversal of Roe that explicitly states that a woman has no constitutional right to an abortion, abortion will still remain legal in many states, especially on the east and west coasts. It’s also possible that rather than overturn Roe, the Supreme Court will slowly chip away at it on a case-by-case basis, expanding the list of restrictions on abortion that can pass constitutional muster.

While some frustration with such a slow incrementalism is understandable, there’s little, if anything, we can do about it. The Court will decide Roe’s fate on its schedule, not ours.

In either case, here’s what’s becoming increasingly clear: The battle over abortion is shifting away from the federal government to the states, and will ultimately shift to the individual conscience.

We’ve already seen some of this shift at work. During the past decade or so, pro-life activists worked to elect pro-life legislators on the state level who would enact legislation that would test the limits of abortion license by limiting the time, the place, or the manner of abortion procedures.

As a result, 27 states have enacted waiting periods, another 18 mandate some kind of counseling, and more than 40 have laws limiting how far along in the pregnancy an abortion can be performed. In fact, nearly 300 such measures have been passed by states in the past decade. Currently, at least eleven other states are considering “heartbeat bills” like Mississippi’s and Kentucky’s.

At the same time, and especially since the 2016 election and the appointments of Supreme Court justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, advocates have begun to sense a real threat to the current abortion regime. So they’ve responded with state measures of their own, the most recent (and infamous) examples being laws in New York and Vermont that legalize abortion right up until delivery.

That’s only part of their preparations. A new book, called “Handbook for a Post-Roe America,” lays out a strategy to promote access to abortion even if most states outlaw it altogether. Among other things, it advises women who might become pregnant to start saving money, not only for an abortion itself but for traveling expenses, and it even provides maps to help them with planning.

We must resist the temptation to scoff at this if for no other reason than the book underscores an often overlooked reality: Even if Roe is completely overturned, most Americans will still live within driving distance of a state where abortion will be legal.

I’m not suggesting that the proposed laws are unimportant—on the contrary, pass more of them! I only wish to remind us that our goal is to make abortion unthinkable as well as illegal. And that means our work has only just begun. In fact, it may very well be the hardest part of our job is still ahead of us: making the pro-life case without the benefit of political tailwinds.

Let me be clear. I’ll be happy to see Roe go. We will throw a party when it happens. But celebrations must be short-lived. Our work continues.

And therefore, so must our preparations—whether to defend life, protect religious freedom, to educate and mentor young Christians… That’s why I ask you to consider joining our Colson Fellows Program. Study with outstanding worldview thinkers, read the best books on faith and culture, fellowship with committed believers, and most of all, develop a strategic plan for kingdom work where God has placed you. Check out the Colson Fellows Program at Colsonfellows.org.

John Stonestreet and Warren Cole Smith discuss certain Christian associations embracing the "Fairness for All" compromise, in which in return for backing the granting of protected status to sexual orientation and gender identity, religious organizations would receive religious freedom exemptions. But as John and Warren point out, any such "compromise" would leave individual Christians (such as Barronnelle Stutzman and Jack Phillips) out in the cold. As Warren pointed out, the National Religious Broadcasters have rightly rejected the "Fairness for All" compromise.

John and Warren also discuss the bizarre case of Jussie Smollett, who was inexplicably given a free pass by the state prosecutor; they urge listeners to go see "Unplanned," the movie about former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson; and they ask people to pray for Joni Eareckson Tada, as she once again battles cancer.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/03/bp-this-week-fairness-for-all-a-dangerous-compromise/

Resources

Apply for the Colson Fellows

Attend the Wilberforce Weekend

The Equality Act vs. Religious Freedom

John Stonestreet and David Carlson, BreakPoint, March 28, 2019

The Equality Act and the Threat to Religious Freedom

John Stonestreet and Andrew Walker, the BreakPoint Podcast, March 18, 2019

 "Unplanned" the movie

When Sarah and I got married, if I remember correctly, I think we stuck around the wedding reception maybe for a grand total of about 45 minutes. Not to put too fine a point on it, we had other places to be. The anticipation of a wedding is more than just a passing element of the joy and mystery of marriage. It’s why people laugh and throw rice at couples as they run for the getaway car. It’s why we celebrate in the first place. The beauty of promises made is matched only by the beauty of promises fulfilled.

I could never have thought of a sharper contrast to this than a new nuptial phenomenon that the New York Times recently reported about. Apparently, some couples are skipping honeymoons altogether and instead opting for “unimoons”—solo trips to different destinations—after their weddings.

One couple tells of how they couldn’t agree on a destination, so the husband went to France while his wife went to Canada, both to hang out with friends. “Neither of us wanted to be where the other was,” they said, clearly glowing with wedded bliss. “It was the perfect imperfect honeymoon.”

One writer identified (I’m guessing self-identified) as a “dating expert” proclaimed that separate honeymoons “may signal the continued evolution of marriage.”

But it was The New York Post, not the Times, that lifted the veil on what’s really going on here. Spoiler alert: It’s got nothing to do with the next stage of evolution. “When I was young and planning my own wedding,” admits the Post’s opinion writer, “I didn’t see the point of a honeymoon. After all, my partner and I had been together seven years. We had lived together for over a year.”

Mystery solved. If marriage adds nothing—including sex—to a relationship, it’s understandable that a vacation with friends may sound preferable to “getting away together.” Premarital sex and cohabitation, just two of the ways our culture has undermined marriage, assumes that what used to be saved for after the wedding is mainly just about self-fulfillment, not the physical completion of two becoming one. If love, and marriage and sex are already redefined and about self-fulfillment, why not the honeymoon?

Now, it’s worth pointing out that the tradition of going on a honeymoon is both very recent and very American. The idea that taking a vacation together is important to seal a couple’s commitment is more commercial than it is Christian. But it’s a good tradition. There’s nothing wrong with celebrating the sweetness of a new union.

But in order to celebrate marriage well, you have to first know what marriage is and what marriage is for. When the purpose of marriage is lost, not only marriage but all kinds of things tied up with marriage are twisted and even destroyed: cohabitation, no-fault divorce, same-sex marriages, plural marriages, open marriages, and now marriages in which the couple’s first act is traveling as far away from each other as possible.

This is why I keep coming back to T. S. Eliot’s remark that it’s pointless to ask what you should do with something until you first know what that something is for. For a long time, our culture has bought into the idea that marriage is for self-fulfillment, for expressing our feelings, or for making a rooming arrangement more official. But it’s none of these things. Instead, it was instituted at the beginning of history by God to fulfill His purposes for creation.

Two become one to become the basic unit of human society. It’s a relationship that underlies all other social relationships, including and especially our relationship with the next generation. It’s a union designed to immediately turn us away from self-focus to a focus on others: first a spouse and then children, all for the purpose of building God’s world.

Those who endlessly reimagine marriage aren’t helping it evolve, they’re only pushing it to extinction.

And before we reach the end of March, I want to remind you that there is only another day or two to request John Lennox’s outstanding book, “Can Science Explain Everything?” It’s yours for the asking with a donation to the Colson Center. Go to BreakPoint.org and click on “Give.”

The anti-Chick-fil-A crusade has reached San Antonio. Last week, news broke that the City Council voted to ban the restaurant from the San Antonio airport.

Why? According to Councilman Robert Trevino, because of Chick-fil-A’s “legacy of anti-LGBTQ behavior.”

That, my friends, is an old and annoying lie.

Chick-fil-A’s crime is donating to Christian organizations like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, who affirm traditional Christian morality.

As a company spokesperson told Fox News, “The 140,000 people who serve customers … on a daily basis represent and embrace all people, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.”

But that’s not good enough for Councilman Trevino, who said without a hint of irony, and I quote: “Everyone should feel welcome when they walk through our airport.” Really? Everyone? How about Chick-Fil-A employees? How about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes? How about most of the people reading this post?

The councilman planning to run for mayor has apologized to Chick-fil-A, but the council vote still stands.

Exclusion in the name of inclusion. You can’t make this up.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/03/the-point-flying-through-san-antonio-no-waffle-fries-for-you/

In 2011, the Human Rights Campaign launched a video series that, according to HRC’s president, would “help drive the national conversation about same-sex marriage.” And it did just that. The series featured professional athletes, movie stars, politicians and civil rights leaders. And look where we are today.

Looking back, it’s clear that while opponents of same-sex marriage made much better arguments, the advocates changed the cultural imagination.

Well on Monday, the HRC announced a new video campaign called “Americans for the Equality Act.” This time, Christians need to be prepared to respond.

According to Andrew Walker of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, “the Equality Act represents the most invasive threat to religious liberty ever proposed in America.”

I agree—with the caveat that the Equality Act seemed virtually unpassable when it was first conceived all the way back in 1974. In fact, it seemed unpassable in 1984, 1994, 2004 and even 2014.

But today, what seemed unthinkable seems quite possible.

Despite the name, backers of the Equality Act aren’t seeking a balance of LGBTQ rights with religious rights. As Andrew told me recently on the BreakPoint Podcast, the Equality Act “is a winner-take all solution. It takes the categories of gender identity and sexual orientation and elevates them to a protected class in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

That would men in every area of public life—public accommodation, public education, and even Christian education—gender identity and sexual orientation would receive the highest level of federal protection.

Even worse, the Equality Act specifically targets the Religious Freedom Restoration Act—a bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed by President Clinton. So in cases involving claims of discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation, religious rights would be tossed aside. The Barronelle Stutzmans and Jack Phillips of the world—or any Christian trying to live out their convictions in public life—wouldn’t stand a chance.

That means that religious conviction about sexual behavior or gender realities would immediately, as Andrew said on the podcast, be put “on the opposite side of federal law . . . Our viewpoints on marriage and sexuality and how we define male and female,” would be considered irrational. And that we hold them not with good will, but with animus. “The Equality Act,” Andrew continued, “effectively turns Billy Graham into Jim crow.”

The new Human Rights Campaign videos, which will feature actress Sally Field, figure skater Adam Rippon, Jamie Lee Curtis, and a host of other celebrities, are designed to “drive the conversation” for the Equality Act.

In fact, part of the campaign is to actively recruit “local sponsors” for the Equality Act.

To be as clear as I can, every single Christian needs to know how to talk about gender identity and sexual attraction in light of our larger rights to live out of our deepest convictions about God’s design for human sexuality and human flourishing.

The supporters of the Equality Act don’t want debate or discussion. The Equality Act is designed to effectively shut down debate about human sexuality, about gender, about same-sex attraction. That’s a national debate that we’ve actually never had. It will instead force an answer on Americans that self-determination in those areas is the same thing as race.

Also, I need to mention that some Christians are currently exploring legislative efforts to compromise with the Equality Act in order to gain protection for Christian institutions. But this would grant into law something that’s not true about our most fundamental identity as human beings—something that’s central for human flourishing. And such attempts might protect certain religious institutions, but would do so at the expenses of individual Christians in the public square. That’s not religious freedom.

Right now, the Equality Act has no chance of passing in this Congress. But elections matter: If just a few seats flip in the next election, we may very well get the Equality Act, unless we begin to act now.

Start by learning about the Equality Act. Come to BreakPoint.org, click on this commentary, and I’ll link you to an excellent article by Andrew Walker called “The Equality Act Accelerates Anti-Christian Bias.” Share it with your friends, with your clergy, with public officials. Link to it on Facebook. I’ll also link you to the podcast episode with Andrew Walker.

Christians were caught napping in 2011. The HRC and supporters of the Equality Act are counting on us to be asleep at our posts again. We can’t let that happen.

What makes a great leader? Life experience? Great mentors? Spiritual discipline?

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, we present a Colson Fellows webinar discussion between Colson Fellows National Director Bill Brown and Michael Lindsay, himself a Colson Fellow and President of Gordon College. Lindsay is the author of “View from the Top: An Inside Look at How People in Power See and Shape the World.”

Webinars like this with Christian leaders are one of the many great aspects to the Colson Fellows Program. Colson Fellows also attend three residencies, read classic books on Christian worldview, prepare a concrete plan for ministry, and are linked into a network of more than 1,000 commissioned Fellows doing Kingdom work in their spheres of influence. We are now taking applications at ColsonFellows.org

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/03/podcast-what-makes-a-leader-with-michael-lindsay/