Breakpoint

I’ve talked a lot about abortion in the last month, since the New York legislature cheered it’s extreme late-term abortion bill. Part of that story was how badly the legislation reflected on Christians. Just days after touting his Roman Catholic faith in a speech, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed the Reproductive Health Act into law, making it legal to kill unborn babies in his state all the way up to birth.

I’m not Catholic, but I’ve long admired the Catholic Church’s moral clarity and courageous stand on behalf of unborn children. When many evangelical and Protestant churches were AWOL on abortion, Catholic theologians stood strong, denouncing it as the evil it is. Pope Paul VI went even further in his famous encyclical, Humanae Vitae, condemning the culture of death and identifying the wrong ideas about sex and the human body at its root.

In view of this history, the failure of top Catholic clergy to clearly confront and to, yes I will say it, excommunicate prominent members of their flocks like Cuomo when they openly defy church teaching on the sanctity of life is disappointing.

Thankfully, not all Catholic shepherds have been silent in recent weeks. Some, like Spokane’s Bishop Thomas Daly, spoke out boldly. In a public letter released recently, Bishop Daly urged that politicians in his diocese “who obstinately persevere in their public support for abortion should not receive Communion without first being reconciled to Christ and the Church.”

He continued, “Efforts to expand access to abortion, allowing murder of children up to the moment of birth, is evil,” and “For a Catholic political leader to do so is scandalous.”

Amen! I wish we would see more of this kind of moral clarity and courage, and not just from Catholics. In many ways, most Christian denominations, and many evangelical non-denominational churches, show worrying signs that even official doctrinal stances against abortion aren’t accepted by average members.

According to a survey last year by Pew Research, a staggering 48 percent of self-identified Catholics believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Protestants aren’t doing any better. I’m not even talking about liberal mainline denominations, many of which already caved on Christian essentials and which have been mostly abandoned by Bible-believing evangelicals. Conservative churches must confront the problem in their midst as well.

Pew reports that an unbelievable 30 percent of self-identified Southern Baptists think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. For the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, it’s 46 percent. And Pew reports that a majority—54 percent—of those who belong to the Presbyterian Church in America say they support legal abortion.

Now, as Joe Carter points out at The Gospel Coalition, these numbers really are tough to believe. We’re talking here about theologically conservative denominations. Despite Pew’s excellent reputation, Carter suspects pollsters may have accidentally mixed in respondents from liberal, mainline churches.

But, even if the numbers are as much as 15 points off, they still represent a catastrophic failure of discipleship in our churches. For a third to half of Christians in officially pro-life denominations to support legal child-killing means that there is a massive disconnect between pulpit and pew.

Churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant and evangelical, ought to confront, withhold communion, and, if necessary, excommunicate members who support abortion, even those in the governor’s mansions, state legislatures, and the United States Congress. The New Testament instruction on dealing with grave and unrepentant sin includes phrases like “purge the evil person from among you,” and even “hand them over to Satan.”

But ultimately, we must deal with the failure of our churches to effectively teach a Christian view of the sanctity of life in the first place. Otherwise, public denunciations will be nothing but a band-aid—certainly not enough to stem the flow of innocent blood flowing in this country.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/breakpoint-abortion-in-politics-pulpit-and-pew/

Has ideology trumped art in Hollywood? Where has all the good storytelling gone? And what can young Christian filmmakers do to develop their craft? These are the questions Warren Cole Smith and WORLD Magazine film critic Megan Basham wrestle with as they discuss the films, actors, and directors nominated for this year’s Academy Awards. Megan will also give us her award predictions in what truly was a less-than-stellar year at the movies.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/the-academy-awards-and-the-lost-art-of-storytelling/

We’ve mentioned in the past on BreakPoint about “zombie abortion arguments.” You know, those arguments that just won’t die? They continue to be repeated long after they should have been “dead and buried.” Like zombies in movies, these arguments continue shuffling along, seemingly impervious to the reality that they are dead.

Abortion isn’t the only issue confused by “zombie arguments.” There’s a whole host of “should-be-dead-by-now” ideas having to do with so-called “overpopulation.” I say “so-called” because virtually every dire prediction Paul Ehrlich made fifty years ago in his book “The Population Bomb” was wrong. Spectacularly wrong, in fact. Yet Ehrlich’s ideas remain an article of faith among many—and I mean that literally.

In “The Walking Dead,” the only sure way to dispatch a zombie is with a headshot. Well, a new book should be the headshot for Ehrlich’s ideas. Unfortunately, many people’s worldviews harden to the point of becoming ideological kevlar helmets.

The book of which I speak is “Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline” by Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson.

To be clear, there’s far more than one “shock” described in “Empty Planet,” but all of them flow from a single reality. Contrary to what people have been taught to believe for decades, “We do not face the challenge of a population bomb but of a population bust—a relentless, generation-after-generation culling of the human herd.”

As the Canadian duo documents, an increasing number of demographers around the world believe that the UN’s estimates, that human population will peak at 11 billion in 2100, are far too high. The more likely outcome, they suggest, is that “the planet’s population will peak at around nine billion sometime between 2040 and 2060, and then start to decline.” According to Bricker and Ibbitson, “Once that decline begins, it will never end.”

Their argument is scarily plausible. They are not exaggerating when they call this decline the “great defining event of the twenty-first century” and “one of the great defining events in human history.”

We talk a lot on BreakPoint about the decline of fertility rates in the industrialized world: Western Europe, Japan and the United States. We have described the dire economic and social consequences of this decline.

What “Empty Planet” makes clear is that this decline isn’t limited to the usual suspects. South Korea is headed down the same road to demographic catastrophe as Japan. Even more ominously, similar trends are emerging in the developing world. By the middle of this century, Brazil, Indonesia, China, and even India will begin to see their populations decline.

The reasons behind the decline are, not surprisingly, mostly cultural. In a brilliant bit of analysis, the authors point out that “as societies become more modern and urban, friends and co-workers replace siblings, parents, and uncles and aunts.” Families may put subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle pressure on young people to get married and have kids, but friends rarely do.

And then, there’s this well-established link between religiosity and fertility, something we’ve talked about before on BreakPoint.

Population decline is going to be a nasty shock, especially in the economic realm. Ideally, there should be about six workers for every retiree. Thanks to increased life expectancy and low birth rates, it is projected to drop to about three by 2050 and about two by 2100. We may live longer but there will be fewer of us, and our societies will be less dynamic, entrepreneurial, and creative.

Despite these realities, the myth of “overpopulation” refuses to die. Efforts to combat fertility and population growth, whether governmental policies or cultural incentives, are terrible ideas that threaten to make victims of us all.

Still, unlike Bricker and Ibbitson, I refuse to give up hope. Faith, especially Christian faith, is still strong in many parts of the world. And while that persists, there’s still a chance to avoid some of the “shocks” they describe in “Empty Planet.”

Otherwise a different, but no less real, zombie apocalypse awaits us.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/breakpoint-the-empty-planet/

One of the defining features of God’s Word is how often it points us to God’s world. Much of Scripture, in fact, assumes a level of understanding about nature. So, it would seem, if we fail to go outdoors, if we fail to experience and engage in God’s creation, our faith could suffer.

Nearly every book of the Bible is bursting with references to creation, chronicling in soaring prose the making of the universe, identifying God’s covenant promise with colors in the sky, and inviting us to gaze with Father Abraham at the starry hosts, where an even greater promise was written.

The psalmist compares the longing of his soul for God with the thirst of a deer running to water, fully expecting his readers to get the word picture! He sings of the heavens’ divine declaration, he praises the Lord for making mankind ruler of “all flocks and herds…animals of the wild…birds of the sky, and the fish of the sea…”

“…ask the beasts, and they will teach you,” exclaims Job, “the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.”

The prophets, too, foretell the restoration of all things using imagery of a transformed created order: wolves lying down with lambs, lions eating straw like oxen, and myrtles and cypress replacing the thorns and briars of the curse.

And of course, Jesus Himself announced the Kingdom of God on earth with parables about trees, seeds, birds of the air which God feeds, along with lilies of the field which He clothes. The Bible at length promises that the consummation of history, like its beginning, will take place in a garden-city atop a mountain, with a river of life and trees whose leaves are to heal the nations.

Faced with this forest of references, it’s hard to see how someone who never spends time outside could fully grasp things the Scripture wants us to. Today, the benefits of modern technology have effectively cut us off from the natural world and the general revelation of God that it offers, perhaps more than ever before in history. Whether it’s our temperature-regulated homes and offices, our glowing screens, or our asphalt jungles, much of our lives happen in an artificial world designed to insulate us from nature.

There are costs to this insulation. Last May, the Washington Post reported that children today spend less time in unstructured outdoor play than any prior generation which, research indicates, results in worse school performance, less creativity, higher levels of obesity, fewer friends, and increased rates of depression and hyperactivity. Even more critically, the world kids experience today bears little resemblance to the backdrop of the Bible.

Writing at The Gospel Coalition, Scott Martin calls this modern isolation from creation not only physically, but spiritually dangerous. Citing studies demonstrating how time in nature reshapes our brains, he suggests that our manmade worlds of concrete and climate control rob us not only of the practical vocabulary to understand Scripture, but actually make unbelief easier. Our Babel-like convenience can delude us into thinking we are self-sufficient and can conceal our own frailty—how we depend on the God of creation for, as Paul says, “life and breath and everything.”

Thankfully, there’s a simple solution: Go outside!

Now, I realize I’m a bit privileged, living in Colorado Springs, where Pike’s Peak is visible from just about every west-facing window. But opportunities to experience the majesty of God’s creation are everywhere. Martin suggests intentionally getting wet in the rain once in a while, working on your church’s landscaping, or visiting local, state, or national parks.

And when we do one of these things, the Scripture asks us to be intentional and think about God and His created intention. Not only will it lead us to a greater sense of awe about God and His world, we’ll better understand His Word, as well.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/breakpoint-have-you-been-outside-today/

God’s identity is beyond what we could ever fully express in human words. But as author and singer-songwriter Michael Card tells Warren Coles Smith on today’s BreakPoint Podcast, Scripture uses one particular word to describe the distinctiveness of God’s character: the Hebrew word hesed.

And while hesed is often translated as “loving kindness,” it’s nearly impossible to convey the profound depth of the term adequately in English. And that’s the subject of Michael Card’s new book, “Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God’s Loving Kindness.”

Resources

Inexpressible: Hesed and the Mystery of God's Lovingkindness

Michael Card, IVP Books, 2018

Abortion, in and of itself, is a moral horror. But for abortion activists to claim the name of Jesus Christ in order to justify killing unborn children, that crosses over into new territory. I’m not talking about the moral gymnastics of equivocation employed by so many Christian progressives to justify abortion in extreme cases, as wrong and harmful as that is. I’m talking about Christians actually celebrating and promoting abortion as God’s work. For instance, those mainline Protestant priests and pastors who pray God’s blessing over abortion clinics. That’s just blasphemy.

Dr. Willie Parker is a self-proclaimed follower of Christ who’s even willing to go further. He calls himself a “Christian abortion doctor” that does “the Lord’s work.”

Parker has been a favorite spokesman for the pro-abortion movement for some time now, landing puff-pieces and interviews with TIME magazine, where he self-appropriates the civil rights mantle of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s sickeningly ironic, considering a disproportionate number of babies killed by abortion are black.

In his book, “Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice,” Dr.  Parker claims he began terminating pregnancies after an “epiphany” inspired by one of Dr. King’s sermons, the one on the parable of the Good Samaritan. Once again, the irony of using a parable about saving a life in order to sanctify taking lives seems lost on him.

As are scientific facts. For example, Parker claims that human lives don’t begin at conception because sperm and egg are both alive prior to conception. From this he concludes that “life is a process and not an event.”

Ignore for the moment that reproductive cells are not human individuals, if Parker’s argument is true, and all living cells are morally equivalent to all humans, then it isn’t clear why he thinks it’s wrong to kill newborns, toddlers, or even adults!

He also says, “You can’t answer scientific questions with religious answers.” But no religious answers are involved here. The existence of a unique and whole human life from the earliest stages of development and pregnancy is settled science.

Writing at Townhall.com, pro-life educator Mike Adams has called Dr. Parker out on those and other strange and inaccurate claims, like the idea that first-trimester babies don’t have any distinct body parts. He then quotes Parker’s book, in which the good doctor admits: “I make sure I find every part, and I place them together, re-creating the fetus in the pan.”

Adams writes scathingly, “Willie Parker may be one of the most skillful abortionists in America. But he is also one of the least skillful liars I’ve ever encountered.”

As they said in the Old West, “Them’s fightin’ words.” And thanks to a bit of persistence on Adams’ part, it looks like the two will be facing off, not in the town square at high noon, but in a debate at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington on Thursday February 21st.

Let me just say, you don’t want to miss this. And thanks to my friends at Summit Ministries and Ratio Christi, this debate will be live streamed. I know not everyone likes debates, but it’s past time someone confronted the heretical nonsense of using the name of Jesus Christ to justify abortion. And I can’t think of a better person to do that than Mike Adams.

Too many American Christians—especially young Christians—fail to make the connection between being personally pro-life and unashamedly opposed to legal abortion. They’re especially vulnerable to compassionate-sounding arguments like those of this “Christian abortion doctor.” They need to hear the superiority of the pro-life position.

If you live near Wilmington, go to this debate if you can get a seat. If you don’t live near Wilmington, it will be live-streamed for free worldwide. Once again, the date is Thursday February 21.

Come to BreakPoint.org, and we’ll link you to where you can sign up. Why not put together a watch-party with family, friends, church members, small groups, or Christian school? I can’t think of a better way to not only expose them to the case for life, but also to how deadly the lie is that abortion could ever be the Lord’s work.

http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/02/breakpoint-a-debate-to-watch/ ‎

WORLD Magazine Senior Editor Mindy Belz joins Warren Cole Smith as they react to the recent revelations of  sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention. They also discuss a life-affirming Super Bowl commercial, recent developments in the case of Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, the desperate need of Syrian Christian communities for U. S. protection, and the political showdown over the President’s proposed border wall.

Resources

Abuse of Faith

Robert Downen, Lise Olsen, John Tedesco, Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2019

Wolves and Lambs: Predatory scandals unfold in a church and a state

Jamie Dean, WORLD, February 14, 2019

Another Abuse Scandal in the Church

John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint, December 20, 2018

Globe Trot

Mindy Belz, WORLD

Assisted Suicide Turned Homicide?

John Stonestreet and Roberto Rivera, BreakPoint, February 5, 2019

The wings of a bird, the colors of a butterfly, and the patterns on a seashell defy the theory of Darwinian evolution. Many of us intuit, simply by looking at the splendor that permeates the natural world, that there must be some agent involved other than blind mutations or mere survival-of-the-fittest mechanisms. And now, it seems, some scientists are beginning to accept that intuition, finally admitting that beauty cannot be explained by the theory of evolution, at least as we know it.

In a surprising article in The New York Times, Ferris Jabr writes about a small but growing band of scientists who argue that natural selection alone can’t account for the eye-popping artistry we see in nature. He cites Yale ornithologist Richard Prum, who argues in his book, “The Evolution of Beauty,” that the elaborate plumage and outrageous mating displays of many birds confer no obvious survival advantage. Instead, they often put these birds at a disadvantage, wasting precious energy and making them stand out to predators.

By all the conventional rules of evolution, such costly adaptations should have disappeared long ago. Instead, says Prum, we find them all over nature, not only in birds, which play their wings like violins, but in beetles with high-fidelity, crystalline scales, fish with flags for tails, and a whole assortment of mammals sporting over-the-top headgear. Our world is bursting with unnecessary beauty that Jabr describes as “an affront to the rules of natural selection.”

Now, the traditional explanation for aesthetically awe-inspiring traits is that they show off an animal’s fitness to potential mates. The parrot with the brightest plumage might have the healthiest immune system. The lion with the bushiest mane must be the most successful hunter.

But more and more scientists are challenging this so-called “good genes” theory. Many natural ornaments, like the flamboyant tail of the peacock, put their owner in serious danger without necessarily signaling genetic fitness. Yet peahens (or the females) keep picking the fellahs with the biggest, brightest tails to sire their offspring.

While many scientists insist that somehow a cumbersome caboose confers a survival benefit, Prum thinks that’s ridiculous. Animals are beautiful not because beauty is useful, he insists, but because…they like it! Through a process called “sexual selection,” Prum and other experts now believe animals shape their own evolution, choosing features in mates that strike their fancy, and exaggerating these over countless generations to produce colors, shapes, and behaviors that dazzle human observers.

Now, maybe animals do like being beautiful, but that seems as much a forced theory as the one it replaced. I’m glad some Darwinists are recognizing that survival alone can’t account for the art gallery we call the natural world, but is it really a better option to look at that same art gallery and conclude that the paintings produced themselves?

Well, here’s another option... Recently, Evolution News reported on a peer-reviewed study by scientists in Spain that suggests that just seeing natural designs improves human engineers’ creativity. The researchers created a program that “help[s] industrial designers find natural shapes that [are] both functional and aesthetically pleasing” by showing them the features of plants and animals.

This is just the latest in an emerging field called “biomimetics,” which literally means “copying life.” The paper uses the term “design” no less than 130 times and “agency” over 140 times. Considering this, plus Jabr’s outstanding piece in the Times, it’s fair to wonder if we are “approaching the threshold of design acceptance in science.”

I hope so. Faced with a natural world brimming with beauty and engineering, scientists should reconsider the dogma that all of this created itself. Instead, they should consider that the mind-boggling beauty we see around us was always intended for our eyes—designed by a master Engineer and Artist, to display His genius and glory through the language of beauty—in a language best understood not by peahens, but by people.

As Andrew Peterson sings, could the beauty before us…be for us? I look forward to the day when science joins Christianity in saying “yes.”

Today on the BreakPoint Podcast, Warren Cole Smith Interviews Dr. Bill Brown, the National Director of the Colson Fellows Program.

We are pleased to announce that the Colson Center is now accepting applications for the 2019-2020 class of Colson Fellows!  The Colson Fellows Program equips people of strong faith with relevant skills, biblical knowledge, and a solid Christian worldview to navigate today’s culture and play a significant role in helping to restore it in a way that is pleasing to God.

But before we get to Warren Smith and Bill Brown, we wanted to let you hear Chuck Colson himself speak about the Colson Fellows Program. Back in 2010, when this BreakPoint commentary first aired, the program was known as The Centurions Program. After Chuck’s passing, we changed the name of the  program to Colson Fellows as a way to honor chuck’s legacy and his commitment to training believers in Christian worldview.

To learn more, visit www.ColsonFellows.com.