Breakpoint

In John 16:33, Jesus said that "[i]n the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." In the 20 centuries since our Lord spoke these haunting yet hopeful words, they've proven true. In fact, in terms of absolute numbers, we live in the worst period of persecution against Christians in history. More Christians died for their faith in the 20th century than the previous 19 combined, and the 21st century is shaping up to be at least as deadly, but likely more. According to Open Doors International's latest World Watch List, 312 million Christians face "extreme" or "very high" levels of persecution—1 in 5 in Africa; 2 in 5 in Asia. Last year was the worst year on record for persecution, with 5,500 Christians killed for reasons related to their faith, more than 2,000 churches attacked, and over 4,500 Christians detained or imprisoned. For the most part, each year of the past decade has been worse than the previous year. Writing of the persecutions that plagued God's people in the early days of Christianity, Tertullian claimed that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Though particularly intense persecution has, at times, led to a decrease in overall Church numbers, the Church has grown far beyond the wildest imagination of Jesus' first followers. Stories of the faithful who endured persecution and faced martyrdom have been a catalyst for that growth. In 1563, historian John Foxe told many of the earliest stories in a book that would become one of the most widely read works in the English language. Foxe's Book of Martyrs chronicles hundreds of Christians who gave their lives or were persecuted for their faith from the New Testament all the way to his day. Through generations of expansions and editions, it became an indispensable classic. Foxe's Book of Martyrs was written from a Protestant perspective and, almost 50 years older than the King James Bible, is a challenging read. Recently, a pair of daring authors took up Foxe's mantle to tell the stories of the martyrs afresh for modern readers. In The New Book of Christian Martyrs, Johnnie Moore and Dr. Jerry Pattengale of Indiana Wesleyan University offer accounts of heroes of the faith from the first to the 21st centuries. Written in a fast-paced and richly informative style, with reference to important historical sources, Moore and Pattengale make cultural connections and frequently quote Foxe's best "vintage" passages about the martyrs. Throughout, they seem constantly aware that they are writing to a Christian Church vastly larger, more global, and by some measures more persecuted than it was in Foxe's day. Dr. Pattengale joined Shane Morris on a recent Upstream podcast to talk about The New Book of Christian Martyrs. He covered a number of stories from the book in the episode and connected the ancient martyrs to modern victims of persecution. Perpetua and Felicita were two newly converted and young Christian mothers who were killed in the arena at Carthage in 203. At the time, Perpetua, a noblewoman, was nursing her newborn. Despite entreaties by her friends and family, Perpetua and Felicita refused to denounce Christ or worship the emperor. Perpetua's diary was likely preserved by Tertullian, who tells how, on the day of her execution, she and her companions faced leopards, wild boars, and a raging bull. Perpetua was eventually gored and tossed across the arena but took the time to fix her hair before soldiers finished her off. As Tertullian reports, she did so because "it was not becoming for a martyr to suffer with disheveled hair, lest she should appear to be mourning in her glory." Eighteen centuries later, in February 2015, 21 Coptic Christians displayed a similar dignity as they prepared to meet Christ from a beach in Syria. Pattengale and Moore compare their orange jumpsuits to the jerseys of a sports team, ready to leave it all on the field for their Captain. In the moment before their masked executioners beheaded them, the Coptic 21 sang a line from the hymn, "Ya Rabbi Yassu,"—"my Lord Jesus." Thanks to an Islamic State propaganda video, millions witnessed their martyrdom. As the book notes, ISIS's objective "backfired" when the video galvanized the world against their cause and became a source of pride and celebration for Coptic Christians. In the words of Revelation, the world saw 21 young men conquer "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." In a time when our brothers and sisters face more persecution than ever, the stories from across times and cultures told in The New Book of Christian Martyrs will inform your faith and your prayers. As Tertullian and Foxe believed, such stories can fuel the growth of a Church whose Lord overcame the world and will ultimately grant rest from all persecution. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

John and Maria discuss the importance of biblical literacy as well as how a worldview of the human condition can impact the function of government. — Recommendations — Free Livestream: Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview Meghan Daum & Sarah Haider on Child Activists Section 1 - Tucker Carlson and Biblical Literacy Tucker Carlson on spiritual warfare Section 2 - Bureaucracy and Human Nature For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

If you haven't heard, the state of Texas is under invasion from small creatures who are, according to breathless media reports, popping up everywhere. "Nearly 10,000 more babies born in nine months under Texas' restrictive abortion law," read The Texas Tribune. Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School arrived at the number by comparing Texas births after Senate Bill 8 took effect, which prohibits abortion after conception, to the number of births in the same period the year before. One of the study's co-authors told CNN that 10,000 new babies mean women were "denied a needed abortion." Referring to the moms, she warned ominously, "It's hard to imagine the short- and long-term implications of a personal trajectory that may have been rerouted." Of course, it's harder to imagine the implications for a child denied the right to have a personal trajectory. Ultimately, interpreting the Texas baby boom depends on worldview. It's either a tragedy or 10,000 inherently valuable, unique, and beautiful reasons to celebrate ... thanks to Texas' pro-life lawmakers. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

A few months ago, kidney specialist Dr. Stanley Goldfarb was fired from UpToDate, a digital research tool for physicians. Last year, the president of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, where Dr. Goldfarb served as an associate dean, wrote a public letter accusing him of racism while students and colleagues circulated a petition calling for his title as professor emeritus to be stripped. Dr. Goldfarb's purported crimes had nothing to do with medicine and everything to do with his public opposition to DEI ("Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion") in medicine. For example, last year, he wrote, The campaign for diversity is long running and has some value, yet the ideological extremism of the past two years has led medical schools to adopt dangerous strategies. To fight supposed "systemic racism," at least 40 institutions have dropped the requirement that all applicants take the MCAT, the gold-standard test that measures students' grasp of this life-saving profession. More recently, he added this observation, It quickly became apparent that my beloved medical profession, to which I had devoted more than 50 years, was spiraling downward even faster than I had realized. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decline, as did the death of George Floyd in 2020. Suddenly, medical schools were loudly proclaiming that health care is "systemically racist," that "medical reparations" are urgently needed, and that medical education and practice must fundamentally change. Whereas DEI and social justice were frequently discussed in 2018, by the end of 2020 they were the central facets of medical education, where they remain to this day. Other examples of Dr. Goldfarb's concerns include the supposed systemic racism of being seen by a physician of a different race and pledges made by medical students to fight the gender binary and "honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by western medicine." Near the end of the 20th century, it was common to dismiss and deny the possibility of objective truth claims in the liberal arts and social sciences, such as literature, art, and politics. But the "hard" sciences remained untouched until recently. It is now common for the same kind of deconstructions to be applied in math, medicine, or the other biological sciences. As it turns out, the first chapter of Romans accurately describes the very real potential of fallen humanity to deny what is observably true in the world God made. Contemporary ideas of DEI prove a maxim of G.K. Chesterton, that "(t)he modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad." The impulse for justice and equality, birthed within the Western world from Christian ideas about morality and the human condition, draws more from the philosophy of Michel Foucault than the Bible. Built instead on a standpoint epistemology rather than eternal categories of right and wrong and human dignity, an individual who belongs to what is understood as a traditionally marginalized group is granted moral status and authority over and above those from groups not assumed to be marginalized. Functionally, objective reality is denied. As Shane Morris and I recently described, students taught that successfully solving algebra problems will depend more on the color of their skin than knowing algebra, or that their calculus professors are oppressors if they are white, will not only not unlock the mysteries of the universe, they will believe lies about who they are. Even worse, lowering standards for certain students only dehumanizes them, suggesting they cannot reach the standards in the first place. In the 1990s, renowned economist Thomas Sowell wrote the following about lowering SAT scores: The Educational Testing Service is adopting minority students as mascots by turning the SAT exams into race-normed instruments to circumvent the growing number of prohibitions against group preferences. The primary purpose of mascots is to symbolize something that makes others feel good. The well-being of the mascot himself is seldom a major consideration. Sowell understood–even firsthand–racial injustice and the uphill climb that minority students can face to reach success. Yet for Sowell, ditching objective measurements was not the answer: People of every race and background are fully capable of becoming world-class physicians. Medical schools should seek out the best candidates who are most likely to provide the best care for patients, regardless of what they look like or where they come from. Anything less jeopardizes the very purpose of these institutions. Critical Theory in all of its forms only critiques, never constructs. Applied, it will only tear down, never build up. Advocates of this ideology should consider that their proposed solutions may be fueling the problems they claim to address. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Kasey Leander. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Rather than celebrating their differences and strengths, women are increasingly being told that the only way to true equality and freedom is by rejecting who they are, especially their God-given capacity for procreation. This message is clearly reaching teenage girls, who today make up the majority of those identifying as transgender or non-binary. In recent years, a group of "reactionary feminists" have pushed back on the attempts to erase women. Unlike their progressive counterparts, reactionary feminists reject the transgender trend and the destruction it wreaks on women and their bodies. For them, the chemical and surgical erasure of female bodies is a means of oppression, not freedom. Ironically, "reactionary feminists" are doing what too many Christians are unwilling to do: defend the reality and beauty of God's creation and the dignity men and women possess as image bearers. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes. _____ When I was growing up, Christians had to wrestle with whether or not our convictions could withstand the threat of ridicule. We'd be asked, "Are you willing to be mocked and made fun of by a professor who doesn't believe in God or a friend trying to tempt you into doing something you know is wrong?" About the worst thing to expect from this was what a friend has called "cocktail party pressure" or getting kicked out of the cool kids' clique. To be clear, cocktail party pressure was quite effective, though those days seem quaintly in the past. Increasingly, Christians are hated, fired, or otherwise harassed on account of their principles. Particularly bewildering is that the loudest complaints against believers today are for things considered mainstream until just a few years ago. Just this week, the Alliance Defending Freedom came to the defense of a man in Vermont who was fired after 10 years as a successful snowboarding coach. His crime, as one of ADF's lawyers put it, was "merely expressing his views that males and females are biologically different and questioning the appropriateness of a teenage male competing against teenage females in an athletic competition." For that, "school district officials unconstitutionally fired him." Clearly, the district violated coach David Bloch's First Amendment rights and likely, given the legal track record of the Alliance Defending Freedom, he will be vindicated in the end. Still, this is another example of what feels like a new cultural moment in which the question of Christian courage is in the context of even more tangible pressures. This context is at the center of a conversation I will be hosting Thursday, July 27 at the fourth annual Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview in Bay Harbor, Michigan. If you happen to be in the area, there's limited space available to join us in person, or you can sign up to join us via livestream. Either way, there is no charge for this conversation featuring two Christians leading the way into this brave new moment: Kristen Waggoner is CEO, president, and general counsel of the Alliance Defending Freedom, and Jim Daly is president and CEO of Focus on the Family. Both are witness to these increased pressures. For years, Kristen has successfully advanced legal protections and religious liberty by representing courageous Christians such as Jack Phillips and Barronelle Stutzman. Most recently, she represented Lorie Smith of 303 Creative in a landmark victory for free speech at the Supreme Court. However, for her efforts, Kristen has been unfairly attacked and lied about by media outlets, fellow lawyers, and even the Attorney General of Colorado. Last fall, Focus on the Family's grounds were vandalized by activists. Though not the first time, there was something different about this attack. The perpetrators falsely and unfairly blamed Focus for the then-recent murders at a local Colorado Springs gay club. These accusations have been repeated by media outlets and critics as recently as last week. This brave new world of hostility is familiar for our brothers and sisters elsewhere, in places like Nigeria, India, and China. Ours are more experiences of a series of horrible moments, such as earlier this year in Nashville. Christians in the West do not fear for their lives. Even so, something has clearly shifted. Calls to tolerate the views of others are about as 1990s these days as talking about abortion being "safe, legal, and rare." As we've seen in Nashville, it's a perilously small step from the rhetorical games of wanting to punch "literal Nazis" to literally punching those who dare stray from the cultural narrative. The only way forward for the Christ follower is to commit again to knowing what is true, to commit again to saying and living what is true even if there is a cost, and to say and live what is true in a way that is pleasing to Christ. In other words, faithfulness will involve both the what we believe and the how we'll live it out. I don't know anyone I'd rather have in this conversation than Kristin Waggoner and Jim Daly. Please join us for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on Thursday, July 27. Sign up to attend live or to join the livestream at ColsonCenter.org/GreatLakes. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

On this day, in the year 64, the Great Fire of Rome broke out, for which Emperor Nero would blame a new religious sect, the Christians. The first Epistle of the Apostle Peter was written to those who experienced the persecution unleashed by Nero. I Peter is best summarized as "the Book of Hope," but the hope he described is counter cultural. It does not anticipate a "good outcome," at least not in the here and now. Instead, Peter understands true hope as rooted in the certainty of something that has already happened: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which defines all of history. Christ, the risen, sovereign ruler of the world, promises to make all things new (Revelation 21:5), and He is working in every time and place through His people. He has placed us in this cultural moment according to His redemptive plan. So, as Peter encouraged the first Christians who faced cultural hostility, take hope in the risen Lord Jesus. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Throughout history, across diverse societies, nations, and eras, Christians who carried the Gospel into pagan cultures defended and protected abandoned and abused children. In his new book, 32 Christians Who Changed Their World, Senior Colson Fellow Dr. Glenn Sunshine tells the stories of Christian heroes, most of whom are unknown today, whose courage and faithfulness changed the way children are seen and treated. You can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World with a gift of any amount this month to the Colson Center (please visit colsoncenter.org/July). For example, 19th-century India was a particularly brutal place for girls. Women were considered inferior to men and were not allowed to be educated or employed. Child marriage was a fairly common practice. Though the practice of sati (burning widows on their husband's funeral pyres) had been abolished, the treatment of widows remained harsh. They were considered cursed and often subjected to terrible abuse at the hands of their husband's family. The family of Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) was different. As Dr. Sunshine explains, Pandita's father, a member of the priestly caste known as Brahmins, encouraged her to read the Hindu scriptures. Not only did she learn to read, her skills and mastery of the text earned her acclaim. Her study also led to growing doubts about the truth of Hinduism. After she was married, Pandita found a copy of the Gospel of Luke in her husband's library. Drawn to Christianity, she invited a missionary to their home to explain the Gospel to her and her husband. Tragically, not long after hearing the Gospel, her husband passed away. Shortly thereafter, Pandita was visited by a child widow looking for charity. Pandita not only took her in as if she were her own daughter but, moved by the situation, started an organization called Arya Mahila Samaj to educate girls and advocate for the abolition of child-marriage. It was while traveling to England that Pandita Ramabai formally converted to Christianity. Returning to India, she set up a school for girls and widows in what is now called Mumbai. At first, to avoid offending Hindus, she agreed not to promote Christianity and to follow the rules of the Brahmin caste. However, these concessions were not enough. Within a year, the school was under attack, and local financial support dried up. Pandita moved the school to Pune, about 90 miles away. In 1897, when a famine and plague struck the area, Pandita established a second school about 30 miles away. Among the subjects taught in her schools were literature (for moral instruction), physiology (to teach them about their bodies), and industrial arts such as printing, carpentry, tailoring, masonry, wood-cutting, weaving, needlework, farming, and gardening. At first, because Pandita had only two assistants, she developed a system to care for and educate the girls, first teaching the older ones who would then take care of and help teach the younger. This allowed for a growing number of girls to be taken in and cared for. In fact, by 1900, 2,000 girls lived at Pandita's schools. In 1919, the British king awarded Pandita Ramabai the Kaiser-i-Hind award, the highest honor an Indian could receive during the colonial period. Her life is an example that living in a pagan society means confronting bad ideas and caring for their victims. In her culture, like in ours, these victims are very often children. To decide, as many have, that speaking up on controversial cultural issues is "too political" is to leave these victims without care and protection. It is out of step with Christian history. It also is an embrace of an anemic, truncated Gospel. This month, for a gift of any amount to the Colson Center, you can receive a copy of 32 Christians Who Changed Their World by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. Just visit colsoncenter.org/July. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org This Breakpoint was revised from one originally published on March 30, 2021.

According to NBC, Jesus has returned in an online incarnation. Yes, you too can log on and talk to a cyber savior, a disembodied vision of a white man who offers counsel on things ranging from the serious to the silly. Setting aside how this likely violates the Second Commandment, this stunt typifies a central problem with contemporary religious thinking: recreating Jesus in our image. A programmed Christ built of nothing but the disparate thoughts of what we'd like him to be is literally an idol. If "god" is just our understanding of Him, there is not really a "Him" at all, but only our own projections. It's kind of like the old SNL skit of Stuart Smalley affirming himself in the mirror. Seeking salvation from an AI chatbot is only a more technologically advanced version of picking and choosing the parts of the Bible we want to believe. But salvation can never be found within. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org

Register to attend live or join the livestream for the Great Lakes Symposium at colsoncenter.org/greatlakes. _______ In response to a Breakpoint commentary about the murders in Nashville in March, the Colson Center was identified by a critic as being "proudly, if quietly, Dominionist." To be clear, we aren't, but he was particularly troubled by how the commentary described Christians as victims which, of course, they were. In that commentary, we wondered aloud whether in fact we have entered a new cultural moment, characterized by an increased hostility toward Christians and others who are, shall we say, culturally non-conforming. The strange and shameful reversal of who is victim and who is guilty in the reporting on the Nashville incident has only continued since, and now there are additional incidents to consider as well. On March 29, while speaking on abortion at Virginia Commonwealth University, Kristan Hawkins and a group from Students for Life were confronted, threatened, and assaulted by an obscenity-crying crowd who failed to notice the irony of suppressing free speech by screaming "fascists!" Rather than remove those disrupting the presentation, the campus police removed the pro-lifers. Two days later, on March 31, authorities in Colorado arrested 19-year-old William Whitworth for two counts of attempted murder, in addition to other charges. Whitworth, who goes by the name Lily and was in the process of "transitioning," was planning a series of bomb and gun attacks on several sites in Colorado Springs, including schools and churches. As with the Nashville shooter who identified as transgender, police have not revealed the "manifesto" that would reveal Whitworth's specific motives. However, there is ample evidence that rhetoric about the so-called "trans genocide" is leading advocates to increasingly violent means to make their point. Then, on April 6, college swimmer Riley Gaines was physically assaulted while giving a speech at San Francisco State University. As she argued against the inclusion of men in women's sports, she was berated, threatened, and blockaded in a room until she paid a ransom. Media accounts employed terms like "allegedly" to cast doubt about what happened, but audio and video recordings were plain. Afterward, rather than condemn the violent and threatening acts, the vice president of student affairs praised activists for "defending diversity and free speech." Three incidents in nine days are notable, but when placed alongside a host of others in the last few years, a disturbing trend begins to emerge. After examining the data, The Family Research Council concluded that over 400 "acts of hostility" have been committed against churches in the last five years including "vandalism, arson, gun-related incidents, bomb threats, and more." Of these incidents, 137 occurred between January and September of last year. The headline is not that there are suddenly those who disagree with Christian conviction or similar beliefs. That has always been the case. And frankly, the Christian view of the world hasn't held the dominant cultural position for some time. However, the old-school atheists and secular humanists of yesterday were content enough to let Christians have their say, if for no other reason than to ridicule and deride. To think of something as "outdated," or "silly," or "non-scientific" is one thing. To think of it and the one who advances it as "evil," "oppressive," and "fascist" is something else. Whereas an older secularist thought of truth as something "out there" to be discovered through study, discussion, and even debate, truth in the contemporary critical mood isn't about what is said but who is saying it. More specifically, it's about where everyone is pre-ranked in an ever-shifting, intersectional hierarchy. Anyone who insists that there are truths of a higher order, particularly truths that establish sexual morality and identity, will become a target of those who are blinded by today's ideologies. Fifty years ago, Francis Schaeffer explained, "No totalitarian authority nor authoritarian state can tolerate those who have an absolute by which to judge that state and its actions." The refusal to live by lies subverts the required certainty in the new orthodoxy. For the sake of our neighbors, all who believe in the importance of truth must continue to say so. We cannot beat ideological opponents into conformity, and it is sinful to try. We'll have to say what is true, even when there is a cost. We'll have to remind the world of the beautiful legacy of the Judeo-Christian view of humanity and the world. We'll have to hold together truth with love. This is why I've invited Kristen Waggoner, CEO and general counsel of ADF, and Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, to join me for the Great Lakes Symposium on Christian Worldview on July 27th at 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Go to colsoncenter.org/greatlakes to attend live or join the livestream. This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy D. Padgett. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to colsoncenter.org. Revised from a Breakpoint released on 4.14.23. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, visit Colsoncenter.org