Breakpoint

Earlier this month, British-Indian author Salman Rushdie was brutally attacked at an event in upstate New York. In 1989, Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses so enraged Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini that he issued a global kill-order, or fatwa, on the author, his editors, and publishers. Though Khomeini died later that year, fatwas cannot be revoked posthumously. So, Rushdie went into hiding, appearing later only under heavy security. Eventually, many in the West simply forgot about it. Shia extremists did not. This tell us something about how differently the secular West and radical Islam sees the world, and how short our cultural memory is compared with theirs. And, at stake is more than a contest of memory. In the Western world, we've been secularized to think of religion as a privatized matter of preference. We therefore underestimate the power that religious convictions wield, including the power that our secular religious convictions hold over our own hearts, minds, and culture. All of which is an opportunity for Christians to show and live a better way, one that sees God, history, people, and the world so differently.

In 2016, Canada legalized euthanasia through the euphemistically titled Medical Aid in Dying (or MAiD). Since passing, the number of Canadians who either "enthusiastically" or "cautiously" support the practice has risen slightly from 75% to 80%. The response from communities representing those with disabilities, however, has remained consistently opposed. Their fears, that Canada's end-of-life policies would prove to be only the cliff edge of a moral abyss, have proven to be largely accurate. As Maria Cheng of the Associated Press has reported, Canada "arguably has the most permissive euthanasia rules [in the world.]" Just last year, over 10,000 lives were legally taken, an increase of a third from the year before. Patients can request aid in dying without informing family members and for any reason, including, beginning in 2023, mental health issues and not just physical suffering. Doctors, as well as nurse practitioners, can raise the topic of euthanasia with any patient and are not required to first exhaust all other treatment options. Though the government keeps track of yearly deaths by euthanasia, it does not have a commission to review troubling cases, a practice used by other permissive nations like Belgium and the Netherlands. Next year, euthanasia will likely be extended to so-called "mature" minors. At a time when so many efforts are being made toward suicide prevention among teenagers, they will be taught that death is an acceptable way out of mental anguish. Horrific. The deadly cocktail of adverse incentives, little accountability, and ineffective "safeguards" have led to a context in which, as AP's Cheng wrote, "Some disabled Canadians have decided to be killed in the face of mounting bills. .… Other disabled people say the easy availability of euthanasia has led to unsettling and sometimes frightening discussions." The worst impact of this slope Canada is sliding down could be a perversion of the word "care." For example, one Canadian armed forces veteran was outraged after a healthcare worker raised the possibility of assisted death as a "treatment" option for his PTSD. Alan Nichols was a 61-year-old man who was hospitalized in 2019 over fears he might be suicidal. "Within a month," Cheng described, "Nichols submitted a request to be euthanized and he was killed, despite concerns raised by his family and a nurse practitioner." The only physical health condition listed on Nichol's form of consent was hearing loss. According to his brother Gary, "Alan was basically put to death." Stories like these are shocking, but we can't say we were not warned by nearly every disability group in Canada, observers from the UN, and even the American Medical Association. When it comes to euthanasia and doctor-assisted death, abuses and loopholes are not anomalies. They are inevitabilities of a system that operates from a cheapened view of human value and a redefined understanding of healthcare. The AMA's official opinion makes clear, "Euthanasia is fundamentally incompatible with the physician's role as healer, would be difficult or impossible to control, and would pose serious societal risks." Particularly in a single-payer health care system like Canada's, the decision of who lives and who dies will inevitably be influenced by crass factors such as money, access to medical resources, and arbitrary decisions about what constitutes "quality of life." Against such cultural headwinds, mere "consent" is not enough. In fact, whenever and wherever it is legalized, the so-called "right" to die soon becomes a perceived "duty to die." Patients consistently report making decisions about not wanting to be "a burden" on friends or family, or because they are convinced, as law and disability professor Theresia Degener described, "a life with disability is automatically less worth living and that in some cases, death is preferable." Euthanasia is at odds with any civilized vision of human value. As Alan Nichols' sister-in-law said, "Somebody needs to take responsibility so that it never happens to another family. I am terrified of my husband or another relative being put in the hospital and somehow getting these (euthanasia) forms in their hand." Let's pray the rest of the world learns from Canada's terrible example and in nation after nation the lid of this Pandora's box will be slammed shut.

Last week President Biden announced a plan to cancel student debt, about $330 billion worth. The cost to taxpayers could be as high as half a trillion dollars. My friend Dan Darling joked on Twitter that youth pastors just received the gift of a great sermon illustration, but some have actually defended the policy (which even former Obama advisors have criticized) by pointing to Jesus words in the Lord's Prayer: "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors…" For example, an editorial in TIME argues that when Christ prayed these words in the Garden, He was referring to the Old Testament "Year of Jubilee," in which debts were canceled every 50 years. So, mass debt forgiveness, conclude the authors, comes from Moses not Marx. OK, I'm lost. Is it now suddenly OK to impose Old Testament laws on America? Which ones? All of them? It's so strange after hearing over and over that when it comes to things such as sexual morality, the Bible is not clear; but when it comes to debt policy, it is... In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus was not talking about economic debts. Both His words and the Year of Jubilee in Israel point to the forgiveness of a debt far greater than college loans: our sin. That debt was paid in full by His blood, not by moving tax dollars around.

A new "manifestation trend" called "The Whisper Method" has gone viral on TikTok. If the word salad in that sentence is new to you, "manifestation" is the practice of focused, intense thinking about what you want until you get it. The practice is grounded in New Age philosophy and seems to re-emerge every few years in some new form. The "Whisper Method" is the latest manifestation of manifestation, and TikTok is where it is all happening. The "Whisper Method" involves thinking of what you really want and identifying who can give it to you. Then, you are to imagine whispering instructions into that person's ear, such as, "You're going to give me that promotion." Or, "You're going to fall in love with me." If you really believe (and whisper), then eventually you shall receive. We've seen this kind of thing before. Years ago, Oprah popularized "The Secret," a philosophy that if people put "positive thoughts and vibes"' into the universe, they'd get positive results back. In other words, if we send out energy claiming a bigger bank account, a smaller waist, or a better parking spot during Christmas, we'll get those things. From a motivation standpoint, it's easy to understand how something like The Secret or The Whisper Method gains traction. It involves little work with big rewards. Beneath the irrationality and geographic specificity (these strategies aren't very popular in war-torn areas or regions inflicted by famine), there is a truth. The human imagination is incredibly powerful. In a 2006 episode of Oprah, she described "The Secret" this way: "What you focus on gets bigger." Short of the weird metaphysical claims to be able to "manifest" new objective realities, Oprah was not entirely off base. God created humans with creative ability. We cannot create out of nothing, or ex nihilo, like God did, but humans are unique among creation in our ability to make something out of the world around us. Thus, humans invent and build and improve and innovate. And, in Psalm 37, we are told that if we "delight" ourselves "in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart," though that has more to do with God first giving us rightly ordered desires once He is our ultimate delight. Various studies have demonstrated that athletes who routinely imagine themselves performing well often develop a measurable competitive edge. However, even the most imaginative and sincere visualization techniques cannot magically bend reality. Thus, researchers believe that visualizing strong athletic performance is a way of practicing the sport. Not to mention, that any athletic improvements served by visualizations are in addition to actually physically practicing the sport. The Whisper Method isn't about training for a good performance or searching our hearts and motives to make sure they align with the will of God. The Whisper Method is about the illusion of control. It assumes that internal focus can determine external realities. This desire for control is nothing new, nor has The Whisper Method shifted from changing our own actions in place of manipulating the actions of others. In that way, The Whisper Method reflects the cultural ethos that other people are primarily objects to be used in service to our own ends. We didn't make the world, and we're not in charge of it. God did, and He is. We're not to worry ourselves over controlling it but instead are to "cast all our anxieties on Him." If we are going to "whisper," it should be in prayer to the God who made us and loves us. In honest prayer, our hearts are taught what they truly desire. In prayer, we place those desires at the feet of our Heavenly Father, ask Him to conform them and us to His will, trusting that everything He does will be for our good. All of which makes prayer the opposite of The Whisper Method, which only pretends that we can control the world and assumes that our strategies for controlling it are fully informed and perfectly wise, as if we have the faintest idea of what's really best for us. We don't. In his book on prayer, Pastor Tim Keller wrote that "God will either give us what we ask or give us what we would have asked if we knew everything He knew." Thank goodness we don't live in a world where our wishing, or our "whispering," makes it so.

A new law in a northern state of India imposes up to 10 years in jail time for so-called "forced," or "mass" conversions … meaning more than one person at a time. It also casts suspicion on those influenced by Christian social services like health, education, and charity, which often appeal to those trapped in Hindu's marginalized lower castes. India's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but laws like this reflect how rapidly the ruling party's push for Hindu Nationalism has changed things for Christians in that country. But efforts to restrict the gospel rarely work. As one local bishop put it... Anybody who converts to Christianity is doing so from a strong unflinching personal following of Jesus Christ and very much as a personal conscious decision of divine attraction to Jesus Christ, God's love, compassion, forgiveness, justice and truth. His death we celebrate in love, His Resurrection from the dead we profess with living faith, His coming in glory we await with unwavering hope. This personal experience makes them embrace Christianity. Amen. That's why faith in Christ has survived so many attempts to stamp it out.

The Dobbs decision is the most significant Supreme Court decision of our lifetime, and it's already been cited in another legal case. Recently, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall requested that a federal district court remove an injunction against a ban on medical intervention for youth seeking a transgender identity. He wrote: "But no one—adult or child—has a right to transitioning treatments that is deeply rooted in our Nation's history and tradition." His words are based on language from Justice Samuel Alito's majority opinion in the recent Dobbs case. Alito argued that abortion cannot be found in the Constitution, nor has it ever been "deeply rooted" in the history and traditions of the American people. Roe v. Wade, which was overturned by the Dobbs decision, was part of a series of Supreme Court decisions that "discovered" new constitutional rights based on little more than the whims of the sitting Justices. Commonly, in the use of the "substantive due process doctrine," earlier Supreme Courts invoked a so-called "right to privacy," as they did in Roe v. Wade. While there's little more American than the right to be left alone, the Court misconstrued this reasonable desire for privacy to mean the "right" to kill children in the womb. "Substantive due process" is supposedly based on the 14th Amendment's due process clause. Proponents of the doctrine contend that, even if a right isn't explicitly recognized in the Constitution, the rights that are explicit cast "penumbras"—or shadows—which suggest the existence of other, unenumerated rights that the Supreme Court should protect. If this sounds like a stretch, that's because it is, not least because the due process clause is about just that—lawful process, not substantive rights. The notion of "substantive due process" is often a pretext for judges to affirm current social norms with little more than passing reference to the Bill of Rights. So, what was never historically a right could be deemed one simply by finding a way to rationalize it with reference to some other right in the Constitution. Instead of rights finding root in the constitutional text or in who we always are as human beings, they become based on shifting cultural norms, as easily created as denied. As Justice Thomas pointed out in his concurrent opinion in the Dobbs decision, substantive due process is "legal fiction." Thus, he questioned the Court's power to "divine new rights." While substantive due process has been used to cause harm, it's also been used to support good decisions, for example the ruling on interracial marriage in the case of Loving v. Virginia. However, the Court also based Loving v. Virginia on another part of the 14th Amendment, the equal protection clause, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, among other things. In other words, the victory for interracial marriage was a recognition of reality, that all human beings, of whatever race or ethnicity, are fundamentally equal and therefore should not be treated differently. The call for a right to gender transition, however, is a rejection of reality, arguing that maleness and femaleness are illusory or ancillary to who and what we are. In the current application of the "deeply rooted" test in Alabama, parents demanded a right to experimental medical treatments for their children seeking a transgender identity. They argued that "enduring American tradition" makes them, and not the state of Alabama, primarily responsible for "nurturing and caring for their children." In that sense, they are right. Parents rank higher than the state when it comes to childcare, but what these parents are demanding is the opposite of nurturing and caring. And in too many cases, government officials are usurping parental rights in promoting gender transitions to children, against their parent's wishes. American tradition recognizes a right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children and even to make medical decisions for them, but it has never recognized a right of parents to cause their kids harm by radically altering their bodies in ways that render them permanently sterile and perpetually dependent on medical interventions. This is something radically new, not deeply rooted in American tradition and history, at best social experimentation. We can expect more cases in which the "deeply rooted" language of Dobbs is cited. Lower courts, taking the Supreme Court's cue, should be reluctant to strike down democratically enacted laws based on newly minted theories of unenumerated rights. In the meantime, Christians must continue to point to the reality of human nature, including the good of our bodies as male and female, and most of all, to the Source of our actual rights: our Creator.

In response to a recent op-ed at Christianity Today, Maria and John insist that Christians can and should be involved in the public square, particularly in the schools. One clear reason is the proposed regulations reinterpreting Title IX. These regulations would remove parental rights from parents whose kids are drawn to radical gender ideology, making the schools conduits to transgender treatments. Maria and John then move to a discussion of the "why" behind a new stat showing that women are leaving the Church.

Next month, the Colson Center is offering a short course entitled "The Essential Church: Why Christians (and the World) Still Need the Church." It's a timely message, especially given a recent shift in Church demographics. Christianity Today reported that younger women are, for the first time, less likely to go to church than men... not because more men are now attending church, but because more women are deconstructing their faith, and more likely to identify as "nones." Battered by church controversies and scandals, and shaped by cultural messages, women are increasingly heading for the exit. In doing so, they are rejecting a faith that, in the words of my colleague Glenn Sunshine, has done "more to improve the status of women than any other historical force." The Church is meant to enable and empower men and women to live as image bearers, according to God's design. Simply put, the Church is essential, and that's the topic of our upcoming short course, hosted by Dr. Tim Padgett and featuring Peter Leithart, Collin Hansen, and Glenn Sunshine. Christians need to know why. Go to colsoncenter.org/August to learn more.

Frequent readers and listeners of Breakpoint know about Max. The grandson of Chuck Colson and subject of a book called Dancing With Max, authored by Emily Colson (Chuck's daughter and Colson Center board member), Max is a remarkable young man who has autism. The last few years have been difficult for Emily and Max, especially since the COVID lockdowns disrupted their routines and canceled their helpers. The last few years were particularly hard on full-time caretakers. And yet, in the middle of the challenges and disruptions of the last few years, God gave Max a ministry of encouraging and blessing others, a ministry now reaching people whose lives have been disrupted by war. Here's how Emily Colson described this remarkable story in a recent email: We didn't have a plan: We had a prayer. "How can we be a blessing to others?" More than two years later, God continues to answer that prayer beyond what we could ask or imagine, bringing hope around the world. Even into a war zone. It was COVID shutdown 2020 when Max began to hand-paint colorful heart yard signs and deliver them around our community. Max wasn't an artist: Autism had made fine motor a lifelong challenge. God often uses the most unlikely individuals to accomplish His purposes so that the story is unmistakably His. Our dining room became a workspace with plastic wrap stretched across the table and paint dripping into places that won't be found for another decade. Our home began to look as if we'd invited Jackson Pollock to dinner. It was there, in the ache and loss and isolation of shutdown, that Max would paint his joy-filled hearts. Max has given away more than 250 heart yard signs now, and he is still painting. The hearts have made it onto note cards, 36,000 cards in circulation so far, with all proceeds going to charity. His hearts grace the front of shirts, each one packaged with a message of God's love and the value of every life. With every shirt purchased a duplicate is given to a life-affirming charity. And a "heart exhibit" is traveling to different gallery locations, telling the story of what only God can do. Of how He can multiply blessings. As incredible as all of that is, there's now another chapter to this story, which began when Emily's friend April sent her a message. She'd been watching the war break out in Ukraine on live television. She prayed, and God pressed an idea into her heart like a hot wax seal: Send Max's hearts to Ukraine. Our church leapt at the idea. Our printer, Spectrum Designs, a company employing the most amazing team of individuals with autism, jumped just as quickly, printing the first 1,000 shirts. A team of highly caffeinated volunteers began folding and packaging each shirt with a message of God's love and hope—all translated into Ukrainian. But…where would we send these? Who would receive and distribute these shirts in Ukraine? That answer began 50 years ago, in the brokenness of Watergate. My dad, Chuck Colson, served as Special Counsel to President Nixon... When my dad was released from prison he founded Prison Fellowship ministries, which became the largest prison ministry in the world, reaching millions of people in the darkest places around the globe with the hope and love of Jesus Christ. Even reaching Ukraine. The ministry he founded 50 years ago through the brokenness of Watergate would carry his grandson's hearts, born of the brokenness of COVID, to bring hope to those in a war zone on the other side of the world. James Ackerman, president of Prison Fellowship USA, traveled to Romania... and (with) a team of ministry leaders and volunteers carried the shirts and other supplies deep into Ukraine, delivering them to children of prisoners, and to people in a Ukrainian refugee center. Emily received a photo of one little boy who was holding Max's picture, and wearing a shirt printed with Max's hearts and the words, "Beloved by God." Both of his parents were killed in the war. As Emily said, When I saw this little boy's face, I cried for days... God cares. He aches for the brokenness of this world. He is close to this little boy, just as He is close to Max. God was even leaning over Max's shoulder as he began to paint, knowing He would carry these hearts—and His hope—around the world. You can learn how to join Max and Emily in their mission at www.heartbymax.com.

According to Ian Lovett in The Wall Street Journal, "Dozens of priests from the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the country's largest denomination, have been kidnapped or killed since the (Russian) invasion began." Some have been tortured, accused of stirring up anti-Russian sentiment. Those allowed to return to their congregations bear scars and missing teeth. Some never return at all. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church's split from Russian Orthodoxy in 2019 provides the political motivation for Russia to target its members. The Russian church, under Patriarch Kirill, has supported the war, arguing that it has "metaphysical significance." He may be right, though not in the way he believes. By targeting Ukrainian believers, Russia adds to the ranks of those who suffer, not just for Ukraine, but for Christ. Father Ioann Burdin, a Russian Orthodox priest who has publicly opposed the invasion, wrote in February, "Russian soldiers are killing their brothers and sisters in Christ…. We can't shamefully cover our eyes and call… evil good."