Breakpoint

Normally when an Olympian wins the gold, we see happy tears. We see families back home cheering. We see the pride in carrying the national flag around the field. It's such a pure moment. It never gets old. So, when the Fiji men's rugby team recently won the gold over New Zealand, there was something about this that was even more pure and enjoyable. This was the second Olympic gold for the Fijians. They got on their knees, they prayed to God in thanksgiving, and sang a hymn of praise. It was so beautiful. It's a traditional tune that contains these words, "We have overcome, by the blood of the lamb, and the word of the Lord, we have overcome." It was a wonderful moment, and a wonderful reminder, that whether we win in rugby, or anything else, the most certain thing in the world is what Jesus Christ has done for us, not what we will ever do.

The following post is a highlight from 2021 -- In the introduction to his book The Content Trap, author Bharat Anand asks readers to consider what caused The Yellowstone Fires of 1988, which lasted for months and destroyed over 1.3 million acres of the world's oldest, and one of our nation's most treasured, national parks. The traditional story places the blame on a worker who dropped a single, still-lit cigarette. Anand disagrees. The cigarette certainly triggered this fire, but a million cigarettes are dropped every single day. That year (likely even that day), other cigarettes and, for that matter, lightning strikes, fell in Yellowstone. Why did this one spark so much damage? Anand's point has to do with the pre-existing conditions, which made something that is benign in most other circumstances, a trigger for incredible destruction. Yesterday, as protestors stormed the Capitol, Illinois Representative Kinzinger, a Republican, said, "We (Americans) are not what we are seeing today…" Others remarked how shocking it was to see the sort of political unrest common to other countries, here in America. And, of course, it was shocking. But we'd better be clear on why. It's not because somehow Americans, even those who love freedom and wish to protect the remarkable gift that is our nation, are somehow exempt from the Fall. It's not because America has some sort of Divine pass to last forever. It's not because the rules that govern nations and civilizations, which have been proven over and over again throughout history, somehow do not apply to us. In what now seems like an ominous prediction, my friend Trevin Wax tweeted out a quote from Chuck Colson Wednesday morning: "People who cannot restrain their own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility, are not capable of self-government ... without virtue, a society can be ruled only by fear, a truth that tyrants understand all too well." Colson was right. Another way of saying what he did is, "Character is destiny." It's tempting to apply this undeniable truism rather selectively, but it is as true for individuals on "our side" as it is for those on "their side." It is true for presidents and for peasants. It's as true about a President "not as bad as she would have been," who delivers strong policy wins for our side as it is about anyone else. It is true for the narcissist and for the abortionist, for the one who rejects religious faith and the one who uses it for his own ends. But, and this is the much more important point that many miss, character is destiny for a people as well as for a person. Yesterday, when President-elect Biden said that the actions of the mob did not reflect America, I wish he were correct. But he wasn't. We are not a moral nation. We are lawless. We are not a nation that cultivates the kinds of families able to produce good citizens. Our institutions cannot be trusted to tell us the truth or advance the good. Our leaders think and live as if wrong means are justified by preferred ends. Our churches tickle ears and indulge narcissism. Our schools build frameworks of thinking that are not only wrong, but foster confusion and division. Yesterday's riot was not the first in our nation's recent history, nor will it be the last. There are certainly immediate causes for what we witnessed, including the words of a President who appeared to care more about the attention the riots gave him than the rule of law that they violated. Still, there are ultimate causes, ones that predate his administration and that have created what is clearly a spark-ready environment. Yesterday's events cannot be understood, much less addressed outside this larger context. And the moment we excuse ourselves from being part of the problem, we have lost our saltiness. Often throughout history, moments like this have been embraced by the Church as an opportunity by God's people. When a people reach this level of vulnerability, either as individuals, as families, or as nations, it is clear that they are out of ideas. There is no sustainable way forward when the ideological divide reaches this level, not only about how best to reach commonly held aims but when there is no consensus on the aims themselves. To be clear, civilizations usually die with a whimper, not a bang. America will go on, but we aren't ok. Even more, the resources once found in various places within our culture to build new things or fix what's broken are largely depleted. The only way out of the long decline of decadence, punctuated as it is by noisy, scary moments like yesterday, is either, as Ross Douthat wrote, revolution or religious revival. The story of Yellowstone Park is that now, decades later, it has been largely revived and reborn. Let's pray that's also the story of the Church, and even our country. Image sourced from C-SPAN

John and Maria revisit a recent BreakPoint commentary that highlighted the theology in Christmas Carols. John highlights how many carols highlight the Incarnation as an act of war against evil, discussing how this imagery has fallen out of favor in pop-Christianity but holds significance inside church history and tradition. Maria shares the recent story of the escape by a number of missionaries in Haiti from their captors. She tells how this is a miracle, recounting a few details surrounding the escape. John responds to a question from Maria about understanding calling in the wake of this event, as Maria is challenged by the missionaries resolve and passion to engage dangerous situations. To close, John and Maria revisit a number of troubling things coming out of China. They wrap up their conversation discussing some new technology that assigns gender to individuals in pictures using facial recognition software. The software is said to be transphobic, because it fails to assign the correct gender two-thirds of the time. John and Maria discuss the worldview significance of this and other realities surrounding this new technology. -- Recommendations -- The Magnificat with Wexford Carol Keith and Kristyn Getty Noble Warriors>> -- In Show Story Mentions -- -- Breakpoint Recap Share Christ with Christmas Carols the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War...That's something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons…[Christmas Carols] confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. BreakPoint>> Erasing Women Just because a man or a woman can do something without risking his or her identity doesn't mean he or she should do that thing. As Christians, we should always wrestle with how best to live out our God-given design as men and women, by asking questions like: "is this an honorable thing to do? Does this respect the body God gave me, or fight against it? Does it glorify God and His design? BreakPoint>> -- Hostage Missionaries Escape in Haiti 12 missionary hostages in Haiti made escape after receiving sign from God The 17 Christian missionaries were kidnapped by the 400 Mawozo gang after visiting a local orphanage in Port-au-Prince on October 16. The group, which was made up of Amish, Mennonite and other conservative Anabaptist communities, included 16 US citizens and one Canadian. Five of those kidnapped were children. Their Canadian driver was also kidnapped. On two occasions, he said the group received divine signs to stay put, but after receiving a sign to flee, they snuck out under the cover of nightfall following a sign on Dec. 15. "At times they felt God prepared a path before them," Showalter said. "God was leading them." NY Post>> Press Conference for Missionaries After the news conference, a group of CAM employees stood and sang, "Nearer My God to Thee" in the robust, four-part acapella harmony that is a signature of conservative Anabaptist worship Watch Press Conference>> -- China Issues Pile Up Chinese tennis star Peng denies she made accusation of sexual assault | Reuters Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai said on Sunday that she had never accused anyone of sexually assaulting her, and that a social media post she had made early last month had been misunderstood. Reuters>> Amazon agreed to allow only five-star reviews for Xi's book in China Amazon quietly removed criticism of President Xi's books by scrubbing bad reviews, ratings and comments from its Chinese site, it has emerged. The US retail giant agreed to Beijing's demand to have anything below a five-star review of Xi Jinping's book The Governance of China removed from Amazon.cn about two years ago, Reuters reported, citing two unidentified sources The London Times>> -- Transphobic Technology Is facial recognition software transphobic? Controversial tech 'has a gender problem' The controversial tech is now so accurate that it can figure out the gender of men or women with little more than a brief glance. But if that face belongs to a trans person, the systems get it wrong more than a third of the time, new research suggested. Study lead author Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, a PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder in the US, said: 'We found that facial analysis services performed consistently worse on transgender individuals, and were universally unable to classify non-binary genders. Metro UK>> David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College "Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you have had that you are not the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is there in front of YOU or behind YOU, to the left or right of YOU, on YOUR TV or YOUR monitor. And so on. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real." FS Blog>>

Last week we received a note from a listener concerned with the pagan roots of the Christmas holiday. It's something you hear a lot this time of year, that Christians "borrowed lumber" from pagans to build the traditions of Christmas. Often, critics point to things like the Christmas tree, the alignment of Jesus' birth with the Egyptian God Horus, and the Christian culture war against the practice of Saturnalia. A lot of these arguments gained traction in a documentary called Religulous by liberal critic Bill Maher. To address this and many questions, Shane Morris invited Dr. Glenn Sunshine to the Upstream podcast. The two unpack the historical roots of the church embracing December 25th for the Christmas holiday. They talk about what it means to "spoil the Egyptians," as St. Augustine put it. They also lay a Christian worldview foundation for the celebration of Christmas. Listen to this deep dive into the Christmas holiday on Shane's Podcast, Upstream, or you can watch our What Would You Say? Video, "Is Christmas a Pagan Holiday."

Christians have so many wonderful resources that can help us celebrate Christ's birth and prepare our hearts for His second coming, and one of them is sacred music. The abundant supply of truly majestic Christmas music points to a long line of theological artists, individuals who took seriously both what truth needed to be said in music and how it could be said so as to be both memorable and beautiful. Perhaps the greatest offering of all is Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio. For much of his life, Bach was in charge of music at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany. However, his many other responsibilities, such as raising 20 children, might explain why he indulged in a few shortcuts. For example, Bach often recycled old material for new musical pieces. Of course, true creativity does not always require an artist to work from scratch. We are made in the image of the God, who created ex nihilo, out of nothing, but human creativity always, to some degree, involves cultivating what God has given us and developing it to its highest form. In the Christmas Oratorio, Bach took virtually every solo from sacred music he had composed earlier and combined them with other choruses and instrumentals that were both new and old. The opening chorus, "Celebrate, rejoice, rise up and… glorify what the Highest has done today," was completely original. Later in the oratorio, Bach invites us to contemplate the paradox of the Incarnation: that the King of heaven saw fit to become a tiny baby born in a stable. By means of a powerful bass, Bach marvels that, "Great Lord, O powerful King, dearest Savior. . . He who sustains the entire world, who created its magnificence and beauty, must sleep in a harsh manger." Bach's original lyrics are in German. Come to BreakPoint.org, for a link to the entire English translation. Bach's notion of creativity has been largely lost today. As children of 19th century Romanticism, many contemporary artists focus on the self as the creator and see the role of the artist to spin out something completely novel and unique. Most artists today equate creativity with novelty, some even think that the role of art is to be subversive to any and all norms. It's a form of what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." Bach's music is as a powerful reproach to that vision of what art is. He saw creativity as a means of highlighting and enhancing traditional Christian belief. He saw that scriptural texts and musical forms were compatible, serving each other in order to supply rich liturgy. Bach signed all his work "SDG," shorthand for Soli Dei Gloria, which means "to God alone the Glory." Bach knew the One true source of human creativity and that He must work through the composer if the art is to be what it should. This Christmas, let one of history's greatest artists, remind you that all of our work should be done to the glory of God. Like Bach, our creativity is intended to serve the Creator, who is the source of our lives and our abilities.

Last week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into two big pharmaceutical companies profiting from pushing off-label hormone treatment for gender dysphoric kids. In a public statement, Paxton accused these companies of failing to warn about the devastating side effects of the medications, including sterility. The fact is, the hormone suppressing medications being prescribed by so-called "gender clinics" are not approved by the FDA to treat gender dysphoria. They are only FDA-approved for diagnosable physical medical conditions like premature puberty and prostate cancer. Paxton is right: these companies should be held accountable, as should medical professionals who cave to social pressure and prescribe medications for the wrong use. And, if nothing else, Paxton is sending a critical message: that gender dysphoria is a mental condition, not a physical one like malaria or the flu. If more public officials and medical professionals would emulate Paxton's courage, many hearts, minds, and lives could be saved.

At the risk of falling into the current debate over whether Christians should tone down the violent language and imagery when it comes to their faith, the Bible presents the Incarnation as an act of War. In fact, the Bible presents the Incarnation as the central chapter in the larger story of the conflict between good and evil; one never fully lost by God but captured in Christ Jesus. That's something missing from the 24-hour holiday music stations, most Christmas plays and pageants, and many Christmas Eve sermons. Still, there is a source that continues to confront our culture with the whole story, with some of the finest Christian teaching ever produced by redeemed Image Bearers. Christmas offers us the amazing opportunity to not only immerse ourselves with deep Christian truth, but also present it to others. Of course I'm talking about Christmas carols. Carols provide us a level of incredible clarity and depth, that is so rare. As an example, consider the "Wexford Carol." Good people all, this Christmas time, Consider well and bear in mind What our good God for us has done In sending his beloved son With Mary holy we should pray, To God with love this Christmas Day In Bethlehem upon that morn, There was a blessed Messiah born You get a sense of the rescue mission that was the Incarnation in the traditional English carol, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." God rest ye merry gentlemen Let nothing you dismay Remember Christ our Savior Was born on Christmas Day To save us all from Satan's pow'r When we were gone astray Oh tidings of comfort and joy Comfort and joy Oh tidings of comfort and joy And in the haunting beauty of "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," the coming of Christ is presented in the context of God's Old Testament promises. O come, O come, Thou Lord of Might, Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height, In ancient times didst give the law, In cloud, and majesty, and awe. O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free Thine own from Satan's tyranny; From depths of hell Thy people save And give them victory o'er the grave. And few hymns offer a Christology as rich as "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing," which, if Wikipedia is to be believed, is the brainchild not only of the great hymn-writer Charles Wesley but also, in part, the great revivalist, George Whitefield. Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace, hail the sun of Righteousness Light life to all he brings, ris'n healing in his wings Christ the highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home We could go on, but finally in "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," we are offered hope in how this cosmic battle will eventually turn out. And in despair I bowed my head: "There is no peace on earth," I said, "For hate is strong and mocks the song Of Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth he sleep, The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, good will to men"peace on earth, good will to men" Till, ringing singing, on its way, The world revolved from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, good will to men! In these songs, sung by my friend Josh Bales, we have the fullness of the Christian story: a world that belongs to God, our lost plight due to sin, our captivity to Satan's schemes, the working of God through the ages, His promises revealed in the long path of redemption that God worked through the Patriarchs, through prophets and kings, and through promises given so long ago; the wonders of the Incarnation, the fear and hope of Mary and Joseph, and the realization and glory of angelic hosts proclaiming their king, and ours. Each year in these hymns, and others, we are reminded that God did not leave us in our sins but came down and lived among us that He might die for us. We have in these songs the whole gospel of God. As comforting and instructive as they are to our own hearts, at what other time of the year do our disinterested friends, neighbors, and family members find themselves humming along with theology? What greater opportunity will we have to share the Faith than when our listeners are already hearing its truths every day? As a colleague once observed to me, this is our moment to echo the work of Philip with the Ethiopian. The world around us knows their need. They hide it well, under vain pleasures and false narratives, but they also know that things are not quite right. What they need is someone to explain to them how things might be made right in Christ Jesus. Let's take this opportunity, singing our way through Christmas, to share the joy that has been given to us that this joy may spread to others.

John and Shane are asked if there should be a Christian approach to boycotting. They are then asked about the unity Evangelicals and Catholics can have while still being true to their convictions. Another listener writes in to ask how to think well of a liberalizing in her field of psychology. To close, John and Shane discuss a commentary on the rise in opioid deaths in America and how the church can and should respond.

Two months ago, Apple quietly removed a Quran app and a Bible App from its app store in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party. Apple claimed in a statement they had to do it because they have to, quote, "obey local laws." This is the same 2.8-trillion-dollar company with an "Inclusion and Diversity" initiative that claims, without a sense of irony, to hold a, quote, "long-standing commitment to making… the world more just." According to its American website, that means hiring a more racially diverse group of employees. That's great. It's unclear how that helps the 1.4 billion people living under increasing religious oppression in China. This is a good reminder. When companies like Apple throw around the word "inclusive," it's because they see a profit opportunity. When companies like Apple are happily complicit in outright oppression, it's because they won't risk a profit opportunity. If the day comes when American culture gives Apple an ultimatum: either nix the Bible here or lose your profit, we need only look to China to discover what they'd do.

As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Americans continue to leave religion behind in large numbers, even during the pandemic. According to Pew Research, the percentage of American Christians has fallen about 12% over the last ten years, from 75% in 2011 to around 63% today. The number who pray every day is even lower, at 45%. The demographic rising in its place are the so-called "nones," those who identify religiously as "nothing in particular." This group grew to about 20% of the US population in 2021, up from 16% in 2017. The surprising thing here isn't that Americans are leaving organized religion behind. That's been happening at about the same rate for a while now. However, it is newsworthy that this trend continued unabated in the face of a global pandemic. Historically, catastrophic events that bring uncertainty, stress, or political chaos tend to draw people to reconsider faith. In this sense, ours is in sharp contrast with other historic moments, such as World War II, the assassination of JFKL, and the Gulf War. More recently, 9/11 brought a flood of Americans back to church and, although the trend wasn't permanent, those who lived through it remember a renewed sense of unity and commitment to spiritual activities such as prayer. Of course, other moments were deeply divided along religious lines. America's war in Vietnam is a good example. While overall church attendance remained steady, Vietnam represented what some have called "a ripping of the nation's religious fabric." Mainline churches, in particular, posted significant losses about this time. As the Washington Post reported in 1982, the United Presbyterian, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ lost 21%, 15%, and 11% of their membership respectively in the previous decade. The fact that certain crises inspire unity, and others division, likely says more about the state of the culture affected than the crisis affecting it. The Covid pandemic has only further ignited the rift created by America's massive political and ideological differences, and further shaken religious loyalties. In the 1970s, people reacted to the cultural upheaval by changing religious affiliations. Today, people are dropping their religious identities altogether. Of course, one reason that Americans didn't flock to churches was many were closed. Still, even after Churches adapted, attendance took a hit. In June 2020, even though 96% of pastors said they offered live streaming services, Barna reported that just 48% of otherwise regular attendees were tuning in. Today, even with Sunday morning services available nearly everywhere, in-person attendance is still between 30-50% lower than before the pandemic. In contrast, Netflix added an incredible 10 million subscribers to its ranks in just three months in 2020. While an encouraging number of Americans reported that the pandemic strengthened their faith, they were the minority. When given the choice of where to find meaning, Americans chose streaming platforms over church pulpits. On a purely pragmatic level, this is bad news. Recently Tyler Vanderweele and Brendan Case argued over at Christianity Today that "Empty Pews Are an American Public Health Crisis." They have a point. Study after study suggests that church attendance corresponds with lower rates of substance abuse, divorce, incarceration, and depression…. not to mention higher levels of meaning and satisfaction, volunteering, longevity, and civic engagement. Given that we are in one of the loneliest eras in recent memory, why aren't Americans back in church? Perhaps a better first question would be, why aren't American Christians back in church? They may be catechized too well in an entertainment-driven, performance-oriented kind of service. It may be because of the moralistic and therapeutic ways they were taught to think about faith in our hyper-individualistic age, and they found better fulfillment elsewhere. We may be more steeply formed by the liturgies of our age rather than the liturgies of Christian worship. For Christians, church attendance simply is not optional. Scripture commands it and, for all its imperfections, the Church is the body and bride of Christ. It's how Christians are equipped and sent to proclaim and live the Gospel. It's the means by which Christians grow the kinds of deep roots needed to survive a chaotic and hostile culture. As Scripture says, a cord of three strands is not easily broken, but "pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up." To be clear, the Church will go on. In particular, outside of the western world, the Church is growing at incredible rates. It will survive COVID, militant secularism, and rampant individualism. In other words, the Church can take up the strands of life together again. The question is whether we will put down our idols.