Breakpoint

In Scientific American, physician Carolyn Barber describes a new condition: "texting thumb." "The patient's right thumb knuckle is inflamed, swollen, and often painful," she writes, "especially toward the end of the day… Her middle finger intermittently has a new 'catch' to it when bent. The patient she's describing? Herself. An emergency room physician, Barber took to working more on her phone. At the same time, she started seeing an increased toll on people's musculoskeletal systems from phone usage. "Let's face it," Barber concludes. "Our hands weren't really made for all of this." Digital technology is a necessary part of life, but it also plays into what some have called the "gnostic impulse:" the ancient temptation to ignore our bodies in favor of our incorporeal selves. It's an impulse that is alive and well today. But, of course, we're not just spirits. God created our bodies, they matter, and He cares for them. That makes Barber's recommendation a good one: "Take a walk," she says. "Pocket your phone. And give your tweeting digits the break they deserve."

A young woman recently commented to a friend, "I feel like once you have kids, your life is just done." So, despite pressure from her mom, she was in no rush to settle down. "I've got too much living to do. I want to wait a while before I'm finished." It's not uncommon to hear people suggest that things like marriage and family and parenting are, at best, distractions from what life is really about (like a career or amusement or travel), or at worst, a sort of death sentence that marks the end of all of our fun. Despite the research showing otherwise, there's a clear message in sitcoms and romcoms that the quickest way to become miserable and end a good sex life is to get married. Single means free and unencumbered, the story goes, especially for women. Similarly, in our recent conversation about the Dobbs case currently before the Supreme Court, Dr. Ryan Anderson described how the pro-abortion movement advances the claim that women "need" abortion in order to fully participate in society. As he put it, "If that statement is true, that is a condemnation of our society." If we're only fully human when we're "free" from loving and caring for those closest to us, then we have a puny vision of humanity. But how much of the American dream centers on pleasures and possessions, career paths and vacations, seeing the dirty work of diapers, tending to a sick spouse, or making a meal for a neighbor as something between a necessary and avoidable evil? Even Christians are tempted to imagine that in "real" Christian life and ministry, a big platform is preferable over caring for actual people. Or that those involved in "full-time Christian ministry," serving the "people," are doing the real work of God, while those of us caught up in ordinary life comprise the B-Team? If anything, this way of seeing things has it all backward. Christians in the "ministry" do play a vital and important role in God's plan, but that role is to support those faithfully living everyday life in obedience to Christ. Marriage and family and children, or loving our neighbors and caring for our elders, really is "the end of life," just not in the sense those two young women thought. Those things are among the ends - the intended purposes - for which God created and called us. Families and communities are the real work, and through them, God works on us, and in us, and through us. What if the ordinary tasks of life were the front lines of the kingdom of God? What if it's in the relationships that seem to be mundane that we are most fully serving God? Many in the Church are ready to die for the Faith, but are far less willing to live for it. It's important to remember that in Genesis, God didn't say that it is not good for man to be lonely. Rather, He said it's not good for man to be alone. Our chief end is to glorify God, but most of our time and effort in glorifying God is spent loving and caring for others, and that's what he intended, particularly to members of the human race who make up our families and communities. To love, marry, raise children, and live the lives God intended for us; it's in these endeavors that the true radical lives, and it's by them that true change will come to the world. In 1955, C. S. Lewis wrote to a woman struggling to find meaning in her work as "just" a housewife. The great writer challenged her to turn the entire perspective around. Instead of being a nonessential worker in the economy of God's work on Earth, hers was the center. Here's how Lewis said it: "We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist." Now, he was talking specifically to what we call "stay-at-home-moms," but the principle applies across areas of life that the world and the Church are too quick to pass over as being insignificant or getting in the way of our true selves. Caring for one another, particularly when few see what we are doing, isn't God's back-up or second-best plan for human life; it's what He designed for us to do from the beginning. This is the end of life.

John and Shane are asked how to respond to church leadership who feels speaking about culture topics will cause ripples in the church. Later, the two are asked how they can speak with love to those who are confused about where their true sense of identity comes from? To close, John and Shane provide an understanding of how worldviews shape perspectives of the end times, and how Christians should handle those perspectives in living this cultural moment.

Christian history is full of incredible stories: Origen, Augustine, Wilberforce, Joni Eareckson Tada, Hudson Taylor… In fact, any life lived for Christ, is historic, significant, and inspiring. Success is never guaranteed, but we can be faithful. Each week, I hear from followers of Christ committed to living for Christ in this cultural moment, also an important time in history. In fact, a recent email just blew me away: "I found your podcast about one year ago, and it has been quite influential in my role as husband, as an elder in our church, in my role as parents of adult children, like grandparents, and owner of a small business. Having a correct worldview and then communicating it in love to the world around us and interpreting events biblically, helps me to live out my faith as I occupy this time and this place, (Acts 17) for God's Kingdom." The Colson Center exists to help Christians live out their faith in this time and this place. Join us in this work by making a year-end gift. You can do this by visiting www.colsoncenter.org/givehope

President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act, which passed in the U.S. House last month, is expected to be passed by the Senate before Christmas. Adding this big-ticket "social spending and climate" bill to the trillions already passed in the name of COVID relief certainly won't thrill fiscal conservatives. Depending on which version passes, about $360 billion dollars would be added to the federal deficit. The plan is being hailed as good for families, since it extends the enhanced child tax credit by a year and provides assistance for childcare. However, as the saying goes, we need to read the fine print, especially the parts about childcare. As Tim Carney writes at The Washington Examiner, the bill will likely include a large new daycare entitlement and universal pre-k program, but neither apply to family members or homeschooling parents. In other words, the administration only wants it to be easier for families to get childcare if it's from the "professionals." Moms and dads, grandmas, aunts, and neighborhood co-ops need not apply. And as Carney points out, many parents (particularly those in households where both have to work) would prefer "an opportunity for one parent to stop working or work less." A long-term tax credit could help many achieve that, but not a one-size-fits-all daycare subsidy which, as he put it, seems designed "to change [parents'] minds about who should raise their children." Of course, there's a debate to be had about whether or not the government should be spending taxpayer money to incentivize families at all. But, in this case, how it is proposing to spend the money says far more. Again, here's Carney: "The question is this: If you wanted to spend money to help parents and children, and you were already willing to just hand cash to parents in the form of "tax credits" or a child allowance, then why would you specifically subsidize daycare instead of giving parents money and let them decide how to use it?" Carney's reading of the bill is not unfair, especially if you consider the President's own words. Last month, the President tweeted, "Nearly 2 million women in our country have been locked out of the workforce because they have to care for a child or an elderly relative at home. [The Build Back Better Act] will make caregiving accessible and affordable and help [women] get back to work." Of course, plenty of women do feel stuck at home and would prefer to return to work, but plenty of others would rather stay at home with their kids if they can afford it. In fact, a 2019 survey by Pew Research found that almost 20 percent of women think "not working for pay at all" is the ideal situation for mothers, and about half overall would prefer not to work full-time. These women are not "locked out of the workforce," as the administration put it. Rather, they'll be "locked-in" by a plan that subsidizes only "professional" childcare and not family care. This kind of state paternalism not only suggests that, ultimately, life is about building a satisfying career, participating in the economy, and making more money. It suggests that to prefer a family life that is reliant on a spouse's income is, to quote one progressive New York Times writer, "retrograde" thinking. And it serves a more insidious agenda item of cultural progressivism, that "government knows better than a parent" about what's best for children. This spending bill must be considered in light of other actions by the administration. Recently, we learned that Xavier Becerra, who heads up the Department of Health and Human Services under the Biden Administration, is looking for ways to keep faith-based children's service programs out of foster care. That's despite the fact that, as U.S. Senator from Oklahoma James Lankford tweeted, this move almost certainly runs afoul of the Supreme Court's decision in Fulton v. Philadelphia, in which justices ruled unanimously that the city could not discriminate against a Catholic adoption agency in placing children. Each case, childcare subsidies and foster care, reflects the belief that the state is the most important and competent sphere of society, and the one that should decide how all the others run. That's not how things were designed to work. God first and foremost entrusted the family, not the state, with raising the next generation. Our nation's long history of working with religious organizations to care for kids has resulted in services the state could never have provided without help. Any plan that's designed to "build back better" should recognize that parents and religious organizations are are solutions, not problems to be solved.

John and Shane respond to feedback and a question on why culture blames the church for a myriad of social, cultural, environmental, and many other ills. They then explain a few resources to help listeners think well on the topic of sexual immorality after fielding a question in response to a recent commentary. To close, John explains the idea of Sphere sovereignty.

On Black Friday, a surrogacy agency in Ukraine called BioTexCom offered a fun new deal: three percent off your next baby. The discount, according to the ad, applied to hiring Ukrainian women to be surrogate mothers, to IVF, or whatever mixture thereof. If the name BioTexCom sounds familiar, it's because this is the agency saddled with nearly 100 stranded babies in a Kiev hotel, to be cared for by a handful of nurses, at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. That happened because the babies legally belonged to the wealthy Western couples who bought them but couldn't pick them up due to travel restrictions. The babies' Ukrainian mothers weren't allowed to care for the babies after the birth - they weren't their "property" anymore. That situation, and this tacky Black Friday discount, illustrate something crucial. Whatever feels icky about "three percent off a new baby" is still there when it's full price. Industrialized assisted reproduction turns both women's bodies and babies into commodities on Black Friday and every other day. God made us for so much more.

Women in Afghanistan have been barred from participation in civil society. There are families hunted for their involvement with the U.S. military, and brothers and sisters in Christ have been tortured and killed for their courageous faith. Any faith in early signs of Taliban moderation was misplaced; all skepticism was well-founded. We have the testimony of many who've endured similar oppressions in the past. This can point us to what is true and good amid evil. For example, Hunayn ibn Ishaq was born in al-Hira, Iraq, in 809, the year of Caliph Harun al-Rashid's death, the same Caliph whose story birthed the Arabian Nights and Aladdin. A Nestorian Christian, Hunayn grew up speaking Syriac and Arabic. As a young man, he went to Baghdad to study medicine under the famous physician and fellow Christian Yuhanna ibn Masawayh. Hunayn's insatiable curiosity exasperated his instructors, to the point that Yuhanna kicked Hunayn out of school. Hunayn promised himself he would return to Baghdad, but he went abroad to learn Greek in the meantime. When he returned, he was able to recite Homer and the famous physician Galen in their original languages. His new knowledge impressed Yuhanna, and the two reconciled and started working together when Hunayn returned. Hunayn's new language skills enabled him to translate Greek works into Syriac and Arabic. This skill earned him a position at Bayt al Hikmah (the House of Wisdom), an institution dedicated to translating Greek texts and making them available to Arab scholars. Hunayn was sent into the Byzantine Empire to obtain works by Aristotle and other authors unavailable in the Caliphate. His work was so highly valued that he was paid the weight of the books he translated in gold. Hunayn is credited with translating the works of Hippocrates, Dioscorides, Galen, Plato's Republic, several works by Aristotle, the Old Testament from the Septuagint, along with works on agriculture, chemistry, stones, and religion. Hunayn's son Ishaq was a primary aide and became the principal translator of Aristotle into Arabic. Hunayn developed a close relationship with the Caliph al-Mutawakkil. Recognizing Hunayn's skills as a scholar and translator, the caliph appointed him as his personal secretary. However, a rift developed between al-Mutawakkil and Hunayn when the caliph asked Hunayn to make poison to kill one of his enemies, and Hunayn refused. The caliph grew angry and had Hunayn thrown in prison for a year. After serving his sentence, Hunayn was brought before the caliph and replied, "I have skill only in what is beneficial, and have studied nothing else." The caliph, claiming that he was only testing Hunayn's personal integrity, asked him what kept him from complying with the order and facing certain death. Hunayn responded, "Two things: my religion and my profession. My religion decrees that we should do good even to our enemies, how much more to our friends. And my profession is instituted for the benefit of humanity and limited to their relief and cure. Besides, every physician is under oath never to give anyone a deadly medicine." Hunayn was released. Despite his support for translation, al-Mutawakkil was concerned about foreign ideas influencing Islam and about Muslim scholars who advocated a less literal interpretation of the Quran. As a result, he enforced a rigid Sunni orthodoxy on the state and began persecuting more liberal Muslim thinkers as well as increasing the pressure on Christians in the caliphate. This would be a harbinger of things to come both in the Muslim world and for the Christians in the Middle East. In the first dynasties of the caliphate, Christians played important roles in government and scholarship in the Muslim world. However, that is not to say that they were generally treated well. There were periodic outbreaks of violent persecution, including widespread destruction of churches, and they were clearly second-class citizens subject to ever-increasing oppression as the decades moved forward. These Christians played a far more central role in developing the medieval Muslim intellectual and medical tradition. Western Europe would eventually benefit from this, as works of Aristotle translated by Hunayn and his son would pass to scholars from the Latin world via Islamic Spain. Hunayn himself played the role of a Daniel in many ways, serving in the court of non-Christian rulers who were at times openly hostile to his faith. His scholarship, medical skills, and personal integrity born of his faith enabled him to survive and serve there, leaving an enormous and wide-ranging legacy in his own era and beyond. All of this reminds us that God has His people everywhere, even in the most hostile nations. We should pray that he grant those in hostile places the character and courage of Hunayn and Daniel to be motivated by their love and submission to Jesus Christ. And may the same be said of us, as we serve the Lord in an increasingly hostile culture.

Recently, a Switzerland-based euthanasia clinic posted that, going forward, anyone seeking so-called "death with dignity" must be fully vaccinated first. It isn't quite as crazy as it sounds. They aren't saying you have to be healthy before they kill you. Instead, they're taking precautions for the sake of the people who provide "assistance in dying." They don't want patients infecting the medical professionals tasked with killing them. Even so, there's plenty of tragic ironies here. For two years now, we've been talking about "doing what it takes" to save lives in the face of Covid. "If it saves just one life" then, we were told, that the masks, the mandates, and the lockdowns were all worth it. At the same time, proponents of doctor-assisted dying tell us that people should have full autonomy over death. Inconsistencies like these remind us that as much as we suppress eternity in our hearts, it's still there. Even when our worldviews deny it, life is a wonderful gift of God, and dignity is intrinsic to who He has made us to be.

William Blake said, "A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." Recently, David Books of the New York Times quoted Blake as he described the importance of imagination. Advances in neuroscience, he argues, have highlighted the ways our imaginations are tied up with our perceptions of reality. This includes the moral imagination as well, both personally and collectively. Our imagination also affects our ability to empathize with others. When we are able to imagine the lived experience of others, we tend to be more compassionate, gracious and open to wonder. Brooks laments that our society is bad at cultivating a healthy imagination, "the faculty that we may need the most." The problem here isn't a wholesale rejection of the imagination, of course. We talk about it all the time. The issue is that we think of the imagination the same way we think about others aspects of our lives, identity, and morality. Namely, as Carl Truemann described so well in his masterful book, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, we see ourselves as isolated individuals: self-determining, autonomous, and only responsible for self-expression. Thus, like so much of the rest of our lives, our imaginations have no external reference point. An obvious reason for this are the many addictive technologies in our world that so easily dominate our hearts and mind. Screens are designed to be captivating. Thus, moments and experiences that may have shaped our imaginations are instead mediated, either narrated for us by someone else or forced into some social media paradigm to prove that we are happy or influential. By teaching people that we are primarily self-constructed beings, imposing meaning into a purposeless universe, our culture unwittingly robs us of imagination's most fertile soil. There is no true wonder or real compassion for others unless there is a purpose to our lives bigger than our own selfish desires. The tragic irony is that humans have more avenues for self-expression than any generation before them. Shouldn't creativity and imagination be thriving right now? Anyone can be an artist, musician, or storyteller. Anyone can produce and express, and even garner an audience. But what's the point? The primary limit in a culture of limitless self-expression is meaninglessness. That's why we continue to see the epidemics of narcissism, loneliness, addictions, and depression and self-harms. We're like a room of kids who each brought their own show-and-tell project, but can't stop talking long enough to appreciate what anyone else has to offer. Dallas Willard once quipped that no one stands on the edge of the Grand Canyon and shouts "I am awesome." Today, plenty of people stand on the edge of something wonderful (i.e. wonder full), but cannot look outside of themselves long enough to figure out it's really not about us. In a world of constructed selves, imaginary gods and without purpose, the true roots of imagination wither and die. C.S. Lewis understood what is required to shape the imagination. "In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself," he wrote. By contrast, "The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison." In the works of Spenser, Milton and George MacDonald, Lewis sensed a true grappling with what he called "the roughness and density of life." Those authors could account for things like personhood, good, evil, purpose and meaning. By contrast, atheists like Shaw, Wells and Mills, felt surprisingly thin. Faced with "a desire nothing on Earth could satisfy," Lews concluded he was made for another, better world. That's why he said that his imagination was baptized before his conversion. A revival of Christian imagination is desperately needed today. Not only because who knows whether the next C.S. Lewis is out there, waiting for the kind of beauty and artistry that may baptize his or her own imagination. But also because imagination points to a vital aspect of what it means to be human. Only humans mirror the Creator in this way, with the ability to see what is not there and make it so. God, of course, created the world ex nihilo, out of nothing. We don't have that power, but we can create and our words are profoundly powerful. Jesus, the second Adam, appealed to the imagination in truth, compassion, and in story. He is the perfect expression of one of God's richest gifts to humanity. It's a gift that can help us make sense of life, move us to compassion, and bring what is not but ought to be into reality.